CHAPTER V, 



MORTALITY AND LIFE INSURANCE. 



53. The history of the investigations on the laws of mortality 

 and of the calculations of life insurances is sufficiently important 

 and extensive to demand a separate work ; these subjects were 

 originally connected with the Theory of Probability but may now 

 be considered to form an independent kingdom in mathematical 

 science : we shall therefore confine ourselves to tracing their 

 origin. 



54. According to Gouraud the use of tables of mortality was 

 not quite unknown to the ancients: after speaking of such a 

 table as unkno'svn until the time of John de Witt he subjoins 

 in a note, 



Inconnue du moins des modernes. Car il paraitrait par un passage 

 du Digeste, ad legem Falcidlam, xxxv. 2, 68, que les Romains n'en 

 ignoraieut pas absolument I'usage. Voyez "k ce sujet M. Y. Leclerc, 

 Des Journaux chez les Romains, p. 198, et une curieuse dissertation: 

 De prohabilitate vitce ejusqite usu forensi, etc., d'un certain Schmelzer 

 (Goettingue, 1787, in-8). Gouraud, page 14. 



55. The first name which is usually mentioned in connexion 

 with our present subject is that of John Graunt : I borrow a 

 notice of him from Lubbock and Drinkwater, page 4-i. After 

 referrino: to the reoisters of the annual numbers of deaths in 

 London which began to be kept in 159:^, and which with some 



