thought of my own.

Insuring of life I cannot admire; I shall say nothing to it but that
in Italy, where stabbing and poisoning is so much in vogue,
something may be said for it, and on contingent annuities; and yet I
never knew the thing much approved of on any account.



OF FRIENDLY SOCIETIES.



Another branch of insurance is by contribution, or (to borrow the
term from that before mentioned) friendly societies; which is, in
short, a number of people entering into a mutual compact to help one
another in case any disaster or distress fall upon them.

If mankind could agree, as these might be regulated, all things
which have casualty in them might be secured. But one thing is
particularly required in this way of assurances: none can be
admitted but such whose circumstances are (at least, in some degree)
alike, and so mankind must be sorted into classes; and as their
contingencies differ, every different sort may be a society upon
even terms; for the circumstances of people, as to life, differ
extremely by the age and constitution of their bodies and difference
of employment--as he that lives on shore against him that goes to
sea, or a young man against an old man, or a shopkeeper against a
soldier, are unequal. I do not pretend to determine the
controverted point of predestination, the foreknowledge and decrees