The benefits of life assurance (which is in reality a large combination of small sums for the purpose of beneficial invest ment, with a contract among those who invest that the inequalities of life shall be compensated so that those who do not live their average time shall be sharers in the good fortune of those who exceed it), and the moral considerations which should induce every friend of his species to pro mote and extend it, are of course not the particular motives which actuate the founders of such offices, though no doubt they have them in the same degree as others. To bring business to a parti cular office becomes their interest and their object; and every possible mode of investment has been held out to engage the attention and suit the particular ob jects of the assurer. To this of course, in general, we do not object : for instance, when a company proposes twenty dif er ent kinds of assurances, it is enough for the public that the terns of each kind are sufficiently high and not too high. But it sometimes happens that among the proposals which are held out for the assurer's acceptance are to be found some which altogether militate against the moral principles of assurance ; these are prudence, foresight, and present self-denial for the attainment of ulti mate prosperity and of present security against the chances of life. When an office announces that it is willing to leave a part of the premium in the assurer's hands, on his paying interest for it in ad vance, the office in the meanwhile hold ing the policy as a security,—what is it but enticing a person to assure for more than he can afford to do, and to borrow money for the purpose of paying the pre miums ? The office may, with caution, make itself secure ; but it throws upon the customer the strong probability of future disappointment. When the time
comes for thinking of the repayment of the advances which the office has virtu ally made, the assurer will frequently find himself obliged to sell that policy to the office which he had counted upon for the benefit of his family. Now out of the purchase money must be deducted the sums in arrear to the office (upon which interest has always been paid in advance) ; and when the assurer comes to put his ba lance against what he has actually paid, he will see that he never did a more im prudent act. The office is not to blame for anything but having thrown the ori ginal offer in his way ; they have only lent him money on the same terms as they would have lent it to others ; and they may say, and truly, that it was his own fault if he engaged in an imprudent spe culation. But is it not then a fault to entice others to imprudence, knowing how much more easily men are induced to be imprudent than to be prudent ?