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FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLES OF PROBABIL-
ITIES.

An understanding of the simpler elements of the science of probabilities is desirable before proceeding further; for, of course, it is plainly seen that insurance deals with probabilities.

This science has a short history-. It was virtually unknown to the ancients, although traces of it are found in practice, as in the loans upon ships and cargoes, already referred to, and also in Ulpian's attempt to value life annuities. Traces are also found in the writings of Pythagoras and in the works of mathematicians of India.

The first modern appearance is in 1663, in a pamphlet published in Italy- by Cardan, and entitled "De ludo aleae." The next is in a series of letters written by Pascal, the great Drench savant, from 163} to 1679. In these he discussed the chances at play-. The next great work, and the first to put the subject into treatise form, was jacob (or Tames) Bernoulli's "Ars Conjectandi," published in 170;. Then came Augustus deMoivre's "Doctrine of Chances," published in England in 1711, followed by Thomas Simpson's "Nature and Laws of Chance," published in 1740. The next great work was La Place's "Analytical Theory of Probabilities," written and published by the French government under the patronage of the great -Napoleon, in 1812. After this came De Morgan's "Probabilities," in England in 1838, and Quetelet's "Letters on Probabilities," in Erench, in

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