When the astronomer, for the convenience of the navigator, in enabling him to ascertain his place upon the trackless ocean, determines what will take place at immense distances from our earth, and calculates at what exact though distant periods of time the satellites that revolve about Jupiter may with the telescope be ascertained to pass through the planet's shadow, his conclusions are all founded on a knowledge of causes, and of their methods of operation. The observations of KEPLER and HERSCHEL, and the sublime reasonings of NEWTON and LAPLACE, founded on fact or on axioms, and tending to pertinent conclusions, are all concerned in these useful calculations. Not so in proceedings like those to which we have referred. There parties act not more from their knowledge of causes than their ignorance of them. Neither the insurer nor the insured knows what favorable winds may waft the ship prosperously on her voyage, nor what tempestuous seas may threaten her with destruction. Did the one know that in the end she would be lost, he would not insure. Did the other know that she would arrive safely at the end of her voyage, he would not desire to be insured. But while the one has hopes and the other fears, yet both are ignorant. They are able, by the judicious exercise of the faculties which GOD has given them, to adopt a course which, without impairing the welfare of the one, shall tend to secure the safety of the other.
The principle which in these cases determines the insurer whether to insure, and if so at what premium, is a principle upon which the pursuit of happiness very often requires us to act. This principle is, that where a case is under consideration where particular causes cannot be taken into account, we are most strongly to expect such an event as has happened or as we know will happen, in the greatest number of possible cases; unless some particular reason appears which we are certain should make us expect a different result. The principle has a deep foundation in the nature of the human mind; and nowhere is the mutual adaptation between the mind and the external world more clearly seen. Properly applied, it teaches man to look for an existence beyond the grave.