[1] When asked what benefit it would produce, he replied, “C’est pour perfectionner l’art des arts, l’art de penser!” This, at first regarded as a mot, became a proverb.
[2] The title of this essay is “Waardye van Lyf-Renten naer proportie van Losrenten;” or, the “Value of Life Annuities in Proportion to Redeemable Annuities.”
[3] There was no just cause for surprise in these periodical visitations. The thinkers of the day understood the connection between cleanliness and health; and the following will show that such as these hit on the right source of pestilence:—
“I often wonder,” says Erasmus in a letter to Dr. Francis, “and not without concern, whence it comes to pass, that England for so many years hath been continually afflicted with pestilence, and above all, with the sweating sickness, which seems in a manner peculiar to that country.... They glaze a great part of the sides with small panes, designed to admit the light and exclude the wind; but these windows are full of chinks, through which enters a percolated air, which stagnating in the room, is more noxious than the wind.
“As to the floors, they are usually made of clay, covered with rushes that grew in fens, which are so slightly removed now and then, that the lower part remains sometimes for twenty years together, and in it a collection of spittle, vomit, urine of dogs and men, beer, scraps of fish, and other filthiness not to be named. Hence, upon change of weather, a vapour is exhaled very pernicious, in my opinion, to the human body.”
[4] The first parish registers were kept in England in 1538, in consequence of an injunction from Thomas Cromwell. They had been kept for a long time previous in Augsburg and Breslau, though it was not till the beginning of the 17th century that they were general in Europe. It is worth mentioning, that long ere this, the paternal government of Peru kept a register of all the births and deaths throughout the country; exact returns of the population being made every year by officers appointed by the state.
[5] About as much silver as is now coined into 3l. 1s. 11d.
[6] Equal in weight to about 2l. 1s. 3d. of our silver coinage.
[7] Equal in weight to 10s. 4d. of our present silver coinage.
[8] The following figures will give some idea of the chances of life as estimated by Dr. Halley:—