108 THU NATURE AND CAUSES 01'

ever valued more than it is worth, we may learn from thevery moderate profit of insurers. In order to make insurance,either from fire or sea-risk, a trade at all, the common pre-mium must be sufficient to compensate the common losses,to pay the expense of management, and to afford such a pro-fit as might have been drawn from an equal capital employedin any common trade. The person who pays no more thanthis, evidently pays no more than the real value of the risk,or the lowest price at which he can reasonably expect to in-sure it. But though many people have made a little moneyby insurance, very few have made a great fortune; and fromthis consideration alone, it seems evident enough, that theordinary balance of profit and loss is not more advantageousin this, than in other common trades by which so many peo-ple make fortunes. Moderate, however, as the premium ofinsurance commonly is, many people despise the risk toomuch to care to pay it. Taking the whole kingdom at anaverage, nineteen houses in twenty, or rather, perhaps, nine-ty-nine in a hundred, are not insured from fire. Sea-risk ismore alarming to the greater part of people, and the pro-portion of ships insured to those not injured is much greater.Many sail, however, at all seasons, and even in time of war,without any insurance. This may sometimes perhaps bedone without any imprudence. When a great company, oreven a great merchant, has twenty or thirty ships at sea, theymay, as it were, insure one another. The premium savedupon them all, may more than compensate such losses asthej are likely to meet with in the common course of chances.The neglect of insurance upon shipping, however, in thesame manner as upon houses, is, in most cases, the effect ofno such nice calculation, but of mere thoughtless rashnessand presumptuous contempt of the risk.

The contempt of risk and the presumptuous hope of suc-cess, are in no period of life more active than at the age at; which young people choose their professions. IIow little the1 fear of misfortune is then capable of balancing the hope ofgood luck, appears still more evidently in the readiness ofthe common people to enlist as soldiers, or to go to sea, than-in the eagerness of those of better fashion to enter into whatare called the liberal professions.

What a common soldier may lose is obvious enough.Without regarding the danger, however, young volunteersnever enlist so readily as at the beginning of a new war;