The description of Addison corresponds with the
results of the observations made as to the duration of human life.
Thus, of a hundred thousand persons born in this country, it has been
ascertained that a fourth of them die before they have reached their
fifth year; and one-half before they have reached their fiftieth year.
One thousand one hundred will reach their ninetieth year. Sixteen will
live to a hundred. And only two persons out of the hundred
thousand--like the last barks of an innumerable convoy, will reach the
advanced and helpless age of a hundred and five years.
Two things are very obvious,--the uncertainty as to the hour of death in
individuals, but the regularity and constancy of the circumstances which
influence the duration of human life in the aggregate. It is a matter of
certainty that the _average_ life of all persons born in this country
extends to about forty-five years. This has been proved by a very large
number of observations of human life and its duration.
Equally extensive observations have been made as to the average number
of persons of various ages who die yearly. It is always the number of
the experiments which gives the law of the probability. It is on such
observations that the actuary founds his estimates of the mortality that
exists at any given period of life.
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