Burnet says, that Petty wrote the book published in Graunt’s name; but the bishop was too much of a gossip to be trusted, and the works which Sir William claimed are sufficient for his fame. In the midst of a life devoted to the world, he turned his attention to abstruse and recondite subjects. That money makes the man, was his fundamental article of faith. “Instead of saying with Bacon,” remarks a biographer, “that knowledge was power, he would have said that knowledge was _l._ _s._ _d._... He was all for the practical, and in general for the pecuniary, as the most comprehensive form of the practical.” He was, probably, not a brave man; for he left England at the most stirring period of its history, and, when at a later period he was challenged by one of Cromwell’s knights to fight a duel, he claimed the privilege of choosing time, place, and weapons, to throw an air of ridicule over the proceeding. The place he named was a dark cellar, and the weapon he chose was a carpenter’s axe. Near-sightedness was his excuse for both. He wrote “An Essay concerning the Growth of the City of London,” “Observations on the Dublin Bills of Mortality,” “Two Essays concerning the People of London and Paris,” “Two Essays on Political Arithmetick;” and the name of Sir William Petty has come down to us more as the author of these works, than as the successful speculator, as the founder of the Marquisate of Lansdowne, or as one who began life penniless, and left a princely inheritance. To those who wish to trace the career of the man who drew so great a portion of public attention to the foundations of life assurance, the epitome of his life as given in his will may prove interesting. Having thus endeavoured to trace the early dawn of the theory, it is now time to chronicle the progress of life assurance as a social and mercantile requirement. FOOTNOTES: [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.