We may then fairly conclude, that in the interval between the close of the 17th and 18th centuries human life gained an addition equivalent to a fourth part of its whole term. What has it gained in the succeeding century? What has been the increase in the value of life in this first half of the century in which we ourselves have lived? Though unfortunately we can appeal to the results of no renewed tontine to enable us to answer this question with exactness,[15] yet there are not wanting evidences that the value of life continues progressively to increase. It must necessarily continue to increase, because the main conditions on which life and health depend have experienced, during the whole of the present century, an expansion and improvement, on which no former age presents a parallel. It will be sufficient to establish this fact, to glance at what has been effected within this period in the multiplication and diffusion of the three primary necessaries of existence—food, clothing, and fuel. Such has been the increased production of food during the present century, that the quantity now raised maintains ten millions more human beings than existed at its commencement; for on the first enumeration of the people in 1801 the population of Great Britain was eleven millions; in 1851, it was twenty-one millions.[16] Footnote 15: Considering that there appears to be no objection in principle to the method of raising a loan by Tontine, and that the scheme is a popular one, it seems highly desirable that we should continue this means of measuring with positive exactness the results of our advancing civilization. Footnote 16: According to Mr Rickman, from the best information that can be obtained from Doomsday Book, the population of England in the time of William the Conqueror was 1½ millions. In the reign of Edward the Third (1377), when a poll-tax was imposed on all persons of both sexes above fourteen, it was 2½ millions. In the reign of Queen Elizabeth, at the period of the Spanish Armada, it was 4 millions. According to Mr Finlaison, at the close of the 16th century it was somewhat under 5 millions two hundred thousand. According to Mr Rickman, on a computation founded on the return of Baptisms, as stated in the Abstract of Parish Registers, it was in 1700, 5½ millions; in 1750, 6½ millions; and in 1770, 7½ millions. The first actual enumeration was made in 1801. The following table exhibits the rate of increase in the population of Great Britain from that time up to the enumeration in 1851: