not to examine their account book till the end of the year: it would be, they said, a distrust of God to ascertain too often whether they were losing or gaining; it would bring bad luck; the less attention you pay to your income the greater it grows. Add that, thanks to this sort of reasoning, which for the rest was not altogether without a certain naïve logic, the merchants spoken of did not do an especially brilliant business. In modern commerce the “positive” spirit—restless intelligence and calculation outstripping chance—tends to become the true and sole element of success; as to the risks which, in spite of every precaution, still remain, they are covered by insurance. [Sidenote: And by the practice of insurance.] Insurance, then, is a conception altogether modern, whose operation is to substitute the direct action of man for the intervention of God in private affairs, and which looks to the recompense for a misfortune before it has happened. It is probable that insurance, which dates only some few years back and is spreading rapidly, will be applied some day to almost every form of accident to which man is liable, will be adapted to every circumstance of life, will accompany us everywhere, will envelop us in a protecting net; and agriculture and navigation, and those pursuits generally in which human initiative plays the smallest part, in which one must dance attendance upon the special benediction of heaven and ultimate success is always contingent, will become increasingly independent and free. It is possible that the notion of a special providence will some day be completely eliminated from the sphere of economics; everything that in any manner whatsoever is capable of being estimated in terms of money will be covered by an insurance, shielded from accident, made independent of divine favour. [Sidenote: And the progress of medical knowledge.]