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232 WILLIAMS' CASE.
mine the present value of a life estate, can have no concern, fur-
ther than may be necessary to enable it to derive information by
analogy.
There are few situations as to which any observations have
been made, from which tables have been formed; and yet, with-
out any allowances for differences, those few tables have been used
as if they were alike applicable to all times and circumstances.
This is a great error. Such tables, as regards other situations,
can only be used by way of analogy, and can be relied on, in so
far only as it can be shewn, by adverting to all the causes which
materially affect human life, that the situation to which the tables
are proposed to be applied for information are altogether, or very
nearly similar to that for which they were made. Tables shewing
the expectation of life at different ages over the whole of Sweden,
for instance, could not be followed as safe guides for ascertaining
the expectation of life, at the same ages, over the whole of Hin-
dostan. And so too, it would be improper to take the tables of
expectation formed for the city of London as rules for ascertaining
the expectation of life in Wales. The causes materially affecting
the duration of human life, at the time and place for which a table
has been made, must, therefore, be understood and compared with
those of the place where the life in question exists, before such
allowances can be made for the differences, should there be any,
as will warrant the use of such table as a means of ascertaining
the value of each life.
But, as it is to those tables to which the modern English adju-
dications refer, in speaking of the means of ascertaining the pre-
sent value of a life interest, it will be proper to advert to some of
the principal circumstances of time and place from which the most
approved among them have been formed. It seems, that the for-
mation of tables of the expectation of life, at various ages, calcu-
lated from observations made, some time prior to the year 1679, at
Breslaw in Lower Silesia, as to the duration of human life, origi-
nated with Dr. Halley, of England. But it is now admitted, on
all hands, that those tables are so imperfect as to be wholly unfit
for use; thus leaving to the Doctor no other merit, in this respect,
than that of having been the first to shew the use of such tables,
mud how they might be constructed from correct observations, (c)
The next tables are those which may be called the London tables,
(e) Ree's Cyclo, v. Life Annuities and Mortality.
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