fore laws can be framed for their protection. This is
especially true in a self-governing people, but is essentially the same in
the most absolute tyranny. So the chief safeguard for every kind of
business is the honest character of all business men, and such influences
as establish good character and sound judgment will be fostered on the
simplest business principles. The farmer who sells his grain or his fruit
by false samples cannot complain of false weights and measures at the
elevator. The one who gloats over victory in a horse trade has no right to
grumble at a trickster in wool buying. The man who is caught by the offer
of a gold brick is not only foolish, but false, and diminishes the
security of himself and everybody else in fair bargains and genuine
business. The man who takes advantage of his ignorant neighbor deserves to
be at the mercy of a more crafty dealer. Every one who makes a false use
of power over a workman beneath him may expect a false use of power from
an authority above him. So all business interests, as well as all rights,
are secured by the right spirit in all men.

_Nature of insurance._--The fundamental activity in accumulation of wealth
is foresight; but no foresight can prevent all disasters. Fire, flood,
wind and wave are beyond control, because in some sense they are beyond
knowledge. Against such forces no foresight can secure. The name insurance
is given to every method by which the burden of such unforeseen losses is
provided for beforehand and fairly distributed. The average of such losses
can easily be estimated by experience. Statistics show a wonderful
uniformity in the misfortunes of life as well as, the fortunes. Even
though chance be an element in every transaction, the average of chances
can be distinctly calculated; and that average is essentially constant
among a sufficiently large number of instances.

All are familiar with the application of such calculations in fire
insurance. Among ten thousand houses a certain number will be destroyed by
fire every year, provided those houses are widely distributed under
essentially similar conditions. The ten thousand house owners can insure
each owner against entire loss of his house by mutual agreement to meet
their share of the total loss. If ten houses are burned, each of the ten
thousand house owners will pay one-thousandth part of the total loss,
making a burden easily provided for. If at the beginning of the year each
has laid a