In connection with this let us refer to the decision of the Supreme Court of the United States, as delivered in October, 1876, by Mr. Justice Bradley in the case of Life-Insurance Companies v. Statham et al. It is established, by the decision of the highest court in the land, that if a person is prevented by circumstances beyond his control, as in the case of war, for instance, from paying a stipulated premium when due, the insurance is forfeited, but "in such case insured is entitled to the equitable value of the policy arising from the premiums actually paid. This equitable value may be recovered in an action at law or by a suit in equity." The court also says: "This reserve-fund has grown out of premiums already paid. It belongs in one sense to the assured who has paid them, somewhat as a deposit in a savings-bank is said to belong to the person who has made the deposit. . . . . To forfeit this excess, which fairly belongs to the assured, and is fairly due from the company, and which the latter actually has in its coffers, and to do this for a cause beyond individual control, would be rank injustice." The bearing of all the recent decisions in life-insurance cases, as well as the opinions of the highest authorities on the subject, tends to establish the fact that the reserve on a life-policy is an "excess" over the cost of past insurance, and is a deposit, or payment, in advance for benefits promised to be furnished by the company to the individual depositor in the future. There is no escape from the conviction that this fund is a private accumulation, held in trust for the individual policy-holder, who is entitled, as a matter of right, to the return of an equitable portion thereof, in cash or in further insurance, should the original contract be terminated.

The equitable distribution of the surplus of a life-insurance company, made possible by the "Contribution Plan" introduced in 1863, and since adopted, at least ostensibly, by every mutual life-insurance company in the country, recognizes the fact that the reserve in each case is the policy-holder's own money, and consequently he is entitled to any extra interest which may be earned thereon. So long as life-insurance is purchased by uniform or equal annual premiums, there must be a reserve or excess over the cost of insurance furnished. An equitable surrender value, in cash or in paid-up insurance, should be inserted as a matter of contract for each year, in every policy. No policy should be accepted without this guaranty. Otherwise the deposits or over

payments will be at the disposal of the company, and may never be recovered by the owner.

But there is no necessity for confining life-insurance to the plan of uniform or level premiums, which necessarily involve large accumulations or payments in advance for insurances which may never be needed, or which the individual may not live to enjoy. The natural and common-sense plan would be to pay each year for the cost of insurance actually furnished during that year, including a suitable margin for expenses, and to guard against adverse contingencies, such as might arise from an epidemic, for instance. In this way the protection of life-insurance could be purchased at a fair price each year by itself, and as long as may be needed or desired. The outlay for a number of years would be far less than by the old plan of uniform premiums, and there would be no necessity for making deposits or payments in advance, and thus contributing to the piling up of such vast accumulations as are now held by life-insurance companies. These accumulations, already the subject of deep concern among thoughtful business men, may be injudiciously managed or insecurely invested, and are placed by the companies entirely beyond the control of the individual owners or depositors. They offer a fearful temptation to designing and unscrupulous men to get and to retain possession of a company, and thus to control and manipulate the trust-funds for their own personal benefit. By this natural or yearly renewable plan of insurance, which has been commended by the highest authorities and experts as being at once simple, safe, and inexpensive, the protection of life-insurance may be secured, each year by itself, and just so long as that protection shall be needed or desired. When it is no longer needed or desired the insured may cease to pay, and in that event he will not be obliged to mourn over confiscated deposits or payments in advance, as unfortunately has been too often the case hitherto, under the old plans of insurance.

In conclusion, the following considerations are suggested as desirable for adoption by the companies, if they would regain that confidence and esteem of the public to which life-insurance as a system is justly entitled. (1.) The insertion in each policy of lifeinsurance, which is to be purchased by uniform or level premiums, of an equitable surrender value for each and every year of its ex

istence, to be paid in cash or by continued insurances. (2.) Greater publicity in regard to the character of the investments of the reserves or deposits of policy-holders, with a certification at stated intervals, by competent, disinterested, aud outside auditors or professional experts, as to the facts necessary to form a correct judgment of the financial condition of the institution. And since it is obviously impossible for the State Insurance Departments to examine with sufficient minuteness the securities of every company, the value of professional auditors or accountants for corporations of every description is suggested. The value of the opinions of such experts, who have a professional character at stake, has been demonstrated in England. (3.) Greater accountability on the part of the managers of life-insurance companies as to the character of the investments made by them of the trust-funds. (4.) The adoption of the system of yearly renewable insurances, by which large accumulations are rendered unnecessary, and insurance, apart from deposits, may be obtained. In any event, the time has now arrived when the individual rights in the reserves should be recognized and clearly stated. The distinction should be clearly drawn between moneys paid for insurance and moneys paid for mere accumulation. If this is not done, intelligent men will take the matter into their own hands by selecting an insurance-company for the former and a well-managed savings-bank for the latter, thus blending the best features of the two institutions.

SHEPPARD HOMANS.

ART. VIII.—THE CENTENARY OF SPINOZA.*

PROBABLY no name in literature has taken the world so much by surprise as that of Benedict de Spinoza since his death, two hundred years ago. When he died (February 21, 1677) he was not by any means unknown to the people of Holland or to the scholars of Europe; and his expulsion from the synagogue by the Jews, and his reputation as a bold and strong thinker in philosophical circles, had called to the recluse lens-maker a degree of attention quite in contrast with his loneliness and poverty. Yet his reputation had more promise of notoriety than of fame, and apparently not one man at the Hague, of the large company that followed his body to the grave from the new church on the Spuy, February 25, 1677, had the least idea that they had lost one of the greatest of philosophers, and that in two hundred years a stately monument would be erected to his memory, which would make the figure of Spinoza more attractive to many visitors to that royal city than the portraits and the palaces of the counts of Holland and the princes of Orange.

It is not easy to understand how it was that Spinoza was left so much to himself in his last days, unless his own recluse habits and his feeble health tended to keep his friends and neighbors from visiting him much. Van den Spyck, the painter, in whose house Spinoza lodged, went to church with his wife on that afternoon of February 21, leaving the invalid and the house in charge of Dr. Louis Meyer of Amsterdam, who had been sent for the day before, and at three o'clock Spinoza died. Both the physician and the patient have been dealt with harshly for their alleged conduct on that day, and with no sufficient reason. His Lutheran biographer,

Benedicti De Spinoza Opera Quæ Supersunt Omnia. Ex Editionibus Principi bus Denuo Edidit et Prefatus Est CAROLUS HERMANNUS BRUDER. Vol. I. - III. Lipsia. B. Tauchnitz. 1843-46.

Ad Benedicti De Spinoza Opera Quæ Supersunt Omnia Supplementum. Amstelodami. Apud F. Muller. 1862.

Spinoza. Ein Denkerleben. Von BERTHOLD AUERBACH. Vierte Auflage. Stuttgart. 1860.

The Ethics of Benedict de Spinoza. From the Latin, with an Introductory Sketch of his Life and Writings. New York: D. Van Nostrand. 1876.

Colerus, has fully disproved the charge that Spinoza took poison to end his suffering; and Dr. Meyer's good name and profession should lead us to remember that there were other ways of accounting for the disappearance of the ducat and loose silver money and the silver-bladed knife from the table than by the physician's hands and his fear of losing his fee. How poor Spinoza was we may judge from the fact that the allowance which he consented to receive from the heirs of his friends, De Witt and De Vries, amounted only to about two hundred dollars a year, and that all the personal property which he left amounted to about the same sum. From a tract entitled "Baruch Spinoza in the Frame of his Time," which was published at Basel in 1873, in a German translation from the Dutch of Dr. S. Sr. Coronel, we take a minute description of Spinoza's situation in the house of the Van den Spycks, which ought to be exact and sufficient. It describes him as he was when he came to live there in 1670, on the Paviloengracht, after leaving his former lodgings in a single back room, up two flights of stairs, in a house on the Veerkay. Dr. Coronel spells the host's name Van der Spych, and calls him Military Solicitor, and thus sets before us his guest's room: "We see there in an upper back room a man of about thirty-eight years, of medium size, in a Japanese dressing-gown, sitting at a desk with a smoky tallow candle, sunk in deep meditation. Near him, upon a workbench, lie scattered some instruments and optical glasses. Here and there is a thick quarto volume set between working tools. In a corner there is a bedstead provided with curtains. A chest of oak, a pair of stools, and a table of beech,- that is the whole furniture of this cell; no more than absolutely necessary. The red light throws a faint gleam on the brown face of the thinker. The forehead, nobly arched, is strongly wrinkled. Long, heavy eyelashes, which reach near to the slightly curved nose, overshadow the dark eyes, which light up with a remarkable glow. The somewhat thick lips are firmly pressed together. The dark curling hair, which covers the temples in luxuriant fulness, betrays the Southern and the Jewish descent. The whole appearance indicates great peace of mind, earnest thought; yet it bears the marked traces of a malady which has seized the noblest organs of the feeble body."

Dr. Coronel goes on to describe Spinoza's struggle to do his work