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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 18 August 2016
In 1839, in the Penny Cyclopædia (article “Mortality”), I wrote as follows, referring to Mr. Gompertz's well-known hypothesis on the law of mortality:—
“We enter into some detail of it the more readily, that it is necessary as an act of justice to Mr. Gompertz, whose ideas have been adopted by a recent writer on the subject, without anything approaching to a sufficient acknowledgment.”
page 86 note * This recommendation I adopt: my referees are all who are competent to judge and who choose to read.
page 88 note * The preceding b is a superfluous constant, which is useless. It seems to have originated in the idea that the diminution of the number living is proportional to the intensity of mortality, and therefore represented by that intensity multiplied by a constant But the constant a, already introduced, is sufficient.
