There is no part of the subject of Life Insurance which has occasioned so much difficulty, and given rise to so much diversity of opinion and of practice, as that of the distribution of profits. The methods which have been adopted are very various, and very few of them seem founded upon any intelligible principle.

Many attempts have been made of late years to form an exact theory on this subject, and to deduce systematic rules; but it cannot, I think, be yet said that there is any method which is generally recognised as theoretically correct, and capable of application in all cases.