his special circumstances. In other words, the attribute is sufficiently important to mark off a fresh class or series. So with insurance against accident. It is not indeed attempted to make a special rate of insurance for the members of each separate trade, but the differences of risk to which they are liable oblige us to take such facts to some degree into account. Hence, trades are roughly divided into two or three classes, such as the ordinary, the hazardous, and the extra-hazardous, each having to pay its own rate of premium.
§ 21. Where one or other of the classes thus corresponds to natural kinds, or involves distinctions of co-ordinate importance with those of natural kinds, the process is not difficult; there is almost always some one of these classes which is so universally recognised to be the appropriate one, that most persons are quite unaware of there being any necessity for a process of selection. Except in the cases where a man has a sickly constitution, or follows a dangerous employment, we seldom have occasion to collect statistics for him from any class but that of men in general of his age in the country.
When, however, these successive classes are not ready marked out for us by nature, and thence arranged in easily distinguishable groups, the process is more obviously arbitrary. Suppose we were considering the chance of a man's house being burnt down, with what collection of attributes should we rest content in this instance? Should we include all kinds of buildings, or only dwelling-houses, or confine ourselves to those where there is much wood, or those which have stoves? All these attributes, and a multitude of others may be present, and, if so, they are all circumstances which help to modify our judgment. We must be guided here by the statistics which we happen to be able to obtain in sufficient numbers. Here again, rough distinctions of this kind are practically drawn in Insurance Offices, by dividing risks into ordinary, hazardous, and extra-hazardous. We examine our case, refer it to one or other of these classes, and then form our judgment upon its prospects by the statistics appropriate to its class.