One may look upon a free people as a great association whose members secure mutually their properties by supporting proportionally the charges of this guaranty. The confederation of several peoples would give to them advantages analogous to those which each individual enjoys in the society. A congress of their representatives would discuss objects of a utility common to all and without doubt the system of weights, measures, and moneys proposed by the French scientists would be adopted in this congress as one of the things most useful to commercial relations.
Among the institutions founded upon the probabilities of human life the better ones are those in which, by means of a light sacrifice of his revenue, one assures his existence and that of his family for a time when one ought to fear to be unable to satisfy their needs. As far as games are immoral, so far these institutions are advantageous to customs by favoring the strongest bents of our nature. The government ought then to encourage them and respect them in the vicissitudes of public fortune; since the hopes which they present look toward a distant future, they are able to prosper only when sheltered from all inquietude during their existence. It is an advantage that the institution of a representative government assures them.
Let us say a word about loans. It is clear that in order to borrow perpetually it is necessary to pay each year the product of the capital by the rate of interest. But one may wish to discharge this principal in equal payments made during a definite number of years, payments which are called _annuities_ and whose value is obtained in this manner. Each annuity in order to be reduced at the actual moment ought to be divided by a power of unity augmented by the rate of interest equal to the number of years after which this annuity ought to be paid. Forming then a geometric progression whose first term is the annuity divided by unity augmented by the rate of interest, and whose last term is this annuity divided by the same quantity raised to a power equal to the number of years during which the payment should have been made, the sum of this progression will be equivalent to the capital borrowed, which will determine the value of the annuity. A sinking fund is at bottom only a means of converting into annuities a perpetual rent with the sole difference that in the case of a loan by annuities the interest is supposed constant, while the interest of funds acquired by the sinking fund is variable. If it were the same in both cases, the annuity corresponding to the funds acquired would be formed by these funds and from this annuity the State contributes annually to the sinking fund.