Of the many valuable contributions by which the transactions of this Institute have been enriched by the labours of Mr. Samuel Brown, not the least interesting is the paper on the investments of Assurance Companies, read before the Institute on the 25th January, 1858. I feel much diffidence in again reverting to this question; but as Mr. Brown, at the outset of his paper, admits that the subject is too extensive to be exhausted by a single discussion, it has occurred to me that an attempt to arrive at some general principles on which the funds of Life Assurance Societies should be invested, and to consider how such principles can best be reduced to practice, might, perhaps, be the means of exciting some useful discussion.