Life assurance in New Zealand

Abstract

Like all other organisms, man can live only by assimilating part of his environment, and by converting it from a condition in which it is less to a condition in which it is better adapted to the satisfaction of his wants. In this activity he is constantly moving and rearranging things. Matter and energy he can neither create nor destroy; his power is limited to changing their relations in space and time, but, as civilization developed, he learned to utilise the forces of nature to a greatly increased extent, and has evolved for himself by a long and tedious process of thought, research, invention and discovery an environment consisting of services and commodities on a scale and of a type never before attained in the history of the world.