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Jevons, Bentham and De Morgan

Author(s): R. D. Collison Black
Reviewed work(s):
Source: Economica, New Series, Vol. 39, No. 154 (May, 1972), pp. 119-134
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1972]
Jevons, Bentham and De Morgan'
By R. D. COLLISON BLACK
I
I should like to begin by expressing my thanks to the Provost and
Professorial Board of University College, and particularly to Professor
Marian Bowley of the Department of Political Economy, for the honour
which they have done me in inviting me to address you today. To lecture
at University College, London, would be an honour and a privilege at
any time-but to be asked to deliver the Jevons Centenary Lecture is a
privilege of a very special kind. Special privileges carry with them special
responsibilities and I am very sensible of the particular responsibility
which rests on me, charged as I am with the task of fitly commemorating
the centenary of Jevons's greatest achievement in Economics in the
College in which he was proud to profess that subject. William Stanley
Jevons has long been recognized as one of the most original thinkers
who have contributed to the development of economic science, and the
Theory of Political Economy which he published just a hundred years
ago has equally been recognized as a landmark in the development of the
subject. Over the last half century it has therefore attracted the atten-
tion of some of the most distinguished economists so that it is now not
easy to say something which is at once true and fresh about the book or
its author. Nevertheless I shall hope to be able to convince you that
there is still something to be learnt about it today by looking at it from a
specifically University College viewpoint.
I can best do this, I think, by beginning from an outline of the life of
Jevons. In doing so there is a special difficulty which is perhaps best met
by recognizing it frankly. I cannot and do not pretend to know as
much about the life and work of Jevons as do some members of this
audience; no doubt there are many others in it to whom the main
outlines of Jevons's career are familiar, but there are probably others
again to whom they are not. Since a knowledge of the main facts of
Jevons's career is essential to an understanding of my theme, I hope
those to whom they are already familiar will bear with me while I sketch
them in for the benefit of those to whom they are not.2
The life of William Stanley Jevons could be characterized in a sentence
as short, varied and full of achievement. Jevons was born in 1835, the
ninth child of Thomas Jevons, a Liverpool iron merchant; his mother
was the eldest daughter of William Roscoe, a Liverpool banker who
established a high reputation as historian and art collector. Jevons was
1
The Jevons Centenary Lecture delivered at University College, London,
November 3, 1971.
2 For fuller details see Rosamond Konekamp, "William Stanley Jevons (1835-
1882), Some Biographical Notes", Manchester School vol. XXX
(1962),
pp. 251-73.
119
120 ECONOMICA [MAY
thus brought up in that circle of well-to-do non-conformists who
contributed as much to the intellectual life as to the economic develop-
ment of the north of England in the early Victorian period through their
remarkable combination of business and cultural interests.
The interest which these people had in education is well known, and
in this company it is hardly necessary to stress that University College,
London, was founded largely in response to the demand of middle-class
non-conformists for the higher education for their children which they
were prevented from obtaining at Oxford and Cambridge. Jevons
himself was educated in Liverpool until the age of 15, partly at the
Mechanics Institute School whose headmaster was W. B. Hodgson,
later to become the holder of the Chair of Political Economy at the
University of Edinburgh. In 1850 Jevons entered University College
School, spending one year as a pupil and a further two as a student at
University College. In 1853 he had decided to leave College and go into
business in Liverpool, partly at least in consequence of the recurrent
financial difficulties which had plagued his family since his father's firm
had become bankrupt as a result of the railway crisis of 1847. In June
1853, largely through the good offices of Thomas Graham, then the
Professor of Chemistry at University College, the seventeen-year-old
Jevons was offered the post of Assayer to the newly formed branch of
the Royal Mint at Sydney. He did not in fact leave for Sydney until
June 1854, because of delays in completing the new Mint Buildings.
In the interval he had trained with Graham as an Assayer and taken a
further diploma course on the subject in Paris.
Jevons remained in Australia until early in 1859. During most of this
period, apart from his professional work in Chemistry at the Mint, his
interest was mainly in the field of the natural sciences such as Botany,
and especially Meteorology, but he was also a keen observer of the
rapidly changing social scene in the Australia of his time. The interest in
social subjects-particularly the social life of towns-which he had
already shown during his early years
in London seems to have grown
strongly after he had been living in Sydney for a year or two. In 1856
and 1857 he was supplementing his reading of Mayhew's Great World
of London with such standard economic works as those of Adam Smith
and John Stuart Mill and with lesser-known works like Lardner's
Railway Economy. By the beginning of 1858 Jevons seems to have come
firmly to the decision to devote his career to the study of social science.
He wrote to his sister at this time: "There are plenty of people engaged
with physical science, and practical science and the arts may be left to
look after themselves, but thoroughly to understand the principles of
society appears to me now the most cogent business."1
I
W. S. Jevons to Henrietta Jevons, Letters and Journal of W. Stanley Jevons,
1886, p. 101 (hereafter LJ). Jevons recorded details of his reading in diaries which
he kept in Australia, but unfortunately he did not continue this practice after his
return to London. Relevant extracts from these diaries are included in the forth-
coming edition of the Papers and Correspondence of W. S. Jevons, sponsored by
the Royal Economic Society.
1972] JEVONS, BENTHAM AND DE MORGAN 121
Soon after, Jevons made the decision to give up his lucrative post at the
Sydney Mint and return to London, his first objective being to equip
himself for his new career by completing his degree at University
College. Not unnaturally, the decision came as a shock to his relatives,
for Jevons's father had died without restoring the family fortunes, and
he and his brothers and sisters had to fend for themselves in the world.
Nevertheless, Jevons was convinced that the decision was for him a right
and necessary one and he did not lack the courage to go through with it.
Resuming his studies at University College in the autumn of 1859 he
remained in London until 1863, gaining his BA degree in October 1860
and his MA (with Gold Medal) in June 1862.
This was the period when Jevons "struck out the true theory of
economy" and suffered the "sad reverse" of being placed fourth instead
of first in the College examinations in Political Economy because of
what he described as a "difference of opinion . .. perfectly allowable"
between himself and the Professor, Jacob Waley.
Much has been written of late about the "professionalization" of the
study of economics, and certainly this had not proceeded far in England
in the early 1860s, so that the path to advancement for a bright young
man interested in social science was not so clearly marked then as it is
now. After toying with the idea of earning his living by journalism or
other forms of writing, Jevons fell in with a suggestion made by his
cousin Harry Roscoe that he should come to the then recently-formed
Owens College, Manchester, as a tutor-the only tutor in the College
and one who was therefore expected to offer tuition on any subject which
students could take there. Jevons did all that could be expected of a
struggling young academic, and more; the work on The Coal Question,
which he began in 1864 and published in 1865, earned him a national
reputation in a remarkably short space of time-which was probably
not without effect in securing his appointment to the Chair of Logic,
Mental and Moral Philosophy and Political Economy at Owens
College in 1866.
It was in Manchester that much of Jevons's best creative work was
done and in the following ten years his reputation rose from being a
national to an international one. He became influential in the work of
the London (now Royal) Statistical Society, gave evidence before many
select committees and royal commissions on monetary and other
questions, and was consulted by Robert Lowe, the Chancellor of the
Exchequer, on matters of economic policy. His work on logic and his
pioneering development of a logical machine, ancestor of the modern
computer, led to his election to Fellowship of the Royal Society in
1872.2 But the strain of
combining
all these activities with the
heavy
1
LJ, p. 154.
2
See Jevons, "On the Mechanical Performance of Logical Inference", Philo-
sophical Transactionis of the Royal Society, vol. 160 (1870), pp. 497-518. Jevons's
election to Fellowship is recorded in Proceedings of the Royal Society, vol. XX
(1872), p. 198.
122 ECONOMICA [MIAY
teaching programme which included much evening lecturing told on
Jevons's health. This, combined with the desire to have access to the
London libraries and the London circles in which he was now a res-
pected authority, led Jevons to decide to return to University College,
this time as Professor of Political Economy, a post which he held from
1876 until 1880.
The duties of the professorship in those days were light; only one class
was involved, which met once a week. Indeed, the appointment carried
less reward and less prestige than others which Jevons might have taken
-at Edinburgh for example. But he was anxious to have a post which
would enable him to devote most of his time to his writing and the
prospect of a return to his old College was also attractive to him. In
1880, however, he regretfully decided that his strength was not equal to
a combination of teaching and writing, and that the many works which
he wished to complete must have his whole attention; he therefore
resigned the Chair. Unhappily, little time was left to him for the
completion of the projects which he had planned, especially the grand
project of a comprehensive treatise on the principles of economics.
When his active career as an academic economist and logician had
lasted no more than twenty years, he lost his life in a drowning accident
in August 1882.
This is no more than a bald sketch of a fascinating life; but it should
make clear that in that life University College, London, was a recurrent
motif. It would be interesting and worthwhile to expand on that theme;
but in this lecture I wish to deal only with a special aspect of it-to
consider two major intellectual influences in the development of that
economic thought which is especially typified in Jevons's Theory of
Political Economy of 1871. These intellectual influences are particularly
connected with the history of University College, London, and I think
it can be argued that they came to bear on Jevons through his connec-
tion with University College. It has often been said that the Theory of
Political Economy marks a watershed in the development of economic
thought mainly because of two outstanding characteristics in it-its
introduction into economics of psychological hedonism on the one
hand, and of mathematical and quantitative techniques on the other.
The first of these, it seems to me, can be directly traced to the utilitarian
philosophy of Jeremy Bentham and the second to the mathematical
logic of Augustus De Morgan.
II
It has long been a commonplace of text-books in the history of econo-
mic thought to say that the "simple hedonism" of Bentham was the
basis of Jevons's essentially subjective theory of value. Like all stereo-
typed statements, this is a half-truth which merely skates over the
surface of the relationship between the thought of Bentham and that
of Jevons.
1972] JEVONS, BENTHAM AND DE MORGAN 123
The fact is that, as one recent writer has pungently said, "When the
concept of utility entered economic theory many men of substance in
the field were believing utilitarians. Long before the notion came under
final attack from Sir John Hicks and Sir Roy Allen in the thirties, the
intellectual temper of the times had changed so that you could hardly
have found a utilitarian under a flat stone."'- It is not surprising then,
with so many economists trying, as Dennis Robertson put it, "to
remove the offending odour of utility"2 to find that modern commentat-
ors have been disposed to minimize the extent of Jevons's Utilitarianism.
Ross Robertson, for example, has said that "one has the feeling as he
reads Chapter II of the Theory, the chapter on pleasures and pains, that
Jevons is simply going through the motions of citing an unquestioned
authority
before
proceeding
to an
altogether different
kind an
analysis
".3
To my mind this illustrates an understandable, but regrettable, vice of
the intellectual historian-that of trying to explain the thinking of his
subject, not in relation to the thought of the subject's own time, but in
relation to the ideas of the present time.
In the Theory of Political Economy Jevons does in fact say "I have no
hesitation in accepting the Utilitarian theory of morals" ;4 and to gloss
over this does, I think, lead to a fundamental misconception of the
nature of the work. If, as I shall try to show, Bentham's ideas permeated
Jevons's Theory inescapably, then it is worth while to ask, first, how
Jevons came under their influence.
A considerable part of the process of Jevons's intellectual develop-
ment can be reconstructed from the letters and diaries which he wrote
during his early life. In his first two years as a student at University
College (1851-53) although he "had several rather learned discussions
with Harry [Roscoe] about moral philosophy"5 he does not appear to
have studied the subject formally at all. During his latter years in
Australia, when he was beginning to read political economy, he does
not seem to have paid much attention to philosophy, and none at all
to Bentham.
On his return to London and to University College in the session of
1859-60 Jevons did, however, enrol in the course on Philosophy of Mind
and Logic given by John Hoppus-which included a section on the hist-
ory of philosophy, taking in Bentham.6 It seems unlikely that Jevons
would have derived a whole new direction in his thinking from Hoppus,
1
V. C. Walsh, Introduction to Contemporary Microeconomics, New York,
1970, p. 24. Of recent years, there has been a revival of interest in utilitarianism
among philosphers; cf. J. Narveson, Morality and Utility, Baltimore, 1967.
2 D. H. Robertson, Lectures on Economic Principles, vol. 1, 1957, p. 86.
3
Ross M. Robertson, "Jevons and his Precursors", Econometrica, vol. 19
(1951), p. 233.
4 Theory of Political Economy (hereafter TPE), 4th ed., p. 23.
5LJ, p. 23.
6 Calendar of University College London for the session 1859-60, pp. 18-19.
Jevons's enrolment in the class is recorded in the Professor's Fees Books, 1859-60.
I am indebted to Mrs. J. Percival, Archivist of University College, London, for
assistance in locating this information, and other details relating to De Morgan's
classes and Jevons's attendance at them.
124 ECONOMICA [MAY
whose lectures were notoriously dull and ill-attended.' On the other
hand, in 1860 Jevons did go to "Mr. Martineau's mental philosophy
class in Manchester New College, which is close at hand in University
Hall ".2 Now Martineau was a considerable philosopher whose long
and deep study of ethics had led him to a sophisticated understanding
of Utilitarianism, and it seems much more likely that his teaching
would have stimulated Jevons and increased his interest in Benthamism.3
There are various indications from Jevons's correspondence at this
time that he felt a growing interest in philosophical questions, and moral
philosophy in particular.4 In the circumstances it would have been
surprising if Jevons had not been influenced towards Utilitarianism, for
apart from the general acceptability of the doctrine at the time there were
special factors which would naturally have drawn him in that direction.
Apart from the obvious and natural attraction of the great name of
Bentham for any University College man, there was also the fact that
Jevons, like James Martineau, was a Unitarian. There had long existed
a connection between Unitarianism in theology and Utilitarianism in
philosophy and, as has been remarked by Professor Mineka, "Unitar-
ians and Utilitarians came largely from the same levels of society, the
'1 H. Hale Bellot, University College, London, 1826-1926, p. 111: "After his first
or second lecture he seldom had a pupil; because, burying his face in his manu-
script, he mumbled so that only an acute ear could catch much of what he said,
and those who caught something called it rot." (Quoted from a manuscript by
J. B. Benson.)
I
LJ, p. 155.
3The implication of this view is that Jevons must initially have become acquain-
ted with Bentham's ideas through Hoppus's course, or the reading prescribed
for it, combined this with his notions of a mathematical theory of economy, and
subsequently extended his knowledge and understanding of Utilitarianism through
his contacts with Martineau's thinking. For, according to Jevons's diary from 3rd to
5th February, 1860, he "was almost entirely engaged in commencing a work on
Pol. Econ.... Value to be established on the basis of labour and the problems
of rent, wages, interest, etc. to be solved as mathematical functions . . .". On
February 19, 1860 there is the entry: "At home all day and working chiefly at
Economy, arriving as I suppose at a true comprehension of Value, regarding
which I have lately very much blundered." This, as Professor La Nauze has
suggested, pinpoints the discovery of the utility approach by Jevons. (La Nauze,
"The Conception of Jevons's Utility Theory", Economica, vol. XX (1953), pp.
356-8.)
It was not until October or November 1860 that Jevons began to attend Martin-
eau's mental philosophy lectures, but this does not prove that Martineau's teaching
played no part in the working out of Jevons's ideas, for the original manuscript
of the Brief Accolnt of a General Mathematical Theory of Political Economy is
dated "London September 27, 1862". Martineau would certainly have appealed
to Jevons as one who, in his own words, "carried into [moral and metaphysical
speculations] a store of exclusively scientific conceptions, rendered familiar in the
elementary study of mathematics, mechanics and chemistry"-Types of Ethical
Theory, 1885, Preface, p. viii. Apart from the more general points made in the
text above, it is interesting to note that the Brief Account contains one passage
which seems to echo Martineau as well as Bentham-paragraph 2, which begins
with a reference to "the great springs of human action". In 1847 Richard Holt
Hutton, another student of Martineau and later a relative of Jevons by marriage,
had urged Martineau to draw up "a graduated table of the springs of action", and
this subsequently became an important part of his lecture course. Cf. J. Estlin
Carpenter, James Martineau, 1906, p. 298.
4
Cf. LJ, pp. 149, 155-60.
1972] JEVONS, BENTHAM AND DE MORGAN 125
enterprising, successful middle class", and shared inclinations towards
humanitarianism and a faith in science.1 This, as we have seen, was the
social background in which Jevons had been reared and his return to
University College had brought him back into it.
Certainly, however utilitarian philosophy may have entered into
Jevons's thinking, it remained a part of it for the rest of his life and was
much more than just a peg on which to hang the particular type of
subjective analysis of demand with which his Theory of Political
Economy has come to be specially associated. That his thinking moved
towards what Martineau called "Hedonist Evolution" is clear from the
article on Mill's Utilitarianism which Jevons wrote for the Contemporary
Review in 1879.2 That it remained firmly in the tradition of Bentham is
clear from the last book he completed on an economic subject, The
State in Relation to Labour, when we find the statement that "it may be
fearlessly said that no social transformation would be too great to be
commended and attempted if only it could be clearly shown to lead to
the greater happiness of the community".3
Now, as this quotation brings out, Benthamism was very much a
social philosophy; yet the Theory of Political Economy, with which we
are here primarily concerned, deals very little with social questions.
How then does Bentham come into it? Clearly it is not the "greatest
happiness principle", but the "principle of utility" which matters in the
Theory. Indeed that work not only starts out from, but revolves around,
the theory of pleasure and pain.4
Lookiing back upon this, later economists have been able to point out
the drawbacks from which it suffers very clearly, and indeed they are
undeniable-it is difficult to evade Marshall's indictment that "Jevons'
great error was that of applying to utility propositions that are only true
of price".5 I shall return to this point in a moment, but let me suggest
that if instead of looking back with the benefit of hindsight we try to
put ourselves in Jevons's place and look forward, as he must have done
when first developing his theory (in 1860-62), the matter appears
in
a different light. Already in 1858 Jevons had seized hold of the idea that
"economy, scientifically speaking, is in fact a sort of vague mathematics
which calculates the causes and effects of man's industry, and shows
how it may best be applied".6 By June 1860 he had "struck out ... the
true Theory of Economy ... entirely mathematical in
principle
. . .".7
His approach, then, was that of a pure scientist; but as a distinguished
I
F. E. Mineka, The Dissidence of Dissent, Chapel Hill, N.C., 1944, p. 146.
2
W. S. Jevons, "John Stuart Mill's Philosophy Tested; IV-Utilitarianism",
Contemporary Review, vol. XXXVI, (1879), pp. 521-38.
3
W. S. Jevons, The State in Relation to Labour, 1882, 3rd ed., p. 12.
4
I have argued this point more fully in my Introduction to the Pelican Classics
edition of the Theory of Political Economy, 1970, pp. 15-20.
5
Marshall to J. N. Keynes, November 26, 1889; Principles of Economnics, 9th
ed., vol. II, p. 260.
6
LJ, p. 101.
7
LJ, p. 151.
126 ECONOMICA [MAY
philosopher of science, F. S. C. Northrop, has pointed out, the subject
matter of economics, as Jevons and his successors came to conceive it,
is not objective in the sense either of the immediately inspected sense
data or the verified, inferred common-sense objects ... The question
then arises how a deductive theory referring to such a subject matter can
be empirically verified.... It might be supposed that the verification is
like that of natural science, except for the minor difference that natural
science appeals to empirical data given through the senses, whereas
economic science uses empirical data given introspectively.... But
upon this basis one would expect a different science of economics for
each individual. It is clear that economic science does not conceive of
itself in this way. It claims for its theory the same validity for every-
body that natural science claims for its laws and verified propositions.
But how, by appeal to introspection rather than to the senses, can one
get any criterion for public validity?1
Now it seems to me that this is just the problem which Jevons, as a
young scientist trying to reason out "the true Theory of Economy",
must have encountered-and must have realized that Bentham could
provide an answer of satisfying symmetry through the "principle of
utility".
Here we must come back to the criticism of Marshall and other later
writers. Jevons, in the opening pages of the Theory, says with all the
emphasis italics can give, "our science must be mathematical, simply
because it deals with quantities".2 In seeking to ground that science on
pleasures and pains which not only notoriously defy quantification but
also differ in quality was not the scientist being unscientific, the logician
illogical? Once again, instead of trying to answer on our terms, let us
see what answer Jevons himself gave-for he did not overlook or evade
these questions.
First, on the question of higher and lower pleasures, Jevons argued
that "my present purpose is accomplished in pointing out this hierarchy
of feeling, and assigning a proper place to the pleasures and pains with
which the economist deals. It is the lowest rank of feelings which we
here treat".3 So much is stated in the Theory; but in his critique of
J. S. Mill's philosophy Jevons went further and indicated that the
question of different grades of pleasure could be logically handled-by a
strict adherence to Bentham's ideas: "Nor is it to be supposed, that
Bentham, in making his analysis of the coinditions of pleasure, over-
looked the difference of high and low; he did not overlook it at all-he
analysed it. A pleasure to be high must have the marks of intensity,
length, certainty, fruitfulness and purity, or of some of these at least;
and when we take Altruism into account, the feelings must be of wide
extent-that is, fruitful of pleasure and devoid of evil to great numbers
'
F. S. C. Northrop, The Logic of the Sciences and the Humanities,
1959
printing,
pp. 240-41.
2 TPE, 4th ed., p. 3.
3
TPE, 4th ed., pp. 26-7.
1972] JEVONS, BENTHAM AND DE MORGAN 127
of people"; and so, he argued, "Mill proposed to give 'geniality' to
the Utilitarian philosophy by throwing into confusion what it was the
very merit of Bentham to have distinguished and arranged scientifically.
We must hold to the dry old Jeremy, if we are to have any chance of
progress in Ethics".'
If by holding to the dry old Jeremy pleasures and pains can all be
brought to a common denominator, there still remains the question
in what units is it to be expressed? To this, in the first edition of the
Theory, Jevons frankly answered, "Greatly though I admire the clear
and precise notions of Bentham, I know not where his numerical data
are to be found".2 His mode of escape from this difficulty was similar
to Marshall's "measuring rod of money"-"A unit of pleasure or of
pain is difficult even to conceive; but it is the amount of these feelings
which is continually prompting us to buying and selling, borrowing and
lending, labouring and resting, producing and consuming; and it is
from the quantitative effects
of the feelings that we must estimate their
comparative amounts"'. Nevertheless, in framing the rest of his analysis
in terms of utility and disutility he undoubtedly gave grounds for
Marshall's criticism4 -and proofs of his allegiance to Bentham.
III
If, as seems undeniable to me, the influence of Bentham in the
creation of the Theory of Political Economy was considerable and
pervasive, the passages which I have previously quoted to the effect
that "our science must be mathematical" reflect an influence on Jevons
which was earlier and more profound-that of Augustus De Morgan.
De Morgan became the first Professor of Mathematics in University
College, London, in 1828, at the early age of twenty-two. He has been
described by its official historian as "the outstanding figure in the first
quarter-century of the life of the college", and by the great chemist
Sir Henry Enfield Roscoe-the same Harry Roscoe who was a cousin
of Jevons-as "one of the profoundest and subtlest thinkers of the
nineteenth century".
5
In the fabric of De Morgan's life the Unitarian thread again figures
prominently. He left Cambridge because of his objections to the relig-
ious tests-just as had his father-in-law, William Frend, himself a
Second Wrangler who was deprived of his tutorship at Jesus College.
Frend was an associate of many of the leading political and intellectual
figures of the early nineteenth century, wrote for the Unitarian Monthly
Repository, and was identified with the earliest schemes to set up a
1
Contemporary Review vol. XXXVI, 1879, p. 533.
2
TPE, 1st ed., p. 12. This passage does not appear in later editions.
3
TPE, 4th ed., p. 11.
4
Quoted above, p. 125, n. 5.
5
Bellot, op. cit., pp. 80-81.
128 ECONOMICA [MAY
University in London free of all religious tests.1 Forty years later it
was on this very issue that De Morgan resigned his Chair at University
College. In refusing to appoint James Martineau to the Chair of Mental
Philosophy in 1866 because he was a Unitarian minister, the College
had, as De Morgan saw it, betrayed the basic principle on which it was
founded, and he refused to have any further connection with it.2
During the thirty and more years of his connection with University
College, De Morgan made a substantial contribution to mathematical
knowledge, but he was also particularly interested in the relations
between mathematics and logic. Although he was less successful here
than his better remembered contemporary George Boole, he did valu-
able work in this field. De Morgan also found time for an immense
amount of semi-popular writing on scientific subjects, as well as much
public work, in support of decimal coinage and on insurance matters.3
Nevertheless it was as a teacher rather than a writer that De Morgan
enjoyed his greatest success and reputation. His own mind was so agile
and so profound that he set a high standard for his students; but it is
clear from the testimony of many of them that he possessed a rare gift-
the capacity to convey to those who are not naturally mathematicians
something of the significance of the subject, its power and elegance.4
There is ample evidence of the influence which De Morgan had upon
Jevons-it amounted almost to a fascination. At the time of his matric-
ulation in 1852, Jevons's main interests were in chemistry and botany,
but he attended De Morgan's "Higher Junior" classes and "Lower
Senior" Classes.5 By his own testimony he found this "interesting
though rather hard"; he kept up diligently with the class work and
formed the intention "to have all De Morgan's books".6
It may seem that there is nothing very remarkable in all this, but the
effect which it had on Jevons comes out clearly in a letter he wrote to
his sister from Australia five years later:
For my own part I have never had the courage to open the many
mathematical books I brought with me; but what do you think I would
I
See Frida Knight, University Rebel, the Life of William Frend, 1757-1841,
1971; Mineka, op. cit., pp. 148-50; S. E. De Morgan, Memoir of Auglustus De
Morgani, 1882, pp. 19-24.
2 Bellot, op. cit., pp. 339-43; De Morgan, op. cit., pp. 336-61.
3
De Morgan, op. cit.; and see also the article "De Morgan, Augustus" which
Jevons wrote for the Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th ed., vol. VIII, pp. 8-10.
4
One historian of mathematics has described De Morgan as "displaying
unusual gifts as a teacher and scattering his energies recklessly. His Trigonometry
and Double Algebra (1849) contained certain features of quaternions, but he did not
follow this or any other theory to the conclusion that seemed within his reach....
His contributions to the theory of probability still rank as among the best in
English and the same may be said for his contributions to logic.... Had he been
able to confine himself to one line, he might have been a much greater though a
less interesting man." D. E. Smith, History of Mathematics, 1951 ed., vol. I, p. 462.
5
Shortly after this lecture was delivered the original manuscript of Jevons's
notes on these lectures was quite unexpectedly discovered in the Library of the
University of Glasgow. Hence it has become possible to fill in more of the details
of the mathematical teaching which Jevons received from De Morgan. See
Appendix, below.
6
LJ, pp. 22-3. For the seventeen-year-old Jevons, the intention may have been
1972] JEVONS, BENTHAM AND DE MORGAN 129
do if I had opportunity ever again? Attend College and De Morgan's
mathematical lectures! The utility of mathematics is one of the most
incomprehensible things about it; but though I was never bright or
successful in his class, in spite of working hard, I feel the greatest
benefit from it.1
That there was the greatest benefit to be derived from mathematics
by any scientist was emphasized to Jevons by his cousin Harry (Sir
Henry Enfield) Roscoe who, finding chemistry to involve more mathe-
matics as it advanced, wished that he had paid more attention as a
student to De Morgan's teaching.2
Now I have pointed out that already in 1858-59 Jevons had begun to
feel for those "general principles or laws" which he felt must underlie
the workings of society and to see them in terms of "a vague sort of
mathematics". So, defending his decision to return to England, he
wrote to Harry Roscoe: "I wish especially to become a good mathe-
matician, without which nothing, I am convinced, can be thoroughly
done. Most of my theories proceed upon a kind of mathematical basis,
but I exceedingly regret being unable to follow them out beyond general
arguments. "3
So the wish of 1857 became the fact of 1860. "I find the classes at
college a little dull", Jevons wrote to his brother Herbert, "the charm is
rubbed off a few things; but then one learns more and more to adore
De Morgan as an unfathomable fund of mathematics".4 What material
did Jevons draw from this unfathomable fund to use in building his
Theory of Political Economy? Perhaps only some things which lay near
enough to the surface, in the shape of the elements of
calculus, it may
seem.5
more laudable than practical, for De Morgan's text-books are reputed to have
been "a mine of information for the teacher and entirely hopeless for the pupil".
Smith, op. cit., vol. I, p. 462.
1
W. S. Jevons to Henrietta Jevons, June 17, 1857, LJ, pp. 88-9.
2
H. E. Roscoe to W. S. Jevons, February 21, 1854: "I mean to go hard at
mathematics when I am in Paris.... Nothing can be done without mathematics &
I hope to make up for not attending to De Morgan as I ought to have done-fool
that I was."
3
W. S. Jevons to H. E. Roscoe, January, 1859, LJ, pp. 118-19.
4
W. S. Sevons to Herbert Sevons, January 27, 1860, LJ, p. 150.
5
There were other parts of Jevons's work in which other elements drawn from
De Morgan's "unfathomable fund" were important. Perhaps the most notable is
Jevons's use of probability theory in his interpretation of scientific method. Cf. W.
Mays, "Jevons's Conception of Scientific Method", The Manchester School, vol.
XXX (1962), p. 226; E. A. Madden, "W. S. Jevons on Induction and
Probability",
in Blake, Ducasse and Madden, Theories of Scientific Method, 1960, p. 247.
In discussion after the delivery of this lecture, Sir John Hicks drew my attention
to the passage in Edgeworth's Mathematical Psychics, 1881, p. 7, where he argues
that the "implied equatability of time-intensity units" of utility "resembles the
equation to each other of undistinguishable events or cases, which constitutes the
first principle of the mathematical calculus of belief". Sir John suggested that De
Morgan's references to probability in his lectures might similarly have prompted
Jevons to think of utility as a concept susceptible to mathematical treatment, if
not to direct measurement.
I am much indebted to Sir John for this stimulating suggestion, which certainly
130 ECONOMICA [MAY
It is easy to be slighting about Jevons's mathematics, as Marshall
was1; Jevons himself had no illusions about his talents in that field:
"I am, of course, better up to De Morgan's brain-rackings this session",
he wrote in Michaelmas term 1860, "and shall devote much time to
mathematics, yet, from having no natural talent for figures or quick
memory, have no hope of becoming a practical mathematician. Besides,
it is somewhat late in the day at twenty-six to learn mathematics, with
which you will succeed from the first or never. "2
But De Morgan himself drew a distinction between the analysis of the
necessary Laws of Thought, and the analysis of the necessary Matter of
Thought.3 It was surely in the field of the laws of thought that Jevons
learnt most from him.
Building on the foundations laid by De Morgan and Boole, Jevons
went on to build up his own system of logic, and contended that "it
may be inferred, not that logic is a part of mathematics . . . but that the
mathematics are rather derivatives of logic".4 This statement, which is
wholly in the spirit of De Morgan's work, may serve to put the Theory
of Political Economy into its true perspective as a work in mathematical
economics. The matter of thought in it was not highly mathematical,
but its whole structure was built up in accordance with a concept of
science as governed by laws of thought which could, where quantities are
involved, be expressed in a mathematical form5; and that approach was
surely based on the hard training which Jevons had received in De
Morgan's classroom.
IV
A commemoration of a great work always runs the risk of being
either adulatory or patronizing. On the one hand there is the danger of
seeming to suggest that its author had correctly anticipated everything
derives support from a passage in chapter I of TPE (lst ed., pp. 9-1 0; 4th ed., p. 8):
"Previous to the time of Pascal, who would have thought of measuring doubt and
belief? Who could have conceived that the investigation of petty games of chance
would have led to the creation of perhaps the most sublime branch of mathematical
science-the theory of probabilities ?" With the recent discovery of Jevons's notes
on De Morgan's lectures (see Appendix) it is now possible to say definitely that
De Morgan had introduced him to elementary probability concepts in his "Higher
Junior" class of 1852-53, and that Jevons was again working on the subject, in
more detail, in 1860-61, in connection with De Morgan's lectures. Hence, although
the original manuscript of the Brief Account contains no direct reference to these
concepts, it is certainly possible that they played a part in the conception of
Jevons's utility theory along with what he himself described as the "most luminous
and philosophical view of existing and possible systems of symbolic calculus"
which he found in De Morgan's teaching and writing.
1 "They [Cournot and von Thtunen] handled their mathematics gracefully: he
seemed like David in Saul's armour." A. C. Pigou (ed.), Memorials of Alfred
Marshall, p. 99.
2 W. S. Jevons to Herbert Jevons, November 28, 1860, LJ, p. 155.
3
M. J. M. Hill, "Some account of the holders of the Chair of Pure Mathe-
matics . . .", MSS in University College Library, quoted in Bellot, op. cit., p. 81.
"
W. S. Jevons to Thomas Jevons, August 30, 1863, LJ, p. 191.
5
This emerges very clearly in Jevons's statement at the conclusion of TPE,
4th ed., p. 267: "The problem of economics may, as it seems to me, be stated thus:
1972] JEVONS, BENTHAM AND DE MORGAN 131
which is known about the subject today, on the other that of pointing
out that we have learned so much since that it seems hard to conceive
how or why the pioneer originally made so many blunders.
I have tried to avoid both these traps by seeking not to make a fresh
evaluation of the Theory of Political Economy, but rather to think back
into the structure which Jevons was trying to build in it and to show
where he obtained the chief materials which he used in doing so. Those
materials were peculiarly connected with University College, but the work
which Jevons chiselled out of them was peculiarly his own. Whatever may
have been its strengths and weaknesses, we come back to the fact which
has brought us together here today-the Theory of Political Economy
was a landmark in the development of modern economics, and Jevons
made it. He was one of many worthy students who read Bentham
and profited from De Morgan's lectures; but, as Foxwell reminded
Keynes, "the only point about Jevons was that he was a genius".1
Queen's University, Belfast.
APPENDIX
Oni Jevons's mathematical studies at University College, London.
The comments which I made in this lecture on the influence of De Morgan
on Jevons were based on evidence drawn from Jevons's personal journal and
correspondence, and the Calendars of University College, London, in
addition to the other printed sources given in the text above. By a remark-
able coincidence, a considerable quantity of new manuscript evidence be-
came available only a few weeks after the lecture had been delivered.
Mr. R. P. Sturges, who is acting as Research Assistant on the project for
compiling a Guide to Archive Sources in the History of Economic Thought,
has been travelling all over the British Isles in the search for such material.
In the course of a trip to Scotland in late November, 1971, he discovered
in the Library of the University of Glasgow, the following three items:
(1) Manuscript notebook with title-page: "Lectures on Mathematics
delivered in University College, London, by Professor A. De Morgan.
Session 1852-3. W. S. Jevons" (Ms. Gen. 483).
(2) Manuscript notebook with title on spine: "Mathematical Tracts, De
Morgan" (Ms. Gen. 485).
(3) Manuscript notebook with title-page: "NOTES, and EXTRACTS,
concerning LECTURES on the PURE MATHEMATICS, delivered in
University College, London, by Augustus De Morgan, Professor etc.
Session 1860-61". On facing page: "W. S. Jevons, University College."
(Ms. Gen. 484).
Given, a certain population, with various needs and powers of production, in
possession of certain lands and other sources of material: required, the mode of
employing their labour which will maximize the utility of the produce".
This clearly foreshadows the modern presentation of the same problem in
terms of "constrained maximization", and brings out sharply the real character
of Jevons's break with the classical tradition.
1
J. M. Keynes, Essays in Biography, 1951 ed., p. 307.
132 ECONOMICA [MAY
I have since had an opportunity to examine these manuscripts, and have no
doubt that all three are in the handwriting of Jevons. According to the
records of
Glasgow University Library,
the notebooks were
bequeathed by
George Alexander Gibson, who was Professor of Mathematics in Glasgow
University from 1909 to 1927 and died in 1930; there is no evidence as to
how the notebooks came into his possession.
With the aid of these notebooks it is possible to put some flesh on the bare
bones of the outline of Jevons's mathematical studies previously known.
The syllabus of De Morgan's Mathematics lectures altered but little over
the period of Jevons's first and second attendances at them, and ran typically
as follows:
The Lower Division of the Junior Class is intended for those Pupils who
possess very little previous acquirement. The Subjects read are, the First
Four Books of Euclid; Arithmetic, and the Arithmetical Theory of Propor-
tion; the Sixth Book of Euclid; Solid Geometry; Algebra, arithmetically
considered, as far as equations of the first and second degrees.
The Higher Division of the Junior Class is intended for those whose
previous reading will enable them to begin the Fifth Book of Euclid. The
Subjects read are, the Fifth and Sixth Books of Euclid; Solid Geometry; a
Review of the Principles and Operations of
Arithmetic; Algebra; Plane
Trigonometry; and, if time permit, the Conic Sections geometrically.
The Lower Division of the Senior Class will comprehend those who have
(either in the College or elsewhere) passed through the Subjects of the
preceding Class. The Subjects here read are, Spherical Trigonometry; Conic
Sections; applications of Algebra to Geometry; higher parts of Algebra;
Differential and Integral Calculus. The subjects read in the Higher Division
will consist of Developments of the Differential and Integral Calculus, to
prepare the Student for the higher applications of Mathematics to Physics.
(Calendar of University College, Lonidon, 1853-54, pp. 7-8).
The Professors Fees Books of the College record that Jevons was en-
rolled for De Morgan's classes in 1851-52 and 1852-53, and again in
1859-60 and 1860-61; but as one fee could cover several classes this does
not establish which class or division of a class he attended in each year.
These details, which could previously only be inferred from references in
Letters and Journal, can now be confirmed precisely from the notebooks.
Thus the first notebook (MS. Gen. 483) makes clear that Jevons had
attended only De Morgan's "Lower Junior" class in 1851-52, before his
matriculation into University College. The first seventeen pages of the
notebook contain undated notes on the subjects of this class, but the note-
book is, in accordance with its title-page, mainly devoted to the lectures of
1852-53. It makes clear that Jevons attended both the "Higher Junior" and
"Lower Senior" classes during that academic year. Apparently he had al-
ready developed his lifelong passion for economizing paper-for he made
one notebook suffice for both classes, first
filling the right hand leaves from
front to back, then turning the book upside down to fill the facing leaves in
the opposite direction-a system which does not make the notes easy to
follow.
The second notebook is
clearly the one which Jevons used for what he
described as "the long job of
copying out De Morgan's tracts".' These
were tracts which De
Morgan prepared on various
aspects of mathematics
1
LJ, p. 23.
1972] JEVONS, BENTHAM AND DE MORGAN 133
for the use of his students, and which were never published. Jevons copied
out seventeen of the tracts in all, listing their titles on an index page.'
According to Letters and Journal, Jevons entered De Morgan's "Lower
Senior" and "Higher Senior" classes on his return to London in 1859-60,
and again attended the "Higher Senior" class in 186061.2 From the point
of view of relating his mathematical to his economic studies, the third
notebook (MS. Gen. 484) could therefore be expected to be the most
interesting, but unfortunately proves disappointing in this respect. It is not a
connected series of lecture notes on De Morgan's "Higher Senior" class,
but merely a collection of separate notes, some drawn from lectures and
some from tracts, on topics which Jevons had presumably found partic-
ularly interesting or difficult. Some of these topics had already been
treated in the earlier "Lower Senior" notes, but there is much additional
material, particularly on differential equations, and some on probability.3
The 1852-53 notes closely follow the lines of the Calendar syllabus. They
generally confirm the impression of De Morgan as a demanding but interest-
ing teacher, concerned not merely to present theorems and proofs but also
to give his students an understanding of the logic and purpose of the topics
with which he dealt. This emerges clearly in the early "Lower Junior"
notes, where De Morgan's emphasis on the logical character of arithmetical
operations and discussion of counting bases would seem strikingly
familiar to any student of today brought up on "New Math".
The contents of the page are as follows:
Index to the Mathematical Tracts
First notions of Ratio I. Commensureable & Incom. Quantities
First notions of Ratio II. Scales of relation
No. 53
No.
53,
Convergency of Series
No. 72 On the summation of Algebraical series
No. 87 Lower Senior Class. Naperian Logarithm etc.
No. III Continued fractions
No. 84. Interest and Annuities
No. 17. Preliminaries for the theory of equations
No. 25. Cauchy's theorem
No. 110. On some points of geometrical Demonsn
No. 114. Simple examples of Integration
Conic Sections-Ellipse
Conic Sections-Parabola
Conic Sections-Hypberbola
New proof of Taylor's theorem
Permutations and Combinations
Examples of Maclaurins theorem
Curvature.
2
LJ, pp. 148, 155.
3
Jevons had begun, but not completed, an analytical index to the volume. Gaps
in this, and in pagination, make it hard to summarize the contents of the volume
accurately, but the following is a listing, in the order in which they occur, of the
main topics on which notes are to be found in it:
Taylor's Theorem Calculus of Operations
- Tract 99 - Tract 115
Differentiation Factorials
-Tract 108 Implicit Differentiaton
Differential Coefficients. Maxima and - Tract 120
Minima Burmann's Theorem
Calculus of Differences Integral Calculus
134 ECONOMICA [MAY
The same interest in the logic and philosophy of mathematics manifests
itself in the "Higher Junior" and "Lower Senior" courses, but Jevons's
comment of October 31, 1852, seems hardly surprising: "We have just
finished what we are to do at present of double algebra and series, which I
think rather interesting, though hard".' It must have been a considerable
effort to keep up with the work of the two classes at the same time, but
Jevons appears to have done it conscientiously, in spite of the fact that his
main interest at this time was in chemistry, and by the end of the academic
year he had got a good grounding in the theory of equations and the
differential calculus. Certainly the result of his work was not discreditable,
although Jevons's own account of it was modest enough: "Mathematics
was a much harder affair, of course. Some time before the examination I
formed some desperate resolutions as to the place I would get, and I did
work up a little. I tried very hard in the examination, but spent too much
time on the hard ones, and came out fourth".2
When Jevons returned to University College in 1859, he must have found
this earlier experience of "Lower Senior" mathematics valuable. Neverthe-
less it must again have been a considerable effort for him to deal with the
two Senior Courses simultaneously, especially in view of the fact that he
was also taking courses in Greek, Latin and German, after a six-year break
from academic work.3 So naturally he would have been "better up to De
Morgan's brain rackings" when, after taking his BA degree, he re-attended
the "Higher Senior" class in the following academic year
;4
and this
probably accounts for the more eclectic approach of the 1860-61 notebook.
Integration Rule of Derivation by Arbogast's
Bernouilli's theorem method
General formula of Reduction Curves of Pursuit
Integration of rational and integral Cauchy's Theorem
functions Method of Parameters
Differential equations Systems of Equations
Homogeneous functions Partial Differential Equations
Convertible Operations Curves, Lines, Angles
Singular Points Trigonometrical Functions
Infinities Asymptotes-
Infinity of Functions Problems on Lines and Planes
Discontinuity Paraboloid
Singular Values Factorial Integrals
Method of Quadratures
1 LJ, p. 23.
2LJ, p. 36.
3Ibid., p. 148.
4
Ibid., p. 155.