JEVONS AND HIS PRECURSORS: I. INTRODUCTION

"AT THE earliest possible moment after reading your article in the Fortnightly, I wish to say how warmly I thank you for so boldly taking up the cause of the Theory." So wrote William Stanley Jevons, in 1875, to George Darwin, son of the famed naturalist. "Not only must your article give new courage to those already believing in the possibility of applying mathematical methods to economy," Jevons went on, "but it must go far towards silencing those who have hitherto ridiculed the notion, and opening the eyes of those who have been entirely blind.