The publication of a work by M. Leon Walras gave occasion to a paper read by Professor Jevons before the Statistical Society of Manchester, at their meeting on Wednesday last, on "The Mathematical Theory of Political Economy". M. Walras speaks of Mr. Jevons as joint discoverer with himself of this theory, but having, of course, the credit of its first publication; and Mr. Jevons appears to have a high respect for the opinion of M. Walras. Mr. Jevons complains of the neglect of his doctrines by English economists generally, but enumerates many foreigners who have given some sort of assent to them. Here, however, Mr. Jevons is not sufficiently precise. There are three propositions to which assent must be given by any one who is, strictly speaking, an adherent of Mr. Jevons' doctrine. The first is that some portions of the pure theory of political economy can be efficiently presented in mathematical language. No person who is in a position to understand what is meant by this proposition can withhold his assent from it. The second proposition is that Professor Jevons has, by means of this method, made improvements in the theory of political economy. This must be granted by all who follow his work; although those who are conversant with the literature of the subject will know that the exposition of the laws of exchange by means of functional equations is nearly forty years old, and will probably think that his contributions to this work are not the most important that have been made. The third proposition is that those of Mr. Jevons' reasonings which claim to be subversive of important positions held by Mill, do actually succeed in subverting them. Mr. Jevons does not distinctly state that any eminent economists have given in their adhesion directly to this proposition; and it is probable that few, if any, have done so. Curiously enough, another able writer has been tilting against Mill: the two have charged at ... opposite sides, and have fallen foul of each other. Professor Cairnes is astonished because Mill, instead of regarding his old doctrine of the Wages-fund as perfect, has introduced into it, to use Mill's own phrase, "the qualifications and limitations necessary to make it admissible" (1) . Professor Jevons, in support of the opinion that Mill's writings will be found to "consist to a large extent of ingenious sophisms", brings into prominence the statement that "already his exposition of the Wages-fund has been overthrown by Professor Cliffe Leslie" (2) . With regard to the whole of the wages-problem it may be said that Mr. Jevons and Mr. Cairnes in general see vividly each that class of considerations which the other almost ignores. Mr. Jevons devotes a considerable portion of his address to an examination of the sweeping condemnation of his account of utility with which Mr. Cairnes opens his last book. This book, otherwise so fascinating and instructive, is marred by a want of the sympathetic subtlety which enables a man to enter into the thoughts of those whose positions he believes himself to be assailing; and Mr. Jevons has no difficulty in showing that much of what is intended as an attack upon his theory of utility has no reference to the theory as held by him. Mr. Jevons' doctrine of "final utility", or of the relation that exists between the value-in-use of an additional unit of a commodity to a man and the amount of that commodity which he already has, is important even if it be not so new as he imagines it to be. His applications of it are striking and suggestive, and it happens that, if Mr. Cairnes had familiarised himself with them, he might have improved his new book in several regards. The address brings the two professors before us together. Professor Cairnes is graceful and sound. Professor Jevons is vigorous and original. Much of his inductive work is first-rate, and the address gives fresh evidence that the efficiency of his work for the abstract science
1. J.S. Mill, "Thorton on Labour and its Claims", Fortnightly Review, Vol. 5 N.S. (May and June 1869), pp. 505-18 and 680-700. Reprinted in J.M. Robson (editor), Essays on Economics and Society 1846-79; Collected Works of John Stuart Mill. Vol. V (University of Toronto Press, Toronto, 1967), pp. 633-88: see p. 643. Also see Leading Principles, pp. 158-60 (Part II, Ch. 1, §§ 4, 5).
2. The quoted phrases are from Jevons's address: see Black and Könekamp, Vol. VII, p. 77.
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