William Stanley Jevons - The Theory of Political Economy (1871)

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What capital I give for the spade merely replaces what the manufacturer had already invested in the expectation that the spade would be needed.

William Stanley Jevons
Some of the gold possessed by the Romans is doubtless mixed with what we now possess; and some small part of it will be handed down as long as the human race exists.

William Stanley Jevons
One of the first and most difficult steps in a science is to conceive clearly the nature of the magnitudes about which we are arguing.

William Stanley Jevons
There are many portions of economical doctrine which appear to me as scientific in form as they are consonant with facts.

William Stanley Jevons
The conclusion to which I am ever more clearly coming is that the only hope of attaining a true system of economics is to fling aside, once and forever, the mazy and preposterous assumptions of the Ricardian school. Our English economists have been living in a fool's paradise. The truth is with the French school, and the sooner we recognize the fact, the better it will be for all the world, except perhaps the few writers who are far too committed to the old erroneous doctrines to allow for renunciation.

William Stanley Jevons
I consider that interest is determined by the increment of produce which it enables a labourer to obtain, and is altogether independent of the total return which he receives for this labour.

William Stanley Jevons
There is no such thing as absolute cost of labour; it is all a matter of comparison. Every one gets the most which he can for his exertions; some can get little or nothing, because they have not sufficient strength, knowledge or ingenuity; others get much, because they have, comparatively speaking, a monopoly of certain powers.

William Stanley Jevons
Capital simply allows us to expend labour in advance.

William Stanley Jevons
The difficulties of economics are mainly the difficulties of conceiving clearly and fully the conditions of utility.

William Stanley Jevons
One pound invested for five years gives the same result as five pounds invested for one year, the product being five pound years.

William Stanley Jevons
A spade may be made of any size, and if the same number of strokes be made in the hour, the requisite exertion will vary nearly as the cube of the length of the blade.

William Stanley Jevons
It is clear that economics, if it is to be a science at all, must be a mathematical science.

William Stanley Jevons
It seems perfectly clear that Economy, if it is to be a science at all, must be a mathematical science. There exists much prejudice against attempts to introduce the methods and language of mathematics into any branch of the moral sciences. Most persons appear to hold that the physical sciences form the proper sphere of mathematical method, and that the moral sciences demand some other method-I know not what.

William Stanley Jevons
That in the same open market, at any one moment, there cannot be two prices for the same kind of article,

William Stanley Jevons
In any case I hold that there must arise a science of the development of economic forms and relations.

William Stanley Jevons
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 most sublime branch of mathematical science - the theory of probabilities?

William Stanley Jevons
In short, I do not write for mathematicians, nor as a mathematician, but as an economist wishing to convince other economists that their science can only be satisfactorily treated on an explicitly mathematical basis.

William Stanley Jevons
Economists can never be free of from difficulties unless they will distinguish between a theory and the application of a theory.

William Stanley Jevons
By a commodity we shall understand any object, substance, action or service, which can afford pleasure or ward off pain.

William Stanley Jevons
Labour once spent has no influence on the future value of any article; it isgone and lost for ever. In commerce bygones are forever bygones; and we are alwaysstarting clearat each moment, judging the values of things with a view to future utility.

William Stanley Jevons
In matters of philosophy and science authority has ever been the great opponent of truth. A despotic calm is usually the triumph of error. In the republic of the sciences sedition and even anarchy are beneficial in the long run to the greatest happiness of the greatest number.

William Stanley Jevons
PLEASURE and pain are undoubtedly the ultimate objects of the calculus of economics. To satisfy our wants to the utmost with the least effort - to procure the greatest amount of what is desirable at the expense of the least that is undesirable - in other words, to maximize pleasure, is the problem of economics.

William Stanley Jevons
But, in reality, there is no such thing as an exact science.

William Stanley Jevons
Thus monopoly is limited by competition, and no owner, whether of labour, land or capital, can, theoretically speaking, obtain a larger share of produce for it than what other owners of exactly the same kind of property are willing to accept.

William Stanley Jevons
I protest against deference to any man, whether John Stuart Mill, or Adam Smith, or Aristotle, being allowed to check inquiry. Our science has become far too much a stagnant one, in which opinions rather than experience and reason are appealed to.

William Stanley Jevons
We often observe that there is abundance of capital to be had at low rates of interest, while there are also large numbers of artisans starving for want of employment.

William Stanley Jevons
Ina regular and constant employment the greatest result will always be gained by such a rate as allows a workman each day, or each week at the most, to recover all fatigue and recommence with an undiminished store of energy.

William Stanley Jevons
Repeated reflection and inquiry have led me to the somewhat novel opinion, that value depends entirely upon utility.

William Stanley Jevons
An isolated man like Alexander Selkirk might feel the benefit of a stock of provisions, tools and other means of facilitating industry, although cut off from traffic, with other men.

William Stanley Jevons
A correct theory is the first step towards improvement, by showing what we need and what we might accomplish.

William Stanley Jevons