Item 63 - William Whewell to Richard Jones

3 pp.

Trinity College - WW has sent his paper to the press ['Mathematical Exposition of Some Doctrines of Political Economy', 1829]: 'I have not much more expectation than you have that mathematics will for a long time to come be an important instrument in advancing political economy, but I think that even now it may prevent people from drawing wrong conclusions from the data they have got and may systematize and illustrate some of the causes of reasoning which the Ricardists consider to be important though you do not. They certainly have gone wrong in some instances of bad calculation alone'. WW now wants 'the proportion of the whole capital employed (on the average) to the last dose that is to that which on the same quantity of land is driven into or out of employment by a change - and this I suppose it is impossible to learn - and probably it depends on various causes besides demand and supply - But you will observe that it is not I who want this element but the Ricardists who will construct their theories upon it'. WW hopes his work 'will prevent my friends the young mathematicians from looking with too profound and unquestioning an awe upon the crabbed dogmatizing of the millions'.