Item 85 - William Whewell to Richard Jones

Trinity College - WW thinks RJ has made the right decision in 'the matter of publishing' [limiting his first book to rent - see WW to RJ, 21 May 1830: 'An Essay on the Distribution of Wealth, and on the Sources of Taxation: Part 1. - Rent', 1831]: 'It will save you and me the endless annoyances and impossibilities which we incur by trying to print a book which is still to write, as if it were already written'. WW is grateful for RJ pointing out Dupin's [Charles Dupin] speculations: 'Do you not see that they are all mere mathematical consequences of Gregory King's [probably King's 'Natural and Political Observations and conclusions Upon the State and Condition of England', 1696] talk of the dependence of price on quantity which I told you was necessary for all mathematical working? They appear to me very useless on the account you mention and on some others which I will explain to you some day. I have still a great hankering after my plan of driving the dogmatical school of political economy into their proper region of mathematics, and a growing conviction of the possibility of doing this with great profit'.