“All acts of reasoning seem to me to be different cases of one uniform process which may perhaps be best described as the substitution of similars. ..The chief difficulty consists in showing that all the forms of the old logic, as well as the fundamental rules of mathematical reasoning, may be explained upon the same principle; and it is to this difficult task I have devoted the most attention.”
“You will perceive that economy, scientifically speaking, is a very contracted science; it is in fact a sort of vague mathematics which calculates the causes and effects of man's industry, and shows ho...”
William Stanley Jevons
“One of the most important axioms is, that as the quantity of any commodity, for instance, plain food, which a man has to consume, increases, so the utility or benefit derived from the last portion use...”
William Stanley Jevons
“When quite young I can remember I had no thought or wish of surpassing others. I was rather taken with a liking of little arts and bits of learning. My mother carefully fostered a liking for botany, g...”
William Stanley Jevons
“I used to think I should like to be a bookbinder or bookseller it seemed to me a most delightful trade and I wished or thought of nothing better. More lately I thought I should be a minister, it seeme...”
William Stanley Jevons
“It was during the year 1851, while living almost unhappily among thoughtless, if not bad companions, in Gower Street a gloomy house on which I now look with dread it was then, and when I had got a qui...”
William Stanley Jevons