IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/taf/rherxx/v40y2004i1p59-68.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Natura non facit saltum in Alfred Marshall (and Charles Darwin)

Author

Listed:
  • Geoffrey Fishburn

Abstract

The adage Natura non facit saltum was, as is well known, adopted by Alfred Marshall as the motto for his Principles of Economics, most probably as a borrowing from Charles Darwin’s Origin of Species. This paper examines Marshall’s use of the adage and argues that, on the whole, the ‘Darwinian’ promise implicit in its use was not realised: his intentions to the contrary, Marshall did not adequately succeed in his objective here. Two appendices provide, first, the original uses of Natura in Darwin, and, second, a history of its (and variant) uses, including the relevant passage from Linnæus.

Suggested Citation

  • Geoffrey Fishburn, 2004. "Natura non facit saltum in Alfred Marshall (and Charles Darwin)," History of Economics Review, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 40(1), pages 59-68, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:rherxx:v:40:y:2004:i:1:p:59-68
    DOI: 10.1080/18386318.2004.11681190
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/18386318.2004.11681190
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1080/18386318.2004.11681190?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:taf:rherxx:v:40:y:2004:i:1:p:59-68. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Chris Longhurst (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.tandfonline.com/rher .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.