ABSTRACT
This chapter revises available biographical evidence about Ricardo’s family and the kind of education he received. Evidence concerning Ricardo’s early interest in the natural sciences, considered by Sraffa to have had a more profound impact on Ricardo’s mind than Benthamite philosophy, is collected and interpreted. It discusses the circumstance that geology was the most innovative science of the time because of its recent discoveries and their impact on religious issues such as the Creation of the world and the Bible’s trustworthiness. It reconstructs the contents of a book for boys on mineralogy by one of Ricardo’s cousins. It lists Ricardo’s contacts at the Geological Society and ideas on scientific method circulating among geologists. It ends with the suggestion that, when historians of economic thought have believed it proper to try to take a trans-disciplinary look at the history of economic science, they have bought the history of science wholesale and drawn comparisons between Newtonian Astronomy and classical political economy. However, both political economy and geology date their origins at about the same time. Ricardo’s contacts are reconstructed, including Francis Horner, whom he first met at the Geological Society and was the first source of encouragement to write on economic subjects.
