ABSTRACT
Charles Darwin and Herbert Spencer provide a bridge from the natural theology of William Paley and Malthus to thinkers like W. Stanley Jevons, Alfred Marshall and John Bates Clark who write in an era where evolutionary thought assumes the status of scientific truth. In departure from my usual practice, I provide only a sketch, only what I think necessary to build on past chapters and read later ones, and I work principally from secondary sources. I discuss Darwin first, though Spencer begins thinking about social evolution prior to the circulation of Darwin’s work, grounding it in the work of Jean-Baptiste Lamarck (1744–1829). 1 Though gesturing to Darwin, it is Spencer who has greater influence on early economists. I end with some reflections drawn from Stephen Jay Gould that point to the confused legacy that the notion of evolution leaves for economic thought.
