William Stanley Jevons
historical figure · 1 work · 1 mentions · 1 anchored passages · author page
Jevons
in the texts
Lectures on the Relation between Law and Public Opinion in England
Economist quoted at length arguing against fixed principles in social legislation, illustrating the decline of laissez-faire orthodoxy.
“It is futile,” writes Jevons in 1882, “to attempt to uphold, in regard to social legislation, any theory of eternal fixed principles or abstract rights.
We must resolve all these supposed principles and rights into the facts and probabilities which they are found to involve when we inquire into their real meaning.