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Marshall's oft-quoted (here again by Witold Kwasnicki) letter of advice to 
Bowley (about burning the mathematics) is not as straightforward as it 
might appear. This is taken up at length in "Chapter 1: Burn the 
Mathematics (Tripos)" 
in my How Economics Became a Mathematical Science (2002), in which the case 
is made that  
 
"[Marshall's]image of mathematics was formed by the early Victorian 
Mathematical Tripos of simple geometry, the drawing of cord segments and 
conic sections, simple statics, dynamics and the like.  His image was 
incompatible with either the late 19th century mathematics of 
physical-model based analysis, or that which was to supplant it in turn, 
the early 20th century move to axiomatics and mathematical-model based 
analysis. The former shift would have required a measurement-based 
mathematical economics, while the latter would have required a move away 
from the study of “mankind in the ordinary business of life.  
 
The paradox of Second Wrangler Marshall growing increasingly suspicious of 
mathematics has been seen as a problem for historians of economics from the 
perspective of an unchanging mathematics and a changing Marshall, a minor 
Das Alfred Marshall Problem: was Marshall’s view of mathematics continuous 
over his life, or did he change his mind about the role of mathematics in 
economics?  If the latter, the historian of economics then needs some 
explanation for Marshall's changes.  What I am suggesting is an inversion 
of the usual picture. I submit that there is considerable explanatory power 
in the suggestion that 
Marshall's image of mathematics was formed in his own Mathematical Tripos 
experience and was generally unchanged through his lifetime.  Marshall’s 
“advice” to Bowley was given by a 63 year old (nearly retired) scholar: I 
am reminded of the peroration in Keynes’s General Theory in which he notes 
that 'in the field of economic and political philosophy there are not many 
who are influenced by new theories after they are 25 or 30 years of 
age.'(Keynes 1936, 383-384)  So too for mathematics." (p. 24)  
 
E. Roy Weintraub 
Duke University 
 
 
 
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