Samuel Bostaph said:  
> Hayek himself attributed the recognition of the spontaneous order of the  
> market economy to Adam Smith.  
  
Peter J Boettke said:  
>Polanyi (who I believe is the source of the term spontaneous order   
>for Hayek, not Mill) spoke of the "span of central control".  
  
  
However, the term "spontaneous order" was picked up  
by Hayek from John Stuart Mill who referred to the  
"spontaneous order of nature."  
  
I am reading these backward.  We just had Bruce Caldwell  
in to speak at my university yesterday.  He specifically claimed  
that it was from Mill and his reference to "the spontaneous order  
of nature" that Hayek got the phrase.  
  
Barkley Rosser