I must confess I did not follow all the postings on this topic, so in case this is a
double, forget it.
  
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HB]  
  
  
As far as I read the postings, I did not see any reference to Max Weber's Roscher und
Knies und die logischen Probleme der historischen Nationaloekonomie of 1902. This is, for
several reasons, a good candidate for the origin of the meaning of the term spontaneous
order (as explained by Bruce Caldwell). In the English translation of 1975 we read that
the Historical School overlooked the "fundamental and substantive problem of economics"
that was posed "before and after Roscher." That was to find an answer to Mandeville's
fundamental question: "How are the origins and persistence of the institutions of economic
life to be explained, institutions which were not (cursivated in original) purposefully
created by collective means, but which nevertheless - from our point of view - function
pursposefully?" (Weber, 1975, 80). Weber continues that this was the problem posed by
Mandeville, in his Fable of the Bees, and "many of his successors, consciously or
unconsciously agreed with [his] view: economic self-interest is that power which ...
'always wills evil but does good'" (Weber, 1975, 83).
  
We can find Weber's assessment of Mandeville almost literally in Hayek's essay on
Mandeville (to my knowledge without the reference) which is all about spontaneous order.
  
Harro Maas