Many thanks to everybody for the information. 
Michael, that was especially good information 
Marshall, who usually gets the praise or blame 
for the shift. I think the most salient line in 
the "science" debate is " Experience in 
controversies ... brings out the impossibility of 
learning anything from facts till they are 
examined and interpreted by reason; and teaches 
that the most reckless and treacherous of all 
theorists is he who professes to let facts and 
figures speak for themselves, who keeps in the 
background the part he has played, perhaps 
unconsciously, in selecting and grouping them, 
and in suggesting the argument post hoc ergo 
propter hoc.  [Marshall 1885, pp. 167 68]"  The 
pose of objectivity is always the first cover for 
ideology, as witness the experience of a certain 
"fair and balanced" news organization. It is 
interesting to know that Marshall himself had doubts about the project.

Nicholas, The modern OED has, of course, an 
excellent entry on "economics," the original did 
not. The work on "E" was completed in 1893, by 
which time the word had not come to the attention 
of the lexicographers. The original did have an 
entry for "economy" (with its mainly Aristotelian 
meaning) and a sub-entry for political economy, 
with the meaning that "economics" now has.

The purpose of the change is to make political 
economy more "scientific." But the impression I 
get is that when Jevons said "science," he meant 
"like physics"; Marshall merely meant "more 
rigorous." Economics isn't like physics, and the 
attempt to treat it so makes it less rigorous.


John C. M?daille