----------------- HES POSTING ----------------- I have two (again, perhaps, somewhat peripheral) comments on the discussions of 'economist'. 1) Certainly it is common in the ancient world, where Aristotle (for instance) used it in his discussion of economics as household management. To my way of thinking (influenced by Hegel, for instance), it is important to note that Aristotle talked, in the Politics, of the household and the polis (city or city-state), and so did not differentiate the sphere of household management into the family and civil society, as post-18th century 'economic' theory tends to do. So, I think, the use of terms deriving from 'economics' in classical theory from Homer and Aristotle up through the 18th century carry a very different meaning from the modern usage, which presumes the economic sphere (or the system of work and needs) as something separate not only from politics (which Aristotle and Homer saw) but also as something separate from family life (and perhaps other forms of social life and friendship). My understanding is that the query was really looking for the opening usages (in the 18th c.) of economist in its modern sense, as one who studies work and needs in a sphere of life separate from family and state. 2) If you are looking for 'modern' usages of 'economist' in the 18th c. or so, one thing that (perhaps perversely) interests me is to ask the inverse question: what are the latest usages of the term in its (Homeric- Aristotleian) traditional meaning, as 'household management'?? I have one answer: in Sarah Scott's *Millenium Hall*, a kind of feminist tract / utopia written in 1762 is the following passage, p. 109 in the Broadview Press 1995 edition: referring to park near a handsome country house, "We could plainly perceive it had been many years in the possession of good economists, who unprompted by necessity, did not think the profit that might arise from the sale a sufficient inducement to deprive it [the park] of some fine trees .... " Here "oeconomist" -- spelled with a dipthong in the original -- has its traditional household management meaning, which in this instance is at odds with -- indeed, opposite to -- the modern meaning of economist. Are there good later examples of the traditional meaning of economist? (The dipthong might be a give-away.) Peter G. Stillman ------------ FOOTER TO HES POSTING ------------ For information, send the message "info HES" to [log in to unmask]