JEV'ONS, WILLIAM STANLEY (1835-82). An English economist, born in Liverpool. He was a grandson of William Roscoe, the eminent his torian. educated at University College, London, and made a fellow of his college in 1862. He held a position in the Sydney (Australia) mint. 1854 59. In 1866 he. received the appointment of profes sor of logic and mental and moral philosophy, and Cobden lecturer in political economy in Owens's College, Manchester; in 1872 he was elected a fellow of the Royal Society. and in 1876 received the honorary degree of LL.D. from the University of Edinburgh. During the latter year he was ap pointed professor of political economy in Uni versity College, London. Failing health caused him to relinquish his Manchester professorship in 1881. In the following year he was drowned while bathing at Bexhill. Sussex. Few writers of recent years have had a wider influence. His "Treatise on Logic" substitutes for the familiar conceptions a mathematical foundation of the syllogism, which has been widely adopted by later writers. Among theoretical economists he is
most widely known by his Theory of Political Economy. which develops the theory of marginal utility which has occupied a conspicuous place in writings of later theorists. His ability was many - sided, and he is best known to general readers by his Inresligatians in Currency and Finance, his Money and the Mechanism of Ex change, and especially by his work on the roof Question, which at the time of its publication (1S65) set all England in a ferment. The thesis of the work was the dependence of England upon coal. the approaching exhaustion of its de posits, and the gradual decline of English pre eminence in the industrial world. Jevons's con tributions to practical questions in the scientific journals were very numerous, and his name is identified with the literature of crises, railroads, prices, and statistics in addition to the topics already indicated.