3The article argues that Jevons’s understanding of consumption derived from Richard Jennings’s (1814-1891) Natural Elements of Political Economy (1855), which integrated the new principles of physiological psychology that emerged in the nineteenth century into the framework of political economy. Jennings was considered an outsider in the field of political economy, and historians of economics have paid little attention to his Natural Elements of Political Economy (with the exception of White, 1994a; Chaigneau, 2002; Maas, 2005). Yet Jennings (1855, 103) was critical of the classical theory of value, and in his Natural Elements, he challenged Mill’s conception of the natural desire to consume and the act of consumption, enabling him to develop his “law of variation in quantity,” which Jevons ([1871] 2013, III) adopted under the name of “law of variation of utility”. Unlike Mill, Jennings did not believe that the human desire to consume was merely a mental phenomenon leading to the act of consumption. For Jennings, it was the contact with matter experienced during previous consumption that generated bodily sensations and created the desire to consume. These sensations, remembered in the body, subsequently served as motivations for future consumption. Future consumption could be anticipated and calculated based on the intensity and duration of sensations experienced during past consumption, which, in turn, could inform production and industry. For Jennings, consumption should thus be the first focus of political economy, with consumption being governed by a “natural law.” The development of physiological psychology, as integrated in Jennings’ work, led Jevons to the new conceptualisation of consumption in terms of marginal utility. In the process, the meaning of consumption changed, reflecting the transition from the labour theory of value to the marginalist theory. Consumption no longer meant the wasteful destruction of wealth, as it had for classical economists (Villeneuve, 2025). It was no longer an end in itself, the end of political economy, as it was for Mill. Instead, it referred to the use of wealth as a means to maximise satisfaction, and therefore, as one driver of production.

4The article is organised as follows. Section 1 examines the psychological developments that occurred in the nineteenth century, which led Jennings to integrate the principles of physiological psychology into political economy. Section 2 shows how Jennings challenged Mill’s conceptualisation of consumption, enabling the reintegration of consumption into the framework of the science of political economy. Section 3 shows that Jevons’ view on consumption derived from Jennings and remained connected to the psychology of human nature, with a “natural law” of human behaviour still lying at the foundation of political economy in the 1870s. Additionally, Section 3 shows that Jevons’ conceptualisation of consumption extended beyond his law of variation of utility. In his other works, Jevons emphasised the “wise” use or consumption of wealth as a means to improve the moral character of the working class or to preserve resources for future generations. The section highlights that the Victorian moral foundations of consumption remained central for Jevons.

1. A Brief History of the Quantification of Feelings in Nineteenth-Century Victorian England

if we examine closely, we shall find that this feeling, of our being able to modify our own character if we wish, is itself the feeling of moral freedom which we are conscious of. A person feels morally free who feels that his habits or his temptations are not his masters, but he theirs: who even in yielding to them knows that he could resist. (Mill, [1843] 1974, II.VI.2, italics in the original)

2. Richard Jennings and the Natural Elements of Political Economy

9Little is known about Richard Jennings (1814-1891). He was educated at Eton and Trinity College, Cambridge. He later became a lawyer and subsequently served as Deputy Lieutenant and High Sheriff of Carmarthenshire in Wales. Jennings is regarded as an early marginalist, critical of Ricardo’s labour theory of value and remembered for his attempts to connect the study of psychology and physiology with political economy (Black, 2018). Among nineteenth-century political economists, Jennings was considered an outsider and was read by few, John Elliott Cairnes (1823-1875) and Jevons being notable exceptions (Maas, 2005, 63). In 1855, Jennings published Natural Elements of Political Economy, in which he discussed several “natural laws” of human action. These laws were rooted in the idea of reflex or spontaneous action, a concept fundamental to physiological psychology (White, 1994a, 211). The following section explains how Jennings’s natural laws were relevant to understand activities such as consumption. Jennings proposed a new definition of consumption, which could explain its occurrence as a spontaneous action.

2.1 The New Definition of Consumption

10In Natural Elements of Political Economy (1855), Jennings took issue with Mill on the distinction he established between the art and science of political economy in his essay, “On the Definition of Political Economy; and on the Method of Investigation Proper to It” published in 1836. For Jennings, it was an error to think that political economy could be practiced as an independent art (1855, 55), as Mill argued before him. For Jennings, the scientific meaning of the art of political economy referred to legislation. The art of political economy arbitrated over property by the law. On the other hand, Jennings argued that the science of political economy was “the branch of philosophy which explains several important relations of man and matter” (72). Jennings argued that there was “a greater and a lesser Political-economy” (56). Greater political economy included subjects such as “education, population and police,” while the lesser political economy was “limited to the production, the distribution and the consumption of property” (56). Here, Jennings reintegrated the category of consumption into the definition of the scope of political economy from which it had been excluded by Mill in his 1836 essay.

11Jennings argued that the subject of the abstract science of political economy was to determine the laws connecting the mental and physical phenomena that regulated economic activities, including consumption and exchange (1855, 10). Exchange involved the comparison of quantities and qualities (a mental phenomenon), and the decision and execution of the act of exchange itself (a physical phenomenon). Similarly, consumption entailed the absorption of material objects (a physical phenomenon) and the sensation of satisfaction (a mental phenomenon). For Jennings, the physical conditions of the subject of political economy had already been explored. However, the relation between the mental and physical conditions of the subject remained to be investigated (1855, 11-12).

12According to Jennings, the relation between the mental and physical conditions of the subject of political economy rested on a chain of causation between these two elements that could run inwards, from matter to ideas (from physical to mental) or outwards, from ideas to matter (1855, 22). In the instance of consumption, the outward chain of causation ran from the conception or idea of a valuable object in the mind, to the desire to possess the object, the gratification of the desire by the will and the exertion of the bodily parts to affect external matter (1855, 22). Jennings argued (1855, 24) that psychology was, at the time, already examining these laws of the mind as they extended outward for the purposes of practical art—namely, for the guidance of productive actions. The outward chain of causation characterised John Stuart Mill’s reasoning. For Mill, the laws of the mind extended outwards from idea to matter. It was the idea of a valuable object that led to the desire to possess it and, ultimately, to the act of consumption and interaction with external matter. The classical theory of value that Mill followed underpins this understanding. For Mill, value came from labour but also created utility. Consumption, therefore, operated after the conception of value. It was an end in itself, the end of political economy and thus placed within the realm of the practical art of domestic economy (Villeneuve, 2024). In contrast, Jennings (1855) argued that the laws of the mind could operate before the conception of value and could be applied to serve the purposes of the science of political economy. In that instance, the laws of the mind extended inward, from matter to ideas.

matter comes in contact with human organs externally, as in consumption, … from these causes there arise sensations, which are more or less satisfactory … ; these sensations, when remembered together with the objects, or together with the actions in which they originated, give rise to complex conceptions, in which the objects and the actions are regarded as more or less valuable. (Jennings, 1855, 24)

14After having refined the definition of consumption and its psychological foundations, Jennings went on to elaborate “The Laws of Variation in Quantity.” By linking consumption to matter and physiology, Jennings discarded the classical labour theory of value and made the quantification of feelings possible. This enabled the new conceptualisation of consumption in terms of marginal utility to emerge, as explained in the following section.

2.2 The “Laws of Variation in Quantity”

15Jennings (1855, 83) proceeded to analyse the sensations triggered by “the consumption, production, and distribution” of exchangeable property. In doing so, he reversed the order established by previous political economists—namely, production, distribution, and consumption. Jennings argued that he started with consumption since it is only with this that “human nature is occupied during the earliest years of life” (Jennings, 1855, 83). For Jennings, the new motivation driving consumption was past experience of consumption or contact with matter, which generated sensations subsequently remembered in the body. Among them, Jennings categorised “common sensations” such as “the sensations of resistance communicated by the muscular sense,” “the sensations of temperature,” “the sensations consequent upon the gratification of appetite or the alleviation of want conveyed by food of unnumerable kinds,” “the sensations produced by stimulants” such as alcohol, tobacco, opium, theine and caffeine (Jennings, 1855, 92). He also mentioned “special sensations” such as those “conveyed by the natural power of the five senses as originally constituted,” namely “the charms of colour,” “the pleasures of literature,” “the sweet odours imbibed from the essences of costly extracts” or “the luscious taste which the palate derives from elaborated substances” (Jennings, 1855, 92). These common and special sensations were driven by different kinds of commodities consumed, namely “primary” and “secondary” commodities (Jennings, 1855, 93). Jennings argued that the distinction between the two was similar to that between necessaries and luxuries. Still, he introduced new categories because the boundary between necessaries and luxuries was never clear or stable over time.

16Jennings argued that the consumption of primary commodities generated immediate and absolute sensations, which varied according to changes in the quantity of the commodity consumed. Additionally, he argued that “the law which expresses the relation of degrees of sensation to quantities of commodities is of this character, - if the average or temperate quantity of commodities be increased, the satisfaction derived is increased in a less degree, and ultimately ceases to be increased at all” (Jennings, 1855, 93). Jennings referred to this principle as the “laws of variation in quantity,” which Jevons picked up and is commonly known today as the law of diminishing marginal utility. Yet, Jennings’ analysis extended further. He claimed that the sensations produced by consuming secondary commodities were relative and depended on the prior consumption of primary commodities. According to Jennings, “who, when suffering from hunger or thirst, pinched by cold, oppressed by heat, or pining for exercise, would fully enjoy the charms of the flower-garden, the statue-gallery, or the opera?” (Jennings, 1855, 95). Additionally, he argued that changes in the quantity of secondary commodities consumed were less noticeably felt than changes in the amount of primary commodities consumed (Jennings, 1855, 102). Jennings laws of variation in quantity focused on “primary” commodities, or necessities of life in the vocabulary of classical economists. This law did not extend to higher forms of consumption beyond subsistence, although Jennings acknowledged that the latter was necessary for the consumption of “secondary” commodities to become a source of pleasure. This implies that a hierarchy of consumption still existed in Jennings’ analysis, which extended to Jevons’ analysis (Section 3). In any case, this conceptualisation of different degrees of consumption and the interactions between them was not very precise.

17Jennings (1855, 124) next turned to the “higher stage of mental inquiry,” focusing on the laws of the mind, preceded by changes occurring within the mind, whether they be sensations, ideas, or emotions. According to Jennings, the sensations previously examined and associated with external objects consumed (law of variation in quantity) were mentally recalled in the body based on their intensity and features, being either satisfactory or toilsome. By the mental association of these sensations with the objects and actions they accompanied, they were assigned a sense of value in the mind. This value was then evaluated by judgment and chosen by the will, which ultimately drove the actions of consumption, distribution, and production (Jennings, 1855, 124). For Jennings, a prior contact with matter and external objects determined the conception of value, in contrast to Mill, for whom the contact with matter during consumption came after the conceptualisation of a valuable object in the mind. Among these higher stages of mental inquiry, Jennings (1855, 128-129) distinguished three classes: the emotive faculties comprising “those properties of our ideas in consequence of which they cause actions,” as well as the principles of association or suggestion and the principles of combination. Jennings argued that political economy specifically investigated the emotive faculties that caused actions, since it had to understand, beforehand, how the operations of productive industry were carried out.

19Jennings (1855, 137) noted that consumers did not always consciously aim for more consumption. Instead, actions were frequently performed “without the attention, or the intention, or even the excitement of consciousness in the mind of the agent, being the simply automatic or instinctive effects of either Sensations, Ideas, or Emotions”. For Jennings, consumption was understood as a spontaneous action and induction was not the required methodology to analyse it. He argued that observation of consumption in the society was unnecessary, as there was a natural law governing these spontaneous actions, namely that “each course of action varies as the state of mind producing it” (Jennings 1855, 142). For Jennings,

when this conclusion has become evident, the mystery of action is solved, the necessity for observing a confused multitude of movements is at an end, and predictions of the future course of Production, of Interchange, and of Consumption, cease to be empirical, since it is now only necessary to determine their causes, and to deduce from them their natural consequences. (Jennings, 1855, 142)

20As described above, the natural law that explained consumption was tied to the “common” and “special” sensations experienced during the consumption of “primary” or “secondary” commodities. According to Jennings, this natural law involved the functions of the “afferent nerves,” which were responsible for transmitting sensations from the object consumed to the body (Jennings, 1855, 142). The functions of the “efferent nerves” were to initiate actions. Yet, Jennings acknowledged that consumption was not always the result of spontaneous action but could also involve the consideration of time. Disturbing factors could affect consumption over time, such as fluctuations in hunger and thirst (Jennings, 1855, 147). However, in the absence of disturbing factors, consumption was found to be consistently performed over time: “in any number of succeeding years (after the changes of population and the effects of physical causes have been brought into calculation), so nearly the same amount of food, fuel, raiment, and other perishable articles are found to be consumed” (Jennings, 1855, 150).

21Political economy could only exist for Jennings because of the mental combination of different phenomena: past memory, confidence in the future, abstraction and comparison. The combination of these phenomena could explain the “complex conception” and numerical measurement of the value of commodities that made possible the modes of consumption, production, and exchange carried out in human societies (Jennings, 1855, 166). From this conception of value arose the desire for accumulation (Jennings, 1855, 188). When this desire was firmly entrenched in the minds of wealthy capitalists, it became the primary driver behind industry and the main reason explaining why some nations were wealthy while others remained poor (Jennings, 1855, 189). However, the desire for accumulation was for Jennings due to “a mental principle, of a curious and almost paradoxical nature, which has only become known to psychologists through their investigations into some of the strangest anomalies of human character” (Jennings, 1855, 190). The desire for accumulation did not stem from the value derived from the consumption of objects experienced in the past, but from the fact that the object became valued in itself, independently of a past or future pleasure (Jennings, 1855, 191).

22The influence of Jennings on Jevons’s conception of consumption was crucial. According to Jevons,

• 13 Jevons referred to other previous political economists such as Nassau Senior as predecessors of his (...)

the writer … who appears to me to have most clearly appreciated the nature and importance of the law of utility, is Richard Jennings, who, in 1855, published a small book called the Natural Elements of Political Economy … . It will be seen that the law, as I state it, is no novelty, and that careful deduction from principles in our possession is alone needed to give us a correct Theory of Economics. (Jevons, [1871] 2013, III.55)13

23Following his predecessors in the development of deductive principles, Jevons saw no need to observe consumption directly, as he believed a natural law governed this activity. This natural law, or ‘universal principle’ that caused consumption, only needed to be investigated. Jevons’s theory of consumption primarily focused on the theory of utility and the law of variation of utility, which could explain consumption.

3. Jevons’s Conceptualisation of Consumption

25For Jevons, scientific reasoning consisted in anticipating “natural laws” (Schabas, 1990, 71). His Theory of Political Economy involved “tracing out of the mechanics of self-interest and utility” (Jevons, [1871] 2013, xvii-xviii) or “’the natural laws’ of the variation of utility, as depending upon the quantity of commodity in our possession” (Jevons, [1871] 2013, 2). Similarly to Jennings, Jevons argued that by examining the causes driving production and consumption, the latter could be deduced from these causes or natural laws. For Jevons, these general principles were also universal: “the first principles of political economy are so widely true and applicable that they may be considered universally true as regards human nature” (Jevons, 1880, 197). His law of the variation of utility was the natural and universal law explaining consumption, which was a deductive principle.

there is no reason whatever why we should not have those statistics, except the cost and trouble of collecting them, and the unwillingness of persons to afford information … In a few cases we already have information approximating to completeness, as when a commodity like tea, sugar, coffee, or tobacco is wholly imported. But when articles are untaxed, and partly produced within the country, we have yet the vaguest notions of the quantities consumed. (Jevons, [1871] 2013, 22)

27Following Jennings, Jevons’s law of the variation utility was based on the deductive method and developed using mathematics, aiming to estimate the quantities that the population would actually consume, as explained in the following section. In practice, these quantities should be verified by statistics.

3.1 Jevons’s Law of Variation of Utility

28Jevons’s theory of consumption began by deriving his theory of utility and “the law of variation of utility,” which drew inspiration from Jennings’ “Law of the Variation of Quantity.” In contrast to Mill’s views on the “laws of human enjoyment” and their exclusion from the science of economics, Jevons ([1871] 2013, III.39) contended that “it is surely obvious that Economics does rest upon the laws of human enjoyment” and “if these laws are developed by no other science, they must be developed by economists”.

31Prior to Jevons, Jennings had argued that the law of diminishing pleasure focused on primary commodities because secondary commodities could only be consumed if the needs for primary commodities had been satisfied. Jevons acknowledged the natural aspect of the lowest range of feelings, asserting that “starting with the lowest stage – it is a man’s duty, as it is his natural inclination, to earn sufficient food and whatever else may best satisfy his proper and moderate desires” (Jevons, [1871] 2013, I.25 emphasis added by author). Concerning the consumption of conveniences or luxuries, Jevons claimed that “a higher calculus of moral right and wrong would be needed to show how he may best employ that wealth for the good of others as well as himself” (Jevons, [1871] 2013, I.26). Jevons did not provide a detailed explanation of how to proceed with the higher form of calculus needed to consider the best way to “consume” or “employ” wealth, for oneself and for others. However, this idea remained significant in his work and will be further explored in Section 3.3, highlighting the fact that a hierarchy of consumption still existed in Jevons's work, beyond the mathematical calculus of utility.

32Jevons’s “law of the variation of utility,” was the natural and universal principle that could explain consumption. Similarly to Jennings, consumption did not need to be observed through induction as the mathematical computation of this universal law would suffice to explain it and estimate the quantities that the population would consume. It was possible for Jevons to include the “laws of human enjoyment” in the theory of political economy, which was based on quantity and mathematics. The quantitative estimation of pleasure and pain and of the variation of utility was, for Jevons as it was for Jennings, linked to the ability to recall sensations from the past. Yet, the objective of the law was to estimate the quantities that would be consumed in the future in order to inform industry of production plans. In line with Jennings, another key aspect of Jevons’s conception of consumption was the ability to anticipate. Jevons argued in his Mathematical Theory that “a principle of the mind which any true theory must take into account is that of foresight” (Jevons, 1866). For Jevons, the ability to anticipate consumption was one of the driving forces behind industry, as the following section explains.

3.2 Anticipation of Future Consumption

33For Jevons, an object was considered useful if it provided immediate sensory pleasure or was expected to do so in the future through foresight. It was important for Jevons to distinguish between the actual utility derived from present use and the estimated future utility. The latter still held a certain present utility once the imperfect force of anticipation and the uncertainty of future events were acknowledged (Jevons, 1866). In the Theory of Political Economy, Jevons contended that “the greatest force of feeling and motive arises from the anticipation of a long-continued future” (Jevons, [1871] 2013, 34). Jevons’s “feeling of the future” had previously been described by Jennings as “belief in the future” or “confidence in the future” (Jevons, 1855, 205). For Jevons, this feeling served as the driving force behind industry. His theory of consumption was based on the anticipation of future consumption, which enabled production plans to be carried out.

we labour to produce with the sole object of consuming, and the kinds and amounts of goods produced must be determined with regard to what we want to consume. Every manufacturer knows and feels how closely he must anticipate the tastes and needs of his customers: his whole success depends upon it; and, in like manner, the theory of Economics must begin with a correct theory of consumption. (Jevons, [1871] 2013, 40)

35Additionally, the capacity to anticipate led to the accumulation of material goods, or a “stock of pleasure” for Jevons, which was not intended to be consumed in the present but in the future. This was characteristic of that “class or race of men” who lived in a “state of civilization” (Jevons, [1871] 2013, 35). In contrast, only “the untutored savage” or “the child” focused on the pleasures of immediate consumption, which were merely “ripples on the tide of achievement and hope” (Jevons, [1871] 2013, 35). For Jevons, the feeling of the future was the driving force behind industry and saving. He argued that a happy man could look forward to greater material possessions, regardless of how low his social position or how limited his current possessions were (Jevons, [1871] 2013, 35). Jevons challenged Mill, who argued that the desire for the “present enjoyment” of costly indulgences was a disturbing cause of the desire for wealth. For Jevons, consumption had a temporal dimension (see also Peart, 1996, 86): “for goods must be consumed in time … to say that a town consumes fifty million gallons of water is unmeaning per se. Before we can form any judgment about the statement, we must know whether it is considered in a day, or a week, or a month” (Jevons, [1871] 2013, 64-65). He emphasised that “time enters into all economic questions. We live in time, and think and act in time; we are in fact altogether the creatures of time. Accordingly, it is the rate of supply, rate of production, rate of consumption, per unit of time that we shall be treating” (Jevons, [1871] 2013, 65).

3.3 Consumption and the Social Question

37It has often been argued that political economy was separated from its moral foundations at the end of the eighteenth century (for example Cot and Lallement, 1996). However, moral and ethical considerations continued to play a significant role throughout the nineteenth century, particularly in the work of Mill and Jevons. Both Mill and Jevons were utilitarians with a strong interest in social reform. Jevons shared aspects of Mill’s political stance on socialism, believing that government intervention was necessary but limited, especially in addressing social issues such as education, sanitation, housing, and recreation (Schabas, 1990, 29). For Jevons, the primary welfare problem was the persistent poverty endured by the masses, and he aimed to encourage independent and responsible behaviour (Peart, 1990, 284; see also Sekerler Richiardi, 2010). Education was a significant factor in achieving the economic and intellectual independence of the working class, which also motivated Jevons to advocate for its public provision (Peart, 1990, 288-292). More generally, the idea of improving the moral character of the poor working-class through education was a recurring theme in nineteenth-century Victorian England.

38However, Jevons departed from Mill’s Utilitarianism in a review published in 1879. Jevons particularly disagreed with Mill’s idea that higher pleasures were qualitative (White, 1994b). While he concurred with Mill’s distinction between high and low pleasures, Jevons thought that pleasures could be ranked as “high” or “low” according to Bentham’s dimensions: length, intensity, certainty, fruitfulness, purity, and extent (Peart, 1990, 287). As explained earlier, Jevons did not provide a mathematical solution to calculate these higher pleasures.

39Jevons’s focus was on the means to achieve the greater good – that is, the development of society and the improvement of the working class. Consumption, or the use of wealth, was no longer understood as an end in itself and could be used as a means for something else, such as the improvement of the working class. In his later work, Political Economy, published in 1880, Jevons criticised the “fallacy of consumption,” arguing that “it is simple folly to approve of consumption for its own sake … In spending our wealth, we ought to think solely of the advantage which people get out of that spending” (Jevons, 1880, 21-22). For Jevons,

The question really comes to this, whether people are made happier by more fancy balls, or by more railways. A fancy ball creates amusement at the time, but it costs a great deal of money, especially to the guests who buy expensive costumes. When it is over there is no permanent result, and no one is much the better for it. The railway, on the other hand, is no immediate cause of pleasure, but it cheapens goods by enabling them to be carried more easily: it allows people to live in the country, instead of the crowded town, or it carries them on pleasant and wholesome excursions. (Jevons, 1880, 23)

40Jevons (1880, 24) also criticised “the fallacy of non-consumption,” arguing that “wealth must be fitted for use and consumption in some way or other”. He maintained that “what we have to do is to endeavour to spend our means so as to get the greatest real happiness for ourselves, our relatives, friends, and all other people whom we ought to consider” (Jevons, 1880, 24). Jevons’s focus was on the “wise” use or consumption of wealth, cautioning against indulging in “unproductive consumption” for its own sake. While consumers could make sound consumption choices under fixed prices and income constraints, matters became more complex when uneducated and impoverished individuals were confronted with long-term decision making, a view typically shared by Victorian economists (Peart, 1996, 7). For Jevons, savings were insufficient among the working classes, who were also unable to make informed decisions regarding family size (Peart, 1996, 7). Education was a powerful institution that could enhance the ability of the working class to consume their wealth wisely, benefiting both their future and that of society.

41In his “Inaugural Address as President of the Manchester Statistical Society on The Work of the Society in Connection with the Questions of the Day,” delivered on the 10^th of November, 1869 and republished in Methods of Social Reform (1883), Jevons acknowledged that education could enhance the capacity of the working class to consume wisely and improve the necessity of foresight

As pauperism is the general resultant of all that is wrong in our social arrangements it cannot be destroyed by any single measure; it can only be reduced by such exertions as raise the intelligence and provident habits of the people. Material well-being has comparatively little effect, for, however high the wages of an artisan may be, they may be spent intemperately, and on the slightest reverse of fortune his family or himself may come to the workhouse. It is distressing to find that a population such as that surrounding this city, which, on the whole, perhaps, has as great a command of good food and all the comforts of life as any in the world, has nothing to fall back upon, no accumulated savings of consequence, and that they are, therefore, ever ready upon the least breath of adversity to come upon the public funds. No people can be really well off unless to their material prosperity be joined habits of providence and foresight, which will lead them to fortify themselves in the position they have once attained. (Jevons, 1883, 187)

42In the essay “Amusements of the People,” originally published in October 1878 in the Contemporary Review and reprinted in Methods of Social Reform (1883), Jevons argued that improving the low state of musical education among the working class was a means to a higher civilisation (Peart, 1990, 293; see also Mosselmans, 2013, 101). He stated that “choral society giving free concerts with a view of elevating the taste of the poorer classes” (Jevons, 1883, 16) was one of the ways to wisely consume wealth in order to improve the conditions of the working class. Encounters with art and culture were another solution discussed by nineteenth-century Victorians to improve the moral character of the working class. Art was seen as a means of improving the moral character of society (Maas, 2005, 104), which constituted a better form of amusement than spending money on drinking. For Jevons, “most people are so fond of spending their money on passing amusements, entertainments, eating and drinking, and fine dressing, that it is a distinct advantage to have other people who will put their wealth into a more permanent useful form” (Jevons, 1880, 23-24). The consumption of higher pleasures was not an end in itself, as it was for Mill, but a means toward the development and improvement of society.

43Finally, Jevons referred to the wise use or consumption of wealth to preserve resources for future generations in The Coal Question published in 1865. Alluding to the consumption of coal, Jevons argued that the unrestricted use of the material wealth provided by Providence should not be restricted but instead used wisely and purposefully. While the use of wealth for luxury, ostentation, and corruption would be subject to criticism, he maintained that it was his generation’s duty and responsibility to use it to improve the social and moral well-being of society and to ease the burdens of future generations (Jevons, 1865, xxv-xxvi). Similarly, in a lecture given at Carpenters’ Hall in Manchester in January 1867, Jevons argued that future generations would not blame his generation for using coal “economically” and obtaining “the best possible return for it,” rather than burning it “needlessly upon waste heaps.” If wealth was used wisely, for example, in “providing education,” “improving the dwellings,” or reducing pauperism by supporting “libraries and institutions or anything that will increase the power and improve the character of our people” instead of squandering it on “luxury and mismanagement,” then future generations would not blame them for using coal too rapidly (Jevons, 1867, 27-28 cited in Missemer, 2012). Jevons’s generation was permitted to consume coal intensively, with the understanding that it would be transformed into wealth for future generations, who could benefit from improved infrastructure and knowledge, even if they no longer had access to cheap, high-quality coal (Missemer, 2012, 100).

Conclusion

44This article argues that the development of a new psychological approach, physiological-psychology, enabled Richard Jennings and William Stanley Jevons to reincorporate a “theory of consumption” into the scientific framework of political economy in the mid-nineteenth century. In doing so, they challenged Mill’s understanding of consumption as a practice analysed by induction and observation, and thus situated not in the science of political economy but in the art of domestic economy. Physio-psychologists questioned Mill’s understanding that the desire to consume was solely a mental phenomenon. Instead, the new perspective of physiological psychology contended that sensations resulted from prior interactions between matter and body, which, in the nineteenth century, began to be conceptualised as the driving force behind consumption. Following these developments, Jennings argued that only the “natural law” governing sensations required investigation, and from there, consumption could be deduced. Consumption did not need to be studied through induction; instead, it could be explained through the development of deductive principles.

45Building on Jennings’s ideas, Jevons developed his mathematical theory of political economy, in which the theory of utility and, specifically, the “law of the variation of utility” was the deductive principle leading to consumption. This natural and universal principle could be quantified and measured to inform production and industry. As such, consumption became the first focus of political economy. It was no longer seen as an end in itself, the destruction of wealth, or the end of political economy. Instead, consumption was viewed as the ‘use’ of wealth and as a means to maximise happiness. While Jevons’s conceptualisation of consumption paved the way for the neoclassical analysis of consumer behaviour, his understanding remained rooted in the psychological foundations of human behaviour. Economists only distanced themselves from Jevons’s psychological theories after his death in 1882. The separation between economics and psychology was effective by the 1930s (Davies, 2016, 61; see also Hands, 2010). Additionally, Jevons’s conceptualisation of consumption retained its moral foundation in the late 1870s, and his focus was on the wise consumption of wealth in order to preserve resources for future generations or elevate the moral character of the working class.

46The marginal revolution introduced a new perspective on consumption within political economy; yet consumption had previously been important to political economists such as John Stuart Mill. Based on the definition of the concept and the methodological approach of political economists, it was, nevertheless, not always considered part of the science of political economy. The different conceptualisation that existed before the marginal revolution, in the works of Mill, could not be understood notably because Jevons read the past in search of precursors of marginal utility theory, which subsequently prevented historians of economic thought from looking for alternative conceptualisations of consumption in economic thought. This explains the lack of literature on consumption in economic thought before the late nineteenth century.

47Jevons did not directly follow Mill’s ideas on consumption, as the nineteenth century offered a wealth of perspectives from which to draw. Instead, he drew inspiration from Richard Jennings and the scientific concerns of his time, particularly regarding consumption in a world that was becoming increasingly materialistic. In the twentieth century, historians of economic thought primarily focused on the history of concepts like “value” and “distribution” when examining the political economy of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. As a result, they argued that a rupture occurred between the classical school and the marginalists, particularly in their conceptualisation of value. This article presents a different narrative by focusing on other concepts, such as consumption. It explains that early nineteenth-century British political economists initiated changes that were later continued by marginalist economists, such as redefining consumption as “use” rather than “destruction” and developing deductive principles, thereby challenging the idea that there was an apparent rupture in economic thought in the 1870s.

Earlier versions of this article were presented at the 28th ESHET Annual Conference in Turin (ESHET-INEM Session), the 55th THETS Annual Meeting in Warwick, the AOH Seminar in Paris, and the AUP Seminar on the History of Political Economy in Paris. I am grateful to all the participants of these conferences and seminars for their valuable feedback. I would like to extend special thanks to Maxime Desmarais-Tremblay, Will Davies, Margaret Schabas, Daria Pignalosa, Francesco Sergi, Steve Medema, Antoine Missemer and Michel Zouboulakis, as well as to the editors of this journal and the three anonymous referees for their insightful comments on earlier drafts of this manuscript.