The British economist and logician William Stanley Jevons was the son of Thomas Jevons, a Liverpool iron merchant, and Mary Anne Roscoe, a lady of some literary note. After early schooling at Liverpool, he attended University College School and University College, London, where he sat under Augustus De Morgan. In 1854 he left London to take up the post of assayer at the mint in Sydney, Australia, but returned five years later to complete his studies. Soon after, in 1863, he secured a junior teaching position at Owens College, Manchester. By this time he had already published various minor papers on meteorology and economics, a statistical study of commercial fluctuations, and a small work, titled Pure Logic (London, 1864, reprinted 1890), reflecting the influence of George Boole. His book on The Coal Question (London, 1865) attracted the attention of William Gladstone and was the first to make...