Using biographical information, we will describe the case of William Stanley Jevons. We describe how the death of his father in 1865 leads Jevons to a reflection on 'selfishness', which shifts his attention from the natural towards the social sciences.
Society is depicted as a huge mechanical system governed by outward causes.
Moreover, we argue that The Coal Question forms a significant work, because it leads to an externalization of scarcity which cannot be avoided through an alteration of human behaviour. We describe how Jevons criticizes and 'translates' 'classical' reproductive concepts into the new, non-reproductive framework. Finally we investigate how Jevons tried to construct a new canon to rest his work on. The deconstruction failed, due to authors as Marshall and Clark, but certain authors were discovered and became incorporated in the general canon of economics. I would like to thank my discussant, Samuel Hollander, for his most valuable comments.