Excerpt:
Cambridge mineralogist, moral philosopher, mystic, educator and polymath. As one contemporary put it, "science is his forte, omniscience is his foible". Although a close friend of the English historicist Richard Jones, William Whewell nonetheless set himself the task of translating a lot of given economic theory into mathematics (1829, 1830, 1850) -- an endeavor that was not warmly welcomed by many contemporaries. However, he did support Jones's inductive methodology in principle. His attempts to fit mathematical demand curves to data and his derivation of an equilibrium in trade in a 1850 article have led some to consider him a proto-Marginalist.
Annotation:
This site includes a brief biography of William Whewell, the philosopher of science who is most famous for his induction theory, which led to a debate with John Stuart Mill and presented an obstacle for Charles Darwin. Though not detailed, this site includes a list of Whewell's more important works with links to full text version of a few of the books including "The Plurality of Worlds." The site also includes links to Whewell biographies and related pages.