Starting from a comparative study of the theoretical views of Charles Darwin and Herbert Spencer on the processes of change, this paper seeks to understand how the genesis of these ideas about evolution influenced the economic thought of Alfred Marshall. In this sense, we first present how Darwin and Spencer built completely different and irreconcilable approaches to understanding the phenomena of change in complex systems. Subsequently, we try to understand how Marshall absorbed these Victorians elaborations about evolution within his own theoretical construct. Thus, focusing our investigation on Principles (1890) and working with the ideas contained therein about change, progress, equilibrium and representative firm, we seek to show that Marshall followed a code of science characteristically Spencerian, where his approach, often interpreted as "evolutionary," presents no contradiction or incompatibility with a perspective based on neoclassical essentialism.
Marshall; Darwin; Spencer; evolutionary economics; progress; equilibrium
