Marshall wrote a famous letter on economics and mathematics that doesn't seem to have been on the web yet. I just posted it for my PhD IO class, and mention it here in case others are interested. The famous bit is this:
But I know I had a growing feeling in the later years of my work at
the subject that a good mathematical theorem dealing with economic hypotheses was very
unlikely to be good economics: and I went more and more on the rules---(1) Use
mathematics as a short-hand language, rather than as an engine of inquiry. (2) Keep to
them till you have done. (3) Translate into English. (4) Then illustrate by examples
that are important in real life. (5) Burn the mathematics. (6) If you can't succeed in
4, burn 3. This last I did often.
He's wrong not to use mathematics as an engine of inquiry, but there's nonetheless
something in what he says.
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