"The hedonistic conception of man is that of a lightening calculator of pleasures and pains, who oscillates like a homogeneous globule of desire of happiness under the impulse of stimuli that shift him about the area, but leave him intact. He is neither antecedent nor consequent. He is an isolated human datum, in stable equilibrium except for the buffets of the impinging forces that displace him in one direction or another. Self-imposed in elemental space, he spins symmetrically about his own spiritual axis until the parallelogram of forces bears down upon him, whereupon he follows the line of the resultant. When the force of the impact is spent, he comes to rest, a self-contained globule of desire as before." p. 73-74 reprinted in _The Place of Science in Modern Civilization_ the essay that it is from is "Why is Economics not an Evolutionary Science?" originally published in the _Quarterly Journal of Economics_ xii, July 1898. Here is the Veblen quote and citation. _The Place of Science_ is available again, in paper, from Transactions Press. Bill Waller Economics Hobart and William Smith Colleges [EMAIL PROTECTED]
