Eugene Volokh has a post today on this article by David Levy and Sandra Peart on the orgins of the phrase and its applications to economics. I’ve always (or at this point it just feels like always!) known that Thomas Carlyle was the origin of the phrase, but until I saw David Levy present this paper at a conference last year I did not realize what a fascinating story it was. Eugene summarizes it well and provides some links to Carlyle’s original essay.