Alfred Marshall explored a scientific method for theorising complex economic phenomena using mechanical and biological analogies. Moreover from his very first book The Economics of Industry Marshall paid attention to the efficacy of a science of tendencies to understand real economic movements. To clarify this, this paper begins by reviewing a methodological problem suggested by Thorstein Veblen, concerning which of Marshall’s economics should be regarded as ‘quasi-evolutionary’. Critically Veblen considered Marshall’s approach to economic progress could not avoid assumptions of a natural law and normality, even though Marshall analyzed the tendency of economic change produced over the ultra-long-term. However, we focus on the approaches Marshall found most convincing, which were based on eighteenth and nineteenth century scientific methods proposed by Cournot, John Herschel, and William Whewell. We examine the methodological significance derived from the analogies of astronomy and tidology over the secular term. Specifically, Marshall investigated the analysis of wages as a science of tendencies to realise fair wages through conciliation, where the influence of time, region, and custom were considered. Therefore, this article demonstrates how Marshall applied a non-Newtonian method based on tidology to the study of secular movements in economic society to develop his understanding of the organic growth of economy scientifically.

阿尔弗雷德·马歇尔 (Alfred Marshall) 探索了一种使用机械和生物类比将复杂经济现象理论化的科学方法。此外，从他的第一本书工业经济学马歇尔关注趋势科学对理解实际经济运动的有效性。为了澄清这一点，本文首先回顾了托尔斯坦·凡勃伦 (Thorstein Veblen) 提出的一个方法论问题，即马歇尔的哪一种经济学应该被视为“准进化论”。尽管马歇尔分析了超长期经济变化的趋势，但凡勃伦认为马歇尔的经济进步方法无法避免自然规律和常态的假设。然而，我们关注的是 Marshall 认为最有说服力的方法，这些方法基于 Cournot、John Herschel 和 William Whewell 提出的 18 和 19 世纪科学方法。我们研究了从世俗术语中天文学和潮汐学的类比得出的方法论意义。具体来说，马歇尔将工资分析作为一门通过调解实现公平工资的趋势的科学，其中考虑了时间、地区和习俗的影响。因此，本文展示了马歇尔如何将基于潮汐学的非牛顿方法应用于经济社会的长期运动研究，以科学地发展他对经济有机增长的理解。