turned Smith's economic philosophy
into a deductive heuristic model in the 4th decade of the 19th century
to examine and explain the primary decision-making process of people
living in western societies. This formalized a deductive approach to the
study of economic activity inwestern societies that relied on reductionism
through heuristic modeling to explore the “fit” between model
and observed behavior.Mill believed that such an approach would illuminate
the primary, but not sole, driving force behind human decisionmaking
in western societies. Further efforts to create a mathematicallybased,
scientific approach to the study of economics led to increasingly
reductionistic approaches after 1870