The art, or science, of alchemy probably originated among the Alexandrian Greeks in the early Christian era, and eventually became a reputable field of study throughout medieval Europe. Although alchemy was concerned with the conversion of base metals into gold or silver, in another sense it expressed a search for a philosophical principle that would explain the nature of the material world – a prima materia commonly described as the philosopher's stone and sought after by alchemists, who believed that it would reveal the essential unity of all things, animate and inanimate. Once discovered, the philosopher's stone would serve as a catalyst through which base metals would be transmuted into precious ones (Holmyard, 1957).

It was not until the mid-eighteenth century that alchemy was consigned to the realms of occult speculation. In some branches of the social sciences, however – notably in those directly concerned with the enhancement of human welfare – the quest for a universal explanatory principle or theory – an economic, political or social counterpart to the philosopher's stone – has gone on ever since. Such a theory, it is hoped, will explain how the base metals of imperfect humans and their social institutions can be transformed into nobler beings inhabiting a more perfect social order.

Concepts of this kind go back to antiquity, sometimes looking back to a visionary Golden Age, sometimes anticipating a Utopia of the future. They take religious forms like the Garden of Eden or the Heavenly City, and there are countless secular equivalents. The Golden Age is invariably seen as an ideal society in which poverty, sickness, oppression and war are banished, giving way to plenty, health, justice, order and liberty. The Age of Enlightenment – itself looked back on as a Golden Age of sorts by many scholars – produced numerous theories of progress based on a belief in the possibility of personal and collective development towards an ideal state of society (Berlin, 1990, chs 1 & 2; Goodwin and Taylor, 1982).

Classical political economy and the New Right

Turgot, Condorcet and Ferguson were typical of the great Enlightenment scholars who strove to discover a unifying principle that would explain the dynamics of social progress and show how such progress could be achieved (Bierstedt, 1979; Gay, 1973; Berlin, 1980; Porter, 1992).