While Alfred Marshall labored to provide a solid foundation for neoclassical economics at Cambridge, H.S. Foxwell and William Cunningham advanced the claims of historical economics at the University. Foxwell especially sought to limit the uncertainties characteristic of industrial capitalism. During his long career at Cambridge, he became increasingly hostile to Marshall's vision of economic thought. Unlike Cunningham, however, Foxwell cannot simply be catalogued as an inductive economist as Marshall is taken to represent the deductive tradition. Nonetheless, as A.L. Bowley suggested, “Foxwell's bent was historical.” His emphasis was on historical and inductive work in applied political economy and the history of economic thought. Marshall's interests, on the other hand, were primarily theoretical, especially during the period of his Cambridge professorship from 1885 to 1908. In addition to divergent methodological emphasis, Foxwell and Marshall also disagreed over the direction of economic studies at Cambridge and on such policy issues as tariffs, bimetallism, and the advantages to be derived from free competition. Finally, they promoted nearly opposite interpretations of the history of British economic thought, particularly on the value of Ricardo's contribution. Although both Marshall's and Foxwell's positions on many of these issues were considerably more ambiguous than those of Marshall's student and successor at Cambridge, A.C. Pigou, or the more vehement historical positions of Cunningham, Marshall championed the utility of deductive theory both for creating a science of economics and for promoting Britain's welfare, and Foxwell placed his faith in inductive economics as the best guide to policy. Foxwell's emphasis on the irregularity of capitalism was heightened by his personal and academic experience.