Research topic: Herbert Spencer

Herbert Spencer 1820-1903, English philosopher, b. Derby. He projected a vast 10-volume work, Synthetic Philosophy, in which all phenomena are interpreted according to the principle of evolutionary progress. Together with Charles Darwin and Thomas Huxley he was responsible for the acceptance of the theory of evolution. In First Principles (1862), the first of the projected volumes, Spencer distinguished phenomena from what he called the unknowable—an incomprehensible power or force from which everything derives. He limited knowledge to phenomena, i.e., the manifestations of the... Read more