Herbert Spencer

Herbert Spencer 1820-1903, English philosopher, b. Derby. In 1848 he moved to London, where he was an editor at The Economist and wrote his first major book, Social Statics (1851), which tried to establish a natural basis for political action. Subsequently, together with Charles Darwin and Thomas Huxley , Spencer was responsible for the promulgation and public acceptance of the theory of evolution . But unlike Darwin, for whom evolution was without direction or morality, Spencer, who coined the phrase "survival of the fittest," believed evolution to be both progressive and good.

Spencer conceived a vast 10-volume work, Synthetic Philosophy, in which all phenomena were to be interpreted according to the principle of evolutionary progress. In First Principles (1862), the first of the projected volumes, he 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 unknowable, and maintained that these manifestations proceed from their source according to a process of evolution. In The Principles of Biology (2 vol., 1864-67) and The Principles of Psychology (1855; rev. ed., 2 vol., 1870-72) Spencer gave a mechanistic explanation of how life has progressed by the continual adaptation of inner relations to outer ones. In The Principles of Sociology (3 vol., 1876-96) he analyzed the process by which the individual becomes differentiated from the group and gains increasing freedom. In The Principles of Ethics (2 vol., 1879-93) he developed a utilitarian system in which morality and survival are linked. Spencer's synthetic system had more popular appeal than scientific influence, but it served to bring the doctrines of evolution within the grasp of the general reading public and to establish sociology as a discipline.

Bibliography: See his autobiography (1904); J. D. Y. Peel, Herbert Spencer: The Evolution of a Sociologist (1971); M. Francis, Herbert Spencer and the Invention of Modern Life (2007).

Spencer, Herbert (1820–1903) The Victorian prophet of Social Darwinism, who was famous in his time, and especially admired in the United States. Many of his ideas have entered Western culture as conventional wisdoms—or at least as conventional prejudices—yet few people read his books or remember his name today.

Born in the English Midlands of non-conformist parents, Spencer became a railway engineer and a draughtsman. After a time he moved into journalism and began to produce a steady stream of books which are the basis of his reputation in social science. The complete bibliography is formidable, but includes Social Statics (1851), First Principles (1862), The Study of Sociology (1873), and First Principles of Sociology and Descriptive Sociology in parts through the 1870s and 1890s. (For a full account, which discusses Spencer against the social background of his time, see J. D. Y. Peel , Herbert Spencer, 1971
.)

Spencer was the sociological prophet of the high Victorian era. Unlike Marx, he saw nothing but progress in the Industrial Revolution. Spencer interpreted society as a living, growing organism which, as it becomes more complex, must self-consciously understand and control the mechanisms of its own success. The most important of those mechanisms was the intense competition for resources which Spencer labelled ‘the survival of the fittest’ (anticipating Darwin's ‘natural selection’ by several years). Spencer believed that the unrestricted application of this principle would eventually lead to the best possible society. His ideas were adopted with enthusiasm in America, notably by William Graham Sumner, and remain to this day the foundation of libertarian and laissez-faire social and economic theories.

Spencer, Herbert (1820–1903). Philosopher. Spencer was the son of a Derbyshire schoolteacher of radical and dissenting views. In the 1840s he joined Sturge's Complete Suffrage Union and in 1848 became subeditor of The Economist. His Social Statics, published in 1851, allowed the state only the minimum of defence and police functions. He published Education in 1861, advocating a child‐centred approach and emphasizing the importance of science. But his main thesis—the need to limit the intervention of the state—was at variance with the spirit of the times. The miscellany of his thought gave him influence, but he was not a trained thinker and his fame faded fast.