Herbert Spencer
Everything – nature, mind and society – evolves from simple to complex, and society works best when the state interferes as little as possible.
Placement
Victorian system-builder who, before Darwin’s “Origin” (1859), made evolution the law of everything, from the cosmos to society; after reading Darwin he coined “survival of the fittest” (1864). His name was later attached to “Social Darwinism” – a label used to justify inequality and empire, and more crudely than his own views, though not without grounds in them.
Key ideas
- Evolution from simple to complex
- Society as an organism
- Militant vs. industrial societies
- Minimal state and laissez-faire
Influence
Influenced by 1
Charles Darwin
influenced by
Spencer had formulated his evolutionism before Darwin, but after reading the Origin of Species he coined ‘survival of the fittest’ for natural selection (Principles of Biology, 1864). H. Spencer, The Principles of Biology, vol. I (1864); C. Darwin, On the Origin of Species (1859), 5th ed. (1869); SEP “Herbert Spencer”
Evidence: also in InPhO · InPhO
Charles Darwin › 1809–1882
Influenced 3
Muhammad Abduh
influenced
Abduh admired Spencer, whom he visited in Brighton in 1903, and is reported to have translated his book on education into Arabic from French; the exact passage has not been checked. A. Kateman, “Tellings of an Encounter: A Meeting between Muḥammad ʿAbduh, Herbert Spencer and Wilfrid Blunt (1903)”, Philological Encounters 3 (2018); A. Hourani, Arabic Thought in the Liberal Age (1962)
Evidence: AI draft
Muhammad Abduh › 1849–1905
Ellen Key
influenced
In The Century of the Child (1900) Key held that Spencer’s thoughts ‘contain a great truth’ and based education on the child’s own natural development. E. Key, Barnets århundrade (1900); Eng. The Century of the Child (1909); H. Spencer, Education: Intellectual, Moral, and Physical (1861)
Evidence: AI draft
Ellen Key › 1849–1926
Yan Fu
influenced
In the commentaries to his Tianyanlun (1898) Yan Fu sided with Spencer against Huxley, treating evolution as progress and applying the struggle for survival to nations. Yan Fu, Tianyanlun (1898), commentaries; B. Schwartz, In Search of Wealth and Power: Yen Fu and the West (1964)
Evidence: AI draft
Yan Fu › 1854–1921
Criticism
Criticized by 4
José Martí
criticised by
Reviewing Spencer’s “The Coming Slavery” (La América, 1884), Martí granted that state socialism might create a new servitude but objected that Spencer passed over the misery of the poor and the abuses of concentrated wealth that drive people towards it. J. Martí, “Herbert Spencer. La futura esclavitud”, La América (New York), April 1884; Obras completas XV
Evidence: AI draft
José Martí › 1853–1895
Émile Durkheim
criticised by
Durkheim argued against Spencer that industrial society cannot rest on free contracts alone, since every contract presupposes non-contractual social rules (The Division of Labour in Society, 1893, I.7). É. Durkheim, De la division du travail social (1893), Book I, ch. 7
Evidence: AI draft
Émile Durkheim › 1858–1917
Henri Bergson
criticised by
Bergson, once drawn to Spencer, charged his ‘false evolutionism’ with rebuilding evolution out of fragments of the already evolved, missing real duration (Creative Evolution, 1907, ch. 4). H. Bergson, L’Évolution créatrice (1907), ch. IV; SEP “Henri Bergson”
Evidence: AI draft
Henri Bergson › 1859–1941
Talcott Parsons
criticised by
Parsons opened The Structure of Social Action (1937) with Brinton’s question ‘Who now reads Spencer?’, declaring Spencer’s positivist, utilitarian evolutionism dead. T. Parsons, The Structure of Social Action (1937), ch. 1; C. Brinton, English Political Thought in the Nineteenth Century (1933)
Evidence: AI draft
Talcott Parsons › 1902–1979
Criticizes 2
Jeremy Bentham
criticised
Spencer objected that Bentham’s greatest-happiness principle gives no guidance, since happiness is undefinable, and put the law of equal freedom in its place (Social Statics, 1851). H. Spencer, Social Statics (1851), Introduction (“The Doctrine of Expediency”), ch. 4
Evidence: AI draft
Jeremy Bentham › 1748–1832
Auguste Comte
criticised
In ‘Reasons for Dissenting from the Philosophy of M. Comte’ (1864) Spencer rejected Comte’s linear classification of the sciences and denied being his follower. H. Spencer, “Reasons for Dissenting from the Philosophy of M. Comte” (1864), appended to The Classification of the Sciences (1864)
Evidence: AI draft
Auguste Comte › 1798–1857
Works
Society as a growing organism – from the ideas of “primitive man” and domestic institutions to the contrast of militant and industrial societies.
Position
Spencer believed that one law governs the whole of reality: evolution, the movement from simple, uniform states to complex, differentiated and integrated ones. He formulated it before Darwin’s Origin of Species (1859) and understood it largely in Lamarck’s terms, through the inheritance of acquired characteristics; after reading Darwin he coined the phrase “survival of the fittest” (1864). Society, for Spencer, is an organism whose parts become ever more specialised and interdependent. He contrasted “militant” societies, held together by force and command, with “industrial” societies based on voluntary cooperation and contract, and he defended a strictly limited state: poor relief and state welfare would only hinder adaptation. The label “Social Darwinism”, used mostly by critics and made current by Richard Hofstadter’s study of 1944, cast him as its chief theorist. His ideas were indeed cited to justify laissez-faire capitalism, racial hierarchy and empire, and he shared the Victorian ranking of “primitive” and “civilised” peoples; yet he also opposed militarism and the Boer War. Durkheim answered his theory of contract, and Parsons opened his book of 1937 by borrowing the question “Who now reads Spencer?”
Life & context
Herbert Spencer was born in 1820 in Derby, the son of a Dissenting schoolteacher, and was educated at home and by an uncle; he never attended university. He worked as a railway engineer and, from 1848 to 1853, as sub-editor of The Economist, during which time he published his first book, Social Statics (1851). An inheritance allowed him to live as an independent writer. From 1860 he spent almost four decades on his System of Synthetic Philosophy, which ran from First Principles (1862) through biology, psychology and sociology to ethics. He was one of the most widely read thinkers of the Victorian age, especially in the United States. In poor health for much of his life, he never married and died in Brighton in 1903.
Further main works
- Social Statics (1851)
- First Principles (1862)
- The Principles of Biology (1864–67)
- The Study of Sociology (1873)
- The Man versus the State (1884)
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