Work · Sociology & Social Theory
The Principles of Sociology
Society as a growing organism – from the ideas of “primitive man” and domestic institutions to the contrast of militant and industrial societies.
Introduction
The Principles of Sociology appeared in three volumes between 1876 and 1896 as part of Spencer’s “System of Synthetic Philosophy”, which applied one law of evolution, from the simple to the complex, to everything from the cosmos to ethics. It treats society as an organism that grows and differentiates its structures and functions, with one decisive difference: consciousness exists only in its members, so “the society exists for the benefit of its members, not its members for the benefit of the society”. Later parts survey domestic, ceremonial, political, ecclesiastical, professional and industrial institutions, drawing on material that assistants compiled for his Descriptive Sociology, and contrast “militant” societies, held together by compulsion, with “industrial” ones based on voluntary cooperation and contract. Spencer’s sociology was read widely in the United States and in Meiji Japan. Durkheim criticised its contractual view of social order in 1893, and in 1937 Talcott Parsons opened The Structure of Social Action by quoting the historian Crane Brinton: “Who now reads Spencer?”
Connections
Criticizes
- Course in Positive Philosophy1830 · Auguste Comte
Taken up in
- On Strength1895 · Yan Fu
- On Evolution (Tianyanlun)1898 · Yan Fu
Criticized in
- The Division of Labour in Society1893 · Émile Durkheim
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