Evolutionary philosopher, born in Derby, Derbyshire, C England, UK. He became a civil engineer for a railway in 1837, but engaged extensively in journalism. A firm (pre-Darwinian) believer in evolution, his main work is the nine-volume System of Synthetic Philosophy (186293), which brought together biology, psychology, sociology, and ethics. He was a leading advocate of Social Darwinism.
Although he wrote mostly about political theory and emphasized "positive beneficence" in his works, he is widely described as the father of Social Darwinism, a term that Spencer never used. Spencer often analyzed human societies as evolving systems, and coined the term "survival of the fittest." Spencer is today widely criticized as a perfect example of scientism, while he had many followers and admirers in his time.Biography
Herbert Spencer was born in Derby, England, on April 27, 1820, the son of William George Spencer (he was called George), an officious but respected educator. When he was 13 his father sent him to the Hinton Charterhouse near Bath, where his uncle, the Reverend Thomas Spencer, could provide him a more formal education. More notably, Spencer began committing his thoughts to paper during this period and, upon visiting his uncle some years later at the age of 22, he was encouraged to send a number of letters on politics to a radical newspaper called The Nonconformist.
These early works demonstrated a liberal view of workers' rights and governmental responsibility. These views would mature into his 1851 manuscript Social Statics, a document that stressed the importance of looking at the long-term effects of social policy with respect to the nature of man. Spencer is often quoted out of context, making him seem uncompassionate toward the poor and working class. It was here that Spencer began developing his view of civilization, not as an artificial construct of man, but as a natural and organic product of social evolution. After a five-year stint as sub-editor of the London financial paper The Economist that ended in 1853, Spencer began investing all his time towards writing professionally.
In 1855 Spencer wrote the Principles of Psychology, which explored a theory of the mind as a biological counterpart of the body rather than as an estranged opposite. Such an evolutionary standpoint on the origin of man alienated conservative publishers, once again leaving Spencer to publish his work at his own expense. During the writing of Principles of Psychology Spencer traveled about Wales and France and it was during one of these trips that his health underwent a decline from which it never fully recovered. Although it couldn’t be said exactly what was wrong with him, Spencer suffered from a constant tiredness that made his sleeping patterns short and erratic and prevented him from long periods of work.
Despite his growing weariness Spencer continued to write and in 1858 began work on a large project that would cover his entire philosophy on evolution and the laws of progress. Fortunately, by this time Spencer had endeared himself to the intellectual community of England and a list of private subscriptions to his theory funded his living expenses and his work. Amongst these intellectuals was Thomas Henry Huxley, another prominent English philosopher who would remain a close peer of Spencer throughout his life. It was Huxley who included Spencer in the X Club, a dinner club group that met regularly and included some of the most prominent thinkers of their society (a number of which who would become president of the Royal Society at various points in time). Through such associations Spencer had a strong presence within the heart of the scientific community and was able to secure an influential audience for voicing his views.
In 1862 Spencer was able to publish First Principles, an exposition of his evolutionary theory of the underlying principles of all domains of reality, which had acted as the foundational beliefs of his previous works. By this time Spencer was achieving an international reputation of great respect. While he had an interest in all the sciences, Spencer never committed his time to a single field of study and was not an experimentalist. His X Club name was Xhaustive Spencer, denoting the depth to which he would explore a given topic once committed to it.
In his sixties Spencer’s health continued to decline and he became increasingly invalid.
Influence
General
Spencer’s works were widely read during his lifetime and by 1869 he was able to support himself solely on the profit of book sales. His philosophy proved most useful for political conservatives, not only for its application towards the hierarchy of social classes, but also for its conception of social justice, which emphasized the responsibility of individuals for their nature and actions. Spencer was a supporter of the “law of equal liberty,” a basic tenet of libertarianism that says that each individual should be allowed to do as he or she wills as long as it doesn’t infringe on the rights of another person. Spencer has been described as a quasi-anarchist as well as an outright anarchist. For example, Georgi Plekhanov, in his 1909 Anarchism and Socialism labeled Spencer a "conservative Anarchist." David Hart, in Radical Liberalism of Charles Comte and Charles Dunoyer describes Spencer's political philosophy as "liberal anarchism." In Right to Ignore the State Spencer says: "If every man has freedom to do all that he wills, provided he infringes not the equal freedom of any other man, then he is free to drop connection with the state — to relinquish its protection, and to refuse paying toward its support." However, anarchists such as Peter Kropotkin have been critical of Spencer, "modern Individualism initiated by Herbert Spencer is, like the critical theory of Proudhon, a powerful indictment against the dangers and wrongs of government, but its practical solution of the social problem is miserable -- so miserable as to lead us to inquire if the talk of 'No force' be merely an excuse for supporting landlord and capitalist domination."
Spencer's influence became strong in China and Japan in the 1890's. Spencer further influenced the Japanese Westernizer Tokutomi Soho who believed that Japan was on the verge of transitioning from a "militant society" to an "industrial society," and needed to quickly jettison all things Japanese and take up Western ethics and learning.
He also had a significant impact on Shyamji Krishnavarma who announced at his funeral the donation of £1,000 to establish a lectureship at University of Oxford in tribute to him and his work
Survival of the fittest
Herbert Spencer coined the phrase "survival of the fittest," to describe changes in society.
| Like Darwin, Spencer employed a selective principle to explain social evolution, but he complemented natural selection with the Lamarckian notion of adaptation, and of the inheritability of a predisposition to successful adaptation. |
Breadth of political influence
Spencer's influence across a large range of political opposites may seem to point to contradictory ideas within Spencer's writings. However, most of the difference is best understood as how different ideologies applied different aspects of Spencer's wide influence to defend their varying beliefs. This is further complicated by the changing general perception of Spencer from a respected authority to one often criticized as allegedly a precursor to the Eugenics movement.
Spencer's two main areas of influence were the scientific evolutionary ideas of survival of the fittest, and his political ideas of radical classical liberalism. To Spencer, these ideas did not contradict. Further, Spencer viewed the success of liberalism in reducing the power of the state as progress and evidence of evolution within human culture. He considered natural rights as a concept through which survival of the fittest acted most effectively in human culture:
However, during Spencer's lifetime liberalism itself was changing from its classical version of laissez-faire and goal of decreasing state power, to modern liberalism that began to increase the power and scope of the state. At this point, Spencer's belief in natural rights, natural law, and classical liberalism stopped matching his understood evidence for them in citing the progress of survival of the fittest to human civilization. Those that supported his understanding of linear progress and survival of the fittest looked positively at the increasing power of government as progress, though Spencer never agreed. This included those who rejected Spencer's concepts of natural rights and strictly limited government such as the progressive and eugenics supporting Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, who did not believe in a natural law limitation for the application of survival of the fittest to human civilization.
Those that supported Spencer's political writings, classical liberalism, or natural rights philosophy such as H.L. Most of the current supporters or defenders of Herbert Spencer, including classical liberals, anarchists, libertarians, and perhaps some conservatives do so for his political philosophy. Some may believe in Spencer's survival of the fittest within the confines of a natural rights philosophy, but others have rejected his ideas of linear progress and replaced them with the paradigm shift ideas of Thomas Kuhn.
Anti-Imperialism/Opposition to the Boer War
Like many classical liberals of the period, including William Graham Sumner in the United States, Spencer was an ardent opponent of imperialism and militarism. 25.)
Impact on literature
Spencer also had a great impact on literature and rhetoric. This was accomplished, according to Spencer, by placing all the subordinate clauses, objects and phrases before the subject of a sentence so that, when readers reached the subject, they had all the information they needed to completely perceive its significance.
Spencer also had an influence on literature, as many novelists would come to address his ideas through their work. Lawrence all referenced Spencer. Jack London went so far as to create a character, Martin Eden, who was a staunch Spencerian. Wells used Spencer's ideas as one of the themes in his novella The Time Machine - using it to explain the evolution of man into two species.
Holmes' Lochner dissent
Spencer is famously referenced in Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes' dissenting opinion in the landmark United States Supreme Court case of Lochner v. Arguing against the majority's holding that a "right to free contract" is implicit in the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, Holmes wrote: "The Fourteenth Amendment does not enact Mr. Herbert Spencer's Social Statics."
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