HERBERT SPENCER: BIOGRAPHY, CONTRIBUTIONS AND WORKS - CULTURE VOCABULARY - 2025

Herbert Spencer (1820-1903) was an English sociologist and philosopher who advocated the theory of evolution and the importance of the individual over society. In addition, he advocated the importance of science over religion. He was one of the most important intellectuals from the end of the 19th century to the beginning of the 20th century.

Spencer drew on naturalist Charles Darwin's theories of the origin of species to explain the concept of the evolution of societies over time. He explained how "natural selection" applies to human societies, social classes, and individuals.

See page for author, via Wikimedia Commons

In addition, he adapted the concept of "survival of the fittest", explaining that it is natural that some are rich and others poor.

On the other hand, his vision on social change was popular for the time. In this sense, he took the ideas of the French sociologist Auguste Comte to explain that social change is not an idea that you work for, but something that occurs naturally.

Biography

Early years

Herbert Spencer was born on April 27, 1820, in Derby, England. He was the son of William George Spencer, an opponent of religion who deviated from Methodism from a highly religious Quaker community. This significantly influenced his son's ideals.

George Spencer served as secretary of the Derby Philosophical Society, a scientific society founded in 1783 by Erasmus Darwin, Charles Darwin's grandfather. In parallel, Spencer was educated by his father in the empirical sciences and by members of the Society, who taught him about pre-Darwinian concepts.

His uncle, Thomas Spencer, was a vicar of the Hinton Carthusian Monastery, and it was with him that Spencer completed her formal education. He taught him mathematics, physics, and Latin. In addition, Thomas influenced Herbert's mind by instilling in him strong political ideals of free trade and by opposing state intervention in various affairs.

On the other hand, Spencer was self-taught and acquired a good part of his knowledge through specialized reading and in conversations with friends and acquaintances.

Throughout his youth, Spencer did not settle for any intellectual discipline; He worked as a civil engineer during the railway boom of the late 1830s. He also spent part of his time writing for newspapers in his province.

Beginning of his career

Between 1848 and 1853 he was deputy editor of The Economics magazine, and in 1851 he published his first book entitled Social Statist, in which he predicted that humanity would adapt to the requirements of life in society and the strength of the state would weaken.

His editor, John Chapman, arranged a meeting to introduce Spencer to a group of radical thinkers, including: Harriet Martineau, John Stuart Mill, George Henry Lewes, and Mary Ann Evans. Shortly after meeting them all, Spencer had romantic ties to Mary Ann Evans.

The friendship of Evans and Lewes allowed him to become acquainted with the work of John Stuart Mill, entitled A System of Logic, and with the positivism of Auguste Comte. Those new relationships led him to set out on his life's work; opposing the ideals of Comte.

Like members of Chapman's salon and some thinkers of his generation, Spencer was obsessed with the idea that it was possible to show that the entire universe could be explained by laws of universal validity.

Otherwise, other theologians stuck to the traditional idea of ​​creation and the human soul. There was a clash between religious concepts and scientific concepts.

Spencer and agnosticism

Spencer repudiated traditional religion, and his reputation among the Victorians was largely due to his agnosticism. He was frequently condemned by religious thinkers for allegedly defending materialism and atheism.

On the other hand, the English sociologist insisted that his intention was not to undermine religion in the name of science, but to bring the reconciliation of both. Spencer concluded that religion has a place alongside science in attempting to refer to the absolute unknown.

Political stance

Spencer's point of view was derived from his political theories and coups against the reform movements of the late 19th century. He was one of the precursors of liberalism and of the philosophical and political movement; anarcho-capitalism.

The American economist, Murray Rothbard, called Social Statics the greatest single work of liberal political philosophy ever written.

On the other hand, he held firm opposition to the state; He later argued that it was not an essential institution and that it would decline over time. In addition, he commented that the individual had the right to ignore the state, for which he was strongly critical of patriotism.

Spencer was associated with social Darwinism, a theory that applies to the law of survival of the fittest. In biology, competition between organisms can result in the death of a species.

The kind of competition Spencer advocated is close to that of economists; a person or company competes to improve the welfare of the rest of society.

The English sociologist viewed private charity positively; in fact, he encouraged voluntary association to help those most in need, rather than reliance on bureaucracy or government involvement.

Last years

The last decades of Spencer's life were utterly bitter, marked by growing disappointment filled with loneliness; He never married and after 1855 he became a hypochondriac. He complained of countless illnesses that doctors never found.

In 1890, his readers abandoned him and his closest friends died. In his later years, his views and political positions became increasingly conservative. Although in his Social Statist work he leaned in favor of the vote of women, in 1880 he became a staunch opponent of female suffrage.

In this period, Spencer's views were expressed in what became his most famous work, entitled Man Against the State.

On the other hand, Spencer was the forerunner of the paper clip, although it looked more like a cotter pin. This item, novel for the time, was distributed by Ackermann and Company.

Shortly before his death in 1902, Spencer was nominated for the Nobel Prize for Literature. He continued to write his life, including through dictations, until the day of his death on December 8, 1903 at the age of 83.

Contributions

Ideas on synthetic philosophy

Spencer's appeal to the thinkers of his generation was for possessing a belief system, which replaced conventional religious faith with advances in modern science. The philosophical version of the English sociologist was formed by a combination of deism (the belief in God) and positivism.

On the one hand, he was influenced by the 18th century deism of his father (which diverged from traditional religious ideas) and the works of the popular George Combe.

Spencer established the objectives of synthetic philosophy: the first was to demonstrate that there are no exceptions to discovering scientific explanations of the phenomena of the universe; otherwise, there were natural laws that reaffirm it.

Spencer's work was based on writing about biology, psychology, and sociology to try to prove the existence of natural laws in these scientific disciplines.

The second objective of synthetic philosophy was to show that the same natural laws led to inevitable progress. Auguste Comte only emphasized the unity of the scientific method. Rather, Spencer sought the unification of scientific knowledge to a fundamental law: the law of evolution.

Sociological contribution

Spencer read and to some extent borrowed the ideas of positivist sociology from the philosopher of science, Auguste Comte, for his own project.

Despite this, Spencer rejected the ideological aspects of positivism, trying to reformulate social science in terms of its principle of evolution, to which he applied biological, psychological and sociological aspects of the universe.

Spencer made valuable contributions to early sociology, especially his influence on structural functionalism, which views society as a whole system in which the parts work for social harmony.

However, his attempt to introduce the ideas of Charles Darwin into the field of sociology was unsuccessful. The American sociologist, Lester Frank Ward, attacked Spencer's theories. While the American admired Spencer's work, he believed that political prejudice had led him astray.

At the beginning of the 20th century, Max Weber presented a methodological antipositivism, influenced by Spencer's theories. Spencer's survival of the fittest and natural law processes had an enduring appeal in the fields of social science, politics, and economics.

Contribution in biological theories

Spencer believed that the fundamental sociological classification was between military societies (where cooperation was secured by force) and industrial societies (where cooperation was voluntary and spontaneous).

Evolution was not the only biological concept that he applied in his sociological theories; made a detailed comparison between animals and human society.

In both cases he found a regulatory system (the nervous system in animals, and the government in humans), a support system (food in the first case, and industry in the other) and a distribution system (veins and arteries in the other). first; roads, telegraphs on the other).

From these postulates he concluded that the great difference between an animal and a social organism is that while in the first there is a consciousness related to the whole, in the second the consciousness exists only in each member; that is, the society exists for the benefit of its members and not for its own benefit.

Individualism was the key to Spencer's work. The difference between military and industrial societies is drawn between despotism (primitive and bad), against individualism (civilized and good).

Plays

Social Static

Social Statics was Herbert Spencer's first book published in 1851 by the English publisher, John Chapman. In his book, he uses the term "aptitude" to apply his ideas of evolution. Spencer explained that man can adapt to the social state, but only if he is retained in that social state.

Spencer concluded in his book that everything results from the adaptation of men to their social and natural environment, and that it also contains two characteristics: hereditary transmission and the disappearance of those who cannot adapt.

The English sociologist explained that all species, from the lowest to the highest evolutionary degrees, are organized in a similar way to animals and humans.

Despite this, it was not until his work Principles of Biology, published in 1864, that the phrase "survival of the fittest" was coined. This could be described as a key tenet of so-called social Darwinism, although Spencer and his book were not advocates of this concept.

Principles of Sociology

Principles of Sociology was published in 1855. The book was based on the assumption that the human mind is subject to natural laws and that they could be discovered thanks to biology. The concept allowed a developmental perspective in terms of the individual.

Spencer emphasized the concepts of adaptation, development, and continuity. In addition, he tried to found psychology on the principles of evolutionary biology, laying the foundations for scientific functionalism and developmentalism.

Despite this, the book did not have the expected success at first. It was not until June 1861 that the last copies were sold.

Synthetic philosophy

Synthetic Philosophy is a complete work containing volumes on the principles of psychology, biology, sociology, and morality written by Herbert Spencer in 1896.

Spencer, through his book, strove to show that the belief in human perfection based on complex scientific ideas was possible; for example, the first law of thermodynamics and biological evolution could take the place of religion.

Man against the state

Man Against the State has become, over time, one of the most famous works of the sociologist Herbert Spencer. It was first published in 1884.

The book consists of four main chapters: The New Toryism, The Coming Slavery, The Sins of the Lawmakers, and The Great Political Superstition. In this book, the English sociologist saw a corruption of the state, predicting a "next slavery" in the future.

Furthermore, he argued that liberalism freed the world from slavery and feudalism was undergoing a transformation.

Spencer reflected in his book his position on minimizing the participation of the state over the individual. His intention was to expand the margin in such a way that the individual could exercise their activities freely, without the control or supervision of the State.

References

1. Herbert Spencer, Harry Burrows Acton for Encyclopedia Britannica, (nd). Taken from Britannica.com
2. Herbert Spencer, New World Encyclopedia Portal, (nd). Taken from newworldencyclopedia.org
3. Herbert Spencer, Wikipedia in English, (nd). Taken from Wikipedia.org
4. Social Statics, Wikipedia in English, (nd). Taken from Wikipedia.org
5. The Man Versus the State, Herbert Spencer, (2013). Taken from books.google.com
6. Principles of Sociology, Herbert Spencer, Book Review, (nd). Taken from criticadelibros.com