Spencer, Herbert (1820–1903)

Herbert Spencer was a British philosopher and sociologist who developed and applied evolutionary theory to areas such as psychology and sociology and whose influence at the time was almost as great as that of Charles Darwin. But his evolutionary theory, which accepted the view of Lamarck that organic modifications produced by use and disuse are inherited, gradually gave way to Charles Darwin's theory of natural selection.

Spencer's first book, Social Statics, or the Conditions Essential to Human Happiness, in which he argued that what characterizes the development of organisms is the tendency to individuation, presents a defense of human freedom and individual liberties and attacks the utilitarian claims of Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill, with its understanding of individuals as merely the means to the goal of the general social well-being. Spencer held that society was evolving toward increasing freedom for individuals and that as a result the intrusion of government should be kept to a minimum. In his second book, The Principles of Psychology (1855), he detailed certain psychological aspects of Mill's position to which he strongly objected.

His nine-volume work A System of Synthetic Philosophy provides a systematic account of his views in biology, sociology, ethics, and politics and a synthesis, organized through his evolutionary theory, of a broad range of findings in the natural and social sciences. Synthesis was always important to him. He thought not only that the goal of each science or area of inquiry was to arrive at the fundamental principles that accounted for its data but also that the data and theories of each science affect, and are affected by, the finding of the others.

Spencer held an “organic” view of society, believing that social life was an extension of the life of a natural body and that social “organisms” reflected the same evolutionary principles or laws as biological entities. These principles also provided a natural law basis for moral science and political science. This social evolution did not contradict his individualism, for he held that society was an aggregate of individuals and social change was dependent on prior changes of individual members. Individuals were always fundamental, and the formation of societies was instrumental or contractual, the result of the human motivation to join together to counter tendencies toward war and violence in general. The natural inclination of humans is to preserve their lives, and rational self-interest called for the formation of societies.

Recently, there has been a revitalized interest in Spencer's thought because of a growing interest both in evolutionary principles as operative in society and in his powerful arguments for natural rights and attacks on ulilitarianism.