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Herbert Spencer

Herbert Spencer was an English philosopher, biologist, anthropologist, sociologist, and political theorist during the Victorian era. He developed the theory of evolution to apply not just to biology but also to societies and cultures. He was influenced by the positivist sociology of Auguste Comte but rejected Comte's ideological aspects, trying to reformulate social science based on his principle of evolution. Spencer argued that societies evolved from simple, undifferentiated forms to complex, differentiated forms through a progression of militant and industrial societies. While associated with Social Darwinism, Spencer's actual sociological works focused on how social growth and differentiation lead to changing complexity rather than themes of survival of the fittest.

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57 views2 pages

Herbert Spencer

Herbert Spencer was an English philosopher, biologist, anthropologist, sociologist, and political theorist during the Victorian era. He developed the theory of evolution to apply not just to biology but also to societies and cultures. He was influenced by the positivist sociology of Auguste Comte but rejected Comte's ideological aspects, trying to reformulate social science based on his principle of evolution. Spencer argued that societies evolved from simple, undifferentiated forms to complex, differentiated forms through a progression of militant and industrial societies. While associated with Social Darwinism, Spencer's actual sociological works focused on how social growth and differentiation lead to changing complexity rather than themes of survival of the fittest.

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Muhammad Arslan Akram
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Herbert Spencer 

He (27 April 1820 – 8 December 1903) was an English


philosopher, biologist, anthropologist, sociologist, and prominent classical liberal political
theorist of the Victorian era.
Spencer developed an all-embracing conception of evolution as the progressive development of
the physical world, biological organisms, the human mind, and human culture and societies. As
a polymath, he contributed to a wide range of subjects, including ethics, religion, anthropology,
economics, political theory, philosophy, literature, astronomy, biology, sociology, and
psychology. 
Spencer read with excitement the original positivist sociology of Auguste Comte. A philosopher
of science, Comte had proposed a theory of sociocultural evolution that society progresses by a
general law of three stages. Writing after various developments in biology, however, Spencer
rejected what he regarded as the ideological aspects of Comte's positivism, attempting to
reformulate social science in terms of his principle of evolution, which he applied to the
biological, psychological and sociological aspects of the universe.
Given the primacy which Spencer placed on evolution, his sociology might be described
as social Darwinism mixed with Lamarckism. However, despite its popularity, this view of
Spencer's sociology is mistaken. While his political and ethical writings had themes consistent
with social Darwinism, such themes are absent in Spencer's sociological works, which focus on
how processes of societal growth and differentiation lead to changing degrees of complexity in
social organization 
The evolutionary progression from simple, undifferentiated homogeneity to complex,
differentiated heterogeneity was exemplified, Spencer argued, by the development of society. He
developed a theory of two types of society, the militant and the industrial, which corresponded to
this evolutionary progression. Militant society, structured around relationships of hierarchy and
obedience, was simple and undifferentiated; industrial society, based on voluntary, contractually
assumed social obligations, was complex and differentiated. Society, which Spencer
conceptualised as a 'social organism' evolved from the simpler state to the more complex
according to the universal law of evolution. Moreover, industrial society was the direct
descendant of the ideal society developed in Social Statics, although Spencer now equivocated
over whether the evolution of society would result in anarchism (as he had first believed) or
whether it pointed to a continued role for the state, albeit one reduced to the minimal functions of
the enforcement of contracts and external defense.

Social Darwinism
For many, the name of Herbert Spencer is virtually synonymous with Social Darwinism, a social
theory that applies the law of the survival of the fittest to society and is integrally related to the
nineteenth century rise in scientific racism. In addition to Spencer's many positive contributions
to intellectual thought, it cannot be left unsaid his contributions to racist ideology. In his famed
work Social Statics (1850), he argued that imperialism had served civilization by clearing the
inferior races off the earth: "The forces which are working out the great scheme of perfect
happiness, taking no account of incidental suffering, exterminate such sections of mankind as
stand in their way. … Be he human or be he brute — the hindrance must be got rid of.
Spencer's association with Social Darwinism might have its origin in a specific interpretation of
his support for competition. Whereas in biology the competition of various organisms can result
in the death of a species or organism, the kind of competition Spencer advocated is closer to the
one used by economists, where competing individuals or firms improve the well being of the rest
of society. Spencer viewed private charity positively, encouraging both voluntary association and
informal care to aid those in need, rather than relying on government bureaucracy or force. He
further recommended that private charitable efforts would be wise to avoid encouraging the
formation of new dependent families by those unable to support themselves without charity

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