His fame grew with his publications, and he counted among his admirers both radical thinkers and prominent scientists, including John Stuart Mill and the physicist, John Tyndall. In Spencer was elected a corresponding member of philosophical section of the French academy of moral and political sciences.
Spencer, however, declined most of the honors he was given. Within his lifetime, some one million copies of his books had been sold, his work had been translated into French, German, Spanish, Italian, and Russian, and his ideas were popular in a number of other countries such as Poland e.
Nevertheless, by the end of his life, his political views were no longer as popular as they had once been, and the dominant currents in liberalism allowed for a more interventionist state.
Because of the empirical character of scientific knowledge and because of his conviction that that which is known—biological life—is in a process of evolution, Spencer held that knowledge is subject to change. This emphasis on the knowable as perceivable led critics to charge that Spencer fails to distinguish perceiving and conceiving.
Nevertheless, Spencer was not a skeptic. To the extent that such principles conformed to the results of inquiries or experiments in the other sciences, one could have explanations that were of a high degree of certainty. Thus, Spencer was at pains to show how the evidence and conclusions of each of the sciences is relevant to, and materially affected by, the conclusions of the others.
In the first volume of A System of Synthetic Philosophy , entitled First Principles , Spencer argued that all phenomena could be explained in terms of a lengthy process of evolution in things. He denied as Darwin had argued that evolution was based on the characteristics and development of the organism itself and on a simple principle of natural selection. Spencer held that he had evidence for this evolutionary account from the study of biology see Principles of Biology , 2 vols.
He argued that there is a gradual specialization in things—beginning with biological organisms—towards self-sufficiency and individuation. Because human nature can be said to improve and change, then, scientific—including moral and political— views that rested on the assumption of a stable human nature such as that presupposed by many utilitarians had to be rejected.
They had an identity and value on which the whole depended—unlike, Spencer thought, that portrayed by Hobbes. For Spencer, then, human life was not only on a continuum with, but was also the culmination of, a lengthy process of evolution.
Even though he allowed that there was a parallel development of mind and body, without reducing the former to the latter, he was opposed to dualism and his account of mind and of the functioning of the central nervous system and the brain was mechanistic. When one examines human beings, this natural inclination was reflected in the characteristic of rational self-interest.
Starting with the characteristics of individual entities, one could deduce, using laws of nature, what would promote or provide life and human happiness. Since, Spencer claimed, we cannot know anything non-empirical, we cannot know whether there is a God or what its character might be.
Though Spencer was a severe critic of religion and religious doctrine and practice—these being the appropriate objects of empirical investigation and assessment—his general position on religion was agnostic. Theism, he argued, cannot be adopted because there is no means to acquire knowledge of the divine, and there would be no way of testing it. But while we cannot know whether religious beliefs are true, neither can we know that fundamental religious beliefs are false.
Spencer saw human life on a continuum with, but also as the culmination of, a lengthy process of evolution, and he held that human society reflects the same evolutionary principles as biological organisms do in their development.
Given the variations in temperament and character among individuals, Spencer recognized that there were differences in what happiness specifically consists in Social Statics [], p.
For human beings to flourish and develop, Spencer held that there must be as few artificial restrictions as possible, and it is primarily freedom that he, contra Bentham, saw as promoting human happiness. While progress was an inevitable characteristic of evolution, it was something to be achieved only through the free exercise of human faculties see Social Statics. Society, however, is by definition, for Spencer an aggregate of individuals, and change in society could take place only once the individual members of that society had changed and developed The Study of Sociology , pp.
Still, Spencer thought that human beings exhibited a natural sympathy and concern for one another; there is a common character and there are common interests among human beings that they eventually come to recognize as necessary not only for general, but for individual development. As individuals become increasingly aware of their individuality, they also become aware of the individuality of others and, thereby, of the law of equal freedom.
In this sense, at least, social inequity was explained, if not justified, by evolutionary principles. Despite his egoism and individualism, Spencer held that life in community was important. This view is evident, not only in his first significant major contribution to political philosophy, Social Statics , but in his later essays—some of which appear in later editions of The Man versus the State.
Spencer followed earlier liberalism, then, in maintaining that law is a restriction of liberty and that the restriction of liberty, in itself, is evil and justified only where it is necessary to the preservation of liberty.
The only function of government was to be the policing and protection of individual rights. Spencer maintained that education, religion, the economy, and care for the sick or indigent were not to be undertaken by the state. Law and public authority have as their general purpose, therefore, the administration of justice equated with freedom and the protection of rights.
Thus, the industrious—those of character, but with no commitment to existing structures except those which promoted such industry and, therefore, not religion or patriotic institutions —would thrive.
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Summary from Wikipedia. Mammalian Brain Chemistry Explains Everything. Related Books Free with a 30 day trial from Scribd. Dry: A Memoir Augusten Burroughs. Related Audiobooks Free with a 30 day trial from Scribd. Herbert Spencer Philosophy of Education 1. Narissa F. Cueva 2. Herbert Spencer 3. The Educational Theory of Herbert Spencer 1. If they are not sufficiently complete to live, they die, and it is best they should die. Reported By: Narissa F. Abby Nelson Nov.
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