Herbert Spencer

Herbert Spencer (1820-1903), English social theorist, often regarded as one of the first sociologists, and remembered mainly for his study of social change, working from an evolutionary perspective. Born in Derby, he was mainly self-educated, and through independent reading obtained his introduction to the theory of evolution as expounded in the 18th and early 19th centuries by the French naturalist Jean Lamarck, whose now discredited theory stated that an organism's acquired traits are inheritable. Lamarckian concepts of evolution subsequently exerted a profound influence on Spencer's life's work.

In 1851 Spencer published Social Statics, a work in which he stressed the necessity for individual freedom and the supreme importance of science. In Principles of Psychology (1855), he wrote that all organic matter originates in a unified state, and that individual characteristics gradually develop through evolution. At about the same time he conceived a plan for a comprehensive system of philosophy that would be based on his theory of evolution and that would embrace and integrate all existing fields of knowledge. In 1860 he wrote a prospectus of his system entitled A System of Synthetic Philosophy. The initial instalment, entitled First Principles, appeared in 1862; succeeding works include Principles of Biology (2 vols., 1864-1867), Principles of Sociology (3 vols., 1876-1896), and Principles of Ethics (2 vols., 1892-1893). Although Spencer never had a wide following among his colleagues, his ambitious attempt to systematize all knowledge within the framework of modern science, and especially in terms of evolution, earned him an enduring place among the foremost thinkers of the late 19th century. Other notable works by Spencer include Essays: Scientific, Political, and Speculative (3 vols., 1891), in which he assessed the general impact of the theory of evolution on scientific, political, and philosophic thought.