Herbert Spencer

1820 - 1903

About the Author

Herbert Spencer (1820-1903) was one of the leading 19th century English radical individualists. He began working as a journalist for the laissez-faire magazine The Economist in the 1850s. Much of the rest of his life was spent working on an all-encompassing theory of human development based upon the ideas of individualism, utilitarian moral theory, social and biological evolution, limited government, and laissez-faire economics. [The image comes from “The Warren J. Samuels Portrait Collection at Duke University.”]

See the Timeline of the Life and Work of Herbert Spencer:

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Key: events in the author’s life (blue); historical events (green); books & organisations (red)

In The Library:

• author: An Autobiography (1904)
• author: An Autobiography, vol. 1 (1904)
• author: An Autobiography, vol. 2 (1904)
• author: The Best of the OLL No. 22: Herbert Spencer, “The Right to Ignore the State” (1851) (2013)
• author: The Data of Ethics (1879)
• author: Essays on Education and Kindred Subjects (1861)
• author: Essays: Scientific, Political and Speculative, 3 vols. (1852)
• author: Essays: Scientific, Political and Speculative, Vol. 1 (1852)
• author: Essays: Scientific, Political and Speculative, Vol. 2 (1854)
• author: Essays: Scientific, Political, and Speculative, vol. 3 (1854)
• author: First Principles (1867)
• author: Justice: Being Part IV of the Principles of Ethics (1879)
• author: The Man versus the State (1885 ed.) (1884)
• author: The Man versus the State, with Six Essays on Government, Society and Freedom (LF ed.) (1884)
• introduction: A Plea for Liberty: An Argument against Socialism and Socialistic Legislation (1891 ed.) (1891)
• introduction: A Plea for Liberty: An Argument against Socialism and Socialistic Legislation (LF ed.) (1891)
• author: Political Institutions, being Part V of the Principles of Sociology (1876)
• author: The Principles of Ethics, 2 vols. (1897)
• author: The Principles of Ethics, vol. 1 (1897)
• author: The Principles of Ethics, vol. 2 (1897)
• author: The Principles of Psychology (1855)
• author: Social Statics (1851)
• author: The Study of Sociology (1873)

Quotations:

• As if in answer to Erasmus’ prayer, Spencer does become a Philosopher of the Kitchen arguing that “if there is a wrong in respect of the taking of food (and drink) there must also be a right” (1897) (29 November, 2004)
• Herbert Spencer makes a distinction between the “militant type of society” based upon violence and the “industrial type of society” based upon peaceful economic activity (1882) (13 June, 2005)
• Herbert Spencer argued that in a militant type of society the state would become more centralised and administrative, as compulsory education clearly showed (1882) (20 June, 2005)
• Herbert Spencer concludes from his principle of equal freedom that individuals have the Right to Ignore the State (1851) (17 February, 2007)
• Herbert Spencer takes “philosophical politicians” to task for claiming that government promotes the “public good” when in fact they are seeking “party aggrandisement” (1843) (25 February, 2007)
• Herbert Spencer on the pitfalls of arguing with friends at the dinner table (1897) (12 January, 2010)
• Herbert Spencer worries that the violence and brutalities of football will make it that much harder to create a society in which individual rights will be mutually respected (1879) (25 January, 2010)
• Spencer on voting in elections as a screen behind which the wirepullers turn the sovereign people into a puppet (1882) (12 August, 2010)
• Spencer on voting as a poor instrument for protecting our rights to life, liberty, and property (1879) (1 November, 2010)
• Spencer on spontaneous order produced by “the beneficent working of social forces” (1879) (25 September, 2011)