Herbert Spencer
1820–1903
Nationality: English
Historical Period: The 19th Century
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:
Key: events in the author’s life (blue); historical events (green); books & organisations (red)
Quotes from Herbert Spencer:
- Herbert Spencer on the right of political and economic “dissenters”
- Herbert Spencer on human nature and property
Titles from Herbert Spencer:
- Author: An Autobiography, 2 vols. (1904)
- Author: BOLL 22: The Right to Ignore the State
- Author: BOLL 55: Herbert Spencer, “Political Retrospect and Prospect” (1882)
- Author: The Data of Ethics (1879)
- Author: Essays on Education and Kindred Subjects (1861, 1911)
- Author: Essays: Scientific, Political and Speculative, 3 vols. (1891)
- Author: First Principles (1867)
- Author: Justice: Being Part IV of the Principles of Ethics (1891)
- Author: The Man versus the State (1885 ed.)
- Author: The Man versus the State, with Six Essays on Government, Society and Freedom (LF ed.)
- Introduction: A Plea for Liberty: An Argument against Socialism and Socialistic Legislation (LF ed.)
- Introduction: A Plea for Liberty: An Argument against Socialism and Socialistic Legislation (1891 ed.)
- Author: Political Institutions, being Part V of the Principles of Sociology
- Author: The Principles of Ethics, 2 vols. (1879) (LF ed.)
- Author: The Principles of Psychology (1855)
- Author: The Principles of Sociology, 3 vols. (1898)
- Author: Social Statics (1851)
- Author: The Study of Sociology (1873)