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 Liberty Matters online discussion on Herbert Spencer’s Sociology of the State
Read the Liberty Classic Equality and Freedom in Herbert Spencer’s Principles of Ethics from Econlib
Read the Liberty Classic Hijacking Liberalism: Spencer’s The Man Versus the State from Law & Liberty
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
- Herbert Spencer on the actions of politicians
- Herbert Spencer on the growth of government revenue from war
- Herbert Spencer on class structures in societies
- Herbert Spencer on the superiority of private enterprise
- Herbert Spencer on the idea that society is a spontaneous growth
- Herbert Spencer on customs which are the result of human action
- Herbert Spencer on the State’s cultivation of enmity to justify its actions
- Herbert Spencer on spontaneous order produced by “the beneficent working of social forces”
- Herbert Spencer on voting as a poor instrument for protecting our rights to life, liberty, and property
- Herbert Spencer on voting in elections as a screen behind which the wirepullers turn the sovereign people into a puppet
- 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
- Herbert Spencer on the pitfalls of arguing with friends at the dinner table
- Herbert Spencer takes “philosophical politicians” to task for claiming that government promotes the “public good” when in fact they are seeking “party aggrandisement”
- Herbert Spencer concludes from his principle of equal freedom that individuals have the Right to Ignore the State
- Herbert Spencer argued that in a militant type of society the state would become more centralised and administrative, as compulsory education clearly showed
- 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
- As if in answer to Erasmus' prayer, Herbert 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”
Titles from Herbert Spencer:
- Author: An Autobiography, 2 vols. (1904)
- Author: An Autobiography, vol. 1
- Author: An Autobiography, vol. 2
- 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: Essays: Scientific, Political and Speculative, Vol. 1
- Author: Essays: Scientific, Political and Speculative, Vol. 2
- Author: Essays: Scientific, Political, and Speculative, vol. 3
- 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 (1891 ed.)
- Introduction: A Plea for Liberty: An Argument against Socialism and Socialistic Legislation (LF 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 Ethics, vol. 1 (LF ed.)
- Author: The Principles of Ethics, vol. 2 (LF ed.)
- Author: The Principles of Psychology (1855)
- Author: The Principles of Sociology, 3 vols. (1898)
- Author: The Principles of Sociology, vol. 1 (1898)
- Author: The Principles of Sociology, vol. 2 (1898)
- Author: The Principles of Sociology, vol. 3 (1898)
- Author: Social Statics (1851)
- Author: The Study of Sociology (1873)