Herbert Spencer was a theorist whose valuable insights have often been drowned in a sea of irrelevance and specious reasoning. What is relevant in his work will therefore have to be selected in a manner recommended by Richard, Hofstadter when he wrote about Frederick Jackson Turner.
Among the theoreticians of’ social evolution, Spencer occupies an important place. He has tried to explain the phenomenon of social evolution in the back ground of physical and biological evolution and has based his theory on these.
Spencer’s name is very closely linked with the theory of organism. He had tried to establish that there is close relationship between human and social organism. He has given very precise and clear ideas about the scope of state activity and natural rights. Herbert Spencer believed that freedom was the sole antecedent of a good Govt. He wanted to give maximum rights to the individuals.
Herbert Spencer: A biographical Sketch:
Herbert Spencer was born in Derby, England on April 27, 1820, in a middle class family. His family members were highly individualistic in their outlook and Spencer also inherited the same tradition. Due to his ill-health he could not go to any conventional school rather received education from his father.
At the age of 13 he went to the home of his uncle and received further education from him. In 1837, he began work as a civil engineer for a railway. He joined the staff of the London and Birmingham Railway until 1846. During this period, Spencer continued to study on his own and began to publish Scientific and Political works. In 1848 he was appointed an editor of “The Economist and his intellectual ideas began to solidify. By 1850, he had completed his major work “Social Statics.”
In 1855, he published the second book “The Principles of Psychology”. During the writing of “Social Statics”, he first began to experience insomnia, and over the years his mental and physical problems mounted. He has to suffer a series of nervous breakdowns throughout the rest of his life.
In spite of his un-favourable mental conditions he produced scholarly books such as—First Principles, Principles of Biology, Principles of Ethics, Principles of Sociology, and The Study of Sociology etc. Spencer gained international reputation for his scholarly writings. Due to his illness and deteriorating mental conditions he had to live the last few years in almost complete isolation from human society. He breathed his last on December 8, 1903 at the age of 83.
Main Works of Spencer:
1. First Principles-1862
2. The Principles of Biology (1864-1867) Two volumes.
3. The Principles of Psychology, 1855.
4. The Principles of Sociology (1876-1896) Three volumes.
5. The Principles of Ethics (1892-1893) Two volumes.
6. Descriptive Sociology (1873-94) Two Volumes.
Abraham and Morgan write, “Spencer spoke in his writings to the needs of his time. Times have changed, but once again his work seems to command itself to our age as it searches for answers to age-old questions about how to live in community while maintaining individuality.”
Spencer’s contributions to social thought are not negligible, but recognizable. Spencer’s theories had a special appeal because they catered to the needs of the day; the desire for unifying knowledge and the need for scientific justification for the ‘Laissez-faire” principle.
Lewis A. Coser says, Spencer formulated an integral theory of all reality. “His law of evolution is a cosmic law. His theory is, therefore, essentially philosophical not sociological. Strictly speaking, philosophers should check its validity.”
Spencer’s contemporary Charles Darwin said of Spencer: “If he had trained himself to observe more, even at the expense of….. some loss of thinking power, he would have been a wonderful man.”
Three main themes run throughout Spencer’s major works:
1. Anti-Government Individualism
2. Naturalistic Evolutionism
3. Positivistic Uniformitarian’s.
Anti-Government individualism asserts that society functions best, most harmoniously when governmental regulation and control are reduced to a minimum involving only military, defence and the protection of individual’s rights. Naturalistic evolutionism posits causal sequences of growth and development. Positivistic uniformitarianism maintains that the same processes of evolutionary progress were applicable to all areas of existence; inert, living, psychological and social.
Spencer often referred to society as a “super organic” form or level of reality. For Spencer, Society was a social organism with both parallels to and differences from, the structures and processes of biological organisms.
Spencer’s methodological approach in sociology was dominated by a belief on naturalistic evolutionism. His reasoning was quite simple. All natural phenomena can be explained by reference to the process of evolution. Social occurrences are natural phenomena. Therefore social occurrences should be explained in terms of evolutionary processes.