In sociology Spencer drew an analogy between society and biological organisms, arguing that both are complex entities with parts functioning interdependently to maintain the whole. He applied the principle of evolution to both but emphasized that, whereas in biology the whole is greater than its parts, in sociology the whole is nothing more than its parts--the individual persons who make up society. A sort of utilitarian in ethics, Spencer defended a radical antistatist individualism in political philosophy and laissez-faire policies in economics.
Spencer's reputation fell considerably with the increasing use of legislation to protect individuals from the worst effects of industrialization. Interest in his views has revived, however, with renewed sympathy for market-based solutions to social problems and with the revival of attempts to provide evolutionary explanations of human psychological traits and social development. But whatever the modern opinion of Spencer may be, his impact in the latter part of the nineteenth century, at least in the English-speaking world, was enormous. Jack London's autobiographical title character in his novel Martin Eden (1910) expresses a common impression of the time when he says, "here was Spencer, organising all knowledge for him, reducing everything to unity, elaborating ultimate realities, and presenting to his startled gaze a universe so concrete of realisation that it was like the model of a ship such as sailors make and put into glass bottles.
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