CHAPTER XII HERBERT SPENCER BACKGROUND; ENVIRONMENTAL AND PERSONAL OTHING less comprehensive than the preceding chapters of this volume can present adequately the historic, philosophic and scientific background of Herbert Spencer's work. His was the crowning achievement in the systematization of human knowledge. It would be superfluous at this time to review the stages in the process by which knowledge had been acquired and to outline its scope. Only a few salient facts may be recalled. The scientific habit of mind had been developed and had been applied in the fields of both inorganic and organic nature. The concept of progressive change or progress was accepted by all the most advanced minds. A high degree of unity throughout nature was perceived. Darwin and his co-laborers had demonstrated that man was a part of nature and therefore subject, as all other living things, to physical influences. Numerous writers were making application of scientific law to the interpretation of human society. Comte had grasped the great concept of the ultimate unity of human knowledge and the possibility of a positive interpretation of the entire cosmos. The great synthesis was yet to be made. The type of mind capable of this achievement had not yet appeared. Two qualifications were necessary. First, the ability to grasp the content of human knowledge, second, the power of systematizing and coördinating it into a unified system. These two qualities are rarely combined in a single mind. Herbert Spencer, with the possible exception of Aristotle, is the best example which history affords of their successful combination. To quote from Ward, "His mastery of all branches of human knowledge has been justly styled 'encyclopedic.' His causality has never been equaled. To him were thus secured the two essential conditions for accomplishing the permanent object of philosophy-the synthesis of science. Without the comprehensive survey which his laborious investigations have secured for him, his great combining powers would have been profitless; without those powers, no museum of facts, however well learned, would have yielded the broad principles of a cosmical philosophy."1 HERBERT SPENCER Herbert Spencer was born in Derby, England, April 27, 1820. His father, William George Spencer, was a teacher, with particular interest in mathematics, having published a short work on geometry and later a treatise on Lucid Shorthand. His mother, Harriet Holmes, was of remote Huguenot and Hussite ancestry. Herbert was the only surviving child and was of delicate constitution. His early education was directed by his father, who gave him much latitude in the pursuit of his own tastes. He was little disciplined in routine studies, and developed a great fondness for natural science and a faculty for acute observation. At the age of thirteen he was sent to study under his uncle, Thomas Spencer, a liberal clergyman and scholar at Bath, who was interested much in social conditions and who published many pamphlets on the improvement of the conditions of the poor. Under his uncle he pursued his mathematical and scientific studies for three years, developing great originality in the solution of difficult problems. In physics and chemistry he displayed unusual interest in investigation and experimentation. He declined the opportunity which his uncle offered him of preparing for a university career and returned to Derby where he became an assistant in his father's school, continuing original researches and investigations in scientific subjects. At this period, railroad building was at its height and at the age of seventeen he entered the office of Sir Charles Fox in London, to become a civil engineer. For four years he worked at railroad and bridge building, chiefly on the Birmingham and Gloucester Line, and during which time he contributed several articles to the Civil Engineer and Architects Journal. In 1841 he gave up engineering temporarily and returned to Derby to assist his father in perfecting some inventions, but without success. Meanwhile he had developed a keen interest in social studies and in public affairs, and in 1842, at the age of twentytwo, he contributed a series of articles to the Nonconformist on The Proper Sphere of Government. The articles appeared in pamphlet form the following year. They were remarkable in that they contained in germ many of the theories developed in his maturer work. Unsettled as to his future career, he returned to engineering in 1Dynamic Sociology, Vol. I, p. 142. 1845, working intermittently for three years, but spending much of his time writing articles for various journals and in "inventing and castle-building." His most serious attempt at invention, which "came to nothing," was a means of locomotion, "uniting terrestrial traction with aerial suspension," an aeroplane propelled by a rapidly moving cable. In 1848 he gave up engineering permanently and removed to London, accepting the position as sub-editor of the Economist, the most influential weekly newspaper in London, dealing with financial and economic matters. This position he held for five years. It proved to be a fortunate opportunity, affording him much leisure, bringing him into contact with the leading men of the times, and stimulating his interest in public affairs. In 1850 he published Social Statics, his first great work on Social Science. The book excited widespread interest because of his advanced views. From 1852 to 1855 he contributed many articles to scientific journals, chief among which were The Development Hypothesis, The Universal Postulate, and The Genesis of Science. In 1855 his Principles of Psychology appeared, in which the doctrine of evolution was applied to the human mind. In April, 1857, he published in The Westminster Review his famous essay on Progress, Its Law and Cause. In January of 1858 he prepared a rough draft of his universal theory of evolution, which, modified and corrected, became the outline of The Synthetic Philosophy. This draft was printed the following year and distributed among his friends. The appearance of The Origin of Species by Darwin confirmed his hypothesis in organic science, and he decided to enter upon the gigantic task of producing The Synthetic Philosophy, a task to which he allotted twenty years, but which required the remainder of his life. The dates and order of publication of The Synthetic Philosophy follow: First Principles. First edition, 1862; second edition, 1867; third edition, 1875; fourth edition, 1880; fifth edition, 1884; sixth edition, and finally revised, 1900. Reprinted with an additional appendix and a new index, 1904. Principles of Biology. Vol. I, 1864; Vol. II, 1867; revised and enlarged edition, Vol. I, 1898; Vol. II, 1899. Principles of Psychology. First edition, 1855; second edition, Vol. I, 1870; Vol. II, 1872; third edition, 1880; fourth edition, 1899. Principles of Sociology. Vol. I, first edition, 1876; second edition, 1877; third and enlarged edition, 1885; Vol. II, Part IV, 1879; Part V, 1882. Vol. III, Part VI, 1885; Parts VII and VIII, 1896. Principles of Ethics. Vol. I, Part I, 1879; Part II and III, 1892. Vol. II, Part IV, 1891; Parts V and VI, 1893. Spencer recognized that the system was incomplete. Following First Principles, there should have been included a volume on The Principles of Inorganic Nature. This omission he explained as due to the fact that the scheme was already too extensive and that the other portions were relatively of greater importance.* In view of his voluminous writings on subjects requiring the most arduous labor, it seems incongruous to say that Spencer, throughout his whole life, was in extremely delicate health, yet such was the fact. It was by the extensive use of secretaries that he was able to accomplish so much. He traveled little, making only an occasional trip to the continent. He visited the United States in 1882, but because of the state of his health refused all invitations to lecture. Spencer never married. He refused all university honors and proffered degrees and declined to join any of the learned societies. In case honors were conferred without his knowledge or approval, he never made use of them in any way. He died December 8, 1903, at the age of eighty-three." SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY It would seem almost impossible to attempt, within the limits set by this treatise, to make any adequate survey of Spencer's system of thought, in which his social theory is implicit, or even to portray the essential features of his specific contributions to sociology. The task is undertaken, however, with full realization of the difficulties involved on the assumption that the social student already is familiar with Spencer's writings and that only a synopsis need here be given. In the absence of such familiarity the student should supply details by a careful reading of the works surveyed. 'Cf. Note, First Principles, p. XIV. For a complete list of Spencer's twenty volumes and one hundred ninety-five articles, letters and reviews, which appeared at various times in some forty-six different journals and periodicals, Cf. Duncan, Life and Letters of Herbert Spencer, Vol. II, pp. 366-81. For a complete list of academic and other honors offered or conferred, thirty-two in number, Cf. Duncan, Op. cit., pp. 382-4. Cf. Spencer, Autobiography, Vols. I and II, also Duncan, Life and Letters of Herbert Spencer, Vols. I and II. The order followed in the discussion is that in which the theories were developed. No attempt is made at a more logical order or coördination. く SOCIAL STATICS At the outset several facts should be borne in mind. This was Spencer's first book. He was thirty years of age. The doctrine of evolution had not yet been formulated. Social Statics antedated the Origin of Species by nine years. Comte's work at the time was not known to the author. Furthermore it was not a part of the Synthetic Philosophy. The prospectus of that great work was not formulated till 1858, eight years later, and the first volume of which was not published till 1862. The originality of the work is therefore the more striking, and while some of his conclusions were tentative, and afterwards were revised, in the main it sets forth certain theories of social interpretation which form the basis of all his later work. Giddings classifies it as "The first strictly sociological treatise," and says: "It may at once be acknowledged that the Social Statics challenges comparison to an extent that perhaps no other writing does, with both The Republic of Plato and the Politics of Aristotle. It propounds the same problems which they discuss, and it offers solutions which, though not identical with theirs, are closely parallel to them. The object of human effort for Spencer is happiness and as he conceives of happiness, it does not greatly differ from the joy of rational activity which was the 'good life' for Plato. Happiness depends upon external conditions, which are, namely, liberty and justice. Justice, however, for Mr. Spencer, is that limitation of liberty which equalizes it among men, whereas for Plato it was that specialization of work and opportunity which enables every man to do what he can do best, and to be what he can be perfectly. Both writers agree that to establish justice is the proximate purpose, or function, of society."7 Starting, then, with the assumption of the "greatest happiness" as the goal of human life and of "the common social morality," Spencer finds the first difficulty in the fact that there is no unanimity in the conception of what constitutes happiness. "The standard of happiness is infinitely variable." The second difficulty is equally obvious. Even if it should be assumed, for the sake of argument, that the nature of happiness is agreed upon, nothing is more common than the failure to Studies in the Theory of Human Society, p. III. 8 8 Social Statics, p. 7. |