Herbert Spencer

English philosopher and political theorist (1820-1903) · United Kingdom · Academics · Died at 83

Herbert Spencer is read about 943 times a day, in 83 languages.

A typical day, 30 days to 27 October 2026

The middle day of the days counted, so one week of news cannot move it. The line under it is the last 400 days, one point a day.

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He gave us "survival of the fittest" - but Herbert Spencer meant it as a grand theory of everything, from cells to societies, a vision of inevitable progress that made him the most famous thinker in the English-speaking world by 1890 and then vanished almost completely.

Academics Academic Philosophy Economics Journalism Literature 19th Century

A life in dates

1903Died8 December 19031855“The current opinion that science and poetry are opposed is a delusion. ...”In their wordsLectures on Education delivered at the Royal Institution of Great Britain, London, 1855, published in "What Knowledge is of Most Worth",Read the whole statement

1851“All evil results from the non-adaptation of constitution to conditions. This is true of everything that lives.”In their wordsPart I, Ch. 2 : The Evanescence of Evil, § 1Read the whole statement

“Every man may claim the fullest liberty to exercise his faculties compatible with the possession of like liberties by every other man.”In their wordsPt. II, Ch. 4 : Derivation of a First Principle, § 3Read the whole statement

“Limiting the liberty of each by the like liberty of all, excludes a wide range of improper actions, but does not exclude certain other improper ones.”In their wordsPt. II, Ch. 4 : Derivation of a First Principle, § 4Read the whole statement

“Education has for its object the formation of character.”In their wordsPt. II, Ch. 17 : The Rights of ChildrenRead the whole statement

“Opinion is ultimately determined by the feelings, and not by the intellect.”In their wordsPt. IV, Ch. 30 : General ConsiderationsRead the whole statement

1820Born27 April 1820

Also in Deutsch

Photos 8

Herbert Spencer

An appalling attempt to muzzle the watch-dog of science Friedrich Graetz

An Autobiography (1904) (14781387704)

Ardtonish House, Loch Aline

Contemporanul 16 (1882)

Emblem of Spencer's System of Philosophy

Exeter Bridge Herbert Spencer

God's two books; or, Plain facts about evolution, geology, and the Bible (1911) (14767509604)

In their own words 10

Herbert Spencer

10 statements, newest first

The current opinion that science and poetry are opposed is a delusion. ...
1855, Lectures on Education delivered at the Royal Institution of Great Britain, London, 1855, published in "What Knowledge is of Most Worth",, Own words
All evil results from the non-adaptation of constitution to conditions. This is true of everything that lives.
1851, Part I, Ch. 2 : The Evanescence of Evil, § 1, Own words
Evil perpetually tends to disappear.
1851, Part I, Ch. 2 : The Evanescence of Evil, § 2, Own words

Wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0

In their orbit

Father: William George Spencer

About this person

Spencer was born in Derby on 27 April 1820 and trained as neither scientist nor philosopher but came to both, writing across biology, sociology, psychology, anthropology, and ethics with equal ambition. After reading Darwin's On the Origin of Species in 1859, he coined "survival of the fittest" in his 1864 Principles of Biology, though he stretched evolution far beyond natural selection, folding in Lamarckism and applying the concept to mind, culture, and social institutions as progressive development. For decades he commanded enormous authority - the single most famous European intellectual of the late nineteenth century - but his system aged badly. By 1937 Talcott Parsons could ask, "Who now reads Spencer?" and expect no real answer.

Country

United Kingdom

Academics from the United Kingdom 6

Jonathan Sacks73.7

Charles Babbage71.5

Richard Borcherds74.6

Matt Goodwin71.3

John Stuart Mill78.5

Thomas Robert Malthus71.2

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