herbert spencer: recovery of a lost resource for sociology

Herbert Spencer: Recovery of a Lost Resource

By Michael E. Marotta

SOCL 640: Advanced Social TheoryDr. Robert OrrangeWinter 2009March 2, 2009

Marotta/Spencer Page 1

My goal is only to right what I believe has been a great wrong in sociology and give Spencer his due. And as with all historical figures, we should extract what is useful in their work and then move on, relegating scholars of the past to the footnotes of our own creative efforts. The pages to follow can thus be seen as my attempt to give us a more appreciative view of what we footnote when we cite Spencer. – Jonathan H. Turner

This paper is an advocate’s plea for justice. Herbert Spencer is not totally

forgotten, but he is often excluded from the discursive space of sociology. We do

not give his ideas voice despite his advocacy of women’s rights, the rights of

children and labor unions. We ignore his opposition to colonialism and

imperialism. We recite that we are opposed to his “social Darwinism” (even

though he published before Darwin) and remain uninformed about his structural-

functional model for social development. Sociologists do want society to

“improve.” We just do not want it to “evolve.” We find him guilty by

association: Andrew Carnegie called him “Dear Teacher;” Andrew Carnegie was

a robber baron; therefore, we do not like Spencer. Yet, we do not let Stalin

interfere with our appreciation of Marx.

This paper will identify some of Spencer’s many compelling ideas. It will

focus on his sociology, of course. However, Spencer’s sociology rests on biology

and leads to politics, and those must be addressed, as well. Spencer had his

personal flaws, as who does not? This paper will nod to his personality only as it

affected his ideas and their presentation. Throughout, in the citation of sources,

easy evidence of his individualism will be a constant theme. This is the reason

why sociologists do not like Spencer; and why he is mischaracterized, misquoted

and misunderstood, all to our own loss.

I. Our Need of ItII. Is there a Social Science?

III. Nature of the Social SciencesIV. Difficulties of the Social SciencesV. Objective Difficulties

VI. Subjective Difficulties -- IntellectualVII. Subjective Difficulties -- Emotional

VIII. The Educational BiasIX. The Bias of PatriotismX. The Class-Bias

XI. The Political BiasXII. The Theological Bias

XIII. DisciplineXIV. Preparation in BiologyXV. Preparation in Psychology


Spencer’s Sociology

Herbert Spencer’s massive three-volume Principles of Sociology was only a

subset of a much larger Principles of Synthetic Philosophy, sold originally by

subscription. (Wiltshire 59) The project began in 1860 and ended in 1896. The first

volume in book form came out in 1873. It is also arguable that the subject is “sociology”

as opposed to “anthropology.” In truth, Spencer provided a broad and deep comparative

sociology that examined domestic, political, ecclesiastic, professional and industrial

institutions across the fullest possible range of recorded human societies.

That Principles of Sociology is a trilogy is a matter of convenience – and some

inconsistency. The chapters were separate publications, and when collected, there was an

overlap: “Ecclesiatical Institutions” appeared first to close Volume 2, then again to open

Volume 3.

The more portable and tractable Study of Sociology in a single volume also began

as a series of installments, this time in an

American magazine, Popular Science

Monthly, from May, 1872 to October

1873, after which it appeared in book

form. If you lay this book’s table of

contents next to those of any assortment

of other modern undergraduate

sociology survey textbooks–including

Macionis and Giddens, certainly–the parallels will be obvious. The box gives the chapter

titles from The Study of Sociology (1873):


Within the text there is much that resonates with modern mainstream classroom

college sociology. Moreover, Spencer is often uncompromising in exactly those areas of

belief where modern professors are likely to defer to the prejudices of their students,

retreating into relativism, rather than risking an unpleasant encounter. Spencer says that

it is a superstition to attribute the creation of the solar system, plants and animals to God.

(29) He goes on to say that it is also superstitious to claim that great men make societies.

“Before he can remake his society, his society must make him.” (31) Even if we grant

that a “great man” has certain attributes by birth, he is “powerless in the absence of the

material and mental accumulations which his society inherits from the past, and he is

powerless in the absence of the co-existing population, character, intelligence, and social

arrangements.” (31) Spencer warns his reader against the self-serving distortions of

business, politics, and religion. (84)

Like Marx, Spencer saw an evolutionary pattern in human society. Like Marx, he

identified the source of social stratification in that evolution. Unlike Marx, Spencer

regarded this evolution as neutral or benign, a fact of nature, no different from sunspots.

For Marx, the model was metaphysical: the dialectic materialism of thesis-antithesis-

synthesis that underlies and powers the physical world. As an economist, Marx

explained all human relations in terms of the modes of production. For Spencer, the

model was biological: living entities respond to their environments by processes of

differentiation and specialization. Spencer considered societies to be analogous to plants

and animals because societies are comprised of living things. “The nature of the

aggregate depends on the nature of the unit.” (43; 44; 45)


Textbook authors Macionis, Farley and Burgess acknowledge that functionalism

began with Spencer. True though that is, Spencer’s model was dynamic. He did more

than identify social structures that meet functional needs. He examined the interaction

between structure and function.

Structures begin with a heterogenous and generalized stage: At first, the chief of

a tribe may have a higher perceived status but will still fashion his own weapons and

directly manage his own affairs. As this “operative” function meets more complex

demands, it differentiates into “regulative” structures: priest, captain, judge, warrior; with

further differentiation and specialization within each. (55-56) But Spencer does not stop

there. He asks the cogent questions. It is not that structure supports growth, but that

structure is complete with the arrest of growth. (57) And he offers evidence. In the

United Kingdom, rails were narrow gauge because they evolved from carriage

stagecoaches and the roads along which they ran. However, in the U.S. there was no

prior infrastructure of coaches and roads, so rails here could be of wider gauge. A city

sewage system, once in place, is impossible to replace. A functioning national

educational system prevents different kinds of educational systems from being created.

(58-62)

Throughout all of this and beyond, Spencer is fully aware of the limitations of his

model and of sociology as a science. He points out that meteorology tells us that summer

is warmer than winter, and yet we still may need to light a fire for heat in July. Geology

and even astronomy are established and general and yet often inexact. (34-35) So, too,

do biology and ultimately sociology “yield much less definite results.” (91)


Spencer’s Study of Sociology devotes several chapters to these “difficulties” of

prejudice. Having ignored his work, we think that our problems are new and unique. In

discussing just that prejudice, Spencer says ironically that up until the 18th century,

illiteracy was a “virtue” in the upper classes. However, from 1771-1781 the first Quaker

schools were established for commoners. In his time, public funding for education in the

United Kingdom rose from £20 thousand per annum in 1834 to £1 million 30 years

later–“and it is claimed that we are perishing for lack of education.” The lack of results

from a 5000% increase in public spending on education over the course of a generation

could be from today’s news. In other words, what happens directly to us takes on greater

importance only by proximity, a caution still found in today’s textbooks.

Spencer cautions that we must perceive sociological truths against time.

Otherwise we are “judging the Earth’s curvature by whether we are walking up or down

hill.” (100)

Having cordoned off an intellectual safety-zone free from prejudices, Spencer

presents the biological and psychological truths upon which his sociology rests. That

Spencer was an ideological “biologist” is central his theories–and the modern problem

with them. Nonetheless, his investigation of psychology was not accidental. He began

The Study of Sociology by asserting that the nature of the aggregate depends on the nature

of the individual. (43; 44; 45) Furthermore, Spencer was careful to avoid popular

misconceptions. He disliked the phrases “body politic” and “political organization”

because they are “are analogies that mislead.” (301) A truly analogous “body” would

show mutual dependence of the parts. Moreover, in differentiation (by evolution), parts

lose their original likenesses because their differences in function lead to differences in


structure. Therefore, anyone who used those phrases would be required to demonstrate

exactly how they meet Spencer’s criteria. The point is important because from our

perspective, we read too much into Spencer and take too little from him, as when

textbook authors Capparelli and Macionis claim that he likened society to a human body,

which, in fact, he absolutely did not. Spencer did assert that society is like an organism.

The language of that analogy has been misapplied by others who interpret Spencer.

There are two distinct and equally important ways in which these sciences [Sociology and Biology] are connected. In the first place, all social actions being determined by the actions of individuals, and all actions of individuals being vital actions that conform to the laws of life at large, a rational interpretation of social actions implies knowledge of the laws of life. In the second place, a society as a whole considered apart from its living units, presents phenomena of growth structure and function like those of growth structure and function in an individual body; and these last are needful keys to the first. We will begin with this analogical connexion.

Figures of speech, which often mislead by conveying the notion of complete likeness where only slight similarity exists, occasionally mislead by making an actual correspondence seem a fancy. A metaphor, when used to express a real resemblance, raises a suspicion of mere imaginary resemblance; and so obscures the perception of intrinsic kinship. It is thus with the phrases “body politic,” “political organization,” and others which tacitly liken a society to a living creature: they are assumed to be phrases having a certain convenience but expressing no fact–tending rather to foster a fiction. (300-301)

That said, it remains that Spencer followed an exacting analogy of societies to

organisms. In his day, this was frontline science, as recombinant DNA and the human

genome are to our time. Perhaps it is more correct to point to our common analogizing of

neuron synapses as “switches” and the brain as a “computer”–or to call DNA the

“program of life.” It may also be true that Spencer was as misguided by his analogy as

are the post-modernist sociologists who analogize from quantum physics into

pronouncements that there are no absolute truths or that all knowledge is probabilistic.

Or perhaps Spencer and they were both right insofar as any workable analogy is a useful

tool. The power of Spencer’s analogy is easily lost on scholars whose high schools


provided them with binocular microscopes. In Spencer’s day, the compound microscope

that revealed the fine structures of unicellular organism was a wonder.

Mutual dependence of parts is that which initiates and guides organization of every kind. So long as in a mass of living matter all parts are alike, and all parts similarly live and grow without aid from one another, there is no organization: the undifferentiated aggregate of protoplasm thus characterized belongs to the lowest grade of living things. Without distinct faculties, and capable of but the feeblest movements, it cannot adjust itself to circumstances; and is at the mercy of environing destructive actions. The changes by which this structureless mass becomes a structured mass, having the characters and powers possessed by what we call an organism, are changes through which its parts lose their original likenesses; and do this while assuming the unlike kinds of activity for which their respective positions towards one another and surrounding things fit them. These differences of function, and consequent differences of structure, at first feebly marked, slight in degree, and few in kind, become, as organization progresses, definite and numerous; and in proportion as they do this the requirements are better met. (301)

In short, as the roles of society differentiate, each becomes mutually dependent on

the other. The farmer depends on the warrior to defend him. The guardian gets his

weapons from a smith who wears the product of a weaver, and so on. Moreover, we

evolve different kinds of farming, soldiering, merchandizing, etc. In this light, it is more

useful to understand Spencer as a structural-functionalist. Talcott Parsons made this

point in the “Introduction” to the 1961 reprint of The Study of Sociology by the

University of Michigan Press.

To Marx, division of labor was the root of alienation. To Spencer, it was life

itself. In the ultimate Marxist utopia, where everyone does everything, everyone is

interchangeable. In the ultimate Spencerian utopia of differentiated function, each of us

becomes irreplaceable … assuming that we are not weak, sick, stupid or lazy. Darwin

got the phrase “survival of the fittest” from Spencer. Spencer opens The Study of

Sociology by admonishing against charity.

Is there distress somewhere? They suppose nothing more is required than to subscribe money for relieving it. On the one hand, they never trace the reactive effects which charitable donations work on bank accounts, on the surplus capital bankers have to lend on the productive activity which the capital now abstracted would have set up, on the


number of labourers who would have received wages and who now go without wages–they do not perceive that certain necessaries of life have been withheld from one man who would have exchanged useful work for them, and given to another who perhaps persistently evades working. Nor, on the other hand, do they look beyond the immediate mitigation of misery. They deliberately shut their eyes to the fact that as fast as they increase the provision for those who live without labour so fast do they increase the number of those who live without labour; and that with an ever increasing distribution of alms there comes an ever increasing outcry for more alms. (2)

In the chapter on Biology, Spencer returns to the argument that made him infamous.

Every further appliance for meeting an evil, every additional expenditure of effort, every extra tax to meet the cost of supervision, becomes a fresh obstacle to living. For always in a society where population is pressing on the means of subsistence, and where the efforts required to fulfil vital needs are so great that they here and there cause premature death, the powers of producers cannot be further strained by calling on them to support a new class of non producers without in some cases increasing the wear and tear to a fatal extent. (311)

In other words, not only does charity reward the unproductive, it kills the goose that lays

the golden egg. When we find it difficult to believe that taxation can bring the ruling

class to starvation, we need to read the history of the U.S.S.R. In most times and places,

of course, it is not the topmost who are jeopardized. The American social Darwinist Ayn

Rand called it “sacrificing the underdog to the underdoggier.” Spencer’s original point in

the first chapter of The Study of Sociology was that charity prevents enterprise because

the money given to the poor is lost to investment. Therefore, future goods and services

disappear. This is the unseen consequence of charity.

One reply would be that under capitalism, we do not slice the pie thinner, but

bake more pies. That is to say, as long as enterprise is allowed and encouraged by other

means, what we distribute to the poor is a surplus we can afford. Another is that money

to the poor is also an investment: get someone (especially children) through hard times

now and they are prosperous later. We can claim that it is better for us, the able, to

support even those who refuse to work than to suffer the experience of their poverty and


death. Finally, every action of the government, even the police, is a form of welfare.

Therefore, taken to its limit, Spencerism is anarchy.

However, Spencer gave the matter some thought:

I am aware that this reasoning may be met by the criticism that carried out rigorously it would negative social ameliorations in general .Some perhaps will say that even those measures by which order is maintained might be opposed on the ground that there results from them a kind of men less capable of self protection than would otherwise exist. And there will doubtless be suggested the corollary that no detrimental to health ought to be removed. I am concerned to meet such criticisms because I do not mean conclusions above indicated to be taken without qualification. Manifestly, up to a certain point the removal of destructive causes leaves a balance of benefit. … All I wish to show is that there are limits to the good gained by such a policy. It is supposed in the Legislature, and by the public at large, that if, by measures taken, a certain number of deaths by disease have been prevented, so much pure benefit has secured. But it is not so. In any case, there is a set off to the benefit; and if such measures are greatly multiplied, deductions may eat up the benefit entirely, and leave an injury in its place. Where such measures ought to stop is a question that may be left open. Here my purpose is simply point out the way in which a far-reaching biological truth underlies rational conclusions in Sociology; and also to point that formidable evils may arise from ignoring it.

Unprepared to retreat, and having drawn in the opposition, Spencer presses the

attack by closing the jaws.

If anyone denies that children bear likenesses to their progenitors in character and capacity, if he holds that men whose parents and grandparents were habitual criminals have tendencies as good as those of men whose parents and grandparents were industrious and upright, he may consistently hold that it matters not from what families in a society the successive generations descend. He may think it just as well if the most active and capable and prudent and conscientious people die without issue, while many children are left by the reckless and dishonest. But whoever does not espouse so insane a proposition must admit that social arrangements which retard the multiplication of the mentally best, and facilitate the multiplication of the mentally worst, must be extremely injurious. (313)

The subtle point here is that the term “likeness” does not necessarily mean

“genetic.” In the first place, Gregor Mendel’s experiments were only being

carried out at this same time and would not be publicized until after the death of

Mendel and Spencer. Despite The Origin of Species, the mechanism of

inheritance was not scientifically established. Therefore, the more insightful

critics call Spencer not a “social Darwinist” but a “social Lamarckian.” (Wiltshire

64-66; Peel 141-143; Haines 1213) Our environment is culture. Whatever


physical characteristics we inherit are less important than the cultural attributes

we accept and pass on. Moreover, that we can choose those learned affects of

culture is our mechanism of change. For animals, random genetic mutation

throws variations into a hostile environment and those that succeed reproduce.

That is Darwinism. Jean-Baptiste Lamarck1 theorized that acquired

characteristics are inherited. While we reject that view for genetics, it explains

culture: rich people have wealthy children. Nonetheless, we make choices; and

children have religions, languages, music, etc., that are different from those of

their parents. Spencer recognized that, as well.

Biological truths and their corollaries presented under these special forms as bases for sociological conclusions are introductory to a more general biological truth … I refer to the truth that every species of organism, including the human, is always adapting itself both directly and indirectly to its conditions of existence. … Though as we have seen there is always an approximate fitness of the social unit to its social aggregate, yet the fitness can never be more than approximate, and re-adjustment is always going on. Could a society remain unchanged, something like a permanent equilibrium between the nature of the individual and the nature of the society would presently be reached. But the type of each society is continually being modified by two causes–by growth and by the actions warlike or other of adjacent societies. … Increase in the bulk of a society inevitably leads change of structure, as also does any alteration in the ratio of the predatory to the industrial activities. Hence, continual social metamorphosis involving continual alteration of the conditions under which the citizen lives, produces in an adaptation of character, which tending towards completeness, is ever made incomplete by further social metamorphosis. (316-317)

The “ratio of predatory to the industrial activities” is a key phrase. Spencer was all for

industry and had no use for predation. In Social Statics, he condemned colonialism and

imperialism.

Indeed all colonizing expeditions down to those of our own day. with its American annexationsm, its French occupations of Algiers and Tahitim and its British conquests of Scinde, and of the Punjaub, have borne a very repulsive likeness to the doings of buccaneers. … Insatiate greediness, a mere blind impulse to clutch whatever lies within reach, has generated very erroneous beliefs, and betrayed nations into most disastrous deeds. … That the addition of any thing must enrich seems so self evident a truth that it has never truck men to ask what happens when the thing added it a minus quantity. (393)

1 An interesting case himself, Lamarck was the youngest of eleven. He inherited his father’s profession (soldier), and after being wounded and decorated and awarded a pension, he took up the study of botany and became a college professor. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lamarck


While later in life he abandoned some of his earlier radical liberalism–and even

excoriated his wealthy American hosts for their pursuit of profit2–he never gave up the

belief that an open and unregulated economy provided the best environment for

continued improvement in humanity.

As noted above, according to Spencer, in order to understand the aggregate, we

must begin with the individual. As biology explains our physical nature, psychology

reveals our perhaps more important mentalities. It is here that Spencer is weakest,

devoting much of Chapter XV to the defects in women. It has been suggested that his

failed relationship with George Eliot (nee Mary Ann Evans) was a cause, or at least an

effect, or perhaps an affect, of his own inability to form emotional ties to other people.

(Cooley 132, Peel 13-14; Paxton passim)

Spencer’s generalities about women are troublesome on many levels. Women are

less energetic than men. Their bodily development is intended for reproduction. Their

limbs and brains are proportionately smaller than those of men. They are less intellectual

and less capable of abstract reasoning and lacking the finer emotion of justice, being

unable to detach themselves from the objects of their emotions. Women respond strongly

to babies by inherent and natural inclination. They are mentally specialized toward

raising children. It is the nature of women to respond to manifestation of power. Thus,

they are attracted to physically or intellectually powerful men. Moreover, they are given

to awe, which is aroused by religion. Therefore, they attend ceremonies more often,offer

more sacrifices and believe in more gods. They also have greater respect for the

trappings and symbols of government. (341-345)

2 At a banquet in his honor at Delmonico’s, November 9, 1882. (Shapin.)


Footnotes in the text take the reader to deeper explanations. Certainly, there are

exceptional women of high intellect. It is also true that under the right stress, men can

give milk, and babies have survived because this. Furthermore, social learning

discourages men from showing their emotions and encourages women to do so.

Nonetheless, rules are not built from exceptions. “Much the same erroneous impression

results as would result if the relative statures of men and women were judged by putting

very tall women side by side with ordinary men.” (402) Spencer’s logic is unassailable

because it is circular. Women are different from men because their different structures

meet a different function.

Spencer never equivocates on the secondary status of women compared to men.

He had plenty of data to work with, if he had wanted to use it. The relative statuses of

men and women within various social functions–farming, religion, hunting, warfare,

crafts, commerce, politics and more–were available to him across the same range of

societies from which he drew his other data. He must have known about Caroline

Herschel,3 Ada Byron (Lady Lovelace) and Mary Evereste Boole, even if he did not

know about Sophie Germaine, Mary Fairfax Somerville, Florence Nightengale (as a

mathematician before a nurse),4 and Elizabeth Blackwell. Spencer was acutely aware that

he lived in a time of changes. By contrast, Marx understood well the consequences of

machinery that removed male advantages of size and strength. Spencer expounded the

development and deployment of the telegraph, as well as its social ramifications along

with the political controversies about its monopolization. (152; 378; 391) Therefore, he

must have known that women worked as telegraphers.5

3 http://www.womanastronomer.com; 4 http://www.agnesscott.edu/Lriddle/women/women.htm5 http://www.telegraph-office.com/tel_off.html


Moreover, from the 1830s, in part because of the very political agitation of the

radical liberal cohort from which Spencer evolved, women had begun to own property

(land) and therefore to vote in local elections in England. The English Poor Law of 1834

provided that all taxpayers were entitled to vote in elections for the boards of guardians

of the poorhouses. In Kentucky (1838), Transvaal in South Africa (1854), and the

German states of Brunswick (1850), Prussia (1856) and Westphalia (1856), women were

allowed to vote for school boards, though often the ballot was by “proxy” i.e., a man had

to carry it to the poll. Taxpaying unmarried women voted in municipal (urban) elections

in Sweden and therefore in Finland in 1862. Finland extended that to the all local

districts in 1872. Bohemia (then under the domination of Austria-Hungary) granted

women taxpayers and women in learned professions the right to vote (by proxy) in local

and regional elections in 1864. In 1869, spinsters and widows in England and Wales

could vote in all local elections. More significantly, that same year, the American

territory of Wyoming allowed any woman over the age of 21 the right to vote .6 As he

knew about the habits of the natives of Tierre del Fuego, Spencer had access to all of this

information as well.

Spencer believed that a woman who developed her intellect did so at the expense

of her potential for motherhood. This is easily refuted by Nobel laureates and prime

ministers not available in his day. Yet, even though he claimed in The Study of Sociology

that women are inherently given to superstition, emotion, and collectivism, he never

rescinded his insistence in Social Statics on their right to political equality.

Spencer’s faith is in moral character, not education. 6 Ray, P. Orman, “Women Suffrage in Foreign Countries,” The American Political Science Review, Vol. 12, No. 3, (Aug. 1918), pp 469-474. Ray, P. Orman, “The World-Wide Woman Suffrage Movement,” Journal of Comparative Legislation and International Law, 3rd Series, Vol. 1, No. 3, (1919) pp. 220-238.


It is thus with conduct of every kind. See this group of persons clustered at the river side A boat has upset and some one is in danger of drowning. The fact that in the absence of aid the youth in the water will surely die is known to them all. That by swimming to his assistance his life may be saved is a proposition denied by none of them. The duty of helping fellow creatures who are in difficulties they have been taught all their lives, and they will severally admit that running a risk to prevent a death is praiseworthy. Nevertheless, though sundry of them can swim, they do nothing, beyond shouting for assistance, or giving advice. But now, here comes one who, tearing off his coat, plunges in to the rescue. In what does he differ from the others? Not in knowledge. Their cognitions are equally clear with his. They know as well as he does that death is impending, and know too how it may be prevented. In him, however, these cognitions arouse certain correlative emotions more strongly than they are aroused in the rest. Groups of feelings are excited in all; but whereas in the others the deterrent feelings of fear &c preponderate, in him there is a surplus of the feelings excited by sympathy, joined it may be with others not of so high a kind. In each case, however, the behaviour is not determined by knowledge, but by emotion. Obviously, change in the actions of these passive spectators is not to be effected by making their cognitions clearer, but by making their higher feelings stronger. (328-329)

We might wonder why Spencer does not argue that society would be better off devoid of

those so stupid as to go boating without knowing how to swim. The fact remains that his

point is well made: education alone cannot change society. Emotions, not opinions, are

the sources of our actions.

Having both [Secularists and Denominationalists] swallowed certain statistical fallacies, there has grown up in them the belief that State education will check ill-doing. In newspapers, they have often met with comparisons between the numbers of criminals who can read and write and the numbers who can not; and finding the numbers who can not greatly exceed the numbers who can, they accept the inference that ignorance is the cause of crime. It does not occur to them to ask whether other statistics similarly drawn up would not prove, with like conclusiveness, that crime is caused by absence of ablutions, or by lack of clean linen, or by bad ventilation, or by want of a separate bed room. Go through any jail and ascertain how many prisoners had been in the habit of taking a morning bath, and you would find that criminality habitually went with dirtiness of skin. Count up those who had possessed a second suit of clothes, and a comparison of the figures would show you that but a small percentage of criminals were habitually able to change their garments. …

A wave of opinion reaching a certain height cannot be changed by any evidence or argument but has to spend itself in the gradual course of things before a reaction of opinion can arise. Otherwise it would be incomprehensible that this confidence in the curative effects of teaching, which men have carelessly allowed to be generated in them by the reiterations of doctrinaire politicians, should survive the direct disproofs yielded by daily experience. (329-330)

Spencer asks rhetorically what connection there can be between literacy and

numeracy on the one hand, and morality on the other. “What possible effect can

acquirement of facility in making written signs of sounds have in strengthening the desire


to do right? How does knowledge of the multiplication table or quickness in adding and

dividing so increase the sympathies as to restrain the tendency to trespass against fellow

creatures?” (331)

We know that Spencer’s data on anthropology came from the reports of

missionaries, merchants and soldiers. The European conceit of superiority passed

unquestioned from them to him. But it began with them. And yet, he was just as critical

of the English, who, he said, generally consume all their earnings in the moment through

drink and leisure. (336)

Nor can we ascribe to such portion of Norman blood as exists among us this peculiar trait; descendants of the Normans in France are industrious and saving. Why then should the English people be improvident? If we seek explanation in their remote lineage we find none; but if we seek it in the social conditions to which they have been subject. we find a sufficient explanation. The English are improvident because they have been for ages disciplined in improvidence. Extravagance has been made habitual by shielding them from the sharp penalties extravagance brings. Carefulness has been discouraged by continually showing to the careful that those who were careless did as well as or better than themselves. Nay there have been positive penalties on carefulness. Labourers working hard, and paying their way, have constantly found themselves called on to help in supporting the idle around them; have had their goods taken under distress warrants that paupers might be fed; and eventually have found themselves and their children reduced also to pauperism. Well conducted poor women, supporting themselves without aid or encouragement, have seen the ill-conducted receiving parish pay for their illegitimate children. (336)

The problem with this ethnography is that it is entirely anecdotal. There is not a single

number, ratio or percentage in support of his claims. Spencer could have made the

opposite case just as easily. It does show, at least, that he was not an Anglophile.

Spencer closes the work with a catalog of warnings. Sociology is complex. The

sociologist is within the society he studies, and this is a cause of error. Society is in

constant change and the transitional shows irregular forms until the forms fit the

functions. Social science is at once radical and conservative because while the structures


and functions of time and place serve their purposes, aggregation of individual opinions

create the potential for change. (350-364)

Following the Conclusion, the Postscript presents a catalog of social problems

that echoes in our time: adulteration of foods, expensive and pointless legal suits, the

unequal and unfair treatment of the poor and preference for the rich before the law, and a

call for better justice.

A presentist complaint about Spencer would be easy. The intention of the

summary so far is to show, within limits, how Spencer’s impetus can still be felt in

sociology. We might disagree with his assertions about women, but we still study

women separately. As for the rest, it is easy to find modernism and even a touch of the

post-modern in Spencer’s sociology, once we open up to what he has to offer. There is

no doubt that the presentation of sociology to academic undergraduates still follows

Spencer’s fundamental perception of sociology as a quest to understand ourselves, free of

our own prejudices–and this fundamental construction can be seen even in the

arrangement of chapters in textbooks that still follow his plan.

Principles of Sociology

I. The Data of SociologyII. The Inductions of Sociology

III. Domestic InstitutionsIV. Ceremonial InstitutionsV. Political Institutions

VI. Ecclesiastical InstitutionsVII. Professional Institutions

VIII. Industrial Institutions

I. Preliminary 229 II. Political Organization In General 244 III. Political Integration 265 IV. Political Differentiation 288 V. Political Forms And Forces 311 VI. Political Heads Chiefs Kings Etc 331 VII. Compound Political Heads 366 VIII. Consultative Bodies 397 IX. Representative Bodies 415 X. Ministries 442 XI. Local Governing Agencies 451 XII. Military Systems 473 XIII. Judicial And Executive Systems 492 XIV. Laws 513 XV. Property 538 XVI. Revenue 557 XVII. The Militant Type Of Society 568 XVIII. The Industrial Type Of Society 603 XIX . Political Retrospect and Prospect 643


Spencer’s monumental System of Synthetic Philosophy included eight separate

volumes on sociology. They were eventually

accumulated into a set of three books under

one title: Principles of Sociology. As with the

smaller work, the arrangement is familiar to

us. However, in substance, this is a work of

comparative sociology or anthropology. The

mass of data comes from reports across the range of human settlements. The purpose of

the entire set is to outline or highlight each of these spheres of activity by examining their

evolution, properly called “social Lamarckism.” Spencer’s view of social evolution is

identical with his understanding of the organizations common to all living things from the

microscopic to the mundane. In the early stage, there is little or no differentiation of

structure or function. Under the press of environment, differentiation occurs and the

parts become distinct in both structure and function, they also become progressively

interdependent. Those parts that fall into disuse are not passed on to the inheritors.

Sometimes vestigial institutions hint of what was once a signification structure to meet an

important function.

Consider Political Institutions (Part V of the Principles of Sociology). The scope

is at once general and complete. Spencer is

free to make his points with whatever level

of detail he requires.

It is no surprise, then, that

Representative Bodies (Chapter IX) come in


two kinds and each of them can be expressed in two ways and that more complex

societies have upper and lower chambers chosen by different procedures. Moreover,

where these bodies once were also the justices, ministers and war councils, over time,

each of those became distinct functions. Spencer says:

That under its primary aspect political development is a process of integration is clear. By it, individuals originally separate are united into a whole; and the union of them into a whole is variously shown. In the earliest stages the groups of men are small; they are loose; they are not unified by subordination to a centre. But with political progress comes the compounding, re-compounding and re-re-compounding of groups, until great nations are produced. Moreover, with that settled life and agricultural development accompanying political progress, there is not only a formation of societies covering wider areas, but an increasing density of their populations. Further, the loose aggregation of savages passes into the coherent connexion of citizens, at one stage coercively bound to one another and to their localities by family ties and class ties, and at a later stage voluntarily bound together by their mutually dependent occupations. Once more, there is that merging of individual wills in a governmental will, which reduces a society as it reduces an army to a consolidated body. (643-644)

Despite words about militancy and government, Spencer has not evolved away

from his radical liberal roots. He warns that “in the present state of armed preparation

throughout Europe an untoward accident may bring about wars, which, lasting perhaps

for a generation” will mean an end to political freedom. (648) “Only further evils are to

be looked for from the continuance of militancy in civilized nations.” (665) He sees in

industry an ever more effective means of creating complex societies, voluntarily bound

by consent and contract. He has his own utopia: “… in our own generation steam

hammers, hydraulic rams, and multitudinous new appliances, from locomotives to

telephones, prove that industrial needs alone have come to furnish abundant pressure

whereby hereafter the industrial arts will be further advanced.” (665)

Spencer and Comte

It is an easy parallel that Herbert Spencer and Auguste Comte were the Newton and

Leibnitz of their day: independent co-discoverers of the same study. It might be more


appropriate to compare them to Microsoft and Apple: competitors dedicated to different

models. Spencer and Comte both coined the term “social statics” to express a rational-

empirical study of society that would be as rigorous as Newtonian mechanics.7 Failing to

achieve a generalizable “physics of society” each of them came to the word “sociology”

as a new study. When he began his work, Spencer was unaware of Comte. Spencer was

not fluent in French and he read Comte’s theories via Harriet Martineau’s translations.

(Wiltshire 70) From our perspective, both are said to have been “positivists” and

“modernists.” They inherited the Enlightenment. They could not be farther apart.

Spencer invented the phrase “survival of the fittest.” Comte coined the word

“altruism.” Comte’s System of Positive Polity is thoroughly collectivist. He promises a

priesthood of Positivism that will reunite Europe against the anarchy that followed the

end the Middle Ages.

For thirty centuries the priestly castes of China and still more of India have been watching our Western transition; to them it must appear mere agitation, as puerile as it is tempestuous, with nothing to harmonise its different phases but their common inroad upon unity. But on the advent of Positivism they will soon come to feel that the series of partial evolutions has issued in the most complete and most stable order offering to the East, an acceptable union with the West, the concert of the race for the developement of all the attributes of Humanity. (11)

Therefore, it is not surprising that Spencer did not agree with Comte’s philosophy.

In Reasons for Dissenting from the Philosophy of M. Comte (1864), Spencer takes each

point in turn. It is easier just to present the contrasts as a table. (See Table 1.)

Spencer and Comte do have ideas in common. They both study society as

scientists. They both believe in the value of education of the individual for social life.

They both expect men of science to rule from their positions of superior knowledge. For

Spencer, this would be a default, by tacit assent and would not be complete. For Comte,

7 In physical mechanics, the science of forces, “statics” refers to stationary objects, such as bridges, while “dynamics” describes the physics of movement, such as turbines.


this would be law. Both of them mean the same thing by “positive philosophy” i.e., a

rational-empirical knowledge. However, for them, “social statics” has different

meanings. Comte intended the creation of a permanently stable society. Spencer meant

only to identify the forces of social stability. They both used biological (“organismic”)

analogies.

In The Study of Society, Spencer did acknowledge Comte’s contribution to the

science of sociology:

To M. Comte, living when these conditions were fulfilled, is due the credit of having set forth with comparative definiteness the connexion between the Science of Life and the Science of Society. He saw clearly that the facts presented by masses of associated men are facts of the same order as those presented by groups of gregarious creatures of inferior kinds; and that in the one case, as in the other, the individuals must be studied before the assemblages can be understood. He therefore placed Biology before Sociology in his classification of the sciences. (299)

Comte SpencerThree stages: Theological, Metaphysical and Positive. Socially, historically and “the human mind by its nature.” Individual uses them successively in maturing.

One mode of thought and knowledge. “Concrete and individual causal agencies coalesce in the mind as fast as groups of phenomena are assimilated.”

Ultimately, causes, first or final, are inaccessible.

Consciousness perceives causes by its nature.

Political and moral and social change come from ideas. Our crisis comes from intellectual anarchy.

Emotions support the social character by self-interest, fears, reverences, sympathies. Modification of moral character caused by the discipline of social life causes social progress.

Older sciences are more advanced. Mathematics Astronomy … Sociology

Important sciences are more advanced. No order to sciences.

Development of anterior sciences relative to general, abstract, less complicated (in contemporary terms).

No social order. Continuous action-reaction among the sciences.

Species are immutable. EvolutionSubjective analysis of ideas is impossible. Psychology is a valid science.Government developed to the greatest extent. Regulation of class. Unquestioned authority. Subordination of the individual to society.

Individual self-restrained. Minimum government. Spontaneous cooperation. Social life offers completest sphere for individual life.

Nationalism IndividualismCollective life is the supreme being. The Supreme Being is unknown and


unknowable.Table 1: Comte and Spencer

Spencer and the Sociologists

“Who today reads Spencer?” asked Crane Brinton in English Political Thought in the

Nineteenth Century. That rhetorical question opens the section on Spencer in the chapter,

“The Prosperous Victorians.” The passage continues:

… It is difficult for us to realize how great a stir he made in the world. The Synthetic Philosophy penetrated to many a bookshelf which held nothing else quite so heavy. It lay beside the works of Buckle and Mills on the shelf of every Englishman of a radical turn of mind. It was read, discussed, fought over. And now it is a drug on the second-hand market, and hardly stirs the interest of the German or American aspirant to the doctorate in philosophy. We are more indifferent to this summa than to the summa of Thomas Aquinas. The completeness of Spencer’s downfall is almost sufficient to disarm the critic, and it certainly should predispose him to mercy. But Spencer himself was never merciful, not merciful intellectually at least. He seems never to have harboured any kind of doubt. In a century surely not predisposed to skepticism, few thinkers surpass him in cock-sureness and intolerance. He was the intimate of a strange and rather unsatisfactory God, whom he called the principle of Evolution. His God betrayed him. We have evolved beyond Spencer. (226)

There follows a more or less objective (if unfriendly) summation of Spencer’s major

assertions about society. What is ironic is that the summary helped to keep Spencer in

the collective consciousness of academe. If Spencer had truly been forgotten, Brinton

would not have remembered him.8

Four years later, Talcott Parsons quoted Brinton to open his book, The Structure

of Social Action.

INTRODUCTORY:THE PROBLEM “Who now reads Spencer? It is difficult for us to realise how great a stir he made in the world.... He was the intimate confidant of a strange and rather unsatisfactory God, whom he called the principle of Evolution. His God has betrayed him. We have evolved beyond Spencer.” Professor Brinton’s verdict may be paraphrased as that of the coroner, “Dead

8 Who was Buckle? Brinton knew. I had to google him–and for lexical reasons had to disambiguate by combining him with Mill and Spencer: english philosophers spencer mill buckle. That took me to Henry Thomas Buckle in Wikipedia. “On March 19, 1858 he delivered a public lecture at the Royal Institution (the only one he ever gave) on the Influence of Women on the Progress of Knowledge…” Buckle attempted to write a science of history but died young.


by suicide or at the hands of person or persons unknown.” We must agree with the verdict. Spencer is dead. But who killed him and how? This is the problem.

And yet, rumors of Spencer’s intellectual internment were greatly exaggerated. Parsons

himself wrote an Introduction to The Study of Sociology, when he taught at the University

of Michigan (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Paperbacks, 1961, 1966).

A literature search via JSTOR for articles or reviews with Spencer in the title

reveals that there have been decades when his light was dim with no books or significant

journal articles about his ideas. For the entire run of the JSTOR database from 1890 to

present, the years 1940 to 1961 stand out as a desert. From that point forward, Spencer

has always received some visibility. New books garner reviews and that recreates some

interest.

In 1961, Werner Stark of the University of Manchester read a paper at the

“Centenary” meeting at the 55th annual convention of the American Sociological

Association. The work, “Herbert Spencer's Three Sociologies” appeared in American

Sociological Review, Vol. 26, No. 4 (Aug., 1961), pp. 515-521. Stark grants that Spencer

“was an experimental rather than a consistent mind.” Therefore, in Principles of

Sociology, society is a unity. In Man versus the State, he claimed that society is a

multiplicity of individuals. Finally, Spencer also presented society as initially a

multiplicity, but expressing an inherent tendency to evolve into a unity. That view is

expressed in The Principles of Psychology. According to Stark: “It was this third

doctrine which had the greatest influence on sociology because it inspired [William

Graham] Sumner’s folkway concept.” (515) Sumner, of course, is another classical

liberal–and former president of the ASA–who lives the shadows of modern sociology’s

collective memory.


Stark found three sociologies in Spencer. Robert G. Perrin found “Herbert

Spencer’s Four Theories of Evolution” (The American Journal of Sociology, Vol. 81, No.

6, May, 1976, pp. 1339-1359). Perrin cited a “revival of critical interest” and a

“resuscitation of interest” (1339) in Spencer. Part of this was a reinterpretation of

Spencer by Robert I. Carneiro in 1967–The Evolution of Society: Selections from Herbert

Spencer’s Principles of Sociology (Chicago: University of Chicago Press).

In a review of Carneiro’s work, Roscoe C. Hinkle wrote:

Among the effects which might issue from the reascendance of social evolutionism in anthropology and its apparent revival in sociology is a renewal of interest in its most eminent expositor and apologist, Herbert Spencer. This abridgement of his Principles of Sociology, by the associate curator of South American Ethnology at the American Museum of Natural History, should encourage that revival and the rediscovery of what is genuine and permanent as opposed to spurious and transient in the Spencerian legacy. (637)

Continuing that legacy of renewed critical analysis, Perrin identified four species of

evolution in Spencer’s lifeworks.

Social evolution as progress toward an ideal state of society–amity, individual altruism,9 status based on achieved versus ascribed qualities, and voluntary co-operation among highly disciplined individuals. (1343)

Social evolution as differentiation of social aggregates into functional subsystems–kinships, economic entities, military orders, religious orders. (1348)

Social evolution as advancing a division of labor–the differentiation above continues and becomes more dense, each experiencing deeper levels of specialization within.

Social evolution as the origin of new species of societies (1353)

University of Calgary sociologist Valerie A. Haines devoted considerable attention to

Spencer.10 (See Appendix A.) She asked, rhetorically, “Is Spencer’s Theory an

Evolutionary Theory?” (The American Journal of Sociology, Vol. 93, No. 5, Mar., 1988,

pp. 1200-1223.) Haines closely defines the two alternative evolutions: immanent (or

9 I suggest the saving of the boy in the boat as an example, though I point out the chasm between that kind of altruism and Comte’s absolutist or imperative other-centered morality.10 In an e-mail received February 27, 2009, Dr. Haines gave me permission to note here that she is now working on another book and several articles about Herbert Spencer.


developmental) and creative (or biological). The first holds that the environment can

accelerate or retard a change (or perhaps prevent it entirely) but that the force of change

is within the object or process. The scientific or biological theory of evolution is

creative:

New potentials are created either through the inheritance of environmentally induced modifications (Lamarckism) or through the environmental selection of random variations (natural selection). Environmental contingency, historical specificity, and probabilism are hallmarks of the evolutionary model. (1201)

Haines argues that Spencer rejected the idea of immanent change.11 Therefore, his

evolutionary theory remains important to sociology. Furthermore, Haines contends that

two of Spencer’s modern biographers, Turner and Peel (see below), have it wrong.

Haines sees a progressive development in Spencer’s thoughts.

Spencer replaced his teleological conception of progress (which informs Social Statics) with a more explicitly biological one. ... Spencer’s aim was to show that this law of organic process was the law of all progress, including social progress. Spencer did not call this universal law “progress” because it covers inorganic as well as organic and superorganic change and because the process it describes is nonteleological. The course of evolution is progressive in the von Baerian, not the utilitarian, sense. It is a process of structural change leading to increased organizational complexity. (1208)

Moreover, Haines points to another significant refinement. Six months after Social

Statics was published, Spencer wrote an essay, “Transcendental Physiology” (1857), that

addressed the importance of integration. “Differentiation was necessary but not

sufficient.” (Haines 1208) In other words, while specialized functions develop in

response to environmental forces, it is also true that development is marked by the

“coalescence of parts performing similar functions.” (Haines)

I can offer examples from our own experience. The Department of Homeland

Security now includes dozens of previously independent agencies. Home computer

connections originated as modem dialups and broadband via cable TV. Now we can get

11 Marx accepted the ideas of immanent change and developmental evolution.


telephone calls and television programs via those same Internet connections. Moreover,

newspapers, radio and television all present online content, thus integrating “the media”

into “a medium.”

According to Haines, understanding Spencer well enough to amend his errors

correctly would bring a convergence with Anthony Giddens’ theory of structuration.

(1221)

The most recent significant journal article is “Society Reified: Herbert Spencer

and Political Theory in Early Meiji Japan” by Douglas Howland (Comparative Studies in

Society and History, vol. 42, no. 1, Jan. 2000, pp.67-86.) The shock of Western contact

via steam-powered gunboats caused the downfall of the Tokugawa Shogunate. The

emperor was restored as the head of state and the samurai class lost political control of

Japan. Merchants were the new powers. Japanese intellectuals imported Western ideas,

and at that time few were more visible than those of Herbert Spencer. Spencer’s

expositions on the evolutionary ascension of industry over the military were not lost on

the new generation. Both liberals and conservatives found ideas they could use in

Spencer. Sake brewers argued that the state had no right to tax them. Militarists said that

the state held power by survival of the fittest. Some educators sought to interpose

“society” between government and the people. Others pointed to Spencer’s low

estimates for the potential of education alone. Perhaps the most permanent change in

Japanese society came from the invention of the concept itself. Before Spencer’s works

were translated, the Japanese language had no native word for “society.” The modern

word “shakai” is also originally the word for “village” but now also means “society.”

This was taught via analogy and metaphor from the translated works of Spencer. (78-79)


Capping the journal articles, in our generation, Spencer has been the subject of

several books, among them:

1971 Herbert Spencer: Evolution of a Sociologist by J. D. Y. Peel (New York: Basic Books).

1978 The Social and Political Thought of Herbert Spencer by David Wiltshire (Oxford: Oxford University Press).

1985 Herbert Spencer: A Renewed Appreciation by Jonathan H. Turner (Beverly Hills: Sage Publications).

1991 George Eliot and Herbert Spencer: Feminism, Evolutionism, and the Reconstruction of Gender by Nancy L. Preston (Princeton: Princeton University Press).

Each of these, of course, garnered significant reviews in the sociology journals,

indicating a fundamental interest in the man and his ideas.

Peel says: “Sociology, more than any other kind of thought, only makes sense

when it is set in the social context which has produced it and provided its chief subject-

matter.” (vii) Therefore, he devotes two chapters to Spencer’s social context. We meet

Erasmus Darwin,12 of course, but also Joseph Priestley and William Godwin. The milieu

was a prosperous “shopocracy” where the line between owner and worker was indistinct.

The area was Protestant in the extreme, receptive to John Wesley’s Methodism, though

more were Quakers and Presbyterians. Opposition to the Church of England led to

politically radical ideas about the separation of church and state. Steam engine

entrepreneur Matthew Boulton13 quipped that the reason why Birmingham and

Manchester were prosperous was specifically because they had no representation in

Parliament and thus were spared the deadweight loss of election spending. The link

between Boulton’s Birmingham and Spencer’s Derby was Erasmus Darwin, who, after

12 To my knowledge, Peel is not alone is passing over the significance in the Darwin family’s naming a child “Erasmus” there being no Saint Erasmus or King Erasmus. 13 Whose coining presses struck merchant tokens far finer than the Royal Mint’s own issues.


arriving, founded the Derby Philosophical Society to provide himself with the chat he

previously enjoyed at the Lunar Society. (33-48)

Peel’s book may have triggered a renewed interest in Spencer. It may only have

been a data point in an existing trend that became visible later: post hoc ergo propter hoc.

Either way, Wiltshire noted the change, and focused on Spencer’s political ideas as a

subset of his social theories. He notes that Spencer’s social evolution carries a

contradiction. The second generation will inherit the acquired characteristics of the first,

among them wealth. Yet, Spencer does not support the established aristocracy. (217)

Experienced over a lifetime, changes in Spencer’s political program are incremental.

Compressed in a retrospective they are glaring. In Social Statics (1851) Spencer offered

a series of arguments on why land should be owned by the community, and how to

achieve this with some justice to the current owners. In Justice (1891) Spencer said that

the proposal would be unjust and impractical. (109-110)14

Turner nicely compresses Spencer’s life works into 160 pages. If a thousand

years from now, all that were left of Spencer were Turner’s abstract, it would be enough

to leave Spencer remembered as an insightful critic and inventive thinker. Turner

devotes an entire chapter to making Spencer “The First Functionalist,” an appreciation

that failed Talcott Parsons, oddly enough. Turner compares and contrasts Spencer’s

functionalism with that of Parsons and Durkheim.

Just as Parsons analyzed structures and processes primarily with respect to the needs for adaptation, goal attainment, integration and latency, or just as Durkheim studied social arrangements only in relation to the need for social integration, so Spencer began to analyze social phenomena in terms of how they meet needs for regulation, sustenance, and distribution. …For Parsons, his requisite functionalism became a mode of theoretical

14 Spencer did not retreat from this proposal. In Man Against the State (1884), he repeated it as one of the basic common law expectations, along with protection from aggression. Spencer was never tied to other peoples’ preconceptions, but he does note that in England, all land belongs to the Crown, and now the Crown has been replaced by popular government. However, consistent with his other syllogisms, he notes that the change does not alter the nature of the original arrangement. (4.19)


explanation. If the functional needs served by a phenomenon can be identified, then it is explained… For Durkheim… functional analysis is highly moralistic, because Durkheim carried a vision of the ‘good’ and ‘bad’ society. And when he talks about integration, he means the ‘good’ society… [Spencer’s] sociology always seeks to explain how X and Y vary together. … [His] theoretical analysis is always concerned with demonstrating how variations in regulating, sustaining, and distributing processes are a (mathematical) function of other variables. (61-62)

If Spencer has been conspicuous by his absence, so has his personal life. As

Wiltshire put it: “Spencer’s life is singularly devoid of landmarks.” (2) Peel also says

that Spencer’s eclipse came because he was never associated with any university, party or

cause. Spencer seldom spoke in public. He sold his writings by subscription, so even

though he had a printer, he was essentially self-published. Like Protagoras and the

Sophists, he made a business out of teaching, though never in person. Turner and Peel

both credit him with creating a research enterprise, a fact that we do not appreciate today.

He employed college-trained young men to search the printed works of his time, and then

to catalog according to his schema the facts they found. Yet, Spencer touched many

lives. Andrew Carnegie wrote to him, calling him “Dear Teacher.” (Shapin) But it was

being touched that was threatening. So, his relationship with George Eliot was

unemotional–at least in real life. In print, the engagement was heated, tempestuous,

pointed and competitive.

According to Nancy L. Paxton’s George Eliot and Herbert Spencer, Eliot’s

novels–especially Silas Marner, Felix Holt and Middlemarch–contain the arguments she

could not win in person. It was she who came to Spencer, of course. He found her

engaging, as how could he not. Even years later, he refused to reveal the details of their

talks. Spencer’s Autobiography is generally considered fair to himself, but honest about

himself–except in the matter of Mary Ann Evans, where he is reticent. An obsessive

cataloguer, nonetheless he burned their letters. Anything you want to know about them,


you will have to hear from her alone, and then, only transduced through the characters of

her novels.

Spencer’s Place in American Sociology Today

A convenience sample (see Appendix B.) of undergraduate survey textbooks

reveals that Spencer is ignored or mischaracterized. Best-selling author John Macionis

has the illustration below on this mirrored websites www.macionis.com and

www.TheSociologyPage.com.

Figure 1: Herbert Spencer from Macionis websitesThe text reads:

Herbert Spencer: The Survival of the FittestThe most memorable idea of the English philosopher Herbert Spencer (1820-1903) was his assertion that the passing of time witnesses “the survival of the fittest.” Many people associated this immortal phrase with the theory of species evolution developed by the natural scientist Charles Darwin (1809-1882). The expression was actually Spencer’s, however, and he used it to refer to society, not to living creatures. In it, we find not only an example of early structural-functional analysis, but a controversial theory that reflects the popular view in Spencer’s day that society mirrored biology. Spencer’s ideas, which came to be known as Social Darwinism, rested on the assertion that, if left to compete


among themselves, the most intelligent, ambitious and productive people will inevitably win out. Spencer endorsed a world of fierce competition, thinking that as the “fittest” survived, society would undergo steady improvements. Society rewards its best members, Spencer continued, by allowing a free-market economy to function without government interference. Welfare, or other programs aimed at redistributing money to benefit the poor, Spencer maintained, do just the opposite: They drag society down by elevating its weakest and least worthy members. For such opinions, nineteenth-century industrialists loudly applauded Spencer, and the rich saw in Spencer’s analysis, a scientific justification for big business to remain free of government regulation or social conscience. Indeed, John D. Rockefeller, who built a vast financial empire that included most of the U.S. oil industry, often recited Spencer’s “social gospel” to young children in Sunday school, casting the growth of giant corporations as merely the naturally ordained “survival of the fittest.” But others objected to the idea that society amounted to little more than a jungle where self-interest reigned supreme. Gradually, social Darwinism fell out of favor among social scientists, although it still surfaces today as an influential element of conservative political thought. From a sociological point of view, Spencer’s thinking is flawed because we now realize that ability only partly accounts for personal success, and favoring the rich and powerful does not necessarily benefit society as a whole. In addition, the heartlessness of Spencer’s ideas strikes many people as cruel, with little room for human compassion.

Margo Capparelli’s eighth edition companion study guide to Macionis’s Society:

the Basics says nothing at all about Spencer. The twelfth edition does have an entry

claiming that Spencer likened society to the human body, which he did not. Under

Chapter 10: Stratification another slide identifies Spencer with “survival of the fittest.”

Richard T. Schaefer errs. His Sociology: A Brief Introduction Fifth Edition

(annotated instructor’s edition) 2004 says:

“Another important contributor to the discipline of sociology was Herbert Spencer (1820-1903). A relatively prosperous Victorian Englishman, Spencer (unlike Martineau) did not feel compelled to correct or improve society; instead, he merely wanted to understand it better. Drawing on Charles Darwin’s study On the Origin of Species, Spencer applied the concept of evolution of the species to societies in order to explain how they change over time. Similarly, he adapted Darwin’s evolutionary view of the ‘survival of the fittest’ by arguing that it is ‘natural’ that some people are rich and others are poor.

“Spencer’s approach to societal change was extremely popular in his own lifetime. Unlike Comte, Spencer suggested that since societies are bound to change eventually, one need not be highly critical of present social arrangements or work actively for social change. This viewpoint appealed to many influential people in England and the United States who had vested interests in the status quo and were suspicious of social thinkers who endorsed change.” (10)15

15 The same assessment appears verbatim in Schaefer & Lamm


Schaefer also says: “Dubois had little patience for theorists such as Herbert Spencer who

seemed content with the status quo.” (15) And: “Spencer likened society to a living body

with interrelated parts that were moving toward a common destiny.” (406)

Diana Kendall’s Sociology in Our Times: The Essentials provides three full

paragraphs summarizing the theory of social evolution. She acknowledges “survival of

the fittest” as Spencer’s creation, adding:

Because this phrase is often attributed to Darwin, Spencer’s view of society is known as social Darwinism–the belief that those species of animals, including human beings, best adapted to their environment survive and prosper, whereas those poorly adapted die out. … Critics have suggested that many of his ideas have serious flaws. For one thing, societies are not the same as biological systems; people are able to create and transform the environment in which they live. (11-12)

Also, the Study Guide for this text by Kathryn Sinast Mueller and Diana Kendall does

attribute the phrase “survival of the fittest” to Spencer. (4)

In Social Problems D. Stanley Eitzen and Maxine Baca Zinn cite Spencer

indirectly on the biological inferiority of the poor. (228)

Competing against Macionis for popularity on college campuses, the textbook by

Lord Anthony Giddens, Introduction to Sociology, has no reference to Spencer at all.

Likewise, Sociology for the 21st century by Tim Curry, Robert Jiobu and Kent Schwirian,

has no entry for Herbert Spencer.

It is not all grim. John E. Farley, Sociology, credits Spencer along with Comte

and Durkheim for the idea of the interdependence of social functions and therefore the

theory of functionalism. (42)

Sociology: A Down-to-Earth Approach by James M. Henslin correctly identifies

the concept of survival of the fittest as originating with Spencer, rather than with Darwin,

and provides a sketchy but generally unarguable description of Spencer’s ideology.


Herbert Spencer … is sometimes called the second founder of sociology. … Spencer became convinced that societies evolve from lower (‘barbarian’) to higher (‘civilized’) forms. As generations pass, he said, the most capable and intelligent (‘the fittest’) members of society survive, while the less capable die out. (11)

In Sociology Explained by Barnard Burgess, a sidebar identifies Spencer as a

“Victorian sociologist and an important figure in evolutionism and social Darwinism.

His functionalism influenced structural-functionalism sociology of Durkheim and

Malinowski.” (178)

Neil J. Smelser’s Sociology credits Spencer with raising deep issues: “What are

the major patterns of change and modernization that occur in societies–for example

differentiation of social structures and rationalization of social patterns.” (4)

In summary, few textbooks correctly recite Spencer’s major theories. Those that

acknowledge Spencer positively do not follow through on the theories or their

consequences.

That situation reflects a deeper current within academic sociology. A literature

search via the JSTOR16 database revealed an interesting set of prejudices. The search was

for titles that included the names (or alternatives) for famous sociologists: August Comte,

Comtean, Comtism… Karl Marx, Marxist, Marxism… The search was for all article

titles (not reviews, letters or editorials) in all 70 sociology journals, from 1890 to 2009.

16 Provided by the EMU Halle Library, JSTOR’s archives include 70 titles in Sociology, among them Social Forces, Social Problems, Sociometry, Sociological Forum, Sociological Perspectives, Sociological Theory, and Sociology of Religion. Most of these are English-language, American-based journals. Other titles are available as well.


Theorist n-score %Karl Marx 1056 37.5Max Weber 1012 35.9Emile Durkheim 581 20.6Auguste Comte 92 3.3Herbert Spencer 78 2.8Total 2819 100.1Table 2. Samples of journal articles titles

In order to gain contrast, the same search was run for only those articles appearing

in French. Again, variants were used–Karl Marx, Marxiste, Marxisme, etc. The JSTOR

database is only partially populated in French and only from the middle of the 20th

century. The results were so surprising, that another set of searches was run on the names

Habermas, Baudrilliard, Bourdieu, and Wallerstein, and also on the general word,

“Société.” Those tallies appear below the total. (A final search on Pierre Bourdieu as

author returned six titles, showing that the database was up and running.)

Objets recherchés Gamme des années nombre cru %Durkheim 1960–2004 20 40.8Weber 1989 to 2004 15 30.6Marx 1958–1986 12 24.5Spencer 1961 to 1984 2 4.1Comte 1890 to 2009 0 0Total 49 100

Habermas 1998 1Baudrilliard 1890-2009 0Bourdieu 1890-2009 0Wallerstein 1890-2009 0

“Société” 1952-2005 44Table 3. Results of French language searches

American sociologists are highly interested in Marx and decidedly uninterested in

Spencer. The disconnect between French and American spaces of discourse suggests


another study17, but does broadly support the claim that Spencer has been marginalized–

as has Comte, though, for different reasons.

Herbert Spencer is Alive and Well

Herbert Spencer’s The Study of Sociology, published in 1873, warns that we are

prejudiced by our social context, by class, race, gender, religion and education. Among

the false beliefs of our education is that those with education are necessarily right in their

opinions. Similarly, in Social Statics (1850), Spencer questions not only why women are

deprived of political equality, but children, also.

It is true that as a founder of sociology Auguste Comte preceded Herbert

Spencer.18 Some reviewers believe that over time Spencer changed many of his

assertions, abandoning radical liberalism for conservatism. Yet, neither of these alone or

together explains the intellectual abandonment. Certainly, Comte also preceded Weber

and Durkheim. We know that Marx was an economist and historian and did not consider

himself a “sociologist.” Moreover, even as Spencer’s investigations were being shut out

from the discursive space of sociology, Marxists were leveling cogent criticisms of

Weber for his (perceived) “conservatism.” Yet, we have not abandoned Weber. Finally,

it is easy to assert that one measure of a sociologist’s perceived status within sociology is

the extent to which their ideas have matured over time. Merton is the easy example,

especially considering his association with Lazarsfeld, but the generalization works well.

In the field of criminology, Travis Hirschi is famous for hypothesizing “social bonding”

before teaming up with Michael R. Gottfredson to propose “self-control theory.” Again,

from criminology, Edwin Sutherland’s theory of “differential association” has produced

17 Only further investigation can test the hypothesis that French sociologists study society and American sociologists study sociologists. 18 Admittedly, we give Comte short shrift as well, perhaps a topic for another investigation.


modifications and complements including differential learning, differential reward and

differential opportunity. It would be odd if serious scholars did not amend their theories

and if others did not improve on them–except in the case of Spencer.

I believe that the reason for marginalizing Spencer is his individualism. By

definition, sociologists study society. We assume that even as individuals, we acquire the

characteristics of habit and ideology given to us by the society into which we are born.

Therefore, we reify society, and deny individuality. Individuals only exist as they belong

to groups: gays, blacks, women, delinquents, rapists, rape victims, workers, corporate

executives, … the list is endless, but always plural, always a collective.

Marx rules. Marxist ideas dominate American sociology; and even new trends

called “critical” or “post modernist” depend on the Marxist critique of capitalism.

Spencer sought to validate capitalism by scientific argument from rational empiricism,

the direct contradiction of Marx’s establishment of socialism via dialectic materialism.

Furthermore, nominally independent trains of thought such as structural functionalism

and symbolic interactionism easily incorporate Marxist ideas about class, alienation and

exploitation, while they completely ignore Spencerian suggestions about social evolution

and political equality. Like Marx, Spencer expected change. Unlike Marx, he did not

presume to know what that would mean.19 Marxists want to seize the state. Spencer said

that you have a right to ignore it. It is cogently telling that Marxists teach from publicly

funded, unionized classrooms. By contrast, Herbert Spencer belonged to no university

but made an enterprise out of publishing and publicizing his ideas.

19 For instance, acknowledging that there must be “measurably more important influences on the bodies and minds of future generations” without being more specific. The Study of Sociology, page 307.


Sociologists denigrate enterprise. We rest on the observed fact that wealth and

status do not require intelligence or hard work–and thereby ignore the hard work and hard

thinking of those who have achieved wealth. So, we assume that all wealth is accidental

and therefore unearned. Ironically, whatever status the rich and famous hold is given to

them, often by sociologists. Ascribed is an intransitive verb, and not reflexive.

Moreover, as we have created a society that dishonors enterprise, we have also

established rewards and entitlements for accidental harms of gender, sex, race, ethnicity,

age, ability, intelligence, and poverty. Therefore, the fittest will be those who are best

able to harness entitlements. Among them will be the accidentally gifted and unjustly

talented who see that the wealthiest suburbs are those near Washington, D.C. From those

places, they will craft papers, studies, political agendas and policies. They will not create

new wealth, the equivalents of the 19th century railroads and 20th century computers.

We have lost an important resource. Does our global society evolve according to

Spencer’s predictions? I believe that it does. Do other societies–nations, civic clubs–also

evolve along these same lines? Again, I believe that Spencer provided useful tools. If

Spencer were returned to the discursive space of sociology and given the voice he

deserves, we would benefit in our analyses. More importantly, we would empower a new

generation of enterprising intellectuals to open new frontiers.


Human nature is neither unchangeable nor easily

changed.

The Study of Sociology, page 132

Two views of Herbert Spencer. The image on the right is the iconic one. It is the one on

Macionis’ website and the cover of Turner’s book. From a symbolic interactionist

viewpoint, how would we react to Spencer’s ideas if his accepted image were the one on

the left?


Appendix A: Two Working Sociologists Who Have Studied Spencer

Review: [untitled] Valerie A. Haines, One Long Argument: Charles Darwin and the Genesis of Modern Evolutionary Thought. by Ernst Mayr

“Spencer's Philosophy of Science,” Valerie A. Haines, The British Journal of Sociology, Vol. 43, No. 2 (Jun., 1992), pp. 155-172

Review: [untitled] Valerie A. Haines ,Herbert Spencer: A Renewed Appreciation. by Jonathan H. Turner, Social Forces, Vol. 65, No. 3 (Mar., 1987), pp. 890-891 I

Review: [untitled] Review: [untitled] Valerie A. Haines ,Evolution and Social Life by Tim Ingold, Contemporary Sociology, Vol. 17, No. 1 (Jan., 1988), p. 120 I

“Is Spencer's Theory an Evolutionary Theory?” Valerie A. Haines, The American Journal of Sociology, Vol. 93, No. 5 (Mar., 1988), pp. 1200-1223

“Spencer, Darwin, and the Question of Reciprocal Influence,” Valerie A. Haines, Journal of the History of Biology, Vol. 24, No. 3 (Autumn, 1991), pp. 409-431

“Spencer and His Critics,” Valerie A. Haines, Reclaiming the Sociological Classics: The State of the Scholarship, Charles Camic, editor, Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 1997.

“The Functionalist Theory of Change Revisited,” Robert G. Perrin, The Pacific Sociological Review, Vol. 16, No. 1 (Jan., 1973), pp. 47-60

Review: [untitled] Robert G. Perrin ,Good Tidings: The Belief in Progress from Darwin to Marcuse. by W. Warren Wagar, Contemporary Sociology, Vol. 2, No. 6 (Nov., 1973), pp. 599-600

“Durkheim's Misrepresentation of Spencer: A Reply to Jones' ‘Durkheim's Response to Spencer’,” Robert G. Perrin, The Sociological Quarterly, Vol. 16, No. 4 (Autumn, 1975), pp. 544-550

“Herbert Spencer's Four Theories of Social Evolution,” Robert G. Perrin, The American Journal of Sociology, Vol. 81, No. 6 (May, 1976), pp. 1339-1359

Review: [untitled] Robert G. Perrin, The Social and Political Thought of Herbert Spencer. by David Wiltshire, Contemporary Sociology, Vol. 9, No. 2 (Mar., 1980), pp. 267-268

Review: [untitled] Robert G. Perrin, Herbert Spencer: A Renewed Appreciation by Jonathan H. Turner, Sociological Analysis, Vol. 49, No. 3 (Autumn, 1988), pp. 309-310

Review: [untitled] Diane B. Paul, Herbert Spencer: A Primary and Secondary Bibliography by Robert G. Perrin, Isis, Vol. 85, No. 3 (Sep., 1994), pp. 561-562

“Émile Durkheim's "Division of Labor" and the Shadow of Herbert Spencer,” Robert G. Perrin, The Sociological Quarterly, Vol. 36, No. 4 (Autumn, 1995), pp. 791-808


Appendix B: Convenience Sample of Sociology Textbooks from the Halle Library of Eastern Michigan University and Other Sources.

Title: Sociology / Neil J. Smelser. Publisher: Cambridge, Mass., USA : Blackwell ; [Paris] : Unesco, 1994.

Title: Introduction to sociology / Anthony Giddens. Edition: 2nd ed. Publisher: New York : W. W. Norton, c1996.

Title: Sociology / John E. Farley. Edition: 4th ed. Publisher: Upper Saddle River, N.J. : Prentice Hall, c1998.

Title: Sociology for the 21st century / Tim Curry, Robert Jiobu, Kent Schwirian. Edition: 2nd ed. Publisher: Upper Saddle River, NJ : Prentice Hall, 1999.

Title: Sociology : a down-to-earth approach / James M. Henslin. Edition: 4th ed. Publisher: Boston : Allyn and Bacon, c1999.

Title: Sociology / Richard T. Schaefer, Robert P. Lamm. Edition: 6th ed. Publisher: New York : McGraw-Hill, c1998.

Title: Social problems / D. Stanley Eitzen, Maxine Baca Zinn. Edition: 8th ed. Publisher: Boston : Allyn and Bacon, 2000.

Title: Sociology in Out Time: The Essentials / Diana KendallEdition: ThirdPublisher: Belmont, California: Wadsworth/Thompson Learning, 2002.

Title: Study Guide for Kendall’s Sociology in Our Time: The Essentials, Third Edition / Kathryn Sinast Mueller and Diana Kendall.Publisher: Belmont, California: Wadsworth/Thompson Learning, 2002.

Title: Sociology : a brief introduction / Richard T. Schaefer. Edition: 5th ed. Publisher: Boston : McGraw-Hill, c2004.

Title: SocNotes: A Study Companion to Accompany Society: the Basics, Eighth Edition by John J. Macionis / Margo CapparelliPublisher: Upper Saddle River, New Jersey : Pearson/Prentice Hall, 2006.


Cited References

Brinton, Crane. 1933. English Political Thought in the Nineteenth Century. London: Bouverie House, Ernst Benn Limited.

Comte, August. 1877. System of Positive Polity. New York: Burt Franklin Books. 1968. via Google Books, accessed Feb. 24, 2009.

Cooley, Charles H. 1920. “Reflections Upon the Sociology of Herbert Spencer.” The American Journal of Sociology 26: 129-145.

Haines, Valerie. 1977. “Spencer and His Critics,” Pp. 81-111 in Reclaiming the Sociological Classics: The State of the Scholarship, edited by Charles Camic, Oxford: Blackwell Publishers.

------. 1988. “Is Spencer’s Theory an Evolutionary Theory?” The American Journal of Sociology 93:1200-1223.

Howland, Douglas. 2000. “Society Reified: Herbert Spencer and Political Theory in Early Meiji Japan.” Comparative Studies in Society and History 42:67-86.

Klepac, Matthew J. ND. “Racist Ethnocentrism in 19th Century Evolutionary Theory:A Study of the Theories of Herbert Spencer, Lewis Henry Morgan, Edward Burnett Tylor, and Sir James Frazer.” From the author: Class paper c. 2008.

Paxton, Nancy L. 1991. George Eliot and Herbert Spencer: Feminism, Evolutionism, and the Reconstruction of Gender. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Peel, J. D. Y. 1971. Herbert Spencer: The Evolution of a Sociologist. New York: Basic Books.

Perrin, Robert G. 1976. “Herbert Spencer’s Four Theories of Social Evolution.” The American Journal of Sociology 81:1339-1359.

Shapin, Steven. “Man with a Plan: Herbert Spencer’s Theory of Everything,” The New Yorker, August 13, 2007.

Spencer, Herbert. 1891. The Principles of Sociology in Three Volumes. New York: Appleton and Company. (Note: Copyright information within the books is inconsistent with the Library Catalog. The chapters, published independently, were later collected into book volumes 1876-1897. Vols 2. and 3. both contain “Part VI. Ecclesiastical Institutions.” The first volume was acquired in 1891. The other two, from 1897, were gifts to the Michigan Normal College in 1934.)


------. 1954. Social Statics. New York: Robert Schalkenbach Foundation. Second Edition originally published 1877.

------. 1961, 1966. The Study of Sociology (Introduction by Talcott Parsons). Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Paperbacks. Originally Published 1873. (This was the copy that I bought, read and marked up. The quotations in this paper come from cutting and pasting from the Google Books archive of the 1904 edition by Appleton and Company.)

------. 1968. Reasons for Dissenting from the Philosophy of M. Comte and Other Essays. Berkeley: The Glendessary Press. Originally published 1864.

Stark, Werner. 1961. “Herbert Spencer’s Three Sociologies.” American Sociological Review 26:515-521.

Turner, Jonathan H. 1985. Herbert Spencer: A Renewed Appreciation. Hollywood, California: Sage.

Wiltshire, David. 1978. The Social and Political Thought of Herbert Spencer. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

herbert spencer: recovery of a lost resource for sociology

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