Herbert Spencer
British philosopher who applied evolutionary theory to society, coining 'survival of the fittest' to describe social progress.
Most quoted
"Evolution is an integration of matter and concomitant dissipation of motion; during which the matter passes from an indefinite, incoherent homogeneity to a definite, coherent heterogeneity; and during which the retained motion undergoes a parallel transformation."
— from First Principles, 1862
"The poverty of the incapable, the distresses that come upon the imprudent, the starvation of the idle, and those shoulderings aside of the weak by the strong... are the decrees of a large, far-seeing benevolence."
— from Social Statics, 1851
"The fact disclosed by a survey of the past that majorities have usually been wrong, must not blind us to the complementary fact that majorities have usually not been entirely wrong."
— from The Man Versus The State, 1884
All quotes by Herbert Spencer (101)
Survival of the fittest.
Evolution is an integration of matter and concomitant dissipation of motion; during which the matter passes from an indefinite, incoherent homogeneity to a definite, coherent heterogeneity; and during which the retained motion undergoes a parallel transformation.
The great aim of education is not knowledge but action.
No one can be perfectly free till all are free; no one can be perfectly moral till all are moral; no one can be perfectly happy till all are happy.
The ultimate result of shielding men from the effects of folly is to fill the world with fools.
Progress, therefore, is not an accident, but a necessity. ... It is a part of nature.
The average man, however, is not a philosopher, and does not much care for consistency.
The wise man, therefore, is he who wishes to be happy, and who, knowing that happiness depends on the due exercise of all his faculties, takes care to keep them in due exercise.
The man of science is a man of facts, not of theories.
The first principle of a truly scientific education is that of teaching things, not words.
There is a soul of truth in every error.
The great political superstition of the present is the divine right of parliaments.
The ultimate goal of evolution is the establishment of the greatest perfection and the most complete happiness.
The function of the State is to protect the individual in the exercise of his rights.
Life is the continuous adjustment of internal relations to external relations.
The more complete the adaptation, the more perfect the life.
The law of organic progress is the law of all progress.
The highest truth is that which is most useful.
The greatest mistake in the treatment of diseases is that there are physicians for the body and physicians for the soul, and yet the two cannot be separated.
The principle of 'survival of the fittest' is but the working out of the principle of 'natural selection'.
Contemporaries of Herbert Spencer
Other Sociologys born within 50 years of Herbert Spencer (1820–1903).