Herbert Spencer
(1820-1903)
Herbert Spencer was a philosopher, psychologist, biologist, sociologist, and anthropologist.
He developed a conception of evolution as the progressive development of the physical world, biological organisms, the human mind, and human culture and societies.
His 1855 book,
Principles of Psychology, explored a physiological basis for psychology, and was the fruit of his friendship with George Eliot (May Ann Evans) and
George Henry Lewes. The book was founded on his fundamental assumption that the human mind is subject to natural laws and that these can be discovered within the framework of general biology. This permitted the adoption of a developmental perspective not merely in terms of the individual (as in traditional psychology), but also of the species and the race.
He developed his evolutionary perspective in his 1857 essay, "Progress: Its Law and Cause." This later formed the basis of his 1862 book
First Principles of a New System of Philosophy. In it he expounded a theory of evolution which posits that all structures in the universe develop from a simple, undifferentiated, homogeneity to a complex, differentiated, heterogeneity while undergoing increasing integration of the differentiated parts. This evolutionary process can be observed, Spencer believed, throughout the cosmos. It is a universal law, applying to the stars and galaxies and to biological organisms, and to human social organisation and to the human mind.
In 1864 Spencer coined the famous expression "the survival of the fittest," a few years after reading Charles Darwin's 1859 classic
On the Origin of Species.
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