Herbert Spencer

by J. Arthur Thomson

We presume, however, that the historians agree with Spencer that their chief aim is to give an account, as rational as is possible for them, of the movement of human history, as Gibbon, for instance, did in his "Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire," but that they have a scientific instinct of recoil from generalising formulæ, and probably doubt the validity of some of Spencer's. We presume that they admit that all events are not equally important, and that they are laws of perspective applicable to historical pictures, but that they doubt Spencer's competence—especially after that sentence of his regarding Greece and Rome—to act as judge of what is important or in proportion. Just as the descriptive naturalist justly resents any dictation from the biologist as to what is or is not worth observing, so the descriptive historian resents the sociologist's interference. And it is to be feared that men, both in history and in life, were too much mere "phenomena" to the Synthetic Philosopher, and that his Sociology was more biological than human.

Spencer's Sociological Data.—Spencer may be accused of a lack of personal interest in the details of human history, of a lack of appreciation of what modern societies owe to the past, and of taking too mechanical a view of social evolution, but to accuse him of a priori methods is gratuitously unjust. Darwin in his theorising was no less scrupulously careful than he was in his monographing of barnacles, and, however we may disagree with any of Spencer's sociological generalisations, we must remember the carefulness with which he prepared himself for his task. From 1867 to 1874, with the help of Mr David Duncan, Mr James Collier, and Dr Scheppig, he worked at the compilation of sociological data, showing "in fitly classified groups and tables, facts of all kinds, presented by numerous races, which illustrate social evolution under its various aspects." This detailed work was begun solely to facilitate his own generalisations; it was published "apart from hypotheses, so as to aid all students of Social Science in testing such conclusions as they have drawn and in drawing others."

Most admirable was the ideal which Spencer had before him in collecting his data of Sociology.

"Indications of the climate, contour, soil, and minerals, of the region inhabited by each society delineated, seemed to me needful. Some accounts of the Flora and Fauna, in so far as they affected human life, had to be given. And the characters of the surrounding tribes or nations were factors which could not be overlooked. The characters of the people, individually considered, had also to be described—their physical, moral, and intellectual traits. Then, besides the political, ecclesiastical, industrial and other institutions of the society—besides the knowledge, beliefs, and sentiments, the language, habits, customs, and tastes of its members—there had to be noticed their clothing, food, and arts of life."

Central Ideas of Spencer's Sociology.—The central ideas of Spencer's sociological work are thus summed up by Prof. F. H. Giddings:—

"Spencer's propositions could be arranged in the following order: (1) Society is an organism; (2) in the struggle of social organisms for existence and their consequent differentiation, fear of both the living and the dead arises, and for countless ages is a controlling emotion; (3) dominated by fear, men for ages are habitually engaged in military activities; (4) the transition from militarism to industrialism, made possible by the consolidation of small social groups into large ones, which war accomplishes, to its own ultimate decline, transforms human nature and social institutions; and this fact affords the true interpretation of all social progress."

Spencer sought to disclose the evolution of human ideas and customs, ceremonials and institutions. He emphasised the true idea that any society worthy of the name is an integrate like an individual organism, with the capacity of co-ordinated action or unified behaviour distinct from the life of the component units, and he used other biological concepts to render social evolution more intelligible.

He relied greatly on the influence of Fear in the early stages of social evolution: fear of living competitors gave rise to political control—to ceremonies and institutions; fear of the dead gave origin to religion whose primitive expressions are seen in ancestor-worship or worship of the dead. The conception of another life originated mainly in "such phenomena as shadows, reflections, and echoes," and gave origin to conceptions of gods.

Pressure of population and competitive struggle between societies have been potent factors in evolution, promoting differentiation and integration, and continually tending to disappear as their ends are achieved. Morality is developed as an adaptive expedient under the complex struggle for existence, and industrial organisation replaces military organisation as the social integrates grow and multiply and coalesce. As solidarity deepens with increased peaceful synergy, the severe centralised control, necessary when militarism is dominant, should be replaced by greater freedom of individual life, and by a restriction of governmental function to securing justice, to maintaining equitable relations, preventing one individual infringing on his neighbour's liberty. The formula of absolute justice is that "every man is free to do that which he wills, provided he infringes not the equal freedom of any other man." In militant times the individuals exist for the state; in industrial times the state is to be maintained solely for the benefit of the citizens, and a better than industrial freedom is to be looked for when it is more fully realised that life is not for work but work is for life. Spencer believed so much in the beneficence of peace and individual liberty, that he said "there needs but a continuance of absolute peace externally, and a vigorous insistence on non-aggression internally, to ensure the moulding of men into a form characterised by all the virtues"—a fine illustration of evolutionary optimism. To him the goal of human progress was a completed individualism, but "the ultimate individual will be one whose private requirements coincide with public ones. He will be that manner of man who, in spontaneously fulfilling his own nature, incidentally performs the functions of a social unit, and yet is only enabled so to fulfil his own nature by all others doing the like."

The Idea of the Social Organism.—Spencer has been largely responsible for popularising the conception expressed in the phrase "The Social Organism"—that a society or societary form is in many ways comparable to an individual organism, e.g. in growing, in differentiating, in showing increased mutual dependence of its parts, and so on. It is true that the comparison of society to an organism is at least as old as the philosophy of Plato and Aristotle, but Spencer was one of the first to fill in the analogy with biological details. The idea was briefly expressed in Social Statics, and was elaborated in an essay which appeared in the "Westminster Review" in January 1860. There he likened government to the central nervous system, agriculture and industry to the alimentary tract, transport and exchange to the vascular system of an animal, and pointed out that like an individual organism a society grows, becomes more complex, shows increasing inter-relations, division of labour, and mutual dependence among its parts, and has a life immense in length when compared with the lives of the component units. At the same time, it should be carefully noted that it was Spencer who introduced the term super-organic as descriptive of social phenomena, indicating thereby that the biological categories may require considerable modification before they can be safely used in Sociology.