Herbert Spencer
Herbert Spencer
Herbert Spencerwas an English philosopher, biologist, anthropologist, sociologist, and prominent classical liberal political theorist of the Victorian era...
NationalityEnglish
ProfessionPhilosopher
Date of Birth27 April 1820
government immoral
Government is essentially immoral.
marriage funny-marriage mirages
Marriage: A word which should be pronounced "mirage".
nature thinking government
The Republican form of government is the highest form of government: but because of this it requires the highest type of human nature, a type nowhere at present existing.
people survival world
And yet, strange to say, now that the truth [of natural selection] is recognized by most cultivated people...now more than ever, in the history of the world, are they doing all they can to further the survival of the unfittest.
evil soul forget
We too often forget that not only is there 'a soul of goodness in things evil,' but very generally also, a soul of truth in things erroneous.
should wells dies
If they are sufficiently complete to live, they do live, and it is well they should live. If they are not sufficiently complete to live, they die, and it is best they should die.
education preparation
Education is preparation to live completely.
reading proxy seeing
Reading is seeing by proxy.
writing style speech
To have a specific style is to be poor in speech.
life men organization
Anyone who studies the state of things which preceded the French Revolution will see that the tremendous catastrophe came about from so excessive a regulation of men's actions in all their details, and such an enormous drafting away of the products of their actions to maintain the regulating organization, that life was fast becoming impracticable. And if we ask what then made, and now makes, this error possible, we find it to be the political superstition that governmental power is subject to no restraints.
two lines doe
Rightness expresses of actions, what straightness does of lines; and there can no more be two kinds of right action than there can be two kinds of straight lines.
wisdom theory-of-evolution facts
Those who cavalierly reject the Theory of Evolution, as not adequately supported by facts, seem quite to forget that their own theory it supported by no facts at all.
men race cells
If a single cell, under appropriate conditions, becomes a man in the space of a few years, there can surely be no difficulty in understanding how, under appropriate conditions, a cell may, in the course of untold millions of years, give origin to the human race.
civilization barbarism militarism
Whatever fosters militarism makes for barbarism; whatever fosters peace makes for civilization.