Herbert Spencer introduced the phrase "survival of the fittest" in his 1864 book, Principles of Biology. Photo illustration by Meilan Solly / Photos via Getty Images and public domain
Victorian England had its fair share of great minds. Some, like Charles Darwin, changed the way we think about the world, while many more have faded into obscurityalong with their ideas. Teetering on the boundary is Herbert Spencer, born 200 years ago this week.
Spencers first writings on evolution came in 1851, eight years before the publication of Darwins On the Origin of Species. And it was Spencer, not Darwin, who gave us the phrase survival of the fittest, though Darwin would later use it in his writing. Spencer introduced the phrase in his 1864 book, Principles of Biology, where he saw parallels between his conservative ideas about economics and what Darwin had written about the natural world: This survival of the fittest, which I have here sought to express in mechanical terms, is that which Mr. Darwin has called natural selection, or the preservation of favored races in the struggle for life.
For a brief period, for a couple of decades at the end of the 19th century, he was world-famous, says Bernard Lightman, a historian of science at York University in Toronto.
Like his more famous contemporary, Spencer was enamored with the idea of evolution. But where Darwin focused on biology, Spencer imagined that evolutionary thinking could be applied much more broadly. In his mind, it governed entire societies. Today, when Spencer is remembered at all, it is usually for inspiring the ideology known as social Darwinism: roughly, the idea that the successful deserve their success while those who fail deserve their failure.
Modern scholars, and the public at large, understandably view this idea with disdain. Philosopher Daniel Dennett has described social Darwinism as an odious misapplication of Darwinian thinking in defense of political doctrines that range from callous to heinous, while the journalist Robert Wright said that social Darwinism now lies in the dustbin of intellectual history. Today, few read Spencers dense and ponderous books, and his ideas are rarely taught. Gregory Claeys, a historian at the University of London, writes that of all the great Victorian thinkers, it is Spencer whose reputation has now indisputably fallen the farthest.
Yet some scholars and historians dispute this characterization of Spencers work. Yes, Spencer misunderstood Darwins theory in important ways, and his attempt to anchor an entire philosophy on it was ill-fated. But, they argue, Spencer doesnt deserve to be so closely linked to social Darwinism and the noxious ideas that grew out of it (and which occasionally surface today). He may have been misguided, but those who utter survival of the fittest to justify callous, mean-spirited or even racist ends may be doing the man who coined the phrase a disservice.
Born in Derby in central England, Spencer was largely self-taught. He worked as a railway engineer and a journalist before making a name for himself with his philosophical writings, which were published in Britains leading intellectual journals and later in a series of wildly ambitious books. Eventually, he supported himself solely through writing. He settled in London and became a regular at the citys exclusive gentlemens clubs, where he rubbed shoulders with great intellectuals of the day.
Beginning in 1860, Spencer focused his energy on his System of Synthetic Philosophy, which was to be a multi-volume work covering biology, psychology, sociology, ethics and metaphysics. Nine of these volumes appeared between 1862 and 1893. Like Darwin, Spencer was struck by evolutions explanatory power, but he took the idea much further than his countryman.
Spencer goes on to ask: What are the implications of the theory of evolution for our understanding of human society, politics, religion, the human mind? Lightman says. Evolution is the glue that holds this synthetic philosophy together. Its a comprehensive worldview.
In Spencers view of evolution, nature is seen as a force for good, guiding the development of individuals and societies, with the power of competition allowing the strong to flourish while eliminating the weak. In his first book, 1851s Social Statics, he argues that suffering, although it harms the individual, benefits society at large; it is all part of natures plan, and leads to improvement over time. Spencer wrote:
The poverty of the incapable, the distress that comes upon the imprudent, the starvation of the idle, and those shoulderings aside of the weak by the strong, which leave so many in shallows and in miseries, are the decrees of a large, farseeing benevolence.
(Arguably, some echo of this sentiment was on display in the past few weeks, as protesters voiced their disapproval of mandatory lockdowns in the fight against COVID-19. In Nashville, at least one protester held up a sign saying Sacrifice the weak / Re-open Tennessee.)
Spencers view, though mostly anathema now, appealed to influential conservatives and laissez-faire capitalistsamong them, the industrialist Andrew Carnegiejust as it angered the socialists of the time. Spencer hated socialism because he thought socialism was all about protecting the weak, Lightman says. To him, that was intervening in the natural unfolding of the evolutionary process.
Spencer imagined a better, more moral society, and believed the best way to achieve that goal was to let the market loose, says David Weinstein, a political scientist at Wake Forest University in North Carolina. Weinstein says Spencer advocated the idea that those who survive the struggle are by definition not only the fittest but also morally the best. So its defining good as survival. Whatever survives is by definition good.
Later thinkers, especially in the early years of the 20th century, took a hatchet to Spencers logic. Critics accused him of committing what has come to be known as the naturalistic fallacyroughly, the mistake of trying to derive morality and ethics from nature. The term was introduced by British philosopher G. E. Moore in his 1903 book Principia Ethica, which was highly skeptical of Spencer. The attack by Moore really served to discredit Spencer among serious philosophers, Weinstein says (though Moore, too, has largely disappeared from history).
More recently, however, a few scholars have sought to salvage Spencers reputation. In 2014, a collection of essays titled Herbert Spencer: Legacies, edited by Mark Francis and Michael Taylor, explored Spencers far-reaching influence and the diversity of his ideas. For example, while Spencers ideas were used to justify imperialism and conquest, Francis notes that Spencer himself was committed to pacifism, including his vocal opposition to Britains participation in the Boer War. While Spencer felt that war might have been a necessary part of humanitys past, he also believed that a progressive society would be a peaceful one. Violence, in Spencers view, was on its way to becoming a relic of the past.
Wright, in his book The Moral Animal, says that Spencer is not as heartless as he is now remembered, pointing to Spencers emphasis on altruism, sympathy and pacifism. Pamela Lyon at the University of Adelaide goes even further, arguing that Spencer used the phrase survival of the fittest to mock it. Rather than seeing nature as cruel, he saw it as beneficent; nature was a progressive affair. (This view, she notes, became harder to maintain as Darwins more scientific approach to evolutionone driven by chance and not guided in any waytook hold.)
Meanwhile, Gowan Dawson of the University of Leicester has argued that both the ideological left and the right embraced Spencers ideas, especially that of social evolution. Weinstein also notes that Spencers writings have been adopted and appropriated by socialists as much as by libertarians, and asserts that his ideas have shaped modern liberalism. And a few scholars, including Dawson, argue that prominent contemporary thinkers like Steven Pinker and E.O. Wilson, who have written on the power of evolution to shape culture, may be more indebted to Spencer than they realize. In Legacies, sociologist Jonathan Turner writes that many of Spencers ideas have endured to the present day, though most people do not know that they came from Spencer, so ingrained is the avoidance of anything Spencerian.
Spencer, by the standards of the day, also held a progressive view of gender, arguing that women were as intellectually capable as men and advocating for full political and legal rights for women. Claeys even describes him as a feminist.
That label is open to debate. Ruth Barton, a historian at the University of Auckland, points to Spencers treatment of the women in his life, especially the novelist Mary Ann Evans, who wrote under the pen name George Eliot. She really fell in love with Spencer, Barton says. They went to the theatre together, they went to Kew Gardens together, they went everywhere together for a year; people thought they were engaged. Then Spencer broke off the relationship. Spencer told her that he enjoyed her company, he liked her mind, but she wasnt beautiful enough for him to marry. He wanted a prettier, more feminine sort of person, Barton says. I wouldnt label him a feminist.
Spencer never married, and he appears to have been isolated and lonely in his final years. He spent nearly two decades writing and rewriting his two-volume autobiography. He struggled to control his public image, even going so far as asking to have his letters returned to him and then destroying those that he felt might damage his reputation.
All the while, English politics were drifting to the left. The political climate was changing, says Barton. His antagonism toward socialism of any kind was less and less acceptable. Anything that had any scent of government regulation about it, he associated with socialism.
Science and philosophy had moved on as well. Already in the 1890s, hes saying Everyones forgotten me; I gave my whole life for this, Lightman says. So he becomes a very tragic figure. Today, Spencers tomb can be found in Londons Highgate Cemetery, just about opposite that of Karl Marx, whose ideas he despised (and who ended up with a far more elaborate monument).
Still, as remote as Spencer and his ideas seem today, he was a vital figure in his own time, Barton says. He seemed to know everything, which made him impressive, she says. He was full of confidence; he had this really ambitious vision of the universe. Above all, he appeared to be one of the few philosophers who fully embraced science at least, his interpretation of science.
Science seemed to be the way of the modern world, Barton says. And Spencer seemed to be a philosopher who understood science.
Recommended Videos
Link:
The Complicated Legacy of Herbert Spencer, the Man Who Coined 'Survival ...
- Darwinists Devolve - Discovery Institute - February 11th, 2024 [February 11th, 2024]
- Darwin's fatal competition model - Times of Malta - February 11th, 2024 [February 11th, 2024]
- Bitcoin Halving Is Poised to Unleash Darwinism on Miners - CoinDesk - December 12th, 2023 [December 12th, 2023]
- David Gelernters Farewell to Darwinism - Discovery Institute - November 20th, 2023 [November 20th, 2023]
- Darwinizing the Universe: A Theory That Explains Everything ... - BreakPoint.org - November 20th, 2023 [November 20th, 2023]
- Science Lab: Evolving Dak, McCarthy on the attack - DallasCowboys.com - November 20th, 2023 [November 20th, 2023]
- How to ensure that all students have scientific literacy - Inside Higher Ed - August 14th, 2023 [August 14th, 2023]
- The Darwinism of timepieces - Manila Bulletin - May 2nd, 2023 [May 2nd, 2023]
- ProSocial World: How the principles of evolution can create lasting ... - Science Daily - May 2nd, 2023 [May 2nd, 2023]
- New National Museum of Wildlife Art exhibition announced - Buckrail - May 2nd, 2023 [May 2nd, 2023]
- Digital Darwinism: How To Build Future-fit Foundations For Business ... - The Drum - April 22nd, 2023 [April 22nd, 2023]
- In Breath-Holding, Kate and a Croc Are Champions - Discovery Institute - April 22nd, 2023 [April 22nd, 2023]
- How the principles of evolution can create lasting global change ... - Binghamton - April 22nd, 2023 [April 22nd, 2023]
- What is essentialism? And how does it shape attitudes to transgender people and sexual diversity? - Phys.org - April 22nd, 2023 [April 22nd, 2023]
- Media CEO Says Writers Should Be Using AI to Churn Out 30-50 ... - Futurism - April 22nd, 2023 [April 22nd, 2023]
- Survival of the richest - Perspective Magazine - April 22nd, 2023 [April 22nd, 2023]
- Darwinism - an overview | ScienceDirect Topics - February 7th, 2023 [February 7th, 2023]
- Darwinism Theory of Evolution (With Criticism) | Biology - January 4th, 2023 [January 4th, 2023]
- Survival of the fittest | Definition, Applications, & Examples - December 25th, 2022 [December 25th, 2022]
- Naturalistic fallacy - Wikipedia - December 25th, 2022 [December 25th, 2022]
- Social Darwinism | Definition & Facts | Britannica - December 21st, 2022 [December 21st, 2022]
- Epigenetics Directs Genetics And Thats a Problem for Darwinism - December 16th, 2022 [December 16th, 2022]
- Herbert Spencer | Biography, Social Darwinism, Survival of the Fittest ... - November 27th, 2022 [November 27th, 2022]
- Herbert Spencer and Social Darwinism - SciHi BlogSciHi Blog - November 27th, 2022 [November 27th, 2022]
- Epigenetics: Adaptation Without Darwinism CEH - November 21st, 2022 [November 21st, 2022]
- Is Darwinism a Theory in Crisis? | Evolution News - November 21st, 2022 [November 21st, 2022]
- Social Darwinism | Examples & History - Study.com - October 25th, 2022 [October 25th, 2022]
- Survival of the fittest - Wikipedia - October 23rd, 2022 [October 23rd, 2022]
- Michael Behe: Game Over for Darwinism | Evolution News - October 23rd, 2022 [October 23rd, 2022]
- Gnter Bechlys Journey to Faith - Discovery Institute - October 13th, 2022 [October 13th, 2022]
- Gene Sharing Is More Widespread than Thought | Evolution News - October 6th, 2022 [October 6th, 2022]
- Darwinian Racism, Past and Present - Discovery Institute - October 6th, 2022 [October 6th, 2022]
- God Created Wholes, Not Parts | Peter J. Leithart - First Things - October 6th, 2022 [October 6th, 2022]
- Does Ian Remind Us We're in This Together? - LA Progressive - October 6th, 2022 [October 6th, 2022]
- A Pleasure to Serve - by Kevin D. Williamson - The Dispatch - October 6th, 2022 [October 6th, 2022]
- Opinion: Darwin, mega trends and tech drive food and beverage venture investing - FoodBev.com - October 6th, 2022 [October 6th, 2022]
- The mad, bad and dangerous theories of Thomas Henry Huxley - The Spectator - October 6th, 2022 [October 6th, 2022]
- Emily Whitten: Start with evolution | WORLD - WORLD News Group - September 20th, 2022 [September 20th, 2022]
- The Fading All-American Story - Word and Way - September 20th, 2022 [September 20th, 2022]
- What did the U.S. know about the Holocaust and when did we know it? - Forward - September 20th, 2022 [September 20th, 2022]
- What now for the British monarchy and its legacy for First Nations people? - National Indigenous Times - September 15th, 2022 [September 15th, 2022]
- Why Darwin Eclipsed Wallace: Darwin and the English Class System - Discovery Institute - August 25th, 2022 [August 25th, 2022]
- Michael Behe Debates Evolution and Catholicism - Discovery Institute - August 25th, 2022 [August 25th, 2022]
- Critical Race Theory's Merchants of Doubt | Time - TIME - August 2nd, 2022 [August 2nd, 2022]
- Survival of the briefest | Strictly Opinion | richmondregister.com - Richmond Register - August 2nd, 2022 [August 2nd, 2022]
- Critical Race Theorys Merchants of Doubt - Yahoo News - August 2nd, 2022 [August 2nd, 2022]
- Experts Share Opinions on Aliens and Humanity's Role in Space Exploration - The Future of Things - July 27th, 2022 [July 27th, 2022]
- Gnter Bechly: Species Pairs Wreck Darwinism - Discovery Institute - July 3rd, 2022 [July 3rd, 2022]
- Donate Darwinism for a Tax Credit? Evolutionists Admit Their Field's Failures - Discovery Institute - July 3rd, 2022 [July 3rd, 2022]
- Do we need a new theory of evolution? - The Guardian - June 30th, 2022 [June 30th, 2022]
- Overruling Roe v. Wade: The International Dimension - International Policy Digest - June 30th, 2022 [June 30th, 2022]
- On Darwinism and the Abdication of Reason - Discovery Institute - June 22nd, 2022 [June 22nd, 2022]
- Fact-Checking Professor Dave on Darwinism | Evolution News - June 5th, 2022 [June 5th, 2022]
- Texas Conservatives: Defenders Of Capitalism And The Free Market? Not So Much - Reform Austin - May 25th, 2022 [May 25th, 2022]
- Humans Could Go Extinct. Here's How and Who's Trying to Stop It - CNET - May 25th, 2022 [May 25th, 2022]
- Darwin, Galton, and Replacement Theory - Discovery Institute - May 21st, 2022 [May 21st, 2022]
- UPES takes the lead in rebooting business education and entrepreneurship - Times of India - May 21st, 2022 [May 21st, 2022]
- The implementation of brand safety is weak in India: MMA Impact India 2022 - The Financial Express - May 21st, 2022 [May 21st, 2022]
- The Real Roots of Racism: Pseudo-Science - Discovery Institute - May 13th, 2022 [May 13th, 2022]
- How We Moved Beyond Darwin to the Miracle of Man - Discovery Institute - May 13th, 2022 [May 13th, 2022]
- Opinion | Courage Seemed to be Dead. Then Came Zelensky. - The New York Times - May 13th, 2022 [May 13th, 2022]
- As PopSci turns 150, we reflect on the highs and lows of our long history - Popular Science - May 3rd, 2022 [May 3rd, 2022]
- "RB takes Darwinism very seriously" Lando Norris doesn't think highly of Red Bull driver programme; Carlos... - The Sportsrush - April 29th, 2022 [April 29th, 2022]
- Darwinism and the So What? Question: John West's Darwin Day in America - Discovery Institute - March 27th, 2022 [March 27th, 2022]
- Andrew Carnegie - Social Darwinism & Andrew Carnegie - March 23rd, 2022 [March 23rd, 2022]
- The Rise of Theistic Darwinism - Discovery Institute - March 23rd, 2022 [March 23rd, 2022]
- The Racism of Darwin and Darwinism - Discovery Institute - February 11th, 2022 [February 11th, 2022]
- Darwin's Rhetorical Foundation of Sand: Theological Utilitarianism - Discovery Institute - February 11th, 2022 [February 11th, 2022]
- Darwin's Reticence: On the Origin of a Book - Discovery Institute - February 11th, 2022 [February 11th, 2022]
- Evolutionary Thinking: On Darwinism, Doubt and Dunedin - RNZ - February 11th, 2022 [February 11th, 2022]
- Top Scientific Problems with Evolution - Discovery Institute - February 11th, 2022 [February 11th, 2022]
- Allowing 'Darwinism to Kill Off' the 'Foolish' Unvaccinated is a 'Necessary Evil,' According to a D.C. Mayor's Office official - The Lee Daily... - February 7th, 2022 [February 7th, 2022]
- Darwin and the Newtonian Metanarrative - Discovery Institute - January 30th, 2022 [January 30th, 2022]
- Social Darwinism - Communication Theory - December 29th, 2021 [December 29th, 2021]
- The Dead Talk Back to Darwin - Discovery Institute - December 15th, 2021 [December 15th, 2021]
- Materialist Science as Paternalistic Propaganda - Discovery Institute - December 15th, 2021 [December 15th, 2021]
- Why Darwinism Is False | Discovery Institute - December 3rd, 2021 [December 3rd, 2021]
- Herbert Spencer: Theory & Social Darwinism - Video ... - December 3rd, 2021 [December 3rd, 2021]
- Social Welfare History Project Social Darwinism and the Poor - November 28th, 2021 [November 28th, 2021]
- Three Stunners Challenge Traditional Darwinism | Evolution ... - November 28th, 2021 [November 28th, 2021]