![]() Spencer enthusiastically elaborated on Darwin's process of natural selection, applying it to human society, and made his own contribution in the notion of "survival of the fittest." From the beginning Spencer applied his harsh dictum to human society, races, and the state-judging them in the process: "If they are sufficiently complete to live, they do live, and it is well they should live. Natural selection, as described by Charles Darwin in the Origin of Species, published in 1859, completed Spencer's evolutionary system by providing the mechanism by which organic evolution occurred. This fundamental law is seen in the evolution of human society as it is seen in the geological transformation of the earth and in the origin and development of plant and animal species. All nature moves from the simple to the complex. Particularly in "Progress: Its Law and Cause," an essay published in 1857, he extended the idea of evolutionary progress to human society as well as to the animal and physical worlds. In a series of articles and writings Spencer gradually refined his concept of organic and inorganic evolution and popularized the term itself. The concept of organic evolution was elaborated fully for the first time in his famous essay "The Developmental Hypothesis," published in the Leader in 1852. He also foreshadowed some of his later ideas on evolution and spoke of society as an individual organism. Especially stressed were the right of the individual and the ideal of noninterference on the part of the state. This was his first major work and contained his basic concepts of individualism and laissez-faire, which were to be later developed more fully in his Social Statics (1850) and other works. He began by contributing to The Non-Conformist, writing a series of letters called The Proper Sphere of Government. Spencer left the railroad to take up a literary career and to follow up some of his scientific interests. His interest in evolution is said to have arisen from the examination of fossils that came from the rail-road cuts. For a few years, until 1841, he practiced the profession of civil engineer as an employee of the London and Birmingham Railway. ![]() Spencer initially followed up the scientific interests encouraged by his father and studied engineering. He was particularly instructed in the study of nature and the fundamentals of science, neglecting such traditional subjects as history. Spencer's father and an uncle saw that he received a highly individualized education that emphasized the family traditions of dissent and independence of thought. His father, a teacher, had been a Wesleyan, but he separated himself from organized religion as he did from political and social authority. His childhood, described in An Autobiography (1904), reflected the attitudes of a family which was known on both sides to include religious nonconformists, social critics, and rebels. Herbert Spencer was born in Derby on April 27, 1820.
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