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
gentlemen lady nose
of the lady and through the nose of the gentleman.
darwin express mechanical races sought struggle survival
The 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.
alike almost beliefs centuries everywhere futility held insisted needs past perceive
Or it needs only to look back over past centuries and the iniquities alike of populace, nobles, kings, and popes to perceive an almost incomprehensible futility of the beliefs everywhere held and perpetually insisted upon
mistake mean men
People ... become so preoccupied with the means by which an end is achieved, as eventually to mistake it for the end. Just as money, which is a means of satisfying wants, comes to be regarded by a miser as the sole thing to be worked for, leaving the wants unsatisfied; so the conduct men have found preferable because most conducive to happiness, has come to be thought of as intrinsically preferable: not only to be made a proximate end (which it should be), but to be made an ultimate end, to the exclusion of the true ultimate end.
survival evolution multiplication
This survival of the fittest implies multiplication of the fittest.
mistake government civilization
It is a mistake to assume that government must necessarily last forever. The institution marks a certain stage of civilization-is natural to a particular phase of human development. It is not essential, but incidental. As amongst the Bushmen we find a state antecedent to government, so may there be one in which it shall have become extinct.
recognition manifestation all-things
Religion is the recognition that all things are manifestations of a Power which transcends our knowledge.
time men always-trying
Time is that which a man is always trying to kill, but which ends in killing him.
brain feds ill
Mental power cannot be got from ill-fed brains.
humanity progress use
Organs, faculties, powers, capacities, or whatever else we call them; grow by use and diminish from disuse, it is inferred that they will continue to do so. And if this inference is unquestionable, then is the one above deduced from it-that humanity must in the end become completely adapted to its conditions-unquestionable also. Progress, therefore, is not an accident, but a necessity.
ethics existence solutions
Originally, ethics has no existence apart from religion, which holds it in solution.
dream ideas afterlife
There is no origin for the idea of an afterlife, save the conclusion which the savage draws from the notion suggested by dreams.
echoes soul hardship
Those whose hardships are set forth in pamphlets and proclaimed in sermons and speeches which echo throughout society, are assumed to be all worthy souls, grievously wronged; and none of them are thought of as bearing the penalties of their misdeeds.
time fall flower
Noiseless falls the foot of time That only treads on flowers.