Herbert Spencer and the Invention of Modern Life

by Mark Francis

Overview

The ideas of the English philosopher Herbert Spencer (1820-1903) profoundly shaped Victorian thought regarding evolutionary theory, the philosophy of science, sociology, and politics. In his day, Spencer's works ranked alongside those of Darwin and Marx in their importance to the development of disciplines as wide-ranging as sociology, anthropology, political theory, philosophy, and psychology. Yet during his lifetime—and certainly in the decades that followed—Spencer has been widely misunderstood. Both lauded and disparaged as the father of Social Darwinism (it was Spencer who coined the phrase "survival of the fittest"), and as an apologist for individualism and unrestrained capitalism, he was, in fact, none of these; he was instead a subtle and complex thinker.

In his major new intellectual biography of Spencer, Mark Francis uses archival material and contemporary printed sources to create a fascinating portrait of a man who attempted to explain modern life in all its biological, psychological, and sociological forms through a unique philosophical and scientific system that bridged the gap between empiricism and metaphysics. Vastly influential in England and beyond—particularly the United States and Asia—his philosophy was, as Francis shows, systematic and rigorous. Despite the success he found in the realm of ideas, Spencer was an unhappy man. Francis reveals how Spencer felt permanently crippled by the Christian values he had absorbed during childhood, and was incapable of romantic love, as became clear during his relationship with the novelist George Eliot.

Elegantly written, provocative, and rich in insight, Herbert Spencer and the Invention of Modern Life is an exceptional work of scholarship that not only dispels the misinformation surrounding Spencer but also illuminates the broader cultural and intellectual history of the nineteenth century.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780801445903
Publisher:	Cornell University Press
Publication date:	05/18/2007
Pages:	434
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 1.44(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Mark Francis is Professor of Political Science at the University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand. He is the author of Governors and Settlers: Images of Authority in the British Colonies, 1820-1860 and A History of English Political Thought in the Nineteenth Century (with John Morrow).

Table of Contents

Preface, Chronology, List of illustrations, Introduction, I An individual and his personal culture, II The lost world of Spencer’s metaphysics, III Spencer’s biological writings and his philosophy of science, IV Politics and ethical sociology, Notes, Bibliography, Index

What People are Saying About This

Frank M. Turner

A stunning revelation of a personality and thinker whom even most well-informed Victorianists evaluate largely from misinformation. This book presents an entirely new understanding of Spencer. Scholars from a number of fields—philosophy, literature, history, and history of science—will quite simply never be able to think of Spencer as they have before. Wonderfully and persuasively revisionist, backed up by superb research, this will be the book on Spencer for the present and next generation.

David Boucher

A major new study of Herbert Spencer, revealing aspects of his personality and thought previously little explored. It is an impressive work of scholarship and interpretation that no scholar of nineteenth-century thought can afford to neglect.

Editorial Reviews

'The publication of Mark Francis's volume marks a significant moment not just for Spencer scholarship but for all historians of late nineteenth-century science. A great achievement - the book that Spencer studies has needed for quite some time.' - British Journal for the History of Science

'A magisterial study which is likely to remain a standard reference on its subject for many years to come.' - History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences

'Francis has produced an important and intelligent book not only on Spencer, but also on his political, scientific, social, and religious context in mid-Victorian Britain. In relocating the assumptions about Victorian politics, social science, and evolutionary biology, this work deserves a wide audience, within and well beyond historical scholarship.' - The Historical Journal

From the Publisher