Spencer

spen'ser, Herbert, an English philosopher. He was born at Derby, April 27, 1820, and died at Brighton, December 8, 1903. His father was a schoolmaster and philosopher. Young Herbert was educated by his father and by an uncle. He was not sent to college. At the age of seventeen he was apprenticed to a civil engineer. He spent eleven years of his life in laying out and building railroads. During this time he contributed articles to the Civil Engineers' and Architects' Journal; also a series of letters to the Non-Conformist on the proper spirit of government. He appears to have been quite dissatisfied with both church and state. He contemplated migrating to some new country, where a more natural state of affairs prevailed. With this end in view, he studied the natural resources of New Zealand. He engaged in journalism and in writing philosophical works instead, and did not carry out his half-formed purpose. As a thinker and writer, Spencer belongs to the illustrious group in which Darwin and Huxley are found. His Principles of Psychology, based on evolutionary principles, appeared four years before Darwin's Origin of Species. While a mere lad reciting physics to an uncle, he had protested against the theory then prevalent that inertia was a live force inherent in matter. Spencer's works include Social Statics, The Study of Sociology, etc. In 1860 he announced a series of volumes to constitute a system of synthetic philosophy, but died before he had completed his work. Among his best known essays is that on education, in which he takes strong ground in favor of history, science, and industrial work, as well as the study of languages. See New Zealand; Huxley; Socialism