Reflections upon the Sociology of Herbert Spencer

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I imagine that nearly all of us who took up sociology between 1870, say, and 1890 did so at the instigation of Spencer. While he did not invent the word (though most of us had never heard it before), much less the idea, he gave new life to both, and seemed to show us an open road into those countries which as yet we had only vaguely yearned to explore. His book, The Study of Sociology, perhaps the most readable of all his works, had a large sale and probably did more to arouse interest in the subject than any other publication before or since. Whatever we may have occasion to charge against him, let us set down at once a large credit for effective propagation.It is. certain that nearly all of us fell away from him sooner or later and more or less completely. My own defection, I believe, was one of the earliest and most complete; and since the recoil has gone farther with me than with most others, it is not unlikely that I now fail to do him justice. However, my views, such as________________________________________(130) they are, have at least had ample time to mature, and I offer them for what they may be worth.The ancestors of Herbert Spencer were plain people of the English middle class, most of them dissenters from the Established Church and somewhat radical in politics. His father, however, was a man of marked ability, u teacher noted for ingenious ways of evoking interest, and the author of a work on Inventional Geometry in which this subject was taught by a method of experiment and discovery. An uncle, Thomas Spencer, took a degree at Cambridge and became somewhat distinguished in the church, rather as an agitator of reforms, however, than in orthodox activities. He was frequently at odds with his colleagues and finally went so far as to advocate the separation of church and state. The innovating spirit observed in his father and uncle was justly regarded by Spencer as a precious part of his own heredity. His mother was amiable and devoted but apparently of no marked individuality, rather harshly treated by her husband, and sometimes referred to by her son as an example of the ill effects of too much self-abnegation.Herbert received very little systematic instruction. This seems to have been due partly to his father's views, exalting self-activity and disinclined to force natural inclinations, and partly to the boy's delicate health. His mind was active, but chiefly upon inquiries of his own—into mechanics, natural history, or ethics—and even then he showed signs of that incapacity for sustained reading which was pathological in his mature years. He began Latin and Greek, but apparently did not get enough to be of any use, and never studied English grammar at all. Indeed, apart from a limited ability to read French acquired later, Spencer seems never to have had the use of any foreign or ancient language. Nor does it appear that he ever studied history, literature, or philosophy, except as he was incited to occasional reading in these subjects by the requirements of his own work.