Herbert spencer born

Herbert spencer theory of evolution
Herbert spencer death
Herbert spencer theory

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Biography

Early Life and Family

On April 27, 1820, Herbert Spencer was born in Derby, England, to a middle-class family. William George Spencer, his father, was a headmaster. He and his entire family were passionate nonconformists who embraced individualism.

Education

Spencer was educated at home by his uncle and father rather than attending a traditional school. As a result, Spencer acquired an early curiosity for studying moths and butterflies and a talent for physics and mathematics. Herbert received much of his education from his uncle Thomas Spencer. The latter had the same worldview as his father and taught him Latin, mathematics, physics, free trade, and libertarian political theory.

According to his publications, he attended a few small private schools, although only for brief durations. His mathematical instruction was the finest. He didn’t get a formal education in the natural sciences, literature, or history, yet he produced some of the best works on sociology, biology, and psychology.

Employment

Spencer began working as an engineer in railroad e

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Herbert Spencer

English philosopher and political theorist (1820–1903)

For other people named Herbert Spencer, see Herbert Spencer (disambiguation).

Herbert Spencer (27 April 1820 – 8 December 1903) was an English polymath active as a philosopher, psychologist, biologist, sociologist, and anthropologist. Spencer originated the expression "survival of the fittest", which he coined in Principles of Biology (1864) after reading Charles Darwin's 1859 book On the Origin of Species. The term strongly suggests natural selection, yet Spencer saw evolution as extending into realms of sociology and ethics, so he also supported Lamarckism.^[1]^[2]

Spencer developed an all-embracing conception of evolution as the progressive development of the physical world, biological organisms, the human mind, and human culture and societies. As a polymath, he contributed to a wide range of subjects, including ethics, religion, anthropology, economics, political theory, philosophy, literature, astronomy, biology, sociology, and psychology. During his lifetime he achieved treme

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Dictionary of National Biography, 1912 supplement/Spencer, Herbert

SPENCER, HERBERT (1820–1903), philosopher, was born in Derby on 27 April 1820. The Spencer family had been settled for several centuries in the parish of Kirk Ireton in Derbyshire. All Spencer's four grandparents were among the early followers of John Wesley. His paternal grandfather, Matthew Spencer, settled in Derby as a schoolmaster; he had six sons, and on his death left his property in Kirk Ireton, consisting of a few cottages and two fields, to his eldest son, William George Spencer [q. v.], the father of Herbert Spencer. George Spencer, as he was commonly called to distinguish him from his youngest brother, who was also William, was a man of extremely strong individuality and advanced social and religious views. In 1819 he married Harriet Holmes, the only daughter of a plumber and glazier in Derby. On her mother's side a dash of Huguenot and Hussite blood was traceable. Of this, however, she showed little trace in her character, which was patient, gentle, and conforming. Neither in intellect nor