Herbert Spencer
Herbert Spencer 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.
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Trending & Selected Quotes
Trending topics shown first"Throughout all organic nature there is at work a modifying influence of the kind... as the cause, these specific differences: an influence which, though slow in its action, does, in time, if the circu…"
"We have unmistakable proof that throughout all past time, there has been a ceaseless devouring of the weak by the strong."
"Attila conceived himself to have a divine claim to the dominion of the earth: — the Spaniards subdued the Indians under plea of converting them to Christianity; hanging thirteen refractory ones in hon…"
"Time: That which man is always trying to kill, but which ends in killing him."
"The blindness of those who think it absurd to suppose that complex organic forms may have arisen by successive modifications out of simple ones becomes astonishing when we remember that complex organi…"
"Originally, ethics has no existence apart from religion, which holds it in solution."
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Timeline
1820
Born
Birth1903
Died
Death
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Information about Herbert Spencer is sourced from curated knowledge bases and cross-referenced for accuracy. Influence relationships are scored by thematic overlap and historical plausibility.
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