HERBERT SPENCER

HERBERT SPENCER(1820 – 1903) Herbert Spencer a English philosopher contributed a great deal to the establishment of sociology as a systematic discipline. His three volumes of “Principles of Sociology”, published in 1877 were the first systematic study devoted mainly to the sociological analysis. Spencer distinguishes the field of sociology more specifically. They are: the family, politics, religion, social, and industry work. He also gave emphasis to the study of association, communities, the division of labour, social differentiation and stratification, the sociology of knowledge and of science, and the study of arts and aesthetics. Spencer’s significant contributions are the so-called organic analogy, in which society is compared with human organisms. According to Spencer, he also looks at social universe constituting of three realms. Inorganic Organic Super organic The inorganic represents physical and chemical world. That is the evolution in the organic world of matter without life. The organic represents biological and psychological world. And the super organic represents the sociological facts. His objective is to develop a theory or generate a series of theories including all these realms. Herbert Spencer believed that a society could be compared to a living organism. Similarities between society and organism by Spencer All the organic and super organic bodies increase in size; they increase in structural complexity and differentiation. In societies and organism progressive differentiation of structure is accompanied by progressive differentiation of function and that may further lead to the need for mutual dependence and integration. Each differentiate structure in organic and super organic bodies, is a systematic whole in itself and the larger whole is always influenced by the parts. The life of society, like the life of an organism is far longer than the life of any of the units or parts. Dissimilarities between society and organism by Spencer There are mainly two differences between super organic and organic world, that is, between society and organism. They are as follows: Interconnectedness: The interconnectedness of different element on the organic world is very much direct. On the inorganic it is indirect and in super organic the interconnection is based on symbolic that is through symbols. Levels of consciousness of elements: In the case of organic there is only one unit is in conscious. That is the brain of that organism. Therefore only one unit is reflected in the organic world. On the other hand, in super organic all the units have a brain and all the units reflects together. This means that the entire individual in the society have a brain and every one of these individuals works together for the well being of the whole. The principle of the survival of the fittest According to him, nature is endowed with providential tendency to get rid of the unfit and to make room for the better; it is the law of nature that the weak should be eliminated for the sake of the strong. The survival of the fittest implies that rich, powerful or other wise successful people – the fittest deserve to enjoy their wealth, power or success because they have been selected by nature to be what they are. On the other hand, poor, weak or otherwise unsuccessful individuals – the unfit – should be left to fend for themselves – because nature has doomed them to failure. If government interferes with this natural process by helping the unfit, the society will suffer, because efforts by its successful people will be wasted. nature is left to do its job without government interferences, society will not only survive but also evolve into a better society The Law of Evolution Spencer was very much influenced by the naturalist Charles Darwin. Charles Darwin developed the concept of evolution in his famous book “Origin of species” in 1859. Spencer introduces the idea of ‘social Darwinism’ to the world. For him social evolution is passing through a set of stages in which all societies moved from the simple to the complex and from the homogeneous to the heterogeneous. He stated that evolution is “a change from a state of relatively indefinite, incoherent homogeneity to a definite, coherent heterogeneity”. Spencer believed in the unilinear evolution of mankind. It means the mankind’s progress through stages of development is as rigidly determined as the evolution of individuals from childhood to maturity.