Contributions Of Herbert Spencer

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Herbert Spencer was an English philosopher, biologist, anthropologist, sociologist, and a well known classical liberal political theorist of the Victorian era.This essay sheds some light on his life and his contributions to the subject of Sociology. Herbert Spencer was born in Derby, England on 27th of April in 1820. He was the eldest of nine children, but was the only one to survive infancy. His parents were William Spencer, a self employed school teacher and Harriet Spencer who was a devout follower of John Wesley. Herbert was schooled by his father in the subjects of pure sciences, he was exposed to philosophical debates, theories and political questions at a young age at the Derby Philosophical society (D.Ashley,D.Michael- Sociological theory). At the age of thirteen he was sent to live with his uncle, Thomas Spencer who was a reform oriented minister who ran a small school. Here, herbert studied pure sciences such as chemistry, mathematics etc. Herbert left formal education at the age of sixteen and then worked as a civil engineer in the building of London and Birmingham railroad and afterwards served as editor of various political journals. From 1848 Spencer worked as a writer and subeditor for The Economist financial weekly and, as a result, came into contact with a number of political controversialists and was soon seen as one of the members of the intellectual circles in London. In the year 1850 Spencer published his first book ‘Social statistics’. Principles of