Essays: Scientific, Political, & Speculative (Vol. 1-3)

This 3-volume book features a comprehensive collection of most significant scientific, political and speculative essays by Herbert Spencer. The first volume is made up of essays in which the idea of evolution, general or special is dominant. In the second volume essays dealing with philosophical questions, with abstract and concrete science, and with aesthetics, are brought together; but though all of them are tacitly evolutionary, their evolutionism is an incidental rather than a necessary trait. The ethical, political, and social essays composing the third volume, though mostly written from the evolution point of view, have for their more immediate purposes the enunciation of doctrines which are directly practical in their bearings. Volume 1: The Development Hypothesis Progress: Its Law and Cause Transcendental Physiology The Nebular Hypothesis Illogical Geology Bain on the Emotions and the Will The Social Organism The Origin of Animal Worship Morals and Moral Sentiments The Comparative Psychology of Man Mr. Martineau on Evolution The Factors of Organic Evolution Volume 2: The Genesis of Science The Classification of the Sciences Reasons for Dissenting From the Philosophy of M. Comte On Laws in General, and the Order of Their Discovery The Valuation of Evidence What is Electricity? Mill versus Hamilton - The Test of Truth Replies to Criticisms Prof. Green's Explanations The Philosophy of Style Use and Beauty The Sources of Architectural Types Gracefulness Personal Beauty The Origin and Function of Music The Physiology of Laughter Volume 3: Manners and Fashion Railway Morals and Railway Policy The Morals of Trade Prison-ethics The Ethics of Kant Absolute Political Ethics Over-legislation Representative Government - What is It Good for? State-tamperings With Money and Banks Parliamentary Reform: the Dangers and the Safeguards 'The Collective Wisdom' Political Fetichism Specialized Administration From Freedom to Bondage The Americans

Herbert Spencer (1820-1903) was an English philosopher, biologist, anthropologist, and sociologist famous for his theory of social Darwinism whereby superior physical force shapes history. Spencer is best known as the originator of the expression 'survival of the fittest', which he coined in Principles of Biology (1864). The term strongly suggests natural selection, yet Spencer saw evolution as extending into realms of sociology and ethics, so he also supported Lamarckism. 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.