Political Institutions: Being Part V. of The Principles of Sociology. (The Concluding Portion of Vol. II.)

ii, [229]-770, x, 16 pp. 8vo. Part of Spencer's larger body of work entitled Synthetic Philosophy. "Herbert Spencer (27 April 1820 - 8 December 1903) was an English philosopher, prominent classical liberal political theorist, and sociological theorist of the Victorian era. 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, economics, politics, philosophy, biology, sociology, and psychology. During his lifetime he achieved tremendous authority, mainly in English Speaking circles. Indeed in Britain and the United States at "one time Spencer's disciples had not blushed to compare him with Aristotle!" He is best known for coining the phrase "survival of the fittest," which he did in Principles of Biology (1864), after reading Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species. This term strongly suggests natural selection, yet as Spencer extended evolution into realms of sociology and ethics, he made use of Lamarckism rather than natural selection."