Herbert Spencer

Herbert Spencer was one of the leading 19th-century English radical individualists. He began working as a journalist for the laissez-faire magazine The Economist in the 1850s. Much of the rest of his life was spent working on an all-encompassing theory of human development based upon the ideas of individualism, utilitarian moral theory, social and biological evolution, limited government, and laissez-faire economics.

The image comes from “The Warren J. Samuels Portrait Collection at Duke University.”

Articles

Patriotism
Mises Wire Herbert Spencer
[Originally printed in Facts and Comments (1902)] Were anyone to call me dishonest or untruthful he would touch me to the quick. Were he to say that I am unpatriotic, he would leave me unmoved. “What...
On Moral Education
Left and Right Herbert Spencer
Education is a perennially important and controversial subject, especially in a country as child-centered as the United States. Within libertarian ranks, an unlimited diversity of viewpoint prevails...
On Moral Education
Mises Daily Herbert Spencer
Bear constantly in mind the truth that the aim of your discipline should be to produce a self-governing being; not to produce a being to be governed by others.
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Publications

Principles of Ethics: Anthology
Herbert Spencer
This two-volume treatise by the classic liberal political theorist and philosopher Herbert Spencer has been considered by many to be his most influential work. The full compilation of its parts lasted almost a half century from the early 1840s to its
The Man versus the State
Herbert Spencer
Henry Hazlitt says that this book is “One of the most powerful and influential arguments for limited government, laissez faire and individualism ever written.” Spencer played a huge role in the history of ideas, one that contemporary sociologists
Education: Intellectual, Moral, and Physical
Herbert Spencer
This book originally appeared as four review articles: the first in the Westminster Review, the second in the North British Review, and the remaining two in the British Quarterly Review. I. What is Knowledge Most Worth? II. Intellectual Education III

Media

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