Herbert Spencer (1820-1903)

Overview:

• he wrote when the English state was beginning to engage in an increasing degree of interference
• Mil''s era of liberalism was coming to an end, and new liberalism, inspired by Green and Gladstone was proposing the provision of equality of opportunity by the state

Key ideas:

• he believed that human society was an evolving organism and therefore subject to natural laws of progress
• he rejected the emerging notion that society is organic and that people are interdependent
• he believed…