Chapter Southwell to Spencer of S by Biographical Dictionary of English Literature

of the doctrine of evolution as applied thereto, gradually leading up to the completion of a system of philosophy which was the work of his life. His fundamental proposition is that society, like the individual, is an organism subject to evolution, and the scope of this idea is gradually expanded so as to embrace in its sweep the whole range of cognisible phenomena. Among the books which he published in exposition of his views may be mentioned Social Statics (1850), Principles of Psychology (1855), First Principles (1862), Principles of Biology (1867), Data of Ethics (1879), Principles of Sociology (1877), Political Institutions (1882), and Man versus the State (1884). His works have been translated into most European languages—some of them into Chinese and Japanese. The most characteristic qualities of Spencer as a thinker are his powers of generalisation and analysis. He left an autobiography, in which he subjects his own personality to analysis with singular detachment of mind.

Life by David Duncan, LL.D., Life by J. A. Thompson. See also Outlines of Cosmic Philosophy, Fishe (1874), and books on Spencer and his philosophy by Hudson (1894), White (1897), and Macpherson (1890).