Concluding Reflections

Abstract

One might have expected that Spencer’s former employer, the Economist, would have insisted on accuracy when it commented on him over a century after his death, but this was not to be so. In one short paragraph in an anonymous leading article for 20 December 2005 there came the false claim that Spencer minted the phrase ‘survival of the fittest’ before Darwin’s On the Origin of Species was published in 1859, followed by the further false claim that he took what he ‘thought were the lessons of Darwin’s book’ and applied them to human society. In the same paragraph is the umpteenth repetition of the misleading judgement that he became ‘one of the band of philosophers known as social Darwinists’, coupled with the enigmatic thought that for Spencer ‘the criterion of desert was genetic’. That this can still happen, in the face of sustained and substantial scholarly endeavour by many hands, is extraordinary, and if this book helps to stop it happening again it will have had at least one worthwhile outcome. Words written by Mary Midgley a quarter of a century ago remain pertinent: ‘Spencer’s bold, colourful and flattering picture of evolution has constantly prevailed over Darwin’s more sober, difficult one, not only in the public mind, but also surprisingly often in the minds of scientists who have reason to know its limitations’ (1985: 158). Certainly, though, there are some quite large deficiencies in Spencer, and it will be well to summarize these at the outset.KeywordsSocial LifeSocial TheoryNatural TheologyFalse ClaimPhilosophical AnthropologyThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.