Herbert spencer

Herbert Spencer by Miss A. A Victorian biologist and philosopher, Herbert Spencer was born April 27th, , at the height of British industrialism. He was educated at home in mathematics, natural science, history and English, among some other languages. Spencer was sickly in his youth, all eight of his other siblings dying at a young age.

Herbert spencer survival of the fittest

His constitution remained weak throughout his life, and he would later suffer from nervous breakdowns which he never recovered from, and he wandered about London never in a complete state of good health. He suffered from chronic insomnia, could only work a few hours a day, and used fairly substantial amounts of opium. He experienced a strange sensation in his head which he called "the mischief", and was known for eccentricities like the wearing of ear-plugs to avoid over-excitement, especially when he could not hold his ground in an argument.

He obtained a job as a civil engineer on the railways at sixteen and wrote during his spare time. This vocation of his took up ten years of his life, and imbued him with a healthy optimism for life and society. Spencer became the sub-editor of The Economist in , an important financial weekly at the time for the upper-middle class.

He interacted with famous people like Thomas Huxley and John Tyndall, among many other leading intellectuals of Victorian Britain. Spencer published numerous articles in the radical press of his time, like The Leader , The Fortnightly and The Westminster Review , largely concerning the government, pushing for limiting its role as a mediator in society.