Extracts from Herbert Spencer

The extracts are by subjects. These are indexed on the right.

Society

From The Principles of Sociology, Volume 1, 1876

What is a Society

... we consistently regard a society as an entity because, though formed of discrete units, a certain concreteness in the aggregate of them is implied by the general persistence of the arrangements among them throughout the area occupied. And it is this trait which yields our idea of a society

A Society is an Organism

Growth

... growth is common to social aggregates and organic aggregates...

... inorganic... crystals grow

Nevertheless, compared with things we call inanimate, living bodies and societies so conspicuously exhibit augmentation of mass, that we may fairly regard this as characterizing them both.

Differentiation in Structure

It is also a character of social bodies, as of living bodies, that while they increase in size they increase in structure. Like a low animal, the embryo of a higher one has few distinguishable parts; but while it is acquiring greater mass, its parts multiply and differentiate. It is thus with society. At first the unlikeness among its of units are inconspicuous in number and degree; but as population augments, divisions and sub- divisions become more numerous and more decided. Further, in the social organism as in the individual organism, differentiations cease only with that completion of the type which marks maturity and precedes decay.

Differentiation of Function

... progressive differentiation of structures is accompanied by progressive differentiation of functions.

The divisions... which arise in a developing animal... do not assume their... unlikeness to no purpose. Along with diversities in their shapes and compositions go diversities in the actions they perform: they grow into unlike organs having unlike duties.

A limb, instrumental in locomotion or prehension, acquires divisions and sub-divisions which perform their leading and subsidiary shares in this office.

So it is with the parts into which a society divides. A dominant class arising does not simply become unlike the rest, but assumes control over the rest, and when this class separates into the more and less dominant, these again begin to discharge distinct parts of the entire control.


Evolution and dissolution

Stanislav Andreski says Spencer's key concept was evolution, by which he meant the process of increasing differentiation (that is to say specialisation of functions) and integration (by which he meant mutual interdependence of the structurally differentiated parts and co-ordination of their functions). He believed that evolution as thus conceived could be discerned in all the realms of the universe, including inanimate matter". Spencer's formulation of the concept was "evolution and dissolution".

Spencer argued that the complex organisation of multiple parts with different natures is more stable than simple uniform organisation of identical or similar parts. This argument was taken up by Emile Durkheim (see his criticism of Community Disintegration Theory) who argued that segmental society, where the units are similar, is unstable compared with organised society where individuals have different functions.

From First Principles (1893 edition)

Evolution and dissolution

An entire history of anything must include its appearance out of the imperceptible and its disappearance into the imperceptible. Be it a single object or the whole universe...
...
... science, tracing back the genealogies of various objects, finds their components were once in diffused states, and pursuing their histories forwards, finds diffused states will again be assumed by them...
...
The change from a diffused, imperceptible state to a concentrated, perceptible state is an integration of matter and concomitant dissipation of motion; and the change from a concentrated, perceptible state to a diffused, imperceptible state is an absorption of motion and concomitant disintegration of matter.
...
When taken together, the two opposite processes thus formulated constitute the history of every sensible existence, under its simplest form. Loss of motion and consequent integration, eventually followed by gain of motion and consequent disintegration...
...
Evolution under its simplest and most general aspect is the integration of matter and concomitant dissipation of motion; while dissolution is the absorption of motion and concomitant disintegration of matter.

The components of the mass while they become integrated also become differentiated.
...
... society in its first and lowest form is a homogeneous aggregation of individuals having like powers and like functions: the only marked differences of function being that which accompanies difference of sex. Every man is a warrior, hunter, fisherman, tool-maker, builder; every woman performs the same drudgeries; every family is self-sufficing...

From The Principles of Sociology

One who made the analogies between individual organisation and social organisation his special subject, might carry them further in several directions...

... as in individual organisms so in social organisms, after the structures proper to the type have fully evolved there presently begins a slow decay. He could not, indeed, furnish satisfactory proof of this; since among ancient societies, essentially militant in their activities, dissolution by conquest habitually prevented the cycle of changes from being completed; and since modern societies are passing through their cycles.



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Headings - Index

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Differentiation
Differentiation

Dissolution
Dissolution

Evolution
Evolution

Function
Function

Organism
Organism

Society
Society