Herbert Spencer

So this was a nominally scientific think tank that Thomas Huxley was assigned to oversee.

It was an appendage of the Royal Society that was itself created out of the Rosicrucian Invisible College about almost two centuries earlier in what was it 1660 yeah a little over two centuries earlier and uh featured there are some of the the leading members of this group you had joseph dalton hooker matthew arnold uh william spotswoods george busk john tyndall a physicist herbert spencer the founder that Herbert Spencer is the founder of social Darwinism, Sir John Lubbock, Thomas Archer Hearst, Franklin Edward.

You had the followers of the Lyell School as well of geology, but you had basically leading figures assigned from the Royal College who were experts at their particular field of whether hydrodynamics, astronomy uh anthropology you name it geology biology and they were all brought together with the assignment to try to take control of what was known then as of continental science and try to bring all of science as we know it under a singular control mechanism that would have common characteristics such as, but not limited to, the denial of any creative leaps, ontologically creative leaps, that would break the system of approved thinking, basically, which was known as logical, deductive, and inductive thinking, or also known as a posteriori and a priori logical analysis, the type of logic That starts with blind assumptions, blind obedience to certain axioms, certain laws, certain generalities that we assume are true.

We cannot know are true, but we assume are true.

But accepting in the case of man itself, hardly anyone is so ignorant as to allow his worst animals to breathe.

So Darwin is, even though people say he wasn't a eugenicist, he wasn't he didn't come up with the term social Darwinism.

That was Herbert Spencer.

He's he's innocent of the of the application of his theories to human organization.

We think of Descartes nowadays as the metaphysician who said cogito ergo sum, separated mind from matter as two contrasted substances, and gave a renovated proof of God s existence.

But his contemporaries thought of him much more as we think of Herbert Spencer in our day, as a great cosmic evolutionist, who explained by the redistribution of matter and motion, and the laws of impact, the rotation of the heavens, the circulation of the blood, the refraction of light, apparatus of vision and of nervous action, the passings of the soul, and the connection of the mind and body.

Descartes died in 1650.

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but few of them result from a misuse of terms in stating them things for example are or are not composed of one stuff they either have or have not a single origin they either are or are not completely predetermined etc such alternatives may indeed be impossible of decision but until this is conclusively proved of them they confront us legitimately and some one must take charge of them and keep account of the solutions that are proposed even if he does not himself add new ones the opinions of the learned regarding them must in short be classified and responsibly discussed for instance how many opinions are possible as to the origin of the world Spencer says that the world must have been either eternal or self-created, or created by an outside power.

So for him, there are only three.

He knew nothing of the habits of this beggar, knew not the use that would be made of this money, although he had every reason to suspect that it would be spent improperly.

This man professed to be a disciple of Herbert Spencer, yet the quarter dollar given that night will probably work more injury then all the money will do good which its thoughtless donor will ever be able to give in true charity he only gratified his own feelings saved himself from annoyance and this was probably one of the most selfish and very worst actions of his life for in all respects he is most worthy in bestowing charity the main consideration should be to help those who will help themselves to provide part of the means by which those who desire to improve may do so to give those who desire to rise the aids by which they may rise to assist but rarely or never to do all neither the individual nor the race is improved by almsgiving those worthy of assistance except in rare cases seldom require assistance the really valuable men of the race never do except in case of accident or sudden change every one has of course cases of individuals brought to his own knowledge where temporary assistance can do genuine good and these he will not overlook but the amount which can be wisely given by the individual for individuals is necessarily limited by his lack of knowledge of the circumstances connected with each he is the only true reformer who is as careful and as anxious not to aid the unworthy as he is to aid the worthy and perhaps even more so for in almsgiving more injury is probably done by rewarding vice than by relieving virtue the rich man is thus almost restricted to following the examples of peter cooper enoch pratt of baltimore mr pratt of brooklyn senator stanford and others who know that the best means of benefiting the community is to place within its reach the ladders upon which the aspiring can rise free libraries parks and means of recreation by which men are helped in body and mind works of art certain to give pleasure and improve the public taste and public institutions of various kinds which will improve the general condition of the people in this manner returning their surplus wealth to the mass of their fellows in the forms best calculated to do them lasting good thus is the problem of rich and poor to be solved the laws of accumulation will be left free the laws of distribution free individualism will continue but the millionaire will be but a trustee for the poor entrusted for a season with a great part of the increased wealth of the community but administering it for the community far better than it could or would have done for itself the best minds will thus have reached a stage in the development of the race in which it is clearly seen that there is no mode of disposing of surplus wealth creditable to thoughtful and earnest men into whose hands it flows save by using it year by year for the general good this day already dawns men may die without incurring the pity of their fellows still sharers in great business enterprises from which their capital cannot be or has not been withdrawn and which is left chiefly at death for public uses yet the day is not far distant when the man who dies leaving behind him millions of available wealth which was free for him to administer during life will pass away unwept unhonoured and unsung no matter to what uses he leaves the dross which he cannot take with him of such as these the public verdict will then be the man who dies thus rich dies disgraced Such, in my opinion, is the true gospel concerning wealth, obedience to which is destined some day to solve the problem of the rich and the poor and to bring peace on earth among men goodwill.

End of Part 1 The Problem with the Administration of Wealth The Gospel of Wealth by Andrew Carnegie.

This LibriVox recording is in the public domain.

Of course I'm talking here of very positively marked men, men of radical idiosyncrasy who have set their stamp and likeness on philosophy and figure in its history.

Plato, Locke, Hegel, Spencer are such temperamental thinkers.

Most of us have, of course, no very definite intellectual temperament.

We are a mixture of opposite ingredients, each one present very moderately.

If you look to the quarter where facts are most considered, you find the whole tough-minded program in operation and the conflict between science and religion in full blast.

Either it is the Rocky Mountain tough of a heckle with his materialistic monism, his ether god, and his jest at our god as a gaseous vertebrate.

Or it is Spencer treating the world's history as a redistribution of matter and motion solely and bowing religion politely out at the front door.

She may indeed continue to exist, but she must never show her face inside the temple.