BY
HERBERT SPENCER.
LIBRARY EDITION,
(OTHERWISE FIFTH THOUSAND)
Containing Seven Essays not before Republished, and various otheradditions.
VOL. I.
WILLIAMS AND NORGATE,
14, HENRIETTA STREET, COVENT GARDEN, LONDON:
AND 20. SOUTH FREDERICK STREET. EDINBURGH.
1891.
LONDON:
G. NORMAN AND SON, PRINTERS, HART STREET,
COVENT GARDEN.
Excepting those which have appeared as articles in periodicals duringthe last eight years, the essays here gathered together were originallyre-published in separate volumes at long intervals. The first volumeappeared in December 1857; the second in November 1863; and the third inFebruary 1874. By the time the original editions of the first two hadbeen sold, American reprints, differently entitled and having the essaysdifferently arranged, had been produced; and, for economy's sake, I havesince contented myself with importing successive supplies printed fromthe American stereotype plates. Of the third volume, however, supplieshave, as they were required, been printed over here, from plates partlyAmerican and partly English. The completion of this final edition ofcourse puts an end to this make-shift arrangement.
The essays above referred to as having been written since 1882, are nowincorporated with those previously re-published. There are seven ofthem; namely—"Morals and Moral Sentiments," "The Factors of OrganicEvolution," "Professor Green's Explanations," "The Ethics of Kant,""Absolute Political Ethics," "From Freedom to Bondage," and "TheAmericans." As well as these large additions there are small additions,in the shape of post[iv]scripts to various essays—one to "The Constitutionof the Sun," one to "The Philosophy of Style," one to "Railway Morals,"one to "Prison Ethics," and one to "The Origin and Function of Music:"which last is about equal in length to the original essay. Changes havebeen made in many of the essays: in some cases by omitting passages andin other cases by including new ones. Especially the essay on "TheNebular Hypothesis" may be named as one which, though unchanged inessentials, has been much altered by additions and subtractions, and bybringing its statements up to date; so that it has been in large measurere-cast. Beyond these respects in which this final edition differs frompreceding editions, it differs in having undergone a verification of itsreferences and quotations, as well as a second verbal revision.
Naturally the fusion of three separate series of essays into one series,has made needful a general re-arrangement. Whether to follow the orderof time or the order of subjects was a question which presented itself;and, as neither alternative promised satisfactory results, I eventuallydecided to compromise—to follow partly the one order and partly theother. The first volume is made up of essays in which the idea ofevolution, general or special, is dominant. In the second volume essaysdealing with philosophical questions, with abstract and concretescience, and with aesthetics, are brought together; but though all ofthem are tacitly evolutionary, their evolutionism is an incidentalrather than a necessary trait. The ethical, political, and social essayscomposing the third volume, though mostly written from the evolutionpoint of view, have for their more immediate purposes the enunciation ofdoctrines which are directly practical in their