The Man versus the State by Herbert Spencer
Post-script
Do I expect this doctrine to meet with any considerable acceptance?
I wish I could say yes, but unhappily, various reasons oblige me to conclude that only here and there a solitary citizen may have his political creed modified.
Of these reasons there is one from which all the others originate.
This essential reason is that the restriction of governmental power within the limits assigned
is appropriate to the industrial type of society only, and while wholly incongruous with the
militant type of society is partially incongruous with that semi-militant, semi-industrial type
which now characterizes advanced nations.
At every stage of social evolution there must exist substantial agreement between practices
Life can be carried on only by the harmonizing of thoughts and acts, either the conduct required
by circumstances must modify the sentiments and ideas to fit it, or else the changed sentiments
and ideas must eventually modify the conduct. Hence, if the maintenance of social life under
Under one set of conditions necessitates extreme subordination to a ruler and entire faith
in him.
There will be established a theory that the subordination and the faith are proper, nay
imperative.
Conversely, if under other conditions great subjection of citizen to government is no
longer needful for preservation of the national life, if contrarywise the national life becomes
is larger in amount and higher in quality, as fast as citizens gain increased freedom
of action. There comes a progressive modification of their political theory, having the result
of diminishing their faith in governmental action, increasing their tendency to question
governmental authority, and leading them in more numerous cases to resist governmental
power, involving eventually an established doctrine of limitation.
Thus it is not to be expected that current opinion respecting governmental authority can
at present be modified to any great extent.
But let us look at the necessities of the case more closely.
Manifestly, the success of an army depends very much on the faith of the soldiers in
their general.
Disbelief in his ability will go far toward paralyzing them in battle, while absolute confidence
in them will make them fulfill their respective parts with courage and energy.
If, as in the normally developed militant type of society, the leader in war and the
ruler in peace are one in the same, this confidence in him extends from military action to civil
action, and a society in large measure identical with the army willingly accepts his judgments
as lawgiver.
And where the civil head, ceasing to be the military head, does his generalship by deputy,
there still clings to him the traditional faith.
As with faith, so with obedience, other things equal, an army of insubordinate soldiers fails
before an army of subordinate soldiers.
Those whose obedience to their leader is perfect and prompt are obviously more likely to succeed
and as with the army, so with the society as a whole, success in war must largely depend on that conformity to the ruler's will, which brings men and money when wanted and adjusts all conduct to his needs.
Thus, by survival of the fittest, the militant type of society becomes characterized by profound
confidence in the governing power, joined with a loyalty causing submission to it in
all matters whatever.
And there must tend to be established, among those who speculate about political affairs
in a militant society, a theory giving form to the needful ideas and feelings, accompanied
by assertions that the lawgiver, if not divine in nature, is divinely directed, and that
Unlimited obedience to him is divinely ordered. Change in the ideas and feelings which thus
become characteristic of the militant form of organization can take place only where
circumstances favor development of the industrial form of organization. Being carried on by
voluntary cooperation instead of by compulsory cooperation, industrial life as we know it
habituates men to independent activities, leads them to enforce their own claims while
while respecting the claims of others, strengthens the consciousness of personal rights and prompts
them to resist excesses of governmental control. But since the circumstances which render war
less frequent arise but slowly, and since the modifications of nature caused by the
transition from a life predominantly militant to a life predominantly industrial can therefore
go on but slowly, it happens that the old sentiments and ideas give place to new ones
by small degrees only. And there are several reasons why the transition
not only is but ought to be gradual. Here are some of them.
In the primitive man and in man but little civilized, there does not exist the nature
required for extensive voluntary cooperations. Efforts willingly united with those of others
for a common advantage imply, if the undertaking is large, a perseverance he does not possess.
Moreover, where the benefits to be achieved are distant and unfamiliar, as are many for
which men nowadays combine, there needs a strength of constructive imagination not to
be found in the minds of the uncivilized.
And yet again, great combinations of a private kind for wholesome production or for large
enterprises require a graduated subordination of the united workers, a graduated subordination
such as that which militancy produces.
In other words, the way to the developed industrial type as we now know it is through the militant
type, which by discipline generates in long ages the power of continuous application,
the willingness to act under direction, no longer coercive but agreed to under contract,
and the habit of achieving large results by organizations.
The implication is that during long stages of social evolution their needs for the management
of All Matters but the simplest, a governmental power great in degree and wide in range,
with a correlative faith in it and obedience to it. Hence the fact that, as the records
of early civilizations show us, and as we are shown in the East at present, large undertakings
can be achieved only by state action. And hence the fact that only little by little
can voluntary cooperation replace compulsory cooperation, and rightly bring about a correlative
Chiefly, however, the maintenance of this faith is necessitated by the maintenance of
fitness for war. This involves continuance of such confidence in the ruling agency and
such subordination to it as may enable it to wield all the forces of the society on
occasions of attack or defense, and there must survive a political theory justifying
While their sentiments and ideas are of kinds which perpetually endanger peace, it is requisite
that men should have such belief in the authority of government as shall give it adequate coercive
power over them for war purposes, a belief in its authority which inevitably at the same
time gives it coercive power over them for other purposes.
Thus, as said at first, the fundamental reason for not expecting much acceptance of the doctrine
The main doctrine set forth is that we have at present but partially emerged from the militant regime, and have but partially entered on that industrial regime to which this doctrine is proper.
So long as the religion of enmity predominates over the religion of amity, the current political superstition must hold its ground.
While throughout Europe the entire culture of the ruling classes is one which every day of the week holds up for admiration those who in ancient times achieved the greatest feats in battle, and only on Sunday repeats the injunction to put up the sword.
While those ruling classes are subject to a moral discipline consisting of sixth, seventh
pagan example and one seventh Christian precept, there is no likelihood that there will arise
such international relations as may make a decline in governmental power practicable
and a corresponding modification of political theory acceptable.
While among ourselves the administration of colonial affairs is such that native tribes
While the
creed men profess is so interpreted that one of them who at home addresses missionary meetings
A nation that seeks, when abroad, to ferment a quarrel with an adjacent people whom he wishes to subjugate, and then receives public honors after his death, it is not likely that the relations of our society to other societies will become such that there can be spread, to any extent, that doctrine of limited governmental functions which accompanies the diminished governmental authority proper to a peaceful state.
It is impossible to unite the blessings of equity at home with the commission of inequities
Abroad. Of course, there will arise, then, a question. Why, then, enunciate and emphasize
a theory at variance with the theory adopted in our present state? Beyond the general reply
that it is the duty of everyone who regards a doctrine as true and important to do what
he can towards defusing it, leaving the result to be what it may, there are several more
or special replies, each of which is sufficient.
In the first place, an ideal, far in advance of practicability though it may be, is always
needful for right guidance.
If amid all those compromises which the circumstances of the times necessitates, or are thought
to necessitate, there exist no true conceptions of better and worse in social organizations,
If nothing beyond the exigencies of the moment are attended to, and the proximately best is
habitually identified with the ultimately best, there cannot be any true progress. However
distant may be the goal, and however often intervening obstacles may necessitate deviation
in our course towards it, it is obviously requisite to know whereabouts it lies.
Again, while something like the present degree of subjection of the individual to the state
and something like the current political theory adapted to it may remain
needful in presence of existing international relations, it is by no
means needful that this subjection should be made greater and the adapted
theory strengthened. In our days of active philanthropy, hosts of people
are eager to achieve benefits for their less fortunate fellows by what seem
the shortest methods, are busily occupied in developing administrative
of Arrangements of a Kind Proper to a Lower Type of Society, are bringing about retrogression
while aiming at progression. The normal difficulties in the way of advance are sufficiently great
and it is lamentable that they should be made greater. Hence, something well worth doing
may be done if philanthropists can be shown that they are in many cases ensuring the future
Chiefly, however, it is important to press on all the great truth, at present but little
recognized, that a society's internal and external policies are so bound together that
there cannot be an essential improvement of the one without an essential improvement of
the other.
A higher standard of international justice must be habitually acted upon before there
can be conformity to a higher standard of justice in our national arrangements. The
conviction that a dependence of this kind exists, could it be diffused amongst civilised
peoples, would greatly check aggressive behaviour towards one another, and by doing this would
diminish the coerciveness of their governmental systems while appropriately changing their
and Their Political Theories.
Note In some of the criticisms on this work there
has reappeared a mistaken inference several times before drawn that the doctrine of evolution
as applied to social affairs precludes philanthropic effort.
How untrue this is was shown by me in the fortnightly review for February 1875.
Where I reproduce the essential part of that which was there said.
I am chiefly concerned, however, to repudiate the conclusion that the private action of
citizens is needless or unimportant because the course of social evolution is determined
by the natures of citizens as working under the conditions in which they are placed.
To assert that each social change is thus determined is to assert that all the egoistic
and altruistic activities of citizens are factors of the change, and is tacitly to
assert that in the absence of any of these, say, political aspirations or the promptings
of philanthropy, the change will not be the same. So far from implying that the efforts
of each man to achieve that which he thinks best are unimportant, the doctrine implies
that such efforts, severally resulting from the natures of the individuals, are indispensable
The correlative duty is thus emphasized in paragraph 34 of first principles. It is not for nothing that he has in him these sympathies with some principles and repugnance to others.
He, with all his capacities and aspirations and beliefs, is not an accident but a product of the time.
of the Time.
He must remember that while he is a descendant of the past, he is a parent of the future,
and that his thoughts are as children born to him, which he may not carelessly let die.
He, like every other man, may properly consider himself as one of the myriad agencies through
whom works the unknown cause, and when the unknown cause produces in him a certain belief,
he is thereby authorized to profess and act out that belief.
or to render in their highest sense the words of the poet,
nature is made better by no mean, but nature makes that mean over that art, which you say
adds to nature, is an art that nature makes.
That there is no retreat from this view in the work Professor Cairns criticizes, the
study of sociology, is sufficiently shown by its closing paragraph.
Thus, admitting that for the fanatic some wild anticipation is needful as a stimulus,
and recognizing the usefulness of this delusion as adapted to a particular nature and his
particular function, the man of higher type must be content with the greatly moderated
expectations while he perseveres with undiminished efforts.
He has to see how comparatively little can be done, and yet to find it worthwhile to
I do not see how Professor Cairns reconciles such passages. His statement that, according to Mr. Spencer, the future of the human race may be safely trusted to the action of motives of a private and personal kind, to motives such as operate in the production and distribution of wealth, or in the development of language. This statement is to the effect that I ignore it.
or the Action of Motives of a Higher Kind, whereas these are not only necessarily included
by me in the totality of motives, but repeatedly insisted upon as all-essential.
I am the more surprised at this misapprehension because, in the essay on Specialized Administration,
to which Professor Cairns refers, see the fortnightly review for December 1871, I have
I have dwelt at considerable length on the altruistic sentiments and the resulting social
activities as not having been duly taken into account by Professor Huxley. As Professor
Cairns indicates at the close of his first paper, the difficulty lies in recognizing
human actions as, under one aspect, voluntary and under another, predetermined. I have said
and elsewhere all I have to say on this point. Here I wish only to point out that the conclusion
he draws from my premises is utterly different from the conclusion I draw. Entering this
caveat I must leave all further elucidations to come in due course.