Herbert Spencer and the Disunity of the Social Organism

1. This observation was made by Beatrice Webb in a 1928 BBC radio broadcast, and is taken from a transcript in the Passfield Collection, British Library of Political and Economic Science, vi, 79. Quoted in Wiltshire David, The social and political thought of Herbert Spencer (Oxford, 1978), 68.

2. Spencer Herbert, An autobiography (2 vols, London, 1904), ii, 12; Duncan David, Life and letters of Herbert Spencer (London, 1908), 520.

3. Spencer, Autobiography (ref. 2), ii, 5.

4. Hilton Boyd, The age of atonement: The influence of evangelicalism on social and economic thought, 1795–1865 (Oxford, 1988), viii, 69.

5. Spencer Herbert, “Over-legislation”, Westminster review, iv (1853), 51–84, pp. 69, 52. This brings to mind F. A. von Hayek, who was later to use the conception of spontaneous order. While denying the simplistic image of a succession of pantheonic libertarian thinkers from Spencer to Hayek, Michael W. Taylor has nevertheless called for a study relating the links between Spencer and Hayek, in his Men versus the state: Herbert Spencer and late Victorian individualism (Oxford, 1992), p. ix. For more work on “spontaneous order” from a libertarian on the right, inspired by Hayek and briefly examining Spencer, see Gray John, Hayek on liberty (Oxford, 1984). Conversely, for work on spontaneous order from a libertarian on the left, inspired by the anarchist theorist Petr Kropotkin, see Scott's James Seeing like a state: How certain schemes to improve the human condition have failed (New Haven, 1998); see also Agar Jon, review of Scott in The British journal for the history of science, xxxiv (2001), 114–15.

6. Elliot Hugh, Herbert Spencer (London, 1917), 305.

7. London Jack, Martin Eden (3rd edn, Harmondsworth, 1980), 95. This example from Martin Eden has already been quoted in J. D. Y. Peel's examination of Spencer, but deserves to be pointed out again to show the power of Spencer's influence.

8. Taylor, Men versus the state (ref. 5), 21–26.

9. Webb Beatrice Potter, Ian MacKenzie Norman, MacKenzie Jeanne, The diary of Beatrice Webb (4 vols, London, 1982), ii, 285–6.

10. Brinton Crane, English political thought in the nineteenth century (New York, 1962), 226–7. Parsons Talcott, The structure of social action (New York, 1937), 3.

11. For an example of Parsons's analogies between societies and organisms in The structure of social action, see “Systems of action and their units”, 737–48.

12. Sapp Jan, Evolution by association: A history of symbiosis (Oxford, 1994), 25–28.

13. Taylor's Men versus the state (ref. 5). Perrin Robert G., Herbert Spencer: A primary and secondary bibliography (New York, 1993).

14. David John, Peel Yeaton, Herbert Spencer: The evolution of a sociologist (London, 1971), 177.

15. Barker Ernest, Political thought in England, 1848 to 1914 (2nd edn, London, 1959), 96–97.

16. Huxley Thomas Henry, “Administrative nihilism”, Fortnightly review, x (1871), 525–43, pp. 534–5.

17. Bannister Robert C., Social Darwinism: Science and myth in Anglo-American social thought (Philadelphia, 1979), 144–5, 31–32; Ward Lester Frank, Outlines of sociology (New York, 1898), 61; Hofstadter Richard, Social Darwinism in American thought (New York, 1965), 80; Dewey John, “The philosophical work of Herbert Spencer”, Philosophical review, xiii (1904), 159–75, p. 166; Brown Ivor, English political theory (London, 1920), 129–35; Hearnshaw Fossey J. C., Social and political ideas of some representative thinkers of the Victorian Age (London, 1933), 72–73; Gough J. W., The social contract: A critical study of its development (Oxford, 1957), 213–16; Stark Werner, “Herbert Spencer's three sociologies”, American sociological review, xxvi (1961), 515–21, pp. 517–19; Andreski Stanislav, Elements of comparative sociology (London, 1964), 173–4; Wiltshire, The social and political thought of Herbert Spencer (ref. 1), 255–6, 235; Paul E. F., “Herbert Spencer — The historicist as a failed prophet”, Journal of the history of ideas, xliv (1983), 619–38, p. 628; Paul E. F., “Herbert Spencer — Second thoughts — A response to Michael Taylor”, Political studies, xxxvii (1989), 443–8.

18. Burrow notes that Spencer's “marriage of evolution with laissez-faire principles… was accomplished in the teeth of the most obvious implications of his organic analogy. Highly complex organisms, as he recognized, are, after all, highly dirigiste. The ‘lower’ functions — Body chemistry, breathing, digestion — Are spontaneous and self-regulating”. Burrow argues that Spencer solved this problem by resorting to Lamarckian evolutionary explanation. Burrow John, The crisis of reason: European thought, 1848–1914 (New Haven, 2000), 74.

19. Hawkins Mike, Social Darwinism in European and American thought, 1860–1945 (Cambridge, 1997), 94.

20. Gray Tim S., “Herbert Spencer — Individualist or organicist?”, Political studies, xxxiii (1985), 236–53; idem, The political philosophy of Herbert Spencer: Individualism and organicism (Aldershot, 1996).

21. Francis M., “Herbert Spencer and the myth of laissez-faire”, Journal of the history of ideas, xxxix (1978), 317–28, p. 327; Simon Walter M., “Herbert Spencer and the social organism”, Journal of the history of ideas, xxi (1960), 294–9; Hiskes Richard P., “Spencer and the liberal idea of community”, Review of politics, vl (1983), 595–609, pp. 597–602; Murray Robert Henry, Studies in the English social and political thinkers of the nineteenth century (2 vols, Cambridge, 1929), ii, 25–26, 37–39.

22. Barker, Political thought in England, 1848 to 1914 (ref. 15), 90–91.

23. Young Robert M., “The historiographic and ideological contexts of the nineteenth-century debate on man's place in nature”, in Changing perspectives in the history of science: Essays in honour of Joseph Needham, ed. by Teich M., Young R. M. (London, 1973); reprinted in Young Robert M., Darwin's metaphor: Nature's place in Victorian culture (Cambridge, 1985), 164–247, p. 185.

24. Mackintosh Robert, From Comte to Benjamin Kidd: The appeal to biology or evolution for human guidance (London, 1899), 94.

25. Duncan, Life and letters of Herbert Spencer (ref. 2), 11, 9.

26. Peel, Herbert Spencer (ref. 14), 35–37; Spencer, Autobiography (ref. 2), i, 19.

27. Spencer Thomas, Practical suggestions on Church reform (London, 1841), 9–10.

28. de Voltaire F. M. A., Letters concerning the English nation (Oxford, 1994), 14–15.

29. Spencer, Autobiography (ref. 2), i, 83.

30. Christophers S. W., Class-meetings in relation to the design and success of Methodism (London, 1873), 21–22. “Connexion” was the name for the entire Wesleyan Methodist community.

31. Watts Michael, The Dissenters (2 vols, Oxford, 1978–95), ii, 31.

32. Gowland D. A., Methodist secessions: The origins of Free Methodism in three Lancashire towns, Manchester, Rochdale, Liverpool (Manchester, 1979), 165.

33. Peel, Herbert Spencer (ref. 14), 38–39.

34. Everett James, 'Methodism as it is', with some of its antecedents, its branches and disruptions (2 vols, London, 1865), i, 21.

35. Watts, The Dissenters (ref. 31), ii, 30–31.

36. Currie Robert, Methodism divided: A study in the sociology of ecumenicalism, society today and tomorrow (London, 1968), 17.

37. These various revivals in Wesleyan Methodism occurred in 1805–6, 1808 and 1815 — The seceding groups forming, respectively, the Independent Methodists, the Primitive Methodists, and the Bible Christians. Watts, The Dissenters (ref. 31), ii, 32–33.

38. Hempton David, Methodism and politics in British society 1750–1850 (London, 1984), 20.

39. To support this project Bunting argued that John Wesley was closer to the Anglican Church than to Dissent to emphasize its respectability. Watts, Watts, The Dissenters (ref. 31), ii, 463.

40. Everett, 'Methodism as it is' (ref. 34), i, 21, 23.

41. Kent John, “The Wesleyan Methodists to 1849”, in A history of the Methodist Church in Great Britain, ed. by Davies Rupert, George A. Raymond, Rupp Gordon (3 vols, London, 1978), ii, 269; Watts, The Dissenters (ref. 31), ii, 33–34. This group became the Protestant Methodists.

42. Gowland, Methodist secessions (ref. 32), 164; Kent, “The Wesleyan Methodists to 1849” (ref. 41), 214–4.

43. These Flysheets were distributed until 1848. Gowland, Methodist secessions (ref. 32), 16–17, 167.

44. Peel, Herbert Spencer (ref. 14), 7; Spencer, Autobiography (ref. 2), i, 43.

45. Smith George, History of Wesleyan Methodism (3 vols, London, 1862), iii, 171–2.

46. Macdonald George Brown, Facts against fiction: Or, a statement of the real causes which produced the division among the Wesleyan Methodists in Derby (Derby, 1832), 17–18.

47. Brigden T. E.Rev., “Notes and queries—The Arminian Methodists or Derby faith folk”, Publications of the Wesley Historical Society, iv (1899), 124; Harrison A. W., “The Arminian Methodists”, Publications of the Wesley Historical Society, xxiii (1941–42), 25–26.

48. Peel, Herbert Spencer (ref. 14), 7, 37; Watts, The Dissenters (ref. 31), ii, 34.

49. Spencer, Autobiography (ref. 2), i, 398–9.

50. Spencer Herbert, “Poor laws; Reply to ‘T.W.S”’, The Bath and West of England magazine, iii (1836), 81–83; reprinted in Spencer Herbert, Political writings, edited by Offer John (Cambridge, 1994).

51. Duncan, Life and letters of Herbert Spencer (ref. 2), 28–29; Spencer, Autobiography (ref. 2), i, chap. 6; Spencer Herbert, “The non-intrusion riots”, The Nonconformist, 11 October 1843, 689–90.

52. Peel, Herbert Spencer (ref. 14), xii, chap. 2.

53. The Nonconformist, 23 March 1842, 186–7.

54. On this point see Jones Gareth Stedman, Languages of class (Cambridge, 1983), 104; for the articulation of different visions of British society in the nineteenth century see Cannadine David, The rise and fall of class in Britain (New York, 1999), 19–21, 68–69.

55. Spencer, Autobiography (ref. 2), i, 219.

56. Miall Arthur, Life of Edward Miall (London, 1884), 75–76, 78.

57. Spencer, Autobiography (ref. 2), i, 219.

58. Wilson Alexander, “The suffrage movement”, in Pressure from without in early Victorian England, ed. by Hollis Patricia (London, 1974), 80–104, p. 85.

59. Spencer Herbert, “An address from the municipal electors of the Borough of Derby, to the authorities of the town”, The morning chronicle, 6 September 1842, 3. Another indignant account can be found in Anon., “The Derby magistrates”, The Nonconformist, 14 September 1842, 625–6.

60. Duncan, Life and letters of Herbert Spencer (ref. 2), 35.

61. This was mostly because the members of the CSU refused to call their proposals a “Charter” because they feared it would alienate their middle-class supporters. But many Chartists, particularly Feargus O'Connor's physical-force faction, refused to abandon this name. Wilson, “The suffrage movement” (ref. 58), 88. Spencer, Autobiography (ref. 2), i, 218–21; Peel, Herbert Spencer (ref. 14), 12.

62. Watts, The Dissenters (ref. 31), ii, 564.

63. Wilson, “The suffrage movement” (ref. 58), 91.

64. Spencer, Autobiography (ref. 2), i, 218; Miall, Life of Miall (ref. 56), 86.

65. “Mechanism — Natural and artificial”, The Nonconformist, 21 September 1842, 633. In one article, the Christian religion was like an organism, an “elephant” compared with a steam engine. The elephant was capable of growth, having interior energy vastly superior to any apparatus created by “external authority”.

66. Spencer Herbert, “Effervescence — Rebecca and her daughters”, The Nonconformist, 28 June 1843, 457.

67. Peel, Herbert Spencer (ref. 14), 61.

68. Duncan, Life and letters of Herbert Spencer (ref. 2), 573.

69. Spencer Herbert, The proper sphere of government (London, 1843), 17, 5.

70. Richards Robert J., Darwin and the emergence of evolutionary theories of mind and behavior (Chicago, 1987), 251; Cooter Roger, The cultural meaning of popular science: Phrenology and the organization of consent in nineteenth-century Britain (Cambridge, 1984), 43–47.

71. Hedderly Frances, Phrenology: A study of mind (London, 1970), 120–1. The foreword is written by none other than R. M. Young.

72. Cooter, Cultural meaning of popular science (ref. 70), 3; De Giustino David, Conquest of mind: Phrenology and Victorian social thought (London, 1975), 18.

73. Hollander Bernard, “Herbert Spencer as a phrenologist”, Westminster review, cxxxix (1893), 142–54, p. 144; Cooter, Cultural meaning of popular science (ref. 70), 111–12.

74. Carson James C. L., The fundamental principles of phrenology (London, 1868), 309; Anon., Manual of phrenology: Being an analytical summary of the system of Doctor Gall [transl. unknown] (Philadelphia, 1835), 85–86, 95–96.

75. Spurzheim George, Outlines of phrenology (3rd edn, Boston, 1834), 82–83.

76. Spencer, Autobiography (ref. 2), i, 200, 228–9.

77. Spencer, Proper sphere of government (ref. 69), 5, cites Smith Sidney, The principles of phrenology (Edinburgh, 1838). I believe that this is the only phrenological text that Spencer actually cites in any of his publications. Sidney Smith is not to be confused with the clergyman Sydney Smith.

78. Smith, The principles of phrenology (ref. 77), 31, 36–37. On p. 33 Smith also has an evolutionary message, noting that Vimont, Serres, Tiedemann and Vicq d'Azyr have all observed that every rise of intelligence in the animal kingdom is accompanied by a greater number of cerebral parts, both as adults and in the foetal brain. This may have influenced Spencer.

79. Spencer, Proper sphere of government (ref. 69), 6.

80. David Stack denies that Spencer was as deeply influenced by Thomas Hodgskin (colleague during Spencer's four-year term at The economist) as previous historians, beginning with Elie Halévy, have implied. Spencer, therefore, cannot be seen as standing in a long, individualist, natural rights tradition stretching to Godwin. Instead, Stack notes that Spencer mainly shared the common Combean technique of drawing analogies between societies and organisms. Stack David, Nature and artifice: The life and thought of Thomas Hodgskin (London, 1998), 189–93.

81. Spencer Herbert, “A theory concerning the organ of wonder”, The zoist, ii (1844), 318–25, pp. 321, 324; Spencer Herbert, “The situation of the organ of amativeness”, The zoist, ii (1844), 186–89, p. 186.

82. Duncan, Life and letters of Herbert Spencer (ref. 2), 540.

83. Spencer Herbert, Social statics: Or, the conditions essential to human happiness specified and the first of them developed (London, 1851), 280.

84. Spencer, Social statics (ref. 83), 451.

85. Spencer, Social statics (ref. 83), 451–3.

86. Spencer, Social statics (ref. 83), 274–5.

87. Spencer, Autobiography (ref. 2), i, 106.

88. Desmond Adrian, The politics of evolution: Morphology, medicine, and reform in radical London (Chicago, 1989), 274.

89. Jones Thomas Rymer, A general outline of the animal kingdom, and manual of comparative anatomy (1st edn, London, 1841), 8–9.

90. Spencer, Autobiography (ref. 2), i, 194, 368, 462.

91. Spencer, Autobiography (ref. 2), i, 384–5, ii, 166; Duncan, Life and letters of Herbert Spencer (ref. 2), 542. Spencer does not mention the title, but both Robert J. Richards and Robert M. Young speculate that it was Milne Edwards's Outlines of anatomy and physiology, or possibly his Introduction à la zoologie générale (1851). Young Robert M., Mind, brain, and adaptation in the nineteenth century: Cerebral localization and its biological context from Gall to Ferrier (Oxford, 1990), 168; Richards, Darwin and the emergence of evolutionary theories (ref. 70), 268.

92. Robert M. Young argues that phrenology, with its notion of specialized mental faculties, emphasized the role of the division of labour to Spencer. Young, Mind, brain and adaptation (ref. 91), 159–60. But at age 15, Spencer read aloud from Harriet Martineau's Illustrations of political economy and admits it had “an effect of a solid kind” on him. Spencer, Autobiography (ref. 2), i, 110–11; Richards, Darwin and the emergence of evolutionary theories (ref. 70), 249, n. 25. This is an understatement. Martineau's first parable is titled “Life in the wilds”, in which a group of British settlers are attacked and set back “from a state of advanced civilization to a primitive condition of society”. They rebuild the colony by using the division of labour. Harriet Martineau, Illustrations of political economy (9 vols, London, 1834), i, 22.

93. Spencer Herbert, “A theory of population, deduced from the general law of animal fertility”, Westminster review, lvii (1852), 468–501, p. 468.

94. Dalyell, too, was interested in problems of individuality from an early period, in the light of his gruesomely fascinating experiments on planarians. By cutting into their bodies in various places, Dalyell was able to make the planarians grow two heads that often duelled over which direction the body was to take. Thus in one specimen Dalyell observed that “the inclinations of the superfluous head were not always in unison with those of the remainder of the animal; that it preferred quiescence, when they chose motion; and that it would willingly have traversed its element [slithering along the bottom of the jar] could its strength have predominated over the inactivity of the major parts”. Dalyell John G., Observations on some interesting phenomena in animal physiology, exhibited by several species of Planariae (Edinburgh, 1814), 64.

95. Winsor Mary P., Starfish, jellyfish and the order of life (New Haven, 1976), 53.

96. Winsor Mary P., “A historical consideration of the siphonophores”, Proceedings of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, lxxiii (1971–72), 315–23, p. 316.

97. Steenstrup Johannes Japetus, On the alternation of generations, transl. by Busk George (London, 1845), 106–7, 4; Winsor, Starfish, jellyfish and the order of life (ref. 95), 56.

98. Farley John, Gametes and spores: Ideas about sexual reproduction, 1750–1914 (Baltimore, 1982), 74.

99. Farley, Gametes and spores (ref. 98), 80.

100. Farley, Gametes and spores (ref. 98), 75.

101. Steenstrup, On the alternation of generations (ref. 97), 38–39. One could just as well set Goethe and transcendental arguments aside, focusing instead on Steenstrup's vision of compound individuality. Steenstrup's emphasis on morphology suggested parallels between the alternation of generations in plants and animals not simply because it was idealist, but because it played into the habit of plant morphologists to see a plant as compounded, with leaves or shoots as its elementary individuals. Farley, Gametes and spores (ref. 98), 78–80. This was not an idea that can be said to have originated with the German idealists — The gardener or farmer knows through brute experience that propagation can be performed not only through seeds, but also through cuttings. This implies equivalence between seed and cutting, equivalence becoming complete if plant sexuality is ignored. One can further infer similarities between plants and polyps since they can both reproduce through cuttings. Cusset G., “The conceptual bases of plant morphology”, in Axioms and principles of plant construction: Proceedings of a symposium held at the International Botanical Congress, ed. by Sattler R. (The Hague, 1982), 12–13. I am grateful to Jennifer Coggon for this reference.

102. Rupke Nicolaas, Richard Owen: Victorian naturalist (New Haven, 1994), 227.

103. Churchill Frederick B., “Sex and the single organism: Biological theories of sexuality in the midnineteenth century”, Studies in history of biology, iii (1979), 139–77, pp. 149–50.

104. Owen Richard, On parthenogenesis, or, the successive production of procreating individuals from a single ovum (London, 1849), 48–49.

105. Owen, On parthenogenesis (ref. 104), 6. Two years later Owen called parthenogenesis a part of “metagenesis”, a cycle of change carried through a series of individuals and not finished in a single lifetime. Anon., “Professor Owen on metamorphosis and metagenesis”, Edinburgh new philosophical journal, 1 (1851), 267–78, p. 271. So this force was preserved the longest in the simple vegetable kingdom; retained only briefly in zoophytes; was quickly lost in insects and lower molluscs. Anon., ibid., 278. This explained why the development of the compound polype closely followed the stages of the compound plant called shrub or tree, and why aphids produced by gemmation were analogous to the leaves of a tree. Owen Richard, “On metamorphosis and metagenesis”, Proceedings of the Royal Institution, i (1851), 13–14.

106. Owen, On parthenogenesis (ref. 104), 36; Churchill, “Sex and the single organism” (ref. 103), 146.

107. Owen, On parthenogenesis (ref. 104), 56; 61–62, 54–55.

108. Edwards Henri Milne, “Annelida”, in The cyclopaedia of anatomy and physiology, ed. by Todd Robert B. (3 vols, London, 1836–47), i, 172–3.

109. Owen Richard, “Articulata”, ibid., i, 244. Owen thought his system followed Cuvier's because it, too, used the nervous system as the key to classification. Confusingly, some naturalists wrote of each segment having two ganglia; others wrote of each segment as having only one.

110. Owen Richard, “Mollusca”, ibid., iii, 363–4.

111. Jones Thomas Rymer, “Gasteropoda”, ibid., it, 392.

112. Jones, A general outline of the animal kingdom (ref. 89), 692.

113. Spencer, “A theory of population” (ref. 93), 474–4. Stephen J. Cross has pointed out how Hunter saw the animal body as a collection of interacting parts, as an “animal oeconomy”, and discusses how the self-motivated ‘individuals’ which composed economic society in classical political economy corresponded to the self-moving body parts of the physiologists; both interactions, of course, resulting in a ‘natural harmony of interests’. He also notes that Owen edited at least ten papers of Hunter's for Works, iv (1835), and penned a preface in 1837. See Cross Stephen J., “John Hunter, the animal oeconomy, and late eighteenth-century physiological discourse”, Studies in the history of biology, v (1981), 1–110, pp. 74–75, 65–66; Hunter John, et al., The works of John Hunter, F.R.S. with notes (4 vols, London, 1837), iv. Owen also edited Hunter's posthumous papers, which finally appeared in 1861. Hunter John, Owen Richard, Essays and observations on natural history, anatomy, physiology, psychology, and geology (London, 1861). Thus we might be well rewarded by looking at Owen's links with Hunter and other British predecessors.

114. Spencer, “A theory of population” (ref. 93), 497, 492, 487, 479.

115. Spencer, “A theory of population” (ref. 93), 476–7, 485.

116. Duncan, Life and letters of Herbert Spencer (ref. 2), 64.

117. Forbes Edward, “On the morphology of the reproductive system of Sertularian Zoophytes, and its analogy with that of flowering plants”, Athenaeum, dccclxxxvii (1844), 977–8.

118. Huxley Papers 7.94, 25 September 1852, quoted in Desmond Adrian, Huxley: From devil's disciple to evolution's high priest (London, 1997), 183–4; Duncan, Life and letters of Herbert Spencer (ref. 2), 65.

119. Huxley Thomas Henry, Huxley Leonard, Strachey Jane, Life and letters of Thomas Henry Huxley (2 vols, London, 1900), i, 358.

120. Huxley Thomas Henry, Diary of the voyage of H.M.S. Rattlesnake, edited by Huxley Julian (London, 1935), 59–60, 69–70.

121. Huxley Thomas Henry, Foster Michael, Lankester Edwin Ray, The scientific memoirs of Thomas Henry Huxley (4 vols, London, 1898), i, 52. “Zooid” is still used today.

122. Huxley, Scientific memoirs (ref. 121), i, 116–17.

123. This hostility is expressed in his “The cell-theory”, Huxley, Scientific memoirs (ref. 121), i, 261–5. This is a reprint from the British and foreign medico-chirurgical review, xii (1853), 285–314. On Huxley's dislike of the implications of compound individuality in the cell-theory, and its context of professionalizing British science, see Richmond Marsha, “T. H. Huxley's criticism of German cell theory: An epigenetic and physiological interpretation of cell structure”, Journal of the history of biology, xxxiii (2000), 247–89.

124. Huxley, Scientific memoirs (ref. 121), i, 146–51. Huxley's definition of individuality was that an individual was the single product of a fertilized ovum. His grandson Julian Huxley noted, however, certain problems with this clear-cut definition: That for example a pair of identical twins would be seen as one individual. Huxley, Diary of the voyage of H.M.S. Rattlesnake (ref. 120), 69–70.

125. Huxley, Scientific memoirs (ref. 121), i, 117–18, 116. This was a reprint of his paper, “Report upon the researches of Prof. Muller into the anatomy and development of the Echinoderms”, Annals and magazine of natural history, 2nd ser., viii (1851), 1–19.

126. Spencer Herbert, The principles of psychology (1st edn, London, 1855), 539.

127. Spencer, Principles of psychology (ref. 126), 495–6.

128. Hollander, “Herbert Spencer as a phrenologist” (ref. 73), 149.

129. Clarke Edwin, Jacyna L. S., Nineteenth-century origins of neuroscientific concepts (Berkeley, 1987), 31; Jacyna L. S., “Principles of general physiology: The comparative dimension to British neuroscience in the 1830s and 1840s”, Studies in history of biology, vii (1984), 47–92, pp. 50–51.

130. Spencer, Principles of psychology (ref. 126), 492–4. Carpenter was likely reporting the results of a series of experiments carried out by George Newport in the 1840s. Newport mutilated myriapods (like centipedes) in different ways in order to determine precisely how much control each ganglion exerted over each segment. See Newport George, “On the structure, relations, and development of the nervous and circulatory systems, and on the existence of a complete circulation of the blood in vessels, in Myriopoda and Macrourous Arachnida”, Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society, cxxxiii (1843), 243–302; and “Mr. Newport's researches in natural history, &c.”, British and foreign medical review, xx (1845), 487–508, a general survey of Newport's work.

131. Spencer, Principles of psychology (ref. 126), 610.

132. Spencer Herbert, The principles of biology (2 vols, London, 1867), i, 207.

133. Spencer, Principles of biology (ref. 132), ii, 4–5.

134. Spencer, Principles of biology (ref. 132), i, 204.

135. Spencer, Principles of biology (ref. 132), ii, 91.

136. Spencer, Principles of biology (ref. 132), ii, 101–2.

137. Spencer, Principles of biology (ref. 132), ii, 98.

138. Spencer Herbert, The principles of psychology (2nd edn, 2 vols, London, 1870), i, 38, 25–27.

139. Carlyle proposed the “forcible deposition of the tyrant emotion” by the conscious will. Spencer thought this impossible — While a strong emotion like sorrow reigned, as in the mind of a mother who had lost a child, all consciousness was entirely occupied by it. A strong emotion could not be consciously overthrown: It could only be exhausted, and a change in mental state “spontaneously effected”. Spencer, Autobiography (ref. 2), i, 279–80.

140. Spencer Herbert, “The social organism”, Westminster review, lxxiii (1860), 90–121, pp. 105–8.

141. Spencer, “The social organism” (ref. 140), 101–4.

142. Spencer, “The social organism” (ref. 140), 114–4.

143. Spencer, “The social organism” (ref. 140), 93–4.

144. Spencer, “The social organism” (ref. 140), 96–4.

145. Wallace A. R., “Wallace on the origin of insects”, Nature, v (1872), 350–1. Wallace's speech was given on 22 January. Perrin's bibliography on Spencer (ref. 13) first guided me to Wallace's article.

146. Wallace, “Wallace on the origin of insects” (ref. 145), 350.

147. Wallace Alfred R., My life: A record of events and opinions (2 vols, London, 1905), i, 234–6.

148. Lankester E. Ray, “The segmentation of Annulosa”, Nature, v (1872), 443.

149. Huxley, Scientific memoirs (ref. 121), i, 117–18.

150. Huxley Thomas Henry, The oceanic Hydrozoa; A description of the Calycophoridae and Physophoridae observed during the voyage of H.M.S. “Rattlesnake”, in the years 1846–1850 (London, 1859), 8–9. Other words were also coined to deny the independence of subordinate units. To deny Schleiden and Schwann the colonial implication of their cell-theory, that a plant was an aggregate of independent cells, Huxley argued in 1853 that plants were only composed of “endoplasts” and a structurally homogeneous “periplast”. Huxley, Scientific memoirs (ref. 121), i, 256. Far later, he also appears to have invented the word “metamere” to denote structurally similar invertebrate segments with two appendages. Thomas Henry Huxley, The crayfish: An introduction to the study of zoology (London, 1880), 142–3, 145.

151. See, for example, Allman George, “On the anatomy and physiology of Cordylophora, a contribution to our knowledge of the tubularian zoophytes”, Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society, cxliii (1853), 367–84, particularly the footnote on p. 379; idem, A monograph of the Gymnoblastic or Tubularian Hydroids (2 vols, London, 1871), i, 22; Lankester E. Ray, “On some new British Polynoïna”, Transactions of the Linnean Society of London, xxv (1867), 373–88, p. 373.

152. Lightman Bernard, “Fighting even with death: Balfour, scientific naturalism and Thomas Henry Huxley's final battle”, in Thomas Henry Huxley's place in science and letters: Centenary essays, ed. by Barr Alan (Athens, Georgia, 1997), 323–50, p. 325.

153. Hacking Ian, “Making up people”, in The science studies reader, ed. by Biagioli Mario (New York, 1999), 161–71, p. 166. This critical point was raised by Darrin Durant in conversation, for which I am grateful.

154. Jardine Nicholas, The scenes of inquiry (Oxford, 1991), 51.

155. Huxley, “Administrative nihilism” (ref. 16), 530, 534.

156. Huxley, “Administrative nihilism” (ref. 16), 535.

157. Spencer Herbert, “Specialized administration”, Fortnightly review, x (1871), 627–54, pp. 632–3, 640.

158. Huxley, The Oceanic Hydrozoa (ref. 150).

159. Spencer, “Specialized administration” (ref. 157), 640–4.

160. Kropotkin Peter, Mutual aid (Montreal, 1989), 53. See also Sapp, Evolution by association (ref. 12), for a discussion of the Kropotkin–Spencer affinity. The French zoologist Edmond Perrier, in Les colonies animates (Paris, 1881), proposed that evolution resulted from the fusion of a number of simpler individuals into a larger compound organism; this is discussed in Blanckaert Claude, “Edmond Perrier et l'étiologie du ‘polyzoïsme organique’”, Revue de synthèse, c (1979), 353–76, and Durkheim Emile, De la division du travail social (Paris, 1893). Durkheim approvingly refers to Perrier seven times over pp. 208–10, citing Perrier's argument that all organisms are structurally colonial.

161. Huxley, Life and letters of Thomas Henry Huxley (ref. 119), ii, 195.

162. Huxley, “Administrative nihilism” (ref. 16), 542.

163. Fichman Martin, Alfred Russel Wallace (Boston, 1981), 104.

164. Barton Ruth, ‘“Huxley, Lubbock, and half a dozen others’: Professionals and gentlemen in the formation of the X Club, 1851–1864”, Isis, lxxxix (1998), 410–44, p. 414.

165. Desmond, Huxley (ref. 118), 626–8.

166. To apply Frank Turner's notion of ‘cultural leadership’ and ‘cultural authority’ to my particular case — The role and rise of Huxley's experts — I have found useful Steve Fuller's The governance of science: Ideology and the future of the open society (Buckingham, 2000), 31, 126.

167. Turner Frank M., Contesting cultural authority: Essays in Victorian intellectual life (Cambridge, 1993), 204–5.

168. Turner, Contesting cultural authority (ref. 167), 205, 208–9.

169. Desmond Adrian, “Redefining the X axis: ‘professionals’, ‘amateurs’ and the making of mid-Victorian biology. A progress report”, Journal of the history of biology, xxxiv (2001), 3–50, p. 4.

170. In architecture, the architect Le Corbusier spoke of “monocephalic” cities, in which skyscrapers in the core of the city would act as the ‘brain’ of the city, issuing commands to the rest of the country. In revolutionary politics, Lenin reinforced the belief of the Communist Party as the leaders of a disciplined revolutionary army by speaking of the Party as the “brain” that could motivate and direct the unthinking “masses” towards revolution. Scott, Seeing like a state (ref. 5), 254254, 111–12, 149.

171. Scott, Seeing like a state (ref. 5), 4–8, 93–94.

172. Desmond Adrian, “Redefining the X axis” (ref. 168), 25–4.

173. Duncan, Life and letters of Herbert Spencer (ref. 2), 404; Spencer, Autobiography (ref. 2), i, 336. Contrast Huxley's approach not only with Spencer's writings, but with occasions when Spencer actually practised these views. In one humorous episode, when Spencer appeared at the Potter household in “in the guise of a liberator”, an annoyed governess turned this approach back on him, telling the children in her care to do whatever they wished on their walk with him. Spencer found himself trapped in a forest and being pelted with decaying beech leaves by these “little demons”. Beatrice Potter Webb, My apprenticeship (Cambridge, 1979), 26.