The Man Versus The State, with Six Essays on Government, Society, and Freedom

By Herbert Spencer

The Man Versus The State by Herbert Spencer was originally published in 1884 by Williams and Norgate, London and Edinburgh. The book consisted of four articles which had been published in
Contemporary Review for February, April, May, June, and July of 1884. For collection in book form, Spencer added a Preface and a Postscript. In 1892 the book was reissued with the addition of a few notes in reply to criticism of the first edition…. [From the Publisher’s Note]

Book Cover

First Pub. Date

1884

Publisher

Indianapolis, IN: Liberty Fund, Inc.

Pub. Date

1992

Comments

Foreword by Eric Mack. Introduction by Albert Jay Nock is not available online. Essays published 1843-1891.

Copyright

Portions of this edited edition are under copyright. Picture of Herbert Spencer courtesy of The Warren J. Samuels Portrait Collection at Duke University.

INTRODUCTION by Albert Jay Nock

Not currently available.

Two remarkably dry and impersonal accounts of Spencer’s life are:
An Autobiography of Herbert Spencer 2 volumes (New York: D. Appleton and Co., 1904); and D. Duncan’s
Life and Letters of Herbert Spencer 2 volumes (New York: D. Appleton and Co., 1908). D. Wiltshire’s
The Social and Political Thought of Herbert Spencer (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1978) is the most systematic on the topic. It is personally sympathetic, highly informative, but too conventional in its own theoretical perspective and evaluation.

Wiltshire, p. 76.

Duncan, i, p. 324.

Cf.,
The Principles of Ethics (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 1978) ii p. 87. Yet in 1888 Spencer was still attacking conscription as the natural product of militarism and as an unjust imposition on the “working classes.” Duncan, i, pp. 380-391.

The Man Versus the State: The Coming Slavery

Categories: Herbert Spencer