ABSTRACT
The legal and penal systems of eighteenth-century Europe were extremely abusive and brutal. This chapter examines the writings of eighteenth-century Italian legal reformer, Marchese di Beccaria. It looks at four classical theorists who have had an indelible influence on contemporary views of law and society: Cesare Beccaria, Sir Henry Maine, Herbert Spencer, and William Graham Sumner. Two principal concepts in Spencer’s sociology are his notion of social evolution and the distinction that he makes between militant and industrial societies. Spencer examines societies in reference to their stage of evolutionary development and their type of governmental authority. Spencer’s social Darwinist ideas about evolution, government nonintervention, and survival of the fittest found their ultimate expression in America in the writings of Yale sociologist William Graham Sumner. Sumner does contend that once mores are put to familiar and continued use, it is inevitable that they will resist social change.
