ABSTRACT
Spencer’s name is associated with culture because he is remembered in histories of sociology. While he is not given as much space as Max Weber and Émile Durkheim in such works, his presence means that he can safely be docketed as the most consistent evolutionary theorist among the founding fathers of modern social science. is, in turn, means that his comments on culture are treasured or condemned as they seem to cast light or obscurity on social development. However, Spencer’s contribution to the analysis of civilization is not exhausted by references to his part in the development of sociology. For him the contemplation of culture – in the form of beaux-arts, music and literature – produced the most important evidence of development. In his earliest general exposition of evolutionary theory, “Progress: Its Law and Cause”, Spencer devoted ten pages to illustrating artistic change while biology and government occupied only three pages each. However, culture was not merely another way in which Spencer demonstrated the universality of his scientifi c views and evolution. His perceptions of this subject were more intrinsically interesting when they appeared outside the framework imposed by science. at is, while his cultural analysis was often external to the systematic evolutionary theorizing of Th e Principles of Biology and Th e Principles of Sociology, it was also more novel. Free from his philosophical system-building, Spencer wrote with originality, drawing on both his own life and his psychological theory. is subjective input emphasized immediate experience, and avoided the distancing or objectifying eff ects that had accompanied most Victorian attempts to construe culture as exclusively residing in either classical texts and artefacts or in the mores, languages and technologies of distant ethnic groups. As well as being subjective, Spencer’s culture was close at hand. It was a response to the beauty he saw both in natural objects and in the eclectic assemblage of aesthetic impressions that a person received from the beaux-arts and architecture. For Spencer, culture was not primarily concerned with recapturing the meaning of the ancient civilizations of Greece and Rome, nor did it focus on anthropological excursions into the minds of primitive peoples; instead, it was about beauty.
