The Complete Essays by Herbert Spencer (Vol. 1-3)

This 3-volume book features a comprehensive collection of most significant scientific, political and speculative essays by Herbert Spencer. The first volume is made up of essays in which the idea of evolution, general or special is dominant. In the second volume essays dealing with philosophical questions, with abstract and concrete science, and with aesthetics, are brought together; but though all of them are tacitly evolutionary, their evolutionism is an incidental rather than a necessary trait. The ethical, political, and social essays composing the third volume, though mostly written from the evolution point of view, have for their more immediate purposes the enunciation of doctrines which are directly practical in their bearings.

Volume 1:

The Development Hypothesis

Progress: Its Law and Cause

Transcendental Physiology

The Nebular Hypothesis

Illogical Geology

Bain on the Emotions and the Will

The Social Organism

The Origin of Animal Worship

Morals and Moral Sentiments

The Comparative Psychology of Man

Mr. Martineau on Evolution

The Factors of Organic Evolution

Volume 2:

The Genesis of Science

The Classification of the Sciences

Reasons for Dissenting From the Philosophy of M. Comte

On Laws in General, and the Order of Their Discovery

The Valuation of Evidence

What is Electricity?

Mill versus Hamilton – The Test of Truth

Replies to Criticisms

Prof. Green's Explanations

The Philosophy of Style

Use and Beauty

The Sources of Architectural Types

Gracefulness

Personal Beauty

The Origin and Function of Music

The Physiology of Laughter

Volume 3:

Manners and Fashion

Railway Morals and Railway Policy

The Morals of Trade

Prison-ethics

The Ethics of Kant

Absolute Political Ethics

Over-legislation

Representative Government – What is It Good for?

State-tamperings With Money and Banks

Parliamentary Reform: the Dangers and the Safeguards

"The Collective Wisdom""

Political Fetichism

Specialized Administration

From Freedom to Bondage

The Americans