- Lived:
- 1820–1903 · Derby and London, England
- Tradition:
- Victorian evolutionary philosophy; a founder of sociology
- The Big Idea:
- Everything — stars, species, minds, societies — evolves by one universal law, from simple sameness toward complex, specialized order; and human societies are evolving organisms whose organs exist to serve their individual members, never the other way around.
- In their words:
- "Every man has freedom to do all that he wills, provided he infringes not the equal freedom of any other man."
- If you remember one thing:
- He was the most famous philosopher alive in 1880 and nearly unread by 1930 — the man who coined "survival of the fittest," built a philosophy for everything on one science, and went down with it.