Listen free for 30 days

Listen with offer

Preview

£0.00 for first 30 days

Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection - including bestsellers and new releases.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, celeb exclusives, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
£7.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

First Principles

By: Herbert Spencer
Narrated by: Mike Rogers
Try for £0.00

£7.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

Buy Now for £16.99

Buy Now for £16.99

Pay using card ending in
By completing your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and authorise Audible to charge your designated card or any other card on file. Please see our Privacy Notice, Cookies Notice and Interest-based Ads Notice.

Summary

Herbert Spencer (1820-1903) was already an established figure in the fields of philosophy, biology, sociology, anthropology and with an established interest in evolution, when Darwin produced his ground-breaking On the Origin of the Species (1859). But Spencer viewed evolution in wider terms—including ‘the social organism, ethical and metaphysical matters.' He was keen to offer a complete framework of the philosophy of evolution and, in 1862, published his First Principles.

He divided this substantial work into two parts: (I) The Unknowable and (II) The Knowable. As the Spencer Society expressed in the bold, unequivocal introduction: ‘The purpose of the work is an inquiry into the doctrine of Evolution, which is to be the medium for unifying all knowledge.'

Writing within a defensively Christian society, Spencer (an agnostic and a rationalist) opens Part I The Unknowable by presenting his views on ‘metaphysics and theology'. In Part II, The Knowable, Spencer the scientist, the sociologist, the anthropologist comes to the fore. ‘Evolution is continuous throughout all time and is still in progress,' he maintains. Spencer argues this can be seen in terms of physical and biological evolution, which evolves from simple to complex forms; and social evolution which evolves from homogeneity to heterogeneity.

While time has dealt critically with some of his proposals, First Principles was a strong influence on thinkers and writers in the 19th and 20th centuries, including William James, Henri Bergson, George Eliot, Leo Tolstoy, D. H. Lawrence and Jorge Luis Borges.

First Principles remains an important source work for the growth of evolutionary ideas during its exciting early times. This recording is based on the 6th and final edition.

Public Domain (P)2023 W. F. Howes Ltd
activate_Holiday_promo_in_buybox_DT_T2

Listeners also enjoyed...

The Animate and the Inanimate cover art
Essays in Science cover art
The Arcane Teaching cover art
One World cover art
The Non-Existence of the Real World cover art
In Search of Divine Reality cover art
Appearance in Reality cover art
A Pluralistic Universe cover art
The Secret Doctrine of the Rosecrucians cover art
Tertium Organum cover art
Time and Free Will cover art
Esoteric Buddhism cover art
Time and Eternity cover art
Against Method cover art
Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics that Will Be Able to Present Itself as a Science cover art
Kybalion cover art

What listeners say about First Principles

Average customer ratings

Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.