Aron Lewes Popular Books
Aron Lewes Biography & Facts
Herbert Spencer (27 April 1820 – 8 December 1903) was an English polymath active as a philosopher, psychologist, biologist, sociologist, and anthropologist. Spencer originated the expression "survival of the fittest", which he coined in Principles of Biology (1864) after reading Charles Darwin's 1859 book On the Origin of Species. The term strongly suggests natural selection, yet Spencer saw evolution as extending into realms of sociology and ethics, so he also supported Lamarckism. Spencer developed an all-embracing conception of evolution as the progressive development of the physical world, biological organisms, the human mind, and human culture and societies. As a polymath, he contributed to a wide range of subjects, including ethics, religion, anthropology, economics, political theory, philosophy, literature, astronomy, biology, sociology, and psychology. During his lifetime he achieved tremendous authority, mainly in English-speaking academia. Spencer was "the single most famous European intellectual in the closing decades of the nineteenth century" but his influence declined sharply after 1900: "Who now reads Spencer?" asked Talcott Parsons in 1937. Early life and education Spencer was born in Derby, England, on 27 April 1820, the son of William George Spencer (generally called George). Spencer's father was a religious dissenter who drifted from Methodism to Quakerism, and who seems to have transmitted to his son an opposition to all forms of authority. He ran a school founded on the progressive teaching methods of Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi and also served as Secretary of the Derby Philosophical Society, a scientific society which had been founded in 1783 by Erasmus Darwin, the grandfather of Charles Darwin. Spencer was educated in empirical science by his father, while the members of the Derby Philosophical Society introduced him to pre-Darwinian concepts of biological evolution, particularly those of Erasmus Darwin and Jean-Baptiste Lamarck. His uncle, the Reverend Thomas Spencer, vicar of Hinton Charterhouse near Bath, completed Spencer's limited formal education by teaching him some mathematics and physics, and enough Latin to enable him to translate some easy texts. Thomas Spencer also imprinted on his nephew his own firm free-trade and anti-statist political views. Otherwise, Spencer was an autodidact who acquired most of his knowledge from narrowly focused readings and conversations with his friends and acquaintances. Career Both as an adolescent and as a young man, Spencer found it difficult to settle to any intellectual or professional discipline. He worked as a civil engineer during the railway boom of the late 1830s, while also devoting much of his time to writing for provincial journals that were nonconformist in their religion and radical in their politics. Writing Spencer published his first book, Social Statics (1851), whilst working as sub-editor on the free-trade journal The Economist from 1848 to 1853. He predicted that humanity would eventually become completely adapted to the requirements of living in society with the consequential withering away of the state. Its publisher, John Chapman, introduced Spencer to his salon which was attended by many of the leading radical and progressive thinkers of the capital, including John Stuart Mill, Harriet Martineau, George Henry Lewes and Mary Ann Evans (George Eliot), with whom he was briefly romantically linked. Spencer himself introduced the biologist Thomas Henry Huxley, who would later win fame as 'Darwin's Bulldog' and who remained Spencer's lifelong friend. However, it was the friendship of Evans and Lewes that acquainted him with John Stuart Mill's A System of Logic and with Auguste Comte's positivism and which set him on the road to his life's work. He strongly disagreed with Comte. Spencer's second book, Principles of Psychology, published in 1855, explored a physiological basis for psychology, and was the fruit of his friendship with Evans and Lewes. The book was founded on the fundamental assumption that the human mind was subject to natural laws and that these could be discovered within the framework of general biology. This permitted the adoption of a developmental perspective not merely in terms of the individual (as in traditional psychology), but also of the species and the race. Through this paradigm, Spencer aimed to reconcile the associationist psychology of Mill's Logic, the notion that the human mind was constructed from atomic sensations held together by the laws of the association of ideas, with the apparently more 'scientific' theory of phrenology, which located specific mental functions in specific parts of the brain. Spencer argued that both these theories were partial accounts of the truth: repeated associations of ideas were embodied in the formation of specific strands of brain tissue, and these could be passed from one generation to the next by means of the Lamarckian mechanism of use-inheritance. The Psychology, he believed, would do for the human mind what Isaac Newton had done for matter. However, the book was not initially successful and the last of the 251 copies of its first edition were not sold until June 1861. Spencer's interest in psychology derived from a more fundamental concern which was to establish the universality of natural law. In common with others of his generation, including the members of Chapman's salon, he was possessed with the idea of demonstrating that it was possible to show that everything in the universe – including human culture, language, and morality – could be explained by laws of universal validity. This was in contrast to the views of many theologians of the time who insisted that some parts of creation, in particular the human soul, were beyond the realm of scientific investigation. Comte's Système de Philosophie Positive had been written with the ambition of demonstrating the universality of natural law, and Spencer was to follow Comte in the scale of his ambition. However, Spencer differed from Comte in believing it was possible to discover a single law of universal application which he identified with progressive development and was to call the principle of evolution. In 1858, Spencer produced an outline of what was to become the System of Synthetic Philosophy. This immense undertaking, which has few parallels in the English language, aimed to demonstrate that the principle of evolution applied in biology, psychology, sociology (Spencer appropriated Comte's term for the new discipline) and morality. Spencer envisaged that this work of ten volumes would take twenty years to complete; in the end, it took him twice as long and consumed almost all the rest of his long life. Despite Spencer's early struggles to establish himself as a writer, by the 1870s he had become the most famous philosopher of the age. His works were widely read during his lifetime, and by 1869 he was able to support himself solely on the profit of book .... Discover the Aron Lewes popular books. Find the top 100 most popular Aron Lewes books.
Best Seller Aron Lewes Books of 2024
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A Noble Queen
Aron LewesThe most beautiful queen meets her match...Queen Hetid, the world's most beautiful queen, is sought after by countless bachelors. In fact, she's been proposed to four hundred and f...
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A Modern Warlock
Aron LewesGrandmaster Ludiwan wasn't surprised when Hedi failed him, but he never expected his sister to betray him too. Having lost control of his family, the Grandmaster snaps. He takes hi...
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A Farm Boy in Emerald City
Aron LewesDylan Gale escaped from Oz and made it back to his mother, but there's one big problem.He dragged a wicked witch back to Kansas with him.As his mom's health declines, and the witch...
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Sleeping Beauty Is Just Not That Into You
Aron LewesWhat if Sleeping Beauty just wasn't that impressed? Cinderella is back with her Prince Charming, Rank is stuck in the dungeon with Gloriosa, and Fenix seems to be missing... o...
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Little Alien on the Prairie
Aron LewesRain Black is the only Indian in St. John's Creek, a rustic settlement in the American Midwest. Despite being the town's only schoolteacher, he's seen as an outsider, and he's no s...
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3 Mercs and a Maid
Aron LewesAshleigh is a rare beauty, sought after every man who meets her. When she happens upon a supposedly magical urn, sheWait, scratch that. She's not the star of this story, I am, and ...
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Aurora Abroad
Aron LewesWho hasn't heard the story of the princess with an unfortunate tendency for comainducing finger pricks? And who could forget about the evil witch who wants to kill her by any means...
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Little Alien Enslaved
Aron LewesSet thought she found a new life, a new family, and a new home on planet Earth... until her former captors reappear.Set is hunted by the fearsome Mal'moa, a notorious alien slaver....
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The Darker Ages
Aron LewesNo one craves an escape more than Alice Carradine. Six years ago, her future was stolen by an unexpected accident. Now a quadriplegic, Alice is confined to bed and mired in depress...
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The Lion Returns
Aron LewesDuring the Massacre at Ayyadieh, King Richard "the Lionheart" was responsible for one of the worst genocides in human history. He ordered the slaughter of over 3000 Saracens, inclu...
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Fiendish Prince
Aron LewesIn a twisted kingdom, slaves toil on "human farms," where their blood is harvested for their vampire overlords. One such overlord is Oskar, a fiendish prince and torturer. Prince O...
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Lady of Locksley
Aron LewesWhen the girl of his dreams is captured by the Sheriff of Nottingham's deputies, Will Scarlet desperately wants to save the day. But he fails. Utterly. Will is rescued by a my...
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Renaissance Witch
Aron LewesAnshan Hedi betrayed his family and fled to another world. Needless to say, Grandmaster Ludiwan is furious. Determined to get revenge on Hedi, the Grandmaster sends their sister to...
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The Laziest Mage
Aron LewesHer father might be dead, but Kizzy is determined to reunite with him, even if it means turning back time. To have a chance, she must cross oceans to claim a crucial artifact.Kizzy...
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A Farm Boy in Oz
Aron LewesWARNING: Be advised, this version of Wizard of Oz contains strong language.For the last three years, Dylan Gale has been his dying mother's caregiver. When he's not taking care of ...
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After Cinderella
Aron LewesWhat if Prince Charming wasn't so charming?When the glass slipper fits and the handsome prince proposes, Cinderella expects a happily ever after. Free from her stepmother's clutche...
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The Wishing Princess
Aron LewesA fantasy bucket list... and a final chance at love.Princess Samaira is dying soon, and she knows it. She has Rydaria, a disease that keeps her bedridden and waiting for death to c...
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The Only Lady Knight
Aron LewesAfter the vampires shatter their fragile treaty with the humans, a day of reckoning dawns. Betrayed by the bloodthirsty fiends that enslave their people, the human lords rally a mi...
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Where Demons Dwell
Aron LewesThe world has ended. Demons walk the earth, obliterating everything they touch. Both humans and vampires are reduced to lifeless "husks" by the demons. It's a fate more horrifying ...
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The Bloodiest Daughter
Aron LewesDaniul has come to terms with an unfortunate fact: he must make contact with the barbarous Black Knight. His mission takes him deep into enemy territory, alone. And it's probably a...
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The Darkest Knight
Aron LewesThe Fellestan army, led by the enigmatic Black Knight, mows down every village in its path. One such village is Silverton, where Kelizabeth "Kizzy" Sundir spends her days...
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Machine Rebel
Aron LewesKira is a teenage artificial intelligence, content to live with her father in a partially ruined world. The first conflict between robots and humans happened years ago, turning muc...
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Involuntary Questing
Aron LewesAh, home sweet home... or so I thought. Not long after I return to my hometown, I get an eviction notice pinned to my door.No, this isn't an eviction, it's a deportation. By the qu...