One of the great originators of “evolution” was a scientific anarchist! There was a famous man from the 19th century who was engaged with almost every field of study, known as a polymath, thereof being a philosopher, psychologist, biologist, sociologist, and anthropologist, who also made discoveries and held innovative views that went on to become the common talk of the town. His name was Herbert Spencer. His work is not mentioned nowadays as much as it were then, but Spencer originated the expression “survival of the fittest,” which he coined in Principles of Biology from 1864 after reading Charles Darwin's 1859 book On the Origin of Species.
Many individuals nowadays when they talk about morality and legality, often talk about how if we did not have laws, there would be chaos, or what they call the “law of the jungle” or “survival of the fittest.” Yet, how many of them are aware of what the originators of these phrases, had to say about the nature of law? Spencer, after all, formulated his views based on his studies of the many sciences. The wisdom he shared may just surprise you, as humanity is continuing to understand the failed patterns and superstitions of history. Therefore, let’s delve into excerpts from Spencer’s work that particularly deals with the subject of freedom and tyranny:
“All the barbarisms of the past have their types in the present. All the barbarisms of the past grew out of certain dispositions: those dispositions may be weakened, but they are not extinct; and so long as they exist there must be manifestations of them. What we commonly understand by command and obedience, are the modern forms of bygone despotism and slavery... To whatever extent the will of the one is overborne by the will of the other, to that extent the parties are tyrant and slave.”
“The tyrant is nothing but a slave turned inside out.”
“If men use their liberty in such a way as to surrender their liberty, are they thereafter any the less slaves?”
“When he is under the impersonal coercion of Nature, we say that he is free; and when he is under the personal coercion of some one above him, we call him, according to the degree of his dependence, a slave, a serf, or a vassal.”
“It was once also universally supposed that slavery was a natural and quite legitimate institution—a condition into which some were born, and to which they ought to submit as to a Divine ordination; nay, indeed, a great proportion of mankind hold this opinion still.”
“Those sins of responsible legislators seen in the long list of laws made in the interests of dominant classes—a list coming down in our own country to those under which there were long maintained slavery and the slave-trade”
“As a corollary to the proposition that all institutions must be subordinated to the law of equal freedom, we cannot choose but admit the right of the citizen to adopt a condition of voluntary outlawry. If every man has freedom to do all that he wills, provided he infringes not the equal freedom of any other man, then he is free to drop connection with the State,—to relinquish its protection and to refuse paying towards its support. It is self-evident that in so behaving he in no way trenches upon the liberty of others; for his position is a passive one, and, whilst passive, he cannot become an aggressor... Not only does magisterial power exist because of evil, but it exists by evil. Violence is employed to maintain it; and all violence involves criminality. Soldiers, policemen, and gaolers; swords, batons, and fetters,—are instruments for inflicting pain; and all infliction of pain is, in the abstract, wrong. The State employs evil weapons to subjugate evil, and is alike contaminated by the objects with which it deals and the means by which it works... So that, however insignificant the minority, and however trifling the proposed trespass against their rights, no such trespass is permissible... That moral sense whose supremacy will make society harmonious and government unnecessary is the same moral sense which will then make each man assert his freedom even to the extent of ignoring the State—is the same moral sense which, by deterring the majority from coercing the minority, will eventually render government impossible. And, as what are merely different manifestations of the same sentiment must bear a constant ratio to each other, the tendency to repudiate governments will increase only at the same rate that governments become needless.”
“From Shoa (Abyssinia), where ‘of their persons and worldly substance he [the King] is absolute master’; or from Dahome, where ‘all men are slaves to the king.’... So alien to the truth, indeed, is the alleged creation of rights by government, that, contrariwise, rights having been established more or less clearly before government arises, become obscured as government develops along with that militant activity which, both by the taking of slaves and the establishment of ranks, produces status; and the recognition of rights begins again to get definiteness only as fast as militancy ceases to be chronic and governmental power declines.”
“He feels that a fellow-man may be enslaved by imperious words and manners as well as by tyrannical deeds; and hence he avoids a dictatorial style of speech to those below him. Even paid domestics, to whose services he has obtained a right by contract, he does not like to address in a tone of authority. He seeks rather to disguise his character of master.”
On Schooling... “Not only does the physical-force system fail to fit the youth for his future position; it absolutely tends to unfit him.”
Carl Jung stated autocracy was the inevitable result of all forms of government and Spencer shares with us, “autocracy presupposes inferiority of nature on the part of both ruler and subject: on the one side a cold, unsympathetic sacrificing of other’s wills to self-will; on the other side a mean, cowardly abandonment of the claims of manhood. Our very language bears testimony to this. Do not dignity, independence, and other words of approbation, imply a nature at variance with this relation? Are not tyrannical, arbitrary, despotic, epithets of reproach? and are not truckling, fawning, cringing, epithets of contempt? Is not slavish a condemnatory term? Does not servile, that is, serf-like, imply littleness, meanness? And has not the word villain, which originally meant bondsman, come to signify everything which is hateful? That language should thus inadvertently embody dislike for those who most display the instinct of subordination, is alone sufficient proof that this instinct is associated with evil dispositions. It has been the parent of countless crimes. It is answerable for the torturing and murder of the noble-minded who would not submit—for the horrors of Bastiles and Siberias. It has ever been the represser of knowledge, of free thought, of true progress.”
“Be it or be it not true that Man is shapen in iniquity and conceived in sin, it is unquestionably true that Government is begotten of aggression and by aggression.”
“We should take the ground that no human being, however wise and good, is fit to be sole ruler over the doings of an involved society; and that, with the best intentions, a benevolent despot is very likely to produce the most terrible mischiefs which would else have been impossible.”
“As fast as voluntary cooperation is abandoned compulsory cooperation must be substituted. Some kind of organization labour must have; and if it is not that which arises by agreement under free competition, it must be that which is imposed by authority. Unlike in appearance and names as it may be to the old order of slaves and serfs, working under masters, who were coerced by barons, who were themselves vassals of dukes or kings, the new order wished for, constituted by workers under foremen of small groups, overlooked by superintendents, who are subject to higher local managers, who are controlled by superiors of districts, themselves under a central government, must be essentially the same in principle.”
“Pictures of the slave and the tyrant are exhibited to excite its abhorrence; a state of pure freedom is described to it as the one to be loved and hoped for; and it is made sensible of the sacredness of human rights. After men’s minds have been for many years thus exercised and stimulated, a sufficiently intense manifestation of feeling is produced, and then comes the reform. But this feeling, mark, proceeds from that same combination of faculties by which, as we have seen, free institutions are upheld and made practicable. One of these agitations, therefore, is a kind of apprenticeship to the liberties obtained by it. The power to get freedom becomes the measure of the power to use it. The law of social forms is that they shall be expressive of national character; they come into existence bearing its impress; and they live only so long as it supplies them with vitality. Now a general dissatisfaction with old arrangements is a sign that the national character requires better ones.”
Will Herbert Spencer’s words come back to light for humanity to re-examine their belief in human authority over other humans, of government over those whom they claim to represent and rule, and call subjects or slaves? Government originated in slavery and created and maintained other forms of slavery. The abolition of slavery will not be complete until as Leo Tolstoy told us, we abolish governments. Voluntaryism is freedom. These quotes and many more quotes, detailed information and action regarding this, can be found in the monumental book “Slavery Gone For Good: Black Book Edition.”
Learn more & check out the book: https://theliberator.us/book