Militant and Industrial Social Types

Abstract

This elegantly expressed speculation came not from Spencer but from Richard Whately, in the third of his Introductory Lectures on Political Economy published in 1832. Spencer was by no means a lone voice in the first half of the early nineteenth century in identifying war and militancy as a source of distinctive and disturbing forms of social life. Whately perceived, no less keenly than Spencer was later to do, an antinomy between the waging of wars and social progress, with progress understood in terms of enhanced personal liberty, augmented wealth and increased moral sensibility. Like Spencer too, Whately faulted the conventional historical analysis of his day for failing to grasp the fundamentals of social organization and the most salient factors involved in interpreting economic and social life. In his ninth and last Lecture he remarked.