This is the Cato Daily Podcast for Thursday, January 4th, 2024.

I'm Caleb Brown.

It's only in recent years that the Great Liberal and Foundational Sociiologist Herbert Spencer has received a modern interrogation.

Libertarianism.org's Paul Meenie traces many of Spencer's influences both in his time and since his time

and discusses how his influence faded,

and why a resurgence is now underway.

We talked a little bit last time about the work of Herbert Spencer in helping define sociology and sort of set the terms of those kinds

of discussions.

But he was influenced by many things.

You said, I was surprising to me, you said that Adam Smith was not a big one necessarily that he did not cite

Adam Smith that much and yet I hear so many echoes of the things that like

Adam Smith had written in the theory of moral sentiments about social interaction and how that should be a sort of a discovery process for humanity.

But what were the influences on Herbert Spencer's thinking?

Herbert Spencer did not go to the traditional academy.

He was from a dissenting family meaning that he couldn't go to Oxford or Cambridge

because those places required

religious tests to get into.

And his father was a Quaker, if I recall correctly.

His father eventually became a Quaker.

Yes, he started as a Methodist went to a Quaker, the usual pipeline.

Is that true?

Yeah, I actually do know someone who was a minister for being Methodist and then became a Quaker after.

...