PUBLISHER’S NOTE
The Man Versus The State by Herbert Spencer was originally published in 1884 by Williams and Norgate, London and Edinburgh. The book consisted of four articles which had been published in
Contemporary Review for February, April, May, June, and July of 1884. For collection in book form, Spencer added a Preface and a Postscript. In 1892 the book was reissued with the addition of a few notes in reply to criticism of the first edition.
This Liberty Fund edition contains the entire text of the 1892 edition.
The Man Versus The State was maintained in print for many years in various editions. In 1892 an edition was issued in the United States by D. Appleton and Company. In 1940 one was issued in Great Britain as part of The Thinker’s Library.
Two editions have circulated in the United States in the last forty years. In 1940 Caxton Printers, Ltd., of Caldwell, Idaho, issued an edition with an Introduction by Albert Jay Nock. In this edition, two more essays, “Over-Legislation” and “From Freedom to Bondage,” were added to the original four.
In 1969 Penguin Books issued an edition with an Introduction by Donald Macrae. In this edition, “From Freedom to Bondage” was also included along with three other essays, “The Social Organism,” “Representative Government—What Is It Good For?,” and “Specialized Administration.”
For this Liberty Fund edition we have included the Introduction by Nock. In addition, we have printed in a separate section the five essays included in either the Caxton or Penguin editions. Following in the tradition of these earlier publishers we have also added an essay, “The Proper Sphere of Government,” which has not, to our knowledge, been reprinted in any book for over one hundred years. Data on original publication are provided at the beginning of each essay.
Two remarkably dry and impersonal accounts of Spencer’s life are:
An Autobiography of Herbert Spencer 2 volumes (New York: D. Appleton and Co., 1904); and D. Duncan’s
Life and Letters of Herbert Spencer 2 volumes (New York: D. Appleton and Co., 1908). D. Wiltshire’s
The Social and Political Thought of Herbert Spencer (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1978) is the most systematic on the topic. It is personally sympathetic, highly informative, but too conventional in its own theoretical perspective and evaluation.
Cf.,
The Principles of Ethics (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 1978) ii p. 87. Yet in 1888 Spencer was still attacking conscription as the natural product of militarism and as an unjust imposition on the “working classes.” Duncan, i, pp. 380-391.
The Man Versus the State: The Coming Slavery