Herbert Spencer

"Herbert Spencer's sociology and his theory of social evolution are thought by many to be dead. This--as Talcott Parsons pointed out--is because they do not read him. Spencer is essentially a modern thinker, and his work demonstrates the absurdity of many distinctions between supposed 'schools' in contemporary sociology. He was one of the earliest exponents of a 'structural-functional' analysis of society, and used this specifically to provide a systematic theory of social change showing that any supposed conflict between 'functional' analysis and an account of social change is inaccurate.…