Information and Publisher's Note

0:00The Man vs the State, with six essays on Government, Society and Freedom, by Herbert Spencer The edition used, Man vs the State, with six essays on Government, Society and Freedom, edited by Eric Mack, and with an introduction by Albert J. Nock This volume contains the four essays that Spencer published as The Man vs. the State in 1884, as well as five essays added by later publishers. In addition, it provides The Proper Sphere of Government, an important early essay by Spencer.

0:45Spencer develops various specific disastrous ramifications of the wholesale substitution of the principle of compulsory cooperation, the statist principle, for the individualist principle of voluntary cooperation. His theme is that there is in society that beautiful self-adjusting principle which will keep all its elements in equilibrium, the attempt to To regulate all the actions of a community by legislation will entail little else but misery and compulsion. About Liberty Fund Liberty Fund Inc. is a private educational foundation established to encourage the study of the ideal of a society of free and responsible individuals.

1:35Copyright Information This work is copyrighted by the Institute for Humane Studies, George Mason University, Fairfax, Virginia, and is put online with their permission. FAIR USE STATEMENT This material is put online to further the educational goals of Liberty Fund, Inc. Unless otherwise stated in the copyright information section above, this material may be used freely for educational and academic purposes. which may not be used in any way for profit. The Man v. the State by Herbert Spencer was originally published in 1884 by Williams and Norgate, London and Edinburgh.

2:26The 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 edition of a few notes in reply to criticism of the first edition. This Liberty Fund edition contains The Man vs. the State was maintained in print for many years in various editions. In 1892,

3:07an 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 in the United States in the last forty years. In 1940, Caxton Printers Limited of Caldwell, Idaho, issued an edition with an introduction by Albert J. 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 McCrae. 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.

4:07For this Liberty Fund edition, we have included the introduction by Nock. In addition, we 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 The beginning of each essay.