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Anna Karenina vocabulary
5 philosophers mentioned
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Herbert Spencer
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tags: [philosopher]
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Definition:[1820 – 1903]an English philosopher, biologist, anthropologist, sociologist, and prominent classical liberal political theorist of the Victorian era.He developed an all-embracing conception of evolution as the progressive development of the physical world, biological organisms, the human mind, and human culture and societies. He wrote about evolution before Darwin.
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As for Schopenhauer and Spencer, he treats them like small boys and slaps them on the shoulder in a fatherly way: 'Well, what do you say, old Spencer?' He has not read Spencer, of course, but how charming he is when with light, careless irony he says of his lady friend: 'She has read Spencer!' And they all listen to him, and no one cares to understand that this charlatan has not the right to kiss the sole of Spencer's foot, let alone speaking about him in that tone! Sapping the foundations of civilisation, of authority, of other people's altars, spattering them with filth, winking jocosely at them only to justify and conceal one's own rottenness and moral poverty is only possible for a very vain, base, and nasty creature."
Anton Chekhov. The Duel and Other Stories
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"Well, in that, at least, you're in agreement with Spencer, whom you dislike so much. He says, too, that education may be the consequence of greater prosperity and comfort, of more frequent washing, as he says, but not of being able to read and write…"
Leo Tolstoy. Anna Karenina
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