Life and Work of Herbert Spencer

Life and Work of Herbert Spencer Herbert Spencer was a British philosopher and sociologist who was intellectually active during the Victorian period. He was known for his contributions to evolutionary theory and for applying it outside of biology, to the fields of philosophy, psychology, and within sociology. In this work, he coined the term survival of the fittest.  In addition, he helped develop the functionalist perspective, one of the major theoretical frameworks in sociology. Early Life and Education Herbert Spencer was born in Derby, England on April 27, 1820. His father, William George Spencer, was a rebel of the times and cultivated in Herbert an anti-authoritarian attitude. George, as his father was known, was the founder of a school that used unconventional teaching methods and was a contemporary of Erasmus Darwin, grandfather of Charles. George focused Herberts early education on science, and simultaneously, he was introduced to philosophical thinking through Georges membership in the Derby Philosophical Society. His uncle, Thomas Spencer, contributed to Herberts education by instructing him in mathematics, physics, Latin, and free-trade and libertarian political thinking. During the 1830s Spencer worked as a civil engineer while the railways were being constructed throughout Britain, but also spent time writing in radical local journals. Career and Later Life Spencers career became focused on intellectual matters in 1848  when he became an editor for  The Economist, the now widely-read weekly magazine that was first published in England in 1843. While working for the magazine through 1853, Spencer also wrote his first book,  Social Statics, and published it in 1851. Titled for a concept of August Comte, in this work, Spencer used Lamarcks ideas about evolution and applied them to society, suggesting that people adapt to the social conditions of their lives. Because of this, he argued, social order would follow, and so the rule of a political state would be unnecessary. The book was considered a work of libertarian political philosophy, but also, is what makes Spencer a founding thinker of the functionalist perspective within sociology. Spencers second book,  Principles of Psychology, was published in 1855 and made the argument that natural laws govern the human mind. At about this time, Spencer began to experience significant mental health problems that limited his ability to work, interact with others, and function in society. Despite this, he began work on a major undertaking, which culminated in the nine-volume  A System of Synthetic Philosophy. In this work, Spencer elaborated on how the principle of evolution had been applied within not only biology, but in psychology, sociology, and in the study of morality. Overall, this work suggests  that societies are organisms that progress through a process of evolution similar to that experienced by living species, a concept known to as social Darwinism. In the latter period of his life, Spencer was regarded as the greatest living philosopher of the time. He was able to live off of income from the sale of his books and other writing, and his works were translated into many languages and read all over the world. However, his life took a dark turn in the 1880s, when he switched positions on many of his well-known libertarian political views. Readers lost interest in his new work and Spencer found himself lonely as many of his contemporaries died. In 1902, Spencer received a nomination for the Nobel Prize for literature, but did not win it, and died in 1903 at the age of 83 years old. He was cremated and his ashes interred opposite the grave of Karl Marx in Highgate Cemetery in London. Major Publications Social Statics: The Conditions Essential to Human Happiness (1850)Education (1854)The Principles of Psychology (1855)The Principles of Sociology (1876-1896)The Data of Ethics (1884)The Man Versus the State (1884) Updated by Nicki Lisa Cole, Ph.D.

3 More Examples of Misplaced Modifiers

3 More Examples of Misplaced Modifiers 3 More Examples of Misplaced Modifiers 3 More Examples of Misplaced Modifiers By Mark Nichol Words and phrases that provide additional information to clarify relationships between people, places, or things should, for the sake of clarity, be carefully placed to aid readers in understanding a statement. In each of the following sentences, the writer has failed to achieve that goal. Discussions explain the problems, and revisions resolve them. 1. Mistakes can only be acted on and shared across the company when they are discussed, not hidden. Listeners do not bat an eye when a speaker prematurely utters an errant only, but in writing, place it immediately before the pertinent verb or verb phrase: â€Å"Mistakes can be acted on and shared across the company only when they are discussed, not hidden.† (The original placement erroneously suggests that acting on and sharing mistakes is all that can be done in response to them; the revision correctly associates the word with discussion.) 2. The agency should work to protect both the environment and enable a growing economy. Similarly, both is often incorrectly located, but this usage is more patently problematic than casual placement of only. When both follows a verb, what comes after should be parallel nouns or noun phrases, each of which pertains to the verb. Here, both refers to not only the verb protect (and the noun that follows) but also the verb enable (and the noun phrase that follows), so it must precede both verbs: â€Å"The agency should work to both protect the environment and enable a growing economy.† 3. At least two men were escorted out of the meeting by police officers, one of whom had to be carried. The syntax of this sentence suggests that one of the police officers, rather than one of the two men, had to be carried. Readers will recognize the intent of the statement, but a writer should not make readers work to comprehend what is written; â€Å"two men† and â€Å"one of whom had to be carried† should be adjacent to each other: â€Å"At least two men, one of whom had to be carried, were escorted out of the meeting by police officers.† (An alternative, active revision is â€Å"Police officers escorted at least two men, one of whom had to be carried, from the meeting.†) Want to improve your English in five minutes a day? Get a subscription and start receiving our writing tips and exercises daily! Keep learning! Browse the Grammar category, check our popular posts, or choose a related post below:45 Synonyms for â€Å"Food†36 Poetry TermsTrooper or Trouper?

Economics of the Environment Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2250 words

Economics of the Environment - Essay Example Particular issues include the cost and benefits of alternative environmental policies to deal with air pollution, water quality, and toxic substances, Solid waste, and global warming (Hanely, Shogern & White, 2001). Some of the major projects, which have substantial environmental impacts, is Afforestation of Surplus agricultural land, hydroelectric schemes, Building, or widening roads, constructing a new Airport and Manufacturing cars. All the above projects are likely to generate substantial Environmental costs and/or benefits, and they can be considered as Potential Investment. Potential Investment: A Potential Investment can be defined as the Investment made by an investor for growth (profit) of his/her investments in a firm or in a project. Investors look for evidence that, we can really produce growth in our project, and they look for three important things before investing, excellent growth potential, exceptional return on investment, up to 25% to 45% and a way to get their mon ey out. We have to show them how our opportunity will deliver all three, and doing so will be a potential investment made by an investor in our firm or in a project. A Potential Investment can also be a huge project, which has a substantial impact on the environment. It can be a Hydroelectric project, Afforestation project, Building or widening roads, constructing a new airport, and Manufacturing cars. As these projects, have many impacts such as on environment, for profit of an investor, public convenience and many more. When a project is been started, they are many calculation done for different purpose, such as profit, low initial cost, higher efficiency of the project, easy maintenance, etc... In addition, for doing such calculation different numerical, theoretical, ratio analysis and analytical methods such as CBA (cost beneficial analysis) and CEA (cost effectiveness analysis) are been use. For this assignment, we select Afforestation of surplus agricultural land as our major project, which deals with planting of trees on land that did not carry forest for centuries, i.e. Afforestation is a clear shift in land use of a certain area. Afforestation in form of planting trees and future maintenance is an investment for landowner, and possible forgone revenues from Agriculture need to be included. Afforestation of former arable land will have many positive environmental effects. The change from agriculture to forestry means less input of pesticides and Fertilizers that may possibly leach to ground water reserves and the establishment of habitat for species associated with forest. Forest's also able to better retain nitrogen from arable use in the ecosystem, thereby avoiding eutrophication of water reserves. In this paper, we show how CBA can be used as a decision support mechanism for the location of new (urban) forestland, starting from the multifunctional role of these new forests. We start with a simple presentation of the Cost-benefit analysis (CBA) technique. Key features of these evaluation techniques are that (i) assess the monetary value of all benefits and cost (ii) the issue of discounting and (iii) the decision rules used in CBA. Finally, we apply the CBA to a real life policy problem. We investigate the net benefits per Hectare of combinations of potential forests that meet the surface restriction of 540 ha. We show the importance of including recreation benefits in the evaluation of afforestation projects and more specifically the role of alternative forests (substitutes) in the valuation of one specific Forest. We find that this substitution effect is significant in the decision

Financial reporting Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Financial reporting - Assignment Example Financial statements, prepared on the basis of historical cost accounting method, do not provide a fair and true presentation of equity’s performance or future prospects, if capital is inadequately maintained (Charnes, 1976). Moreover, critical assessment of equity’s performance by studying ratios, such as, return on capital employed, will be useless if capital is undervalued, profit is overstated and values of assets are misinterpreted. These sometimes occur because of historical cost accounting. The limitations have been summarized as follows: Overestimating and valuing profits by undercharging depreciation on the basis of historical cost and recording sales cost at original cost of inventories, may result in the reduction of an entity’s capital because of high taxation charges and distribution (Belfo and Trigo, 2013). This accounting approach toughens the task for analysts and shareholders of evaluating and assessing the ability and performance of management. This is precisely because variations in the situation of the current market are not considered in historical valuation approach. Then, owner of the entity tried to restock his inventory and realized that the cost of replacement was $2,200. They did not have enough cash to restructure to the pre-sale condition. The difficulty escalated due to the fact that the owner was unable to differentiate between the profits generated from holding the inventory for a particular time period before selling it and the revenue that was generated through trading. Had the company matched the cost of replenishment against revenue, they would have realized a profit of $300. If this excess proceed had been withdrawn, it would have left the company with $2,200, which could be used for the purpose of inventory replacement. Thus, this example suggests the fact that historical accounting can be misleading to the user of the information (Bakar and Said, 2007). The application of general price index under this method is

Financial Statement Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Financial Statement - Research Paper Example 2. Damaged Goods: if the organization has damaged goods, these goods will be evaluated and scrap should be sold to recover some amount and contacted to the insurance company for insurance recovery and write off the loss from the damages. 3. Stolen Inventory: if the organization faces loss from stolen inventory it should be reported for recovery but if after a period unable to found stolen goods it should be treated as loss. Explanation Losses may be normal or abnormal faced by the organization and there is different accounting treatment for each type of loss. If a company is having normal cost then it will have no special treatment it will only increase the production cost and normal loss is unavoidable and inherent which is valued with the closing stock. If the inventory is decreased by sales it will be treated as an expense in the form of a reduction in inventory (Smith and Butters, 1949). But if abnormal loss is faced by the company it will be valued and Debit to the abnormal loss account and credit to process account. These kinds of losses may arise from accidents and carelessness. For recording of this loss another account will be created in the chart of accounts and it will be debited and after that it will be write-off as an expense in the income statement.

Hardys Use Of Nature English Literature Essay

Hardys Use Of Nature English Literature Essay Throughout the novel, Hardy uses various aspects of nature in different ways in order to help tell the story. In Tess of the DUrbervilles, Hardy has written it so that Tesss life simply gets worse and worse until her death at the end. Nature does not help her, with Hardy portraying it as being unsympathetic, uncaring, and unforgiving. Hardy uses seasons, and setting of location in the novel to portray the passing of time; phases in Tesss life and new emotions associated with these new phases. At the start of the novel in chapters I and II, the location is set in Marlott, where the character of Tess lives. It is the spring, in May; Marlott is described by Hardy as though being almost flawless, as a fertile and sheltered tract of country. This description is used to portray early on, the purity and sexual innocence of Tess which will be degraded throughout the novel When Tess travels to visit Alec, Hardy transforms her surroundings, making The Slopes appear out of place and unnatural. This gives the reader a sense of uncertainty about what is about to happen to Tess. This is shown as Hardy writes how the house is of the same rich crimson colour that formed such a contrast with the evergreens of the lodge This colour, crimson, is evidently very out of place in a green forest setting. Tess also says I thought we were an old family; but this is all new! This shows her naivety and her own worry for the situation she is about to encounter. Also, she is surrounded by Druidical mistletoe while at The Slopes. This relates to how people are often seduced under mistletoe, therefore foreshadowing how she is going to be seduced there later by Alec in the autumn. At the start of phase the third, Hardy writes about Tesss finding of work in Talbothays dairy in the summer. He describes this setting in a more positive way, because this is a happy time for Tess, as she meets Angel. Talbothays is described as the verdant plain so well watered by the river Var or Froom. Verdant makes it seem as though it is a green, healthy and luxurious place which is the impression that Hardy is trying to set in. Hardy begins to describe normal things in a more sexual way, to reflect what is going to happen in Talbothays. For example, ..the milk oozed forth and fell in drops to the ground. In complete contrast to Talbothays, in chapter XLII, Hardy describes Flintcombe-Ash as a barren land, and it is now winter. Tess is now very miserable and lonely. This pathetic fallacy is made to help us feel sorry for Tesss now considerably less fortunate circumstances. Here the air was dry and cold à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦ hedges mercilessly plashed down. The use of the word mercilessly describes how everything around Tess appears to be against her, including nature. Hardy specifically expresses this in chapter XIV, that bastard gift of shameless Nature who respects not the civil law.This describes how nature does not care that she was raped, unlike the civil law, which would. Hardy uses animal imagery within the novel to perhaps foreshadow the hidden themes and to metaphorically represent Tess. For example, in chapter IX Tess goes to work for Mrs DUrberville in her poultry house. This means that right at this point of the novel, we are already associating her with an animal which is trapped in captivity. Mrs dUrberville asks Tess, Can you whistle?' She cannot, so Alec has to teach her. For birds in the wild, whistling is a way of a bird trying to attract or seduce a mate, therefore the fact that Alec has to teach Tess to whistle means that his seducing has already started. On the other hand, the fact that Tess cannot whistle yet may also be implying that she is too young and not ready for sex. In the novel, Hardy has written it so it is as though Tess is accompanied by birds frequently, and so reflects her similarities to the animal about how she is trapped like a bird in a cage, and cannot escape her fate at the end of the novel. This is perhaps subtly foreshadowed in chapter XIX. Tess, like a fascinated bird, could not leave the spot. This implies that she cannot control the fact that she is listening to Angels music, and the fact that she will be trapped by fate is inevitable. Birds also appear at various points in the novel. For example, in chapter XLI, when Tess finds some injured birds. Her first thought was to put the still-living birds out of their torture she broke the necks of as many as she could find. This act perhaps foreshadows her own death which is inescapable. On the other hand, it may also be interpreted as though Tess can feel the birds pain, so kills them to put them out of their misery; as she has experienced similar pain that they have. They have be en hurt by causes beyond their control like Tesss rape. In the novel, Hardy uses weather, among other aspects of nature in a way that will reflect the storys events. For example, when Tess is first raped by Alec in chapter XI, The Chase is surrounded by a thick fog. Alec says, à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦owing to this fog, which so disguises everythingà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦ It is made to seem as though the fog, and therefore nature itself is uncaring. It is made to seem as though nature cares not for common morals, but only for itself, as it is happy for Tess to become pregnant, caring not that it is through rape. Hardy also personifies nature, for example at the start of chapter XXIII, The hot weather of July had crept upon themà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦ the use of the word crept is effective as it describes how quickly time has passed for her, and how such unexpected events have happened so quickly. Hardy effectively uses pathetic fallacy within the novel in order to portray certain events to help the reader to empathise with the character of Tess. The best example of this is in chapter XIV when Tess is trying to baptise her baby before she knows it will die. Darkness is often associated with sad feelings and thoughts. Chapter XIV contains very sad and discomforting themes so Hardy uses dark colours and night time to help increase the atmosphere. à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦shone in the gloom surrounding her. As the story goes on, the character of Tess matures, and it is as though nature around her also matures and changes accordingly to how she does. This is shown effectively in chapter XX. In this chapter, the development of Tess and Angels love is described, and this is reflected in Hardys description of nature in the first few lines. The season developed and matured. Another years instalment of flowers, leaves, nightingales took up their positions where only a year ago others had stood in their place The use of the word instalment portrays how the life of nature, and also Tess works in cycles, and each generation of nature is somewhat unimportant, only coming in instalments. Unimportance and insignificance is a common theme throughout the novel. This is also depicted in chapter XI when Tess is raped. Already at that hour some sons of the forest were stirring and striking lights It is as though nature is uncaring and goes on as normal around the awful events that are happening at the same time. In the novel, nature is meant to come across as being amoral and uncaring. This is most reflected in the passage about her baby Sorrow being a bastard gift from nature, which does not care as to how it came about, in contrast to the law which would have punished Alec. But also, nature is portrayed as though it doesnt judge Tess for what has happened, thus also meaning it does not judge Alec.

Driving that Train, High on :: Short Stories Drugs Addiction Papers

Driving that Train, High on. . . "If I could do one line today and not be an addict, I would,'" Melissa said when she was sober and knew she could not handle cocaine. But when she was face to face with the candy for the first time in almost a year, she didn't care whether or not she would become an addict again. Knowing the devastation the drug would cause, knowing one line would bring back all the pain again, she still wanted it more than her education, more than her family, she would have given everything for it, all over again. Sitting at the table, hair pulled back in a pony tail, dressed in a sweater and chinos, (she had really cleaned herself up from a year ago) Melissa drank her beer as if it were going out of style. Watching her friend exchange money for a bag, she had to ask "Can I have a line?" "Melissa, I know you want one, but can you do one and not get hooked on it again?" "Yeah, sure." "I don't want to be the one who gets you all fucked up." "If I couldn't handle it I would tell you, I swear." Melissa walked back to the party, now anxious, and took a seat in her chair. This time she wasn't worried about drinking her beer. The only thing she now thought about was getting that line. She kept him in her sight, the way parents keep an eye on their young children to make sure they don't take off somewhere. If he left, she wouldn't get a line. She wanted that line. "Just one, it won't do anything." "I will in a second, wait until we get back to your house." "It's safe here, no one cares, let's go in the bathroom, no one will know." "Just wait, Melissa." She walked away again. She didn't realize it but she went up to him every five minutes for the rest of the night. "Can I have a line?" "Can I have that line?" "Can I have that line now?" Before she knew it everyone was in the back room, snorting coke. No one would give her a line. She got pissed off and snuck out the sliding glass door.