The evolutionary theory of Spencer, a staunch defender of political individualism, requires a more detailed examination. Among previous writers, the doctrine of political individualism was not in such a close logical and organic connection with the basic principles of their entire worldview. For example, Bentham developed mainly a practical system of morality and law. As we said, he was an opponent of Blackstone and other writers who accepted the theory of natural law. He became the founder of that school of English legal scholars, which condemned ambiguity and inaccuracy. unreality of the concept of natural law. Herbert Spencer reacted differently to such a critic who was naturally right. He, preceded in this regard by D. S. Mill, sought the genesis of real elements, which, in his opinion, fill the concept of natural law with clear, specific and scientifically based content. By this, he takes the metaphysical soul out of the idea of natural law, makes it a real idea that grew on the soil of historical reality, without depriving it of its ideal value. Spencer also rose above psychological associationism—the basis of D. O. Mill’s individualistic concept. The connection between individual freedom and political form, which we saw in Mill, and in all previous proponents of political individualism, was explained to a large extent by mechanics.
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— 436 chesically Spencer was the first to attempt to establish this connection, based on the general laws laid down by him as the basis of cosmogony, to indicate the relationship between the individual and the environment in their progressive development. In a word, he approaches a positive revision of the problem of natural law doctrine, in possession of enormous material, obtained with the help of observation and the historical experience of many people. and states, in various phases of their historical existence. And break it down, based on the idea of development. The philosophy of the state, by the time of Spencer, under the influence of Auguste Comte and Mill, and the Ranfais under the influence of the historical school of lawyers, partly considered by us above, had a strong inclination towards the natural scientific and historical-comparative method. This is also true among the French writers, who made the principles of the great French revolution as the starting points of their state studies, and among the German theorists of constitutionalism, among whom the traditions of Kant and Fichte were still alive, although with them to a much lesser extent.
No less than the German legal philosophy of the 19th century. strongly succumbed to the positive direction, as evidenced by many others. ethnological research into state studies in the family of A. Post, but also the creation of Rudolie von Goering. Therefore, although G. SOpenser, subjected. Sociological development of issues of state law, which also remains a subject. dogmatic constructs, without which one cannot do without the presentation of science, cannot be recognized as a Schoner in the application of the natural scientific method to political ones. According to research, however, he is a powerful and comprehensive mind of this direction. That is why, taking into account Spencer’s clearly expressed individualistic views, it is necessary to dwell on the elements of his philosophy that are relevant to our themes in order to form an understanding of that.
O the position that political individualism takes, having converged on metaphysical soil. Can he find for himself the same favorable elements that the metaphysical doctrine of natural law gave him?