Essays: Scientific, Political, & Speculative; Vol. 1 of 3 Library Edition (1891), Containing Seven Essays not before Republished, and Various other Additions.

"Essays: Scientific, Political, & Speculative; Vol. 1 of 3" by Herbert Spencer is a collection of writings from the 1800s that touches on science, thought, and government, and how they connect. It covers themes of growing and changing over time, how things get better, and what science means for right and wrong. Spencer ties together ideas about how living things change with how societies grow, looking at how different areas of knowledge are linked. The book starts by explaining why these essays were put together, mixing old writings with new ones to address topics of the time about growth and society. The first piece challenges the idea that things were created as they are, suggesting instead that living things change over time. This opening sets the stage for the rest of the collection, where Spencer discusses how evolution affects many parts of what humans know and how they experience the world, as he champions for evolutionary theory.