History of Science Analysis Paper The European Age of Enlightenment was a time of new scientific theories, discoveries, and technologies that powerfully influenced, if not shaped, the society. As technological advances spread after the industrial revolution, this interactive relationship between science and society accelerated. Reflecting on the social and scientific changes they were witnessing, Thomas Carlyle (1795-1881) and Herbert Spencer (1820-1903) sought to grasp the nature and consequences of a central concern of the Enlightenment, Progress. In his 1857 work, Progress: It is Law and Course, Spencer sought to understand Progress by separating it from its results and laying bare its essential elements. Central to this task was detachment as Spencer set aside consideration of the moral and ethical consequences of Progress and sought only to observe and describe its nature and effects. This observation, he declared, demonstrated that the nature of biological Progress had been revealed. For him, biological progress was unquestionably an evolution from homogeneity to heterogeneity. This “law of organic progress” was considered by him to be the “law of all progress”. Applying this notion to social phenomena, Spencer argues that human history is just such a progression, an evolution from homogeneous to heterogeneous social structures. As a result, Spencer argues that government, commerce, language, literature, the arts, religion, and even various scientific disciplines have inevitably become more complex and specialized over time. Writing about distinct social classes and their structure, Spencer notes that after the Industrial Revolution, as people began to have much more specific jobs, common...... middle of paper ......Bartlett, John, comp . Family Quotes, 10th ed, rev and enl. By Nathan Haskell Dole.Boston: Small, Brown, 1919; Bartleby.com, 2000 (for years of birth and death) Bowler, Peter J. and Iwan Rhys Morus. Doing modern science: a historical investigation. Chicago: University of Chicago, 2005. Print.Carlyle, Thomas. “From the Signs of the Times: “The Mechanical Age”” Modern History Sourcebook. 1998. Network. 29 September 2010. Spencerr, Herbert. "Progress: Its Law and Cause". Modern history book. 1997. Network. 28 September 2010. Weinstein, David, "Herbert Spencer", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Summer 2009 edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), . (for the years of birth and death)