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syntheses.” But these operations could not take place entirely from induction; to help guide empirical
activities, and to provide some basis for integration of the specialists’ work, a more general
conceptual framework was mandatory. Such a framework should grow from the empirical findings of
concrete studies and be consistent with their various results, but as there was no one-to-one
correspondence between empirical studies—especially those available in the early stages of
development of the science—and general propositions emerging from an ambitious conceptual
framework, the most abstract sort of sociological theorizing was at least a partially autonomous
activity. Both in presenting these ideas about the various types of sociological work and in carrying
them out by developing compendia of empirical generalizations, “partial syntheses,” and general
theoretical principles, Tarde and Durkheim steered clear of excessive commitment to one or another
type of these activities at the expense of the others. They avoided the dry and lifeless sort of
categorizing which passed with certain German writers for theory; when they engaged in narrow
empirical work, it was never as a self-contained activity but for purposes of illuminating more
general issues. The successful weaving of their various contributions into meaningful wholes
provides outstanding examples of the coherence among different types of sociological work.
A third area of concord between the two men was their logic of analysis. Both drew heavily on
John Stuart Mill for certain basic rules of investigation, the most salient of which is the use of the
comparative method. 14 Committed to the development of general principles, they were convinced,
through the experiences of economics and other disciplines, of the necessity of comparison. The
“special” sciences which they discussed—linguistics, moral statistics, history, and so forth—would
become sociological only through the use of comparative methods. And the most fruitful comparisons
were those between phenomena that were similar in certain basic respects but dissimilar in others.
Only through such comparisons would it be possible to move beyond descriptive discussion of single
instances to the elaboration of more general principles. If the dictum of “No sociology without
comparison” had been observed more carefully by their successors, sociology might well have
progressed further in the half-century since Tarde and Durkheim than it in fact has.
The two men also generally observed a similar rule of logic in evaluating the various proposed
explanations for a given phenomenon at the outset of a study, extracting the valid elements from each
competing explanation and then building a new coherent explanation, which would in turn be tested
against a variety of empirical data. This type of procedure is valuable in that it forces one to consider
systematically earlier alternatives, to provide an explanation that does better, and to marshall
available evidence which shows that the proposed explanation is in fact superior. But the weakness is
that, like any such organizing scheme, it can degenerate into ritualism. Then, too, there is the danger of
considering that if competing explanations have been disproven, the new one must be correct. Both
men occasionally committed this fallacy.
Although they did not always reach the same conclusions, Tarde and Durkheim were often in
agreement in the arguments which they dismissed. In evaluating the positions of various critics of
sociology, they opposed those who were against sociology on the grounds that it conflicted with the
doctrine of free will. They pointed out that, while concrete individuals could exercise individual
discretion in their selection of alternatives, the statistical aggregates of these choices across
individuals were nevertheless subject to general laws. To critics who held that a generalizing
sociology was irresponsible and premature until the results of the “special sciences” were more
thoroughly confirmed, they replied that astronomy and biology were possible before physics and
chemistry had become developed disciplines.
They both also rejected many aspects of utilitarian theory. They denied the basic utilitarian