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concrete behavior and subjective beliefs. But they were never interested enough in the empirical
measurement of human behavior to examine the possibilities for quantifying or measuring some of
their general concepts.
Thus, one finds Tarde pointing out the theoretical utility and practical feasibility of measuring
individual attitudes for an indicator of public opinion. 71 But, as no workable method had yet been
discovered, he suggested several alternatives, among them the use of large-scale, readily available
“social bookkeeping” statistics, such as figures on population movements, industrial production,
commercial activities, strikes, crime rates, and so forth. Ingenious analysis, he argued, can yield a
broad spectrum of useful information from materials of this sort. 72
Still, there are a number of weaknesses inherent in “social bookkeeping” materials that he
identified. An elementary problem is inaccuracy resulting from insufficient precision in data
collection. The extent of this particular weakness depends on the phenomenon classified and counted;
births and deaths, for instance, are relatively easy to classify but, because they are not always legally
registered, they are not so easy to count. More problems arise when one must depend upon a rather
crude classification applied by a lower-level civil servant, as with most criminal statistics, where all
types of robberies, for example, are classified together irrespective of the particular type of theft, the
motives of the criminal, the underlying circumstances, and so forth. (Durkheim pointed to the same
weakness in the official classification of the motives for suicide.) 73
A perhaps more serious drawback to social bookkeeping data, Tarde held, is that such statistics
embrace an entire spectrum of attitudes leading to the performance of a single act; acts are classified,
not the attitudes behind them.
In looking over the work of statisticians, it is most important to remember that the things which are under calculation are essentially
subjective qualities, desires and beliefs, and that very often the acts which they enumerate, although equal in number, give expression
to very different weights among these things. 74
For example, the number of persons attending church or voting for a politician may remain constant
while the level of religiosity or degree of support for the politician may vary greatly. 75
Third, a methodologically elementary but substantively crucial weakness, statistics are simply not
collected for many phenomena of interest to the social scientist. In several different works Tarde
repeatedly pointed up the utility of regularly collecting varied statistical information as indicators for
public opinion. Time series on donation figures and legacies to the clergy 76 and on the number of
persons entering churches and attending confessions and communions could help chart shifts in
religiosity. 77 He also advocated keeping statistics on the quantity and type of books and newspapers
sold, and on “virtuous acts” such as donations to charity. 78 The distribution and extent of crossnational
linguistic interpenetration (likely to be particularly strong in border areas) could be
measured through diffusion of various foreign words and phrases. 79
Much of this information could be regularly collected by governmental agencies like most other
large-scale statistics, or alternatively by some sort of special research agency. Other types of
measures for public opinion that Tarde discussed involved methods more suitable to smaller research
organizations. For example, at one point he came close to outlining a program for content analysis
when, in addition to recommending a statistical count of the absolute number of letters sent in
different areas and time periods, he noted the desirability of data on the lengths as well as the
contents of letters.