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not a hope or a desire, which was not originally a discovery or an innovation propagated from social heights, and gradually sank down
to his depths. 122
Influence is not, however, always transmitted from social superior to social inferior; the most
noble prince living in the country with only his servants will tend to adopt their vulgar accents and
even their expressions. On the other hand, it sometimes happens—as with certain conquered peoples
who continue to oppose their new rulers—that social inferiors may stubbornly refuse to imitate their
superiors. Still, Tarde considers the great majority of social influences and imitations to travel
downward, to the extent, he maintains, that it is possible “frequently to neglect, even most of the time,
in our societies, the impressive action exercised by slaves on their master, children on adults . . .
inferiors on superiors, and only take account of the inverse type of action, the true explanation of
history.” 123
Because he applied this general principle to the exercise of personal influence in virtually all
subject matters, Tarde failed to conceive of the pattern of multiple-opinion leadership as documented
in more recent studies on the diffusion of influence. 124 He also neglected personal influence among
relative equals, or from inferior to superior in terms of social standing. Of course, in this respect
Tarde was no different from many writers on the same subject, even in later years. Then, too, there
may well have been an increase in imitation among social equals since the time that Tarde wrote. As
a dedicated scientist, Tarde was fully aware that his formulations would in time be surpassed. It is,
however, ample testimony to his stature that so many generations of work were necessary before this
could happen. 125
X. Continuities: The Diffusion of Tarde’s Thought
As Tarde himself aptly observed, the optimal conditions for the creation of new ideas are not the
same as those for their propagation. Tarde created many ideas; in France, at least, he propagated
few. 126 Unquestionably the most efficient machine in France for propagating ideas was the national
university system. Those at its center controlled (and largely control) the content of courses,
examinations, degree requirements, teaching and research appointments, research grants, and to some
extent journal and book publication outlets. And the stratification of academic prestige was so great
that the university, and especially the Ecole Normale Supérieure, attracted many brilliant scholars and
most of the outstanding students. To have Durkheim, one of the two or three most influential
universitaires of his day, as an arch rival was not propitious for the continuing success of one’s
ideas. As Tarde offered courses at half a dozen teaching institutions, one might nevertheless expect
that his ideas would have spread, especially as these institutions attracted no little public attention at
the time. But their success and esteem were short-lived; they soon collapsed whereas the university
endured.
Tarde and Durkheim, as well as those around them, deservedly were heady with breaking virgin
intellectual territory. After World War I, however, for a variety of complex reasons, the quality of
French social scientific work dropped appreciably. Innovation, inside and outside the university,
declined in favor of servile imitation of ideas from earlier years. The Durkheimians tended to
mention Tarde’s name simply as that of an early adversary of the master who had lost several debates.
And in their own debates with psychologists, they grew, with time, not more sophisticated but more
rigid in reaffirming the slogans which Durkheim had expounded in his debates with Tarde. Most
psychologists, too, carried on these debates with equal vacuity, defending an extremely narrow