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y the theologians and the authoritarian philosophers, who see Truth as something which either is or is not, having no intermediary degrees; over all these ideas Value had the advantage of being a true social quantity whose rise and fall are a matter of daily observation and have a special measure— money. Such was, along with many obvious inferiorities (palliated in vain), the superiority of the economic point of view over the juridical, artistic, moral, theological, and metaphysical points of view for the scientific observation of the social world. In vain does political economy now look askance at its daughter sociology; the latter will not have the ingratitude to forget that it is the economists who, gaining acceptance in the long run for their way of thinking despite the obstinate resistance of jurists and moralists in particular, prepared the ground for the sociologists’ constructions. They had the great merit of indicating the true path to the sociologists, who were usually wrong to deviate from it. They discovered, or thought they had discovered, the laws of value, the laws of production, exchange and distribution of various values, and spoke of them as the physicist speaks of laws of production and communication of motor forces, as laws applicable in all countries and at all times, in every society, whether real or just possible. These pretensions were eminently scientific, since no science exists except by formulating laws of this scope. They founded a sort of social physics, narrow and precise like the social physiology which others, long afterward, tried to establish, but the success of the latter was shorter lived, and although its apparent breadth was greater, it had less true depth. But let us not get ahead of ourselves. As the economists conceived it, society was not an organism but, what is clearer, an astronomical system whose freely linked elements, each gravitating separately in its individual sphere, only influenced each other externally and at a distance. The insufficiency of this conception could have been concealed even longer if it had not been uselessly limited to being a static model of society. Then, without abdicating its mechanical character, it could have tried sketching social evolution. Nothing prevented reconciling the very sound idea of constant and universal laws with the no less necessary idea of succession of stages. This is an idea which the jurists, those great enemies of the economists, took from the historical development of Roman law and which they could have taught the political economists long before the Darwinian transformists. Political economy was not born just from the idea of introducing numeration and measurement into social facts, but even more from the idea of bringing the comparative method to them. The conjunction of these two good ideas in this new field made it the most fruitful of all the other so-called “moral and political” sciences. One could define it as comparative industry, and in this respect it takes its place among a group of sister sciences: comparative grammar, comparative mythology, comparative legislation, comparative art, comparative politics. But it should be noted that, although the degree varies, in these sciences or half-sciences the truly scientific character is much less marked than in political economy. This is because the stamp of numerical precision which distinguishes political economy is missing, and because the rules that the others confusedly draw from facts are not clear like those of political economy but remain enslaved to these facts, which they summarize rather than explain. However, since this imperfection is without doubt only temporary, these various disciplines, like the economic gymnastics of thought, have all concurred in the advent of social science. And among its distinct sources social science must count all the successive good ideas by which, between languages, religions, bodies of law, arts, and governments until then considered heterogeneous, successful rapprochements were tried and inaugurated. Another good idea, despite the abuse that has been and is still made of it, is to use the tales of those who have traveled among the barbarians and savages either to extend the area of previous comparisons or especially to inform us about the prehistory of civilized peoples. The starting point in
this case is the frequently (though not always) verified hypothesis, supported by archaeological excavations, that the stages of development at which many savages have become fixed are the stages which have been traversed by advanced peoples. It is well known with what fury the hasty “pre”- sociologists of the eighteenth century, Montesquieu in the lead, pounced on the anecdotes and even the nonsense tales of travelers, but primarily as a change from the classical historians and to extend their idea of humanity in space rather than to push human history back in time. It was left to our century to attempt, with an unhoped-for success, this jump back in time. II As early as the beginning of the century, everyone felt that the time had come to condense into a living synthesis the scattered fragments of social science grouped under the vague name of “moral and political sciences,” which were alien to each other and even more alien to the harmonious group of the natural sciences. It was necessary to end their double incoherence by coordinating them and incorporating them into universal science. The attempts made in this direction were to remain sterile until the appearance of a master idea which would bind the scattered straws into a single sheaf. Shall we say that this idea came to light the day Auguste Comte formulated his famous law of the three stages—theological, metaphysical, and positivist—which, from whatever point of view one chooses, human development is compelled to traverse? A polemic on this subject arose between John Stuart Mill and Littre. Mill denied that the great founder of positivism had brought sociology to the point at which one can say that a science is truly constituted. For Littré, Comte’s constituting of sociology resulted from the law in question. Who was right? I am afraid it was Mill. Can it be said that biology existed from the time, certainly long ago, when it was discovered that all living beings are subject to the “law of ages” and without exception pass through the successive stages of childhood, youth, maturity, and old age, unless a violent death interrupts this course? And this law of ages is general and profound in quite a different way from the law of the three stages. On the other hand, insofar as it is valid, the law of the three stages was infinitely more difficult to discover. If our life, compared to that of other animals, was so short that we could not see these others one after another come to life, grow, age, and die, the sage who, from induction based on observation and intelligent research, first discovered the frequency and universality of this succession of stages in the animal world would be rightly admired as the author of a great and fruitful generalization. Would not his law of ages be reputed one of the fundamentals of physiology? In relation to human society, we individual humans are what in my hypothesis man is to the lives of animals. Hence we would readily concede that Comte’s principle is one of the basic social laws if its scope were as general and its truth as certain as its author believed. Unfortunately, its application is limited to the intellectual development of societies. But even in this area it is not without exception and extends, moreover, neither to their economic nor to their aesthetic development. Nor are the transformations of languages explained, or those of religion, all of whose phases remain in the first of the three stages. How then could Littré claim that by forming such a vague and incomplete law Comte did for sociology what Bichat did for biology in discovering the elementary properties of living tissue? As Mill pointed out, it is just these elementary properties of social tissue that are missing from the work, otherwise so substantial, of the Master of the positivist school. Was Mr. Spencer more successful when he picked up an ancient metaphor, developed and enlarged it, pushed it to its extreme (until even he recognized its inadequacy) and in so doing classed social bodies among living bodies? Would we say that this thesis concerning the social organism is one of those good ideas which the new science could not do without and that, as a basis at least, it has had a
- Page 2 and 3: The University of Chicago Press, Ch
- Page 4 and 5: THE HERITAGE OF SOCIOLOGY a Series
- Page 6 and 7: Preface Some of the neglect of Tard
- Page 8 and 9: Tarde’s own father (1797-1850) se
- Page 10 and 11: death of the philosopher Nourrisson
- Page 12 and 13: apotheosis of the tradition of Spon
- Page 14 and 15: assumption that society consisted o
- Page 16 and 17: III. The Structure of Tarde’s Tho
- Page 18 and 19: aspects of invention and, at some p
- Page 20 and 21: likely it is to be imitated. 41 A n
- Page 22 and 23: society. This same basic principle,
- Page 24 and 25: of domination by a single all power
- Page 26 and 27: V. Methodology, Methods, and Quanti
- Page 28 and 29: Letters have just about the same fo
- Page 30 and 31: attainment of great wealth, demonst
- Page 32 and 33: ailroad, the modern public could on
- Page 34 and 35: and held that with increased commun
- Page 36 and 37: not a hope or a desire, which was n
- Page 38 and 39: psychological approaches, associate
- Page 40 and 41: I. The Nature and Scope of Sociolog
- Page 44 and 45: certain fruitfulness? I believe it
- Page 46 and 47: science. III Now the problem is to
- Page 48 and 49: this question can perhaps be resolv
- Page 50 and 51: accepting facts which repeat themse
- Page 52 and 53: a formula comparable to the type of
- Page 54 and 55: significance of this proposition. T
- Page 56 and 57: These non-imitative similarities be
- Page 58 and 59: were these initiatives imitated, an
- Page 60 and 61: values? This is a fairly well found
- Page 62 and 63: service to the rank of wealth. Agai
- Page 64 and 65: an idol, weaving a garment, cutting
- Page 66 and 67: By joining our point of view, howev
- Page 68 and 69: have intimate knowledge of its elem
- Page 70 and 71: After this admittedly incomplete in
- Page 72 and 73: We should note that matriarchy is e
- Page 74 and 75: of the tribes, then of the cities o
- Page 76 and 77: Lecture by Mr. Durkheim 4 A DEBATE
- Page 78 and 79: The third session, presided over by
- Page 80 and 81: 5 BASIC PRINCIPLES *1 1902 Let us b
- Page 82 and 83: epetition is their common tendency,
- Page 84 and 85: I 6 INVENTION *1 1902 However dange
- Page 86 and 87: shown by World Fairs, where the ind
- Page 88 and 89: and churchmen often did likewise. I
- Page 90 and 91: Imagine the effect produced by that
y the theologians and the authoritarian philosophers, who see Truth as something which either is or<br />
is not, having no intermediary degrees; over all these ideas Value had the advantage of being a true<br />
social quantity whose rise and fall are a matter of daily observation and have a special measure—<br />
money. Such was, along with many obvious inferiorities (palliated in vain), the superiority of the<br />
economic point of view over the juridical, artistic, moral, theological, and metaphysical points of<br />
view for the scientific observation of the social world. In vain does political economy now look<br />
askance at its daughter sociology; the latter will not have the ingratitude to forget that it is the<br />
economists who, gaining acceptance in the long run for their way of thinking despite the obstinate<br />
resistance of jurists and moralists in particular, prepared the ground for the sociologists’<br />
constructions. They had the great merit of indicating the true path to the sociologists, who were<br />
usually wrong to deviate from it. They discovered, or thought they had discovered, the laws of value,<br />
the laws of production, exchange and distribution of various values, and spoke of them as the<br />
physicist speaks of laws of production and communication of motor forces, as laws applicable in all<br />
countries and at all times, in every society, whether real or just possible. These pretensions were<br />
eminently scientific, since no science exists except by formulating laws of this scope. They founded a<br />
sort of social physics, narrow and precise like the social physiology which others, long afterward,<br />
tried to establish, but the success of the latter was shorter lived, and although its apparent breadth<br />
was greater, it had less true depth. But let us not get ahead of ourselves. As the economists conceived<br />
it, society was not an organism but, what is clearer, an astronomical system whose freely linked<br />
elements, each gravitating separately in its individual sphere, only influenced each other externally<br />
and at a distance. The insufficiency of this conception could have been concealed even longer if it had<br />
not been uselessly limited to being a static model of society. Then, without abdicating its mechanical<br />
character, it could have tried sketching social evolution. Nothing prevented reconciling the very<br />
sound idea of constant and universal laws with the no less necessary idea of succession of stages.<br />
This is an idea which the jurists, those great enemies of the economists, took from the historical<br />
development of Roman law and which they could have taught the political economists long before the<br />
Darwinian transformists.<br />
Political economy was not born just from the idea of introducing numeration and measurement into<br />
social facts, but even more from the idea of bringing the comparative method to them. The conjunction<br />
of these two good ideas in this new field made it the most fruitful of all the other so-called “moral<br />
and political” sciences. One could define it as comparative industry, and in this respect it takes its<br />
place among a group of sister sciences: comparative grammar, comparative mythology, comparative<br />
legislation, comparative art, comparative politics. But it should be noted that, although the degree<br />
varies, in these sciences or half-sciences the truly scientific character is much less marked than in<br />
political economy. This is because the stamp of numerical precision which distinguishes political<br />
economy is missing, and because the rules that the others confusedly draw from facts are not clear<br />
like those of political economy but remain enslaved to these facts, which they summarize rather than<br />
explain. However, since this imperfection is without doubt only temporary, these various disciplines,<br />
like the economic gymnastics of thought, have all concurred in the advent of social science. And<br />
among its distinct sources social science must count all the successive good ideas by which, between<br />
languages, religions, bodies of law, arts, and governments until then considered heterogeneous,<br />
successful rapprochements were tried and inaugurated.<br />
Another good idea, despite the abuse that has been and is still made of it, is to use the tales of those<br />
who have traveled among the barbarians and savages either to extend the area of previous<br />
comparisons or especially to inform us about the prehistory of civilized peoples. The starting point in
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