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an idol, weaving a garment, cutting down a tree, knifing an enemy, or sculpting a stone—these are social acts, for only man in society acts in this manner and he would not do so without the example of other men whom he has voluntarily or involuntarily copied from infancy. The common characteristic of social acts is that they are imitative. They alone have this characteristic, and when, exceptionally, a purely biological or mental act becomes a social one, it is to the extent that imitation has bestowed its special mark. Walking in step in a regiment, breathing as does a trained singer, eating with a fork are truly, and for the reason indicated, social acts. Only a man in society walks, breathes, eats in this way. As for those acts which consist of a new initiative, a discovery, an important invention or an insignificant one, they quit the individual sphere to enter the social world only as they are propagated by example and little by little fall into public domain. This, then, is a very clear and, more important, a very objective characteristic, for I take no account of the motivation for imitation. It can proceed from sympathy or even animosity, from envy or admiration, from servile docility or a free and intelligent calculation; it makes no difference, for, once this subjective element is set aside, the objective fact remains the same. Perhaps I shall be allowed to say that the psychological source as well remains basically the same, namely a certain hidden attraction mixed with admiration, envy, and even hate, which irresistibly pushes men to reflect each other even while hating each other. Be that as it may, I limit myself to establishing that everywhere and at all times the distinctive characteristic of a thought, a wish, a social action, is to be created in the image and in the likeness of the thoughts, wishes, and actions of others. And I am astonished to find myself reproached for paying particular attention here to a fact which can be grasped externally with no regard for its internal source, and that this reproach was addressed to me by no other than the distinguished professor at Bordeaux, Mr. Durkheim—the very man who expounds the necessity of basing sociology on purely objective considerations and of exorcising this science, so to speak, by driving away psychology, which, contrary to the ideas of all its founders from Auguste Comte to Spencer, is not the soul of sociology but rather its evil genius. We shall soon examine what this idea is worth. For the moment let us consider the import of this author’s criticisms. “A thought,” he says, “found in all individual consciousnesses, a movement repeated by all individuals, is not for that reason a social fact. Repetition (read imitation) has so little to do with social facts that they exist outside of the particular cases in which they are realized. Each social fact consists either of a belief, or a tendency, or a practice which is that of the group taken collectively and which is something quite different from the forms under which it is refracted in individuals.” But how could it be refracted before it exists, and, to speak intelligibly, how could it exist outside of all individuals? The truth is that any social thing, a word in a language, a religious rite, a trade secret, an artistic process, a legal provision, a moral maxim, is transmitted and passed not from the social group taken collectively to the individual, but from one individual— parent, teacher, friend, neighbor, comrade—to another individual, and in this passage from one mind to another it is refracted. The totality of these refractions, starting from an initial impulsion due to some anonymous or illustrious inventor, discoverer, innovator or modifier, is all the reality of a social thing at any given moment. Like all reality, this reality changes by imperceptible nuances, but this does not preclude that from the individual variants there emerges a collective result which is almost constant, and which first strikes our attention and gives rise to Mr. Durkheim’s ontological illusion. For there is no doubt that it is a veritable scholastic ontology that the learned writer is undertaking to inject into sociology in place of the psychology he opposes. Nevertheless, the importance of repetition—continue to read imitation—cannot help making itself felt in his work, however much he is against it, even without his knowledge. In order to prove the
adical separation, the absolute duality that he claims to establish between the collective fact and the individual facts which I say make it up but which he says refract it from the outside in some unknown manner, he writes: “Certain ways of acting or thinking acquire, through repetition, a sort of consistency which precipitates them, so to speak, and isolates them from the particular events in which they are incarnated. They thus take on a body, a perceptible form of their own which constitutes a reality sui generis very distinct from the individual events which manifest it.” And what demonstrates this—listen to this carefully—is that the collective habit, some custom, “is expressed once and for all in a formula repeated from mouth to mouth, transmitted by education, and fixed in writing. Such is the origin of judicial rules, morals, aphorisms, and popular sayings.” If he were not blinded by his preoccupation, our author would see what is perfectly obvious: that he has just involuntarily furnished new testimony to the eminently social, or rather socializing nature of imitative repetition. Indeed, is it not clear that in the case he describes there is simply a double action of imitation, namely: (1) the frequent repetition of the act resulting in a current of collective habit, the collective habit in turn giving someone the idea of articulating it verbally; (2) the repetition of this verbal formula by all those who learn it and who communicate it to each other? Now in this case, where does the singularly accentuated character of the distinction between the collective fact and the individual facts come from? From the fact that, even though one admits that the first of these two kinds of imitation may have ceased to function, that some custom, law or rule has fallen into disuse, such a custom will still conserve a sort of diminished reality, a mouthed existence so to speak, as long as, even though not practiced, it continues to be articulated—and this is what happens so often for many moral maxims. But suppose that the second of these two repetitions is in turn extinguished like the first: what sort of life or reality would be left, I ask you, in a custom, a law, a rule that no one either practices or articulates, or even thinks of, and which may be written down or printed somewhere but is read by no one? Before Champollion there were many Egyptian laws and maxims which had not been known or practiced for thousands of years but which were engraved in hieroglyphics at the bottom of tombs guarded by the sphinxes. I should like to know if that was sufficient to give them a real existence and to raise them to the ranks of those transcendent social facts which Mr. Durkheim raises to the level of the resurrected Ideas of Plato. And when Champollion or his disciples had deciphered the norms of ancient Egypt, did that decoding bring them back to life? No, it only revived knowledge of them, thanks to the propagation of those discoveries and their repetition from Egyptologist to Egyptologist, resulting each time in a new and truly social link between these scholars. As proof, therefore, of the distinct and autonomous reality of the collective fact considered in abstracto let no one propose the verbal expression it assumes; one could say as much for all things named in human language. Mr. Durkheim seems to gravitate toward some theory of emanation. For him, I repeat, the individual facts which we call social are not the elements of the social fact but only its manifestation. As for the social fact itself, it is the superior model, the Platonic Idea, the model—so true is it that in social matters the new idea of imitation imposes itself on its greatest adversaries. But let us move on. From this it follows, according to Mr. Durkheim, that the individual acts through which the social fact manifests itself—as, for example, the words of a speaker as a manifestation of language, or the kneeling of a worshiper as a manifestation of religion—may not be called social. No, since each of these acts depends not only on the nature of the social fact but also on the mental and biological constitution of the agent and on the physical environment, these are types of hybrid acts, sociopsychical or socio-physical facts with which we should no longer sully the scientific purity of the new sociology.
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- Page 22 and 23: society. This same basic principle,
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- Page 26 and 27: V. Methodology, Methods, and Quanti
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- Page 40 and 41: I. The Nature and Scope of Sociolog
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- 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
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- Page 54 and 55: significance of this proposition. T
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- Page 60 and 61: values? This is a fairly well found
- Page 62 and 63: service to the rank of wealth. Agai
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- Page 72 and 73: We should note that matriarchy is e
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- Page 76 and 77: Lecture by Mr. Durkheim 4 A DEBATE
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- Page 80 and 81: 5 BASIC PRINCIPLES *1 1902 Let us b
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- Page 84 and 85: I 6 INVENTION *1 1902 However dange
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- Page 90 and 91: Imagine the effect produced by that
- Page 92 and 93: 7 OPPOSITION *1 1898 Let us, first
- Page 94 and 95: he has in his thoughts, at the same
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- Page 98 and 99: III. The Laws of Imitation
- Page 100 and 101: comes to him and then another until
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an idol, weaving a garment, cutting down a tree, knifing an enemy, or sculpting a stone—these are<br />
social acts, for only man in society acts in this manner and he would not do so without the example of<br />
other men whom he has voluntarily or involuntarily copied from infancy. The common characteristic<br />
of social acts is that they are imitative. They alone have this characteristic, and when, exceptionally, a<br />
purely biological or mental act becomes a social one, it is to the extent that imitation has bestowed its<br />
special mark. Walking in step in a regiment, breathing as does a trained singer, eating with a fork are<br />
truly, and for the reason indicated, social acts. Only a man in society walks, breathes, eats in this way.<br />
As for those acts which consist of a new initiative, a discovery, an important invention or an<br />
insignificant one, they quit the individual sphere to enter the social world only as they are propagated<br />
by example and little by little fall into public domain.<br />
This, then, is a very clear and, more important, a very objective characteristic, for I take no account<br />
of the motivation for imitation. It can proceed from sympathy or even animosity, from envy or<br />
admiration, from servile docility or a free and intelligent calculation; it makes no difference, for, once<br />
this subjective element is set aside, the objective fact remains the same. Perhaps I shall be allowed to<br />
say that the psychological source as well remains basically the same, namely a certain hidden<br />
attraction mixed with admiration, envy, and even hate, which irresistibly pushes men to reflect each<br />
other even while hating each other. Be that as it may, I limit myself to establishing that everywhere<br />
and at all times the distinctive characteristic of a thought, a wish, a social action, is to be created in<br />
the image and in the likeness of the thoughts, wishes, and actions of others. And I am astonished to<br />
find myself reproached for paying particular attention here to a fact which can be grasped externally<br />
with no regard for its internal source, and that this reproach was addressed to me by no other than the<br />
distinguished professor at Bordeaux, Mr. Durkheim—the very man who expounds the necessity of<br />
basing sociology on purely objective considerations and of exorcising this science, so to speak, by<br />
driving away psychology, which, contrary to the ideas of all its founders from Auguste Comte to<br />
Spencer, is not the soul of sociology but rather its evil genius.<br />
We shall soon examine what this idea is worth. For the moment let us consider the import of this<br />
author’s criticisms. “A thought,” he says, “found in all individual consciousnesses, a movement<br />
repeated by all individuals, is not for that reason a social fact. Repetition (read imitation) has so<br />
little to do with social facts that they exist outside of the particular cases in which they are<br />
realized. Each social fact consists either of a belief, or a tendency, or a practice which is that of the<br />
group taken collectively and which is something quite different from the forms under which it is<br />
refracted in individuals.” But how could it be refracted before it exists, and, to speak intelligibly,<br />
how could it exist outside of all individuals? The truth is that any social thing, a word in a language,<br />
a religious rite, a trade secret, an artistic process, a legal provision, a moral maxim, is transmitted<br />
and passed not from the social group taken collectively to the individual, but from one individual—<br />
parent, teacher, friend, neighbor, comrade—to another individual, and in this passage from one mind<br />
to another it is refracted. The totality of these refractions, starting from an initial impulsion due to<br />
some anonymous or illustrious inventor, discoverer, innovator or modifier, is all the reality of a<br />
social thing at any given moment. Like all reality, this reality changes by imperceptible nuances, but<br />
this does not preclude that from the individual variants there emerges a collective result which is<br />
almost constant, and which first strikes our attention and gives rise to Mr. Durkheim’s ontological<br />
illusion. For there is no doubt that it is a veritable scholastic ontology that the learned writer is<br />
undertaking to inject into sociology in place of the psychology he opposes.<br />
Nevertheless, the importance of repetition—continue to read imitation—cannot help making itself<br />
felt in his work, however much he is against it, even without his knowledge. In order to prove the
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