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eally a pure accident in the course of its destiny, an accident against which the old invention in legitimate possession of its domain should very naturally protest with all its forces, supported in this battle by the “nature of things,” which has created the universal desire to live and desire to grow. It should not be said that “this profession now loses ground each day as it gained ground before; after all, one is as natural as the other.” No, the natural destiny of an industry with its base in human nature is to progress or persist forever: its reversal is against nature. Hence, it is wrong to be surprised when it fights with such frenzy and prolongs its existence for longer than the often overwhelming superiority of its rival gave it reason to hope for—unless it commits suicide, so to speak, from despair when in fact it still had a chance for life and success. For analogous reasons the outcry of workers when their salaries are reduced is understandable, for it is natural that salaries rise or stabilize, not that they descend, since social evolution effects an augmentation or a stabilization but never a diminution in the number of needs and forms of consumption imitated, a complication, not a simplification of the conditions for basic well-being. That is why, by virtue of imitative propagation, when salaries do decrease they do so much less regularly and much less continually than they increase; growth occurs because of an inherent and almost irreversible tendency. On the other hand, the rate of interest has an undeniable, historically demonstrated tendency to decrease constantly until it reaches a minimum from which it would probably never rise again were it not for some great catastrophe or an unanticipated influx of major revolutionary industrial inventions. This decrease only looks like a regression. Actually it is the mathematical expression of a true progression, and I leave it to Mr. Paul Leroy-Beaulieu to prove it, since, in his great treatise on political economy, he put his finger on the true causes of the age-old and normally necessary lowering of capital income: in the long run, these causes may be reduced to imitative propagations, particularly the decreasing productivity of industrial inventions as a consequence of their more extensive and general exploitation. 9 The number of insurance policies, of savings accounts, of members of mutual benefit societies *3 is always on the increase; it is to be presumed that it will stop; but will it retrogress, and with the same regularity? This is quite unlikely. A general panic could, one fine day, cause all deposits to be withdrawn at once, all insurance to be canceled, all mutual benefit societies to be dissolved; but unless new processes appear which are capable of responding to the same needs for security and protection and of satisfying them in a way deemed preferable, these old processes will not gradually and by themselves fall into disuse. And why not? Because the people who have a savings account, for instance, must choose between the example of those who followed this current of examples and those who did not; but the non-imitation of fact, a negative example, is always much less contagious than its imitation. Hence, I am inclined to think that if we ever see a decrease in criminality or divorces or suicides, their regression will be irregular, intermittent, and capricious, and will have none of the striking continuity that characterizes their progression. The opposite of opulence is indigence, and the median state between these two extremes is ease, the level of which varies with the country and the period but which on the average rises. An urgent question is the economic and social role of this age-old opposition. Is it necessary, is it useful, and if so, what for? Note that it cannot be rigorously pushed to infinity except through one of its branches, indigence. To lack everything is the infinity of poverty, an extreme too often realized. To possess everything is an ideal that even billionaires do not achieve. But, practically speaking, one may say that when they have too much of everything, the plenitude of wealth and luxury is realized as, elsewhere, the plenitude of misery. In his economic career man tends to move from infinite misery to infinite luxury. If the prospect of this ideal were surpressed, if there were an attempt to limit his
wishes to a precise degree of well-being, thereby showing him a barrier which would arouse either the imperative desire to cross it or the grief of knowing that he could not do so, his activity would be stifled. But, on the other hand, what a scandal that there is such a gap between the poorest and the richest. How can we be resigned to the fact that necessarily, inevitably, this gap must continue to increase in the course of increasing civilization and wealth! 10 This cannot be: from the day it was measured, the day the knowledge of this disproportion gripped consciences and violated that highest of civilizing sentiments, that of justice, it was impossible that this inequality not decrease, not, it is true, by a diminution of the largest fortunes, but by the gradual elevation of average fortunes and the suppression of poverty. And this is necessary according to our principles, owing to the laws of imitative propagation of civilizing inventions, which tend to cause the gradual leveling of needs and resources, combined with their common increase. In short, in the social world at least, it is not true that, from the point of view of quantity as from any other, decline is the inevitable successor to progress, and that when it follows, it is of a comparable nature. Here again obsession with the idea of symmetry leads the human mind into error, among the elite as among the populace. John Stuart Mill was right in saying that the normal level for all men is the highest level that they can attain. Having mounted his own relative pinnacle, a man may fall precipitously from it, but he will not descend as he mounted rung by rung. When the Roman patrician had advanced from one dignity to another until he reached the summit of the cursus honorum, the anger of a prince was able to send him to prison, exile, torture, but did he ever rerun his career in reverse? It is the same with families and with societies, which are groups of families; it is the same with all things human, considered in all their aspects. To progress together, and I mean everything that survives, until they achieve an equilibrium like stars in the same solar system, a stable harmony, the theme and the theater necessary for modulations and infinite variations: this is their essential nature; against which even frequent accidents cannot triumph.
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The University of Chicago Press, Ch
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THE HERITAGE OF SOCIOLOGY a Series
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Preface Some of the neglect of Tard
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Tarde’s own father (1797-1850) se
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death of the philosopher Nourrisson
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apotheosis of the tradition of Spon
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assumption that society consisted o
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III. The Structure of Tarde’s Tho
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aspects of invention and, at some p
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likely it is to be imitated. 41 A n
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society. This same basic principle,
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of domination by a single all power
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V. Methodology, Methods, and Quanti
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Letters have just about the same fo
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attainment of great wealth, demonst
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ailroad, the modern public could on
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and held that with increased commun
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not a hope or a desire, which was n
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psychological approaches, associate
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I. The Nature and Scope of Sociolog
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y the theologians and the authorita
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certain fruitfulness? I believe it
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science. III Now the problem is to
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this question can perhaps be resolv
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accepting facts which repeat themse
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a formula comparable to the type of
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significance of this proposition. T
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These non-imitative similarities be
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were these initiatives imitated, an
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values? This is a fairly well found
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service to the rank of wealth. Agai
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an idol, weaving a garment, cutting
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By joining our point of view, howev
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have intimate knowledge of its elem
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After this admittedly incomplete in
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We should note that matriarchy is e
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of the tribes, then of the cities o
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Lecture by Mr. Durkheim 4 A DEBATE
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The third session, presided over by
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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
Page 92 and 93: 7 OPPOSITION *1 1898 Let us, first
Page 94 and 95: he has in his thoughts, at the same
Page 96 and 97: Fortunately, the truth is not so sa
Page 98 and 99: III. The Laws of Imitation
Page 100 and 101: comes to him and then another until
Page 102 and 103: and one of which is crowded back by
Page 104 and 105: 9 EXTRA-LOGICAL LAWS OF IMITATION *
Page 106 and 107: 10 PROCESSES OF IMITATION *1 1890 A
Page 108 and 109: IV. Personality and Attitude Measur
Page 110 and 111: aspect of effort is desire, and tha
Page 112 and 113: like the solidification of liquids,
Page 114 and 115: evolution which is the inverse of t
Page 116 and 117: V. Methodology, Methods, and Quanti
Page 118 and 119: the charm of theory? If history is
Page 120 and 121: only a commercial treaty, or a new
Page 122 and 123: were perfect. It is this ideal, an
Page 124 and 125: 13 QUANTIFICATION AND SOCIAL INDICA
Page 126 and 127: auditory or motor. In an overexcite
Page 128 and 129: certain records or by the practical
Page 130 and 131: consolation, but is it a matter of
Page 134 and 135: VI. Social Stratification
Page 136 and 137: Will not a time come when, although
Page 138 and 139: VII. Social Control and Deviance
Page 140 and 141: And what crimes are involved! Mr. G
Page 142 and 143: with our subject? To read certain s
Page 144 and 145: satisfaction in a select and health
Page 146 and 147: —when this aberration triumphs, i
Page 148 and 149: thank you.
Page 150 and 151: 16 THE PUBLIC AND THE CROWD *1 1901
Page 152 and 153: past; after the family it is the ol
Page 154 and 155: simple epiphenomenon, in itself ine
Page 156 and 157: of more than these two categories.
Page 158 and 159: sorrow, with conviction or with pas
Page 160 and 161: Opinion 17 OPINION AND CONVERSATION
Page 162 and 163: press of our own time, and at all t
Page 164 and 165: privileged groups, a court, a parli
Page 166 and 167: efore this aesthetic flower of civi
Page 168 and 169: . . . The greatest force governing
Page 170 and 171: deep, entirely psychological and co
Page 172 and 173: XXXI (1891): 123, 289. “L’art e
Page 174 and 175: Notes Introduction 1 On Tarde’s l
Page 176 and 177: 64 Part IV, 11, below. 65 On early
Page 178 and 179: 127 Daniel Essertier, Psychologie e
Page 180 and 181: “You would not assert that Promet
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*3 Organizations of workers in Fran
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eligious, scientific, economic, and
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