192 SOCIAL EVOLUTION 



fleeting, for, as soon as a fa>lmm has spread to a cor i; mi 

 proportion of the total population, the operation is re- 

 versed and contra mutation begins to make for its aboli- 

 tion and replacement by another. For example, tin 

 stylish mistress will not continue to wear ihe new shape 

 of hat, however becoming to her, after the colored cook 

 and her humbler neighbors have begun to imitate it. 

 Kadi person is moved not alone by the prestige of those 

 whom he imitates, but also by the desire to be different 

 from the mass who have not yet adopted the style. Most 

 Englishmen would scorn to kiss and embrace one another 

 or to gesticulate freely, if only because Frenchmen do 

 these things ; they would not wear their hair either long 

 or very closely cropped, because Germans do so. Thus 

 contra-imitation makes societies homogeneous 



Although imitation spreads in all directions in geo- 

 metrical progression, it spreads most easily and most 

 rapidly from above to below, from the higher to tho 

 lo\\<-r social classes. 86 "Given the opportunity, a nobil- 

 ity will always and everywhere imitate its leal-rs its 

 kin-s or suzerains, and the people, likewise, given the op- 

 portunity, its nobility/' 37 The impression must come 

 from a source enjoying prestige, an individual or a col- 

 lect ive personality that is stronger, more complex, or 

 more highly developed. "But in reality, the thing that 

 is most imitated is the most superior one of those that 

 are nearest. In fact, the influence of the model's ex- 

 ample is efficacious inversely to its distance as well as 

 directly to its superiority. Distance is understood here 

 in its sociological meaning. However distant in space 

 a Granger may be, he is close by, from this point of 

 view, if we have numerous and daily relations with 



/6tU MTarde, op. cit., pp. 215-224. Ibid., p. 217. 



