138 ADAPTATION AND PROGRESS 



it; further, that social progress is advanced by the contact and 

 conflict of social " souls " by processes of imitation, assimilation, 

 conflict and survival. 



EMILE DURKBEEM (1858- ) 

 Social Realism 



Durkheim's social philosophy is founded on Comte's positivism 

 modified somewhat by Espinas' social realism, and the Volks- 

 wirtschaftslehre of Wagner and Schmoller and the psychological 

 teachings of Wundt. 1 He makes advance on the authors pre- 

 viously considered in two particulars: first, in his elaboration 

 of the thesis that society has an objective reality, sui generis, and 

 second, that this solidarity is on the one hand mechanical, based 

 chiefly on consciousness of kind and expressed in repressive 

 reactions against the individual, and on the other hand organic, 

 based on division of labor and consciousness of supplementary 

 difference and expressed in family life, friendship, co-operative 

 endeavor and co-operative right. 



is Society as a Reality, sui generis. This concept had already 

 been developed by Comte, Schaffle, Espinas, Wagner, Schmoller, 

 ct al., and was being developed by Le Bon. Comte, however, 

 considered only society, not societies; SchafHe connected sociol- 

 ogy immediately with biology and individual psychology, making 

 the individual, for the most part, the sociological unit; Espinas 

 was interested chiefly in animal societies and greatly exaggerated 

 the conscious social activity manifested in lower orders and 

 approached more nearly than Durkheim to the crass realism of 

 mediaeval philosophers. The German school was interested 

 chiefly in the production of wealth from the nationalistic point of 

 view together with the historical discussion of the subject, while 

 Le Bon was busied with a study of the phenomena of crowds, and 

 in the socio-psychical characters of social groups. Durkheim's 

 approach is purely sociological. His aim is to show that society 

 is not merely a psychical organism but one that is socio-psychical, 

 governed by laws different from those of individual psychology, 



1 Deploige, Le Conflit de la Morale et de la Sociologie, pp. 127, 128. 



