558 



PHILOSOPHICAL THOUGHT. 



Tarde and 



which have attracted considerable attention; they both 

 belong to French sociological literature. Though not so 



, 



important as the theory of environment or milieu which, 

 put forward already by Lamarck, was revived and 

 applied to social problems by Taine, the investigations 

 I refer to are nevertheless striking and original. They 

 are " The Theory of Imitation " of Gabriel Tarde and 

 "The Theory of the Division of Labour" of M. Durk- 

 heim. 



Comte 1 had already pointed to the importance of 



influence of Comte and in opposi- 

 tion to the Eclectic School, psycho- 

 logy was treated by French thinkers. 

 At the same time he records that 

 since psychology had been liber- 

 ated from spiritualist metaphysics, 

 a reaction had set in in favour of 

 psychology, that it is recognised 

 that spiritualism had rendered good 

 service to sociology in showing that 

 not all belonging to the mind could 

 be explained by the motion of 

 matter. " Ainsi de divers cotes, on 

 travaille 'a rendre a la psychologic 

 sa place au centre de la science de 

 la socie"te. II semble, d'une facon 

 generate, que les metaphores biol- 

 ogiques soient passees de mode et 

 que la psychologic soit universelle- 

 ment regarded comme 1'ame des 

 sciences sociales" (p. 144). 



1 In Lecons L. and LI. of the 

 ' Philosophic Positive,' Comte deals 

 at considerable length with the 

 principle of the division or "re- 

 partition " of labour, referring to 

 the Scottish School of thinkers 

 (Ferguson, Adam Smith, and their 

 French disciple, de Tracy) as having 

 already emphasised this grand prin- 

 ciple to which human society owes 

 the most important attributes 

 which distinguish it from other 

 animal families. It is, however, to 

 be noted that Comte takes a much 

 wider view of this principle than 



did Adam Smith. Although the 

 latter does use the term "co- 

 operation," he does not lay the 

 same stress upon it as Comte. 

 The former regards it more as a 

 means of securing greater efficiency 

 and increasing the wealth of the 

 community, whereas the latter con- 

 siders the division of labour as 

 a necessary condition for co-opera- 

 tion, producing what he terms " the 

 solidarity of Society." The latter 

 rests not on the sameness but on 

 the diversity of the occupations of 

 its units. Whilst the family rep- 

 resents these elementary units of 

 society, they would remain only 

 loosely connected, tending to break 

 up, if through the diversity of 

 occupations they did not become 

 more and more dependent on each 

 other. Thus it may be said that 

 Comte anticipated, to a great ex- 

 tent, the importance of that co- 

 operation which in the course of 

 the nineteenth century has, in 

 various forms, become such an 

 important feature of social life. 

 He has, at the same time, a very 

 clear conception that such co- 

 operation, or working together, is 

 only possible and efficient under 

 the guidance of superior intellects 

 which rise above, and organise, the 

 mediocre performances of the 

 masses. The latter is a truth 



