OF SOCIETY. 



567 



history is a record of these inventions, of their irradia- 

 tion, expansion, and diffusion. The life of society is 

 brought back to a psychological fact ; the existence of 

 the creative intellect, the genius, or the artist. This 

 fact cannot be further explained or rationalised. Thus 

 both M. Tarde and his opponent M. Durkheim seek and 

 find some original fact or facts which may be termed the 

 ultimate social phenomenon. For the one it consists in 

 institutions which he terms " social things or objects," 

 and sociology consists in studying them and the changes 

 they undergo. The other finds it in an ultimate 

 psychological phenomenon which he terms a logical 

 arrangement ; it takes place in the mind of an individual 

 or individuals and spreads from them by a kind of 

 emanation or radiation. 



Both thinkers are opposed to the purely biological 

 explanation of society as developed by Herbert Spencer 

 and his followers. Instead of biology M. Tarde resorts 

 to psychology, 1 whereas M. Durkheim resorts to a view 



1 The writings of M. Tarde are 

 extremely original and suggestive, 

 and they also remind us of recent 

 tendencies of thought which have 

 been dereloped with more or less 

 clearness by other thinkers. Thus 

 when we read sundry eloquent pas- 

 sages in M. Tarde's principal works, 

 'Lea Lois de 1'Imitation ' (1st ed., 

 1890) and ' La Logique Sociale' (1st 

 ed., 1895), we are reminded of 

 the principles of the "growth of 

 mental energy " and of the " heter- 

 ogony of ends " which play a pro- 

 minent part in Wundt's writings. 

 We are also reminded of the dan 

 vital of M. Bergson when we read 

 the passages in which M. Tarde 

 ascribes the origin of what is new 

 in history to the desires and ideas 



of individual minds (see ' Les Lois 

 de 1'Imitation, 6th ed., p. 157 sqq. ). 

 Also such modern problems as those 

 of the " Unconscious " and the 

 " Discontinuous " in the mental life 

 of individuals and societies sug- 

 gest themselves in passages like the 

 following : " Au milieu de ce pele- 

 mele incoherent desf aits historiques. 

 songe ou cauchemar enigrnatique, 

 la raison cherche en vain un ordre 

 et ne le trouve pas, parce qu'elle 

 refuse de le voir ou il est. Parfois 

 elle 1'imagine, et, concevant 1'histoire 

 comme un poeme dont un fragment 

 ne saurait etre intelligible sans le 

 tout, elle nous renvoie pour 1'in- 

 telligence de cette enigme au 

 moment ou les destinees finales de 

 1'humanit^ seront accomplies et se> 



