Fkbeuaey 16, 1900.] 



SCIENCE. 



261 



compared with Malthus. Each, in studying 

 man and society, arrived at a biologic law ap- 

 plicable to both man and the organic world be- 

 low man. There is, however, this difference, 

 that while Malthus discovered a law of biology 

 that had not as yet been recognized by biol- 

 ogists, Tarde has discovered a law well known 

 to biologists, but scarcely as yet recognized as 

 a law of sociology. Another difference is that 

 the Malthusian law, while it holds universally 

 in the animal world and is true of man as an 

 animal, is not true of rational man, having 

 been superseded bj' the law of mind, which has 

 inaugurated a new dispensation ; whereas the 

 Tardean law, if we may so speak of it, is as 

 true of the rational man as of the animal man 

 and the animal, and, broadly interpreted, takes 

 in the inorganic as well as the organic world. 

 This Tarde has perceived, and he expresses it 

 in this book in the following words: "The 

 time has come when it would be in place to set 

 forth the general laws governing imitative repe- 

 tition, which are to sociology what the laws of 

 habit and heredity ar6 to biology, the laws of 

 gravitation to astronomy, and the laws of vi- 

 bration to physics" (p. 61). Nor is this the 

 first time that he has said such things. Sweep- 

 ing comparisons of the kind are frequent in the 

 works named. We may refer especially to the 

 footnote on page 37 and the discussion on page 

 159 of the second edition of the Lois de I' Imita- 

 tion. 



What, then, is this Tardean law? Most 

 readers have become familiar with the five lead- 

 ing terms of Tarde's philosophy : Imitation, 

 Repetition, Opposition, Invention, and Adapta- 

 tion. The one most dwelt upon is imitation. 

 Next to this invention has come to be recognized 

 as having been given a special meaning by 

 Tarde. We read less about repetition and op- 

 position in their new roles, while adaptation 

 scarcely receives any amplification at Tarde's 

 hands. 



First, then, as to imitation as a social law. 

 That men have always imitated one another, 

 especially in what they deemed good, is, of 

 course, well known, but it had not been per- 

 ceived that this is the basis of all custom, of all 

 morals, and of the social order. Imitation is 

 specially characteristic of the lower races and 



of the higher animals. The first of these facts 

 is a common remark of travelers and ethnog- 

 raphers. The second is attested by language 

 itself, the word for ape in most languages being 

 that for mimicry. In the development of mind 

 imitation is the natural and necessary precur- 

 sor of imagination, and all early art consists in 

 mere copying. Who has not noted the slavish 

 conventionalism of aboriginal and even civil- 

 ized art patterns ? Below the psychic plane and 

 in the simple world of life, the homologue of 

 imitation is clearly heredity, i. e. , reproduc- 

 tion of what already exists. But this is only 

 transmission from one body to another. The 

 same process is going on within the organic 

 body. Here it takes the name o'i nutrition, and 

 growth itself is a form of imitation. Below the 

 life plane and throughout the inorganic world 

 something very similar takes place. Here it is 

 simply impact, producing motion, and the phys- 

 ical homologue of imitation is causation. Imi- 

 tation is the universal conservative principle of 

 nature. 



Repetition is included in imitation. It is 

 the mechanical effect of which imitation is 

 the physical cause. It results whether the 

 force behind it be psychic, vital, or physical. 

 It is therefore rather an accessory term express- 

 ing the necessary consequence of imitation than 

 a new coordinate fact in Tarde's system. 



Opposition is the resistance with which the 

 effort to repeat, reproduce, and perpetuate con- 

 stantly meets from the impinging environment. 

 It is, as Tarde says, 'universal.' In human 

 society it embraces not only the conflicts with 

 the elements and with wild beasts, but the far 

 more formidable conflicts among races and na- 

 tions — helium omnium contra omnes. It is also 

 oppression and revolution, monopoly and com- 

 petition, and the strife of capital and labor. In 

 the organic world it is nothing short of the uni- 

 versal 'struggle for existence,' so clearly set 

 forth by Darwin. In a word, it represents the 

 environment. In the physical world it is the 

 innumerable obstructions in the path of every 

 moving body, producing collisions and arrest- 

 ing, deflecting, constraining, and transmuting 

 motion. 



Invention is the first step in advance. It is 

 not universal, but appears sporadically. It is 



