252 HEREDITY AND SELECTION IN SOCIOLOGY 



organisation, coupled with the powerful ascendancy of the latter, 

 preserved the stability of domestic institutions in Europe through- 

 out the vicissitudes of fifteen centuries.^ 



The ecclesiastical organisation, as we have said, is to-day 

 much weakened. Can we hope to revive its force, to regenerate 

 social life through the influence of the Church ? This question 

 is a difiicult one to answer, and it is not here the place to 

 discuss it. A volume in itself would have to be written were 

 the subject to be treated in detail ; and the sociologist would 

 run the risk of confounding his purely personal views with the 

 reaUties of the situation, and of interpreting social evolution 

 from a subjective instead of from an entirely objective stand- 

 point. Another solution may perhaps be found in the reorganisa- 

 tion of those ties of professional soHdarity which characterised 

 so markedly the economic life of the Middle Ages, and which the 

 development of capitalist production has destroyed. But here, 

 again, we should have to examine closely the structure and func- 

 tions of the guilds and corporations of former times, and see 

 whether the establishment of bodies, not identical, of course, 

 but modified so as to adapt them to the necessities of modem 

 life, is a possibility with which the sociologist can reckon. One 

 general conclusion can, however, be drawn from this considera- 

 tion of suicide as a social factor : the urgent necessity for the 

 re- establishment of a principle capable of ensuring adequate 

 social integration. From this conclusion we may draw the 

 corollary that individualism is the great danger confronting us 

 at the present time. Once we are assured of this fact, the remedy 

 can be found, if only we set resolutely to work to find it. 



^ The study of suicide as a social factor is so important, that the question 

 can only be touched upon in its broad outlines in the present book. We 

 would refer the reader to Professor Durkheim's work (pp. 289-311), and 

 to an article contributed by us to the Revue de Philosophie (February, 1907) 

 for details concerning the influence of divorce on suicide. It wiU be seen 

 that the study of suicide as a social factor leads to unexpectedly fruitful 

 results, and throws a vivid light on the nature of so fundamental an 

 institution as marriage. 



