364 HEREDITy ANB SELECTION IN SOCIOLOGY 



phenomena, as we saw clearly in regard to suicide, are phenomena 

 which obey their own laws, which pursue their own develop- 

 ment, and which are subject to variations due to causes sui 

 generis, quite independent of the laws which govern individual 

 psychology.^ But the laws which govern the evolution of 

 societies may have their repercussion on individual evolution. 

 Thus, to take a single instance, the development of society, 

 obeying laws of its own, may develop correspondingly the indi- 

 vidual activities within the society. 



^ This parallel development of social and individual activity is 

 in reality but the twofold aspect of one and the same funda- 

 mental law governing our present phase of evolution — that of 

 expansion. Indeed, social development has been but an in- 

 crease of individual power. It was in response to the categorical 

 imperative of expansion that the individual joined himself to 

 other individuals ; it was in order to subserve the growth of 

 individual power that societies were formed ; it is in the need for 

 individual expansion that the origin of all social life is to be 

 sought for. Our complex social institutions cannot be explained 

 otherwise than by reference to this fundamental need. In the 

 development of our industrial system we see this very clearly. 

 The introduction of machinery, the laws preventing working- 

 men from combining in defence of their interests, the system 

 which compelled women and children to exhausting labour in 

 the factories and mines, the creation of all those innumerable 

 ways and means, such as better lighting and quicker transport, 



1 The doctrine of " social psychology " associated with the name of 

 Tarde has certainly a solid foundation in so far as the acts of certain men 

 have a repercussion on society which may produce profound effects. But 

 to say, with Tarde, that all social phenomena, such as religion, national 

 character, etc., are the results only of imitation is to exclude the operation 

 of sociological laws in the strict sense of the term. Imitation has played 

 an incontestable rdle in the development of religions and of national char- 

 acter, but it is by no means the main factor in the development of these 

 phenomena ; and there are certain social phenomena, such as suicide, in 

 which the part played by imitation is practically nil. 



