THE BASIS OF SOCIOLOGY 535 



superior to the individual, we appeal to a supra-rational principle, 

 to one which claims precisely to be superior to the Ludividual reason. 

 This conception of the social organisation as a religious organisa- 

 tion we find nowhere better expressed than by M. de Roberty 

 in a recent work. That eminent sociologist is precisely one of 

 those who see in rehgion a superstition of bygone ages ; and it is 

 therefore gratifying to find him so expressly associating sociology 

 and morality. M. de Roberty's definition of sociology is as 

 follows : 



" A transmutation sui generis of the organic mvZtiplioity (species, race) 

 in a higher or superorganic unity (commvinity, city), accompanied by the 

 metamorphosis of the organic unity (egoism, isolation, parasitical sym- 

 biosis) in a superorganic multiplicity (altruism, co-operation, solidarity). 

 This definition, I need hardly say, aims at nothing less than at making 

 what is called the ' moral sense,' or morality the basis and the starting- 

 point of all sociology. The latter would be thus closely assimilated to 

 ethics." 1 



One of the chapters in this same book of M. de Roberty is 

 entitled La Decheance des Religions. And yet let us read what 

 M. de Roberty has to say concerning one of the highest and 

 purest forms of supra-rational symbolism — concerning love, than 

 which nothing is less rationalist, because nothing more markedly 

 transcends the limits of the individual, because nothing is more 

 essentially a completion of the concept of individuality, because 

 nothing is so little based on reason. Love is, Uke faith, the 

 outpouring of the deepest fountains of the emotional nature of 

 man. It has been said — by Max Stimer amongst others — that 

 love is but a form of egoism ; that our love for another is but 

 the ardent wish to gratify our own desires ; that our love for a 

 woman is but a desire to possess the object of our love ; that 

 iu other words, love does but serve to mask the passions of 

 self-gratifi.cation and of self -flattery ; that we are flattered when 

 our love breaks down the barriers opposed to it ; and that love 



1 E. de Roberty, Nouveau Programme de Sociologie : Esquisse d^une 

 Introduction generale a V Etude des Sciences du Monde Surorganique, p. 14. 

 Paris, Aloan, 1904. 



