476 Darwinism and Sociology 
again, why? Because the greater density, in thrusting men up 
against each other, augments the intensity of their competition for the 
means of existence ; and for the problems which society thus has to 
face differentiation of functions presents itself as the gentlest solution. 
Here one sees that the writer borrows directly from Darwin. 
Competition is at its maximum between similars, Darwin had de- 
clared ; different species, not laying claim to the same food, could 
more easily coexist. Here lay the explanation of the fact that upon 
the same oak hundreds of different insects might be found. Other 
things being equal, the same applies to society. He who finds some 
unadopted speciality possesses a means of his own for getting a living. 
It is by this division of their manifold tasks that men contrive not to 
crush each other. Here we obviously have a Darwinian law serving 
as intermediary in the explanation of that progress of division of 
labour which itself explains so much in the social evolution. 
And we might take another example, at the other end of the 
series of sociological systems. G. Tarde is a sociologist with the most 
pronounced anti-naturalistic views. He has attempted to show that 
all application of the laws of natural science to society is misleading. 
In his Opposition Universelle he has directly combatted all forms of 
sociological Darwinism. According to him the idea that the evolu- 
tion of society can be traced on the same plan as the evolution of 
species is chimerical. Social evolution is at the mercy of all kinds of 
inventions, which by virtue of the laws of imitation modify, through 
individual to individual, through neighbourhood to neighbourhood, 
the general state of those beliefs and desires which are the only 
“quantities” whose variation matters to the sociologist. But, it may 
be rejoined, that however psychical the forces may be, they are none 
the less subject to Darwinian laws. They compete with each other ; 
they struggle for the mastery of minds. Between types of ideas, as 
between organic forms, selection operates. And though it may be 
that these types are ushered into the arena by unexpected discoveries, 
we yet recognise in the psychological accidents, which Tarde places at 
the base of everything, near relatives of those small accidental varia- 
tions upon which Darwin builds. Thus, accepting Tarde’s own repre- 
sentations, it is quite possible to express in Darwinian terms, with 
the necessary transpositions, one of the most idealistic sociologies 
that have ever been constructed. 
These few examples suffice. They enable us to estimate the 
extent of the field of influence of Darwinism. It affects sociology 
not only through the agency of its advocates but through that of its 
opponents. The questionings to which it has given rise have proved 
no less fruitful than the solutions it has suggested. In short, few 
doctrines, in the history of social philosophy, will have produced on 
their passage a finer outcrop of ideas. 
