140 ADAPTATION AND PROGRESS 
individual, prior to the individual and making him what he is, — 
in this going back to Comte only with refinements. That is, 
Durkheim gives specific content to the concept of society as a 
socio-psychical organism: it is the psychical somewhat over 
against the individual which forms that particular spiritual en- 
vironment into which he is born and which moulds his life. This 
environment, moreover, is not one but multiple. The individual 
is born into and moulded by the psychic somewhat represented by 
his particular family, later by that of the school he attends, later 
still by that of his vocational associations. Then there is the 
specific socio-psychic moulding power of his community and 
state. 
2. The Nature of Social Solidarity.— This social solidarity, 
according to our author, is of two kinds, mechanical and organic. 
His purpose in De la Division du Travail Social is to work out 
a positive ethics and in order to have an objective “‘ common to 
all,”” — an object for scientific investigation, — all phenomena of 
the inner life of individuals must be correlated to objective ex- 
pressions. The social consciousness expresses itself in laws, 
institutions, etc., and these are of a nature to be studied scienti- 
fically. The solidarity of society based on similarities or 
“‘consciousness of kind’ is expressed in mores and crystallized 
primarily in “ repressive right.” “ The bond of social solidarity 
to which repressive right corresponds is that whose rupture consti- 
tutes crime. . . . One knows what the bond is, then, by know- 
ing the particular crime which is considered most important. . . . 
The essential characters of crime are those which are found where- 
ever there is crime whatever may be the social type. Now the 
only characters which are or have been recognized as common to 
all are the following: (x) crime clashes with the sentiments which 
are possessed by all normal individuals of the society under 
consideration; (2) these sentiments are strong; (3) they are 
definite. Crime, then, is the act which clashes with the strong 
and definite states of collective consciousness.” ! The difference 
between the immoral act and the crime, he holds, is merely that 
the former violates sentiments diffused in individuals throughout 
1 De la Division du Travail Social, Table of Contents, p. 462. 
