IV

But this implies first of all that everything is a society, that every phenomenon is a social fact. Now, it is remarkable that science, following logically from its preceding tendencies, tends strangely to generalize the concept of society. Science tells us of animal societies (see Espinas' excellent book on this subject³¹), of cellular societies, and why not of atomic societies? I almost forgot to add societies of stars, solar and stellar systems. All sciences seem destined to become branches of sociology. Of course, I am aware that, by a mistaken apprehension of the direction of this current, some have been led to the conclusion that societies are organisms; but the truth is that, since the advent of cellular theory, organisms have on the contrary become societies of a particular kind, fiercely exclusive cities as imagined by a Lycurgus or a Rousseau, or better still, religious congregations of a prodigious tenacity which equals the majestic and invariable strangeness of their rites, an invariability which nonetheless does not count against their individual members' diversity and force of invention.

That a philosopher such as Spencer should assimilate societies to organisms³² is not surprising, and fundamentally not new, except perhaps for the extraordinary expenditure of imaginative erudition in the service of this view. But it is truly remarkable that a highly circumspect natural scientist such as Edmond Perrier can see in the assimilation of organisms to societies the key to the mysteries of living things and the ultimate formula of evolution. Having said that 'one may compare an animal or a plant to a populous town, in which numerous corporations flourish, and that blood cells are like merchants carrying with them in the liquid wherein they swim the complex baggage which they trade', he adds: 'In the same way that we have employed every comparison furnished by the degrees of consanguinity to express the relations of animals to each other, before supposing that they were genuinely related and in effect consanguineous, so the comparisons of organisms to societies and societies to organisms have recurred ceaselessly to the present day, without anyone seeing in these comparisons anything more than forms of expression. We, on the contrary, have arrived at the conclusion that association played a considerable, if not exclusive role in the gradual development of organisms', and so on.³³

It should however be noted at this point that science also increasingly assimilates organisms to mechanisms, and that it lowers the barriers previously erected between the living and the inorganic worlds. Why then may the molecule, for example, not be a society just as much as the plant or the animal? The relative regularity and permanence of the apparent opposition between phenomena of a molecular order and phenomena of a cellular or vital order should in no way lead us to reject this conjecture, if, with Cournot, we consider further that human societies pass, in the process of becoming civilized, from a barbaric and as it were organic phase to a physical and mechanical phase. In the first stage, all the general facts of the instinctive development of their genius, in their poetry, their arts, their languages, their customs and their laws, curiously recall the characteristics and processes of life; and thence they pass by degrees to an administrative, industrial, scientific, reasonable, and in a word mechanical phase, which by the great numbers which it has at its disposal, arranged in equal heaps by the statistician, gives rise to the appearance of economic laws or pseudo-laws, which are so analogous in many respects to physical laws, and particularly to the laws of statics. From this similarity, which is supported by a whole mass of facts, and for which I refer the reader to Cournot's Treatise on the Order of the Fundamental Ideas,³⁴ it follows first of all that the chasm between the nature of inorganic beings and the nature of living things is not unbridgeable (contrary to an error which Cournot himself makes on this point), since we see the same evolution, that of our societies, take on alternately the attributes of the latter and those of the former. It follows secondly that if a living thing is a society, a fortiori a purely mechanical being must also be one, since the progress of society consists in mechanization. A molecule would then be, compared to an organism or to a State, only a kind of infinitely more numerous and more advanced nation, arrived at the stationary period which J. S. Mill calls forth with all his will.³⁵

Let us move immediately on to the most specious objection yet made to this assimilation of organisms, and a fortiori of physical things, to societies. The most striking contrast between nations and living bodies is that living bodies have defined and symmetric contours, while the borders of nations or the walls of cities are drawn on the earth with a capricious irregularity which clearly demonstrates the absence of any pre-ordained plan. Spencer and Espinas have responded in different ways to this difficulty,³⁶ but, I believe, there is another possible response.

The contrast cannot be denied—it is a very real one—but it admits of a plausible explanation; here I offer a simplified version of this explanation for ease of understanding. Leaving to one side the defined and symmetrical nature of organic forms, let us focus solely on another characteristic linked to the former, namely that the length, breadth and height of an organism are never in extreme disproportion to one another. In snakes and poplar trees, height or length is noticeably greater than the other dimensions; in flatfish the thickness is much less; but, in any case, the disproportion visible in these extreme forms cannot be likened to that consistently displayed by any given social aggregate. Take for example China, which has a length and breadth of 3000 kilometres, but an average height of only 1 or 2 metres, since the Chinese are rather short and their buildings low. Even a mediaeval state consisting of a single fortified town tightly constrained within its defensive walls, and whose houses of several floors overhang the streets, still has a very small thickness compared to its horizontal extension. But does this latter example not put us on the trail of the desired solution? It is in order to better resist external attack that a city is fortified and agglomerated, and that floors mount up; if in modern capitals, where this huddling-up is not imposed by the insecurity of the times, houses still tend to become ever taller, this is for a reason which often conflicts with the preceding, namely to satisfy the need felt by an ever-growing number of men to participate in the social advantages of the greatest possible assembly of people in the smallest possible space. If this lively instinct of sociability which makes men want to agglomerate themselves, either to better defend themselves or to develop themselves more fully, did not rapidly encounter an impassable limit, it is likely that we would see nations composed of clusters of men towering into the air, supported on the earth without spreading over it. But it is hardly necessary to indicate why this is impossible. A nation which was as high as it was wide would surpass the breathable zone of the earth's atmosphere by a considerable distance, and the earth's crust provides no material sufficiently solid for the titanic constructions demanded by such urban development in a vertical direction. Besides, beyond a height of a few metres, the resulting inconveniences outweigh the advantages, as a result of man's physical makeup, in which all the senses and organs respond exclusively to the demands of horizontal expansion. Man's nature is to walk rather than climb, to see forwards and not up or down, and so on. Finally, the enemies he fears do not fly in the air but wander on the earth. In this light, it would be of no use to a nation to be very tall. For cellular aggregates such as animals or plants, the situation is otherwise. They are just as likely to be unexpectedly attacked from above as from the side, and must therefore be prepared to defend themselves in every direction. Moreover, the constitution of the anatomical elements which make up living bodies is nowise limited to co-ordination in the horizontal plane. There is therefore no obstacle to the unlimited satisfaction of the sociable instincts which we see in them.

This said, do we not see that, the more a social aggregate grows in height at the expense of its two other dimensions, and in this respect diminishes the (albeit still considerable) distance which separates it from organic forms, the more it comes to resemble the latter also by its regularity and by the increasing symmetry of its external shape and internal structure? A large public corporation, a government school, a barracks, or a monastery are all so many highly centralized and highly disciplined small States, which confirm this perspective on the facts. Conversely, when an organized being such as a lichen on occasion takes the form of a thin layer of widely spread cells, it will be noted that its contours are ill-defined and asymmetrical.

We may discover the significance of this symmetry which, as a rule, is enjoyed by living forms, by another kind of consideration borrowed once more from our societies. In vain have theorists attempted to explain this symmetry by considerations of functional utility. We may prove as much as we like, with Spencer, that locomotion demanded that organisms pass from radial symmetry to bilateral symmetry, which is lesser but more perfect, and that where the maintenance of symmetry was incompatible with the health of the individual or the perpetuation of the species (for example in flatfish), the symmetry has been broken, in an exception to the general rule. But it should not be forgotten that wherever possible, all that could be retained of the primordial symmetry whence life originated (probably spherical, that is to say full and vague), and all that could be derived from the precise and truly beautiful symmetry at which life arrives in its progress, has been conserved or realized. Through the whole gamut of plant and animal life, from diatoms to orchids, from corals to man, the tendency towards symmetry is evident. Where does this tendency come from? Observe that, in our social world, everything which results not from a competition of intermingled plans which clash together, but from an individual's design executed without hindrance, is symmetrical and regular. Kant's philosophical monument where volumes and chapters harmoniously reflect one another; the administrative, financial and military systems established by Napoleon I; the cities which the English have built in Guyana, with their streets drawn by ruler, meeting at right angles, ending in a square surrounded by lowered porticos; our churches, our railway stations, and so on; everything, to repeat, which emanates from a thought which is free, ambitious and strong, master of itself and of others, seems to obey some internal necessity in displaying the luxury of striking regularity and symmetry. Every despot has a love of symmetry; if a writer, he must have constant antitheses; if a philosopher, repeated dichotomies and trichotomies; if a king, ceremony, etiquette, and military parades. If so, and if, as will be shown below, the possibility of individuals' executing their plans completely and on a large scale is a sign of social progress, it follows necessarily that the symmetrical and regular nature of living things attests to the high degree of perfection achieved by cellular societies, and to the enlightened despotism to which they are subject. We should not lose sight of the fact that, since cellular societies are a thousand times older than human societies, the inferiority of the latter is hardly surprising. Besides, human societies are limited in their progress by the small number of men which the planet can support. The greatest empire of the world, China, has only 300 or 400 million subjects. An organism which contained only this number of ultimate anatomical elements would necessarily be placed towards the bottom of the scale of plant or animal life.

Having thus met the objection which draws on organic form to argue against the similarity of organisms to social groups, it behoves us to say a word about another not inconsequential objection. Some have contrasted the variability of human societies, even those which are slowest to change, with the relative fixity of organic species. But if, as can be shown, the almost exclusive cause of the internal differentiation of a social form should be sought in the extra-social relations of its members, that is, in their relations, either with the fauna, the flora, the soil, the atmosphere of their country, or with the members of foreign societies which are differently constituted, this difference is not surprising. Due to the very nature of its arrangement—which is entirely superficial and not voluminous, almost without thickness—to the extreme dispersion of its elements, and to the multiplicity of intellectual and industrial exchanges between one people and another, the social aggregate of men includes an unusually low proportion of essentially conservative intra-social relations between its members, and prevents them from maintaining among themselves the omnilateral social relations presupposed by the globular form of a cell or an organism.

In support of the above view, we may remark that external cutaneous cells, which have a monopoly on the principal extra-social relations, are in every case the most easily modifiable. Nothing is more variable than the skin and its appendages; in plants, the epidermis is in different cases glabrous, hairy, spiny, etc. This cannot be explained solely by the heterogeneity of the external environment, which is presumed to be greater than that of the internal environment. This latter point is not at all proven. Besides, and consequently, it is always the external cells which set in motion the variations of the rest of the organism. The proof is that the internal organs of new species, although modified to some extent relative to the species from which they emerge, always undergo a lesser modification than do the peripheral organs, and seem to be laggards on the path of organic progress.³⁷

Is it necessary to point out that, in the same way, most revolutions in a State are due to the internal fermentation produced by the introduction of new ideas which mobile populations, sailors,

soldiers returned from campaigns in distant parts such as the Crusades, bring back every day from foreign lands? One would hardly be mistaken in seeing an organism as a jealous and closed city, just as the ancients dreamed.

I will pass over a number of secondary objections which the application of the sociological point of view may encounter along its way. Since, after all, the fundamental nature of things is strictly inaccessible, and we are obliged to construct hypotheses in order to penetrate it, let us openly adopt this one and push it to its conclusion. Hypotheses fingo, I say naively. What is dangerous in the sciences are not tightly linked conjectures, logically followed to the ultimate depths or the ultimate precipices, but rather the ghosts of ideas which float aimlessly in the mind. The universal sociological point of view seems to me to be one of these spectres which haunt the brains of our speculative contemporaries. Let us from the start see where it will lead us. Let us push ideas to their extreme, at the risk of being taken for extravagant. In this matter in particular, the fear of ridicule is the most antiphilosophical of sentiments. All the developments which follow will be aimed at demonstrating the profound renewal which the sociological interpretation must, or should, bring about in every domain of knowledge.

As a preamble, let us take an example at random. From our point of view, what is signified by the great truth that every activity of the soul is linked to the functioning of some bodily apparatus? It comes down to the fact that in a society no individual can act socially, or show himself in any respect, without the collaboration of a great number of other individuals, most of them unknown to him. The obscure labourers who, by the accumulation of tiny facts, prepare the appearance of a great scientific theory formulated by a Newton, a Cuvier, or a Darwin, compose in some sense the organism of which this genius is the soul; and their labours are the cerebral vibrations of which this theory is the consciousness. Consciousness means in some sense the cerebral glory of the brain's most influential and powerful element. Thus, left to its own devices, a monad can achieve nothing. This is the crucial fact, and it immediately explains another, the tendency of monads to assemble. This tendency expresses, I believe, the need for a maximum of expended belief. When this maximum is attained at the point of universal cohesion, then desire, now entirely fulfilled, will be annihilated, and time will come to an end. Let us also observe that the obscure labourers I mentioned above may sometimes have as much merit, erudition, and force of thought, as the celebrated beneficiary of their labours, or indeed even more. I make this remark in passing, to address the prejudice which leads us to judge all external monads inferior to ourselves. If the ego is only a director monad among the myriads of commensal monads in the same skull, why, fundamentally, should we believe the latter to be inferior? Is a monarch necessarily more intelligent than his ministers or his subjects?

Notes

31. [Trans. Note: See note 27 above.]↩
32. [Trans. Note: Herbert Spencer (1820-1903), philosopher. See 'The Social Organism' (1860), in Essays: Scientific, Political and Speculative, London, Williams and Norgate, 1868, vol. I, pp. 384-428.]↩
33. [Trans. Note: For Perrier, see note 15 above. This citation has not been traced (Tarde may be paraphrasing rather than citing exactly).]↩
34. [Trans. Note: Cournot, Traité (note 17), section IV.1 (ed. cited pp. 296-311).]↩
35. [Trans. Note: See J. S. Mill, 'Of the Stationary State', Principles of Political Economy, vol. II, book IV, ch. 6, 5th ed., London, Parker, Son & Bourn, 1862, pp. 320-326.]↩
36. [Trans. Note: Spencer's and Espinas' responses are in fact broadly similar, and primarily rest on questioning the presumption that the forms of organisms are necessarily well-defined and symmetrical (see e.g. Spencer, 'The Social Organism', edition cited, pp. 393-394; Espinas, Les Sociétés animales, pp. 216-217).]↩
37. To cite only one example, M C Vogt says (in 1879, at a congress of Swiss naturalists, speaking of Archaeopteryx macroura, intermediate between reptiles and birds): 'I believe I have proved that adaptation to flight [in reptiles in the process of becoming birds] works from the outside to the inside, from the skin to the skeleton, and that the latter can remain perfectly intact … while the skin has already come to develop feathers'.↩