VII

In the two preceding chapters, we have shown that the universal sociological point of view may be of service to science in two ways, by liberating it, first, from those hollow entities brought about by misunderstanding the relation of conditions to result, and then mistakenly substituted for the real agents; and second, from the prejudiced belief in the perfect similarity of these elementary agents. These two advantages are, however, purely negative; I will now try to show what more positive information we can gain by the same method regarding the inner nature of the elements. It is not enough to say that the elements are diverse, we must specify in what their diversity consists. This will demand several developments of our theory.

What is society? It could be defined, from our point of view, as each individual's reciprocal possession, in many highly varied forms, of every other. Unilateral possession, such as that in ancient law of the slave by the master, of the son by the father, or of the wife by the husband, is only a first step towards the social link. Thanks to the development of civilization, the possessed becomes more and more a possessor, and the possessor a possessed, until, by equality of right, by popular sovereignty, and by the equitable exchange of services, ancient slavery, now mutualized and universalized, makes each citizen at once the master and the servant of every other. At the same time, the ways of possessing one's fellow citizens, and of being possessed by them, grow in number every day. Every new administration or industry which is created sets to work new administrators or industrialists on behalf of those who are administered by them or who consume their products, and who in this sense gain a real right with respect to them, a right which they did not previously have, while they themselves conversely have come, by this new two-sided relation, to belong to these industrialists or administrators. We may say the same of any new opportunity. When a newly opened railway brings produce from the sea to a small town far inland for the first time, the domain of the town's inhabitants has grown to include the fishermen who are now part of it, and the clientele of the fishermen, correspondingly, has grown to include the townspeople. As a subscriber to a newspaper, I possess my journalists, who possess their subscribers. I possess my government, my religion, my police force, just as much as my specifically human form, my temperament, and my health; but I also know that the ministers of my nation, the priests of my confession or the police officers of my county count me as one of the flock they guard; and in the same way, the human form, if it were somehow personified, would see in me only one of its particular variations.

All philosophy hitherto has been based on the verb Be , the definition of which was the philosopher's stone, which all sought to discover. We may affirm that, if it had been based on the verb Have , many sterile debates and fruitless intellectual exertions would have been avoided. From this principle, I am, all the subtlety in the world has not made it possible to deduce any existence other than my own: hence the negation of external reality. If, however, the postulate I have is posited as the fundamental fact, both that which has and that which is had are given inseparably at once.

If having seems to indicate being, being surely implies having. Being, that hollow abstraction, is never conceived except as the property of something, of some other being, which is itself composed of properties, and so on to infinity. At root, the whole content of the concept of being is exhausted by the concept of having. But the converse is not true: being is not the whole content of the idea of property.

The concrete and substantial concept which one discovers in oneself is, therefore, that of having. Instead of the famous cogito ergo sum, I would prefer to say: I desire, I believe, therefore I have. The verb to be means in some cases to have, and in others to be equal to. 'My arm is hot': the heat of my arm is the property of my arm. Here is means has. 'A Frenchman is a European, a metre is a measure of length'. Here is means is equal to. But this equality itself is only the relation of part to whole, of genus to species or vice versa, that is, a kind of relation of possession. In these two meanings, therefore, being is reducible to having.

If one wishes to forcibly draw from the concept of Being implications which are precluded by its essential sterility, one has to put it in opposition to non-being, and grant to the latter term (which is nothing but an empty objectification of our faculty of denial, as Being is an objectification of our faculty of affirmation) a wholly unwarranted importance.—In this respect, the Hegelian system can be considered the last word in the philosophy of Being. Embarked on this path, one will have to concoct impenetrable, and basically contradictory, concepts of becoming and disappearance, the old empty pap of Teutonic ideologues.⁵⁵ By contrast, nothing could be clearer than the concepts of gain and loss, of acquisition and divestment, which take this place in the philosophy of Having, if we may thus name something which does not yet exist. Between being and non-being there is no middle term, whereas one can have more or less.

Being and non-being, ego and non-ego: barren oppositions which obscure the real correlatives. The true opposite of the ego is not the non-ego but the mine; the true opposite of being, that is of having, is not non-being but what is had.

The deep and accelerating divergence between the course of science strictly speaking and that of philosophy comes from the fact that the former, happily, has chosen for its guide the verb Have. For science, everything is explained by properties, not by entities. Science disdains the unsatisfactory relation of substance to phenomenon, two empty terms which only are only the doubles of Being; it makes only moderate use of the relation of cause to effect, in which possession appears in only one of its two forms, and the less important, namely possession by desire. But science has made considerable use and, unfortunately, abuse of the relation of proprietor⁵⁶ to property. The abuse has consisted primarily in having misunderstood this relation by failing to see that the real property of any proprietor is a set of other proprietors; that each mass, each molecule of the solar system, for example, has for its physical and mechanical property not words like extension, mobility and so on, but all the other masses, all the other molecules; that each atom of a molecule has for its chemical property, not atomicities or affinities, but all the other atoms of the same molecule; that each cell of an organism has for its biological property, not irritability, contractibility, innervation, and so on, but all the other cells of the same organism, and in particular, of the same organ. Here possession is reciprocal, as in every intra-social relation; but it can be unilateral, as in the extra-social relation of master to slave, or of the farmer to his cattle. For example, the retina has for its property, not vision, but the luminously vibrating ethereal atoms, which do not possess it; and the mind possesses mentally all the objects of its thought, to which it in no way belongs. Is this to say that the abstract terms, mobility, density, weight, affinity, and so on, express nothing and correspond to nothing? They mean, I think, that beyond the real domain of every element, there is its conditionally necessary domain, that is certain although unreal, and that the ancient distinction between the real and the possible, in a new sense, is not a chimera.

The elements are, certainly, agents as much as they are proprietors; but they can be proprietors without being agents, and they cannot be agents without being proprietors. Moreover, their action can be revealed to us only as a change in the nature of their possession.

On closer investigation, it will be seen that the sole cause of the superiority of the scientific point of view over the philosophical point of view is the fortunate choice of fundamental relation adopted by scientists, and that all the remaining obscurities and weaknesses of science spring from the incomplete analysis of this relation.

For thousands of years, thinkers have catalogued the different ways of being and the different degrees of being, and have never thought to classify the different types and degrees of possession. Possession is, nonetheless, the universal fact, and there is no better term than acquisition to express the formation and growth of any being. The terms correspondence and adaptation,⁵⁷ brought into fashion by Darwin and Spencer, are more vague and equivocal, and grasp the universal fact only from the outside. Is it true that the bird's wing is adapted to air, the fish's fin to water, the eye to light? No, no more than the locomotive is adapted to coal, or the sewing machine to the seamstress' thread. Shall we also say that the vasomotor nerves, the ingenious mechanism by which the internal equilibrium of the body's temperature is maintained despite variations in the external temperature, are adapted to these variations? Fighting against would be a curious form of adapting to! The locomotive is adapted, if you will, to terrestrial locomotion, and the wing to aerial locomotion, and this comes down to saying that the wing utilizes the air to move, as the locomotive uses coal, as the fin uses water. Does this using not mean taking possession? Every being wants, not to make itself appropriate for external beings, but to appropriate them for itself. Atomic or molecular bonding⁵⁸ in the physical world, nutrition in the living world, perception in the intellectual world, law in the social world, possession in its innumerable forms never ceases to extend from a being to other beings, by the interlacing of various and increasingly subtle domains.

It is variable in its infinite degrees as well as in its multiple forms. Stars, for example, possess each other with an intensity which grows or shrinks in inverse proportion to the square of their distance. The vitality of organisms, that is the intimate solidarity of their parts, rises or falls continuously. From deepest sleep to the most perfect clarity of mind, thought ranges over a wide gamut which marks the growth of its special dominion over the world. When security is re-established in a country which has been subject to great upheavals, does each citizen not still feel himself to be master of those of his compatriots from whom he has the right to expect some service—that is to say, of all his compatriots—and on whose legitimate help he relies more strongly than before?

Whatever form possession takes, be it physical, chemical, vital, mental, or social (not to speak of the subdivisions of each form), we must first distinguish whether it is unilateral or reciprocal, and second, whether it is established between an element and one or more other elements considered individually, or between an element and an indistinct group of other elements. Let us first speak briefly of this second distinction. When I enter into verbal communication with one or several of my fellows, our respective monads, in my view, reciprocally grasp each other; at least, it is certain that this relation is the relation of a social element with other social elements that are taken as distinct. By contrast, when

I look at, listen to, or study nature, rocks, water, or even plants, each object of my thought is a hermetically closed world of elements, which all doubtless know each other or grasp each other intimately, like the members of a social group, but which can be encompassed by me only as a whole and from the outside. The chemist can only hypothesize the atom, and is certain of never being able to act on it individually. Matter, as the chemist understands and uses the concept, is a compact dust of distinct atoms, whose distinctions are effaced by their enormous number and by the illusory continuity of their actions. In the living but inanimate, or apparently inanimate, world, can our monad find some less confused phantom, and grasp it? It seems it can. The element, already, intuits the element; the girl who tends a flower loves it with a devotion which no diamond could inspire in her.

We must, however, look to the social world to see monads laid bare, grasping each other in the intimacy of their transitory characters, each fully unfolded before the other, in the other, by the other. This is the relation par excellence, the paradigm of possession of which all others are only sketches or reflections. By persuasion, by love and hate, by personal prestige, by common beliefs and desires, or by the mutual chain of contract, in a kind of tightly knit network which extends indefinitely, social elements hold each other or pull each other in a thousand ways, and from their competition the marvels of civilization are born.

Are not the marvels of organization and life born from a similar action, from vital element to vital element, and doubtless from atom to atom? I am inclined to think so, for reasons which it would take too long to explain here. Must it not be likewise for chemical creations and for astronomical formations? Newtonian attraction surely acts from one atom to another, since the most complicated chemical operations do not alter it at all.

In that case, the possessive action of monad upon monad, of element upon element, would be the only truly fertile relation. As for the action of a monad, or at least of an element, on a confused group of indiscriminate monads or elements, or conversely, it would only be an accidental perturbation of the wonderful works wrought by the elements' duel or by their marriage. As much as the relation of element to element is creative, so the relation of element to group is destructive, but both are necessary.

Unilateral possession and reciprocal possession are, likewise, necessarily united. But the latter is superior to the former. It is reciprocal possession which explains the formation of those beautiful celestial mechanisms in which, by the power of mutual attraction, every point is a centre. Reciprocal possession explains the creation of these admirable living organisms whose parts are all united and solidary, and where everything is both an end and a means at once. By reciprocal possession, finally, in the free cities of antiquity and in modern states, mutuality of service and equality of right bring about the prodigious achievements of our sciences, industries, and arts. Let us observe that, if organized beings resulted from a process of fabrication by a single being, or from the regular differentiation of a single homogenous substance, it would be impossible to account for our surprising ability to see the parts of these beings as made for the whole, or the whole as made for the parts. Beings, or rather manufactured objects, would be, with respect to the manufacturer, that which our furniture or tools are to us: mere means, which no sophistical juggling will ever disguise as ends with respect to our acts. As for the unique substance which, some think, creates particular beings by spontaneously splitting itself, it is impossible to see why, first, if it carried no goal within itself, it would have emerged from its primitive undifferentiated state; nor, secondly, why, prior to any differentiation, alone in the world, it took a roundabout way to attain its goal rather than going straight there, used a means instead of grasping its end directly, and preferred the tortuous paths of evolution to the short and easy way of immediate actuation. Finally, even leaving aside these insurmountable difficulties, it is impossible to answer this question: how, once it decided to evolve, to take this roundabout way to attain its goal or goals, was this unique substance able to will one thing for this and another thing for that, that is, to neutralize each act of will by another, which comes down to having no will at all, and which, to repeat, makes its subsequent differentiation incomprehensible?

By contrast, on the hypothesis of the monads, everything follows naturally. Each monad draws the world to itself, and thus has a better grasp of itself. Of course, they are parts of each other, but they can belong to each other to a greater or lesser extent, and each aspires to the highest degree of possession; whence their gradual concentration; and besides, they can belong to each other in a thousand different ways, and each aspires to learn new ways to appropriate its peers. Hence their transformations. They transform in order to conquer; but, since none will ever submit to another except out of self-interest, none can fully accomplish its ambitious dream, and the sovereign monad is exploited by its vassal monads, even as it makes use of them.

The bizarre and grimacing character of reality, visibly torn apart by fratricidal wars, followed by awkward transactions, demonstrates that the world contains multiple agents. Their multiplicity attests to their diversity, and finds its reason only in this diversity. Already born diverse, the agents tend to diversify themselves even further, as their nature demands; on the other hand, their diversity depends on their being not unities, but totalities of a special form.

It seems to me, moreover, that many perplexing enigmas could be resolved by imagining that the specialty of each element, a true universal medium (milieu), is to be not only a totality, but a certain kind of virtuality, and to incarnate within itself a cosmic idea which is always called, but rarely destined, to realize itself effectively. This would be, as it were, to house Plato's ideas in Epicurus' atoms, or rather Empedocles', since, if Zeller is to be believed, the latter apparently professed, like Leibniz, the diversity of elements.⁵⁹ It is useful, now and again, to be able to take shelter behind some Greek ancestor.

Two points are evidently lacking in current transformist theories of evolution. In conflict with the force which tends to conserve living forms, they imagine a diversifying force, which they then do not know where to put. In general they disperse it outside the organism, in accidents of climate, of environment, of nutrition, or of growth, and refuse to recognize an internal cause of diversity at the heart of the organism itself. Secondly, whether projected from inside or stimulated from outside, specific variations, which are the building blocks of the Darwinian system, are divergences without an aim, rebellions without a programme, disordered fantasies. However, do we not see, under an established and consistent government, the essential sterility and mutual neutralization of oppositions which are not enflamed by any political ideal of their own, by any dream of social palingenesis? It is impossible to conceive that such madness could triumph in a living being,

or that it could be of any possible use; and, were this madness to persist for the maximum astronomically possible duration, this would not be long enough to make remotely probable the fortuitous agreement of these ruptures of equilibrium in a new vital equilibrium, the construction of a new order from this accumulated disorder. But, on our hypothesis, the force of diversification of forms, as much as the force of their conservation, has a tangible support within the organism, and it has a direction. We must see every spontaneous modification of a living species, even the most fleeting, as aiming towards another species, which it would attain if exaggerated sufficiently.

Among the variations, let us not confuse those which are produced accidentally and from outside, by the vagaries of chance, and those which are due to the long-standing struggle, in the heart of each organism or of each state, between the triumphant ideal that constitutes it, and the constricted and stifled ideals which chafe beneath its yoke, yearning to emerge and blossom forth. The former are usually neutralized; in most cases it is only the latter which come to fruition. All historians, knowingly or not, make this distinction. Beside the great facts which they relate often, for the sake of their conscience, they emphasize with special care the smallest reforms and the most obscure discussions, barely noted by their contemporaries, which attest to the appearance of new religious or political ideas. For example, the slow encroachment of royal power upon the feudal order, the skirmishes between parliaments and kings, between commoners and lords. Such and such an obscure act of Philip the Fair, which demonstrates a clear orientation towards the still distant administrative centralization of modern France, is of more value to the historian than the trial of the Templars.⁶⁰ However bad a social constitution may be, it will last until another is conceived. However false the reigning philosophical system, it will persist until the day when a new theory comes to dethrone it.

Notes

55. [Trans. Note: In Hegel's logic, the 'disappearance' (Verschwinden) of being into non-being and vice versa generates 'becoming' (Werden) (Science of Logic, vol 1, book 1, sec 1, ch 1.C.1, 'Unity of Being and Nothing').]↩
56. [Trans. Note: Tarde's concept of 'property' (propriété) is deliberately ambiguous between the sense of 'goods owned' and the sense of 'characteristic' or 'quality'. The term 'proprietor' (propriétaire) is standard in both French and English for a person who has a property in the first sense, but not in the second. In Englishlanguage analytic philosophy, 'instance' is sometimes used to describe an entity which has a property in the second sense (which 'instantiates' the property), but this brings with it an implicit ontology of properties which is incompatible with Tarde's; I have therefore retained the term 'proprietor'. The theory of properties is discussed further in the Afterword.]↩
57. [Trans. Note: 'Adaptation' refers to Darwin's concept of the process through which a population becomes better suited to its environment through natural selection. Herbert Spencer developed Darwin's idea by seeing adaptation as a process of increasing 'correspondence' between the organism and its environment.]↩
58. [Trans. Note: Tarde uses the term 'adhesion' (adhérence), but appears to have the more general concept of 'bonding' in mind.]↩
59. [Trans. Note: Epicurus did hold that atoms were of distinct kinds, but they are not as clearly differentiated as the four elements of Empedocles (earth, air, fire and water). Leibniz held that each monads or element must be qualitatively distinct from every other (Monadology §§8-9), and saw this as an argument against atomism of the Epicurean type.]↩
60. [Trans. Note: The reign of Philip IV the Fair of France (r. 1285-1314) has been seen by historians as marking a transition from a charismatic to a more bureaucratic, modern form of monarchical rule. He initiated the suppression of the Knights Templar in 1307 and disbanded the Order in 1312.]↩