Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 2008, volume 26, pages 761 ^ 777
doi:10.1068/d2606td
The debate between Tarde and DurkheimÀ
¨¨
Script by Eduardo Viana Vargas, Bruno Latour, Bruno Karsenti, Frederique A|« t-Touati,
Louise Salmon
English translation by Amaleena Damle, Matei Candea
è
``Do you recall the discussion between Durkheim and my father, at the Ecole des
è
Hautes Etudes Sociales? Before they had even said a word, one sensed by their
faces, their looks, their gestures, the distance that lay between these two men.
One knew that such a discussion was sheer madness. ''
Guillaume De Tarde (1)
Introductory notes
A momentous debate concerning the nature of sociology and its relation to other
è è
sciences took place between Gabriel Tarde and Emile Durkheim at the Ecole des
è
Hautes Etudes Sociales in 1903. Unfortunately the only available record of the event
is a brief overview which English readers may find in Terry Clark's 1969 edited volume
On Communication and Social Influence (University of Chicago Press, Chicago).
The present recension of the debate, therefore, is based on a script consisting of
è
quotations from the works of Gabriel Tarde and Emile Durkheim, arranged to form a
dialogue. All text, save that in square brackets, consists of quotations from published
è
works by Emile Durkheim and Gabriel Tarde. A short version of it was acted out,
è
in French, by Bruno Latour (Gabriel Tarde), Bruno Karsenti (Emile Durkheim), and
¨¨
Simon Schaffer (The Dean), under the direction of Frederique A|« t-Touati, on 14 March
2008, at McCrum Lecture Theatre, Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, UK, as part
of the conference Tarde/Durkheim: Trajectoires of the Social. A podcast video of it is
available at http://www.crassh.cam.ac.uk/events/47/.
* * *
The Dean, Mr Alfred Croiset
[Ladies and Gentlemen,
è è
On behalf of the Directors, Emile Boutroux and Emile Duclaux, and the Secretary
è è
General, Dick May, I am delighted to welcome you to the Ecole des Hautes Etudes
Sociales, at our premises of 16 rue de la Sorbonne.
Founded exactly three years ago, in November 1900, as an institute for the teaching
è è
of social sciences, the Ecole des Hautes Etudes Sociales aims to study the highly
complex ensemble of questions that are most markedly and directly social. Not being
in the least hostile to theory, it is nonetheless primarily concerned with the concrete,
and with an engagement with the issues of our time.
Last July the 10th International Sociology Congress was dedicated to the ``Relations
Between Psychology and Sociology''. Following on from this theme, we have chosen to
dedicate a series of conferences to the ``Relations Between Sociology and Other Social
(1) Quotation from Paulhan (1980, page 20).
{ Contact: Eduardo Viana Vargas, Federal University of Minas Gerais, Belo Horizonte, Brazil; e-mail:
evvargas@gmail.com; Matei Candea, Department of Social Anthropology, University of Cambridge,
Cambridge CB2 3RF, England; e-mail: mc288@cam.ac.uk

762 The debate between Tarde and Durkheim
è
Sciences and Auxiliary Disciplines'' in the compass of the sociology course at the E cole
Sociale for the academic year 1903 ^ 4.
A fledgling discipline, sociology has a definite impact on the apprehension of
current social questions. Two eminent colleagues will speak for this discipline today.
They will define it and demonstrate its specificity, exposing the methods that they deem
pertinent to this discipline within the context of a contradictory discussion.
It is, then, as President of the Board of Directors and President of the Teaching
è ¨
Committee at the E cole de Morale et de Pedagogie, that I have the honour to
introduce:
©
To my right, Mr Gabriel Tarde, Professor at the College de France, Chair of
¨
Modern Philosophy, a member of the Academie des Sciences Morales et Politiques
¨
since 1901, but also a board member of our ecole, and member of the teaching
è ¨
committee at the Ecole de Morale et de Pedagogie. He is the author of the celebrated
Laws of Imitation and has recently published a work entitled Economic Psychology.
è
To my left, Mr Emile Durkheim, Deputy Chair of Educational Science at the
¨ ¨
Faculte des Lettres of the Universite de Paris since 1902, he has published the highly
¨
acclaimed Rules of Sociological Method and is the founder of Annee sociologique, the
journal that reviews the year's international sociological production.
Gentlemen, I yield the floor to you, beginning with the younger Mr Durkheim,
let us begin with a definition of your conception of sociology in relation to the other
sciences.]
Durkheim Sociology has recently become fashionable. The word, which was little
known and almost disparaged ten years ago, has entered into everyday use. Increasing
numbers discover a calling for it, and the general public seems well-disposed towards
the new science. Much is expected of it.
And yet, we must admit that the results it has yielded so far are rather less than one
might expect given the wealth of publications, and the interest with which they are
received. [...] This is because, in most cases, sociology is not asking a specific question.
It has not yet gone beyond the age of philosophical constructions and syntheses.
Instead of taking up the task of casting light on a restricted portion of the social field,
it prefers a dazzling generality where every question is reviewed, and none is specifi-
cally addressed. This method may indeed amuse the public's curiosity by giving, as they
say, illuminations on all sorts of subjects, but it can hardly produce anything objective.
[...] A newborn science is entitled to err and fumble, as long as it is aware of its errors
and fumblings in such a way as to prevent their recurrence. Sociology should not
therefore renounce any of its ambitions; but, on the other hand, if it wishes to live
up to the hopes which have been built up around it, it must strive to become more than
an eccentric kind of philosophical literature. [...] The sociologist, instead of basking
in the glow of philosophical meditations about social things, should take as the object
of his research a clearly delimited group of facts, which one can, as it were, point to, of
which one can say clearly where they begin and where they end, and to these he should
firmly hold on! Let him carefully interrogate the auxiliary disciplinesöhistory, ethnog-
raphy, statisticsöwithout which sociology is impotent! [...] If he proceeds in this way,
even though his factual inventories may be incomplete and his formulas too narrow,
he will have accomplished a useful task which the future can continue [1897a].
The Dean [Mr Tarde, it is now your turn to clarify the object of sociology in relation
to other sciences.]
Tarde It is natural for an emerging science to depend upon those sciences that are
already constituted, sociology, for example, upon biology. It is also natural for a

The debate between Tarde and Durkheim 763
developing science to seek to fly the nest and attempt to establish its own separate
domain. The burgeoning field of sociology is precisely at this juncture, it seeks to
constitute itself by itself and for itself. This is a kind of egoism, a scientific individualism,
useful to a certain extent as is any other egoism, be it animal or human, but harmful
to the individual himself beyond a certain measure. [...] The sterility of such preten-
sions is well known; they misrecognise the solidarity of the various sciences and
consequently the profound unity of universal reality. In the case of sociology, too, we
should beware the expenditure of such vain efforts; and I believe I perceive here and
there the symptoms of such a distraction, which could be disastrous. Let us try to
prevent it: let us seek out, with all the necessary precision, but without claiming an
absolute autonomy for our dear science, the boundaries of the field that is properly
hers to clear and cultivate . [...] What is or rather what are social facts, the elementary
social acts, and what is their distinctive character? [...] The elementary social fact is the
communication or the modification of a state of consciousness by the action of one
human being upon another. [...] Not everything that members of a society do is socio-
logical. [...] To breathe, digest, blink one's eyes, move one's legs automatically, look
absently at the scenery, or cry out inadvertently, there is nothing social about such acts.
[...] But to talk to someone, pray to an idol, weave a piece of clothing, cut down a tree,
stab an enemy, sculpt a piece of stone, those are social acts, for it is only the social man
who would act in this way; without the example of the other men he has voluntarily
or involuntarily copied since the cradle, he would not act thus. The common character-
istic of social acts, indeed, is to be imitative. [...] Here is, then, a character that is clear
cut and what is more, objective. [...] And I am amazed to have been reproached for
focusing, in this definition, on the externally graspable fact without any regard to its
internal source, and this reproach addressed to meöby whom? By [my distinguished
colleague] Mr Durkheim, who himself professes precisely the necessity of founding
sociology upon purely objective considerations and of exorcising this science, so to
speak, by chasing psychology out of itöpsychology which, it is claimed, is not its soul
as has been believed until now by all its founders, from Auguste Comte to Spencer, but
on the contrary its evil genius [1895a, pages 63 ^ 66].
The Dean [I believe we have the disagreement clearly articulated: Mr Durkheim would
you like to elaborate on your thoughts?]
Durkheim Mr Tarde claims that sociology will arrive at this or that result; but we
cannot say what the elementary social act is in our current state of knowledge. There
are too many things we do not know and the construction of the elementary social fact
can only be arbitrary under these conditions [1903a, page 164].
Tarde It is not necessary for sciences to be definitively constituted in order to formulate
laws. Research must proceed according to a guiding idea. And, in point of fact, the
social sciences have not owed their progress to certain rules of objective method; they
have achieved it by tending towards [...] the social microscopy that is intermental
psychology [1903, page 164].
Durkheim Whatever the value of this intermental psychology, it is unacceptable for it to
exercise a sort of guiding action on the specific disciplines of which it should in fact be
the product. [1903a, page 164]. A purely psychological explanation of social facts
cannot [...] fail to miss completely all that is specific, ie social, about them [1894,
page 131]. [T]here is between psychology and sociology the same break in continuity
as there is between biology and the physical and chemical sciences. Consequently,
every time a social phenomenon is directly explained by a psychological phenomenon,
we may rest assured that the explanation is false [1894, page 129].

764 The debate between Tarde and Durkheim
Tarde And yet, for all his objections and unbeknownst to himself, the importance of
repetition ö [that is to say] of imitation once again ö impinges upon [Mr Durkheim].
In order to prove the radical separation, the absolute duality in nature that he claims
to establish between the collective fact and the individual facts which, in my view,
constitute it, but, according to him, refract it from the outside (we know not how), he
writes [I quote] ``Some of these ways of acting and thinking acquire, as a result of
repetition, a sort of consistency that precipitates them, so to speak, and isolates them
from the particular events in which they are one day embodied.'' [...] And the proof of
this is ö listen to this ö that collective habit, or custom, [I quote once again] ``expresses
itself once and for all in a formula which is repeated from person to person, which is
transmitted by education, which becomes fixed through writing'' [end of quotation].
Without the preoccupation that blinds him, [my opponent] would see the obvious,
namely that he has just involuntarily provided fresh proof of the eminently social
or rather socialising character of imitative repetition. [...] Mr Durkheim seems to
gravitate towards some sort of theory of emanation. For him, I repeat, the individual
facts that we call social are not the elements of a social fact, they are only the
manifestation of it. As for the social fact, it is itself the superior model, the Platonic
Idea, the model ... and thus the idea of imitation in social matters, imposes itself even
on its greatest adversaries. But let's move on ... [1895a, pages 67 ^ 69].
Durkheim Terms [...] must be taken in a strict sense. Collective tendencies have an
existence of their own; they are forces as real as cosmic forces, albeit of another sort;
they too affect the individual from without, albeit through other channels. The proof
that the reality of collective tendencies is no less than that of cosmic forces, is that this
reality is demonstrated in the same way, namely by the uniformity of effects. [...] Since,
therefore, moral acts [...] are reproduced with [great] uniformity [...], we must likewise
admit that they depend on forces external to individuals. Only, since these forces
must be of a moral order and since, except for individual man, there is no other
moral being in the world but society, they must be social. But whatever we choose
to call them, the important thing is to recognize their reality and conceive of them as
a totality of forces which cause us to act from without, like the physic-chemical forces
to which we react. So truly are they things sui generis and not mere verbal entities
that they may be measured, their relative sizes compared, as is done with the
intensity of electric currents or luminous foci. [...] Of course, this offends common
sense. But science has encountered incredulity whenever it has revealed to men the
existence of a previously unknown force. Since the system of accepted ideas must be
modified to make room for the new order of things and to establish new concepts,
men's minds resist through mere laziness. Yet we have to be clear. If there is such a
thing as sociology, it can only be the study of a world hitherto unknown, different
from those explored by the other sciences. This world is nothing if not a system of
realities [1897b, pages 309 ^ 310].
Tarde At first glance, one cannot make sense of this; but once initiated into the
doctrine of the author, here is what it means: it is not the more or less of general-
isation, of imitative propagation of a fact, which constitutes its more or less social
character; it is the more or less of coercivityöIndeed, according to [my opponent], for
by this point we have merely uncovered the half of his thought, the definition of the
social fact is double. One of its characters, as we know, is [again I quote, that it] ``exists
independently of its individual expressions''. But there is another character, no less
important, which is to be coercive [1895a, page 70].

The debate between Tarde and Durkheim 765
The Dean [You then both clearly disagree on the question of knowing how appropriate
it is to autonomise the specific facts that sociology is concerned with but also on the
question of their exteriority and, in sum, on the strength with which this world imposes
upon us.]
Durkheim We must delineate, in a precise fashion, the exact field of sociology. It
embraces one single, well-defined group of phenomena. A social fact is identifiable
through the power of external coercion which it exerts or is capable of exerting upon
individuals. The presence of this power is in turn recognisable because of the existence
of some pre-determined sanction, or through the resistance that the fact opposes to
any individual action that may threaten it. However, [I grant you that] it can also
be defined by ascertaining how widespread it is within the group, provided that, as
noted above, one is careful to add a second essential characteristic; this is, that it exists
independently of the particular forms that it may assume in the process of spreading
itself within the group. [...] moreover, this second definition is simply another formula-
tion of the first one: if a mode of behaviour existing outside of the consciousnesses
of individuals becomes general, it can only do so by exerting pressure upon them [1894,
pages 56 ^ 57]. That is what social phenomena are when stripped of all extraneous
elements. As regards their private manifestations, these do indeed have something
social about them since in part they reproduce the collective model. But to a large
extent each one depends also upon the psychical and organic constitution of the
individual, and on the particular circumstances in which he is placed. Therefore they
are not phenomena which are in the strict sense sociological. They depend on both
domains at the same time, and one could [if you so wish,] call them socio-psychical
[1894, pages 55 ^ 56].
Tarde By this definition, nothing would be more social than the relationship estab-
lished between victors and vanquished through the invasion of a stronghold or the
fall into slavery of a conquered nation; nor would anything be less social than the
spontaneous conversion of a whole population to a new religion or a new political
faith preached by enthusiastic apostles! The mistake here is so noticeable to my mind
that one is forced to wonder how it could have been born and taken root in such
a powerful intelligence. [Mr Durkheim] tells us: [...] given that the social fact is
essentially external to the individual, ``it cannot infiltrate the individual without
imposing itself ''. I fail to see the validity of this inference. Food is also external to
us before being absorbed. Is that to say that swallowing and assimilation are the
constraints exercised by food upon the cell that appropriates it? That is not even true
of the birds we force-feed in our barnyards, which certainly prefer to be force-fed
than to die of hunger [1895a, page 71].
Durkheim [Mr Tarde's] proposition is purely arbitrary. [He] may of course state that
in his personal opinion nothing real exists in society but what comes from the
individual, but proofs supporting this statement are lacking and discussion is there-
fore impossible. It would be only too easy to oppose to this the contrary feeling of a
great many persons, who conceive of society not as the form spontaneously assumed
by individual nature as it blooms outwards, but as an antagonistic force restricting
individual natures and resisted by them! [1897b, page 311].
Tarde It follows, according to [you], that it is not permissible to describe as social
those individual acts where the social fact manifests itself, for example, the words of
an orator (a manifestation of language), or the genuflections of a devotee (a mani-
festation of religion). No, as each of these acts depends not only on the nature of the
social fact, but furthermore on the mental and vital constitution of the agent and

766 The debate between Tarde and Durkheim
the physical environment, these acts are types of hybrids, sociopsychical or sociophysical
facts, with which it is important no longer to tarnish the scientific purity of the new
sociology [1895a, pages 69 ^ 70].
Durkheim Undoubtedly, this state of dissociation [between the social and the individ-
ual] does not always present itself with equal distinctiveness. It is sufficient for
dissociation to exist unquestionably in [...] numerous important instances [...], for us
to prove that the social fact exists separately from its individual effects. Moreover, even
when the dissociation is not immediately observable, it can often be made so with the
help of certain methodological devices. Indeed it is essential to embark on such
procedures if one wishes to refine out the social fact from any amalgam and so observe
it in its pure state. Thus certain currents of opinion, whose intensity varies according
to the time and country in which they occur, impel us, for example, towards marriage
or suicide, towards higher or lower birth-rates, etc. Such currents are plainly social
facts. At first sight, they seem inseparable from the forms they assume in individual
cases. But statistics afford us a means of isolating them [1894, page 55].
Tarde [Oh!], if [...] one depends upon statistics as an essentially `objective' source of
information, one is deluding oneself. The oracles of this sibyl are often ambiguous and
in need of interpretation. In truth, official statistics function as yet too imperfectly
and have functioned for too short a time to bring any conclusive factors to the
debate that concerns us [1895b, page 154]. [I know this all the better since it is I,
Mr Durkheim, who provided you, at your request, with the statistics of the office
I led and which have contributed to your opus on suicide ...].
Durkheim That imitation is a purely psychological phenomenon appears clearly from
its occurrence between individuals connected by no social bond [as indeed I show in
the book you mention] [1897b, page 123].
The Dean [I believe we have reached a crucial point of the debate. It concerns the
difference in importance given by you to imitation in social matters. Would you like to
elaborate this more precisely?]
Tarde Insofar as it is a socialising agent, imitation must of necessity exist before the
society it prepares. Certainly no single act of imitation of one living being by another
can suffice to associate them, any more than a single hair can form a head of hair... ö
but by beginning to imitate a being who is capable in turn of imitating you [...], you
begin to enter into socialising relations with him, which will necessarily become social
relations if the acts of imitation are multiplied and centralised. [...] According to
[you,] Mr Durkheim, in order for imitation to be the essential social fact, it should
only take place between beings who are already associated. But by that very token,
if they were associated before it, it would not be the characteristic social fact. It could
not be the socialising agent, the socialising cause, if it did not preexist its effect [1897,
pages 224; 224n].
Durkheim A man may imitate another with no link of either one with the other or with
a common group on which both depend, and the imitative function when exercised has
in itself no power to form a bond between them [1897b, page 123].
Tarde It unfailingly has this power ö and I would add it only has this power ö as
long as it is an imitative propagation of psychological facts. For I have always
explained that imitation as I use the word, is a communication from soul to soul
[1897, pages 224 ^ 225].

The debate between Tarde and Durkheim 767
Durkheim A sneeze, a choreiform movement, a homicidal impulse may be transferred
from one person to another even though there is only chance and temporary contact
between them [1897b, page 123].
Tarde But this ``chance and temporary'' contact, when repeated, when multiplied,
becomes a real social union [1897, page 225].
Durkheim They need have no intellectual or moral community between them nor
exchange services nor even speak the same language, nor are they any more related
after the transfer than before [1897b, page 123].
Tarde It follows that for [you] the mark of a social link is the existence of an
intellectual or moral community between men, or at least that they speak the same
language... [...] And would Mr Durkheim be so kind as to tell us howöother than by
the diffusion and accumulation of examples öthis intellectual community [...] or this
moral community [...] could have emerged? Would [you] tell us also how the individuals
of a nation find themselves speaking the same language, if not by means of an imitative
transmission from parents to children, and amongst contemporaries? [1897, page 225].
Durkheim [O]ur method of imitating human beings is the same method we use in
reproducing natural sounds, the shapes of things, the movements of non-human beings.
Since the latter group of cases contains no social element, there is none in the former
case. It originates from certain qualities of our representational life not based upon any
collective influence. If therefore imitation were shown to help in determining the
suicide-rate [for instance], the latter would depend directly either in whole or in part
upon individual causes [1897b, pages 123 ^ 124].
Tarde I have already answered [...] this superficial objection by noting that the imita-
tion I speak of is an interpsychic communication. But the emptiness of the objection
deserves to be pointed out [1897, page 226].
Durkheim But before examining the facts, let us determine the meaning of the word.
Sociologists so commonly use terms without defining them, neither establishing nor
methodically circumscribing the range of things they intend to discuss, that they
constantly but unconsciously allow a given expression to be extended from the concept
originally or apparently envisaged by it to other more or less kindred ideas. Thus, the
idea finally becomes too ambiguous to permit discussion. Having no clear outline, it
is changeable almost at will according to momentary needs of argument without the
possibility of critical foreknowledge of all its different potential aspects. Such is notably
the case with what is called the instinct of imitation [1897b, page 124].
Tarde As for my theory (not as [you,] Mr Durkheim disfigur[e] and parod[y] it, but
as I have explained it elsewhere), I have applied it to all orders of social fact [1897,
page 232].
The Dean [So, would you clarify for us the meaning of imitation?]
Durkheim This word [imitation] is currently used to mean simultaneously the three
following groups of facts: [...] a sort of levelling [...] which leads everyone to think or
feel in unison [... ;] the impulse which drives us [...] to adopt the ways of thought
or action which surround us [...]; [and] ape-like imitation for its own sake. Now these
three sorts of facts are very different from one another. [...] It is one thing to share a
common feeling, another to yield to the authority of opinion, and a third to repeat
automatically what others have done. No reproduction occurs in the first case; in the
second it results only from logical operations, judgements and reasonings, [which are]

768 The debate between Tarde and Durkheim
themselves the essence of the phenomenon; and thus reproduction cannot be the
definition. It becomes all embracing only in the third case. [...] The name of imitation
must then be reserved solely for such facts if it is to have a clear meaning, and we
shall say: Imitation exists when the immediate antecedent of an act is the representation of
a like act, previously performed by someone else; with no explicit or implicit mental
operation which bears upon the intrinsic nature of the act reproduced intervening between
representation and execution [1897b, pages 124 ^ 129].
Tarde [You, Mr Durkheim, understand] imitation in such a narrow sense that it is to
be wondered how, in spite of this narrowness, [you have] found it to play a notable part
in suicide [1897, page 224]. I have [indeed] been accused here and there of ``often calling
imitation facts to which this term is poorly suited''. This is a surprising criticism,
coming from a philosopher. After all, the philosopher seeking a term for a new
generalisation has only two choices: either, if all else fails, to create a neologism,
oröand this is undoubtedly better by faröto extend the meaning of an older word.
The question is whether I have extended improperly [...] the meaning of the word
imitation. [...] I would be open to this charge of impropriety if, by extending the
meaning of the word I had rendered it shapeless and devoid of signification. But I
have always left it with a precise and characteristic meaning: that of the action at
a distance, of one mind [esprit] upon another [1890, pages vii ^ viii], [...] through which
the one [...] modifies the other mentally, with or without reciprocity [1902, pages 1 ^ 2].
I could much more rightly be accused of having unduly extended the meaning of the
word invention. For I have indeed applied this term to any individual initiative,
irrespective not only of its degree of consciousness öfor often the individual innovates
unbeknownst to himself, and indeed even the most imitative of men is innovative in
some respectsöbut also without the slightest regard for the relative difficulty or value
of the innovation. [...] Yet even in this case, I believe I was right to do a slight violence
to commonplace language by terming inventions or discoveries the simplest innova-
tions; all the more so since the easiest innovations are not necessarily the least fruitful,
any more than the most difficult always prove to be the most useful [1890, page ix].
Durkheim If, as has been said, imitation is really an original and especially fecund
source of social phenomena, it should show its influence especially in suicide since no
field exists over which it has more sway. Suicide will thus help us to verify by decisive
experiment the reality of the wonderful power ascribed to imitation [1897b, page 133].
Tarde This I deny. However important imitation may be to the phenomenon of suicide
(and as [you your]self cannot deny, a very great number of suicides are explained in this
way, even by [your] own evidently narrow and exceedingly limited definition of the
word), imitation plays an infinitely greater role in the formation and propagation of
languages, of religions, of arts... Thus I cannot accept as in any way ``decisive'' the
experiment which [you presume] to conduct [1897, page 228].
Durkheim If this influence exists, it must appear above all in the geographic distribu-
tion of suicides. In certain cases, the rate characteristic of a country or locality should
be transmitted, so to speak, to neighbouring localities. We must thus consult the map.
But methodically. [...] To be assured that imitation causes the spread of a tendency or
idea, one must see it leave the environments of its birthplace and invade regions not
themselves calculated to encourage it. For, as we have shown, imitative propagation
exists only where the fact imitated, and it alone, determines the acts that reproduce it,
automatically and without assistance from other factors. [...] First of all, no imitation
can exist without a model to imitate [...]. Having established these rules, let us apply
them. The customary maps [...] are inadequate for this investigation. They do not

The debate between Tarde and Durkheim 769
actually permit the observation of the possible effects of imitation where they must
be most perceptible [...]. So we have drawn a map [...] especially for the study of
this question [...]. Its study has given the most unexpected results. [...] In short, all
the maps show us that suicide, far from being grouped more or less concentrically
around certain centres from which it radiates more and more weakly, occurs in
roughly (but only roughly) homogeneous masses with no central nucleus. Such a
configuration does not in any sense indicate the influence of imitation [1897b, pages
133 ^ 137].
Tarde Nor does it contradict it. Indeed, according to the theory of imitation a pattern
of progressively shaded concentric circles would obtain if suicide were a recent
phenomenon ö but it is on the contrary very old. And wherever the action of imita-
tion has been accumulating over a long period of time, its effects are as it were
levelled, compacted, classified. To use this as evidence against the imitative nature of
suicide would be like denying the ondulatory character of heat, based on the observa-
tion that a room is at an even temperature throughout ö whereas it is heated up from
a hot air vent or a hearth (which may in time have been put out) [1897, page 226].
The Dean [I am not certain whether this is a case of imitation or not, but if it is not,
what would it be?]
Durkheim There are here neither imitators nor imitated, but relative identity in the
effects, due to relative identity in the causes. And this is readily understandable if, as is
foreshadowed by all the preceding remarks, suicide depends essentially on certain
states of the social environment. For the latter generally retains the same constitution
over very considerable areas. [...] The proof that his explanation is true is that the
suicide-rate changes abruptly and completely whenever there is an abrupt change in
social environment. Never does the environment exert influence beyond its natural
limits [1897b, pages 137 ^ 138].
Tarde What is truly vague is this appeal to the social environment, the social rate, the
collective state, the conditions of existence, to all of these entities, unresolved nebulae
which have been so many pretexts for the ontologists of social science from the subject's
inception [1897, page 231].
Durkheim In short, certain as the contagion of suicide is from individual to individual,
imitation never seems to propagate it so as to affect the social suicide-rate. Imitation
may give rise to more or less numerous individual cases, but it does not contribute to
the unequal tendency in different societies to self-destruction, or to that of smaller
social groups within each society [1897b, page 140].
Tarde Here we have once again this hallucination: the social as distinct and separate
from the individual. What is this social suicide rate which remains blissfully unaffected
by the greater or lesser number of individual suicides? [Allow me to answer:] the social
rate, the social milieu, the collective state, etc [are] as many nebulous divinities which
save [you, Mr Durkheim] when [you have] entangled [your]self. [You do] not want me
to resolve them into individual contagious facts, and [you are] right, for once the
mystery is dissolved, the prestige disappears and this phantasmagoria of words ceases
to impress the reader [1897, page 226].
Durkheim But a more general reason explains why the effects of imitation are
imperceptible in statistics. It is because imitation all by itself has no effect on suicide.
[What the chapter of Suicide which I have devoted to imitation] chiefly shows is
the weakness of the theory that imitation is the main source of all collective life.

770 The debate between Tarde and Durkheim
No fact is more readily transmissible by contagion than suicide, yet we have seen that
this contagiousness has no social effects. If imitation is so much without social
influence in this case, it cannot have more in others; the virtues ascribed to it are
therefore imaginary. [...] For it has never been shown that imitation can account
for a definite order of facts and, even less, that it alone can account for them. The
proposition has merely been stated as an aphorism, resting on vaguely metaphysical
considerations. But sociology can only claim to be treated as a science when those
who pursue it are forbidden to dogmatize in this fashion, so patently eluding the
regular requirements of proof [1897b, pages 140 ^ 142].
Tarde I have precisely attempted to replace [...] metaphysical or rather ontological
arguments with precise explanations, grounded in the intimacy of social life, of the
interindividual psychic relations which form the infinitesimal yet integrated element of
social lifeöand for this I am dubbed a vague metaphysician by ... Mr Durkheim
himself! [...] This said, however, I must note a real progress on Mr Durkheim's part.
In [your] first book the only reference to the theory of imitation consisted in one
disdainful line in a note (cf The Division of Labour). Now, [you devote] a whole chapter
to it, or one might indeed say a whole book, since [your] latest work seems to be
directed against me from start to finish [1897, pages 232 ^ 233].
Durkheim [Rather than being against you, this book is for a scientific sociology. In it]
we have [...] successively set up the following propositions: suicide varies inversely with
the degree of religious, of domestic, and of political society. [...] So we reach the general
conclusion: suicide varies inversely with the degree of integration of the social groups
of which the individual forms a part [1897b, pages 137 ^ 138].
Tarde Is that so? It very much depends on the meaning one gives to this equivocal
expression: the degree of integration of a society. If by this we mean the relative
density and cohesion of a social group, that is to say the greater or lesser number
of its units and their greater or lesser physical closeness, then it is evident that the
proposition flies in the face of the facts. [...] It is thus not in this merely physical
sense [...] that [Mr Durkheim] understands the expression. [...] The integration [you
speak] of implies a ``moral tightening'' and not merely a physical one. But one should
be precise. [...] To call this integration is rather strange in an author who chastises
me for my use [...] of the word imitation [1897, pages 235 ^ 236].
The Dean [We now see that what is a matter of imitation for one, is a matter of
integration for the other. But would you like to tell us what is metaphorical, and
what is not, in these matters?]
Durkheim It is not mere metaphor to say of each human society that it has a greater or
lesser aptitude for suicide; the expression is based on the nature of things. Each social
group really has a collective inclination for the act, quite its own, and the source of all
individual inclinations, rather than their result [1897b, page 299].
Tarde A mysterious claim indeed. If by this [you mean] that the collective inclination
exists above and apart from all of the individual inclinations to suicide, that is pure
myth. If [you] merely [mean] that for each particular individual, the inclination he
feels to suicide proceeds from the inclinations specific to the set of other individuals
who wish to kill themselves, this is a mark of agreement with my theory of Imitation. It
seems that this latter meaning is right. Therefore [you, Mr Durkheim, are] my pupil
without knowing it [1897, page 246].

The debate between Tarde and Durkheim 771
Durkheim It is made up of the currents of egoism, altruism or anomy running through
the society under consideration with the tendencies to languorous melancholy, active
renunciation or exasperated weariness derivative from these currents. These tendencies
of the whole social body, by affecting individuals, cause them to commit suicide [1897b,
pages 299 ^ 300].
Tarde The final pages of the chapter on egotistic suicide are beautiful, evincing a
metaphysical poetry akin to Schopenhauer's, but one should not examine them too
closely: they are pure mythology. Society is raised to the status of a person, indeed of
a divine person. [...] Durkheim is an atheisticöand therefore inconsistentöBonald.
[... You leave] us only one alternative: either the tyranny of the rule, which mangles
our nature, which wounds our freedom, or the suicide which suppresses our existence.
To be either a monk, or a suicide öthere is no middle ground. Read this for too long
and you will find yourself espousing anarchism ... [1897, pages 237, 244, 247].
Durkheim [Social facts] are [...] not inaccurately represented by rates of births,
marriages and suicides, that is, by the result obtained after dividing the average
annual total of births, marriages and voluntary homicides by the number of persons
of an age to marry, produce children, or commit suicide. Since each one of these
statistics includes without distinction all individual cases, the individual circumstances
which may have played some part in producing the phenomenon cancel each other out
and consequently do not contribute to determining the nature of the phenomenon.
What it expresses is a certain state of the collective mind [1894, page 55].
Tarde This amounts to recognising, in terms of social links, only the relation of master
to subject, of teacher to student, without any regard to the free relations between
equals. And it is to purposefully ignore the obvious: that, in schools themselves, the
education that children give one another freely by imitating each other, [...] brings them
much that is more important than that which they receive and submit to by force. Such
an error can only be explained by linking it to this other one, that a social fact,
qua social, exists outside all its individual manifestations. Unfortunately, by thus objec-
tifying and pushing to the limit the distinction, or rather the absolutely subjective
separation, of the collective phenomenon and the particular acts of which it is com-
posed, Mr Durkheim casts us back into plain scholasticism. Sociology does not mean
ontology. I own that I have great difficulty in understanding how it could be that,
``the individuals subtracted, Society remains''. [...] Are we going to return to the realism
of the Middle Ages? I wonder what advantage one gains, under the pretext of refining
sociology, by emptying it of all its psychological and living content. One seems to be
searching for a social principle where psychology does not enter at all, created expressly
for the science one is fabricating, and which seems to me even more chimerical than
the former vital principle [1895c, pages 61 ^ 62].
The Dean [We have, then, two particularly clear-cut disagreements on the autonomy of
sociology, on its power of coercion, on the importance of imitation, and, since we are
speaking of realism, it seems to me we are reaching the great question of the relationship
between the parts and the whole.]
Durkheim Because society is only composed of individuals, it appears to be common
sense that social life can have no other substratum than individual consciousness;
otherwise it appears to be up in the air, floating in empty space. Yet, what is so easily
deemed inadmissible with regard to social facts, is commonly admitted for other reigns
of nature. Every time elements, whatever they are, combine together and release, by
the very fact of their combination, new phenomena, it must be understood that these

772 The debate between Tarde and Durkheim
phenomena are situated, not in the elements, but in the whole formed by their union. The
living cell contains nothing other than mineral particles, just as society contains nothing
other than individuals; and yet, it is evidently impossible for the phenomena characteristic
of life to reside in atoms of hydrogen, oxygen, carbon, and nitrogen. [...] Life is in the
whole, not in the parts. [...] Let us apply this principle to sociology. If, as has been
conceded, this synthesis sui generis that constitutes every society releases new phenomena,
different to those that occur in solitary consciousnesses, it must be admitted that these
specific facts reside in the very society that produces them, and not in its parts, that is to
say in its members [1901, page xvi].
Tarde [Yes, I agree:] When we consider one of the greater social phenomena, such as a
grammar, a code, or a theology, [it is true that] the individual mind appears so trivial
a thing beside these monumental works that the idea of regarding it as the sole artisan
concerned in the erection of these enormous cathedrals seems to some sociologists
quite absurd; and one may [indeed] be readily excused if, without perceiving that one
thereby abandons all attempt at explanation, one is drawn into saying that these works
are eminently impersonal; there is but a step from this position to that of my illustrious
opponent, [you,] Mr Durkheim, who [insists] that they are not functions of the indi-
vidual, but his factors, and that they have an existence independent of human person-
ality, and rule man with despotic might, by the oppressive shadow which they cast over
him. But how have these social realities come into being? (I say realities, for, although I
oppose the idea of a social organism, I am far from challenging the concept of certain
social realities, concerning which some understanding must be reached.) I see clearly
that, once formed, they impose themselves upon the individual, sometimes, though
rarely, with constraint, oftener by persuasion or suggestion or the curious pleasure
that we experience, from childhood up, in saturating ourselves with the examples of
our myriad surrounding models, as the babe in imbibing its mother's milk. This I see
clearly enough; but how were these wonderful monuments constructed, and by whom,
if not by men and through human efforts? [1898, pages 124 ^ 125].
Durkheim It is due to the thoroughly engrained habit of applying to sociological
matters the forms of philosophical thought that [our] preliminary definition has often
been seen as a sort of philosophy of the social fact. It has been said that we explained
social phenomena through constraint, just as, [you,] Mr Tarde, explain them through
imitation. We had no such ambition and it didn't even cross our mind that this might
have been attributed to us, it being so contrary to all method. What we were proposing
was not to anticipate the conclusions of science by means of a philosophical view, but
simply to indicate by which external signs it is possible to recognise the facts that
should be dealt with, in order that the scientist may find them where they are and
not confuse them with others. The aim was to delimit the field of enquiry as much as
possible, not to flounder about in some exhaustive intuition. Thus we very willingly accept
the reproach that this definition does not express all the characters of the social fact, and,
consequently, that it is not the only one possible. There is, indeed, nothing inconceivable
about the social fact being characterised in many different ways; for there is no reason that
it should only have one distinctive property. All that matters is choosing the property
which seems most appropriate for one's purpose. It is indeed quite possible to employ
several criteria concurrently, according to the circumstances. And we ourselves have
felt this to be occasionally necessary in sociology; for there are cases where the character
of constraint is not easily recognisable. All that is required, since we are concerned with
an initial definition, is that the characteristics employed are immediately discernable
and can be recognised before research. Other definitions have sometimes been opposed
to ours, but it is precisely this condition which they do not fulfil [1901, page xx].

The debate between Tarde and Durkheim 773
Tarde Unfortunately this hypothesis is entirely at odds with experience [l'observation].
Here in sociology we have a rare privilege, intimate knowledge both of the element,
which is our individual consciousness, and of the compound, which is the sum
¨
[assemblee] of consciousnesses; here, no one can make us mistake words for things.
And what we clearly see in this case is that if the individual is subtracted nothing
remains of the social, and that there is nothing, absolutely nothing, in society, which
does not exist, in a state of division and continual repetition, in living beings, or that
did not exist in the dead individuals who came before them. [...] [Besides,] what is there
at the very heart of the chemical molecule, of the living cell? We do not know. How,
then, not knowing this, can we state that, when these mysterious beings encounter each
other in some way, itself unknown, and make new phenomena appear before our eyes,
an organism, a brain, a consciousness, there has been, at each step taken on this
mystical ladder, a sudden apparition, creation ex nihilo of something that previously
did not exist, even as a germ? Is it not likely that, if we knew these cells intimately,
these molecules, these atoms, these unknown elements of the great problem, so often
taken as givens, we would find it very simple to exclude the phenomena which seem to
be created by their combination, these phenomena which now amaze us? Notice the
enormous assumption implied by the current notions that Mr Durkheim explicitly
relies on to justify his chimerical conception; this assumption is that the mere relation
between several beings can become itself a new being, often superior to the others. It is
strange [it is strange!] to see minds that pride themselves on being above all positive,
methodical, minds that hound and harry even the shadow of mysticism, being attached
to such a fantastical notion [1895a, pages 75 ^ 76].
Durkheim A thought which is to be found in the consciousness of each individual and
a movement which is repeated by all individuals are not for this reason social facts.
These are so far from being constituted by repetition, that they exist outwith their
individual incarnations. What constitutes a social fact is a belief, tendency or practice
of the group taken collectively, which is something else entirely than the form it may
assume when it is refracted through individuals [1894, page 54].
Tarde How could it be refracted before existing, and how could it exist, let us speak
intelligibly, outside of all individuals? The truth is that a social thing, whatever it might
be [...] devolves and passes on, not from the social group collectively to the individual,
but rather from one individual [...] to another individual, and that, in the passage of
one mind into another mind, it is refracted. The sum of these refractions, from the
initial impulse of an inventor, a discoverer, an innovator or modifier, whoever it might
be, unknown or illustrious, is the entire reality of a social thing at a given moment;
a reality which is constantly changing, just like any other reality, through imperceptible
nuances; this does not prevent a collectivity from emerging out of these individual
varieties, an almost unchanging [constante] collectivity, which immediately strikes the
eye and gives rise to Mr Durkheim's ontological illusion. For it is, beyond the shadow
of a doubt, a veritable scholastic ontology that the learned writer is attempting to
insert into sociology, in place of the psychology he battles with [1895a, pages 66-67].
Durkheim My proposition could only be opposed by agreeing that a whole is qual-
itatively identical with the sum of its parts, that an effect is qualitatively reducible to
the sum of its productive causes; which amounts to denying all change or to making it
inexplicable. Someone has, however, gone so far as to uphold this extreme thesis, but
only two truly extraordinary reasons have been found for its defence. First, it has been
said that [here I am quoting you, my distinguished colleague] ``in sociology we have,
a rare privilege, intimate knowledge both of the element, which is our individual

774 The debate between Tarde and Durkheim
consciousness, and of the compound, which is the sum of consciousnesses''; secondly,
that through this double introspection [and you have just reiterated this] ``we clearly
ascertain that if the individual is subtracted nothing remains of the social'' [1897b,
page 311].
The Dean [I believe we have now understood what separates you and it seems useless
to go any further down this track: you will not reach an agreement. But it seems to me
that Mr Durkheim should respond to this serious accusation of `mysticism'. The word
seems rather strong, does it not? Might this be due to the manner in which you each
understand the role of contingency?]
Durkheim For Mr Tarde [...] all social facts are the production of individual inventions,
propagated by imitation. Any belief and any practice would have at its origin an
original idea, born of an individual brain. Every day, millions of inventions of this
nature would occur. But while most would perish, a few would succeed; they are
adopted by other members of society, be it because they seem useful to them, or
because their author is invested with a singular authority transmitted to everything
he produces. Once generalised, the invention ceases to be an individual phenomenon
to become a collective phenomenon.öWell, there is no science of inventions, such
as Mr Tarde conceives them; for they are only possible thanks to inventors, and
the inventor, the genius, is ``the ultimate accident'', a pure product of chance [1900,
page 131].
Tarde [Conversely] Mr Durkheim spares us such terrible tableaux. With him, no wars, no
massacres, no brutal invasions. Reading him, it seems that the river of progress has flowed
smoothly over a mossy bed undisturbed by froth or somersaults. [...] Evidently, he inclines
towards a Neptunian, rather than a Vulcanian, view of history: everywhere he sees
sedimentary formations, nowhere igneous upheavals. He leaves no place for the accidental,
the irrational, this grimacing face at the heart of things, not even for the accident of
genius [1893, page 187].
Durkheim Certainly, once a genius is postulated, then one can very well look for the
causes that favour the mental connections in him, whence new ideas are produced, and
here is probably what Mr Tarde call the laws of invention. But the essential factor in
any innovation is the genius himself, it is his creative nature, and this is the product
of entirely fortuitous causes. Furthermore, since the mysterious source of the ``social
river'' is in him, accident is thus placed at the root of social phenomena. There is no
absolute necessity to this belief or that institution appearing at this or that historical
moment, in this or that social setting. According to whether chance allows the
innovator to be born sooner or later, the same idea might take centuries to sprout
or might bloom straight away. Therefore there is an entire category of inventions
which might follow each other in whatever sequence: they are those that don't
contradict one another, but are, on the contrary, helpful to each another. [...] Thus,
the notion of law, which Comte had finally [and laboriously!] succeeded in introduc-
ing into the sphere of social phenomena, a notion that his successors strove to clarify
and to consolidate, is here obscured, veiled [trampled underfoot]. Whim and caprice,
once they are placed in the heart of things, are thereby permitted to seep into thought
also [1900, page 132].
Tarde [I quote you once more] ``The determining cause of a social fact should be sought
amongst the antecedent social facts and not amongst individual states of consciousness.''
Let us apply this: the determining cause of our railway networks should be sought
neither in the states of consciousness of Papin, Watt, Stephenson, and others, nor in the

The debate between Tarde and Durkheim 775
©
logical series of conceptions and discoveries which have illuminated [qui ont lui a] these
great minds, but rather in the road networks and mailcoach services of yesteryear. [...]
There is a fetish, a deus ex machina, that the new sociologists make use of, like an
Open Sesame, every time they are embarrassed, and it is time to point out this abuse
which is becoming truly worrying. This explanatory talisman is the milieu. [Ah!] Reach
for that wordöwhat more needs to be said? The milieu is the multipurpose formula
whose illusory profundity serves to disguise the emptiness of the idea. Thus, they have
not hesitated to tell us, for example, that the origin of all social evolution should be
sought exclusively in the properties ``of the internal social milieu.'' [...] As for this
phantom-milieu, this ghost we delight in summoning up, to which we lend all sorts
of marvellous virtues, so that we are exempt from recognising the existence of the true
and truly beneficial geniuses by whom we live, in whom we move, without whom we
would be nothing, let us eliminate it from our science as soon as possible. The milieu
is a nebula which, upon closer inspection, resolves into different stars, of very unequal
sizes [1895a, pages 78 ^ 79].
The Dean [But then, if I understand you both correctly, you disagree not only on
the role of innovation and genius in history, but also on the very question of what
a science should be?]
Durkheim Mr Tarde's theory appears to be the very negation of science. [...] It places,
indeed, the irrational and the miraculous at the foundation of life and, consequently, of
social science. If we adopt Mr Tarde's point of view, we see that social facts are the
result, more often than not, of simply mechanical causes, unintelligible and foreign to
any finality since there is nothing more blind than imitation [1895a, pages 85 ^ 87].
Here, indeterminacy is made into a principle. Consequently, this is no longer science.
It is not even the methodical philosophy that Comte had tried to institute; it is a very
particular mode of speculation, somewhere in between philosophy and literature,
in which a few very general theoretical ideas are trailed around through all possible
problems [1903b, page 479].
Tarde This is not an appeal to mystery, but rather to the profound and underappre-
ciated ability to affirm a beyond to the horizon of facts and not to misjudge, at least,
what one cannot know. If to affirm the unknown is to use our ignorance, to deny the
unknown is to be ignorant twice over [1910, page 41]. [I will say, however, that]
Mr Durkheim's principal idea [...] rests on a pure conception of his mind that he has
wrongly taken for a suggestion of facts. It only presents, in any case, a highly partial and
relative truth, very insufficient as a single foundation or principle of a sociological
theory. [...] One may well, then, be amazed at the confidence it inspires in Mr Durkheim
and at the virtue he attributes to it in leading us necessarily to a higher or more human
Morality and Justice [1893, page 189].
Durkheim As Mr Tarde says [...], the origin of our disagreement is elsewhere. It stems
above all from the fact that I believe in science whereas Mr Tarde does not. For how
can one believe in science who reduces it to an intellectual game, capable at best of
informing us about what is possible and impossible, but incapable of serving in the
positive regulation of behaviour? If it has no other practical use, it is not worth
the effort. And if one hopes in this way to disarm one's recent adversaries, one is
strangely mistaken; in reality, one returns their weapons to them. Undoubtedly, science
by this definition would no longer be able to disappoint the expectations of men;
but only because men would no longer expect very much from it. It will no longer be
exposed to accusations of bankruptcy; but only because it will have been declared minor
and incapable in perpetuity. I cannot see what either it or we stand to gain by this.

776 The debate between Tarde and Durkheim
For what is thus placed above reason is sensation, instinct, passion, all the base and
obscure parts of ourselves. Let us indeed make use of these when we cannot do
otherwise. But when one sees in them something other than a stopgap that little by
little must surrender its place to science, when one attributes to these things a
preeminence of some kind, then, although one may not be openly speaking of the
revelations of Faith, one is a more or less consequent theoretical mystic. And mysticism
is the reign of anarchy in the practical sphere, because it is the reign of fantasy in the
intellectual sphere [1895b, page 523].
Tarde It is by asking of science something beyond what it can give, it is by giving it
rights that exceed its already quite vast range, that one has given rise to belief in its
alleged failure. Science has never failed to keep her true promises, but a great many
counterfeit bills marked with her counterfeit signature have been circulated in her
name, that she now finds impossible to redeem. It is pointless to add to their number
[1895b, page 162].
Durkheim Faced with the results which the comparative history of institutions has
already produced, there can no longer be any question of purely and simply denying
the possibility of a scientific study of societies; furthermore, Mr Tarde himself means to
create a sociology. Only, he conceives it in such a manner that it ceases to be a true
science, in order to become a very particular form of speculation where imagination
plays the dominant role, where thought is not considered to have a duty to the regular
obligations of proof or to the ascertaining of facts [1900, pages 130 ^ 131].
Tarde Mr Durkheim believes he is honouring science by making it a sovereign over the
will, by giving it the power not only to point out the most pertinent means by which
the will may achieve its overarching goal, but even to dictate the direction of this North
Star of conduct [1895b, pages 161 ^ 162]. If I had to formulate a maxim on this subject,
it would address the moral as well as the intellectual conditions which the discovery of
truth places upon us. A little modesty and simplicity behoves an adolescent science,
just like a young man on the cusp of life; it should refrain from a doctrinal tone and
from scholarly jargon. One should approach it with a benevolent and informal cast of
mind, and also, and above all, with a vibrant and joyful love of the subject. [...] The
first requirement for being a sociologist is to love social life, to sympathise with men
of every race and every country brought together around one hearth, to research with
curiosity, to discover with delight what tender devotions may be hidden in the hut of the
reputedly most ferocious savage, sometimes even in the lair of the criminal; finally,
never to believe readily in the stupidity, in the absolute viciousness of man in the past,
nor in his present perversity, and never to despair of his future [1895a, page 94].
Durkheim Mr Tarde is confusing [...] different questions, and [I] refuse to comment on
a problem he has not broached as yet and that has nothing to do with this discussion
[1903a, page 165].
The Dean [I think we can stop there. I remind you that this contradictory debate
between our eminent colleagues served as an introduction to the sociology course at
è è
the Ecole des Hautes Etudes Sociales, during the course of which students will have
numerous chances to discuss these presuppositions. I think now is the moment to give
our heartfelt thanks to both speakers.]

The debate between Tarde and Durkheim 777
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