Vilfredo Pareto Mind and Society Part 3 Theory of Derivations

TEXT FLY WITHIN
THE BOOK ONLY

> CD
166265
OSMANIA UNXVERSITY 3LIBKARY
(Hal) No 3// ^2-2- tf "' ^ ^csion No. I? 6 $
This book should bcretai-fiecl on or Dc(l/rc the date la^t marked bdkw.
THE MIND AND SOCIETY
The Mind and Society
VOLUME I
NON-LOGICAL CONDUCT
VOLUME II
ANALYSIS OF SENTIMENT
(THEORY OF RESIDUES)
VOLUME III
SENTIMENT IN THINKING
(THEORY OF DERIVATIONS)
VOLUME IV
THE GENERAL FORM

OF SOCIETY
The Mind and Society
[
Trattato di Sociologia generate
]
BY VILFREDO PARETO
EDITED BY ARTHUR LIVINGSTON
TRANSLATED BY ANDREW BONGIORNO AND ARTHUR LIVINGSTON

WITH THE ADVICE AND ACTIVE COOPERATION OF
JAMES HARVEY ROGERS
VOLUME THREE
Theory of Derivations
JONATHAN CAPE
THIRTY BEDFORD SQUARE
LONDON
First published,
Jonathan Cape Ltd., 30 Bedford Square, London
and pi Wellington Street West, Toronto
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

CONTENTS
VOLUME III
Chapter IX. DERIVATIONS 885

Human beings are persuaded chiefly by sentiments (residues).
How derivations are evolved. Derivations are used both by the
non-logico-experimental and the logico-experimental sciences,

but the non-logico-experimental sciences credit derivations with
a capacity to influence the constitution of society directly, where-
as the logico-experimental sciences view them merely as mani-
festations of the forces that are at work in society. They there-
forego looking for the forces to which derivations more or less
vaguely correspond. The role that we thus ascribe to sentiment
has been recognized by a number of writers who have dealt
with human societies, but not very distinctly. The logic of senti-
ments. The proofs that are offered for derivations are not, often-
times, the reasons why they win assent. Classification of deri-
vations. Study of Classes I, II and III.
Chapter X. DERIVATIONS: VERBAL PROOFS. 990
Study of derivations, Class IV.
XL PROPERTIES OF RESIDUES
Chapter AND DERIVA-
TIONS 1 120
Two problems present themselves: How do residues and deri-
vations function ? What bearing do they have, in so functioning,

on social utilities? The common view is that human conduct
depends as a rule on derivations, and to some extent at times

on sentiments. The fact is that in general derivations result
from sentiments and conduct. Residues as related to the spe-
cific individuals in whom they appear. Distribution of residues
and changes in society as a whole. Classes of residues are fairly
genera vary somewhat more. The undulatory forms such
stable,
phenomena assume. Relations of residues and derivations to

other facts in society. Effects on doctrines of discrepancies be-
tween residues and logico-experimental principles. Examples.
In non-logico-experimental spheres, a strictly logical reasoning
VI CONTENTS
may go far wide o realities, whereas in
lead to conclusions that
reasoning illogically under the guidance of sentiment, we may

come much closer to the facts. Conflicts between theory and
practice.
How
vague indefinite derivations are adapted to given
purposes. Derivations are normally of scant effect as regards
modifying residues. How social measures and legal enactments

come to be accepted. Myths and, in general, ideals. Ideals and
their relations to other facts in society. Classification of the
problems arising under such relationships. Study of the prob-

lems.What relation is there between happiness and one's ob-
servance of prevailing norms of religion or morality? Classi-
fication of the solutions that are commonly offered to this prob-
lem. Study of those solutions. That study demonstrates the
experimental fatuousness of many doctrines, but at the same
time their great social Propagation of residues. Of deri-
utility.
vations. Interests. The economic sphere in society. Pure eco-
nomics. Applied economics. Instead of discarding economic
theories we
are obliged to supplement and improve them. Social
heterogeneity and circulation between elements in society. Elites

and their circulation. Higher and lower class in general.
THE MIND AND SOCIETY
Volume 111: Sentiment in Thinking
(Theory of Derivations)
CHAPTER IX
Derivations
1397. We
now come to derivations as defined in 868. They
account for the production and acceptance of certain theories, so
these we shall now be considering from the "subjective"
standpoint
( 13). We
have already come upon derivations in large numbers,
though we have not always used that term for them. We shall con-
tinue to find them whenever we centre our attention on the ways
in which people try to dissemble, change, explain, the real character
of this or that mode of conduct.
1
Human beings are persuaded in
the main by sentiments (residues), and we may therefore foresee,
as for that matter experience shows, that derivations derive the
force they have, not, or at least not exclusively, from logico-experi-
2
mental considerations, but from sentiments. The principal nucleus
1
*397 I n Chapter III we went at some length into the reasonings with which
people try to make conduct that is non-logical seem logical. Those were derivations,
and we classified a few of them from that particular point of view. We met others,
again, in Chapters IV and V, considering them from other points of view.
2
1397 Jeremy Bentham condemns political orators for using sophistries and fal-
lacious arguments: Traitc des sophistries politiques (Dumont text), Vol. II, pp. 129,
2I 3> 3 [As is well known, nothing in Bentham's Boo^ of Fallacies (Worlds, Vol. II,
pp. 375 f.) exactly corresponds to Dumont's French, this form of Bentham's thought
being known in English only in translation. A. L.] Says Bentham: "Fortunately,
an orator of that sort, however brilliant and talented, will never hold the forefront
in a legislative body. He may may have a momentary
dazzle, he may astonish, he
success, but he inspires no whom he pleads. The
confidence even in those for
greater the experience one has with political bodies, the more clearly one realizes
the soundness of Cicero's definition of the orator as an honest man trained in the
art of public speaking: vir bonus dicendi peritus" If Bentham means, as he seems
to mean, that only the honest, loyal, straightforward orator achieves success, we
get a proposition which experience belies a thousand times over, and the very case
of Cicero might be cited in proof. Bentham heaps praises on Fox for the qualities
mentioned; but Fox unquestionably was defeated in the English Parliament. His
case would rather disprove the contention. If Bentham is thinking of the esteem
that certain "good" people may have for an orator, he may or may not be right,
according to the meaning one attaches to the term "good." That, however, would
be shifting the point at issue, which is the basis of success in politics. [Bentham
forgot, and Pareto overlooked, the fact that the celebrated definition of the ideal
orator referred to is not Cicero's, but is attributed to the younger Cato by Quintilian,
Institutio oratoria, XII, i, i: "Sit ergo nobis orator is qui a Marco Catone fini-
. . .
885
886 TREATISE ON GENERAL SOCIOLOGY 1398
in a derivative (a non-logico-experimental theory) is a residue, or
a number of residues, and around it other secondary residues cluster.
That group is
produced, and once produced consolidated, by a
is
powerful force: the need that the human being feels for logical or
pseudo-logical developments and which manifests itself in residues
of the l- type. It is in those residues therefore in combination with
others that derivations in general originate.
1398. Some distance back (Chapter II) we studied a large
group
of derivations that were designed to "explain" certain manners of
dealing with storms: and we found that they originated in the

human hunger for logical developments, or developments con-
sidered logical ( 888) (residue I-e ). The nucleus of the act was faith
tur: vir bonus diccndi peritus." A. L.] Elsewhere 'Bentham condemns politicians
for opposing ministers in power and attacking measures which they themselves
recognize as good, on the ground that it is their duty to remove from power per-
sons whomthey consider harmful to the country. "If the men you are attacking
are what you say they are, they will not be long in supplying you with opportunities
for fighting them without prejudice to your sincerity. If such legitimate opportuni-
ties fail you, your charges of incapacity or malpractice would seem to be either false
or premature. If such measures are more often bad than good, public opinion must
necessarily turn in your favour. [What a fine thing, but how imaginary, such a
public opinion!] There can be no doubt that a bad measure is much easier to attack
than a good one." That may be true in some ideal universe where everything makes
for the best in a best of all possible worlds; but it seems not at all to square with
experience in our real world. Bentham writes a whole book on political sophistries
and is now and then he himself unwittingly falls into the
not aware that every
fallacy of mistaking effusions of his own sentiments and inclinations for conquests
of experience. "The sophistry,'* he says, "supplies a legitimate presumption against
those who use it. Only for lack of sound arguments does one resort to it. [That is
based on the implicit assumption that logically sound arguments are more convinc-
ing than fallacies. Experience is far from showing that.] As regards measures that
are in themselves sound it is useless, or at least it cannot be indispensable. [The
same implicit assumption, and experience, again, in no sense concords with it.]
The sophistry presupposes in those who use it, or in those who adopt it, either
lack of sincerity or lack of intelligence." Bentham's assumption is that the person
who uses a fallacy recognizes it as such (insincerity) or that, if he fails so to recog-
nize it, he is wanting in intelligence. As a matter of fact many fallacies that are
current in a given society are repeated in all sincerity by people who are exceed-
ingly intelligent and are merely voicing in that way sentiments which they con-
sider beneficial to society. Also implicit in Bentham's sermon is the assumption that
lack of sincerity and lack of intelligence are uniformly harmful to society; whereas
there are plenty of cases to go no farther than diplomacy where too much sin-
cerity may be harmful, and other cases where a highly intelligent man may go
wrong and do incalculable harm
by forcing certain logical policies upon
to a society
it; whereas a stupid individual instinctively following beaten paths that have been
counselled by long experience may be a blessing to his country.

1399 DERIVATIONS 887
in the efficacy of combinations (residue I-) people felt instinctively
:
that there must be some way of controlling storms. Around that

nucleus clustered a number of residues relating to the mysterious
effects of certain procedures, the
mysterious workings of certain
objects (residue I-y) ; and the result was a variety of magical rites.
In these other residues were incidentally involved residues re-
lating to unusual things and exceptional occurrences (I-/?2), myste-
rious linkings of names and things
(Iy2), mystery in general (I-yi),
and even residues of generic combination (I-a). Eventually, and
still
incidentally, Class II residues (group-persistences) were intro-
duced. A very populous family of such residues was obtained by re-
sorting, in the quest for explanations, to personifications (I !->/), such
as divinities, demons,
genii.
Rare the case where a family of that
sort does not figure somewhere in a group of derivations.
1399. We
have already dealt with residues exhaustively, and so, as
regards the derivation, our only problem would be to determine

which residues are primary and which secondary. But that would
give us the mere substance of the derivation, and derivations may
profitably be considered from other points of view.

In the first place, with special reference to form, the relation of
the derivation to logic has to be considered whether, that is, it is a
sound reasoning or a sophistry. That, however, would be a problem
in logic 1410), and we are not called upon to deal with it in any
(
special way here. Secondly, there is a question as to the relation

of
the derivation to experimental reality. A
derivation may be strictly
yet, because of some error in

and
logical the premises, not accord
with experience. Or again it may be logical to all appearances, yet in
view of some indefiniteness in its terms or for some other reason
have no experimental meaning, or a meaning that has only a very
1
distant bearing on experience. Now, all the while adding to our list
of derivations, we must go on and examine them in particular from
the subjective standpoint, from the standpoint of their persuasive
force. Still left then will be a third problem, the question of their
2
social utility.
*
1399 It was from this point of view that we considered a number of deriva-
and V, though we were not then calling them derivations.
tions in Chapters III, IV,
2
1399 To the question of utility we shall come in Chapter XII. In any event, to
get a complete theory of derivations from the first two standpoints, Chapters III,
IV and V have to be taken in conjunction with our argument here. Deduction re-
THE MIND AND SOCIETY 1400
1400. Derivations will be
differently classified according to the
standpoint from which they are considered ( 1480). Just here we
are thinking of the subjective character of the
"explanations" that
are given, through derivations, of certain behaviour, certain
ways
of thinking; and of the persuasive force of such
explanations. We
shall therefore
classify derivations according to the character of the
explanation. Where there is no explaining there is no derivation;
but the moment an explanation is given or sought, a derivation comes
into play. The animal does not reason, it acts
exclusively by instinct
( 861). It uses no derivations therefore. The human being, however,
wants to think, and he also feels impelled to
keep his instincts and
sentiments hidden from view. Rarely, in
consequence, is at least a
germ of derivation
missing in human thinking, just as residues are
rarely missing. Residues and derivations can be detected every time
we look at a theory or argument that is not strictly logico-experi-
mental. That was the case in Chapter III ( 325), where we came
upon the derivation in simplest form, the pure precept, with no
its
explanation or demonstration offered. It is the type of argument

used by the child or the illiterate in the tautology: "We do thus and
so because we do thus and so." Such a statement is a pure expression
really means: "I do as I do

of residues of sociality (Class IV). It
(or others do as they do) because that is what is usually done in our
community." Then comes a derivation somewhat more complex in
that a show is made of accounting for the custom, and one says:
"We do thus and so because that is what one ought to do." Such
derivations are simple assertions. Let us
put them in a class by
themselves, Class I. But already in the second of the derivations
mentioned an indefinite, somewhat mysterious entity, "duty," has
put in an appearance. That is our first intimation as to a general

manner in which derivations are elaborated: by appealing, that is,
under one term or another, to various kinds of sentiments. But
going on from there, people are not long satisfied with mere names
such as "duty." They want
something more concrete, and they also
want somehow to account for their using the name. What in the
world is this
thing "duty" that has suddenly popped up? Every-
traces the inductive path in inverse direction. Anyone using the two methods suc-
must necessarily encounter some
cessively at least of the theories and arguments
upon which he came in his first survey.
body has his answer
the illiterate, the educated man, the philoso-
pher, all alike; and we go from the childish answer of the plain
man to the abstruse, but from the logico-experimental standpoint no
better, theory of the metaphysicist. first A
step is taken by appealing
to the authority of maxims current in the
community that happens
to be involved, to the authority of individuals, and, with new elabo-
rations, to the authority of supernatural beings or personifications

that feel and act like human* beings. That gives us another
variety,
Class II. The thinking now grows more complicated: it becomes
abstruse, abstract, as interpretations of sentiments, abstract entities,
and the will of supernatural beings are introduced. That procedure
may yield long long sequences of logical or pseudo-logical inferences
and eventuate in theories that have the look of scientific theories.
Among them
are to be counted theologies and systems of meta-
physics. Suppose we put them in a Class III. But we have still not
exhausted our supply of derivations. Still remaining is a large class
where we find proofs that are primarily verbal, explanations that are
1
purely formal but pretend to pass as substantial Class IV.
1401. Suppose we go back for a moment and translate into the
terminology of residues and derivations the matter we expounded

in 798-803, where we used letters of the alphabet in place of words.
Concrete theories in social connexions are made up of residues and
derivations. The residues are manifestations of sentiments. The
derivations comprise logical reasonings, unsound reasonings, and
manifestations of sentiments used for purposes of derivation: they
are manifestations of the human being's hunger for thinking. If that
hunger were satisfied by logico-experimental reasonings only, there

would be no derivations; instead of them we should get logico-
experimental theories. But the human hunger for thinking is satisfied
in any number of ways; by pseudo-experimental reasonings, by

words that stir the sentiments, by fatuous, inconclusive "talk." So
derivations into being. They do not figure at the two extreme
come
ends of the line, that is to say, in conduct that is purely instinctive,
and in strictly logico-experimental science. They figure in the
intermediate cases.
1400
1
We shall see as we go on ( 1419) that these classes subdivide into genera,
and we shall deal specially with each such genus in turn. But before we come to
that, we had better consider other general aspects of derivations and derivatives.
1402. Now the only things of which we have any direct knowl-
edge are the concrete reasonings that correspond to these cases. So

we analyzed many of them, distinguishing an element that is virtu-
ally constant, a,
from an element that is more variable, b ( 798 f.).
Those elements we have named, respectively, residues and derives
tions ( 868), and we have seen that the more important element
as regards the social equilibrium is the residues ( 800). But in that
we go counter to common opinion, which is controlled by the
notion that all conduct is logical, and is inclined to invert the rela-
tion and ascribe the greater importance to derivations ( 1415). The
person who is influenced by a derivation imagines that he accepts

or rejects it on logico-experimental grounds. He does not notice
that he ordinarily makes up his mind in deference to sentiments
and that the accord (or conflict) of two
derivations is an accord (or
conflict) of residues. When, then, a person sets out to study social

phenomena, he halts at manifestations of social activity, that is to
say, at derivations,
and does not carry his inquiry into the causes
of the activity, that is to say, into residues. So it has come about that
the history of social institutions has been a history of derivations, and
oftentimes the history of mere patter. The history of theologies has
been offered as the history of religions ; the history of ethical theories,
as the history of morals; the history of political theories, as the
history of political institutions. Metaphysics moreover has supplied

allsuch theories with absolute elements, from which it was thought
that conclusions no less absolute could be drawn by pure logic. So
the history of the theories has become the history of the deviations
observable in the concrete from certain ideal types existing in the
mind of this or that thinker. Not so long ago, some few scholars
sensed that that procedure was taking them far afield from realities,
and to get back to the real, they replaced such abstract "thinking"
with a search for "origins," but without noticing that in so doing
they were merely replacing one metaphysics with another, explain-
ing the better known by the less known, and facts susceptible of
direct observation by fancies which, for the simple reason that they
related to times very remote, could not be proved; and meantime
adding on their own
account principles, such as unitary evolution,
that altogether transcended experience.
1403. Derivations, in a word, are
things that everybody uses. But
1405 DERIVATIONS 89!
the writers of whom we are thinking ascribe an intrinsic value to
derivations and regard them
functioning directly as determinants
as
of the social equilibrium. For us, in these volumes, they figure only
as manifestations, as indications, of other forces that are the forces
which really determine the social equilbrium. Very very often,
hitherto, the social sciences have been theories made of residues up
and derivations and furthermore holding in view the practical pur-
pose of persuading people to act in this or that manner deemed

beneficial to society. These present volumes aim instead at bringing
the social sciences wholly within the logico-experimental field, quite
apart from any purpose of immediate practical utility, and in the

sole intent of discovering the uniformities that prevail among social
phenomena (86). If one is

writing a book with a view to in-
ducing people to act in a given way, one must necessarily resort to
derivations, for they are the only language that reaches the human
being in his sentiments and is therefore calculated to modify his

behaviour. But the person who aims at logico-experimental knowl-
else must take the greatest pains not to fall into
edge and nothing
derivations. They are objects
for his study, never tools of persuasion.
1404. As regards the important role that we ascribe to sentiment
in derivations, we meet here again a problem which we stated and
solved in Chapter III. If the role that sentiment plays in derivations
is
really of such great importance, how can the many men of genius
who have dealt practically and theoretically with human societies
have failed to notice the fact ? We must answer here again that the
role played by sentiment has in fact been often perceived; but indis-
tinctly, so
that it has never been given a complete theory and its im-
portance has never been accurately evaluated and that for various
reasons, prominent among which is the preconception that the
leading role in human activity is played by logical thinking.

Here again let us look at a few examples of the
way in which the
subject has been conceived by one writer or another in the past.
1405. According to a very plausible theory Aristotle conceived of
the enthymeme as a judgment that is combined with a statement
1
of its reason. The of modern is a syllogism
enthymeme logicians
I
1405 [Century Dictionary, s.v. Enthymeme: "In Aristotle's Logic, an inference
from likelihoods and signs, which, with Aristotle, is the same as a rhetorical syl-
logism." Pareto wrote: "A judgement that rests on the cause that is the origin of
it" which I find not very lucid. A. L.]
892 THE MIND AND SOCIETY 1406
in which one of the premises is not stated. Let us accept the latter
definition, and it will at once be apparent that the consequences we
draw from it apply a jortiori to Aristotle's enthymeme.
1406. Derivations are often stated in enthymemic form. There are
reasons for that. If we
think of the art of rhetoric, there is first of
all the fact that a piece of writing made up of syllogisms would be
cumbersome, tedious, unreadable. Then there is a consideration of a
more general order and which is as valid for the art of rhetoric as
for a scientific argument (or one passing as such). The syllogistic
form tends to reveal the logical weakness of a derivation it stresses
its fallacies. It is
arguments made
advisable, therefore, not to use it in
up of associations of ideas or residues. The enthymeme ignores one

of the propositions in the syllogism, and things may be so arranged
that the proposition not stated is the one where the logical weakness
is most
apparent. As a rule the proposition suppressed is the major,
in other words, the premise contains the middle term and the predi-
cate. The conclusion that is sought contains the
subject and the
predicate, and the subject is of such importance that it is hard to
suppress the minor in which it is contained. the When middle term
is a non-experimental entity (470), something is gained by sup-
pressing at least one of the propositions which contain it.
1407. Take, for example, an enthymeme [of unknown author-
ship] quoted by Aristotle, Rhetorica, II, 21, 6: "Nourish not, being
l
mortal, immortal wrath." Taken literally
the proposition is sense-
less. A man's wrath ends, evidently, when he dies and vanishes from
the Earth. It is therefore useless to adjure him not to nourish im-
mortal wrath. But the proposition means something altogether
different: the advice is not to nourish a grudge for too long a time,
not to nourish a very long wrath, which however is called "im-
mortal." The
basic residue, a, in the proposition is a residue of soci-
ality (Class IV). The residue that is introduced for purposes of

derivation a residue linking names and things
is
(I-y).
Two asso-
ciations of ideas are so obtained: first, a
repugnance to combining
two contraries such as "immortal" and "mortal"; and second, a con-
fusion between "immortal" and "very long." The weak point in the
argument lies in just that confusion, and it must therefore be made
as inconspicuous as possible.
*
1407 Frcese, p. 282: 'Addvarov bpyijv JJLTJ fvhaooe BVTJTOS bv.
1409 ARISTOTLE'S ENTHYMEME 893
1408. The enthymeme just quoted is an enthymeme in the Aris-
totelian, but not in the modern, sense of the term. In the modern
sense the complete syllogism would be: "Man is mortal. mortal A
cannot nourish immortal wrath. Therefore a man cannot nourish im-
mortal wrath." But that is not at all what the enthymeme was
devised to show. The actual meaning was that a man cannot or,
rather, ought not nourish a grudge for too long a time. If that
meaning be stated in enthymemic form the wording will be: "Since

man is mortal, he must not nourish wrath for too long a time";
and many persons will accept it in that form, because
they will be
impressed by the contrast between the brief life of a human being,
and a /cw-protracted wrath. Now
let us state the
completed syl-
logism: "Man is mortal. A mortal must not nourish wrath for too
long a time. Therefore man mustnot nourish wrath for too long a
time." The assertion that "a mortal must not nourish wrath for too
long a time" at once calls attention to the weak point in the argu-
ment. It had better be suppressed, therefore, to avoid the danger
that its fallacy may be perceived, and so the enthymeme is used
instead of the syllogism. That procedure is all the more useful in
the Aristotelian sense of the enthymeme. If on asserting a judgment
we limit ourselves to stating the reason that provokes, or apparently
provokes, itand drop the intermediate propositions, we place our-

selves in the more favourable situation for arguing by associations of
ideas, by residues, as opposed to strictly logical argument. Aristotle
instinctively sensed that when he said, Rhetorica, I, 2,

8 (Freese,
p. 19), that the enthymeme was the orator's syllogism. He was

also
right, Ibid., II, 21, 3 (Freese, p. 279), in viewing a maxim as a

partial enthymeme. A maxim is, in fact, a syllogism reduced to
lowest terms, so that nothing is left but the conclusion.
1409. One must avoid the pitfall of imagining that a maxim is
accepted because it is part of an enthymeme and the enthymeme

because it is
part of a syllogism. That may be true from the stand-
of formal logic, but not
as regards its persuasive force. Both
point
maxim and enthymeme are accepted in view of the sentiments that
they arouse, for intrinsic reasons, without reference to the completed
re-
syllogism ( 1399). Aristotle, Ibid., I, 2, 8-9 (Freese, pp. 19-21),
enforces the enthymeme with the example as a means of persuasion.
The example is one of the simplest derivations. A fact is stated and
then a residue of group-persistence (residue Il-e, persistence of uni-
formities, 1068) is called in: the single case, that is, is represented
as the
general rule.
1410. In his System of Logic, Book V, Chap. I 3 (p. 513), John
Stuart Mill mentions but rather by way of eliminating them from
his purview two other sources of error in addition to the logical
fallacy, the one intellectual, the other moral. That approximately is

the distinction we make between our derivations B and b (803).
Since he was dealing with logic Mill was right in not going into
those sources of error. They are however of the greatest importance
to the sociologist.
1411. When the logician has discovered the error in a reasoning,
when he can put his finger on the fallacy in it, his work is done. But
that is where the work of the sociologist begins, for he must find
out why the false argument is
accepted, why the sophistry persuades.
Tricks of sophistry that are mere finesses in logic are of little or no
interest to him, for they elicit no very wide response among men.
But the fallacious, or for that matter the sound, theories that enjoy
wide acceptance are of the greatest concern to him. It is the province
of logic to tell
why a reasoning is false. It is the business of sociology
to explain wide acceptance.
its
1412.
According to Mill there are, in the main, two sources of
ethical error: first, indifference to knowledge of the truth; and
then, bias, the most common case being "that in which we are
biased by our wishes," though after all we may accept agreeable and
disagreeable conclusions alike provided they manage to arouse some

strong emotion. Mill's "indifference" and "bias" would be what we
mean by sentiments corresponding to residues. But Mill handles
them very badly, being led astray by his preconception that only
logical behaviour is
good, beneficial, praiseworthy, whereas non-
logical conduct is necessarily evil, harmful, blameworthy. He is not
in the least aware that he himself does most of his thinking under
the influence of just such a "bias."
1413. A person who is trying to prove something is almost always
conscious of the purpose of his derivation. Not so, oftentimes, the
person assenting to the conclusion that the derivation reaches. When

the purpose is to justify some rule of conduct, the effort is to asso-
ciate the norm with certain residues by more or less logical argu-
1415 DERIVATIONS 8 95
ments if the primary aim is to satisfy the hankering for logic in the
individuals who are to be influenced; by heaping up residues if the
primary appeal is to sentiment.

1414. Arranging these procedures in order of importance, they
may be represented as follows: i. The purpose. 2. The residues with

which we start. 3. The derivation. A graph will make the situation
clearer. Let B stand for the purpose that to be attained, starting
is
with the residues R' /?" JR'" . . . and working up to the derivations
R'rB, R'tB, R'vB. ... In the case of a moral theory, the purpose,
let us say, is to establish the precept forbidding homicide. That
objective can be reached by

a very simple derivation,
namely, the
blood-taboo. One can also start
with the residue of a personal
god, and attain the objective by
way of many different deriva-
tions. One may start with a
metaphysical residue, a residue
of social utility, a residue of per-
Figure 16
sonal utility, or some other resi-
due, and get to the point desired by way of a literally huge number
of derivations.
1415. Theologians, metaphysicists, philosophers, theorists of poli-
tics, law, and ethics, do not ordinarily accept the order indicated
( 1402). They are inclined to assign first place to derivations. What
we call residues are in their
eyes axioms or dogmas, and the purpose
is
just the conclusion of a logical reasoning. But since they are not
as a rule inany agreement on the derivation, they argue about it till
they are blue in the face and think that they can change social con-
ditions by proving a derivation fallacious. That is all an illusion on
their to realize that their hagglings never reach the
fail
part. They
majority of men, who could not make head or tail to them anyhow,
and who in fact disregard them save as articles of faith to which
1 2
they assent in deference to certain residues.
x
1415 Political economy has been and largely continues to be a branch of litera-
ture, and as such falls under anything that may be said of derivations. It stands as a
matter of plain fact that economic practice and economic theory have followed
altogether divergent paths.
2
1415 Bayle, Dictionnaire historique, s.v. Augustin: "To anyone examining the
question without prejudice and with the necessary competence, it is so evident that
1416. What we
have just been saying leads to very important
conclusions with reference to that "logic of sentiments" to which we
alluded in 480.
1. If the basic residue from which a derivation develops disappears
1
and is not replaced by another, the purpose also disappears. That
is the usual case in logical reasonings based on experimental
premises: that is to say, a scientific theory is discarded in the light
of new facts. However, even in such a case it is often possible for a
conclusion to hold its
ground if the erroneous premises can be re-
placed by new ones. But in non-scientific reasonings what usually
happens is that abandoned premises are replaced by new ones one

residue gives way to other residues. Only in the exceptional case
does such substitution fail to occur. Between the two extremes come
intermediate cases. The
disappearance of the residue from which a
derivation has been evolved does not eradicate the purpose en-
tirely,
but merely weakens it, saps its
vitality.
The ideal remains but
is
accepted with less fervour. It has been observed in India that
native converts the morality of their old religion without
lose
acquiring the morality of their new customs and beliefs ( 1741).

2. In the case of a scientific
argument, if it can be shown that the
conclusion does not follow logically from the premises, the argument
the doctrines of St. Augustine and Jansenius, Bishop of Ypres, are one and the
same, that one can hardly keep one's temper at the thought that the Court of Rome
could boast of condemning Jansenius and meantime keep the Saint secure in all his
glory. The two things are altogether incompatible. Not only that: in condemning
Calvin's doctrine of free-will, the Council of Trent necessarily condemned the doc-
trine of St. Augustine. There are people who regard it as a very happy circum-
. . .
stance that the masses at large take such little interest in the vicissitudes of doctrine,
are in fact incapable of doing so. If they did, they would be rising more often
against theologians than against usurers. 'If you do not know,* they might say to
them, 'that you are deceiving us, your stupidity deserves your being sent to till the
soil. If you do know what you arc doing, you deserve prison on bread and water
for your wickedness/ . . .
[In that Bayle is mistaken. A person may be as intelli-
gent as one could wish and

yet assent to contradictory derivations in the best of
faith. That happens every day, and especially on such matters as "free will." Bayle
is right in what follows:] But there is little to fear. All the masses ask is to be led
along the beaten paths; and even if they wanted more than that, they would not be
capable of mastering the subject. Their daily occupations have not permitted them
to acquire sufficient competence for that."
*
1416That is a particular case of the general theory of the reciprocal influence
of residues and derivations upon each other. That theory we shall elaborate in
1735 *
1416 LOGIC OF SENTIMENT 897
falls. But in an unscientific reasoning, if one form of derivation is
demolished, another immediately is brought forward. If it is shown

that the reasoning which connects a
given residue with a given
conclusion (the purpose) is unsound, the only result as a rule is that
a new derivation takes the place of the old one which has been over-
thrown. That comes about because the residue and the purpose are
the basic elements in such reasonings. The derivation is secondary,
often very very secondary. The various Christian sects have doctrines
as to good works and predestination that, from any logical stand-
point, are altogether different and sometimes even antithetical or
contradictory. Yet there is no difference between them as regards
practical morals. A
Chinese, a Moslem, a Calvinist, a Catholic, a
Kantian, Hegelian, a Materialist, all refrain from stealing; but each
a
gives a different explanation for his conduct. In other words, it is a

case of a number of derivations connecting one residue that is opera-
tive in all of them with one conclusion which they all accept. And
if someone chances to invent a new derivation or refute one of the
existing ones, his achievement has no practical consequences and

the conclusion remains the same.
3. In scientific thinking the most stable conclusions are obtained
by drawing strictly logical inferences from premises that have experi-

mental verifications which are as nearly perfect as possible. In un-
scientific thinking the strongest conclusions are those which rest on
powerful residues without any derivations. Next come conclusions

that are obtained from strong residues supported, in the form of
derivations, by residues which are themselves relatively powerful.

In proportion as the distance between residue and conclusion
reason-
lengthens, in proportion as residues are replaced by logical
Jngs, the security of the conclusion lessens, except for some
few
scholars. The plain man is convinced by the plain Christian cate-
chism, never by fine-spun theological disquisitions. The latter exert
but an indirect influence at the most. The plain man, to be sure,
admires them without understanding them, and that admiration
serves to endow them with a prestige that is carried over to the con-
clusions. That was the case in our day with Marx's Capital. Some
few Socialists in Germany may have read it, but those who can
possibly have understood it

must have been as rare as white black-
birds. But the devious and obscure disquisitions in the book were
TREATISE ON GENERAL SOCIOLOGY I
4I7
admired at long range and so conferred prestige upon it. That
admiration helped to determine the form of Socialist derivations,
but not the residues or the conclusions, which existed before the book
was written and will continue to be there after the book has been
forgotten, and which are common both to Marxians and non-
Marxians.
4. From the logical standpoint two contradictory propositions
cannot hold side by side. From the standpoint of non-scientific
derivations two apparently contradictory propositions can very well
stand together in one individual, one mind. The following proposi-
tions seem to be contradictory: "It is wrong to kill/' "It is right to
kill"; "It is wrong to appropriate other people's property," "It is
right to appropriate other people's property"; "Wrongs must be

forgiven," "Wrongs must not be forgiven." And yet they can be
accepted at one and the same time by one and the same person in
virtue of interpretations and distinctions that serve to explain the
contradiction away. So, from the logical standpoint, if A= B, it fol-
lows inexorably that B = A; but no such consequence is

necessary
in a reasoning by derivations.
1417. In addition to derivations made up
of one group of basic
residues and a second accessory group of residues used for purposes
of derivation, one finds simple combinations of a number of residues
or groups of residues that are brought together into a new unit group
of residues. We
also have the logical, or presumably logical, implica-
tions of considerations of individual or collective interest, but these
are in the nature of scientific inferences, and we are not concerned
with them here.
1418. The proof very often different from the
of a derivation is
reason for its acceptance. Sometimes again the proof and the reason
A
may coincide. precept may be demonstrated by appeal to authority
and accepted in deference to the same authority, but then again the
two things may be altogether at odds. When a person proves a
proposition by taking advantage of the ambiguity of some term in it,
he most assuredly does not say: "My proof is sound because of the
trickery involved in my juggling of words." But the person who
accepts the derivation is
unwittingly taken into camp by that verbal
trickery.
1419. CLASSIFICATION OF DERIVATIONS

CLASS I! ASSERTION ( 1420-33)
I-a. Assertions of facts, experimental or imaginary ( 1421-27)
I-/3.
Assertions of sentiments ( 1428-32)
I-y, Mixtures of fact and sentiment ( 1433)
CLASS II : AUTHORITY ( 1434-63)

II-a. Of one individual or a number of individuals ( 1435-46)
II-/?.
Of tradition, usages, and customs ( 1447-57)
ll-y. Of divine beings, or personifications ( 1458-63)
CLASS Hi: ACCORDS WITH SENTIMENTS OR PRINCIPLES ( 1464-1542)

III-a. Accord with sentiments ( 1465-76)
III-/?.
Accord with individual interest ( 1477-97)
III-/.
Accord with collective interest ( 1498-1500)
III-5. Accord with juridical entities ( 1501-09)
III-e. Accord with metaphysical entities ( 1510-32)
Accord with supernatural entities ( 1533-42)
CLASS IV : VERBAL PROOFS ( 1543-1686)

IV-a. Indefinite terms designating real things; indefinite things
corresponding to terms ( 1549-51)

IV-/2. Terms designating things and arousing incidental sentiments,
or incidental sentiments determining choice of terms ( 1552-
55)
IV-y.
Terms with numbers of meanings, and different things desig-
nated by single terms ( 1556-1613)
IV-& Metaphors, allegories, analogies ( 1614-85)
IV-f. Vague, indefinite terms corresponding to nothing concrete
( 1686).
1420. Class Assertion. This class comprises simple narrations,

I:
assertions of fact, assertions by accord of sentiments. They are offered

not as such, but in an absolute, axiomatic, dogmatic manner. They
may be mere narrations or indications of experimental uniformities;

but they are often so worded that it is not clear whether they are
mere statements of experimental fact, or expressions of sentiment, or
90O THE MIND AND SOCIETY 142!
somewhat of both. In many cases, however, their composition may,
to a certain degree of probability, be determined. Take the collection
of maxims by Publilius Syrus. The first four are of the I-ottype: "We
mortal men are equally nigh unto death." "Expect from another
what you have done to another." "Extinguish with tears the wrath of
him who loves you." "To quarrel with a drunken man is to quarrel
with one absent." Then comes a maxim of the I-(3 type: "It is better
to receive a wrong than to inflict one." Then come four maxims
again of the I-ot type, and one of the I-/3: "He who loves his wife
licentiously is an adulterer." Finally a maxim
of the I-y type: "We
"
all ask, 'Is he rich?' No
one asks, 'Is he good?' That maxim con-
1
tains an assertion of fact (I-a) and a censure of the fact (I-/3). Or
further, consider the maxims of Menander: "It is agreeable to pluck

everything in its season" (I-a). "Neither do nor learn aught that is
shameful" (I-/?)-
"Silence is an ornament to all women" (I-/).
1421. I-ct: Assertions of facts, experimental or imaginary. The as-
sertion may be subordinate to experience, and in that case it is a log-
ico-experimental proposition and has no place among derivations.

But the assertion may also subsist of itself by virtue of a certain in-
herent persuasiveness independent of experience. In that case it is a
derivation.
1422. As we saw above 526, 1068), a simple narration and the
(
assertion of a uniformity are different things. Both may belong to
logico-experimental science or to derivations, according as they are

subordinate to experience or subsist of themselves.
1423. Oftentimes a person following the method of the logico-
experimental sciences will begin with a derivation and proceed to

subject it to experimental test. In such a case the derivation is just
an instrument of research and may have its place in logico-experi-
mental science though never as an instrument of proof or per-
suasion.
1424. When
a uniformity is asserted on the basis of a fact, or a
number of facts, the residue which is brought in for purposes of
derivation is connected with a feeling that relations between facts of
nature are constant ( 1068). That procedure is scientific, provided
one remember that there is
nothing absolute about a uniformity so
*
1420 [In Lyman, p. 13, the numbers of the maxims read in order, 1-5, 10; in
Kremsier, they are, respectively, 2, 19, 12, 669, 343, pp. i, 4, 3, 157, 69. A. L.]
1426 BIBLICAL COMMANDMENTS 901
obtained. It is a non-scientific derivation of the if the con-
I-/? type
stancy of natural "laws" is

regarded as something absolute, or if
the statement is in any way considered as transcending experience.
1425. The blunt assertion has little or no demonstrative value, but
1
sometimes has great persuasive force. However, the assertion pure
it
and simple is a rare thing, especially among civilized peoples. There

is almost
always some adjunct, some derivation, however rudi-
2
mentary.
1426. Frequent, on the other hand, in times
past and present, is
the re-enforcing assertion that is appended as a sort of exclamation
to other derivations. In the Bible in issuing commands to His people
1
1425 That is why we come upon the assertion here just as we came upon it
some distance back (Chapter III) when we were investigating the ways in which
people try to convince themselves and others that non-logical conduct is logical. We
did not meet with it when we were considering demonstrations (Chapter IV).
2
1425 Seneca discusses the utility of precepts in his Epistulae, 94. That is not
our problem here, but some of his observations hit the mark as to the character
and the appeal of the assertion: "Adiice nunc quod aperta quoque apertiora fieri
solent" ("Then again what is obvious usually becomes more so/') He is met with
the objection that if a precept is questionable it has to be proved, and in that case
the useful thing is tne proof, not the precept, and he replies: "What do you say to
the fact that the very authority of the mentor has its effect (prodcst) quite apart
from any proof? So it is with the dicta of jurists, even when they give no reasons.
Besides, themaxims imparted to us have a great weight all by themselves whether
they are elaborated in verse or arc compressed into the proverb in prose, such as
Cato's famous maxim: 'Emas non quod opus cst sed quod necesse est. Quod non
opus est asse carum est.' ("Buy not what you need but what you have to have.
What you do not need comes dear at a farthing" Reliquiae, 4 (8), p. 17.) So with
the responses of oracles or things of that kind, such as 'Tempori parcel' 'Te nosci.'
What proof do you require when someone quotes to you lines such as: 'Iniuriarum
'
remcdium cst oblivio,' Audentes jortuna iuvat,' 'Piger ipse sibi obstat'? Such max-
ims need no advocate. They touch us in our inner emotions and stimulate us by
their own natural force. [So Pareto. "Nattira vim suam exercente proficiunt": perhaps
"by force of our very natures"; Gummere: "because nature is exercising her proper
function"; Morell: "Let nature exert her own power, they cannot but do good."
A. L.] The seeds of all nobility lie in our souls, and they are stirred to life by the
admonition, much as a spark when gendy fanned unfolds its inner flame.'* To be
quite exact the last sentences need retouching: "The seeds of certain things lie in
our souls, and they are stirred to life by simple assertions, much as, etc." Seneca goes
on to say: "Some things moreover are present in our souls but in a state of slug-
gishness, and they become supple and active (in expcdito) when they are expressed
in words. Some things lie scattered about so that an untrained mind cannot bring
them together; andso they have to be assembled and organized before they can be
useful and inspiriting to the soul." That is all very sound and well describes the
effects of simple assertions.
through Moses, Jehovah now and again exclaims as it were by way
of re-enforcement: "I am the Lord your God." 1 Frequent in our
time are assertions to the effect that this or that measure means
"progress" or "democracy" or that it is
"broadly human" or "makes
for a better humanity." The assertion is less a derivation, in just that
form, than a mere device for evoking certain sentiments. But by

being repeated over and over again, it eventually acquires a force
of its own, becomes a motive of conduct, and is to all intents and
purposes a derivation.
1427. The simple assertion also figures in the taboo without sanc-
tion, to which we have already alluded (32if.). Simple deriva-
tions of that sort can be detected in a great many compound deriva-
tions rare, indeed, the concrete derivation that fails to contain one.
The arbitrary assertion generally finds some little place among exper-
imental assertions; or else it creeps into an argument or dissembles
its
presence there to usurp for itself the assent that is accorded to the
other propositions among which it lurks.
1428. I-/3:
Assertion of sentiments. The assertion may be an in-
direct manner of expressing certain sentiments, and it is accepted as
an "explanation" by people who share those sentiments. In such a
case, therefore, it is a mere manifestation of the secondary residues
that go to make up the derivation.
1429. When a uniformity or precept is derived from an individual
sentiment, the residue brought into play for purposes of derivation is
the one that transforms subjective facts into objective realities (resi-
due II-, 888) along, oftentimes, with residues of sociality (Class
IV). A man sees other people run and he runs. That is an instinctive
act, a reflex action such as is observable in animals. He hears some-
one shout, "Run!" and he runs. We are still in the same case. Ask
him, "Why did you run?" and he answers, "Because I heard people
'Run!' and I thought that one ought to run." In that we get
shouting
a first glimmer of the derivation, which will become more compli-
cated if the man undertakes to give a reason for the "ought." man A
reading a poem exclaims, "It is beautiful!" Were he to say, "It seems
beautiful to me," he would merely be stating a subjective fact. Using
the language, "It is beautiful!" he makes the subjective fact objective.
1426
1
-
Lev. 14:3, and passim: "And ye shall fear every man his mother and his
father and keep my sabbaths: I am the Lord your God/*
1431 DERIVATIONS I-/2 ! ASSERTIONS OF SENTIMENTS 903
Furthermore, anyone hearing the exclamation has a feeling that
anything that is reputed beautiful ought to make an impression of
beauty upon him, a residue of sociality interposing. That is the reason
why people as a rule share the tastes of the
community in which they
live.
1430. An
assertion is accepted and gains prestige through the
sentiments of various kinds which it excites in those who hear it, the
sentiments so acquiring status as "proof." It convinces because it is
stated in a doctoral, sententious tone, with great assurance, and in a

choice literary language. It will be more effective in verse than in
prose, in print rather than in manuscript, in a book rather than in

a newspaper, in a newspaper rather than in the spoken word
( "57)-
1431. The
causes that account for the persuasiveness of the asser-
tion fall into three categories: i. A
vague feeling that a person who
expresses himself in such a form must be right. In that the derivation
is reduced to a minimum and is to be taken as the distinctive
type
of the I-/3 variety. 2. A feeling that such a select form is authoritative.
In that the derivation somewhat more evolved and belongs to
is
Class II (and see below, 1434 f-, authority). 3. The more or less
vague notion that the authority is justified. The derivation still be-
longs to Class II ( 1435), and may develop to the point of yielding
a logical reasoning.
One might guess, in the abstract, that the sentiments in 3 gave
rise to the sentiments in 2, and those in 2 to those in i : that first, in
other words, one is shown that certain circumstances confer author-
ity;
that then the authority is accepted in general terms; and that,
finally,
and quite apart from any authority, comes a feeling of
reverence for the manner of expression used. That may sometimes
be the process; but in reality the three groups are often independent,
each having a life of its own; and when a relation does exist be-
tween 2 and 3, it is the reverse of the one indicated. In many cases
the person accepting the assertion expressed in the forms mentioned

does not do any very extensive thinking: he says, "I see by the
1
." and for him that is
papers . .
proof enough. It is a I-/3 derivation,
*
1431 Journal des Goncotirt, Vol. V, p. 9 (Jan. 10, 1872): "Today the news-
paper has replaced the catechism among the French. A
leading article in the Jour-
nal de Paris by Tom, Dick, or Harry becomes an article of faith that the subscriber
43 2
but only in case the sentiment of respect for the printed or written
word is made implicitly or explicitly to serve as an explanation or
justification of the assent that is given to what is
printed or written.
If the sentiment is
merely expressed (as when something printed or
written is taken as a fetish, or amulet) or is
merely regarded with
reverence and no inferences are drawn from we
get a residue that
it,
we discussed some distance back

( ii^jL, authority of symbols).
The observation is of general bearing: a sentiment finds expression
in a residue. If the residue is then used to explain, justify, demon-
strate, we
get a derivation. In the case where a person takes his
opinions from the newspaper that he habitually reads, there figure,
along with the I-(3 derivation, a cumulus of other derivations and
residues, notable among which are residues of sociality (Class IV) :
the newspaper expresses, or is taken as expressing, the opinion of

the community to which the reader belongs. In other cases the con-
cept of authority figures ( 1157 f.), now in combination with the

residue of sociality, now independently of
Finally, in a case rela-
it.
tively rare, sentiments justifying the authority also come into play
( 1432). But as a rule a person first has the sentiment of authority,
and then goes looking for ways to justify it.
1432. From the logico-experimental standpoint, the fact that an

is made in a tone of
assertion great assurance may be an indication,
slight though it be, that it is not to be doubted. The fact that it is
made in Latin proves, unless it be a parrot-like repetition, that the
person who makes it has a certain amount of education, and that

may create a presumption of legitimate authority. In general, the
fact that expressed in language that not everybody could use
it is
may be an indication, though often enough misleading, that it comes

from a person better able than others to know what he is talking
about. An assertion made in print, as in newspapers or books, may
almost always be regarded as publicly made, and so as more readily
susceptible of refutation than an assertion made

in private and
passing from mouth to mouth. So if the refutation fails to materi-

alize, the printed assertion has greater plausibility than the spoken
word. But people are seldom influenced by considerations of that
kind. Not logico-experimental reasonings but sentiments prompt
accepts with the same absence of free thought that the mystery of the Trinity used
to get from the old-fashioned Catholic."
1435 AUTHORITY 905
them to lend credence to assertions that are made in those manners.
1433.
I-y:
Mixtures of fact and sentiment. Our I-aand I-/3 varieties,
which we separated in the abstract, nearly always appear combined
present genus. To be sure, a
in the concrete and so give rise to this
person giving an explanation may, though such a thing rarely hap-

pens, be free of the sentiments he exploits in giving it. But in gen-
eral the person who assents to it does share those sentiments other-
wise he would not give his assent. It follows from that that most
Class I derivations in the concrete are of the I-y
variety, and that
statements of fact and expressions of sentiment are so
intimately
blended in them as not easily to be distinguished. Often sentiments
of authority figure.
1434. Class II: Authority. Here we get a tool of proof and a tool
of persuasion. With authority as a means of proof we have already
dealt (583f.). Here our more particular interest is in authority
as an instrument of persuasion. The various derivations in this class
are the simplest next after assertions (Class I). As in many other
derivations, the residues that are used for purposes of deriving are
residues of group-persistence (Class II), II- residues that represent
sentiments as objective realities
being supported by residues of other
kinds, as, for instance, II-/3 residues (surviving authority of a dead
parent, or of the forefathers), residues of tradition (II-a) ; of persist-

ing uniformities (II-s), and so on. As a rule Class I residues sooner or
later comeinto play to elongate and complicate the derivation.
1435. II-a: Authority of one individual or of a number of individ-
uals. An extreme case would be the derivation that is
strictly logical.
It isevident that in a given connexion the opinion of an expert has
a greater probability of being verified by experience than the opinion
of a person who is ignorant of the matters in hand or but slightly
acquainted with them. That is a purely logico-experimental

situa-
tion and we need not linger on it. But there are other kinds of der-
ivations in which the individual's competence is not experimental.
It
may be assumed to exist from misleading evidence or be alto-
least remote from the logico-experi-
gether fictitious. In the case
mental situation the authority is presumed on grounds that may or
may not be sound, it
being a question of a greater or lesser degree
of probability ( 1432). Next to that would come the case where
the competence is stretched, through sentiments of group-persist-
ence, beyond the limits within which it is
experimentally valid. The
situation dealt with in the familiar maxim, "Cobbler, stick to your
1
last" Sutor, ne ultra crepidam is of all times and places.
1436. Because he is a first-class politician, Theodore Roosevelt is
sure that he alsoknows history; and he makes bold to deliver a lec-

ture in Berlin in which he makes brilliant display of his perfect
ignorance of Greek and Roman history. The university that once

listened to the lectures of Mommsen confers on him the title of
Doctor honoris causa. He makes the discovery and it is a feat
indeed that the apothegm, Si vis pacem, para helium, is George
Washington's and he becomes a corresponding member of the

French Institute of Moral and Political Sciences.* indubitably Now
Roosevelt is a past master in the art of manipulating elections. He
knows all the ins and outs of
publicity. He is not a bad hunter of
the white rhinoceros. But how can all that make him competent to
advise the English on how to govern
Egypt, or the French on the
number of children they should have? Undoubtedly political con-
siderations and considerations of rather undignified adulation fig-
ured in the honours that were conferred upon Roosevelt by the
French and the universities of Berlin and Cambridge, to
Institute
say nothing of flattery which he received from influential statesmen

in the course of his rapid flight through Europe. But even where
1
1435 Bentham, Tactique dcs assemblers legislatives, Vol. II, pp. 23-24, expresses
an altogether erroneous opinion: "Authority has been the support over countless
centuries of the most discordant systems, the most monstrous opinions. [Such opin-
ions are supported by residues and explained by derivations, among which the
derivation of authority.] The religions of the Brahma, of Fob, of Mohammed, rest
on nothing else. [Not at all! Authority is only one of many derivations that are
called in to logicalize the various group-persistences.] If authority is a thing that
cannot be questioned, the human race that peoples those vast territories has no hope
ever of escaping from darkness." In that we get, first of all, the usual error of as-
suming that all conduct is logical and that beliefs are products of reasoning. The
fact isthey are dictated by sentiment. Implicit, secondly, is a conflict between the
Religion of Progress in which Bentham believes and the "superstition" of authority
that he combats. To adopt the superstition would be tantamount to renouncing every
hope of progress for the peoples of Asia; and since such a thing is inconceivable,
the superstition has to be rejected. That is one of the usual confusions between the
question of the utility of a doctrine and its accord with experimental facts.
a
1436 [And yet why not George Washington, as well as some other modern? For
the phrase has no classical authority. Vegetius, De re militari, III, proemium, said,
"Qui desiderat pacem, praeparet bellum"; and Cicero, Philippicae, VII, 6, 19, "Si
pace jrui volumus bellum gerendum est." A. L.]
1436 DERIVATIONS II-a: AUTHORITY 907
those considerations were not operative there was plenty of admira-
tion for Roosevelt's fatuous chatter. The feeling was that there was
a man who was man enough to get himself elected to the presi-
dency of the United States and to make a terrible noise in that office,
and that therefore he must surely be competent in any matter re-
lating to the historical and social sciences. It was the feeling also
that a man who is competent in one thing is
competent in every-
thing; along with a sentiment of generic admiration, which prevents
people from distinguishing the respects in which a man is
competent
1
from the respects in which he is not.
In a day gone by the prestige of the poet intruded upon every
field of human many cases with some slight logico-ex-
activity, in
perimental justification, since the poet was often a scholar. That

consideration no longer applies to the poets and literati of our time.
Yet in many cases such men are reputed authorities in matters alto-
gether stranger to them. Here is a Brieux, who "solves" some "social

question" for us in every one of his dramatic productions. He "dis-
covers" a thesis that has been a commonplace from times most an-
cient and in the
footsteps of Plutarch and Rousseau solemnly tells
mothers that they ought to suckle their children. That wins him
loud applause from hosts of men and women of no great brains.
Anatole France a novelist of the very first rank, a great stylist,
is
and a master of literary form. He has written in marvellous lan-

guage novels distinguished for a keen psychological insight and
sagacious irony. In all such connexions his authority is not to be
disputed. And then, one fine day, he takes it into his head to extend
that authority to matters about which he knows much less. He sets
out to solve questions of politics, economics, religion, history: he
becomes Dreyfusard, Socialist, theologian, historian; and people
flock in throngs to him in all of those varied metamorphoses. The
sentiment of authority re-enforced by political passions was so strong
in his case that it resisted all proofs to a contrary in itself more plau-
1
1436 The public attentions showered on Roosevelt were to a certain extent logi-
cal actions. It was believed at the time in Europe that Roosevelt would again be
President of the United States, and the idea was to work for favours from him.
Those calculations went amiss, however: Roosevelt was not re-elected. To counter-
balance such fawning, the Pope refused to receive Roosevelt, a Genoese nobleman
denied him entrance to his palace, and Maximilian Harden wrote an article lam-
pooning German adulators of Roosevelt.
908 THE MIND AND SOCIETY M37
sible. Andrew Lang,
in his time, called attention to the serious and
astonishingly numerous errors that France's Jeanne d'Arc contains,

some childish, some unintentional, and some that cannot, unfortu-
nately, be called unintentional. In spite of everything the book still
2
has hosts of admirers and enjoys not a little prestige.
1437. The residue of veneration (ii56f., inferiors for su-
periors) often contributes to lending weight to assertions. The senti-

ment may show varying degrees of intensity, running from simple
admiration to deification outright. It serves for purposes of deriva-
2
1436 Andrew Lang, La Jeanne d'Arc de M. Anatole France, pp. 95-102, Chap.
IX, The Forest of Errors [Lang's review was written in French and seems never to
have appeared as such, in English. It contained material that Lang had already put
forward against Anatole France in The Maid of France, Being the Story of the Life
and Death of Jeanne d'Arc, London, 1908. A. L.]: France states that "the tax
imposed .
upon the population of Domremy amounted to not less than ^220 in
. .
gold." Lang informed France before the definitive publication of the Jeanne d'Arc
that "for the tax to have reached such a sum, we should have to assume that Dom-
remy had as large a population as Orleans. ... I had already called M. France's
attention to this error, but it has not been corrected in the revised edition. . . .
M. France obstinately maintains that a certain young woman whose son was god-
son to Jeanne 'ridiculed her because of her devoutness,' mentioning the testimony
of the woman as proof. Now there is not a suggestion of any such thing in the
woman's testimony; and I am not alone in having called M. France's attention to
that fact. That is how he bases his work on 'the most reliable sources/ to use the
words of his new preface, and 'interpreting them with all the insight of a real
scholar,' to believe his good-natured critic, M. Gabriel Monod!" Lang notes other
errors of minor importance but which go to show that France took the writing of
his book not overseriously: "In a short passage from the celebrated letter of Gerson,
every sentence as translated by M. France becomes nonsense. A versified proverb of

Dionysius Cato, 'Arbitrii nostri non est quod quisque loquatur/ becomes in the
book of M. France, 'Our arbiters are not what each one says.' Of the false rumours
current regarding Jeanne, Gerson says, 'Si multi multa loquantur pro garrulitate sua
et levitate ant dolositate aut alio sinistro favore vel odio. . . .' M. France translates
that as follows: 'If several witnesses have testified to Jeanne's garrulousness, and to
her frivolousness and shrewdness . . .'! In the sentence next following Gerson al-
ludes to the words of the Apostle, 'Non oportet servum Dei litigare,' and M. France
"
translates, 'It is not meet to involve the servant of God in this question.' Noting
another important error on France's part, Lang comments: "While M. France was
finding in Dunois's testimony things that were not there, it was quite natural that
he should fail to observe that D'Aulon was a member of the Royal Council and
had been summoned by the King along with the other Councillors to pass on
Jeanne's first petition a thing that must surely strike us as altogether natural. But
it is very regrettable that after his attention had been called to these points by the
praiseworthy conscientiousness of Mr. Andrew Lang,' he should have allowed his

fabrication to stand in his revised edition." Though Salomon Reinach shows him-
self very kindly disposed towards Anatole France, he is forced to admit the latter's
errors: Cultes, mythes et religions, Vol. IV, pp. 311-12: "I am going to say at the
1438 SAINT AUGUSTINE ON THE INCREDIBLE 909
tion in all forms, but in the higher reaches it often appears as
its
1
authority of verbal or written tradition.
1438. With derivations of this II-a type are to be classed many
pseudo-experimental assertions that are current in all

periods of his-
tory and are repeated parrotwise by everybody. Sometimes they carry
a suggestion of proof in some more or less intelligent, some more or
but oftentimes again they are destitute of
less accurate, attestation;
even that support, and keep afloat no one knows how, without a
shadow of foundation, whether experimental or otherwise. Exam-
ples without end might be mentioned. Open any book of ancient
times and one will soon be encountered, and the chances are just
as good among modern writings. We
have seen many specimens
already. Let us look at just one more. St. Augustine, De civitate Dei,
XXI, 2, sets out to prove against unbelievers that the torment of
hell-fire will really be visited upon the damned. He has been met
with the objection that it is incredible that flesh should burn on
for ever without being destroyed, and that a soul should suffer so
much without dying. That difficulty he meets with the rejoinder
that things just as marvellous have happened and that they would
be incredible if they were not certainly true; and he mentions a long
list of them. We need not go into the major issue, the argument
outset that M. Lang is often right in his criticisms of M. France, though he is in-
clined to attach a great deal of importance to small matters.*' But he concedes, p.
320, that France did not rectify errors that had been called to his attention: "In
spite of the improvements M. France has made, his book is still very inaccurate.
Perhaps we oughtto assume that M. France shared his labours with others, using
what we call a negre' and not a very trustworthy 'negre! " As regards the Cato
'
proverb in dispute between Lang and France, France should have remembered that
in the Distica Catonis, a work well known and gready admired in centuries past,
the proverb reads, III, 2:
"Cum recte vivas ne cures verba malorum:

arbitrii non cst nostri quid quisquc loquatur"
("So long as you live rightly, give no thought to the words of the malicious. It is
not within our power to control what people say.")
Maimbourg, Histoire de I'Arianisme, Vol. I, pp. 17-18: "I am well aware
X
1437
that one is not always obliged to believe in the extraordinary things called visions,
especially when they are not vouched for by some celebrated author whose name is
in itself genuine proof. But I am also not unaware that history, leaving us full lib-
erty to believe what we cannot without excessive meticulousness (delicatesse)

will,
and without a certain meanness of spirit suppress visions that have been accepted
as true for ages and ages and by people whom one could not accuse of frailty with-
out losing one's own reputation."
910 TREATISE ON GENERAL SOCIOLOGY 143$
being utterly fatuous on both sides. The question of the reality of
hell-fire transcends the possibilities of experimental verification and
experimental science can therefore in no way discuss it. But it is a
very curious thing that nearly all the examples mentioned by the
Saint are imaginary; so much so that had his own argument been
made by an adversary, one might suppose that the intention was to
disprove the miracles which the Saint thinks he is proving. Using
the very same "facts," one might say to the Saint: "We accept your
challenge: we grant that the miracles you speak of are as true as

the wonders with which you compare them. But, alas, they are all
false!" For one of the wonders in question, the allegation that the
flesh of thepeacock never rots, there is a pseudo-experimental basis.
In the other cases the proof is by derivations based on authority.
The Saint, in all that, is a predecessor of our present-day worship-
pers of the goddess Science. He says that he believes only what is
proved by the facts, so denying credence to pagan mythology. In our
day, the convinced Positivist-Humanitarian asserts in his turn that
he believes only what is proved by the facts and refuses credence to
Christian mythology. Unfortunately, however, in the one case as in
the other, the facts are pseudo-experimental and nothing more.
After all, some
doubt as to the "facts" creeps into St. Augus-
slight
tine's mind, a thing that seems never to happen with our worship-
pers of democracy and humanitarianism. God's omnipotence is, at

bottom, the best proof of miracles for St. Augustine. And in that
he is right; for in taking the question out of the logico-experimental
field, he avoids the objections of logico-experimental science, which,
however, retain their full vigour against anyone who obstinately in-
1 2 8 4
sists on
remaining in that field. (For footnotes 2-4 see pages 912-
9I3-)
1
1438 To
begin with, the Saint asserts that he will take his stand in the experi-
mental "Unbelievers will not allow us to ascribe this thing to the power of
field:
the Almighty, but challenge us to persuade them by some example." He undertakes
to do so; but unluckily the unbelievers are such obstinate and perverse creatures that
they demand proofs even of his new assertions: "We might tell them that there
are animals which are certainly corruptible because mortal, yet which nevertheless
remain alive in fire. We might tell them that a species of worm is to be found in
hot springs which are so hot that nobody can touch the water without harm
whereas the worms not only live there without damage but cannot live anywhere
But even if we told them such things they would not believe them unless we
else.
were able to produce them before their eyes [Unreasonable creatures!]; or if we

were able to produce them or to prove them by trustworthy witnesses, they would
1439 DERIVATIONS Il-al AUTHORITY pi I
1439. residue of authority comes down in derivations across
The
the centuries without losing any of its vigour. After a talk in our
day with an admirer of Eusapia Paladino, or Cesare Lombroso,

or
William James, one can only admit that it is as strong now as it ever
still not budge from their unbelief, but contend that anyhow such animals do not
live for ever and that the heat occasions them no suffering." If such an objection
was was right in rejecting it. But the existence of the animals
really raised, the Saint
stillremains to be proved! Authority comes to the Saint's rescue: "According to
writers who have investigated the nature of animals with the greatest care, the
salamander lives in fire." And if a soul can suffer without perishing, lost souls can
really suffer in hell-fire eternally. Then there is the fact that God can endow flesh
with a capacity for not being consumed by fire, for he has made the flesh of the
peacock immune to decay. On
that point the Saint had made an experiment him-
self. He had set aside a piece of peacock's breast that had been cooked. After a long
enough time for any other cooked meat to have rotted, the peacock's breast was
brought to him. His sense of smell was in no way offended. Thirty days later it
was found in the same condition, and so again after a year, except that by that time
it was rather dry and shrivelled quod aliquantum corpitlentiae sicctons ct
"nisi
contractions jttit." Another marvel is which resists iron and fire and
the diamond,
any other force except ram's blood. When a diamond is set beside a loadstone the
latter no longer attracts iron. But the unbelievers still stand adamant and will have
the reasons for the miraculous things described by the Saint: "But when we assert
divine miracles past or future and are unable to demonstrate them tangibly (ex-
pcricnda) before their eyes, the unbelievers insist on our explaining
the reasons for
them; and since we are unable to do that, surpassing as they do the powers of the
human mind, they conclude that what we say is false. But in that case suppose they
that we see or may see if we
try themselves to account for all the wondrous things
choose." So far the Saint is right. The fact that we do not know the cause of a
thing proves nothing as to its reality. But the existence of the thing still has to be
proved by direct observation. That is where St. Augustine falls short. Nearly all the
things he represents as authentic facts are purely
fantastic: i. When the salt of Agri-
is thrown into fire it melts as in water. In water itcrackles as in
gentum (Sicily)
2 (Bostock-Riley, Vol. V, p. 505),
fire. Pliny's account, Historia naturalis, XXXI, 41,
is somewhat different: "Agrigentinus ignium patiens ex aqua
cxsilet" (resistant to
fire it effervesces in 2. In the Garamantian district (Africa) there is a spring

water).
where the water is so cold cannot be drunk, and so hot by night that
by day that it
it cannot be touched. And

ef. Pliny, Ibid., V, 5,
6 (Bostock-Riley, Vol. I, p. 399):
"At Debris there is a spring in which the water is boiling hot between noon and
midnight and cold for the same length of time from midnight till mid-
freezing
is another spring in Epirus where, as is usual with other springs, a
There
day." 3.
in the water; but, as is not usual with
burning torch will go out if it is dipped
other springs, an unlightcd torch can be lighted by dipping it in the water. And cf.
Mela, De situ orbis, II, 3, 5; and Pliny, II, 106 (Bostock-Riley,
Pomponius Ibid.,^
Vol. I, p. 133). Lucretius tries to explain something very similar in De rerum
na-
a stone found in It is so called because
tura, VI, vv. 880-89. 4. Asbestos is Arcady.
once' set'on fireit can never more be extinguished. Pliny, Ibid., XXXVII, 54 (Bos-
that it is a stone from Arcady. Solinus,
tock-Riley, Vol. VI, p. 442), notes simply
74-75) > savs the same and adds: "Census scmd
Polyhistor, VII, 13 (Leipzig, pp.
was day when Lucian wrote his "Lover of Lies." Nor are the
in the
fabulous wonders that Lucian ridicules so very different from those
current today, and in Lucian's time, as in ours,
they were justified
on the authority of people who were reputed to be and intelligent
responsible. Long before Lombroso and William James ever prom-
extingui nequit" 5. The wood of a certain fig-tree in Egypt does not float in water:
it sinks to the bottom, and then, after a certain time, it returns to the surface
again.
Cf. Pliny, Op. cit., XIII, 14 (7) (Bostock-Riley, Vol. Ill, pp. 180-81). 6. In the Sodom
district there are certain fruits that if touched with lips or hand, seeming to be
ripe,vanish into smoke and ashes. Cf. Josephus, De bello Judaico, IV, 8, 4 (27)
(Opera, Vol. V, p. 371; Whitson, Vol. V, p. 315). 7. In Persia there is a stone that
catches fire if it is pressed hard between the hands. For that reason it is called
"pyritis." Cf. Solinus, Op. 16 (Leipzig, p. 227) ; Pliny, XXXVII, 73
cit., XXXVII,
(Bostock-Riley, Vol. VI, p. 460): "Pyritis, though a black stone, burns the fingers
when rubbed by them." 8. Also in Persia is a stone called "selenite." It has an
inner brilliancy that waxes and wanes with the Moon. Cf. Pliny, Op. cit., XXXVII,
67, i (Bostock-Riley, Vol. VI, p. 456) "Selenitis is white and transparent with a re-
:
flected colour like that ofhoney." 9. In Cappacodia mares are fertilized by the wind,
but their foals live not more than three years. (Cf. 3
927 .) 10. The island of Tilon
in the Indies is blessed above all others, because the trees there do not lose their
foliage. This last statement is the only one of the that has the slightest probabil-
list
ity of being true, provided it be taken as applying not just to one island but to all
the tropics.
28
The Saint continues: "Hosts of things are recorded in books [Explicit
1438
derivations of authority.] not as having been done and then having
passed away,
but as still existing in their various localities, so that if anyone were minded and
able to go there, he could see for himself whether they be true." There the deriva-
tion of authority is implicit. To say that anyone might go and see whether such
wonderful things were true is equivalent, in that context, to saying that "it was
believed" that such a verification was possible. As a matter of fact, a person actu-
ally going on such a mission could not possibly have verified facts that were not
facts. But the obstinate unbelievers lay a trap for the Saint as regards the written
record: "To this, perhaps, they will straightway answer that these wonders do not
exist, that they do not believe in them, that those who have spoken and written of
them have spoken and written falsely; and they argue that if such things are to be
believed then one ought also to believe the other things that are described in those
same books, such as the story that there was, or is, a certain temple to Venus where
one may see a candelabrum with a lamp standing out in the weather, but which
no storm, no rain, can extinguish." In that argument the Saint's critics were trying
to place him in the dilemma either of denying the miracle of Venus and so dis-
crediting the evidence he had adduced in behalf of his own wonders, or of admit-
ting the existence of the gods of paganism. But he wriggles free by pointing out
that he is not obliged to believe everything the heathen writers say: "non habemus
necesseomnia credere quae continet historia gentium"; for, as Varro notes, they are
at variancewith one another on many points. We believe, he says, the things that
they do not dispute ("quae non adversantur libris") and which we can prove by
1439 LUCIAN ON THE MARVELLOUS 913
ised to return after deathand communicate with their friends, the
wife of Euchrates had returned from the other world to have a talk
with her husband. The philosopher Arignotus tells of even more
marvellous things, and the incredulous Tychiades, betraying the fact
that he does not take overmuch stock in them, is
adjudged a man
good witnesses. He does not name his witnesses, however, any more than the wor-
shippers of the modern goddess Science name theirs when they assert the equality
or solidarity of all men. The Saint now resumes the offensive. With the miracle of
the lamp of Venus he associates the many miracles of magic, which cannot be de-
nied without offence to the authority of Holy Writ: "Either the lamp in question
is devised
by human art, with asbestos; or what is seen in the temple is the work
of magic; or else a demon, going under the name of Venus, has wrought with such
efficacy that this prodigy has been made manifest before all men and has endured."
And he concludes that if magicians can do that much, we should be all the more
ready to believe that God, who is so much more powerful than any magician, can
work greater wonders still: "quanta magis Deus potens cst jacere quae infidelibus
stint incredibilia sed illius facilia potestati" since He was the creator of that stone
(asbestos) and of the virtues of other things, of the intelligence of the men who use
such virtues in wondrous ways and of the angelic natures, which are far more
powerful than all earthly creatures. But that is all a reasoning in a circle, a manner
of thinking seldom missing in concrete derivations of the Augustinian type. To
offer the testimony of the Scriptures to people who deny their authority, the mira-
cles of a devil Venus to people who deny miracles, the might of the Christian God
to people who deny His existence, is to take the conclusion of one's arguments for
the premise.
4
1438 As for St. Augustine's doubts: "I do not ask that these facts which I have
mentioned be accepted out of hand (tcmere) as true. I do not believe them myself
to the extent that no doubt whatever is left in my mind, except as to those things
which I have experienced myself or which it would be easy for anyone to verify."
An excellent resolve, to which unfortunately the Saint docs not remain very faith-
ful! In addition to wonders that are only partially true, he takes exception to two
of the less credible marvels, the story about lighting the torch in the spring in Epi-
rus, and the story about the fruit at Sodom. As for the spring in Epirus he con-
fesses that he had known no eyewitnesses; but he had met people who had seen a
similar spring at Gratianopolis (Grenoble). "As for the fruit-trees of Sodom, not
only are they vouched for by books altogether trustworthy, but so many writers
speak of them of their own experience that I cannot doubt them." Interesting the
Saint'sway of giving and taking back at the same time, a common device in many
such derivations. It arises from the need of influencing sentiments, disregarding
contradictions, which would become apparent enough in a logico-experimental
argument. St.Augustine begins by representing his wonders as facts. He says indeed
that anyone who chooses may verify them, and in the matter of the diamond he
calls the jewellers of his city to witness. Then, when the effect of that has sunk in,
he ventures a certain amount of doubt that he may save both the goat and the cab-
to a solidarity-fact:
bages. So nowadays worshippers of solidarity begin by pointing
and then when that has done its work, they deign to admit that their solidarity-fact
is the opposite of their solidarity-duty ( 450 *).

1
of poor sense in not deferring to such authority. To find similar
comments one has only to dip at random into any one of the many
2
books that deal with marvellous occurrences.
1440. Such beliefs still exist in our day. Many people believe in
cures by prayer ( 1695
2
). A great many live in
holy fear of our
hygienists, who
modern saints defending wretched mortals from
are
the evil machinations of demons now become microbes. A text-book
on morals (!) in use in public schools in France teaches that "to be
in good health one must never touch alcohol or alcoholic beverages.
One must never swallow a single drop of brandy, cordial, absinthe,
1
1439 Lucian, Philopseudes, 17, 32 (Harmon, Vol. Ill, pp. 347, 369) the in-
credulous Tychiadcs speaking ironically: "Oh, I said, how could I fail to believe
Euchratcs, son of Dcinon, a man of sober years, who discourses with authority on
any subject that happens to interest him in his own house. When Arignotus, . . .
a famous, nay an inspired, sage, began telling such talcs, there was not one in the
company who did not call me a lunatic because I took no stock in them. Imagine!
Things vouched for by Arignotus! But I, without that much respect for his shaggy
locks and great renown, I cried: 'O Arignotus, so you too you promise us truth,
and feed us prattle! You make the proverb come true, "We seek a treasure and
*
ashes we 'Very well,* answered Arignotus, 'if you believe not my words, nor
find."
Dinomachus, nor Cleodcmus, nor Euchrates himself, come, tell us of a man of

greater authority to gainsay what we have just said.' And I, 'Yes, by Jove, and a
"
wonderful man Dcmocritus of AbderaP
2
1439 Mentioning numberless cases where human beings had turned into wolves
and then back into men again, Bodin expresses his astonishment that anyone could
doubt a thing enjoying such universal consensus: De la demonomanie, II, 6 (Paris,
f.
99; Frankfurt, pp. 239-40): "We read further in the history of Johann Tritheim
that in the year 970 there was a Jew by the name of Baian, son of Simeon, who
could turn into a wolf whenever he chose and also make himself invisible. Now
that a very strange thing, but I find it stranger still that there should be people
is
who do not believe it, seeing that all the peoples on earth and all antiquity stand
in agreement in the matter. Not only did Herodotus write of it 2,200 years ago
[Historiae, IV, 105], and 400 years before the time of Homer, but there is Pom-
ponius Mela \De situ orbis, II, i, 13], there is Solinus, there is Strabo, not to men-
tion Dionysius Afer, Marcus Varro, Virgil, Ovid, and countless others." Father Le
Brun, Histoire critique des pratiques superstitieuses, Vol. I, p. 118, tries to steer a
middle course. One ought not, certainly, believe everything, but "obstinacy in un-
belief ordinarily comes of an excessive pride that inclines one to esteem oneself
higher than the most respectable authorities and to prefer one's own lights to the
wisdom of the greatest men and most
judicious philosophers." Following just such
principles Don Calmet remarks, Dissertations sur les apparitions, p. 63, that "Plu-
tarch, a man of recognized seriousness and wisdom, often speaks of spectres and
apparitions.He says, for instance {Theseus, 35], that at the famous battle of Mara-
thon, against the Persians, several soldiers saw the shade of Theseus fighting with
the Greeks against their enemies."
1440 DERIVATIONS Il-ot! AUTHORITY 915
*
or aperitif." There is no reason to suppose that the author of the
text-book did not believe precisely what he says otherwise the ex-
ample would be truly deplorable in a text-book on "morals"! He
believesand his reader must believe by virtue of his authority
that to swallow "a single drop of brandy or cordial" will impair
one's health. It is a very easy matter to test the assertion and see
whether be true that after drinking a single drop of liquor one
it
feels that one's health has been impaired. In that case as in

many
others it will be apparent that experience gives the lie to the au-
thority. But there is better

yet.
A
certain individual declares as a
fact of experience that if a man is a drinker his daughter will lose
her ability to suckle a child and that that capacity is forever lost to
succeeding generations. In this case the substitution of authority for

experience is brazen and belies itself. To show experimentally that
the capacity for nursing a child is lost forever to succeeding genera-
tions, the generations must, obviously, have been examined for a
number of centuries at And how is that possible? Where are
least.
the statistics of centuries now past to show whether a man was or

was not a drinker, or that the women descended from him were
or were not able to suckle children ? Let alone the fact that if what
the gentleman in question says were true no wine-growing country
would show a single woman able to nurse a child! A pair of eyes
and a walk through such a district are all that is required to be con-
2
vinced of the contrary.
*
1440 Bayet, Lemons dc morale, p. 33, a text-book in the Aulard Collection. The
Aulard in question is the same gentleman who rebuked Taine for insufficient schol-
arship and accuracy. It should be noted that a bill for "the defence of the lay school"
recently brought before the Chamber of Deputies proposes a penalty for anyone
daring to influence minors in the direction of disbelief in such fine doctrines.
2
1440 For the hereditary effects of alcohol on mother's milk, see Journal de
Geneve, Apr. 29, 1909: "In collaboration with more than a hundred physicians
from Switzerland and abroad [There you have the authority that requires deference
from everybody.], he has studied 2,051 families. On the basis of very considerable
data he concludes as follows: 'When the father is a drinker, the daughter loses her
capacity to nurse a child and that capacity is irremediably lost for the following
generations. [This gentleman may know little enough about the past, but he has
learned all about the future probably through some trance medium.] So with
moderate drinkers (less than one litre of wine or two litres of beer per diem), the
alcoholization of the father is the main cause of the woman's inability to nurse her
"
children.' There must be mighty few women in Germany who are able to nurse
their children; for few the men in that country who do not drink as much as two
litres of beer a day. As usual derivations serve equally well to demonstrate the pro
916 THE MIND AND SOCIETY 144!
1441. And here is another gentleman who
finds peo-says and he
ple to believe him that a pint of wine or a quart of beer will dimm-
ish capacity for mental work by from 25 to 40 per cent. If that were
true, German universities, where professors and students regularly

drink more than that amount of beer or wine, would show a very
small capacity for mental work. Abel, the great mathematician, ac-
tually abused alcoholic beverages. He should have turned out an

idiot but it is very hard to notice it. Bismarck, too, should have had
1 2
a microscopic capacity for mental work. (For footnote 2 see page
9I7-)
1442. Many of the believers in this modern Prohibitionist religion
are bitterest enemies of the Catholic Church and ridicule its mira-
cles, not observing that their own miracles are as miraculous as the
Catholic, and that if belief in both sorts of miracles
dictated by is
sentiment it has, after all, its justification in authority. But there is

a difference, and it is not in favour of the Prohibitionists. There is
no means available today for proving by experiment that a miracle
that took place ages ago was false. Whereas anyone can perform
experiments or make observations to prove the falsity of the mira-

cles of our present-day Prohibitionists.
1443. The
residue of authority also appears in the devices that are
called into play to discredit it. That fact is apparent enough in al-
most any quarrel on theological, moral, or political questions.
and the contra. When the idea is to induce mothers to nurse their own children,
the argument changes, and complaisant statistics show just as convincingly that
mothers are, or arc not, able to supply their young with milk. Ibid., Oct. 27, 1910:
"Mile. Louise Hedwige Kettler has observed some 1,700 maternity cases and reached
many interesting conclusions. . . . Absolute inability on a mother's part to nurse
her child must be considered very rare. 93.42 per cent of the mothers observed by
Mile. Ketder over a three years' period were able to attend to that duty. Physical
causes preventive of such nursing are on the whole not very numerous. Mothers
should look out. In their resorting to artificial feeding there is risk of their rearing
a generation ofwomen unable to nurse their children." One needs only a superficial
acquaintance with Geneva to be certain that 93 per cent of the women in that town
are not daughters of parents who drink neither wine nor other alcoholic beverages.
But in the logic of derivations two contradictory propositions may be true at one
and the same time.
x
1441 The
report of a lecture by a Geneva physician in the Journal de Geneve:
"With painstaking documentation and taking into account researches conducted at
the Heidelberg School Dr. Audeaud showed that the amount of alcohol con-
. . .
tained in about half a litre of wine or two litres of beer was enough to diminish
capacity for mental work by from 25 to 40 per cent. The falling-off is due to the
paralyzing, stupefying effects of alcohol. They arc observable for several days after
1446 ALCOHOL AND MENTAL CAPACITY 917
1444. From
the logico-experimental standpoint the soundness of
the proposition A=
B is independent of the moral qualities of the
person who asserts it. Suppose tomorrow it should be discovered
that Euclid was a murderer, a thief, in short the worst man that
ever lived. Would such a thing in the remotest degree affect the
validity of the proofs in his geometry ?
1445. Not so, however, from the standpoint of authority. If the
statement A=
Bis accepted only in view of the authority of the
individual who asserts it, anything that discredits that authority will
also discredit the proof that A
B. One of the tricks of the de-
bater, furthermore, is to locate in the field of authority a proposi-
tion that properly belongs in the logico-experimental field.
1446. For the very reason that they have no logico-experimental
force such devices lose their effectiveness when they are used too
freely. We know
in our late day that when one theologian says of
another that he is a rogue and ought to be in jail, all it means is
that the two men have different opinions. When a newspaper calls
a man
in public life a malefactor, it means simply that the paper
has reasons of personal or partisan interest for combating him, or
even a different opinion. That method of discrediting authority may
be an utter failure in politics at the present time.
the absorption of the poison. Dr. Audeaud's results are the fruit of long years
. . .
of laborious experiment and careful observations."

1441
2
On Bismarck and alcohol sec Busch, Tagebuchblatter, Vol. I, p. 68 (Eng-
lish, Vol. I, p. 58), Aug. 12, 1870: "Cognac, Bordeaux, and a light sparkling wine
from Mainz stood on the table. Someone mourned the absence of beer. 'No harm!'
cried Bismarck. 'Too much beer-drinking is deplorable from every point of view.
It makes one stupid, lazy, good for nothing. Beer is responsible for all these demo-
cratic idiocies that are being passed around the tables in the cabarets. Take word my
"
for it, a good rye-whiskey does much less harm.' Ibid., Vol. Ill, p. 280 (English,
Vol. II, p. 519), Mar. 22, 1890: On his fall from power, Bismarck retires to Fried-
"
richsruh and commissions Busch to move his effects thither: 'There,' he said, 'are
my maps. Put the letters inside and roll them up. ... They will go along in the
moving van with the other things. I have some three hundred trunks or boxes and
more than thirteen thousand botdes of wine.' He told me he had a lot of fine sherry
that he had bought when he was rich." Palamenghi-Crispi, Carteggio di Francesco
Crispi, p. 446: "Otto von Bismarcl^ to Crispi, Friedrichsruh, Jan. 7, 1890: 'Dear
Friend and Colleague: I was deeply touched by the new proof of your friendship
on learning that you have shipped to me a case of your splendid Italian wine. I
appreciate it all the more since the high quality of last year's vintage leads me to
look forward to all that it will be. A
good wine is never without its influence on
"
the quality of the drinker's statesmanship.' Poor Bismarck! What a pauper in
capacity for mental work he must have been!

91 8 TREATISE ON GENERAL SOCIOLOGY *447
1447. II-/?:Authority of tradition, usages, and customs. Such au-
thority may be verbal, written, anonymous, of a real or a legendary
person. In such derivations residues of group-persistence play an

important part. In view of them, "the wisdom of the forefathers" in
a day gone by, the "traditions of the party" in our time, take on an
independent existence of their own. Derivations by authority of

tradition are exceedingly numerous. No city or nation but has its
traditions. particular societies cannot do without them. They
Even
play an important role in all social life. To explain a thing by tradi-
tion is a very easy matter; for among the many legends that exist
or can be invented necessary one can readily be found that, in
if
view of some resemblance more or less distant, some accord of senti-

ments more or less vague, can be made to fit the thing for which
1
an "explanation" is sought.
1448. Customtimes indistinguishable from tradition; and not
is at
infrequently the person observing a given custom can give no other

reason for his conduct than the fact that "that is what people do."
1449. Traditions may come to constitute
independent residues
( 877), and if these are at all powerful the society becomes, as it
were, crystallized and rebuffs virtually everything new. But tradi-

1
1447 Of that type are derivations 4, 5, 6, and 7 in the following example from
Ovid, Fasti, IV, vv. 783-806. We saw in 1266 4 that Ovid is there describing the
purification rites that were practised during the feast of the Palilia. He sets out to
find their "origins,** "explain" them
to in other words, he goes looking for
derivations, and he findsless than seven: i. Fire purifies everything. 2. Water
no
and fire are the opposite principles that constitute all things. 3. Those elements are
the principles of life. 4. The fire and the lustral water commemorate respectively
the adventure of Phaeton and Deucalion's flood. 5. Shepherds discovered fire with
flint. 6. Aeneas ran through flames in his and they did him no harm. 7. In
flight
memory of the foundation of Rome when the hovels in which the Romans had
lived up to that time were burned. This last is the explanation that Ovid himself
prefers. The first three derivations derive their persuasiveness from certain meta-
physical sentiments (III-c); the last four, from tradition (II-/3). Obviously still other
derivations of the kind might be found they are the variable element in the phe-
nomenon. The need of purification (residues V-y, restoration of integrity) and the
instinct of combinations (residues Class I) are the constant element, and it is the
more important one, the variable element deriving from it. Note further that
within the constant element the need of purification, of restoring integrity, is the
main thing, the combinations designed to satisfy it being secondary. So we get
as a whole: i. Residues made up of, a, main residues (purification) and, b, sec-
ondary residues (combinations). 2. Derivations designed to explain the sum of

residues as a whole, and which, in general, aim at "explaining" the secondary
residues, b.
1454 DERIVATIONS II-/3 : AUTHORITY OF TRADITION 919
tions are often mere derivations, and in that case the society can in-
novate or much, and even in opposition to the substance of
little
the tradition, the accord persisting in mere forms. That has been the
case with sects of Christianity.
many
1450. Derivations, as we
repeatedly remarked, are on the
have
whole flexible, and derivations by tradition present that trait to a
very conspicuous degree. In the book that creates a tradition one
can find anything one pleases. The Greeks found everything imag-
inable in Homer, and the Latins, in Virgil. So Italians today find
many things in Dante. The case of the Bible and the Gospels is
truly remarkable. What has not been found in those books would
be hard to imagine. Different and even contradictory doctrines have
been based on them in vast numbers; and they furnish proofs for
and against with equal ease.
1451. Of course every sect is convinced that it has the one "true"
interpretation and scornfully rejects every other. But that sort of

"truth" has nothing to do with experimental truth, and there is no
standard of reference to help decide who is right. In such disputes
there are advocates in plenty but no judges (9).
1452. It may be determined, experimentally, that this or that in-
terpretation departs from literal meanings. But the person of "living

faith" is not worried by that. He disregards the literal sense quite
deliberately. If the Song of Songs were part of some book other

than the Bible, everybody would take it as a matter of course for a
love-poem ( 1627). Faith sees something else in it; and since it
takes its stand outside experience, no objection can be raised against
it
by anyone electing to remain inside that field.
1453. So long as tradition serves merely for purposes of deriva-
tion, criticism of it has but slight effect on the social equilibrium.

One could not go so far as to put it at zero, but, saving some rare
exception, it is never very great.

1454. From the eighteenth century on the Bible has been attacked
with a formidable artillery of science, scholarship, and historical
criticism. It has been shown very convincingly that no end of pas-
sages in the book cannot possibly be taken in their literal senses.

The unity of the Bible has been demolished, and in place of the
magnificent edifice so greatly admired of yore only formless heaps
of literary materials are left. And yet, reverence for the Bible has in
92O THE MIND AND SOCIETY 1455
no sense diminished, nor are believers
any the fewer they are still
to be counted by the millions and millions; and then there are peo-
ple who criticize the Bible as history but otherwise fall on their
1
knees before it and worship it. Derivations change, residues endure.
1455. Numbers of good souls in our time have imagined that
they could destroy Christianity by proving the historical unreality
of Jesus.They have made many fine holes in the water. They do
not observe that their disquisitions never get beyond a very small
circle of scholars, never reach the
public at large, nor even the major-
ity
of believers. Ordinarily
they persuade people who are already
persuaded.
1456. So there have been people to imagine that by proving that
Joan of Arc was a hysteric or a lunatic, they could destroy Catholic
patriotism in France and so contribute to the stability of M. Clemen-
ceau's bloc and the
Radical-Socialist regime. They caught the ear
only of the public that was already of their opinion. Far from dimin-
is a book rich in learning and
*
1454 Gauticr's Introduction a I'Ancicn Testament
historical criticism. Now in his "conclusion," Vol. II, p. 507, he is replying to
critics who have censured him on one point or another: "I wish finally to deal with
one last continually recurring in the dispute now raging: [Higher]
notion that is
criticism, it isattacking and ruining the authority of Scripture.' I have

held, 'is
already had occasion to say that it is important before anything else to under-
stand what one means by the word 'authority.' If one means external authority
[A euphemism for objective statements.], the charge mentioned is well founded;
but if the authority is of the domain of the inner life, of the spiritual order [Eu-
phemism for subjective propositions. That language helps to conceal the petitio
principii involved in the believer's believing in the Bible only what he reads into
it, only what is already in his own mind.], one may baldly assert that the
authority of the Bible is in no way compromised. [Quite so! tautology is neverA
false.] Everything depends on our being clear on one fundamental point, that the
authority in religious matters is the authority of God, and in the more special
sphere of evangelical truth, the authority of Christ. [Quite so! But now we must
be shown how those two wills are to be recognized: if by criteria extrinsic to
us, they be independent of anything we think or say; if only by criteria
may
we are merely baptizing our wills with the name of divine will.]
intrinsic to us,
That authority is exercised upon heart and conscience, though at the same time
appealing to the whole sum of our faculties in virtue of the very unity of our
being. It is something quite above discussions of a literary or historical order. It
can neither be shaken nor consolidated by purely intellectual arguments. [Quite
so, but only in the sense that residues are independent of logic. But we still
have to be shown that they are "divine." And what if there were one or two
"diabolical" ones among them, as certain heretics claim?] It is in no way affected
by the fact that on problems of authenticity or historical exactitude solutions are

reached which are at variance with traditional views."
1459 ATTRITION AND CONTRITION 921
ishing the admiration of their adversaries for Joan of Arc, they have
1
helped to increase it.
1457. Books that are viewed with reverence often end by acquir-
ing mysterious powers and being used for purposes of magic. That
has been the case with the Bible, with the poems of Virgil, and other
books still.
1458.
Il-y: Authority of
divine beings, or personifications. If one
were to keep strictly to substance, derivations of this variety would
be classed with derivations by tradition, since really the will of a
divine being or of a personification can be known only through
human beings and by way of traditions. But looking at forms, the
introduction of supernatural forces is important enough to merit
classification by itself. The
interposition of a deity gives rise to three
different types of derivation: i. Once the will of the deity is assumed
to be known, a person may obey it out of simple reverence for the
deity, without splitting hairs very finely as to the reasons for his
conduct or, at the most, adding some few words on one's duty to
respect it. That gives our present variety, Il-y. 2. Or a person may
obey the divine will out of fear of some punishment that threatens
transgressors of divine commandments. There individual interest
comes and we get actions that are logical consequences of the
in,
premise. In cases where individual interest is replaced or supple-

mented by the community interest, derivations of that sort belong
to our (individual interest), or IH-y (collective interest) vari-
III-/:?
finally, a person may accommodate

eties. Or, his conduct to the
divine will out of love for the deity, from a desire to act in accord
with sentiments that the deity is assumed to feel, or on the belief
that such conformity in itself and regardless of its consequences is
good, praiseworthy, a matter of duty. That yields derivations of our

III-^type (accord with supernatural entities).
1459. repeatedly observed, in analyzing a thing we
As we have
distinguish in the abstract elements that stand combined in the syn-
*
1456 The importance that "free-thinking" worshippers of the goddess Science
attach to the matter of Joan of Arc is something extraordinary. Needless to say, to
those who believe in the divine mission of the Maid, as well as to those who make
her a saint of the patriotic religion, every detail of her life is of the greatest
For the strict followers of experimental science, Joan of Arc is a historical
interest.
figure like any other, and the problems raised in connexion with the minuter
details of her life are of very scant significance.
thesis of the concrete. Concrete derivations in which a supernatural
being figures very very often combine the first two types just men-
tioned, and in such a way indeed that it is difficult to distinguish
them. Often also they bring in the third type; but that is already
on the road to metaphysics and is more commonly the case with
thinkers. Many individuals have a complex feeling of reverence,
fear, and love for the supernatural being and they themselves would
not be able to analyze it into simpler elements. Catholic controver-
sies with
regard to "contrition" and "attrition" are not unrelated to
such distinctions as we have just been making between varieties of
1
derivations.
St. Thomas, Summa theologiae, Supplementum, qu. r, art. 3 (Opera, Vol.

1
1459
XII, Suppl., p. 4) "The principle of attrition is servile fear, but of contrition filial
:
fear." Canones et decreta Concilii Tridentini, sessio XIV, 4 (Richter, p. 77; Schaff,
Vol. II, pp. 144-46) "Contrition ... is the sorrow and detestation of the soul for
:
the sin that has been committed, accompanied by a resolve not to sin again. . . .
But as regards that imperfect contrition which is called attrition, since it is com-
monly conceived either in consideration of the disgrace (turpitudinis) of sin or in
fear of punishment in the other world, it [the Council] declares that if it pre-
cludes the desire to sin through hope of [God's] forgiveness it not only does not
make man a hypocrite and a greater sinner but is a gift of God and an impulse
from the Holy Spirit with the help of which the penitent opens a way for
. . .
himself to holiness (justitia)" Gury, Casus conscientiae, Vol. II, pp. 182-83: "Con-
fession finished, Albert is asked by his confessor just why he feels sorry for his sins.
The penitent answers: 'I am sorry for my sins because I am afraid that God will
punish me in this life with tribulations or sudden death, and in the life to come
with eternal torments.' Tell me, child,' says the confessor, 'was that the reason
why you were sorry for your sins heretofore when you came to confession?' Albert
nods. Whereupon the confessor adjudges those confessions invalid as wanting in
divine love and inspired by nothing but fear. . Whence our Question I: As to . .
whether attrition be sufficient. And the answer is: Attrition is sufficient, and
. . .
perfect contrition is not required for justification in the sacrament of penance."

Menage, Menagiana, Vol. IV, p. 157: "M. Boileau Despreaux was calling one day on
the late First President [Chief Justice] at Basville. Some casuists [Jesuits] were there,
and they were vigorously contending that a certain well-known author had been
right in publishing a whole book for the sole purpose of showing that we were
not obliged to love God and that those who held the contrary were thrusting an
unbearable yoke upon the Christian of which God had freed him by the new
dispensation. The argument was waxing warm when M. Despreaux, who had so
far said not a word, exclaimed, rising to take his leave: 'What a thought! So on
the day of the Last Judgment Our Lord will say to the elect: "Come, you beloved
of my Father, for you have loved me not. Always have you kept others from
loving me, and always have you dealt roundly with those heretics who would have
obliged all Christians to love me. But you, O
accursed of my Father, get you into
the outer darkness, for you have loved me with all your heart and you have begged
' "
and encouraged all others to love me." And cf. Boileau, Epitrcs, XII, Sur I'amour
de Dieu.
1462 DERIVATIONS II-y: AUTHORITY OF DIVINE BEINGS 923
1460. In all three of these types of derivations it is
important to
observe the ways in which the divine will is supposed to be known
or the accord with the deity's sentiments determined. Barring some
fewexceptions, they are generally simple in the first two types and
much more complex in the third. The ancient science of divination
had a special branch devoted to discovering the will of the gods.
1461. Anabstract entity may sometimes provoke derivations of
the type proper to a divine being. That is the case when, in virtue
of residues of group-persistence, the abstraction is acquiring definite
personality is, so to say, a deity in the making.

1462. The derivation that appeals to the alleged will or sentiment
of a supernatural being is the more persuasive, the stronger the resi-
due corresponding to that being. The way in which the will or senti-
ments come to be known is
quite secondary. There is always some
expedient for making the deity will whatever the petitioner has most
at heart ( 1454 *). People often imagine that they act in one way
or another in deference to the will of some supernatural being.
Really they invent such a will as a result of their acting in that way.
"It is God's will" ("Dicu le veut"), cried the Crusaders of old.
Really they were under the sway of a migratory instinct such as the
ancient Germans felt a longing for adventure, a passion for some-
thing new, weariness with an orderly humdrum life, eagerness for

easy money. If swallows could talk, they too might just as well say
that they change climes twice a year in obedience to the divine will.
In our day certain individuals appropriate the goods of other in-
dividuals, or aid and abet those who do, in obedience, they say, to
the "laws of Progress," "Science," "Truth." Their real inspiration
die
is a
very natural hankering for the property in question or for
goodwill of those who are appropriating it. A
new divinity has of
late been enthroned on the Olympus of "Progress." It has been given
the name of "Vital Interests" and it
presides over international rela-
tions. made war upon another, sacked
In barbarous ages one people
and carried off what loot it could without any great pala-
its cities,
ver. In our day the same thing is done, but always in the name of
"Vital Interests," and the new way represents, it is said, a great im-
provement in civilization. To the layman in such matters, the brig-

andage of European countries in China may seem no whit different
from the raids of Attila upon the Roman Empire. But experts in the
casuistry of derivations
can see offhand that there is a world of dif-
ference between the two. So far "Vital Interests" has made few con-
verts among footpads and other exponents of private initiative in
brigandage. They are satisfied with a humbler divinity, and justify
their exploits by saying that they are trying "to live their own
1
lives."
Sometimes the complex derivation* ends by acquiring inde-

1463.
pendent status and comes to constitute a residue ( 882) or else a

simple derivation of the Il-y type here in hand. That is often the
case with abstractions which are deified but not personified a cir-
cumstance that prevents their being credited too explicitly with a
personal will, so that they have to be satisfied with some "impera-
tive" or other. Examples are abundant in all periods of history
there a very interesting one in our own. The automobile enjoys
is
the protection of Progress (which is a god, or what amounts to that)
very much as the screech-owl enjoyed the protection of the goddess

Athena in ancient Athens. Worshippers of the god Progress have
to respect automobiles just as Athenians had to respect screech-
owls. If in our day of triumphant democracy the automobile did not
enjoy the protection of the god Progress, it would be proscribed. It

is used chiefly by people of wealth, or at least
by people in com-
fortable circumstances. It kills many children and not a few adults
a
1462 For the comparison between the Crusaders and the ancient Germans, see
Tacitus, Germania, 14: "If their home tribe (civitas) grows humdrum (torpeat)
through a long period of peace and inactivity, not a few nobles and young men
move on to other tribes which are at the time engaged in some war or other."
Michaud, Histoire dcs croisades, 1877 e(^-> Vol. I, p. 28 (Robson, Vol. I, pp. 54-56):
"Certainty of impunity, hope of a better lot, licentious hankerings and yearning for
relief from most sacred burdens, attracted multitudes to the standards of the
Crusade. Personal ambitions were not altogether stranger to their devotion to the
cause of the Lord Jesus. If religion held out its rewards to those who went to
fight in its behalf, fortune also promised worldly wealth and power [To such as
were knights.]. Crusaders returning from the East spoke in glowing terms of the
wonders they had seen, of the rich countries they had visited. It was generally
known that two or three hundred Norman pilgrims had conquered Apulia and
Sicily from the Saracens. .Robert of Friesland, second son to the Count of
. .
Flanders and therefore destined not to share in the property of his house, said
to his father: 'Give me men and ships and I will go and conquer a state for
myself from the Saracens in Spain.' That sort of harangue is common enough in
the fiction of the Middle Ages and faithfully reflects prevailing states of mind:
'Beau sire, baillez-moi hommes suffisans pour me jaire cstat ou royaume.' 'Beau
"
fils, aurez ce que demandez.'
1463 PROGRESS 925
of the poorer classes and prevents the children of the poor from
romping and playing in the streets. It fills the homes of poor farmers
and country-dwellers with dust. All that is tolerated in deference to
the god Progress (in appearances at least; in reality the interests of
innkeepers and automobile manufacturers have a little

something to
do with thing is carried so far that people who fail to ad-
it). The
mire the automobile are treated as heretics were treated in a day
gone by. In Switzerland, the Grison Canton voted not to allow auto-
mobiles on roads built with public funds. Priests and worshippers
of the god Progress at once went on the war-path and in horror
truly holy loudly condemned such a heretical and sacrilegious act.
The Confederation was hounded to compel a canton tainted with
such dire heretical depravity to open its roads to automobiles; and
with that in view an amendment to the federal constitution was
1
proposed and it almost got to the referendum stage.
interesting that in this connexion a derivation turns up that
It is
is
commonly found in other religions: the individual is blamed for
what actually is a consequence of the general order of things. An
accident occurs. Actually it is a consequence of the great speed at
which automobiles are allowed to run. But the blame is laid on the
chauffeur, who
appropriately rebaptized for the occasion as a
is
chauffard. In that way the real cause is kept out of sight and the
danger of any reform avoided. So in countries where political
cor-
1
1463 Says Emile de Saint-Auban in Figaro (reprinted, Gazette de Lausanne,
Mar. 29, 1912): "Let a school-teacher cuff a sulking schoolboy and he looks like a
savage today: he has violated the rights of the brat and the citizen. He is a sinner
against our accepted type of civilization. He is more vigorously denounced than
his associate next door who denies his country in open class-room. But the hit-
and-run driver (ecraseur), who cultivates the sevcnty-miles-an-hour average in
contempt of the insignificant pedestrian, is guilty of just a peccadillo. There is
absolution, or almost that, for the automobile whose sins are mortal only for the
silly people it kills. I personally witnessed the exploit of the tremendous auto-bus
that went zigzagging down the rue Notre-Dame-des-Victoires like a drunk on a
tear (comme un pochard) and hit two children. Some who saw it were enraged.
But one gentleman could not understand that: 'It's not the bus's faultl' he pro-
tested. 'That man
learning to drive!' The auto-bus was just going to school!
is
The auto-bus was having the mumps! The remark took. A

humourist got it into
his column. What solicitude for human life!" As regards traffic legislation the
Italian parliament looks after the interests of automobile manufacturers and
companies with loving eye. In 1912 it passed a law depriving the pedestrian of
what litde protection he still had left under the old law against owners and drivers
of automobiles.
ruption is rife
frequent investigations and prosecutions are con-
ducted in order to give the impression that the few gnats who get
caught in the net are to blame and to prevent any discredit being
cast on the system that is responsible as a whole.
1464. Class III: Accords with sentiments or principles. Often-
times the accord is with the sentiments of the persons producing or
accepting the derivation and merely that, but it is represented as an
accord with the sentiments of all men, the majority of men, all good
men, and so on. Such sentiments eventually become detached from
the subject experiencing them and stand as principles.
larger or smaller num-

1465. Ill-a*. Accord with sentiments (of a
ber of persons). With these derivations we have already dealt
( 591-612) from the standpoint, more especially, of their relations
to experimental reality. Some further remarks will be in point here
as to the forms they assume.
1466. The
accord with sentiments may arise in three manners, as
was the case with deference to authority ( 1458): i. An individual
may make his conduct conform with the sentiments, real or as-
sumed, of human beings, or of mind in the abstract ("the mind"),
out of simple reverence for the opinion of the majority or of experts
who are spokesmen for "the mind." That gives us derivations of the
III-cc variety. 2. Or an individual may act as he acts out of fear of
harmful consequence to himself or others; and so we get derivations

of our HI-/?, IH-y, 111-8 types (accord with individual interest; col-
lective interest; legal principles). 3. Or finally an individual may
be impelled to such conformity by a mysterious force in an extreme
case there is an "imperative" operating through occult powers of its
own. That gives derivations of our Ill-e and IIt types (accords with
metaphysical and supernatural entities). Prominent here among the
residues used for purposes of derivation are the residues of sociality
(Class IV).
1467. With this III-a variety accord with the sentiments of the
author of the derivation are also to be classed. He reasons not ob-
jectively butby mere accord of sentiments ( 1454 *), making lavish

use of combination-residues (Class I). A
bears some remote and
fantastic resemblance to B. But that is enough for him. He uses A
to "explain" B by a vague accord of undefined sentiments. When
there is a certain amount of definiteness and the sentiments seek
1469 DERIVATIONS III-a: ACCORD WITH SENTIMENTS 927
expression in metaphysical forms, we get derivations of our Ill-e
type. Often derivations by accord of sentiments take on a merely
verbal form, the accord subsisting between the sentiments that are
associated with this or that word. In that case the derivation belongs,
strictly,
to Class IV.
1468. In concrete cases the three attitudes distinguished in 1466
are often combined; but the second (fear of consequences), which
is
very important when
divine personifications are involved, is often
barely perceptible or entirely missing in derivations by accord of

sentiment, especially in those of the metaphysical type. Furthermore,
in derivations by accord of sentiments one notes a compact
many
group of sociality residues (Class IV), sentiments of reverence for
the community on the individual's part, a tendency to imitate, and
so on. In that powerful aggregate lies the great sentimental force
that impels people to accept opinions which enjoy the consensus of
1
"the majority," or of "all" men.
1469. The accord of sentiments often stands by itself, no explicit
attempt being made to give an exact definition to the relationship

in which stands towards objective reality. It is for metaphysics to
it
find that exact definition, and it often takes the form of an assertion
that the accord in ideas is identical with an accord in the objects cor-
responding (594-95). The contention more or less is that "if a
notion exists in the minds of all men, or of the majority of men, or
in mind in the abstract (in 'the mind'),
it
necessarily corresponds
to an objective
reality." Often, however, that is not stated it is tac-
itly
taken for granted: in other words it is left implicit, not made
explicit,
no verbal form being given to the II- residue to which it
corresponds. Sometimes it is stated, now in one form, now in an-
other, assomething that is evident or axiomatic a favourite method

with metaphysicists. Then again a show of proof will be given for
so lengthening the derivation. It will be said, for instance, that
it,
what exists in every human mind was put there by God and must
therefore necessarily correspond to an objective reality. That is the
favourite procedure of theologians, though it is used by other
a
1468 That is the answer to the question raised in 597-98 (as to the reasons
for the wide-spread acceptance of certain metaphysical theories that are in them-
selves meaningless). Here we must confine ourselves chiefly to accords of senti-
ments that may be taken as operating of their own intrinsic force (III-a).
thinkers too. Then the very pretty theory of "reminiscence,"
there is
and no end of metaphysical theories of the same sort.

1470. Suppose we
look at a few concrete examples. For long ages
great importance was attached to "universal consensus" as demon-

strating the existence of the gods, or of God. That result may be
obtained in the God first imprinted a certain con-
manner indicated.
cept on the human mind, which now in its turn reveals it to us; or,
working the other way round, one may start with the concept and
1
in virtue of some
metaphysical principle conclude that God exists.
"Greeks and Barbarians," says Sextus Empiricus, "recognize that
a
there are gods"; and Maximus of Tyre, Dissertationes, XVII, 4-5
(Taylor, Vol. pp. 6-7), adds to the list: "That is admitted by
I,
Hellene and Barbarian, by continental and islander, by wise man

and dunce." Maximus admits that there is the greatest variety of
opinion as to the nature of God and of what is

"good" or "evil,"
"shameful" or "pure"; but in a discord so great, he says, all men
agree that there is one single god, sovereign and father of all things,
along with other gods, his children and helpers. An excellent exam-
ple of a writer's objectifying a subjective theory of his own! How
Gousset, Theologie dogmatiquc, Vol. I, p. 325: "All races of men have
1
1470
preserved a more or less distinct conception of the oneness of God. As Bergier says,
Dictionnaire de thcologie, $.v> Diett: 'It must be either that that idea has been en-
graved upon all minds by the Creator Himself or that it is a remnant of a tradition
going back to the origins of the human race, since it is found at all times as
"
well as in all countries of the Earth.* Gousset, Op. cit., p. 309: "Prophecies are
possible . . The Jews and the Christians have always believed in prophecy.
.
The and the heathen held the same belief. All peoples have preserved
patriarchs
some memory of predictions foretelling a Messiah to whom the nations could look
forward. The possibility of prophecies must therefore be conceded. The peo-
. . .
ples would never have agreed in believing them possible if the belief did not rest
on tradition, experience, reason." It is the same with prophecy as with miracles.
Ibid., pp. 342-43: "Belief in the immortality of the soul goes back to the infancy
of the world ... it has been a fundamental dogma of religion with the Hebrews,
the Christians and the patriarchs. The same belief is to be found among other
peoples, even the most uncivilized peoples. And that belief has been handed
. . .
down to the moderns. When European travellers discovered America and other
far-away countries, they found no race of people that did not have its conception
of a life to come."
a
1470 Contradictiones, IX, Adversus physicos II, De diis, 60 (565) (Opera, Vol.
II, P- 565)-
1471 EXISTENCE OF THE GODS: ANCIENT VIEWS 929
many people there were at that time who were far from seeing eye
2
to eye with Maximus of Tyre!
1471. Maximus of Tyre tries to answer an objection that is
gen-
erally raised in such cases: that, as a matter of fact, from the
"all"
who are said to hold certain views quite a few persons who do not
hold them have to be excepted; and he extricates himself from the
predicament with a form of derivation that is as general as the objec-

tion ( 592 f.) : he bluntly bars them as
unworthy of consideration.
People who do not think as Maximus thinks are rabble, not to say
worse: therefore all who are not rabble or worse agree with him:
2
1470 Scxtus, loc. cit., continues: "Those who believe that there are gods justify
their thesis on four grounds: one is the consensus of all men; the second is the
order of the world; the third is the absurd um into which those who deny gods
are drawn; the fourth and last is the confutation of those who deny. And they
argue from common opinion, for all men, Greeks and Barbarians, believe that
there are gods." Sextus's second reason is based on a Class II residue (group-
persistence). Plato's proofs of the existence of gods, De legibus, X, 886 (Bury,

Vol. II, p. 301), are: "First, the Earth, the Sun, and all the stars, the beau-
tifulorder of the seasons, the distinction of the years and months. And then, all
men, whether Greeks or Barbarians, believe that there are gods." Many passages
in works that go u n der the name of Plato
express the contrary view that the
opinion of the majority is worth
e.g., Alcibiades, I, no-n; and
little or nothing:
c}., Laches, 184 (Lamb, 'What is to be judged rightly has to be
p. 27): "Socrates:
judged by competence, I suppose, and not by numbers [of votes]/ Melesias: 'Cer-
"
tainly.* Cicero, De natura deorum, II, 2, 4, puts into the mouth of Lucilius
Balbus arguments very much like Plato's. In his Oneirocritica (Interpretation
of Dreams), I, 8, in distinguishing custom that is general from custom that is
particular, Artemidorus mentions as general customs: worship and honour of the
gods, "since no nation is without gods, just as none is without government," and
then, on the same footing, the rearing of children, waking by day and sleeping
by night, sexual love, eating, and so on. Delicious is St. Augustine in imagining,
in a diatribe against the Donatists,
Epistolac, LXXXIX, 5 (Opera, Vol. II, p. 311;
Worlds, Vol. VI, p. 378), that the whole terrestrial globe thought as he thought
as to the effectiveness of baptism. Eminent doctor that he was, he did not realize
that the vast majority of men living on Earth at that time had not even dreamed
of the existence of such a theological problem. "Some timid souls
may chance to
be influenced by what they commonly say of [that it has to be adminis-
baptism
istered by a priest of unblemished character] ... for the whole world accepts
the very obvious evangelical truth proclaimed
by John when he says ." [Healy . .
amends "the whole world" to "the whole Christian world." A. L.] According to
Plutarch,De placitis philosophorum, I, 6, 9 (Goodwin, Vol. Ill, p. 117), the idea
of worshipping gods came from three sources: from the
philosophers, through
nature; from the poets, through poetry; and from the consensus of the practices
of the cities.
930 TREATISE ON GENERAL SOCIOLOGY I
47 I
"In course of time," he says, Op. cit., XVII, 5, "there may have been
two or three abject and stolid atheists, whose eyes see crosswise and
whose ears hear amiss spiritual eunuchs, idiots, sterile, fatuous peo-
ple, so many lions without courage, so many bulls without horns,
so many birds without wings! But even from them you will learn
that the divine exists." Abuse of one's adversaries is fatuous from
the logico-experimental point of view. It may be very effective in-
1 2 3
deed from the standpoint of sentiments. (For footnote 3 see page
93I-)
*
1471 The argument is common enough even today, as examples in
circular
surfeit e.g., Tolstoy, The Four Gospels, Vol. I, Preface, p. xx: "I have found
show;
good people, not in one, but in all churches and sects, and saw how they were all
guided in their lives by one and the same idea, that had its foundation on the
teaching of Jesus." Who arc these "good people"? If Tolstoy is using the words in
their ordinary meanings, he cannot be unaware that there are plenty of "good
people" who are far from agreeing with him and who in particular withhold
their assent from such of his doctrines as condemn all war, incite to evasion of
military service, and under pretext of "non-resistance to evil" recommend leaving

a free hand to criminals; and since he insists that those doctrines of his are based
on "the teaching of Jesus" it fs clear that not all "good people" live according to
the teaching of Jesus. So if Tolstoy's statement is to be saved, the meaning of his
"good people" has to be changed. For it to have any meaning, the class of people
whom he styles "good people" has to be defined and the definition, furthermore,
has to be independent of any acceptance or rejection on their part of his doctrine.
For ifthe proviso that "good people" are people who live according to "the
teaching of Jesus" as interpreted by Tolstoy creeps into the definition in any way
at all, even implicitly, it will not be hard, it is true, to demonstrate that "all good
people" live according to the "teaching of Jesus"; but the demonstration, it is

no less true, will be a mere tautology. As a matter of fact Tolstoy and admirers of
Tolstoy care not a fig for all that. With them sentiment takes the place of logic
and observation of facts. They have a certain notion of what seems to them to be
"good." First they exclude from the category of "good people" all individuals
who have different notions. They, necessarily, are "bad people." On the other
hand they believe, or imagine, that they are deriving their notions from the teach-
ings of a man whom they revere, love, admire: really, they are making his teach-
ings over to fit notions of their own. In the case of Tolstoy and his followers the
man happens to be Jesus; but it would make no difference if he were some other
person Buddha, Mohammed, Socrates. Tolstoy's statement simply means: "By
'good people* I mean people who subscribe to doctrines in which I think I
recognize the teaching of Jesus as I choose to conceive that teaching."
2
1471 Plato, like Maximus of Tyre, gets out of the same predicament by
abusing his adversaries: De
le gibus, X. There were those who denied gods and
therefore made it
necessary for him to prove their existence. He calls them insuf-
ferable people, properly to be hated. Wroth as he is against them, he musters his
self-control and tries to give the floor to such corrupt, sensuous, and silly persons,
some of whom go so far as to say that the stars are not divinities but masses of
earth and stone! A fine example, that, of the difference between that knowledge
1472 DERIVATIONS Ill-a! ACCORD WITH SENTIMENTS 93!
1472. The assertion that all peoples had some conception or other
of gods was not left unanswered. It was doubted or even flatly de-
nied. The question itself has little bearing on the matter here in
hand. We need simply note that, as usual, "gods" and "God" are
not very sharply defined terms. One can find or not find the concept
1
in the mind of this or that people as one chooses.
of "things in themselves," which the divine Plato had and which his modern
imitators after him possess, and the experimental knowledge of modern astron-
omers. Nco-Hegelians would confer a great favour on us by explaining just how
they reconcile the "absoluteness" of their knowledge with such changes in science.
Or is it, perhaps, that they still hold to Plato's conception and think the stars
are gods?
8
1471Bayle, Continuation dcs Pensees diverses, 18, quoting Father Rapin,
Comparation de Platon et d'Aristote. Says Rapin, p. 425, n: "This general con-

sensus of all peoples, no one of whom has ever been found without belief in some
god, is an instinct of nature and cannot be mistaken, being so universal. It would
be silly to listen on such a matter to the opinions of the two or three libertines,
at the most, who
have denied the Divinity in every age in order to live more
tranquilly in their licence." He had said just previously, p. 423, 7-8: "That
truth ... is disputed only by a few minds that have been corrupted by sensuous-
ness, presumption, and ignorance. Nothing more monstrous than atheism is to be
found in nature: it is a mental disorder conceived in libertinage. No respectable,
sane, and reasonable man will ever think of doubting religion.'* Journal de
Geneve, June n, 1913, reporting the award of a prize of the French Academy
to Romain Rolland: "The most inflexible opponent of Romain Rolland was, it
is said, a member who years ago was one of the supplest and most emancipated
intelligences of his time, but who with advancing age became so partisan in his
views as to see in Tolstoy only an unfortunate who had gone morally bankrupt
and was worthy at the most of pity." We are therefore placed in the dilemma
either of accepting Tolstoy's theories, which many people regard as not at all
sound, or of being declared "partisan." But why do people use such cardboard
artillery? Evidently because there are other people who are as afraid of it as of
the real, and who, instead of laughing
as they ought, feel of their ribs at every
detonation to make
sure they have not been hurt.
x
1472 Cicero, De natura deorum, I, 23, 62-63. Velleius had taken general con-
sensus as proof of the existence of the gods. Cotta replies: "You say that the fact
that that has been the opinion of all races and nations of men is sufficient reason
for us to admit that there are gods. That would be a trifling argument even if it
were not false. In the first place, how do you know what the ideas of the various
races are? For my part I imagine that there are many people so barbarous that
no conception of deity is to be found among them. And how about Diagoras,
who was called an atheist, and after him, Theodorus? Did they not openly deny
divinity (nonne aperte deorum naturam sustulerunt)?" Diodorus Siculus, Bibli-
otheca historica, III, 9, 2 (Booth, Vol. I, p. 156), asserts that some few Ethiopians
denied the existence of gods. Miot remarks on the point in his notes to his trans-
lation of Diodorus, Vol. II, pp. 478-79: "The ancients believed that there was no
people on the surface of the Earth that professed atheism, and the unanimous con-
sensus of all peoples on the point has always been taken as one of the main proofs
932 THE MIND AND SOCIETY I
473
1473. A drawn between "all peo-
further distinction seems to be
ples" and "all men"; would infor

fact be convenient to distinguish
it
between simple souls who represent general opinion and certain in-
dividuals who are for ever splitting hairs. The atheists would fall
within the latter group, and their opinions could then legitimately
be met with the good sense of the majority.
1474. Again as usual, the derivation answers both "yea" and
"nay"; and the failure of universal consensus has been used by some
to impugn the existence of the gods and of moral laws. Plato accuses
the Sophists of doing that. What in brief they seem to have said is
that the gods did not exist by nature but by "art," being different
among different peoples; that the beautiful is one thing according

to nature and another according to law; that the just does not exist
by nature, since men never agree as to what it is and make new

laws every day.
1475. Majority consensus is often taken for granted that is to
say, it
seems to be so obvious that things stand thus and so that one
assumes, without feeling called upon to say as much, that things
must seem thus and so to all men, or to the majority. Sometimes
consensus is
put forward explicitly as proof ( 592 f.). Then again
it is in its turn demonstrated by reference to some other metaphys-
Such reasonings have ever been met in vain with the
ical principle.
experimental fact that many general beliefs, such as astrology, have

been mistaken. The metaphysical adjunct to the principle of uni-
versal consensus serves primarily to satisfy the demand of educated
1
people for logical explanations.
of the existence of God.*' That was written in the year of grace 1833! Two
passages in Strabo's Geographica refer to godless peoples: III, 4, 16 (Jones, Vol.
II, p. 109): "Some say that the Callaicans are atheists"; and XVII,
2, 3 (Jones,
Vol. VIII, p. 147) : "Some
[peoples] of the torrid zone are deemed to be atheists."
The passages have often been quoted against the proof by universal consensus of
the existence of gods. But as evidence they are of little if any value. In the first
place Strabo is very guarded in his assertion: "some say," "are deemed." Then
even if he were altogether positive there would still be the question of his authori-
ties.
Finally and it is the weightiest consideration the existence or non-existence
of universal consensus proves nothing.
*
1475 Cicero uses both methods (offering consensus as proof, and proving the
consensus with a metaphysical adjunct). Velleius says in De natura deorum, I,
17, 44: "That to which all men by nature consent is necessarily true (De quo
autem omnium natura consentit id verum esse neccsse est)" That might be suffi-
cient in itself. Since he began by saying that all men have some notion of gods,
1476 EXISTENCE OF THE GODS! ANCIENT VIEWS 933
1476. Analysis of nearly all concrete derivations yields a deriva-
tion of universal consensus or a consensus of the majority, the hon-
est, the wise, of the human mind, of Right Reason, of the balanced,
sensible man, and so on. Very very often it is implicit: then again
it is
disguised under one form- or another in impersonal expressions
such as "It is believed," "It is understood," "It is thought," and the
the conclusion logically follows: "Therefore it must be admitted that there are
gods (Esse igitur deos confitendum cst)" But Velleius is not satisfied with that
much: he wants further to explain, I, 16, 43, how and why men came by the
notion, and he praises Epicurus for demonstrating the existence of the gods in an
experimental manner that quite contrasts with the senseless vagaries of other
philosophers: "For he was the first to see that there were gods from the fact that
Nature herself had imprinted the concept of divinity on the minds of all men
(Solus cnim vidit primum esse Deos, quod in omnium animis eorum notionem
impressissct ipsa natura)" He would be saying exactly the same thing had he
said simply that the notion of divinity is present in the minds of all men; but he
drags in our old friend Dame Nature, because that metaphysical entity gives a
semblance of authority to his assertion. However he does not stop there: the
notion is a
"pre-notion," loc. cit.: "For what race, what family of men, is without
as it were a foreknowledge of the gods quite apart from any learning? That
is what Epicurus calls TrÂ^c ,
in other words, a notion of a thing that is
held in advance (anfceptam) by the mind and without which nothing can be
known and no investigation, no argument, is possible." From that, and from the
principle that everything enjoying universal consensus is true, Velleius goes on
to infer, I, 17, 45, that the gods are immortal and live in bliss, just as he could
infer any other pretty thing, if he chose: "From that we therefore conclude that the
gods are blessed and immortal; for that same Nature which gave us our knowledge
of the gods [Dame Nature is an accommodating soul and will say anything one
would have her say.] has also graven it upon our hearts that they are eternal and
blissful.'* Balbus repeats, II, 4, 12, that the main issue is agreed upon by "all men
of all nations; for the belief that gods exist is innate in all men and as it were
engraved upon their souls.*' The existence of the gods, he avers, II, 2, 4, is self-
evident. Opinions differ as to what they are like, II, 5, 13, but no one denies their
existence: "Quales sint, varium est: esse nemo negat" However he allows himself
to be enticed into giving a proof, II, 9, 23: "But though I began otherwise . . .
and held that the point did not need discussion, since it was self-evident to every-
one that the gods exist, I should nevertheless prefer that it be corroborated by
reasons of physic." Cotta then makes a remark that should be repeated in every
similar situation that Balbus keeps bringing on new proofs because he feels that
his demonstration has not been conclusive, III, 4, 9: "You have seen fit to prove the
existence of the gods with those many arguments because you are not sure that
it is all as obvious as you would like to have it." And he goes on flatly to deny
that the opinion of the majority, or of all men, is to be considered, III, 4, n:

"Do you insist then that so many things should be determined by the judgment of
the ignorant majority you especially who keep repeating that the majority of
men are altogether brainless?" This argument of Cotta's is most interesting, be-
cause it is of general bearing and applies to many other cases of the kind.
934 TREATISE ON GENERAL SOCIOLOGY M77
like; or by using epithets or names, "Such and such a thing is X/'
which means simply that the author of the derivation has found
for the thing a name
the sentiments he happens to hold.
that fits
Proverbs, adages, sayings, generalities, when offered as proofs, also

as a rule conceal an appeal to a consensus, real or presumed, of the
majority.
1477. III-/?:Accord with individual interest. To induce a person
to do a certain thing A, which he would not do of his own accord,
various devices may be used and not all of them are derivations.
1478. Not derivations are the following: i. The person does not
know that it would be advantageous for him to do A. He is shown
that would be. To show just such things is the function of experi-
it
ence, of the trades, of science. Experience shows that one should

save in times of prosperity in order to be prepared when hard times
come. A trade will show how to get iron for a plough ;
how
science,
to realize now this purpose, now that. 2. The person is commanded
to do A
by an external and real authority wielding a real sanction
(if thepower or the sanction or both are unreal, we get a deriva-
tion.) It is the function of civil and criminal legislation to establish
such real sanctions. Simple usage and custom also have sanctions, in
the censure that falls upon the person who violates them and in the
hostility he incurs from other members of his community. 3. The
doing of A is
required by the person's own temperament so that
1
failure to do it
brings him remorse or sorrow.
1479. Derivations, instead, are the following: 4. The blunt asser-
tion that doing A
will be advantageous (in reality it will not be)
to the person in question and that refraining from doing will be A
1
detrimental to him. This device corresponds to i above, provided
the inferences are not logico-experimental. The typical case is the
taboo with spontaneous sanction inherent in the taboo. The residues
exploited in such derivations are those, on the whole, that are used
in derivations of assertion (Class I) and authority (Class II). 5.
Doing or not doing is A

required by an external authority wield-
ing a sanction the power or the sanction, or both, being unreal.
*
1478 [The elliptical in 3 will be clearer from rereading the first
argument
quarter of 1400. here would be a purely instinctive matter. No deriva-
The conduct
tion would figure until some explanation or justification were attempted. A. L.]
1
1479 Here we are considering from the standpoint of derivations, strictly, a
particular case of a theory that is general. It will be elaborated later on in 1897 f.
1481 DERIVATIONS III-/?: ACCORD WITH INTERESTS 935
This device corresponds to 2 above, there both the authority and the
sanction being real. 6. It is asserted, but cannot be proved, that the
person will feel remorse or sorrow if he does, or does not, do A.

This device corresponds to 3 above.
All these derivations are of great importance to human societies.
They aim primarily at obviating possible conflicts between individ-

ual interest and the collective interest. One of the devices most com-
monly used to attain that end is to confuse the two interests by

derivations, asserting that the interests are identical and that in
working for the

good of the community the individual is working
for his own good ( 1903-98). Among the many derivations used
for that purpose are the derivations which we are
examining here.
Identity of interests is obtained automatically through derivations
4 and 6, and through the interposition of an unreal power in the
case of 5.
1480. In Chapter III we classified precepts and sanc-
(325^)
tions with special reference to the transformation of non-logical into
logical conduct ( 1400). Let us see the correspondence between that

classification and the one given above. The cases in Chapter III were
designated as a, b, c, d. In a no demonstration of the precept exists ;

a therefore involves not a derivation but residues. In b there is a
demonstration, but it has been suppressed. If it is restored, and in
the measure in which it is restored, b takes its
place among the
derivations, provided the demonstration is pseudo-experimental. In

such a case it
corresponds to method 4 above, or even to 6. If the
demonstration logico-experimental b corresponds to i and also
is
to 3. In c the precept has a real sanction enforced by a real power.

We are therefore in the case of 2. In d either the power or the sanc-
tion or both are unreal, and that class therefore corresponds to
method 5. Suppose we now look more closely at devices 4, 5, and 6,
each in turn.
1481. Device 4: Pseudo-experimental demonstration. The type is
the taboo with sanction. We
have already discussed the taboo with-
out sanction ( 321 f.). The idea is that violation of the taboo ex-
poses a person to disastrous consequences, such as

befall a person
who violates a prescription not to drink of a poisonous beverage.

In both cases there are antidotes for avoiding consequences. In the
case of the taboo both consequences and remedies are
pseudo-ex-
perimental (4). In the case of the poison they are experimental (i).
Thinking more particularly of residues we mentioned (I252 1 )
certain remedies which were used on the Island of Tonga to ob-
viate the untoward consequences of violating a taboo. In that con-
nexion our main concern was with the restoration of individual
integrity; that point of view we placed the violation of a
and from
taboo and remedies on a par with the Catholic's violation of pre-
its
cepts of his religion, which he remedies by confession and penance.

But from the standpoint of derivations, which we are considering
here, the two cases have to be distinguished. The first envisages evils
and remedies that though pseudo-experimental in substance are real
in form, whereas the second
envisages evils pertaining to a future
life and therefore unreal, and remedies of a
spiritual character a
The simple taboo is re-enforced with new deriva-
sinner's contrition.
tions. Where some concept of a supernatural being is handy, it is
associated with the taboo, as indeed with every other important
operation in life. Then again the automatic functioning of the taboo
is
changed into an action that is artificially procured. Without wait-
ing for the injurious effects of violation to ensue as a matter of
course, a public authority provides for the punishment of the trans-
1
gressor.
*
1481 Europeans arc often misled in regarding the taboo as a consequence of
the divine intervention. Really, the latter is a consequence of the taboo. Domeny
de Rienzi, Oceanic, Vol. I, pp. 53-54: "More than any other inhabitant of Poly-
nesia the New
Zealander is blindly obedient to tapou (taboo) superstitions, and
that without having in any way kept any conception of the moral principle on
which that practice was based. [He has not kept it because it never existed.] He
believes simply that the tapou is pleasing to the atoua (God), and that is sufficient for
him as a determining motive. [A derivation added to the taboo.] He
is convinced,
furthermore, that any object, whether a living creature or of inanimate matter,

when tabooed by a priest is thenceforward under the immediate control of the
divinity and by that very fact under interdict of any profane contact. [In all that
the religious preconceptions of the European are
apparent enough. De Rienzi talks
of a "priest" and in the next breath notes that
any chief may impose a taboo.]
As one may well imagine, the taboo will be all the more solemn and impressive
according to the importance of the person from whom it emanates. The plain
man, who is subject to all the taboos of the various leaders in the tribe, can impose
a taboo at the most upon himself. The chiefs and arifys (priests), of course,
. . .
always manage to get together to guarantee the full inviolability of the taboos.
The chiefs are for the most part arifa themselves. At the very least the aritys are
closely connected with the chiefs by ties of kinship or marriage."
1484 TABOOS AND THEIR SANCTIONS 937
*
1482. Reinach is inclined to think that the biblical injunction to
honour father and mother was a taboo. In its primitive form it was
something to probably: "Insult not (strike not
this effect .) thy . .
father or thy mother, or thou shalt die" (the spontaneous conse-
quence of the transgression). So too still according to Reinach

touching the Ark of God resulted ifso facto in death. When Uzzah
dies after touching the Ark (II Sam. 6:6-7; I Chron. 13: 10-11) "it
is not,"
says Reinach, "that the Eternal strikes the innocent Uzzah
dead. Uzzah has committed an imprudent act. He dies very much
as a man
touching a live electric wire dies of the shock."
1483. The taboo of this type is very powerful because, directly and
without any hair-splitting, it sets the residues of combination
( 1416-3) in motion; and, in fact, its prevalence is observable not

1
only in ancient times but in a day more recent. On the other hand,
such specific sanctions run the risk of being discredited by observa-
tion. So, as the use of logic and observation becomes more general,
the taboo has to be transformed. In a first
stage, the sanction is made
more indefinite and therefore
susceptible of being discredited.
less
In a second stage, a twin development takes place. The sanction is

transferred to a supernatural world and so is able to serve just as
well for plain and educated man alike. Then again a fog of meta-
physics is draped about it, till it becomes incomprehensible and there-
fore irrefutable, since the existence of a thing cannot be disputed
when nobody knows what it is. Among the ancients the fact that the
wicked prospered in world was an argument dear to the atheists
this
as
proving that there were no gods. The Christians broke that
weapon in their hands. No one ever returned from Hell or Paradise
to report just how and the good were faring; for, to tell
the wicked
the strict truth, the journey of Dante and other journeys of the kind
do after all transcend the limits of the experimental world.
1484.King Rio-Rio abolished the taboo in Hawaii by publicly
demonstrating that it could be violated without harmful conse-
quences. His experiment had the effect he desired because physical
l
1482 Cultes, mythes et religions, Vol. I, pp. 6, 4.
x
1483 Bayet, Lemons de morale, p. 57: "To be happy one must love all men.
But above all one must love one's parents." That from a non-religious, scientific
ethics, a brand that is said to be a great improvement on the religious! M. Aulard's
ethics makes a point, moreover, of never plagiarizing biblical morals.
consequences were involved. It would have failed had

the threat-
1
ened effects been supernatural or metaphysical.
1485. The taboo
or precept with supernatural sanction need not
concern us here; nor need we linger on those theories which,
through verbal or other sorts of sophistry, eliminate in reality that
individual interest which is said to be the one thing they hold in
view ( 1897 f.). Here let us keep strictly to derivations that present
the outstanding trait of reducing to the principle of individual in-
terest conduct which seems to have no bearing whatever upon it.
1486. We may take Bentham's theory as typical. At first blush
that theory seems to obviate every possible misunderstanding and,
*
1484 Domeny dc Rienzi, Oceanic, Vol. II, pp. 39-40: "The final abolition of
idolatry and the taboo was the work of Rio-Rio, son and successor to the
. . .
great Tamea-Mea. . The suppression of the taboo, that time-honoured symbol of

. .
inviolability, required still greater adroitness on Rio-Rio's part. He first began

working at the chief priest and was lucky enough to win him to his idea.
. . .
In inaugurating the reform the taboo that affected women was first dealt with.
The King waited for a general holiday when the natives gathered in throngs about
the palace to attend the royal banquet. The rugs being arranged and the foods
appointed for the men set thereon, with the food for the women on other rugs,
the King came up, selected a number of delicacies that were forbidden the women,
went over to their side, and began to eat of them and to invite the women to
share. Straightway loud cries of horror arose on all sides: 'Taboo!' 'Taboo!' But
Rio-Rio paid no attention and continued eating. The priests came hurrying from
the morai, whence they had been summoned by the crowd. That in fact is a
manifest violation of the taboo,' they said. 'But why do the offended gods not
inflict their own vengeance? Either they are good-for-nothing gods or false
. . .
gods.' 'Come, ye people of Hawaii,' cried the chief priest at this point, let us
have done with this annoying, absurd, and barbarous form of worship!' And he
took a torch and himself set fire to the principal moral." The missionaries, says
De Rienzi, applauded. But could they have been sure that their own taboos
would have stood the test of experiment any better? Draper, History of the Conflict
between Religion and Science, p. 77: "Though her [Rome's] military renown
was thus recovered [after the victories of Heracleus], though her territory was re-
gained, there was something that the Roman Empire had irrevocably lost. Re-
ligious faith could never be restored. In face of the world Magianism had insulted
Christianity by profaning her most sacred places Bethlehem, Gethsemane, Calvary
by burning the sepulchre of Christ ... by carrying off, with shouts of laughter,
the cross. Miracles had once abounded in Syria, in Egypt, in Asia Minor: there
was not a church which had not its long catalogue of them. Very often they were
displayed on unimportant occasions and in insignificant cases. In this supreme
moment, when such aid was most urgently demanded, not a miracle was worked.
Amazement filled the Christian populations of the East when they witnessed these
Persian sacrileges perpetrated with impunity. ... In the land of miracles, amaze-
ment was followed by consternation consternation died out in disbelief." And
see 1948 \
1488 DERIVATIONS HI-/?: ACCORD WITH INTERESTS 939
as regards definiteness, to leave nothing to be desired. "I am a be-
1
liever," says Bentham, "in the principle of 'utility' . . . when I use
the terms 'just/ 'unjust/ 'moral/ 'immoral/ 'good/ 'bad/ as collective
terms standing for the concepts of certain pains and certain pleas-
ures, without attaching any other sense to them, I want it distinctly
understood that I take the words 'pain' and 'pleasure' in their ordi-
nary senses, without inventing arbitrary definitions to except certain

pleasures or deny the existence of certain pains. There is no subtlety
in my use of the words and no metaphysics! There is no need of
consulting either Plato or Aristotle. 'Pain' and 'pleasure' stand for
what each person feels as such, the peasant as well as the prince, the
2
plain man as well as the philosopher."
1487. One
could not speak more clearly! But at that point a prob-
lem at once arises, as is always the case in theories of that kind:
"How reconcile the principle of absolute selfishness with the prin-
ciple of altruism" ( 1479) which Bentham is unwilling to aban-

don? Some get out of the difficulty by introducing sanctions of an
earthly or supernatural power; some by changing the meanings of
terms; some by resorting to the verbal subterfuges that Bentham
scorns; some, finally, take back what they have conceded in defer-
ence to one principle in virtue of some other principle. And that is
the method adopted by Bentham.

1488. Bentham's first step is to throw public approbation or dis-
approbation into the balance. That gets the altruistic principle in!
But it is not enough. It has to be reconciled with the first
principle
(absolute selfishness). So Bentham points out that the disapproba-
tion of others is harmful to the individual, so that it is to his advan-
1
tage to avoid it. And with that he has withdrawn the concession
*
1486 Traite de legislation civile et penale (Dumont), Vol. I, p. 4 (Atkinson,
Vol. I, p. 4).
1486
2
He goes on to say, Ibid., Vol. I, p. 317 (Atkinson, Vol. I, p. 268): "It is
absurd to talk of human happiness save in terms of the desires and sensations that
human beings actually feel. It is absurd to try and show by computation that a man
ought to be happy when he knows that he is miserable." Yet that is the very thing
that Bentham does. And cf. Deontology, Vol. II, p. 121: "Every man is able to
form the best estimate of his own pleasures and his own pains."
*
1488 Deontology, Vol. I, p. 84: ". . . It might happen that the act which
promises the present pleasure might prove prejudicial to others in the society to
which you belong, and they, having sustained an injury at your hands, would,
if prompted by self-preservation alone, seek to avenge themselves by the inflic-
he has made. If a thief is told, "If your theft is discovered, you will
be disliked and suffer from it," he can answer: "Weighing the pleas-
ure I will get from the thing I want to steal against the probable
pain I
may suffer, I find the pleasure greater than the pain." In that
case we can make no answer without going counter to the principle
we posited, that "pain and pleasure are what each person feels as
such," and without deserving the criticism that it is absurd to dis-
cuss the happiness of men otherwise than according to their own

desires. One gets a clear conception of this theory of Bentham's in
an imaginary practical situation which he devised. Really, it is one

of the stories that are told to children to frighten them with the
bogey-man. One of the best possible refutations of it was made by

Mark Twain with his two playful stories of the good boy and the
2
bad boy.
tion of pain equal or greater in amount than the pleasure enjoyed." The fallacy
liesin the assumed consequence: i. It is not enough for people to be disposed to
avenge themselves: they must also have the power to do so. Bentham treats those
two things as one. 2. How can Bentham be sure that the pain which people who
have sustained an injury at our hands may inflict upon us will be "equal or
greater in amount than the pleasure enjoyed"? And what has become of the case
where the pain would be less than the pleasure? 3. And suppose someone should
say: "The actual pleasure that I experience from the conduct from which you are
trying to persuade me to refrain is, in my estimation, greater than the future and
merely probable pain which will be the consequence of it? According to your own
principle it is absurd to try to deprive me of it by reasoning on my happiness
otherwise than by consulting my own desires and inclinations." What could
Bentham say in reply that would not involve him in a self-contradiction?
2
1488 Deontology, Vol. I, pp. 118-20: "Timothy Thoughtless and Walter Wise
are fellow prentices. Thoughtless gave into the vice of drunkenness. Wise ab-
stained from it. Mark the consequence, i. Physical sanction. For every
debauch, Thoughtless was rewarded by sickness in the head; to recruit himself he
lay in bed the next morning, and his whole frame became enervated by relaxation;
and when he returned to his work, his work ceased to be a source of satisfaction
to him." But Wise, whose health was not good, improves by temperance and is
happy. "2. Social sanction. Timothy had a sister, deeply interested in his happiness.
She reproved him at first, then neglected, then abandoned him. She had been to
him a source of pleasure it was all swept away." But what if he had had no
sister? Or suppose he had one and she had stood by him? And what if she were
the sort of person whom it is better to lose than to keep? Walter, instead, has a
brother who has been indifferent to him but who eventually becomes very fond
of him. "3. Popular sanction. Timothy was a member of a club which had money
and reputation. He went thither one day in a state of inebriety. He abused the
secretary and was expelled by an unanimous vote. The regular habits of Walter
had excited the attention of his master. He said one day to his banker: 'That
young man is fitted for a higher station.' The banker bore it in mind and on the
1489 BENTHAM'S "GREATEST HAPPINESS" PRINCIPLE 941
1489. So proof is not very convincing, and its
this first line of
1
weakness seems not to have escaped Bentham altogether; for he
resorted thereafter to a second proof, utilizing another principle,
"the greatest happiness of the greatest number," and so calling into
2
play our residues of sociality (Class IV). In many connexions this
first opportunity took him into his service. He rose from one distinction to an-
other and was frequently consulted on business of the highest importance by men
of wealth and influence." One begins to suspect that Bentham must have been
living in Cathay or the land of Cockaigne, where all well-behaved individuals were
rewarded in that way. "4. Legal sanction ." Timothy is sentenced to deporta-
. .
tion. Walter becomes a judge. It is now certain that Bentham was living in
Cathay, or some other blessed country where sin is always punished and virtue
recompensed. There are countries where things do not run that smoothly. "5. Re-
ligious sanction." Timothy lives in fear of the life to come. Walter looks forward
to it with feelings of hope and peace. [For the Mark Twain allusion, see Index,
s.v. Clemens. A. L.]
*
1489 Deontology, Vol. I, p. 52: "By accident, no doubt, good repute may
attend upon ill-desert, and ill-repute upon good. But if this disastrous state of
things be possible, if it sometimes be witnessed, its continuance is of rare occur-
rence. Were there even more truth in it than there argument
is, the use of such an
litde becomes a moralist." So then, even must not be pressed; and
if it is true, it
that may very well be; but, in that case, Bentham ought to decide what he is
trying to do whether he is preaching a sermon or sustaining a scientific thesis.

Dcontology Vol. I, pp. 298, 319, 328; Vol. II, p. n. Bowring, the col-
<2
1489 f
lector and publisher of Bentham's works, appends to the first volume a "History of
the Greatest Happiness Principle." Says he: "Dr. Priestley published his Essay on
Government in 1768. He there introduced, in italics [p. 17], as the only reason-
able and proper object of government, 'the greatest happiness of the greatest
"
number/ [The epithets "proper" and "reasonable" carry us back into the meta-
physics that Bentham thought he was avoiding.] That theory went "beyond all
notions that had preceded it. It exhibited not only happiness, but it made that hap-
piness diffusive. It associated it with the majority, with the many." [Asso-
ciated? It replaced one happiness with the other. For it is obvious enough
that this second principle is in many cases antithetical to the first.] "The phrase
'greatest happiness of the greatest number' was first employed by Mr. Bentham in
1822, in his Codification Proposal (Worlds, Vol. IV, pp. 535 f.). Every suggestion
there put forward is made to turn upon the requirements of the 'greatest happi-
"
ness of the greatest number.' Well and good, but that being the case, why do
you pretend that every man is sole judge of his own happiness; or that one "may
wear out the air with sonorous and unmeaning words: those words will not act
upon mind: nothing will act upon it but the apprehension of pleasure and
the
pain." However, Bentham seems not to have been entirely satisfied with his new
formula: "In the later years of Mr. Bentham's life the phrase 'greatest happiness
of the greatest number' appeared on closer scrutiny to be wanting in that clearness
and correctness which had originally recommended it to his notice and adoption
. .but though it ... did not satisfy Mr. Bentham, one may doubt whether
.
there be sufficient grounds for rejecting it." [Priestley's actual phrases, referred
new principle is antithetical to the first. By using the two principles
together one eliminates but does not solve the ethical problem that
Bentham had finding a way in such cases to reconcile
set himself, of
the individual's utility with the utility of the greatest number. We

have here stumbled by chance upon one of those problems in which
one feels
intuitively that there is a certain "maximum" of happiness
or advantage for the individual, and a similar maximum for the
community. But like all intuitions, it leaves the subject as it were

8
cloaked in fog.
1490. Bentham makes
a curious application of the principle of
"the greatest happiness of the greatest number" to the matter of
slavery. According to Bentham slavery might be defended if there

1
were but one slave to each master. That might lead one to suppose
that he would end by proposing legislation in that direction. But no:
he in favour of the gradual abolition of slavery! That
is makes it
clear enough that the derivation has a predetermined goal which it
must willynilly attain, and Bentham, moreover, or at least his editor,

does not disdain the procedure of appealing to the opinion of the
greatest number and then excluding adversaries from that favoured

Says he: "Slave-owners who have not been deprived of their
list.
good sense and humanity by personal interest readily admit the ad-
vantages of liberty over slavery." But Bentham had banished "good
sense" and "humanity." What are they doing here ? And besides, if
the slave-owner were "humane," that alone would suffice to abolish
to by Bowring above, are: "the good and happiness of the members, that is of
the majority of the members, of any state"; and, in italics, "the good of the whole"
A. L.]
1489 We shall dispel the fog in due course (Chapter XII) by trying to reduce
8
the conceptions involved to exact definitions.

*
1490 Traite de legislation civile et penale, Vol. I, p. 323 (Atkinson, Vol. I,
pp. 269-73). He had said just previously, p. 318: "In any case if slavery were estab-
lished in such proportions that there would be but one slave for each master, I
might hesitate before pronouncing on the balance between the advantage of the
one and the disadvantage of the other. It might be that all considered the sum of
happiness by that arrangement would almost equal the sum of pain. But that is
not the way things go. The moment slavery is established it becomes the lot of the
greatest number. The advantage is all on the side of the one, the disadvantage
. . .
on the side of the multitude." On that principle one might find a majority can-
nibalism defensible. The disadvantage would belong to the few, the advantage to
the many.
1493 DERIVATIONS in-/?: ACCORD WITH INTERESTS 943
slavery and no theory based on strict
personal interest would be re-
2
quired.
Bentham's stumbling-blocks are primarily two: i. He tries
1491.
to make all conduct logical, and so loses touch with
reality, many
1
human actions being non-logical. 2. He tries to reconcile
by logic
principles that are logically antagonistic, the egoistic and altruistic
principles.
1492. The logico-experimental value of Bentham's theory is very
*
slight; and yet it enjoyed a great vogue. Why? For the same reason
that other theories of the kind have met with similar success: be-
cause it combines residues of personal integrity with residues of so-
ciality.
That is enough for people and they are not very particular
as to just how
they are brought together as to the derivation, in
other words. Bentham is inclined to include animals in his "greatest
number"; and so also is John Stuart Mill, who believes that "the
general principle to which all rules of practice ought to conform,

and the test by which they should be tried, is that of conduciveness
2
to the happiness of mankind, or rather of all sentient beings."
1
1493. Spinoza has another very handsome derivation designed,
as usual, to reconcile the egoistic andtwo altruistic principles. "If
persons of the same mind (naturd) come together, they form an in-
dividual twice as strong as either. Nothing, therefore, is more useful
to man than man. Men, I say, can choose no course better calculated
to preserve their being than to agree all in everything." If two men
are starving and there is one loaf of bread, they would discover right
2
1490 In Op. cit., Vol. I, p. ii (Atkinson, Vol. I, p. 10), Bentham disenfran-
chises the "arbitrary principles" of sympathy and antipathy, and condemns appeals
to "Conscience or Moral Sense" and "Common Sense." At the time of his Intro-
duction to the Principles of Morality and Legislation (Works, Vol. I), Bentham
admitted the principles of sympathy and antipathy. He changed his mind later on
and rejected them.
*
1491 Deontology, Bowring's Preface, Vol. II, p. n: "There are, properly speak-
ing, but two parties in morals or politics and in religion. The one is for the un-
limited exercise of reason, the other is against it. I profess myself of the former."
*
1492 I have not the remotest intention of dealing with the intrinsic merits of
Bentham's theory or any other in these volumes ( 1404). I touch on the question
of its accord with the facts only for the light it throws on the subject of derivations.
2
1492 Deontology, Vol. I, pp. 13-15. For Mill, see his System of Logic, Bk. VI,
Chap. 12, 7 (p. 658). For a theory of Herbert Spencer designed to reconcile the
egoistic and altruistic principles see my Manuale, Chap. I, 29.
*
1493 Ethica f IV, 18, scholium (Latin, p. 216; Willis, p. 575).
away that nothing is more detrimental to a man than another man.
And the same sentiment would be shared by the man who found
that the woman he loved had another
Both lover and starving
lover.
man would suffer from the fact that other men were "of their same
mind (natura}" But Spinoza drives ahead and says that from his
principle it follows that "men who are governed by Reason [Need-
less to say anyone not agreeing with Spinoza is not
'governed by
Reason.'], that is to say, men who seek their own welfare under
guidance of Reason desire nothing for themselves that they do not
2
desire for other men, and so are just, honest and of good faith."
So the derivation changes in form, but the substance is still the
same: one achieves one's own welfare by achieving the welfare of
others. The same argument recurs in other writers of the eighteenth
3
century and turns up again in the modern doctrine of "solidarity."
Burlamaqui begins by finding a sanction for natural laws
1494.
in the harm that comes in natural course upon those who violate
them. That is a derivation like Bentham's. But, shrewd soul that
he Burlamaqui has a feeling that one should not trust Dame Na-
is,
ture too implicitly to enforce her laws, the good lady having fits of
absent-mindedness at times. So he brings in the sanction of a super-
natural and, stepping outside the experimental world, evades
life,
1
the objections that might be urged against him within it.
2
1493"&' cnim duo, exemplo gerendo, eiusdem prorsus naturae individua in-
vicem iungnntitr individttum component singulo duplo potentius. Homini igitur
nihil homine utilius; nihil, inquam, homines praestantius ad suum csse conservan-
dum optare possuntquam quod omnes in omnibus ita conveniant ex quibus
. . .
sequitur homines qui Ratione gubernantur, hoc cst, homines qui ex ductu Rationis
suum utile quaerunt, nihil sibi appetere quod reliquis hominibus non ctipiant, atquc
adeo eosdem iustos fidos atque honestos esse!'
3
1493 C/. Holbach, Systemc de la nature, Vol. II, p. 436: Chap. IX, "The True
Meaning of the System of Nature": "The purpose of man is self-preservation and to
lead a happy life. Experience teaches him that other people are necessary to him.
It shows him how he can make them useful to his designs. He sees what is ap-
proved and what causes displeasure. Such experiences give him a notion of
what is just. Virtue, like wickedness, is not founded on convention but on
relationships obtaining between the members of the human race. The mu-
tual obligations of men derive from their need of using means apposite to the
objectives which their nature sets them. It is by contributing to the happiness of

others that we bind them to contribute to ours."
*
1494 Elements du droit naturel, Pt. I, Chap. 6: "A just remark that one may
make ... is that exact observance of natural laws is ordinarily
accompanied by a
number of very considerable advantages, such as a strong and healthy body, clarity
1495 SANCTIONS OF NATURAL LAW 945
1495. Other writers, such as Pufendorf, Hobbes, Spinoza, and
Locke, think that there is a sanction for natural laws in the fact that
the individual who violates them does harm to society and conse-
quently to himself as a member of society. That is all well enough
in general ( 2115), but the quantitative question, the amount of the
individual's advantage, which is direct, and the amount of his harm,
which is have to be considered. Instead of doing that those
indirect,
writers, and others too, resort to an argument that recurs in a vast
number of derivations and which might be termed the "fallacy of
apportionment." Given an individual who is a member of a com-
munity and who is doing a certain thing, A, that is harmful to the
community, the idea is to show him that if he thinks of his own
interest he will refrain from doing A. So he is reminded that as a
member of the community he will share in the harm he does to it.
The conclusion is that the conduct A is harmful to him, so that if
he does A, it can only be out of ignorance. Whence the further con-
clusion, that the misapprehensions of men as to what constitutes
their own good are the sources of all evil. 1
and tranquillity of rrind, the affection and goodwill of one's fellows. Violation of
those laws is ordinarily attended by a number
of disadvantages, such as physical
weakness, diseases, prejudices and errors, the hatred and contempt of one's fellows.
However, such natural rewards and punishments do not seem sufficient for es-
tablishing a very solid sanction for natural laws. For, firstly, the inconveniences
ordinarily accompanying violation of natural laws are not always great enough
to hold men to the path of duty. Secondly, it often happens that the good are
unfortunate in this life, while the wicked enjoy the fruits of their crimes in peace.
Thirdly, there are times even when the virtuous man cannot do his full duty and
comply with natural laws without exposing himself to the greatest of natural mis-
fortunes, to death." Burlamaqui then gives a long proof of the immortality of
the soul and of the necessity of believing that God rewards the good and punishes
the wicked, and finally concludes: "All we know, therefore, of the nature of man,
the nature of God, and the designs He had in creating the human race [How on
earth does Burlamaqui know what those designs were?], all concur in proving that
there are natural laws, that they have a sanction, and that there is a future life
where that sanction will be applied through rewards and punishments."
1
1495 Novicow, La morale de I'interet, pp. 20, 49-56: 'The fundamental basis
of morality is absolute respect for the rights of one's neighbours. But it is in no
sense out of love of one's neighbour that one should respect his rights, but only
and strictly out of love for oneself. . . . The idea that one can get rich more
quickly by robbing one's neighbour than by working seems to be true but is not
really so. The directly opposite fact, that the quickest possible way to get rich is
scrupulously to respect the rights of one's neighbours, is the only one that conforms
to realities. [No one of course has ever been known to get rich except by strictly
moral means!] . . . Every time a working-man uses violence to exact a wage
1496. The fallacy lies: i. In disregarding amounts of gain or loss,
on the assumption that all individuals are to act in one way or all
in another, and in not considering the case where some individuals
are to act in one way and some in another, 2. In going to extremes
along the line of the above and considering gains only, or losses
only. In fact, let us adopt the premise that if all individuals refrained
higher than the natural market-price [What on earth can such a natural market-
price be?], he robs himself. Every time an employer uses violence to force on the
worker a wage lower than the natural market-price, he robs himself. Try to imag-
ine what the world would be like if men should find it more in conformity with
their interests not to rob their neighbours and to refrain from doing so under any
form whatsoever! From that moment there would be no more locks, no more
strong-boxes, fortresses, battle-ships, no more watchmen, no more judges, lawyers,
police, no more soldiers by land or by sea ([In a note]: I am speaking of civil
actions of course there would still be crimes of passion). In such a society there
would be no litigations, no strikes, no sabotage, no lock-outs, no shady specula-
tion. ... In a word, in a non-robbing society, there would be the greatest and
most rapid production that can possibly be attained on this earth, and wealth,
therefore, would reach its culminating point. Now wealth, comfort, happiness, and
interest are synonymous terms. But then again, morality and absolute respect for
the rights of one's neighbour are also identical concepts. Since, therefore, our
interests are best satisfied when our manner of conduct is the most moral, how can
the identity of morality and interest be disputed? [The fallacy of the argument in
general becomes strikingly apparent in a particular case:] Is it really to a judge's
interest to accept a bribe? Certainly not, and when he does accept one, it is from
his failure to understand that there is no advantage in his doing so. ... Ex-
perience shows that judges draw the highest salaries in the very countries where
they do not sell their consciences. .
Incorruptibility on the part of judges con-
. .
tributes very considerably to increasing social wealth, and the greater the social
wealth, the better paid can public officials be. So a judge who is ill informed thinks
that he will get a larger return by selling justice. A judge who is well informed
knows that it is just the contrary. But a judge who knows that he will get larger
returns by avoiding corruption understands that it is to his interest to avoid cor-
ruption." Suppose we adopt the somewhat arbitrary premise that judges are better
paid when there is no corruption, and keep to the logical errors in the argument.
i. The dilemma assumed by Novicow does not exist. We are not necessarily con-
fined to a choice between a situation where
judges are corrupt and a situation
all
where no judges are corrupt. There are intermediate situations. If all judges but
one are incorruptible, the one enjoys the general advantage plus the individual
profits of his corruption. If all but one are corrupt, the one suffers the general loss
plus the particular loss of the profits of his corruption. 2. It is not enough to show
that honest judges are better paid than corrupt judges. It must also be shown that
the general gain is greater than the particular gain from the corruption. Honest
judges receive, let us say, $10,000 a year, corrupt judges $2,000. But one of the
corrupt judges is offered $30,000 for a decision. He would be the loser if he refused
the money on the remote, in fact the very remote, and uncertain chance of some
day being advanced to $10,000 a year.
1496 DERIVATIONS III-/? : ACCORD WITH INTERESTS 947
from doing A, every individual as a member of the community
would derive a certain advantage. But now if all individuals less one
continue refraining from doing A, the community loss is very slight,
whereas the one individual doing A makes a personal gain far
greater than the loss that he incurs as a member of the community.
The fact that the fallacy is not recognized at once is due to a residue
which usually interposes in such arguments implicitly and gives rise
to the first half of the fallacy. It is assumed, but not stated, that all
individuals are to act like the individual doing A. In such a case the
loss is distributed, while the direct gain, in great part at least, is
eliminated. The answer would be that the person who does A in no

sense wants others to do A. That answer, however, cannot be made
without giving offence to the residue of equality and it is therefore
lost sight of in the
argument. Take a thief, for instance. Our idea is
to convince that stealing is against his personal interests. So we

him
point to the loss that society in general suffers because of his theft,
and explain that he too suffers his share of it. We
might specify
expenses for police, judges, prisons, and the like; or the losses re-
sulting from lack of personal security. It is certain that if no one
stole, society would be the gainer and that every member of society
would share in the gain. But the thief can reply: i. That the direct
gain which he derives from the theft is greater than the indirect loss
that he incurs as a member of society, especially considering the fact
that if he refrained from theft it would by no means follow that
everybody else would do the same. 2. That it is true that if every-

body, or even many people, turned to thieving, his indirect loss in
many cases would probably be greater than his direct gain; but that
he has not the remotest intention of encouraging everybody to turn
thief. In fact, what he
earnestly hopes is that everybody else will be
1
honest, and he the one thief.
1496
*
Ajest that is variously recounted by various writers appears among the
facetiae of Poggio Bracciolini as follows, II, 158: "A usurer of Vicenza kept
urging a monk of great reputation who was regularly preaching to the people to
deliver some strong sermons on the subject of usury and roundly to condemn such
a great vice, which was especially rife in that city; and he pestered the monk
to the point of annoyance. One day, in surprise that he should be so insistent on
having a trade by which he himself lived rebuked, a certain person asked him the
reason for his great solicitude. And he: 'So many people are plying the trade of
the usurer in this town that I am getting very few customers and am earning
948 THE MIND AND SOCIETY *497
1497. A similar derivation was for some time used in defence of
"solidarity." All men were

held to be interdependent indeed, to
give greater force to the argument, all Creation ( 499), animals

being made dependent on the vegetable world, and plants in turn
on minerals. The conclusion was that since one individual is de-
pendent on other individuals he can realize his own welfare only by
working for the welfare of others. The

argument trouble with the
is that the enumeration incomplete. There is the kind of
is
depend-
ence where A realizes his own welfare by working for the welfare
of B, C. But there is also the kind of dependence where A real-
. . .
izes his own welfare at the cost of B, C. The wolf realizes its . . .
welfare by devouring the sheep, the slave-owner by exploiting the

1
slave. The
argument in favour of solidarity is peculiarly childish,
and could never have convinced anybody who was not already con-
vinced.
1498. Ill-y: Accord with collective interest. If the interest is real
and the individual acts logically to favour it, there is no derivation:
it is a case of
plain logical conduct designed to attain an end desired
by an individual. Class IV residues (sociality) do to be sure stimulate
the individual in such conduct. More often, however, the objective
end from the subjective purpose ( 13, 151), and we get
differs
non-logical conduct justified by

derivations. This type of derivation
is
very generally used by people who want something and pretend
to be asking for it not for themselves but in behalf of the commu-
nity.
A certain number of politicians want something for themselves.
They ask for it in the name of party, city, country. Certain factory-
hands want better conditions. What they demand is a betterment in
the conditions of the "proletariat" or the "working-classes." group A
of manufacturers want a favour from the government for their par-
ticular industry. They ask for it as a help to business in general or as
a benefit to the working-classes. For more than a half-century past,
"speculators" ( 2235) have been astute enough to win favour after

favour from our various governments, and bigger and bigger ones,
by asking for them in the interests of the labouring classes or even
in the "public interest."
nothing. If the others could be persuaded to go out of business, all their earnings
"
would come to me.' [Cf. Bandello, Novelle, Pt. Ill, no. 53, on the usurer Tom-
masone, this time at Milan. A. L.]
a
1497 For the detailed refutation see my Systemes socialities, Vol. II, pp. 225 f.
I5OI PROSECUTIONS OF ANIMALS 949
1499. Examples of that sort of derivation turn up before one has
read very far in any article written in support of a protective tariff,
or of an increase in public expenditures, or of one of the
many
measures whereby the "speculators" get their hands on money be-
longing to people who live on fixed, or virtually fixed, incomes
( 2235). I*1 politics all ruling classes have at all times identified their
own interests with the "interests of the
country." When politicians
are afraid of a too rapid increase in the number of proletarians,
they
are for birth-control and show that Malthusianism is to the interests
of public and country.
instead, they are afraid a population may
If,
prove inadequate for their designs, they are against birth-control,

and show just as conclusively that their interest is the interest of
public and country. And all that is accepted as long as residues re-
main favourable. The situation changes as residues
change never
in view of arguments pro or contra.
1500. This type of derivation is well known, so much so that vir-
tually all
commonly brought under it, on the
other derivations are
assumption, explicit or implicit, that a person who uses an unsound

argument does so in bad faith, and would use sound ones if he were
in good faith. That view is altogether out of touch with realities,
as may readily be seen from the many exceedingly important deriva-
tions that we have been identifying in this chapter.
1501. III-5: Accord with juridical entities. A person living in a
civilized society becomes familiar with certain moral or juridical re-
lationships that are continually shaping his life,

with which his mind
is
gradually saturated, and which end by becoming part and parcel of
his intellectual personality. Eventually, through group-persistences,
through his inclination to take what is relative as absolute, he carries

them beyond the limits within which they may have been valid.
They were adapted to certain circumstances, certain cases, merely;
he makes them serve all cases, all circumstances. So concepts of an
absolute morality and an absolute law come into being. Then he
goes on and imagines that those relationships

which arose and de-
before the community, nay,
veloped in a given community existed
gave and we get theories of a "pact," or "social contract,"
rise to it;
of "peace under law," of "solidarity," with its adjunct of the "debt

to society" and the like. In another direction the juridical and moral
relationships obtaining among human beings may be extended to

950 TREATISE ON GENERAL SOCIOLOGY 150!
animals, living creatures in general, and even inanimate things.

Indeed the power that speech sometimes exercises over human be-
ings is extended to thingswhence the notion of the magical chant,
and the spoken or written word becomes a potent instrument for
working upon things and is thought capable of moving or halting
the Sun and the other stars. A part is played in such phenomena by
residues of our I-/3i variety (likeness and oppositeness) whereby, in
view of certain analogies real or imaginary, the traits and properties
of one object are carried over to another. The substance in such cases
is
supplied by group-persistences, the forms by the derivations that
are devised to account logically for the non-logical conduct. In con-
crete cases we ordinarily get mixtures of non-logical conduct of one
sort oranother and derivations and logical conduct designed to de-
rive some advantage from the non-logical conduct the effort serv-
ing merely to demonstrate the existence of the non-logical conduct,

since only something that exists can be used and turned
to account. Given a
group-persistence whereby juridical re-
lationships are extended to cases with which they have nothing to
do, individuals will turn up to take advantage of the situation for
ends of their own; but it is evident that they could not do that if
the group-persistence in question were not already there. The shrewd

take advantage of any weapon that comes into their hands. In the
Middle Ages prosecutions of animals and of persons who were dead
were so exploited. Nowadays it is "solidarity." Tomorrow it will be
else.
something
The records show
that juridical penalties have been inflicted upon
beings other than human, in all countries, in all periods of history.

There are examples in Athens and among the Hebrews in ancient
times, and in Western countries in the Middle Ages and even in
times more recent. As usual if we knew only one group of such
facts, we should not be able to decide which of the elements in them
was the constant element (residues) and which the variable (deriva-
tions). But the doubt vanishes as we examine the various known
types and see that the derivations used for one type do not serve
for others. In the case of the action for damages the noxdis actio
inRome, the group-persistence that is brought into play seems in the
main to be the relationship of the head of the family to the liberi
1501 DERIVATIONS III-5: JURIDICAL ENTITIES 95!
1
under his authority, or to his slaves. If cases of that sort were the
only ones known to us, we would not be able to say whether jurid-
ical actions were ever extended to animals. But, lo and behold, in
Athens we come upon actions against animals independently of any

owner; and even when the action is directed against the owner, the
2
personality of the animal is the more prominent of the two. Actions
are brought even against inanimate
things; and in opposing a de-
cree designed to condemn without trial "whoever slew Caridemus,"
Demosthenes clearly compares procedure against an inanimate thing
with procedure against a human being, holding that a man cannot
8
be denied a guarantee which is accorded to an inanimate
thing.
A law ascribed Draco provided that a stone, or a piece of wood
to
or iron, that had fallen and killed a person should be thrown out-
*
1501 Darembcrg-Saglio, Dictionnaire , s.v. Noxalis actio: "The proprietor is, in
certain cases, responsible for damage done by his animals. According to the Twelve
Tables, the animal had to be a quadruped. . .

Jurisprudence later extended the
.
rule to damage caused by bipeds. The victim was authorized to prosecute the
proprietor of the animal through a special action called de pauperie [damage done
by an irresponsible party]. The proprietor had two options: either to give up the
animal (de ditto noxulis) or to repair the damage. The option of surrendering the
animal applied the principle that the owner of a thing that had caused a damage
could not be held liable beyond the value of the thing." In his Manuel elementaire de
droit romain, p. 393, note 4, Girard well points out how the theorists of Roman
law tried to remedy by derivations certain consequences of that group-persistence
which were considered harmful: "It is interesting to note the fruitless efforts of
jurists under the late Republic to adapt those old procedures to more modern no-
tions of responsibility, deciding that the damage must have been caused
by the
animal contra naturam and applying to fights between animals the
principles of
legitimate self-defence." Surrender of the animal still obtains under Burgundian
law: Lex Burgundiorum, XVIII, i (Canciani, Vol. IV, p. 19): "If a horse has killed
a horse or if an ox has gored or a dog bitten an ox so that it is
incapacitated
(debilitetur), the animal or dog against which the damage has been proved shall
be handed over to the man who has suffered the
damage."
2
1501 Beauchet, Histoirc du droit pnve de la republiquc athcnicnnc, Vol. IV,
p. 391: "In Athens the action called /Md/tyf
[corresponding to the action de pan-
pene of the XII Tables] seems to have been brought rather against the animal
than against the owner and with a view to
permitting the victim of the tort to
exercise the vindicta privata on the animal itself." The Athenian law
requiring
transfer of the offending animal to the offended
party was ascribed to Solon.
See Plutarch, Solon, 24, 3 (a biting dog in question).
8
1501 Demosthenes, Contra Aristocratem, 645 (Auger, Vol. VII, pp. 62-63):
not lawful to deny a trial to things inanimate and without reason
"If, therefore, it is
which are subject to such indictment [homicide] . .".
4
side the boundaries of the state. The law like other ancient laws is
quoted on Laws, IX, 873 (Bury, Vol. II, p. 267),
in Plato's treatise
where animals as well as inanimate things are mentioned as guilty
of homicide. The corpse of a patricide had to be thrown outside the
boundaries of the state in exactly the same manner (Bury, Vol. II, p.
259). Pausanias, Pcriegesis, VI, Elis II, n, 5-7, relates that, at Thasos,
one of the rivals of the champion runner, Theagenes, was in the
habit of thrashing his statue every night, and that finally to punish
the man it fell upon him and crushed him "The children of the dead
:
man then brought action against the statue for murder, and follow-
ing one of the Draconian laws, the Thasians threw it into the sea."
But a blight fell forthwith upon their territory, and the Delphic
oracle declared that it was because the Thasians "had forgotten the
greatest of their fellow-citizens." So they fished up the statue and re-

5
erected it inoriginal position. In Athens, finally, we come upon a
its
mock trial for the murder of an ox. Anox was made to eat offerings
of fodder that were deposited on an altar, and he was then killed.
Then a trial was held before a court that had jurisdiction over mur-
ders committed by inanimate objects. Each of the actors in the drama
in turn laid the blame for the murder on his neighbour, until only the
ax with which the ox had been slain was left. The ax was thereupon
6
condemned and thrown into the sea. Phenomena of totemism may
4
1501 Aeschines, In Ctesiphontem, 88, 244; Aeschylus, Septem adversi4s Thebas,
v. 197 (203) (Scholia prota, Butler, p. 53); Pausanias, Pericgesis, VI, Elis, II, n, 6;
Suidas, Lexicon, s.v. Nkwv. Cases of that sort were archaic and of a religious
character. They were tried, therefore, at the Prytaneum: Demosthenes, Contra
Aristocratem , 645. Pausanias, Periegesis, I, Attica, 28, n, mentions a common be-
lief that certain inanimate objects brought about punishment for certain crimes
automatically. And cf. Pollux, Onomasticon, VIII, 9, 90 (Dindorf, Vol. I, p. 137,

and see note, Vol. V, p. 709), and 10, 120 (Dindorf, Vol. I, p. 147).
5
1501 Suidas, Lexicon, s.v. Nkwv, substitutes that name for Qeayfow. And cf.
Eusebius, Evangelica praeparatio, V, 34 (Opera, Vol. Ill, pp. 395-98). Whether
the story be pure fiction or legend based on a certain amount of historical fact
makes no difference to us here. Our object is to discover the sentiments that were
at work in the individuals who devised or accepted the story. Conspicuous enough
in them is a persistence of associations whereby a statue stands in the same juridical
human being.
relationships as a
6
1501 The ceremony was called the (3ov<t>6via. Porphyry, De abstinentia ab
csu animalium, II, 29-30, gives a detailed account of it, and it is referred to by
other writers. Pausanias, Periegesis, I, Attica, 24, 4, cryptically chooses not to state
the reason that was given for the rite. Efforts have naturally been made to guess
it, and not a few suggestions have been offered among them totemism. But to
1501 PROSECUTIONS OF ANIMALS 953
possibly figure in it, but in any event it certainly shows an extension

to animals of juridical relationships that were established for human
beings. Pliny, Historia naturalis, VIII, 18 (Bostock-Riley, Vol. II,

p. 267), relates
that in Africa lions were crucified in order to
frighten other lions.

7
A
number of passages in the Bible clearly in-
dicate that juridical relationships proper to human beings were ex-
8
tended to animals. On
those passages derivations which justified
similar extensions of juridical procedure were based in part, while
meantime there was no lack of ingenious derivations designed to give
the passages themselves logical significance. Famous the prosecution
9
conducted against the body of Pope Formosus: "A formal trial of
Formosus was proclaimed by public crier. The deceased was cited to
tell the truth, nothing certain or even very probable can be known on such a
matter. To set out to guess at the combinations that underlie a given derivation
is altogether hopeless when there is no direct testimony, and hardly less so when
there is very little. For our purposes we can stop at the fact that a prosecution was
directed simultaneously against human beings and an ax, as codefendants. [And
cf. further Pausanias, loc. cit., 28, 10. A. L.]
"Polybius, who accompanied Aemilianus, states that when lions get old
7
1501
they attack human beings, since they are no longer strong enough to hunt wild
prey. In such circumstance they begin to infest the cities of Africa, and he says
that he and Scipio saw some that had been crucified that others might be deterred
from by fear of similar punishment."
their depredations
8
1501 Gen. 9:5: "And surely your blood of your lives will I require. At the hand
of every beast will I require it, and at the hand of man, and at the hand of every
man's brother will I require the life of man." The animal is prosecuted quite in-
dependently of the owner. The animal that kills a man is held culpable and punished
as such. The owner is innocent: Ex. 21:28: "If an ox gore a man or a woman that
they die then the ox shall be surely stoned, and his flesh shall not be eaten; but the
owner of the ox shall be quit." Lev. 20:15-16: "And if a man lie with a beast, he
shall surely be put to death: and ye shall slay the beast. And if a woman approach
unto any beast and lie down thereto, thou shalt kill the woman and the beast:
they shall surely be put to death: their blood shall be upon them." So then, both
the woman and the beast! That delightful soul, Philo the Jew, works out a very
pretty derivation to account for these prescriptions: he imagines that the animal
is killed that it may not give birth to a monstrous lineage such as sprang from
the passions of Pasiphae and the bull: De le gibus spccialibus, III, 8 (Cohn, Vol. V,
pp. 162-64; Yonge, Vol. Ill, pp. 314-15): "So, whether a man or a woman be with
a quadruped, they shall be killed, human beings and quadrupeds alike; the males
because they have overstepped the prescribed bounds in contriving new forms of
lust and seeking a loathsome pleasure in unspeakably foul ways: the females be-
cause they have lent themselves to such iniquities, and to prevent them from giving
birth to such abominations as are commonly born of detestable crimes of that char-
acter."
9
1501 Gregorovius, Geschichte dcr Stadt Rom im Mittelalter, Vol. Ill, p. 246.
954 TREATISE ON GENERAL SOCIOLOGY I5O2
appear in person before a Synod sitting as a Court of Justice. [As we

shall see, animalswere served with summonses in the same way.]
It was February or March in the year 897. The Cardinals, the . . .
Bishops, and many other Church dignitaries, assembled in San-

hedrin. The Pope's body, wrested from the tomb in which it had
been lying for eight months, was clothed in the pontifical robes and
seated on a throne in the Council hall. Pope Stephen's attorney arose
and turned towards the horrible mummy at its side sat a terrified
deacon who had been designated to act as its counsel. [Animals too
had their attorneys.] The prosecutor read the charges. Then the
living Pope inveighed at the dead Pope in a mad violence: 'Why,
ambitious man, didst thou usurp the Apostolic See of Rome, thou
who wert Bishop of Porto?' The attorney of Formosus answered in
his defence so far as terror did not paralyze his tongue. The dead
Pope was convicted and his punishment fixed. [Animals were con-
victed and sentenced in the same way.] The Synod signed the de-
cree of deposition and pronounced sentence of condemnation."
The Inquisition also conducted many prosecutions against people
who were dead. The purpose was to get possession of such property
as the dead heretics had left to their heirs; and the means, popular
beliefs and among which the feeling that the
superstitions, not least
living could be extended to the

juridical relationships of the dead.
1502. In our Western countries prosecutions of animals occur all
the the twelfth century, and even before that, down
way along from
to the eighteenth. Berriat Saint-Prix has compiled a list of such trials,
1
chiefly for France. Some took place before lay tribunals, others
be-
fore ecclesiastical courts. In civil tribunals the procedure was the
2
same as for human defendants. Even before ecclesiastical tribunals
1
1502 Les proces ct jugements relatifs aux animaux. The catalogue is too long
for reprinting here in full; just a specimen from the beginning and the end, giving
the year, the kind of animal, and the locality: 1120, field-mice and caterpillars,
Laon; 1121, Foigny, near Laon; 1166, a pig, Fontenay, near Paris; 1314, a
flies,
bull, Comte deValois; 1386, a sow, Falaise; 1389, a horse, Dijon; 1394, a pig, Mor-
tain; 1633, a mare, Bellac; 1647, a mare, Parlement, Paris; 1679, a mare, Parlement,
Aix; 1690, caterpillars, Auvergne; 1692, a mare, Moulins; i7th century (end),
pigeons, Canada; 1741, a cow, Poitou. In all ninety-two cases!
2
1502 Cabanes, Les indiscretions de I'histoire, Ser. 5, pp. 34-35: "Action was
opened against the animal by criminal process and procedure developed as follows.
A crime being reported, the delinquent animal was arrested and taken to the de-
tendon prison of the criminal court before which the preliminary investigation was
1502 DERIVATIONS III- 5: JURIDICAL ENTITIES 955
procedure was on the whole the same; but in many cases the process
seems to be an afterthought, as a means of avoiding hitting innocent
creatures with the fulminations of the Church; and there are cases
where mention is made only of the condemnation and not of any
8
trial. Next, under
pressure of the sentiment extending juridical re-
to be conducted. Affidavits were drawn up ... and a thorough-going inquest
opened. The facts being established beyond reasonable doubt, the prosecuting
attorney, in other words, the official exercising the functions of state prosecutor
within the feudal jurisdiction concerned, asked for the indictment and trial of the
defendant. Witnesses were heard and after their testimony in the affirmative the
prosecutor made his plea. The judge then rendered his verdict, declaring the
animal guilty of murder and sentencing him to be strangled and then hung by
the hind legs to an oak-tree or to the public gallows, according to local custom.
. . . The formalities of criminal procedure were so strictly observed in some places
that sentenceswould not be executed till a warrant had been read to the animal
itself in its Beaumanoir, Coutumes de Beauvaisis, II, 1944: "Some have
prison.*'
[courts of] justice on their lands, and execute animals when they have killed
someone. For instance, if a sow or some other animal kills a child, they hang it
and drag it [at the tail of a horse]. But that amounts to nothing, for mute beasts
have no understanding of what is right and what is wrong, and for that reason
such justice is I' Islam,
p. 132, note: "There is a
wasted." Trumelet, Les saints de
story . . .onethat
day the Calif, Omar-ben-el-Khoththah, cousin thrice removed to
Mohammed, found a scorpion on the carpet that he used as his bed. He was seized
with a doubt as to his right to kill one of God's creatures, and ... to have peace
with his conscience, he went to consult the Prophet, his relative, stating the
case to him. After reflecting for some moments, Mohammed answered that he
could not claim such right of destruction till the insect had thrice disobeyed him,
that is to say, until he had bidden it thrice to be gone."
8
1502 Etienne de Bourbon, Anecdotes historiqtics, 303-05* "They say that
animals are afraid of the sentence of excommunication and avoid it, as a result
of example and divine miracles. I am told that at the time Pope Gregory IX was
Legate of the Apostolic See in Lombardy before he became Pope, he visited a town
where he found certain nobles (maiores) fighting, so that they interfered with his
journey. He therefore excommunicated the leader of the dissension who was alone
standing in the way of peace. That individual however snapped his fingers (con-
tempneret) at the excommunication. Whereupon the many cranes who had been
nesting on the towers and chimneys of his house departed thence and moved their
nests to the house of the other leader in the feud aforesaid, who stood ready to
obey the decision of the Legate. Seeing which the obdurate leader humbled his heart
to the extent of asking absolution and doing the will of the Legate." In that we
have a case of innocent animals shunning a person who has been excommunicated.
Here now are cases where animals are themselves excommunicated! "I
am likewise told that at Macon [in France] many sparrows were in the
. . .
habit of entering the Church of St. Vincent, dirtying the building and interfering
with mass. When there seemed to be no way of keeping them out, the Bishop in
that place excommunicated them, threatening them with death if they went
. . .
into the church again; whereupon they withdrew from the church and never
again entered it. [To tell the unadorned truth, the poor sparrows were excommu-
lationships to animals, it was

ruled that trial had to precede sentence.
Then, incidental considerations contributed to prolonging procedure:

first of the fees earned by lawyers and court attendants; and
all,
then again, as seems quite possible in times of increasing scepticism,

Church authorities were not altogether convinced of the effective-
ness of the ecclesiastical excommunication as an exterminator of
pests,
and they were not allow proceedings to drag
at all loath to
along, that the animals might disappear of themselves in natural

course without putting excommunication to the test. It is difficult
otherwise to account for the long protractions of trials, as in the case
4
of which Menabrea gives a detailed description. Menabrea puts
nicated without trial and Etienne himself is an eyewitness to the efficacy of the
sentence:] myself saw flocks of them nesting, flying, or sitting about the church,
I
but never a one did I see inside, and it is common opinion in the town that if
anyone catches a sparrow and takes it by force inside the church, it dies the mo-
ment it is inside. [The Bishop's excommunication is no whit more miraculous in
its effects than Rousseau's social contract, which continues to have believers though
it can boast no eyewitness.] I have also heard from a number of our friars that
there was once a certain Bishop in Lausanne who had fishermen on the lake.
One night he sent them out to fish for eels, and they set their nets in the lake
and caught snakes along with the eels. One of the men crushed their heads with
his teeth, thinking them eels, and in the morning when he saw that they were
snakes he was so horrified that he died of his disgust. Hearing which the
. . .
Bishop excommunicated the eels in case they should remain any longer in those
waters. However, they all departed thence and since that time, it is said, there
have been no eels in the lake."
4
1502 De I'origine, de la forme et de I'esprit des jugements rendus au moyen
age contre les animaux, pp. 7-23. It contains the record of a trial conducted in the
year 1587 against a certain insect ( Rynchites auratus grape-vine weevil) that was
ruining the vineyards at Saint-Julien near Saint-Jean de Maurienne. The same
record is summarized and in part reprinted in a volume called Curiosites des
traditions, des mceiirs, et des legendes, pp. 429-31. "The vines [at Saint-Julien] are
subject at certain intervals to depredations from a green beetle called the amble vin
(vine walker ?) or verpillon (green-worm ?)." Court records of the year 1587 "show
that forty-two years before (in 1545) a similar action had been entered between the
same parties, but the destroying insects having disappeared, the plaintiffs had not
seen fit to go on with the case. At that time a first hearing had been held for ar-
bitration purposes before the Honourable Francois Bonnivard, doctor of laws, Attor-
ney Pierre Falcon representing the insects, with Attorney Claude Morel as assistant
counsel. Negotiations failing, the syndics of Saint-Julien brought action before the
judge (Official) at Saint-Jean de Maurienne, and entered formal suit."
ecclesiastical
Expert testimony was heard, counsel on both sides summed up, "and the court is-
sued an order temporarily setting aside the petition of the inhabitants of Saint-Julien,
who had asked for the excommunication of the insects, and prescribing public
prayers. . . . The action of 1545, which had been left in abeyance for forty-two
years owing to the disappearance of the devastating insects, was reopened in 1587
1502 PROSECUTIONS OF ANIMALS 957
within our reach many of the derivations that came to the fore in
such trials. "An
action initiated in 1451 ... for the purpose of ex-
pelling the leeches which were infesting waters in the territory of

Berne . . furnishes very curious details as to the methods of
.
process-serving in use in such cases. ... In the case of an insect pest

a process-server, or 'usher/ was sent to the place where the insects
were at work, and they were summoned to appear in person before
a magistrate on such and such a day at such and such an hour to
hear sentence passed against them, ordering them to evacuate the
fields on which they were trespassing within such and such a time,
under penalty of the law. The insects failing to appear, the summons
when the unlucky Coleoptera had made a new invasion of the vineyards and per-
haps a more alarming one than usual. This new case is entitled [in Latin] 'Action :
of the Syndics of the Commune of Saint-Julien against brute animals, winged like
"
flies, and of a green colour, commonly called verpillons or amble vins! The syndics
"
request the Reverend Official 'at his pleasure to appoint a new attorney to replace
the former who had passed from this life by death, to designate in advance of trial
a competent commissioner to inspect the damaged vineyards, the defendant party
having been summoned to attend the inspection if it be his pleasure [No more, no
less!], whereafter procedure shall be taken for the eviction of said animals by way
of excommunication or interdict and all other due ecclesiastical censure, they, the
syndics, signifying their readiness to appoint to said animals, on behalf of the com-
"
mune, lands where they will have sufficient pasturage in future.' The action
develops. The attorneys present briefs. There are answers and rejoinders. Finally
"the syndics could not have had any great confidence in the soundness of their case
at law, since they saw fit to make a prime issue of the compromise that they had
suggested at the outset of the action in a wholly secondary way.*' They convoked a
meeting of the Commune " 'to the end of giving effect to earlier offers, by deeding
to the weevils a place where said little animals would find sustenance.' Each . . .
of those attending having expressed his opinion, all agreed to offer the weevils a
piece of land situate above the village of Claret ... 'of fifty-six acres (seterees)
more or less, and which attorneys representing said animals are willing to accept
. . . said piece of land being occupied by several sorts of trees, plants, and foliage,
such as ferns (P joulx), beeches (? alagniers), cherry-trees, oaks ... in addition
to grassand pasture, which are there in fairly good quantity.' In making that offer
the inhabitants of Saint-Julien thought best to reserve the right of thoroughfare
through said parcel of land for purpose both of reaching properties situate beyond,
'without however causing any damage to pasturage of said animals,' and of working
certain 'mines of colour' (ochre), situate near by. 'And since,' they add, 'the place
is a safe retreat in time of war, being well supplied with springs, which will also
be of use to said animals,' they further reserve the privilege of repairing thither in
case of necessary defence, promising on the terms specified to cause to be drawn
up 'in favour of the insects herein named* a deed to said parcel of land 'in regular
form and valid in perpetuity.' On July 24, Petremand Bertrand, attorney for the
plaintiffs, produced in duplicate a copy from the minutes of the resolution adopted."
"
He moves that, in case the defence fails to accept, 'it shall be the
pleasure of
TREATISE ON GENERAL SOCIOLOGY 1502
was usually repeated, sometimes as many as three times in order
that the contumacy might be better established. ... As one
may
well imagine, the defendants and a curator
always defaulted . . .
(receiver) with power of attorney was appointed for the little

animals. That officer swore to
discharge his duties with zeal and
fidelity,
and ordinarily counsel was put at his service. It was while
serving as defence attorney for the rats in the diocese of Autun that
the famous lawyer
Barthelemy Chassanee, who at the time of his
death was Chief Justice of the Parlement of Provence, established
his reputation.
Although the rats had been served in due form,
Chassanee did not rest until he had obtained an order that his
clients be again summoned by the curates of each parish, because,
as he up, since the case interested all rats they
set
ought all to be
served. Having won that point, he undertook to show that the
period of grace allotted them had been insufficient, that the court
should have taken into account not only the distance of the
places
but also the difficulties of the journey to court, a
difficulty aggravated
by the fact that cats were always on watch and were
blocking every
hole big and little. In short, combining Bible with
profane literature,
piling texton text, and exhausting every resource of the learned
of those days, he succeeded in
eloquence having their date of ap-
pearance deferred. The case made Chassanee a much-sought
attorney."
the Reverend Official to give judgment on the basis of his
contention, to the effect
that said defendants be ordered to quit said vineyards in the Commune, under in-
"
junction of never again trespassing thereon in future, under penalties of the law/
On Sept. 3, "Antoine Filliol, attorney for the insects, notified his refusal in behalf
of his clients to accept the offer made by the inasmuch as the land offered
plaintiffs,
was barren and of no yield (cum sit locus sterilis et nullitts rcdditus}, to which
Petremand Bertrand replied that far from being barren, 'said land abounded in
shrubbery and small trees well suited to the sustenance of the defendants.' The
Official thereupon orders the papers filed. The part of the sheet on which the
court's decision was entered has fallen prey to time; but enough is left to show that
before finally disposing of the action, the Official to report on the
appointed experts
serviceability of the land offered the weevils." The notion of assigning to the insects
a place where they could live is not confined to the action here in
question. There
are other examples. Hammerlein, a writer
quoted by Menabrea, states that after a
regular action at law, the inhabitants of Coire (Switzerland) provided certain
Cantharides (Spanish beetles) with a place where they could live. "Even
today,"
Hammerlein adds, "the inhabitants of the Canton make a formal annual contract
with the beetles, handing over to them a certain parcel of land. So true is it that
they are satisfied and never try to overstep the specified boundaries."
1504 DERIVATIONS III-5: JURIDICAL ENTITIES 959
1503. That all seems ridiculous to us; yet who can be sure that
some few centuries hence the disquisitions of our day on the subject
of solidarity will not seem equally ridiculous, and that M. Leon
Bourgeois's invention of a debt which is being forever cancelled and

forever revived will not occupy an honoured place beside Chassanee's
defence of the rats of Autun ? There were jurists and theologians who
thought that the procedures used against rational beings could not
be extended to brute creatures, and among the theologians stood
1
St. Thomas Aquinas, no less. But nothing of that sort could put an
end to such trials;
any more than in our time demonstrations of the
utter inanity of the "social contract," of "solidarity,"
"peace through
law," "Christian Science," and other such vagaries can put an end
to the use of their respective derivations. As usual,
everyone sees the
mote in his neighbour's eye, never the beam in his own.
1504. Derivations change in form to accommodate themselves to
circumstances, but the goal to which they are expected to lead re-
mains unchanged. Among the many theorists who have represented
human society as originating in some convention, pact, or contract,
not a few have talked as though they were describing a historical
incident: certain human beings not as yet living in society came to-
gether somewhere one fine day and organized human society, very
much as people in our day get together and organize a business
corporation.
a ae
1503
x
Summa
theologiae, II II , qu. 76, art. 2 (Opera, Vol. IX, p. 144:
Utrum creaturam irrationalem maledicere) "To curse irrational creatures as
liceat :
being creatures of God of the order of rational creatures (ad rationale creaturam
ordinatae) is blasphemy. To
them for what they are is illicit [i.e., sinful],
curse
since it is an Decretum Gratiani, pars 2, causa 15, quaestio I,
idle fatuous thing.*'
canon 4 (Friedberg, Vol. I, p. 747): "An animal with which a woman has had to
do is killed not as a culprit but as a reminder of the crime. Whence Augustine on
Lev. 20:74, i: The question is: how can an animal as an irrational creature in
no way susceptible to law be guilty of a crime? We must suppose that the

. . .
animals were ordered killed because once contaminated by such a shame they would
"
ever be refreshing the distressing memory of it.' Menabrea, Op. cit., pp. 138-41,
reprints the Discours des monitoires avec un plaidoyer contre les insectcs by Gaspard
Bally of Chambery, a lawyer who lived in the second half of the seventeenth cen-
tury. contains model specimens of pleas for and against insects as well as for
It
summings up by the bishop's counsel, and forms of sentences used by ecclesiastical

judges. Counsel for the insects marshals no end of sacred and legal precedents, and
"
concludes: Tor which reasons it is evident that these animals are to be acquitted
(sont en nous absolntoires) and should be dismissed from action before this bar,
" "
that being our conclusion.' But plaintiff's counsel replies: The principal reason
55
That idea being obviously absurd, there came an effort to
1505.
make it seem a little more rational by deserting the field of history.
It was now said that the relationships that
go to make up society
exist not because such a constitution was ever actually voted by men
not as yet living in society, but because they ought to be conceived

as though such a constitution had been voted. "Rousseau," says
M. Leon Bourgeois, "places the contract at the beginning of things;
we place it at the end." l That is the way Rousseau's disciples are de-
fending their master's theories today. But locate the social contract
at the beginning of human society, in the middle, or at the end, the
fact still remains that the
contracting parties are disposing of things
over which they have no control, Man is a social animal and cannot
live
by himself, save perhaps in some case where he is reduced to
alleged by the defence of these animals is that, being without the use of reason,
they are amenable to no law, on the basis of the law Cum mulicr, i, 5, qu. i, the
law Congruit in fw., and the law sensu cnim carens non subiicitur rigori juris
. . .
civilis. However, we intend to show do not militate against the issue

that such laws
at present before the bar, for there no claim for punishment for a crime that has
is
"
been committed, but an injunction against the commission of crimes hereafter.'
He follows with abundant quotations from authorities of all sorts, and even refutes
"
St. Thomas: 'In rebuttal of the dictum of St. Thomas that it is not permissible
to curse such animals if they be taken in themselves, we claim that in the matter
in hand we take them not as animals merely, but as causing harm to human beings
by eating and destroying the fruits that serve for their food and sustenance. But
why do we hesitate when there are precedents in quantity where Holy Authorities
"
have excommunicated animals that do harm to human beings?' The Official ends
"
his decision with the words: 'In the name and by the power of the Father, God
omnipotent, and the Son, by order to the purport of this sentence (a monitione in
vim sententiae huius) that they shall depart from the vineyards and lands of this
place, doing no further damage thereon nor elsewhere: if within the said number
of days said animals shall not have obeyed this order . . . when the six days have
elapsed, by the afore-mentioned power and authority ...

Holy Spirit of the . . .
and the authority of the Blessed Apostles Peter and Paul, along with that which
we exercise in this place, we serve warning in this script upon said worms and
caterpillars and said animals by whatever name they are called that within six . . .
"
days we herein place them under anathema and malediction.' It is interesting that
Sally's book, as he himself states, was printed with permission of the Senate of
Savoy, "having been seen and examined by the gentlemen of that distinguished
body and reported on with praise."
1505 *Essai d'une philosophic dc la solidarite, p. 46: "Then, it will be said, sol-
idarity is the social contract! I am willing! I will keep the expression [He is right:
they are all variationson the same musical theme.], on condition, however, that
our social contract be not mistaken for Rousseau's. Rousseau's hypothesis as he
thought of it was merely that, and not a fact of history."
1508 INTERNATIONAL "RIGHTS" 96 1
extreme poverty. From the standpoint of formal logic, therefore,
the argument cannot stand even in its new form.
1506. Nor is it easy to see why the contract should not hold just
as well for animal societies such as the ants and the bees. If we
assume that nothing but reasoning and logical thinking can hold
human society together and prevent its dissolution, how explain the
fact that the societies of ants and bees hold together and endure in
time ? But we say that such societies are grounded on instinct. How
deny that that instinct plays its
part in human societies as well ?
1507. Rousseau's theory essentially the theory of Hobbes. But,

is
as ordinarily happens with derivations, those two writers arrive at
opposite conclusions. Rousseau's theory is in vogue today because

we are living in a democratic age. Hobbes's theory might again pre-
vail tomorrow if a
period favourable to absolutism should recur.
And if times favourable to some other
type of social organization
should some day come, no time would be lost in finding a deriva-
tion that would still start with the premise of the social contract and
reach conclusions in harmony with that new system. The point of
departure and the goal are fixed because they correspond to certain
residues that are the constant element in the movement. Only a
little
imagination required to find a derivation that will bring
is
the two points together. If one does not hit the mark, others will
be devised; and so only they tickle certain residues in the people to
whom they are addressed, there can be no doubt of their favourable
reception.
1508. Theories of "peace through law" must be classed with this
same variety (III-5). The
usual objection urged against them is that
law with no force to uphold it is worth little or nothing, and that if
force is used war, which was banished in one direction, comes back
from some other. The objection is valid only in part. In the first
place many norms of social life are enforced without any resort to
violence, and it is not absurd to think that some at least, if not all,
of the rules of a given body of international law can be enforced by
public opinion, by the sentiments that are active in individual human

beings. That to some extent is actually taking place already. In the
second place war might not disappear, but it would occur less fre-
quently, if there were an international power
to enforce a given
system of law, just as acts of private violence decrease in numbers

in a society where there is a public police
power to enforce its will
upon individuals. But of far greater weight is an objection involving
the term "law," which in the phrase "peace law" corre- through
sponds to nothing definite. The so-called civilized nations are all
occupying by force, and no other principle can be

territories
thought of to justify our present-day territorial divisions. The justifi-

cations which people have pretended to find resolve into
sophistries
that are notseldom frankly childish. If Poland had been stronger
than Prussia, asit was in a
day gone by, Poland might have con-
quered Prussia; but since Poland was weaker than Prussia allied
with Russia and Austria, Poland was conquered by those three
powers. Russia had been stronger than Japan, Russia would have
If
seized Korea; instead Japan annexed Korea by force of arms. That

much and only that much is real: the rest is talk. 1
1509. So as between the various social classes no principle of
"right" can be found to regulate the division of social advantage.
The classes that have the greater strength, intelligence, ability,
shrewdness, take the lion's share. It is not clear how any other prin-
l
1508 Worshippers of the god Progress used to assure us that the time was long
since past when congresses of European diplomats could get together and settle the
destinies of peoples as was done in 1815. Yet in 1913 a congress of diplomats in
London settled the destinies of the Balkan peoples. It denied Serbia access to the
Adriatic. compelled Montenegro to relinquish the city of Scutari, which she had
It
conquered. It settled the fate of the wretched inhabitants of the Aegean Islands,
and so on and so on. If Montenegro had been stronger than Austria, Austria would
not have compelled Montenegro to relinquish territory; Montenegro would have
compelled Austria to do so. What rule can one imagine to show with equal clarity
that Austria had a "right" to occupy Bosnia and Herzegovina and that Monte-
negro had no "right" to occupy Scutari? The hoary theory of "equilibrium"

that was appealed keep Italy a divided and subject country serves
to in times past to
the new Italy quite as well, with the connivance of her former oppressor, to keep
the Balkan peoples divided and subject. By what miraculous sophistry can it now
be shown that to maintain equilibrium in the Adriatic Italy has a "right" to keep
Greece from occupying territories of Greek nationality, while in virtue of that same
rule of "right" Greece did not have the "right" to maintain the same hoary equilib-
rium by forbidding the occupation of Taranto and Brindisi by the troops of Pied-
mont and so preventing the establishment of the Kingdom of Italy? There is only
one thing that accounts for the facts and that thing is force. If Greece had been
stronger than Italy, and stronger than the countries that were acting as patrons of
the new kingdom, Greece would have "maintained equilibrium" in the Adriatic
in her own favour just as Italy is doing now because she is stronger than Greece.
Because "a Mighty One, crowned with the token of His victory" [Dante, Inferno,
IV, vv. 53-54] heard "the cry of anguish that is reaching our ears from all parts of
DERIVATIONS III-e: METAPHYSICAL ENTITIES 963
ciples of division could be logically established and even less clear
how once they were established logically they could be enforced or

applied in the concrete. Every individual certainly has his own
principle for a division thatwould seem ideal to him. But such a
principle is nothing more than an expression of his individual senti-
ments and interests which he comes to conceive of as a "right." It
is
just a case of the usual derivation whereby a name is
changed to
make a thing more acceptable to others.
1510. Ill-e: Accord with metaphysical entities. In derivations of
thistype accords with certain entities foreign to the experimental
domain are sought. As regards substance, an accord of sentiments, a
combination of residues, is at work. The form however is supplied
by the entities in question, and, without being supernatural, they
are non-experimental. The residues used for purposes of derivation
come chiefly from our II-$ (persisting abstractions), H-e (persisting
uniformities), II-0 (new abstractions) varieties, as usual combining
in concrete cases with other residues. From the logico-experimental
standpoint there is little or no difference between these derivations

1
and derivations utilizing personified divinities (III-^).
1511. Metaphysical derivations are primarily designed for the
use and consumption of educated people. The plain man, in our
Italy'* [words of Napoleon III], and because fortune favoured him on the battle-
field, Italy was freed of the Austrian yoke; and it was not because of any differences
in "right," but because no Mighty One heard the "cry of anguish" of the Balkans
and the Aegean Islands, that those nations failed of a destiny similar to Italy's. The
Italian Leopard! sang in Dante's language (Batracomiomachia, II, vv. 30-39) of the
mighty feats of Austrian "crabs" intent upon "maintaining equilibrium" in Italy;
just as now some Greek poet might sing in Homer's language of the no less ad-
mirable feats of Austro-Italian "crabs" in "maintaining equilibrium" in the Adriatic
and other regions. A person judging the facts by the sentiments of nationalism will
say, if he is an and Greece "wrong," and if he is a Greek
Italian, that Italy is "right"
he will invert the terms. A person judging the facts by the sentiments of interna-
tionalism or pacifism will place in the wrong the party whom he considers the
aggressor, in the right the party whom he deems to be the victim of the aggression.
But a person resolved to stick to the objective field will simply see in such things
new instances of the struggles that have always raged between the peoples; and in
such judgments, the usual translations into terms of "right" of the fact that certain
things are in accord with certain sentiments, and into terms of "wrong" of the fact
that certain things are not in accord with certain sentiments. He will, in other
words, see just residues and derivations.
*
1510 Religious tradition may even be combined with the most advanced meta-
physics. "Christian Science" ( 1695 2 ), for instance, might be defined as a sort of
"biblical Hcgelianism."
Western countries at least, is
tending to revert from such abstractions
to personifications. It would of course be absurd to imagine that
any of our contemporaries picture "solidarity" as a beautiful woman,
the way the Athenians thought of the goddess Athena. All the same,
in the minds of our masses such entities as "Solidarity," "Progress,"
"Humanity," "Democracy," are far from standing on a par with

pure abstractions such as a geometric surface, chemical affinity, or
luminous ether. They abide in a far loftier realm. They are power-
1
ful entities that can work miracles for the good of mankind.
1512. Interesting in this connexion is the evolution of Auguste
Comte. Comte was driven by a peculiarly violent impulse to endow
his abstractions with concrete traits. He even went so far as to per-
sonify Humanity "Great Being," to speak of the Earth as if it

as a
were a person, and to recommend worship of Space as his "Great
Medium." As we have already pointed out ( 1070 f.), such senti-
ments form a jumbled mass in the minds of many people; and they
are not in the least interested in breaking the aggregate up into its
elements to determine just where abstraction ends and personifica-
tion begins.
1513. This derivation figures in all reasonings that appeal to "Rea-
son," "Right Reason," "Nature," "the goal of mankind" (or other

such goals), "Welfare," "the Highest Good," "Justice," "Truth,"
"Goodness," and, in our day more particularly, "Science," "Democ-
racy," "Solidarity," "Humanity," and the like. Those are all names
that designate nothing more than indistinct and incoherent senti-
ments.
1514. Famous a metaphysical entity that was imagined by Kant
and admired by many good souls. It is called the categorical
is still
imperative, and there are plenty of people who pretend to know

what it is, though they can never make it clear to anyone who in-
*
1511 Weber, L'enseignement de la prevoyancc, p. 101: Of certain persons who
busy themselves with loan funds and societies for mutual aid and cooperation, Weber
says: "In their eyes, as well as for the vast majority of their associates, Mutual Aid
and Savings are dogmas that one must not even try to understand, things that have
special virtues, that are virtues in themselves, and are blessed with some mysterious
power for healing the woes of mankind. Their idea seems to be that the important
thing so far as they are concerned is to be an adept and a believer. After that one
need simply bring an offering, some small personal contribution, to 'the move-
ment/ to obtain extraordinary results, such as retirement pensions or unemployment
insurance, at ridiculously small costs."
1515 KANT'S "CATEGORICAL IMPERATIVE" 965
1
sists on remaining in touch with reality. Kant's formula reconciles,
as usual, the egoistic with the altruistic principle, which is here rep-
resented by "universal law," a notion pleasantly coddling to senti-
ments of equality, sociality, and democracy. Many people have
accepted Kant's formula in order to retain their customary morality
and yet be free of the necessity of having it dependent upon a per-
sonified deity. That morality may be made to depend upon Jupiter,
upon the God upon the God of Mohammed, upon
of the Christians,
the will of that estimable demoiselle Milady Nature, or upon Seine
Hoheit the Categorical Imperative of Kant. Whatever it is, it is all
the same thing. Kant gives still another form to his phrase, to wit:
"Act as if the maxim of your conduct were to become, by your will,
a universal law of nature!' A customary trait in all such formulae
is that
they are so vague in meaning that one can get out of them
anything one chooses. And for that reason it would have been a
great saving of breath to say, "Act in a way pleasing to Kant or
his disciples," for "universal law" will in the end be dispensed with
anyhow.
1515. The
question that comes into one's mind as one tries
first
to get some definite meaning into the terms of Kant's formula is

1
1514 In his MetaphystJ^ dcr Sitten, pp. 45-46 (Semple, pp. 33-34), Kant serves
warning that (Semple translation) "the ground of the difficulty of comprehending

i.e., of the moral law, is very great:
the possibility of the categorical imperative,
THE IMPERATIVE A SYNTHETICAL PROPOSITION A PRIORI; and 3S WC felt SO HlUCh dif-
IS
ficulty in comprehending the possibility of this kind of proposition in speculative

metaphysics, we may presume the difficulty will be no less in the practical. In this
inquiry we shall examine whether or not the mere conception of a categorical im-
perative may not involve in it a general formula, furnishing us with that expression
which can alone be valid as a categorical imperative. [The conception will certainly
furnish one. The mere conception of a Jabberwock will also furnish the expression
for a Jabberwock.] When I represent to myself a hypothetical imperative, I do
. . .
not know beforehand what it contains, till the ulterior condition on which it rests
is put in my possession; but with the very conception of a categorical imperative is
given also its contents [And given the conception of a Jabberwock, I at once know
its make-up.], for the imperative can in this case contain only the law ordaining
the necessity of a maxim to be conformed to this law; and since the law is attached
to no condition which could particularize it, there remains no what [read whit]
except the form of law in genere to which the maxim of an act is to be conformed;
and this properly speaking, what the imperative represents as neces-
conformity is,
sary. The categorical imperative is therefore single and one: 'Act from that maxim
"
only which thou canst will [to become] law universal' [Kant's German: "Handle
nur nach derjenigen Maxime durch die Du zugleich wollen fynnst, dass sie ein
allgemeines Gesetz werde!'\
whether: (i) the "universal law" is dependent upon some condition;
or (2) whether it is unrestricted by any condition of any kind. In
other words, can the law be stated in either of the following ways ?
i.
Every individual who has the traits ought to act in a certain M
manner. 2. Every individual, regardless of his traits, ought to act in
a certain manner.
1516. If the first form of statement be adopted, the law itself
means nothing, and the problem then is to determine which traits
M it
permissible to consider; for if the choice of traits is left to
is
the person who is to observe the law, he will always find a way to
allow him to do exactly as he chooses without
select traits that will
violating the law. If he wants to

justify slavery, he will say
with
Aristotle that some men are born to command (among them, of
course, the gentleman who is interpreting the law) and other men
are born to obey. If he wants to steal, he will say that it may very
well be a universal law that he who has less should take from him
who has more. If he wants to kill an enemy he will say that revenge
can easily be a universal law ;
and so on.
1517. To judge by the first
application that Kant makes of his
principle, he would seem to reject that interpretation. Making no
distinctions between individuals, he concludes that suicide could not
1
be a universal law of nature.
*
1517 Kant, Mctaphysi\ der Sitten, p. 48 (Semple, pp. 34-35): "An individ-
ual harassed by a series of evils and sickened with the tedium of life proposes to
commit self-murder but first inquires within himself to know if the maxim regulat-
ing such an act would be fit for law universal. [The reply would have to be in the
affirmative qualifications were admissible. One would say in fact: "All men
if
and they are in the great majority who prefer living to dying will try to remain
alive as long as they can; and those few who prefer dying to living will kill them-
selves." What is there to prevent that from being a "universal law"? So little to
prevent it what actually happens, and has always happened in the con-
that that is
crete. Kant draw any distinction between those two sorts of people and so
fails to
answers in the negative.] His intended maxim would be, to deprive himself of life
whenever existence promised more of misery than of pleasure; and the question is,
Can such a principle of self-love be regarded as fit for a universal law of nature?
and it is instantly observable that an order of things whose law it were to destroy
life [Note the impersonal mode of statement which is generally adopted by those
who are manipulating the cards. The man who contemplating suicide is not con-
is
cerned with life in general, but with his own in particular.] by force of the
life
sensation intended for its continuance [If that is to stand, all qualifications have
to be suppressed; for the function of the sensation in question might be to encour-
age continuance of living when its blessings outweigh its pains, and under no other
1519 DERIVATIONS III-e: METAPHYSICAL ENTITIES 967
1518. So let us look at the second
interpretation (where no dis-
tinctions or limitations in individuals are
recognized). Kant's reason-
ing might seem able to stand after a fashion. But there is another
trouble with it. Before it could stand, the whole human race would
have to constitute one homogeneous mass, without the least differen-
tiation in the functions of individuals. If distinctions are admitted,
it is
possible for some men to command and others to obey; but not
if distinctions are not admitted, for there can be no universal law
that all men should command and no one obey. A man wants to
spend his life studying mathematics. If distinctions are in order,

he
may do so without violating the Kantian law, since it
may well be a
universal law that a person possessing certain traits should spend M
his life studying mathematics, and that a person not possessing those
traits should or otherwise employ himself. But if dis-
till the soil
tinctions are not allowed, if, as in the case of the suicide, one refuses
to divide individuals into classes, there can be no universal law that
all men should spend their lives
studying mathematics, if for no
other reason, for the very good one that they would starve; and
therefore no one could be allowed to spend his life in such mathe-
matical studies.
Such implications are not noticed, because people reason on senti-
ments and not with the facts before their eyes.
1519. As metaphysicists habitually do, after giving what he says
is to be a
single principle, Kant begins filling out with other prin-
ciples,
which come bobbing up no one knows from where. In a third
case that he considers, Op. cit., p. 49 (Semple, pp. 35-36), still "a third
[person] finds himself possessed of certain powers of mind [Those

are qualifications, conditions. were they not mentioned in the
Why
case of the presumptive suicide? was it not said in his case,
Why
"A person finds himself possessed of a certain nature whereby
life
for him is a painful burden and not a pleasure"?] which, with

some slight culture, might render him a highly useful member of
conditions.] could not be upheld [It could not be if there were no qualifications;
it could be if there were qualifications.], but must return to chaos. Whence it re-
sults that such maxim cannot

possibly be regarded as fit for an unvaried law of
nature, but is repugnant to the supreme principle of duty." (Semple translation.)
In of this
spite sermon anyone nursing intentions of killing himself will
eloquent
make his bow to our dear and illustrious and no less impotent Categorical Impera-
tive, and proceed to end all.
5I9
society; but he is in easy circumstances and prefers amusement to

the thankless toil of cultivating his understanding and perfecting his
nature." (Semple translation.) He wants to know whether the latter
can be a universal law. The answer is in the affirmative, at least from
a certain point of view: "He observes that [such] an order of things
might continue to exist under a law enjoining men to let their

talents rust (after the manner of a South Sea Islander) and to de-
vote their lives to amusement." would seem,
It then, if one would
adhere strictly
to the formula which Kant has
posited as a single
comprehensive principle, that since such a course of action can be
a universal law, it should be permissible. But not so! "It is im-
possible for any one to will that such should become a universal
law of nature, or were by an instinct implanted in his system [The
formula does not mention any such "instinct."]; for he, as [an]
all his faculties to become de-
Intelligent [being], of necessity wills
veloped, such being given him in order that they may subserve his
various and manifold ends and purposes." (Semple translation.)
Here we have a principle altogether new: that certain things are
given us (no one knows by whom) for certain ends and purposes.
In order to reason in that fashion one would have to modify the
terms in Kant's formula and say: "Act only on a maxim that it
would be your will at the same time to have become a universal
law. However, do not let yourself be deceived by the possessive
c
'your/ To
say your will' is just my way of saying. In reality it is
something that must necessarily exist in a man, full account being
taken of the capacities with which he is endowed, of his designs
and purposes, and of many other fine things that will be explained
to you proper time and place." That much granted, one might
at the
just as well,from the logico-experimental standpoint, do away with

"will" altogether, for it is thrown overboard in any event. But not
so from the standpoint of sentiment. The appeal to "will" serves its
purpose in flattering egoistic sentiments and giving hearer or reader

the satisfaction of having it reconciled with his sentiments of altru-
ism. And other sentiments also are stirred by the maxim of "uni-
versal law": first, a feeling of satisfaction that there should be an
absolute norm which is superior to captious wranglings and petty
human altercations
something established by Nature; and then that
1521 KANT'S "CATEGORICAL IMPERATIVE" 969
sum of sentiments whereby we vaguely sense the utility
of the prin-
ciple that the decisions of judges should be based on reasons, on gen-

eral rules, and that laws also should be made with reference to such
rules and not against or in favour of any given individual.
1520. The utility,
we may note in passing, is
really there,
for such
general rules do, in spite of everything, serve as a check on mere

whim, just as Kant's law itself does. But the gain is not after all so
very great; for if he chooses, a judge can always find a way to give
a semblance of generality to a partisan decision. If, as between three
persons, A, B, concerned to favour or to harm A, one

and C, one is
seeks, and one always finds, some aspect wherein A is different from
B and C, and the decision is based on that aspect and therefore given
an appearance of generality. That is
saying nothing of that much-
followed method of deciding in general and applying in particular,
now with, now without, indulgence. So all our codes contain a law
that, in the general, punishes assaults and batteries. But in the par-
ticular, the courts shut one eye, and even two, in cases of assaults
and batteries committed by strikers on non-unionized workers. In
Italy,
before the war of 1911 it waspossible to insult an army officer
without interference from the courts. A
certain Deputy was able
to slander an army officer on purely private grounds that had noth-
ing to do with politics; and though he was convicted in a criminal
court he did not spend a day in prison even after he had failed of re-
election to the parliament. Then the war with Turkey came and
the pendulum swung to the other extreme. At the Scala Opera
House in Milan individuals were abused and beaten with impunity
for mere failure to rise to their feet when the "Royal March" was
being played.
1521. Theologians scan the heavens for the will of God, and Kant
for the will of Nature. There is no escaping such speculations, which
are as alluring as they are difficult and imaginary. "As regards the
natural constitution of an organized being," says Kant, p. 13 (Sem-
ple, p. 5),
"a being, that is, that has been constituted with a view to
living, it is a fundamental position in all philosophy that no means

are employed except those only that are most appropriate and con-
ducive to the end and aim proposed. [A reminiscence of the time-
*
honoured theory of final causes.] If then the final aim of nature
[What on earth can that be?] in the constitution of man (i.e., a
being endowed with intelligence and will) had been merely his
general welfare and felicity [These are arbitrary assertions about the
arbitrary purposes and intentions of an arbitrary entity.], then we
must hold her to have taken very bad steps indeed in selecting
2
reason for the conduct of his life."
This whole argument develops by arbitrary assertions relating
to altogether fantastic things.The only word to describe it is child-
ish; and
yet many people have accepted it and many still do, and
it is therefore evident that with them it can
only be a matter of
*
1521 When a mctaphysicist feels an urge to talk about the natural sciences com-
ing over him, he ought to remember the proverb that speech is silver, silence gold.
Metaphysics ought to remain in its own field without invading the domains of
others. Yves Delage, La structure du protoplasme et les theories sur I'hercdite, p.
827, note: "Probably not a few of the arrangements that we deem useless or harm-
ful look that way to us because of our ignorance of the services they render; but
then again, just as probably, they may be as useless or detrimental as they seem to
be. In any case it is for those who deny that to prove what they say. [They have to,
if they are naturalists. Metaphysicists are privileged to assert without proof.] Most
species get along more or less badly, more or less well. They are far from being
what has been called an intricate machine where each part is perfectly adapted to
its place and work in the great mechanism of Nature. Some have had good fortune
in the sense that the variations by which they have been formed have created few
embarrassments for them. That is the case with the fly. It has only to fly about,
rest, rub its wings and antennae. It finds anywhere those nameless deposits from
which it can suck the little it requires for subsistence. But those same blind varia-
tions have created lives that bristle with difficulties. That is the case with the spider,
which is always faced with most perplexing dilemmas: no food without a web, and
no web without food. It must be in the light to catch the insect, it must stay in the
dark to escape the bird. Why so surprising then that under such conditions it came
to develop the absurd instinct that drives the female to devour the male after copu-
lation, if not before [Blessed Kantian Nature! What a shocking oversight!], an

instinct, by the way, that selection for the good of the species would be greatly em-
barrassed to explain." St. Augustine, good soul, also needlessly borrows trouble by
venturing into entomology, De Genesi ad litteram, III, 14, 22-23 {Opera, Vol. Ill, p.
245). Following a number of other metaphysicists, he explains that many insects

originate in putrefaction: "Not a few of them are born of the waste matter of living
bodies, such as excrement and exhalations, or from the decay of dead bodies. Some
others come from the rotting of wood and plants." And he wonders how on earth
they ever came to be created: "As for those that are born from the bodies of living
creaturesand especially of the dead, it is altogether absurd to imagine that they
were created at the time when those creatures were created."
2
1521 [Pareto read: "in selecting reason as the executrix of her intentions," and
comments: "That might be favourable to a theory of non-logical conduct!' A. L.]
1522 DERIVATIONS 111-8 1 METAPHYSICAL ENTITIES 971
sentiments that are agreeably stimulated by that sort of metaphysical
poetry. And that is further corroboration of the importance of der-

ivations,though the measure of the importance is not the accord
of the theory with the facts, but the accord of the theory with
8
sentiments.
1522. In general, as we have over and again cautioned, it is im-
portant not to stop at the form of a derivation, but to delve into the
substance that the form covers, to see whether residues with an in-
fluence on the social equilibrium may not be lurking in it. have We
seen many. Let us look at another and it will not be the last. In
August, 1910, the German Emperor made a speech at Konigsberg

8
1521Kant goes on, Op. cit., p. 15 (Semple, pp. 5-6), to give the reasons for that
assertion:"For the whole rule and line of action necessary to procure happiness
would have been more securely gained by instinct than we observe it to be by rea-
son. [Kant knows that, but he does not reveal how he came by it, and he gives no
proof.] And should her favoured creature have received reason over and above, and
in superaddition to it, such gift could only have answered the purpose of enabling
itto observe, admire, and feel grateful to the Beneficent Cause [Another very pretty
entity.]for the fortunate arrangement and disposition of the parts of its system.
... In a single word, nature [Alias Beneficent Cause.] would have taken care to
guard against reason's straying into any practical department. ... So far is this,
however, from what is in fact observed, that the more a man of refined and culti-
vated mind addicts himself to the enjoyment of life and his own studied gratifica-
tion, the farther he observed to depart from true contentment." Mark the word
is
"true." It means the contentment that Kant likes best: any other contentment would
be "false." Those who have made the most extensive use of reason and then calcu-
lated the benefits they have derived from the arts and even from the sciences ac-
knowledge that "they have felt a certain hatred of reason, because they could not
conceal from themselves that upon a deliberate calculation of the advantages arising
from the most exquisite luxuries, not of the sensory merely, but likewise of the
understanding (for in many cases science is no more than an intellectual luxury),
they had rather increased their sources of uneasiness than really made progress in
satisfactory enjoyment, and felt inclined rather to envy than think lightly of those
inferior conditions of life, where man comes nearer to the tutelage of instinct, and
is not much
embarrassed by suggestions of reason as to what ought to be pursued
or avoided. [How could Kant ever have compiled any such statistics? This part of
the derivation was designed to satisfy people (and they were numerous in Kant's
day) who admired the "natural man" and were ever declaiming against civilization.
Derivations have their eye on sentiments, not on facts and logic.] For, since . . .
reason is guide the will so as to obtain adequate objects of enjoy-

insufficient to
ment and the satisfaction of all our wants, and innate instinct would have reached
this end more effectually, and yet reason is bestowed on man as a practical faculty
of action,i.e., such a faculty as influences his will and choice, it remains that THE
TRUE END [Again mark the adjective "true," for there is a "false" end as well the
end that Kant does not like.] FOR WHICH REASON is IMPLANTED, is to produce a will
good not as a means toward some ulterior end, but good in itself."
972 THE MIND AND SOCIETY 15^3
that attracted wide "Here the Great Elector on
attention. Said he:
his own authority declared himself sovereign. Here his son placed
the royal diadem upon his head. Here again my grandfather, and
again on his own authority, assumed the royal crown of Prussia,

so clearly showing that he was receiving it not from a parliament
nor from a popular assembly, but that he was receiving his power
from the grace of God, that he regarded himself as the executor of
the will of Heaven, and that, as such, he believed that he had the
right to wear the Imperial crown. Considering the fact that our
. . .
neighbours have made enormous progress, we must be prepared.

Only our preparedness will assure peace. That is why I am resolved
to walk in the path appointed to me, I too an executor of the Divine
Will, taking no thought of the petty questions of day to day, dedi-

cating my life to the well-being and progress of my country and to
its
development under peace. But in so doing I shall need the help
of every one of my subjects."
The speech a derivation of our Ill-y variety (collective interest).
is
The opposition parties bitterly assailed the Kaiser's utterance, de-

nouncing it
rallying cry against the German masses and against
as "a
popular representation" standing in flat contradiction with the

"modern conception of the state"; as an appeal to the outworn prin-
ciple of divine right as opposed to the "modern principle of the

people's right."
Those are all derivations of our 111-8 variety (juridical entities)
with a drift towards the Ill-y (collective interest) ; for the "right of
the people" isnot very different from the "divine right" of kings.
1523. We must not be led astray by the term "people," which
seems to designate a concrete thing. Of course the sum of the in-
habitants of a country might be called a "people," and a "people" in
such a case a real, concrete thing. But only in virtue of an abstrac-
is
tion wholly foreign to reality can such an aggregate be regarded as

a person possessing a will and the power to express it. First of all,
and in general, before that could be the case the group in question
would have to be able to understand a given problem and be capable
of volition in regard to it. That never, or almost never, happens.
Then again, coming down to the particular, it is certain that some
Germans approved of the Emperor's speech, just
as others did not.
1524 THE KAISER AND THE "WILL OF THE PEOPLE" 973
Why should those who did not be privileged to call themselves
"the people"? Were not those who approved just as much a part
of "the people"? The usual answer in such cases is that the term
"people" means "the majority." But in that case, to be exact, the

antithesis to divine right would be not "the
right of the people"
but "majority right." That statement of the concept is avoided in
order not to impair its force. Nearly always the term "majority" is
itself a new abstraction. The term
generally indicates the majority
of adult males, leaving out the women. However, even in that re-
stricted sense no one knows, oftentimes, what exactly the majority
wants. A solution of the problem is more or less
approximated in
countries that have the referendum. But even in those countries
very considerable numbers of the adult males fail to vote, and it is

only by a legal fiction that the will expressed by the voters
granted that they all have understood the question that has been put
to them is taken as the will of the majority. In countries where
there is no referendum, the will of a small number of individuals is
taken as equivalent to the "will of the people" only by a complicated
series of abstractions, fictions, inferences.
1524. Believers in the "will of the people" quarrel back and forth
very much like orthodox and heretic in any other religion. A profane
observer might well believe that the plebiscites held in France under
Napoleon III manifested the "will of the people." But he would be

as guilty of
heresy as those early Christians who thought that the
Father must have existed before the Son. These plebiscites in no
way manifested the "will of the people"! All the same, parliamentary
majorities under the Third Republic do manifest that popular will.
So there you are! But every religion has its mysteries; and this one
is after all not deeper or darker than any other.
In any country, when election reforms are up for discussion, each
party looks to its own advantage and works for the reform that it
judges most favourable to itself, without an instant's worry over the
x
sacrosanct "expression of the general will." Many "liberals" are loath
*
1524 Speaking in the French Chamber, Jan. 24, 1913, Premier Briand said:
"The most urgent problem is election reform. At no time have I personally pro-
nounced anathema on the vote by districts. I have always recognized the services
that that system has rendered. I have always added that as a tool it was out of gear.
I do not regard election reform as a matter of principle: it is a matter of tactic.
The party in power must try to stay there in the interests of the country and the
974 TREATISE ON GENERAL SOCIOLOGY T
525
to grant the ballot to women because they fear that women will
prove "reactionary"; and many reactionaries are in favour of

women's suffrage for the same reason. In France the Radicals have
a holy horror of the popular referendum; the "general will" has to
be expressed through their own lips
not "the general
otherwise it is
will." The extension of the franchise in Italy was certainly not un-
influenced by the hope of certain calculating politicians that they
could turn it to their own advantage. In Germany Bismarck ac-
cepted an extended franchise as a weapon against the liberal bour-

might seem that champions of proportional representa-
geoisie. It
tion were an exception to the rule; but many of them see in that
reform a way of obtaining a humble seat at the governmental
banquet-board without too lively a competition and without run-
ning the risks of battle.
1525. The "modern
conception of the state" is another abstraction.
The conception voiced by the German Kaiser is held by many
people living today. Why then is it not entitled to be called a
"modern" conception ? An enthymeme is involved. Suppose we state
it: "The Kaiser's
conception is contrary to the modern conception
of the state; therefore it is bad." [The major premise has been
suppressed.] The completed

syllogism would be: [Major premise:]
"Everything that is contrary to the modern conception of the state is
bad." [Minor premise:] "The Kaiser's conception is contrary to the
modern conception of the state." [Conclusion:] "Therefore the Kai-
ser's
conception is bad." The major premise was suppressed as call-
ing attention to the weak point in the argument.

1526. Now let us turn aside from these derivations for a moment
1
and look at the substance which they hide. Every community has
two sorts of interests
present interests, future interests. So in every
business corporation a problem arises and has to be solved as to
whether a larger or smaller portion of profits shall be distributed
as dividends to stockholders or saved in order to
strengthen the
nation that has put itin power [Excitement in several sections of the Chamber}.
The party in power must actuate the instrument (! realiser I' instrument) of justice
and equity through its own agencies.'*
l
In so doing, we turn to a particular case of the
1526 general problem of social
utility that we are to consider in detail in Chapter XII. Just here a very brief survey
will suffice.
1529 DERIVATIONS Ill-e : METAPHYSICAL ENTITIES 975
company. Various boards of directors will be inclined to solve the
problem in different ways.

1527. In the case of a people the interests of a present generation
often stand in conflict with the interests of future generations.
Material interests, which entirely or almost entirely engross one
element in the population, stand in conflict with interests of another
kind the future prosperity of the country which are the major
concern of another element in the population, and which the first
element mentioned comes to sense only in the form of some residue
of group-persistence.
1528. Different administrations will be inclined to attach differ-
ing importance to such interests. So the Roman Republic had, under

that one name, different tendencies according as Senate or plebs
prevailed. If one strips off the veiling of derivations, one finds in
the German Kaiser's speech an assertion of the interests of the coun-
try as against the temporary interests of a part of the population.

In the utterances of his critics one notes the reverse. Both the Kaiser
and his critics express themselves through derivations that are calcu-
lated to stir emotions, for there is no other way of catching the ear
of the masses at large.
1529. The Emperor's statement is much clearer than that of his
adversaries. Take the sentence: "That is
why I am resolved to walk
in the path appointed to me, I too an executor of the Divine Will,
taking no thought of the petty questions of day to day." If the

phrase "executor of the Divine Will" be replaced by the phrase
"representative of the permanent interests of the country," we get a
proposition that is fairly close to the scientific type. The reason why
the Emperor's critics are less clear is that the residue of patriotism is
very strong in Germany; and no one is

likely to state very bluntly
that he prefers.his own present interests to the future and permanent
interests of the country. If one were trying to translate the Em-
peror's speech into

terms of experimental science, one could do no
better than recall the case of Bismarck. Had he, backed by the will
of his sovereign, not governed against the will of the elective Cham-
ber, it might never have been possible to create the German Empire.
On October the Prussian Landtag rejected the budget by a
7, 1862,
vote of 251 to 36. The temporary interests of a part of the population
were in conflict with the permanent interests of the country. King
97^ THE MIND AND SOCIETY 1530
William made up his mind to side with the latter. On October 13,
he prorogued the Landtag by a decree bearing Bismarck's signature,
and thereafter governed without regard to the approval or dis-
approval of that body. From that point on one's argument would
infer the future from the past. That is characteristic of reasonings in
the experimental sciences. They seek knowledge of the future from
what is known of the past. One uses that method when one in-
quires whether, under certain circumstances, one may expect that a
policy that has been used in times past and then had certain conse-
quences again be used with the same consequences.

may
Now us try to translate the position of the Kaiser's opponents
let
into the language of experimental science. The most logical among

them were who regarded Bismarck's policies in gen-
the Socialists,
eral as detrimental to them. They had been opposed to the inter-
ests that Bismarck had defended in 1862. Logically enough, they
stood opposed to the same interests defended by the Kaiser in 1910.
Their idea is that the present interests of the working-classes ought
to prevail over all other sorts of interests. Since, in fact, that atti-
is common
tude enough in contemporary Europe, it would be no
great stretch of the truth to call it the "modern conception of the
state." And since the parliamentary form of
government seems to
favour that attitude, no great margin of error is involved in set-
ting the parliamentary majority over against the rights of the

sovereign.
Less logical is the opposition of the bourgeois parties to the Kaiser.
They want bottom precisely what he wants. However, they are

at
pulled into opposition by a desire to satisfy a much larger number

of sentiments, regardless of whether some of them may not be
mutually inconsistent. That is a common course of action in politics

1
and oftentimes very helpful to a party.
is
1530. Metaphysical entities may thin down to the vanishing point.

In certain accords of sentiments they appear but faintly, serving
merely to lend them a vague hue of intellectuality. They often figure

in explanations of usages and customs. The Sun, for instance, is
saluted, revered, worshipped, as the principle of all earthly life. It
1529
*
A
similar analysis might be made for most manifestations of social activity.
Such analysis gives us some inkling as to the forces that are at work in determining
the social equilibrium.
1531 "UNIVERSALITY" AND "NECESSITY" 977
was once believed that one's life could be prolonged by a child-
sacrifice, as
though lifewere a fluid that might be piped, as it were,
from one person to another. On the same theory, a man of sober
years was able to imagine that he could prolong his life by sleeping
beside a young woman. So resemblances oftentimes imaginary are
transformed into metaphysical entities and serve to explain facts.
In general the function of such entities is to
give a semblance of
logic to combination residues (Class I).
1531. The metaphysical concept
may be taken for granted; and
we then get derivations that are very close in type to those based
on accords of sentiments ( 1469) and may be indistinguishable
from them. A
striking example would be the case of the meta-
physicist whorefutes logico-experimental science with principles
which that science denies, and insists at all costs on finding the
absolute in reasonings which he is over and again told are irremedi-
ably relative. In a day gone by such people met experimental science

with the argument, in their eyes unanswerable, that to obtain
"necessary" consequences one had to have a principle superior to
experience. It is a well-known fact that a human being may use
altogether absurd derivations in one field and think soundly enough
in some other. Otherwise one might wonder how a mind could pos-
sibly have been so obtuse as not to grasp the fact that experimental
science does not have, does not seek, and does not want "necessary"
consequences (976); that it shrinks from the absoluteness implied

in the concept of "necessity," and that it seeks nothing more than
results that are valid within certain limits of time and space. Those
estimable souls have of latecome out with another fine discovery
which an ever prolific race of parrots is ever and anon repeating.
Experimental inferences based on a certain number of facts they
meet with the argument that not "all the facts" have been examined,
concluding, more or less explicitly, that such inferences are not
"necessary" or not "universal." And so far so good! In saying that,
they are in perfect agreement with the practitioners of experimental

science. They are merely throwing their shoulders against an open
door. The ridiculous thing about it is their imagining that they
have made the discovery that experimental science does not do a
thing which, in the clearest language possible, it says, repeats, and
says over again that it is not trying to do. None so deaf as
those
TREATISE ON GENERAL SOCIOLOGY X
53 2
who will not hear! If people persist in
refusing to understand that
experimental science seeks nothing that is
"necessary" or "uni-
versal" or possessed of some other such trait of absoluteness, there
is
nothing to do but leave them to their blissful and
ignorance, laugh
at their assaults on experimental science as one laughs at Don
Quixote's joustings with his windmills. Experimental science is in a
perpetual state of flux for the simple reason that new facts are being
discovered every day, so that
every day the scientist is called upon
previously based on facts previously known.
to modify conclusions
The scientist is like a tailor who makes a new suit of clothes for a
child every year.
Every year the child has grown, and every year
the tailor must make a suit of different size. Let A, B, C . . . P
stand for a series of facts so far known in a science. Tomorrow
given
new Q, R are discovered. The series has now lengthened: it
facts
has become A, B, C P,Q, R. The inferences that stood previous
. . .
to the discovery of Q, R may be retained, or

they may have to be
modified little or much or abandoned altogether. That has been the
procedure so far in the logico-experimental sciences, and there is
all
nothing to indicate any likelihood of a change.

1532. But that is not all. We
cannot draw any "universal" infer-
ences today because we are not in possession of the facts Q, R . . .
which are going to be discovered tomorrow. And we may not even

care to draw "general" from the known facts A,B,C
inferences . . .
P. We may prefer them into separate categories and draw

to divide
certain "partial" inferences from the
group A, B, C, other partial
inferences from the group D, E, F, and so on. That is the
general
procedure in science, and it is the origin of all scientific classifica-
tions.
If we select the facts A, B, C and group them together as present-

a common trait X, and then state the
ing proposition that they have
x
the trait X, we are
simply reasoning in a circle (ii66 ). Real
theorems, instead, are propositions like the following: A certain
number of facts present the trait X. Wherever the trait X appears,
the traitY will be found too. We select animals that suckle their
and call them mammals. To
say, then, that mammals
young suckle
their
young would be to reason in a circle. It is a theorem to say,
A very large number of animals suckle their young. Or, Animals
that suckle their
young are warm-blooded. All that is exceedingly
1533 DERIVATIONS III-: SUPERNATURAL ENTITIES 979
obvious and exceedingly elementary, but it is for ever being for-
gotten, disregarded, overlooked, and merely in deference to a

derivation in which the principle of the absolute
figures at least
implicitly, and under pressure of the sentiments
that correspond to it.
The metaphysicist who
accustomed to reasoning in a certain way
is
becomes incapable of following a thought of an entirely different

character. He translates into his own language, and thereby deforms,
reasonings that are stated in the language of the experimental
sciences. That is a language altogether strange and
incomprehensible
to him.
1533. I II-: Accord with supernatural entities. The
exposition of
a theory, the written statement of it, may contain a larger or smaller
number of narrations of experimental facts; but the theory itself
lies in the conclusions that are drawn from such
premises real or
imaginary. It either is or is not
logico-experimental, and objectively
speaking, there can be no question of a more or a less. can We
know nothing of anything that happens outside the experimental
field,and therefore the problem of determining whether a theory
is more or less remote from experience does not exist objectively.
But the problem may arise in connexion with sentiments, and we
may ask whether certain theories seem, from the standpoint of
sentiment, to depart little or much from experimental reality. The
answer will differ with different classes of persons. In the first
place
such people may be divided into two groups: A, persons who use
the logico-experimental method strictly in such an inquiry; and B,
persons who use it little or not at all. There

are, besides, subjects
that admit of only one sort of explanation. Just here we are think-
ing of subjects in which experimental and non-experimental ex-

planations are both possible.
A. We are not concerned with such people in these volumes. We
may disregard the handful of scientists who clearly distinguish what
is
experimental from what is not. For them the order of theories, as
regards their experimental content, is

simply: (i) Theories that are
logico-experimental; and (2) theories that are not.
B. But this group has to be divided into subvarieties, according
to the more or less extensive, the more or less perspicacious, the
more or less sensible, use that is made of the logico-experimental
method.
Ba. In our day, and to some extent also in the past, in the eyes
of educated individuals who make a more or less extensive use of the
logico-experimental method, and, indirectly, in the eyes of less

cultivated individuals who live in contact with educated people
and belong to their society, personifications represent the maximum
departure from the experimental field, and abstractions the minimum
an attitude that is
promoted by the confusion which is created,
unconsciously or by design, between such abstractions and experi-
mental principles. For such persons the experimental content seems
therefore to decrease in the following order: (i) experimental facts;
(2) pseudo-experimental principles; (3) sentimental or metaphysical

abstractions ; (4) personifications, divinities. To be sure, certain idio-
syncrasies develop. The Hegelians, for instance, reduce everything

to 3.But the followers of such doctrines are always few, in fact very
very few; and the majority, even of educated people, do not under-
stand what such talk is
mysteries of metaphysics
all about. The
stand on a footing with the mysteries of any other religion.
Bb. When uneducated people are not influenced by daily associa-
tion in the same social "set" with the cultivated and by the prestige
of such people, the order To them personifications seem
is different.
to come
closer, much
closer, to reality
than any other sort of abstrac-
tion. No
great effort of the imagination is required to carry over to
other beings the impulses and thoughts that we ordinarily observe in
our fellows. It is much easier to conceive of Minerva than it is to
conceive of Intelligence in the abstract. The God of the Ten Com-
mandments is much more
readily grasped than the Categorical
Imperative. The order, as regards experimental content, therefore
becomes: (i) experimental facts;
(2) pseudo-experimental prin-
ciples; (3)
personifications, divinities; (4) sentimental or meta-
physical abstractions. Here also idiosyncrasies appear. Mystics, theo-
logians, and other such people bring everything facts, principles,
abstractions alike down to one element: divinity. The followers of
mystical and theological doctrines are much more numerous than

the adepts of pure metaphysics. However, among civilized peoples
they represent only a small percentage in the total population.

Be. Finally, in the eyes of people who are incapable of dealing
with theological, metaphysical, and scientific speculations, or who
by choice or otherwise are ignorant of them or in any event dis-

1535 STATUS OF THE SUPERNATURAL 981
regard them, all that remains is: (i) Experimental facts; and (2)
pseudo-experimental principles. Those two categories merge into
a homogeneous mass in which, for example, experimental remedies
and magical remedies figure side by side. Here too there are idio-
syncrasies such as fetishisms and other beliefs of that kind. Large
numbers, in fact very large numbers, of people, in times both past
and present have been and still are able to adopt such ideas, which
are hardly to be called doctrines.
1534. Wehave already seen that evolution does not follow a
single line and that consequently we would be losing touch with
realities if we imagined that a given people started in the state Be,
then went on to the state Bb, and finally reached the state Ba
( 1536). But to get at the real situation, we are free to start with
that hypothesis, correcting it as we progress in order to get closer
to the facts. Let us suppose then, and strictly by way of hypothesis,
that a given people develops successively through the three states
Be, Bb, Ba. From what has been said above it follows that the sum
of non-logical actions in the state Be, along with the rudimentary
explanations that ar^ given of them, will gradually produce ex-

planations involving personifications, and then, in due course, meta-
physical explanations involving abstractions. But once we have
reached that point we have to stop, if we choose to consider a popu-
lation as a whole. For let alone an entire population, not even any
very considerable fraction of one, has so far in history been known
to give strictly logico-experimental explanations of things, and so
to have attained the state A. It is beyond our powers to foresee
whether such a thing can ever happen. We can say, if we consider
number of educated people, that in
a small, in fact a very small,
who come somewhere near the state
our time there are individuals
A; and it
may well be though we have no means of proving such
a thing that in the future an even larger number of persons may
attain the state A to perfection.
Another consequence is that in order to be understood by the
majority, even by the majority of educated people, a language cor-
responding to the states Ba and Bb has to be used whereas language
;
peculiar to the state A is not, and cannot be, understood.

1535. The
hypothetical situation just described deviates from the
real situation in the following respects, chiefly: i. We
have been
982 TREATISE ON GENERAL SOCIOLOGY J
535
distinguishing subjects that admit of various kinds of explanations

from subjects which admit of only one kind. In the concrete such
subjects are intermixed and one moves by imperceptible degrees
from one extreme to the other. 2. In distinguishing the states Ba,
Bb and Be, we have represented as discontinuous variations that are
really continuous. In reality there is a countless number of inter-
mediate That, however, is no great loss; for after all some
states.
such procedure nearly always has to be used in cases where mathe-

matics cannot be applied. 3. Far more serious is the deviation re-
sulting from our taking a popu-

m lation as homogeneous, whereas
in realityit is
heterogeneous. It
may be true enough that the
state one class is in has its in-
fluence upon the state another
class is in; but from that it
by
no means follows that the two
states are to be taken as one. To
divide society into an educated
class and an uneducated class
Figure 17
is
lilt
a very crude device. In reality
11
the classes that have to be taken
into account are more numerous than that. To
give graphic form
to the above, let A, B, C, D . .
(Figure 17) stand for different
.
strata in a
given population. A certain evolution carries the stratum
A to a position m. This change influences B, quite apart from the
general effect of the historical evolution, and brings the stratum
B to the position n. But the resistance of B also has its effect on
A, so that the point m
is determined not
by the general direction
of the evolution only, but also by the resistance of B. The same
considerations apply, if we assume several strata A, B, C in- . . .
stead of just two. In a word, the state of the

population will be
represented by the line mnpq . . .
passing through the points m, n,
p, q . . . at which points the various strata have severally arrived
through the general effects of the evolution, and the reciprocal

actions and reactions of the various strata. If only one stratum, for
example A, be considered, the general result of the evolution the
general state of the population, that is would be represented by the

linemx, which may be something very different from the real state
mnpq .... 4. Still greater is the margin of error resulting from
considering only one evolution, whereas there are several, and from
taking it
uniformly in a given direction, whereas its
as progressing
progress is generally undulatory. 5. Lastly, we are here studying

derivations. We should not, therefore, be afraid of falling into the
error of confusing the evolution of derivations with the general evo-
lution of society, which embraces not only the evolution of deriva-
tions, but also the evolution of residues, of the effects of sentiments,
interests, and
and of the logico-experimental sciences. All
so on,
the same, it is well to keep that error in mind, for it is very com-
monly made, especially by people who do not clearly distinguish

between logical and non-logical conduct.
1536. The hypothetical situation described above as regards a
population as a whole was more or less vaguely perceived by Auguste
Comte. It underlies, substantially, his famous theory of the fetish-
istic,theological, metaphysical, then positivistic stages.
Comte en-
visages an evolution somewhat after the pattern Be, Bb, Ba, but A
with the following reservations. In his Cours, Comte fell heels over
head into error 5 above, mistaking the evolution of explanations of
natural phenomena for the evolution of the social state. Later on, in
his Systeme,he partly corrected the error, giving sentiment pre-
dominance over intellect ( 286), but meantime falling into graver
errors still (284^). Comte stood worlds removed from experi-
mental scepticism, which in he hated cordially.
fact a dog- He was
matist, and so expounded his theory not for what it really was a
first and
very gross approximation, but as something exact and
absolute. And yet he had to some slight extent glimpsed error 3
above: did not escape him that, in the fact, a certain intermixture
it
1
of intellectual strata occurred. In a word, going back to our Figure
x
1536 Comte, Cours de philosophic positive, Vol. V, pp. 26-27: The various modes
of human thought "not having all kept pace the one with the other, the result so far
has been [The tone of a prophet appointed to regenerate the world.], in spite of the
inclination of thehuman mind to unity of method and homogeneity of doctrine,
that the metaphysical state of a given intellectual group has corresponded to the
theological state of a later group less general and more backward, or to the positive
state ofan earlier group less complex and more advanced. That apparent confusion
[He has just said himself that it is not apparent but real.] may indeed occasion in
people who have not clearly grasped the principle {Read: "who do not accept
Comtc's chatter at face value/'], an embarrassing hesitation as to the true philo-
984 THE MIND AND SOCIETY J
537
17, in determining the state of a
society made up of several strata
A, B, C . . . Comte tries to substitute the line mx for the real line
mnpq . . . and he clears his traces by considering the line mx as
representing the "true philosophical character of the corresponding

periods/' whereas, the line mnpq, which actually corresponds to
reality,he does not deem worthy of the epithet "true." Resort to
such epithets is a general procedure, designed to leave an impression
that things are reducible to one only the thing desired by
many
the writer. And
also general is the procedure of using successive as-
sertions (derivations Class I), in lieu of logico-experimental proof
2
so hiding the flimsiness of the argument under a plethora of words.
1537. Another very serious error on Comte's part lies in his giving
a definition of the term "positive" philosophy, which in no way cor-
responds with the use that he makes of the term in the course of his
1
writings. According to the definition, "positive" philosophy would
correspond to our state A above, and the development would be of
sophical character of the periods corresponding. But to anticipate or dispel it en-
tirely, it is sufficient here to distinguish, in general terms, the intellectual group by
which the real speculative stage of a given period ought more especially to be
judged." And there we go galloping out of the experimental field! Never mind
minor imperfections, such as his calling the "hesitation" "embarrassing" why so
embarrassing, after all? and his allusions to a "philosophical character that is true"
and a "speculative stage" that is "real" how arc they to be distinguished from
others that are "false" or "unreal"? The more important point is that Comte takes
for granted the thing that has to be proved: namely, that there is but one specula-
tive stage at a given period of history. Several such stages exist simultaneously and
it is hard to see why one should be called more "real" (veritable) than another.
1536
2
Op. cit., Vol. V, p. 27 (italics ours) : "Now all essential considerations have
worked together of their own accord in this connexion to indicate with utter clear-
ness [So saith the prophet, and that is the end of the matter.] the more special and
complicated order of fundamental concepts in other words the body of moral and
social ideas, as always being the one that is to constitute the main basis for such a
decision, in view of their intrinsic importance, which is necessarily very great not
only in the mental systems of almost all [ordinary] men [But that was the very
thing that had to be proved.], but with philosophers themselves, as a result of their
rational location at the extremity of the true encyclopaedic hierarchy, as outlined at
the beginning of this treatise."
1
T 537 Qp- cit., Vol. I, Preface p. xiii and p. 3 (italics his) "I use the term phi- :
losophy* in the acceptation given it by the ancients, and specifically Aristotle, as

designating the general system of human concepts. Appending to it the word 'posi-
tive,' I give notice that I am
envisaging that special manner of philosophizing that
lies in viewing theories of whatever order as purposing to coordinate observed facts.
[That, really, would be the experimental method.] In the positive stage, the human
mind comes to recognize the impossibility of obtaining absolute concepts. It aban-
X
537 COMTE'S MENTAL EVOLUTION 985
the pattern Be, Bb, Ba, A. But very shortly Comte's "positive" philos-
ophy becomes a sort of metaphysics, the evolution halting with the

series Be, Bb, Ba, or, at best, allowing Comte some indulgence, with
the series Be, Bb, Ba, Bai Bai representing a stage where, in defer-
ence to sentiment, held that theories depart from the experi-
it is
mental field in the following order of increase: (i) experimental

facts and "positive" interpretations of them (i.e., "positive" meta-
physics); (2) other metaphysical systems; (3) theologies. Notice-

able in the Cours itself is a tendency on Comte's part not just to "co-
ordinate" facts, as he promised, but to interpret them with reference
to certain a priori principles present in his own mind. That is quite
a different matter it is nothing more nor less than what any other
metaphysicist does. The whole Cours might be cited in proof. At

every forward step one meets such adjectives as "true," "sane," "neces-
sary," "inevitable," "irrevocable," "perfect," through which Comte
tries to subordinate the facts to his ideas instead of coordinating
2
the facts and subordinating his ideas to them. But all that is noth-
dons the quest for the origin and destiny of the universe and for knowledge of the
inner causes of phenomena, and tries merely to discover by the use of reasoning
and observation combined their actual laws, in other words, their invariable rela-
tions of succession and likeness." And that again would be a definition of the logico-
expcrimental method. To make it meticulously exact it might perhaps be better to

say "observation and reasoning" instead of "reasoning and observation" and to
suppress the adjective "invariable" before "relations." But if that is the point of
departure, the point of arrival in the Cours itself, to say nothing of Comte's other
works, is a faith which, substantially, differs little if at all from any other faith.
Cf., for example, Cours, Vol. VI, p. 858 (italics ours) : "A sound appreciation of
our nature, in which vicious and wrongful inclinations necessarily predominate at
the outset [Who is to decide which inclinations are "vicious" and "wrongful"?
Comte's own inclinations, of course!], will make commonplace and unanimous the
obligation [Where does it come from? From whom does it emanate? Certainly it is
not an experimental relation.] to exercise over our various inclinations a wise and
orderly control that will be calculated to stimulate them and keep them within their
respective channels. Finally, the fundamental conception, at once scientific and
moral [The word "moral" is here suddenly appended to an inquiry that was adver-
tised at the beginning as strictly scientific.], of the true general situation [What on
earth can that be?] as the spontaneous leader of real economy, will always emphati-
cally stress the necessity of constantly developing by judicious exercise of those noble
attributes, no less of the heart than of the mind, that place us at the head of all
living creation." All that patter may be anything one chooses to call it but it is
certainly not a search for experimental uniformities.
2
1537 Op. Vol. VI, pp. 286-87: "This first scientific exercise of the abstract
cit. t
sense of evidence, of the nature of proof and harmony, however limited in scope
i.e.,
at first, was enough to provoke an important philosophical reaction, which, for the
ing as compared with the metaphysical expatiations that literally

run Systeme, and especially in the deified abstractions
riot in the
of the Synth^sc. Comte, in a word, underwent an evolution that
may be roughly pictured as follows: i.

experimental, or better,
pseudo-experimental explanations; 2. metaphysical explanations (at
a time in his life when he was still giving predominance to thought
over sentiment see 284^); 3. theological explanations (when
he comes to give the pre-eminence to sentiment, and especially when,
in the last stage of his evolution, the Synthcse, he deifies his abstrac-
tions).Comte's personal evolution, therefore, is directly opposite to

the evolution that he represents human societies as undergoing.
moment favourable to metaphysical speculations only, was none the less a remote
predecessor of the inevitable advent of a positive philosophy by making sure of the
early elimination of a theology then preponderant." In that Comte is evidently
thinking of Newton and Newton's successors, forgetting all about the era of reli-
gious scepticism towards the end of the Roman Republic. The remarks that Cicero
made in his De natura deorum, or Lucretius in the De rertim natura, by no means
originated in mathematical research, yet they were aimed at polytheism and all
religion. Sextus Empiricus lumps mathematicians and polytheists together in one
simultaneous attack. Those, however, are mere errors of fact we can overlook
them. But where on earth did Comte discover that the "advent" of positive philos-
ophy was "inevitable"? If that is not a mere tautology, a way of saying that what
has happened had to happen mere determinism, in other words it indicates that
Comte is subordinating his facts to certain dogmas. He adds: "In that, the ancient
unity of our mental system, which down to that time had been uniformly theologi-
cal, was irrevocably broken up." Again we may disregard the error of fact. But
from what "coordination of facts** can Comte be inferring that such a break in the
old uniformity was "irrevocable"? Lucretius was also of that opinion and gave
Epicurus credit for the destruction of religion. And yet religion came to life again
(assuming as a very lame hypothesis that it had ever died) and again prospered.
Why should Comte be a better prophet than Lucretius? Then too the distinction
that Comte tries to draw between a theological faith and a positive faith is alto-
gether imaginary: "Theological faith, always bound up with some revelation or

other [An error of fact: Comte is thinking only of Hebrew-Christian theology.] in
which the believer has no share, is certainly something quite different from a posi-
tive faith which
is always subordinate to a real demonstration, and is always open
to examination under specified conditions [Worth a round of applause, that quali-

fication! The Catholic Church is also open to examination, and specifies the condi-
tions!], though they are products of that universal aptitude for trust [Authority.
Comte wants to replace the Pope's with his own. That is all there is to that.] with-
out which no society could subsist." And that is all very well; but only in the sense
that the non-logical impulses in which authority originates are useful and indispen-
sable to a society: it in no way follows that they will produce theories that square
with the facts. Comte's "positivistic" faith may be more or less useful to society
than what he calls a theological faith that question remains open. But both types
of faith lie outside the logico-experimental domain.
1538. We have lingered at some length on Comte's case because
it illustrates a serious error that in our time especially is
general
the assumption that the personification derivations are much farther
removed from experimental reality than metaphysical derivations,
the difference between them being simply a matter of form. Says
Homer, Iliad, I, v. 5 and passim: "So was the will of Zeus accom-
plished." Say the moderns: "Thus were the requirements of Prog-
ress met." The two states of mind are the same. Whether
"Prog-
ress," "Solidarity," "a Better Humanity," and so on are, or are not,
personified matters little from the standpoint of experimental sub-

stance.
As regards the form of the derivation, the personification
1539.
deviates more widely from the metaphysical abstraction when the
entity personified is assumed to manifest will through revelation,

its
tradition, or some other pseudo-experimental agency the case of

the Il-y derivations. But the personification tends to merge with the
metaphysical abstraction when there is an effort to make the two

accord with certain realities.
Theologies and metaphysical systems
are largely made up of derivations of that kind.
1540. One method for learning the divine will with which human
actions must conform is
very commonly followed. God is
presumed
to act like any human being of good sense and to want what a sen-
sible man wants. In that way the divine will is deleted, substantially,
from the conclusion, and only the will of the sensible man, or the
man assumed to be such, is left ( 1454 *). That is just another case
of that general method of reasoning where a non-experimental X is
eliminated (480). Even when biblical revelation is resorted to, if
there is any amount of loose or allegorical interpretation, the inter-
pretation itself is eliminated in the end, and the accord substantially

is with sentiments of the interpreter. It is
interesting here as in other
similar cases that a derivation is felt to be
necessary instead of a bald
assertion, though the latter from the experimental standpoint would
have exactly the same value and would often, in fact, be better, since
it could not be refuted. For that our I-e residues (need of logical or
are responsible.
pseudo-logical developments)
1541. St. Augustine, De Genesi ad litteram, II, i, 2 (Opera, Vol.
245), tries to explain the passage in Genesis which says that

Ill, p.
the firmament divides the waters that are below from the waters
54 2
that are above: "Many indeed," he objects, "have asserted that be-
cause of their nature the waters could not abide on the sidereal
heaven." He objects to answering with
the principle of divine omnip-
otence: "Nor should they be confuted with the argument that, in
view of the omnipotence of God for whom all things are possible,
we are obliged to believe that water, though as heavy as we know
and feel it to be, can hold its location (superfusas) above the celestial
body where the Yet he would have been more prudent in
stars are."
following that line of argument than in letting himself be entangled

in the somewhat fantastic physical explanations that he actually ven-
tures upon.
1542. Again as usual, such derivations prove the yea and the nay
equally well. The principle that God acts as a man of good sense
serves to show that the Bible is "true," but just as well to show that
1
it Needless to add that from the experimental standpoint
is false.
2
neither the one proof nor the other has the slightest validity. Even
l
1542 The numberless "scientific" objections that are raised against religion are
of that type. The only conclusion they can justify is that the content of the Bible
and experimental reality are entirely separate things. Lefranc, Lcs conflits dc la sci-
ence ct de la Bible, pp. 143-44 quote the book simply in view of the date of its
publication, 1906): "If God called forth from nothingness those species which are
alive and in full activity today with their present organs which have remained
essentially unchanged, the Creation must have been overwhelming and complete at
the very outset. [What creation is nobody knows, but Lefranc knows what it must
have been like.] Dixit et facta suntl Dens crcauit omnia simull It is inconceivable
[But so many many things are inconceivable!] that the Almighty should have
begun with timid efforts at first [How can Lefranc be sure they were necessarily
timid efforts and not applications of far-sighted design? Was he there personally to
see?], first making simple outlines, very unassuming in aspect and structure, and
then going on with an unbroken sequence of violent assertions of force, continually

remodelling His handiwork, changing His mind over and over again a thousand
times to make it more perfect from day to day, like a craftsman unable to work out
his plan, so creating and recreating one after another and for century on century as
many as six hundred thousand different types, to keep to the animal kingdom alone.
That childish conception carries its own refutation within itself.'*
2
1542 During a session of the City Council of Milan, Dec. 31, 1912, a Socialist
councilman made a fierce attack on the teaching of Christian doctrine in the schools,
on the ground that it contained "absurd assertions belied by science." Among such
he quoted the statement that the light came first and the Sun afterwards, he appar-
ently having certain knowledge that the Sun came first and the light afterwards;
whence it would follow that the Sun must have been created before all the other
stars. That may in fact have been the case. But who told him so? However, suppose
we assume that by "Sun" he meant all the stars, all luminous bodies. It would in-
deed seem natural that there should be first luminous bodies and then light, but,
154^ THE DIVINE WILL 989
from the merely logical standpoint, quite aside from any experience,
the idea of an omniscient God cannot be reconciled with the idea
that a human being can pass judgment on His work. An ignorant
man is absolutely incapable of understanding what a scientist does
in his laboratory, nor are a large number of such individuals any
better equipped than one alone to pass such a judgment. That shows
the fatuousness of the man of
knowledge little in presuming to
judge the work of anyone whose knowledge far surpasses his
( 1995 the
*). It is indispensable premise in all such judgments on
personifications that the personification should be mentally, as well
as in other respects, fashioned in the image of the person who
creates it.
truth to tell, we know absolutely nothing about the matter. We do not know what
"bodies" are nor what "light" is. Much less do we know in what relation, chrono-
logical or otherwise, those entities may have stood "in the beginning.'* Christian
"science" gives one solution, Socialist "science," apparently, another. Logico-experi-
mental science knows nothing of either.
CHAPTER X
Derivations: Verbal Proofs
1543. Class IV: Verbal proofs. This class is made up of verbal

derivations obtained through the use of terms of indefinite, doubtful,
equivocal meaning and which do not correspond to any reality. If

the classification were to be taken in a very loose sense, it would
embrace nearly and nothing would be gained by dis-
all derivations,
tinguishing Class IV derivations from the others. The definition

must therefore be taken as applying to cases in which the verbal
character of the derivation very conspicuous, prevailing over other
is
traits. In
may be conveniently placed as
this class logical sophistries
regards their purely formal element, so far, that is, as they serve to
satisfy
the need of logical development that human beings feel (resi-
dues I-e). nearly always incidental and does not
But that element is
determine the judgment of the person who accepts the derivation.

The judgment results from an element of far greater importance
the sentiments that are stirred by the reasoning. Ordinarily such
logical sophistries deceive no one who is not already disposed to be

deceived. More exactly, there is no deception at all. The author of
the argument and those
acceptwho mutual agree-
it are already in
ment in virtue of an accord of sentiments, which they are merely
supplementing, for good measure, with the dressing of the logical
sophistry.
1544. The residues chiefly utilized for purposes of derivation in
verbal proofs are the residues of our II- variety ( 888). They give
body to an abstraction that has a name, endowing it with reality

because it has a name. They also assume, vice versa, that a name
necessarily has some real thing corresponding to it. Others of
our
Class II residues also figure, as well as residues of the
\-y type (mys-
terious linkings of names and things). In the special case still other
residues may be involved. The residues indicate the desire to attain
certain ends.That desire is humoured by a number of devices which
language readily makes available.
1545. As we have time and
again noted, the terms of ordinary
990
1546 DERIVATIONS IV! VERBAL PROOFS 99!
parlance do not, in general, correspond to sharply defined things,

and therefore all arguments in which such terms are used run the
risk of being nothing but verbal derivations. There is least danger
of that in scientific reasonings, for in such cases the thinker always
has before his mind the things for which his terms are mere desig-
nations, mere labels. The danger is greater in derivations where
the terms begin by not being just labels, and so on and on progres-
sively till we get to metaphysical derivations, which are almost never

wanting in the traits of the verbal derivation.
1546. When term that can have more than one meaning is used
a
in a syllogism, the syllogism may come to have more than three
terms and so be fallacious. Very often it is the middle term that
vitiates the
syllogism by its indefiniteness. Such derivations vary
from one extreme, where there is a simple play on words that no
one takes seriously, to another extreme where a reasoning seems
profound precisely because of its obscurity and indefiniteness. Take
the argument, A =
X, X =
B, therefore A B. If X has two mean-
ings that cannot possibly be confused for instance, the bark of

a tree and the bark of a dog we get a mere pun. But if desig- X
nates a fairly large and fairly vague aggregate of sentiments, certain
sentiments prevail in the proposition, A =
X, and certain other senti-
ments in the proposition, X=
B. In reality, therefore, X
is two dif-
ferent things: but people do not notice that and applaud the argu-
ment ( 1607). If X
is "Nature,"
"Right Reason," "the Good," or
something else of that sort, one may be almost certain, not to say
certain, that the argument is of the verbal type. Example: "One
lives well according to Nature. Nature recognizes no private prop-
erty.
Therefore one lives well without private property." In the first
proposition, the term "Nature" designates a vague sum of senti-

ments, distinguishes something that is in accord with our inclina-
tions (what is "natural" to us) from something that we do only
under compulsion (from what is foreign or repugnant to us), and
instinctively we assent to the proposition that "one lives well accord-
ing to Nature." The second proposition brings to the fore sentiments
that distinguish things which the human being does (artificial
things) from things that exist independently of human action
(things that are "natural") and there again the person following
;
the lead of his sentiments will admit that private property is not a
992 THE MIND AND SOCIETY X
547
product of Nature, that Nature does not recognize it. Put the two
propositions together and it
logically follows that "one lives well
without private property"; and if this proposition chances to har-
monize with the sentiments of the person at whom the argument is
directed, he will regard it as sound from every point of view. And
perfect it is in the sense of the desires of the person

humouring all
who hears it, including his desire for a logical tinting for some
derivation or other ( 972, 1602).
1547. In concrete cases the Class IV derivations that we are here
dividing into subvarieties are used together, and often also in com-
bination with other derivations. Only by abstraction can we isolate
the simple derivations of which the concrete derivation is com-
pounded. That point must never be forgotten.
1548. The subgenera in Class IV ( 1419) show derivations of two
forms: in the first, procedure is from the thing to the term, in the
second, from the term to the thing, real or imaginary as the thing
may be. In concrete cases the two forms often mingle: after going
from the thing to the term, one goes back from the term to some-
thing else. There are plenty of arguments that amount, substantially,
to nothing more than that. As we saw in 108, one may slip from
the logico-experimental field both by using terms that correspond to
entities not belonging in that field and by using indefinite terms
which but loosely represent experimental entities.

1
That is
why we
find the use of such terms among our derivations.
1549. IV-a: Indefinite terms designating real things; indefinite
things corresponding to terms. This is a very frequent type of deriva-

1
tion. It is seldom absent in derivations in the concrete. Suppose we
confine ourselves just here to a typical case.
1550. A
celebrated fallacy, known as the sorites, very extensively
exercised the logicians of a day gone by. You have a kernel of wheat.
1548
x
We encountered many verbal derivations in Chapter V. In 658 we illus-
trated the procedure from the thing to the name and from the name to the thing,
and showed, in the paragraphs following, how errors divergences, that is, between
certain derivations and arose in that way. Theories that infer the nature
reality
of a thing from the etymology of its name ( 686 f.) are in fact verbal derivations
where procedure is from the name to the thing; and that direct etymological process
also has its reverse (691). Everything said on that subject in Chapter V must be
taken as applying to the derivations we are considering here.

*
1549 That is why we have already had to make frequent reference to it and
shall have frequent occasion to revert to it hereafter.
1547 FALLACY OF "THE HEAP" 993
Add another kernel to it. You do not have a heap. Add a third. Still
you do not have a heap. Go on in that manner indefinitely, and you

will come to the conclusion that a collection of kernels, no matter
how large, is not a heap. The conclusion is evidently false. Where
does the error in the reasoning lie? The fallacy is often stated the
other way round: Reduce a heap of wheat one kernel at a time and
the last kernel left is still a pile. Of the same nature is the fallacy
of the man who loses the hair on his head one hair at a time, and is
not bald so long as one hair is left. Cicero well notes that the fallacy
may be made more general: "That," says he, Academica, II, 29, 92,
"applies not only to a heap of corn, from which the name sorites
[from crop's, "heap of corn"] is derived; but to everything else,
such as wealth and poverty, light and darkness, much and little,
large and small, long and short, wide and narrow; for if we are
questioned by imperceptible additions or subtractions we can give
no answer." He with a derivation of our IV-a
extricates himself
variety, going from the thing to the name. He imagines that any
word which exists must have something real corresponding to it:
"Nature [When that lady comes dancing on the scene, the attend-
ance of a fallacy be taken for granted.] has given us no knowl-
may
edge of the limits of things." So then, there is in fact a thing cor-
responding to the term "long"; but Madame Nature has not deigned
to reveal to us the limits or boundaries of "long"; so we, poor devils,
cannot tell it from "short." But what if, instead of things, there were
nothing but sentiments
corresponding to such terms? In that case,
Dame Nature would be free of all blame, and the fault would lie
with us for not managing to designate our sentiments with sufficient

exactness. Chrysippus invented a device known as the "method of
dilemma. If you are asked, he suggests, whether
rest" to escape the
three be few or many, before you come to the term "many," you
should "rest." Whereupon Carneades
objects that that will not pre-
vent your being asked over again whether, by adding "one" to the
number at which you "rested," you will have a "large" number.
But along come the Sceptics, and take over the "method of rest" of
Chrysippus and extend it to every argument. Carneades was using
1
the sorites to prove that there were no gods.
1550
*
On
the sorites see Ulpian, in Digesta, lib. L, tit. 16, sec. 177 (Dc vcrborum
significatione) (Corpus iuris civilis, Vol. I, p. 969; Scott, Vol. XI, p. 284): "The
55 r
Those philosophers who failed to find the error in this fal-
1551.
their habits of metaphysical thinking, and they
lacy were misled by
could not recognize a particular error without admitting thereby
that all their reasonings were fallacious. As a matter of fact the
error in the sorites lies in the use of terms that do indeed arouse
indefinite sentiments but otherwise correspond to nothing real.
There is
nothing objective corresponding to the terms "much" or
"large" or "small," "heavy" or "light," and so on. But the
"little,"
metaphysicist who might venture to concede that much would at

once be faced with the objection to his own pretty structures that
other terms such as "good" and "bad," "beautiful" and "ugly," "hon-
est"and "dishonest," "just" and "unjust," "moral" and "immoral,"
belong to the same identical class (963). The sorites must be met
with the following: "Tell me what you mean by the term 'heap' or
'cumulus' (or whatever the term used), and I will give you an an-
swer. If you tell me that a 'heap' is a thousand, or a thousand or
more, kernels, when we get to nine hundred and ninety-nine and

you add one more, I will say, There you have your
heap!' But if
you choose not to give the terms you are pleased
strict definitions for
to use in your argument, I for my part choose not to answer. It is

for the person who wants an answer to state his question clearly."
And that is the answer that must be made in our day to economists
who go looking for the "cause" of "value." "Tell us, good people,
peculiarity of the cavil which the Greeks called the sorites is that the argument is
led by very small changes in things that are evidently true to conclusions that are
evidentlyfalse.'* Familiar the passage in Horace, Epistulac, II, i, vv. 45-49, where
he shows by that method that no dividing line can be drawn between "ancient"
and ''modern,'* and that a horse's tail can be all plucked out one hair at a time,
stillremaining a tail. The Pseudo-Acron remarks: "The syllogisms of Chrysippus
are pseudomcnes and sorites'* [missing in Paris, 1519]. As for the Sceptics and the
"method of rest" see Sextus Empiricus, Pyrrhonianae institutioncs, II, 22, 253
(125) (Opera, Vol. I, p. 203): "Therefore whenever an argument is being worked
out before us we shall suspend our assent to each and every proposition; and then
when the is complete we shall set against it anything we see fit. For, in
argument
fact, if thedogmatists of Chrysippus are to teach that when an argument by the
heap (sorites) is being worked out, one must hold one's tongue while the argument
is in progress and refrain from assenting so as not to be led into an absurdum, it
is much more advantageous for us who are Sceptics and are always on the watch
for absurdities not to allow ourselves to be entangled in the lines of a reasoning,
but to suspend our assent to each and every step until the whole argument has been
set before us."For Carneades, see Sextus Empiricus, Contradictioncs, IX, Adversus
physicos, II, De diis, 190 (Opera, Vol. II, p. 611).
I55 2 DERIVATIONS IV-/3: VERBAL PROOFS 995
exactly what you mean by Value.' Tell us how and why it should
have one cause. Then we will answer, not before." To be sure, in
ordinary parlance the term "value," like the term "heap," has an
obvious meaning; but unfortunately the two meanings are equally
indefinite, and that fact eliminates any possibility
of using them in
1
scientific thinking.
1552. IV-/?: Terms designating things and arousing incidental

sentiments f or incidental sentiments determining choice of terms.
Derivations of this type play an important role in judiciary elo-
quence and in politics.

are very effective in persuasion,
They and
all the more because the sentiments that are set in motion by the
language used work upon the auditor unawares. In the Rhetorica,
III, 2, 10-14 (Freese, pp. 355-61), Aristotle gives good counsel on the
one would favour a thing, the metaphor must be chosen

subject: "If
from what is best; if one would harm it, from what is worst." And
then: "Epithets may be chosen from the worse or the degrading, as
[Orestes] the 'matricide'; or from the better, as [Orestes] the

"
'avenger of his father.' On similar grounds steadfastness in one's
religion will be called "zeal" if the religion is orthodox, "obstinacy"
if it is heretical. In the
year 1908, the friends of the Russian Gov-
ernment called the judicial killing of a revolutionist an "execution,"
and the killing of a government official by a revolutionist a "mur-
der." The enemies of the government inverted the terms: the execu-
tion was a "murder," the murder an "execution." similar inter- A
*
change is common between the terms "expropriation" and "theft."
*
1551 Pareto, Systemes socialities, Vol. I, pp. 338-40.
1552 In the Italo-Turkish war of 1912, Arabs who brought information from
*
the Turco-Arab camp to the Italians were called "informers"; those who carried
information from the Italian camp to the Turks and Arabs, "spies.** Bentham,
Tactique des assemblies legislatives, Vol. II, pp. 178, 163-66, 175: "The word 'per-
secution' does not appear in the dictionary of persecutors. All they know is 'zeal'
for religion.When the Abbe Terray defaulted on public creditors he called it a
Reservation' (retenue). [In Italy a reduction of 4 per cent in the 5 per cent interest
on the public debt was euphcmized as a "tax on personal property."] In the
nomenclature of moral beings there are terms that present the object pure and
simple without adjoining any sentiment of approval or disapproval. Such would be
'desire,' 'inclination,' 'habit.' I call them 'neutral' terms. There are others that add
a general idea of approbation to the main idea: 'honour,' 'piety.' Others supple-
ment the main idea with an habitual idea of disapprobation: 'libertinage,' 'avarice,'
'luxury.' ... In referring to the conduct, the inclinations, the motives of a given
55 2
Answering a Deputy before the Prussian Landtag in 1864 Bismarck

2
said :"The gentleman has rebuked us ... for refusing to have
anything to do with 'Germany.' There must be some extraordinary
power term 'Germanic/ for everyone is trying to appropriate
in the
it.
Everyone styles 'Germanic' anything that is useful to himself,
anything that may be favourable to his party interest, and the mean-
ing of the term is modified as the case requires. At one
time it is
'Germanic' to oppose the Diet; at another it is 'Germanic' to favour
a Diet now turned progressivist." In our day, if one would favour
a thing, one "modern," "democratic," "human," or even
must call it
better, "broadly human," "progressive." Few people can resist such

a bombardment. Keeping to the strict meanings of words, it would
seem that a "free-thinker" should be a man who favours few or no
restrictions on thinking (or on the expression of thought,
better,
since thinking to oneself is free, altogether free, and one could
hardly agitate for the removal of restrictions that do not exist). As

a matter of fact, a "free-thinker" is a believer who is bent on forcing
his own religion upon others and on shackling the thinking of peo-
ple who do not agree with him. If a person wants freedom in the
sense of removing restraints from thought, he should be in favour
of allowing uncramped discussion both for and against Catholicism.
Our free-thinkers, instead, consent to attacks on Christianity, on
Catholicism, but deny the privilege of defence. They insist on pro-
is he an object of indifference to you? Then
individual, you use the neutral term.
Do you wish to win him the favour of your auditors? Then you resort to the
term that incidentally implies approbation. Will you have him despised or hated?
You use the term that implies reproach. What does a man mean when he talks of
'good order'? Merely an arrangement of things to which he gives his approval
and of which he declares himself a partisan." But how comes it that while so many
writers all the way from Aristotle to Bentham have been sign-boarding the error
in such sophistries, they continue to be so lavishly used? Simply because their force
lies not in the argument, which, to tell the truth, is childish, but in the sentiments
that they stir. If is shown to be false, that is the end of it

a theorem in geometry
the matter is
dropped. But if an argument in some social connexion is shown to
be absurd, nothing whatever has happened the argument continues to be gen-
erally used.The explanation of the difference is that, in the first case, reason con-
trols, inthe second, sentiment sentiment re-enforced almost always by interests.
From the sociological standpoint, therefore, such sophistries are to be judged not
by their logical soundness, but by the probable influence of the sentiments and
interests that they cloak.
2
1552 Bismarck, Ausgewahltc Redcn, Vol. I, p. 73 (Jan. 22, 1864).
1553 CONNOTATIONS OF EPITHETS 997
hibiting priests from teaching in the schools, and they demand a
state monopoly of education, the better to impose their own the-
3
ories and restrain thought in a direction that they consider good.
1553. So in discussing freedom and the chains that shackle it, the
nature of those chains is
designedly left vague, and no distinction
is drawn between chains that are voluntarily accepted and chains
that are imposed by an external power though the distinction is,
1
substantially, essential. One often hears reference to "papal" tyr-
1552
8
I am not inquiring here whether that programme is, or is not, beneficial
to society. I am merely saying that to proceed in that fashion is to distort the
word "free" from its usual acceptation and give it an approximately opposite mean-
ing. The National Congress of Free Thought, meeting in Paris in October, 1911,
voted a resolution that read: "Faithful to the international ideal of progress and
justice[That is a faith. It may be a good one. Other faiths may be bad. But it is
none the less a faith and has nothing to do with free thought.], this Congress of
Free Thinkers urges all associations of free-thinkers to make constant demand for
the application in toto of the international conventions signed at The Hague.
[What have those conventions got to do with free thought? "free" thought A
should be at liberty to favour or oppose them as it saw fit.] Free-thought associa-
tions should urge Republicans elected to the government of the Republic to take
the initiative in negotiations looking to the conclusion of new agreements for the
limitation of military and naval budgets and the assurance of disarmament." A
very pretty pair of handcuffs locked on in the name of freedom! Anyone whose
thought is "free" has to be in favour of disarmament; and if a man believes that
disarmament is dangerous for his country his thought is "enslaved"! Those are
absurdities that require no refutation; yet there are people who fall under their
spell. And how can that be? Simply because the meanings of the words have been
changed, so that they function, not through their common meanings, but through
the sentiments to which they appeal. The words "free-thought" set in motion
a body of sentiments connected with a thought that is shackled to a humanitarian,
anti-Catholic religion, and they therefore serve as labels for the dogmas of that
religion.
l
1553 1912 the Patriarch of Venice, following a doctrine of the Church
In
Fathers, vigorously censured women who dressed in a manner that he thought
immodest and suggestive, warned them that he would not admit them to the
baptismal font with their children nor to communion, and actually withheld the
latter rite from a lady who presented herself in a gown that he considered too
low-cut. Newspapers time compared him to Senator Berenger. But the two
at the
cases are entirely differentand belong to categories that must not be confused.
For the parallel it would be necessary for the government to compel women to
attend the religious functions over which the Patriarch of Venice presides. But
that was not the case. Those functions were attended only by people who chose
to attend them, and the Patriarch had not the least power over anyone electing to
disregard him; whereas the man Berenger imprisons and fines people who disre-
gard him and confiscates newspapers and books. In short, to say "If you want me
to do A, you must do B" is one thing. To say "Whether you want to or not, I
553
anny, and the same term is used both when submission to papal
authority voluntary and when it is supported by the secular arm,

is
though the two cases are radically different. In like manner, one
often hears accusations of oppression against people who are trying
to expel some individual member from a society of theirs. They are
said to be "excommunicating" him, whether the excommunication
involves penalties enforced by a public authority or has no other
effect than expulsion from some private group. Yet those things also
are altogether different. In France, excommunication in the Middle
Ages and excommunication today are things that have the same
name but nothing else in common. Today the non-Catholic laughs
at being excommunicated and has no fears of
being prosecuted by
the government. But there are many persons who would like to
invert the roles and who demand in the name of "freedom" that the
government interfere to force their society upon those who will have
none of it. That is
changing the sense of terms Keeping to
entirely.
meanings, a "free" state of things is a state in
literal which a person
chooses the company he will keep at pleasure, without forcing his
upon others or having others force theirs upon him. And if one is
going to call "free" a state of things in which a distasteful or repug-
nant company is forced upon one, why then, if one is to avoid mis-
understandings, one had better find some other word to designate
a state of things where one is not compelled to accept unwanted
2
company.
compel you to do B" is quite another. Sentiment docs not bother with any such
analysis and views the matter synthetically. The anti-Clerical censures the "intoler-
ance'* of the Patriarch of Venice and applauds Bercnger; and that is all a deriva-
tion, which means simply that the anti-Clerical dislikes the Patriarch and admires
the Specialist in Purity.
2
1553 In Germany a Protestant pastor, Mr. Jatho, who professes a Christianity
all his own, preached a series of sermons on Goethe. They scandalized good Chris-
tians, and the consistory of the Rhineland and the High Council of the German
Evangelical Church interfered. Journal de Geneve, Feb. 23, 1911: "The Consistory
has begged Mr. Jatho to declare that his sermons had been incorrectly reported
and to pledge his word that he will deliver no more of that kind. The pastor
has refused on both scores. He asserts he is the victim of anonymous charges and
takes his stand behind the indelicacy of that procedure to avoid making any con-
cessions. As a result charges have been lodged against him before the High Coun-
cil of the Evangelical Cliurch. ... A coincidence, unfortunately, complicates the
case still further. All Protestants have felt in duty bound to take a vigorous stand
against the anti-Modernist oath. Mr. Jatho and his press have not missed the
chance to say that an anti-Modernist oath was being demanded of him, and they
1554 DERIVATIONS IV-/3: VERBAL PROOFS 999
1554. The fate that has befallen the term "freedom" is, in truth,
comical enough. In many cases nowadays the word means the exact
opposite of what it meant fifty years ago; but the sentiments that
it stirs are the same in other words, it
designates a state of things
of which the average auditor approves. If Smith is
interfering with
Jones, Jones calls "freedom" to escape from
it the interference. But
ifJones in his calls it "freedom" to
turn gets control of Smith, he
tighten the ropes. In both cases the term "freedom" has the pleas-
antest associations for Jones. Half a century ago, in England, the
"Liberal party" was the party that sought to reduce as far as pos-
sible such restrictions as to some extent deprived the individual of
freedom to do as he pleased with his own person and property.

Today the "Liberal party" is the party that is trying to increase the
number of such restrictions. In those days the Liberal party was try-
ing to reduce taxes. Today it is for
increasing them. In France and
Italy the liberals of the old days insistently demanded that the in-
dividual be permitted to work whenever he chose, and they spat
poison at the "tyranny of kings and priests" which constrained them

1
to be idle on Sundays and holidays. In France, under the Restora-
tried to get the evangelical press to shower the Cologne preacher with the same
inordinate praises it has been bestowing on the handful of priests who have balked
at the anti-Modernist oath. Needless to say, the Protestant papers have side-stepped
the issue, seeking and finding distinctions." He who seeks finds, and always finds
as many distinctions as he happens to need.
l
1554 La Fontaine, "Lc savctier ct Ic financier" (Fables, VIII, 2) the poor
cobbler speaking:
". . . le mal est quc ton jours
et sans cela nos gains seraicnt assez honnetes
Ic mal cst qttc dans Van s'cntrcmclent dcs jours
qu'il fautchomcr. On nous ruine en fetes:
une fait tort a I'autre, et monsieur le cure
I'
de quelque nouveau saint charge toujours son prone!'
("The trouble is and but for that our earnings would be

fair enough the trou-
ble is that days when we cannot workmixed in all through the year. We are
are
ruined by holidays, the one spoiling the other; and Father priest is always loading
down his weekly scolding with some new saint.") When the "seventh clay's rest"
which was, after all, nothing but the Lord's Day observance was put into force
in Milan, a poor cobbler whose shop had been closed hung a string of shoes over
his shoulder and went about the streets in quest of customers crying, "I have to
eat on Sunday as well as on other days." In former times abstinence from labour
was enforced by government and clergy. In our day it is enforced by governments
and by associations of one sort or another; and to the days of rest required by
IOOO THE MIND AND SOCIETY J
554
and government fought a war to the death on that
tion, "liberals"
issue, and people still remember the fiery pamphlets that Courier
2
wrote on the subject. As late as 1856 dread of
seeing the Sunday
holiday become a matter of law prompted the Senate of the
Empire,
ordinarily a tame and submissive body, to resistance "strong feel-
3
ings" will move even a lamb to rebellion. According to Ollivier,
Senator Lavalette "proposed that the oath taken
by the Empress-
Regent, in
conformity with the senatus-consultum of 1813, should
be re-enforced with an oath
'guaranteeing respect for the provisions
of the Concordat,
including the organic law and freedom of wor-
ship.' The blow was aimed directly at the Empress, who was sus-
pected of favouring the suppression of civil marriage, compulsory

"
Sunday closing, and the whole list of 'ultramontane extravagances.'
When the bill went to vote, the amendment was defeated by 64 to 56.
Now, everything has changed. "Liberal" doctrine demands enforce-
ment of rest on the Lord's Day,
though as a sop to the anti-Clericals
the phrase has become "weekly day of rest" (repos hebdomadaire).
"Ultra-liberals" demand that state inspectors be
appointed to prevent
citizens from working behind closed doors in their own homes. To
4
justify such procedure they resort to a residue of the IV-/?2
variety
(enforced uniformity) to permit a person to work on certain days
:
is an
infringement on the "liberty" of people who prefer not to work
on those days, whence one can argue logically that Sunday idleness
isenforced by law in the name of freedom. Some liberal who has
read Hegel will even add that in so "the state is free-
5
doing creating
dom." The term "freedom" as used in that derivation has three
law must be added those enforced by violence on strike-breakers, and those con-
nected with political strikes, and strikes of "protest,"
solidarity, and so on. The
difference lies in the fact that in our day a person is constrained to act
contrarily
to his own will in the name of "freedom," the term so acquiring a meaning
directly opposite to its
primitive meaning.
2
Petition a la Chambre des deputes pour les
1554 villageois que Von empeche dc
danser ((Euvres completes, p. 84): "Gentlemen, those who are so bitter against
working on Sundays want high salaries, vote increases in the budget, and put in-
digent taxpayers in jail. expect us to pay more and to work less each year."
They
8
1554 L'Empire liberal, Vol. IV, p. 11.
4
J 554 [Pareto wrote "derivation" a lapsus linguae. A. L.]
6
1554 The argument
reduces to an absurdum on one's noting that it applies to
every case where conflicts arise in the exercise of freedom of action by numbers
of persons. A law might be passed to compel violin-teachers to give lessons free
because for them to accept fees would be an "infringement on the liberties" of
1555 "FREEDOM" 1001
different senses: i. A vague meaning as a personified abstraction.

2. A definite meaning, as a capacity to act or not to act. And
this
second subdivides into two: (2-0) such capacity in a given individ-

ual; (2-^) such capacity in individuals other than he. The four
capacities often stand in conflict, so that a measure that safe-guards

the one interferes with the others. The derivation takes advantage
of the quadruple meaning to bring under "freedom" in the first
sense what is valid for it in one of the three other senses only. Some-
times the better to dissemble that manoeuvre in verbal hide-and-seek
an epithet is attached to the term "freedom" in the first
meaning
( 1561). The
derivation here in question asserts that Sunday clos-
ing "safe-guards liberty." That identifies "freedom" in the first sense

with "freedom" in the sense 2-b. One might just as readily equate
the meaning with the 2-a sense, and then the Sunday-closing
first
law would be an "infringement on liberty." The practical conflict

is
by neither of those derivations, but by inquiring whether,
settled
with a view to certain ends, it is desirable to favour 2-0 at the ex-
pense of 2.-b, or 2- at the expense of 2-a; and in so doing one would
be stepping from the domain of derivations over into the domain
of logico-experimental thinking.
1555. That disposes of the relation of the derivation to logico-
experimental reality. Why, we may now ask, is it used? What can

be the cause of such obstinate insistence on designating different,
nay opposite, things by a single term? Nothing more nor less than
a desire to exploit the agreeable sentiments that the term suggests
the same reason that prompted the Roman Empire to go on calling
itself a
republic. And then, too, though in a very secondary way, a
people who want to learn the violin but cannot afford to pay. It is therefore a
duty of the Ncver-Sufficiently-Praised State to "create" said ''freedom" of violin-
study. In the same way, if a lady refuses to requite a suitor, she is depriving him
of free action in loving her, is, in other words, infringing on his "freedom" of
action. The law therefore should "create freedom" in sex by at once coming to the
rescue and compelling the lady to be merciful to anyone who desires her. But,
it will be objected, such "liberties" are not as respectable as the freedom of persons
not to work on the Lord's day and who ought to be working if others are to work.
And the objection is sound enough; but to take that ground forces us to inquire
whether, with a view to certain definite ends, it is desirable, or whether for one
reason or other we are inclined, to favour the one or the other of these respective
freedoms to do or refrain from doing; and that would at once take us entirely
outside the field where it is possible to speak of "infringements on freedom" or
"creations of freedom."
IO02 TREATISE ON GENERAL SOCIOLOGY 1556
certain sense of decency in our politicians. Burning today the idols
they worshipped yesterday, emulating the "reactionary" govern-

ments which they were wont of yore to vilify, they are concerned
to create an impression that they still cherish the principle which
they found so convenient when they were fighting those govern-

ments. As for the justification of which we have been speaking, it is
used, as other derivations of the kind are used, to attach the favour-
able and indefinite sentiments aroused by "freedom" in the generic
(i.e., i) sense to "freedom" in the special senses 2-0 or 2-, as

the
1
case requires.
1556. IV-/: meanings, and different
Terms with numbers of
things designated by single terms. This derivation is used either

di-
rectly, to give one meaning

to a proposition which is
going to be
1
used in another meaning or indirectly, to avoid a contra-
( 491 ),
diction between two propositions by breaking up one or more terms
in them into two or more meanings. It is also used to lengthen a
bald assertion 1420) somewhat and give it the semblance of a
(
logical reasoning.
Instead of saying simply, A B, one says, A X; =
and it is then assumed implicitly by accord of sentiments, or stated
explicitly,
that X=
B; and so it results that B. From the logical A
standpoint the detour is no whit better than the short cut (783);
but it is effective from the standpoint of sentiments as satisfying the
1
hankering for pseudo-logical expatiation.
*
1555 Among the many amazing travesties of the term "liberalism" one of the
most striking is an equation brought into play by the Italian Premier Salandra,
some years ago. Outlining his policy before the Chamber of Deputies on Apr. 6,
1914, he said: "To my mind liberalism in Italy means patriotism [Applause]."
The item should be added to some future dictionary of synonyms! But perhaps
the Italian Premier meant simply that "liberal and patriotic** was a phrase used to
designate a certain group of politicians. In that case he was, alas, not far from
the truth. The phrase is very truly a euphemism that the party of our "speculators'*
( 2235) in Italy is pleased to take as its name.
*
1556 The Pythagorean tradition seems to have set up as its ethical rule a
striving to be like the gods (Themistius, Orations, XV, 192; Dindorf, p. 236).
Hierocles located perfection in that likeness: Commentarius in Aureum carmen,
vv. 63-66: [The Carmen reads (Lowe
translation): "These [the mystic rules of
nature] if to know thou
happily attain, soon shalt thou perfect be. . . ." Hierocles
paraphrases merely: "Mortals are kin to God, in that nature reveals everything to
them." A. L.] Stobaeus, Eglogae physicae et ethicae, II, 7 (Heeren, Vol. II, p.
66), quotes a saying of Pythagoras: ""ETTOV 0e>": "Follow thou God.** If the god
in question were the god of the multitude, the norm alluded to would be adding
something to the simple assertion of a precept: it would, that is, be saying that the
1556 DERIVATIONS IV-y : VERBAL PROOFS 1
003
To belong the many sophistries in which the middle
this variety
term broken up into two meanings, and those other equally nu-
is
merous sophistries in which one term is used in two successive

circle. A
meanings so that the argument moves in a very common
runs It is asserted that all A's have the
type as follows. opinion B.
Here A is used in a vague generic sense merely conforming with the
precept is man has of the god. So
in accord with the conception that the plain
also if the will of the god were known through sacred books, tradition, or in some
other such way, something would still be added to the plain assertion of the pre-
cept. But when the author of the precept is himself also determining the nature
and the will of the god, to invoke the god serves only to lengthen the journey in
arriving at the precept; and whether he states the precept directly, or indirectly
asserts that it originates in a likeness to the god, or in a divine will which he,
the author, determines, is one and the same thing. The Pythagorean tradition did
in fact make a difference between the gods of the plain man and the gods of
Pythagoras. Hieronymus relates (Diogenes Laertius, Pythagoras, VIII, 21; Flicks,

Vol. II, p. 339) that in Hell Pythagoras saw "the soul of Hcsiod chained to a
bronze pillar and shrieking aloud, and the soul of Homer hanged to a tree with
snakes about it, as punishments for the things they had said of the gods." Just so
Plato amends in his own fashion the conception which plain people, the poets,
and other sorts of writers had of God; and in the Respublica, III, 3, he rejects and
condemns a number of the opinions current on the subject of the gods, rebukes
Homer for his accounts of certain incidents, and concludes, 388 A: "If, then, friend
Adcimantus, our young people hearken diligently to such stories without scorn-
ing them as unworthily told, hardly any one of them on reaching manhood will
deem them unworthy of himself and condemn them." In DC legibus, IV, 716
(Bury, Vol. I, pp. 295-97), nc savs ^ iat like loves like and that if a man would
be loved of God he must strive to make himself like God; "and according to this
maxim the temperate man is beloved of God because like unto Him; the intem-
perate man is not like unto Him and is unholy." But which god should a man
strive to resemble? Not the god of Homer, but God as Plato chooses to fashion
Him! Homer's Zeus was making no great show of self-restraint when, Iliad, XIV,
he tried to possess Hera on Mount Ida without retiring to his quarters; and only
because Plato rejects and condemns the Homeric and other adventures of Zeus can
he call him "temperate." His reasoning is very much as follows: "A man must
do so and so because he must be like unto the god whom I imagine as doing so
and so"; and the logico-expcrimental force of the argument is in no way superior
to the simple declaration, "A man must do so and so." But matters do not stand
that way as regards sentiment. It is better to string the derivation out as far as
possible in order to reach as many sentiments as possible, much as in a piece of

music variations are made on one same theme. And here comes Stobaeus, Op. cit.,
66, quoting Homer, whose support it is just as well to have when one can, and
then adding: "And so also Pythagoras said, 'Follow thou God,' evidently not with
the eyes and as a guide, but with the mind, and harmoniously with the beautiful
order of the world, the which is set forth by Plato according to the three parts of
philosophy: physically, in the Timaeus .

ethically in the Republic, logically in
. .
the Thcaetctus" And everybody is satisfied!

1004 THE MIND AND SOCIETY X
557
sentiments of the average auditor, who therefore as a rule asks no
questions. But if one does ask for a definition of the ,4's, an answer,
more or less verbose, involved, inexplicit, is made, to the effect, sub-
stantially, that the A's are those who hold the opinion B, A in that
way taking on a new meaning. So the argument simmers down to

the statement that those who hold the opinion B hold the opin-
2
ion B.
1557. The use that is made of the term "solidarity" (449^)
would be a good example of the direct resort to such a derivation.
Champions of "solidarity" themselves confess that the word is used
1
in very different senses. Says Croiset: "Everybody is using it, and
by dint of using it, everybody is forgetting to ask just what it means.
Now if one examine one perceives without much trouble
closely,
that it is applied to very different things. There is, first of all, a
solidarity dc jacto that is merely the reciprocal interdependence

of
divers associated elements. In law, for instance, a state of 'solidarity'
exists between debtor-partners when each of them is responsible for
the debt of In biology a state of solidarity is said to exist between

all.
the parts of an organism when modifications undergone by one

2
member have counter-effects upon all other members." Croiset errs
in putting two very different things together. A man is condemned
to have a hand cut off. If a state of solidarity in the legal sense
existed between the two arms, in the sense that they are both liable
1556
2
We have given many examples of arguments of that type, e.g., 592-93.
l
1557 In Bourgeois, Essai d'une philosophic de la solidarite, Preface, p. vi.
2
1557 Croiset continues (Ibid., Preface pp. vi-viii) :"The solidarity of which
our moralists and politicians are now
talking so glibly is a very different thing,
or at least a much more complex thing. [They admit that now, the sly foxes, but
for a long time they tried to keep up the confusion. Now that that game is failing
to work, they are changing the tune for the same old song:] When one speaks, as
M. Leon Bourgeois speaks, of the social debt of individuals, it is not a question of
a common debt to an outsider, but of a reciprocal obligation among associates,
which is an altogether different thing. [Yes, but for a time the estimable champions
of solidarity tried to make out that they were the same thing.] When the example
of biological solidarity is pointed to, that is far from meaning that individuals in
society are subject, like the cells in a living organism, to a sort of external natural
fatality which they can do nothing but recognize. [But in that case, why all the
patter about "universal solidarity" the solidarity of animals with plants and
plants with minerals?] The concept of solidarity is in reality envisaged as a prin-
ciple of conduct, moral conduct, as a means of stimulating in individuals an
aspiration to a higher justice [Just how is the height of this or that justice to be
1558 "SOLIDARITY" IN FRANCE 1005
for payment of the common debt, half the hand on one arm ought
and half the hand on the other arm. Yet only one of
to be cut off
the two arms pays the common debt. So the two arms are not in a
though they may be in such a

state of solidarity, in the legal sense,
state, as M. Croiset says, as "parts of the same organism." Croiset

then proceeds very ingenuously to explain why the term "solidarity"
has enjoyed such a great vogue, finding it, substantially, vague
enough to allow anybody to make it mean anything desired a
sound observation, and generally valid for derivations containing
3
vague or ambiguous terms. That is why such terms are the best
possible
for derivations, the worst possible for scientific thinking.
If sentiments are to be stirred and realities concealed, it is well that
terms be not too precise. If the point is to discover actual relations

between facts, terms had better be as exact as possible. Preachers of
solidarity were acting very wisely therefore in using a vague lan-
guage. But that fact alone, if there were no other evidence, would
suffice to show the fatuousness of their claim that they were giving
us a scientific theory.
1558. An example of the indirect use of the IV-y derivation would
be the precept "Thou shalt not kill." It
established by giving a
is
general meaning to the term "kill," in order to take advantage of

the blood-taboo, which forbids the shedding of human blood in gen-
measured in feet and inches?] and as a rule that is calculated to facilitate their
reaching it. [How many things in just one word! Solidarity! Magical term indeed!
And still M. Croiset has left out something. Solidarity also stands for a desire on
the part of certain politicians to get a following, and for the verbal sops that are
handed out to the mob by democratic metaphysicists. Croiset rightly concludes:]
It is therefore evident that the word 'solidarity* has taken on a wholly new mean-
ing in that connexion, and that in spite of the identity in words moral solidarity
is something profoundly different from biological or juridical solidarity" which,
in their turn, as we have just seen, arc also different things.
3
1557 Croiset, loc. cit., p. x: "The word 'solidarity/ taken over from biology,
fitted in with that vague but deep-seated yearning [for oneness
marvellously
of all individuals in some whole]. The word 'altruism* was out of the question.
It was too great a barbarism ever to have made its way into ordinary parlance.
[There was another reason: the word "altruism" could never have led anyone to
believe that the Moon was made of green cheese, that, in other words, "solidarity"
was a scientific theory.] The term 'solidarity' was furthermore rather vague, as
being taken over from a field where it had an exact meaning to another field
where, in fact, the problem was to acclimatize it. So people were free gradually to
bring under it all those still hazy ideas which older words, more definite in
meaning as a result of long usage, were not so well fitted to express."
IOO6 TREATISE ON GENERAL SOCIOLOGY J
559
eral, members of one's own community. But
or at least the blood of
lo, the case arises in which one has to say "Thou shalt kill!" To be
rid of the contradiction the term "kill" is not restricted in mean-
ing, and the two propositions

then become: "One should not kill
except under certain circumstances," and "One should kill

under
certain circumstances." In that the contradiction disappears, to
way
be sure; but in such an explicit wording the two statements mean
little or
nothing. That is why they are not put directly in that form.
1559. Pacifistshave a formula: "International disputes should be
settled by arbitration, by the international Court at The Hague, and
not by war," and that they call "peace under law." In 1911 Italy de-
clared war on Turkey without in the least concerning herself with
arbitration or with the international Court at The Hague. Pacifists
abroad stood loyal to their formula and condemned the Italian Gov-
ernment; but a number of Italian pacifists stood by their govern-
ment, because in going to war it had vindicated "Italy's good right."
goes without saying that if some other country, X, had been
It in
Italy's situation, a of pacifists in that country would have

number
said what the Italian pacifists said, while the Italian pacifists would
have stood by their formula and condemned the government of the
1
country X. For those pacifists who approve of wars, the theoretical
a
1559 At the Peace Congress held at Geneva in September, 1912, a number
of French pacifists stood out for the use of airplanes in warfare, whereas pacifists
from other countries were for prohibiting them. By a coincidence that may not
have been fortuitous, France was at that time the country best prepared for aerial
warfare. English pacifists who condemned the Italian conquest of Libya were
highly indignant because the Congress expressed the hope that England would
withdraw from Egypt. Will ever logician be so subtle as to explain why a conquest
of Egypt should be according to "right" and a conquest of Libya contrary to
"right"? The Italian "war-pacifists" of 1911 had preached, or had applauded those
who preached, that Julius Caesar, NapoleonI, and other conqucrers were mere
"assassins" and that were no "just" wars, unless, perhaps, wars in self-
there
defence. Then one fine day they change their allegiance and ask us to admire
other conquerors as heroes, and applaud other wars of conquest as "just," without
telling us how conquerors and wars that are to be condemned are to be distin-
guished from those which are to be applauded. Instead of enlightening those who
disagree with them, they abuse them. Before burning her heretics, the Holy
Catholic Church at least taught them the catechism! The Italian "war-pacifists"
were so indignant at their sometime comrades, the "peace-pacifists," that had
they been able they would have challenged them to mortal combat. And they
took that position, they said, in defence of their country's honour. But was not
"the country's honour" the very cause of many of the wars they had previously
1561 DERIVATIONS IV-yl VERBAL PROOFS IOO7
formula would seem, therefore, to be "International disputes must
:
be settled by arbitration, except when it is to the advantage of a

country minded to fight to settle them by war." But when the for-
mula is stated in that way, who is not a pacifist? In reality,
as we
have times seen, the whole manoeuvre
many is dictated by senti-
ments and not by any logical reasoning.
1560. In that same case we get a good example of the divergences
that are possible between the accord of a theory with reality and its
social utility. The Italian pacifists divided into two camps: on the
one hand, those who approved of the Libyan war and might be
called "war-pacifists"; on the other, those who stood by their pacifist
doctrines and might be called "peace-pacifists." The "war-pacifists"
were certainly wrong from the logical standpoint. They may have
been right from the standpoint of their country's advantage. The
"peace-pacifists" were no less certainly right
from the standpoint of
logic and loyalty to principles. They may have been wrong from the
1
standpoint of national utility.
1561. A
widely used method for splitting terms into double mean-
ings is to
qualify them with certain epithets, such as "true," "right,"
"honest," "noble," "good." So an A that is "true" comes to be dis-
condemned? To justify his war

of 1870, Ollivicr writes in L Empire
f
liberal, Vol.
XIV, pp. 558-59: "Faced with the choice between a war of doubtful outcome
and a dishonourable peace, bcllum anccps an pax inhonesta, we were forced to
pronounce for war ncc dubitatum de hello. 'For peoples as for individuals there
arc circumstances where the voice of honour must speak louder than the voice
of prudence' (Letter of Cavour to Arese, Feb. 28, 1860: Lettere edite cd incdite,
Vol. Ill, pp. 220-23.) Governments fall not only from defeat on the battle-field.
Dishonour also destroys them. ... A military disaster can be repaired. Dis- . . .
honour accepted in acquiescence is a death from which there is no resurrection. "

Cavour was a man bitterly hated by our pacifists. Why was he wrong? And why
were they right when they found it convenient to repeat his precise words? Was
Rome right or wrong in warring upon the nations of Mediterranean Africa and
conquering them? If she was right, what becomes of the beautiful doctrine of
pacifism, and how is it to be distinguished from a doctrine that is non-pacifistic ?
If Rome was wrong, how can countries that are today doing the very same thing
be right? To answer with the national anthem or by abuse of one's critics may
be a good way to rouse emotions; but it is not in the least logical, nor in the
remotest degree rational.
1
1560
-
This is not the place to solve the problem of utility that is involved in this
special case. Itis sufficient for our purposes here that the two solutions mentioned
should in fact be possible. Farther along ( 1704 f.) we shall see just what residues
underlay the above derivations, and one aspect of utility we shall discuss in
Chapter XII.
I008 THE MIND AND SOCIETY 1562
tinguished from a mere A, and the difference between

them may
amount to oppositeness. In that way the contradictions in uses of
the term "freedom" are evaded ( 1554) : "true freedom" is some-
thing very different from plain ordinary "freedom."

Sometimes
"true freedom" is the exact opposite of plain "freedom." To work
when you choose to work "freedom"; but to work only when
is
just
someone else wants you to work is "true freedom." To take a drink
of wine when you choose is just "freedom" it was the freedom the
Czar granted to the Finns. To be forbidden to touch lips
to a drop
of wine is "true freedom" it was the freedom the "liberal" assem-
bly of Finland would have granted to that country had it not been
prevented from doing so by the Czar's despotism.

1562. The epithet "true" is
helpful because, as we saw of the term
"solidarity," meaning little or nothing it can be made to mean any-
1
thing desired. Then if some indiscreet soul insists on knowing
what, after all, one of said epithets means, he is promptly served
with a neat reasoning in a circle. Do I wish to give the term the A
meaning of the term B? I simply say that the "true" is B. But A
some bore may ask, "How distinguish the 'true' Afrom the A that
is not 'true'?" I answer in a more or less
wordy manner that the
only A that can be properly called "true" is the that is B. A

1563. So someone will assert that "reason" leads to a conclusion
B the existence of God, let us say, or "solidarity." But the atheist,
or the anti-solidarist, replies, "My reason does not lead to any such
conclusion!" But he is told, "Because you do not use 'right' reason."
"But how is 'right' reason to be distinguished from the reason that
is not 'right'?" "Very easily: 'Right' reason believes in God (or in
solidarity)."
1564. All the Christian sects have their martyrs, and each has
had
considered its own martyrs the only "true" ones. St. Augustine de-
*
1562 In his early day, Cicero, Acadcmica, II, 46, 142, notes several meanings in
which the term "true" was used. From his time to ours the list has constantly been
lengthening: "Pythagoras is of one view, that the opinion of each individual is
truth to him; the Cyrenians of another, that there is no criterion of judgment apart
from inner intuition (permotiones intimas); and Epicurus of still another, for he
located all judgment in the senses, in our perceptions (notitiis) of things and in
pleasure (voluptate). Plato, however, held that the whole criterion of truth, and
the truth itself, have nothing to do with opinions and feelings (adductam misprint
for abductam), but are prerogatives of thought and of the mind."
1564 "TRUE FREEDOM," "RIGHT REASON" 1009
*
clares flatly: "Heretics, furthermore, all suffer [Le., martyrdom]
in behalf of error and not of the truth, for they lie against Christ
Himself. Whatever things the impious and the heathen suffer they
2
all suffer in behalf of falsehood." It
goes without saying that
"truth" is what St. Augustine believes in, and "error," any other
belief.
Bayle clearly perceived the fallacy in a reasoning of the type
of St. Augustine's that was designed to show that the orthodox were
3
right and the heretics wrong in persecuting dissenters. That fallacy,
centuries and centuries old as it is, is at all times fresh and retains
the full vigour and vitality of youth. It did yeoman's service for the
Christians in persecuting the pagans, for the Catholics in persecut-
ing the Protestants, and vice versa, for the various Protestant sects
in persecuting one another, for all Christians in persecuting free-
thinkers, and now for the free-thinkers in persecuting Christians,

and especially Catholics. Under the Second Empire in France there
were objections to Kenan's appointment as a teacher. Under the
Third Republic the same objections are urged against the appoint-
2
ment of Father Scheil (6i8 ). But the Empire was doing wrong
because it was on the side of error; and the Republic right because
it is on the side of truth.
Many Italians also reason as follows: "Cath-
olics have no right to teach in the schools because
they teach error.
Only free-thinkers have a right to teach, because they teach the
l
1564 Sermones, CCCVII: In natali martyrtim (Opera, Vol. V, p. 1450), III, 4.
2
1564 [The argument is in reply to the pagan rejoinder that the sufferings of
the martyrs proved merely that they were on a par with the worst criminals, who
were also cruelly put to death. A. L.] "Omncs hacretid ctiam pro jalsitatc patiun-
tur non pro vcritatc, quia mcntiuntur contra ipsum Christum. O nines pagani impii
quaecumqiie patiuntur pro jalsitatc patiuntur." But how identify the "true"
martyr? A very simple matter! He is the one that has died for the truth: "Ergo
ostcndamus illos vcraces. lam ipsi se ostendemnt quando pro veritate ctiam mori
voluerunt" ("Therefore we show that they were the true ones, or rather they have
shown themselves true in being willing to die for the truth"). So the martyr proves
the truth of the faith he is its witness; and the faith proves the genuineness of
hismartyrdom.
8
1564 Commentaire philosophique, Ft. Ill, 17 (p. 461): "'It is wrong to use
force only when those who are in the truth are forced to embrace error. we Now
have not forced anybody from the truth into error. We, the orthodox, have forced
you, heretics or schismatics, to move over to our side. We have therefore clone
no wrong. But you would be doing wrong if you were to force us.' Is that not the
fallacy known can be met in no better way, in the case

as the pctitio principii? It
in point, than to change the minor from negative to affirmative, and conclude
directly against the one who has used it."

IOIO TREATISE ON GENERAL SOCIOLOGY
truth." Some
generations back, the opposite reasoning was the pre-
4
vailing one. So the wise change as the times change. The Clericals
used to say, and the liberals are today repeating, that the freedom
that should be allowed freedom to do "good," not freedom to do
is
"wrong," the freedom that is "truth," not the freedom that is

"error." Needless to add, what is "good" and "true" for the ones
is "evil" and "false" for the others and vice versa. The terms "truth"
and "error" have as many meanings as there are parties; and only
in virtue of a IV-/2 derivation are they preferred to their equivalents:
"What I believe" and "What I do not believe."
1565. Derivations of our IV-y variety generally involve Class II

residues (group-persistences). The ideas and sentiments engendered
in us by a given term remain operative even after an epithet has
been attached to the term, and may even grow in potency if the
epithet is opportunely chosen. If "freedom" is a good thing, how
much better must "true freedom" be! If "reason" cannot lead astray,
how much safer the guidance of "right reason"!
1566. "This doctrine is true; hence it can, and ought to be, en-
forced." Most propositions which are stated in that form involve the
use of an ambiguous term. The individuals upon whom the doc-
trine is to be forced in no wise admit that it is "true": they call it
"false." The sound form of statement would be: "This doctrine is
the truth for us; therefore we can, and ought to, enforce it." But
in this latter form it is far less persuasive than in the other.
4
1564 from their party in other words, they "excommunicate"
Socialists expel
persons who do
not subscribe to their party's platform; and the practice is in-
dispensable to them, as it is to anyone who is trying to build up a party. How-
ever, certain members of the Socialist party insist on barring Catholic priests from
teaching in the schools because they are not "free" to think as they choose, but are
obliged to follow the teachings of the Church. That "obligation" on the part of
the Catholic priest is identical with the Socialist's "obligation." Roth have to sub-
scribe to the dogmas of the group to which they belong under pain of expulsion
from it. It follows that if such an "obligation" precludes efficient teaching, it is
desirable, for the sake of efficient teaching, that both should be denied the right
to teach. If it is no such obstacle, it is desirable that both should be allowed to
teach. Sentiment, however, draws the distinction. Those who like priests and dis-
like Socialists say that priests ought to be allowed to teach and Socialists be barred.
That more or less is what happens in Germany. Those who dislike priests and
like Socialists say that priests should be barred and Socialists accepted. And that
is what is going on in France. Ingenuous souls, simpletons, and idiots are then
fed with the notion that it is all being done out of love for the "ethical State," or
Madame Liberty.
1567 DERIVATIONS IV-yt VERBAL PROOFS IOII
1567. In theoretical derivations the meaning given to the noun

"truth" oscillates between two extremes. On the one hand "truth"
signifies
accord with the facts what is sometimes called "experi-
mental" and "historical" truth. On the other hand, it
designates
mere accord with certain sentiments, which carries with it the assent
1
of the believer. Between these two extremes there are any number
of intermediate significations. Accord with facts may be a conse-
quence of scientific experiment and observation, of researches in

what is called historical criticism. Or it may result merely from the
impressions that the facts make upon the minds of one or more
persons in view of the sentiments they engender. In that again there
are intermediate degrees between the extremes: now a scientific or
historical scepticism that is ever checking impressions on impres-
sions and so trying to accommodate them as closely as
possible to
facts; now a faith so robust that facts can in no way shake it, the
impressions which they make being always distorted as much as is
required to make them square with the faith. The science of me-
chanics from Aristotle to Laplace, natural history from Pliny to
Cuvier, Roman from Livy to Mommsen, Greek history from
history
Herodotus to Grote, Curtius, and others, have progressed from this
last extreme to the first; and the term "truth" has constantly
2
changed in meaning all
along the line (776f.).
x
1567 a person has a religious or metaphysical faith, he says that the "truth"
If
which is found at that extreme is "superior to," "higher than," the truth
to be
located at the other extreme. It is a logical consequence of the Hegelian's belief
that his religion, his metaphysics, his "science" (i9f.)> are "superior" to ex-
perience. Materialists invert the relation, but their "experience" is itself just a form
of religion. Really they are comparing two "truths" both located at our second
extreme.
2
1567 one among hosts of examples: Merle d'Aubignc, Histoire de la
Just
Reformation, Vol. I, p. i: "A weakened world (a) was tottering on its foundations
when Christianity appeared (). The national religions that had satisfied the
fathers had ceased to satisfy the children (r). The gods of all nations had
. . .
been transported to Rome and had lost their oracles there (d) as the peoples had
their freedom (c). Soon the narrow conceptions of nationality fell with their
. . .
gods. The peoples blended one into another (/). In Europe, Asia, Africa there was
now but one empire (g). The human race (/;) began to be conscious of its uni-
versality, its unity." If one fix one's attention on historical realities, the following
remarks will at once suggest themselves: a. What does D'Aubigne mean by "the
world"? He seems vaguely to mean the Roman world, the Mediterranean area,
but then again he seems to be thinking of the whole globe. When he says "a
weakened world" he is probably thinking of the Roman world, for it hardly seems
IOI2 THE MIND AND SOCIETY 1568
1568. As we have already seen ( 645), in repeating a story a per-
son uses language somewhat different from what he heard, and he
thinks that he is reporting the "truth," in the sense that the lan-
guage he uses makes the same impression upon him as the language
he heard. The precise words uttered in a long conversation cannot
possibly be remembered. What sticks in the memory is the impres-
sion one had of it, and that impression is what one tries to
reproduce
in setting out to repeat the conversation. If one has done that suc-
cessfully one feels in all good faith that one has "spoken the truth."
In practice, before courts of justice, such approximate
reproduction
is
usually adequate for ordinary purposes. If it seems insufficient in
possible that he could have been thinking of China, Japan, Germany, and the
many other countries, "weakened"? At the time when Christianity ap-
b. Why
peared the Roman Empire was
very strong and prosperous. It was rather after
the triumph of Christianity that the Empire "weakened." Many pagan
Emperors
dictated peace to the barbarians at the point of the sword. Many Christian Em-
perors bought peace with gold. c. D'Aubigne forgets that if Christianity was quite
willing not to be a national religion, it ended by being one. Islamism, instead, is
essentially even in our day; and of Islamism far better than of
non-national
Christianity might one say that it appeared in a "weakened" (Roman) world.
d. The Delphic oracle was very famous in
antiquity. Did it really p?ss out of ex-
istence because its god had been transported to Rome? Where can
D'Aubigne
have found evidence of any such transfer? e. D'Aubigne is trying for a literary
effect by balancing the oracles of the gods against the
liberty of the peoples.
Historical realities have quite gone out of his mind. /. What peoples? He must be
thinking of the peoples who were conquered and made subject by the Romans,
forgetting all about the Barbarians, the Chinese, Japanese, Hindus, Africans,
Americans mere bagatelles, they! g. Here D'Aubigne is surely naming the
. . .
whole by the part. He could not have been unaware that the Roman Empire was
very far from extending over all Europe, all Asia, all Africa. //. But if the preceding
strictureis sound, how can it now occur to him to think of
mentioning the "hu-
man race"? If our assumption was unsound, if D'Aubigne really meant all
Europe, all Asia, all Africa never mind about America and Oceania he can
then, it is "human race"; but just as truly he
true, allude in all strictness to the
will be talking nonsense. person Ashares who
D'Aubigne's faith does not notice
such obvious departures from reality in reading his
history, any more than a
lover notices the freckles on his sweetheart's face. Of such a lover Lucretius in his
time wrote, De rcrtim natura, IV, vv. 1160-72:
"Nigra mclichrus cst, immunda ac jctida acosmos,
caesia, Palladium., nervosa et lignea, dorcas,

parvola pumilio, chariton mia, tota merum sal . . .
cetera de genere hoc longumst si dicere coner."
("Is she black? She is blond as honey! Is she unclean, uncouth? She is
pleasantly
negligee! Has she green eyes? She is Minerva! Is she stiff and wooden? She is a
gazelle! A puny dwarf, she is one of the Graces and what wit! ... But were I
157 THE MODERNISTS AND THE BIBLE 1013
some respect, the court can ask the witness to make himself more
clear.
1569. As is well known, ancient historians have a mania for giv-
ing the orations that they allege were delivered by one character or
another in their story. Even Polybius, who is otherwise so conscien-
1
tious, follows that practice. He repeats verbatim the oration which
Cornelius Scipio delivered before his army on the eve of the battle on
the Ticinus, III, 64, 3-11 (Paton, Vol. II, pp. 155-57). Now it is
altogether certain that Polybius could not have known the contents
of that speech, word for word. It cannot be an accurate reproduction
of the incident, but a mere formulation of the impression left with
Polybius by stories he had heard of it. The same may be said in

general of the stories told by the ancient historians, and of not a
few accounts by moderns. They report impressions more often than
facts. At times such
impressions come fairly close to historical reality,
then again they vary from it and may end by having no relation to it
whatever.
1570. This extreme is
by the impressions that Jean
illustrated
1
Rcville describes, in connexion with the problem of the Fourth
Gospel: "Concluding his study of the Prologue of the Fourth Gos-

2
pel,
M. Loisy says of the Evangelist: 'He is not writing a history
of Jesus but rather a treatise on knowledge of Jesus.' I hold instead
to give the whole list of such things, the task would be long indeed.") [Lucretius
is mimicking the Greek affectations of love-making in the Roman Mayfair of his
day: melichrus is [izMxpooSi acosmos: a/coa/yo^, Palladium: HalikaAiov, dorcas:

66,)Ka. t
mia: xapir^v fiia.
chariton A. L.] Moliere imitates the passage in Le
misanthrope, Act. II, Scene vi, when he says of lovers:
"Us comptent les dcjauts pour des perfections,

et savent y donner de javorables noms:
la pule est an jasmin en blancheur comparable;
la noire a jairc peur une brune adorable."
("They count defects so many perfections and manage names

to give pleasant to
them. Pale, she is comparable in whiteness to the jasmine; and black enough to
frighten, she an adorable brunette!")

is
*
1569 However, he condemns, Historiae, XII,
25, 4-5 (Paton, Vol. IV, pp. 369-71),
the use of orations by Timaeus as excessive and in fact seems (XII, 25, 3) to con-
done the practice only as a means of portraying sentiments and manners. And cf.
Thucydides, Historiae, I, 22, I.
*
1570 Le quatriemc Evangile, pp. 113-14, note.
2
1570 Le Prologue du quatrieme Evangile, p. 266.
IOI4 TREATISE ON GENERAL SOCIOLOGY 1570
that he intended to write a history, but
history as an Alexandrian
understood history, which is something radically different from
what we mean by history. . . . The aim of the Gospel, the aim of
the Prologue itself, is historical that is the fact that must not be
lost
sight of. However, the Evangelist writes history as all men who
were imbued with the Alexandrine spirit in his
day wrote history,
with a sovereign contempt for concrete material reality, as was the
case with Philo or St. Paul. In the view of those minds, his-
great
tory was not a pragmatic narrative of events, a faithful reproduc-
tion of details, a careful
chronology, an integral resurrection of the
past. The historian's task was
emphasize the moral and spiritual
to
values of facts, their deeper
significance, that element of eternal
truth [Another kind of truth!] which is
present in each contingent
and ephemeral phenomenon in history. For them history becomes
one vast allegory, one perpetual symbol of which only the inner
value has any importance. Such a point is difficult for us moderns
to understand our manner of
thinking entirely different; but it
is
was clarity itself to those who lived in intimate association with

Philo and most of the early Christian writers." From the scientific
standpoint there are a number of sound remarks in this passage,

along with a surplusage of derivations foreign to science. Reville
feels called
upon to assure us that Philo and St. Paul were "great
minds," though there are plenty of people who regard them as in-
consequential chatterboxes and that is not a problem to be treated
offhand. But such praise comes
strangely indeed from Reville at a
moment when he is presenting them to us as men of very ordinary
minds as historians. He might at least have drawn such a distinction
himself! But that is all a derivation of our
IV-/? variety. Reville
wants to have the protection of incidental sentiments to offset the
shortly we see a very

disastrous effects of the facts themselves; then
respectable entity step forward the "function of the historian."

Those "great minds" understood that function in the sense of writ-
ing history without regard to facts. That granted, one might won-
der why the Arabian Nights should not be classed with the histories.
There are, it would seem, "contingent and ephemeral phenomena in
history," and other phenomena that are not such. Which, pray,
would they be? Reville does not say. Nor can one ever imagine
what that "eternal truth" might be, of which, it seems, a quantity
1571 DERIVATIONS IV-yl VERBAL PROOFS IOI5
small or large present in every "historical phenomenon." Han-
is
nibal marched into Italy with his army. That is a historical fact.
But who can say just how much "eternal truth" it contains? Such
talk is arrant nonsense.
1571. After alluding to prevailing doubts as to the historical real-
*
Flood, M. Loisy adds "The story of the Creation
ity of the biblical
:
is true, even
though it contains no history and is framed in a cos-
mogony that is no longer accepted today. knows but that in Who
the chapters following there may be stories which are also true in
their way, though they do not contain all the materially exact his-
2
torical elements which we would like to find in them ( 774) ?"
Evidently in passage the word "true" has, for the writer, a
all this
different meaning from the one it has when we say, "It is 'true' that
Garibaldi landed in Sicily in 1860." But until he tells us the precise
sense he chooses to give to the word, we can neither accept nor
*
1571 Etudes sur la religion chaldeo-assyrienne, Vol. IV, pp. 152-53.
2
1571 There is a similar derivation in another work by Loisy, Etudes bibliques,
pp. 131-32: "One cannot
say, however, that the Bible contains errors in astronomy.
That would be at once unjust and naive. Before we could have a right to charge
the Bible with an error of that sort, an inspired author would have to make it
apparent, in some passage or other, that he is trying to force this or that concep-
tion of the universe upon his reader as a certain truth. [Another kind of truth!
How many many kinds there are!] But none of the sacred writers ever betrayed
any intention of giving lessons in astronomy." Loisy does not care to have the
unfavourable sentiments associated with the word "error" come into play where
the Bible is concerned. He calls in a derivation, in order to confuse "objective
error" with "subjective error" and bring those two different things under a single
name. Had he chosen to express himself clearly he might have said: "The fact
that the Bible contains assertions which do not correspond to the facts (objective
errors) docs not justify the conclusion that the writer was trying to make anyone
believe that they corresponded to the facts, or even that he thought they did him-
self (subjective error)." But that concedes the presence of the objective error, a fact,
after all, which Loisy does not care to deny. He is however unwilling to use the
word "error." Loisy's position, which as a matter of fact is the position of many
exponents of the "higher criticism," has not, to tell the truth, any great prob-
ability; but it cannot, strictly speaking, be disputed. Suppose a naturalist is dis-
cussing preparations for dinner with his wife and says, "For fish, instead of smelt,
I suggest we have lobster." The statement would contain an objective error: a
lobster is not a fish. There is no subjective error, however, because the naturalist
knows very well that a lobster is not a fish and he also knows very well that he
would look ridiculous to his wife if he were to say, pedant-fashion, "For fish, in-
stead of smelt, a fish, I suggest we have a crustacean a lobster." All the same,
even granting that, the fact still remains that his first statement contained an
objective error.
IOl6 THE MIND AND SOCIETY
reject the conclusions in which it figures, provided, of course, we

intend to remain in the logico-experimental field. If we abandon
that field for the field of sentiment, we will accept or reject them
according to the vague sentiments that the word chances to arouse

3
in us. But note, meantime, how everything in the passage works
in to intensify the appeal to sentiment. Loisy tries in every way to
profit by the favourable sentiments that the term "true" arouses. He

speaks of a "story that is true even though it contains no history and
no historical elements that are materially exact." Why the "materi-
ally" ? If the word "true" is taken in the sense of "accord with the
facts," how
can a story be "historical" and not "materially exact" ? It
might be historical as a whole and not be exact in parts, but that is
not what Loisy seems to mean. Had he meant that he would not
have spoken of "stories that are true in their way." Julius Caesar was
or was not a dictator. In the first case, Caesar's dictatorship is a his-
torical fact; in the second case it is not. In the first case, it is accurate
to say that he was a dictator; in the second it is not. One cannot im-
agine what the following proposition could mean: "To say that
Caesar was not a dictator is a story true in its way, even though it
does not contain the materially exact historical elements which we
would like to find in it." And indeed it is hard to guess just what
Loisy was trying to say. He may have meant that there are stories in
the Bible which do not correspond to historical, experimental, real-
ity,
but which do correspond to certain things lying outside the
f
8
1571 Rousselot, Etudes sur la philosophic dans le moycn age, Vol. II, pp. 14-15:
"At the time when Christianity appeared, sentiment had been stifled or vitiated in
the peoples. Then came Christianity with all its blessings, to warm hearts
. . .
and strike a note from the religious chord before which the other two [intelligence
and will] fell silent. But truth residing only in a reality that is complete [An un-
intelligibleproposition.], the time came
intelligence when
will, after ex- and
piating, so to speak, their shortcomings by a long submission, again demanded
the right to occupy the place that belonged to them. [So then: because the "true"
can reside only in a "reality" that is "complete," intellect and will ask back a
certain place that belongs to them.] So, among thinking people, first Nominalism
arose, as a first manifestation of independent intelligence we know what our
judgment is then Realism as a higher and worthier, but no less ex-
to be of it;
clusive, manifestation "higher"? And as for the "worthiness," who is to be

[Why
judge of it?], which, accordingly, could not yield an exact formula for the truth,
for truth demands harmony, and at that time there was nothing but antagonism."
But when and where did our estimable Dame Truth ever file her demand for
"harmony," and what on earth is "harmony" anyhow?

1573 DUCHESNE AND SAINT AUGUSTINE
pale of experience that the sentiment functioning in certain individ-

uals thinks it knows. If that is really what he had in mind, he would
have been clearer had he stated it in some such way. But from the
standpoint of derivations it was wise in him not to do that, in order
not to lose that retinue of pleasant sentiments which Dame Truth
always has in attendance on her.

1572. In a chapter replete with reticences, Monsignor Duchesne
exerts himself to justify, without seeming to, the ancient persecu-
1
tions of the Donatists. Apropos of the famous letter of St.
Augus-
tine to Vicentius, he writes: "In other ways, through contro-
still
versial
pamphlets, local conferences, sermons, letters, the bishops did
all in their
power to set forth the truth and get it before the Donatist
public." Even Monsignor Duchesne the "truth" in question is,
for
evidently, different from the "truth" which St. Augustine and other
Holy Fathers "set forth and got before the public" when they denied
the existence of antipodes. To avoid misapprehensions, Monsignor
Duchesne might, in place of "truth," have used the phrase: "What
Catholics believe to be the truth." But that wording would have
defeated his purpose of creating a confusion between "subjective
truth," a truth recognized by certain individuals only, and "objec-
tive truth," which is tested by its accord with the facts, and so nurs-
ing in his reader a sentiment of disapprobation for the Donatists as

individuals capable of denying objective truth.
1573. resorting to terms that are ostensibly objective but ac-
By
tually subjective, these derivations may be used to prove both sides
of a question equally well. The derivations that Monsignor Du-
chesne persecutions of the Donatists in Africa
calls in to justify the
are the very ones that are being used in France today to justify per-
secutions of Monsignor Duchesne's coreligionists. Monsignor Du-
chesne begins by rebuking the Donatists for their hostility to the
Catholics. So the French free-thinkers rebuke the Catholics for hos-
tility
to themselves and the Republic. In Africa a Catholic bishop
of Bagai was mishandled by Donatists. In France Dreyfus is said
to have been abused by Catholics. Says Monsignor Duchesne, Vol.
Ill, p. 130: "Their backs to the wall, the Catholic episcopate [The
French republican government.] recollected that there were laws
l
1572 Histoire ancienne dc I'Eglise, Vol. Ill, pp. 130 f.
10 1 8 TREATISE ON GENERAL SOCIOLOGY J
574
against instigators of schism [Against religious congregations.], and
that, at bottom, the whole Donatist Church [The majority of the
religious congregations.] was one vast infraction of the law." Of the

penalties prescribed for heretics in the Theodosian Code Monsignor
Duchesne remarks, "They would have been very severe had
p. 131:
the heretics been peaceable citizens [Had Catholics kept out of
politics,
one might have said in France had Catholics not been "in-
triguing monks" (moines ligueurs), Waldeck-Rousseau actually
said.]; but considering the temper of the Donatists and the extrav-
agances in which they indulged under the eye of complaisant au-

thorities,they were not severe enough." [But, considering the tem-
per of the clericals and the outrages they committed against Drey-
fus, Jews, Protestants, and free-thinkers, under the benignant eye
of complaisant authorities, they were not severe enough.] Monsi-
gnor Duchesne congratulates himself, p. 133, on the results of the

persecution, just as M. Combes was satisfied with the outcome in
France: "It cannot be denied that pressure had far-reaching
official
and beneficial consequences. The fanaticism of the Circumccllians
[Of Waldeck-Rousseau's "moines ligueurs"] was not shared by all
Donatists [By French Catholics.] Not a few sensible persons

all
among them were aware of the ineptitude of their schism [Of Papal
infallibility,
one might say, for France.] and were waiting only for
a pretext for breaking loose from it. Many were Donatists by habit,
by family tradition, without knowing why, without ever having

devoted serious thought to the matter [Anti-Clericals speak of Cath-
olics in just those terms.] Others were kept in the sect only by fear
of violence from the fanatical wing. In a word, the interference of

the state tended far less to molest people in their conscience than
to deliver oppression." That was exactly
them from an unbearable
what Waldeck-Rousseau, Combes, and all the French anti-Clericals
said and repeated. Nor has there been any lack of metaphysicists to
assure us that in persecuting Clericals the French Government was
"creating freedom."
1574.Those gentle peace-loving Catholics of St. Augustine's
sought nothing, says Monsignor Duchesne, but unity in faith. But
what did Combes want? Said he in a speech before the Senate (June
24, 1904) : "We not fantastic of us to regard it as
believe that it is
desirable and practicable to do for the France of our time what the
1575 DERIVATIONS IV-y: VERBAL PROOFS IOIQ
Old Regime so well achieved for the France of old. One king, one
faith!Such the watchword, then! And it was a tower of strength
to our monarchical governments. Our task is to find for ourselves a
similar watchword that will
correspond to the requirements of the
present age." Monsignor Duchesne, Vol. Ill, p. 127, mentions a cer-
tain popular
song that "Catholic children sang about the streets, so
popularizing the cause of unity." In twentieth-century France, La
Lantcrne and other anti-Clerical newspapers played just that role.
Under Louis XIV, in the Cevennes district, the
Royal Dragoons also
exerted themselves actively in behalf of
religious unity.
1575. There are so many kinds of truth in this world that there
may well be one to fit the relationship that obtains between Mon-
signor Duchesne's narrative and the facts as related by St. Augus-
tine, along with the comments that the Saint makes on them. But
variety, and St. Augus-

that truth certainly is not of the historical
tine's textand the prose of the modern writer leave altogether dif-
ferent impressions with us. The fact is, St.
Augustine has something
greater and better in view than the suppression of "an infraction of
the law." The doughty
Saint elaborates a finished
theory of persecu-
tion. He
compares the schismatic to a patient suffering from hys-
x
teria and recommends the use of force as a cure for both. He does
2
not admit that a man has a right not to be "forced into holiness,"
and he proves his point with many deftly chosen quotations from
the Bible. That gentle soul would exile and fine dissenters that
they
may learn to prefer what they read in the Scripture to the "gossip
and slanders of men" said "gossip and slanders" being so called,
of course, by the learned St.
Augustine, the able scientist who read
in Scripture that there were no antipodes,
contrarily to the "gossip
and slanders" of ignoramuses who said there were. 3 And that no
shadow of doubt as to his meaning may be left, he adds: "And in
truth, that I have said as well of all Donatists as of all heretics who
are Christians by sacrament yet depart from Christ's truth or from
1575 Êpistolac, XCIII, 1-2 (Ad Vicentium) (Opera, Vol. II, pp. 322-23; Worlds,
Vol. VI, p. 397).
2
1575 Ibid., 2, 5 (Worlds, p. 399): "Putas neminem debcre cogi ad iustitiam!'
1575 *lbid. t 3, 10 (Opera, loc. tit., p. 326; Worlds, p. 403): ". ut coercitionc
. .
cxsiliorum atque damnorum admoneantur considerarc quid quare patiantur, ct

discant praeponerc rumoribus et calumniis hominum [Healy: "mischievous and
frivolous human fables."] Scriptural quas legunt"
IO2O THE MIND AND SOCIETY J
575
4
Christian unity." That the Saint held any such doctrine would not
be remotely suspected by a person reading Monsignor Duchesne's
history without going back to Augustine's text. And he cannot claim
that the Saint's doctrine no importance. Monsignor
is a matter of
Duchesne knows perfectly well that when Protestants were being
persecuted in France under Louis XIV, the Archbishop of Paris pub-
lished translations of two of St. Augustine's letters to
justify
the new
persecution on the precedent of the old. Nor can he be unaware

that Bayle took
advantage of that publication to pen an eloquent
5
defence of toleration. It would have been well for Monsignor Du-
*
1575 Ibid., 3, 10 (Worlds, p. 404): "Et hoc quidem vcl de omnibus hacrcticis
qui Chnstianis sacramcntis imbuuntur et a Christi veritate sive imitate dissentnint,
vcl de Donatistis omnibus dixerim." The Saint goes on to say, 5, 16 (Opera, loc. cit.,
p. 329; \Vor\s, p. 409) that the important question not whether one is, or is not,
is
constrained, but whether the constraint is toward good or toward evil: ". sed
. .
qtiale sit illud quo utrum bonum an malum." It is the same old story: I set
cogttttr
out to force a person to do what I like. What I like I call "good," what he likes
"bad"; and then I tell him that he has no right to complain since I am forcing him
into what is good," Epistolae, CLXXIII, CLXXXV (Opera, Vol. II,
pp. 753-57;
Wor^s, Vol. XIII, pp. 346-53; Opera, Vol. II, pp. 792-815; Worlds, Vol. Ill, pp. 479-
520). Delightfully, the Saint adds (after a number of theological considerations on
baptism), LXXXIX, 6 (Opera, Vol. II, p. 312; Works, Vol. VI, p. 379): "And yet,
though such a luminous truth [A pretty name that the Saint has found for his own
patter.] strikes the ears and hearts of men, such a whirlpool of evil habit has en-
gulfed them that they prefer to resist all reasons and authorities rather than defer
to them. They two ways, now raving in their fury, now sulking in in-
resist in
action (saeviendo aut pigresccndo)" That too is perfectly clear! And then we are
given to understand that the Catholics were on the defensive! It takes courage to
pretend that a man who is "sulking in inaction" (pigrescendo) is attacking
someone!
5
1575 Commentaire philosophique
, Pt. Ill, Preface: "So let us glance at the two
Tetters' of this Father Augustine] which the Archbishop of Paris has had
[St.
printed in a special pamphlet in a new French translation. The pamphlet is . . .
entitled as a whole: 'Consistency of the Conduct of the Church of France in

Bring-
ing back the Protestants with the Conduct of the African Church in Bringing
back the Donatists to the Catholic Church/ " Combes might have published a
pamphlet supplementing these two "consistencies" with still a third: the con-
sistency with St. Augustine's doctrine of the measures of the French anti-Clericals
in bringing back Catholics into the fold of the Radical-Socialist church. Admirers
of St. Augustine must not forget the proverb that one reaps as one has sown.
Blood-thirsty as his successors may have been, the Saint was much more mild. He
urges Donatus, the proconsul in Africa, to repress the Donatists but not to kill
them (Epistolae, C, Donato proconsuli Ajricae, ut Donatistas coerceat, non ocridat)
(Opera, Vol. II, Wor^s, Vol. XIII, p. 26). He, as he elsewhere shows, is
p. 366;
satisfied if they kill themselves, to escape the persecution that he is aiding and
abetting: Epistolae, CLXXXV, 3, 14 (Opera, Vol. II, pp. 798-99; Worlds, Vol. Ill,
1576 DUCHESNE AND SAINT AUGUSTINE IO2I
chesne to make known his views on

instead of resorting to all that,
the lean pretext of an "infraction of the law" in order to evade the

issue.
is also silent on the
1576. Monsignor Duchesne cupidity of the
Catholics for the property of the Donatists. St.
Augustine records
the fact and gives what one must judge an exceedingly feeble excuse
1
for it. He points out that Donatists who returned to the fold got
pp. 490-91) "If however they choose to kill themselves to prevent the deliverance
:
[from error] of those who have a right to be delivered ." [Pareto renders: "to . .
prevent us from persecuting the others.'* A. L.] And he concludes, "What there-
fore shall be the stand (quid agit) of brotherly love as between fearing the tem-
porary fires of the stake for the few or sending all into the eternal fires of Hell?"
("Quid agit ergo f rater na dilcctio: utrum dum pattcis transitorios igncs metuit
caminorum, dimittit omnes aetcrnis ignibus gehennarum.") Those few words
state the whole program of the Inquisition. Cf. Contra Gattdentium, I, 24 f. (Opera,
Vol, IX, pp. 707 f.).
1576 Êpistolae, CLXXXV, 9, 35-36 (Opera, Vol. II, pp. 808-09; Worlds, Vol.
Ill, p. 508) "They reproach us with being greedy for their property and confis-
:
cating it. ... But the Christian Emperors have commanded by their religious
laws thatall property held in the name of churches of the Donatist sect should go
over to the Catholic Church with the churches themselves." So in our day in
France the property of the religious congregations "went over" to the govern-
ment and also it seems, in great part, to the liquidators, and to the politicians who
were their accomplices. Another passage in St. Augustine contains an indirect ad-
mission of such spoliations (Ibid.,loc. cit., 9, 41; Opera, pp. 810-11; Worlds, pp.
511-12), with a biblical paraphrase from the Wisdom of Solomon, 5: i. On the

Day of Judgment, he says, "the pagan shall not stand in boldness before the face
of the Christian, who made no account of his labours in destroying his temples
and robbing him of his idols. But the Christian shall stand in great boldness before
the face of the pagan who made no account of his labours in scattering the bones
of the martyrs. [What an effective metaphor for getting into another person's
pocket!] So the heretic will stand in boldness before the face of the Christian
who made no account of his labours when the laws of the Catholic Emperors pre-
vailed. But the Catholic will stand in great boldness before the face of the heretic
who made no account of his labours when the madness of the impious Circumcel-
lians prevailed." Gaudentius, the bishop of the Donatists, says of the Catholics
according to St. Augustine, Contra Gaudentium, I, 36, 46 (Opera, Vol. IX, p. 754):
"But those who are wrongfully withholding the property of others do not know
this." The
Saint, replying, does not dispute the fact of the possession, but merely
insists that the Donatists arc not "the righteous" (justf) to Scripture alludes: whom
"It is a question," he says, "of righteousness (justitia), not of money." And that
may well be, but meantime the Catholics were pocketing the cash, and the Dona-
tists, seems, should have been satisfied, for it is written: "The righteous shall
it
spoil the ungodly" [Wisdom of Solomon, 10:20: 'Laborcs impiorum justi cdent'\\
and because the Catholics were inspired not by any design of greed but by zeal in
repressing error: //; talibus quippe omnibus jactis non rapina concupiscitur sed
error evertititr. And, besides, the Catholics seized the properties of the heretics
with every intention of restoring them the moment the heretics were converted.
577
their properties back, and pretends not to understand what the quar-
rel is about when he objects that greed for the possessions of the
Donatists is inconsistent with a desire to convert them; for the
charge was brought not as to properties of Donatists who recanted

but as to properties of non-recanters. To justify the persecution St.
Augustine uses metaphors that are far-fetched to a degree: "Was I

called upon," he cries to the Donatists, "to
oppose this measure, just
to save you properties that you say are
yours and enable you to
proscribe Christ in all
security? Just to enable you to make your
testaments according to Roman law while with your slanderous in-
sults
you were tearing to shreds the Testament bequeathed to your
fathers and founded on divine law? [Note the play on the double
sense of "Testament" and the offer of the pun as an argument.] . . .
Just to enable you freely to buy and sell while daring to divide what
2
the sold Christ had bought?" And so the Saint
goes on piling up
antitheses that are based on double
meanings of words and other
cavillings. These wretched and inept arguments have been admired
by many people; and that, as we have so often said and repeated in
3
similar cases, shows the great
power that sentiments have. At bot-
tom St.
Augustine's argument comes down to this: "You hold a
belief that we consider erroneous; therefore we are justified in doing
anything to bring you over from your belief, which we think bad,
to our belief, which we think
good. And you have no cause for
complaint, since you can escape your plight by adopting our view."
But in that form the argument has far less persuasive force than the
form used by St. Augustine, where "truth" and "error," "good" and
"bad," are palmed of? not as subjective but as objective entities.
1577. Of
course a person
sharing St. Augustine's faith cannot
grant that the terms in question are subjective. But if he will have
them objective at all costs, he might still admit, without derogating
2
1576 Epistolae, XCIII, 5, 19 (Opera, Vol. II, p. 331; Worlds, Vol. VI, p. 411):
"Ita sane huic provision! contradicere debut ne res
quas dicitis vcstras perderetis et
sccuri Christum proscriberetis? ut iure Romano testamenta condcrctis et iure divino
patnbus conditum Testamentum ubi scripttim cst: 'In semine tuo bencdicentnr
omnes gentes' [Gen. 26:4] calttmniosis criminationibus rtimperetis? ut in
emptioni-
bus et vcnditionibus liberos contractus haberctis ct vobis dividere Christies emit
quod
venditus auderetis?"
8
1576 [Parcto says, "and that shows the fatuousness of derivations" apparently a
lapsus linguae. A. L.]
1578 DERIVATIONS IV-yl VERBAL PROOFS IO23
one whit from his faith, that their objectivity is something different
from the objectivity of a chemical or physical experiment. That ad-
mission would be enough to eliminate all conflict with experimental
science, which concerns itself strictly with facts of this latter type.
1578. At other times the confusion between the many kinds of
truth arises without any preconceived design on a writer's part to
take advantage of it merely as a reflection of a similar confusion
prevailing in his own mind. He is seeing the facts through a col-

oured glass and describing them as he sees them. He tells us what
the good is, as he sees things, and goes to no pains to investigate
the relations of that good to experimental
reality. When Renan
speaks of the "ineffable truth" of the sayings of Jesus in the Gospel
1
according to Matthew, he is evidently attaching to the term "truth"
an entirely different meaning from the one he would give it in
speaking of a chemical or physical experiment. But no one knows
to just objective reality the word as he uses it corresponds.
what
The chances are that it merely corresponds to certain sentiments he
feels. It is, at
apparent enough from his writings that in his
any rate,
case "historical truth" is one thing and "scientific truth" quite an-
other. He cit., p. xlvii, that two accounts of the same
observes, loc.
episode given by two eyewitnesses are essentially different, and asks:

"Must we on that account give up all the colouring in the two
stories and keep to the bare statement of the facts as a whole ? That
2
would be suppressing history!" No, it would merely be suppressing
historical romance. If a person refuses all
history because he cannot
have complete in every detail, he is
it
refusing to take the less be-
cause he cannot have the more. But, vice versa, a person accepting
the less that is certain by no means contracts thereby an obligation
*
1578 Vie de Jesus, Preface, p. xxx.
2
1578 The whole
passage reads: "In almost all ancient histories, even histories
far less legendary than the Gospels, matters of detail are subject to endless doubt.
Whenever we have two accounts of one same episode, they rarely agree. Is that not
good ground for very grave doubts when we have only one? The chances are that
of the anecdotes, speeches, witticisms, handed down by the historians not one is
strictly genuine. Were there stenographers present to record such fleeting words?
Was a historian always on hand to note the gestures, the facial expressions, the
sentiments, of the people in question? One need only try to get at the truth as to
just how some episode or other has taken place in our day. One will not succeed.
The accounts two eyewitnesses give of one same event present essential differences,
Must we on that account, etc.t . - -"
IO24 THE MIND AND SOCIETY 1578
to accept themore which is uncertain or even manifestly contrary to
the fact. Of no event in the past can we have a complete descrip-
tion; but we must at least try to determine what we do know about
it and what we are
obliged to discard. There are, moreover, different
planes of probability. It is almost certain that the battle of the Ticinus
took place. very doubtful whether, before that battle, Cornelius
It is
Scipio delivered the oration which Polybius ascribes to him ( 1569).

It is
virtually certain, at any rate, that there were some differences
between the words uttered by Scipio and those reported by Polybius.
It is
virtually certain not to say
certain outright, in the ordinary
sense of the term that a man named Julius Caesar once lived. It is
very very doubtful that Romulus was a person equally real. We

cannot therefore put things so different into the same class. Such
ambiguities are useful from the standpoint of derivations. From the
logico-experimental standpoint they cannot be tolerated. Give any
name one chooses to the accord between a story and fact: call it
"historical truth," call by some other name that is a matter of
it
little
importance. But unless one would chatter to no purpose, the
name, whatever it be, must be different from the name one uses for
the miracles of the various religions, the legends of folk-lore, proph-
ecies and portents, and stories of the type of Aladdin's marvellous
lamp. Some of these stories may have, if one will, a "higher" truth
than experimental truth that is not the question. What is impor-
tant is that that truth, however superior it may be, should have a
name to distinguish it from our modest, inferior, commonplace, "ex-
8
perimental truth."
8
1578 There are many other "truths," and very pretty ones. Writing of Tolstoy
in the Corriere della sera, Nov. 21, 1910, Antonio Fogazzaro, the novelist, says:
"He created truth and never seemed to care about creating beauty. He seemed
almost to disdain Art as something inferior, as something human and not divine.
But of the whole Truth he was the voice, as it were, and the flame, not only of
the truth that the artist pantingly pursues, but also of that moral truth which glows
resplendent in the soul that it has permeated. The True and the Good were one
with Tolstoy. Not everything, to be sure, that seemed Good and True to him
seems Good and True to me, or to numberless others who feel the passion of the
Good and the True." Fogazzaro prints the word "true" sometimes with a capital,
sometimes with a small letter. Whether there be a difference, and just what, in the
two cases is not very clear. Dame Truth has a voice and a flame. That seems to be
very consoling to Fogazzaro. To us it is merely obscure. There is a certain "moral
truth which glows resplendent in the soul that it has permeated." That is under-
1579 PROPHECY AND FULFILMENT 1025
*
1579. The Abbe de
Broglie exemplifies very fairly a subjective
conception of prophecies. Abraham Kuenen had shown that cer-
tain prophecies in the Bible do not accord with the facts. Father de
Broglie replies: "Kuenen starts out with a false conception of
prophecy. He assumes that the prophetic texts have only one mean-
ing, that the meaning has to be clear, that it has to be the meaning
which the prophets and their contemporaries gave to it. He does not
recognize any fulfilment unless events conform to the meaning so
established." Such, in fact, is the
meaning used in the objective
reasonings of historical criticism and of logico-experimental science
2
in general. The Abbe de Broglie meets Kuenen with subjective con-
siderations that may perfectly well be accepted so long as they are
kept distinct from those of the logico-experimental type. Such a dis-
tinction is essential unless we are to talk to no purpose. Says he:
"The true conception of prophecy is quite different." And as usual
the term "true" leads to an argument in a circle. That would not
be the case instead of saying the "true conception," the Abbe had
if,
said "my conception" or "the Catholic conception," or the equiva-

lent. But he does not do that because his derivation needs the word
"true" in order to arouse certain sentiments. The Abbe continues:

"It is a word God
addressed to future generations and not to be
of
understood until after the event. It is an enigma the key to which
standable. Everybody finds resplendent a truth with which he has been "per-
meated." The trouble is, not everyone is permeated. And what does it mean to
"create truth"? Truth ordinarily is discovered, asserted, proclaimed. Fairy-stories
and old wives' tales are "created" and very easily. It might be objected that such
criticisms miss the point in Fogazzaro's article in that they approach from a
logico-experimental point of view a paragraph designed exclusively to act upon
sentiment. And that would be true. Our criticisms aim at nothing else than at dem-
onstrating the sentimental value of the passage. Writings of that kind are ridicu-
lous from the logico-experimental standpoint. They may be very effective as ap-
peals to sentiment. In that appeal the value of derivations resides.

*
1579 Les prophctcs
et la prophetic, p. 194.
2
1579 Gousset, Thcologie dogmatique, Vol. I, pp. 312-13, begins: "But for a
prophecy to stand the test it must in the first place have indicated the event pre-
dicted in a definite and exact manner so that the application of the prophecy is not
a matter of arbitrary choice." Excellent!That is the logico-experimental manner of
reasoning. But, alas, Gousset at once withdraws the concession he has made: "All
the same, prophecy does not have to be absolutely clear. It need simply be clear
enough to have attracted the attention of men and be understood when it has been
fulfilled."
3
is to be supplied by the event." Thinking in objective terms, one
has to admit that along that line pagan prophecies were as good as
the Christian. The riddle of the "wooden wall" that was to save the
Athenians was even clearer than many biblical prophecies, and in
our day trance quacks and fortune-tellers also favour us with
"prophecies that come true," being understood only by people who

are minded to understand them and not after the predicted
till
event has taken place. The Italian "dream-book" infallibly foretells

the numbers that are to be drawn at a lottery. But, unfortunately,
not till after the
drawing do we understand, in general, what num-
bers should have been played a defect that proves most costly to
our poor gamblers. A certain Guynaud went to the pains of writing
a book to show that all the prophecies of Nostradamus had been
fulfilled; and his arguments are neither better nor worse than other
4
disquisitions of the kind (62if.). But as everybody
knows and
1579 Guillaume de Jumiege, Histoire des Normands, p. 313. A mysterious in-
3
dividual asked whether Count Rollon's line is to endure very long: "lie refused
is
to make any answer and began merely to draw something like lines in the ashes
on the hearth with a little stick which he held in his hand. His host then insisting
very obstinately on getting him to say what was to happen after the seventh gen-
eration, he began with the same wooden stick to erase the lines he had drawn in
the ashes. Whence it was inferred that after the seventh generation the duchy
would be destroyed, or at least would have to undergo great trials and tribulations,
the which in fact we have seen to be fulfilled in large part, those of us who have
survived King Henry, who was, as we can show, the seventh in descent in that
line." Paulin Paris, Les romans de la Table ronde, Vol. II, pp. 56-57 (The magician
"
Merlin declares) Henceforward I shall not speak before the people or at court
:
save in obscure words, nor will they know what I mean until they see it come
"
to pass.' Merlin, says Paris, "kept his word to the letter, and all soothsayers before
and after him have followed that same policy." That, in fact, was an excellent
precaution on Merlin's part, and it may be recommended in full confidence to all
our estimable prophets and fortune-tellers.
4 La
1579 concordance des propheties de Nostradamus avec I'histoire, pp. ii5f.
One "verification" chosen at random, Centurie III, Quatrin 91:
"L'arbre qu'avoit par long temps mort seiche
dans une nuit vicndra a revcrdir:
chron. Roi malade: Prince pied attache:
tf
craint d'ennemis fera voiles bondir.
("The had long since dried up and died will leaf out again in the course
tree that
of a night. Chron.: King sick; Prince tied at the foot; fear of foes will set sails
a-bounding.") "Explanation: Historians are quite in agreement as to the veracity
of the matter of this prophecy, but not as to the day or the month of its ful-
filment. Favyn reports [Histoire de Navarre, p. 868] that the day after St.
. . .
1579 DERIVATIONS IV-y: VERBAL PROOFS 1027
as theproverb says, hindsight is better than foresight del senno di
poi son piene Ic fosse! Even when the divergence between the
prophecy and the fact is altogether patent, the Abbe de Broglie
makes one more attempt at reconciliation and ends by saying that
Bartholomew, Aug. 25, 1572, an old tree known as 'the Hawthorne* which had
long since dried up and died was found to be entirely green the morning after
the night of Sunday-Monday. . .That proves today the truth of the first two
.
verses. . However, Jean le Gaulois claims that that did not take place till Sep-
. .
tember of that same year, 1572. ... But whether the miracle occurred the day
after St. Bartholomew or a week or more later is of no importance today. It is
enough for us that Nostradamus had predicted it. [As for the two following lines:]
There arc also signs of the veracity of the predictions of Nostradamus, inasmuch as
Charles IX, some time after the occurrence of the miracle in question, fell sick . . .
of a chronic ailment, a sort of quartan fever. As for 'the Prince tied at the foot/
that meant that M. the Due d'Anjou would, as he actually did and also about that
same time, tie himself to the foot of the walls of La Rochelle. The last verse . . .
meant that in fear of the enemies of France the King would fit out a great naval
force." See also Nicoullaud,Nostradamus ct ses prophcties.
In his Bickerstaff Papers Swift delightfully satirizes such mongers of prophecy.
He pretends in person of Bickerstaff to make a number of prophecies, one among
others foretelling the death on a certain day of Partridge, the almanac writer, and
the Cardinal de Noailles. He assumes that the fulfilment of the prophecy has been
disputed and replies: "With my utmost endeavours I have not been able to trace
above two objections ever made against the truth of my last year's prophecies. The
firstwas of a Frenchman, who was pleased to publish to the world 'that the Cardi-
nal de Noailles was still alive notwithstanding the pretended prophecy of Monsieur
BiquerstafTe.' But how far a Frenchman, a Papist, and an enemy, is to be believed

in his own who is true to the government, I
cause against an English Protestant
shall leave to the candid and impartial reader. [Arguments of the type are still
being put forward in our day in all seriousness.] The other objection relates . . .
to an article in my predictions which foretold the death of Mr. Partridge, to happen

on March 29, 1708. This he is pleased to contradict absolutely in the almanack he
has published for the present year. Without entering into criticisms of chro-
. . .
nology about the hour of his death, I shall only prove that Mr. Partridge is not alive.'*
Arguments follow parodying the arguments used on such occasions, among others
this one: "Secondly, Death is defined by all philosophers a separation of the soul
and body. Now it is certain that the poor woman who has best reason to know, has
gone about for some time to every alley in the neighbourhood and sworn to the
gossips that her husband had neither life nor soul in him. Therefore, if an unin-
formed carcass walks still about and is pleased to call itself Partridge, Mr. Bicker-
staff does not think himself any way answerable for that." As to the precise mo-
ment of Partridge's death: "Several of my friends assured me I computed to
. . .
something under half an hour; which (I speak my private opinion) is an error of

no very great magnitude that men should raise a clamour about it." Virtually what
Guynaud says of the dead tree.
Apollo's oracle "Aio te, Acacida, Romanes vinccrc posse" ("I say, O son of
Aeachus, that you the Romans can defeat") also was not understood till after the
fact. Pyrrhus took it to mean that he was to defeat the Romans. Instead he was
if no fulfilment is to be recognized, one can still
suspend judgment
5
in the premises.
1580. The question often arises, "How should history be writ-
ten?" In the first
place the term "history" is ambiguous. It may
designate two very different kinds of composition according to the
purpose one has in view. i. The purpose may be purely scientific:

to describe facts and the relations between them. Suppose, to avoid
misunderstandings, we call that "scientific history." 2. Then there
may be no end of other purposes the purpose of amusing, which is :
envisaged in the "historical novel"; or the didactic purpose of por-

traying the past in such vivid colours that it will impress itself upon
the mind, with a sacrifice if necessary of accuracy to colour. That
isthe object in histories that more or less closely ape the historical
novel. Or there may be a purpose of social or some other sort of
utility,
where the idea is to arouse, provoke, foment certain senti-
defeated by them all because of die ambiguity of the infinitive construction in

Latin! But oh, those annoying sceptics who fail to grasp the nature of "true"
prophecies! They make the point that the Pythia never spoke Latin in her oracles.
Says Cicero, De divinationc, II, 56, 116: "In the first place Apollo never spoke Latin.
In the second place the prophecy in question was never known to the Greeks. In
the third place, Apollo had ceased making versified responses in the day of Pyrrhus.
Finally, even though, as Ennius has it, the stolid line of Aeachus were always better
of brawn than of brain,
'. . . Stolidum genus Aeacidaruml

Bdlipotcntes sitnt magis qttam sapientipotentes,'
Pyrrhus would have had sense enough to know that the ambiguity in the line 'you
the Romans can defeat' promised no better for him than for the Romans."
Op. at., pp. 121-24: "Kuenen notes a fact still stranger. When the New
5
1579
Testament writers need to use an Old Testament text in a sense contrary to the
natural meaning of the terms, they are not afraid to alter it, suppressing sentences,
clauses,and words that determined the original meaning. [The Abbe mentions a
case where St. Paul certainly altered a biblical text.] This passage is extremely
strange and perplexing. St. Paul seems to declare that Moses said something that
he obviously did not one looks attentively into the matter, the
say. Nevertheless, as
difficulty lessens. .
[And very captious exegesis proves that St. Paul is, at bot-
. a .
tom, right. All the same, the good Abbe is not easy in his conscience:] In spite of
these interpolations one difficulty still remains. St. Paul's way of quoting the Old
Testament is certainly free to a degree, and it is apparent that he is giving a lesson
in dogma, not a grammatical commentary on the text. [What he is giving is not a
grammatical commentary but a false text.] Solutions for such difficulties may be
sought. However, if they seem to us inadequate, we can still fall back on a resort
that the Pope himself has suggested to us: suspense of judgment: cunctandum a
sententia. One may wonder, indeed, whether such procedure is not the wisest when
we are faced with texts like the one just mentioned."
1580 METHODS AND PURPOSES OF HISTORY IO29
ments such as patriotism,
loyalty to this or that political system,
enthusiasm for some noble and useful enterprise, the sense of hon-
esty, and so on. Such purposes are envisaged in compositions that
stand midway between scientific history and historical romance. It
is characteristic of them that
they manage to colour their facts in
1
the proper direction and, as occasion requires, suppress them. One
must however manage to diverge from experimental reality with-
out being caught telling lies; and that task is frequently made easy
by the fact that before the author deceives his readers he deceives
himself: he sees reality in the colours in which he paints it.
There is another ambiguity in the question, "How ought history
to be written?" The term "ought" may refer to the purpose itself,
or to the means that are to be used in attaining it. The question may
mean: i. Which of the purposes mentioned "ought" one, must one,
is it better to, select? 2. The
purpose decided upon, what means
"ought" one, must one, better to, use in
is it
attaining it? The first
2
of these two propositions, like all others of its tribe, is elliptical: the
in view of which history "ought" to be written in
special purpose
this or that manner is not stated. One may ask: What course had
historians better follow with a view to promoting the material,
political,
or other prosperity of a country, social class, political sys-
tem, and so on? Or: How and when is it advisable to use the dif-
ferent sorts of history ? Is it better to use just one or all of them in
different proportions, according to different social classes or the
differing social functions of individuals ? Then again, one may ask

:
In a given country, at a given time, what sort of history had better

be used in the elementary schools, the secondary schools, the uni-
versities, to secure this or that specific advantage for society as a
whole, for a part of society, for this or that political system, and so
1
Inpcrface to his Geschichte dcs deutsch-jranzosischen Krieges von
a
-
1580
/ #70-77, p. xi (English, Vol. I, p. viii), Marshal von Moltke states his own views
as to his purposes in writing: "The things that are published in a military history
always undergo a certain adaptation (wird apprctieri), according to the success

. . .
that has been achieved. But loyalty and love of country require one not to damage
the respect with which the victories of one's arms have clothed this or that individual
person." That is excellent. It makes his purpose clear: he is to describe facts, but
may be involved in his narrative. [The
taking into account the social effects that
preface in question however, by Major von Moltke, the Marshal's son, and the
is,
remark is quoted as oral. A. L.]

2
1580 Pareto, Manuals, Chap. I, 40.
on? The second question mentioned the question as to means
is of a technical character. There is a declared
purpose and to ask
what means "ought" to be used is to ask what means are best suited
8
to attaining the purpose.
The question "How to be taught?" merges for the
ought history
most part with the question as to purpose, for history is generally
written with a view to teaching as a means, that is. In any event,
the same remarks apply to it. Ordinarily the types of history that we
have distinguished are not so separated, and compositions calling
themselves history are mixtures of the various types, with copious
addenda of ethical considerations.
1581. In all the above we have been speaking from the objective
point of view. Considered from the subjective standpoint, the ques-

tions are, on the whole, well stated and there is no ambiguity; for
3
1580 Strange as it may seem, a number of different histories may be current in
one same country one same time. The history of the Risorgimento that is taught
at
in Italian schools differs in many respects from the actual history that is so well
known. In February, 1913, the German Emperor delivered an address before the
University of Berlin. In it he said: "To the Prussian people it was vouchsafed to

redeem itself from its misfortunes because of its faith. There is a tendency in people
nowadays to believe only what can be touched with the hands and seen with the
eyes. There is a disposition to lay greater and greater obstacles in the way of reli-
gion. Let me say then: soon after the reign of the Great King [Frederick II] came
the catastrophe of 1806. That was because Prussia had lost her faith and in it we
can only see the hand of God, and not the hand of men. But that disaster was the
birth of the German nation, and in that God has shown that He was protecting
Germany. Let our young men temper their steel in the fire of faith With such arms !
we can dash forward, full of confidence in the divine power." The Berliner Tage-
blatt observed in comment: "The Emperor says that Prussia lost her faith soon after
the death of Frederick II and was One cannot help
for that reason defeated in 1806.
remarking that the victorious Frederick surely not a hero

II was
in matters of the
faith; whereas Prussia was defeated under the reign of a most pious prince. Verily
it is a risky business to measure historical events on the yardstick of devoutncss."
The criticism sound from the standpoint of experimental history, but not as re-
is
gards stimulating sentiments in a country, which was the sole purpose the Emperor
had in view. From the experimental standpoint the Emperor's address is so wild
that when he speaks of "the hand of God" one can only think of Fucini's verse on
the aurora borealis: "That? That was the finger of the Omnipotent!" [Poesie,
. . .
30, p. 64.] But what weight will experimental truth have in the balance on the day
when the German warriors go marching forth to death? When, furthermore, some
people think they are using experimental truth, they are really doing nothing more
than exploiting another religion; and religion for religion, the religion of the Ger-
man Emperor seems better under the circumstances than many others in that it
fortified, instead of depressing, the sentiments required by men who were destined
to die on a field of battle. Consider, now, the devotees of the "Dreyfusard" religion
1582 DERIVATIONS IV-/! VERBAL PROOFS 103!
they mean, at bottom: "Just which of your sentiments accord with

the sentiments aroused in your mind by the terms, 'writing' or
'teaching,' 'history'?"
problem when so stated has but one solution,
1582. Since the
many people imagine that it also has but one solution when con-
sidered from the objective standpoint; and if they chance indeed to
be in some doubt, they are not likely to discover the various objec-
tive solutions. A writer who is
producing a more or less adulterated
history rarely, in fact almost never, is in the slightest degree aware of

the alterations of fact that he is making. He is stating the facts exactly
as he sees them, without taking any pains to determine whether he
is
seeing them as they actually are. He would be surprised if he were
to be asked: "Tell us, at least, whether you are writing scientific
history, or history with an element of romance, or history with a

in France, who profess to be, but are not, devotees of experimental science. Mil-
lerand was beyond question the best Minister of War that France had had for many
many years. He did everything in his power to lay the foundations for victory, just
as Andre had been laying the foundations for defeat. But Millcrand committed
sacrilege against the Drcyfusard holy of holies by making Du Paty de Clam an

officer in the reserves. From
the experimental standpoint the effect of that appoint-
ment on preparedness for war was absolutely nil; but from the standpoint of the
religion of the "intellectuals" it was a very serious crime, and to expiate it Millerand
had to resign his post. To generalize, accordingly: A Minister of War in France
ought to realize thatwhether or no he concerns himself with the defence of his
country is a matter of little importance to anyone and in fact Andre continued as
Minister of War for a long time but as to the sublime dogmas of the holy Drey-
fusard, the holy humanitarian, religion, hands off! After all, the official history of
the French "intellectuals" comes no closer to actual history than the history of the
German Emperor! Of the Du Paty de Clam incident and the debate that ensued in
the French Chamber, Liberte writes, Feb. 2, 1913: "How we are getting ready! An-
other day wasted! . . . We
challenge anybody to find a good excuse for the debate
that so excited the Chamber yesterday. It was a matter of determining whether a
certain officer of the Territorial Army was to be left in charge of some little railway
station in the suburbs in the event of war. The
question engaged the whole atten-
tion of our six hundred representatives, while matters of gravest concern to our
national defence were left in abeyance. The German Government is rushing its
organization of a new and formidable army. France sits engrossed with the insig-
nificant case of M. Du Paty de Clam! The situation, nevertheless, is very simple.
M. Millerand stated it from the rostrum with absolute frankness. The order he is-
sued was a matter of routine already arranged for by his predecessor. He felt him-
self in duty boundkeep a promise made by the latter. That is the whole story."
to
So from the experimental point of view the official history of the French "intellec-
tuals" stands on a par with the history of the German Emperor. It differs from it
only in that it is an impediment to national defence, while the Kaiser's is a spur

to it.
purpose polemical or otherwise." And he would probably reply: "I

am writing history, and that is the end of it." As we have often
noted, when
a person is thinking scientifically he distinguishes, he
separates, things
that persons unaccustomed to such thinking con-
fuse, at least to some extent.

1583. Even
the person seeking the method of teaching history
best calculated to achieve the greatest possible social benefits must
believe, or pretend to believe, that there is but one solution. No

more than an actor in a play can he interrupt his performance to
inform his audience that what he is telling them is a fraud. He, like
the actor, must lose himself in his part and sincerely feel everything
1
that he is saying.
1584. The expression, the "highest good," or even the plain "good,"
has numberless meanings, and every philosopher defines it as he
1
best pleases. What such definitions have in common is a nucleus
of certain agreeable sentiments, which are left over after disagree-
able sentiments, or sentiments so regarded, have been thrust aside.
At one extreme we get the plain sensual pleasure of the moment.
Next some consideration of future pleasure or pain creeps in. Then
comes the influence that people surrounding a man have upon him.
Then the individual himself contrasts sensual pleasures and the
pleasures or pains deriving from certain residues, especially those of
Classes II and IV (group-persistences, sociality). Such things be-
come predominant, and matters of sense incidental. Then sensual
pleasures disappear entirely or almost so, and we finally get to an-
other extreme where all pleasure is located in an annihilation of the
senses, in a future life, in something, in a word, that transcends the
experimental domain.
1585. So far we have been looking at the individual from the out-
*
1583 Along that line we enter a practical field quite different from the one in
which we are interested here.
*
1584 Cicero, Academica, II, what one's
43, 132, notes the importance of defining
"highest good" is to be, "because one's bound up with the
whole scheme of life is
definition one gives of the highest good: those who dissent from it, dissent from
one's scheme of life." Now indeed we are in for it, if we have to discover what the
"scheme of life" is! It was a good two thousand years ago that Cicero was voicing
such doubts, and they have not yet been dispelled. Will they be in another two
thousand years? Meantime people have got to live, and live they do without bother-
ing their heads too much over the "highest good," which remains a pretty play-
thing for the metaphysicists.
1587 THE PROBLEM OF THE "HIGHEST GOOD" 1033
side. He himself, in his own mind,
almost never sees things in just
that way. generally the case with sentiments, where
First of all, as is
we go looking for sharply defined theories the individual actually

has nothing but a blur of undefined or no more than verbally de-
fined sentiments. And that is the case not only with the plain man,
but with educated, nay, with very scholarly persons as well. So it
comes about that the commentators go racking their brains with
might and main to discover the idea a writer had in mind, and
1
almost never succeed in finding it; nor is that surprising, nor
should the failure be ascribed to any deficiency on their part: They
are simply hunting for something that does not exist (541-1,
578). Then again, as we have so many times remarked, when a
person sets out to give an exact and logical form to the sentiments
that he is
experiencing, he is
prone to assign an absolute value to
what is
merely relative, to represent as objective what is strictly sub-
jective.
So when a person is catering to one of the numberless groups
of sentiments mentioned, he will not express his state of mind by
simply describing how he feels; he will represent his feeling as
something absolute and objective. He will never say: "For me, to my
"
mind, this or that seems to be the 'highest good.' He will say a
quite different matter, "This is the highest good," and then produce
a flock of derivations to prove it.
1586. The
derivation will be partly justified by the fact that in
addition to the subjective phenomenon just noted, there are objective
phenomena that also have to be considered. certain group of A

sentiments, A, being active in an individual, the following problems
arise: At a
given moment and in a connexion, what effect
given
will the presence of A
have upon the individual? Likewise, what
will be the effect upon other given individuals, upon a given com-
munity? These problems constitute, at bottom, the theory of the
social equilibrium, and they are
exceedingly hard to solve. We must
try therefore to simplify them, since that is about all we can do, at
a greater or lesser sacrifice of exactitude.
1587. We can get a first
simplification by eliminating the specific
*
1585 Generally speaking, interpreters of the thought of this or that philosopher
might repeat what, according to Cicero, Academica, II, 45, 139, Clitomachus said
of Carneades that he "had never been able to make out what Carneades really
thought" (quid Carneadi probarctur).

individuations of individual, community, time by considering, in
other words, certain average and general phenomena; but to avoid
serious pitfalls we must, after that, not forget that on that basis our
conclusions also will be average and general. One may, for instance,
say: "The present pleasuremay be compensated by the future pain,"

and that will be an elliptical way of saying that "For many men, in
general, there a compensation between present pleasure and
is
future pain." One may say: "To many people, in general, the
momentary pleasure may bring serious pain through loss of the
esteem and consideration (in general) of the other individuals in
the community." But it would be a mistake to draw any particular
conclusion from that general proposition to say, for instance: "For
John Doe the present pleasure may bring serious pain through loss
of the esteem and consideration of Messrs. M, N,P. ." In.
point of
.
fact it may well be the case that John Doe cares not a fig for such
esteem and consideration in general, or for the esteem and consid-
eration of Messrs. M, N, P in particular.
1588. Effects upon communities are often more or less
vaguely
designated by such terms as the "prosperity" economic, military,
political, and so on, of a nation; or the "welfare" from the stand-
point of finances, dignity, public esteem, and so on of a family, or

some other restricted social group. When we cannot have the more,
we must perforce content ourselves with the less; and the solution
of such problems, though not altogether exact, may nevertheless
lead to sociological theories that, in general and on the whole, are
not too greatly at variance with the facts. For the time being, we
must consider ourselves fortunate if we can roughly solve them, at
least in
part. At some future time, as science gradually progresses,
we can try to state and solve them more exactly.
1589.But with people who do not stick to the methods of experi-
mental science, such problems are not stated even in the relatively
inexactmanner just noted, but in altogether indefinite terms. People
ask what the individual "ought" to do, without drawing the very
elementary distinctions between his direct "good," his indirect
"good," his "good" as a member

community, and the "good"
of a
of the community. They may, perhaps, as an extreme concession,
specify the "good of the individual," or the "good of the country"

to which he belongs and what luck if
they do not go on to the
1593 DERIVATIONS IV-yl VERBAL PROOFS 1035
"good of humanity." But forthwith, in that outlook, the residues of

sociality press to
the fore, and instead of trying to solve the prob-
lem as now stated, they deliver themselves of a sermon showing
that the individual ought to sacrifice his own "welfare" to that of
humanity.
1590. All that comes out in the
derivations, whereby, starting with
sentiments present in the individual, with certain residues, that is,
one ends by showing that he "ought" to act in a manner considered
good by the author of the derivation it never diverges very widely
from the manner accepted by the society in which the author lives.
Ordinarily the point of departure and the point of arrival are
known in advance. The derivation follows some path, any path, that
will bring the two points together.
1591. The
derivation that exploits the phrase "highest good," or
just plain "good," puts

the whole story into that phrase or word the
groups of sentiments from which the start is made and all that is
possible of the results that it is purposed to achieve. One of the
derivations most frequently used, in fact, starts with the sentiments
of egoism to arrive at altruistic conduct as its goal.
1592. Something similar has happened in the case of political
economy. Literary economists, unable to get hold of any definite

concept of the economic equilibrium, put into the term "value"
everything they could cram into it as regards both factual data and
the objectives they desired to attain. So the term "value" became,
though in lesser proportions, a quid simile of the term "highest

good."
1593. Philosophers, ancient and modern, to say nothing of the
theologians, have stopped at no pains to discover what that blessed
"highest good'* might be; and since it is a subjective thing, in great
part at least, each of them has readily found what he pleased. The
extreme where the momentary sensual pleasure is exclusively con-
templated an extreme achieved not even by a dog, for he too has
his dog's way of considering future pains and pleasures has no
defenders, or at least none to speak of. One may even doubt whether
might be quoted
the adages that in favour of it are to be taken as
1
more than mere jests.
1
1593 The Gree^ Anthology, VII, 325 (Paton, Vol. II, pp. 174-75), has an epi-
gram to which Cicero alludes in Disputationes Tusculanae, V, 35, 101, and which
1036 THE MIND AND SOCIETY ^594
1594. The first addendum to the sentiment of momentary sensual
pleasure may be a consideration of the consequences, themselves

sensual, of such pleasure. To tell the truth, no human being could
seem to be so stupid as to overlook them entirely. A person capable
of that would be the person sort of who would knowingly drink a
poison just because it tasted
good. The question, therefore, is
merely
how far such consequences are to be considered.
1595. Among the Cyrenians, who preached the pleasure of the
moment as the "highest
good," consideration of consequences was
not carried very was nevertheless emphatic. To judge by
far, but it
the little we know of him, Aristippus would have a man remain at

all times master in his mind of the sentiments of momentary sensual
1
pleasure to which he yields. That is the purport of his famous
witticism as to the courtesan, Lais, "I am possessed of her, not by
2
her." Other refinements are now in order, always with a view to
was humorously suggested as a fitting epitaph for the tomb of Sardanapalus (licen-
tious king of Assyria): "What I ate and drank and enjoyed in gay lust, that do I
possess. All else of other good things have I lost." Cicero comments, quoting
many
Aristotle: "What
would you suggest for the tomb of an ox, let alone a king!"
else
Extant also is a rejoinder by Crates of Thebes, loc. cit., 326: "What I learned and
thought and enjoyed in the companionship of the Venerable Muses, that do I pos-
sess. All else of many other good things has vanished in smoke." In a dispute with
Archytas, Polyarchus remarks, Athenaeus, Deipnosophistac, XII, 64, 545, that to his
mind the doctrine of Archytas strays far indeed from Nature: "For Nature, so far
as she can make herself known to us, enjoins us to pursue pleasure, and that, she
says, is the part of the wise man."

*
1595 In view of the conflicting accounts we have of the incident, it is hard to
know what view Aristippus held. Certainly ancient writers took it for granted
just
that there was a philosophical system placing the highest good in the moment's
pleasure. Whether the theory is to be ascribed to Aristippus or to someone else is

of no significance for our purposes here. Aelian, De varia historia, XIV, 6, declares
in the clearest possible terms that Aristippus advised consideration only of the pres-
ent and disregard of past and future. The kind of present in question is indicated
in Athenaeus, Deipnosophistae, XII, 63, where Aristippus is said to have "approved
of the life of lust, holding it to be the purpose of living and the thing wherein
beatitude lay"; with the further comment that Aristippus recognized only the pleas-
ure of the moment. Diogenes Laertius, Aristippus, II, 87-88 (Hicks, Vol. I, p. 217),
says that according to the Cyrenians "the purpose [of living] was the particular
pleasure, and happiness the sum of particular pleasures." And he adds that accord-
ing to Hippobotus, "pleasure was a blessing even if derived from degrading things."
Aristippus asserts, loc. cit., 93 (Hicks, p. 221), that "nothing is by nature just,
honourable, or degrading, but is so by law and custom."
2
1595 Athenaeus, loc. cit.: "E^w K.OL OVK ô//a^. Diogenes Laertius, loc. cit., 75
(Hicks, p. 203) "Eû Aaida d/U' OVK txopai. Menage cavils and proposes taking *EX IV
:
in the sense of vmav "to overcome": "What, therefore, Aristippus says is that over-
1*
1596 CICERO ON THE "HIGHEST GOOD 1037

ulterior pleasures beyond those of the moment. So it was said of
Aristippus in his day that he advised against doing anything con-

trary to the laws because of the penalties involved and, some writers
3
add, because of one's reputation but that takes us into another
field.
Going on
in that fashion one may, by using the
apposite
derivations, reach any point one wishes.
1596. When sensuous pleasure is represented as the
highest good
"extremum autem esse bonorum
voluptatcm"^ already at work
isone of our IV-y derivations (multiple meanings of terms), which
pretends to explain one term that is indefinite, obscure, by equating
come by his money Lais, whom we know to have been a woman of very difficult
access . . . offered herself to him, but that he was not overcome by lust, as is the
common case with the intemperate (rolf aKparefft) ." But the sense is very clear.
v
E^w in Greek means to "possess," in the double sense common to Italian, French
and English, of "to own," "to occupy," and to have carnal intercourse with a
woman, to have her as wife or mistress. The passive "Eôfiai has meanings corre-
sponding to the active, and Plato, Respublica, III, 4, 3906, uses the verb in the very
sense it has in the apothegm of Aristippus. Plato there rebukes Homer for portray-
ing Zeus in lecherous mood and "saying that he was more possessed by passion
(VTTO iiuOvfiiac) [for Juno] than he had been at any time since they first united
behind the backs of their beloved parents" (Iliad, XIV, vv. 294-96). So Aristippus
was not "possessed" in that way by his passion for Lais. Lactantius Firmianus,
Divinae institutioncs, III, 15, 15 (Opera, Vol. I, p. 223; Fletcher, Vol. I, p. 173),
quotes the remark of Aristippus, but altogether failing to understand it. [This stric-
ture seems undeserved. Lactantius understands but embroiders. A. L.] Cicero,
Epistnlae ad fawiliares, Paeto, IX, 26, 2: "Listen to the rest. Cytheris [mistress of
Mark Antony] had the place [at dinner] next beyond Eutrapelus. I can hear you
thinking: 'The great Cicero was a guest at such a dinner?' ... I never suspected,
I assure you, that she was to be there and yet, Aristippus the Socratist never batted
an eyelash when he was taunted with a passion for Lais! 'I am possessed not by her
but of her!' he said (the thing sounds better in Greek)." Diogenes Lacrtius, loc. cit.,
69 (Hicks, p. 199) "Once as he [Aristippus] was entering a courtesan's house, a
:
young man in his company evinced some shame; and he remarked: 'The shame is
"
not in going into such a place, but in being unable to go out.' Persius, Satnrae,
V, v. 173, also calls that man free who can leave a courtesan's house in full posses-
sion of himself (Ramsay: "entire and heart-whole") :
"... Si totus et integer illinc

exieras . . ."
8
1595 loc. cit., 93 (Hicks, pp. 221-23). That however is in-
Diogenes Lacrtius,
consistent with what Aristippus is said, Ibid., 68 (Hicks, p. 199), to have replied to
a question as to what philosophers were good for: "If all laws were abolished, we
would still live as we do now." However, we are not interested here in what Aris-
tippus really thought, but merely in certain derivations: whether they be his or of
someone else is of little moment.
*
1596 Cicero, De finibus bonorum et malorum, I, 12, 40.
it with another also indefinite and obscure. The "pleasure" that
figures in the formula mentioned
is not the
ordinary pleasure which
everybody knows, but another that has still to be defined. Cicero,
DC finibus bonorum ct turns the point to jest:
malorum, II, 3, 6,
"Then, said he, laughing: 'A fine idea, that the very man who says
that pleasure is the goal of all our hopes, the last, ultimate Good,
"
should not know what it is!' And he goes on to say, Ibid., II, 3, 8,
that the terms voluptas in Latin and nôvrt in Greek are perfectly
clear, and that it is not his fault if he fails to understand them as
they are used by Epicurus, but the fault of Epicurus in distorting

them from meanings. And so far, so good. But Cicero's
their ordinary
criticism is more far-reaching than he is aware of, for it applies to all
metaphysical disquisitions, Cicero's own not excepted. And not to
go farther afield, when he sets out to show, Ibid., II, 8, 23, that
pleasureis not the
highest good, he says of men who coddle all their
sensuous impulses: "I shall never admit that such roues live either
2
well or happily." In that he leads the reader astray through the
double meanings in to "well" or "happily." Those terms may
live
refer either to the sensations of the roues or to Cicero's own. He

should rather have said: "Roues consider their manner of living
good and conducive to happiness. But if I were to live my life in

that way, I should not consider it such." Cicero adds, loc. cit., 24:
"Whence it follows, not that pleasure is not pleasure, but that it is
3
not the highest good." That is true, or false,
according to the person.
For the high liver, pleasure is the highest good; for Cicero it is not
the highest good; and this last phrase all
along refers to something
4
that is not clearly enough defined.
2
"Hos ego asotos bcne quidem vivere ant beate nunquam dixerim"
1596
3
1596 "Ex quo cfficitur non ut voluptas non sit voluptas, sed ut voluptas non sit
summum bonum."
1596
4
There are five parts to Cicero's argument: i. A philological question, II,
4, 13: fj6ovf} should be rendered in Latin as voluptas: "By that term all Latins the
world over mean two things, and to wit: a feeling of joy in the spirit, and a pleas-
urable excitation of body." On that point Cicero seems to be right: f}6ovfi in Greek
and voluptas in Latin seem in fact to have just those meanings. 2. question as A
to Epicurus's manner of expressing himself, II, 5, 15. Epicurus uses the term tffiovJt
in a sense different from the meanings stated: "Whence it comes about not that
we do not sense the term in usual force (non ut nos non intdligamus quae vis
its
sit istius verbi)> but that he speaks in a manner of his own, ignoring ours (sed ut
1598 DERIVATIONS IV-yi VERBAL PROOFS 1039
1597. We
have the proposition, A B, and we want A to be
equal to C. There are two ways of going about it. Either we may
respect the first statement and alter the meaning B, so that it be-
comes equivalent to C; or we may negate the statement and re-
place it with A
=
C. This situation is general and accounts for
large
numbers of derivations.
1598. The derivation tends to in length because, along with
grow
"pleasure," it is better to take residues of group-persistence into ac-
count ("justice," "honesty," and so on) and residues of personal
integrity ("honour," "self-respect" .)
either with reference to the
. .
individual, by including those residues in the mass of sentiments

that he is said to experience, or with reference to his fellows, to his
community, by introducing into the derivation some hint as to the
ille suo more loquatur, nostrum negligat)." And there again Cicero is right, but
much too right for his own thesis. The fault of Epicurus is the fault of all meta-
physicists, Cicero not excepted; for he too suo more loquitur, nostrum negligit, if
by "our way" we mean the way of anyone who disagrees with him. 3. A question
as to the relations of sentiments aroused in certain persons by certain terms. The
sentiments suggested respectively by the terms "pleasure" and "highest good" do
not accord in the case of Cicero his own testimony is adequate proof of that. Nor
do they accord in the cases of certain other persons, as may be verified by observa-
tion. On that point too, then, Cicero is right. 4. A question as to the relations be-
tween sentiments or between things in the minds of all men. Not explicitly, but
implicitly after the manner of many many metaphysicists, Cicero leaps over from
the contingent to the absolute. For the same reason that Cicero's own testimony is
sufficient to show that the terms "pleasure" and "highest good" do not make the
same impression on him, the testimony of a person who disagrees with him has to
suffice as evidence that the two terms do make an identical impression upon that
person. And just as observation shows that many people agree with Cicero, observa-
tion also shows that many people think otherwise. Cicero therefore is in error in
ascribing a universal, absolute value to a proposition that has a particular, contin-
gent value only. 5. A
sophistical argument to eliminate dissenters, and so again to
get the contingent back to the absolute. Here too Cicero's reasoning is packed with
unstated assumptions, as is common with metaphysicists. It is intimated that there
and "highest good," things that are of common
really are things called "pleasure"
knowledge; and if some empty-headed individual chooses to deny their existence,
we need no more take account of his chatter than of the ravings of some lunatic
to whom it might occur to deny the existence of Carthage. In other words, Cicero
intimates the universality of his proposition by raising the question as to what
"people say." "People" means "everybody," and when everybody says the same
thing, the thing must be as everybody says it is as when everybody says that the
Sun gives heat. As many incidental considerations as rhetoric can furnish are then
brought in. So there Cicero is wrong, but neither more wrong nor less wrong than
any other metaphysicist.
ideals one would attain. This process also yields theories in large
1
numbers.
1599. In his De finibus bonorum
malorum, II, 3, 8, Cicero
et
takes up the view of Hieronymus of Rhodes that the highest good
was freedom from all pain. He censures Epicurus, II, 6, 18, for not
his mind; for, says he, Epicurus
making up ought either to accept
the term "pleasure" in its ordinary sense the sense of Aristippus,
Cicero calls it or else take the term in the sense of absence of pain,
or else combine the two things and two ends or purposes. II,
so get
6, 19: "And in fact

many great philosophers have made such com-
binations of the objectives of the good. Aristotle combines the
exercise of virtue with a lifetime of perfect prosperity; Calliphon,
sensuous pleasure with good repute; Diodorus [of Tyre], freedom
from pain with the same good repute, Epicurus would have achieved
the same result had he combined this opinion, here, of Hieronymus,
with the old view of Aristippus." Cicero then counts up, II, n, 35,
and finds that, with reference to the highest good, there are three
opinions which omit consideration of good repute opinions of
Aristippus (or Epicurus), Hieronymus, and Carneades (for Car-
neades the highest good lay in enjoyment of the principles of nature:
"Carneadi frui prindpiis naturalibus esset extremum")\ another
three that combine good repute with some other thing opinions of
Polemon, Calliphon, and Diodorus; and one only, an opinion
fathered by Zeno, which locates the highest good in good repute
and decorum.
1600. According to St. Augustine, Varro computed a far longer
list of possible opinions, reaching the very respectable number of
two hundred and ninety-eight; but these were reducible to twelve if
one tripled [by permutations with virtue] the four things: pleasure,
repose, pleasure combined with repose, and the "primary goods of
Nature." Varro throws out the first three of these, not from any dis-
approval of them, but as comprised under the "primary goods of

nature" (a very handsome, but a very obscure entity), and thus is
leftwith three possible opinions, to wit: the quest for the "primary
goods of nature" as a means of attaining virtue, then virtue as a
means of attaining the "primary goods of nature," finally virtue for
1598
*
We need not deal with them here in detail since our present aim is
merely
to get a better understanding of the character of such derivations.
1602 "NATURE" 1041
its own sake.
St.
Augustine has his fun with all such verbal drool and
firmly and flatly
sets
up a supreme good of his own, eternal life; and
1
a supreme evil, eternal death. And there we are at the other extreme
in such derivations.
1601. The
nucleus of sentiments corresponding to the different
meanings attached by metaphysicists and theologians to the term

"true" is chiefly made up of concepts that meet no opposition in the
minds of persons using such words. Hence the notion that the
"good" and the "true" are equivalents arises spontaneously; for they
are both groups of sentiments that encounter no opposition in the
minds of such persons. In the same way, the equivalence may be
extended to what is called the "beautiful." Was ever the man to
find a thing "good" and "true" without also
finding it "beautiful" ?
Whatever enters his own mind must also be present in the minds of
all other men, especially if he is a metaphysicist or a theologian; and
if there be someone so unfortunate as to differ with him, that person
surely can hardly be called a

man; so it straightway follows that the
universe agrees with him, and the force and lustre of his sublime
theories are enormously enhanced. In case such marvellous brains
are unable to agree the one with the other well, in days gone by
they persecuted, imprisoned and sometimes burned, each other. In

these milder times, they are satisfied with
calling each other names.
1602. Another
pretty entity sports the name of "Nature" and,
along with its and something or other called the
adjective "natural,"
"state of nature,"
plays an important part in derivations. Those
it
terms are all so vague that oftentimes not even the person who uses
them knows just what meaning he is trying to convey. 1 In his daily
life the human being encounters many things that are inimical to
De civitatc Dei, XIX, I, 4f.: "Si ergo quaeratur a nobis quid civitas Dei
1600 l
de his singulis intcrrogata respondent ac primum de finibtis bonorum malorumque

quid sentiat, rcspondebit actcrnam vitam esse summum bonum, acternam vero
mortem sum mum
malum." In the Sum ma thcologiac, II a II ae
qu. 27, art. 6 (Opera,,
Vol. VIII, p. 229), St. Thomas says: ". for the supreme good of man lies in the
. .
cleaving of the soul unto God (in hoc quod anima Deo inhaercat)"
x
1602 In the Retractationes,
I, 10, 3 (Opera, Vol. I, p. 600), St. Augustine cau-
tions that hisdictum about there being no natural evil "nullum esse malum natu-
rale" might be misunderstood by the Pelagians. He used the term "natural" as
referring to that nature which was created without sin the nature that is "truly
and properly'* the nature of man: "ipsa enim vere ac proprie natura hominis did-
tur." By analogy, says he, we also use the term as designating man's nature at birth.
him, either doing him harm or causing mere annoyance through
certain circumstances which he considers artificial. Such the
depre-
dations of highwaymen, the wiles of thieves, the tyrannical acts of
the rich and powerful, and so on. If all such circumstances are
eliminated, we are left with a nucleus that we will call "natural,"
as opposed to the "artificial" things we have discarded; and it must
necessarily be good, nay, perfect, since we have thrown out every-
thing that was bad in ( 1546). That, in fact, is the reasoning of
it
all
metaphysicists or theologians, of the followers of the Physiocrats,
of Rousseau and other dreamers of that do not
type. They say:
"Here is a state that we call 'natural.' From observations by such and
such scientists who have seen and examined it, it is known to
present such and such traits." What they do is to start with a present
state, eliminate from it everything they dislike, and then foist the
term "natural" on what is left. Rousseau, indeed, who is still ad-
mired, not to say worshipped, by many people, candidly confesses
his indifference to the facts
(821); and even more indifferent to
them was that Holy Father who praised the beautiful order which
God had bestowed on Nature and gravely assures us that in Nature
2
all little animals make their societies in
peace and concord. He had
never seen spiders eating flies, nor birds
eating spiders, nor had he
8
read Virgil's description of bees
swarming to battle! But then
again, nothing is more diverting than the manner of thinking of
those who deride "Catholic superstition" but
pay reverent homage to
the superstitions of the Rousseaueans.
1
1603. De Remusat enumerates at least four senses in which
2
1602 St. Clement the Roman, Epistulae ad Corinthios, I, 20, 10 (Gebhardt-
Harnack, p. 39) Td re i^d^cora
: rtiv
tyuv rdf awsfabaEis avruv kv dpfjvy K.OL
ofiovoip troi-
ovvrat.
8
1602 Gc orgies, IV, vv. 67-70:
"Sin autem ad pugnam exierint (nam saepe duobus

regibus incessit magno discordia motu),
continuoquc animos volgi et trepidantia bello

corda licet longe praesciscere. . . ."
("But when they rush forth to battle (for discord and noisy tumult often arise from
there being two kings) one can sense straightway and even from afar the
temper
of the swarm and its quivering eagerness for combat.")
1
1603 (Euvres de Ciceron, Vol. IV, p. 411 (Lecler, Vol. 27, pp. 95-96).
1604 DERIVATIONS IV-yl VERBAL PROOFS 1043
Cicero uses the word "Nature" in his essay on Laws? i. general A
meaning: Nature as the sum total of the facts of the universe. 2. A
particular meaning: Nature as the constitution of each individual
being. 3. Another meaning, which Remusat explains as "a personal,
individual sense that is never more than
implicitly defined,
and
transpires only from a knowledge of his doctrine [A fine expedient
for starting arguments!] The nature of a being is that which makes
:
it what it is, its law. It is

'good/ accordingly: it is the being's per-
fection, as witness the following phrases: 'Ad summum *perducta
9 9 3
natura I, 8, 25; 'ducem naturam I, io
, and there are others. So
the expression 'natural law' is not without consequence, for it im-
plies that the law exists of itself, that it is a part

of the general law
of beings. [There are people who claim they understand that!] See:
9
''Natura constitutum I, io, 28; 'quod dicam naturam csse,quo modo
est natura, utilitatem a natura',* I, 12, 33." 4. A certain potency: "By
a vague derivative from this meaning, Nature is further pictured as
a distinct, active force that produces and conserves the world . . .
9 9
'Natura largita est, docentc natura, I, 8, 25-26; 'eadem natura , I, 9,
9
26; 'natura jactos, a natura dati, natura data I, 12, 33." What a
treasure-store such a term must be for derivations the reader may
easily imagine.
It means everything and nothing!
1604. With Aristotle, Dame Nature changes altogether in aspect.
The Stagirite begins by noting,
Naturalis Auscultatio, II, i, i (Wick-
1
stead, Vol. I, p. 107), that natural beings have within themselves a
1603
2
We can touch on them here but briefly, but the reader would do well to
look at them in the original.
1603
3
[Remusat's reference is erroneous. There is no such phrase in De Ic gibus,
I, io. In I, 6, 20 Cicero says, "natura qua diice." A. L.]

4
1603 [Another mistake by Remusat: Cicero's phrase was "utilitatem a iure."
A. L.]
1604
1
We need not here inquire whether or not the attribution of this treatise to
Aristotle is sound. We call it Aristotle's because it is generally reprinted under his
name. But instead of to Aristotle, ascribe it, let us say, to X, and our remarks will
stand just the same, since they bear only on the derivation objectively considered.
[Pareto amuses himself throughout these volumes by questioning the authenticity
of the various works of Aristotle, but he seems to be nodding here. The Naturalis
auscultatio is none other than the Physica, the authenticity of which has never been
questioned. One may picture Pareto working from one of his countless notes, com-
ing upon this reference to Bekker's Aristotelis Gracce, Berlin, 1831, pp. 192-93, with
the title written in Greek, Uepl QvcnKijs d/cpod<rewf (De naturali auscultatione) , and
confusing it momentarily in his mind with one of the Opuscula of Aristotle of

principle of motion or of rest: whereas a bed, a garment, or some
other object of the kind, has no such principle, because it does not
tend to change. From that it follows, II, i, 2 (Wickstead, Vol. I,
p. 109), that "nature is the principle and cause of motion and of
rest in entities in which said principle is
present primitively and not
2
contingently." Then he gives another definition, II, i, 10 (Wick-
stead, Vol. I, p. 113): "In one sense we may call nature the primal
matter that exists in entities which have within themselves the
principle of motion and change. Otherwise, we may call it form and

3
character [species]
according to definition." There are people even
today who imagine they understand such talk and who admire it.
Says Barthelemy Saint-Hilaire: "I do not hesitate to say of the
Physics that it is one of Aristotle's soundest and most considerable
dubious authenticity, e.g., the De mirabilis auscultatione. Everywhere else Pareto
refers to the Physica as the Physica. A. L.]
2
1604Plutarch, De placitis philosophorum, I, i (Goodwin, Vol. Ill, p. 105),
begins by noting, very properly, that it would be absurd to talk about "nature'*
without first explaining what is meant by the term. And to do so he says: " Accord-
ing to Aristotle (Physica, II, i, 15; Wickstead, Vol. I, p. 115) 'nature' is the prin-
ciple ofmotion and of rest in bodies in which it exists primitively and not contin-
gently." That makes everything clear! But later on, in the same treatise, Plutarch
gives different definitions, I, 30 (Goodwin, pp. 131-32): "Empedocles says that 'na-
ture' is naught but the combination and separation of elements . .
Anaxagoras, .
that 'nature* iscombination and dissolution; in other words, birth and destruction."
8 "A/lAov 6e rp6nov 7} fiop^j nal TO eMof TO Kara rov %6yov. It is not
1604 easy to divine
what all that means. At bottom there seems to be a dispute as to whether "nature"
is matter or form, and the apparent conclusion is, I, i, 15, that it is form: 'II npa
fj-of)^ <pvois. However, we are shordy thereafter advised that"form" and "nature"
have two senses, since privation is a sort of form. All of which is mere prattle. St.
Thomas, Sttmma theologiac, I a II
ae
, qu. 31, art. 7 (Opera, Vol. VI, p. 221), tries
to clarify the Master: answer by saying that a thing is called 'natural' which
"I
is according to nature, as he
[Aristotle] says, Physica, II, 4-5. In man, however,
nature may be taken in two ways: in the one sense, inasmuch as intellect, reason
(mtellectus et ratio), is the outstanding trait in man, since by it he is given his place
in species. From that standpoint, those human pleasures may be called 'natural*
which apply what is proper to a man according to reason. So delight in the con-
to
templation of truth and in acts of virtue is natural to man. [What a pity our crim-
so!] In man considered as partaking of reason, nature may
inals do not find things
be taken, in another sense, as that which is common to man and other things, and
especially as that which is not subordinate to reason." Nature, therefore, means
white and black. But that is not the end of it: of the two species of pleasures, some
are natural in one sense, but not natural in another: "As regards both these
pleas-
ures some are unnatural, simply speaking, but natural (conn aturales) in certain
relations (Secundum utrasque autem delectationes contingit aliquas esse innaturales
simpliciter loquendo, scd connaturales secundum quid)." Verily one could go no

1604 "NATURE" 1045
4
works." However, as regards the philosopher's definition of nature,
Saint-Hilaire, good soul, has some hesitation, xxxii-iii: "I should

pp.
not care to maintain that that definition is
beyond all criticism.
. . Aristotle himself undoubtedly found it inadequate, for he tries

.
to sound it somewhat deeper. Since he recognizes two essential ele-

ments in being, matter and form, along with privation, he wonders
whether the true nature of beings be matter or form. [How is true
nature to be distinguished from the nature that is not true?] He is
inclined to think that the form of a thing rather than its matter is
its nature, for matter is in a way only potency, whereas form is act
and reality."
An excellent example of verbal derivation an endless
string of words that do arouse certain sentiments but correspond to

5
real.
nothing
farther than that in depriving a term of definiteness. One must learn how to be
satisfied! St. Thomas also has had his commentators. Here is one: Goudin, Philo-
sophia juxta divi Thomae dogmata (Brourard), Vol. II, p. 198: "So the word
'nature* can be understood in four ways: i. In the sense of nativity. So the first-
born is chief among his brothers 'by nature/ that is to say, by order of birth, and
the Apostle says [Ephes. 5: 6] that 'by nature we are children of wrath,* that is to
say, by conception and nativity, whence we derive sin. 2. In the sense of matter
and form. So man is said to be made up of two partial natures. 3. In the sense
of the essence of the thing. So we say that the angelic nature or essence is superior
to human nature. 4. In physic, nature is taken for the intrinsic principle of move-
ment and rest in the things about us." It does not occur to these good souls that
to give the same name to things so vastly different is an excellent device for never
being understood.
4
1604 Physique d'Aristote, Vol. I, Preface, p. iv.
5
1604 Earlier in his Preface, p. iii, Saint-Hilaire had said: 'The theory of mo-
tion is so truly the necessary antecedent to physics that when Newton is laying the
mathematical foundations of natural philosophy toward the end of the seventeenth
century, his immortal book is nothing more or less than a theory of motion. ([In a
note:] He says so himself in the preface to the first edition of the Principia.) In his
Principles of Philosophy Descartes had also placed the study of motion at the head
of the Science of Nature. So, two thousand years before Descartes and Newton,
Aristotle had proceeded exactly as they proceeded, and if his work is to be fairly
appraised, will be recognized as of the same family
it and in more than one respect
to have nothing to fear from the comparison." We may let that pass as regards
Descartes. As for Newton, the difference between his Principia and Aristotle's
Physica is the difference between day and night. It is true, alas, that here and there
in the Principia a little metaphysics creeps in it is like the barren rock that holds
the experimental gold, and metaphysicists, of course, grasp at the rock and leave
the gold. Says Newton in his Preface: "Since the manual arts are primarily con-
cerned with the moving of bodies, Geometry is commonly applied to mass and
Mechanics to motion. In that sense rational Mechanics will be the science, accurately
stated and demonstrated, of the movements resulting from certain forces, and of the
1605. From the way in which the group of sentiments correspond-
ing to such expressions as "purpose of life," "highest good/' "right
reason," "nature," has been built up, it is readily understandable
that such terms may be equated with one another, since they repre-
sent, with no vagueness, a single cumulus of sentiments. So

little
the Stoics could say that the "purpose of life," the "highest good,"
was to live according to "nature." Just what that "nature" is nobody
knows, and better so; for it is the various indefinite meanings that
are associated with the term that win acquiescence for the Stoic
maxim and others of the kind. In fact, according to Stobaeus,
Eglogae physicae et cthicae, II, 7 (Heeren, Vol. II, pp. 132-35),
Zeno began with a language even more indefinite, holding that the
purpose of life was to live harmoniously; and that, Stobaeus adds,
"means living according to one plan and harmoniously. But those
who came him, by way of improvement, explained it as mean-
after
.* Cleanthes was the first
ing living in harmony with nature.' . .
... to bring in nature, and he ruled that the purpose was to live
in harmony with nature." And going on equating terms correspond-
ing to this or that sentiment, the Stoics came to assert that the goal
was "happiness"; and "happiness" was "to live according to virtue,
harmoniously, or, what amounts to the same thing, to live according

to nature."
pay special attention to the principles of

1606. It will also help to
sociality and
altruism, and by no means to forget right reason. All
those pretty things we can cram into the concept of "nature" and
say with the Stoics, following Diogenes Laertius, Zeno, VII, 88

(Hicks, Vol. II, pp. 195-97): "Hence the purpose of life is to live
in accordance with nature, in other words, in accordance with one's
own nature and with the nature of the universe, doing nothing that
the common law ordinarily prohibits, which law is right reason that
reaches everywhere and abides with Zeus who through it governs
forces required for certain movements." Of such things Aristotle talks not at all,
but of matters quite different.
*
1605 Td tie rAof 6 filv Zfyvw ovrug a7r6cjK.e y rb 6fiohoyovfj,ivG)$ rjv f Tovro < earl rccitf eva
'/,6yov Kal GV[i.(j>(
)vov C^v. 01 <5 fiera rovrov t TrpnofiiapOpovvres, oirwf ^l(f>pov f oôTioyovpiv-
t
ug r?7 <j>voet, $fjv. The word bôyov^tv^ properly means "suitably," "harmoniously,"
"concordantly," "conformably," and is therefore somewhat vague unless the thing
with which the harmony or suitableness prevails is specified. Zeno's meaning would
accordingly be: to live suitably, harmoniously, and so on; and one might even say
perhaps, temperately, moderately.
1607 DERIVATIONS IV-y: VERBAL PROOFS 1047
all
existing things. And that same law is the virtue of the happy
man and the happiness of life when, that is, all is done in a harmony
of the individual temperament with the will of the ruler of all
things. And
therefore Diogenes expressly declares that the ideal of
life is
right thinking in the choice of what is according to nature,
x
and Archidamus, living in fulfilment of all duties." That is a good
example of the verbal derivation. Words are heaped on words, till
one gets a hotchpotch containing a little of everything.
1607. These reasonings are of the following type. One sets out to
prove that A
=
B. One begins by demonstrating that A X, be- =
cause the sentiments associated with A and are in accord. Mean- X
while pains are taken to select an X
so indefinite that while the
sentiments associated with it are in accord with the sentiments asso-
ciated with A, they also accord with the sentiments associated with B.
In that way an equation is established between X and B. But since
it has already been granted that A =
X, it follows that A B =
the thesis that was to be demonstrated. This reasoning follows the
lines of the one we examined in 480 f., where the equation A=B
was proved by the elimination ofa non-experimental entity, X. As in
other cases, the introduction of a vague term imperfectly corre-
sponding to a real thing has similar effects to the interposition of a

term corresponding to an entity that stands altogether apart from
the experimental field ( 108, 1546). A neat example is the case of
"solidarity" ( 1557 f.). There X

(solidarity-fact) is, really, as
the
authors of the argument confess, the opposite of B (solidarity-duty).
Yet the proposition A=X
(i.e., that solidarity-fact prevails among
men) serves to demonstrate that A = B (solidarity-duty must prevail

among men). From the standpoint of formal logic, arguments con-
taining the indeterminate X are syllogisms with more than three
terms, the middle term X becoming multiple in virtue of its very

indefiniteness, often without one's being able to determine just how
many meanings it has. If, furthermore, X

transcends experience, we
get for the syllogism, in addition to the cause of error just

mentioned
(which is nearly always present), a major term and a minor term
*
1606 Clement of Alexandria, Stromata,
II, 19 (Opera, Vol. I, p. I046A; Wilson,
Vol. II, p. 59), imagines that the "nature" of the Stoics is none other than God:
*
Therefore the Stoics opined that the purpose of life was to live according to nature,
"
very properly using the term 'nature* for 'God.*
1048 THE MIND AND SOCIETY l6o8
that have no meaning, as relating facts that are experimental with

474). entities (
non-experimental
1608. Rousseau says that "the general will," X, cannot fall into
error, A. To demonstrate that proposition he regards all citizens as
constituting one single person, as having the same will; and the
proposition means for that matter giving a special twist to the term
"error" judge of what, to him, is agreeable or
that a person is sole
disagreeable. The proposition is acceptable in that form. But at that

point a modification is introduced into X, and necessarily so; for a
body of citizens acting as a single person a thing that does not
is
exist. It is asserted, without proof of any kind, that the general will,
X, expressed by the sum of particular wills when the citizens in
is
question vote without communicating with one another. But that

too is impossible; so X
must suffer a further modification. Resting
content with the little that is to be had, it is assumed that X is the
sum of particular wills when there are no intrigues and no elec-
tioneering by private interests. That gives an equation between the
general will, X, and the vote of the citizens, B, when the vote is
without intrigues and electioneering. But we have seen that X = A.

So A = B; and the conclusion that there can be no error, A, in a
is
decision of the citizens, B, when the vote is held apart from intrigue
and pressure of private interests. This game is all to the liking of
Rousseau's admirers, and they go on playing at it. Still again X
is modified, and once the
opinion of the majority (?) of the electors,
it now becomes the
opinion of the majority of those elected. Such the
evolution of one of the sublimest dogmas of the democratic re-
*
ligion!
*
1608 In the Contrat social, II, i, after showing how the social contract is drawn,
Rousseau adds: "The first and most important consequence of the principles above
established is that the general will can alone direct the forces of the State according
to the purposes for which it was established, the common weal." can that be? How
II, 4: "If the State or City is just a moral person deriving its life from the union of
its members, and the most important of its concerns is its own preservation, it
if
needs a universal power of compulsion to move and arrange each part in the man-
ner most advantageous to the whole. Just as Nature gives each individual absolute
power over all his members, so the social pact gives the body politic absolute power
over all its members, and it is that power directed by the general will which bears
... the name of sovereignty. . . .
Why else is the general will
always right, why
else do all invariably wish for the welfare of each individual among them, unless it
be that there is no one who does not take the words 'each individual' to himself
and does not think of himself in voting for all?" The general proposition, X = A,
1609 ROUSSEAU'S "GENERAL WILL" 1049
1609. This argument is
accepted by many people, not because of
its intrinsic logico-experimental value, which is zero, nor for
any
lack of intelligence on the part of those who assent to it some of
them are very intelligent indeed. To what, then, is the success of
is now established: the general will, X, in other words, is always right, A. Follow-
ing a method customary among metaphysicists and very dear to them, Rousseau
attributes a characteristic to the general will before explaining at all definitely what
that entity is. Now we proceed, II, 3, to modify X: "It follows from what has just
been said that the general will is always right and always tends to the public wel-
fare; but it does not follow that the deliberations of the people always have the
same rectitude. A man always wants what is good for him, but he does not always
know what it is. The people is never corrupted but is often deceived, and then only
does it in appearances seek what [The modification in the meaning of "error."
is evil.
We shall return to the point presently.] There is often a great difference between
the will of all [One of the forms of X.] and the general will [Another form of X.] :
The latter envisages only the common interest; the other envisages private interest
and is only a sum of particular wills [Watch the juggler's ball it is slipping from
one box to the other!]: but strip those same wills of the more and the less that
cancel each other [For them to do that, the less would have to be equal to the
more, otherwise there would be a remainder; but the divine Rousseau cares not a
fig for such petty details.] [Pareto seems to misunderstand Rousseau's passage, which
means not that the less cancels the more, but that a larger or smaller number of
particular wills cancel each other: the French reads: "Otez de ces memes volontcs
Ics plus et les moins qui s'entrcdetruisent." To amend Pareto's stricture one might
say against Rousseau that when a certain number of particular wills cancel each
other, the dark horse wins; but the dark horse may represent a particular interest.
A. L.] and the general will is left as the sum of the differences. [Now the ball has
slipped from the box on the right to the box on the

But keep your eye on it.
left.
It will soon be doing something cleverer still: a real state, B, is going to be described
for the purpose of equating it with one of the indefinite abstractions, X, just prof-
fered.] When after sufficient enlightening the people deliberates, if the citizens have
had no intercommunication [How can they be enlightened if there is no intercom-
munication? It must be an internal spontaneous sort of enlightenment!], the great
number of little differences [Who told Rousseau that they were "little"?] will
always yield the general will [i.e., X.], and the decision will always be a good one.
[Even when the people votes to burn a witch?] But when there is electioneering
by partial associations at the expense of the great association, the will of each clique
becomes general as regards its members, particular as regards the State. Finally, . . .
when one such association is so large that it overbalances all the others, one gets as
a result not a sum of little differences but one single difference. Then no general
will is possible, and the view that triumphs is a particular view.'* A person knows
what he likes or dislikes, but he may err through ignorance. Provision is made for
eliminating this difficulty by asking that the people be not deceived and that they
be adequately enlightened. The deception on that basis is always an intrusion from
without. If the citizens were not deceived, they would always judge righdy; but
the majority err because they are unable to discern the truth. However, in order to
understand, they need only to be "enlightened." Rousseau's City contains no people
who cannot understand. It being thus demonstrated: (i) that the general will is
1050 TREATISE ON GENERAL SOCIOLOGY l6lO
the derivation due? To numberless causes. I will mention just a few:

i.
People who
are, or think they are, a part of a majority readily
assent to a theory which, as they understand it, seems to represent
1
their judgment as infallible. Shrewd schemers who are the gainers
2.
from protective tariffs and other measures, and politicians who win
power, honours and wealth through popular suffrage judge theories
of whatever kind not by their intrinsic soundness but by their
capacity for winning the votes on which said schemers and poli-
ticians depend. Is it
any fault of theirs if voters dote on absurdities ?
Aristippus was criticized for throwing himself at the feet of the

tyrant Dionysius. But he replied: "I am not to blame! Blame
Dionysius, for having his ears on his feet!" 3. Individuals who do not
belong to the majority but are hostile to their superiors in the social
scale flirt with those who they believe are ir> the majority in order to
combat their superiors or merely to spite them. 4. Some few indi-
viduals who are religiously-minded to a very high degree accept
this particular dogma of the democratico-humanitarian religion, just
as they would accept any other. In pagan times they might have
been priests of Cybcle. In the Middle Ages they would have been
friars.
Today they are worshippers of "the People." 5.
Many persons
of limited understanding accept the opinion of the community,
large or small, in which they live; and they readily pass from admira-
tion of Bossuet to admiration of Voltaire, Rousseau, Tolstoy, or any-
one else who happens to achieve fame or reputation. 6. Other persons,
who judge theories much as an untrained amateur judges music,
consider this theory good simply because it stimulates their senti-
ments agreeably. Other causes might be identified by considering
the many classifications that might be made on the basis of the
differing manners in which interests and sentiments influence the

opinions of men.
1610. Our IV-y derivations present an extreme case where mere
verbal coincidences are
observable.^
In the year 1148, "a Breton gentle-
man by the name of Eon de 1'Etoile was brought before it [the
always right; (2) that the general will is expressed by the vote of well-informed
citizenswho have had no communication with one another, the conclusion logically
follows that the decision in question is always right.
*
1609 [Pareto wrote rather obscurely, I find: "which they understand in the
sense of their own infallibility." A. L.]
l6l2 DERIVATIONS IV-yi VERBAL PROOFS 105!
Council of Rheims], a man almost illiterate, who said he was the son
of God and the judge of the living and the dead, being led to such
belief by the rough resemblance of his name to the Latin word Eum
which appears in a sentence used at the end of exorcisms, per cum
qui judicaturus est, and at the end of prayers, Per eundem . . ,
Absurd as this fantastic reason was, it none the less enabled him to
swindle many ignorant people in the remoter districts of France,

*
and notably in Brittany and Gascony." Ambiguousness in terms and
statements is an excellent device for interpreting oracles and prophe-
cies; and with the further support of metaphors (IV-<5) and alle-
gories (IV-s), one would have to be an idiot indeed not to find a
way to infer anything one chose from such pronouncements. Start-
ing with reasonings of this kind, which are ostensibly offered in all
seriousness, we gradually get to mere jests, such as the answer
"Domine stes securus" which was given to a person asking whether
he could live in security from his enemies. The response could be in-
terpreted to mean that
he could, in fact, feel secure. But it could
also mean the opposite: "Domi nc stes securus" ("Feel safe not even
at home").
The explanations that have been given of the term "demons"
1611.
furnish an interesting example of IV-y derivations following the
twin route from the thing to the word, and from the word to the
thing.
1612. i. From the thing to the word. The term $aifcove<; as
used
by the Greeks designated certain imaginary entities, which varied

according to the times and the writer. In Homer $ai[itev is often
confused with the notion of 0e6$, or better, with the notion of the
god's activity. It has been said though far from proved that the
activity so designated
was an evil one. In Hesiod, the $ai[iove<; have
an intermediate status between gods and men, but they are all benefi-
cent. As time went on, this intermediate character admitted of a
distinctionbetween good demons and bad demons. Milords the
philosophers would have their say, and their ethical sensibilities be-
ing outraged that popular religion should ascribe both good and
evil conduct to the
gods, they thought they could be rid of the em-
*
1610 Fleury, Histoirc ecclesiastique, Vol. XIV, pp. 619-20; and see Labbe, Vol.
XII, pp. 1659-60.
*
barrassment by foisting the wicked conduct upon the "demons."
The derivation in this case is
something like the one that dis-
tinguishes a "right reason" that never errs from a plain ordinary

reason that does sometimes falter. On this theme of divine mis-
conduct numbers of writers expatiated, and the demons they in-
vented were perverse beyond all words.
1613. 2. From the word to the thing. The Christians found the
term ready-made, and they took advantage of it to retrace
&ai[Love<;
the road from the word to the thing. The Greeks had first taken
gods and demons together. Then at a certain moment they came to

distinguish them in order to
pack exclusively upon the demons
1
sins and crimes of which the gods could hardly be exculpated. The
Christians were quick to seize upon the point, and creating a con-
fusion, either in good faith or by design, between the old and the
new "demon," they made bold to conclude that
senses of the term
by very confession of the pagans the gods were maleficent beings.

In that way the derivation turned all in favour of the Christians,
who could point to witnesses and proofs of their own theology in
the camp of their adversaries. Plato, good soul, had told a number
of idiotic stories about demons Symposium. Minucius Felix
in his
took the greatest pains not to ignore such a treasure and he appeals
x
1612 De dejectu oraculorum, 15 (Goodwin, Vol. IV, p. 20): "Certain
Plutarch,
it is that the stories of rapings, vagabondings, flights, and labours in slavery that
all
are told in the myths and sung in the hymns are things that happened not to gods
but to demons; and they are told to show the virtue and power of the latter. Where-
fore Aeschylus should not have said [Sttpplices, v. 222]: 'Chaste Apollo, god exiled
from heaven/ nor Sophocles through Admetus \_Fragmenta, 65, 2; Musgrave, Vol.
"
II, p. 275] 'My cock [husband] hath led him [the god] to the mill.' The text of
:
this last inPlutarch is certainly corrupt Admetus cannot be the speaker, but, at the
most, Alcestis, his wife. [So Pareto. Goodwin renders: "My cock by crowing led him
to the mill." Grotius, quoted by Musgrave: "Meus se sponte pullus ad molam salsam
tulit."A. L.]
*
1613 Grote, History of Greece, Vol. I, pp. 426-27: "This distinction between gods
and daemons appeared to save in a great degree both the truth of the old legends
and the dignity of the gods: it obviated the necessity of pronouncing either that the
gods were unworthy, or the legends untrue. Yet although devised for the purpose
of satisfying a more scrupulous religious sensibility, it was found inconvenient after-
wards, when assailants arose against paganism generally. For while it abandoned as
indefensible a large portion of what had once been genuine faith, it still retained
the same word daemons with an entirely altered signification. The Christian writers
in their controversies found ample warrant among the earlier pagan authors for
treating all the gods as daemons and not less ample warrant among the later pa-
gans for denouncing the daemons generally as evil beings."
1615 ARGUMENT BY METAPHOR 1053
to Plato's authority to show that the spirits which animated the
2
statues of the gods were demons. Lactantius Firmianus also thinks
that the gods of the pagans are demons, and turning to the heathen,
he bids them, "if they refuse to believe us, to believe their Homer,
who classes the great Zeus among the demons, as indeed others of
their poets and philosophers do who use the terms demons and
gods in the same manner, the first being the true name and the
3 4
latter false." Tatian makes Zeus king of the demons. He may be
right,
for of Zeus or demons alike we know nothing and experi-
mental science is without means of any sort for determining whether
Tatian uttering truth or rubbish.
is
1614. IV-5: Metaphors, allegories, analogies. If offered in mere ex-
planation, as a means of conveying

some conception of an unknown,
metaphors and analogies may be used scientifically as a way of get-
ting from the known to the unknown. Offered as demonstration,
they have not the slightest scientific value. Because a thing, A, is

in
certain respects similar, analogous, to another thing, B, it in no sense
follows that all the traits present in A
are present also in B, or that
a given trait is one of those particular traits whereby the analogy
arises.
1615. Resort to metaphor and analogy may be direct or indirect.

A and B have in common the trait P, in virtue of which A is analo-
2
1613 Minucius Felix, Qctavius, 26, 12; 27, i (Randall, p. 397; Freesc, p. 77):
"What about who
thought it was difficult to discover God, but speaks glibly
Plato,
(sine negotio) of angels and demons, and in his Symposium even tries to determine
their nature? For he claims there is a substance partly mortal, partly immortal, in
other words, intermediate between matter and spirit and formed of a mixture of
earthly weight and heavenly lightness; and from it, he says, we get our [original]
inclination to love, and he says that it makes its way into human hearts, stirring our
senses, shaping our emotions, and inspiring our passions. Those unclean spirits, the
demons, as the Magi, the philosophers, and Plato show, lurk under consecrated
statues and images and by their afflation gain the prestige of the god as present in
person, meantime inspiring soothsayers, haunting shrines, animating the fibre of
entrails, controlling flights of birds, determining lots, and uttering oracles that arc
for the most part steeped in lies (falsis pluribus involuta)."
1613
8
instittttioncs , IV, DC vera sapicntia, 27, 15 (Opera, Vol. I, p. 387;
Divinae
Fletcher, Vol. I, p. 281): "Si nobis credendum cssc non putant, credant Homero qtd
summum ilium lovem dacmonibus aggregavit, sed et aliis poctis ac philosophis qui
cosdcm modo daemones modo dcos nuncupant, quorum alterum verum, alterum
falsum est."
4
1613 Oratio adversus Graecos, 8 (Migne, p. 823; English, p. 12): Ka* p/n ye ol
6aip,ove avrol fiera rot) ^yovfiivov avrfbv

1054 TREATISE ON GENERAL SOCIOLOGY l6l6
gous to B and may be taken metaphorically as B's equivalent. But

B also has a trait Q, which is not present in A] but the equivalence
of A and B suggests the inference that A also has the trait Q. This is
the most frequent case of the reasoning by analogy; because the
fallacy is less likely to be noticed if care is taken* not to separate P

from Q and to speak in such terms as not to betray the fact that A
is taken as the equivalent of B only in view of the common trait P.
For the indirect reasoning: A is analogous to B in view of a certain
trait, P, common both to A and to B. B is analogous to C in view of
a common trait, Q, which is not present in A. The argument is:

A B, B C, therefore, A=C ( 1632). This case is not so fre-
quent, because the form the argument assumes tends to arouse sus-
picion of a fallacy. To dissemble it more effectively it is better to
avoid as far as possible any suggestion of the syllogistic form, and so
to use the IV-/2 derivation that
persuades by dint of the accessory
sentiments associated with this or that term.
by metaphor, allegory, and analogy are much

1616. Derivations
used by metaphysicists and theologians. The works of Plato are one
string of metaphors and analogies offered as proofs. He writes

the
Republic to discover what is "just" and what "unjust" and solves

the problem by analogy. To begin with, he sets up (II, 10, 368E) an
analogy between the search for justice and the reading of a script.
Is not a
piece of writing more readily deciphered when it is written
in big letters? Let us look, therefore, for something in which
"justice" appears in "big letters." Justice is

present both in the in-
dividual and in society. But society is larger than the individual.
It will therefore be easier to discern justice in society. And he runs
on in that tone through the whole book. In the Phaedo, 71, Plato
gives a celebrated demonstration of the immortality of
the soul:
"Socrates. Tell me, as regards life and death would you not say that
life is the contrary of death ? Cebes. Certainly. Socrates. And that the
one is born of the other ? Cebes. Yes. Socrates. What, then, is born of
the living ? Cebes. The dead man. Socrates. And of the dead ? Cebes.
One has to agree the living. Socrates. Of the dead, then, Cebes, O
are born the living, and all that has life. Cebes. So it would seem.
Socrates. So then our souls [after death] are in Hades? Cebes. I
should assume so."

1617 DERIVATIONS 1V-8 I VERBAL PROOFS 1055
1617. In the days of the dispute over investitures,
Pope and Em-
peror hurled metaphors at each other while waiting for more con-
creteweapons to decide the issue. Famous
the metaphor of the two
swords: "On the basis of the words of the Apostles [sic] to Jesus
Christ [Luke 22:38], 'Lord, behold, here are two swords/ a theory
was erected that the two swords meant respectively the temporal
power, called the material sword, and the ecclesiastical
power,
called the spiritual sword. In just that sense St. Bernard wrote in
one of his letters to
Epistolae, CCLVI: 'Both swords
Pope Eugene,
belong to Peter, the one to be drawn at his command, the other by
his own hand whenever
necessary. The sword less evidently be-
coming was bidden to return to its sheath. It belonged
to Peter he
1
to him, but he was not to draw it with his own hand."' The
Emperor's supporters did not admit that the "material sword" be-
longed to the Pope: "Whence the Pope's authority to draw a death-
dealing sword as well as the spiritual sword? Pope Gregory the
First says that if he had chosen to
slaughter the Lombards they
would then have had neither king nor dukes. 'But,' he adds, 'be-
cause I fear God, I will have no part in the death of any man.' Fol-
lowing example, all the Popes

this who succeeded him contented
themselves with the spiritual sword, down to the last Pope Gregory,
in other words, Hildebrand3 who was the first to gird on the mili-
1
1617 (Opera, Vol. I, p. 463) "Exserendus est nunc uterque gladius in passione
:
Domini, Christo denuo patientc ubi ct altera vice passus est. Per quern antem nisi
per vos? Pctri uterque est: alter sno nutit alter sua manti quoties nccesse est evagi-
nandtts. Et quidem de quo minus videbatur de ipso ad Petrum dictum est: 'Con-
verte gladium tuum in vaginam! Ergo suns crat et ille sed non sua manu utique
educendus." Says Fleury, Histoire ecclesiastique, Vol. XIV, p. 581: "This allegory
of the two swords, which was to become so famous in course of time, had already
been stressed in a work of GeofTrey, Abbot of Vcndome. St. Bernard carries it much
further here." In another address to Pope Eugene, De consideration, IV, 3, 7, St.
Bernard exhorts him to use the material sword: "Why should you be trying again
to usurp a sword which of yore you were bidden to return to its sheath? Those who
deny that it is yours seem to me to pay insufficient heed to the Lord's words. For
He said: Tut up thy swordinto the sheath' [John 18:11]. The sword, therefore,
was yours, drawn, mayhap, at your bidding though not by your hand. Other-
to be
wise, if that same sword also in no sense belonged to you, when the Apostles said
'Here are two swords/ He would not have answered 'It is enough/ but 'It is too
many.' Therefore, both the spiritual and material swords belong to the Church, the
latter to be drawn on behalf of the Church, the former by the Church, the former
by the hand of the priest, the latter by the soldier at, of course, the beck of the
priest and the command of the Emperor."

1056 THE MIND AND SOCIETY l6l8
2
tary sword against the Emperor." Other pretty metaphors were
brought into play: "Gregory VII, successor to St, Peter, and vicar
of Jesus Christ on earth, thought himself authorized to chastise
the successors of Nimrod, who in his eyes were naught but rebellious
angels. Did not the soul prevail over matter, the Church over lay
society, and
the priesthood over the Empire, as the Sun over the
Moon and gold over lead?" 8 These two metaphors the comparison
of the papal power to spirit and lay powers to matter; and the com-
parison of papal power to the Sun and lay powers to the Moon, were
widely used. St. Ives resorts to the
in his letter to Henry, King
first
4
of England, and it is
upheld by the Saint of Aquino.
1618. Another metaphor considers the Church pictured as a man
as wedded to the State pictured as a woman. 1 Nor should we forget
2
1617 Fleury, Op. cit., Vol. XIV, p. 76.
3
1617 d'Allcmagnc, Vol. Ill, p. 321.
Jules Zeller, Histoire
4
1617 Epistolac, CVI (Ad Hcnricum
Angliae regem) (Opera, Vol. II, p. 125):
"Just as the senses of the body (sensus animalis) should be subject to reason, so
earthly power should be subject to ecclesiastical rule, and unless the earthly power
is ruled and inspired by ecclesiastical discipline, it would be no better than the body
apart from rule by the soul." In the De rcgimine principum, III, 10 (Opuscula, 20;
Opera, 1570 ed., Vol. XVII, p. 177, 2B-C), St. Thomas contradicts those who hold
that the words of Jesus which gave Peter authority to bind and to loose applied only
to the spiritual domain: "For if it be said that they refer to the spiritual power
alone, that cannot be, because the corporeal and the temporal depend on the spiritual
and the internal as the activities of the body on the powers of the soul."
1618 1
Phillips, Du droit ecclesiastique, Vol. II, pp. 473-75: "The position of
Church and State has of late been likened to the union of the man and the woman
in marriage. The comparison certainly suggests a number of perfectly sound reflec-
tions . . . though one must be careful not to get things upside down as would be
the case if, on the mistaken analogy of the [gender of the] words, the Church were
to be taken as the feminine element and the State as the masculine. Matters have
way round." The creation of woman corresponds to the cre-
to stand just the other
ation of the temporal order. The divine order "appears at first only in the back-
ground and as it were asleep. [A very pretty metaphor.] The temporal order is
drawn forth from it during its slumber. The human race awakens in the new Adam
and the divine order salutes the temporal as flesh of its flesh, bone of its bone.
Thenceforward, both of them, united one to the other as the bride to the husband,
are to reign together over the world." But what a power in the metaphor! In its
name, O ye heretics, shall ye be burned, or at least imprisoned! Phillips couches a
history of the relations between Church and State in the same figures: first the
Church asks the hand of
the State in marriage: "It is, after a fashion, the period of
courtship." In a second period, Church and State have married and are living in
perfect bliss: "There may be, as in marriage, some occasional misunderstanding
but, the two spouses sincerely intending to abide together in Jesus Christ, such dif-
ficulties are soon smoothed out. Finally the temporal power draws apart from the
1619 ARGUMENT BY ALLEGORY 1057
that other,which used the name of St. Peter to prove that the
Church and the Papacy were founded on the authority of Jesus and
2
which has been the occasion for spilling no end of ink.
1619. Various peoples have books that are sacred or greatly
revered, such as Homer among the Greeks, the Koran among the
1
Moslems, the Bible among Jews and Christians. The book may be
taken literally ; but sooner or later someone tries to find out whether
2
it
may not have some meaning other than the literal. That may be
faith of the Church and the obedience it owes the Church in divine matters." That
is the third phase, the separation stage. Three situations arise: "i. The wife [i.e.,
the State] becomes entirely freed of dependence on her husband [the Church],
severing the conjugal knot of her own accord. 2. She breaks up the marriage and
hurries into a second union, exalting her new husband to domestic authority and
oppressing her legitimate spouse with his help. 3. She refuses to recognize the abso-
lute authority of the one who has detached her from her husband, but she remains
cool to this latter, or indeed, if she does become reconciled to him, demands recog-
nition of the other on the same footing." A
clear case of polyandry.
2
1618 Op. cit., Vol. I, pp. 53-55: "That utterance, 'Thou art Peter,' made
Phillips,
Simon the foundation of the Church, the rock that supplied the keystone for the
divine edifice.'* Unfortunately, the metaphor has given rise to endless dispute: "How
many differing interpretations have been given for the words Petrus and Petra, which
were used in the Greek translation to render the word Cephas, the only one that ap-
pears in the Syriac original as well as in Persian, Armenian, and Coptic translations!
The difference arises from the fact that in Greek the word Trerpa, of feminine gender,
could not be applied to a man. The translator therefore was forced by the genius
of his language to change the physiognomy of the word in order to adapt it to the
use he was obliged to make of it: whence Tr^r/aoc, twice repeated, instead of irirpa.
That explanation, so plausible in itself, has been accepted by the bitterest adversaries
of the primacy of St. Peter. What inference can therefore be drawn from a purely
syllabic, a purely external, difference? Can one say, to carry it into the very mean-
ing of the terms, that nirpa means a great rock, while Tr^rpof suggests the image
of a pebble? That interpretation, which some recent lexicographers have adopted,
is ... devoid of any basis. We
will grant it, nevertheless, if one insists, but on one
condition that cannot be disputed us: namely, that if nirpos means a pebble, that
little pebble becomes, through the transmutation thrust upon it by Jesus in changing
it to nirpcLy a great and solid rock."
1619 We have already examined metaphorical explanations (Chapter V), chiefly

*
with a view to seeing whether and how one could get back from them to the facts
in which they originate. Here we are considering them chiefly as means of arriving
at certain desired conclusions.
2
1619Berg, Principes du droit musulman, pp. 3-4: "The Koran or 'the Book'
(al-Kitab), is the supreme, the fundamental law for the Mussulmans. . . . The
fundamental principles of law have had to be deduced by jurists from the relatively
few decisions rendered in the Koran. Such decisions all bear on special cases, and
they would often lead to absurd consequences if the rigorous implications were not
evaded by the hair-splitting that casuistry can marshal [Derivations], One could
all
hardly imagine the strange embarrassments in which one would find oneself if one
1058 TREATISE ON GENERAL SOCIOLOGY 1 620
done in the plain intent of discovering such a meaning, as is some-

times the case with scholars. But generally some definite purpose is
held in view, and what is sought is not what is in the book, but
some device for bringing the book into accord with the purpose
some interpretation, some derivation that will serve to reconcile two
things that are pre-established with equal definiteness: on the one
hand, a text, and, on the other, the notion for which a justification
is
sought ( 1414, 1447). For such a quest, the symbolical and alle-
3
gorical methods of interpretation offer ready and effective tools.
1620. If there were a norm of some sort for determining just what
symbol, just what allegory, a given statement, A, must necessarily

represent, the symbolical or allegorical interpretation might fail to
hit the facts and so not be "true," but it would at least be definite.
As a matter of fact, no such norm exists. The selection of the symbol
or allegory is at the pleasure of the interpreter, and it is often based
on far-fetched, childish, absurd resemblances, so that the interpre-
tationbecomes altogether arbitrary and indeterminate. That is now
evident to everybody in the allegorical interpretations that have been
made, let us say, of the Homeric poems. There is not a person left
in the world today who takes them seriously. Yet so great is the
power of the sentiments that incline people to yield to that type of

derivation that the Modernists of our day have been able to revive
the method of allegorical interpretation for the Gospels and find
people to admire them.
1621. We
are speaking, remember, at all times and exclusively
from the standpoint of logico-experimental science, and any excur-
sions whatever into the realms of faith are forbidden loyalty us. If
to a faith requires a certain interpretation it is not for us to say

whether it be right or wrong; indeed, the terms "right" and "wrong"
have no meaning in such a case; or, if they do have, it is something
kept to the letter of the Koran instead of to the spirit of the particular passage. . . .
The Koran is not only a book inspired by Allah. It is the book eternal, increate
like Allah himself, and only one copy of which was revealed to the Prophet. ([In a
note:] Allah Himself is supposed to be speaking in the Koran.) Whence the conclu-
sion that not only the substance but the form of the Koran is sacred and infallible
and that all criticism is That doctrine has, to be sure, long since found
forbidden.
its adversaries in Islam (the Mu'tazilites, for instance); but it is still generally
itself
current today and gives rise to the most outlandish predicaments."

1619
3
We
say nothing here of interpretations such as those of Palaephatus with
which we have dealt elsewhere ( 661).
1623 DERIVATIONS IV-5 : VERBAL PROOFS
quite different from the meaning they have in the logicoexperi-

mental field. If someone says that faith compels him to believe that
the Song of Songs tells the story of the love of Christ for His Church,
we have no objection. A question of that character entirely tran-
scends the limits of our inquiry here. But if he sets out to demon-
with logico-experimental arguments, he will
strate his interpretation
in so doing be entering our field, and we are free to appraise his
arguments by the norms of the logico-experimental sciences. In the

same way, we are not here discussing the social utility that certain
interpretations,
certain doctrines, may have.
1
interpretation may An
be absurd from the experimental standpoint or from the standpoint
of formal logic, and be (or not be) beneficial to society. That has to
be decided in each particular case.
1622. Allegory is often resorted to because of an impulse human
beings feel to embellish the stories they tell, even when they have
no definite purpose in doing so. There are writers who cannot tell
a story without dotting it
spontaneously, and perhaps unconsciously,
with allegories. But
more often the allegory is used to attain some
purpose, to reconcile theories with theories, theories with facts, and
so on.
1623. Striking the case of St. Augustine, who begins with allegory
and ends with meanings, whereas ordinarily procedure is in
literal
the opposite direction. The Saint needed allegory in his fight with
the Manicheans, and used it, coming to the sense which he called
1
"literal" in another connexion. We. must not allow ourselves to
be deceived by that term, however. St.
Augustine regards a figura-
tive meaning also as "literal," and that serves his purpose
quite as
well as allegory in getting any meaning he chooses out of Holy
Writ. When, in the De Genesi ad litteram, II, 13, 27 (Optra, Vol.
Ill, p.245), the pious Doctor says that "light" means the "spiritual
creature"; when he says, IV, 9, 16, that the Lord's rest on the seventh
1621 * We shall come to that subject in Chapter XIL

*
1623 Retractationes , I, 18 (Opera, Vol.* I, p. 613): "When I was writing my two
books against the Manicheans, I was dealing with the words of Scripture according
to their allegorical signification and did not dare to expound such great secrets
of natural things according to the letter." And Ibid., II, 24 (Opera, Vol. I, p. 640):
"I have called these books \De Genesi\ 'On Genesis, according to the Letter* not,
that is, according to the allegorical meanings, but according to the actual happen-
ings (secundum rerum gestarum proprietatem) ."

I06O THE MIND AND SOCIETY 1624
day must be taken meaning that "repose in Himself with the

as
blessings of the Holy Spirit" which God bestowed on "rational

creatures, among them man"; when he says, IV, 35, 57, that the
first
day which God made is "the spiritual and rational creature,
and namely the supercelestial angels and the virtues"; and when he
speaks in similar terms in other places, we have to understand that
if he is not
using allegories, he is using metaphors, or symbols, or
some other interpretation of the kind all of which are substantially
as remote from literal
meanings as the boldest allegories could
ever be.
1624. As regards the narratives in the Gospels, St.
Augustine ac-
cepts them as history and allegory side by side; and

that theory is
professed by many people. In the miracle, according to St. Augus-

tine, there is the historical fact and also a lesson for mankind: "We
find that three dead persons were visibly brought back to life
by
Our Lord." * For the Saint that is historical fact. But he adds: "What
Our Lord Jesus Christ did physically He desired us to understand
in a spiritual sense also. . . . Let us therefore see what He desired
to teach us in raising three persons from the dead." That is all per-
fectly clear. The historical fact and the allegory go hand in hand,
and we cannot therefore ask whether it was the writer's intent to
relate a historical episode or to impart an allegorical lesson. No
dilemma arises for the very reason that the two things can stand side
by side. In reality that very often happens, and a writer either docs
not know or else forgets just where his story ends and allegory be-
gins, and is himself unable

to distinguish the one
thing from the
other. That, a fortiori, frustrates any eflfort an outsider might make
later on to draw any such distinction. For that reason the task that
our Modernists, returning to efforts made in olden times, have set
themselves in reinterpreting the Gospel according to St. John seems
altogether fatuous. Sometimes a writer himself distinguishes the

story he tells from the allegorical moral that may be derived from
it.Both may, in his mind, be foreign to reality, as in an animal
dialogue with a moral; and in that case there is no difficulty, from
the logical standpoint. But an author may also regard his story as a
narrative of real fact and nevertheless interpret it in an allegorical
1624
l
Sermones (Opera, Vol. V) XCVlll (Dc verbis Evangclii Lucac VH t et de
tribtts mortals qtios Dominus suscitavii), III, 3; IV, 4.
1625 ST. AUGUSTINE AND ALLEGORY Io6l
2
manner. In such a case the logical nexus that he establishes between
the fact and the allegory is not easily determined. But the difficulty
largely arises in our own minds from an

ingrained habit we have of
insisting on finding
exactness where there may never have been any,
where, that is, the author of story and allegory may himself have
been satisfied with a vague nexus.
1625. From
the allegory that is intentional and
clearly taken as
unreal e.g., the allegory used by a poet we go on by impercep-
tible degrees to the allegory that a writer uses
unwittingly and
which blends with reality in his mind. That is often observable
when language is to express some vigorous sentiment
called upon
that gives form and animation to epithet, image, and allegory; and
1
legends also not seldom originate in just that way. This is one of
1624
2
No end of examples might be mentioned. In the Violier des histoires
romaines, fiction, and facts that the writer regards as historical, appear side by side,
and he gives allegorical interpretations of both: L' exposition moralle sur le propos.
According to St. Augustine, he says, Chap. 22, p. 74, the heart from the corpse of
some Roman Emperor or other could not be consumed on the pyre because the
Emperor had been poisoned: "Then the people took the heart out of the fire and
bathed it with theriaque [Venetian treacle] In that way the poison was driven out
.
and when the heart was returned to the fire, it burned at once." For the writer
that is historical fact. And he continues: "Moral explanation of the above: Morally
speaking, the hearts of sinners that have been poisoned by mortal sin cannot be
kindled and enlightened (esprins et illumines) by the fire of the Holy Spirit save
by that theriaque which is penitence."
d'histoire, pp. 128-32, Du style revolution-
*
1625 Rocquain, Notes et fragments
naire (In question, the writings of revolutionary leaders of 1789): "In the qualifiers
which he ordinarily adds to the terms he uses he gives them a letter, a sign, that
brings them before the mind in a more striking manner. Is it a question of duty?
It is 'sacred.' Of selfishness? It is 'blind.' Of treachery? It is 'black.' Of patriotism?
It is 'burning.' ... As a result of the same tendency, the strongest words are in-
variably chosen to express any given state of mind. . . After that it is only a step
.
to giving life to words, or better, to the ideas they translate. That step is forever
being taken in the writings of those days. In using the expressions 'body politic' or
'body social,' which the Revolution borrowed from the period just preceding, there
is no stopping at the cold designations which those terms taken together make. The
social body lives. It has arteries and veins through which a blood now vigorous,
now impure circulates. . . . Ideas are not merely endowed with life. They are per-
sonified. Abstract terms, of such frequent use in those times, as I have noted, terms
such as 'justice,' 'liberty,' 'reason,' and others of the same sort, stand for living
beings that speak, move their eyes, act. .
Personality is ascribed not only to ab-
. .
stractions of that kind which were, so to speak, the divine emblems of the Revolu-
tion. At that time, when France was prey to foreign wars as well as to civil dis-
cord, 'country' is a favourite theme in public utterances and appears with all the
traits of a living being. ... understandable, also, that under pressure of the
It is
the many cases in which, as we have seen, terms are vague because
the limits of the sentiments with which they are associated are also
vague. The real character of a thing not sharply distinguished

is
from its
allegorical character any more than the objective character
of a personification is
distinguished from its
subjective character
( 1070 f.). hard to say whether the ancient Greeks took the
It is
"baneful dream" in the Iliad (ovhov II, v. 6) in a strictly oveiyov,

allegorical sense, rather than in a sense mingling the allegorical and
the real.
1626. In this connexion we have more and better than mere prob-
abilities : we have
well-authenticated facts, and since they come from
times such as ours, when the scientific spirit and the methods of his-
torical criticism are in pre-eminent vogue, we may hold a fortiori
that similar things must have happened in times when science and
criticism were missing. One such case, indeed a most interesting one,
is that of Auguste Comte's SynthZse subjective. On the one hand,
Comte presents his notions not as realities but as useful fictions; but
then he becomes so pleased with them that he mistakes them for
1
realities. In Comte's case, we are in a position to know the path,
prevailing passions the Revolution should personify the things it hates as well as
the things it likes. 'There stands Fanaticism!* cries the Committee of Public Safety
of refractory priests whom it is accusing of trying to arouse public opinion. "There
she stands, watching, waiting for her credulous victims, the palm of martyrdom in
her hand.' Fanaticism, Federalism, and other objects of revolutionary hatred ordi-
and such 'monsters' live in 'lairs' into which the Revolu-
narily figure as 'monsters';
tion, like a modern Hercules, makes its way to fell and capture them. ... As a re-
sult of their propensity to vivify, to personify, ideas, the writings of those times
offer not so much pictures as living pictures."
1
1626 Here is an example, pp. 8-n: "It being forbidden us ever to aspire to abso-
lute notions, we can set up the relative conception of external bodies by endowing
each of them with the faculties of sense and action, provided we deprive them of
thought, so that their volition is always blind. [So, on pretext of our ignorance of
the absolute, we treat fiction and reality on the same plane.] Confined to the Great
Being, assisted by his worthy servants and their free auxiliaries, intelligence, spurred
by sentiment, guides activity in such a way as gradually to modify a fatality, all of
whose agents tend constantly to the good, without being able to know its conditions.
By dispelling theological prejudices that represented matter as essentially inert, sci-

ence tended to restore to it the activity that fetishism had spontaneously hallowed.
.
[So fiction is blended with reality, and to justify the confusion, Comte adds:]
. .
Itcould never be proved that a given body does not sense the impressions that it
undergoes and does not will the actions which it performs; though it shows itself
devoid of capacity to modify its conduct according to circumstances, which is the
1627 DERIVATIONS IV-5 : VERBAL PROOFS 1063
AT (636), that leads from certain facts, A, to a theory, (Figure T
18). Suppose some centuries hence knowledge of that path
has been
lost, and that all that is left is a certain theory which asserts
that
the Earth wisely prepared the conditions required for the existence
of a certain Great Being. In that case, interpreters of the myth will
come forward. A few of them will set out
merely to discover A and very probably go
wrong and get something quite different
from A. Many, many others will start out
from said worshipful theory, T, but with
the idea of arriving at certain conclusions,
C,
ter to get there,
11
which they want
they will
to reach;
-11
and the bet-
11
invent all manner
__
Figure 18
of beautiful and apt derivations obtained by ingenious allegorical

and metaphorical interpretations.
1627. The interpretations of this variety which have been used to
reconcile the Scriptures with experimental fact are too well known
to require any extensive comment here we have already encoun-
tered the truly remarkable example of the Song of Songs ( 1452).
Since, by chance or otherwise, that work had found its way into the
Scriptures, it had to be moral in content and beautiful in a literary

sense, as could readily be shown by allegory, metaphor, and other
chief trait of intelligence." And so the metaphor becomes reality, since no one can
prove that it is not reality! One cannot prove that Zeus does not exist therefore
Zeus exists! What are the "sensations" that a body receives from "impressions"
upon it? What is its "will"? What its "conduct"? No one can prove that the sea
docs not "sense the impression" of a ship, or that the sea does not "will" the things
that it docs to the ship, simply because no one can prove the incomprehensible and
the absurd. Once started along that path, Comte goes galloping ahead, writing less
poetically but not less mythologically than Hesiod: "Forced to be continually sub-
ject to the fundamental laws of planetary life [What in the world can such a "life"
be?], the Earth, when she was intelligent [That, probably, was in the days when
animals could talk.], was able to develop its physico-chemical activity in such a way
as to perfect the astronomical order by changing its principal coefficients. Our planet
was so enabled to make its orbit less eccentric and thereby more habitable, by man-
aging to execute a long series of explosions such as have produced the comets (ac-
cording to the most credible hypothesis). Prudently repeated, those same shocks,
seconded by vegetative mobility [Another wonderful thing but again, what is it?],
also succeeded in making the inclination of the terrestrial axis more congenial to
the future requirements of the Great Being." And Comte runs on chattering in the
same tone page after page.
1
such devices. Such proofs come down to us in abundance from
every period of history. Gautier classifies them as follows: "i. Polit-
ical allegory.This theory has never had any great number of ad-
herents. It is represented by a series of individual hypotheses that
look to the history of Israel for the key to the Song. ... 2. The-
ocratic allegory. Interpreters who have taken this point of view
have had, like the preceding, the merit of not overstepping the
boundaries of the old dispensation. According to them the Song of
Songs describes the reciprocal loves of Jehovah and Israel. In the

detail the greatest variety of interpretation prevails. ... 3. Mes-
sianic or Christological allegory. . The Song hails the wedding

. .
of the Bride and Groom of Christ, the divine leader, and His
Church. ... Mystical allegory. With this mode of interpretation
4.
we quit the domain of history ... to enter the inner sphere of the
relations of the soul to God. ... It is not surprising to find it
adopted and developed in monastic circles. Interestingly also, it hap-

2
pens to be in high favour in the Greek Church." To his list Gautier
1 "
1627 Gautier, Introduction a I'Ancien Testament, Vol. II, pp. 126-38: 'Song of
Songs' means the most beautiful, the most perfect of songs, the song among them
all. The title is a tribute paid to the superiority of that poem over all other poems."
2
1627 Gautier is a Protestant. Suppose we listen to what a Catholic writer has to
say: Dictionnaire encyclopedique de la tfieologie cathohquc, s.v. Cantique des
Cantiqnes: "The Song of Songs is to be explained cither literally, or 'typically,' or
allegorically." The author of the article rejects of course the first two methods:
"Theodore, Bishop of Mopsuestia, was the first to sustain the literal explanation, but
Theodoret rebukes him, and his interpretation was rejected by the second Council
of Constantinople. The 'typical' interpretation lies in keeping the literal, the
. . .
obvious text, but in considering and interpreting the events described as symbols of
higher truths. Hugo Grotius was not the first to try that method. He had been . . .
anticipated by Honorius of Autun, who applied the canticle literally to Pharaoh's

daughter and allegorically to the Christian Church. Grotius [Annotationes ad Canti-
cum canticorum (Opera omnia theologtca, Vol. I, p. 267)] regards Solomon's love
for the daughter of the King of Egypt as the incidental subject of the poem, but at
the same time as the 'type' of the love of God for the children of Israel." The article
goes on to refute that theory. "So only the allegorical meaning is left. But the parti-
sans of the allegorical interpretation in their turn follow different routes. Some see
in the Song Solomon's love for wisdom, others his love for Israel, others still Heze-
kiah's yearning for the reconciliation of the divided kingdoms; the old Jewish inter-
preters, the love of Jehovah for Israel; the older Christian commentators almost
unanimously, the love of Christ for His Church." St. Augustine says in his Specu-
lum de Cantico Canticorum (Opera, Vol. Ill, p. 925): "And we come finally to the
book of Solomon called the Song of Songs. But what abridgment could we make
of here, since every line of it glorifies in figurative language, and foretells with
it
prophetic loftiness, the holy endearments of Christ and the Church."

1627 THE SONG OF SOLOMON 1065
adds still another interpretation: "Realizing the difficulties that
stand in the way of ascribing a religious intent to the author of the
Song of Songs, but loath, nevertheless, to deny any religious status
whatever to a book found in the Bible, a number of theologians
have resorted to a fine distinction. That is the case with Franz
Delitzsch and Zoeckler. They do not claim that the author of the
Song out to write an allegory: he merely purposed, they say, to

set
sing of human love. But, they add, it is no less permissible and even
enjoined upon us to ascribe a spiritual, religious, meaning to the
poem. presence in the Bible proves that that is the will of God.
Its
In that case ... it is no longer a question of allegory, but of a

8
'typical,'
or 'typological,' interpretation." Verily human beings
must have a deal of time to waste to squander so much of it on such
trifling speculations.
Our contemporaries, it is true, are showing less
interest in theological ramblings of this type, but only to turn to
metaphysical speculations. And if that is not wolf, it is gray dog.

also has his interpretation, and it is nothing but a particular
Renan
application of his general method of dealing with Christian an-
These he deprives of everything supernatural and mystical,
tiquities.
leaving, and even glorifying, their ethical implications: if they are

not divine, they are at least surpassingly moral! To that trick
Renan's work owed its huge success. At one extreme stood believers,
at the other, unbelievers, atheistic or Voltairean. In between came
hosts of people who were unwilling to go to either extreme and
3
1627 Gamier, Op. cit., p. 138, also examines the theory that the Song of Songs
is a drama, and concludes: "This dramatic reconstruction of the Song of Songs
seems to me unacceptable. I do not believe one can ever get from the poem, in any
manner at all plausible, what partisans of the dramatic interpretation claim they see
in it. ... Now that the allegorical meaning is finding fewer and fewer friends,
they are wondering whether some religious or at least moral tendency cannot be
detected in the canticle if it be interpreted as a drama. Glorification of true love,
opposition to sensuous passions and vulgar enjoyments, the superiority of monogamy
over polygamy, the eulogy of marriage, constancy in love, conjugal fidelity, the
triumph of a sincere and profound sentiment over the allurements of wealth and
royal pomp there is the list of themes that have seemed worthy of being cele-
brated and which have been designated as the inspirations of the poet of the canti-
cle." Gautier favours the view that the canticle is a collection of nuptial songs. That
view is supported by one consideration of great weight: the fact that it is obtained
by the comparative method ( 547-48), explaining the past by customs observable
in our day. However, it is still doubtful whether the origin and character of that
literary fragment have really been hit upon, and fortunately humanity can live on
without having the doubt dispelled.
were therefore in a mood to accept a system that was more or less
sceptical but paid
all due
respect to established beliefs, which did
away with the supernatural but spared the sublime which fol-
lowed, in a word, that middle course on which so many people are
satisfied to remain. Humanitarians are never energetic enough to
give up an old belief entirely; they merely reject such parts of it as

do not square with their own beliefs. Just as the Christians saw
demons pagan gods, our humanitarians see ethical
in the travesties
in the old theology. From that point of view it might be said that
Renan, John Stuart Mill, Auguste Comte, Herbert Spencer, and

many others, were Christians without a Christ; but in other respects,
they show divergences: they share the same residues, their deriva-
tions are different. For Renan, Le Cantique des cantiques, p. 137,
"the Song of Songs neither mystical, as the theologians would
is
have it, nor scandalous, as Chateillon believed, nor purely erotic, as

Herder thought: it is moral. It is summarized in one verse the
seventh of Chapter VIII, the last in the poem: 'Many waters cannot
quench love, neither can the floods drown it; if a man would give
all the substance of his house for love, it would utterly be con-
temned' [Renan: "He would buy only shame"]. The subject of the
poem is not the sensual passion that oozes about in the seraglios of
the degenerate Orient, nor the dubious sentiment of the Hindu or
Persian quietist who hides a hypocritical effeminacy under a men-
dacious front. It is true love." If that is enough to make a poem
moral, there is
plenty of morality in the collection of amorous epi-
grams in the Gree\ Anthology V, 29, for instance. There the poet
Cillactor remarks (Paton, Vol. 143) that "if one asketh the
I, p.
price of a kiss, it becometh bitterer than hellebore." Or V, 267, where

a young manprotests that he loves a girl but says he does not marry
her because she is not rich enough. The poet Agathias tells him
(Paton, Vol. I, p. 267): "Thou art deceived. Thou dost not love.
How can a soul enamoured be so good at arithmetic?"
4
Piepenbring
4
1627 Renan, Ibid., Preface, pp. xi-xii: "I know that several passages in my
translation will seem somewhat shocking to two classes of people: first to those who
admire in antiquity only things that more or less resemble the forms of French
taste; then, those who view
the canticle only through the mystic veil that the reli-
gious consciousness of the ages has draped about it. These latter, of course, are the
persons whose habits I am the least inclined to flout. Only in fear and trembling
docs one ever lay hand to those holy texts which have inspired and sustained the
1627 DERIVATIONS IV-5 : VERBAL PROOFS 1067
5
also breaks a lance in defence of the Song of Songs. He takes the
view of Budde that Solomon and the Shunamite are allegorical fig-
ures, the first typifying glory, the second, beauty. "Following Wett-
stein, Budde further makes it clear that the canticle is
just a
collec-
tion of nuptial hymns. . . . The compiler of the collection may well
have designed its publication to protest against polygamy and eulo-
gize the mutual affection of husband and wife. Such an intent would
lend a tone of moral earnestness to these pages, in spite of the over-
crude realism one encounters in them." What ingenious reasons one
can dig up, so only morality be saved Here ! is one of the many cases
6
where the arbitrary character of the derivation is
patently manifest.
hope of an eternal life.*' Crocodile's tears, more or less! Renan is so sensitive in such
matters that farther along, p. 43, he does not even venture to quote the Bible!
"Sulem, or Sunem, was a village of the tribe of Lssachar, home of a certain woman,
Abishag the Shunamite, whose adventures, as recounted in I Kings 1:3 and 2:17 f.,
are not without their points of resemblance to the ones that make up the scheme
of our poem. We read, in fact, in the first of the passages mentioned, that the
servants of David, in circumstances too greatly at variance with our notions of
propriety to be stated here, sent out a call for the fairest maiden in all the tribes of
Israel." We are certainly in a bad case if historians are to mention only such circum-
stances as do not diverge too widely from our present-day morality! Renan is hiding
something that everyone knows. The translators of the King James Version were
not as squeamish as the fashionable Parisian. They translate, I Kings 1:2: "Where-
fore his [David's] servants said unto him: Let there be sought for my lord the
king a young virgin: and let her stand before the king, and let her cherish him,
and let her lie in thy bosom, that my lord the king may get heat." Sometimes Renan
goes to even greater extremes: Sorel, Le systeme historique dc Renan, Vol. I, p. 48:
"Some years ago, M. Pascal, professor at Catania, called attention to a curious ex-
ample of Renan's far-fetched translations (Carlo Pascal, Uincendio di Roma e i
primi cristiani, p. 30)." It was a question of a series of double meanings that Renan
insisted on seeing in the sign domus transitoria, which keeps appearing on certain
buildings of Nero's time in Rome.

5
1627 Histoire du peuple d' Israel, pp. 703-05.
6
1627 Piepenbring concludes: "We are quite willing to grant that the collection
[the Song of Songs] contains nothing that is immoral or even indecent. . . . We
feel nevertheless that something is to be said for those among the ancients and
moderns who have thought or still think that the poem is out of place in a sacred
anthology or in a book designed for edification." In our ethical (in words) and
democratic age, it is only natural that ethical and democratic interpretations should
be the order of the day. Piepenbring, p. 703, quotes the view of Reuss: "As regards
his public preachment of morality, the author of the Song of Songs intended to
attack polygamy, eulogize conjugal fidelity, inspire admiration for virtue victorious
over seduction, and make himself the mouthpiece of democratic indignation at
corruption in high life." How many wonderful things in that poor little text! Why
not also dig out of it something in favour of universal suffrage or world peace?
As regards another book in the Bible, the Book of Ruth, Piepenbring, following
1628. Suppose we resort to a graph, as we did in 636. Let be T

the text of the Song of Songs, A, its origin; C, the inference one is
bent on deriving from T. A person using a derivation would often-
times have us believe that C is the same
as A. C must necessarily be an edifying
thing. The only problem is to find a road
that will take us from T to C. Some will

follow the allegorical path TmC, and
show that the canticle symbolizes the love
of Jesus for His Church. Some will follow
the line TnC, and show that it celebrates types of glory and beauty.
Some will follow the line and show that the poem hails the
TpC
victory of love over wealth. Someone, finally, hits on the line, TqC,
and interprets the Song as a eulogy of monogamy. One may go on
in that way indefinitely, and in all confidence that whatever the
moral inference, C, one may desire to arrive at, one will never fail to
find some road that will lead to it from T.

other writers, exerts himself to show that it must have had a moral purpose. It is
clear enough that he and the writers he follows can only be seeking some path
which will get them from the text to their heart's desire in other words, a deriva-
tion; and since he who seeks in such a matter always finds, they readily discover
that the Book of Ruth is a pica for a humane and universal religion. Says Piepcn-
bring, Op. tit., pp. 606-07: "The Book of Ruth was not divined
true purport of the
till very recently in our own time. ...and meaning have been missed
Its intent
by numbers of modern 'higher critics' following the grammatical and historical

method. Rcuss in particular went completely off the track and gave the book a
wholly artificial interpretation. The explanation we have given and the date we
assign to the composition of the book are justified by abundant proofs in the special
monographs we have so often quoted of Kuenen, Cornill \Einleitung in das Alte
Testament, pp. 240-42; Box, pp. 254-56], and Wildeboer [?, p. 488]." The Book
of Ruth rnay have all conceivable merits save possibly the merit of clearness,
if it has taken the world some two thousand years to discover what it means! But
lo now, at last, we are privileged to know the great secret: "The Book of Ruth/*
says Piepenbring, "is in reality a very precious pendant to the reform of Esdras. It
shows that the Jewish world as a whole did not allow itself to be carried away
by the intolerant exclusive spirit of that scribe. We learn in that way that
. . .
mixed marriages which had been fought bitterly and in the mass by Esdras and
his associates were justified not only from the standpoint of passion and interest but
from the standpoint of justice and equity. At bottom, the author of the Book of
Ruth placed the spiritual ties of religion above ties of blood, ascribing more im-
portance to truly pious conduct than to flawless genealogy, and anticipating the
doctrine of the Gospels that it is not necessary to be descended from Abraham in
order to be a true believer.*' It cannot have been altogether by chance that such a
1629 THE SONG OF SOLOMON 1069
1629. Sometimes, and
especially in olden times, the derivation be-
comes truly fantastic, as witness St. Bernard's long commentary on
the of Songs. In the fanciful manufacture of
allegories over-
it
Song
all bounds. I select a few at random. There is the line:
steps
*
"My
mother's children fought against me." First, the Bride that is to
2
persecuted. How can
say,
the Church exclaims that she has been
that be? Nothing simpler! "Annas,
Caiaphas, and Judas Iscariot
were children of the Synagogue, and the Church, which was also a
child of the Synagogue, they
cruelly beset at the time of her birth,
crucifying her founder, Jesus. And so the Lord accomplished
through them at that time what he had foretold of yore through
the prophet, saying: 'Ishall smite the
shepherd and disperse his
sheep.' ... Of these, then, and of other such people who are known
to have resisted the Church
ye may consider that the Bride saith:
" 8
'My mother's children fought against me.'
Ecclesiastes and Ecclesiasticus have also exercised the commenta-
tors not a little. The latter was classed
by the Protestants among the
Apocrypha, but Ecclesiastes has held its
place among the books of
4
the biblical canon.
Epicurean maxims certainly abound in Eccle-
meaning should have been discovered in a humanitarian and democratic age such
as our own. Gauticr, Introduction a I'Ancien Testament,
p. 152, says with much good
sense: 'To discover the provocation and
purpose of the Book of Ruth, there is no
need of resorting to ingenious and far-fetched conjectures. One has
only to think
of the fondness of Orientals for dramatic, striking stories that stir the emotions
and are handed down from one generation to another." But that would be some-
thing far too simple for an inveterate interpreter.
x
1629 1:5: "Filii matris mcae pugnavcrunt contra me."
Following the Vulgate,
King James Version, "My
1:6: mother's children were angry with me."
2
1629 In Cantica sermoncs, 28, 13 (Opera, Vol. IV, p. 928): "Adiiciens
siquidem
'Fihi matris mcae pugnaverunt contra me/ persccutioncm
passam se esse aperte
significat."
3
1629 Op. cit., 29, i: "Annas ct Caiphas et ludas Iscarioth filii synagogue
juerunt et hi contra Ecclesiam acque synagogue filiam in ipso exortu ipsius acerbis-
sirne piignavcrunt, suspcndentes in
ligno collectorem ipsius lesum. lam tune siqui-
dem Dens implevit per eos quod olim praesignaverat per Prophetam f dicens: 'Percu-
tiam pastorernt et dispergentur ovcs! DC his ergo et aliis qui de ilia gcnte
. . .
Christiana nomini contradixisse sciuntur, puta dictum a sponsa: Filii matris mcae
"
pugnaverunt contra me.'
4
1629 As regards Ecclesiasticus, one may read in an essay, "Les livres apo~
cryphes de I'Ancien Testament," which accompanies La sagesse de Jesus fils de Sirach,
published by the Biblical Society of Paris, pp. 391-92: "The son of Sirach is not
innocent of selfishness. The precepts of wisdom that abound in his book a betray
too absorbing concern with personal interest. Even love of pleasure finds some echo
IO7O TREATISE ON GENERAL SOCIOLOGY 1630
siastes, but the commentators twist them by ingenious interpreta-
tions into religious precepts. St. Jerome uses two methods in chief.
On the one hand he assumes without trace of proof that the author
is not
speaking for himself when he recommends conviviality at
5
table. Then again he distorts to a spiritual significance what is ob-
viously said in a material sense. So the reference to eating and
drink-
ing must be taken spiritually, and when the author speaks of em-
bracing a woman, he must be understood as meaning the embrace
of wisdom. On that basis Ovid's Art of Love could be turned into
6
a moral and religious tract.
1630. The Modernists found themselves confronted with the dif-

ficulties that had
beset the path of their predecessors of old, in their
effort to reconcile a traditional faith with a new one; and to sur-
mount them they resorted to the identical devices that had been in
in his heart and he expresses himself in many places like a disciple of Epicurus. . . .
However, such blemishes should not be exaggerated. On the whole the book is
packed with good sense, uprightness, charity, piety."
6
1629 Commentarius in Ecclesiasten, 9:7 (Opera, Vol. Ill, p. 1082): "Go thy way,
eat thy bread with joy, and drinf^ thy wine with a merry heart. Such, he says, the
talk of some people Epicurus, Aristippus, the Cyrenians, and other such cattle
among the philosophers (ceteri pecudes philosophorum). But after pondering the
matter diligently I find, not, as some falsely conclude, that all things are gov-
erned by chance and that a capricious fortune is at play in human affairs, but
that all things happen by judgment of God."
Q
1629 Ibid. f 8:15 (Opera, Vol. Ill, p. 1079): "Then I commended mirth, because
a man hath no better thing under the sun than to eat and to drinl^ and to be
merry. That we have interpreted more fully above, and now strictly we say that
he prefers to the troubles of the world the pleasure of eating and drinking, fleeting
and soon ended as such pleasure may be. ... But this interpretation, taking the
text as it is written, would prove that they that mourn and do hunger and thirst
are the wretched ones, while Our Lord in the Gospel [Matt. 5:4, 6] calls them
blessed. Let us therefore take the food and drink spiritually. For [Matt., . . .
Chapter 9; Eccl. 3:11-13] the Lord's flesh [i.e., communion] is the true food and
His blood the true drink." Loc. cit. p. 8 (Eccl. 3:1, 5) (Opera, Vol. Ill, p. 1036):
f
"To everything there is a season a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from
. . .
embracing. The meaning is clear following the simplest interpretation (juxta

semplicem intelligentiam) : that one should attend to the matter of offspring and
then again to continence, so harmonizing with what the Apostle says [I Cor. 7:5] :
'Defraud ye not one another except it be with consent for a time.' [Then comes an
even stranger explanation:] Or else, that there was a time for embracing when
the precept [Gen. 1:28] 'Be fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth* was in
force. And after that, when that had been done, came a time to refrain from
embracing. If, however [This is the best of all!], we choose to rise to loftier alti-
tudes, we see Wisdom embracing those who love her .
clutching them with her
. .
very nails to her bosom in tight embrace (strictiori complexu)"

1630 DERIVATIONS IV-5: VERBAL PROOFS IOJI
use centuries and centuries before. The point of departure of the
Modernists is the Holy Writ of the Christians, which they are bent
on preserving; the point they desire to reach, a reconciliation of faith
with "Science" and Democracy. As for "Science" they say, it is true,
that they are immune
to St. Gregory's rebuke of "moulding the
heavenly pages of Scripture to philosophical doctrine"; but in actual

fact they do everything in their power to effect that accommoda-
tion.That and no other is the origin of a certain "inner Christian
experience," which they have fished up in caricature of the "experi-
1
ment" known to chemistry, physics, and the other natural sciences.
As Democracy, holy of holies, they betray their real thought
for
clearly enough and but ill conceal their eagerness to win honours
2
and favours of her. But said blessed Democracy already has cor-
*
1630 [Buonaiuti], // pro gramma dei Modernisti: risposta aU'Enciclica di Pio
X, 'Pascendi Dominici gregis,' p. 121 (Tyrrell, pp. 124-25): "As we have already
said, in full accord with contemporary psychology Modernists sharply distinguish
between science and faith. The mental processes that lead to science and those
which lead to faith seem to them wholly foreign to each other, and independent."
Excellent! But why such a great fuss, then, on the part of the Modernists, to recon-
cile science and faith? And one of their most revered leaders, M. Loisy, asks flatly,
L'Evangilc ct I'Eglise, Preface, p. xxxiii: "Can conscience very long keep a God un-
known to science, and will science forever respect a God of whom it has no
knowledge?"
2
1630 The same Programma, pp. 123-24 (Tyrrell, pp. 127-29), says of the
Church (and Clericalism) "What popularity can petty and
:
decrepit oligarchies of
aristocrats give the Church, when
exchange for a little pomp they force upon
in
her customs and procedures that are openly at war with the trend of the modern
world? We understand that, and we speak our mind frankly: We arc tired of
seeing the Church reduced to a mere bureaucracy, jealous of powers she still retains
and eager to regain powers she has lost. The Church should feel a longing to
. . .
embrace those currents of unwittingly religious feeling which are fostering the
rise of democracy. She should find a way to merge with democracy, in order to
give it a chance to succeed through the beneficent influence of her restraints and
the stimulus of her moral leadership, which alone can impart lessons in abnega-
tion and unselfishness. The Church should honestly recognize that in democracy
a loftier expression of her own Catholicity is being formulated. And then democ-
racy, in its turn, will come to feel the attraction of the Church as embodying the
continuity of that Christian message in which democracy itself has its remote but
none the less genuine origins." And one is tempted to add: "And then democracy,
in its turn, will bounteously recompense deserters from the Catholic Church."
However, once upon a time there were priests in France who in a similar frame
of mind made common cause with the Third Estate to organize the National
Assembly and so contributed to bringing on the Revolution. But they were sadly
disappointed. Some of those good souls did not even collect Judas's thirty pieces
of silver, but had to find their sole recompense in exile, prison, and the guillotine.
railed the goddess Science for her Pantheon. What is to be done in
that case? Nothing simpler! What on earth else were allegory and
metaphor invented for? And lo, here cometh M. Loisy reviving

under label of "modern" the old exegesis of Philo the Jew and deny-
3
ing the historicity of the Christ of John's Gospel! However, M.
Loisy gives and takes away at one and the same time. Allegories and
symbols are beautiful things, but after all reality is not to be

de-
spised "The death of Jesus, accordingly, is

: a historical fact the real-
ity
of which has not undergone any transfiguration. But it belongs
to faith not as a natural death, but as a voluntary death, as the out-
4
standing symbol of redemption." Hidden in a fog so thick, M.
if one understands science
Loisy's idea is hard to capture "Likewise, :
as science is understood by the moderns, and with them by the

scholars of Modernism, it is evident that science in itself [How is
science in itself to be distinguished from plain ordinary science?]
cannot be subordinated to faith, even though scientific labour, in so
far as emanates from a moral being, may be wholly inspired, one
it
may even say governed, by the influence of faith." That is all a rid-
dle! If "scientific labour" inspired and governed by faith, how
is
can the science which is the product of that work help being subor-
dinate to faith? If you "inspire and govern" a workman, it would
seem that what he produces would be subordinate to you. Epithets
of course are, as usual, on hand to facilitate changes in the mean-
ings of words and lift them from Earth to the clouds. Loisy's
"science in itself" must be at the very least an own cousin, if not a
born sister, of "right reason." Another beautiful unknown is "scien-
tific work in so far as it emanates from a moral being." It would
3
1630 Loisy, Autour d'un petit livre, pp. 93-95: "This Christ, to be sure, is not a
metaphysical abstraction, for he is alive in the soul of the Evangelist. But this alto-
gether spiritual and mystical Christ of faith is an undying Christ independent of
the limitations of time and earthly existence. John's narratives are not a his- . . .
tory but a mystical contemplation of the Gospel. His harangues are theological
meditations on the mystery of salvation. The Christian Church allegorized . . .
the Old Testament. It did not refrain from allegorizing the Gospel narratives. . . .
One must not find it surprising, therefore, that critical exegesis should discover
allegories inthe Fourth Gospel. Was not allegory, in the eyes of Philo of
. . .
Alexandria, the key to the Old Testament, the natural form of divine revelation?
And is not the influence of Philoism on John beyond dispute?"
4
1630 Loisy, Simples reflexions sur . . .
VEncy clique "Pascendi Dominici gregis/'
pp. 170-71.
1631 THE MODERNISTS AND PIUS X 1073
seem that the scientific achievement of formulating a mathematical
theorem, or a uniformity in chemistry, physics, astronomy, or biol-

ogy, would remain the same whether they "emanated" from
moral
or from immoral beings. How
separate the sheep from the goats?
Was Euclid a moral being, or was he not? do not know! And We
do we a question of judging his geometry? As com-
care, if it is
pared with these foggy phrases of M. Loisy's, the papal encyclical,

which he sets out to answer, reads like a model of clear statement,
and in view of that very according to the Modernists
clarity it fails
accurately to represent their views, which mean and do not mean

5
a thing at the same time.
1631. A
similar problem had to be solved by M. Leon Bourgeois
and his brethren in
"solidarity." There the point of departure was
5
1630 Acta pontificia, October, 1907: De Modcrnistantm doctrina Pasccndi . . .
dominici gregis, p. 379: "So much for the Modernist considered as a philoso-
. . .
pher. If now, going on to consider him as a believer, we ask how, in Modernism,

the believer is differentiated from the philosopher, we must observe that though
the philosopher recognizes the reality of the divine as the object of faith, he will
nowhere save in the soul of the believer, as an object of sentiment
find that reality
and profession. Whether or not it exists in independently of such sentiment
itself
and profession is a matter of indifference him. [That is a good statement of

to
the attitude of a person desirous of remaining within the field of logico-cxperimental
science save for the mention of a certain "reality of the divine," which is a non-
experimental entity. But the Modernist cannot stick to the logico-cxperimcntal

field, for there he would never establish his much-desired contact with Democracy,
holy of holies, who docs not frequent the sidewalks in those precincts. The Mod-
ernist, therefore, is a believer, encyclical goes on to show how the Modernist
and the
sets the believer over against the "philosopher'*:] The believer, on the contrary, holds
as an unquestionable certainty that the divine reality really exists in itself and in
no way depends upon the person who believes it. If we should go on to ask on
what the believer's conviction is based, the Modernists reply: On individual ex-
perience. But if, in so saying, they part company with the rationalists, they fall
into the opinion of the Protestants and the pseudo-mystics." It is in that, according
to M. Loisy, that the encyclical seems to err. That is not the view of the Modern-
ists, he says. But what their view actually is we cannot know unless Loisy ex-
more intelligibly, clarifying the fog that enwraps a "science
presses himself a little
work in so far as it emanates from a moral being," and
in itself," a "scientific
many other obscurities of the kind. The encyclical further declares that science
must be subordinate to faith. And since that statement is perfectly clear, perfectly
clear also can be the answer of anyone who has resolved to keep to the field of
logico-expcrimental science, and declares that he is in no way concerned with
what faith, be it Catholic, Protestant, Moslem, Humanitarian, Democratic, or any
other whatsoever, may try to prescribe for him in that field. Though from that
it would by no means follow that under certain circumstances it may not be useful
to believe that science should be subordinate to faith.

the present social system, and the goal to be reached a sort of mid-
dle-class Socialism. To effect the passage, derivations of various kinds
were called in, among others a very pretty metaphor about a debt
that is forever being paid but which is forever being reincurred so
sounds like a childish
that it is
always there ( 1503). It all
jest, yet
as the argument is offered in all seriousness. Involved in the
it is,
case is one of our III-5 derivations (juridical entities) that degen-

erates into a IV-5 or purely verbal derivation. The idea of a debt
that is reincurred as fast as it is
paid is
juridical only in appearances:
1
it is
merely verbal.
1632. For an example of the indirect use of metaphor, we may
turn to the treatise De baptismo, of Tertullian (Opera, Vol. IV,
i,
p. 157; English, Vol. I, pp. 231-32). He is attacking a woman, Quin-

tilla has been preaching against baptism. He answers
by name, who
with an argument of the type described in 1615: Quintilla, A, is a
viper, B,
because he does not make the point, but we get it be-
cause Quintilla has, in common with the viper, the characteristic, P,
1631 Êssai d'une philosophic de la solidarite, pp. 65, 77: "It must be positively
understood that man cannot acquit himself once and for all, for the future as
well as for the past. He must keep acquitting himself endlessly. Day by day he
conn acts a new debt that day by day he must pay. The individual must acquit
himself at each moment, and so at each moment he reachieves his freedom." An
individual, referred to in the text as X, was seized with panic lest, should his
"debtors" clear their obligations, he should not be able to get anything more
out of them a situation that would in fact be defeating the practical pur-
poses of "solidarity"! Said Monsieur X: "From the moral point of view, does not
the notion of the acquittal of social debt lead, or possibly lead, to selfishness?
When I have paid my debt, I am free. But am I not free also as regards human
kindness, brotherly love? And would not that persuasion induce a certain dryness
of heart?" Have no fear, good souls! The debts of your debtors are of a nature
so marvellous that if they paid them in as many millions as there are grains of
sand on the sea-shore they could never be free of them. M. Leon Bourgeois answers
in fact: "That might be the case if the acquittal were a sweeping one covering
everything for all time. [The reader will note the absence of any specification of
amounts large or small.] But I have covered that point: A
man is never completely
freed. By the very fact that he goes on living, he acquires a new debt, a feeling
that he owes something to his fellows, that they are his creditors, for ever laying
hold on him!" Lucky for us that that blessed debt does not follow us after death,
so that we are still allowed to think of the Grim Reaper as a Liberator! Meantime,
supposing the debtor refuses to pay and tells Her Holiness Democracy to go West
along with her prophets? Simple enough! Force is then called in! But in that
case, why not resort to force in the first place without so much beating about the
bush? Perhaps because chicanery is easier to use than force?
1633 DERIVATIONS IV-5: VERBAL PROOFS 1 075
of being poisonous. The
viper likes to live in dry places. That is a
characteristic, Q, which is apparent enough in the viper but which
is not so
clearly apparent in Quintilla. But in view of Quintilla's
resemblance to the viper, assumed that she must also affect
it is
the arid and loathe dampness and water, C. Then Tertullian re-
peats implicitly an argument of the same kind for the Christians.

Christians are Christians because they have been baptized. People
are baptized with 'water; therefore, anyone who is an enemy of
water is an
enemy of Christians.
One may doubt whether human being could ever have offered
such a silly argument in earnest. But it may well have persuaded
through the sentiments incidentally associated with the terms in
which it is couched, proving acceptable as a medley of IV-/? deriva-
1
tions.
1633. Tertullian's treatise On Baptism is a veritable mine for der-
ivations, and to note a few of them here will be a not altogether

profitless digression.
There were those who voiced their wonder
that a few drops of water could confer the blessing of eternal life.
Tertullian replies, Sec. 2, by pointing to pagan mysteries parallelling
Christian baptism a derivation based on analogy (derivation IV-<5)
1
and authority (derivation II-/3). Next he inquires why it is that
1
1632 "While living of late in that same place a certain viper [Quintilla] from
the Gaian [Cainite] heresy laid hold on many people with her venomous doctrine
[Heresy is poisonous, the viper is poisonous, therefore the heretic is a viper.], over-
throwing more particularly the rite of baptism. That is all natural enough [Since the
woman a viper, she acts like a viper.]; for as a rule vipers, asps, and striped snakes
is
(reguli serpentes) prefer arid waterless places. [A more effective manner of state-
ment than by mentioning just the viper. In virtue of the incidental sentiments
aroused, to yoke the asp and other snakes with the viper leaves the impression
that the snake of heresy belongs with it just as well.] But we are little fishes. [In
virtue of baptism. In his DC resurrectionc carnis, 52 (Opera, Vol. Ill, p. 251; English,
Vol. II, p. n), Tertullian says: "There is one sort of flesh the flesh of fowls of
the air, and that is the flesh of the Martyrs who aspire to loftier heights. Then there
is the flesh of fishes who are nourished by the water of baptism."] were bornWe
in water [Spiritually, that is, the water making us Christians.] following our'I#0{>c,
the Lord Jesus Christ, and we are saved only as we remain in the water. [A new
metaphor: "to remain in the water" means to remain in the state of grace con-
ferred by baptism.] That monster of a woman [Quintilla] therefore, who would
have no right to teach even if she taught the truth (cut nee integre quidem docendi
ius erai), knew it would be a fine way to destroy little fishes to take them out of
the water." The logical inference from the argument by metaphor.
x
1633 Returning to the same subject, Ibid., 5, he cautions that the lustral waters
of the heathen do not have the saving powers of Christian baptismal water
water is considered worthy of regenerating the Christian, and he
answers with analogies involving residues of our I-/3 type (similar-
ity, oppositeness).
Then we get combinations of IV-5 (analogy) and
III-a (accords of sentiment) derivations. First of all, says Tertullian,
the origin of water has to be taken into account (Opera, Vol. IV,
p. 159; English, Vol. I, p. 233): "In the beginning, it is written,

God created Heaven and Earth. And the Earth was without form
and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the
Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. Therefore, O Man,
must thou revere water, first for its
antiquity, and then
its for
worthiness, since the Divine Spirit preferred it to all other elements

for His throne." So he runs on, tossing many other beautiful bou-
quets to water, and stopping only in fear lest by continuing in the

same vein he finish by making a panegyric on water instead of on
baptism. All the same, a moment later, Ibid., 9, he cannot resist the
temptation to list other noble traits of water, and he shows that
"water was very dear to God and His Christ." Water was used in
Christ's baptism. He changed water into wine. He bade His disciples
quench their thirst with water eternal, and among the acts of charity
listed the offer of a goblet of water to the beggar. The conclusion
is, can be no doubt, since
Ibid., 3, that there God made use of water
in so many ways, that water should be used in His sacraments, and
that "that which governs earthly life should have power to confer
the heavenly."
1634. Tertullian then resorts to a derivation of the III-a type (uni-
versal consensus). Hequotes, Ibid., 5 (Opera, p. 152; English, p.
237), the belief that unclean spirits
dwell upon the waters, and sup-
ports it by Observing that persons who are killed, crazed, or terrified

by water are called respectively nympholeptics, lymphatics, hydro-
phobics. That is one of the IV-5 derivations, the existence of a meta-
phorical term being taken as proof that a corresponding thing exists
in reality. Having so established that unclean spirits dwell upon the
waters and that they can harm people, Tertullian concludes, Ibid.,
4, with another IV-5 derivation: "It will not be
difficult to believe
that the holy angel of God doth apply water to the salvation of men,
( 1292). The appeal to authority, therefore, serves merely to show that, in general,
water can do wonderful things. In particular, of course, not all waters have that
efficacy.
1638 ANATOLE FRANCE ON CRIME 1077
since the angel of evil, as is his profane habit, turneth the same ele-
ments to the hurt of man." The IV-5 derivation is itself re-enforced
with another of the IV-/3 type (accessory sentiments) that involves
residues of our I-/3 type (unusual occurrences).
1635. The compound
derivation type, which is so naively manifest
in Tertullian's argument, figures in a manner now more, now less
dissembled in huge numbers of reasonings: one finds, that is, a IV-5
derivation (metaphor, analogy), re-enforced by IV'-(3 derivations
(accessory sentiments) that bring into play a great variety of resi-
dues and especially residues of Class I (combinations).
1636. Allegories and metaphors can be met with other allegories
and metaphors. Frequently enough an unscientific argument will
be victoriously refuted by an argument equally unscientific. What,
from the logico-experimental standpoint, may be a mere war of
words may, from the standpoint of doctrinal propaganda, be tre-
mendously effective in view of the sentiments that are called into
play.
1637. Opponents of the death-penalty have a commonplace based
on a metaphor. They say that the infliction of the death-penalty is
'legal murder," and that "Society" so meets one murder with an-
other.
1638. People go even farther in that direction. Anatole France
says that the only way that has been found to punish thieves and
murderers is to imitate them and that, at bottom, justice serves
merely to double the number of crimes. 1 To be sure, from the logico-

l
1638 Opinions sociales, Vol. II, pp. 196, 209, La justice civile et militaire: "I am
so far opposed to theft and murder that
cannot endure even legalized copies of
I
them and I am pained to see that the courts have found nothing better as a pun-
ishment for thieves and murderers than to imitate them. [A IV-y derivation terms
with varying meanings.] For, really now, Tourncbroche, my boy, what is a fine
or an execution except a theft or a murder carried out with ceremonious pre-
meditation? Do you not see that, for all of the airs it puts on, our system of justice
amounts only to the shameful thing of avenging a wrong by a wrong, one wretched
act by another, and serves only to double, out of love of symmetry and balance, the
number of crimes and felonies?" Anatole France assumes that he is answering a
charge that he is "taking the part of thieves and murderers" and in that
assump-
tion we already get the beginning of the derivation. It is of little importance to the
public just whose side M. France and his humanitarian friends desire to stand;
on
but of great importance that thieves and murderers should not be allowed to
it is
run the streets in deference to the kind-heartedness of M. France and his friends.
Going on, France makes a prison warden his spokesman and has that character
experimental point of view, such verbiage is worth exactly as much

as the chatter that is used to show that
"Society" has a "right" to
impose and inflict the death-penalty. But along with such
fines
problems of figures of speech there are other problems involving

things. As a favour to Anatole France suppose we give identical
repeat commonplaces long familiar in humanitarian literature. So, he confides,

"the longer I live, the more clearly I see that there is no such thing as a criminal
there is just an unfortunate." That may well be, but it is essential to know just
what he means by "criminals" and what by "unfortunates." Let us imagine the case
of a person who wants mad dogs and disease-bearing rats to be free to circulate at
will, and is accused, as Anatole France assumes, of "siding with dangerous pests."
He can reply: "I am so far opposed to killings by mad dogs and disease-bearing rats
that I am pained to see that men have found no better way of defending them-
selves than by imitating mad dogs and disease-bearing rats in inflicting death on
those animals. The longer I live the more clearly I see that among animals there
"
are no 'criminals,' but just 'unfortunates/ But here is the point, good man! For
our part you may call mad dogs and disease-bearing rats criminals, unfortunates, or
anything you please, provided you allow us to rid ourselves of them. And call
thieves and murderers anything you please call them saints at a venture so long
as you excuse us from living in the company of such "saints." That is all we ask
of you. One need only open the morning newspaper to find an account of some
laudable feat on the part of one of those "unfortunates" towards whom Anatole
France has feelings of such pitying benevolence. I choose one at random: Liberte,
Jan. 14, 1913: "Girl used as target by thugs: At Saint-Ouen, opening off No. 42
avenue des Batignolles, is a narrow blind-alley, lined with cottages. They are the
homes of humble working-people with many children. The Paches are one of the
most interesting of such families, since the father is a cripple from an accident at
his work and can do only odd jobs. He has, however, managed to support his
family of four children, and even to build a little house of his own on a micro-
scopic plot at the end of the alley. The oldest of the children, Marcelle, has just
reached her fifteenth birthday. She is in every respect the 'little mama* that is so
frequently to be met with in poor and numerous families. Up at dawn, she makes
breakfast for 'her babies,' then takes neatly dressed to day-school. Then
them all
she goes to a shop where she works day, coming home at night to get supper
all
for the family. Yesterday evening at seven o'clock, the 'litde mama* went out to
the end of the alley to draw water from the fountain there. A
gang of young
men stopped some yards away from the group formed by Marcelle and the 'big
mothers.* 'Ready now!' cried one of the gangsters. It was a signal. A
number of
shots rang out one after the other. The 'little mama* gave a cry and sank to the
pavement. A bullet had struck her in the middle of the forehead. The gangsters
had merely used her as a target for revolver practice! The people of the neigh-
bourhood came running. Marcelle was picked up from a pool of blood, while
someone ran for Dr. Perraudeau. . The physician declared the child seriously
. .
injured and sent her to the Bichat hospital, where she was admitted." According
to the theory of Anatole France, the "unfortunate" party in this case would be
not the girl who was shot but her assailants. To the little girl people need not give a
thought; much less should any measures be taken to prevent the recurrence of such
incidents: only the footpad should have the benefit of "society's" tender solicitude.
1638 DERIVATIONS IV-5: VERBAL PROOFS 1079
names to the things that people have so far called now a "theft"
and now a "fine," now a "murder" and now a "legal execution."
However, it at we are to understand each other,
once develops that if
we have to make plain exactly what we are talking about. Suppose,

*" when it
then, we affix an asterisk to the term "theft designates a
*" when it designates
"fine," and an asterisk to the term "murder
an infliction of the death-penalty. Now the problem of choosing
names is not the only one. Suppose we should say to a man: "It is
murder to kill your son. It is murder also to kill the bandit who is
trying to kill your son. You therefore will not care whether you
kill
your son or the bandit." He, we may be sure, would answer:
"The name is of no consequence to me! I am going to kill the bandit
and save my son!" Names are of no consequence to human society
either. Among the thing-problems that are here involved, two, in
chief, are noteworthy: i. How

does it happen that the majority of
civilized nations have met "theft" with "theft*," "murder" with
"murder*"? 2. Are those measures effective, neutral, or positively
harmful to the welfare of such Obviously problems of that
societies ?
kind are to be solved only by considering things not by consider-

ing the names of things. One must study
the facts and not the meta-
used by M. Anatole France
phors of men of letters. The derivation
that is very widely used among
is
copied from a general derivation
humanitarians. It tags the label of "unfortunates" upon criminals,
and then, profiting by the ambiguous meanings of the term, con-
2
cludes that criminals deserve "society's" most loving care. Such the
inspiration of certain books, such as Victor Hugo's Les miserable*,

with which literary men make fortunes by coddling humanitarian
too is an "unfortunate"; and
instincts in the public. The mad dog
in his case, too, "society" has found nothing better to do than to
match the death that he inflicts upon others with the death which
upon him. And means
that well be an effective of
is inflicted may
1638
2 a particular case of another very common derivation whereby
This is
agreeable names are given to people or things if the intent is to favour them, dis-
if the intent is to oppose them. At the present time in France, a
agreeable names
defence counsel never breathes the word "crime" in connexion with a client. As
Mme. Miropolska said in a lecture, Ltberte, Feb. 19, 1913: "There are words that a
lawyer never utters 'crime,' for instance.

A defendant never answers for any-
more than an 'act.' The talent of the defender lies in getting the jury's
thing "
sympathy for all the circumstances that justify and simplify
that 'act.'
ridding society of the nuisance of certain criminals who are much

more dangerous than mad dogs. The humanitarian fever has now
become so acute that those who suffer from no longer satisfied
it are
with the supply of thrills offered
by the present, but go hungrily
delving into history, even into the history of the remote past, to find
outlets for their idiotic
sentimentality; and since men of talent are
always on hand to provide what the public wants, we are witness-
ing most astonishing manifestations of sentiment in favour of crim-
inals of generations past. One can hardly
say whether it is in face-
tious satire of the humanitarian fever now raging, or out of love
of
paradox, or for both those reasons, that an eminent lawyer, M. Henri

Robert, is
going back to the somewhat stale case of
Lady Macbeth
to work up a stirring defence of that celebrated murderess, so stir-
ring indeed that a humanitarian mob is

already howling for her
acquittal and rehabilitation. But there better yet. number of

is A
well-meaning individuals have just formed a committee to review
the trial of the notorious Madame Lafarge that took place during
the reign of Louis Philippe. Some day we shall probably read in the
advertising columns of the newspapers: "A suitable reward will be

paid to the person suggesting the cause cclebrc that will make the
3
best plaything for our habitual sobbers."
1639. We have seen how a description, or a story, originating in a
real fact of history and undergoing successive alterations, modifica-
tions, transformations, finally a legend. All the way
emerges as
along that path, allegories, metaphors, symbols, are grafted upon it,
8
1638 See Henri Robert, La defense de Lady Macbeth and L' affaire Lafarge.
Sorel,Independance, Oct. 10, 1912, p. 38: "The books that have been written to
prove the innocence or guilt of Dreyfus fail altogether to satisfy people of any
great amount of critical insight. That is readily comprehensible. The writers of
such books work very much after the manner of certain scholars who go delving
into the archives to review condemnations of the distant past. Everybody is now
agreed such enterprises. [Too benevolent a judgment on our
as to the fatuousness of
times.] Legal experts [Not all! Not all!] righdy hold that, in matters of crime,
intelligently conducted debates held shortly after the fact arc alone likely to
yield sound verdicts. The historian, however, does not stand entirely disarmed in
the presence of old cases. He may determine in the light of the science of institu-
tions whether procedure has been in accord with the spirit of the law. In case of a
negative answer, he may pronounce that there is a presumption of error.*' That

however is a road bristling with difficulties, and the probability of the presumption
so obtained is very slight.
1641 LEGEND AND ALLEGORY Io8l
and so the legend grows and evolves, diverging more and more
from the historical fact from which it sprang. 1
1640. And the case of procedure from the
that is
thing to the
word. But legends also grow by the converse procedure from the
word to the thing the legend, that is, having no founda- slightest
tion in fact, is whole cloth on the basis of certain
created out of
words. It also happens, in the concrete, that the two methods are
followed side by side. A real incident gives rise to a
story. Then the
story is altered, modified, embroidered with metaphor and allegory.
Then the metaphors and allegories are taken as representing real
things. The
procedure, that is, is from words to things- which are
imaginary; but these are forthwith taken for real things, and serve
in turn as points of departure for new stories and new
metaphors
and so on indefinitely.
1641. The need human beings feel for exercising their faculties
of reasoning and logic (I-s residues) is of such effect that when their
attention is caught by some term, T, they insist on explaining it
*
1639 s.v. Tanaquil, Bayle quotes a passage from
In his Dictionnaire historiqne,
Pliny, JJistoria naturdis, VIII, 74 (Bostock-Rilcy, Vol. II, p. 336) "Marcus Varro
:
relates as an eyewitness that in his day in the Temple of Sancus one could still see
wool on the distaff and spindle of Tanaquil, also called Gaia Cecilia, and in the
Temple of Fortune, a waved royal robe which she had made and which Scrvius
Tullius had worn. Hence the custom that when a young woman is married, she
carries in her wedding-march a dressed distaff and a loaded spindle. Tanaquil
invented the art of making the straight tunic such as is worn by young men and
newly married girls along with the plain white toga." Bayle also calls attention to
a passage in Plutarch, Quaestiones Romanae, 30 (Goodwin, Vol. II, p. 221), where a
second answer is suggested for the question: "When a bride is introduced [to her
home] why sheisexpected to say: 'Where thou art Gains, there shall I be Gaia'?"
Says Plutarch: "Is it perhaps because Gaia Cecilia, wife to one of the sons of
Tarquinius, was a matron beautiful and pure? A bronze statue to that matron was
erected in the temple of Santus [The name is variously spelled.]; and there, also,
once upon a time, were treasured her sandals and her spindles, the former as a
symbol of her domestic virtues, the latter of her industriousncss." After a digression
upon other matters, Bayle continues: "A Frenchman writing in the sixteenth cen-
tury [Fr. Tillier, of Tours, Philogame, on I' ami dcs noces, Paris, 1578, p. 120]
comes out with a statement that he would have found it impossible to prove. The
Tarquins,' says he, 'had had a statue erected in their palace, with nothing but a
pair of house-slippers, a distaff, and a spindle.
That was to encourage successors
of their family to imitate their assiduous meticulousncss in frugality (en mesnageant)
and in keeping to their home.' Such the fate of Pliny's account of the statue of
Tanaquil! Everyone takes it upon himself to alter some detail or other in a story
he tells. So facts are distorted and rapidly degenerate in the hands of those who
quote them."
IO82 TREATISE ON GENERAL SOCIOLOGY 164!
that is to say, on drawing more or less
logical derivations from it.
So it comes about that from the same T one writer will arrive at
certain things. A, which are altogether imaginary; and another, at
still different things, B, likewise imaginary; and still other writers
will use other derivations. The things A, B . . . derived from T

__ sometimes bear resemblances to
each other, and the resemblance
may even be considerable. When

only A and B are known, there
is no way of telling whether B is
establishedby means of A, copying
A in part; or whether A is estab-
^
lished by means of B,
copying B in
Figure 20 part; or whether A and B are in-
dependent, having a common ori-
gin, TV There are examples of each of those

phenomena; and a
choice between priorithem a
impossible: is we have to fall back on
observation of fact and see which of the paths, TA, TB, AB, has actu-
ally been followed sometimes they may all three have been used.
Situations of this kind arise in investigations as to literary sources.
there is too much of an inclination toward
Nowadays guess-work in
that field, and many researches of that type rest on exceedingly slim
2
foundations.
*
1641Renan, Histoire du peuple d'Israel, Vol. V, p. 70: "Resemblances are not
proof of deliberate imitation. The scope of the religious imagination is not very
broad intertwinings arise in the very nature of things. One same result may
alike. The cycle of pious
have altogether different causes. All monastic rules are
inventions offers scant variety." What Renan says here of religious institutions
applies equally well to institutions of other sorts.
2
Let us, as usual, fall back on the method suggested in
1641 547. Journal de
Geneve, Feb. 26, 1913: "The literary reporters of German Switzerland have just
fought a great battle with windmills. They have been the victims of a hoax.
M. Loosli had solemnly asserted in a long magazine article that the real author
of the works of Jeremias Gotthclf was not Albert Bitzius, but a friend of his,
}. U. Geissbuhler. The declaration had aroused lively excitement among the out-
standing critics and the 'Gotthelf question' had become a subject of passionate
discussion in the newspapers. Now in the last number of Heimat und Frcmde,
M. Loosli explains that the idea of his practical joke came to him in the course
of a conversation with a friend on the Bacon-Shakespeare controversy. M. Loosli
had remarked to his companion on the ease with which the genuineness of the
literary work of any writer could be disputed fifty years after his death. All one
had to do was to put out some absurd statement with an air of authority. The
1643 DERIVATIONS IV-<$: VERBAL PROOFS 1083
1642. If A is anterior in time to B,
many literary historians will
regard B out of hand as an imitation of A. have seen cases We
(733f.) where the absolute falseness of such an inference is
clearly apparent. The mere fact that A resembles B and is anterior

to B in time does not warrant any conclusion as to any dependence
of B upon A. Other facts, other observations, are
required.
Well known the fact that the Fourth Gospel is widely dif-
1643.
ferent in style from the other three it contains much more meta-
physics, much more symbolism, than they contain. Now the author
world of literary pontiffs could then be relied on to grasp at it and discuss it with
allthe seriousness imaginable. His companion remaining unconvinced, M. Loosli
made a bet that he could prove it and at the height of the season sent to the
magazine in Berne the article that set all the Swiss press agog. Before publishing
his article,however, he took the precaution to deposit with a notary a sealed en-
velope containing the following statement: 'Bumplitz, Jan. 4, 1913: I have this
day drawn up, under title of "Jeremias Gotthelf A Literary Riddle," an outline
that I intend to publish and in which I show that the real author of the works of
Jeremias Gotthelf was not Albert Bitzius, but his contemporary and friend, J. U.
Geissbiihler. This I have done with the idea of demonstrating by a practical example
how easy it is hypotheses in the field of philology and for the
to devise ridiculous
pleasure of having a laugh at the expense of the scholars who will attack my
article. I desire to give a lesson to philologists, because in my judgment they are
betraying art and poetry. I am this day depositing thisexplanation with the notary
Gfeller at Bumplitz and I shall publish it when the time comes. This I do to
avoid any misunderstanding of my conduct and to protect the memory of Albert
Bitzius from overzealous philologists. C. A. Loosli/ That document was sup-
plemented by another: 'I, the undersigned, certify that the document herewith
has been lying under seal in my office from Jan. 4, 1913, to the present time.
Bumplitz, Feb. 15, 1913. Office of Public Notary Gfeller, Luthi, public notary.'
The theory put forward by one of the victims of the jest that M. Loosli had gone off
at half-cock and then tried to save his face by pretending that he had been joking
has therefore to be discarded. In his new article the jester, M. Loosli, rubs it in:
'My article/ he writes, 'contained as many absurdities as words. It cannot bear
examination and be taken seriously by any sensible person. Anyone at all wide-
awake should have seen at once that it was a hoax. In spite of all that, I have
before me articles with judgments like these: "A very plausible hypothesis"
(Frankfurter Zeitung); "Bitzius the man may not be affected by M. Loosli's declara-
tions, but Bitzius the poet will surely be, for just as Homer was not the man
." (National Zeitung). M. Loosli continues: The Nachrichten of Zurich
9
who . .
and the Bund naturally devoted full-fledged articles to my "revelations" and the
question was discussed at length by the Swiss press generally, and even abroad.
The public had its hankerings for a sensation satisfied, and the name of Gotthelf,
which is ordinarily of as much public concern as a dill-pickle, is today in every
mouth. As I had foreseen, the national vanity was pricked and a most impressive
group of Gotthelf specialists have been given an opportunity to display their
"
learning in this battle with a ghost/
of the Fourth Gospel may well be narrating in a way of his own
facts of which he had the same knowledge as the other three evan-
that is, be working from fact to
gelists (he may, theory). But it may
just as well be that he got his facts at second hand and is giving his
own metaphysical interpretation of them (that he is working from
theory to fact). Nor is it by any means impossible that he is work-
1
ing in both those ways at the same time.
1644. St. Paul in his
day alludes to a certain "deceitful learning"
(Ephes. 5:6 ["vain words"]), which may have been something along
the lines of what was subsequently known as Gnosticism,
something
like theembellishments in the Fourth Gospel. We are not inquiring
here as to whether there may have been some direct connexion be-
tween Gnosticism and the Fourth Gospel or whether the two things
arose independently from the general human need of ratiocination,
of giving a metaphysical elaboration to history or legend; or
whether, finally, they arose in some other manner. Here we are
looking at them as mere facts; and we note that they show a cer-
tain gradation, the maximum metaphysical development appearing
1
in the Gnosis.
The terms "Gnosis," "Gnosticism," are not very
1645. definite.
Suppose we ignore Clement of Alexandria, in whose eyes the true

Gnostic was the Catholic, and keep to the heretical sects. There are
numbers of such. Even Manicheism has its connexions with the
1
Gnosis. Let us keep, in fact, to the Valentinian Gnosis, as the type
1
1643 1 have no slightest intention here of going into these problems in them-
selves, nor of adding one chapter more to the many that have already been written
on this subject. I am viewing the case in a very restricted aspect, as an example of
derivations.
x
1644 Buonaiuti, Lo gnosticismo, p. 124: "Gnosticism is a gigantic manifestation
of a morbidly exhilarated religious psychology. [That is to say, it shows on a larger
scale mental processes that are observable in many other manifestations of re-
ligion.] From humble beginnings it little by little grew to alarming proportions

under the favourable conditions supplied by the intellectual atmosphere that pre-
vailed in Rome during the second and third centuries. It serves no purpose, there-
fore, to break it up, dissect it, analyze it into its various coefficients. It is a complex
phenomenon deriving its substance from a thousand sources and protruding its
insidious tentacles upon a thousand different temperaments."
*
1645 Our knowledge of Gnostic doctrine is derived almost exclusively from
what its Christian adversaries say of it; but, from the little that is to be gathered
from other sources, it seems that on the whole the Christians gave a fairly accurate
picture of it. That at least seems to be indicated by Gnostic fragments recently re-
covered. We are in no sense interested here in the difficult, and for the present
1645 GNOSTICISM 1085
of the species. In it one notes broad traces of procedure from the
word to the thing. Words become persons, and the person retains
a sex corresponding to the grammatical gender of the word. These
entities of differing sex once created,
they are made to copulate and
give birth to new entities, which are not distinguishable from the
words that serve as their names. Then the legend grows more and
more elaborate. The entities have all the characteristics of the words,
and live and act according to those traits. Numbers have their role
in the legend. Whether deriving it from the
Pythagoreans or other-
wise, the Valentinians have a notion that there is
something real
corresponding to some perfection or other which they manage to

see in numbers, and to that
perfection they assign a place in their
legend. Certain entities called "Aeons" play a leading part in Gnostic
doctrine. It proves impossible to determine what on earth was meant
by the word. But that need not distress us. Very probably the Gnos-
2
tics did not know themselves.
partly unsolvable, problems that arise in connexion with Gnosticism and the
Gnostics. Weare not writing the history of the doctrine. We
are merely looking
for examples of derivations. Amelineau, Les traites gnostiqucs d' Oxford, p. 39: "The
publication of these two treatises seems to me in every respect important. In them

we have two Gnostic documents of the second century, two works that are genuine
in spite of the absence of any authors name and whatever the view one take of
them. They enable us to study Gnosticism directly, test the assertions of the Church
Fathers, determine that they were most often intelligent cpitomizers speaking
always in good faith, but that often also they did not grasp the ideas of the
Gnostics and occasionally distorted their meanings, not deliberately but by mis-
take." The Fathers gave a more rational, or rather a less absurd, semblance to the
vagaries that are now accessible in the documents published by Amelineau. For
example, p. 9: "What is the issue in this second treatise? In the first place, it is a
question of the initiation that Jesus gives to His disciples in order to perfect their
possession of the Gnosis, of the 'passwords' which He imparts to them, to enable
them to traverse one world after another and finally to reach the last where the
Father of Fatherhood, the God of Truth, abides. The word 'mystery' must
all
here be taken as referring either to the mysteries of the initiation, or to the

mysteries of each Aeon, which is made up of a number of mysterious regions them-
selves inhabited by hosts of powers, the ones more mysterious than the others. . . .
The word Logos must be taken here as referring not to the Aeon-Logos, but to the
passwords, the great and mysterious passwords that the Word gives to the Gnostics
that they may reach the abode of the God of Truth after making their way
through all the aeons, without, meantime, suffering in any respect from the con-
duct of their inhabitants. The title of this second treatise is nothing more than one
of those plays on words which were so dear to the Egyptians."
2 be a great, an immense, expanse of
1645 The principal meaning of al&v seems to
time eternity. We say principal, not primary; for here we are classifying things,
I086 TREATISE ON GENERAL SOCIOLOGY 1646
1646. St. Irenaeus of Marseilles gives an account of the Valen-
tinian system. He wrote in Greek. Only fragments of his text are
still extant, but an old Latin translation is available. Here I shall
translate from the Greek, and since the genders of the Greek words
are lost in English and are frequently different in Italian or French,
I shall mark them as (m) or (/)
according as the Greek word is
masculine or feminine. "It is said that at a height invisible and in-
calculable there abideth a perfect pre-existing Aeon. This also . . .
[lacuna in MS.] they call First Father and Abyss (m) . [lacuna] . .
Being infinite, invisible, eternal, increate, he did abide at rest and in

perfect peace for infinite time eternal. With him did abide Idea (/)
not debating origins. Hesiod, Theogonia, v. 609 (White, pp. 122-23): an' al&vofi
"From the most remote times." In the Timaeus, 3yD, Plato says that God created
the heavens "to make of them a mobile image of eternity": /cw K(vrjT6v nva aibvos . . .
Aristotle,
TToifjaai. De
coelo, I, 9, an aeon, having taken its name from its
n: "It is
ever being" [Hardie-Gaye, Vol. Ill, p. 2793: Aion: "duration, a name based upon
the fact that it is always durable, immortal and divine."] There are other abstract
meanings of the kind indicating long spaces of time, such as a century, a human
lifetime. In a chapter of the De fide orthodoxa, II, i, which he
entitles Hepi ai&vos
(De saeculo sive aevo), St. John Damascene notes those various senses (Opera,
all
Vol. I, p. 862; Salmond, p. 18). A bare hint of personification is detectable in

Euripides, Hcraclidae, v. 895 (900) (Coleridge, Vol. I, p. 179), where alfav,
"Time," is said to be a "child of Saturn" (Cronus). One may also take the passage
in the sense of "the succession of the ages born of time": "For Fate-Which-Leads-
To-The-End, and Time, the child of Cronus, bring forth many things." That is a
poetic personification, such as Claudian uses in his panegyric De consulatu Stilicho-
nis, II, vv. 424-27 (Carmina, Vol. II, p. 32) :
"Est ignota procul nostraeqtie impcrvia menti

vix adennda Deis an nor tun squalid a mater,
immensi spelunca aevi, quae tcmpora vasto
sup p editat revocatque sinu. ..."
("Far away, unexplored of man, nay inaccessible to our minds and hardly approach-
able of the gods,is the dark and uncouth Mother of the years, the grotto of end-
less Eternity which supplies the cycles of time, calling them forth from its own
infinitebosom.") Arrian, Epicteti dissertationes,
5, 13, II, seems to take the word
"aeon" in the sense of an immortal being: Oi> -ydp ei/u aibv aAA' dvtfpwTroc: ("For
I am not an aeon, but a man"). -Tatian, Oratio adversus Graecos, 20 (Migne,
p. 851; English, p. 26), alludes to altivec in a context that does not make his exact
meaning clear, though he seems to be thinking of "worlds," "regions": "For the
sky is not infinite, O human, but finite and circumscribed; and above it are better
aeons, which suffer not change of season whereof our various diseases spring, but
have full enjoyment of a mild clime, of perpetual day, and of a light inaccessible
to men." There have been two types of translation for the word "aeons" in this
passage. Puech, for example, Recherches sur le discours de Talien, p. 134, renders
it by "worlds" and annotates: "Aeones 'centuries/ 'worlds' is one of the words
1646 DERIVATIONS IV-S: VERBAL PROOFS 1087
whom they also call Grace (/) and Silence (/). And at a certain
time it was his pleasure that said Abyss should be made manifest
as the principle of all things. This emanation (which he had been
pleased to put forth) he did place as seed in the matrix, as it were,
of his companion Silence (/). And she did receive said seed and did
conceive and gave birth to Mind
(or Reason) (m), one like and
equal unto him who had begotten him and alone encompassing the
greatness of his father. This Mind (ra) they also call the Only-Be-
gotten, fatherand principle of all things. And at the same time was
begotten Truth (/). This, then, is the primal and first-born Pythago-
rean quaternion, which they call also the root of all things: and to
Tatian uses in common

with the Gnostics." Otto, for the other type, renders, p. 91,
by "centuries" praestantiora) , as does Migne's editor also, p. 851.
(saccula
The latter explains: "It is a question of Paradise, which he locates in a land far
better than ours." That would indicate that even those who translate "aeon" as
sacculum, "century," may think of it as a world, a region. With the Gnostics the
Aeons become persons and regions, and they are also considered under various
aspects. In his diatribe Adversus Valentinianos, 7 (Opera, Vol. II, p. 116; English,
Vol. II, p. 128), Tertullian says of the god: "Considering him in terms of sub-
stance they call him 'perfect aeon* (Altiva r/Aen>); and in terms of person, 'first
principle,' npoapxfi, 'principle,' 'Ap^, and also 'Abyss,' 'Bython,' a name

in no way suitable to a being inhabiting regions so sublime." Amelineau, Les traites
gnostiques d'Oxford, 23 (Jesus taught His disciples that after death they would
p.
traverse the aeons): "There ... we get the numbers corresponding to each world
of seals, that is to say, the magic words which a person had to have and know in
order to enter each aeon. . . . We also learn the 'apologies' that had to be recited,
the words, that is, which had to be uttered in order to convince the Aeons that
there was no number and the seal.
trickery in one's possessing the Use of the . . .
number, the talisman, had marvellous effects. When the soul presented itself in a
given world all its Archons, all its Powers, all its denizens, in a word, came run-
ning toward it, ready to wreak all the chastisement the soul's temerity had in-
curred. But it pronounced the number, showed the talisman, recited the formula,
and straightway Archons, Powers, inhabitants, gave ground before it, taking flight
towards the West." Idem, Notice sur le papyrus gnostique de Bruce, pp. 194-95
"
(Jesus says to his disciples) 'I will now give you the
:
"apology" for all these
places of which I have given you the mysteries [passwords] and the baptisms. . . .
When you have left the body and perform these mysteries for all the aeons and
all those who are in them, they will retreat [before you] until you come to these
six great aeons. They will flee to the West, to the left, with all their Archons, and
"
all who are in them.' To recapitulate: the term "aeons" seems to have had three
meanings for the Gnostics: (i) a metaphysical meaning with some bearing on
eternity; (2) a meaning make an aeon a person; (3) a meaning
that tends to
that tends to make an aeon a place. But such meanings are not kept distinct. The
metaphysical trait is extended to persons and places, the persons are something like
places, and the places act like persons.
wit: Abyss and then Mind (m) and Truth
(m) and Silence (/),
wl
(/). After quaternion there comes another made up of:
this first
The Word (m) and the Life (/), and Man (m) and the Church
(/). The two quaternions
added together yield an octad (6y5odg),
which, it would seem, must have been a very pretty thing. The
Word and Aeons whose names I may
the Life beget another ten
be spared from giving here; and copulating with Dame Church
(Exxfatia) Milord Man begets a baker's dozen more. The Aeons,

2
thirty and make up the Pleroma. Then comes
all told, are a long
l
1646 Ircnaeus, Contra haereses, I, i, i (Mignc, pp. 446-47; Kcble, pp. 3-4) :
AtyovGt yap nva dvai kv dopdrot^ Kal anarovopdoroi^ vtycjuaai rtfoiov altiva 7rpo6vra' rov-
rov J Kal [lacuna) UpoTvdropa Kal Bi'ô^ KaAovcriv vTrdpôvra 6* avrbv aûpijrov Kal
[lacuna]
d6porov aidi6v re Kal
1 ayt'vvjjrov, iv ?jovxiaKal 7/pruia Tro/l/l?; yeytyvfvai kv airtlpoi^ altivi XP&~
VQV. ovvvTrap%eiv d'avr(f) Kal 'Evvoiav, f/v J?) Kal "Kupiv Kal 2/yr/y bvofidôvai. Kal fvvot/Ot/vai
TTOTC afieavrov 7rpofta?itG0ai rbv "Bvtibv rovrov apxf/v T&V TTCIVTDV. Kal KaHdnep wrppua r;/v
Trpnfiohi/v rai)TTjv (ijv irpnfjaMaBai evevofflrj)

Kal KaQtoflai, kg h> [ifjrpa, r?/ ffvvvnapxova'g
lavTif) 2/y?/. Tabrr/v de vnoêâfih^v TO airep/ia TOVTO, Kal kyKrfiova yevouFvtjv aTTonvâai Nofu^
6/u.ol6v re, law ro 7Tf)o8a?i6vTi Kal [i6vov xttpovvra TO fifyftioc rov 7raT()6c. rov 6e Not)v
Kal J
TOVTOV Kal yLovoycvf] Kafawat, Kal Trarepa Kal ap%qv rtiv TTCLVTUV. ffi'fnrpofttftfifjaOai At ai>T(j
'
ATitflsiav Kal rivat ravrr/v irptirov Kal ap%tyovov flrOayopiKijv Ttrpanrvv //

Kal pi(,av r&v
irdvruv eon yap Bu0df /cat S^y/), eireLra Noi'f Kal 'AA//^tia. On the epithets
Ka'Aovffiv.
"First Father and Abyss" (UpoTrdropa Kal BtrfJoV) Grabe notes: "Synesius, bishop of
Ptolemais, not only used poetical licences in his hymns but adapted almost all the
mataeology of the Valentinians to true theology singing the orthodox faith in hereti-
cal words. These two epithets, for instance, he applied to God the Father as in
Hymn II, v. 27 (Opera, p. 317; Fitzgerald, Vol. II, p. 374): 'Paternal Deep* /3v6b?
Trarp&oc (projundum patcrnum); III, v. 147 (Opera, p. 321; Fitzgerald, Vol. II, p.
377): 'Fatherless First Father* (npondTup andrup) and IV, v. 69 (Opera, p. 336;
Fitzgerald, Vol. II, p. 384): 'Beauty unsoundable' (pvOiov /ca/Uo^: immcnsa pulchri-
tudo)" It is instructive to compare this description with the one in the Bruce papyri:
Amelineau, Notice, pp. 89-92: "It [he] is the First Father of all things, the Prime
Eternal, the King of the Unattainable [those who cannot be touched], the Gulf of
All Things. ... It [he] has been given no name since it [he] is unnamable and
unthinkable. . . . The second place is called
Demiurge, Father, Logos, Source,
Mind, Man, Eternal, prop [column], the overseer, the
Infinite. It [he] is the
Father of all things, the Ennead which issued from the Father without beginning,
father and mother to itself, the one which [whom] the Pleroma girt about the
twelve abysses. The first abyss is the universal source from which all sources have
issued. The second abyss is the universal wisdom, source of all wisdoms." And so
on and on. The other abysses are: "Universal Mystery; Universal Gnosis; Universal
Purity; Silence; Universal Essence before All Essence; the Propator; the Pantopator
or Autopator, Omnipotence, the Invisible Truth." [Another truth to add to the long
list we
have already seen. A. L.]
2
1646 Amelineau, Les traites, etc., pp. 24-25, thinks he can identify three dif-
ferent pleromata in the Bruce papyri: "The word Pleroma has, I think, three very
different meanings, or at the very least two that are certain. It seems to me first
1
646 GNOSTICISM 1
089
3
story about the "passion" of Sophia (/) Wisdom. It must derive
from the Valentinians, who believed that Abyss had begotten a son
agamogenetically. It tells how Sophia "tried to emulate her father
and herself engender without a mate, that she might perform a feat
in no way inferior to her father's. She did not know that
only he
who increate, principle, root, altitude and abyss, can
is
engender
4
without a mate." Hera also was minded to emulate Zeus, who had
given birth to Athena all by himself, and without consort with any
mate she bore Hephaestus (Vulcan), who, saving the detail that one
to designate the aggregate of worlds, including our Earth; but on our Earth it is
applicable only to psychics qualified for admittance to some of the prerogatives

of the true Gnostic, and of inspired individuals (pneumatics) who enjoy those
prerogatives by essence. The 'hylics' are not of that number, because they belong
to the evil creation, or 'essence of the left,' to use their expression, and are to be
destroyed, annihilated. I would not be too positive about this understanding of the
word 'Pleroma.' It is not categorically established. It seems however to be the one
that is implied by the texts, especially the two here in hand. In any case, it is certain
that the word 'Pleroma' designates the intermediate and upper worlds taken to-
gether, in otherwords all the intermediate aeons between our Earth and the higher
Pleroma including the aeons of the latter Pleroma itself. Finally, the term
'Pleroma' is often used as a designation for the upper world alone. That upper
world is called the 'Aeon of the Treasure,' and the Treasure, like all treasuries,
contains a number of precious articles sixty aeons, to be specific."
8
1646 [Origen ? ], Philosophumcna, VI, 2, 30: It was the last of the
Cf.
twenty-eight Aeons, "being female and called Sophia (ftrpw$ hv KOL /caAofy/evof So^fo)."
Here the explicit attribution of sex leaves no room for doubt.
4
1646 Philosophumena, VI, 2, 30. Other versions differ from this one and are to
a greater extent allegorical. Irenaeus, and Tertullian who follows him (Adversus
Valentinianos, 9-10; Opera, Vol. II, pp. 119-21), relate that Sophia desired to en-
compass her father's immensity. Unable to realize that ambition she began to
pine, and would have vanished altogether had not Limit ("0/uof [m]) come to the
rescue. Some Valentinians say that in the course of that arduous quest she bore
Cogitation (/) (or "Passion": Mvpqais [/]); others, that the offspring was Mattcr-
without-Form, a female entity (Iraeneus, Op. cit., I, 2, 2; Migne, pp. 455-58;
Keble, p. 6).
It would seem that Gnostics were still to be found as late as the nineteenth cen-
tury and that they were well acquainted with Sophia. Jules Bois, Les petitcs
religions de Paris, p. 176, puts the following words into the mouth of one Jules
"
Doinel, a Gnostic: 'Do you know,' asked the Apostle, 'why we surfer and are so
often bad? The Demiurge, not God Himself, created the world. This Demiurge, a
clumsy workman in the service of Sophia, soul of the Universe, who fell through
her noble desire to know too much, made us in his own image and it was not a
very beautiful one. But Sophia took pity on us. By her decree, one of her tears
dropping from heaven took up its abode in our human clay. Demiurge got even
by binding man to the flesh, and he will never get free of it except through knowl-
edge of his destiny, through the Gnosis."
TREATISE ON GENERAL SOCIOLOGY 1647
of his legswas shorter than the other, was an up-and-doing god.
Poor Sophia had no such luck "She produced only what she could:
produce, namely, substance, formless and chaotic; and that is what

" 5
Moses says: The earth was without form and void/ And that is
far from being the end
of the story.
1647. The polemist of the Philosophumena is interested
chiefly in
the metaphysical allegories of the Valentinians and declares, VI, 2,
29, that Valentinus got his doctrine, not from the Gospels, but from
1
Pythagoras and Plato. St. Epiphanius, for his part, fixes on the per-
sonifications and declares, Panarium ad versus
I, 3 (Opera, haereses,
Vol. p. 478),
I, that they repeat the genealogies of the pagan gods
2
as reported
by Hesiod, Stesichorus, and other poets. Those two
manners of approaching the Valentinian doctrine have each their
modicum of truth; but we must not be forgetting that all meta-
physical dreamers have a common fountain-head of inspiration, as
5
1646 Philosophumena , loc. cit.
*
1647 Tertullian, Advcrsus Valcntinianos, i (Opera, Vol. II, p. no; English,
Vol. II, p. 120), compares the Valentinian mysteries with the Eleusinian: "Eleusinia
Valentiniani jecerunt lenocinia (practised the Eleusinian whorings)."
2
1647 The Bruce papyri give comical details of personification: Amclineau, Lcs
traites, pp. 91, 97-99: "The light of his [its] eyes reaches forth from the regions of
the outer Plcroma and the Word issues from his [its] mouth. The hairs of . . .
his [its] head are equal in number to the hidden worlds. The lineaments of his
[its] countenance are the image of the aeons. The hairs of his [its] beard equal in
number the number of the outer worlds." All names become things: "There is also
another place that is called 'Abyss* and there there arc three Paternities. ... In
the second Paternity there are five trees with a table in the midst thereof, and
enthroned on the table is a Word, the Unigenitus (Monogcnes) having the twelve
countenances of the Mind (Nous) of all things, and the prayers of all creatures are
laid before him [it]. . . . And this Christ has twelve countenances. . . . Each
Paternity has three countenances." This whole passage on the "Second Place"
Buonaiuti, following Carl Schmidt [Gnostische Schrijtcn, p. 278], translates as
follows: Lo gnosticismo, p. 211: "The second place is the one called Demiurge,
Father, Logos, Source, Nous, Man, Eternal, Infinite. He is the Pillar, the Super-
visor, the Father of all things. He
he upon whose head the Aeons form a crown
is
and he doth sparkle with their rays. The lineaments of his countenance cannot be
seen in the outer worlds, which do yearn at all times to behold his face, for they
would know him, since his Word hath come unto them and they would behold
him. And
the light of his eyes doth penetrate to the innermost places of the outer
Pleroma, and the Word doth issue from his mouth, and doth reach forth above and
below in all directions. The hairs of his head are equal in number to the hidden
worlds, and the lineaments of his countenance are the reflection of the Aeons; and
the hairs of his beard are equal in number to the number of the outer worlds."
1648 DERIVATIONS IV~<5: VERBAL PROOFS I
Op I
8
do all creators of legend. It is therefore difficult to determine just
how far they are copying one another and to just what extent the
ideas they express are spontaneous and original in each (733f-)-
1648. Certainly there are many cases where direct proofs of plagia-
rism, interpolation, falsification, are available; and others where evi-

dence likewise direct creates great probability of imitation. But when
direct proofs are altogether lacking, it is unjustifiable to infer imita-
tion from resemblances alone. It is often difficult, for instance, to
identify the reciprocal imitations of neo-Orphism and Christianity

and distinguish elements of spontaneous origin from those which
1
were merely copied. Those scholars, Hebrew and Christian, who
thought Plato had imitated the sacred writings of the Jews were on
the wrong track. But their thesis could easily be made over into
something in harmony with the facts, if one were to say that He-
brews, Christians, writers such as Plato, the Orphic poets, and so on,
derived their notions from a common fund of residues and deriva-
tions. That
alone enough to explain resemblances between doc-
is
trines of independent origin. When, in course of time, such doc-

trines come into contact with elements of the same sort that have
developed independently elsewhere, imitations occur sometimes by
2
deliberate design, sometimes unconsciously.
3
1647 [I.e., Class I and Class II residues, and IV-8 derivations. A. L.]
*
1648 One
of the Orphic thcogonies has some points of resemblance to the
Gnostic; but that lone fact is not enough to show whether and to what extent
there has been imitation. Daremberg-Saglio, Dictionnaire , s.v. Orphici: "The
final version [of the theogony of the rhapsodes] seems to belong to a fairly late
epoch, but the essential elements in the system may be very ancient and go back
in part as far as the sixth century [B.C.]. Here is a resume of the theogony: In the
beginning was Cronus, or Time, and he produced Aether and Chaos whose mar-
Cosmic Egg, a huge silver egg. From it issued a god of many
riage resulted in the
heads they were heads of animals. At once male and female he contained all
things in germ. He was called Phanes, but he also had other names: Protogonus,
Ericapaeus, Metis, Eros. At the time when the god left the Cosmic Egg, its upper
half became the firmament, its lower half the Earth."
2
1648 Aristobulus, a Hebrew philosopher quoted by Eusebius, Evangelica prae-
paratio, XIII, 12, declares that Plato evidently utilized the books of the Hebrew law.
Justin Martyr, Apologia, I, 59, 60 (Migne, pp. 415-19; Davie, pp. 45-46), mentions
doctrines that Plato got from the Bible, and in his Cohortatio ad Graecos, 14 (Migne,
pp. 267-70; missing in Davie), he decides that Orpheus, Homer, Solon, Pythagoras,
and Plato all had access to the histories of Moses by way of the Egyptians. The
Aristobulus in question was a first-rate falsifier of texts. He quotes writers as best
suits his purpose and in one case has the impudence to tamper with a verse of
1649. The Valentinians waver between abstract combinations of
elements and sexual unions. In that they are like many other systems
which try to avail themselves of the powerful residue of sex, strip-
ping the well be, of any suggestion of licentiousness.
latter, it may
In a fragment by Valentinus, which owes its preservation to its quo-
tation by St. Epiphanius, the two sexes stand combined in the Aeon,
who represented as a male-female (dopevoO^v^) but then again
is ;
Valentinus speaks of copulations of Aeons in the ordinary terms of

intercourse between earthly males and females, with the saving
x
qualification that such divine intercourse is "incorrupt."
Neo-Orphism also wavers between allegory and personification,
and as in many other doctrines one meets now personified beings,
2
now plain metaphysical abstractions.
Homer. Homer relates, Odyssey, V, v. 262, that Ulysses completed preparations for
leaving Calypso's island by the fourth day: "It was the fourth day, and everything
had been done by him." However, Aristobulus wants to show that the pagans
also regarded the seventh day as holy, and so blithely substitutes "Epfiopov for
Ttrparov and makes Homer say that everything had been done by the seventh
day. Eusebius, pious rascal that he was, quotes Aristobulus and pretends not to
notice the falsification [Evangdica praeparatio, XIII, 12 (Opera, Vol. Ill, pp. 1097-
98)]. But Aristobulus goes even that one better. He invents verses outright as
occasion demands, and again Eusebius quotes them without a quaver. It should not
be overlooked that those two gentlemen were great hands at harping on "morality."
*
1649 St. Epiphanius, Panarium ad versus haereses, lib. I, tomus II, Haeresis
31, 5,Ex Valentiniano libro (Opera, Vol. I, pp. 482-83) in question a male and a
female Aeon: ". and so they united in coition incorrupt, in embrace everlasting"
. .
cvvrjtGav tavrolc otyOdprCf) Kai a/7/pdrcj ovyitpdoei). Just adverting

(K.CU fJ,iei, previously,
to a similar union, he had said: KCII arrr) avr<f> fii-yelaa ("and she, uniting with
. . .
him . .
."). The verb fiiyvvfii is the ordinary Greek term for commerce between the
sexes. A
pamphlet of Victorinus of Pettaw, entitled Ad versus omnes hacreticos,
which was once mistakenly attributed to Tertullian, declares, i (Corpus, p. 215;
Thelwall, p. 650: Tertullian, English, Vol. Ill, p. 261): "This individual [Nicolas]
says that Darkness had lusted with Light in a foul and obscene passion, and modesty
forbids me to mention the filthy loathsome things that were born of that lechery.
Then there are other obscenities. For he talks about certain Aeons that are born of
shame, about execrable and obscene mixtures and minglings, and about things even
more disgusting that come of them."
2
1649 Daremberg-Saglio, Dictionnaire , s.v. Orphici: "Not content with trans-
forming myths into symbols, the Orphics invented and adopted gods that were
altogether abstract, gods without legends and without features of individuality,
being mere metaphysical expressions of Orphic conceptions of cosmogony. Among
this number were some of their most
devoutly worshipped gods, such as the cosmic
Eros, Protogonus, Metis [Cunning], Mise [Hate], Mnemosyne, Phanes [Light].
One need only consider the etymologies of these names to be sure that they were
mere symbols without concrete substance or reality, the terms of metaphysics simply
being deified."
1650 HESIOD'S COSMOGONY 1093
Another pleasant individual is that Justinus whom we know
1650.
through the Philosophumena, V, 4, 26. He comes out with three in-

create principles of all things, and fancifully pictures just how they
managed to produce Creation. In this system, as in the Valentinian

1
doctrine, the allegory has an eye on the Bible. But long before that,
and without any help from Hebrew Scripture, Hesiod had mythol-
2
ogized on the manner of creation and such cosmogonies are avail-
;
1
1650 "There are three increate principles of the all, two male and one female.
Of the male one is called Good. He alone is so called, for he is prescient of all
things. The other is father of all created things. He seeth not, foreseeth not (impru-
dent), knoweth not. The female foreseeth not, and she is prone to wrath, and de-
ceitful[double], in all things like unto the monster of Herodotus [Historiae, IV,
8] a maiden down to the private parts, a snake there below, as Justinus saith. And
:
the maiden is called Edcm and Israel. Such, saith Justinus, are the principles of the
All, the root and source from which
all things have come; and other than these
there are none. And

the unforeseeing (imprudent) father did look upon the semi-
maiden, and he desired her. This father, saith Justinus, is called Eloim. Nor less was
the desire for him of Edem. And so did lust unite them in one single enamoured
embrace. Of which commerce with Edem did the father beget himself twelve an-
gels.And the names of the paternal angels are And of the maternal angels
. . .
which Edem likewise made subject unto her the names are ." And know ye also . .
thn- the trees of the biblical Paradise are allegories of these same angels. The tree
of life is Baruch, Number Three among the paternal angels; the tree of knowledge
of good and evil is Naas, Number Three among the maternal angels. Eloim and
Edem produced all things: human beings come of the human part of Edem the
part above the groin; animals, and all the rest, come of the bestial part the part
below the groin.
2
1650 Theogonia, vv. 116-36: "And so first was Chaos, and then Earth-of-the-
Broad-Bosom, ever the firm throne of the All [An interpolation reads: "of the Im-
mortals who hold the snowy peaks of Olympus"], and Tartarus dark in the recesses
of the spacious Earth, and Eros, who is the fairest of the immortal gods, who ban-
ishes the cares [or else, "loosens the limbs"] of all gods and men. And of . . .
Chaos and Erebus was black Night born, and of Night, thereafter, were Aether and
the Days born, she having known Erebus and conceived of him. And verily the
Earth first of all bore the starry Uranus [the Sky], her equal, that he might envelop
her all about . and of embrace with Uranus did she conceive Ocean us-of-the-
. .
Deep-Whirlpools, and Cocus, Creiius, Hyperion, lapetus, Theia, Rhea, Themis, and
Mnemosyne, Phoebus-of-the-Golden-Crown, and Thetis-thc-Lovely." These verses of
Hesiod have caused a great to do among commentators and philosophers in general.
Diogenes Laertius relates, Epicurus, X, 2 (Hicks, Vol. II, pp. 529-31), that Epicurus
turned to philosophy because neither Sophists nor grammarians had succeeded in
explaining to him just what Hesiod's Chaos was. Scxtus Empiricus, Contradictiones,
X, Adverstis physicos, I, 18 (636) (Opera, Vol. II, p. 678), repeats the same anec-
dote, adding a number of details. According to Sextus Hesiod gave the name of
Chaos to the place that contains all things. Hesiod's ancient scholiast transmits sev-
eral views on the same Chaos, among them an etymology deriving the term from
XeioQai, to amass, accumulate, spread out: irapa TO êioBai Xdof yivero. According to
another interpretation, ascribed to Zenodotus, Hesiod's Chaos is the atmosphere
able in surfeit from all times and peoples. Even a writer of the nine-
teenth century, Charles Fourier, was minded to have his own; and
if
anyone else should care to try his hand at world-building, he
8
could easily have his way by proper resort to verbal allegory.
between
1651. Verbal allegories figure largely in the controversy
the Realists and the Nominalists. As is well known, surrendering to
that mighty current which rushes down across the centuries from
remotest times to our own day, the Realists thought that abstractions
(afjp). Coming down to critics of more recent date, Guyet notes: "Xdof yver' : that
is, the sky, the air, the immensity of the atmosphere, uncircumscribed immensity,
universal space.'* Two

other writers, who insist on reading their Hesiod Bible in
hand, go deeply into the matter of chaos. Was it created or increate? Leclerc in-
clines to the second view because, if one were to adopt the other, one might ask the
poet: "By whom was Chaos created?" "The author of the Clementine Homilies
therefore interprets tyhero as though Hesiod had written tyevvifirj , 'Chaos was en-
"
gendered/ But that is a fatuous splitting of hairs. Quoting the passage from Hesiod,
"
he says, VI, 3: 'was made/ Evidently he means that the elements originated as
created things and had not existed from eternity as increate things. But if that had
been the meaning of the poet one would have had to devise some cause whereby he
could say that Chaos was engendered. For when one says that it was 'made' one
immediately meets the objection 'By whom?' nothing being 'made* without a
"
maker." But Robinson, pp. 356-57, is not of that opinion: "Hm-yêr': renders:
'First then Chaos was engendered,' as also below, 137, 930. So the ancients under-
stood the passage, not reading 'was,' ]uit, as does Leclerc." Robinson supports his
interpretation by various authorities and concludes: "Such the darkness in which
they grope, who, denying the cause of all things, set out to explain the origin of
the world on other hypotheses. The same question, 'By whom was it produced?'
necessarily must recur time after time until one arrives at some supreme, increate
cause."
Today we laugh at such fatuous pedantries to which experimental science has at
last put an end. But ifever the sway of such science comes to be extended over
sociology and political economy, people will laugh just as heartily at many disquisi-
tions, metaphysical, ethical, humanitarian, patriotic, and the like, which are to be
found in the literature of those subjects in our time.
3
1650 Fourier, Traitc de ['association domestique agricole, Vol.
I, pp. 521-27
(italics Fourier's) : "The planets being androgenous like the plants, they copulate
with themselves and with other planets. So the Earth, copulating with itself and
fusing its two typical aromas, the masculine coming from the North Pole and the
feminine from the South Pole, produced the cherry, a subpivotal fruit of the red
fruits and attended by five fruits in the scale, as follows: copulating with Mercury,
its principal and fifth satellite, the Earth engendered the strawberry; with Pallas, its
fourth the blacl^ currant or cassis; with Ceres, its third satellite, the thorny
satellite,
currant." Now
for the properties of such offspring: "The cherry, the subpivotal
fruit of that series (modulation} by copulation of the Earth with itself is created
of North Pole, with male aroma, and of South Pole, with female aroma. A symbol
of the tastes of childhood, the cherry is the first fruit of the pleasant season. It
1651 DERIVATIONS IV-5: VERBAL PROOFS 1095
1
and allegories
were real things. From the logico-experimental point
of view such a controversy may last indefinitely, and in fact has
(2368^), there being no judge to settle it. At bottom both the

Realist and the Nominalist are merely describing their own senti-
ments. are therefore both "right," and the conflict between
They
their theories is a conflict between sentiments. Individuals accord-
ing to their private tastes will prefer now one theory, now the other,
or even some intermediate one; but once a person has made his
choice there is no way left to lock another person in the dilemma
of either accepting his theory or rejecting logico-experimental fact.
Overlooking the shifting nebulous character of the two theories,

which necessarily excludes them from the logico-experimental field,
we might say that the Nominalists seem to come the closer to ex-
perimental science. But the latter cannot entertain a proposition as-
serting the "existence of individuals." Such a theorem altogether

transcends the experimental domain, and the term "existence," used
in that manner, belongs properly to metaphysics. Experimentally
speaking, to say that a thing exists is merely to say that it is part of

the experimental world.
stands in the order of crops where childhood stands in the order of ages. The . . .
strawberry, given by Mercury, is the most precious of the red fruits. It pictures
childhood to us as raised to harmony in the industrial groups. The thorny cur- . . .
rant, that grows with separate berries, is a product of Ceres. It pictures the child
that repressed, held aloof from pleasures, morally harassed, educated apart from
is
others. . The black currant, the cassis, is the gift of Pallas or Aesculapius, who
. .
always modulates on the side of the bitter tastes. The plant represents poor ill-bred
children. That is why its black fruit, emblematic of poverty, is of a bitter unpleasant
savour."
I
1651 De generibus et specicbus (Ouvrages inedits, pp. 513-25)
In his essay
Abelard states a
Realist position: "Opinions differ according to the person. . . .
Some imagine that there are certain universal essences which they think are present
essentially in each single individual. . . Each individual is made up of matter and
.
form. Socrates, for instance, is made up of matter man, and of form Socraticity,
Plato of a similar matter man, but of a different form Plato-ness; and so on for
other individual men. And just as the Socraticity that formally constitutes Socrates
exists nowhere outside of Socrates, so that essence of a man which sustains the
Socraticity in Socrates exists nowhere except in Socrates, and so on for all individ-
uals. I therefore say that the species is not that essence of a man which is present
only in Socrates or in any other individual, but the whole aggregate (collectio)
brought together from other individuals of the same nature; which aggregate (col-
lectio) taken as a whole, though essentially multiple, is nevertheless called by the
authorities one species, one universal, one nature, just as a people though made up
of many individuals is said to be one."
1652. But, in this connexion ( 2373), there is another problem
that belongs wholly to experimental science, the question as to
which of the two courses had better be followed if one is trying to
discover the uniformities that prevail among facts: i. Shall one
study individuals directly, classifying them by different norms ac-

cording to the results desired; then consider as a means of inference
thesum of common characteristics that a class presents; and, finally,
when a theory is obtained, ascertain whether it reproduces the in-
dividual facts which it is supposed to explain ? 2. Or shall we study
an aggregate of characteristics not sharply defined, not clearly deter-
mined, resting content if the name that is given to it is in tune with
our sentiments; then inferring from such study the characteristics
of, and the relations between, the individuals whom we believe, or
assume, to be parts of that aggregate ; finally, taking the logical in-
ferences that are drawn from it as proofs and otherwise paying no
attention to experimental verifications? Experience in the sciences
as they have developed has given its answer. All the uniformities
that we have come to know have been obtained by following the
first method. The second has usually led to theories that do not
square with the facts. Past experience teaches, accordingly, which

course ought to be followed if one would have theories that do
square with the facts. Nominalist theories add a metaphysical ele-

ment, often small, to an experimental element, often considerable;
1
whereas Realist theories generally do the opposite; and it is evi-
Haureau, De la philosophic scolastique, Vol. I, pp. 234-35, 243: "We count

x
1652
Guillaume de Champcaux among those scholastic doctors who showed the keenest
attachment to realized abstractions. Even when beyond real beings one assumes one
or several problematical or imaginary beings, one may still be a very moderate Real-
ist. But the greatest extravagance, the most absolute and intemperate thesis of Real-
ism, lay in denying the conditions of existence to everything that exists and ascrib-
ing them exclusively to what does not exist. Guillaume de Champcaux, in our judg-
ment, did nothing less than that. According to the Nominalists universals in re
. . .
are merely the more or less general attributes of individual things: the similarity
among substances is in their manner of being. According to our Guillaume, the

. . .
universal in re, considered as the most general thing, is substance, or first and only
essence, which does not contain the principle of distinction within itself but takes
on individual forms as extrinsic accidents.'* What on earth is that "first and only
essence'*? A
quid simile of the "Abyss" of the Gnostics? Rousselot, 'Etudes sur la
philosophic dans le moyen age, Vol. I, pp. 253-55: "Let us briefly recall the thesis
of Nominalism. Roxellinus had said: Individuals are realities and constitute the
essence of things: the rest is only an abstraction, a play of language, a sound of the
voice, a flatus vocis. Shocked, and rightly so, at the proposition, Guillaume de
1654 THE "POEM OF CREATION" 1097
dent that they move in a world quite different from the world of
2
experimental reality.
1653. Allegories are a product of human fancy, and therefore have
a certain likeness when produced by people of the same race, of re-
lated races, and sometimes even of whatever race. The stories of the
Creation that are told by one people or another are all of a kind,
because they conceive of the Creation as something after the manner
of the procreation they have before their eyes. Spontaneously, there-
fore, and not by any reciprocal copying, they invent male and female
beings, masculine and feminine principles, which produce all things

by a sexual process. Frequently, nay preferably, they hatch the world
and things in the world from an egg; imagine one being or one
principle as at war with another being, another principle; make
them love, hate, enjoy, suffer. In some particular case one such story
may have been copied to a greater or lesser extent from another,

but similarities may be present even where there has been no imita-
1
tion.
1654. Believers will say that such stories resemble one another be-
cause they are recording one single event, the memory of which has
been handed down in various ways. That may well be. But such a
problem overreaches the experimental field, and we have no means

of solving it.
Champeaux . . . combats that doctrine and substitutes for it one directly opposite
and quite as sweeping. . . . The

universal far excellence, the absolute universal
[What is that?] if I may be allowed the expression, is a substantial reality [Which

may be captured in the same world as the monster half girl, half snake, of Justinus
the Gnostic.] for with Guillaume de Champeaux the idea of substance and the
;
idea of reality must not be separated [Before deciding whether they stand united
or separate we have to know what they are.] and it is from the house-top of that
ontological principle that he proclaims the reality of universals and denies the reality
of the individual/* There are people who reason like that in the world today.
2
1652 Diogenes Lacrtius, Diogenes, VI, 53 (Hicks, Vol. II, p. 55) "Plato speak- :
ing of his 'ideas' and chancing to use the terms tablcncss and gobletness, 'I,' said
Diogenes, *O Plato, sec your table and your goblet, but your tableness and your
gobletness in no wise do And Plato: 'And rightly so; for you have the eyes
I sec.
1
that see tables and goblets; but the mind that sees tableness and gobletness, that
" 1
have you not. Both were right. Plato's followers are entitled to see what they
please. Their talk may have its use as derivation it is fatuous and sottish in every
respect of experimental science.
l
1653 Dhorme, Choix de textes religieux assyro-babyloniens, Preface, pp. x-xii:
"How and by whom was the world made? The various cosmogonies answer that
1098 TREATISE ON GENERAL SOCIOLOGY
1655. Allegories and metaphors usually figure in the formation of
legends, but that does

not enable us to conclude that a given legend
is
necessarily a mere allegory, and much less the allegory that we
might find it plausible to imagine. Legends contain, in addition to
allegories and metaphors, historical (or pseudo-historical, fictional)

elements, and at times imitations and reminiscences are also present.
Metaphor and allegory very probably played a considerable part in
the development of the Valentinian Gnosis, but exactly what role
we have no way of knowing. Our information comes almost exclu-
sively from writings of its adversaries; but even if we had access to
the original texts, we should be in no better position to decide just
what the metaphorical element was, just what the allegorical. Quite
probably the very authors of those theories did not know them-
selves to judge, at least, by the few facts we do have.
1656. We have to proceed from the known to the unknown; and
available in fact are not afew examples of the formation of such
legends. We
have seen the one Charles Fourier produced. His is a
medley of stories and metaphors, and it is not very clear whether

Fourier himself was aware of the precise bounds of the various in-
gredients he was utilizing. The

part played by the Aeons for the
Valentinians is
played by the planets for Fourier. Like the Aeons,
question. Detectable in each of them are influences of the environments in which
they originated. . . . The
interposition of the divinity is clothed with more or less
mystical traits that serve to fix the theological conception in the popular imagination.
[As a matter of fact, just the other way round.] The 'Poem of Creation' ... is,
from that point of view, of the major interest. Not satisfied with running down
the genesis of heaven and earth, it goes back to the time when 'none of the gods
had been created' and displays a veritable theogony before us. The gods will issue
in successive pairs [Personification, male and female, is rarely missing.] from a
primal couple, Apsou, the ocean that surrounds our land, and Tiamat, the 'tumultu-
ous sea whose waters mingle into one.' ... If the Tocm of Creation' is steeped
in mythological and popular ideas, the 'Chaldaean Cosmogony' tells a more ab-
stract and theological story of creation. The world still comes from the sea, but we
arc not madewitnesses of the births of any gods. If the Babylonians considered their
national god, Marduk, as the author of the world and of mankind, it is quite nat-
ural that the Assyrians should have entrusted that role to Asur, their god. . . .
That other legends of the Creation must have been current is proved by the frag-
mentary 'Creation of Animate Beings,' where we see a collaboration of gods in the
formation of heaven and earth. Along with these cosmogonies of the scholarly tradi-
tion there were other hypotheses as to the origin of the world. Some of them are a
part of general folk-lore."

1659 DERIVATIONS IV-S: VERBAL PROOFS 1
099
they pair off and engender the various things that constitute the uni-
1
verse.
1657. If we did not know how

Fourier's theory was built up, and
if we set out, on its
being given us as a bald fact, to guess its origins,
we would obviously go wrong in assuming: first, that Fourier in-
tended to write pure history, or second, that he was using pure meta-
phor. As a matter of fact he stands between the two extremes. The
facts are there, from
point of view; but the words in which he
his
states them are the proof of their existence, because of the sentiments
aroused by the metaphors, which in turn are suggested by the words

themselves (derivation IV-/3).
1658. If, therefore, we
happen on a theory of that type, we may,
in default of direct proofs to the contrary, regard it as at least
pos-
sible that the theory was built
up after the manner of Fourier's.
1659.Another example. Enfantin, the Father Supreme of the
Saint-Simonian religion, discovers a new trinity and hails its tran-
scendent beauties with all the enthusiasm of a neophyte. There is
no reason in the world for questioning Enfantin's good faith. He is
naively making us witnesses of the birth of a theology. Saint-Simon
and his disciples had in mind the notion of the Catholic Trinity and
perhaps also the perfection of the number three so dear to the pagan
gods. Without their dreaming of such a thing that notion prompted
them to evolve a whole string of trinities. Then, one fine day, they
"discover" them, are struck with wonder, find them in accord with
*
1656 Fourier, Theorie des quatre moitvements, p. 57: "It is a joy for God to
create and it is to His interest to prolong the act of creation. [So far, a simple nar-
rative without metaphor; but the story now suggests an analogy:] If the conception,
gestation, and parturition of a human being require a duration of nine months,

God must have used a corresponding length of time to create the three realms.
[Now a narrative that altogether capricious:] Theory estimates that period as
is
1/192 of the social cycle (carrier?) , which gives 450 years, more or less, for the dura-
tion of the First Creation. [And now a passage where metaphor, analogy, narrative,
are jumbled together, Fourier apparently not in the least distinguishing between the
different things:] All creation is effected through the conjunction of a boreal fluid,
which is fluid, which is female." ([In a note:] "The star can
male, with an austral
pair: i. With itself, from the North and South poles, like plants. 2. With another
star, by emanations (versementi) from opposite poles. 3. With some intermediary
-
(the tuberose is engendered by three aromas: Earth-South, Herschel [Uranus]
North, Sun-South). A planet is a being with two souls and two sexes and procre-
ates like the animal or plant by the combination of two generative substances. The
procedure is the same in all nature.")

1 1 00 THE MIND AND SOCIETY l66o
their sentiments, and their admiration knows no bounds at such

1
beautiful, such profound, disquisitions.
So, we may guess, the Valentinian Gnostics had in mind mytho-
logical notions
such as one finds in Hesiod, and, in addition, certain
of the metaphysical ideas of Plato, Pythagoras, or others. With those
materials, and quite unconsciously, they worked up a theogony of
their own. We in our time recognize the various ingredients, analyze
them, separate them one from the other, and gratuitously ascribe to
the Gnostic writers intentions and conceptions that they may never
have had.
1660. One
example: a story of beer changing into wine, as
last
1
told by Eginhard (Einhard). Eginhard evidently believes that he
is
recounting a fact. Not only does he eschew any admixture of
*
1659 Enfantin, Religion Saint-Simonienne: Reunion generate de la jamille, pp.
69-70 (italics and capitals Enfantin's) "At the time when Eugene and I were laying
:
the first foundations of the trinary dogma in its theological form, we had not as yet
come to understand how deeply that dogma had been FELT BY SAINT-SIMON in his
NEW CHRISTIANITY. Your father RODRIGUES alone kept repeating to us that that book
contained the teaching which it was given to man to receive. And we our-
loftiest
selves, when we were carried in the course of our labours to investigating the scien-
tific make-up of the trinitarian doctrine of the Christians and the ancient doctrine,
soon came to justify the problem of the Trinity in our own eyes as the most signifi-
cant that the human being could propound to himself. One of us let fall this sen-
tence, which was afterwards repeated in Eugene's letters: One who jails to under-
stand the Trinity jails to understand God. That was a real revelation as regarded
doctrine. All those who heard it, and your father RESSEGUIER in particular, found
some comprehending its full scope. It was not till then that on re-read-
difficulty in
ing the NEW CHRISTIANITY we saw that the idea of the Trinity figured on every page
in it under a thousand different forms, such as MORALITY, Dogma, Ritual, FINE ARTS,
Science, Industry. Great was our astonishment that we had been going over and
over that eternal problem of humanity so many times without noticing that it had
to be solved by us. At the same time all the sentences, all the indications, which
had made no impression upon us at the time of The Producer, now strengthened
us Eugene and me in the belief that our formula for the pantheistic trinitarian
dogma was the true formula of Saint-Simon."
1660 * Historia translations beatorum Christi martyrum Marcellini et Petri, IV,
44-45 (Opera, pp. 268-72; Wendell, pp. 57-59). Eginhard sets out for Court from the
church where the bones of the saints Marcellinus and Peter are cherished. He
reaches a certain locality on the Rhine when the following adventure befalls him:
After our supping, which had consumed a part of the night, I had retired with
my attendants to the chamber whither I was appointed to rest. But the servant who
was wont to prepare our drink hastened into the room as though he had some
strange thing to tell. I looked at him and asked: 'What wouldst thou? For thou
seemest to have something thou wouldst impart unto us.' Whereupon he: Two
1660 EGINHARD'S MIRACLE noi
metaphor but he vainly wonders what the significance of the prod-
igy may be what allegory may be inferred from it. Now suppose
we did not have Eginhard's naive confidences but knew only his
story of the bald fact. Our aim is to get from his story to what ac-
tually happened, and we argue, as M. Loisy argues regarding the
miracles in the Fourth Gospel, that the miracle as told by Eginhard
is
"unintelligible, absurd, ridiculous as fact, unless we see in it the
bold manipulation of a trickster" (774). We
shall have
plenty of
ways for discovering some "easy and simple interpretation" of the
miracle, and need only make our choice among numberless meta-
phors all
equally probable. But in such case our error would be
apparent enough; from intending to speak in metaphors,
for, far
Eginhard went looking for one and confesses that he failed to find
miracles have been wrought before our eyes, and of them would I speak unto you.'
And when had bidden him speak, he said: 'When ye rose from table and entered
I
into your chamber, I and my companions withdrew into the nether store-room,
which is under the dining-hall. We had begun to give beer to the servants who
besought us of it, when there entered a servant sent thither by some of our com-
panions and holding a flask, which he begged us to fill. The which when we had
done, he asked that we give him also of this beer to drink; and we gave him of it
in a vessel that chanced to lie empty on the cask of the beer. But as he put the ves-
sel to his mouth to drink, he cried out, amazed: "Forsooth, this is wine, and not
beer." And when he who had filled the flask, drawing the same from the tap from
which he had given the man to drink, began charging him with falsehood, the
man cried: "Take it, and taste, and then shalt thou see that I spake not falsehood
but the truth." And the man took it and tasted, and likewise vowed that the drink
had the taste of wine, not of beer. And then a third, and a fourth, and all others
who were there did each taste, and stood amazed, and so drank they all that was
in the cask; and each of them who tasted bore witness that the taste was of wine
"
and not of beer.* And then the same servant relates the second miracle a case
where a candle first falls to the floor without being touched and goes out; and then,
after an utterance of the names of Sts. Marcellinus and Peter, is relighted of its
own accord. Eginhard goes on to say: "Whereupon I bade the man who had told
me these things to retire into his own chamber. And lying on my bed to rest and
turning many thoughts in my mind, marvelling, I began to speculate as to what
this transmutation of beer into wine, that is to say, of an inferior liquid into a bet-
ter, could signify or portend; and why the prodigy should have occurred in that
way and in that place, that is to say, in a house of the King rather than in the man-
sion where the holy bodies of those blessed Martyrs lay, who through the power
of Christ had worked those miracles. But though however long and diligently I
pondered, it was not given me to solve the problem of a certainty, still I had and
shall always have it for a fact that that Supreme Power whereof it is held that these
and other like miracles come, never doth anything, nor permitteth anything to hap-
pen, without cause in those creatures which, I doubt not, abide under his providence
and government."
IIO2 TREATISE ON GENERAL SOCIOLOGY l66l
one. The same may be the case with allegorical interpretations of

the Fourth Gospel. If the story of the water changed into wine as
told in that Gospel is not a narrative of fact but an allegory for the
"replacement of the Law by the Gospel," why should not Egin-

hard's story represent, not what was fact in his mind, but any alle-
gory we choose ? The persons who vouched for the incident to Egin-
hard had the Gospel miracle in mind; and, naturally, without the
least intention to deceive,
they reported what in good faith they be-
lieved to be fact. Why may similar causes not have operated to give
us the accounts of miracles in the Fourth Gospel ?
1661. This mania for trying to* translate into allegory all stories
that seem to us to lie outside the real world has no experimental
foundation whatever. On
the contrary, examples in abundance make
it
plain that many writers who report miracles believe in all good
faith that they are recounting actual happenings and that such meta-
phors as may be detected in a story are introduced unconsciously by

the author and not of any deliberate intent. And in other cases, even
if
metaphors are deliberately introduced, they are mere appendages
to the fact and in no wise alter its actual or assumed reality.
1662. We have already seen ( 1623-24) that St. Augustine ad-
mits the literal and the
allegorical interpretation side by side. St.
Cyprian takes a very clear position as to the miracle of the water
changed into wine. For him it is a matter of actual fact, but the
miracle was wrought in order to "teach and show" (docens et
1
ostendcns} certain things. Altogether arbitrary, therefore, is the
system some would follow today, inverting that relation and assum-
ing that a writer cannot have believed in the reality of facts which
happen be susceptible of allegorical interpretation.
also to
1663. With so obvious an example before our eyes, how can we
assertwithout trace of direct proof that the author of the Fourth
Gospel followed a procedure wholly different from St. Cyprian's
and distinguished what the Saint combines ? So long as we have no
evidence on the point and follow the mere probabilities, these will
Epistolae, 63, 13, Ad Caecilium, De sacramento Domini edicts (Opera, p.

1
1662
383; Wallis, Vol. I, p. 216): "In making wine out of water, Jesus was teaching and
showing that the Gentiles were to succeed [to Abraham's inheritance] and that we
shortly would attain by merit of faith to what the Jews had lost: He showed, that
is,that when
the Jews departed from the wedding-feast of Christ and His Church
a great throng of Gentiles would flock to attend it in their places."
l666 DERIVATIONS IV-5: VERBAL PROOFS 1 1 03
be quite in favour of a resemblance between the procedure of the

author of the Fourth Gospel and St. Cyprian's.
1664. Another example from the same saint (he could supply us
with them to the heart's content) confirms such vague mixtures of
actual or assumed reality and metaphor. Cyprian says "That is why :
the Holy Spirit came in the form of a dove. The dove is a simple,
joyous bird, not bitter with gall, not cruel in its bites, not savage in
1
its
clawings." Either words have lost all meaning and the texts we
have are valueless, or else we are constrained to admit that St. Cyp-
rian believes that theHoly Spirit actually assumed the form of a
dove; and the things he adds to his description serve to show the
considerations prompting the transformation but not in any way to
cast doubt upon it (loc. at.): "loving human dwellings, knowing
the association of one home when they have young, bringing them
;
forth together, and when they fly abroad, flying side by side." (Wal-
2
lis.)
1665. Derivations with metaphors are frequently for the benefit
of educated people, but often also they serve half-educated people
to harmonize faith with logico-experimental science. Anything in a
story or theory that seems impossible to accept from the experi-
mental standpoint is at once set down as metaphor. The difference
between faith and this semi-scepticism lies in the fact that faith be-
lieves in the historical truth of the story and adds the metaphor:
what actually happens is a "sign" that teaches us something. Semi-
scepticism does not believe in the historical reality of the story. It
does not add metaphor to fact, but substitutes it for fact the meta-
phor only is real, the fact imaginary. As

for experimental science,
it is not called
upon either to accept or to reject the conclusions
whether of faith or of semi-scepticism. Such things lie outside its
domain. It confines itself to rejecting conclusions that are based on
sentiment alone and have no experimental foundation.
1666. In Chapter V
(635^) we mentioned two problems that
1664 De unitate ecclesiae, 9 (Opera, p. 506; Wallis, Vol. I, p. 384) "Idcirco et
* :
in columba vcnit Spiritus sanctus. Simplex animal et laetum est, non jelle amarum,
non morsibus saevum, non unguium laceratione violentum."
St. Augustine, however, says, De symbolo, Sermo ad catcchumenos X, 20
2
1664 ,
(Opera, Vol. VI, p. 649): "So the Spirit appeared in a dove but was not a dove."
So one eats one's cake and has it too! It was, and yet it was not, a dove! The next
step is to go farther still and see a mere allegory in the dove.
1
arise in connexion with theories. There we dealt with the first of
those problems (relations of a theory to experimental fact) and in
this present chapter we deal with the second (means of arriving at
It now remains for us
pre-established conclusions, persuasiveness).
to consider the two problems together, epitomizing the observations
that may be made on each of them separately. Suppose we take con-
crete cases as types: i. A story that is
purely mythological, such as
the story of Aphrodite and Ares in the eighth book of the Odyssey,
vv. 266-366. 2. Some wholly allegorical fable, where animals are
made to talk the fable of the wolf and the lamb, let us say. 3. The
Valentinian Gnosis (1645^). 4. Fourier's theory of creations
8
(i65O , 1656 *). 5. Comte's theory of the Earth and the Great
Being ( 1626'). 6. The theory of the Realists ( 1651). 7. The the-
ory of "solidarity."
1667. As regards the first
problem, as regards their relations to
fact, all those types stand on a par: their logico-experimental value
is
exactly zero. They in no way correspond to experimental facts. As
regards the second problem, as regards the methods by which im-
plications are drawn from them, and their persuasive force, we may
distinguish: (a) the structure of the derivation; () the manner
of its acceptance.
1668. a. Structure of the derivation. The
seven types noted have
one common characteristic: the arbitrary use of certain non-experi-
mental entities. Tertullian, seeing the mote in his
neighbour's eye,
challenges the Valentinians to prove their statements as to their
"Abyss," and takes no stock in what they say: "As though they
could ever prove its existence, if they define it as we know that it
has to be defined!" Bravo! As if
figments of the human fancy could
ever be proved to exist! To prove the existence of their Abyss, of
Hesiod's Chaos, of gods and goddesses, of copulations of planets, of
Fourier's sentient Earth, of universals, of talking animals, is some-
thing altogether impossible.

But there are degrees in the arbitrary which has its limits
1669.
in the sentiments associated with words and in certain conventions
arbitrary element seems

as to their use. In Fourier's creations the
great indeed. When

the Gnostics represent beings with masculine
names as copulating with beings of feminine names they expose to
their reader's
gaze facts that are well known to everybody. Whereas
1669 STRUCTURE OF DERIVATIONS 1 1 05
in Fourier one does not readily see just how and just why the Earth
copulates with herself and with Pallas. The North Pole and the
South Pole are both cold. It is not self-evident therefore why the
fluid of the North Pole should be male and that of the South Pole
female. But keeping to the terms "North" and "South" in them-
selves, we do understand that the warm South may somehow sug-
gest a mild feminine nature. An arbitrariness somewhat less ex-

treme but nevertheless considerable figures in mythological composi-
tions. Certain conventions have, of course, to be respected; but
within those limits the myth may assume as many different forms
as one may choose. In fables,
again, where animals talk, the arbitrary
element no less striking than in modern novels. The Roman de
is
Renart an excellent example of the very great variety such fables

is
may take on. In Hesiod's theogony there is less, though still a great
deal, of the arbitrary. One can see that sentiment will readily grant
that Chaos, and even Love, existed before anything else. That the
Earth should have produced the Sky, or the Sky the Earth, and
that Earth and Sky should unite to produce many other things
that too is sentimentally intelligible. But why Coeus, Crei'us, Hy-
perion, and so on should figure among such things, sentiment can

hardly suggest. The arbitrary plays a still lesser role in the writings
of the Valentinian Gnostics. Sentiment easily understands that the
origin of things should be pre-existent in a region very remote

all
and unnamable, nor are the names "Abyss" or "First Father" in-
appropriate to such an entity. All such words are chosen for the
simple reason that they arouse sentiments that accord with a feeling
we have we know nothing of the principle of the all. The story
that
of Sophia's striving to know her father's face awakens in us a sense
of the yearning men feel to know what is beyond experience. We
understand by analogy that tears go with humid matter, laughter
with light, and so on ( 670). The analogies with Pythagorean per-
fections in numbers or with the numerical values of letters, super-
ficial and arbitrary as they are, still awaken some response in human
emotions. In Comte's mythology the status of the arbitrary element
is not
greatly different from its status in Gnostic theory, but it is
not so conspicuously obtruded. And very much the same may be
said of the theory of "solidarity." The object, in two words, is to
persuade people who have money to share it with the followers of

II06 TREATISE ON GENERAL SOCIOLOGY 1670
certain politicians; so the resort is to "solidarity," to a debt that is
being constantly liquidated and constantly revived. As a matter of

could have served just as well
fact, entities altogether different
Marx's "surplus value," for instance, or anything else of the kind.
The arbitrary element diminishes as we pass on to the Realists. It is
understandable that to individuate Socrates one should resort to a
x
certain Socraticity ( 1651 ) and that sentiment should be tickled
to have an explanation so adequate. How
satisfying to know that
a
lamb chop is the manifestation of lamb-chopness It is noteworthy, !
however, that the metaphysicist no less than the ignoramus orders

the former for dinner, and he would find the latter a slim diet
indeed.
1670. Suppose we look at the same derivations from the stand-
point of personification. In narratives of the type of the love-story of

Aphrodite and Ares, the personifications are fully worked out, to
such an extent indeed that they are readily mistakable for historical
narratives somewhat likewise complete,
altered. Personification is
though altogether artificial, in fables involving animals that talk.

The Valentinian Gnostics flounder about like fleas in tinder among
the difficulties of harmonizing personifications with allegories, go-
ing back and forth from the ones to the others and then round
again, without ever finding a place where they can stop. When they
have endowed one of their entities with sex, they would seem to
have personified it; but then back they go from personification to
abstraction, changing the Aeon into a male-female "principle"
(Irenaeus, Contra haereses, I, i, i). However they do not stick to the
abstraction. Soon again they begin talking of a generative process
that is
by the deposit of something like seed in something
effected
like a matrix, and of entities that fertilize, conceive and bring forth
1
young. Then they try to shed the material connotations by talking
x
1670 The Greek text and the translation of Irenaeus, Contra haereses, I, i, i,
are given in 1646. The ancient Latin translator understands the passage thus:
"Prolationem hanc praemittt volunt et earn deposuisse quasi in vulva eius quae cum
co erat Sige [i.e., Silence]. Hanc autem suscepisse semen hoc et pracgnantem factam
[How could an abstraction ever get with child? All the terms here in question
apply to human women.] generasse Nun." Tertullian, Adversus Valentinianos f 7
(Opera, Vol. II, p. 116; English, Vol. II, p. 129), reads: "Hoc vice seminis in Sigae
suae veluti genitalibus vtdvae locis collocat. Suscipit ilia statim et praegnans efficitur
et parit" The Valentinians do not seem to have been all of the same opinion: Phi-
losophumena, VI, 2, 29: "Many differences are to be noted among them. Some, in
1672 DERIVATIONS IV-5 I VERBAL PROOFS IIO7
of a coition that is
"incorrupt" ( 1649). But as regards creation they
also dispense with the sexual union: "They say that humid sub-
stances were born of the tears of Achamoth, luminous substances
of his smile, solid substances of his gloom, and the mobile of his
fear." In short theywaver between literal meanings and metaphor,
between personifications and allegory, without ever fixing once and
for all on any definite attitude.
1671. Metaphor, as is well known, easily leads to personification,
and many many examples of such developments are available. The
personifications in Comte's mythology are very like the personifica-
tions of the Gnostics, with the difference that Comte begins by
saying that his are fictions, but then proceeds to forget that and
talks of them as though they were actual persons. Personification
amounts to nothing in the theory of solidarity; nor does it play any
part in the theory of the Realists. But that is true only as regards
forms, not as regards substance. After all, the Abyss of the Valen-
tinians and the universal essence of the Realists are the same actor
in different costumes. All things proceed from the one as they do
from the other, and such origin is conceived either by resort to a
greater degree of personification, as in generation by the Aeons, or
by dispensing with personification, as in Abelard's "accidents of the
universal essence." One may add, ifone chooses, Hesiod's Chaos or
any other entity of the sort; for, whether all things proceed from an
Abyss, from universals, from a Chaos, or from some other such
entity, the
same sentiments are satisfied and one gets theories that
various persons will accept according to their individual preferences.
1672. Transformation of metaphors not into persons as just
above, but merely into objective realities is largely if not altogether

1
missing in mythological stories and animal fables. Slight if any
order to keep the Pythagorean dogma of Valentinus in all respects intact, regard
the Father as sexless, wifeless (un feminine "AtyOvc?) and solitary. Others deem-
ing it impossible that a male should have engendered all things by himself, are
forced to provide him witha mate, Sige (Silence, /.)."
1
1672 Piepenbring, Thcologie de I'Ancien Testament, pp. 129, 120: "The maleach
of the Lord: If the revealed God is identified with the glory, name, or countenance,
of God, so He is with the maleach, or, to follow the usual translation, the Angel of
the Lord, or Jehovah. ... It is easy to be persuaded that there is a close analogy
between the Angel of the Lord and His Countenance. And that analogy per-
. .
fectly explains the identification of the maleach with God Himself. . There are
. .
passages, nevertheless, where God and His maleach are contradistinguished as two
IIO8 THE MIND AND SOCIETY 1673
traces of are detectable in Fourier's mythology. In the Valentinian
it
Gnosis, as we have
just seen, metaphors are mixed and mingled
with
personifications till it is difficult, not to say impossible,

to separate
them. Comte, for his part, first tries to keep them distinct, then
combines them, and ends in personification pure and simple. Meta-
phorical entities reign sovereign in the theory of solidarity
and
among the Realists.
Merging of metaphor and reality is the rule with persons
1673.
who reason on sentiment. In the case of metaphysical and theological
dreamers things, symbols, metaphors, allegories, all make one jum-
ble in themind. It is out of the question to reason in earnest with
people who use terms so vague, so nebulous, that not even they
know what they mean. Here, for instance, is M. Leon Bourgeois,
who expatiates, mouth agape, on the notions implicit in his concept
of interdependence, as "filling the moral idea with a new content."
That string of words means exactly nothing: M. Bourgeois's moral
idea is filled with a new content in the same way that Sige was
fertilized by the Abyss of the Gnostics. Had he lived in the day of
the Valentinians M. Bourgeois might perhaps have personified his
1
metaphors.
1674. All these types of verbal derivations with metaphors are of
common use in metaphysics oftentimes they predominate over
everything else and in the metaphysical parts of theologies, where,
however, they are generally incidental. word awakens certain A
different persons, and on one occasion the identification and distinction stand side
by side in the same passage. An angel of Jehovah, also called a Man of God, appears
to Samson's parents (Judges 13:3, 6f.). He is definitely distinguished from Jehovah
(13:8 f.; i6:i8f.); yet after his disappearance, Manoah says to his wife (13:22):
'We we have seen God/ Theologians have been to great
shall surely die, because
pains to determine just what

the Lord's maleach was, but they have reached widely
divergent conclusions.'* And how otherwise, when they go looking for a single
objective thing where all there is is a multiplicity of subjective things? Dugas-
Montbel, in his Observations sur I'lliade, Vol. I, pp. 145-46 (Iliad, III, v. 105), notes
"
of an expression used by Homer: 'Fetch the might of Priam hither' means 'Fetch
Priam hither.' In thesame way Homer says 'might of Hercules' for 'Hercules.' The
term isfrequent in Homer, and many other poets have imitated it from him. .
. .
The Latins have similar locutions, using, that is, a distinctive trait of the person for
the person himself. Thence doubtless have come such locutions in our modern
. . .
"
languages as 'his Majesty,' 'his Eminence,' 'his Grace,' 'his Highness.'
*
1673 Essai d'une philosophic dc la solidaritc, p. 38: "We change nothing, I
again insist, in and right; but to follow an ex-
those general principles of morality
pression that I have kept and which admirably expresses what we have in mind,
1676 VOGUE OF DERIVATIONS 1 1
09
sentiments; it is transformed into a thing; and, thereupon, one
readily believes that the sentiments so awakened are produced by
that thing. Poetry, literature, eloquence, even ordinary conversa-
tion, cannot do without such transformations, for they would other-

wise in their principal purpose, which is the stirring of senti-
fail
ments. So people acquire certain habits of thought and take them

with them when they turn to science, where the object is not,
ostensibly at least, to play on sentiments but to establish relation-
ships between facts.

1675. b. Acceptance of the derivation. As regards the credence
that human beings lend to derivations, the following traits stand
out. Animal fables have never been taken as literally true. The
mythologies of the Valentinians, of Comte, and Fourier, have had
a certain number of believers. So also the metaphors of solidarity.
Much more numerous, among educated people, are those who be-
lieve in a more or less
mitigated Realism. Of the three types just
mentioned, the first has had the largest following mythological
narrative, that is. For us, in our day and age, Greek mythology is a
collection of pretty stories; but it was accepted as truth for cen-
turies by vast numbers of human beings, and we, for our part,
have
merely replaced it
type. The
with other mythologies of the same
number of believers increases for the simple
beyond the maximum
types as we move on to compound types, especially to composites
arising in combinations of the first and last types, that is to say, the
combination of the mythological narrative with the metaphors of
Realism. Most religions are built up in just that way.
1676. As regards the sentiments that are coddled by the seven
types in question ( 1666), the instinct of combinations is satisfied

chiefly by the first. In children and in not a few adults it is satisfied
also by the second; but with many people the moral instincts are
the concepts that we have derived from our recognition of the interdependence that
prevails among men fill as M. Darlu says fill the moral idea with a content alto-
gether new." So then the general principles of morality are in no way changed,
but the moral idea is nevertheless filled with an entirely new content! If it is new,
one would expect it to show some change, as compared with the old; and if there
has been no change, how on earth can it be new? The brain that can make head
or tail of that isa brain indeed. Bourgeois further explains: "There is something in
these facts that clarifies and broadens old conceptions of right, duty, justice." So
then, it was not true that nothing had been changed! The change would lie in that
very "broadening"!
11 10 TREATISE ON GENERAL SOCIOLOGY 1677
into
specially stirred in other words, Class II residues are brought
play. The sixth type and, in more general terms, metaphysical
reasonings at large, satisfy the need of logical explanation that edu-

cated persons feel (residues I-s). So, also for the seventh type
and other doctrines of the kind, which dissemble brute appetite
under ratiocination. The third, fourth, and fifth types aim to satisfy
the instincts for combinations and logical reasoning both at the same
time. They must have achieved their purpose only in part; for actu-
ally they survived but for very brief periods of time and won
rela-
tively few adherents. Religions that have endured for long periods
of time and enjoyed large followings must have realized their pur-
pose better. The ancient religion of Rome was supplanted by Greek

religion because it gave no satisfaction whatever to the rationalizing
1
instinct. Neo-Platonism succumbed to Christianity because it gave
no satisfaction to the demand for concrete combinations. So Mod-
ernism today, reviving the allegorical methods of Philo, makes no
progress the plain people because it satisfies the intellectual
among
requirements of a mere handful of cerebrators. Theology is no
longer in style even when it comes garbed in democratic toggery.

1677. Since personification satisfies a demand for the concrete and
allegory a demand for abstraction, derivations tend to use the two
together, so far as possible, in order to profit by both. But it is not
easy to keep them in harmony. In that connexion the Catholic
Church shows surpassing wisdom and sagacity in shrouding the
accord in mystery. The Fourth Gospel is a necessary complement to
the three in satisfying the full religious requirements of men;
first
and the Catholic Church very wisely condemns the interpretations

of the Modernists, just as it has condemned, at one time or another,
other systems that have aimed at distinguishing historical reality
from allegory. The Church condemned the fancies of the Gnostics
because they tipped the scales too far in one direction; but it has
always accepted, to some moderate extent, allegorical interpretations

that satisfied a demand for reasoning and inference. From that
point of view St. Thomas stands really on a plane of his own. Is
*
1676 The "because" here and in the sentence following must be taken as indi-
cating prominent, but by no means exclusive, causes. Such summary modes of ex-
pression are indispensable if one would avoid cumbersome prolixities; but they can
never be very exact. There is no danger of going astray if one at all times bears
the interdependence of social phenomena in mind.
l68o DERIVATIONS IV-5: VERBAL PROOFS IIII
there anyone who could be compared with him ? He satisfies in the

best possible way the various requirements for concreteness and for
abstraction, yet manages with consummate skill to side-step the dis-
crepancies that are forever cropping up between reality and allegory.

1678. another very important aspect under which deriva-
There is
tions have to be considered: and that is the judgment that is to be
passed upon them in their relations to reality, and that not only as
regards their accord with experience, but also as regards their

1
bearing on individual or social utility.
1679. There are those who
are disposed to consider nothing but
logical conduct, regarding the non-logical as originating in absurd

prejudices and calculated to do nothing but harm to society. So
there are those who
will consider a doctrine only from the stand-
point of its accord with experience and declare that any other way
of regarding it is That theory shocks the
absurd, fatuous, harmful.
sentiments of many people and furthermore does not square with
the facts, which clearly demonstrate that doctrines (derivations)
that transcend experience are expressions of sentiments, and that
these in turn play an important part in determining the social
equilibrium (2206). The theory is therefore false, in the sense of

not squaring with the facts. But where does the error lie ?
1680. The adversaries of those who disparage theories they deem
unreal deny the alleged unreality. They feel instinctively that to con-
sider such theories mere strings of words without effect on society
is false and, in an effort to restore them to a dignity they deserve,
exert themselves to make them seem real at any cost, or else superior
to reality ( 2340). But that is another error, which in its turn offends
the sentiments of people who live in a world of practical realities,
and these again reply by demonstrating the logico-experimental in-
eptitude of the revered derivations. Hence those perpetually recur-
rent swings of the pendulum, which have been observable for so
many many centuries, between scepticism and faith, materialism and

1678
1
We have already dealt with the first subject at length (Chapters IV and V)
in our discussion of the way in which logical and non-logical conduct is to be
viewed; but remains for us to add a few remarks that could not be opportunely
it
made until the exposition of theories just given had been completed. Nor shall we
have exhausted the subject when we have made them. It will still remain for us to
study various concomitant fluctuations in the vogue of derivations and in other social
phenomena. To that we shall come in Chapter XII ( 2329 f.).
11 12 THE MIND AND SOCIETY l68l
idealism, logico-experimental science and metaphysics (2341).

1681. And so it is, considering for the moment only one or two
1
of such oscillations, that in a little more than a hundred years, and,
specifically,
from the close of the eighteenth to the beginning of the
twentieth century, one witnesses a wave of Voltairean scepticism,
and then Rousseau's humanitarianism as a sequel to it; then a re-
ligion of Revolution, and then a return to Christianity; then scep-
ticism once more Positivism; and finally, in our time, the first
stages of a new fluctuation in a mystico-nationalist direction. Leav-

ing the natural sciences aside and keeping to social theory, there
has been no notable progress in one direction or the other. In a word,
if faith is
just
a harmful prejudice, how comes it that it has sur-
vived over so centuries, constantly reshaping itself
many and con-
stantly reappearing, after its enemies, from Lucretius on, had
thought they had vanquished it for all time ? And if scientific
scep-
ticism really so futile, so inconclusive, so harmful to human
is
society, how
comesf it that it can return to fashion every so often
in the plain good sense of a Lucian, a Montaigne, a Bayle, a Vol-
taire? How comes itthat the progress which cannot be discerned
in social opinions is
indisputably real in the natural sciences ?
1682. If one is disposed ta keep strictly to the facts, an error will
be apparent in both views, in that they both reduce to one unit
things that have to be kept distinct. The accord of a doctrine, or
theory, with fact is one thing; and the social importance of that
doctrine, or theory, quite another. The former may amount to zero,
the latter be very great; but the social significance does not prove
the scientific accord, just as the scientific accord does not prove the
social significance. A
theory may not correspond to objective fact,
may indeed be altogether fantastic from that standpoint, and yet
meantime correspond to subjective facts of great moment to society
( 843). A person aware of the social importance of a mythology will
have that mythology real. A person who denies the truth of a
mythology will deny its social value. But the facts clearly show
also
that mythologies have no reality and at the same time have the great-
est social importance. Feelings are so strong on this point that people
are persuaded that the day of the mythologies is definitely over, that
myths are but ghostly memories of a past for ever dead, and so
1681 l
We shall study them in their general traits hereafter ( 2329 f.).
1683 VOGUE OF DERIVATIONS 11 13
vast in numbers which
deliberately shut their eyes to facts truly
show that mythologies are still alive and flourishing. So also there
are who believe that the achievements of logico-experimental
people
science in the course of these many centuries amount to nothing,
and that to know realities we can again go back to the dreams of a
Plato revamped by a Hegel.
1683. The fluctuations observable in social opinions result theo-
retically (234of.)
from a clash of two opposing forces: the cor-
respondence of the derivations with realityon the one hand, and
their social utility on the other. If the two things cogged together
perfectly,
a continuous movement
ultimately leading to the absolute
predominance of the resultant of the two forces would not be im-
possible;
but since, instead of working in harmony, they are dis-
cordant, antagonistic, and since both a complete desertion of reality
and a complete disregard of social utilities remain if not impossible,
at least difficult, it necessarily follows that in regard to social mat-
ters theory oscillates like a pendulum, now swinging in one direc-
tion, now in the other. That is not the case with the natural sciences,
because the theories of mathematics, chemistry, astronomy, and so
on, have in our day at least a scant, if any, bearing on social ques-
tions ; and so the pendulum swings farther and farther in the direc-
tion of logico-experimental science, without encountering any force,
or at least any appreciable force ( 617), tending to push it back in
the direction of metaphysical, theological, or like derivations. Such
forces have manifested themselves in certain instances in times past,
as in ancient Athenian prosecutions for impiety or in the case of
Galileo, but in the end they languished as not

corresponding to
any actual social
utility; to state the situation more exactly,
or
since social utility plays only a part, though a very considerable
part, in the
matter because such forces did not correspond to
sentiments with which men could not dispense short of serious
1
alterations in the social equilibrium.
*
1683 There are
still traces of such forces, nevertheless,
owing to the fact that
individuals who
devote themselves to the natural sciences live in the same world as
other men and cannot altogether escape being influenced by the various oscillations
that disturb it. So at the present time a counter-offensive by metaphysics is observ-
able in the theories of mechanics. Examine, for instance, Lemeray, Le principe de
relativite, pp. 98, 31. The author has been examining a hypothetical case where two
observers, both in motion, exchange signals by carrier pigeon and adds: "Now the
1684. Some reader may perhaps have regarded my exposition of
Gnosticism just above as quite superfluous and have asked: What
has such nonsense got to do with sociology ? Such nonsense enters the
field of
sociology because it
expresses sentiments that are still
power-
fully active in present-day society. Even disregarding such mani-
festations as the theories of Saint-Simon, Fourier, Comte, or humani-
we can any day, in England and the United States,
tarian Socialism,
observe the appearance and prosperous growth of Christian sects
which, from the experimental standpoint, are no less absurd than
Gnosticism; and to such Anglo-Saxon phenomena we must add the
neo-Buddhism, the Theosophy, the Spiritualism, the Occultism, that
have been winning converts all over Europe. Anyone desirous of
convincing himself that moderns are no whit less adroit than the
ancients in peddling balderdash as sublime truth need read, among
the hosts of books available, only a volume by Sinnett on Esoteric
Buddhism}'
conclusion we have just reached as regards the pigeons the principle refuses to ac-
cept in the case of light. [And of course we can only bow the knee to the will of
Monsieur Principe.] In fact, the two relations (i) give us T and T 2 as functions
of T and v: we might decide, that is, which of the two observers was at rest vis-a-vis
of space a proposition that has no meaning [Exactly what used to be said of
not a few propositions that are now commonplaces.], just as in the case of the
pigeons, the relations (i) show which of the observers is at rest vis-a-vis of the
Earth." This argument starts on a par with many other metaphysical reasonings
for a few examples see
492-506 except that it has been decorated with mathe-
matical embellishments. But mathematics cannot themselves confer reality upon a
hypothesis that is devoid of any! Among the implications of the "principle of rela-
tivity"one notes "that different observers of one system [one of two systems in
motion] on seeing one same observer from the other system go by, will note that
he goes less rapidly than they; and one observer, seeing the different observers of
the other go by in succession, will note that they age more rapidly than he." The
system where one ages less rapidly will be in danger of overcrowding by women
they will flock to it as to a bargain-counter. Once one goes excursioning outside the
experimental world, it is certain enough that one can prove anything one chooses.
Since my aim in these volumes is not to preach, but merely to look for the uni-
formities that prevail among social facts, I may without harm, and in fact I must,
keep the pendulum altogether swung in the direction in which it swings in the
natural sciences ( 86,1403).
1
1684 Pp. 47-48: "By what prophetic instinct Shakespeare pitched upon 7 as the
number which best suited his fantastic classification of the ages of man a question
is
with which we need not be much concerned, but certain it is that he could not have
made a more felicitous choice. In periods of seven the evolution of the races of man
may be traced, and the actual number of the objective worlds that constitute our
system, and of which the Earth is one is seven also. Remember, the occult scientists
1685 DERIVATIONS IV-$l VERBAL PROOFS 1 1
15
1685. in the habit of holding with the hare and
Renan was always
running with the hounds. After describing the nonsense of the
Gnostics and telling the touching story of Sophia's passion, he some-
what inadequately states a notion that has its element of truth when
he praises such portions of those ancient fancies as tended to exhila-
rate certain sentiments. He would have been much closer to the
factshad he expressed himself subjectively instead of objectively, and
said that the sentiments which were satisfied by Hesiod's Theogony
and other such productions, as well as by the Gnostic myths which
he, Renan, describes, are still active in many people of our day and
express themselves in much the same ways as they did of yore. If a

person is trying to preach to people in order to steer them into
paths that he considers best, he will condemn or praise such senti-
ments and the various expressions of them. If one is concerned
strictly with science, one will merely describe them and then try
1
to establish their relations to other social facts.
know this as a fact, just as the physical scientists know for a fact that the spectrum
consists of seven colours, and the musical scale of seven tones. There are seven king-
doms of Nature not three, as modern science has imperfectly classified them. . . .
Seven rounds have to be accomplished before the destinies of our system arc worked
out. The round that is at present going on is the fourth. ... An individual unit,
on arriving on a planet for the first time, has to work through seven races on that
planet before he passes on to the next, and each of those races occupies the Earth for
a long time." How many fine things such good people know! But there sit the neo-
1
Hegelians, telling us that "there is no thought that is error" ( 1686 ). So the
"thought" of these Buddhists cannot be error; and if anyone should dispute that
and give a preference to neo-Hcgelian thought, who on earth would there be to
settle the quarrel ?
*
1685 p. 175: "There is surely an element of greatness
Renan, L'cglise chrctienne,
in these strange myths. [Instead of making an objective assertion of that sort Renan
should have said: "There are people who find something great in such myths, and
that fact should be taken into account even by people who consider them fatuous
absurdities."] When one is dealing with the infinite, with things that can be seen
but through a glass darkly, with things that cannot be said in words without falsi-
fying them [A detour designed to give the impression that he is returning to the
experimentalfield while carefully keeping outside of it.], pathos even has its charm.
[For some people, not for others.] One enjoys it as one enjoys an unhealthy poem,
of which one disapproves as taste, but which one cannot but find stirring. [That
may be true of Renan and of people like him. It was not true of Lucian nor of
people like Lucian. The usual error of representing what is subjective as objective.]
The history of the world conceived as the agitation of an embryo aspiring to life,
painfully attaining to consciousness, disturbing everything by its contortions, its very
travail serving as the cause of its progress and tending to the full realization of
vague yearnings for the ideal that would be a fair picture of the story we tell at
IIl6 THE MIND AND SOCIETY l686
1686. IV-s: Vague, indefinite terms corresponding to nothing
concrete. This isthe extreme limit in verbal derivation, and it ends
1
as a mere jingle of words. Among such derivations a few are for
the consumption of the ignorant, who halt in stupefaction before
the strangeness of the terms, and imagine that they must conceal
2
some profound mystery. Most, however, are for the use of meta-
physicists, who feed on them day in and day out and end by imag-
ining that they stand for real things. The torrent of such verbiage
rushes tumultuously down across the ages from a remote antiquity
to our own day. Sometimes it swells, overflows, floods everything;
then again it shrinks to the confines of itsnormal bed; but it per-
sists at any rate, and
shows that it
that must satisfy some human
3
need, as do songs, poetry, romance. Every age has its fads as to
language. At the present moment [1913] Italy,

the term in
"superare" (to overpass) and its derivatives "super atari" (those who
"
overpass) and superamento" (the act of overpassing) are being
times to express our views on the development of the infinite." Who is "we"?
Surely not everybody! There are plenty of people who care not a fig about the "de-
velopment of the infinite"; many others who do not know what that jabberwock
may be, and still others who laugh aloud at mere mention of its name.
x
1686 Voce, Jan. 28, 1914 (Fazio-Allmayer is analyzing Gentile's Riforma della
dialettica hegeliana): "Gentile's philosophy is a living philosophy, it is an ethical
vision of the world. He has therefore felt no need of elucidating the import of this
identity of history and philosophy. The philosophy that is identical with history is
the philosophy which is life, and that life is the ethical life, and the ethical life is
the realization of liberty, and liberty is the assertion of the real as self-consciousness.
The fundamental new
history is that thought is act, in other words,
thesis of this
concrcteness, and that therefore there is no thought which is error and no nature
which is not thought. Thought-act, the actuality of thought, actual idealism, have
now become terms that everyone thinks he readily understands [No, no, no! There
are plenty of peoplewho are sure they understand not a syllable in such jumbles of
words.], but which, alas, go wandering meaningless about the philosophical world
of today. The ease with which some people think they have disposed of them is a
sign of that."
1686 2 There is a story, truth or fiction as it may be, that one day the French
Academician Nepomucene Lemercier, on being reviled by a woman of the markets,

replied: "Hush, you old catachresis!" At which devastating epithet, the harpy was
taken aback and thought it best to say no more. [It must be supposititious. The
story is also Italian. In Tuscany, the woman, unabashed by the epithet, answers:
"So is your mother till I have a chance to look it up in the dictionary!" A. L.]
1686 3 As for the present, just one more example, from the hosts available
Fazio-Allmayer in Voce, Dec. 19, 1912: "Hegel drew distinctions between logic, the
history of philosophy, the philosophy of history. So he distinguished God, the
human spirit, the world of nations. But in that way immanence and liberty are not
1686 "HE LOST HIS BOTTLE" 1117
4
bandied about on Exactly what they mean nobody
all hands.
knows, but must
it be something very impressive, for at the mere
sound of such words adversaries quail, stand as though struck dumb,
and know not what answer to make. And what in fact would you,
gentle reader, say if you were told that a theory of yours had been
"overpassed"? But may the god of metaphysics grant that the
theorem of the square of the hypotenuse be not "overpassed"
otherwise, farewell to geometry! Other terms at this moment in
fashion in Italy, in the favourable sense, are: "living," "dynamic,"
"spiritual." They
stand in antithesis to various words in a bad
sense: "dead," "static" (and "stasis"), "mechanical," from which last,
a verb, "to mechanize," has been heroically coined. What answer,

gentle reader, would you make if someone should suddenly tell you
that what you say is "dead" while what he says is "living"? Or
assures you that you are "mechanizing in stasis" what he is "spirit-
5
ualizing in the dynamic" ? If
you are clever enough to understand
truly attained. They are achieved only as die world of nations and the human
world, in their development, that is to say, in their auto-creation, are the creation of
God Himself, absolutely existing being, liberty. [So far this hotchpotch of words is
incomprehensible. What follows is clearer:] And that is the very thing that Hegel
wanted to prove. // he did not succeed, itmeans simply that we have to work at the
problem further. And that is a task for us Italians." Here a trait that is usual in meta-
physical derivations comes into clear prominence. Allmayer knows what the con-
clusion of the proof is to be. All that is looking for is the proof. Just how he
he
knows that his proposition is so sound neither Hegel nor any other philosopher
if
has ever been able to prove it is not so clear. May it not, perchance, be a matter of
faith?
1686 4 Cf. Natoli, Voce, Dec. 19, 1912: "Few writers have, within such a brief
time since the publication of a book, aroused to any extent comparable with Croce,
along with admiration, a vague feeling of discontent, a vague, almost abstract,
"
yearning for 'overpassing.' In Croce's defence against his "overpassers," one might
aptly quote a remark he made in the Vocc some time ago such a remark as he
only could make on this matter of "overpassing": "These fine terms, 'overpass,'
'overpassing,' and so on, have as much meaning as the words 'funicoli, junicola' in
the Neapolitan song only the Neapolitan song is less tiresome and more intelli-
gible."
1686 5
PI a ton in Independance, February, 1913 (pp. 85-86): "How warmly
M. Sabatier glows at the spectacle of history! Overflowing with satisfaction, full of
himself, he cries, L'orientation religieuse de la France actuelle, pp. 153, 156, 159:
'We have introduced the concept of Life into history, and that simple introduction
of Life into History socializes history in all directions, makes it over into a philos-
ophy, a religion, an ethical system [And also a thing devoid of meaning.], a foun-
dation of foundations for individual political education.* Or again: 'We are par-
takers of the Truth, of the Life, of the Revelation. The Church had talked to
. , .
IIl8 TREATISE ON GENERAL SOCIOLOGY l686
that,you will also be clever enough to squeeze some sense out of the
following lines from Swinburne's "Nephelidia":
Surely no spirit
or sense of a soul that was soft to the
spirit
and soul of our senses
Sweetens the stress of surprising suspicion that sobs in the
semblance and sound of a sigh;
Only this oracle opens Olympians in mystical moods and

triangular tenses:
"Life is the lust of a lamp for the light that is dark till the
dawn of the day when we die."
that
Aristophanes, Ranae, vv. 1195-1242, says in ridicule of Euripides
after almost any one of his verses one may add, by way of con-
clusion: "He lost his bottle." In just that way any word that has
us of tradition and of its value in religious instruction. To us life reveals its power
in all spheres,and showing us what we are, suggests to us all what we ought and
1
arc able to become. Well, let M. Sabaticr glow and gloat we have nothing to say
on that point. That is an aesthetic matter. But let him try to 'make history over
into a philosophy, a religion, an ethical system/ and it becomes an altogether dif-
ferent matter. That and no other is the question at issue between him and the
Papacy. What is the position of the Papacy, except that history needs a philosophy,
a religion, an ethical system in order to be an 'acceptable history/ a history worthy
of man and humanity?" Logico-experimental science is entirely neutral in that dis-
pute, if for for the reason that there is no judge to decide it

no other reason,
( 17 f.) I two
n addition kinds of history mentioned by M. Platon, there is
to the
a third kind, and it is the only kind in which experimental science can take any
interest: it is the kind of history that purposes solely to describe the facts and to
discover the uniformities that prevail among them. Pray note that in so saying, we
are distinguishing, not comparing. We are not in the least saying that this third
variety superior to the other two

is kinds from our point of view, such a state-
ment would have no meaning. We
are simply saying that in these volumes we pre-
fer to confine ourselves to this third kind. Anyone sharing that preference with us
iswelcome to join our company. Anyone not sharing it had better seek other com-
pany and we will have two watch-fires. In M. Sabaticr's text the word "life" is
written sometimes with a capital sometimes with a small initial. The things those
two forms stand for are probably different; but just what the difference is, I could
not say; and one may wonder whether the writer who used them would be able to
do so either. I would guess, merely, that the "Life" which is honoured with a capi-
tal initial must be something better than the "life" which is not so decorated. There
may be the same difference between M. Sabatier's "History" and his "history." As
for "Truth," she is an old acquaintance of ours, and we have encountered her fre-
quently in these pages. She is a creature who has nothing whatever to do with ex-
perimental truth; but she is of a nature so lofty that her beauty transcends all things.
l686 DERIVATIONS IV-Ft VERBAL PROOFS .TI2I
no meaning in the concrete may be somehow fitted into any argu^

6
ment whatsoever.
1686 6
1
One might imagine the following dialogue: A. "Two and two make five.'
B. "I beg your pardon I thought two and two made four." A. "They used to, but
now that theory has been overpassed. It is a doctrine accounted for in the chemical
formula of the solidifying or congealing preparate." B. "I do not understand." A.
"No great harm! You have mechanized, materialized addition; you arc satisfied
with a crude calculatory formula." B. "I am more puzzled than ever." A. "I see
that I must speak more plainly. The addition 'two plus two make four* is dead. It
represents a stasis in thought. We demand a living addition, which aspires dynami-

cally to the loftiest altitudes of human thought. And to typize history to some ex-
tent . But Heaven help us now, if the enemy artillery is to be re-enforced by a
. ."
"typize" as well! [The passage from Swinburne, above, was ingeniously found by
Mr. Bongiorno. Pareto had used a nonsense rhyme that has been current for a
generation in Italy, and which seems to emanate from some comic weekly:
"Come nave che esce dal porto
navigando con passo scozzesc,
c lo stcsso che prendere tin morto
per pagarlo alia fine del mcse."
M. Boven, Traite, pp. 1108-09, substituted the pleading of the two lords before
Pantagruel, Rabelais, (Euvres, Paris, 1854, pp. 110-13. A. L.]
CHAPTER XI
Properties of Residues and Derivations
1687.Given certain residues and certain derivations, two sorts of

problems arise: i. Just how do such residues and derivations func-
tion ? 2. What is the bearing of their action on social utility ? Ordi-
nary empiricism deals with- the two problems at one time, either
failing to distinguish themor distinguishing them inadequately
( 966 f.). A scientific analysis has to

keep them distinct; and it is
essential, if one is to avoid falling into ready error, that while one
is
dealing with the first one's mind should not be encumbered with
the second. Here for the moment we shall ignore the question of
social utility and consider the various elements that determine the
forms of society, chief among them, residues and derivations, in-
1
trinsically.
1688. But before we go any farther, a few cautions will be in point
as to our manner of expressing ourselves. In the first place, as re-
gards derivations, we have used the term to designate a phenomenon
that for the purposes of our study henceforward had better be
divided into two. There is the derivation proper and the mani-
festation to which it leads: there is, in other words, a demonstration,
or rather a pseudo-demonstration, and then a theorem, or pseudo-
theorem. This latter may remain unchanged while the derivations
that lead up to it show
endless variation. For instance, in the deriva-
tion that is
designed to demonstrate the existence of a solidarity-
*
1687 The examination of residues and derivations that we have just completed
has acquainted us with the manifestations of certain forces which influence human
society and consequently with those forces themselves. So step by step we are grad-
ually approaching our goal, which has been to discover the form that society as-
sumes in virtue of the forces acting upon it. The road is a long one, but there is no
way of shortening it if we insist on accepting no guides but the facts. have We

identified and classified residues and derivations and in so doing we have also
learned something about their properties. The time has now come to go into the
matter of their properties in detail. If we are to discover the form that society as-
sumes we must obviously consider in the mass all the elements which determine
that form. But before we can do that we have to examine those elements severally
and certain of their combinations. That is our task in this present chapter. We shall
come to the social organism as a whole in our next.
1120
1689 "EXISTENCE" 1121
*
right there is a distinction between the manifestation of that belief
in the mind of the person resorting to the derivation, and the proof
that is given of it, that is to say, the derivation proper. The proof
may vary while the manifestation remains unchanged, and some-

times the proof may be repeated in an imitative way by a person
whose mind is otherwise free, or virtually free, of the manifesta-
tion people often repeat mechanically and without great conviction
talk that is in fashion in the society in which they live ( 2004 f.).
We shall continue, as in the past, to designate the phenomenon as a
whole by the term "derivation." When we find it
important to
distinguish the two aspects we will designate them respectively as
2
"manifestation" and "derivation proper." Analyzing "derivations
proper" we find, first of all, as the foundation for all the rest, the
need of logical developments that human beings feel; then residues
of combination (Class I) whereby that need is satisfied; finally
residues from all the other classes that are used as instruments of
persuasion. Analyzing "manifestations," we get an underpinning

of residues analysis of manifestations, in fact, was our method of
looking for residues in the chapters preceding. Such residues have, as

a logical varnish, a supplement of derivations proper and reason-
ings of different kinds. In the concrete case, furthermore, disposed

about the principal residue is an array of secondary or incidental
residues.
1689. The main
error in the thinking of the plain man, as well
as in metaphysical thinking, lies not only in an inversion of terms
in the relationship between derivations and human conduct the
derivation being taken, in general, as the cause of the conduct,
whereas really, the conduct is the cause of the derivation
but also
in ascribing objective existence to derivations proper and to the
residues in which they originate.
As we have already cautioned in 94 and 149, we attach no
metaphysical significance to the expression "objective existence,"
and it would therefore be well if we made clear in just what sense
*
1688 [Pareto wrote: "manifestation of such existence," which I find unintelli-
gible. A. L.]
2
1688 [The "manifestation" would really be a "derivative" ( 868), and why
Pareto discards that term, which is quite his own, for an obscurer "manifestation"
must remain a mystery. C/. 1826. A. L.]
we are using it here. Take, for instance, "natural law," or the "law
of nations." In the minds of vast numbers of persons the concepts
of certain relationships between human beings are welcomed as
agreeable, whereas the concepts of certain other relationships are
rejected as disagreeable. Concepts of the former type do not differ
very widely from certain other concepts that are commonly desig-
nated by the adjectives "good," "honest," "just," whereas they con-
flict with the
concepts designated by the opposite adjectives, "bad,"
"dishonest," "unjust." Now
there is nothing wrong in designating
that first group of concepts, vague as
they are, by the expression
"natural law," nor in describing the situation by the statement that
the concept of natural law "exists in the minds of men." But from
that point people go on to conclude that the thing called natural
law must necessarily exist, and that the only question is to discover
what and define accurately. If we were to meet that
it is it view
with the theory that "subjective existence" docs not necessarily
imply "objective existence," we should be involving ourselves in a
metaphysical argument the sort of thing we are trying to avoid.
Our answer quite another.
is It is, in the main, that in the statements
in question, the word "exist" is used to express two different things.

To make the point clearer, suppose we follow a parallel line of
reasoning. It is an undisputed fact that in the minds of many per-
sons, and specifically, persons called chemists, the concept of sodium
chloride is
accepted along with other concepts of chemical re-
actions and is correlated with them. There is
nothing to prevent
our stating that situation by saying that the concept of sodium
chloride "exists in the minds of men." From that it is
possible to
conclude though in actual practice the opposite course is followed,
that a thing called sodium chloride must "exist."
The two reasonings have, it is true, one point of similarity. But in
another respect, they are altogether different. chemists, the With
consequences logically following from the concept of sodium chlo-
ride have such a great probability of being verified in practice that
they may be designated as "certain," as that term is used in ordi-

nary parlance. The consequences logically following from the con-
cept of natural law are seldom verified in practice. More frequently
they fail of verification altogether. The chemist does not say: "So-
dium chloride in solution ought to precipitate silver nitrate." He says
1689 PROPERTIES OF RESIDUES AND DERIVATIONS 1 1 23
a very different matter sodium chloride in solution precipi-

that
tates silver nitrate. The champion
of natural law cannot use this
latter form of expression; he must at all times rest content with the
former. A glance at history is enough to show that natural law is
just a rubber band: the powerful can stretch it to whatever length

they choose.
We need not go too far afield. In the year 1913 certain of the
European Powers decided that it would be a good thing if there
were a principality of Albania. They allowed Montenegro to lay
siege to Scutari,
and then one day ordered that country to de-
fine
sist.
Montenegro refusing, the same Powers, without any declaration
of hostilities, sent war-ships to blockade the Montenegrin coast and
they captured the private yacht of the King of Montenegro. Could

anyone tell us what "right" the Powers in question had to do such a
thing, and especially what "right" they had to Albanian territory
and to Scutari unless, of course, we are to use the word "right" in
the meaning it has in the fable of the wolf and the lamb ? It is evi-
dent that the Powers in question were able to do what they pleased
with the "law of nations." But they could not have done what they
pleased with reactions in chemistry. With all their armies and navies
they could not have kept sodium chloride in solution from precipitat-
ing a solution of silver nitrate.
From the practical standpoint, therefore, there is an essential dif-
ference between the two cases in question. The "existence" of sodium
chloride and other chemical bodies is one thing, the "existence" of
"natural law," the "law of nations," or other entities of the kind is
quite another thing. And likewise different in the two cases are the
logical inferences that may be drawn from them. In chemistry I
draw the logical inference that a certain weight of sodium chloride

contains a definite weight of chlorine. I perform an analysis and
verify my inference. Not so when the logical inference is to

be
drawn from entities of that vague and indefinite variety known as
the "law of nations," "natural law," and the like. Still keeping to
Montenegro, the British Foreign Secretary declared that Monte-

negro could not be permitted to occupy Scutari because the popula-
tion was not of the same did not speak the same language, did
race,
not have the same religion. It would seem, therefore, that a country
does not have the "right" to occupy another country when the latter
1 1
presents those differences. Now let someone ask whether the

Hindus
are of the same race, language, and
religion as the English; and if the
answer is no, it must remain a mystery why Montenegro does not
have the "right" to occupy Scutari while the English have the "right"
1
to occupy India.
In general terms, when we say that the concept of natural law
"exists" in the minds of men, what we mean is that in the minds of
certain numbers of individuals there
a concept to which that is
name is given. A
practical test can be made of that, and it will be
seen to succeed. Moreover one may draw the inference from that fact
that in arguing with certain persons in the intent of persuading
them, it would be well to take account of the fact that that concept
is
present in their minds. And there too the practical test turns out
well. That is why the powerful, instead of saying simply that they
want a thing, go to the trouble of devising sophistries to show that
they "have a right" to it: they imitate the wolfs palaver with the
lamb. The proposition that natural law "exists" in the minds of men
is therefore of the same character as the assertion that the
concept
of sodium chloride "exists" in the minds of certain men, except that
the latter statement is
something much more definite. Likewise
similar the proposition that a thing called sodium chloride "exists."
is
But the proposition that "natural law" "exists" is of an entirely dif-

2
ferent character. For that proposition to belong to the other class it
l
1689 An official communique issued by the Russian Government to justify its
veto of the Montenegrin occupation of Scutari was couched in the following lan-
guage: "Furthermore the population of Scutari is in the majority Albanian and that
city is the see of a Catholic bishopric. It must, in this connexion, also not be over-
looked that the Montenegrins have never been able to assimilate several thousands
of Catholic or Mussulman Albanians who have settled on the frontiers of Monte-
negro." Substitute Russia for Montenegro, and Poland for Albania in the argument.
Its validity will of course not be altered. Russia is Orthodox, Poland is Catholic,
Russia has never managed But though the reasoning is iden-

to assimilate the Poles.
tical, the conclusions are different:

Montenegro does not have the "right" to occupy
Scutari. Russia has the "right" to occupy Poland.
2
1689 That is all we mean when we say that "natural law" docs not exist: what
we mean is that such an entity cannot be used in a reasoning in the way that so-
dium chloride or other things of that kind can be used. We
do not in the least in-
tend to adopt, either as equivalents or as consequences, the following propositions:
(1) That the concept of natural law "does not exist" in the minds of certain men;
(2) that that concept plays no part in determining the form of society; (3) that
mankind would be better rid of it as a foolish, non-existent thing. Indeed we deem
1
689 "EXISTENCE" 11
25
would be necessary: (i) That there be some possibility of defining
the meaning of the expression with reasonable definiteness; (2) that
logical inferences
from such a definition should be verifiable in
practice. Neither
of those conditions is fulfilled. In fact, we showed
in Chapter IV that one can never know with any definiteness at all
what a writer means when he
uses the expression "natural law."
And there are proofs without end to show that from that expression
one may logically infer what ought to happen according to this or
3
that writer, but never what actually happens. It follows that entities
of that sort can be of no use whatever when the purpose is to de-
that the propositions directly contrary to those three are in accord with the facts,
namely: (i) that the concept of natural law "exists" (i.e., is present), though in a
very indefinite way, in the minds of certain men; (2) that that concept (or rather,
the fact that that concept is present in the minds of certain men) plays a part in
determining the form of society; (3) that in many cases, the fact that such a con-
cept has been present in the minds of certain men has been beneficial to society. Let
us add one more: (4) that the belief that natural law "exists" (or the belief that
the concept of "natural law" can play in an argument the part that is played by
concepts such as sodium chloride) has frequently proved beneficial to society,
though such belief is in complete disaccord with the facts.
3
1689 Mctaphysicists and literary economists have hit on a very pretty derivation
to meet objections of this type. They say that economic, moral, and social "laws"
differ from "natural laws" in that they have exceptions, while the latter do not.
Suppose we disregard the consideration that a "law" that has exceptions, that is to
say, a uniformity which is not uniform, is an expression devoid of meaning ( 101),

and keep to the force of the argument. We
may as well admit that, as regards
forms, it is one grants to a person who is stating a law that his law
invincible. If
may have its exceptions, he can always meet every fact that is adduced against him
with the excuse that it is an "exception," and he will never be caught in the wrong.
And that is exactly what literary economists, moralists, and mctaphysicists do: They
proclaim "laws" and then do what they please with them, taking advantage of in-
dcfinitencss in terms, exceptions, and other subterfuges of the kind, to bend their
laws to their every wish and whim.
Unfortunately for their thesis they are altogether too right if they follow that
path: a law of that kind has no significance, and knowledge of it is not of the
slightest use. A
person might say that it rains only on even days in the calendar
and then meet facts to the contrary by saying that rains on odd days are exceptions.
Another might assert that it rains only on odd days, and meet objections in the
same way. Reasoning in that fashion, both would be right, and neither "law" would
teach one a single thing. To make it helpful, there has to be some obstacle, a re-
striction of some sort on the free manipulation of the "law." One might assert
that the facts against the "law" are much less numerous than the facts in favour
of it. The "law" has to be stated in language definite enough to be interpreted by
persons other than the author of it. The conditions considered necessary for the
verification of the "law" have to be at least suggested. And so on and so forth.
1 1 26 TREATISE ON GENERAL SOCIOLOGY 1690
termine what actually happens. We regard them merely as mani-
4
festations of sentiments.
1690. Returning to the matter of our modes of expression, we
must further note that since sentiments are manifested by residues
we shall often, for the sake of brevity, use x the word "residues" as
including the sentiments that they manifest-So we shall say, simply,

that residues are among the elements which determine the social
equilibrium, a statement that must be translated and understood as

meaning that "the sentiments manifested by residues are among
the elements which stand toward the social equilibrium in a relation-
ship of reciprocal determination." But that statement too is elliptical
and has again to be translated. Let us beware of ascribing any objec-
tive existence ( 94, 149, 1689) to our residues or even to sentiments.
What we observe in reality is a group of human beings in a mental
condition indicated by what we call sentiments. Our proposition
must, therefore, be translated in the following terms: "The mental
states that are indicated by the sentiments expressed in residues are
among the elements that stand in a relation of reciprocal determi-

nation with the social equilibrium." But if we would express our-
selves in alanguage altogether exact, that is still not enough. What
in the world are those "mental states" or, if one will, those "psychic
conditions" ? They are abstractions. And what underlies the abstrac-
tions ? So weare obliged to say : "The actions of human beings are
among the elements that stand in a relationship of reciprocal de-

termination with the social equilibrium. Among such actions are
certain manifestations that we designate by the term "residues" and
which are closely correlated with other acts so that once we know
the residues we may, under certain circumstances, know the actions.
Therefore we shall say that residues are among the elements that
stand in a relation of reciprocal determination with the social equi-
librium."
It is well enough to say all that once, just to fix with strict exact-
ness the meaning of the terms we use ; but it would be useless, tire-
4
1689 was for such sentiments that we went looking in Chapters VI, VII, and
It
VIII, as belonging to that group of things which can be used in determining what
actually happens. For the same reason, in Chapters IX and X we studied the dis-
guises under which such sentiments are hidden from view. And in doing that we
were following the procedure of the scientist who first determines the composition
of a chemical body, and then the form in which it crystallizes.
1690 PROPERTIES OF RESIDUES AND DERIVATIONS 1
127
some, and altogether pedantic to be for ever talking with such
prolixity.
That is why we replace the proposition just stated with its
shorter original form: "Residues are among the elements that de-
1
termine the social equilibrium."
Derivations also manifest sentiments. Directly, they manifest the
sentiments that correspond to the residues in which they origi-
nate. Indirectly they manifest sentiments through the residues that
serve for purposes of derivation. But to speak of derivations in place
of the residues they manifest, as is done in ordinary parlance, might
lead to serious misapprehensions, and we shall refrain from doing
so in all cases where any doubt as to the
meaning of a statement is
possible.
The subject being very important, it will not come amiss to offer
some further elucidation. We observe, for example, a number of
cases in which a hen defends her chicks, and we epitomize our
observation of past facts, our forecast of future facts, and our guess
at a uniformity, by
saying that "the hen defends her chicks," that
present in the hen is a sentiment that prompts her to defend her
chicks, that that defence is the consequence of a given psychic state.
So we observe a number of cases in which certain individuals sacri-
fice their lives for their countries and we epitomize our observation
;
of the past fact, our forecast of future fact, and our conception of a
uniformity embracing large numbers of individuals, by saying that

"Human beings or some human beings sacrifice their lives for
their countries," that present in them is a sentiment which prompts
them to sacrifice their lives for their countries, that such sacrifice is
the consequence of a given psychic state.

But in human beings we further observe certain facts that are a
consequence of their using language and are therefore not observ-
able in animals: human beings, that is, express in language
certain
things which we associate with the facts that are observable when
they sacrifice their lives for their countries. They say,

for instance,
*
1690 Nor can the short cut result in any harm if attention is paid to the exact
sense we give to the terms we use. In the same way pure economics uses the term
"ophelimity" and mechanics the term "force," which, in their relations to the eco-
nomic and mechanical equilibria respectively, correspond to the term "sentiment"
("residue") in its relations to the social equilibrium. The theory of choices stated
in my Manuale corresponds to the remarks we make here for the purpose of elim-
inating the term "sentiment" ( 2409).

1 1 28 THE MIND AND SOCIETY 1690
"Dulce et est fro fatria mori"; and we say that they express
decorum
in that way a certain sentiment, a certain psychic state, and so on.
But that is not very exact, for the propositions that we take as ex-
pressionsof a sentiment (or better, of a sum of sentiments), a psychic
state,and so on, are multiple and diverse. It was by separating in

them elements that are constant from variable elements that we got
residues and derivations and said that the residue expresses that
sentiment, that psychic state, and so on. But in so saying we are

adding something to the facts. All that experimental observation
shows is a set of simultaneous facts men dying for their countries
and using certain modes of speech. We may state that situation in
2
1690
2
Between the statements D and the conduct A there may be a direct rela-
tion, DA. the only relation envisaged by people who reduce all social
That, in fact, is
phenomena to logical conduct. But the actual relation, as a rule, is different: that is
to say, both statements and conduct have a common origin, O. Such common origin,
which is generally unknown, may be called a "sentiment/* a "psychic state," or
something but to give an un-
else of the sort;
known thing a name does not in the least
increase our knowledge of it.
One might further assume that D stands for
residues and A for derivations, and repeat the
above: Residues and derivations have a com-
mon origin, O, unknown. To get at the resi-
dues we establish, theoretically, a relation AD;
and then, to get the derivations from the resi-
dues, we similarly establish the relation DA.

But the actual relations are OD, OA.
Going back to the analogies suggested in
879 between language and other social facts, we may assume that D represents
word-roots and A the words in a language. The
philologist, working as above in the
case of residues and derivations, posits a theoretical relation, AD, deriving roots from
the words; and then, in the same fashion, a relation DA, deriving words from the
roots.But in actual fact our languages have not been developed by deriving words
from roots, though once they have been fully developed, such a thing may happen in
a few rare cases at the instance of grammarians or scholars. Generally speaking,
words originated spontaneously in the population at large, and the same forces that
produced the words gave rise to their roots at the same time; that is to say, the actual
relations, OA, OD, prevailed. Sometimes, as in cases of onomatopoeia, we are able to
get a picture more or less exact of the origin, O, of a family of words, A, and its
roots, D; but most often by far such origins remain absolutely unknown: all we
know is the family of words, philologists abstracting the root. Investigations have
been made into the "origins" of languages efforts have been made, that is, to dis-
cover O. But such researches have so far been of no use either to grammar or to lexi-
cography, though both those sciences have profited by knowledge of roots. In the
case of Greek, grammar and dictionary stop at roots, and there would have been no
1690 "DULCE ET DECORUM EST PRO PATRIA MORI" 1129
the following propositions, which start close to reality and gradually
get farther and farther away from it: i. Observable side by side are
and expressions of approval or praise
acts of self-sacrifice for country
for such acts. Such expressions have an element in common. We call
it a residue. 2. Human
beings sacrifice themselves for country and
have a sentiment, manifested by residues, which spurs them to such
conduct. The divergence from reality lies in the term "sentiment,"
which has an element of vagueness. Then again, the uniformity is
stated without limitations, whereas some limitation is essential.
Finally, even the assumption that conduct is always inspired by

sentiment is open to question. 3. Instead of saying, "and have a
sentiment . .
.", the form is, "because they have a sentiment . . ."
scientificgrammars or dictionaries yet had philologists insisted on waiting till they

had discovered "origins." Just so, in sociology, there may be cases where we catch
some glimpse, remote and imperfect as it may be, of the origin, O both of the resi-,
dues, D, and of the derivations, or conduct, A; but in by far the greater number of
cases, we know very much what the philologist knows: that is to say, only the deri-
vations, or conduct, A, whence, theoretically, we infer the residues, D, and then re-
deduce from the residues, D, the derivations and conduct, A, considering, in other
words, the relations AD and DA, though the actual relations remain OA and OD.
Many many investigations in sociology are like philological speculations as to the
"origins" of languages. They aim at discovering the "origins" of social phenomena,
and so have been of little use to science.
Our aim in these volumes is to constitute a science of sociology by stopping at
residues just as the philologist stops at roots, the chemist at elements (simple
bodies), the student of celestial mechanics at universal attraction, and so on. As

regards our modes of expression, when we say elliptically that residues determine
conduct, we substitute, for the sake of simplicity, the relation DA, which is theoreti-
cal only, for the actual relations, OA, OD. In other words, we do as the philologist
does A
when he says that a family of words, f originates in a root, D, or that certain
tenses of the verb are formed from the indicative radical, certain others from the
aorist radical,and so on. No one has ever taken such a statement to mean that the
Greeks got together one day, agreed upon certain aorist roots, and then derived
aorist verb-forms from them. Neither should anyone take our statement that residues
determine conduct in any such absurd sense.
Had we been following the deductive method, the matter treated in this note
would properly have been part of the text and have found its place towards the
beginning of our study. But it would have been difficult to grasp in that place be-
cause of its newness. The deductive method lends itself especially to a subject-matter
that is commonplace and well known. When a subject is entirely
already in part
method is the only one that can adequately
new, the inductive prepare a reader to
it and understand it thoroughly. That is why the inductive method
grasp clearly
was followed in treatises such as the Politica of Aristotle, the political writings of
Machiavelli, Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations, and other similar works in one field
or another.
II3O TREATISE ON GENERAL SOCIOLOGY 169!
The term "because" takes us still
away from reality,
farther in that
it asserts a relationship of cause and effect, and we have no certain
knowledge that any such relation exists. 4. Human beings believe

it their themselves for country; therefore they sacri-
duty to sacrifice
fice themselves. ... In that we get very very far from reality,
assuming that the conduct the consequence of certain beliefs and

is
so substituting logical for non-logical conduct. This fourth manner

of statement is the usual one, but it easily leads astray, even if we
bear in mind only another form for i. There is no objec-
that it is
tion to the use of 2, provided we bear in mind that, strictly speaking,

3
we are always to check it by reference to i. The third manner, 3, is
also serviceable; but we must always remember that it really stands
for i, and be on our guard against drawing logical inferences from
the term "because" that appears in it. The term "sentiments," "resi-
dues," and so on, are convenient makeshifts in sociology, just as
the term "force" has proved convenient in mechanics. They may be
used without untoward results if the realities to which they corre-
spond are always kept clearly in mind.

In identifying and classifying residues
1691. Residues in general..
we them without regard to the intensity of the sentiments
considered
that are manifested through them and independently of the number
of persons in whom they are to be met with. In other words, we
dissevered them by a process of abstraction from the concrete indi-
viduals to whom they belong. We must now take account of all such
circumstances./
Suppose, first of all, we consider the matter of intensities. It is
important to distinguish between the intensity proper of a residue

and the intensity that it derives from the general tendency of the
individual to be more or less energetic. A
person may have a
strong sense of patriotism but still be a physical coward. In that
case he will fight less effectively for his
country than man whose
patriotism is much less virulent but who is a man of courage.
If a
person has a strong combination-instinct, but is inclined to indo-
lence, he will utilizefewer combinations than a person in whom
that instinct is not so strong but who is inclined to be active. We
may therefore conclude that certain circumstances which we may
8
1690 In point of fact, we have used form 2 freely in this work and shall con-
tinue to do so, especially in an equivalent variant relating conduct and residues.
1694 INTENSITIES AND VARIATIONS 1131
designate by the term "strength," or its opposite "weakness," raise or

1
lower the general level of this or that residue.
1692. Then suppose we look at residues with respect to the con-
crete individuals to whom
they belong. Let us assume that in a cer-
tain locality at a certain time a thousand cases of the phenomenon
A are observable; in another place, or at another time, a hundred
cases of the phenomenon B; finally in still a third locality or time,
one single case of the phenomenon C. In our previous chapter, to
get at the residues involved, we compared A

with B and C on the
look-out for a constant element, disregarding the numbers of cases
of A, B, C. Now, however, we must direct our attention to this
aspect of the matter, considering, that is, the distribution of resi-

1
dues.
1693. Under a static aspect, we must consider: (i) The distribu-
tion of residues in a given society; and (2) their distribution in the
different strata in that society. From a dynamic point of view we
have to see: (i) how, approximately, residues vary in time, whether
as a result of changes in
the individuals belonging
to one same social stra-
tum, or of changes caused

by a mixing of social
strata; and (2) how each
of those two things arises.
1694. Due attention must

be paid, moreover, to the
rhythmical movement that

is observable in all social
phenomena (2329). A
Figure 22
that is vir-
phenomenoi^
tually constant is not represented by a straight line, mn (Figure 22),
but by an undulating curve, svt. A phenomenon of increasing in-
*
1691 The difficulty lies in the ambiguity of the term "strong." It may apply to
the intensity of a residue in an individual as compared with the intensity of other
residues in the same individual, or as compared with the intensity of the same resi-
due in other individuals.
However, we cannot go too far in this direction, for we lack as yet a the-
*
1692
ory for the division of society into classes. Here, therefore, we can merely broach
1132 THE MIND AND SOCIETY
tensity (Figure 23) represented not by a straight line, ab, but by an

is
undulating curve, rpq. Lines such as mn and ab represent the mean

movement of the phenomenon, and that movement we now propose
to examine ( 1718).
and change in society as a whole.
1695. Distribution are not We
here inquiring as to the causes that determine the character of a
society whether race, climate, geographical situation, fertility of

soil, possibilities of economic productivity, or the like. We are look-
Figure 23
ing at historical societies as facts, without any concern, for the pres-
ent, with origins. Observable in such historical societies are phe-
nomena that vary little in substance, but widely in forms. As the
various religions succeed one another in history, their forms may
be as different as one please, but after all they are all expressions of
religious sentiments that vary but slightly. The same may
be said
of the various forms of government, each of which explicitly or im-
plicitly has its own "divine right." The modern

free-thinker en-
forces, in the name of Science, Holy of Holies, a morality but slightly
differing from the code that the God of the Israelites proclaimed for
His people, or the code that the Christians received from their God ;
or the codes that now

one, now
another, of the ancient peoples re-
ceived from gods or from lawgivers legendary or divine. Nor is there
any very appreciable difference, either, in the derivations by which

the subject, going into it more fully in our next chapter, XII, after we have estab-
lished such a theory ( 2025 f.).
1695 "MAJORITY RULE" 1133
the imperative and absolute character of all such ethical systems is
1
justified.
Similar uniformities are observable even in
phenomena much
important. In ancient times people who were sick made pilgrim-
less
1695
x
We
have already given many examples. Here is another that may serve as
typical of a very very large class. The derivations it uses serve, in general, for other
cases without end.
The use of absinth had been prohibited in Switzerland, and Swiss temperance
fanatics were vexed because the courts were not showing themselves very severe in
dealing with violations. A newspaper wrote in that connexion: "Under a system of
absolute monarchy, the will of a single individual is forced upon a whole nation.
That single will may offend the sentiment of a people. It may flout legitimate tra-
ditions and customs. It may be in arrears or in advance of the
period in which it is
manifested. When a divergence of views arises between a monarch and his people,
it becomes difficult to enforce the law. Quite otherwise the situation in a
republic.
There the people is the sovereign. Its rulers are not forced upon it it chooses them
itself. And under the system of direct
democracy, a system such as ours, the citizens
themselves determine the constitutional principles on which the country is to be
governed. The constitution cannot be amended without the assent of the majority
of the voters, who are always consulted in such a matter. The laws themselves,
which are worked out by legislative bodies after public discussion and within con-
stitutional limits, become obligatory only when the people has approved them for-
mally or tacitly; it can assert

right to the referendum. It even possesses the right
its
of initiative in legislation. So all the legal provisions that govern the conditions of
social life are passed through the sieve of public discussion. Only those measures
acquire force of law which correspond to the will of the people at the moment of
their proposal. All antiquated conceptions are thrust aside, premature reforms are
postponed. General obedience is required only of those laws and constitutional prin-
ciples which have found favour with the majority of voters."
A number of points deserve comment here. i. The careless attitude, as usual, of
religions towards facts. Let us accept for the moment the comparison that is set up
between the bad laws that presumably are peculiar to absolute monarchies, and the
excellent laws that certainly, according to this editor, arc peculiar to democracies.
From that it would follow that Roman law as exemplified in the imperial Institutes
should be greatly inferior to Athenian law. But is that really the case? 2. The fal-
lacy, verywidely resorted to, whereby "the people" is confused with a "majority of
the people" and what is even worse with a "majority of the voters." As a matter
of fact the prohibition of absinth was not voted by the majority of the Swiss people,
but by a majority of the small fraction of that people which participated in the
voting. How in the world that number, which was much smaller than the majority
of the people, becomes equivalent to "the people," is a mystery that may well
stand on a par with the mystery of the Holy Trinity. And how in the world
the will of that small number becomes equivalent to the "will" of "the whole
people" is another mystery, less mysterious, to be sure, than the one just mentioned,
but fairly mysterious at that. It may be said that citizens who did not vote were
wrong in not doing so, and that may well be; but it is not the point in question
here. They may be as much at fault as one please; there may be excellent legal
reasons why their preferences should not be taken into consideration; but all that
1
ages to the temples of Aesculapius in order to regain their health.
They were succeeded in the Middle Ages by devout Christians who
prayed to their saints for health and visited shrines and relics. Now-
adays they would recognize descendants in the throngs that flock
to Lourdes, in the devotees of "Christian Science," or even in those
humbler souls who fatten the purses of medical have quacks. We
no accurate statistics to show the exact numbers of such persons and
therefore whether and to what extent their relative
proportion to
population has changed. Certain it is that the proportion has been
and remains a very considerable one, that it has never been and is
does not change a minority of a "people" into a majority, nor reveal what the will
of those who were guilty of not voting actually was, great though their crime may
have been in not doing so. 3. The derivation which assumes that a person belonging
to a community can be oppressed only by an absolute sovereign, never by a majority
of which he is not a
part. The justification for such a distinction is to be found only
in a "divine right of the majority," or
something of the sort. If an individual is
absolutely averse to doing a certain thing, and disregarding the sentiments of rever-
ence in deference to which he subordinates his will to the will of others what
difference can it make to him whether the thing is required of him by a Roman
Emperor, a mediaeval king, a parliament, or some other authority? "When a diver-

gence of views arises between a monarch and his people [The usual sophistry of
treating the people as a unit.], it becomes difficult to enforce the law." And what
if the difference of
opinion arises between a majority and a minority? "Quite other-
wise the situation in a republic." Really? The history of the Athenian and Roman
republics tells just the opposite story. History may be wrong, of course, the way
geology was wrong in its conflict with the Book of Genesis. "There the
people is
the sovereign." Or would not the sovereign be, rather, questions of "irregularities"
aside, the majority of the voters? "Its rulers are not forced upon it it chooses them
itself." The pronoun "it" here refers to the people. In reality still apart from ir-
regularities it refers to the majority, often a very slim majority, of those voting.
4. Thederivation that a person who is forced to act in accord with the will of a
majority even granting that it is the majority that makes the laws acts according
to his own will as the will of the people of whom he is a
part. Take a group of
twenty-one persons. Eleven of them decide to eat the other ten (something of the
sort has actuallyhappened in cases of shipwreck). Shall we say that such a decision
"corresponds to the will of the people," that the people is avroôppoe self-eating
and that each of the persons eaten will have to say as much before being put to
death, and agree that the "will of the people" is his will? 5. Observable not only
in the case mentioned, but in numberless others, is a theory similar to the Catholic
theory of contrition and attrition ( 1459). ^ is n t enough that the citizen submit
to the will of the majority through fear of the punishments the latter may visit upon,
him; he must also pay worship to its divine will.
As
usual, to avoid misunderstandings, let us caution that all the above has noth-
ing whatever to do with the essentially different question as to whether it may not
be better for a community that the public should be given to understand that such
divine rights exist, and that it be convinced of their existence.
1696 PROPERTIES OF RESIDUES 1
135
not now small. If one may guess that it has decreased in our day as
compared with times past, we have no conclusive proof of the fact.

Since we cannot have the much, it is our part to rest content with
2
the which, after all, is better than nothing.
little,
1696. And to such things still others of the same brand have to
be added. In the temples of Aesculapius treatment was not ex-
clusively a matter of supernatural forces or, if one will, of sugges-
tion ; was often, in parts at least, material and therefore genuinely
it
medicinal. So from that standpoint if one takes the cures of Lourdes

or the treatments of Christian Science, and other such sects, as a
2 is an attractive theory that perhaps cures all diseases and
1695 Christian Science
which certainly enriched its founder, Mary Baker G. Eddy. To avoid any chance
of misrepresenting the doctrine I put before the reader an "explanation" of it fur-
nished by a writer who is kindly disposed toward it. Byse, La science chretienne, p.
22: "We have to deal with three enemies, in chief: sin, pain, death. Not only are
they a perpetual threat to us, sometimes overwhelming us: their very existence is a
riddle to our reason and an insult to our faith. How can the evil that reigns in the
world under those three forms go back to the Creation? How reconcile it with a
supremely good and powerful God? All the suggestions that have been put forward
to solve that agonizing problem are more indicative of the embarrassment of the
thinkers than satisfying to the intelligence. And now comes Mrs. Eddy and cuts
the Gordian knot with one slash of the sword. Those formidable foes are mere
phantoms. To see them vanish like fog one has only to tear the terrifying mask
from their features and say to each one of them: 'You do not exist/ [A long
theological divagation follows. We need not dwell on it. Let us see what hap-
pens in the real world, pp. 26-27:] The cures of Christian Science are to be counted
by hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands. . Their genuineness is vouched for
. .
by all the guarantees that can reasonably be asked for. [Equally numerous and well
established were ghost phenomena and the feats of witchcraft and magic.] . . .
That is why they meet neither raillery nor incredulousness in Anglo-Saxon coun-
tries. Ever since the third century of our era Christianity has been neglecting its
rights and its duty as regards disease. It is time we were coming to our senses.
That is why on the cover of Science and Health there is a crown hung over a cross
with an inscription written about it: 'Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the leper,
cast out devils.' Mrs. Eddy took that surprising command of the Saviour in earnest
and now rewarded for her trust. Like the Master she is curing 'all
sees herself
sorts of diseases and infirmities/ and her pupils have learned to do likewise." But
she never "mastered well that art" as regards herself. She died! Medice, cura te
tpsum! Some of her disciples, either more stupid or more logical than others, said
that she could not be dead, since that would have been inconsistent with her doc-
trine, which denies the reality of death. They therefore looked for her resurrection.
Needless to say, they are still looking. William James, in a spirit of professional
jealousy perhaps, did not take kindly to Mrs. Eddy. M. Byse talks back to him,
p. 35: "The celebrated psychologist, I am sorry to say, treats this vast and subtle
subject very superficially." Perhaps in fear of the Latin's sense of ridicule, M. Byse
does not go into details as to the manner in which diseases are cured. We
are there-
1136 THE MIND AND SOCIETY l6p6
term of comparison, one might conclude that there has been retro-
gression rather than advance as regards any increase in the scientific
1
element. In the miracles at Lourdes, and in the practices of Christian
Science, there is no trace of medical treatment. Of it, indeed, Chris-
fore obliged to depend on other sources. A correspondent of the Resto del Carlino,
Vol. XXV, No. 330, met devotees of the new science in Berlin. They were people
who were swallowing rigmaroles of the following order: "You say that a tumour
gives you great pain. The tumour is merely a sign of your belief in
pains as caused
by inflammations and swellings, and that belief you call a tumour." Mrs. Eddy, one
may conclude, was a consummate Hegelian, but only as regards diseases, not as
regards money. "Imagine that you are not ill, but be sure to pay in money that
is not imaginary." Mayor, Mary Bafer Eddy, ct la Science chretienne, pp. 123-28,
224-29: "The treatment that is designed to destroy the false belief of the patient
must therefore be purely mental, and partly silent, and it may even be given at a
distance. .Cases have been mentioned where patients have been cured without
. .
even suspecting that they were under treatment. The practitioner mentions dis-
. . .
ease only to deny it, his one purpose being to provoke a realization of its un-
reality. Tumours, ulcers, inflammations, boils, deformed joints, pains of all sorts, are
nothing but depressing images born of the Spirit of Death and to be dissipated by
the Divine Spirit. . . . \Quoting from Mrs. Eddy:~\ 'Summoned for a case of child-
birth, in other words, the birth of a divine idea, the practitioner will try to banish
all preoccupation with material things, that everything may take its course in a nat-
ural manner. Born of the Spirit, born of God, the child cannot cause its mother
. . .
"
pain.' Mrs. Eddy gives her ideas gratis. Now let us see what she takes in return:
"All such books are sold at prices which may seem high in view of the fact that
publication costs have been reduced to a minimum. . . . Book-reviewers [Who were
not at favourable.] have now changed their tune and are showing themselves
first
full of deference for the Mother of the Scientists, who on her side knows how to
appreciate the favours that are done her. . . . The net profits from the sale of the
book that was 'offered to the hungry* [That is what Mrs. Eddy calls her dupes.]
may be estimated at present at about $2,000,000. The author's royalties have
amounted to $1,000,000, the Church's share to $800,000. One may doubt whether
any writer ever earned greater royalties than the Prophetess of idealistic asceticism."
Mrs. Eddy was shrewder or luckier than the run of faith-curers, who also heal all
sorts of diseases. She was certainly luckier than poor Cagliostro and other adven-
turers of that kind. Centuries and centuries have passed since Lucian wrote his
Pseudomantis or False Prophet; but the book is contemporary history of ours, as
true now as ever, in spite of the fact that devotees of the god Progress would
give us to understand diat their divinity has extirpated "superstition."

1696
l
To mention the whole list of modern sects that have a medical slant
would be too much for us, but I cannot resist setting down one more example.
Liberte, Oct. 27, 1913 (article by "Seris") : "The Antoinist Cult: Tather Anthony*
was a 'healer' along the lines of Jake the Zouave. He made prodigious cures. He
died year at Jemmapes-lcz-Liege, in Belgium.
last a religion has risen fromNow
his ashes. The 'Antoinist Cult' has its priests and its following and they are grow-
ing in numbers. 'Mother Anthony,' in other words, 'Father Anthony's* widow, has
inherited the curative powers of her late husband and is doing business at the
old stand with the assistance of an individual in long hair and whiskers who has
1696 CHRISTIAN SCIENCE: THE ANTOINIST CULT 1137
tian Scientists strongly disapprove. However, one cannot stop at that.
Cures effected by magic, relics, and other fantastic instrumentalities
were very numerous in a day gone by; and that fact would probably
force us to the opposite conclusion that science after all has made
some gains.
barbered himself up to look in all respects the prophet. This gentleman is not the
'Father.' His mission is to evangelize the masses, for 'Mother* has nothing to do
but make grimaces and gestures. The Antoinists have built a little church in Paris
in the Maison Blanche quarter, at the corner of the rue Vergniaud and the rue
Wurtz. Instead of window-panes there are whitewashed squares. There are no
crosses, no statues, no religious pictures or symbols of any kind. The walls are
bare outside as well as in. There are, however, inscriptions, such as this one, on
the front of the building: '1913: The Antoinist Cult/ Inside, and located near the
entrance as though for a sort of battle-flag, there is another: Tather Anthony, the
Great Healer of Humanity, for Such as Have Faith.' At the end of the audi-
torium, a philosophical thought: There is one Remedy for Humanity: Faith. Of
Faith Love is Born. Love reveals God Himself to us in our Enemies. Not to Love
our Enemies is to Fail in Love of God, for the Love we have for our Enemies is
what makes us worthy of serving Him. That is the one Love that wins Love for
us, for it is pure and of the Truth.* There are no altars in the Church. There is a
pulpit at the end of the room, a wooden structure, very plain. Nailed to the face is
a wooden frame painted white, with a glass. It holds a little tree, something like a
Japanese tree. An inscription in white letters imparts that it is the 'Tree of
Knowledge of Life and Evil.'the one symbol used in the Antoinist Cult. It is
It is
to be seen again on a steel plaque that is fitted to a staff and is held aloft by an
attendant a sort of beadle. The attendants all wear uniforms that are black
throughout, long afternoon-coats that are severely buttoned to the chin. They wear
tall hats, of half-length, with flat brims very much the sort of hat that Alexandre
Duval designed, but minus the suggestion of chic. This forenoon there was a large
audience for the dedication of the Church, all the more since 'Mother' was to work
cures.An old woman, held up by two friends, made her way to a row of seats
appointed for patients in front of the pulpit. Every step she took cost her an effort
and a groan, but her eyes shone with a feverish brilliancy. She walked with
shoulders bent, and was finally settled in a chair. An attendant strikes a gong
three times, some distance apart, as at elevation in the mass. A door opens and
'Mother' appears. She is an old lady neatly dressed in black. Her widow's weeds
are pinned to her bonnet. She walks up the steps to the pulpit, her hands folded.
There she stiffens in an ecstatic pose, then slowly raises her arms and draws them
apart. Her lips mutter incomprehensible words. Then she brings her hands to-
them first to the right, then to the left, then throws herself flat on
gether, darts
the platform, face down. That is the whole show. Resuming her normal self,
'Mother' walks down the stairs and leaves the auditorium, followed by 'Father,'
who has stood motionless near the pulpit in an inspired attitude during this whole
'consultation.' 'Mother's' destination is a wooden shack behind the church, some-
thing like the tool-houses where city gardeners keep their tools. The aged patient
musters all her will and rises; but her exhilaration has vanished suddenly. She
leaves as she came, supported by her two friends. A young woman takes her
1697. It is further to be noted that the treatments practised in
the temples of Aesculapius are not completely represented in modern
times by the miracles at Lourdes, the treatments of Christian Science,
and other phenomena of the kind. To such are still to be added the
practices of those medical quacks whom Daudet happily
many
dubbed "deathers" ("morticoles"). In their regard the credulity of
the ancients has its
perfect counterpart in the credulity of
the
moderns. At no time in history have quacks flourished more abun-
dantly on the money of simpletons than they do today; and in many
countries the law protects such priests of the goddess "Science"
just
as
religiously as it protected priests of the pagan gods of old
sometimes even more gather in droves in those clinics
so. Believers
and sanitoria which are the temples of the modern quack. Some
of them get well, if Mother Nature chances to look upon them
with kindly eye; but all of them contribute to the collection-box
of the high-priests of the goddess "Science" and their acolytes
place. She is carrying in her arms a little girl, four or five years old and frightfully
thin. All the life in the child seems to have gathered in her eyes. Her arms and legs
hang listlessly from her body. As she doubles over her mother's left arm she seems
as cloth. Indifferent to everything that is going on around her,
limp as a piece of
she keeps her eyes fixed on the ceiling. The young mother's dismay transpires
through the waxy pallor of her features. She keeps wiping her forehead with her
handkerchief to remove the great drops of sweat that stand out like glass beads.
The same ceremony is repeated: three strokes on the gong, a second appearance
of the old lady, the same scene over again without a single variation it is the
prescription for every case. Then the mother carries her child out again, the same
rag of a girl she had been before. Not a trace of comment in the congregation.
The audience has looked on at
all that in a sort of stupor, a sense of acute distress
checking any thrust of irony. People have gathered in groups on the sidewalks
outside. I hear a fat man with rum on his breath remark to an attendant, 'Why
not, if a person has faith?' Then, locking arms with the other, he adds: 'Come
"
on, copain! Let's have another glass. It will brace us up.'
Every now and then something happens to show the fatuousness of such beliefs.
In 1913 the actress Nuscha Butze-Becrman died in Berlin. Corricre dclla sera,
Dec. 13: "Nuscha had been suffering from diabetes since the previous summer.
She had been under the care of a physician and had followed the prescribed treat-
ment; but later she fell into the hands of a Gcsundbeterin, in other words, one of
those female faith-curers who treat diseases by prayer. The actress neglected her
medical regime and placed her whole reliance on the virtues of will-power and
prayer. She grew steadily worse and a few days ago she was too weak to get to
the theatre. Her practitioner, however, told her that she must not allow herself to
lose heart; that she must always remember that mind knows not pain. She need
simply say a prayer and go to her performance. The actress went, but half-way
through her act collapsed, and never recovered consciousness."
1697 INTENSITIES AND VARIATIONS 1 1
39
among whom, let us not fail to count the pharmacists who sell their
drugs at 1000 per cent profit; and the inventors of those patent
medicines which shoot across the sky of publicity like meteors,
cure every conceivable disease for more or less extensive, and often
very brief, periods of time, and then are gone; not without leav-
ing huge fortunes in the pockets of certain traders on public cre-
dulity who exploit the poor in spirit under the kindly eye of the
legislator. And there isno argument, no fact, however obvious,
however striking, that can avail to open the eyes of the fools who
1
are thus fleeced.
Confessors were accused in days of old of extorting legacies from
the dying under threat of eternal punishment. Today our "deathers"
go that one better. they can from a patient before he

They get all
dies, then fleece his heirs by presenting exorbitant bills for services
rendered, relying upon the probability that to avoid litigation and

suspicion of ingratitude towards the dead the heirs will submit to
the blackmail and come forward with the money. In order to secure
the good-will of our humanitarians, the better to go on with their
practices of extortion under respectable auspices, these latter-day

saintsrender free services to the poor, just as in former times saints
of the monastic orders doled out broth to the poor from huge
cauldrons in front of convent gates. When faith lost some of its
hold upon the masses, this latter custom was ridiculed as "broth-
charity." In our day faith in medical quackery is so strong that no
*
1697 There have been and still are priests and physicians worthy of all honour,
consideration, and respect, men who lend their help and advice to those who ask
for help and advice, and aim not at all at imposing their will by force or by
fraud upon those who disagree with them. What we say of our "deathers" must
not in any way be taken as applying to those kind-hearted and learned physicians
who modestly, scientifically, diligently, honestly, go about healing the sick and
alleviating the pains of a suffering humanity. See Dr. Bourget, professor at Lau-
sanne, Qiiclqttes erreurs et tromperies de la science medicalc modcrne, passim. In
his Beaux dimanches, pp. 178-79, the same writer stresses the prevalence of super-
stition in the present-day public: "The simple-minded public believes the power
of the physician much more extensive than it really is. That is why it asks impos-
sible things of the doctor, whom it almost looks upon as a magician. For people of
real religious faith it would be more logical to ask such cures of the God they
worship, for in His power they must, I suppose, blindly believe. In a goodly number
of organic diseases a real cure could result only from a miracle. The physician,
for his part, cannot work miracles. Let us expect of him therefore nothing more
than he can do." Along with many exaggerations there arc also some truths in a
book by Soiler and Gastine, Defends tapeau contre ton medecin.
II4O THE MIND AND SOCIETY 1697
has gained universal currency to their
equivalent in blasting jest
2
discomfiture. The priest was sure he knew the "absolute" and there-
fore did his best to force it
upon others. Many of our doctors imagine,
in spite of the repeated refutations they get from experience, that
their science has achieved a certitude which in reality it is still far
from attaining, and try to force upon a reluctant public their pre-
sumptuous will of today, which was not their will of yesterday and
3
will not be their will of tomorrow.
In the eighteenth century in
director" was supreme. Today the
Italy and in France the "spiritual
"deather" has superseded him. In both forms of superstition, women
as a rule, and a few men of no great brains, most readily swallow
the bait. Just as in the old days the spiritual director tyrannized
over families, sowed dissension in homes, and brought wives and
husbands to ruin, so do not a few "deathers" in our day. And where
persuasion is not sufficient, the majesty of the law comes to the
rescue. Catholic priests forbade their charges to eat meat during
Lent, and they collected fees for procuring dispensations from such
1697
2
The tale of Boccaccio, Decameron, I, 6, "in the which an honest man
confounds the wicked hypocrisy of the monks with a witticism" may be applied,
mutatis mutandis, to the hypocrisy of our humanitarian "deathers." The Academy
of Medicine in Paris has asked for a law forbidding pharmacists to fill a doctor's
prescription more than once. The silly rascals who support such measures say that
their aim to safe-guard "hygiene." Really their aim is to safe-guard the pocket-
is
books of the "dcathers," who in that way will get their fee for a new consultation
every time a patient needs to have his prescription refilled.

There is nothing these fellows will not think up to make a little money. In
1913 in Italy a law was passed which had no other purpose than to help the phar-
macists in their fleecing of the sick; and a cabinet minister was brazen enough to
declare that the purpose of the law was to protect patients from low-grade remedies
and notably from "foreign patent medicines," which, it seems, were bad if sold by
grocers but excellent if sold by pharmicists. Anyone interested may prove to his
own satisfaction that at Geneva the cost of drugs was from 20 to 50 per cent lower
than it was in Italy; and who could be convinced that Swiss drugs are of an
inferior grade? Assertions of that sort, so obviously at variance with the facts, go
well enough on the lips of a minister in a "speculator" government, and they
make fit fodder for a superstitious public. As a matter of fact all such things are
mere survivals, under different forms, of ancient superstitions, for the purpose of
extracting money from geese.
3
1697 Many reputable physicians know and say how much of the uncertain
there still is
interesting to note how few of them dare
about their trade; but it is
oppose those among their colleagues who are disposed to force such uncertainties
upon unwilling citizens. That is the case because worship of the god State is re-
quired not only of believers but of sceptics as well.
1
698 THEOSOPHY II4I
prohibitions. In some localities today our "deathers" have procured

the passage of laws that forbid their patients to drink wine or other
alcoholic beverages except as remedies, of which
they, the "death-
ers/' are the exclusive purveyors, and not without fees that are much
higher in cases than the bribes taken
many by the priests of yore.
The clergy used to take it
upon themselves to prohibit and permit
marriages as they chose; and they demanded money for dispensa-
tions in cases where there was a prohibition. Today certain humani-
tarians are proposing that marriages be allowed
only on a doctor's
certificate of health. That would be a new source of
gain for our
4
"deathers."
1698. Hosts of other facts of the same sort might be marshalled
and all of them go show
that superstitions which might readily
to
be supposed to have vanished long since have in reality merely
changed their forms and are still alive under new guises. From the
Middle Ages on to our time, the influence of magic on human
societies has lessened, even if we reckon in the count its
legacies to
4
1697 In countries where prohibitionist legislation is rife, the "deathers" derive
large incomes from prescriptions for alcoholic beverages, which they pretend are
to be used for medicinal purposes only. That is one of the reasons why so many
doctors are prohibitionists. Cf. Felice Ferrero, in the Corricre della sera, June 2, 1913
(the United States in question) "Tectotalism is so persistent and aggressive, and
:
the bad repute into which it has succeeded in throwing King Alcohol is now so
deep-rooted, that the whole country is affected by it in a more or less conspicuous

way. [An exact parallel to the religious hypocrisy that prevailed in olden times.
The reaction will come, but its hour is not yet at hand, and no Moliere has so far
written the TartufTc of prohibitionism.] Not that Americans consume no alcoholic
beverages. Quite the contrary: they drink, and they drink much more than is con-
sidered advisable even by people who refuse to admit that alcohol is a poison. But
people who drink feel somehow called upon to explain and almost to offer excuses
when they arc screwing up their courage to perpetrate the dastardly act. Save for the
sacred precincts of the clubs, where things are done behind friendly walls that no
one would dare do in light of day, there is not one man in a thousand who has
the courage to say frankly with Anacreon: 'Let my friends cease annoying me. They
are free to do what they will. As for me, I drink.' There are those who drink 'by
doctor's orders.' There are those who 'do not refuse a glass' for the sake of 'good
fellowship.' There are those who drink 'a sip now and then.' Apparently there is
no one who drinks for the most obvious reason of all the pleasure of taking a
drink." [The late Felice Fcrrcro lived for many years in Middletown, Conn. This
description of the "American" attitude towards drinking, which denizens of the
metropolitan and urban areas of the United States in 1935 may find na'ivc, is very
accurate, so far as my own memory serves, for what one might call the "provincial"
America of twenty years ago. A. L.]
mind-readings, spiritualisms, telepathies, and other systems of thau-

maturgy; but the domain from which it was banished has been
1
partly occupied by the goddess Science. Taken all in all, in the
departments of the arts and sciences development has certainly
been in the direction of an increase in the importance attached to
experimental methods; but the evidence in favour of such an evo-
lution is not so good if weturn to the fields of politics and social
organization. It is
significant that simple combinations foreign to
scientific experience are far from having disappeared from modern
social life; in fact, they persist in great numbers, thriving in pros-
perous exuberance. Since simple combinations, in great part at least,
are based on 1-5 residues (need for combining residues), it is safe
group of residues as a whole has changed much

to say that that less
than would seem to be the case at first sight.

1699. Then again, experimental science itself originates in the
instinct of combinations and corresponds to Class I residues. But
that is the one point such science has in common with the
vagaries
*
1698 Thcosophists are not so few in numbers in Europe, and their literature is
truly vast. Many people "believe in" spirits, double personalities, and the like. Darles,
Glossairc raisonne dc la theosophie, s.v. Exteriorisation: "The human body has
about it a sort of vapoury envelope. It is called
'perispirit* by Spiritists, 'aetheric
fluid* by Occultists. During the life of the body it serves to connect
body and
soul. After death when the material physical body is dissolved, broken down,
oxidized, the individuality comes to possess an 'actherized* body, which Occultists
call 'the aethcric double.* It also is 'exteriorized' force. When we are
wrapped in a
slumber of sufficient depth our astral body, our aetheric fluid, detaches itself and
goes to the goal of our desire, our will. That detachment takes place unconsciously
in everybody; only, some individuals do not suspect any such thing and
consequently
conserve no memory of it, whereas others do remember and regard as a dream the
scenes, the activities, the journeys they knew in the astral body; for man lives on
the astral plane as well as on the physical plane. ..." "Sensitives," advanced me-
diums, psychometrists, occultists,' says Ernest Bosc, Dictionnaire d'orientaUsrne,
d'occultismc ct de psychologic, Vol. I, p. 336, 'can detach their astral, their aetheric,
double from the physical body even while awake, and
adepts or initiates of Occult-
ism who are very advanced are even able with the of the aetheric fluid to ma-
help
terialize the psychic is from the sthulic to
[physique, misprint] body (move that
the astral plane) and appear to friends, acquaintances, strangers, far from their
"
bodies.' Suppose we append a bit of explanation for those who do not know what
the planes in question arc: "Sthtda or Sthule: matter: the Sthulic
plane is the
Physical Plane. The cosmos is made up of seven planes, each divided into
. . .
seven sub-planes.'* But no it would take too much

space to give them all. The
reader desirous of making all their had better refer to the books
acquaintances
themselves. I will close with the "astral plane**: "Astral Plane, also called the For-
43
of magic and other
fantastic systems. If that fact is overlooked, one
that Class I as a whole had been
might imagine enormously strength-
ened in the course of past centuries, cutting in on the domain of
Class II residues (group-persistences). Such a
strengthening there
has certainly been, but closer examination shows that the
gain has
been smaller than would seem. The combinations of experimental
science have been vastly expanding all the
way down to our own
times, but for the most part they have occupied territory formerly
held by the combinations of trial-and-error empiricism, magic,
theology, and metaphysics. From the standpoint of social utility that

displacement in combinations very advantageous; but as regards
is
the role played by residues in human conduct it is evident that the
compensation has been very considerable also, so that the class as a

whole has changed much less than the two elements of which it is
made up; and considering Class I as a whole, it is apparent that,
substantially, it
changes but slightly and very slowly.
1700, The same may be said of the other classes of residues. Sup-
mative Plane, whence man gets his astral body. The Kamaloka, or place of passions
and desires, is located on the Astral Plane. To it man repairs, after death. It cor-
responds to the Purgatory of the Catholics." Side by side with these new forms of
old vagaries a few of the old forms here and there themselves survive. Periodically
in the newspapers one read accounts of witches, sorcerers, and other such
may
persons. I select at random from
the Corriere delta sera, Aug. 31, 1913: "Mysterious
Rain of Stones Halted by Sacrifice of Two Cats: At Termo d'Arcola, near La
Spezia, a strange thing recently occurred that has given those innocent ruralites a
great deal to talk about. ... On July 21 last, a certain Irma Dal Padulo, eleven,
while walking home from school noticed that a rain of stones was falling about
her on the deserted country road. The stones had the peculiarity of being very
hot. ... On the following morning, however, the rain began again the moment
the girl rosefrom her bed, and in spite of the vigilance of her parents and neighbors
it lasted almost the whole clay. Wherever the
girl went stones began falling about
her, without however hitting her, and they were always hot. The thing kept up for
several days. Numbers of persons went to the village to witness it,
among them
Signor Luigi Parioli, city councillor of Vezzano Ligurc, two women, and one of
Irma's brothers. [It all reads like a story from the Malleus maleficarum, save that,
with the passing of the years, the Devil has retired, relinquishing his role to spirits.]
Someone suggested [Some Clerical, no doubt.] that the girl be treated with an
exorcism by the village priest; but the exorcism was without result. [How hath the
Devil fallen!] The family could not imagine what saint to turn to next, when a
fellow-townsman [Probably an anti-Clerical certainly a man with a sense of
up-to-clateness.] suggested that a spiritualist seance be held in the Dal Padulo home.
The suggestion was taken, and it seems that the table, speaking in the tiptological
code, ordered that two cats be killed and buried in a certain place. That was
done and the rains ceased forthwith.'*
1
70 1
pose, for instance, we consider Class II (group-persistences). The
II-/? variety in that class (relations of living and dead) has by no
means disappeared. Indeed it was through observation of present-
day phenomena that we were able (Chapter VI) to strip it clear
which in former times had hidden it from view.
of the derivations
But there can be no doubt that it figures much less extensively in
our times than in a remote era, when
worship of the dead was
virtually the only cult our Graeco-Latin ancestors knew; or in the
Middle Ages, when the chief concern of the living seems to have
been to endow masses for the dead. We may confidently assert, there-
fore, that the importance of residues of our II-/3 variety has greatly
diminished in the course of the centuries.
1701. But that
falling-off has been balanced, to some extent at
least, by intensifications on the part of other varieties in the same
class, so that the class as a whole has not greatly changed. The gods
of Graeco-Latin polytheism came little by little to the terri-
occupy
tory left vacant by a waning worship of the dead ;
and they in their
turn were displaced by the divinities and saints of
Christianity. In
the sixteenth century the Reformation
waged bitter war on the cult
practised in the Roman Church
of relics, and especially on the rites
for the mitigation of punishments after death. Yet, at bottom, the
Reformation merely replaced the old group-persistences with new
ones. Life at Geneva under Calvin was much less free, much more
extensively governed by ultra-experimental considerations, than life
in Rome ever had been under the rule of the
Popes; and taken all
in all, Protestantism was much more narrow-minded, much more
oppressive, than the Catholic Church had been where

in countries
the Reform superseded Catholicism; while Catholicism, on its side,
under the impact of the attack upon it became less tolerant, less
indulgent, more aggressive. In a word, in the days of Leo X and
before the day of Luther, Rome enjoyed a freedom of thought and
speech which vanished, quite, in Protestant countries and therefore
in Catholic countries also. Protestants themselves
point out that
their Reformation tended to stimulate the "religious spirit." Which
is another way of saying that it extended the influence of the Class
II residues.
1702. Many other observations confirm these inferences.

Thinking
of logical forms primarily, there seem to be very great differences
1702 ALTERNATIONS OF FAITH AND REASON 1145
between the various competing religions; but attending chiefly to
sentiments, one perceives in all of them varying forms of a single
substance. In Europe, in the second half of the nineteenth century,
Socialism made room for itself by crowding back some of the pre-
vailing faiths such as Catholicism

and nationalism, and assimilat-
ing others, such as humanitarianism and a so-called Liberal Chris-

1
tianity (which is not so very Christian and not at all liberal). Later
on, towards the beginning of the twentieth century, came a counter-
2
offensive by the religions differing from Socialism. The tide of
positivistic
humanitarianism receded a little. Socialistic
religious
sentiment lost
ground, as did also, and to a greater extent indeed,
x
1702 For many such people Christ has been stripped of all divine attributes and
is to be applauded only as a Socialist or humanitarian teacher. Not a few go
farther still. In November, 1912, while the Balkan War was raging and Christians
under Turkish rule were trying to rid themselves of Mussulman oppression, an
internationalist Socialist congress convened at Basel to pass furious resolutions de-
nouncing that war. One of the most influential orators there was Jaurcs. He had
already published a number of articles in defence of Turkey. All the same, the
Parochial Council of Basel put the cathedral of that city at the disposal of the
congress, in other words, of people who were defending the Crescent against the
Cross. To be sure, middle-class cowardice, which prompts many individuals to
kotow to the Socialists and become their adulators, had something to do with
such action; but it cannot be taken as the only cause, especially if one consider
the approval of the action of the Catholics that was voiced in many quarters. A
correspondent of the Journal de Geneve wrote from Basel, Nov. 27, 1912: "What
will distinguish the Socialist convention at Basel will be, not so much the lip-service
to humaneness that is paid in its resolutions, as the fact of its gathering in the
and trustful gesture on the part of our religious and political
cathedral, that noble
community towards partisans of peace. . . . That gesture symbolized the city's
attachment not to the revolutionary International but to international peace and
social peace among the classes in the various countries." Now the people who met
in the Basel Cathedral were champions of the "class struggle," which was one of
their dogmas, yet aiding and abetting them is represented as a symbol of "attach-
ment to social peace"! Of the many absurd derivations that we have had occasion
to note in course of these volumes, this certainly is not the least ridiculous. The
Armenian Christians, endured the massacres of Abdul Hamid and then
who first
the massacres of the "Young Turks," might have found the Turkish peace that
was preached from a still-Christian Cathedral at Basel but little different from
what Galgacus (Tacitus, Agricola, 30) said of the Roman peace: "Ubi solitudinem
jaciunt, pacem appellant"!
2
1702 In view of the scant variability of classes of residues taken as a whole,
such a thing might have been foreseen. Cf. my Systemcs, Vol. II, p. 419: "It may
well prove that in certain countries the Nationalists, the Imperialists, and the
Agrarians will be the only parties capable of resisting Socialism, and vice versa.
The choice in that case would be confined to those parties."
1146 TREATISE ON GENERAL SOCIOLOGY *73
3
secondary religions such as liberalism, humanitarianism, Tolstoy-

ism, and the like; while nationalism underwent a remarkable re-
vival,Catholicism prospered once more, the various metaphysical
systems emerged from their eclipse, and even magic and astrology
4
again made room for themselves.
1703. The differences in intensityobservable in the increasing
popularity of some derivations and the decreasing popularity of

others is a certain index of differing intensities in the residues to
3
1702 The term "liberalism" is used here to designate the doctrines of the old
Liberalism (the historic Left), which aimed at reducing the number of restrictions
on the individual; not that newer liberalism which, aiming at multiplying such
restrictions under the old name, professes doctrines altogether new as compared
with what was formerly called liberal.
4
1702 One may read expensive advertisements of magicians and astrologers in the
newspapers. It is certain that such individuals would not continue going to that
expense if there were no profit in it. We are therefore safe in concluding that many
people bite at their bait. There are special catalogues devoted to books on magic
and astrology, and every day new publications of the kind are added to the old
lists. Here, as one among a host, is a specimen of a "psychic" publication (in
French) "Infallible Counsel within Everybody's Reach as to How to Sow the
:
Seeds of Love and Sympathy about One and Win Happiness for Oneself and
Others. Psychic Bureau, 98 rue Blanche, Paris, ist edition, 25,000 copies." Then,
pp. 2-7: "The means that we would reveal to our readers for winning love and
happiness are obtained from magic Perfumes and astrological Stones. . . . The
chief magical perfumes are seven in number. Each of them corresponds to an
essential heavenly body . . the Sun, the heliotrope; the Moon, the iris; Mercury,
.
sweet broom . . . Our readers, men and women, already know how important it
is for them perfume of the heavenly body that exerts the

to use the particular
predominant destinies. The day is past when astrological

influence upon their
science was the object of contempt and disdain. In that branch of knowledge of
the occult, as in every other, our age has witnessed a magnificent rebirth. No one
in this day and age would venture to question the fact that the planets influence
the Earth, the Earth's inhabitants, and everything on or inside it. [That derivation
stands on a par with Hegel's notion that comets influenced the quality of wines
( 510).] Be it a question of reproduction in animals, of germination in plants, of
disease inman, the influence of the Sun has to be recognized. Who would ever
think of doubting the power of the Moon over the tides [This good soul must
have about the same conception of Moon and tides as the Chinese or Hegel.], over
periods in women, and certain mental diseases, and the deadly effect of red moons
on the sprouts of young plants. [The method of reasoning usual in metaphysicists
who look into their own egos in order to determine the experimental relationships
between facts.] One often hears people ascribing their preferences to chance. They
will say, for instance: 'Strange but why do I white so?' 'Why do I prefer
dislike
the rose, of all flowers?' 'Why is vervain my favourite perfume?' There is no
chance in such things. The fact is that such people sense vaguely, instinctively,
what is best suited to them. A mysterious voice is telling them what is best suited
47
which they corresponcj. That was clearly apparent in Italy in the
period around 1913, 'where a rapid rise in the Nationalist tide kept
pace with a decline no less rapid in the Socialist religion. The same
trend was noticeable also in France, where the rise in tide of new
faith was a matter not only of nationalism, but also, though in
smaller proportions, of a Catholic revival. In Germany too Social-
1
ism fell off somewhat. In England any gains by one of the so-
to them. [A reasoning that would seem for all the world to ape Bergson's line of
argument in discovering an "instinctive me." What Bergson says is not so intelligible
as the above, but experimentally it stands on a par with it.] . . . What we have
said of perfumes also applies to precious stones. Of all earthly substances none have
stronger sympathies for sidereal substances than genuine precious stones. It is a

matter of common knowledge that the diamond is under the despotic sway of the
polar star." And in that Hegel is evidently 'overpassed"'
( 1686) in his vagaries

on die diamond ( 504).
The magical rites of the witch in Theocritus have counterparts in our own time.
See, for instance, Papus, Peut-on envouter (can spells be cast on people) ?
1703
*
G
The torn ale d' Italia, Sept. 15, 1913, carried an account by Cabasino-Renda
of the Socialist Congress at Jena, which was in session at the time: "The German
Socialist party is in decadence. That fact is frankly admitted by the Executive Com-
mittee in the long and detailed report that it is today presenting to the congress.
The report evinces a mood of deepest gloom. The enrolment of new converts is
happened before since the foundation of the

at a standstill, a thing that has never
party. During the past year only 12,000 new members were enrolled, a ridiculous
figure relatively. Hitherto the number has always exceeded 130,000. Another very
interesting fact: Of the 12,000 new members this year 10,000 are women, a cir-
cumstance that will fill feminists with a very legitimate pride but which gives the
party leaders little cheer, since, in electoral terms at least, they find in this year's
enrolment only two thousand persons who can be accounted as usable material.
In many districts more than a hundred membership has actually decreased, and
the slump affects all parts of Germany but especially Prussia.
"Socialist leaders are trying to find some comforting explanation for this very
alarming development. They say that it may be due to the hard times which
have been afflicting Germany this year. That argument, however, shows not a few
wrinkles. The history of the Socialist party indicates, to the exact contrary, that
during hard times in the past Socialist gains have stood in direct ratio to the
distress and discontent. They also say that 'the party's propaganda in the press
has been neglected.' But another section of the same report shows that expenses
for agitation have been considerably higher this year than in previous years. As
regards the Socialist newspapers, one notes a development that is in perfect harmony
with the slump in new enrolments: subscriptions have fallen off perceptibly. The
Vorwarts alone has lost 8,400 subscribers in the past nine months, and lesser papers
asmany as 5,000. Another circumstance completes the picture of decline in the
German Socialist party: the number of votes it has polled at elections has fallen
off, whereas past years have shown steady increases (up to the fabulous figure of
4,000,000 including sympathizers, of course; for the party has fewer than 1,000,000
actual members). In the thirteen local elections held this year the Socialists have
cial
religions have been made at the expense of one or more of the
others; but in that country the gains went to Socialism, the losses,
to nationalism and liberalism. Since the
present trend in England,
in one of its
aspects, nationalism, is in a direction counter to the
general trend on the Continent, one may surmise that it will not
hold very long. The transformation of Japan in the course of the
nineteenth century is a most interesting case. There derivations
change, but sentiments and residues still endure, expressing them-

selves in part in different
ways. Class II (group-persistences) changes
little if at all; but certain subvarieties in the class the
vary, change
2
in certain instances being very considerable.
1704. The case of Italy is worth
considering more in detail, not
so much because of the magnitude and
intensity of the movement
had, with one single exception, many fewer votes than in past years; and they
were defeated in almost every case. Of course, to infer from all this that the German
Socialist party is falling to pieces would be a gross mistake; but we may assert in
all confidence that having attained its peak in the elections of 1911, Socialist power
is now on
a declining curve. To justify the party's vote in favour of appropriations
for increased armaments, Socialist leaders say that 'had they thrown their
weight
to the Opposition, the Government's bills would have been in danger of defeat,
and that would have meant an immediate dissolution of the Reichstag.' So the
Socialists were against any dissolution of the Reichstag!
They did not care to
enter a general election on a platform that, logically, should have been altogether
in their favour: a billion fornew military expenditures! There could be no clearer
demonstration of the present exhilaration of German national sentiments, and of
the predicament of a Socialist party, which feels that not even under circumstances
so exceptionally favourable could it maintain, in a new struggle, the position that it
won at the last elections through a combination of circumstances which will never
return." [Of this last, really,we cannot be sure. It will all depend on future devel-
opments.]
2
La Mazeliere, Le Japon, Vol. V,
1703 pp. 7-10: "In that country where, for a
moment, everything seemed to be going to pieces, one single institution held its
ground, its enhanced by the collapse of everything else. That was the mon-
prestige
archy, strengthened now by hatred of the foreigner, by revolutionary passions that
had identified the monarchical cause with democratic reforms, by the mystical
character which the Restoration had assumed. There were thirty millions of human
beings who had no religion left and wanted one. So they began worshipping their
Emperor. ... So love of the Emperor was intensified by all other loves, worship
of the Emperor by all other religious aspirations. ... In the turmoil of hatreds
and schisms that had resulted from the strife of civil war, the Imperial cult became
the one focus of union for all Japanese. Officers of foreign armies who saw
. . .
Nogi's soldiers advance to the storming of Port Arthur, or Oku's men at Liao-
Yang, all use the same expression: it was fanaticism." La Mazeliere wrote these
lines in 1910. Two years later, on the death of the Mikado, General Nogi committed
hara-kiri, adding further confirmation to La Mazeliere's picture.
1704 NATIONALISM IN ITALY 1 1
49
for history shows movements of far greater scope and violence but
because it time under our very eyes and we
took place in our own
are therefore better able to sound its character. are not inter- We
ested just here in the role political and financial interests may have
played in the movement, nor in deciding whether and to what ex-

tent sentiments sprouted like tender plants under the watering of
1
a beneficent political and financial dew. Here we are considering
sentiments as they stood previous to that time (1913), and trying
simply to see how Class II residues varied in distribution and how

such changes were largely hidden from view under a mask of
2
derivations.
The symptoms of the movement were discernible as early as
first
1908. By 1911, its existence was unmistakable. At that time religious

exhilaration in large numbers of Socialists, liberals, humanitarians,
Tolstoyans, and so on, assumed the new form of a nationalist, mili-

tarist enthusiasm. Afairly significant symptom
of the decline of
Socialist sentiment among Socialist leaders could be noted in the
ratification by the Chamber on February 23, 1912, of a royal decree
proclaiming the annexation of Libya. In the vote by roll-call thirty-

eight Deputies were against, thirty-three of them Socialists. In the
vote by ballot, only nine were against. It follows that a certain num-
ber of Deputies were of such lukewarm Socialist or Nationalist faith
when they could do so
as to vote against the Socialist party's policy
secretly, and against the Nationalist policy when called upon to do

so openly. It all reminds one of Machiavelli's sage remark (Deca,
I, 27) that "very rarely do men manage to be altogether rascals or

3
altogether upright."
*
1704 To those matters we shall come in due lime in Chapter XII.
2
1704 In this connexion we shall be adding a number of considerations to the
remarks we made ini55Qf.
8
1704 Corriere della sera, Feb. 25, 1912: "At roll-call the 'nays' numbered 38,
to wit, 33 Socialists, 2 Constitutionalists ... 3 Republicans. The vote by secret
. . .
ballot showed 9 'nays,' though, as proved by the official minutes of the session,
22 Deputies who had voted against the bill on roll-call were present. The names
of the 9 who voted 'nay' are of course not known; but it is clear enough that 13
of those who had at first been opposed changed their attitudes and voted for the
bill when they were in a position to cast a secret ballot and were safe from any
group control embarrassing to the free exercise of conscience. This incident
. . .
is unprecedented, unique, and must be taken as the index of a state of mind that is
extraordinarily significant. Evidently those thirteen Deputies did not have the
courage of their convictions. . Their group demanded that they

. . come out
II5O TREATISE ON GENERAL SOCIOLOGY I75
Most interesting in view of the contrasts involved was the
1705.
change from pacifist militancy to militarist militancy. Conditions of

public health in Italy (cholera) happened to be such
as to prevent
foreign delegates from attending the peace-lovers' convention

in
Rome that Italian pacifists were all for holding while the expedi-
tion to Tripoli was being brewed. Had it not been for that, the chief
business of that convention would have been to listen to panegyrics
on war delivered by Italian pacifists. With few exceptions they were
1
all set to strike
up in chorus.
1706^ As usual, and in accord with the endless array of examples

that we have already seen, derivations came running to the rescue
to show that war in this special case was not in any sense incon-
with
sistent
general pacifist doctrine. That is one of the very nu-
merous cases where the incidental character of the derivation be-
comes strikingly evident, as not determining events but as being
determined by them. The classic example, of course, would be the
very ancient fable of the wolf and the lamb.
1707. The Italo-Turkish war was brought on by a sum of inter-
ests and sentiments, just as the colonial wars of all the
great Euro-
pean Powers have been brought on, for the past century at least.
Italy was merely treading, somewhat tardily, a broad path that
had
against the bill and they sacrificed their convictions to appearances. In the secrecy
of the ballot they could be sincere, and then and then only were they sincere [Who
can say that? They might very well have refrained from voting. The truth is they
were spinning like weather-vanes, not knowing where they were at.], dropping
the masks that they had been craftily wearing. But what a humiliation in a courage
so secret!What a confession of weakness in such an act of sincerity!" But after
the elections of 1913 came as usual from the masses a wave of faith; and the
newly elected Deputies showed themselves violent defenders of their party.
*
1705 Among those to be mentioned on the roll of honour as standing faithful
to their professed doctrines and refusing to let themselves be swept away like
chafT in the wind of war enthusiasm, were Deputy Napoleone Colajanni, Edoardo
Giretti, a lawyer, and Professor Arcangelo Ghisleri.
Shortly afterwards, in 1912, the Italian pacifists petitioned the Minister of Public
Instruction "to request teachers in the public schools to give talks on February 22
[the day when the conclusion of peace with Turkey was to be celebrated] showing
how love of peace can and ought to go hand in hand with love of country"
(Corriere dclla sera, Feb. 3, 1912). The minister was well aware of the absurdity
of setting out to glorify a war in the name of peace! He may also have been de-
terred by a sense of the insult he would have been offering to freedom of thought
on the part of Italian school-teachers by requesting them in an official order to
address their pupils in a manner so fraught with bad faith. At any rate he replied
1708 PROPERTIES OF RESIDUES
been opened for her by other countries and very possibly she could
;
not have refrained from doing as she did without serious disadvan-
tage to herself. If that simple truth had been stated, it would have
described the actual causes of what was happening. But the Italian
pacifists saw fit to resort to derivations calculated to satisfy senti-
ments corresponding to Class II residues.
1708. To Sentiments of justice. In the ultimatum sent to
wit: i.
Turkey by the Marchese di San Giuliano mention was made of in-

justices perpetrated by Turkey to the damage of Italy. It was al-
leged, for instance, that an Italian girl had been
abused. The logical
conclusion from that would have been to demand that reparation
be made for the wrongs suffered, that the girl be handed over to
Italian authorities. But, by a very special
kind of reasoning, the con-
clusion was reached that Italy should conquer Tripoli. As for the
girl who had
been raped, having performed patriotic service as a
pretext, she disappeared from view and was never heard of again.
2. Atrocities that Turco-Arab combatants were alleged to have
perpetrated on Italian dead, wounded, and prisoners. These came in

very handy. But in strict
logic, a cause ought to antedate its effects.
Strange indeed to give as the cause of a war incidents that could

occur only after and in consequence of a declaration of war.
to Professor dc Gubernatis as follows:"Assuredly the noble ideal of peace among

the peoples peace, be it understood, with honour and justice smiles upon our
spirits when Italy is being called upon to safe-guard her own
even in these days
vital interests and same time the interests of civilization by force of arms.
at the
[The spirits of the Romans were enlightened by the same smile as they went about
conquering the Mediterranean world. So was the spirit of Napoleon I as his armies
overran Europe.] But surely, sir, it cannot escape a man of your acuteness that a
public demonstration in favour of peace made at this time would, in spite of any
reservations that might be attached to it, lend itself to distorted and embarrassing
interpretations. . .
[So the Minister dismantles the Professor's derivation.
. But he
has one of his own:] The Romans closed the temple of Janus only when the enemy
had been defeated. So shall we
celebrate the festival of peace once more [Here
perhaps the Minister is somewhat ironical. He too reminds one of the phrase of
Tacitus ( 1702*)] when the blood of our soldiers, the flower of the youth of
Italy, shall have won for our country the recognition of her good right and the
respect of the whole world; and it will be a sincere festival, one deeply felt by all."
Substantially, stripped of its rhetorical frills and furbelows, the Minister's idea was
that there would be plenty of time to glorify peace when war had brought home
all the bacon it was expected to deliver a very sound notion, for that matter.
But it is as old as the world and has been held by very warlike peoples; so that
it was really quite superfluous to fish up a high-sounding theory of pacifism just
3. Italy's obligation to free the Arabs from Turkish oppression.

To be sure the Arabs did not care to be freed, but that was a matter
of little or no importance: they had to be "freed" willynilly. As a
pretext for conquering Greece ancient Rome thought up
the notion
of "freeing" Greeks. Modern Rome, much more modest, was satis-
fied with "freeing" Tripolitan Arabs. Sophistries and derivations
live lives!
long long
4. In a very subordinate way, some slight appeal was made to
sentiments of national integrity. The annexation of Tripoli and
Cyrenaica to Italy having been proclaimed, Arabs who refused to

submit became "rebels." One may be a pacifist and still demand that
a "rebellion" be suppressed.
5. There was some slight allusion to Christian sentiments,

but
that dangerous tack was soon abandoned as tending possibly to give
the impression that the war was a conflict between Christianity and
Islam.
6. More
positive the appeal to sentiments of present-day religions.
In times past the religion of Christ used to be set up against the
religion of Mohammed. So in our time, and in the same way, feal-

ties to the god Progress and to Civilization, Holy of Holies, are
set over against the "superstitions" of "backwardness," "stagnation,"
"barbarism." The Italian pacifists took out and dusted

off an
age-
old theory that Christian peoples should not make war upon Chris-
tians, but might well fight infidels.
1
We
were told that the peace
movement meant peace among "civilized" nations, not peace be-
tween civilized nations and "barbarous" nations. This new theory
is much more vague than the old, for, after all> it is an easy matter
to determine whether or not a nation is Christian, in forms at least.
But how are we to know whether a nation is "civilized" and espe-
cially whether it be sufficiently civilized to be entitled to peace in-

stead of war? The Berliner Post would have Germany appropriate
the colonies of Portugal in order to substitute a "healthy" German
civilization for a
"corrupt" Latin civilization. Many Germans
firmly believe that there is but one civilization, the German that
all the rest is barbarism.
Ought we to accept that theory? Who
is to settle a
problem so arduous ? It is new only in form. The sub-
l
1708 The idea goes very far back. The ancient Greeks also used to say that
Hellenes should not make war on Hellenes, but might well fight Barbarians.
1709 NATIONALISM IN ITALY 1 1
53
stance of it is
already present in the question which Saladin puts to
Melchisedech the Jew in one of Boccaccio's tales, Decameron, I, 3:
"I would fain know of you which of the three laws you judge the
true: the Jewish, the Saracen, or the Christian?" Is Japan a civilized
country or a barbarous country ? permissible or not permissible,
Is it
according to pacifist doctrine, to wage war on Japan ? And the dif-

ficulties
multiply as we go on to empires that comprise numbers of
nations, some of which are reputed civilized, others barbarous.
France is
certainly a civilized country. Does she cease to be such in
view of her African and Asiatic possessions ? And what of England ?
And Russia? Obviously such a theory can only be brought forward
for mere purposes of partisan convenience in debate. It is neither
true nor false: it is
simply devoid of meaning.
7. Nor is
any more sense discernible in another fine contraption
of our pacifists, who explain that their peace means peace among
countries in Europe and, we may take for granted, countries of the
Americas. But does the word "European" refer to race, or to terri-
tory? If it refers to race it

justifies,
it is true, Italy's war against
Turkey; but it would just as well justify a war against the Magyars
or the Russians, among whom there are Tartars and Tartars. If it
relates to territory, Turkey's territory lies both in Europe and Asia,
as do England's, Russia's, and the territories of other countries ;
and
the pacifist theory ends by not applying to anybody.
Wewill say nothing of minor derivations, such as the doctrine
of "historical destiny," the argument based on the ancient dominion
of Rome in Africa, and others fashioned of like rhetoric.
1709. Most beauteous among all such beautiful contrivances must
be reckoned the contention that pacifism really means that war can
be waged whenever war is considered advantageous to one's coun-
try.
If this be granted, it would be difficult indeed to find one person
in the who is not a pacifist; for, after all, where find
whole world
the dolt to say "I am for war because I believe it will be disastrous
:
to my country"? And why, if the patriots of a country A have the
right to make war, should not the patriots of a country B have an

equal right? And if the right be granted to all countries, what in
the world can be the use of pacifism? The estimable pacifists in
question never wearied of praising arbitration and Hague tribunals

which prescribed that nations should appeal to them before enter-
1 1
ing upon a war. Then they turned around and supported their own
government, which snapped its
fingers at Hague tribunals and in-
ternational arbitration. But in that case, where is our much esteemed
"Peace through Law" to lay her head? The real dispute between
pacifists
and non-pacifists is not as to whether a man ought to do
what is beneficial or what is detrimental to his country. The ques-
tion is whether war is at all times harmful, save when
waged in
self-defence, as non-Italian pacifists aver, and as Italian pacifists also
averred before the war of conquest in Tripoli supervened: or
whether wars, even wars of conquest, may not sometimes be bene-
the adversaries of pacifism contend. Similarly there is a real
ficial, as
issue between pacifists and non-pacifists as to whether the rules of
"law" are adequate for settling international quarrels, as the pacifists
assert, or whether, as non-pacifists claim, war is sometimes indis-
pensable for that purpose. If it be granted that war is to be waged

whenever a nation prefers it to arbitration, it is
impossible to find
anyone who is not a pacifist.
Fully to appreciate the fatuousness of the arguments adduced to
justify the Italo-Turkish War, one
should notice that once the war
had ended in complete victory or was said to have the Italian
Government showed not the slightest interest in such reasons or
pretexts. The
war was said to have been inspired by a sense of jus-
tice, by a desire to obtain redress for wrongs done to Italian citizens.
No such wrong was ever righted. Quite to the contrary, new and
more serious wrongs resulted from the expulsion of Italian citizens
from Turkish territories. Nor were they righted. The sentiments
of pity for peoples oppressed by the Turks, and especially the very
lively sentiment of pity felt for

the Arabs, who, after all, were de-
lighted with their "oppression," were not

extended to Christian peo-
ples who had decided to rid themselves of Turkish domination. In-

deed, Italy made peace with Turkey at the moment best calculated
to help the Turks to the disadvantage of those peoples. As for the
Progress, the goddess Civilization, and others of

that tribe, the
god
Italian Government took no further notice of them, unless one is to
say that in the war between Turkey and the Balkan and Hellenic
peoples Holy Progress, and Civilization, Holiest of Holies, were on
the side of Turkey. Finally, if Turkey had to be considered a non-
European country in the war with Italy, and therefore a proper

enemy European Power, in her war with Bulgaria, Serbia,
for a
Montenegro, and Greece, she must by some adroit legerdemain have

suddenly become a European country against which war could not
be waged, so that in view of that marvellous transformation Italy
had to conclude peace at the earliest possible moment.
1710. These derivations, so utterly illogical and sometimes indeed
so ridiculous, all lead up eventually to one same conclusion; and it
is therefore evident that they were concocted with a view to that
conclusion, and not thought out independently of any conclusion,

the latter resulting from theml And it is further apparent that here,
as we have seen to be true in many other such cases,
they are merely
the incidental element, the principal element lying in the sentiments
and interests that gave rise to the conclusion which the derivations
are an effort a posteriori to justify. So the variety that the deriva-
tions seem to show, but which is only
apparent, disappears, only
the substance being left, which is much more constant than the
derivations, and is in fact the underlying reality. It often happens,
in general, that statesmen ascribe to their conduct in public utter-
ances causes that are in no sense the real ones; and that is especially
l
the case when they allege general principles as motives ( 1689) .
*
1710 In 1912 the Italian Government withheld its exequatur from Monsignor
Caron, who had been appointed Archbishop of Genoa by the Pope. There seems
to have been quite a story behind the incident. It was hinted that Monsignor Caron
had had a finger in the removal from Genoa of Father Semcria, a clergyman tainted
to some slight extent with Modernism and who had a powerful following among
many ladies highly placed in Genoese society. However, on all that we have no
documents and therefore cannot go into it. We can consider the reasons which a
minister in the then government, Signer Finocchiaro-Aprile, put forward before
the Chamber in its session of Feb. 10, 1913, in justification of the refusal of the
exequatur. He alluded to certain newspapers which were favouring the restoration
of the temporal power, and charged Monsignor Caron without producing any
great proof with aiding and abetting that campaign. And he concluded: "In deal-
ing with circumstances such as those confronting us today, what must prevail over
everything and everybody is a supreme consideration of state interests whereby no
civic recognition can be accorded to anyone who, in a vague hope of restorations
that are impossible, fails to render to the State the homage that is its due." Now in
that we have the statement of a general principle. Had it come from a Prussian
Minister of State there would be nothing to say to it, for in Prussia the Government
does exclude from state offices, including university professorships, all persons who
"fail to render to the State the homage that is its due." But no Italian
politician
can climb as high as a ministerial portfolio and not know that the Italian Gov-
ernment regularly awards appointments to Socialists who declare publicly and re-
peatedly that they are determined to destroy the bourgeois State and that they
1711. With
reference to the greater or lesser degree of resistance
offered by the various forms of religious sentiment to the wave of
Nationalism that began to sweep Italy in 1911, it is to be noted that
not a few Socialists remained loyal to their doctrine of opposition to
bourgeois wars. So again almost all the Mazzinian Republicans
stood
firm against what they regarded as a monarchical enterprise. Mean-
time, Italian pacifists turned belligerent in great numbers, while the
humanitarians and the Tolstoyans crawled into their shells and ut-
tered not a sound. That therefore is the order in which those beliefs
should be ranked, on the score of strength in Italy, at least, and at

the present time (1913). In other countries, too, I dare say, the order
would not be greatly different.
1712. As regards Class III residues, devotion to the rites of Chris-
tian worship has diminished among modern civilized peoples; but
ithas been in part superseded by worship of Socialist and humani-
tarian saints, and especially by worship of the god State and the god
People. One can detect no substantial difference between the festivals

of a Catholic saint and the celebrations in honour of Rousseau's
bicentenary for which the French Government appropriated thirty

thousand francs. It is natural
enough that in the eyes of the hu-
manitarian the Catholic saint should be accounted an impostor, and
Rousseau one of the greatest of men. It is also quite as natural that
the Catholic should invert those judgments. But that very difference
in opinions shows the similarity of the sentiments by which hu-
manitarian and Catholic are alike moved. The old Catholic "pro-
cessions" have all but disappeared; but they have been replaced by
political and class "parades" and what the Latins call "manifesta-
tions." Protestants do not go
to mass as Catholics do, but they go to
the prayer-meetings of their several sects (which are often as noisy
as "revivals"), and they join free-thinkers in
swelling audiences at
spiritualistic meetings. English and American Protestants sing
hymns at the
top of their lungs. Many of them break away from
Christian worship; but their old religious fervour merely turns to
"social," humanitarian, patriotic, or nationalist enthusiasms, and of
nourish not "vague hopes of restorations that are impossible" but positive hopes of
downright destruction. The Minister was not telling the exact truth, therefore, in
asserting that his conduct was determined by the general principle he stated. He is
mindful of his principle only when he finds it politically convenient, and forgets it
when he fears that it may be politically embarrassing.

1713 MODERN FORMS OF SERVILITY 11
57
such there are brands to suit all tastes. The god People has not a
single unbeliever left. Individuals may, as is the case with other

gods, differ as to the forms that his worship shall take, but not as to
the obligation of worship. And where is the man who does not feel
the need of shouting aloud that
everything must be sacrificed to the
"good of the People" ? shouting it in words, that is, for as regards
deeds often an entirely different matter. It is a race
it is
among all
parties to get there first in
paying homage to "the People." The
Knights of Aristophanes mirror with equal truth to life the situation
in ancient Athens and the situation observable among us today.
There is not a reactionary, however extreme, who dares speak ill of
the god People. It took an eccentric like Nietzsche to dare such a
thing, and it makes him look like the exception that proves the
rule. Careful thinkers who are convinced in their heart of hearts of
the ineptitude of the new
religion dissemble such atheism, just as
their predecessors dissembled unbelief in the
days when it was a
crime to doubt the "truths" of the Christian religion. They speak
of "abuses" in democracy just as people of former times
spoke of
"abuses" in the clergy. They thrash the saddle,
1
knowing well that
they cannot thrash the horse.

In a word, the Class III residues may have changed
considerably
in form, but as regards substance much less, when the class
especially
is considered as a whole.
1713. As regards Class IV, one might suppose that that group has
shown a great increase as
against a simultaneous and no less impres-
sive falling off in Class V
residues. For many persons it is an article
of faith that in our
day the "social sense" has greatly increased,
while "individualism" has lessened. But,
substantially, matters do
not stand that way. The change is oftentimes a mere change in
*
1712 The parties hostile to "the bourgeoisie" are constantly declaring in their
books, pamphlets, and newspapers that it is their intention to annihilate said
bourgeoisie root and branch. But show me a single "bourgeois" who in a fit of
pique or even in jest dares reply: "You say you want to destroy us? Come ahead
and we will do some destroying too." The God of the Christians has blasphemers
among His faithful. The god People counts not a one, let alone among his faith-
ful, not even among those who take no stock in him. Humanity has its "misan-
thropes," but "the People" has no "rrfisodemes." There is no one bold enough
to display hatred, or antipathy, or repugnance, or even mere indifference, to it. And
all that seems so obvious, so natural, that no one ever
gives a thought to it. Indeed
to mention it seems as useless as to say that a human
being walks on two legs.
7I3
forms. In times past sentiments of subordination found their expres-
sion in the submissiveness of the lower classes to the higher; today
they manifest themselves, as regards the lower classes, in submis-

siveness to the leaders of strikes, trade-unions, political parties, and
as the higher, in submissiveness to "the People," which is
regards
fawningly blandished as no absolute monarch of past centuries ever
1
was. In those days, moreover, kings received stinging rebukes from
the Popes now and
again and met opposition in their nobilities. In
our day no one has the courage to find fault with "the People," to
1
1713 Michels, Zur Soziologie dcs Parteiwesens, pp. 64-67 (Paul, pp. 64-66) :
"The masses need something to worship. The adoration . . . the militants have
for their leaders generally remains a latent thing. It betrays itself in barely percepti-
ble ways, such as the respectful tone in which the leader's name is mentioned. . . .
In 1864 the inhabitants of the Rhine district welcomed Lassalle like a god. . . .
When organizations of farm-labourers, were formed in Sicily

the fasci, the first
(1892), men and women had an almost supernatural faith in their leaders. Mixing
together in their simple-mindedness the social question and their religious habits,
they often carried crucifixes in their parades side by side with the red flag and
placards inscribed with maxims from Marx. ... In Holland, when Domcla Nieu-
wenhuis, a Deputy, left the prison where he had been confined, he received from
the people, as he himself relates, honours such as no sovereign had ever received.
. . Such attitudes in the masses are observable not only in so called backward coun-
.
tries. . All the proof we need is the idolatry with which the Marxist prophet,
. .
Jules worshipped in the North, the most highly industrialized section in

Guesde, is
France. Even
manufacturing districts in England the masses at this late day
in the
are still welcoming their leaders with enthusiasms that remind one of the times of
Lassalle. Worship of leaders endures after they have died. The greater among them
are frankly sanctified. Karl Marx himself has not escaped that sort of Socialist
. . .
canonization, and the fanatical zeal with which certain Marxians are still defend-
ing him is something very like the idolizing of Lassalle in a day long past."
Maurice Spronck, Liberte, Nov. 17, 1912. (In France school-teachers were re-
belling against the politicians: the snake had bitten the fakir. Of a session of the
Chamber during which the crisis was under discussion, Spronck writes) : "In the
eloquent but slightly vague address of M. Paul-Boncour one point stands out as
strikingly sound, and we gladly take upon our own shoulders all that the speaker
said as to those responsible for the present unrest in the schools. 'These groups of
teachers/ he declared, 'arose not only with the full knowledge of those in power
but with their full approbation, and not so long ago the annual celebrations they
held were held under the auspices of the men most highly placed under re-
publican rule.' Nothing could hit the nail more squarely on the head. Not only
did high government officials tolerate, not only did they encourage, the develop-
ment of the old-fashioned plodding schoolmaster into a political courtier, but they
did so in terms that in a measure, one must admit, extenuate the worst aberrations,
the most absurd irregularities, in these poor souls who now have to be brought back
to good sense and discipline. No sovereign of the farthermost regions of ancient
Asia was ever courted, flattered, cajoled, boot-licked, as were those unfortunate
1713 PROPERTIES OF RESIDUES 1 159
say nothing of offering open resistance. All of which does not mean
that "the People" of today is not duped, deceived, and exploited by
its leaders as much
Athenian Demos was exploited by syco-
as the
phants and demagogues in its day and as in more recent times

2
princes were fleeced by their courtiers. In many national parlia-
ments it is not difficult to
perceive through the fog of political
der-
ivations the substance of private interests for which the given re-
gime is maintained. The fact is well known, and one may find the 3
proofs of it in any number of publications of one sort or another.
young men, who, to the still greater damage of their mental health, had chosen
the honourable profession of instructing the young only to see permanently prostrate
in obeisance before them politicians and would-be politicians in uncountable num-
bers. To make sure of their services at election time, government officials have
literally crawled at their feet. Observe, moreover, that that atmosphere still con-
tinues about the school-teacher, andthat at this very moment when there are signs of
a reaction against an intolerable state of affairs, we are being offered a law that,
under false pretences of protecting a secular school-system, is making a sort of
sacerdotal caste of our teachers, sacrosanct and untouchable." During that same
Deputy reproached the Government for not continuing to blarney
session a Socialist
the school-teachers.M. Compere Morel: "So long as the teachers served the Radical
party, you buried them in flowers. Now that they are deserting you, you are treat-
ing them as enemies [Hisses. Applause] ." In Italy the Government buys the votes
of a number of Socialist Deputies by according pecuniary favours to certain Socialist
cooperatives. A
socialist Deputy in Rome owes his seat to the votes of employees
of the Royal House. Journal des Goncourt, Vol. VIII, p. 22 (Feb. 28, 1889): "I note
in this evening's Temps a sentence addressed to working-men by President Carnot: 'I
thank you from the bottom of my heart for the welcome you have just given me,
my dear friends you are my friends since you are working-men/ [As every-
for
body knows, Carnot was assassinated by a "working-man" who seems not to

have been so much of a "friend."] I wonder whether, in the whole history of the
world, a courtier of king or emperor ever uttered a sentence to equal in cravenness
that sentence of a courtier of the people."
2
1713 Courier, Simple discours . . .
(ancnt a subscription for the purchase of
Chambord [the palace of Francis I]) (CEuvrcs completes, pp. 47-54): "Chamber,
antechamber, and gallery repeated: 'Master, all is yours,' which was the courtier's
way of saying 'All is ours,' for courts give all to princes the way priests give all
to God." Today our politicians, who are the legitimate descendants of the old
courtiers, say the same things to "the People," which has succeeded the King; and
one may say with Courier: "Chamber, Senate, and Press repeat: 'Master, all is
yours,' which is the politician's way of saying 'All is ours'; for politicians give
all to the People the way courtiers gave all to the princes of yore, and the way
priests gave all to God."

1713
8
For instance [Ciccotti], Montecitorio ("jottings by one who has been
there"), pp. 56-57: "But the Italian bourgeoisie [Being a Socialist, Ciccotti ascribes to
the capitalist class a trait that is characteristic of everybody.], whence the greater
number of the Deputies derive both as a class and as an emanation, . does not . .
Il6o THE MIND AND SOCIETY I
7I3
What with books, pamphlets, reviews, and newspapers, such publi-
cations would fill a large library. But the most important of them
are the official minutes of parliamentary investigations. These are
difficult to procure and no one reads them, but they may help some
feel the need and perhaps does not have the capacity for developing within itself
those convictions aspirations which would divide it into parties, and so, on a
and
basis, at the very most, of divisions that are nominal more than anything else, it
lives on in a state of political anaemia. Such being the situation, such the atmos-
phere in political and social life, since some centre must nevertheless be found, it is
sought, naturally, and found in the constituted authority, in the Government, which
exists inevitably and which, in virtue of its control over a whole concatenation
. . .
of interests, is in a position to satisfy appetites, coddle ambitions, manufacture ma-

jorities. But to seek a centre outside oneself is to place oneself in just that position
of servitude in which the majorities at Montecitorio stand toward the ministers
whom they ostensibly create but by whom really they are themselves created and
controlled.The very populous class of 'ministerials* along with the ministries
themselves live their lives in more or less complete oblivion of politics (using
that term in the sense of statesmanship, an activity that is good and beneficial to
the country), trusting in the ministry and blindly following it in deference to a
sum of emotions made up of gratitude, hopes, fears, and worries as to personal
interests." And see also by the same writer, Ciccotti, Plow I Became and Ceased to
Be Representative for Vicaria (Come divcnni, etc.). In his Cost parlo Fabroni
(Thus spake Fabroni), Roberto Marvasi describes how Naples was handed over to
the Camorristi by the Government, pp. 10-13: "For the purpose of preventing the
re-election of Ettore Ciccotti as Deputy from the district of Vicaria many mem- . . .
bers of the Camorra were excused from compliance with the requirements of the
'special surveillance' [probation] to which they had been sentenced. Others received
licences for carrying fire-arms or business licences; still others were placed on parole
from prison or even pardoned outright. Such the soldiers who fought a battle that
was ostensibly being staged in defence of civilized institutions. ... In this un-
confessable enterprise, criminals joined forces with the infantry and cavalry, and
the latter bivouacked about the streets and squares of the city, charging suspicious
voters with galloping horses. ... A
'State Camorra' is certainly something quite
original,and the spectacle of a government making a formal contract of partner-

ship with the underworld and ordering of it a job lot of crimes [italics Marvasi's]
iscertainly an amazing one." Marvasi concludes, p. 283: "I confess that purpose my
has been to call attention to the situation now prevailing in the country in its
bearing on the capitalist system and the political system that are sapping the coun-
try's vitality." In that Marvasi is confusing two things that are entirely distinct:
(i) A description of fact, which seems to be, in great part at least, accurate and
sound; (2) the cause of those facts, which he locates in the "capitalist system."
This latter is an assertion unsupported by scientific proof and it can find its place
only in a Socialist theology.
Facts without number serve to show that for many people in the governing
classes politics is
simply the art of looking out for the interests of certain voters and
the representatives they elect. In them Class I residues are absolutely dominant,
while Class II residues tend to be weak. Many Deputies call themselves anti-
Clericals yet get themselves elected by Clerical votes. Here is an incident that is
1713 MODERN FORMS OF SERVILITY Il6l
future historian to repeat a remark that Sallust, Bellum lugurthi-

num, XXXV, 10, puts into the mouth of Jugurtha in comment on
Rome: "Urbem venalem mature perituram si emptorem in-
et
venerit" "A city ripe for the destruction and up for sale, if only
it
typical of a huge category of facts. In February, 1913, a certain Deputy made a

fiercely anti-Clerical speech before the Italian Chamber. It came to light that he
had been elected by Clerical votes. In that connexion the Giornale d'ltalia com-
mented (Feb. 18, 1913): "The president of the Catholic Voters' Union, Count Gen-
tiloni, calls attention to this curious fact: that Deputy X
elected at Y by the Catholic
vote and with the support of the Catholic Bishop, has been functioning in Rome,
in virtue of a special understanding with Ernesto Nathan, no less, as an anti-
Clerical. Man of good sense that he is, Count Gentiloni naturally admonished the
Bishop to keep a closer eye on the conduct of his Deputy and the scolding has
caused quite a flurry among the Clericals. With that we need not concern our-
selves. What does interest us is the case of the Deputy from Y, for it is just an-
other of those daily incidents to which the political deportment of a number of
Deputies is There are Deputies who change personalities on the trains

treating us.
that carry them from their district capitals to Rome. At home, in their counties,
the gentlemen in question are most obsequious to Catholics, Catholic platforms,
Catholic authorities; but once they are through the portal of the station in Piazza
Termini in Rome, they suddenly become transfigured in a Pentecost of purest
anti-Clericalism; nevertheless, whenever necessary, to commend to

and continuing,
thegood graces of the ministry any priest in their district who chances to have
some favour to ask of the Minerva [Ministry of Public Education] or of the De-
partment of Religion and Worship, they take part, politically, in every demon-
stration of anti-Clericalism, especially we need hardly say if it is a mere matter
of oratory. .For another particular speciality of our professional anti-Clericals
. .
is to exterminate Clericals by word of mouth, but carefully to avoid performing

any act that might really damage Clerical activity and Clerical propaganda. The
anti-Clericalism of Signer Finocchiaro-Aprile, to mention one, is of just that type:
his speeches are numerous, impetuous, fierce; but look for administrative, and es-
pecially legislative, acts corresponding, and you do not find them, unless a fine
chance to do a little anti-Clericalism comes along by refusing Monsignor Caron an
exequatur and so doing a favour to the great majority of Genoese (and Italian)
Catholics! The president of the Catholic Voters' Union has, therefore, it would
seem, made a move towards introducing a little sincerity and honesty into our
electoral morals, and for that our best praise. But we do not believe that he will
at all succeed. This system of double-dealing comes in altogether too handy for
both the Deputies and the Clericals for the Deputies because it assures them
votes; for the Clericals because it assures them that they will be let alone."
For such general situations everybody tries to find particular causes, and finds
one that suits his sentiments. At the present time [1913] in France, many people are
attributing this same evil to the system of electing Deputies by plurality votes; and
they contend that proportional representation would be an effective remedy. Noting
that the Chamber of Deputies never succeeds in approving the budget on time,
Bcrthoulat writes, Libertc, Feb. 18, 1913: "What an arraignment this Chamber of
the plurality ballot (petit scrutin) has made of itself! So, in eight months' time, it
has not been able to patch together a bad budget! We are thinking of appropria-
1 1 62 TREATISE ON GENERAL SOCIOLOGY I
7I3
4
could find a buyer." Now and then a "scandal" occurs such as the
bank scandals in Italy and the Panama scandal in France. An investi-

gation held,is and
serves, if for nothing else, to give the public at
it
large the impression that what is really the rule

is
just
an excep-
tions, the taxation aspect of the subject not having been even broached as yet, for
statesmanship with our district Deputies begins and ends with asking for greater
and greater expenditures to fatten their followings with. All the same,
. . .
what is the essential and abiding justification for the parliament's existence? Is it not
the same which had, in their time, an intermittent
as for the old States General,
mandate protect the taxpayer from the demands of the Crown for money?
to
Now, as a consequence of the strange and lamentable confusion of powers that is

inherent in the present [republican] regime, our Deputies have stepped into the
shoes of the Prince. Their ever present concern is to loosen our purse-strings to give
free play to their grasping hands. But the maintenance of their principalities being
bound up, thanks to the ethical code of a rotting ballot system, with the healthiest
traditions of organized pillage, they work day and night at pillaging. Last summer
the Government took the precaution to announce its budget very early. That is
why the men from the sticks and swamps

(les hommcs
des mares) have been sitting
and sitting over the carving-up of France. Every one of them, almost, wants his
slice for his particular pack, just as each one of the knights-banneret of the electoral
fief has to have something to feed to his troop of retainers. So they all, one by
one, interminably, have been asking for the floor to be sure of having their share
in the scramble for five billions and a half."
Ciccotti's pamphlet on his experiences at Vicaria ought to be transcribed in its
entirety here, so packed is it with data of the greatest interest to experimental
sociology. Unfortunately we shall have to confine ourselves to the following quota-
tions. Pp. 58-60: "But these increasingly frequent ministerial crises serve to turn
up the man who is shrewdest, most energetic, and most accomplished in applying
the inexhaustible resources of the Government to his own advantage; who gets the
greatest hold on the press by making the wisest use of secret funds; who shows him-
self most adaptable, pliable, and skilful in organizing that chain of patronage
which runs from minister to Deputy and from Deputy to election district; who
tabulates, documents, and files away within reach the 'records' of friends and
enemies alike, so that he may be able to control them and even blackmail them as
occasion arises; who makes friends with people who have connexions at Court;
and who so succeeds in showing himself able, omnipotent, indispensable, and in
creating for himself a title to virtually absolute rule, which, in the form of a more
or less disguised dictatorship, endures for years now under his own name and now
under the names of his figure-heads. Meantime such portion of this interplay
. . .
1713 *Libcrte, Feb. 16, 1913: "Deputy Colly, who never minces words, remarked
yesterday to his colleagues in the Chamber: 'Oh, we have not a very good reputa-
tion in the country at large. But when voters in my district tell me that the parliament
is rotten and the Deputies so many and drunkards, I answer: "If the
roisterers
Deputies are good-for-nothings, the reason is that the voters who elect them are no
" '
whit better." As we have noted often already, such literary phrases, which put a
situation in a nutshell, have the merit of presenting a vivid picture, though the
picture is not altogether exact, overstepping the literal truth now more, now less.
tion. Then
shortly the troubled waters return to their customary
calm; and since forces that are constant prevail in the end over
forces that are temporary, the politicians return to their wonted
ways and not infrequently a politician who has been severely dam-
aged by an investigation again is able to become a cabinet minister,
5
and even Premier of a country; and meantime the so-called life-
saving operations that are involved in such things increase the power
of those who hold the whip-hand.
In general, opposition parties are the ones to impute misdeeds to
individuals who are in power, and they believe that in so doing
they give proof conclusive that it would be to the public interest
of combination and makeshift as can and must be exposed to light of clay; that
visibleform which these intrigues, these veerings and tackings, have to assume if
they are to get results and be widened in scope, and all along dissembled; the
manners in which conflicting interests have to compromise, clash, and make up
under the public eye all such things transpire from the debates in the parliament,
from the speeches that are made on that floor. The spoken word is the means of
winning public favour [In more general terms, the derivation is a means of stirring
sentiments.], of attracting, or it may be of diverting, public attention; and, to an
even greater extent, it is a means of simulating and dissimulating, of attacking
and defending. And all that goes on in the realization or semi-realization on the
part of everyone that it is, after all, mere ceremony, mere stage-play. The Deputies
will all tell you, if you ask them, that a speech is not going to change a situation
[They recognize practically the truths that we have been expounding in these
volumes theoretically.^ that it will not shift one vote, not amount in a word to a
tinker's dam. And yet the speaking goes on, in real earnest sometimes. [Derivations
have been used since the beginning of the world.] An ingenuous soul may at times
even have some illusion as to the immediate effects of a speech he has made, while
men of passionate faith cherish the illusion, or comfort themselves with the thought,
that everything comes to an end in the form in which it manifests itself, but that
nothing in the end is lost. . Most parliamentary orators, however, feel more or
. .
less consciously that whenever they make a speech before the Chamber they are
mere actors reciting their parts on a stage." At his trial before the French
Chamber on one occasion on a charge of extorting money from the Panama Com-
pany for political purposes, Rouvier, it will be remembered, retorted: "If I had
not done what I did, not a man of you would be here!" Well known the fact that
the big banks of France are forced to contribute to the election funds of the party
in power, and that some of them also give money to an opposition party that
seems to have a chance of soon assuming power. The funds they use for such
purposes are kept secret, so that the banks will always be in a position to make a
denial if a newspaper, as sometimes happens, gets hold of the facts.
5
1713 See, for example, Palamenghi-Crispi, Giovanni Giolitti. In France Rouvier
became a minister again after the Panama affair. In England Lloyd George re-
tained his post in the cabinet after an investigation of stock speculations which he
had made and denied that he had made, so that he was placed in the position of
having to admit that he had told an untruth.
7I4
to drive such men from office. Friends of the victims issue denials,
look about for extenuating circumstances, or, with greater success,
find ways of "hushing everything up." Individuals who know the
ins and outs of the government admit the wrongdoing when they
are speaking as man to man with their friends; but they add that
such things do not make it any the less to the public interest that
6
their friends should be kept in power. Needless to say, when an
opposition party comes to power and those in power become oppo-

sition, there is an inversion of arguments as well as of roles. It may
well be that such things are "good," in that they serve to keep
all
alive certain sentiments which are beneficial to society; but with

7
that matter we are not concerned just here ( 2140).
1714. We have, in our day, under new forms, a feudalism that
1
substantially is the counterpart of the old. In the days of the old
6
1713 Sometimesthis manoeuvre takes place in broad daylight. The Italian
Chamber answered the charges that Cavallotti was pressing against Crispi with the
resolution that "it was not called upon to consider the moral question." The English
House of Commons met the charges proved against Lloyd George with the dictum
and in words very thinly veiled that a blow struck at that minister would be
a blow struck at the party governing the country.
7
1713 Here we have merely been trying to see how certain residues vary. The
reader must not attribute to our remarks any broader bearing than belongs to them
in that limited reference. He must not gather, even by inference, that we are either
condemning or approving the facts alluded to from the standpoint of social utility.
All that we have proved is that the arguments which are used to disguise such
facts are, as a rule, derivations.
*
1714 Not a few election districts in Southern Italy are veritable fiefs and some-
thing of the sort is observable in France. Gazette de Lausanne, Nov. 22, 1912 (article
by F. C.) 'The trial that has
:
just taken place before the Yonne Criminal Sessions
throws a distressing light on political morals in the French departments. ... In
the little district capital of Courson-les-Carrieres, two lists of candidates were com-
peting at the last municipal elections, one headed by the retiring mayor, M. Bou-
quet, Councillor-General, the other by M. Jobier, Sr., conservator of mortgages in
Paris. The day before elections, M. Jobier went to a little hamlet in the district to
hold a meeting. On his way back to his home he passed a number of gangs of ruf-
fians of more or less threatening demeanour. Chancing to step aside from his com-
pany for a moment, he was struck from behind with a cudgel that stretched him
on the ground in a serious condition. His son rushed to his side, found him in a
pool of blood, and started in pursuit of the ruffians, discharging in their direction
a revolver he was carrying on his person. The bullet hit a bakery-worker, one Sali-
got, killing him instantly. The Yonne jury acquitted young Jobier, who, however,
had spent several months in prison awaiting trial. . . Everywhere the same situ-
.
ation seems to prevail. In the Municipal Council yesterday a member on the Right
raised the issue of the poor-relief budget in connexion with the conduct of the poor-
children's physician for the Commune of Etang-sur-Arroux (a good name for a
1714 MODERN FEUDALISM 1165
feudalism the lords called their vassals together to
wage a war, and
if
they won, they paid them in booty. In our
day, politicians and
labour leaders operate in the very same
way. They marshal their
gangs at election time ( 2265) to browbeat their opponents and so
procure the advantages that go to the winning side. In the old days
vassals refusing to follow their lords to war were
punished, just as
the crumiri in Italy, the yellows (black sheep,
blacklegs) in Eng-
land, the foxes (renards) in France, the "scabs" in the United States,
are punished today for
refusing to march in industrial wars. The
feelings that are aroused in loyal "militants" today by the "treason"
of these people who refuse to be organized are exactly the feelings
that people in the Middle Ages felt for the
"felony" of a vassal. The
privileges that the nobles enjoyed in those old days have their coun-
terparts in the immunities as regards the courts and the tax-collector
which are at present enjoyed by Deputies to the parliament and in
backwoods' constituency). The doctor had exerted pressure on voters by threat-
ening to withdraw from them the children in his charge if they voted the wrong
way. The charge was so strongly substantiated that the Council of the Prefec-
ture felt obliged to quash the election, though it is not much inclined to take
such measures. Naturally when M. Billard brought the matter up on the floor, the
members on the Left began crying 'slander,' but, unluckily for them, a Socialist
who chanced to be a native of the district in question rose from his bench and de-
clared that the facts were exactly as charged. M. Mesureur had to back down, beat
about the bush, beg that such an exception not be taken as the rule, give his
word of honour that the bureau's physicians in the majority were meticulously loyal
to their professional obligations. But that is not so. The placing of homeless chil-
dren is a well-known device for influencing elections. It is cynically practised and
oftentimes admitted. The Department of Public Charities, under the presidency of
one of the outstanding Freemasons of the day, has become a mere vote-factory. . . .
Returning to the case of young Jobier the boy did what he did at one of those
moments when there is no weighing of pros and contras, when one listens to in-
stinct in its most spontaneous and praiseworthy impulses. In similar circumstances
I am sure that anyone would have done what he did. But that is not the
question:
the drama has its lessons. The court trial showed that at Courson-les-Carrieres politi-
cal passions had been whetted to a paroxysm. It was shown that members of the
Councillor-General's party had been singing songs in which the elder Jobier was
referred to as 'Cholera,' and that not a few had gone so far as to say, 'We've got
to kill the Jobiers.' On the other hand, the prosecution described the chief of the
Jobier dynasty as a 'tough old bird,' a tyrannical old man in whom ambition stopped
at nothing. Why, in any event, were all those people fighting so
bitterly? For ideas?
By no means They all held the same ideas. They were Radical-Socialists on both
1
sides. Indeed the onewho stood farthest to the Left was a conservator (of mort-
gages, at least!). They were fighting for the possession of power, for the possession
of the town hall! An unpleasant job, the town hall! Agreed! But in a social
system
1 1 66 TREATISE ON GENERAL SOCIOLOGY I
7I5
smaller but by no means inconsiderable measure by such of their
2
constituents as are on the side of the party in power.
1715. In olden times the requirement of
uniformity asserted itself
in certain regards; nowadays it asserts itself in certain other regards,
but the requirement is still there. Requirement of uniformity as re-
gards Christian beliefs has diminished everywhere, and in some

countries it has virtually disappeared, whereas in economic, social,
and humanitarian matters the requirement of uniformity has been
growing progressively stronger to the point of absolute intolerance.
People in the Middle Ages insisted on religious unity but tolerated
personality of law and differing systems of government for different
towns, districts, and provinces in a given state. Modern peoples lib-
erally tolerate religious differences, but insist, in words at least, on
uniformity of laws for persons, localities, and districts. The ancient
Athenian was forbidden to introduce new gods into the city, but he
was permitted, apart from certain religious observances, to work
whenever and however he chose. In many countries today the law
gives not a thought to new gods, but rigorously prescribes the days
where one has to be either abuser or abused, the town hall becomes the stronghold
whence one carries on one's depredations in all security. It becomes the feudal castle
where one quarters one's vassals and stores one's booty. It is the holy ark of clan
and tribe. To hold it or not to hold it is to be or not to be."
The two incidents are merely typical of thousands and thousands of similar ones
observable in France and Italy.
2
1714 The Giornale 10, 1913, prints a list of the declared profes-
d'ltalia, Oct.
sional incomes of of the parliament, taken from the Riforma sociale. There
members
were twenty-two lawyers with incomes of 10,000 lire or over. The largest income
declared was 30,000 lire. Forty-two lawyers declared from 5,000 to 9,000 lire, forty-
two others from 2,000 to 4,800 lire. Twenty-one other lawyers (poor chaps!) earned
only from 700 to 1,900 lire. Seven others do not appear in the personal property list
"
at all! Then come seventeen physicians. 'Incidental incomes' do not appear in the
list. Only one is as high as 10,000 lire. Three others amount to 6,000 lire or over.
From the 6,ooo-lire level there is an abrupt drop to 4,000 and under, and then on
down to a minimum of 1,000 lire.'* Engineers and architects: "They are few in
number, and only one of them has any considerable income (25,000 lire)." num- A
ber of the Deputies mentioned in the list are well-known men; and it is a matter
of common knowledge that their professions yield them larger incomes than the
amounts declared, twice as much, three times as much, perhaps five times as much.
The same applies to members of the Italian Senate. How comes it that members of
the parliament can get such false returns accepted by the tax authorities? A writer in
the same paper (Oct. 12, 1913) explains the mystery: "In connexion with our ad-
vance notice on the results of the interesting investigation which the Riforma sociale
will publish in its forthcoming issue, Signer Antonio Corvini, president of the Direct
and hours during which a man may work. The ancient Roman was
required to respect official worship, but he could drink as
he pleased.
Today not a few countries have abandoned official worship (or at
least lay no upon it) but forbid the use of alcoholic beverages.
stress
The Inquisitors of the Catholic faith diligently inquired into offences
against their holy religion. Our

present-day teetotallers and
sex-
reformers no less diligently inquire into offences against the holy

religion of abstinence from wine and women. And if the effects of
these respective inquisitions are different, that is due first of all to

the fact that our times are in general less severe in their punishments
for all crimes; and secondly to the fact that if our modern inquisi-
tors are not lacking in the will, they are lacking, to an extent at
least, in the to wreak their will.

power On
the other hand modern
policing is more efficient than policing

in the old days, and repres-
sion has therefore gained in extension what it has lost in intensity,
so that the sum of the sufferings inflicted in this way upon mankind
1
still remains very considerable.
Tax Commission for the Province of Rome, transmits a communication which we
print herewith in its essential paragraphs. Says Signor Corvini: 'In the performance
of their difficult duties the tax commissioners have never had, and do not now have,
any sense of tenderness or any reverential fears as regards Deputies and Senators. If,
therefore, the low tax-assessments of many such gentlemen are to be deplored, the
blame must be placed on other procedures and other persons. The public should
know, in fact, that if the Commissioner fixes a definite sum as an acceptable income
for a person, that person has the right to appeal to one or more higher commissions,
which are the final, and not always the dispassionate and disinterested judges in the
controversy. Unfortunately, in Italy such local and provincial Appeal Commissions
are direct creations of local party organizations, these in their turn being creatures
of the Deputy or Senator, who thus obtains, without any angelic benevolence on
the part of the tax commission, anything he wishes, or anything he believes to be
fair to himself. There is one defect that is common to the whole administrative
system in our country: the imposition and superimposition of political influence

"
upon all the organs of the executive branch.' In its session of June 25, 1914,
Deputy E. Chiesa reminded the Italian Chamber that a number of Deputies were
paying personal property taxes on returns that were evidently lower than their
actual incomes. His remarks attracted harsh retorts and criticisms altogether irrele-
vant to the matter in hand; but no one dared deny or even question the truth of
the charges.
x
1715 In Italy, in 1910, the Knight Commander Calabrese, Deputy Crown's
Attorney and chairman of a subcommittee for the drafting of a bill relative to con-
trol of the press, proposed requiring that bonds of from 500 to 10,000 lire should
be posted by all persons intending to publish newspapers, that newspaper editors be

and that "supervising commissions" be created to keep
at least high-school graduates,
watch over newspapers and prevent them from publishing anything "contrary to
1 1 68 THE MIND AND SOCIETY I7I5
As a result of that undulating movement in social phenomena to

which we have had frequent occasion to allude, one notes at the
present time a return to the state of mind that prevailed in
France
at the time when Flaubert's Madame Bovary and other "immoral"
books were being prosecuted, and in Italy too one notes a
recrudes-
public peace, good morals, and civic and domestic virtue." Such commissions were
to serve their decisions by constable on editors and managing editors of newspapers,
who would be required to print them in the next following issue of their paper
under penalty of a fine of 200 lire. Commendatore Calabrese even played school-
master to the proposed commissions as to manner of procedure and wrote: "Instead
of striving to exert a calming influence upon the public, instead of acting as a mod-
erator, the present-day newspaper capitalizes and whets public excitabilides. It seems
to me to give excessive relief to anything that is dramatic, passionate, or romantic,
stressing criminal trials and murders, even if they take place in the backwoods of
China or Patagonia." It might be objected that one swallow does not make a spring-
time, and that the whims and fancies that chance to flit through one eccentric mind
should not be taken too seriously. But these pleasant contrivances of Calabrese
prompted the Corriere d* Italia to make a reportorial investigation, and many per-
sons of prominence were found to sympathize with Calabrese's general feeling,
though differing with him as to means. So the swallows were not just one, but a
whole flock. Said Senator Filomusi-Guelfi, a professor of the philosophy of law:
"My work as a philosopher and jurist is based upon the fundamental concept that
law has its basis in morality; and it therefore seems logical that any attack made
upon morality should be dealt with by law. And since the press in our day is miss-
ing no occasion or pretext for violating the norms of morality, the conduct of the
press ought also to be subjected to some new and more effective sanction. For us
Italians censorship has an odious past, an unpleasant tradition. It reminds us of old
errors, old oppressions, old and outlandish intolerances. It recalls Spain to our minds
and the era of Spanish influence. In a word, its efficacy is always an open question.
In my opinion, therefore, what we need is not a censorship. We need to think up
more energetic laws, measures that will provide for exemplary sentences and punish-
ments for the more characteristic violations of the rules and laws that safe-guard
morality. In my opinion the law should adopt a frankly punitive attitude, which,
from the very nature of the juridical factor, would prove to be spontaneously pre-
ventive."
In June, 1914, a Republican newspaper in Ancona published an article that seems
to have been held offensive to the memory of Victor Emmanuel II, who, to tell the
truth, now belongs to history. Had the article been taken for what it was, a political
utterance, the newspaper could not have been confiscated; and had the authorities
chosen to prosecute, they would have had to bring the case before Criminal Sessions,
where, in all probability, the paper would have been acquitted. By a clever sleight-
of-hand, the Government chose to view the article as an "offence against decency,"
at the very least changing what was secondary into what was primary. In so doing,
it was
able to suppress the paper, have it convicted by government judges, and, in
addition, behind closed doors. It is interesting that when, under identical circum-
stances in France in the days of the Restoration, Courier was accused of "offending
public morals" by publishing a pamphlet that was obviously political, the Govern-
ment did not dare conduct his trial behind closed doors.
1715 DUMAS'S "CAMILLE" 1169
cence of prosecutions of that type. The criticisms that are being
made in France of literary productions styled "immoral" recall,
though in a much less marked degree, the attacks that were made
on the Camillc (La dame aux camelias) of Alexandre Dumas the
2
younger. In England a bishop rises to criticize the songs of Gaby
2
1715 The censorship made three reports advising prohibition of the production
of the play,which was finally allowed by Minister Morny. La censure sous Napoleon
III. La dame aux camelias, Vol. I, p. 10: "This summary, though very incomplete
in the twin respect of the incidents and the scandalous details that enliven the plot,
will none the less suffice to show how very shocking this play is from the standpoint
of public decency and morality. It is a picture in which the choice of characters and
the baldness of the colouring overstep the most liberal limits of what can be toler-
ated on the stage."
Yet nowadays the play is produced everywhere without being found in the least
shocking. The history of La dame aux camelias is an interesting example of the
utter fatuousness of the effortsgovernments sometimes put forth to influence morals
by attacking derivations ( 1833). Hallays-Dabot, La censure dramatique et le the-
atre, p. 15: "Camille was long under the ban. A revolution was required to get it on
the stage. The coup d'etat of December 2 and the advent of M. de Morny to the min-
istry determined its fate. By our time [1871] the public has grown familiar with
spectacles of an equivocal world that has invaded and one might almost say ab-
sorbed the stage in the course of the past eighteen years. But twenty years ago
. , .
vice had a less brazen, more homelike demeanour, manifesting to a certain extent
its shame for its degradation. The numberless reclamations of lost women in the
novel and on the stage had not yet put it on a pedestal."

Dabot's terms have to be inverted: Changes in morals had stimulated a florescence
of such novels and dramas. Dabot himself gives the proof for that in his Histoire de
la censure theatrale en France. After Thermidor, says he, p. 196, "the censorship
allows a more pronounced reaction to begin in public spectacles. Following all the
fluctuations in opinion and all the shifts in politics, the stage will be now royalist,
now republican, according to the party in power." And p. 220: "Under the Empire
[Napoleon I], the censorship was supported by the public in efforts to purify its
stage morals. A
strange reaction had occurred. For more than ten years past the
theatres in Paris had been showing every conceivable debauch of the imagination,
all conceivable shamelcssness. Now lassitude, disgust, had laid hold on audiences,
and they rapidly slipped down the opposite incline till they had now reached an
intolerant prudery. [The case of our virtuists today.] The better-educated kept all
their admiration for great tragic sorrows. The masses would listen only to heavy
sobbing melodrama. People no longer cared to laugh. And it is curious to see how
uneasy the censorship grew at this prudery in the theatre public."
Dumas's play has been the bete noire of no end of writers who are labouring
under the illusion that morality can be enforced by suppressing this or that deriva-
tion. Vicl Castel, Memoires stir le rcgne de Napoleon 111, Vol. II, pp. 34-36, Wednes-
day, Feb. ii [1852]: "Last evening I attended the production of a play of Alex-
andre Dumas the younger, ai. the Vaudeville. Our theatres are subject to a censor-
ship that is established for the purpose of obliging them to respect decency, good
morals, and public respectability. [In his memoirs, Viel Castel describes the "good
morals" of his time as extraordinarily bad.] The play in question, La dame aux
II7O TREATISE ON GENERAL SOCIOLOGY I
7I5
Deslys, and
would have them kept from the public. These, at bot-
tom, are all expressions of one same sentiment: an inclination on
the part of certain individuals to force their own "morality" upon
others. Among such are many hypocrites, but also many persons
who are acting in all faith. The state of mind of these latter
good
seems to be as follows: They have within them a number of group-
persistences,
which are so active and powerful as entirely to control
their minds. That is what we call "faith." The objects of such faiths
may differ. Let us designate them, in general form, as A. The per-

son who has the faith ascribes an absolute value to A, and banishes
from his mind
every doubt, every consideration of opportuneness,
any appreciation of other facts that have to be considered. To force
someone else to have one's own faith in A, or at least to act as if
he did, is, at bottom, merely forcing own and other
him to seek his
people's welfare, is merely giving concrete form to the absolute
good. Compelle intrarcl As for the substance of what happens, it

matters little whether A be the faith of Anytus or Meletus, the faith
of St. Augustine or Torquemada or Senator Berenger, the faith of
an educated individual or an idiot, of a statesman or a litterateur, of
the many or the few. What varies is the derivations that are used in
the effort to represent the dictates of the faith in question as demon-
3
strations of a "knowledge" which is nothing but sheer ignorance.
camclias of Alexandra Dumas the younger, is an insult to everything for which the
censorship is expected to enforce respect. The play is a disgrace to the age that en-
dures it [Exactly what our Paladins of Purity say of other works of art today.], the
government that tolerates it, the audiences that applaud it. [Just what has been said
of the audiences that applaud La Phalene and other such plays.] . . . The whole
play reeks with vice and debauchery. All the characters (acteurs) are monstrous.
Even those the author tries to make attractive are disgusting. . . . There is no
question of my summarizing the play it is filthybeyond words; but the spectacle
offered by the audience is more so. The police, the Government, are tolerating these
outrages. They seem not to be aware that that is the way the demoralization of a
people brought on."
is
In 1913 the French Academy refused to participate in the observance of die bi-
centenary of Diderot. Perhaps we ought to thank the Academy for not resolving
that his works should be burned and people put into prison for daring to prefer
them to the insipidities of not a few Academicians one might mention.
3
1715 It is a curious fact that when their own faiths are not concerned
practical
men sometimes perceive these truths quite clearly. Bismarck, Gedanl^cn und Erin-
nerungcn, p. 499 (Butler, Vol. II, p. 169): "In politics as in the religious sphere,
the conservative can meet the liberal, the royalist the republican, the believer the
unbeliever, only with one theme that has been bandied about with all the countless
1
Observe that the oscillatory movement develops about a general line

that indicates, for our time, an average diminution in intensity. Alas
and alack! The day is no longer when a cup of hemlock is promptly
passed to the man who does not think as some "moralist" thinks,
and when a slow fire is lighted under anybody who differs with
some Dominican of the virtuistic faith!
1716. If the feudal lord be compared with the man of wealth of
today, it is apparent that the sentiment of individual integrity has

declined considerably. But if the comparison be extended to all
classes in society, it is just as apparent that, by way of compensation,
that sentiment has awakened and grown powerful in the lower
which at no time in history, not even in the day of the Latin
classes,
and Greek democracies especially if one think of the slaves and
freedmen had a sense of personal dignity at all comparable with
what they have at present. So the protection of sentiments of in-
tegrity in the
criminal has nowadays reached a degree of intensity
far higher than anything heretofore witnessed in our Western coun-
tries. As regards the repression of crime, the "individual" to use
the jargon now current was once sacrificed to "society"; nowadays
"society" is former days

sacrificed to the "individual." Authorities in
were not so sensitive about punishing the innocent provided no
guilty person escaped. Today people make nothing
of letting a cul-
prit escape, not only to save

the innocent, but just to pamper hu-
1
manitarian sentiments. The same persons may be seen appealing to
variations of eloquence [That utterly simple remark contains the germ of our whole
theory of residues and derivations.] 'My political convictions are sound, yours are
:
false,' 'My belief is pleasing in God's sight, your unbelief leads to damnation.' It is
understandable, therefore, that religious wars should arise from differences of reli-
gious opinions and that party struggles in politics, even if they are not settled by
civilwar, should at least result in the suppression of those limits which the decency
and well-mannered people maintain in the social life that is foreign
self-respect of
to politics."Bismarck was thinking particularly of politics, but his remark applies
to the domains of religion, morality, and so on, just as well. And he concludes very
truly: "But the moment a man can say to his conscience or to his group that he is
acting in the interest of his party [In the general form, "of his own faith."], any
infamy is winked at as permissible or at least excusable."
l
1716 Examine almost any catalogue of books and pamphlets of our day, and
one will find any number devoted to ways and means of helping criminals, or effect-
ing their moral reform, or to proposals of new measures in their favour, such as
pardon laws, indeterminate sentences, probation, non-registration of sentences in
judicial records, and so on. But look for books or pamphlets devoted to saving
honest men from murderers, thieves, and other criminals and one will find but
the "rights of society" as against the individual when it is a question
of fleecing their neighbours of their possessions, and the "right of
the individual" as against society when it is a question of safe-guard-
ing the criminal one of the many cases where contradictory deriva-
tions be seen in use by the same individual at the same time.
may
We must not, however, stop at derivations. have to go on to We
look for the sentiments that they veil. In this case they are evident
enough: They are, simply, sentiments favourable to a certain class

of persons who
desire to relieve others of their possessions and to
commit crimes with impunity. Sometimes there is merely a differ-
ence in forms. John Doe
belongs to the populous class of the poor.
He desires to appropriate an object that is the property of Richard
Roe, who populous class of the rich. He can at-

belongs to the less
tain his purpose in two ways: i. He can have the law award him
possession of the object, and for that purpose it is better for him to
appeal to the rights of the majority as against the minority, a notion
2
that he states as a right of "society" as against the "individual." 2.
few, in fact, very very few. Non-registration of sentences in judicial records is an

excellent device for misleading the honest citizen, who may so be induced to admit
the honourable criminal into his home or at any rate employ him, so giving him
an opportunity to resume his praiseworthy activities. But that is of no concern to
anybody: the important thing is to be kind to the criminal and shield his personal
integrity. Union Suisse pour la Sauvegarde dcs Credits, Geneve, Report of Feb. 23,
1910, p. 34: "We have several times had occasion to call attention in our reports to
the difficulties we meet in the matter of judicial antecedents. Business men who are
about to make connexions with a person as regards employment, or some other
service requiring implicit trust, insist on knowing with just whom they have to
deal. Jurists writing on the question claim that individuals convicted of crimes
should not be reminded of them, and that point of view is shared generally by per-
sons interested in sociology or social work (patronage) but not connected with busi-
ness. There is no basis for reconciling the two views, the business
being ex- man
posed to loss in unwittingly giving his preference to a man with a record, while the
others, for the most part of the liberal professions, are never called upon to take
such people into their own employ/'
2
1716 Bayct, Lemons de morale, p. 114 (capitals and italics Bayet's) "Certain :
persons claim that it is proper to rob people who are very rich and possess great
fortunes though they have never worked. . Those who say that are wrong. Un-
. .
doubtedly it is NOT JUST that one should be rich without working. Neither is it just
that those who workshould be poor, and everybody should wish there should be a
change in that. But for a change to come, it is sufficient to elect Deputies and Sena-
tors who are friends of the working-men who are poor. Such Deputies will then
make laws so that each person will be more or less rich according to the way he
works. Meantime the rich must not be robbed."
Note that the reason given for refraining from theft is merely one of expediency:
1716 "INDIVIDUAL" AND "SOCIETY" 1173
He can appropriate the thing directly.
But in that case, John Doe
no longer member of the more populous class of society, but of
is a
the least populous. The democratic derivation cannot therefore be
used as it was before. One may use the term "poor" as equivalent to
the term "society," but however great the sottishness and stupidity
that wins acceptance for certain derivations, the term "society" can-
not possibly be equated with our estimable criminal class. Another
derivation has therefore to be devised for the purpose; and it is
easily obtained, nowadays, by asserting

the "rights" of the individual
criminal as against society. If, in the first case, an innocent person is
made to suffer, the comment is: "Too bad! But the good of society
overbalances everything else." In the second, if an innocent person
is made to suffer, the comment is "Such a thing cannot be tolerated
: :
8
let
society go to smash, but let no innocent man be harmed." If
it is better not to lay hands directly, just now, on what in a short time will be ob-
tained through the law. The opinion expressed in this manual of Bayet's is impor-
tant because the book is in general use in elementary schools in France and because
a law has been proposed that punishes anyone venturing to condemn the instruction
furnished in the lay schools too openly by imprisonment for from six to thirty days
and by a fine of from 16 to 300 francs. Commenting on this law, which was
. . .
sponsored by a cabinet minister, M. Viviani, Berthoulat writes in Liberte, Nov. 10,

1912: "In a word, under pretext of secular defence, M. Viviani, who is a fiery liber-
tarian, is coolly suppressing freedom of speech, press, and thought. Henceforward
there is to be a 'Primary Syllabus' which, along with its pontiffs, it will be forbidden
to criticize on pain of having to deal with the police." We are not here inquiring,
remember, whether such a law would be beneficial or harmful to society. We are
simply producing evidence as to the intensity of certain sentiments.
8
1716 Most medical experts or alienists, or psychiatrists, as they like to be called
when retained by the defence in criminal prosecutions make a business of accus-
ing "society" of not having been as considerate as it might have been of the poor
criminal. Such estimable souls are confusing the study of lunacy with the study of
the essentials of human societies. Typical of this sort of rant is the plea made before
the Assizes at Naples by an alienist retained to defend the Farneris woman (Yvonne
de Villespreux), who had killed her lover, as reported in the Giornale d' Italia, May
"
1 8, 1913: 'Follow her briefly as a little girl: an infancy unbrightened by one ray of
mother's love, by any moral guidance, by a single lofty sentiment. Professor P
is lacking in any moral sense. And
has told you that she your moral sense, how did
you acquire it? She can have no such sense, if she has been deprived of everything
essential to its development and growth. All through her life she has always met
obstacles to her innermost, but as yet undeveloped, sentiments; and consequently
she may have known the concept of society, not love of society. She fell, as any man,
any woman, must fall if they have lived as she lived. She presents many anthropo-
logical traits of degeneracy. They have only a limited value, but they probably had
their influence on this woman's manner of living, and her very impulsiveness is
correlated with the feeble development in her of that moral sense which is the high-
11
one would have concrete illustrations of these two manners of rea-
soning, used, though opposites, by the same persons, he has only to

read the outpourings by French humanitarians and Socialists at the
4
time of the Dreyfus affair.
est expression of feeling. The moral sense implies, however, a profound respect, and
a great love, for society. But what respect, I ask you, what love, could this woman
have for society? What did society ever do for her? When
the moral sense is miss-
ing, the responsibility nearly always lies with society, as a biological consequence, I
mean. She is also subject to hysteria, to hysteria in that broad sense, as Professor
P has told you, which makes her unstable, changeable, in all her ideas, there
being no organization of them; and her mental products are the result of that very
disorganization.' [Suppose we agree that "the responsibility lies with society" every
time some criminal is found wanting in a moral sense. But is "society'* also respon-
x
sibleevery time an alienist is found wanting in a scientific sense ( 1766 ) ? Even
the testimony of the expert for the prosecution had so little to do with medical sci-
ence that he earned a reprimand from the presiding judge. Said he:] 'I should have
preferred not to appear in this case, but since I could not get excused, I am forced
to open my remarks by drawing a picture that will bring out the moral physiog-
nomy of this wretched woman and set the environment in which she grew up in
its true light. You have heard how she was cared for as a child
by a certain woman
named Giordano, who took her into her home and played the part of step-mother
in her life. The Giordano woman had none of the tenderness of a mother, and the
poor child in her charge was frequently obliged to go without food, endure all
sorts of ill treatment, and listen to the degrading insult that she was
nothing but
4
1716 Similar things are also observable in other countries. As above noted
( 1638), many people go looking about for historic convicts to "rehabilitate," with
the idea of attracting attention to themselves and so winning fame and profit. Of
the attempted "rehabilitation" of the Lafarge woman, Maurice Spronck writes in
Liberte, Feb. 5, 1913: "In Mussulman countries there are monks, the 'howling' or
'spinning' dervishes, whose main occupation consists of whirling, on certain occa-
sions, round and round and faster and faster like a top, shouting meantime at the
top of their lungs, Allah ou! Allah out Sooner or later, those who practise this
noisy rotative gymnastic fall into a pious trance where they see the gardens and
cool springs of Mohammed's Paradise and houris waiting on the faithful.
Anybody
can see that after a person has spun and shouted long enough, he ought to be able
to see almost anything he chooses. In the same
way, when people have shivered and
shouted long enough over some criminal case they know nothing in particular
about, they are very likely to enter a state of beatitude where all sorts of hallucina-
tions are possible. Justice and Truth descend from the clouds,
Light sets itself in
motion. This is the lay form of ecstasy, the only kind of ecstasy becoming to scien-
tific minds
emancipated from all outworn superstitions. The only question of any
importance now is to decide whether Mme. Lafarge makes a good subject for the
cultivation of ecstatic crises. We, personally, are not so sure. In the first
place she
has been dead quite some time. The few pictures we have of her show her gowned
in a fashion long out of date. Besides, it is hard to unchain
any very profound pas-
sions of a political or religious character in connexion with her adventures. Most
inopportunely, she was a Clerical, if we are to judge by her correspondence with a

1716 PROPERTIES OF RESIDUES 1 1
75
We have identified the sentiments with which the derivations
start, but we must
not stop there: we must still see why those par-
ticular derivations are used and not others. For surely it is not just
for the fun of being inconsistent that two contradictory derivations
a bastard.' The Court: P you cannot go on in that fashion. Your

'But, Professor ,
task is from which you have inferred these elements.' Professor

to state the evidence
P : 'But, Your Honour .' The Court: 'No, no! You cannot go on along that
. .
line. You are to state the facts on which you base your findings.' Professor P : 'But
the facts have been stated in the evidence. I am concerned to get a complete picture
of the defendant before the Court.' The Court: 'But that is permissible only on the
basis of sworn testimony.' Professor P :
'Very well, I will say nothing of her early
years. We know was homeless, and desiitute of every

that at the age of thirteen she
help and guidance along the pathway of life. So she found herself alone in the
world, and that first day, she appealed to a girl friend to help her get to France
to look for an uncle, her mother's brother. But that favour she could not obtain.
Instead she went to Turin, where she found work as a maid. But she was not fitted
for such work .' The Court: 'But who told
. .
you all that?' Professor P : 'Mile.
Farneris herself.' The Court: 'Well?' Professor P (continuing): 'Her mistress was
a quick-tempered woman. One day she threw a candlestick at her. Mile. Farneris
fled the house, and she met a man on the staircase.' The Court: 'But you cannot say
such things! How
can you possibly continue in that fashion?'"
In any event, we still have not been shown why people who, be it through fault
of "society/* happen to be "wanting in a moral sense" should be allowed freely to
walk the streets, killing anybody they please, and so saddling on one unlucky indi-
vidual the task of paying for a "fault" that is common to all the members of "soci-
ety." If our humanitarians would but grant that these estimable individuals who
are lacking in a moral sense as a result of "society's shortcomings" should be made
number of priests, which one of our literary reviews has just published. What can
one expect to do with a woman who is not even a victim of the Jesuits? Careful
study of her case might have attracted the attention of specialists in the history of
manners or in psychology. That was already a distressingly small group. As it is,
the 'review' of her case, worked up in public meetings, will attract only a few
'intellectuals' from among the Anarchists a slender phalanx, and all the slenderer
since said 'intellectuals/ really, are finding in the ordinary course of our daily life
far more exciting occasions for exercising their wits and coddling their tempera-
ments. At this very moment
number of them are founding an association to estab-
a
lish the right of any make his abode a place of refuge for a murderer or
citizen to
burglar the moment he makes profession of Anarchistic faith. In days like these,
with that perfect security in the streets with which the emasculation of crime-
repression has blessed us, no more timely measure could indeed be imagined. The
protectors and friends of our more formidable cut-throats certainly ought to be
assured that they have the protection of the law and that the police are not to be
allowed to molest them. One such philanthropist at least is at present seated in the
pen in Criminal Sessions on a charge of complicity after the fact in a murder. Obvi-
ously the jury finds him guilty, it will be a much more timely task to rehabilitate
if
that pleasant character than to go bothering about Mme. Lafarge and the exact
quantity of arsenic that was present in her husband's viscera."

are simultaneously used. Some reason there must be, and it can be
no other than a desire to influence the sentiments of the persons
listening to the derivation.
It is true enough that expresses certain
it
sentiments, but it is further intended to work upon certain others.

There is no doubt, in the case mentioned, as to the sentiments upon
which the derivations are designed to work. As regards the first
derivation, they are sentiments corresponding to the interests of the
poorer portions of the population, and already present in these in

to wear some visible sign of their misfortune in their buttonholes, an honest man
would have a chance to see them coming and get out of the way.
The Farncris melodrama had its epilogue. "Society," so direly at fault in its treat-
ment of the woman, redeemed its shortcomings, in part at least, by providing her
with experts for a masterly defence and with jurymen who considerately acquitted
her and let her go scot-free. Not only that. After the verdict, the presiding justice
gave her a very wise fatherly talk exhorting her to "redeem herself by work"; and
to give her a chance for such redemption, some well-intentioned ladies of the social
set called for her in an automobile and drove her to a shelter. If some poor mother
of a family of the kind that chooses to stay at home and rear her children decently
instead of taking to vice and then laying the blame on society chanced to hear or
see all that, she must have reflected that the "shortcomings of society" are not
always unmitigated evils; and if she saw and heard what came of it all, she must
have understood that if once upon a time the converted sinner was with some reason
preferred to the spotless soul, nowadays, thanks to this new religion of the god
Progress, conversion is no longer necessary. In fact, the Giornalc d'ltalia reports
the sequel of the story in the following terms: "Naples, May 30. Our readers will
remember the language in which the President of the Assizes exhorted Mile. Villes-
preux, immediately after her acquittal, to take up a life of work that would redeem
her. They will also remember how a committee of society ladies interested them-
selves in procuring her admittance to a shelter that looks after women released from
prison. That day Mile. Villespreux excused herself with a few words of thanks, ex-
plaining that she had to go back to the prison for her clothes. But on leaving the
prison again, she refused to accompany the representatives of the shelter and went
away alone. Nothing more was heard of her that day; but the next it was learned
that she had gone back to the via Chiaia, next door to the house where Ettore
Turdo was killed and in the very house of the man who had testified at the trial
that Yvonne was a good girl and that she stopped with him whenever she returned
to Naples from her trips to music-halls in other cities. That was the house she went
to after being acquitted of a crime and after, as she said, thirty-eight months of
mourning for poor Turdo. But after all, why should all that be wrong, or rather,
why should such a thing be taken in an unfavourable sense? Mile. Farneris still has
time to devote herself to work and to begin her life of redemption, starting perhaps
from the very house where she should have closed her life of shame. However, we
should be failing in a duty were we to refrain from reporting this last phase of her
melodrama, just as during the trial we reported everything that tended to favour
her acquittal. The news, we might add, has occasioned great surprise about town."
Those who were surprised must have been either very great humanitarians or very
great fools. Or maybe both.
1716 "INDIVIDUAL" AND "SOCIETY" 1177
very considerable proportions are sentiments of individual integrity.
As regards the second, there may be, in the case of this or that poli-
tician, some idea of winning the favour of certain criminals of ex-
ceptional talent as vote-getters or the support of the relatives and

5
friends of such men. But that is the least important element in-
6
1716 Illustrations without end might be mentioned.
I will give two typical ex-
amples, the first, where a

single criminal is involved, the second where it is a
"gang." Liberte, Mar. 29, 1913: "Creil. The constabulary at Creil have just arrested
an individual whose Odyssey is no ordinary story Andre Pavicr, 27, who escaped
in 1911 from the Douera penitentiary in Algeria. Pavicr hails originally from Saint-
Denis. Coming of military age, he was enlisted in the colonial infantry, fell into
breaches of discipline that got him before a court-martial, punched the Judge Advo-
cate, was sentenced to death, had the sentence commuted to five years in prison,
and wound up in the penitentiary at Douera. He had served all but two years when
one day he profited by a moment's distraction on the part of his sergeant, felled a
native soldier who was on guard at the prison with a blow on the head, got to the
sea-shore, leapt into a row-boat belonging to the prison, and made the open sea
without being hit by the bullets that sped after him. He was picked up two
. . .
days later, more dead than alive, by some Spanish fisherman who set him ashore
near Valencia. Pavier lived from then on by stealing. He soon reached the frontier,
made his way across France carefully steering clear of Saint-Denis, and stopped at
Lille in June, 1912. There he was arrested for stealing food and was given six days
in jail, though nothing was discovered as to his record. Thereafter Pavicr settled at
Villers-Saint-Paul, near Creil, getting a job in a factory located near the railway line
that runs from Creil to Compiegne and working there three months. It was at Vil-
lers that Some days ago he makes a point of his influential con-
he was arrested.
nexions Pavicr wrote to a Deputy to ask whether the parliament had not passed
an amnesty bill covering offences such as his. The Deputy very politely answered
that no amnesty had been voted and ended his letter with urgent advice that his
correspondent should be extra careful if he did not wish to be found out. The
Deputy's letter fell into the hands of the police and that was the way Pavier was
discovered."
Liberte, Apr. 6, 1912, "Marne Rioters Pardoned." The article is too long to be
transcribed entire, though that would be valuable as showing the general features of
such cases, which are to be observed not only in France but in Italy and other coun-
tries. We suppress proper names. One of the chief mistakes people make in such
matters blame some specific individual for things that are consequences of the
is to
way in which society is organized. The person in question here was a cabinet min-
ister. "After he had kept an eye on the progress of the judiciary investigation and
narrowed the circle of penal severity to a number of heads that had been lifted too
conspicuously against the background of fire that had consumed mansions and wine-
cellars, it still devolved upon him to rescue the last soldiers of the riot who had
been condemned in the courts of the Marnc and in the Assizes at Douai. Now that
has been attended to. Not one breaker of hogsheads, not one plunderer is left in
the jails of the Republic. Senator X
has paid his debt of political gratitude to the
rioters. judiciary investigation of these disturbances and crimes was a calvary
The
of anguish. Taking things in their order: the complaint was filed with the guardian
of seals at the time, M. Perrier May 20, 1911. The papers did not reach the prose-
volved, and if the derivation is used, it obviously must correspond
to the sentiments of a large number of individuals. Such sentiments
are mainly sentiments of personal integrity, which, it is felt, must
not be offended even in the case of a criminal. Never in any period
of history have criminals been allowed to be insolent to their judges
as they are in our time. There are trials in criminal courts today
where the roles of the presiding judge who
questions and the de-
6
fendant who answers seem to be inverted. This view of the matter
till a week or ten days later, since the order of the investigating judge
cutor's office
was not handed up till June 3. What state were they in when they reached Rheims?
The Government had prevented several important documents from coming into the
hands of the investigating judge during the inquest. Did it not make sure as to
anything tending to show political responsibilities in the affair? In any event, de-
spite the manoeuvres of M. Valle and the governmental pressure, which echoed to
the very doors of the inquest, some dozens of the rioters were remanded to the
Assizes or tried before lower criminal courts. Seven were convicted at Douai and
sentenced to terms varying from four years down to a month. The Appellate Divi-
sion, for its part, affirmed thirteen sentences imposed by the lower courts, raising
seven of them from ten to eighteen months. And what are we to say of the
. . .
acts that brought their authors before the bar of justice? The reviewing orders of
the Court of Assizes and the indictments and complaints against the rioters tell the
story. The first was accused of deliberately setting fire to the Gallois house and of
pillaging in the Bissinger house. He was seen on the roof of the former 'tearing up
and throwing lighted grape-vines inside the building/ Fire broke out at once
tiles
and the house was burned to the ground. The second was accused of pillaging in
the houses. . . . 'Red flag in hand, he led the rioters to the doors of the houses,'
and they were broken in. The third worked for two hours at the safe in the Bis-
singer house before he finally succeeded in getting into it with the help of a
pickax. Then he burned deeds, account-books, and all business papers. The fourth
lent a hand in the sacking of the Bissinger house. The fifth led the sacking of the
Ayala and Deutz houses, breaking down a picket-fence to get into those places. . . .
The pardons were dated February 9. On February 15, acts of sabotage at Pommery,
on the twenty-first, twenty-second and twenty-fifth, further sabotage at Hautvilliers,
Cumieres, and other places."
Such the currency in which politicians pay their constituents, exactly as brigand
chieftains used to pay their confederates.
1716
6
We will say nothing of certain cases, such as that of Mme. Steinheil, where
the defendant enjoys political "influence" or the protection of persons highly placed.
They have no bearing on the point here at issue. But in other cases, where no such
patronage or "influence" figures, defendants may be seen "talking down'* to judges
on the bench. Just one example from the record of the trial of the Bonnot-Garmer
"gang," Paris, February, 1913: "Q. The Court: You were being persecuted in your
home town because of your ideas? A. \Callemin, alias Raymond La Science}: You
said this was not a political case. Yet you do nothing but talk politics Anarchism.
Q. You mean I am inconsistent. Well, what do I care? I choose to conduct my ex-
amination of you the way I please. A. Well, I will not answer then, whenever /
please that's all. Q. That is your look-out. [In fact Callemin lets a number of
1718 INTENSITIES AND VARIATIONS 1 1 79
is further confirmed by the extraordinary repugnance people of our
time feel for corporal punishments, which are
falling into disuse
for the sole reason that they are insulting to "human dignity/' be-
cause, in other words, they involve supreme offences to individual
integrity.
To conclude, then: Considering substance rather than the deriva-
tions that disguise it, it would seem that in our day Class resi- V
dues (personal integrity) have rather augmented than diminished
in intensity as compared with the residues of our Class IV (so-
ciality),
1717. The residues of our Class VI
(sex) are probably among the
least variable of residues. There are
changes in the veilings that dis-
guise them, and changes also in the amount of hypocrisy they pro-
voke; but np appreciable changes are apparent as regards substance
(1379*.)-
17J8. For a given society, therefore, we may establish the follow-
ing scale of variations, increasing from the

first to the last
categories :
(i) Classes of residues; (2) the genera in such classes; (3) deriva-
tions. A
graph (Figure 24) may make the relations between classes
and genera clearer. The movement in time of a class of residues
may be represented by the undulating curve MNP; certain genera

are represented by the curves, also undulatory, mnpq, rsvt. The
waves are smaller for the class than for many of its genera. The
mean movement of the class, which, let us say, is in a direction of
increase, is
represented by AB; and the same movement in the gen-
era, some of which are increasing, others diminishing, by ab, xy.
The variation represented by AB
is much less wide than the varia-
questions pass without an answer. Then come other questions, which he answers
with his usual insolence. The Court questions the veracity of one such answer, and
Callcmin flics into a fury.] The Court: I am doing my duty. Callemin: But not
fairly. Someone wrote somewhere: 'I call a cat a cat and Rollet a rascal!' You are
acting, you are, in the complctest bad faith. The Court: Your insults do not affect
me." In olden days steps would have been taken immediately to halt such behaviour
towards a court. At a certain point in the examination of another defendant, the
attorney for the defence also took a hand at berating the same unlucky judge: "The
court-room is in a hubbub to a purport that is not quite clear. Presiding justice
Cominaud decides to stop it: The Court: I cannot allow demonstrations against these
defendants. Maitre de Moro-Giafferi: They are demonstrating against yon. This is
an audience of admirable generosity [sic,not "imbecility*'!]. The Court: I cannot
allow demonstrations either for me or for or against you." Truth compels me to
add that Judge Cominaud was not even jailed for contempt.
Il8o THE MIND AND SOCIETY 1718
some of the genera, ab, xy.
tions in On the whole, there is a certain
compensation between genera and it is

owing to such compensa-
tions that both the variation represented
by AB, and the amplitude
of fluctuation on the curve MNP,
are attenuated as
regards the class
as a whole.
As regards social phenomena in general, this undulatory move-

ment creates difficulties that may become quite serious, if one is to
gauge the movement of a sentiment, quite apart from occasional,
temporary, or incidental fluctuations. If, for example, one should
Figure 24
compare the position r with the position s, to get the general trend
of the residue, one would conclude that the sentiment was
growing
in intensity, whereas the line xy shows that, on the
average and in
general, there is a diminishing intensity. And similarly if one were
position v one would register an
to compare the position s with the
intensity diminishing at a much faster rate than on the average and

1
in general is actually the case, as shown
by the line xy. When a
development is
susceptible of measurement and we have observa-
tions
extending over long periods of time, it is
fairly easy to
elimi-
nate such difficulties.
By interpolation one may determine the line,
xy, about which the intensity is fluctuating and so discover its mean
2
general direction. This is much more difficult when accurate meas-
*
1718 Cf. Pareto, Manuale, VII, 47.
2
1718 One is sometimes able to push the inquiry further and separate the various
elements in a situation. Many phenomena involve variations in different entities.
For example, if the concrete development is represented (Figure 25) by mnpqrstv,
one observes: (i) That that line fluctuates about the undulatory line MNPQ; (2)
that the latter in turn fluctuates about the line AB. In other words there are fluctu-
1719 UNDULATORY MOVEMENT IN HISTORY Il8l
urements for a sentiment are not available or cannot be made, for

then we are obliged to replace accurate mathematical quantities with
estimates in arbitrary statement, individual impression, and
which
perhaps even fancy, play a more or less important part. Such esti-
mates must therefore be subjected to the severest examination and
no possible verification ignored.
1719. Little or no compensation takes place
among the different
classes of residues. It would seem, at first sight, that there were some
between Class VI residues and other religious residues, and in that,

indeed, one might be enabled to see the reason why so many reli-
gions make war upon the sex religion in hopes of fattening on its
ations of different amplitude, namely: i. fluctuations of brief duration, represented
by the line mnpqrstv; (2) fluctuations of medium amplitude, represented by the

line MNPQ; (3) fluctuations of maximum amplitude represented by the line AB;
and so on. Interpolation enables us to distinguish these different types of fluctuation:
Pareto, "Otielqiics excmples d' application des mcthodes d' interpolation a la statis-
tiqne," Journal de la Societc de statistique de Paris, November, 1897: "When this
formula is applied to the figures yielded by statistics, it is observable, in general,
that the simple curves that are successively obtained do not approach the real curve
in a uniform manner: the precision begins first by rapidly augmenting; then there
is a
period of slow augmentation, then another of rapid augmentation, and so on.
These periods of slow augmentation in precision divide off the great groups of sinu-
ositiesmentioned in other words, they separate the group of more and more par-
ticular influences that are influencing the phenomenon. [An example is given
population in England and the article concludes:] It is seen that the indices of
precision increase rapidly as far as the index 3; A
after that, much more slowly.
One finds, therefore, in the case in hand, that population is influenced by a first
group of forces that give the phenomenon the form indicated by the first four terms
"
of formula 2. The
other terms represent 'perturbations,' irregularities.' We shall
meet other examples in the pages following ( 2213 f.).
1 1 82 TREATISE ON GENERAL SOCIOLOGY 171 pa
spoils. becomes apparent on closer examination that the war

But it
is between derivations and not between residues. The other

religions
do not destroy the residues of the sex religion: they annex them,
1
merely changing the forms in which they are expressed.
1719a. An observation of the sort already made in regard to non-
logical actions ( 252) and in other similar connexions might occur

to one with reference to the slight change that the
passage of time
occasions in residues. If residues really change so slowly, how can the
fact have escaped the many talented writers who have studied the
various aspects of human society ?
The answer It did not

is:
escape them; only, as happens in the
early stages of every science, they stated the fact in vague terms and
without aiming at any great scientific exactness. The saying Nil novi
sub sole, along with other apothegms of the kind, itself voices the
perception, more or by sentiment, that there is some-

less veiled
1
thing, at least, that is constant in social phenomena. The implicit
premise in the pedantry of grammarians who strive to force lan-
guage forms of past generations upon their contemporaries and
younger generations is that sentiments have not changed, and will
requiring new language-forms to express
not change to the point of
them. The groundwork of
language does change, but very slowly.
Neologisms become unavoidable, but in small numbers. Grammati-
*
1719 That point we dealt with amply in Chapter X.
l
17193 Such sayings have given rise to literary paradoxes and fantasies without
end. They have often been taken in the sense that there are no new facts, which is
false. Andin that the deficiency and the danger of such vague maxims becomes
apparent: one may get anything one chooses out of them ( 1558 f., 1797 f.). As
an example of such paradoxes, one might mention Fournier's, Le vieux-neuf: His-
toire ancicnne des inventions et decouvertes moderncs:
By far-fetched comparisons,
and remote and often imaginary analogies, Fournier shows, p. i, that "there is
nothing new what has been forgotten." For one of the many literary fancies,
save
p. 118: "Bergerat. Do you think the language of the

see Bergerat, Theophile Gautier,
sixteenth century adequate for expressing
everything? In a word, do you accept
neologism? Gautier. Are you referring to the necessity of finding names for the
so called inventions and pretended discoveries of modern times? Yes, someone has
said that: 'New things, new words/ You know
my opinion on that subject. There
are no new things. What is called
progress is nothing more than the rebringing to
light of some neglected commonplace. I imagine that Aristotle knew as much as
Voltaire, and Plato as M. Cousin. Archimedes had very certainly found a way to
apply steam to locomotion long before Fulton and Solomon de Caus. If the Greeks
disdained taking advantage of it, it was because they had their reasons for
doing
so."
PROPERTIES OF RESIDUES 1183
calforms are modified, but substance endures through the ages. A
long line of writers imitated the ancients and some pedants indeed
even tried to prescribe that imitation. That would not be under-
standable unless such persons and the publics they addressed had
2
had sentiments very kindred to those voiced by the ancients. How-
ever, quite aside from the matter of imitation, how could we still
enjoy the poems of Homer and the elegies, tragedies, and comedies
of the Greeks and Latins if we did not find them expressing senti-
ments that, in great part at least, we share? Aeschylus, Sophocles,
Euripides, Aristophanes, Plautus, Terence, Virgil, Horace, and other
writers of Graeco-Latin antiquity are they foreigners whom we no
longer understand ? Do we not find in Thucydides, Polybius, Taci-

tus, and other ancient historians, descriptions of things that reveal,
under sometimes very different, guises, a fund of human
different,
sentiments identical with what we observe today ? All thinkers who
have pondered social phenomena at all deeply have not seldom been
led to detect in them certain elements that are variable and certain
others that are relatively stable. All we have been doing in these vol-
umes is to offer a scientific formulation of the concept, just as the
chemist who "discovered" aluminium and calcium carbonate was
merely giving a scientific formulation to notions that had existed
long before him and, in fact, ever since human beings had been
3
able to distinguish between clay and limestone.
2
17193 Dugas-Montbel, Observations sitr I'lliade, Vol. I, pp. 70-71 (Iliad, II, v.
38): "The Latin poet [Virgil] almost always swings into the movement of the
Homeric phrase, that being the expression of the soul which never changes. The
manners, customs, habits of men are for ever being modified by civilization, but
passions do not vary with the centuries: the voice of the heart is the same in all
ages. So it is with all the poets. When Racine imitates Homer, it is the rhythm of
the phrase he catches, steeped as his poetry is in the manners of his own age and
in the ideas of a vastly different society. [The critic mentions imitations of Iliad, V,
116-17 by Virgil and Roilcau; then, Vol. I, p. 230:] Neither Virgil nor Boileau men-
tions 'the thighs of the sheepand the goats covered with thick fat* they share the
ideas of their own times. But they follow Homer in everything touching expressions
of the soul. That is the real imitation, the only one that genius can permit itself.
[And on Iliad, VI, v. 303 (Vol. I, p. 296) :] If the imitators of Homer differ from
him as regards details of manners, customs, and usages, they insist on following
him with happy fidelity in everything touching the expression of sentiment. This
cannot vary, the human heart remaining at bottom for ever the same."
17193
3
There are Utopians who set up a certain "human nature'* as the founda-
tion for their studies of society, and to uphold one reform or another that is sug-
gested by their fertile imaginations. Such writers instinctively recognize, without

V
The or not
1720. fact that classes of residues change but slightly
at all in a given society over a given period of time does not mean
1
that they may not differ very widely in different societies.
1721. The differences between Sparta, Athens, Rome r England,
and France that we noted in Chapter II were nothing but differ-
ences in intensities of Class I and Class II residues; and it is inter-
esting to note that the conclusions

which we now reach through
our theory of residues are the very ones which were at that time
forced upon us by a direct examination of the facts independently
of any general theory of any kind.
1722. Now that we have such a general theory, suppose we go
back again to the matter there treated directly ( 172-74) and for-
mulate our conclusions in more general terms. Back there we said:
"Let us assume that in the case of two peoples Y is identical in both
and X
different in both. To bring about innovations, the people in
whom X is feeble wipes out the relations P, Q, R . . . and replaces
them with others. The people in strong allows those whom X is
relations to subsist as far as possible and modifies the significance of

." Now we can
P, Q, R. . .
say: "Let us assume that in two peoples
Class I residues (combinations) are of equal strength and Class II
residues (group-persistences) of unequal strength. To bring about
innovations, the people in which Class II residues are the weaker
wipes out the groups P, Q, R both in substance and in name and

replaces them with other groups and other names. The people in
which Class II residues are the stronger also makes substantial
changes in the groups P, Q, R . . . but allows names to subsist as
being aware of as much, that there is a constant element in social phenomena solid
enough to serve as a groundwork on which to develop their dreams. But they

glimpse the scientific truth here in question about as much as the man who thinks
the into the ocean every evening succeeds in glimpsing the movements of
Sun dives
the heavenly bodies.
l
1720 One such case we examined in Chapter II. Back there, in order not to
anticipate the results of our investigation here, we used a different terminology. We
said in 172: 'There is a very important psychic state that establishes and maintains
certain relations between sensations, or facts, by means of sensations P f Q, . ." R .
Now we can say that the maintenance of such relations is a group-persistence; and
such phenomena we examined at length in Chapter VI. In 174 we spoke of a force
X uniting sensations P t Q, R. Now we can say that that force is a force that
. . .
keeps the groups from disintegrating, that its measure is the measure of the inten-
sity of the group-persistence. The force Y ( 174) that prompts innovations corre-
sponds to Class I residues (combinations).
1726 INTERDEPENDENCE VS. CAUSE AND EFFECT 1185
far as possible, resorting, for that
purpose, to opportune modifica-
tions in derivations, so as to
justify, be it fallaciously,
the use of the
same names for different things." That is the rule, one might add,
because, in general, derivations change much more readily than

residues and because movement as usual takes
place along lines of
least resistance. The relative proportions of the various classes of
residues in the different peoples are perhaps the best indices of the
social states of those
peoples.
1723. Distribution of residues #nd change in residues in the
various strata of a given society Residues are not evenly distrib-
i!
uted nor are they of equal intensities in the various strata of a given
society. The fact is a commonplace and has been familiar in every
age. The neophobia and superstition of the lower classes has often
been remarked, and it is a well-known fact of history that they were
the last to abandon faith in the religion, which derived its very
name, paganism ("ruralism"), from them., The residues of widest
diffusion and greatest intensity in the uneducated are referable to
Classes II and III (activity), whereas the opposite is often the case
with the residues of our Class V
(individual integrity).
1724. Dividing society into two strata, calling one the "lower"
and the other the "higher," brings us one step closer to the con-
crete than we were in thinking of society as a homogeneous unit,
though it still leaves us far enough removed from anything con-
crete, anything real. To

get a closer approximation, we should have
to divide society into a larger number of classes, in fact, into as many
1
classes, roughly, as there are differing traits in human beings.
1725. Relations between residues and conditions of livelihood.
Useful classifications of residues may be based on the different occu-
pations of
human beings. Such too have been familiar from most
ancient times; but almost always those who have utilized them have
confused two very different things: (i) The simple fact of a dif-
ference in residues corresponding to a difference in occupation or

mode of life; and (2) appraisal of the ethical, political, social value,
and so on, of the various residues. Often indeed, the observation of
fact appearsmerely as an incidental implication of such appraisal.
1726. Cato the Elder says in praise of tillers of the soil, De re
1724
*
In order not to stray too far afield from the matter here in hand, we must
postpone that inquiry till later on, 2025 f.
1 1 86 TREATISE ON GENERAL SOCIOLOGY 1727
rustica, proemium: "Our farmers furnish very strong men and
brave soldiers, men who earn their bread in manners most honour-
able and above reproach; and they who till the soil do not cherish
*
evil thoughts." And an indirect way of saying that residues
that is
present in farmers are different from the residues present in other

citizens. Cato's last phrase implies a faint
perception that country
people are less prone to innovations, that in them Class II residues
are of greater importance than in other sorts of people.
1727. Similar observations have been commonly made in all peri-
ods of history with regard to merchants, soldiers, magistrates, and
so on. There is a general recognition that, on the whole, sentiments
tend to vary with occupation. Along that line, the so-called theory
of economic materialism might be linked up with the theory of
residues by correlating residues with economic status; and as far as
it
goes such a correlation would undoubtedly be sound. It goes
wrong, however, in isolating economic status from other social fac-
tors, towards which, on the contrary, it stands in a relation of in-
terdependence; and, further, in envisaging a single relation of cause

and effect, whereas there are many many such relations all func-
tioning simultaneously.
1728. Such remarks might be grouped with the many others that
stress the influence of soil, climate, and so on, upon the traits of peo-
ples. Hippocrates
deals with such influences at length in his treatise
On Airs, Waters, and Places. The correlations he sets up between
human character-traits and living-conditions are probably mistaken;
but they none the less
recognize differences in temperaments as in-
dependent of will, of thought, and of level of enlightenment. The
differing temperaments of Europeans and Asiatics he explains by
differences in soil and climate supplemented by differences in insti-
tutions; and not satisfied with generic differences, he goes into the
particular differences of the particular peoples. As a matter of fact,

few writers, if any, differences in traits between different peo-
deny
ples; the disagreement arises as to the causes not as to the fact.
Almost unique is the conception of the Emperor Julian, who
*
1726 And so Euripides, Orestes, vv. 918-20 (Coleridge, Vol. II, p. 309), con-
trasts a good farmer with the politician who is the bane of a town: "He is not a
man of fair aspect; but he is a manly fellow, and rarely frequents the city and the
circle of the market-place. Me is one of those peasants who of themselves are able
to save a country/* Aristotle too expatiates at length on the same theme ( 274).
1730 THEORY OF INTERDEPENDENCE 1187
thought that the temperamental diversities of the various peoples
were due to the diversities in the divine beings appointed to rule
them. interesting however that,
It is
among such divinities, he in-
1
cludes the Air and the Earth.
1729. Unaware of the own theory, which
inconsistency with his
*
attaches conduct
supreme importance to logical ( 354 f.), Buckle
follows Hippocrates in his views as to the influence of climate and
soil he adds food-supply as
depending on climate and soil
upon
the temperaments of peoples, their manners and customs and levels
of civilization. Here again it is to be noted that the correlations estab-
lished by Buckle may be partly sound, partly mistaken but that, in ;
any event, he views human conduct as being determined by residues,

and not by derivations, and varying as residues
vary. Buckle also
knows the origin of such residues. We
are chary about
following
him down that path,
deeming it the wiser
part to leave matters of
origin to future investigations.
1730.
Many other writers might be mentioned in this connexion.
1
Let us stop Demolins, who thinks he has shown that the civiliza-
at
tion of a people is determined

by the route it has followed in its
migrations. His books make pleasant reading. They are as seduc-
tive as a siren's
song, the arguments seeming faultless and irresistibly
conclusive. And yet at the end one wondersbe that can it
really
an itinerary of migration, most often a mere matter of
guess-work
on our part, is alone enough to account for all the traits a
people
shows, independently of any other factor? And then one notices
x
1728 St. Cyril, Contra impium Ittliamtm, IV (Opera, Vol. IX, pp. 719-22)
(quoting Julian): "If God has not assigned to each people a ruler subordinate to
Him, either angel or demon, whose function it is to guide and supervise particular
kinds of souls, so that differences in customs and laws arise, I should like to be
shown what other cause could have brought such differences about." The Emperor
was controverting Christians who sought to explain differences in laws and customs
by the confusion of tongues at the Tower of Babel. He points out that similar dif-
ferences are also apparent in physique: "If one consider how greatly the Germans
and the Scythians differ from the Libyans and the Ethiopians, can such differences
be ascribed to a naked order [to world-order all by itself], without regard to atmos-
phere, the location of their lands and the disposition of stars in the firmament?'*
St. Cyril replies that Christians attribute differences in customs and manners of liv-
ing to differing temperaments [inclinations of will] and differing ancestral tradi-

tions.
*
1729 History of Civilization in England, Vol. I, pp. 39 f.
*
1730 Les grandcs routes des peuples.
1 1 88 THE MIND AND SOCIETY
that the force of the reasoning depends more upon the talents of
the writer than upon the cogency of his facts and his logic, and we
begin to put question-marks where we have been putting periods.
There again we leave to future investigations the task of determin-
ing the influence that a migration route may have had upon the
characteristics of a civilization. We
are satisfied, just here, with the
fact that, to an extent at least, such traits are not dependent on rea-
soning, on human logic, on J^nowledge of certain ethical systems,

certain religions, and so on, that, in other words to
repeat a thing
we have already said over and again they depend much more
largely on residues than on derivations; without, for that matter,
precluding that in a minor way derivations also may have had their
influence.
1731. The mentioned were attempts to explain social
theories just
phenomena by relationships of cause and effect. They are like the

theories that were commonly current in political
economy prior to
the synthesis of pure economics. They are not altogether false
they
have a part, sometimes a very considerable part, that accords with
experience. But they also have a part that is altogether at odds with
experience, and that is due chiefly to the fact that they neglect the
interdependence of social phenomena, and in two ways: (i) By
envisaging only one "cause," where there are many many causes;
(2) by again considering only one cause, but putting it in a rela-
tion of cause and effect with other
phenomena, whereas their real
relation is one of interdependence giving rise to a series of actions
and reactions.*
In general, social phenomena, like economic show
phenomena,
undulatory forms of development; so that the relationships between
the undulations have to be taken into account above all else.
Sup-
pose we have two phenomena with measurable indices that are the
2
ordinates of two curves( 1718 ), and that we are trying to find the
relationship between them. If we insist on taking every minutest
fluctuation into the
account, problem is altogether unsolvable.
But we can get an at least roughly approximate solution if we resign
ourselves to
considering only the more marked fluctuations, the gen-
eral development of the phenomena. This general direction can be
a
I 73 I [Pareto's phrasing of 2, which I find opaque, has been rewritten in trans-
lation to clarify the meaning. A. L.]
1731 NEWTONIAN THEORY OF TIDES 1 1
89
determined by two methods. The first, which is
very imperfect from
the experimental standpoint, is to substitute for the concrete
phe-
nomenon certain abstract entities that are assumed to represent it
more or less adequately. So we say that the height of tides depends
upon the attraction of Sun and Moon. No such "height" exists:
there are heights in infinite numbers,
according to the points con-
sidered. So when we
say that the exchange rate of a country's cur-
rency depends upon the status of the debts and credits the
country
has with foreign countries, we are
correlating two abstract entities.
There is no such "rate of
exchange." There is an infinite number
of rates, sometimes a different rate for
every actual contract. There
is no status of debts and credits, but an infinitude of debts and
every passing moment witnessing the appearance and dis-

credits,
appearance of some one of them. Economists say that a given com-

modity on a given market at a given time could not possibly have
more than one Such statements are abstractions that at times
price.
approximate reality and at times vary widely from it and do not
describe it at all save in a very rough way. So
supply and demand
in a given commodity on a market are abstractions; and the
given
same may be repeated in general for all the entities considered in
political economy. Monsieur Jourdain talked prose without know-
ing it. So persons who deal with entities of that sort make interpola-
tions ( 1694) without
knowing it. But it is always better to pro-
ceed in full knowledge of what one is about. We had better look
more closely therefore at the second method for determining trends
in certain phenomena. The method is to determine curves to
rep-
interpolate those curves, and finally
resent the phenomena, then to
2
determine the relations between the average movements ( 1718 ).
But in all that we must guard against a new error into which one
may easily fall. This second method must not result in our neglect-
ing the first, for both may be made to contribute to the sum of our
knowledge. The results yielded by surveying come closer to realities

than the results yielded by topography, which in their turn are more
concrete than the results of geodesy; but that is no reason for
ignor-
ing or abolishing geodesy in favour of topography, or topography in
favour of surveying. The empirical theory of tides
brings us closer
to the concrete than does the pure astronomical
theory; but that is
no reason for scrapping the latter. We
are not called
upon to ignore
TREATISE ON GENERAL SOCIOLOGY 173*
abstract economics because we are studying undulations in eco-
1
nomic phenomena empirically.
It is
interesting that each of the methods in question can be profit-
ably developed both in the abstract and the concrete directions.
When Newton's theory of tides develops into the theory of Lapb.ce,
the development is in the abstract direction. When empirical ob-
servations of the heights of tides in different harbours develop into
the theories of Thomson (Lord Kelvin) and G. H. Darwin, the
*
1731 Hatt, Des marees, pp. 9-11: "Newton was the first to give an exact ex-
planation of the cause of the tides. The considerations that he developed are of two
sorts. He first imagines a circular canal surrounding the whole earth, roughly
analyzes the horizontal movement under the influence of the heavenly bodies of the
molecules contained in it, and then observes that it has to involve an alternate rising
and falling of level. But he considers the question in a much loftier perspective in
getting at the analytical theory of the phenomenon. Ignoring the molecular move-
ment, Newton looks for the momentary picture of equilibrium that the water-mass
would assume under the influence of the attractive force of one heavenly body, and
determines the shape and dimensions of its surface an ellipsoid with the long axis
constantly pointing towards the star. As a consequence of the Earth's movement,
the distortion makes the round of the Earth in twenty-four hours, the level rising
and falling at each point twice a day. But the hypothesis on which Newton's theory
rests is not consistent with the rapidity of the movement. [That has been a reason
not for rejecting mathematical theories of tides, but for perfecting them.] The
water-molecules, drawn at every moment to a new position of equilbrium, evidently
tend to overpass it and develop fluctuations determined by the laws of dynamics.
The problem of the tides therefore requires assistance from the theory of the move-
ment of liquids on which Laplace's analysis rests. [So in mathematical economics
there was a move from Cournot's theories to present-day theories, and so there will
be from present to future theories.] Book IV of the Celestial Mechanics is entirely
devoted to a theoretical and practical examination of the oscillations of the sea, and
we may say that the pure theory has suffered no appreciable modifications since it
was established on its foundations by the great analyst; but the general solution of
that difficult problem still remains to be discovered. Despite all the efforts of mathe-
maticians, theory has so far proved unable not only to adapt itself to the infinite
variety of conditions on the Earth but even to approach the question otherwise than
in the very simple situation of a spheroid entirely covered with water. But if we
envisage practical aspects of the matter, the analysis has been extraordinarily pro-
ductive. The general principle of a correspondence between periodic forces and
marine movements that it brought to light [In mathematical economics, the prin-
ciple of mutual dependence that we are here extending to sociological phenomena.]
served as point of departure for the study of the tides at Brest, to which the fourth
and almost all the thirteenth book of the Celestial Mechanics arc devoted. On the
same principle Sir William Thomson in England based his method of harmonic
analysis, a theory that is as remarkable for its simplicity as for its inflexible logic
and which seems destined to serve as crown for the whole edifice of the empirical
study of tides, as offering a more effective instrument of investigation for resolving
the complex movement of the sea into its elements."
1732 THEORY OF INTERDEPENDENCE
development is in the concrete direction. When the old economy

is
supplemented with the chapter on mathematical economics, the
development is in an abstract direction. When economic and social
phenomena are considered together (2292*), as we are consider-
2
ing them here, the development is in the concrete direction. Now
all that is beyond the comprehension of vast numbers of
persons
whose critical sense is wholly vitiated by preconceptions or down-
right ignorance, and who have no notion whatever of the logico-
experimental character of the social and economic sciences. Their
disquisitions sometimes
remind one of a person trying to find rec-
ipes for cooking in a mathematical text-book or geometrical theo-
3
rems in a cook-book.
1732. We
must therefore be careful not to fall into errors of that
sort ourselves and for that reason always bear in mind that when,
for instance, we refer to the influence of residues upon other social
facts, our attention is centred on one aspect of the situation only;

2
1731 One same
scientist may develop a theory in the two directions. After
working out an abstract formula for tides, Traite de mccanique celeste, II, Bk. IV,
216, 241, Laplace remarks in connexion with one of its corollaries: "Now we shall
shortly be seeing that this result is contrary to observed facts, and however far the
formula above is extended, it docs not succeed in satisfying all observed phenomena.
Irregularities in the depths of the ocean, its manner of distribution over the Earth,
the location and slope of its shores, their relation to neighbouring coasts, the resist-
ance that the waters meet, all such causes, which cannot be reduced to measurement,
modify the oscillation of the great fluid mass. We can therefore merely analyze the
generalphenomena that ought to result from the attractions of Sun and Moon and
draw from observation the data indispensable for completing the theory of the ebb
and flow of the sea in each seaport. . [Then, after stating his formulae:] Now
. .
let us compare these formulae with observations. Early in the last century and at
the initiative of the Academy of Sciences a large number of observations of the ebb
and flow of the tide were conducted
in our harbours. They were continued each
day and although they are still far from satisfac-

at Brest for six consecutive years,
tory, they make up by their number and in view of the height and regularity of the
tides in that harbour the most complete and useful collection that we have of that
kind. It is with the Brest observations, therefore, that our formulae will be com-
pared." A splendid illustration of the method to be followed, adding, perfecting;

there is no destroying ( 1732).
1731
8
Protectionist derivations lend themselves much better than the scientific
theories of political economy to the defence of the protectionist system. There are
excellent subjective reasons why a person deriving or hoping to derive some direct
or indirect advantage from protective tariffs should give his preference to deriva-
tions. But no such reasons exist for the person who is merely trying, in an objective
spirit, to discover the relations obtaining between facts.

THE MIND AND SOCIETY 173^
and another aspect involving not only the influence of
that there is
those facts upon residues, but of all factors, including residues, upon
each other reciprocally ( 2203 f.).
There are various ways of envisaging interdependent phenomena.
Suppose we classify them: i. Relations of cause and effect, only,
may be considered, and interdependence wholly disregarded. 2. In-
terdependence may be taken into account: 20. Relations of cause

and effect are still considered, but allowance is made for interde-
pendence by considering actions and reactions, and by other de-

One may work directly on the hypothesis of interdepend-
vices, ib.
1
ence (209if.). The soundest method, undoubtedly, is the one
we designate as ib, but unfortunately it can be followed in but rela-
tively few cases because of the conditions that it requires. Essential
to it, the use of mathematical logic, which alone can take
in fact, is
full account of interdependencies in the broadest sense. It can be
used, therefore, only for phenomena susceptible of measurement a

limitation that excludes many many problems, and virtually all the
problems peculiar to sociology. Then again, even when a phenome-

non is in itself measurable, serious difficulties arise as soon as it be-
comes at all complex. An interesting example of that may be seen
where insuperable difficulties still stand in
in celestial mechanics,
the way of determining the movements of many bodies of about
equal mass when some of the interdependencies can no longer be

regarded as perturbations. Pure economics goes so far as to state the
equations for certain phenomena, but not so far as to be able to solve
1
1732 Very often the chronological order of the three methods is different from
the one noted here, where the scale is drawn from the most erroneous to the most
perfect. Sometimes the chronological order is, more or less, i, ib, 2a. That was the
case in the history of political economy. The old economy followed i. On the ad-
vent of mathematical economics there came a leap to ib. Now, thanks to the con-
quests of mathematical economics, economists may follow the method ia. Two eco-
nomic treatises based on considerations of cause and effect may differ radically. If
such considerations are not supplemented by considerations of interdependencies, if
the study of actions is not followed by studies of reactions, and especially if principal
phenomena are not distinguished from secondary, the procedure is i, and results
are almost always vitiated by serious errors. If, however, in deference to the achieve-
ments of mathematical economics, 2b, considerations of cause and effect are used,
but with due account taken of interdependencies by studying actions and reactions
and by distinguishing between principal and secondary phenomena, the procedure is
2a and results may closely approximate realities.
1732 METHOD 2tfl CORRECTED CAUSE AND EFFECT
2
them, at least in their general form. So as regards the economic and
social sciences, the ib method remains as an ideal goal that is almost
3
never attained in the concrete. Shall we say,
on that account, that
it is useless? No, because from it we derive, if nothing more, two
It
gives us a picture of a situation, which we
i.
great advantages,
could get in no other way. The surface of the Earth does not, to be
sure, have the shape of a geometric sphere; and yet to picture the
Earth in that way does help to give some notion of what the Earth
2
1732 See Pareto, Manuale, Chap. Ill, 217-18. Not a few economists have made
the mistake of imagining that the theories of pure economics could directly control
the concrete phenomenon. Walras thought he could reform society on that basis
[Elements d 'economic politiquc pure, Preface, p. xv, and pp. 277-80] On that point .
see Bovcn,Lcs applications mathcmatiqnes a I' economic politiquc, p. 112 and passim.
3
1732 Pareto, Manuale, Chap. Ill, 228: "The chief advantage derived from the
theories of pure economics lies in their providing a synthetic conception of the eco-
nomic equilibrium, and at the present time there arc no other means of attaining
that end. But the phenomenon envisaged by pure economics diverges, now little,
now much, from the concrete phenomenon, and it is for applied economics to study
those divergences. It would be futile and not very intelligent to pretend to regulate
concrete phenomena according to the theories of pure economics. [Very very . . .
often the theories of sociology will be found in the same boat.] The conditions that
we have found for the economic equilibrium give us a general conception of that
equilibrium.... To discover what the economic equilibrium was, we tried to see
just what forces it. We must further caution that the identification of
determined
those forces isno sense designed to supply a numerical calculation of prices.
in
Suppose we are placed in the situation most favourable for such a calculation: sup-
pose we have overcome all our difficulties as to knowledge of the data involved in
the problem. Such assumptions would be absurd and still they would not be
. . .
adequate for making a solution of the problem practically possible. ... If all those
equations [in the equilibrium] were really known, still the only means humanly
available for solving them would be to watch the practical solutions provided by
the market in terms of certain quantities at certain prices." As I have elsewhere
shown (in my article, "Economic mathematique'' in the Encyclopedic dcs sciences
l
mathcmatiqnes) [and see above, 87 ] y only an infinitude of index-functions could
show how the economic equilibrium is actually determined. The selection one makes
from among them is a question of expediency merely. In particular, the purpose of
our selection of lines of indifference is not at all to find some practical measurement
of ophelimity; but merely to bring into relation with the conditions of the equilib-
rium and with prices certain quantities that may theoretically be assumed to be
measurable. Similar reservations arc pertinent in the case of sociology. The purpose
of that science is not to reveal the future in detail. It is not "carrying on" for the
Delphic Oracle nor is it competing for business with prophets, sibyls, soothsayers,
trance-mediums or fortune-tellers. Its object is to determine in their general form
the uniformities that have obtained in the past and those which are likely to prevail
in the future, and at the same time to describe the general characteristics of all such
uniformities and their mutual relations.
11
94 TREATISE ON GENERAL SOCIOLOGY X
73 2
is like. 2. It
sign-boards the path we have to follow if we are to
avoid the pitfalls of method i and so approximate realities. Even a
beacon we shall never reach may serve to indicate a course. By anal-
ogy we can carry over the results achieved by mathematical eco-
nomics into sociology and so equip ourselves with concepts that we
could get in no other way and which we can proceed to verify on
experience, to decide whether they are to be kept or thrown away.

3. Finally, the concept of interdependence, imperfect though it be,
is a
guide to using 20, which tries, through use of relations of cause
and effect ( 2092), to produce results that are at least something
like what we would have got by following 2#; and it helps to avoid
the errors inherent in i, which is the least perfect of the three, the
4
most exposed to In our present state of knowledge the advan-
error.
tages of method 2# are therefore not so much direct as indirect.

That method is a light and a guide to save us from the pitfalls of i
5
and to beckon to a closer approximation of reality. This is not the
place to linger on details of the method 2a. We will simply note,
Q
because the point will be of use to us presently, that the method

2a proves to be workable when we have a principal phenomenon
that exactly or approximately assumes the form of a relationship
of cause and effect, and then incidental, secondary or less impor-
tant phenomena with which interdependence arises. When we are
able to reduce a situation to that type, which after all is the type
of celestial mechanics, we are in a fair way to understand it. With
justsuch a reduction in mind, we saw that residues were much

more stable than derivations, and we were therefore able to regard
them part "causes" of derivations, but without forgetting sec-
as in
ondary effects of derivations, which sometimes, be it in subordinate

ways, may be "causes" of residues. Now
we are seeing that the dif-
ferent social classes show different residues, but for the moment we
4
1732 The errors in question have been admirably elucidated in Sensini's La
teoria della rcndita.
5
1732 Pareto, "Le mic idee/' II divenire sociale, July 16, 1910: "Pure economics
is only a kind of book-keeping, and the books of a business enterprise never give
the true physiognomy of that enterprise. Economics is a small part of sociol-
. . .
ogy, and pure economics is a small part of economics. Pure economics, therefore,
cannot of itself give rules for dealing with a concrete situation, nor can it alto-
gether give the feel of that situation."
6
1732 With them we shall deal more amply farther along, 2091 f.
1734 SOCIAL CLASSES 1 1
95
are not deciding whether it is living in a certain class that produces
certain residues in individuals, or whether it is the presence of those
residues in those individuals that drives them into that class, or,
7
better yet, whether the two not be there simultaneously.
effects
may
For the present we are to confine ourselves to
describing such uni-
formities as are discernible in the distribution of residues in the vari-
ous social classes.
1733. Data in abundance are available on that point They are not
very exact, often coming forward under literary or metaphysical
guises. From them, nevertheless, we are able to infer with reason-
able probability that for the various strata in society the scale of in-
creasing variability noted above ( 1718) still holds valid: (i)

Classes of residues; (2) the genera of those classes; (3) derivations.
But the variability is greater for a given social stratum than for so-
compensations take place
ciety as a whole, since as regards the latter
between the various strata. There are, furthermore, social
categories
comprising few individuals within which variations may be wide
and sudden, whereas they are slight and gradual for the mass of the
citizenry.The higher classes change styles in dress much more
readily than the lower classes. So they change in their sentiments
and, even more, in their ways of expressing their sentiments.

Changes in style in the various branches of human activity are fol-
lowed much more closely by the wealthier, or higher, than by the
poorer, or lower, classes. Not a few changes, incfeed, remain within
the confines of the higher classes and often fail to reach the lower
because they have disappeared in the higher before reaching the
lower.
1734. Unfortunately, history and literature give a better picture of
the states of mind, the sentiments, the customs of the few individ-
uals located in the higher strata of society than of those same things
in the larger number of individuals belonging to the lower strata.
In that fact lies the source of many serious errors. There is a tempta-
tion to extend to a whole population, or the larger part of it, traits
that are characteristic of a small, perhaps an insignificant, number
of individuals. And failure to take account of changes in the com-
position of the higher classes due to class-circulation leads to the
1732
7
To all that we shall come in tlic next chapter.
735
further error of mistaking changes in the personnel of a class for
changes in the sentiments of individuals. In a closed class, X, senti-

ments and expressions of sentiments may change but if the class X ;
is
open, a further change results from changes in the composition of
the class; and this second change depends, in its turn, upon the
greater or lesser rapidity of the circulation.

1735. Reciprocal action of residues and derivations.. Residues may
act (a) upon other residues; () upon derivations. So likewise de-
1
rivations may act (c) upon residues; (d} upon derivations.
Of the influence in general of residues upon derivations, b, we
have nothing further to say here, having already dealt with that
subject throughout the course of these volumes and shown that,
contrary to common opinion, residues exert a powerful influence
2
on derivations, derivations a feeble influence on residues. It remains
for us to speak only of the special case where certain fluctuations
in derivations correspond to fluctuations in residues. But we cannot
do that as yet for lack of a number of concepts that we shall not
acquire till further along ( 2329 f.). Let us devote our main atten-
tion therefore to the relationships a, c, d.
1736. a. Influence of residues on residues. Itwill help, first of all,
to distinguish residues a, b, c . . .
corresponding to a given group
Figure 26
of sentiments, P, from residues m,n,r,s... corresponding to an-

other group of sentiments, Q. The residues a, b, c .
correspond-
. .
ing to one same group P go fairly well together they are not too
discordant, not too openly contradictory. On the other hand such
discord, such contradiction, may prevail between residues a,b,c

. . .
corresponding to P, and residues m, n, r . . . corresponding to Q.

1
1735 Here we are considering such effects intrinsically only, without regard to
any bearing they may have on individual utility or the utility of society.
It was with a view to showing that that we began this study with an
2
in-
1735
vestigation of non-logical conduct.
1738 INFLUENCE OF RESIDUES ON RESIDUES 1197
Since all we know of such residues we know through derivations,
we shall likewise find derivations that are not too discordant and
derivations which frankly disaccord. Still other discordant deriva-
tions arise through the importance of influencing various sorts of
individuals who are equipped with various other sorts of residues
( 1716).
1737. Discordant residuesand their derivations^ Contradictory
derivations expressing residues that are also
contradictory are often-
times observable in one same person, who either fails to notice the
contradiction or tries to remove it
by resort to more or less trans-
1
parent sophistries. Of that we have given many proofs, but further
elucidation will not come ^miss in view of the importance of having
the fact clearly appreciated. Let us take a number of groups of resi-
dues, each group corresponding to certain complexes of sentiments.

It will be found that the
reciprocal influence of the groups, when
they are not in accord, is generally slight in everybody if there is
any at all, mutual effects
appearing only in educated people in
sophistical efforts to reconcile derivations arising from the groups.
Uneducated people for the most part are not worried at all by such
contradictions.
1738. Generally speaking, save for persons who are in the habit
of in long and complicated ratiocination, the individual
indulging
makes no effort to harmonize discordant derivations. He is satisfied
if
they fit in with his sentiments or, if one will, with the residues
corresponding to his sentiments. That is sufficient for the majority
of human beings. Some small few feel a need for logic, for pseudo-
scientific ratiocination, which impels them to refined disquisitions
tending to harmonize one derivation with another. But as com-

*
1737 In his Dictionnaire historique, s.v. Lttbicnietzty, rcmarque (E), speaking
of a religious persecution, Bayle observes: "I doubt whether there was ever a subject
more fertile in rejoinders and counter-rejoinders than this one. It can be twisted
over and over again now in one direction, now in another. So a writer will tell
us today that the Truth has only to show her face to put Heresy to rout, and to-
morrow that if Heresy is allowed to go on talking everybody in the world will
be affected. [The first derivation reflects, in the main, a group of residues associated
with the authority of one's own religion, and the reverence in which it is held (II-a,
II-8, V-a, etc.); the second reilects sentiments associated with the requirement of
uniformity (IV-/J, IV-/?2)]. One day truth will be pictured as an impregnable

stronghold, the next, as something so frail that it cannot be exposed to the hazards
of debate, that such a shock would shatter it in the minds of the public."
TREATISE ON GENERAL SOCIOLOGY X
739
pared with the bulk of a population, theologians and metaphysicists

have always been very few in numbers.
1739. Historians and often try to ascertain the
literary critics
thought of a writer or a statesman. Researches of that kind presup-

pose that such a "thought" exists, and that may sometimes be the
case. More often it is not. If such thinkers would but examine their
inner selves, they would find plenty of contradictory notions in their
own minds, without needing to go elsewhere. If one is a "deter-
minist" he will see that he often acts as though he were not; and
the one who is not, that he often acts as though he were. Nor would
they fail to observe that for many moral precepts they have personal
interpretations which differ to some extent from the views of other
people. To be sure, their own interpretations are the "good" ones,

and others "bad"; and that may well be, but it merely confirms the
fact of the difference; and for the person who has one of the other
interpretations, there is a contradiction between the formal precept

and the manner in which the critic in question interprets it. In a
happy moment a person will assert that anyone who follows the
precepts of religion and morality is certain of a happy life in this
world. In a moment of gloom he will exclaim with Brutus, "Virtue,
thou art but a name!" What is such a person's "real thought"? He
has two thoughts; and he is
equally sincere in expressing them, con-
1
tradictory though they be.
1740. Reciprocal* influence of residues corresponding to a given
sum of sentiments*. Such influence may arise in three ways, which
it is
important carefully to keep distinct. Let P
be a psychic disposi-
tion corresponding to a sum of sentiments that are manifested by
the residues a, b, c, d. . Those sentiments may be of differing in-
. .
tensities, a situation that we state elliptically by saying that the resi-

dues are of differing intensities ( 1690).
1741. i. If for some reason or other P, the common source of the
residues, increases in intensity, all the residues, a, b, c . . . will also
increase in intensity, becoming A, B, . . . C
and conversely if P
*
1739 Facts of that kind are of great importance in determining social phe-
nomena. We must therefore not rest content with merely asserting them. We must
adduce ample proofs. That justifies the interest we have shown and will continue
to show in many petty incidents on which, had we no such purpose in view, it
would be a waste of time to linger.
1744 RESIDUES AND DERIVATIONS 1
199
diminishes in intensity. Among the reasons for the rise or fall of
intensity in P may be an increase or a decrease in a group of residues,

a, which reacts upon P. In that case the rise or fall in a occasions a
rise or fall in all the
groups, b, c, d. . In the case of a community
. .
at
large such effects are often gradual and not very considerable,
since, as we have seen, a class of residues as a whole varies slowly
and but In a single individual it may be far stronger and
slightly.
more rapid. That would be the case with the
Hindu converts to Christianity whom we
mentioned farther back ( 1416) as losing
the morality of their old religion without
acquiring that of the new. That was the case

too with the degenerate Sophists of ancient
Greece; and there are other examples. In
such cases, certain residues, a, are destroyed,
and the whole group, b, c, d . . .
,
is weakened in consequence.
1742. 2. In many group of residues increases at the expense
cases a
of other groups of the same class the instinct of combinations, for
example, which may turn to some new kind of combinations; and

in such case we get a new distribution among a, b, c without . . .
any variation in P. Combining effects i and 2, we get a number of

permutations. For instance, a increases and that occasions an in-
crease in P and consequently also in b, c. But the increase in a . . .
isobtained by usurping among other things a part of what be-
longed to b, c . . .
So, finally, a group, b, may increase because
,
what it loses to a it more than regains through the increase in P; and

another group, c, may decrease because what it loses to a is
greater
than what it regains through P; and so on.
There might well be a direct action of a upon b, c
1743. 3. . . .
without any mediation through P. This third situation is readily

confused with the first. The visible fact may be that when a became
A, b was seen to become B; C; and so on; and reasoning post hoc,
c,
propter hoc, the inference might be that the movement a to A was

the "cause" of the movement b to B, c to C, and so on, and so the
presumption of a direct relation, ab or ac . . .

, becomes natural.
1744a Ordinary observation gives a special form to this reasoning,
with the customary substitution of logical for non-logical conduct.
It is assumed that a has a logical origin, P; and so, if a is modified to
I20O THE MIND AND SOCIETY J
744
A, because the logical origin, P, has been re-enforced, and the
it is
changes of b to B, c to C, follow as a matter of course. It is argued,

for instance: "A religiously-minded person refrains from wrong-
doing because he knows that God punishes sin. If, therefore, we
foment the religious sentiment, a, we shall get as a consequence in-
creased honesty, b, morality, c, self-respect, d, and so on." The facts

have shown that any such reasoning is erroneous, and readers of
these volumes now know that the fallacy lies in the failure to dis-
1
tinguish non-logical reasoning would be-
from logical conduct.
The
come sound if instead of trying to intensify a one tried to intensify P.
The situation can be stated, imperfectly it may be, but yet in such
terms as to give a vivid image of it, if one says that the conduct
1744
1
That was a common error of governments in olden times, and in a day
quite recent it was observable in France as a special trait of the policies of the
Restoration and the Second Empire. Two further errors usually go with it: (i) A
belief that the religious sentiment may be awakened in people who do not have it,
and intensified in people who have it, by using force upon dissidents and punishing
them; and (2) a tendency to identify the religious sentiment in general with the
religious sentiment attached to a given faith in particular. So governments wear
themselves out in efforts to force a religion, X, upon their subjects, andif they get
any results at all, the result ofit is

enforcing hypocrisy and so promoting the many
evils that go with hypocrisy. But even if they were in a measure successful, that
would be of little or no service as regards the end they held in view in undertaking
to enforce the religion X as a means of improving the morals and loyalty of their
subjects. not saying that when a religious sentiment is a spontaneous mani-
That is
festation of good morals and loyalty in a people, it is not better not to offend it
if one's aim is to encourage those manifestations ( 1753). Modern governments
endorsing the religion of Progress disdainfully reject any help from the old re-
ligion, a, in regulating civil life. But they replace it with others. Many of them are
inclined to assign the function to the sex religion, /, so repeating a common mistake
of governments of the past. It is, in fact, usual for individuals who are upright and
temperate in the various aspects of their activity to evince the same qualities in the
domain of sex; and it is not difficult to show, therefore, that, in general and on
the whole, observance of the rules of the sex religion, /, goes hand in hand with
observance of the rules of a religion, a, of decency, b, morals, c, honesty, d, and so
on. But that easily leads to the mistake of taking / as at least a contributory "cause"
of a, b, c, d. Because that error is a very very common one, we have repeat-
. . .
edly marshalled proofs to show that / is not a cause, nor even a contributory
cause, of a, b, c. That error is usually coupled with another more serious one,
. . .
which, really, follows from it: the belief that by influencing / one can influence
a, b, c till one arrives at the extreme absurdum that if sex
. . .
hypocrisy can be
enforced by law one can get a good, honest, clean-living citizenry. Nevertheless,
the countless and most striking disproofs of the doctrine that historical experience
provides do not suffice to budge the race of sex-fanatics and the plain man in gen-
eral from that utterly false notion.
1746 EFFECTS OF PROPAGANDA I2OI
in which b, c, d . . .
originate is in some respects similar to the
conduct in which a originates. If we call all such conduct "religious'*
and the complexes a, b, c, d . . .
"religions," we can then say that
to stimulate growth in one such "religion" is of scant influence upon
the other religions; but if one can procure increased intensity in
the sentiments of group-persistence, P, in which they all originate,
an effective influence will be exerted upon them all. With most
people the reasoning the direct reverse: that to stimulate a given
is
2
religion is an effective way to stimulate growth in others.
1745. But the fact that one demonstration offered for a direct in-
fluence of one residue upon other residues is fallacious in no wise
precludes the possibility of cases in which such an influence exists,
and we have to look for evidence of it directly to the facts. How-
ever, it is not easy to find. Oftentimes when we think we have
it, it is still possible to interpret it as an influence of the first type;
and we are left in doubt as to any conclusion. But there are plenty of
cases that clearly indicate the independence of the residues a, b, c
. . . the well-known fact, for instance, of brigands being devout
Catholics, and other facts of the same sort. In such cases, b, c, d
. . . seem to be in no way related to a. Confining ourselves to cer-
tain probabilities, we may
say that the direct influence, when there
is
any, arises chiefly between residues that are closely related, or at
least among residues of the same genus; seldom among residues of
different genera or different classes. The person who already be-

lieves in a number of silly stories will readily believe one more. That
might seem to be a case of direct influence; and yet one might say
that belief in silly stories is an expression of a psychic state that will
incline the person to believe in one more.
1746. c. Influence of derivations on residues. This problem is
close kin to the one just discussed Derivations are manifestations of

sentiments, and the influence of derivations on residues is therefore
similar to the influence of Class III residues and I-e residues on
other residues. Only because of this latter influence do derivations
have any perceptible effects in determining the social equilibrium.
A which merely satisfies that hankering for logic which
derivation
the human being feels, and which neither is transmuted into senti-
ments nor re-enforces sentiments, has slight if any effect on the
1744
2
We shall revert to this matter farther along ( 1850!:.).
747
social equilibrium. It is
just a superfluity: it satisfies
certain senti-
ments, and that is all. Briefly, but not in strict exactness, one may
say that in order to influence society, theories have to be trans-
muted into sentiments, derivations into residues. It must not how-
ever be forgotten that that holds true qnly for non-logical conduct,
not fo,r conduct of the logical variety. /
1747. Generally speaking, a derivation is accepted not so much

because it convinces anybody as because it expresses clearly ideas that
people already have in a confused sort of way this latter fact is

usually the main element in the situation. Once the derivation is
accepted lends strength and aggressiveness to the corresponding

it
sentiments, which now have found a way to express themselves.

It is a well-known fact that sentiments
upon which the thought re-
currently lingers manifest a more exuberant growth than other
sentiments on which the mind does not dwell ( 1749, 1832); but
that, as a rule, is something secondary as compared with the other
phenomenon. ;For the very reason that derivations exert influence
only through the sentiments which they persons who are alien
7
stir,
to such sentiments, either as not sharing them or from having
experienced and then forgotten them, find it difficult to appreciate

the practical importance of certain derivations; so they accuse those
who suppress them of lack of intelligence, whereas the only lack
1
perhaps may lie in strategy.
1747
1
Examples are legion. We
may take as typical the case of a play by Colic,
La partie dc chasse de Henry IV , which has been interpreted at one time or an-
other in directly opposite fashions according to prevailing sentiments. Hallays-Dabot,
Histoire de la censure theatrale en Prance, pp. 85-86: "One measure of severity one
is at a loss to understand unless one is keenly alive to the state of mind prevailing
toward the end of the reign of Louis XV, and the difficulties the government was
meeting. I refer to the interdiction of the Hunting-Party of Henry IV. Colic's play is
the most inoffensive thing imaginable but look a little closely at it and it be-
. . .
comes a most serious matter everybody is worried. It is deemed hardly proper to

put on the stage an ancestor of the King, a sovereign who is only fifty [sic] years
distant in history. [There we have the play judged anti-monarchical in general.
It will also be found hostile to the particular government holding
power at the
time.] The sensation produced by another play, Theagene et Chariclee, betrays the
state of excitement and hostility in the city. A measure of success had just previously
attended a tragedy of Leblanc, the Marco-Capac, a dull enough play, but full of
declamations against royalty, and it had to be lightened by some four hundred lines
before it could be played at Court. [So ther*. was the Court, running to hear a play
that was aimed at the King! When a strong current of sentiment is taking shape, it
sweeps even people who have everything to fear from it off their feet.] Profiting by
those precedents, the Government saw in Colic's ^.lay just what the public would be
1748 HENRY IV AND THE STAGE 1 203
1748. From a logico-experimental standpoint, the only way to re-
fute an assertion, A, effectively, is
to show that it is false. When
logical conduct is involved that logic and by observations
is done by
of fact ( 1834). Not so from the standpoint of sentiments and in
looking for in it an allusion by force of contrast, a pretext for a demonstration.

Henry IV was at the time what he was later on, a banner, an emblem, of liberal,
democratic, light-hearted royalty. Henry IV will be king of the theatre on three
separate occasions: first, at the opening of the reign of Louis XVI, then, just after
the fall of the Bastille and the establishment of the constitutional oath, and, finally,
on the return of the Bourbons in 1814. At those moments he will be hailed as the
sovereign incarnating the dreams and hopes of a people's imagination. At other

times, just to the contrary, and notably under Louis XV, the personality of Henry
IV will be not a flattery but an epigram. His ideas will be set up against the ideas
of the day and enthusiasm for the man of Beam will be just a war-machine of
the opposition. In that alone are the real causes of the great success of Colic's
Hunting-Party and the basis for its suppression to be sought. Efforts were made . .
.^
many times [under the First Empire] to revive [Duval's] Edouard [en Ecosse']
[suppressed after the first performance, Feb. 17, 1802], and the Hunting-Party
of Henry IV. During the declining years of Louis XV, Henry IV was, as we have
seen, a monarchical mask for the philosophes who were plotting the overthrow of
the monarchy. Now on a stage in Paris Henry IV would have been the white
flag around which all malcontents would gather." Welschinger, La censure sous le
premier Empire, p. 226: "Napoleon kept an eye on the theatre both at short and
at long range. He wrote Fouche from Mainz, Oct. 3, 1804: 'I see they have
played the Hunting-Party of Henry IV at Nantes. What good there is in that I
"
cannot see .' and the seditious play was at once suppressed. But the Restora-
. .
tion came and the play was "formally" revived, Hallays-Dabot, Op. cit., pp. 225,
239, 291: "All the plays hitherto forbidden, the Etats de Blots, Henri IV et
d'Aubigne, plays dealing with the man from Beam, were now to be authorized.
all
It would be hard to say how many times Henry IV was put on the stage during
that period. He was to be seen somewhere every evening. From the Comedie Fran-
gaise to the Franconi, it was just one chorus of adulation, and the secret of it all
events have now revealed to us. Henry IV was the emblem of monarchy and he
had further suffered humiliation at the hands of the previous regime. . . .
[Shortly
the public tires of him:] The Etats de Bloiswas revived on May 30, 1814. Ray-
nouard's tragedy had a half-hearted success enthusiasms were already cooling.
Legislation on the press was brewing. The public was beginning to weary of the
dithyrambs which had been declaimed, sung, danced, played, mimed, on every
stage in Paris ever since April [ 1749]. . . .
[And now for Louis Philippe:] Napo-
leon now takes on the stage the place that Henry IV had occupied in 1755, 1790,
1814, and 1815. He appears simultaneously in all the theatres, and the public waxes as
excited over the Emperor's grey coat as it had of yore over the white plume of
Navarre. [Of the "Widow of Malabar" [by Scribe and Melesville], a play of
. . .
Louis XVIII's time, Hallays-Dabot remarks, Op. cit., p. 123:] That play had
always been regarded as a rather tedious portrayal of Hindu manners. No one had
recognized the Catholic clergy in those priests in Brahman garb. Now that people
are excited and on the watch for every word, every turn of expression that they
can grasp, everything becomes allusion. The clergy is aroused and M. de Beaumont
calls on the King."
1204 THE MIND AN& SOCIETY 1748
the case of non-logical conduct. Reasonings and experimental ob-
servations have very little influence on sentiments and non-logical
conduct, individual inclination being a very great, not to say the

only, influence. Sentiments therefore must be met with sentiments.
An absurd derivation may perfectly well serve to refute another
absurd derivation, though that would not be the case from the
logico-experimental point of view. Indeed silence may be an effective

instrument for sapping the strength of an assertion, A, whereas a
refutation, triumphant though it be from a logico-experimental
1
standpoint, may serve to spread instead of clip its
wings ( 1834) -
x
1748 Hallays-Dabot, Histoire de la censure thcatrale en France, p. 275: "To that
period [around 1827] belongs a prohibition by the censorship that is gaily re-
counted year after year in many little sheets as a model of the innate ineptitude
of the censors. It seems that in a certain vaudeville sketch there was reference to
making and the writer had put into it 'Capuchin's beard/ a sort of wild
a salad
chicory. The
censor insisted on a different recipe and pitilessly vetoed any sort
of 'monk's beard.' An amusing story! But however fastidious the cutting, I must
confess I have never found it as ridiculous as
people are pleased to suppose. One
has only to think of the battle of epigrams, puns, pin-pricks, stupid jests, that was
fought each day by Government and Opposition, that period of the Restoration
furnishing the most complete example of that sort of thing. One has only to re-
member that ten newspapers delivered broadsides every morning against the capttci-
nades of the court of Charles X that was the term then current. And then
. . .
one may wonder whether the writer in question was as innocent as was pretended
of any hostile thought when he put 'Capuchin's beard' into a salad then in vogue.
And one may wonder whether the minister who approved the cut, in itself so child-
ish, was altogether wrong in mistrusting a public that made any simple declaration
from the quai Voltaire a pretext for a noisy riot.*' So Hallays-Dabot manages to clear
the minister on the count of stupidity. But the charge of bad
strategy still stands,
for Hallays-Dabot ought also to remember what was
being said along the quai
Voltaire about the effects of such censorings. Las Cases, Memorial de Saint-Hclcne,
Vol. II, p. 107: "Speaking of the works that were censored or forbidden
by the
police under his rule, the Emperor said that having nothing to do while he was
on the island of Elba, he had amused himself by skimming some such works and
that oftentimes he could not guess the reasons of the police for prohibitions
they had ordered. Then he went on freedom or limita-
to discuss the question of
tion of the press. It was, he said, an endless
question, admitting of no half-way
measures. The great difficulty lay not in the principle itself but in
judging the
circumstances to which the principle, taken abstractly, had to be
applied. By in-
clination, the Emperor said, he was for unrestricted freedom." By no means a
unique case. Looking at things in a certain perspective, many practical men per-
ceive the fatuousness of chasing derivations, but that does not
prevent them from
following the cry when caught in the passions of the moment. Welschinger, La
censure sous le premier Empire, pp. 235-36: "It is
interesting to note that Napoleon
was as keenly concerned with the theatre as with politics. What
phase of life,
for that matter, did that universal mind not embrace, what slight detail did not
1749 SILENCE AND PUBLIC OPINION 1205
1749. To
argue about a thing with a person, in terms whether
favourable or unfavourable, may arouse in him an inclination if he
hasn't it already to interest himself in that thing; if he already has
1
the inclination, it
may whet it. It is an interesting fact that
with
have its interest for him things that would nowadays bring a smile to the lips
of our statesmen? In a letter from Potsdam, Oct. 25, 1806, he approves the can-
cellation of the ban laid on a ballet, Return of Ulysses, and asks Fouche to get a
detailed report on the performance and attend the first night himself to make
sure there was nothing wrong in it." Noble worries for an Emperor and one
of his ministers! Of verses of Marie-Joseph Chenier alluding to Tacitus \Epitre a
Voltaire, (Euvres, Vol. Ill, pp. 101-02.], Welschinger relates, p. 149: "Tacitus!
That name had a way of angering the Emperor. His public disapprobation of
Durcau de Lamalle's translation and his prohibition of the Tragedy Tiberius are
sufficient indications of his dislike for the Roman historian. [Napoleon was . . .
minded to put Chenier in prison, but Fouche dissuaded him:] 'All Paris will work
to get him out. He is not popular, but he will be pitied if he is in jail. Sire, let us
not make our enemies interesting!' [The key-verse of Chenier read: "Tacite en traits
de flamme accuse nos Sejans."} [Not even the classics were spared by the Im-
perial censorship:] 'Most surprising changes,' says Bourdienne, 'were made in
the plays of our great masters by poets hired for the purpose, and Corneille's
Heraclius was produced only in mutilated form.' The censor, Lemontey, said to a
caller one evening: 'Are you going to the Theatre Fran$ais this evening to hear
Racine revised by Lemontey?' That was not just a pleasantry. It was the exact
truth. The great poet of Louis XIV had been roughly handled by the censor no
less than any scribbler under the Empire. The Prompter's Library at the Comedie
Francaisc has a copy of Athalic that bears the most unmistakable traces of it and
enables one to imagine what cuts must have been made in other tragedies of
Racine. .
[Welschinger gives specimens of such deletions. But there is worse:
. .
the censor replaces verses of Racine with his own!] In Athalic, II, vii, the censor
deletes four verses (116-19), fearing lest an allusion to the Pretender be seen in
them; but then to tie up the passage with what follows, he suppresses the hemistich
'Que Dieit voie et nous juge' and replaces it with a hemistich of his own: ']e con-
nais votre attente,' so that Athalie can cry in the verse following 'Mais nous nous
rcverrons. Adieu! ]e sors contente. .' In Athalie,
. .
IV, in, twenty-five verses fall
under the censor's scissors; but that leaving no rhyme for the line 'Pretres saints,
c'cst a vous de prevenir sa rage' the censor follows with a line of his own: 'De
"
proclamer foas pour signal du carnage! The time Napoleon spent in keeping an
eye on the theatre, the press, and Mme. de Stael, he could certainly have better
spent on affairs of his Empire. But he had a mania that has been the mania of many
another statesman. Such men can never learn that the art of government lies not in
trying to change residues but in skilful manipulation of existing residues. If only
they would lay aside their preconceptions and condescend to take some notice of
history, they would see that in persecuting derivations in order to modify residues
governments waste enormous amounts of energy, inflict untold sufferings on their
subjects, compromise their own power, and achieve results of little account.
Speaking in L 'Empire liberal, Vol. VI, p. 346, of the acrimonious attacks
1
1749
of the clergy on Renan's Life of Jesus, Ollivier says: 'The results the bishops
achieved were not what they expected. Lcsseps once told me that the chief item in
749
many people of a contradictory turn of mind to condemn a thing is a

In certain
surer way of gaining its acceptance than to praise it.
matters also, and notably in matters of sex, a certain instinct of
perverseness is awakened in that way, so

that the individual is
stimulated to do the very thing one would dissuade him from do-
his expense account for advertisements [The word was a euphemism.] in England
in favour of the Suez Canal was the amounts he paid for attacks on himself [italics
Ollivier's]. Renan protested. 'You are wrong/ his friends assured him. 'Attacks
alone attract attention. Then they are forgotten and nothing is remembered except
the name or the act attacked/ Each pastoral of the bishops increased the circulation
of the book, and many a person who would not have noticed the publication said
to himself: 'Well, if that book is so wicked, I guess I must read it.' Far from ex-
tinguishing the torch, they had lighted it." Charpentier, Carpentariana, pp. 337-38:
"La Mothe le Vayer having written a book that was not selling, his publisher came
to him and complained, begging him to make up for it by doing something else. He
told the mannot to worry, that he had enough influence at Court to get his book
suppressed, and that once that was done, he would sell all he cared to print. He
had the book suppressed, and things turned out as he had predicted: everyone hur-
ried to get a copy of the book, and the publisher was obliged to get out a new
edition at once in order to provide everyone with copies." Prosecution of the Chan-
sons of P. J. Beranger (Proces faits . .
(Dupin speaking for the
.), pp. 74-76
defence): 'The idea is to book of poems, and public
halt the circulation of a
curiosity is aroused to the highest pitch! The idea is to do away with certain fea-
tures that are regarded as harmful, and ephemeral as they were by nature, they
are made as eternal as the history with which they are associated! ... If there
were any doubt of that, it would be a simple matter to consult experience. It would
all prosecutions of this kind have produced results contrary to those
bear witness that
expected. M. de Lauraguais wrote to the Parlcment of Paris: 'Honour to burned
books!' He might have added: 'Profits to writers and publishers!* single detail A
will suffice to prove 1775 some satirical verses had been published against
it. In
the Chancellor, Maupeou. ... To ridicule a Chancellor, or even a mere registrar of
deeds, was a serious matter in those days. Hurt to the quick, Maupeou stormed at
the writer, threatening him with all his wrath if ever he were detected. To escape
the ministerial whirlwind the rhymster fled to England, whence he wrote to
Maupeou enclosing a new satire in verse. 'Mon seigneur,' said he, 'I have never
wanted more than a modest income of 3,000 francs. My first song which displeased
you so much has earned me a capital of 30,000 francs from the sole fact of your
displeasure. Invested at 5 per cent that gives me half my amount. Please, sir, show
the same wrath against this new satire which I send you. That will complete the
revenue. I desire and I promise you that I will write no more." Belin, The Trade in
Prohibited Booths in Paris, 7750-77^9 (Le commerce, etc.), pp. 109-10: "It was easy
to determine that to proscribe a work was to call attention to it, that the prohibi-
tion aroused curiosity and served merely to multiply surreptitious editions that
were dangerous from the inferences that were drawn from all the mystery. So a
little pamphlet entitled So Much the Better for Her, which Choiscul hesitated for
some days before condemning, sold up to 4,000 copies 'under the cloak* during the
fortnight but ceased making any noise once it was permissible to offer it
first
207
2
ing. In such matters when silence actually leaves the individual in
ignorance oftentimes about the only effective means of dealing

it is
with him. Silence with regard to persons is very effective in political

connexions also. There are many situations where it is better for a
politician to be attacked and reviled than to hold no place in public

attention. For the same reason an occurrence of little or of no im-
publicly for sale (Favart to Durazzo, 1760, Favart, Memoires et correspondancc

litteraires, Vol. I, p. 99). So the Secret Memoirs reported in 1780: 'There has been
a great demand for a pamphlet entitled Essay as to the Judgment to be Passed on
Voltaire since it has been suppressed by decree of the Council (XIV, 4).' Voltaire
was quite right in saying, Letter to Voisenon, July 24, 1756 [CEuvres, Vol. XI, p.
789] 'A
: censure from those gentlemen merely sells a book. The publishers ought
to pay them to burn everything they print.' Extract from the Pot pourri, Etrennes
atix gens de lettres, quoted by Metra [Correspon dance secrete politique et litteraire,
Vol. IV, p. 293] 'Burning was for a book what election to the Academy was for
:
the man of letters.' Diderot, Letter on the BooJ^ Trade (Lettre, etc., p. 66): The
severer the proscription, the higher the price of the book, the greater the eagerness
to read it, the wider its sale, the more it was read. . . . How often might not
the publisher and the author of a licenced book have said to the magistrate, had
they dared: "Please, gentlemen, a little proclamation condemning me to be tonged
and burned at the foot of your great staircase 1" When sentences against a book
were being cried, the type-setters in the printing establishments would exclaim:
" '
"Good! Another edition!" Hallays-Dabot, La censure dramatique et le theatre, p.
61 (in question Clarctic's Les gueux): "The censorship adjudged the play inoffen-
sive. It was therefore required to appear before the public as a play much talked
of in advance by part of the press but without the anticipatory sympathy that at-
tends victims of the censorship. ... It was a virtual failure." The deletion of a
number of lines in Victor Hugo's Marion de Lor me was enough to lend popularity
to others that were supposed to summarize them. I say "supposed," for the famous
verses read:
"De I' a litre Marion rien en moi est reste.
ton amour m'a reIait une virginite."
("Of the other Marion nothing me. Your love has given me a second
is left in
virginity.") Now the poet says in a note: "The author's manuscript contained four
verses that were suppressed in the stage version and which we think should be
printed here. At the odious proposal of Laffemas, Marion turns without answering
toward Didier's prison and says:
'Mon Didier, pres de tot rien de moi n'cst reste,

"
et ton amour m'a fait une virginite/
Had the lines not been censored no one probably would have remembered them.
2
1749 In a day gone by many libertines felt more deeply stirred by love-affairs
with nuns than with ordinary women, and cases might be mentioned where lovers
insisted that their lay mistresses wear monastic habits. In England in our day
certain persons are being led in a spirit of contradiction to break rules that there
is an effort to enforce by law and which would probably be respected if no pro-
hibition existed.
I2O8 THE MIND AND SOCIETY ^749
portance that serves to make him a topic of general discussion may
be the starting-point for his success. Many many lawyers, Gambetta,
for instance, owe their start towards fame and power to some
clamorous trial. To minimize the importance of an incident or a fact
3
it is somewhat less effective but still
helpful to say nothing of it,
the efficacy depending on whether or not in that way the public can
be kept from concentrating upon it, either because many people
3
1749 Many religious organizations make
a practice of saying nothing of occur-
rences that might occasion scandal. Such things are commonplace in the Christian
Church and other religions of that kind. I will give one example from the Drey-
fusard religion of certain French intellectuals. On M. Millerand's reinstatement of
Du Paty de Clam in the territorial army ( 1580 3 ), a writer in the Gazette de
Lausanne, Feb. 3, 1913, reports: "The truth is, it was all a trade, the promise to
M. Du Paty to reinstate him being given against his promise to desist from his
appeal, which was embarrassing because it rested on a charge that was true. Amid
applause from the Left, M. Jaures made a fiery protest that the deal should not
go through, that M. Du Paty was to be told: 'You can justify yourself as you see
fit!' Now let us go slowly. That there should have been no such deal is very
possible. The bargaining that was struck was nothing to boast of, but that M.
Du Paty was to be left the task of clearing himself, no, no, and again no! It
was the work of a moment to determine whether M. Du Paty had been cashiered
on the basis of a forged document, and if so and it was so he was entitled to
fair treatment. The mind refuses to admit that men who have done themselves
honour by their attitude in a tragic campaign should not have seen that it was
as intolerable that M. Du Paty should be the victim of a forged document as it was
that Captain Dreyfus should be the victim of the secret production of forged
and criminal documents." If, now, one turns to the many Dreyfusard or humani-
tarian newspapers of those days it will be seen that, in general, they maintain
scrupulous silence as to any forgery. They could have denied that the document
was a forgery; they could even have declared it genuine what is not justifiable in
defence of a faith? As a matter of fact they preferred to say nothing.
Here, in a connexion altogether different, is an instance that is typical of a large
number of cases. In the years 1912 and 1913 it was considered patriotic in Italy
tomake the state budget show surpluses that did not really exist. A number of
important newspapers abroad faithfully reported the statements issued by the Italian
ministries anent such balances and glossed them copiously with interviews by
leading financiers in praise of such striking achievements in finance. But then

1
scholars, such as Giretti and Einaudi ( 2306 ), went to work and showed that the
surpluses in question were fictitious, that there had been deficits instead. Those
same newspapers said nothing. And so far, so good: the papers may have known
nothing of the researches of mere scholars. But what they could not have missed,
in view of the eminence of the individual and the platform from which he spoke,
was the incisive criticism of such doings delivered in the Chamber of Deputies by
Signor Sonnino. Yet those papers still held their peace! And lo, the strange coin-
cidence! Gossip had it that those papers were partly owned by "speculators" who
thought it better for their activities on exchange that no publicity be given the
matter at just that moment.
1749 SILENCE AND ASSEVERATION 1209
never hear of it, or because those who do, observing no interest in
4
it, come
to ignore it themselves. Silence as to theories and arguments
that have to be combated is also more or less effective according as
it succeeds or causing them to be ignored, forgotten, or be-
fails in
littled, and oftentimes is far more devastating than any refutation

could possibly be. In the same way, repetition, though it has not the
slightestlogico-experimental validity, is more effective than the
5
soundest logico-experimental demonstration. The asseveration in-
fluences sentiments and modifies residues; the demonstration ap-
peals to the reason and may in the very best case modify derivations :
it has little effect

upon sentiments. It is significant that when a gov-
ernment or a financial institution wishes to have some measure de-
fended by the newspapers it has in tow, the arguments it uses are
frequently one might almost say always far from being the ones
best calculated to show the advantages of the measure.
Generally
the cheapest verbal subterfuges are called into play derivations
based on authority, and the like. But that does not matter. More
often than not it is the best way. The important thing is to have a
derivation that is simple, and readily grasped by everybody, even
the most ignorant people, and then to repeat it over and over and
6
over again.
4 This is
1749 not just the place to consider how and when such results are
achieved. Here we are concerned strictly with the manner of working of residues,
and not with the ways in which die organization of society permits the realization
of this or that purpose.
5 L Empire
f
1749 Ollivier, liberal, Vol. V, p. 138: "Endless repetition has to

be one of the familiar demons of the man who would influence a distraught or
indifferent crowd. An idea does not begin, I will not say to be understood, to be
even perceived until it Then the day finally
has been repeated thousands of times.
comes when that good Panurge of a demos finally hears, understands, warms to
you, congratulates you on having so well divined and expressed his thought, and
there you are popular. The publicist who really knows his trade repeats the same
article for years. The special pleader must do that too."
6
1749 That is the case also with many critics of current developments
in social or economic science, persons who are unacquainted with the first princi-
ples of those sciences, yet not a few of whom have made counterfeit reputations
as experts. They use certain types of derivations (they are always the same) that
are well suited to their own ignorance and to brains that can swallow them. I will
specify a few such types: i. The boot^ is badly written. It is easy in any language
to find some case where the use of a word is doubtful and call it a mistake. But
even were obviously wrong, what has that to do with the logico-experimental
if it
validity of a proposition? If a theorem of Euclid's is stated in barbarous or illiterate
language, does it cease to be true? No; but to refute it one has to be a mathema-
12 IO TREATISE ON GENERAL SOCIOLOGY
1750. Oftentimes, to refute an absurd argument, and as soundly
as one may wish, proves to be a means of accrediting it if it chances
to correspond to sentiments powerfully active at the moment
1
( 1749 ). The same is also true, of course, of reasonings that are
sound from the logico-experimental standpoint, and in general, of
attacks of all sorts and persecutions of theories, opinions, doctrines.
Whence the illusion that "truth" has some mysterious capacity for
triumphing over persecutions. That notion may accord with the facts
in the domain of pure logico-experimental science ; but it less often
tician, whereas to say that "the style is bad" one need only be a fool. 2. The boo\
contains nothing new. In its extreme implication the derivation implies an accu-
sation of plagiarism. It would be difficult to find a writer of any worth or repute
who has not been the victim of such charges. In a tale of Boccaccio, Decameron,
I, 82, Messer Erminio de' Grimaldi asks Guglielmo Borsicre to tell him of "some-
thing that has never been seen," so that he could have a picture made of it. To
which Borsiere replies: "I do not believe I could show you anything that nobody
has ever seen, unless it should be a sneeze or something of that sort; but if you
will, I willshow you something [i.e., courtesy] that I do not think you have ever
seen." Like tart retort might be made to many such critics. 3. The wor\ contains
many mistakes and pains are taken not to designate them, in hopes that people
will accept the criticism without testing it. Then again alleged errors are pointed
out; and when that they
it is shown were not errors, the rectification is ignored
in hopes that people will not hear of it or at least disregard it. That was the case
with our estimable M. Aulard, who
said nothing in reply to Cochin's drastic re-
1
joinder ( 537 ). 4. Personal attacks upon the writer, criticisms of things irrelevant
-
to the problem in hand, and other digressions. 5. Intromission into matters of

science of sentimental considerations of a political or other such character. An indi-
vidual, who thinks himself an "economist," objected to mathematical economics
because, as he maintained, it could never be made "democratic." Another rejected
it, stated in a way of his own, as not calculated to bring "a little more justice into
the world." Another, who seemed somewhat of a stranger to the subject he was
discussing, prattled about "a school" of mathematical economics that was based
on premises of "individualism" (a synonym for the Devil among such people)
and contrasted it with another school, a product of his own imagination, which
would be based on considerations of "collectivism." 6. The writer has not said
everything: he has neglected to quote certain booJ(s and state certain facts. Such
criticism would be sound if the sources and facts overlooked or neglected were
calculated to modify the writer's conclusions; it is fatuous if the conclusions stand in
any event. People inexperienced in scientific investigation cannot understand that a

great mass of detail may hinder, instead of aiding, the discovery of that general
average form of a phenomenon which is the only thing the social sciences are
looking for ( 537). 7. The writer is made to say things he never dreamed of
saying by interpreting in sentimental, political, ethical, and similar senses things that
he said in a strictly scientific sense. The temptation is to judge others by oneself.
People who have never acqured the habit of scientific thinking cannot imagine any-
one else thinking in that detached way.
1751 RESIDUES AND DERIVATIONS 12 1 1
accords and often frankly disaccords with the facts in the case of
reasonings to any extent depending on sentiment.

1751. These effects of refutations and persecutions may be called
indirect; and so may the effects of silence. If they are applied to a
class of facts at all numerous and important and to sentiments that
are at all powerful, they leave unsatisfied, in view of such sentiments,
the sentiments corresponding to Class III (activity) and I-s (need of
logic) residues, while the very fact of restraint intensifies the eager-
ness for that satisfaction. That is especially conspicuous in matters
relating to sex: and it is everyday experience that reticence in such

matters tends to enhance interest in them. But it is no less true in re-
ligious and political matters. If people are forbidden to attack a

dominant religion or an existing political regime, any slightest criti-
cism, any attack however insignificant, stirs the public deeply. When
criticism is permitted and is a matter of everyday occurrence people
become calloused and ignore it. That results from the two elements
that we saw figuring in the effects of derivations ( 1747). When
people are constrained to silence, sentiments are pent up within

them and burst into expression at the first favourable opportunity;
and that may be furnished by the appearance of certain derivations,
which sweep all before them and once accepted lend new force and
aggressiveness to the sentiments. Finding those two elements in
combination in the concrete, we have no way of telling how they
can be distinguished; and our inclination to reduce all our conduct
to logic inclines us to attribute to the second element (force of
derivations) a greater weight than it actually has, even if we do not

give it all the credit. The verifications that we are able to make on
the concrete chiefly concern the synthetic phenomenon where the
two elements stand combined, whereas we can separate them only
by analysis. In France towards the end of the eighteenth century,
the attacks of Voltaire, Holbach, and other philosophers on the
Catholic Church corresponded to a complex of circumstances un-
favourable to Catholicism which is not operative in the case of
similar attacks today. In the eighteenth century the situation in
some part doubtless is
really to be ascribed to the influence of anti-
religious literature; but the major factor, beyond any doubt, was
the manifestation of sentiments already active in people ( 1762 f.).
In countries such as Germany where
nothing can be published
against the sovereign, any

criticism however slight that is made of
him is greedily devoured by the public. In countries such asBelgium
where one may say anything one chooses about the sovereign, no
1
attention is paid to anything written against him. Very instructive is
what took place in France in 1868, when the Empire, after a long
muzzling of the press, gave it a little freedom. Not only the fierce
assaults, but attacks that seem rather trivial to us today, were eagerly
2
taken up by the public.
1752. Silence, refutation, persecution, all have direct effects and
indirect effects ( 1835); and the resultant is a question of quanti-
l
1751 Numberless examples arc available from all periods of history. Tacitus in
his day gives one, Annales, XIV, 50: Fabricius Veiento, a court favourite, had writ-
ten a satire against the Senate and the pontifices. Prosecuted by Nero, he "was con-
victed and exiled from Italy, and his books were ordered burned. Sought after
and greedily read so long as they were obtainable only with danger, they were
3
forgotten as soon as it became again permissible to own them" ( 1330 ). Hallays-
Dabot, Histoire de la censure theatrale en France, p. 265: "The Restoration Govern-
ment went so far wrong as to put an absolute ban on Voltaire. His works were
never to be named. Such a radical suppression was a nuisance. More than
. . .
that was not very shrewd. What was the result? Four years were spent in care-
it
ful watching for the marked foe, ears erect at the slightest allusion. Then one day,
in 1826, at the Odeon, an oversight allowed a valet in outlining an itinerary to
pronounce the lines:
'Le Pont Royal! Fort bicnl . . .
d'un ecrivain jamcttx void le domicile:

de Voltaire! A ce nom le monde cutter . . . Mais chut!
la maison de Voltaire est loin de I'lnstitut.
La void! . . .'
Voltaire! Voltaire's house! The two words were like a match touched to a maga-
zine. The floor leapt to its feet in an uproar and the play was interrupted by round
after round of applause."
2
1751 The first number of Rochefort's Lanternc (Paris, May 31, 1868) begins as
follows: "According to the Imperial Almanach France has 26,000,000 subjects, not
counting subjects of dissatisfaction." The witticism made a hit and was repeated
from one end of France to the other. Who
in our day would pay any particular
attention to a jest of that kind made at the expense of a French ministry? The
Lantcrne had admirers even in the monarch's entourage. ]ournal des Goncourt, Vol.
VI, p. ii (Feb. 6, 1875): "Speaking of the infatuation of all Imperial society at
Fontainebleau for Rochefort's Lanterne, Flaubert told of a jest of Feuillet's. Flau-
bert had seen everybody reading the sheet, and finally he noticed that a master
of the hounds on mounting his horse for the hunt stuffed a copy into his coat-
pocket. Somewhat irritated, he asked of Feuillct: 'Do you really consider Roche-
fort a man of talent?' The Empress's novelist looked about to right and left. Then
he answered: 'For my part, I find him very ordinary, but I should not "
care to be
heard saying so. They would think me jealous.'
1753 EFFECTS OF SILENCE AND OF PERSECUTION 12 13
ties. At one extreme, the direct effect is far

greater than the in-
direct; then gradually along the scale the one increases at the ex-
pense of the other, till at an opposite extreme the indirect effect far
exceeds the direct. At the first extreme we may locate measures
bearing on small numbers of facts and not involving powerful senti-
ments, the measures, for example, that are taken against small
or moral minorities. At the opposite extreme
political, religious,
stand measures directed at large numbers of facts and involving
powerful sentiments; and an example there would be the measures

that are taken, and ever in vain, to prevent manifestations of the
sexual appetite.
it was
1753. In past centuries, in Europe, generally believed that
government, religion, and morality could not endure unless ex-
pressions of thought were held in leash; and events following on
the Revolution of '89 seemed to demonstrate the truth of that
theory; so it came into vogue again during the first decades of die
nineteenth century. Then one by one restrictions on the free ex-
pression of thought gradually lapsed again; and in our day, save

in matters pertaining to the sex religion, they have in great part dis-
appeared, and government, religion, and morality continue to

and the theory would seem therefore to be exploded. But
flourish;
such judgments are too absolute, because the circumstances under
which the theory is applied have changed. To withhold freedom of
thought from people who feel no need of it has no effect of any
kind. To withhold it from people who do "demand" it leaves de-
siresunsated, so that they deepen in intensity, and so, as happened
in France towards the end of the eighteenth century, the granting
of freedom has effects of great intensity that are deleterious to the
institutions of the past. But such
gradually lessen in intensity
effects
and in the end freedom comes to have but slight effects on senti-
ment. When freedom functions chiefly through deriva-
is the rule, it
tions, and we
already know, do not, on the whole, exert
they, as
any great influence. But for that very reason, it then becomes the
wiser policy to pass over a fact or a theory in silence, since that is
1
one of the cases where the direct effect far exceeds the indirect.
I
753
*
With we reach a point where examination of the ways of
the above
achieving ends, of "virtual movements," should begin, and to those problems we

shall come presently ( 1825 f.).
1754. So far we have been
speaking as though society were a
but since that is not the case, what we have said
homogeneous unit;
can apply only, and only approximately, to a population group that
may without going too far astray be regarded as a homogeneous
unit. To determine effects upon a population as a
whole, effects
upon its various strata ( 2025 f.) have to be taken into our calcula-
tion.That explains a development which has been long recognized
empirically: the differing effects, that is, of freedom of thought upon
the educated and the uneducated portions of a population re-
1
spectively.
1755. The influence exerted by great newspapers in our time is
a good illustration of the influence of derivations. It is a matter of

common observation that their power is great. But that does not
come of any special facilities which they possess for forcing their
points of view upon the public, nor of the logico-experimental

validity of their reasonings these are often childish enough. It is all
due to the art they have developed for working at residues through
derivations. Speaking in general, the residues have to be there in
the first
place. That fact determines the limits of the
newspaper's
influence; it cannot go counter to sentiments: it can use them only
1
for one purpose or another. and in a very long
By rare exception,
run, some new residue may be manufactured and one that has
apparently died out be revived. This fact of playing upon residues
further explains
why opposition newspapers are sometimes sup-
2
ported by parties in power. From the logical standpoint such a
1
1754 That too is a subject with which we shall be in a better position to cope
lateron and specifically in the chapter next following.
*
1755 Robert de Jouvenel, La republiquc des camarades, pp. 248, 252: "It is
said that newspapers make
public opinion. The reverse is no less true. A reader is
quite ready to accept the opinion of his newspaper, but the newspaper chooses the
opinion that it judges best fitted to please the reader. Luckily the questions
. . .
on which the public voices its attitude are few in number. It may have very positive
opinions but they are few. So long as those few are never shocked, one may guide
one's readers where one wills in all others."
2
1755 Bismarck was very adept in the art of using newspapers both at home
and abroad. Ollivier, L'Empirc liberal, Vol. XIV, p. 49, tries to acquit his ministry
of the charge of unskilful management of the press: "Bismarck had much the
greater influence with the press, for he could count on at least one paid writer on
every paper to follow his orders. Since we knew who some of them were, we were
in a position to use them for keeping track of the intentions of their paymaster.
[Ollivier was a naive soul. Bismarck's intentions may have been altogether differ-
1755 RESIDUES AND DERIVATIONS 1 2 15
thing would seem absurd. How could a government be so silly as to

pay money to people who are working against it? But once one
thinks of sentiments, the advantage of the practice is apparent. In
the first place the ministry makes sure that the newspaper it buys
ent from the ones he allowed his paid agents to betray.] Furthermore Bismarck had
in hand not only all the Prussian press but most of the papers in Germany and
Austria, and so, to a much greater extent than we, he had means of creating
both in France and in Europe generally any trend of opinion he pleased." Ibid.,
Vol. XII, pp. 304-05: "Bismarck's method was most ingenious. On occasion the
French Government had had some paper abroad in its pay. That had not proved
very profitable, for the fact of the paper's venality soon came to light, and no
further importance would be attached to its opinions. [Those times were different.
In our day such a thing would cast no discredit on a paper.] Bismarck did not buy
papers. He bought one writer on each important paper, the editor-in-chief whenever
possible [Nowadays nobody is bought, directly. The pressure is applied through
financiers who own stock in the corporation that
owns the paper.] or, that failing,
some ordinary reporter whom no one suspected of 'connexions.' The man so
bought was regularly conspicuous for the virulence of his patriotism [A signifi-
cant touch! That is the way of opposition papers in domestic politics.], and in
very timely ways, as best suited the purposes of Prussian policy, he would rouse or
quiet public emotions. [So again, in internal politics.] That system was much
more effective and much cheaper. I know the names of the wretches who were
so employed by German money. I had rather not divulge them." Bismarck worked
the newspapers in the same way even after 1870. Busch, Tagebuchblattcr, Vol. II,
p. 394 (English, Vol. II, pp. 95-96), Feb. 20, 1873: "It appears from a report of Ar-
nim's of the seventeenth of last month that he has engaged a certain [Rudolf] Lin-
dau, brother of the dramatist and critic, and afterwards councillor of the Embassy in
Berlin, to furnish him with detailed reports from the French press. In a despatch of
the eighth instant the ambassador states that Lindau has asked not to be deprived of
the assistance of Beckmann. . .Arnim strongly supported their request 'in the in-
.
Lindau must have someone at his disposal who would under-

terests of the service.'
stand the more compromising portion of the whole arrangement. . .
Besides,
.
neither Herr Lindau nor any other official at the Embassy was in a position to deal
with all the material, and to furnish full and satisfactory reports on the press, and at
the same time to write articles himself for the German, Italian, and Russian news-
papers." Bismarck rejected the device proposed, which shows simply that he preferred
some other. With his crude outspokenness Bismarck makes no secret of the money
he spent on the French press. Cf. his Gedanên und Erinnerungen, p. 508 (Butler,
Vol. II, pp. 179-80), Arnim's prosecution in question: "At no time during his trial
did I mention the fact that certain amounts 6,000 or 7,000 thalcrs which had been
set aside to have our policy defended in the French press, he used to attack our
policy and make trouble for me in the German press." So the Prussian press, there-
fore, would seem to have been, in part at least, as venal as the French. Such con-
fessions on the part of outstanding leaders in public life are precious evidence in
that they establish facts which otherwise would remain doubtful so long as they
were known only through the gossip that is bandied about. In 1913-14, for in-
stance, it was persistently rumoured that the German Government was paying
out large sums of money for attacks by French newspapers on army legislation in
12 1 6 THE MIND AND SOCIETY J
755
will hold at the right moment, that it will not rouse every
its
tongue
it will steer its readers towards
sleeping dog, that venting their
spleen in ways less dangerous to the government than others.
Then
again, there are moments when violent agitations lay hold on a
country. At such times a spark will set off the magazine, and it is
better to be sure no opposition paper strikes it. Thirdly and this
is
exactly what powerful financial syndicates have in view, when,
like governments, they subsidize apparently hostile newspapers
there are ways of opposing certain measures, certain proposals for
legislation, which may influence sentiments quite
as favourably as
the best defence, if not more so. Fourthly, to have a subsidized
opposition newspaper at one's beck and call provides a means, and

often the only means, of getting before an adverse party statements
that they would not read in newspapers favourable to a government
or to a financial syndicate, or which they would suspect for the
3
very reason that they were. Another important means of exerting
France. We have no way of knowing to just what extent such charges were well
founded. We may know some years hence, when and if we get revelations such as
Ollivier'sand Bismarck's. Busch, Tagebuchblatter, Vol. Ill, p. 243 (English, Vol.
II, 428), Sept. 28, 1888, gives details on Bismarck's shrewd use of the press (an
p.
alleged diary of Emperor Frederick in question) "I myself consider the Diary
:
even more genuine than you do. [Bracketed clauses in quotations from Busch
. . .
are omitted from the published German text. A. L.] He [the Emperor Frederick]
was far from being and the father was certainly not a first-
as clever as his father,
rate politician. It is just that which proves its genuineness to me. But at first we
must treat it as doubtful. [The following (English, Vol. II, p. 435, Sept. 28,
. . .
1888) is entirely omitted in German. A. L.] On that occasion he also repeated his
:
plan of campaign with regard to the publication in the Deutsche Rundschau: 'First
assert it to be a forgery, and express indignation at such a calumny upon the noble
dead. Then, when they prove it to be genuine, refute the errors and foolish ideas
"
that it contains.'
3
1755 Busch, Tagebuchblatter (English, Vol. II, p. 471; Passage omitted from
German), quotes a letter from William I to Bismarck dated April 8, 1866, in
which the King complains of an article against the Duke of Coburg (in the
Kreuzzeitung). Bismarck replies: "I confess frankly that the main part of this
article was written at my instance, as I like every one of my colleagues while
having indeed no influence over the Kreuzzeitung to prevent their insertion of mat-
ters to which I object, have yet enough to secure the insertion of what is not
directly opposed to its own tendencies." The Siccle was one of the two republican
newspapers tolerated in France after the coup d'etat of 1851. It received patronage
and subsidies from Napoleon III. Ollivier, L'Empire liberal, Vol. IV, p. 17: "The
Siccle did not belong to a business man, but it was a going concern yielding
large profits. That compelled the editor always to be very careful when con-
ducting an opposition opposition was its reason for existence in order to
1755 INFLUENCE OF NEWSPAPERS 12 1 7
influence through newspapers is to "hush

up" certain facts, certain
certain
arguments, discussions, certain publications. Often all a gov-
ernment or a financial syndicate asks of a newspaper on which it
4
exerts influence is silence.
Almost great newspapers, not excepting a goodly number that

all
are professedly Socialist, have connexions, direct or indirect, with

the plutocracy that is the
ruling power in civilized countries today,
and with the governments in which it plays a part ( 2268 3 ). 5 It is
interesting that that situation should have been realized instinctively
by the French General Federation of Labour and stated in a mani-
avoicl suspension, which would have spelled ruin for the stockholders. [Now-
adays what a newspaper fears is not suppression but the loss of the subsidies,
direct and indirect, that it receives from financial powers,and also that falling-
off in circulation which is certain to result from any opposition to a pronounced
trend in public feeling.] M. Havin was made for that difficult manoeuvre . . .
which was in no way irreconcilable with the Empire. The . . . Siecle [in 1858,
Vol. IV, p. 69] was saved only by a personal appeal by Havin to the Emperor.
. Havin [Vol. XI, p. 122] was a very wide-awake person
. . . . .
maintaining
almost friendly relations with the ministers, and posing as an anti-Clerical to escape
to seem anti-dynastic'* 4
having 1755 ).
4
X
755 I
prefer examples from the past as less likely to stir the feelings of readers
living today. Ollivier, L'Empirc liberal, Gov-
Vol. VI, pp. 212-13: "They [the
ernment's commissioners in Body] the Legislative smooth did not have such
sailing when it came to refuting charges as to stock manipulations that the 'Com-
pany of the South* was alleged to have worked on its own shares in agreement
with the Credit Mobilier. [An account of that fraudulent operation follows.]
. . .
I denounced that stab in the back The Government's com-

(coup de Jarnac). . . .
missioner, M. Dubois, a very fine gentleman, outdid himself with explanations,

which explained nothing and, not only that, implied admission of most of the
facts revealed. The directors of the 'Company of the South* were neverthe-
. . .
less clever enough to prevent [the minutes of that

session] from appearing in any
of the papers in Paris.**
5
1755 In his 1896-1901: petits memoires dti temps de la Ligite,
pp. 209-21, Henry
de Bruchard deals with a number of democratic newspapers that defended Dreyfus.
I omit names, because here we are interested in social phenomena, not in persons.
As I have said, one of the commonest mistakes in matters of this
kind, is to accuse
particular individuals of things that are general. Of persons who wrote for those
papers in all good faith, Bruchard says: "I imagine they were themselves aware
of their own imprudence and of the extent to which they were dupes. In any
event those mandarins of letters must have been able to appreciate how little con-
cerned with the dignity of their profession their anonymous masters were. Ask
those haughty independents who edited their papers, and why
it took them so long
to discover that the editor was always chosen without knowing who made the
their
choice! They know at this late day that the founder and backer was M. L ,
former chief of police and organizer of the League for the Defence of Jews. And to
think that some of them still professed to be revolutionaries! But they had to earn
I2l8 TREATISE ON GENERAL SOCIOLOGY Z
755
festo that the Federation published on the occasion of the Balkan
War of 1912. We
are not interested here in the form in which
the sentiment was expressed, in the derivation, which was as absurd
as any other, but only in the sentiment, altogether unreasoned, in-
their bread and butter, and others just had to write from a mania for seeing their
names at the end of an article. It was a form of humbug, and one had to put up
with everything! They accepted the editorship of a certain P . Now P is
one of the big shareholders in Hiimanite! Does he still represent L and his
heirs? That question was not
raised at the last Socialist convention, yet it was the
one issue that should have been raised!" And to what advantage? If you get rid of
one, another takes his place. If that is the organization of society, there will never
be any shortage on the side of personnel! In 1913, as president of a parliamentary
commission, Jaurcs made every effort to save the plutocrat and demagogue Caillaux
from deserved rebuke for trying to influence the courts in favour of Rochette, through
his friend and crony, Monis. All parties try to use the newspapers for their own
purposes, and the papers, in turn, extort favours by threatening to attack or prom-
ising to defend now one minister, now another. If a person wants to have a news-
paper of his own, he has to face huge expenditures, and they would be net losses
were they not offset by compensations in the shape of honours pure and simple in
the case of some few (very few) politicians; of honours plus money in the case of
most politicians, most political financiers, trust magnates, political attorneys, "fixers,"
"speculators." Palamenghi-Crispi, Giovanni Giolitti, pp. 76-77: "Crispi was unique
among the politicians of his time in this respect also: Ascribing to the newspaper
the great importance that it in fact has in modern life, he always wanted to have
a paper in which he could say what he had to say. But instead of shouldering off
the expense of such a thing upon some group of business men, as so many others
have done (it would be easy to give names), he always paid the bills himself with
his own money. Only by rare exception would some friend help. So it came about
that he was often faced with debts that he was pinched to pay, and had sometimes
to resort to loans from banks, which he was always careful to settle. Everyone knows
the high cost of newspapers that are exclusively devoted to politics. The Rijorma
alone, the organ of the historic Left, which defended Liberal ideas and Liberal states-
men over a period of thirty years, absorbed about 1,200,000 lire from the fruits of
Crispins devoted [That adjective is perhaps superfluous.] labours." Giornale d' Italia,
Nov. 23, 1913: "Another nomination [for the Senate] that is being talked about
on what foundation we do not know and which would greatly please the Reform-
ists [Socialists], is the name of the Milanese banker Delia Torre, who has been and
istnagna pars financial in Socialist and democratic newspapers democratic in a
Reformist sense. Delia Torre is, in a word, the deity of 'blocist' high finance and
may some day be called a pioneer, the day that is, when high finance in Italy, hav-
6
1755 The C.G.T., as they call the Federation in France, held a congress at Paris,
Nov. 24, 1912, to declare its opposition to the war. It adopted the following resolu-
tions:"Recognizing that mobilization must be paralyzed at all costs, the Congress

most effective means must be tried in order to attain that end. The
declares that the
Congress therefore resolves that, in order to cripple the harmful influence of the
bourgeois press, printers and printers* hands should be urged to destroy the presses
of newspapers unless they can be utilized for our cause."
19
stinctive. All that we have been saying is a matter of common
knowledge, and, in private, no one playing any part in public life
or in high finance is so naive as to deny it; but in those same public
leaders try to look shocked and hypocritically say that such talk is
7
bosh. But the amusing thing is that the person who knows such
ing seen which way the wind is blowing, joins the bloc as its elder sister in France
did." Delia Torre was in fact named Senator along with two other Socialists, and
the Corriere della sera, Nov. 25, 1913, writes: "Giolitti today unlocked the doors of
the Senate to Karl Marx, who was behaving a bit too obstreperously up in the gar-
ret [Giolitti had said before the Chamber that now at last the Socialists "had
laid in the garret.*'] and disturbing the peace of mind of people
Marx away up
who thought they had adroitly kidnapped him. Three Socialists are not, after
. . .
all, a strong dose and they

. will not
.
give any great annoyance either to the
.
Government, to which they owe such a debt of gratitude [And vice versa.*], or to
the bourgeoisie. Since the Senate is a legislative body, it too should have rep-
. . .
resentatives of all political tendencies, and it is therefore not a bad idea that, just
as Radicals are now quite numerous in the Senate, Socialists also should find their
place thither Socialists at least from among the favoured few who are well ac-
quainted with stairways at the Quirinal and who in practice show themselves dis-
posed to 'be reasonable.' It is a real pity that the Senate cannot be seasoned also
with a pinch or two of republic; but Republicans, fortunately, never cause any alarm
and, unfortunately, are most pig-headed about their doctrinal chastity. [And so can-
not have a newspaper, since they insist on paying for it themselves.] The Sen- . . .
ate must in fact be de-aged. Or rather, let us call a spade a spade: The Senate too
must be put to some use. That language is more exact and more faithfully describes
the reality of things. [Very true.] If in an honestly democratic spirit one should
setout in earnest to make the Senate genuinely representative of all the currents in
the nation's thought, there could be but one logical conclusion: to face the issue of
an elective Senate fairly and squarely. ... It is true that in that case there would
be a more generous sprinkling of Socialists at Palazzo Madama [the Senate build-
ing] and governmental munificence would no longer be called upon to manifest
itsselfish sympathy with extremist parties." Karly in October, 1918, the following
item appeared in the newspapers: "The great liberal organ in England, the Daily
Chronicle, has been bought by Sir Henry Dalziel and a few friends for ,300,000.
. . . The new proprietor is a wealthy newspaper man and member of Parlia-
ment for the Liberals. He is known especially as an intimate friend and loyal
supporter of Lloyd George both in Parliament and in the press. In that chiefly lies
the political significance of the purchase of the Daily Chronicle, a paper that had
seemed tolerably lukewarm toward Lloyd George of late, and was leaning rather
towards that wing of the Liberal party that recognizes Asquith as its leader. It is
announced that the policies of the paper will not be changed, but it is probable that
under its new ownership it will vigorously support Lloyd George."
7
In May, 1913, a Florentine newspaper that was discontinuing publication
1755
explained how during its thirty-three years of existence it had been sustained by
the various successive governments. Almost all the great Italian newspapers main-
tained a silence of holy chastity on the incident, which might have been of greater
interest to their readers than many insignificant items of news that they did pub-
I22O THE MIND AND SOCIETY 1756
facts in general nevertheless has faith implicit in his own news-
paper on matters in which he can have no doubt as to the part
played by the pocket-books of international finance. During the
Balkan War the news published in many papers had much less to
do with facts as they were than with the facts as coloured in the
interests of this or that "scheme" on the
part of international finance;
and yet the news they printed was accepted as news by persons who
were perfectly well aware of the resourcefulness and power of those
8
influences. Plutocratic demagogues, such as Caillaux and
Lloyd
George, are praised by newspapers of great reputation in deference to
the clink of the arguments that
Figaro found so irresistible. Many
of the small fry take the bait and that is
nothing to wonder at;
but plenty of big fish too are hooked, and that is not so
easy to under-
stand. true that the big fellows often
profess to believe
It is
many
things that they find it to their interests to believe.
1756. There are one or two

types of derivations that are
widely
used for influencing the ignorant more particularly. are to be
They
noted in orations addressed of yore to the masses in Athens and
Rome. They play a much more important role in the modern news-
paper. One of the most frequent is
designed to bring sentiments of
authority (residue IV-2) into play) The derivation might be stated
in logical form as follows: "A certain
proposal, A, can be sound only
if it is made by an honest man. The person who making is
pro- this
posal is not an honest man (or, he is being paid to make it). There-
fore the proposal A
is detrimental to the
l
country." That of course
lish.They probably remembered most opportunely the adage: De te jabnla narratur.
The Belgian Government has published a list of the newspapers that were subsi-
dized by King Leopold to praise his administration in the
Congo or at least to say
nothing as to its crimes. Some future historian of the present plutocratic regime in
the civilized countries of the West will
get some most instructive data from that
publication.
8
1755 In Italy plenty of attention was called to the fact in the case of
newspapers
hostile to Italy; but nothing was said of the
pro-Italian papers, though their policies
were dictated by the very same forces that determined the policies of the opposition
press.
x
1756 Oftentimes the argument runs: "The person who is making the proposal
A today was opposed to it some time ago." That is supposed to prove that the pro-
posal A is not sound. Never mind the fact that a man may honestly change his mind
as circumstanceschange Bonghi used to say, in that connexion, that only an ani-
mal never changes its mind. But even if it were shown that the person proposing A
has changed not in view of any intrinsic merit in A but in hopes of
deriving some
1757 THE NEWSPAPER AND SEX 1 22 1
is absurd; and anyone so arguing abandons the rational domain

therewith; but not so for the auditor, who is persuaded not by the
force of the logic but by associations of sentiments. Quite instinctively
he realizes that he is
incapable of judging directly whether is A
good or bad for his country, that he must therefore rely upon the
judgment of someone else; and in accepting such a judgment, he

prefers to have it from a person whom
he deems worthy of his
esteem. This derivation is oftentimes the only one that certain news-
papers use. They never admit that there are problems of things.
They answer all
questions by abusing persons. Jugglers of pens
it easier to call names than to think
naturally find logically, and
their tactics often prove successful because the public that feeds on
such writing is an ignorant public, and forms its opinions more by
itssentiments than by its brains. But the cord breaks when the bow
is drawn too taut. In a number and slander of men
of countries abuse
in public life have ceased to be effective. They were more so in the
days when courts afforded protection against them and they were
therefor^ less common.
1757. j
A
considerable group of such derivations aims at utilizing
the sex Residues. It was a rule with few exceptions in centuries past
for members of a dominant religion to accuse dissenters of im-
morality (1341^). Ignoring the fact that such charges were
nearly always us assume that they were true. In that case
false, let
the derivationwould have a logical element, being soundly urgeable
against anyone preaching a certain morality and then deporting
himself against it. But that logical element vanishes when the
derivation turned against statesmen or heads of governments
is
( 2262). Facts clearly show that there is not the slightest connexion
between a man's sex morality and his worth as a statesman or as an
personal advantage from A, that would still be nothing against A. It would simply
be taking us back to the personality derivation mentioned above. The fact that such
derivations can have no weight in the judgment that is to be given of A is all the
truth there was in the defence Caillaux's friends made for him against the attacks
of M. Calmette in Figaro. It is undeniable that the advantages or disadvantages ac-
cruing to a given society from an income-tax levy have nothing, absolutely nothing,
to do with the domestic, moral, and even statesmanlike qualities of the individual
proposing one. But to inflict the death-penalty on a person for using those fallacious
derivations seems to be too severe a punishment; and if the practice should become
so general as to be applied by every citizen, few newspaper editors, and indeed few
writers, would be left alive.
occupant of a throne. Yet it is an argument that is almost invariably

used against such persons by their enemies, and where hatreds are
intense some charge of incestuous sex relations becomes the rule.
Ordinary politicians have thejionour of being treated in that re-

1
spect on a par with sovereigns. /
1758. Generally speaking, derivations that exploit sex residues

have the of being difficult to refute and of depreciating
advantage
the victim even the refutation by some singular chance is perfect.
if
It was
long asserted, though in no way proved, that Napoleon I had
relations with his sisters. In the eyes of many people, that accusation
all
by itself was enough to condemn him as citizen, as public servant,
as head of the state. So in days gone by a charge of heresy, even
when unproved, was make a man at least suspect to
sufficient to
good Catholics.
Heresy in matters of sex holds in our day the place
held by heresy of yore in matters of Catholic doctrine.
1759* Verbal derivations are also great favourites with the news-
papers. In the days of the Restoration in France anything not to

the liking of the dominant party was called "revolutionary," and
that was enough to damn it. Nowadays it is called "reactionary,"
and that too is enough to damn it. Such arguments by epithet bring
sentiments of party and sect into play (residues Class IV, sociality).
1760. There is not much competition in the field of large-scale
journalism, because the cost of establishing a newspaper of that type

*
1757 Sorbiere, Sorberiana, s.v. Anabaptistes (pp. 15, 17-18): "Extravagant tales
are current even in Holland as to the Anabaptists, who none the less are good
people. They are said, among other things, to hold meetings at night and take ad-
vantage of the darkness to mingle promiscuously. That is altogether false and has
no basis except a tale of John of Leyden, King of Munster, and the fact that a hun-
dred years or more ago there were some few who believed that in order to be saved
one had to go stark-naked Adam before the Fall, whence they were called
like
'Adamists.' ... So know, there has been nothing of the sort since, and
far as I
intelligent people in Amsterdam ridicule the absurd stories that have been spread
abroad. All the same I remember that at Paris a certain Soubeyran averred that he
had attended one such meeting at night and had had the daughter of his host who
thereafter refused him at home what she had granted him in the name of Christian
love. There is nothing surprising in the fact that there should be liars now and
then. What is more so is that an imposture should spread so easily in the credence
of a whole people, as is the case in this matter. And then there is the story of the
girl with a pig's snout, a print of whom was sold to every cobbler in Paris and
Holland. In Amsterdam she was generally supposed to live in a house on the
Keyssergraft. However, no one could ever point it out and that was enough to
show that the story was false."
is enormous. It
may, therefore, be a very good idea to have several
such papers at one's disposal, and better yet if they belong to different
parties.
The powerful financial combinations of our day have come
to understand that thoroughly and, taking advantage of the im-
personal character of the corporations that own newspapers, they

strive togain control within such corporations and shrewdly make
1
use of them. Gossip mentions a number of newspapers as belonging
to oppositeand even hostile political parties, but operated by one
same newspaper trust; and for not a few such rumoured facts there
is
fairly adequate proof. The function of such trusts, fundamentally,
is to exploit the sentiments of people who read newspapers. The
power they wield is

something like the power formerly wielded by
2
the Jesuits, but it is
vastly more extensive.
1
1760 Speaking of protectionist newspapers in England in his article, "La logica
protezionista" p. 856, Einaudi remarks: "Such the language in which they venture
to describe agriculture in England today. The Times, unfortunately, has fallen
. . .
into the hands of the 'yellow' journalist who is at the head of the Daily
same great
Mail and a 'combine* of imperialistic protectionist newspapers. Rider Haggard is a
man of the sensational school, the school of those newspaper men in Italy who
described the agricultural marvels of Libya before the war and during the first
months of the war.'*
2
1760 Robert de Jouvenel, La republique des camarades, pp. 201-09: "The man-
ager of a newspaper is rarely a newspaper man. [That may be overstating a little.]
He is almost never a politician. He is, most often, a man interested in public con-
tracts.Pie is always a business man. [As we have often remarked, there is, in gen-
eial, an clement of truth in rhetoric of that type.] Sometimes the newspaper is his
only business, then again it is only one branch of a main business. In either case,
the newspaper business involves the turnover of a great commercial establishment.
[That is true of large countries where plutocracy is dominant.] There are papers
[in France] whose annual business amounts to more than $6,000,000. A third-class
daily represents an outlay of $300,000 a year. To handle such a budget it is not
enough to have imagination, wit, or even talent. ... In 1830 a newspaper was a
matter of four small pages the two sides of one sheet. It contained a few poorly
paid or unpaid articles, no despatches, no costly news, no illustrations. It cost 5
cents. Today most newspapers are of six, eight, ten, or twelve pages. They are illus-
trated with costly pictures. They carry articles by Academicians or other outstanding
individualities for which high prices are paid. They print columns of despatches
some of which cost several francs per word. They are sold to retailers at a fifth of
a cent per copy. How
then do they live? They live by their advertising, unless, of
course, they live by their 'deals.' A
newspaper can do without writers and reporters,
it can even do without appearing. [Jouvenel explains that paradox in a note: "There
is somewhere or other a cemetery for suspended publications. Some enterprising

business man owns their titles, has them printed at the top of columns in some
other paper, and so collects the proceeds of outstanding contracts for advertising.
It is a flourishing business."] It cannot do without 'publicity.' Before coming
. . .
1761. Returning now to the matter of the relations between der-
ivations and residues in general one oftentimes imagines that
derivations have been transformed into residues, whereas the reverse
is
really the case, residues manifesting themselves through deriva-
tions(1747, 1751). That mistake is the more readily made in
view of the way in which we come by our knowledge of social
phenomena. Most of our information is derived from the written
word. It is therefore easy to mistake the effect for the cause and
assume that the literary expression is the cause, whereas it is noth-
ing but the effect.
1762. It is observed that at a certain moment a given idea makes

its
appearance in literary productions and then develops and flour-
ishes exuberantly. We seem to be describing the facts accurately
when we say that literature has planted that idea in the minds of
men. That may sometimes be the case, but the reverse is the more
frequent case. In other words, sentiments already present in the

minds of men have inspired the literature and then nursed it to
prosperous vogue ( 1751). Residues of our IV-e2 variety, sentiments
astray. When we are
of authority, then intervene to lead us further
reading a great writer, it seems evident enough that only such a man
could have the power to shape
society in that way, his way.
1763. When one reads Voltaire, it is natural
enough to conclude
that he was the artisan of the unbelief so
prominent in the people
of his time. But the matter a little more closely, we can
pondering
only wonder how it could have come about, if that is the general
rule, that the writings of Lucian, which are in no way inferior to
Voltaire's on the side of
literary quality and logical effectiveness,
failed to have an influence as great as Voltaire's, that Lucian stood
alone in his unbelief while faith and were all
superstition increasing
about him. There is no way of explaining such facts, and many
to any decision, the manager of a paper, be he an angel with wings, has to con-
sider two essential requisites: i. He must not offend those who have the news to
give out all the powers, that is, in politics or public administration. 2. He must
not offend those who have 'publicity' to give out, in other words, all the
powers
in business and finance. [Not all, to be exact: those with which the
strictly only
newspaper is when they are ser-
working.] Newspapers are called 'governmental'
are called 'independent* when
they are merely 'governmental/ An 'op-
vile. They
position paper* is a paper that is flirting with the ministry in power. Some few
organs have no connexions with the Government in any way through anybody, but
no one of course would ever make the mistake of taking them
seriously."
1764 VOLTAIRE AND LUCIAN 1225
others of the kind, except by assuming that the seed that is sown
bears fruit, or fails to bear fruit, according as it falls on congenial
or uncongenial soil. The philosophes of the eighteenth century in
France revived arguments that had already been used against Chris-
tianity by Celsus and the Emperor Julian. Why did they succeed
where their predecessors failed? Obviously because there was a
difference in the minds of the people whom
they addressed. But that
is not all. Had
Voltaire been the chief artisan of the ideas prevalent
among his countrymen, those ideas should not have weakened in
intensity so long as his literary labours continued. Yet towards the

end of Voltaire's life, while his fame was still soaring, one notes the
rise of a movement directly opposite to his tendencies: the educated
classes were turning to Rousseau. Rousseau, in his turn, was doing
little more, on the whole, than to state derivations that

corresponded
to residues that Voltaire had left unstirred. To that Rousseau owed
the favour with which the public showered him, just as Voltaire
owed the popularity he had enjoyed to derivations corresponding
to other residues. Those writers did not create the public sentiments
of their day. The sentiments created the reputations of those writers.
So much for the main element in the phenomenon ( 1747); for
the facts clearly show that the writing of such men was not entirely
and absolutely without effect, that it did amount to something. But,
as compared with the other, this latter effect seems something quite
secondary.
1764. What we have just been saying relates to the effectiveness of
certain reasonings, but it has nothing to do with the intrinsic value
of the reasonings in themselves. It is obvious that the scientific genius
of a Newton, the military skill of a Napoleon or a Moltke, the diplo-
matic talent of a Bismarck, the literary value of a Lucian or a Vol-
taire, have nothing to do with residues. But for the activity of such
men to have any notable effects, they must encounter favourable
circumstances in their respective societies through the presence of
certain residues. Had Newton lived in the Middle Ages, he might
have produced some mere work in theology. Had Voltaire lived in
the day of Lucian, he would have had no following. Had Bismarck
lived in a country controlled
by democratic or plutocratic politicians,
and had he managed to get as far as a seat in a Parliament, he would
have seen a Depretis or a Giolitti preferred to him in Italy, a Rouvier
or a Caillaux in France.
1765/ Still another cause of the error of assigning too great an
importance to derivations as regards

determining the social equilib-
rium is a temptation we feel to ascribe

objective existence to certain
ideas, principles, dogmas, and then to reason as though they func-
tioned by themselves independently of residues. Class II residues
(group-persistences) are largely responsible for that illusion. The

metaphysical entities they create are altogether similar to the gods of
the theologians, and function in the very same manner. Few the
day gone by that could narrate a course of events and

histories in a
consider their mutual relations without dragging in gods some-
where, somehow, and few the histories in our day which fail to
assume implicitly or explicitly that principles and theories serve to
shape human society.

1766. d. Influence of derivations on derivations. On this subject
we touched in our study of derivations, noting that when a type of
derivation comes into vogue, derivations of the same type come for-
ward in great numbers. The residues of sociality that encourage
people to be like their fellows, to imitate them, serve to give a
common form to certain derivation^ If, moreover, in virtue of strong
feelings a person has been prevented from perceiving the fallacy
of a certain argument in a certain case, he readily fails to perceive
the same fallacy in other cases where he is not strongly influenced
by his feelings. That favours the growth of derivations of the type
1
of the derivation used in the special case. Furthermore, less intellec-
tual effort is required to imitate tharf to create. That is why minor
writers are constantly repeating phrases, formulas, and arguments
used by authors of greater reputation and prestige.
17670 Of great importance is a reciprocal tendency in derivations
1766
x
A
few centuries back almost all the derivations that were used in social or
pseudo-scientific matters were combined with considerations of Christian theology;
nowadays they are combined with considerations of humanitarian theology. The
old ones often seem absurd to us; ours will seem just as absurd to people of future
generations, when some other theology has superseded the humanitarian. A few
centuries ago everything was explained by "original sin." Nowadays everything is
8
explained by "the shortcomings of society" ( 1716 ). In the future there will be
some other explanation, equally theological and, from the experimental standpoint,
equally inept.
to eliminate, in appearances at least, any substantial contradiction
1
that may exist between them. Once a derivation is accepted, it
comes about that among educated persons literary men, theolo-
gians, metaphysicists, pseudo-scientists and the like there will
be
some who insist on drawing logical inferences from it. Such in-
ferences stray farther and farther afield from the residues corre-
sponding to the derivation in which they originated, and therefore

farther and farther afield from realities. Let A stand for certain
sentiments, certain residues, to which a derivation, S corresponds.f
So long as that correspondence remains unaltered, S is a way of

stating a real fact, and differs from it only in form. But a logical
inference, C, drawn from S, may, in point of substance, lose contact
with A and seriously so (2083). That situation presents itself
under various forms: I. Lac\ of definiteness. The derivation S,
stated in ordinary language, sometimes fails to correspond to any-
thing definite and is accepted only in virtue of a vague accord with

certain sentiments. Ittherefore cannot serve as a premise for any
reasoning at all strict ( 826 f.). 2. Lacf( of correspondence. In the
very best case, even when there is

correspondence between S and A,
is never
the coincidence perfect, and the inferences logically drawn
from S do not accordingly apply to A. Taking the two forms to-
gether, we may
say therefore that through lack of definiteness or
correspondence on the part of 5, no accurate inferences can be
drawn from it, or, if so drawn, they are not valid for A. 3. Com-
plexity of sentiments. The group of sentiments, A, is never sharply
defined, and the lack of correspondence between A
and S is due,
therefore, not only to imperfect correspondence between the definite
elements in A and
between the nucleus of the fog of sentiments
S,
and S, but also to the complete lack of correspondence between S
and the indefinite elements in A, between S and the fog that hangs
about the nucleus A. 4. Interdependence of groups of sentiments.
The group A
is not
independent of other groups, M, P, 0. . . . In
the individual, these groups have adapted themselves after a fashion
1767
l
We have already dealt with this tendency at length, noticing the error of
many educated persons in imagining that because they themselves feel an urgent
need, apparent or real, for logic the same need is felt, and to the same extent, by
everybody. That among other reasons is why they devise "scientific'* religions, in
the belief that in so doing they are satisfying a public demand. As a matter of fact
such religions remain for the exclusive use and consumption of their few founders.
to getting along together and cohabit in a sort of harmony; but the
harmony vanishes in their respective logical implications. Many

Christian feudal lords of the old days harboured a sentiment, A,
connected with the forgiveness of wrongs and enforced by religion,
along with a sentiment, M, which was enforced by the exigencies of
practical life, by a sense of personal honour, and even by
a desire
for vengeance. But the relatively peaceful cohabitation of those two
sentiments would have vanished in their logical corollaries if from
A, on the one hand, the feudal baron had drawn the conclusion
that it was his duty patiently to put up with every insult and every
wrong without defending himself; and if from M, on the other,

he had drawn the conclusion that the Gospels, of which takes M
no account, were silly
and fatuous books. 5. Correspondence between
theories and social facts. If the correspondence between A and S
were perfect in each individual, it would also be perfect in the com-
munity composed of such individuals, and the conduct of the
community could be logically inferred from S. Knowledge of politi-
cal and social forms would in that case be easy. It is in fact no very
difficult task to
identify the derivations that are current in a society,
and if
knowledge of political and social facts could be derived from
them would develop under difficulties no
logically, social science
greater and no different than those encountered by geometry. As
everybody knows, that is not the case. To reason geometrically in

social matters is to
depart, much or little, from realities. But it is a
mistake to lay the blame for that on the reasoning; it is the premise
that sets us on the wrong road. And it is likewise a mistake to try
to evaluate the social
importance of a residue by the correspondence
of the inferences drawn from it with realities; for the importance
of a residue lies chiefly in its
correspondence with the sentiments that
2
it
expresses.
2
1767 Rcnan, Histoire du peuple d' Israel, Vol. V, pp. 349-50: "How, after all
that, can Philo remain a Jew? That would be hard to say, were it not well known
that in a question involving one's mother-religion, the heart has touching sophis-
tries to reconcile things that have no connexion with each other. [The case of Philo
is Renan seems to think, a particular case. That happens in general. And

not, as
we can do without the "touching."] Plato loves to illustrate his philosophical posi-
tions with the most attractive myths of the Greek genius. Proclus and Malebranche
both think they are following their ancestral religions, the one in writing philo-
sophical hymns to Venus, the other in saying Mass. Inconsistency in such connex-
ions is piety. Rather than abandon a belief that is dear to one, any false identifica-
1769 DARWINIAN SOCIOLOGY
Wehave already dealt frequently and at length with problems
arising in connexion with
the first four of these forms. It still re-
mains for us to consider those peculiar to the fifth; but they are part
of a more general problem that we must now examine.
1768. Relations of residues and
derivations to other social facts.
We have seen ( 802-03) that there is a certain correspondence be-
tween the logico-experimental sciences, which begin with experi-
mental principles, A, and from them, by rigorous logic, draw the in-
ferences C, and social reasonings, which start with residues, a, and
from them, through derivations, b, which are compounds of residues
and logic, reach inferences c. The conclusions of the logico-experi-
mental sciences overlooking, for the moment, cases where observa-
tions of fact are not exact and the logic unsound will surely accord
with the facts, since the principles A picture the facts exactly and
the reasoning is faultless. But the same cannot be said of social
reasonings; for we have no way in just what relation
of knowing
the residues, a, stand towards the facts, nor the value of the reason-
ing, b, in
residues figure. And yet daily experience
which other
shows that many such reasonings lead to inferences that do accord
with the facts. That cannot be doubted, once we reflect that they are
the only ones that have been used in social life, and that if they led to
results which did not square with the facts, all societies would long
since have been annihilated. How then can it be that conclusions
drawn from residues should so accord with the facts?
1769. The solution of this problem is to be sought in the relation-
ship in which residues and derivations stand towards social facts.

If residues were expressions of those facts in the
way in which the
principles of the experimental sciences are expressions of fact, and
if the derivations were strictly logical, the accord between the con-
tion, any convenient twist, is admissible. Moses Maimonides will use the same
method in the twelfth century, upholding both the Torah and Aristotle the Torah
interpreted after the manner of the Talmudists, Aristotle after the materialist fashion
2
of Averroes 1931 ], The history of the human mind is full of such pious para-
[
doxes. What
Philo did nineteen hundred years ago, many honest minds are doing
in our day under the sway of a resolve not to abandon beliefs that are regarded as
something ancestral. [Still representing as particular a trait that is general for every
type of derivation.] The most perilous acrobatics are risked in order to reconcile
faith and reason. [In general terms, to reconcile derivations based on heterogeneous
residues.] After obstinately rejecting the results of science, people reverse positions
when the evidence is overwhelming and coolly say, 'We knew that before you did.' "
elusions and experience should be certain and perfect. If the residues
were selected at random and the derivations likewise, accord would
be exceedingly rare. So then, since accord is frequent but not in-
variable, residues and derivations must occupy some middle ground
between the two extremes. It is to be noted that a residue which is
at variance with experience may be corrected by a derivation which
is at variance with logic in such a way that the conclusion is
brought
back to something like experimental That comes about be-
fact.
cause in performing non-logical actions under guidance of instinct

human beings approximate experimental fact ( 1782) and then
quite undesignedly correct by poor reasonings
inferences drawn
from a residue that is at variance with reality.
1770. The problem an aspect of an inquiry
here in question is
still more
general, as to how, namely, the forms of living beings
and
societies are determined. Such forms are not creatures of chance
they depend upon the conditions in which individuals and societies

live; but the precise nature of that dependence we do not know,
since we have been
obliged to reject the Darwinian solution, which
had answer to that question. But if we cannot solve the problem
its
altogether, we can at least identify certain properties of forms and

residues. It is evident and that was the element of truth
first of all
in the Darwinian solution

( 828, 2142) that forms and residues
cannot stand too openly in conflict with the conditions in which
they are evolved. An animal that has gills, only, cannot live in dry
air; and an animal that has lungs, only, cannot live continuously
submerged. So human beings endowed with anti-social instincts,

only, could not live in society. One may go one step farther and
recognize that there is a certain adaptation between forms and en-
vironment. The Darwinian solution errs in regarding the adaptation
as perfect; but that does not preclude there
being a certain rough
adaptation. It is certain that animals and plants have forms that are
partly, and sometimes wonderfully, adapted to the conditions under

which they live. So it cannot be denied that peoples have instincts
more or less adapted to their modes of living. But that, notice, is
just a relation between two things. It by no means follows that the
one thing is a result of the other. We see that the lion lives on prey
and has powerful weapons with which to capture it; but that is not
saying that it lives on prey because it has such weapons; or that it
I77 2 DERIVATIONS AND REALITY 123!
has such weapons because it lives on
prey. A
warlike people has
warlike instincts; but that isnot saying that it is warlike because
of those instincts, nor that it has those instincts because it is warlike.
1771. That gives us a solution, a very rough one to be sure, of our
problem: Social reasonings yield results that are not too greatly at
variance with realities because their residues, both those which in-
spire the derivations and those which they utilize, stand more or
less related to realities. If the basic residues do come close to realities
and derivations are moderately we
get results that, as a rule,
logical,
are not too greatly at variance with realities. If the primary residues
go astray, they are corrected by the other residues that inspire

sophistical derivations as a means of getting back to realities.
1772. Now let us look atsome other aspects of the situation. As
for the correspondence between residues and other social facts, we
can repeat what we said in 1767 as to the correspondence between
derivations and residues, namely: i. That certain residues have very
slight correspondence with the facts upon which social organization

depends, and so cannot in any way be made to correspond to logico-
experimental principles derived from those facts. 2. That even the
residues which have a certain rough correspondence with the facts
that determine the organization of society and which roughly cor-
respond to logico-experimental principles inferred from those facts,

do not correspond perfectly to the facts and are altogether lacking
in the definiteness required for such principles.
As regards derivations, they overstep reality, as a rule, in the direc-
tion in which they are headed, whereas they rarely stop short of it.
Three principal forms may be noted in that phenomenon. In the
first
place, in virtue of a tendency in sentiment to go to extremes,
there is a definite tendency in derivations to evolve into idealizations
and myths: a local inundation easily becomes a universal flood
the advantage accruing to a society from following certain practices
develops into a divine code of commandments or into a categorical

imperative. In the second place, the fact that if a derivation is to be
accepted and impressed on the mind it has to be stated in striking
language has the effect of concentrating stress on the principal ele-
ment, while secondary elements are neglected. A principle is stated
without regard to those modifications and exceptions which would
make it more comformable to realities. The maxim is, "Thou shalt
not kill/' a statement that far oversteps the rule of conduct which
one is
aiming to establish and which would have to be stated in a
great many more words one were to specify in just what cases and
if
under just
what circumstances one must not kill, in what other
cases one may kill, and in what other cases still one must kill. The
injunction is, "Love thy neighbour as thyself"; and that too over-
steps the rule, which is
really being set up in order that the people
living in a given community may practice mutual goodwill. In fine,

the efficacy of a faith in spurring men to vigorous action is the
greater, the simpler, the

more nearly absolute, the less involved in
qualification, the less ambiguous, it is, and the farther it stands

removed from scientific scepticism. And from that it follows that
the derivation, so far as it aims at spurring men to action, uses
simple principles that overstep realities and aim at goals that lie
beyond them, sometimes far far beyond. In a word, to get back
from derivations to realities certain allowances almost always have
to be made.
The make
a good derivation out of a reasoning are
qualities that
oftentimes the opposite, therefore, of the qualities which would
make it a sound logico-experimental reasoning; and the nearer it
comes to one of those limits, the farther it
gets from the other. But
the logico-experimental reasoning is the one that corresponds to
reality; and therefore if people acting on derivations approximate
reality,
it is clear that the
divergence existing between derivations
and reality must somehow or other have been corrected. The cor-
*
rection is obtained through the conflict and composition ( 2087 f .)
of the many derivations current in a society. The simplest, but also
the least frequent, form in which this process manifests itself is in
the case of two directly contradictory derivations, and B, where A A
oversteps reality in one direction and B in another; so that when A
and B are at work simultaneously they come closer to reality thaa
either of
singly would do. The derivation A, for in-
them taken
stance, bids people to love their neighbours as themselves, and the
derivation B enjoins the vendetta as a duty. The more complex, but
also the more frequent, form is the case where there are many der-
ivations, A, B C
f . . . that are not directly contradictory, and which,
*
1772 [A technical term, not to be taken in its ordinary senses. A. L.]
1775 APPROXIMATIVE THINKING 1233
when combined and mutually composed ( 2087 2152 f.), give a
f.,
resultant that approximates reality more closely than any one of

them and examples would be the many derivations con-
singly;
cerning the law of nations, patriotic selfishness, the independence of
the courts, reasons of state, abolition of interest on money, the ad-
vantages of increasing the public debt, and so on, which are all
derivations observable among all civilized
peoples.
1773. Effects upon conclusions of divergences between residues
and logico-experimental principles. Suppose we are reasoning by the
logico-experimental method. Taking certain residues, a, as our prem-
ises we reach the conclusions c. If we reasoned in the same way
with strictly experimental principles, A, we should reach the conclu-

sions C. Now our aim is to determine the relationships existing be-
tween conclusions c and C. To do that we have to know the relation
between residues a and principles A. Now let us take a hypothesis
that actually verifiable in certain instances.
is We
assume, that is,
that a coincides with A
within certain limits only and overreaches
A beyond those limits; in other words, that certain residues, or the
propositions express them, represent reality within certain

that
limits only. What conclusions may be drawn from such proposi-
tions? We
first have to
specify whether the limits
are known or
unknown. they are known, the problem is solved forthwith. The
If
conclusions derived from the propositions will be true within the

limits within which the propositions are valid. Scientific theories are
all of that type, limits being more or less broadly drawn.
1774. If the limits are not known the problem becomes much
more difficult and
often unsolvable. Unfortunately, in the case of
is
social reasonings, of reasonings by derivations, the limits are but
vaguely known, when not entirely unknown. So we have to rest

content with solutions that are crudely approximative. We may say
that conclusions in accord with the facts may be drawn from
propositions which are true within certain vaguely known limits,

provided the reasoning does not depart too radically from the situa-
tion in which the propositions are true. That is very very little, and
it can be
accepted only because a little is better than nothing.
1775. Examples. We know that whenthe temperature of water
rises from 4 to 100 Centigrade under a barometric pressure of 760
mm. of mercury, its volume increases. In this case the limits within
which the proposition is true are definitely determined, and we are
warned not to extend it beyond those limits. In fact, between o and
4 water decreases instead of increasing in volume. When we say
that in a given society it is a good thing to allow a majority of
citizens to decide on social measures, we do not know within what
limits the proposition accords with the facts (we are here disregard-
ing the lack of definiteness in the proposition itself). It is probable
that if one were to ask whether it would be advantageous to allow
half the people in a society plus one to decide to kill and eat the
other half less one, the answer would be in the negative. But the
reply would very likely be in the affirmative if one should ask

whether or not it would be advantageous to allow a of majority
one to decree a law regulating automobile Within certain traffic.
limits the proposition may therefore be in accord with the facts;

whereas within others it might not be. But what are those limits?
We are not in a position to give a satisfactory answer to such a
1
question.
1776. Where science empiricism comes to the rescue. Empiri-
fails,
cism plays, and will continue to play, for a long time to come, a very
important part in social matters: and it often corrects deficiencies
in premises ( 1769). If a person has a good topographical chart and
knows how to use accurately, he will be sure to find his way
it
from one place to another. But the road will be found just as well,
and perhaps better, by an animal guided solely by instinct, and by
a person who also follows it instinctively from having been over it
a number of times. If a person has a poor topographical chart and
reasons on it in strict logic, he will probably find his way less
readily
than persons in those extreme cases. Ancient geographers used to
*
1775 One group of derivations pretends to answer the question by restating it
4
as a problem of "rights" on the part of the individual as against 'rights'* on the
part of the "State." That solution is like explaining why water rises in a pump by
the theory that Nature abhors a vacuum that is to say, it explains facts not by
other facts, but by imaginary entities. No one can say precisely what the "State" in
question may be, much less what its "rights" are, and what the "rights" of the
"individual." The mystery and darkness increase if one inquires as to the relations
between such "rights" and various utilities. Finally, assuming that the problem of
terms is solved, no one can say how
the theoretical solution can be applied in the
concrete. The solution therefore seen to be merely the expression of a pious wish
is
on its author's part; and he might have stated it outright, without going so far
afield to dig up those very pretty but very obscure entities.
1778 DERIVATIONS AND REALITY 1235
1
say that the Peloponnese was shaped like the leaf of a plane-tree.
If a person starts out on that premise and reasons logically, he will
know less about the topography of the Peloponnese than a person

who modern regulation map and even, let us say, just a mod-
has a
erately bad sketch of that country. Very close to these latter, as
regards conformity with experience, stands the person who decides

haphazard. Next in order come those who follow residues and
derivations, and they are like the person who knows that the Pelo-
ponnese has the shape of a plane-tree leaf. Finally comes the merely
practical man, and he
is like the
ignorant person who has no map
at all but has traversed the Peloponnese from end to end. These
two sorts of persons oftentimes obtain results that are not very
greatly at variance with experience.

1777. Propositions that are not epitomes of experience pure and
simple, as experimental principles are, are sometimes called false

propositions.
What can be got out of them? First we have to
explain the term "false." If
by "false" one means a proposition that
is
utterly at variance with the facts, there is no doubt that reasoning
conducted logically on premises will yield conclusions that
false
will also be false (at variance with the facts). But the term "false"
often indicates a false explanation of a real fact; and in that case it
is
possible, within certain limits, to draw from such propositions con-
clusions that are true (which accord with the facts).
1778. Examples. Once upon a time to explain how a pump sucks
water it was said that "Nature abhors a vacuum." The fact was real,
the explanation false; but the explanation will lead to conclusions
that are verifiable by experience. Fill a bottle with water, press a
finger over the mouth, immerse the neck in water, and remove the
finger. What
happen? The answer is: The water will remain
will
suspended in the bottle, for if it came out, the bottle would be left
empty; and we know that that is impossible, since Nature abhors
x
1776 Commentarius in Dionysium Periegetem (Or bis descriptio, .v.
Eustathius,
157), pp. in,
245: "Ye should know that just as the Euxine is comparable to a bow,
so many other places are diversely representable by a certain similitude. So history
says that the Egyptian delta is triangular. Thus is Alexandria represented by
. . .
a chlamys [a military cloak] ; Italy by an ivy-plant; Spain by an ox's hide; the island
of Naxos by a vine-leaf; the Peloponnese by a leaf of the plane-tree; Sardinia by a
human footprint; Cyprus by a sheep's hide; Libya by a trapeze; and so other lands
the ancients pictured otherwise."
a vacuum. We
perform the experiment and see that the conclusion
is in accord with the facts.
Now let us perform the same experiment with a tube of mercury
a metre long, one end of the tube being open and immersed in a
mercury bath. The conclusion now fails of verification, for the

mercury drops in the tube and leaves part of it empty. Now if that
were a fact of social life instead of physics, there would be no end
of new derivations put forward to explain it. One might show, by
using a very pretty and very ingenious reasoning of the sort used
in theories of natural law, that Nature's abhorrence of a vacuum
ceases at about 760 mm. of mercury. It is known that the number 7
is a perfect number and so also the number 6. Put two such perfect
numbers side, and they would surely give a very perfect
side by
number indeed, and Nature's love for it might well vanquish her
abhorrence of a vacuum. If the height of the mercury were stated
in inches or in some other system of measurement, no difficulty
would arise on that account. Many writers (963), among them
Nicomacus of Gerasa, would show us how to find the perfection
in the number we should then get. If someone were to object that
when the experiment is performed with water the height at which
Nature's abhorrence of the vacuum ceases is much greater than in
the case of mercury, we could answer that that is only fit and proper,
since, after all, water is "the best of the elements" and should there-
fore have greater privileges than mercury. And such a reasoning
would be quite as sound as an argument by M. Leon Bourgeois in
favour of solidarity.
To why one "ought" to be hospitable to strangers the
explain
Greeks, who were pagans, used to say that strangers came of Zeus,
and Christians quoted the Gospels, where it is written that he who
1
receiveth a stranger receiveth Christ. If one infers from such propo-
sitions that it is "useful" to show one gets
hospitality to strangers,
a proposition that might be in accord with the facts in the case of
the ancients and, though not by any means to the same degree, in
the case of the moderns. The conclusions would be something like
the conclusions we reached for the bottle full of water. If we should
go on and draw the inference which also follows logically that
1778
l
Matt. 25:35, and 38-40: "I was a stranger and yc took me in," etc.
1778 "NATURE ABHORS A VACUUM" 1237
strangers are to
be honoured as ambassadors from Zeus, according
to the Greeks, and as Christ in person according to the Christians,
we would get a conclusion that has never squared with the facts
among either Greeks or Christians.
We may therefore say, reasoning very roughly, that from the
derivations current in a given society one may get conclusions that
will be verified by experience, provided (i) We ma\e a certain
allowance in such derivations, which customarily overstep the limits
actually aimed at ( 1772) provided (2) the reasoning does not
;
stray too jar from conditions in

that society; provided* (3) the reason-
ing that is premised on the residues corresponding to the deriva-

tions is not pushed to its extreme logical limits. The expressions,
"a certain allowance," "too far," and "extreme limits" are not very
definite because the limits within which the derivations (or the
residues that engender them) correspond to the facts are not precise;
and also because in ordinary language derivations- are stated in a
manner is not
that very strict, if at all so. This last reservation might
perhaps be more clearly worded if we said that reasoning on der-
ivations must be more apparent than real, and that actually it is
better to let oneself be guided by one's sense of the residues than
2
by plain logic.
2
1778 In respect of form this experimental conclusion looks something like the
conclusion of certain metaphysicists who have intuition with or without intellect as
a means of knowing the "truth.** It is different however in substance, i. First of
all, there is a difference in the use of the term "truth.'* For the metaphysicist it
designates something independent of experience, beyond experience; for the experi-

mental scientist it designates mere accord with experience. To make the point
clearer, let us use a crude but expressive parallel. The individual is like a photo-
graphic film, which when exposed in a given place, receives an impression of things,
of "facts." The derivations through which he voices his impressions correspond to
the developing of the film. The metaphysicist would have the film, after it has been
developed, show
things, "facts,** that were not present in the place where the film
was exposed, but which are just as "real" in fact, as some say, they are the only
"reality." The experimentalist expects the developed film to show nothing but an
image of the things, the "facts,** that were present in the place where the film was
exposed. 2. Then there is the usual difference between the metaphysical absolute
and the experimental relative. The metaphysicist thinks his intuitive operations guide
him to "absolute truth.** The scientist accepts his only as an indication of what
reality may be, an indication that it is the exclusive prerogative of experience to
confirm or refute.
To return to the analogy just suggested: After the film has been developed, the
metaphysicist thinks that it corresponds perfectly with reality. The experimentalist
knows that there are countless divergences between the two. We
will say nothing
1779. Towards the end of the nineteenth century in France the
revolutionary party thought best to avail itself of the talents of

certain theorizers who were called "intellectuals" and who, in fact,
pretended to submit practice to the test of the conclusions that they

reached logically from certain principles of theirs ( 1767 *). Such
"intellectuals" naively thought they were enjoying the admiration of
certain groups who actually were using them as mere tools: and in
their self-conceit they contrasted the splendours of their logic with
the darkness of the "prejudices" or "superstitions" of their oppo-
nents. In point of fact, they were straying much farther from realities
than their opponents. Some of the "intellectuals" in question started
with the principle that no innocent person must ever be condemned,
and went on to the most extreme implications of that premise, re-
fusing to see anything else (2147, example II). It may very well
be that such a principle may be a useful one for a society to have;
but it is also true that it is useful only within certain limits. If one is
must choose one of the two following
to reject that reservation, one
lines: (i) Either one must deny that there is any divergence between
observance of the principle and the prosperity of a nation; or else

(2) declare that one is to disregard the question of prosperity and
be satisfied with just following the principle. Neither of these paths
could the said "intellectuals" be induced to take, for they were
really far less logically-minded than they were willing to appear;

and both propositions might more fitly
have been classed with the
"superstitions" so fiercely reproved by the "intellectuals," for, after
all, the first does not differ very greatly from the assertion that God
rewards the good and punishes the wicked; and the second could
be congenial only to the fanatical ascetic who despises all earthly
of the fact that the film shows what exists in space as existing in a plane, that it
fails to show the colours of the various objects, and so on. There are other more
special differences still, as for example whether some living being may have moved,
or a leaf been stirred by the wind, while the film was exposed. By a very extraordi-
nary coincidence there happens to be a real case corresponding to the very com-
parison we instituted for mere purposes of clarity. Many people have believed that
photographs have recorded the "astral doubles" of human beings and animals. They
have shown the photographs of a human being with a spot near by, or of pheasants
with another spot, and the spot they call the "astral double" of the human being
or the pheasant. Such photographs all beginners make, when they have not yet
learned to take photographs and develop films without spots. How many such spots
have been palmed off as real things by metaphysicists and theologians!
goods. That kind of politics was a politics for children;

and our
"intellectuals" were less in touch with realities than
many practical
politicians
of no education worth talking about.
178(X The derivation route may be followed in the inverse direc-
tion, that is from certain manifestations one may infer the

to say,
principles
from which they logically follow. In the logico-experi-
mental sciences the manifestations are in accord with the facts,
if
the principles of which they are regarded as consequences will also

be in accord with the facts. Not so in reasonings by derivation; there
the principles of which the manifestations would be the logical
consequence may be altogether at variance with the facts,( 2024).
1781. Here comes a Tolstoyan who condemns all wars, even a
strictly defensive war. The principle from which that doctrine is
deduced is that to be happy human beings "ought not to resist evil."

But the residue that is so expressed is something quite different; it
is a
subjective residue, instead of being an objective residue. In
order to keep in accord with the facts, the Tolstoyan ought to say:
"I imagine that I should be happy if I did not resist evil." That does
not prevent someone from being unhappy if he does not resist
else
evil. To
change his proposition from subjective to objective, the
Tolstoyan ought to show a thing which he does not and cannot do
that others ought to make themselves unhappy to please him.
The Tolstoyan who reasons with strict logic draws from the prin-
ciple that human beings "ought not to resist evil" inferences that
may reach the extreme of absurdity. The Tolstoyan who is not
altogether out of touch with realities sacrifices logic, follows the

guidance of his sentiments among them the instinct of self-preser-
vation and the preservation of society and arrives at less absurd
conclusions. In fact, if he knows how to use his subtle casuistry
skilfully and is not loath to disregard strict logic, he may even

arrive at conclusions that accord with the facts.
1782. So, summing up many things in one, to reason in such cases
in strict logic leads to conclusions at variance with the facts; to
reason with serious lack of logic and with evident fallacies may
lead to conclusions that come much closer to the facts.
1783. That proposition will provoke the indignation of many
persons who imagine that reason and logic are the guides of human
societies; and yet those same people unwittingly accept under other
forms propositions that are its equivalents. Theory, for instance, has
always been contrasted with practice by everybody everywhere, and
even the people who are pure theorists in certain matters recognize
the utility and the necessity of practice in other matters. Such
propositions are derivations that take account of the following

facts: i. Whentheory starts with rigorously scientific propositions,
it isolates
by abstraction a phenomenon that in the concrete is com-
bined with other phenomena. 2. When theory starts with empirical
propositions that are true only within certain limits, there is in

reasoning a temptation unwittingly to overstep those limits. 3. When
theory starts with derivations, the latter, being, as a rule deficient
in definiteness, cannot be taken as premises for strict reasoning.
4. In the same case, we know little or nothing of the limits beyond

which a derivation ceases to be true, even if it is not in all respects
false. In view of all these difficulties and others still, the
practical
man, following residues, frequently arrives at conclusions that are
much better verified by the facts than the conclusions of the pure
theorist reasoning in strict logic.
1784. In the field of politics the theorist has not as yet been able
to vindicate himself, as he has done in many trades. The empiricist
has seen a thing happen under certain circumstances; but circum-
stances in the future will differ widely from them, and he can
predict nothing with regard to what is going to happen; and even

if he he will certainly go wrong, save in some few instances
tries,
where he will guess aright by merest chance. But if the theorist has
at his disposal a theory that is not too imperfect, he will predict
things that closely approximate what is actually to occur.

1785. In the Middle Ages master-masons built marvellous edifices
by rule of thumb, by empiricism, without the remotest knowledge

of any theory as to the resistance capacities of building materials
|nerely by trying
and trying again, rectifying mistakes as they went
fclong. Nowthanks to such theories, modern engineers not only
Eliminate the losses incident to the old mistakes, but erect buildings
<hat the master-masons and other artisans of past centuries could not
possibly
have built. Practice had taught physicians certain remedies
that were oftentimes better than those recommended by quacks or
alchemists. Sometimes again they were altogether worthless. Now-
adays chemical theories have eradicated not all, but a very large
1787 "THEORY AND PRACTICE" 1241
number, of those mistakes, and biology has made it

possible
to make
better use of the substances that at the dis-
many chemistry places
posal of medicine. Only a few years back, in making cast
iron in
a blast-furnace it was wiser to follow the directions of an empiricist
than the prescriptions of theory. Today the iron industry is no longer
carried on without consultant chemists and other theorists. The
same may be said of the dyeing industry and of many others.
1786. But in politics and political economy the day is still far dis-
tant when theory will be in a position to lay down useful prescrip-
tions. It is not merely the difficulty of the subject that holds us off
from that goal, but also the intrusion of metaphysics and its reason-
ings, which might be better termed vagaries; and

the singular fact
that that intrusion has its
advantages, since reasoning by meta-
physical or theological derivations is the only kind of reasoning that
many people are capable of understanding and practising. In that
the conflict between knowing and doing
stands out in striking re-
lief. For
purposes of knowing, logico-experimental science is the
only thing of any value for purposes of doing, it is of much greater
;
importance to follow the lead of sentiments. And just here, again,

another important fact comes to the fore: the advantage, as regards
eliminating that conflict, of having a community divided into two
parts, the one in which knowledge prevails ruling and directing the
other in which sentiments prevail, so that, in the end, action is
vigorous and wisely directed.

1787. So, in politico-social prognoses, there are many cases in
which results in accord with facts are more readily reached by
following the lead of residues than by taking derivations as guides.
It follows that in such cases forecasts will be the better the fewer
the derivations mixed in with the residues. Conversely, when the pur-
pose is to obtain scientific propositions, to discover the relations be-

tween things, between facts, to abstract a phenomenon from the
concrete the better to examine it, that purpose will be the better
attained the less one influenced in one's reasoning by residues,
is
the more exclusively the reasoning is logico-experimental, residues
being considered as external facts purely and simply and never al-
lowed to master one's thinking. In two words: Inferences in the
practical field are the gainers from being essentially synthetic and
inspired by residues; scientific inferences, from being essentially
analytical and based on nothing but observation (experience) and

logic.
1788. Using the ordinary terms, "practice," and "theory," prac-
tice is the better the more practical it is and theory the better the
more theoretical it is.
Altogether wretched, in general, are "theo-
retical practices" and
"practical theories."
1789. Practical men are often tempted to formulate theories of
their conduct, and usually they are worth little or nothing. Such
people know how to act, but not how to explain why they act. Their
theories are almost always derivations bearing not the remotest re-
semblance to logico-experimental theories.
1790. The conflict between theory and practice sometimes takes
the form of an absolute denial of theory. certain "historical A
school," for instance, has denied not only that there are economic
theories, but even that there are laws in the economic field
( 2019 f.). If, with that start, the followers of the school had con-
fined themselves to practice, they might have carved niches for
themselves among our statesmen, instead of turning out the mere
sophists and chatterboxes they in fact proved to be. There was prob-
ably a large element of truth in the substance of their doctrines,
their error lying principally in their manner of stating it. What
they should have said was that the theories of political economy and
sociology are not as yet capable of yielding a synthesis of social phe-
nomena and giving reliable forecasts of the future in the domain of
the concrete; and that, as has been the case in other departments of
human knowledge, until
theory has made greater progress we had
better place our main reliance on practice and empiricism.
1791.But the partisans of the "historical school" were primarily
theorists. Their criticisms of the theories of political economy were
theoretical in character. They called them "practical" in the belief

that by changing them in name they would also be changing them
in substance. Actually their theories are much worse than the the-
ories of political economy,
being based on ethical derivations devoid
of the slightest definiteness and having or nothing to do with
little
fact; whereas economic theories have at least some basis in fact and
sin only in being incomplete and unable to
yield a synthesis of con-
crete social phenomena. The theories of
political economy are
merely imperfect. The theories of the "historical school" are errone-

ous and oftentimes fantastic.
1792. Striking the contradiction in these self-styled "historians."
On the one hand they assert that there are no laws, no uniformities,
either in political economy or in sociology. On
the other, they reason
in a manner that necessarily presupposes the existence of such laws.
To begin with, what is the use of all their studies in history if there
are no uniformities and if, therefore, the future has no connexions
with the past ? That would be a mere waste of time, and it would
be far better to read fairy-tales or story-books than to study history!
But if one believes that norms for the future can be derived from
the past, one recognizes by that very fact that there are uniformities.
Then again, thinking more especially of the substance, one sees
very readily that the error of those good souls lies in their never hav-
ing managed to grasp the fact that a scientific "law" is nothing but
a "uniformity." Their minds perverted by the vagaries of their meta-
physics and their ethics, their determination aroused to find deriva-

tions that will justify certain currents of sentiment and please a
public as ignorant as they of every principle of scientific method,

they imagine that economic and social laws are mysterious and
mighty creatures which are bent on forcing their rule upon society;
and they rise in wrath against such pretensions, especially on the
part of "laws" that do not meet with their approval; though they
joyfully admit such pretension on the part of the imaginary "laws"
of their metaphysics and their ethics. They are mere believers in a
religion different from the religion that they are combating. They
deny the supposedly absolute "laws" of their adversaries. But such
deities they replace with others that are just as far removed from the
logico-experimental domain. The "laws" of political economy and
sociology annoyed them. They did not feel themselves the men to
refute them, and strangers as they were to scientific method, they
could not get it through their heads that neither the old "laws," nor
"laws" of any other kind, can have any absoluteness. To remove the
obstacle that towered before them, therefore, they acted like the be-
lievers of
any new religion who destroy old altars to erect new ones,
as the Christians did when they proclaimed that the pagan gods
were but empty phantoms and that their God was the one living
and true God. Nor did they fail to supplement their conviction in
faith by pseudo-reasonings designed to show that their religion was
much more rational than the old one. Such nonsense acquires and
holds prestige because it chances to accord with the sentiments and
the ignorance of the people who listen to it. That explains why "his-
torians" in the field of economics are able with little or no opposi-
tion to continue repeating, like parrots, that economic and social
laws suffer "exceptions," whereas, they say, scientific laws do not.
They do not know, they do not even suspect, that their "excep-
tions" are nothing but phenomena due to the operation of causes
alien to those which science, by its process of abstraction, chooses
to consider, and that such interposition of alien causes is as com-
monplace in chemistry, physics, geology, and all other sciences, as it
isin economics and sociology. The differences are quite other than
they imagine. They lie in the degree of difficulty experienced in

separating in the abstract, or even materially, certain phenomena
from certain other phenomena. Among such differences in degree
it is
interesting to note that sciences such as geology, which have to
rely chiefly on observation from experiment), can-

(as distinguished
not separate one phenomenon from other phenomena materially,
as do sciences such as chemistry, which are in a
position to make
extensive use of experiment (as distinguished from simple observa-
tion). From that point of view, political economy and sociology are
more like geology than like chemistry (97-101).
1793. Napoleon's hatred of "ideology" a striking instance of the
is
conflict between theory and practice. In a reply to the Council of

State at its session of December 20, 1812, he ascribes the misfortunes
that had France to "ideology," and contrasts "ideologies"
afflicted
1
with the study of history. Excellent this last remark, as a plea for
the resort to experience, which is the source and fountain-head of
all
knowledge. But for that very reason it stands in contradiction
l
1793 Moniteur universel, Paris, Dec. 21, 1812: "All the misfortunes that our
beautiful France has been experiencing have to be ascribed to 'ideology,' to that
cloudy metaphysics which goes ingeniously seeking first causes and would ground
the legislation of the peoples upon them instead of adapting laws to what we know
of the human heart and to the lessons of history. Such errors could only lead to a
regime by men and they have in fact done so.
of blood, Who
cajoled the people by
thrusting upon a it
sovereignty it was unable to exercise? Whodestroyed the sacred-
ness of the laws and respect for the laws by basing them not on the sacred prin-
1794 TAINE AND THE "MATHEMATICAL METHOD*' 1245
with Napoleon's own appeal to the "sacred principles of justice."
That too belongs to pure metaphysics and in it
making
Napoleon,
unwittingly to be sure, was merely setting one "ideology" over
against another. And when he asserts that the "ideology" of the
others is the cause of the misfortunes of France, he is stating a theory
that may or may not be in accord with the facts but which in any
case remains a theory.
1794. The same thing happens with many writers. They reject
theories in words, but in the fact merely set one theory against an-
other. Taine, for instance, Ancien Regime, Bk. Ill, Chap. IV, sec. i
(Vol. II, p. 47), lays a share of the blame for the French Revolution
on the "mathematical method," by which he means the use of pure
logic: "In conformity

with the habits of the classical mind and the
precepts of the prevailing ideology, public policy was fashioned on

the model of mathematics. One takes, all by itself, a simple, very
general principle that is

readily accessible to observation, familiar
to everyone, and is
grasped without difficulty by the most inatten-
tive and ignorant schoolboy." In point of
fact not only the theory
of the Revolution, but all theories, are fashioned in just that way
(overlooking the gratuity about the ignorant schoolboy). The in-

ference one should draw from the fact is that no theory, even when
it based on experimental principles, as rarely happens ( 1859)
is
with social theories, can all by itself picture the complicated phe-
nomena that we find in the concrete, and that therefore after break-
ing up phenomena into their elements by scientific analysis and
studying them in their various parts, we have to put them together
again and so get a synthesis that will yield the concrete phenome-
non. Taine has nothing of that sort in mind. He notes an error in
French thinking and tries to show that it was responsible for the
disasters of France, and going on
along that line he evolves a theory
that is as abstract, as unilateral, as "mathematical," as the theories
he is
deploring and which is false into the bargain, in that it mis-
ciples of justice,on the nature of things and the nature of civic justice, but simply
on the an assembly made up of individuals who are stranger to any knowl-
will of
edge of law whether civil, criminal, administrative, political, or military? When a

man is called upon to reorganize a state, he must follow principles that are for ever
in conflict. History draws the picture of the human heart. The
advantages and dis-
advantages of different systems of legislation have to be sought in history."
takes what is effect for what is cause, or, rather, what is effect for
1
what is
actually a relationship of interdependent
facts.
1795. Certainly what Taine calls method" did

the "mathematical
not produce any French Revolution. Never never has any method
had any such capacity. In reality there was, in France, a certain
state of mind that expressed itself on the theoretical side in a
"method" which Taine describes, and on the practical side in acts

which prepared the ground for the Revolution.
1796. That vague, indistinct feeling which sets theory over against
practice substantially, it is an
intuitive perception that to keep close
to realities one had better reason on residues rather than on deriva-
tions comes to in still other ways. Of the same type is the
light
maxim that it is better in everything to follow the "golden mean";
or the adage that rules (derivations) should be interpreted accord-
ing to the "spirit" and not according to the letter, which, often-
times, is just another way of saying that rules ought to be inter-
preted in the manner most satisfactory to the person quoting the

maxim.
1797. and their adaptation to
Derivations of indefinite meaning
specific ends.Âs we have seen ( 1772), derivations usually overstep
the limits of reality. Sometimes, as also in the case of myths, people
do not mind But then again, as happens with pseudo-experi-
that.
mental derivations, there is an effort, now by one device, now by
another, to effect a certain accord with reality. One of the most
widely used and most effective of such devices to take advantage
is
of the vagueness of the language in which the derivation is stated.

There is hardly a prescription of a moral or religious character that
*
1794 Taine makes no distinction between a "simple datum" ûne donnce
simple," loc. cit.) derived from experience and a "simple datum" derived from
sentiment. Yet such a distinction is indispensable as marking the boundary-line be-
tween the logico-experimental sciences and sentimental literature, metaphysics, the-
ology (55-5^)' Adam Smith and Rousseau likewise draw inferences from simple
principles; but Adam Smith uses principles that epitomize experience, however in-
adequately, while Rousseau deliberately ( 821) holds his principles aloof from
experience. From that it follows that the inferences which may be drawn from the
principles used by Adam Smith have a part, small or large, in common with ex-
perience; whereas the implications of Rousseau's principles float in a nebulous realm

of sentiment far removed from the world of experience. The same may be said of
other principles that certain writers have tried to palm off as experimental when
actually they are not.
can be followed to the That fact clearly emphasizes the gulf
letter.
that separates derivations from reality and the adaptability of deriva-

tions to realities in virtue of their lending themselves to arbitrary
interpretations. They can be used only as clues to the residues that

they express, never as premises for strict logical reasonings that are
calculated to yield conclusions which accord with reality.
1798. Theological and metaphysical believers will not admit any
such thing. They maintain that their prescriptions are clear, specific,
unexceptionable, and in exact correspondence with realities. They
are never willing, however, to accept all the consequences that may
be drawn from them. Now
in order to refute an implication of a
reasoning one must either deny the premises or find some flaw in
the method by which the conclusions were drawn. Believers refuse
to follow the first course. They are necessarily forced, therefore, to
adopt the second. That is why some of them bluntly deny that one
can reason logically on such premises as theirs, and demand that
they be taken not "according to the letter," but "according to the
spirit"; while others, again, instead of rejecting logic take it for
and call upon casuistry to furnish a means of keeping the
their ally
premises and escaping this or that one of its consequences. Finally

come others who simply wipe the annoying problem off the slate
and assert that nothing "exists" except concepts of the "human
mind," by which they mean their own mind, and that that mind
"creates reality." On evident enough that there can
that basis it is
be no divergence between their ideas and reality. And that, in fact,

is one of the best
ways ever devised for getting rid of all objection
*
from experimental science ( 1910).
1
1798 Sometimes they meet their adversaries with the charge that they are not
thinking according to the rules of metaphysics. So astrologers might embarrass an
astronomer by saying that his thinking does not follow the rules of astrology. If a
person accepts a given science, S, and wishes merely to change some of its conse-
quences, he must obviously reason according to the rules of the science S. But if a
person considers the science S inconclusive, silly, fantastic, he must no less obvi-
ously refrain from reasoning according to rules that he thereby rejects; and it is
childish to accuse him of not knowing them because he does not use them. It is not
difficult to see why who is defending a fantastic theory thinks it important
a person
cannot be questioned unless its norms and principles are
to pretend that his theory
accepted. In that way, he entrenches himself in an impregnable citadel. But the

choice of weapons belongs to the person who uses them, not to the person who is
their target. It may well be that the astrologers would be the gainers if they could
1799. Religions are idealistic; nor could they be otherwise with-
out ceasing to be religions and losing all their effectiveness, all their
overstep realities, yet they have to live and
social utility. de-
They
velop in a real world. So they are obliged perforce to find some way
to bring idealism and reality into harmony; and it is there that non-
logical actions come

to the rescue and, then to justify them, deriva-
tions and casuistry. That not seldom is the source of bitter rebuke
to a religion from its adversaries, though really they ought to praise
it for to
managing the stimulus of its idealism by reconcil-
preserve
ing with the requirements of reality; and all the more so since
it
they themselves in due course resort to similar means and expedi-
ents, so clearly showing that such devices are indispensable. Of such

situations one could give examples without end from all coun-
triesand all religions. Here we will mention just a few from our
1
Western countries and the Christian religion. As everybody knows,
as Christianity gradually won converts in the Roman world it had
to relax in its primitive strictness and tolerate failings that at first
it had
fiercely condemned. Many conversions, furthermore, were
largely superficial, mere changes in form rather than in substance.
That was the case especially with conversions of Barbarians in the
be fought only under the rules and principles of astrology. But they have to resign
themselves to seeing the fatuousness of their pseudo-science, its norms, and its prin-
ciples, brought to light by a comparison of its results with experimental facts.
l
1799 Christianity was originally a religion of the poor, the improvident, the
peace-loving people who scorned material goods. In course of time it readily
adapted where there were wealthy people, people who did think
itself to societies
of the morrow, rapacious seekers after the good things of this world, fighters. The
adaptation was made possible by derivations; but the derivations also had some
effect upon the substance of things and produced new consequences such as the
Inquisition and a series of religious persecutions. We still lack good histories of

such events, histories written without polemical intent, showing no bias either for
or against Christianity or any one of its sects, and without design of praising or
condemning this or that social or moral institution. The Marxist religion absolutely
condemns interest on capital; but the practical effects of the condemnation are not
appreciably greater than the effects of the condemnation levelled at interest of yore
by the Christian Church. In both the older and the newer religions there are persons
who live apart from the world and loyally observe their dogmas; but such as play a
part in the direction of public affairs manage very well at reconciling dogmas with
practical necessities. To
say nothing of Catholic princes, the Popes themselves bor-
rowed money on interest. Nowadays, in countries where Socialists play a part, small
or large, in public affairs, they are not in the le?st opposed to what are frequently
enormous increases in the public debt. There is no lack of municipalities adminis-
tered by Socialists that contract debts and pay interest on them. In such cases, as in
1799 CHRISTIAN "POVERTY" AND CHRISTIAN "LOVE" 1249
days the Roman Empire was falling. One may see from St.
when
8
Gregory of Tours ( 1379 ) how thin the Christian varnish lay over
Prankish kings and Barbarian chieftains who were adapting the
new religion to their fierce warlike natures. That indeed was the
reason why the western districts* of the Mediterranean basin were
better able to resist Asiatic invasions than the lands in the East,
where the inhabitants were by nature milder and were growing
still more so. A
people of ascetics and monks, such as would have
resulted had the derivations of the primitive Christians been literally
followed, could not have been a warlike people; and it is hard to

see how
a people who literally "resisted not evil" could have resisted
invaders of their own country. Fortunately for
the peoples of the
western Mediterranean, Christian derivations in no way enfeebled
their bellicose instincts, but merely tempered excessive manifesta-
tions of them that might have proved
Something of the disastrous.
same sort, though in lesser proportions, may nowadays [1913] be
observed in the contrast between France and Germany. In France,
a democratico-humanitarian religion is dominant, and it seems to
be unfavourable to any fostering of the warlike qualities of the
French. In Germany, a patriotic religion prevails, and it is stimulat-
the old, derivations turn up in the pinch to justify the violation of the dogma. The
Catholics excogitated that most ingenious of derivations about the three contracts.
Socialists, whether because less ingenious or more modest, simply say that they can-
not refrain from borrowing money until interest on loans has been generally abol-
ished,and with that very convenient excuse handy they can go blithely on till the
day one hears in the vale of Jehosaphat
". . . the sound of the angelic trump

When comes the Doomsman of the dread Assize . . .
To thunder to eternity their doom."

Dante, Inferno, VI, v. 99 (Fletcher)
If dogmas of the humanitarian religion were followed literally in practice, they
the
would lead directly to the destruction of human societies. But when these blessed
humanitarians get into a government, they often find convenient ways of forgetting
them, and without the slightest scruple they destroy people whom they call bar-
barians or else hold them in cruel servitude, a servitude oftentimes more cruel than
what used to be knownas slavery. But the god Progress will have his victims, like
the gods who preceded him in the pantheon of civilized peoples. If equality, which
is a dogma of the modern democratic religion, were ever made effective, human
societies would probably revert to a state of savagery; but luckily for us, it keeps to
its throne among the derivations, where it reigns sovereign, while in the practical
world the most extreme inequalities prevail and they are not less extreme, different
as they may be in forms, than the inequalities observable in ages past.

I25O TREATISE ON GENERAL SOCIOLOGY l8oO
2
ing those qualities. Our estimable moralists are wont
to speak with
horror of the warfaring prelates and mail-clad barons of the Middle
Ages; yet they should be reminded that had the sentiments which
found expression in that fashion chanced to fail, the countries of
Western Europe would have suffered the same fate as the countries
of Asia Minor and European Turkey and our philosophers, instead
;
of talking nonsense at their comfort and leisure in our civilized
countries, would be serving as bellhops to some Asiatic satrap. Other
good people are righteously indignant at the Roman pontificate be-

cause in the Middle Ages or a little later it was not sufficiently re-
ligious,
not sufficiently "Christian," as they say, and because it found
ways of opportunely reconciling Christian derivations with social

and political exigencies. But that was the very reason why our pres-
ent civilization was able to be born again after the fall of Graeco-
Latin civilization and then go on to grow and prosper. A person
who spurns the benefits of that civilization and condemns it may
also spurn and condemn its origins. Not so the person who accepts
it, praises it, enjoys its comforts; for, as Dante says, "the contradic-
tion consenteth not" that one should accept the end without accept-
8
ing the means as well.
1800. Most of the precepts in the Gospels are poetical derivations
that express certain residues; and it has been for the very reason
that they are lacking in definiteness and are often contradictory that
they have proved acceptable to all sorts of peoples in so many dif-
ferent periods of history. In times when Class I residues predomi-
nate, they are interpreted in such a way as to make them compatible

with civilized living. When
group-persistences (residues Class II)
and ascetic residues are the dominant ones, everything possible is
done to stick to their literal
meanings and turn them against the
progress of civilization. Take, for example, the precept not to econ-
omize, to think no more of the morrow than do the birds of the air
2
1799 This particular contrast may be more of form than of substance, something
merely temporary reflecting one of the many oscillations that are observable in social
phenomena.
1799
3
We are not saying that everything connected with this enterprise of recon-
ciling certain religious and moral derivations with practical life was all to the good
of society. There were respects in which it was beneficial, respects in which it was
detrimental. We
are merely saying that the beneficial aspects were of greater weight
than the harmful.
l8oi DERIVATIONS AND REALITY 125!
1
or the lilies of the field. If that
precept were taken literally, all sav-
ing of wealth would disappear, and the civilized peoples would re-
lapse into savagery. Precepts stated in that fashion, if they are to be
taken at all
strictly,
are valid only for the
improvident and the
In every civilized* society, therefore, they have to be cor-
shiftless.
rected by a certain amount of interpretation. The precept of Jesus

has been generally taken to mean that one should give more thought
to the soul than to the body; but in that case where do the birds and
the lilies come in ? Have they souls for which they care more than
they do for their bodies ?
1
1801. St. Jerome's remarks on the point are interesting. At bot-
1800 * Matt. 6:19-34. There are a number of variants, but they make no essential
difference in the meaning: "Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where
moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal. . . .
Therefore I say unto you: Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what
ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on. Is not the life more
than meat, and the body than raiment? Behold the fowls of the air: for they sow
not, neitherdo they reap, nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feedeth
them. Are ye not much better than they? And why take ye thought for raiment?
Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin.
Therefore take no thought, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink?
or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed? For after all these things do the Gentiles seek:
for your heavenly Father knowcth that ye have need of all these things. Take there-
fore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things
of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof."
*
1801 Commentarii in Matthaeum
(6:19-34) (Opera, Vol. VII, pp. 43-46):
"i. Nc solidti sitis
quid .manducctis
. .
neque corpori vestro quid induamini:
some manuscripts add: 'or for what ye shall drink/ We are not altogether freed of
attention to the lot that nature has assigned to all beasts and animals and which is
common to man. We arc taught not to let our minds be absorbed (ne solliciti
simus) in what we eat. Since we win our bread in the sweat of our faces, we have
to labour. It is our engrossment (sollicitudo) in such things that should be mastered
(tollenda). for the reference to food and raiment, we are to take it as applying
As
to carnal food and raiment; but we should always be solicitous as to spiritual food
and raiment. 2. Is not the life more than meat and the body more than raiment?
What He means by that is that if a man has been attentive to the higher duties
(maiora) he will certainly fulfil lesser ones. 3. (6:26) Behold the jowls of the air
(Respicite volatilia caeh). The Apostle tells us that we should know no more than
is good for us. That lesson should be kept in mind in connexion with this passage;
for there are some who would go beyond what the Fathers say and, in trying to
soar aloft to the stars, sink to the depths. They say that the 'fowls of the air* are
angels of Heaven and other powers in the service of God, who are fed by God's
providence without taking any thought for themselves. If the passage means what
they say it means, how comes it that it is asked of men: 'Are ye not much better
than they?' It is better therefore to take it simply: for if the birds of the air are fed
by God's providence quite apart from worries and troubles, if they are today but
1252 THE MIND AND SOCIETY l802
torn, he would take St. Matthew's words in the sense that we should,
of course, work to earn our daily bread but in no way worry about
the future.
which figures not only in Christianity but
1802. Pure asceticism,
in many other religions, tends to shun hard work; and there have
been people in all ages who have lived in idleness as parasites on
society. That manner of living results from certain sentiments, not
from reasoning the latter comes in a posteriori to supply a logical
justification for the conduct. As regards his earning a livelihood,
Diogenes lived more or less the way a Capuchin friar lives, but the
reasons he gave for his conduct were not the ones that are put for-
ward by the friar. When, moreover, such theories have implications
that clash too violently with the requirements of individual or social
life, they are necessarily modified to take account of them. There

have at all times been saints, hermits, fanatics, who have insisted
on following the words of the Gospels to the letter; and at the same
time there have been people alive to the requirements of civilized
living who have sought to find fairly liberal interpretations of them.

1803. It seems that in the days of St. Augustine there were those
who followed the words of Jesus in their literal rigour, and used
them to refute St. Paul's exhortation to labour. St. Augustine for
l
his part experiences not a trace of difficulty in reconciling precepts
and by an ingenious feat in logical
so antithetical, acrobatics invokes
the contradiction itself to show that there is no contradiction. He
says, in substance: "You tell me that A contradicts B? Not so; that
tomorrow arc no more, if they have no immortal soul and will not live forever .
when they have ceased to be, how much more should men who have promise of
eternity be submissive to the will of God? 4. (6:28) Consider the lilies of the field:
He showed that the soul (King James Version: the life) was more than meat by the
simile of the birds. So now he shows that the body is more than raiment by the
things following. 5. (6:31) W
here j ore ta\e ye no thought, saying What shall we
eat: He grants that those whom He forbids to worry about the future should be
attentive to present things. So the Apostle said, I Thess. 2:9: '. . .
labouring night
and day because we would not be chargeable unto any of you .' The 'morrow' . .
in Scripture is to be taken as any time in the future. 6. (6:34) Sufficient unto the
day is the evil thereof: Here He uses 'evil* (malitiam) not as the contrary of virtue,
but for travail, affliction, the troubles of the world. . . . The worries of the moment
are therefore sufficient unto us. Let us refrain from thought of future things, since
it will be vain (incerta)"
*
1803 De sermone Domini in monte secundum Matthaeum, II, 17, 57 {Opera,
Vol. Ill, p. 1295; Wor^s, Vol. VIII, p. 109).
1803 "CONSIDER THE LILIES OF THE FIELD" 1253
merely proves that B has to be taken in some other sense than the
Augustine evidently takes the Scriptures as constituting

literal." St.
a whole in which the parts can never be inconsistent: they contain

no contradictions, because no such contradiction can exist? He con-
fides, Retractationes, II, 21 (Opera, Vol. I, p. 638-39), that he was
writing his treatise On the Labour of Months because there were not
a few such who were refusing to work, on the plea that in
among
that theywere obeying the Gospel. The Saint shows them that they
were wrong and involved in a contradiction, in that they themselves
3
were not following the Gospel precept to the letter. All that he
2
1803 After quoting St. Paul's exact words, the Saint adds: "To those who fail
to read his words aright it might seem

that the Apostle were failing to keep the
precept of the Master when He says 'Behold the fowls of the air for they sow not,
neither do they reap nor gather into barns,' and 'Consider the lilies of the field,
how they grow. They toil not, neither do they spin.' In the passage in question the
Apostle teaches that they should work, labouring with their hands that they might
have wherewith even to give unto others (I Thess. 2:9). He often says of himself
that he wrought with his hands that he might not be chargeable to any man (II
Thess. 3:8). Of him it was written, Acts 18:3, that he joined Aquila because he
was of the same craft, that they might work together to earn a living. And in that
he seems not to have imitated the fowls of the air and the lilies of the field. [It
would seem so, in very truth. And yet not so:] It is sufficiently apparent from
these and other similar passages in Scripture that what Our Lord condemns is not
the provision a man makes for himself by human means, but rather service of God in
purport of such things [i.e., as a way of making a living] so that one aims in one's
jy
labour not at the kingdom of God, but at a comfortable living (acquisition em).
If St. Matthew really meant that, he may have had many excellent endowments,
but certainly no great knack for clear expression of his thoughts.

1803
3
"I was constrained of necessity to write my book On the Labour of Monies,
for when there began to be monasteries in Carthage, some of them provided for
themselves with the work of their hands in obedience to the Apostle, others elected
to liveon the alms of the devout, doing nothing to obtain their requirements either
in whole or in part, believing, nay boasting, that in that they were the better ob-
serving the precept of the Gospel, where Our Lord says, Matt. 6:26: 'Consider the
birds of the air and the lilies of the field.' Wherefore, even among laymen, who
were simple souls but animate of living faith, there broke out fierce contentions that
disturbed the peace of the Church." In the De opere monachorum, 23, 27 (Opera,
Vol. VI, p. 569; Haddan, p. 517), the Saint says further: "Now forsooth they bring
forth the Gospel of Christ against the Apostle of Christ. Truly marvellous the in-
dustry of these time-wasters who out of the Gospel would raise an impediment to
the very thing which the Apostle prescribed and did to the end that the Gospel itself
should have no impediment. And yet if we were to constrain these people to live
according to the literal words of the Gospel, as they understand them, they would
be the first to essay persuasion of us that those words were not to be understood as
they understand them. For in truth they say that they must not work, because the
birds of the air neither sow nor reap, which Our Lord gave us as an example to
shows by follow the precept to the letter would
that, really, is that to
be very difficult, not to say impossible. He in no wise shows that
the meaning is different from the obvious meaning of the terms
used. To clear his traces, the Saint changes the meaning of the Gos-
pel text altogether. Says he: "The whole precept, then, comes
down
to this rule: that even in being provident we must think of the king-
dom God, and that in soldiering for the kingdom of God we
of
4
should not linger on thoughts of amassing material goods." Similar
interpretations are to be found in the writings of other Holy Fathers,
who go looking for ways to reconcile the Gospel text, which is after
5
all clear
enough, with the requirements of a civilized society.
St. Thomas has an
ingenious interpretation with which he designs
to eat his cake and have it too. He states the question: "What
the end that we take no thought of these necessary things. But why do they not
attend to what follows? For it is not only written that 'they sow not, neither do
they reap,' but it is further added: 'nor gather into barns.' Which barns may be
said to be either granaries or pantries. Why, then, do they wish to have hands idle
but pantries full? do they gather in
Why and save for their daily needs the things
that they receive of the work of others? Why do they grind? Why do they cook?
For verily the birds do not so.'*
4
1803 De scrmone Domini,
etc., II, 17, 58 (he. cit). [The Saint's idea, in a nut-
shell, is that are violating the precept of Jesus when they practise the monas-
monks
tic profession as a way of getting a living without work; they are not disobeying the
precept when they create and save wealth for the better service of God. A. L.J A
sermon attributed to Augustine, but which seems to be apocryphal, comes
St.
closer to the literal meaning of the Gospel text. In it the precept is taken as con-
demning greed, merely, and as a promise that God will take care to provide His
faithful with material goods. In another sermon entitled Eleemosinae efficacia:
Inanis est avarorum providentia, Sermones (Opera, Vol. V), CCCX, he writes: "Give
alms! Why do you fear? He who made you His favourite petitioner (? qui te
praerogatorem constituit) will not fail you. For His is the voice that chides untrust-
fulness in the Gospel, saying, 'Consider the fowls of the air for they sow not neither
do they reap,' nor do they have wine-cellars or pantries, yet 'your Heavenly Father
"
feedeth them.' Perhaps; but when the snow is on the ground the poor birds get
hungry, and not a few die; and such as live near human habitations are happy in-
deed to be fed on what human providence has in store.
5
1803 Anselme of Laon [Pareto attributes this work to Anselm of Canterbury.
I follow Migne. A. L.], Enarrationcs in Evangelium Matthaei, VI (6:25) (Migne,
p. 1312): "Ideo dico vobis: Ne soliciti sitis, etc. And since you cannot serve God
and mammon, be ye not solicitous [take no thought] of temporal wealth for the
sake of food and raiment. There are two kinds of solicitude, the one arising from
external circumstance, the other from the evil in man (alia est rerum alia ex vitio
hominum). Solicitude arises from external circumstance in that we cannot have
bread unless we sow, labour, and do other such things. Such solicitude the Lord
does not forbid, for He says: 'In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread. [That
6
thought shall one take of the morrow?" Following his usual cus-
tom, he begins by bringing out the arguments in favour of the solu-
tion that he is later to reject, and which, in the present case, is that
one should take thought for the morrow. In favour of that solution
we get: The
passage on the provident ant in Prov. 6:6: ["Go to
i.
the ant, thou sluggard: Consider her ways and be wise."] 2. Provi-
dence is an aspect of prudence, which is a virtue. 3. The passage in
John 12:6, from which it would appear
had a money- that Jesus
bag, which He entrusted to Judas ["For he had the bag and bare
what was put therein"]; and another, Acts 4:34-35, where the
Apostles are said to have kept the proceeds of the sale of the lands
that were laid at their feet. "Hence it is permissible to take thought
of the morrow. Against which stand the words of the Lord (Matt.
6:34): Take therefore no thought for the morrow/ Conclu- . . .
sion: Man should take thought for the future at proper and oppor-
7
tune times, but not except at such times." Of this invention of a
"proper and opportune time" there is no trace in the Gospel; and

much less of the further elucidations that St. Thomas
proceeds to
give: "There is a care proper to every season; so in the summer
there is the care of reaping, in the autumn the care of gathering the
grapes. If someone should be solicitous about the harvest in early

summer, he would be taking undue thought for the morrow. Such
a solicitude, therefore, being superfluous, the Lord prohibits when
He says: 'Take therefore no thought for the morrow.'" As for the
shows that there are contradictory passages in the Old and New Testaments. It does
not change the meaning of Matthew's words.] Labour and providence are there-
fore allowed us. But there is a certain superfluous solicitude that arises from the
evil in men, when, not trusting in the goodness of God, they lay aside more provi-
sion and money than is necessary, and are intent on that to the extent of dismissing
spiritual things from their minds. That is forbidden." The distinction between the
two solicitudes is made by this Anselme there is no trace of any such thing in Mat-
thew. St. John Chrysostom also escapes in a similar way. After quoting the Lord's
words about the fowls of the air, he adds, Homilia XXI in capitulum Matthaei VI,
VI, 3 (4) (Gaume, Vol. VII, p. sogb; Prevost, p. 1493): "What, then? There must
be no sowing, doth He say? Not that men must not sow, doth He say, but that one
should not be absorbed in the thought [of sowing] not that one should not work,
;
but that one should not degrade oneself, and torment oneself, with worldly striv-
ing."
Q a ae
1803 Summa theologiae, II II , qu. 55, art. 7 (Opera, Vol. VIII, pp. 402-03:
Utrum aliquis dcbcat esse sollicitus in futurum).
7
1803 "Conclusio. Oportet hominem tempore congruenti atquc opportune non
an tern extra illud tern pus dc juturis esse sollicitum!'
1804
example oi the ant, the answer is "that the ant's care is proper to
the season and is therefore given us to imitate." When such a power-
ful mind as St. Thomas is found stooping to such wretched verbiage,
one is really forced to the conclusion that the enterprise of harmon-
izing the letter of the Gospel precept with the necessities of prac-
8
tical life is a
desperate one indeed.
1804. In the fourth century of the Christian era the heresy of the
Massalians (Pray-ers), also called Euchites (Praecatores, Orantes},
and Enthusiasts, broke out. The Massalians were said to have been
1
pagans originally, and that may well be; for, after all, residues of
asceticism are observable among the pagans as well as among Chris-
tians.Later on, at any rate, there were Christian heretics of the same
persuasion. They refused to perform manual labour and spent their

2
time praying and sleeping. The Catholic Church has always held
aloof from such extravagances. It repudiated the Massalians, there-
fore, and made at least an effort to

discipline the contemplative life.
The Church, however, has been called upon to combat such tend-
encies in all periods of its history.
1805. Specially interesting from that standpoint is the controversy
of the Church with the Franciscans, who tried to dictate to the
Church, but whom the Church managed to assimilate and use for
its own purposes one of the many examples that serve to show that
the art of governing lies in manipulating residues, not in trying to
change them.
1806. The twelfth and thirteenth centuries witnessed a rebirth of
civilization in Italy and in France, which, as is
always the case, ex-
pressed itself in an intensification of Class I residues, which began
8
1803 [Pareto seems to overlook Ansclmc's phrase "despcrantes dc bonitatc Dei"
5
( 1803 ), which shows the ethical derivation for this Catholic view of "thought of
the morrow." A. L.]
1
1804 Epiphanius, Panariitm adversus haereses, lib. Ill, tomus II, Haeresis
St.
80, 1-2 (Opera, Vol. II, pp. 755, 758): a/Ua fi6vov "E/Uêf dvreg ("but being
. . .
only Greeks"). Later on they called themselves Christians.

2
1804Theodoret, Ecclesiastica historia, IV, 10 (Opera, Vol. Ill, pp. 1142-43;
Jackson, p. 114); and Compendium haereticarum jabularum, IV, (Opera, Vol. n
IV, pp. 430-31): St. John Damascene, De haeresibus, 80 (97) (Opera, Vol. I, p.
731): "They avoid all manual labour as not befitting the Christian and unbecoming
in him." St. Augustine, De haeresibus ad Quodvultdeum, 57 (Opera, Vol. VIII, p.
41): "The Euchitae are said to believe that it is not lawful for monks to do any
work to earn their living, and so to have adopted the monk's profession in order to
be free of all work."
1807 THE POPES AND THE FRANCISCANS 1257
more vigorously to dispute the dominance of group-persistences
(Class II residues). The clergy were at that time the only intellec-
tual class in society, and they were gradually approximating lay
society in their morals. Moralists at the time described

the develop-
ment as a "perversion" of morals in the Catholic clergy; and so they
were to describe again, later on, during the Renaissance and at
it
the time of the Protestant Reformation. They were right, if one
adopt the standpoint from which they view the situation. But there
is another
point of view as well the matter of progress in civiliza-
tion. From this latter standpoint the so-called perversion of morals
in the clergy represented a "betterment" in the conditions of life in
society,
which either ceases to progress or else actually retrogresses
the moment morals are "corrected" or "reformed" through any con-
siderable increase in certain Class II residues and in IV- residues
(asceticism). Not that good or bad morals in the clergy have any
direct influence on progress in civilization. They are merely an index
of the certain Class II residues, just as the rise of the mer-
power of
cury in a thermometer is not the cause of the rise in temperature
but merely an index of it. In the twelfth and thirteenth centuries a
tide of religious feeling, welling up then as it
always does from the
lower classes, arrested the progress of civilization; just as a tide
of religious feeling represented by the Protestant Reformation was
again to arrest it, though for a brief moment, later on. The medi-
aeval tidalwave left the Inquisition on the beach. The tidal wave
of the sixteenth century left the Jesuits. Both waves set back for
many generations that freedom of thought (Class I residues) to-

wards which society had been advancing at the time when they
occurred. Such are the facts, though they appear under greatly dis-
torted forms in the various derivations (2329^).
1807. One of the greatest distortions and with
timely for
it it is
us to deal in particular at this point views such phenomena as the
consequences of certain logical interpretations of Scripture or other

reasonings of the kind. Another, and certainly a not inconsiderable
distortion, arrays on the one hand a Papacy resolved to govern des-
potically and enforce its "superstition," and on the other hand the
heretics, who demand "liberty" and freedom of scientific thought.
In point of fact "superstition" or, if one will, "religious sentiment"
was more intense in the heretics than in the Papacy. They granted
1258 TREATISE ON GENERAL SOCIOLOGY l8o8
and, wherever they prevailed, they imposed very burden-

less liberty
1
some restrictive norms inspired by their ascetic spirit. It should not
be overlooked, further, that such tidal waves of religious feeling
(prevalence of Class II residues) occurred both in the orthodox

and
in the heretical or schismatic sectors of Christendom; and that is
even clearer proof that orthodoxy, heresy, and schism were alike
mere veils hiding one common substance.
1808. Distortions of this kind underlie the many different inter-
pretations of the facts. Enemies of the Papacy necessarily approve

of all heretics, all schismatics; and it is amusing to see free-thinkers,
who are avowed enemies of all
religion, or profess
to be, go into
ecstasies of praise for individuals who sought to impose exceedingly
strict and rigorous religious forms. How many modern admirers of
Calvin that reformer would have persecuted and oppressed had they
lived in his time! Villari calls himself a "positivist." He admires
Savonarola for no other reason than that he was an enemy of the
Pope. But if Villari had lived under the rule of that friar, neither
he nor his "vanities" would have escaped with unruffled fur. After
all, Pope Borgia persecuted neither literature nor science, while

Savonarola, had he been able to have his way, would have destroyed
all
profane literature and all science, with the possible exception of
theology, if that can be called a science. We
are not asking here
whether such a thing would have been "good" or "bad." are We
simply calling attention to the contradiction involved in simultane-
ously admiring "free science" and the overbearing tyrannical super-
stition of a man like Savonarola.
1809. The tidal wave of

religious feeling that broke in the Mid-
dleAges manifested itself partly in heresies, such as the Albigensian,
and partly in pious "works" such founding of the mendicant
as the
orders, which, if not exactly orthodox, were such at least in appear-

ances. St. Francis of Assisi has had admirers all the way along to our
Speaking of the Franciscan intransigents in his Ercsia nd mcdio evo, p.

*
1807
518, Tocco says: "Underneath these petty pretexts the intransigents were really
aiming much higher: to a declaration, namely, that the kind of life prescribed in
the Rule did not differ from the evangelical life; that that was the life that Jesus
and the Apostles had led, and that that was the life that not only the Friars Minor,
but all Christians, since they must take the Gospel as the rule of their lives, should
lead; which was another way of saying that not only the clergy but all Christendom
ought to be turned into one vast Franciscan convent.*'
l8lO DERIVATIONS AND REALITY 1259
day, and can even count some now among votaries of the god Prog-
ress.He founded an order of friars for whom the Gospel verses
about the fowls of the air and the lilies of the field were, or were
supposed to be, a strict rule evident that such persons
of life. It is
can function only as

exceptions in a civilized society. If the Fran-
ciscans are to live by alms, there must be other
people to provide
the alms; and they are not going to take thought for the mor-
if
row, there must be people to do that thinking for them. They can
be improvident only if they have a society of providents to live in
otherwise they all starve and the game is
up.
The attitudes of the various Popes towards the Franciscan
1810.
movement were determined by a variety of causes. Religious senti-
ments (Class II residues) were not altogether without effect, and
they were especially conspicuous under Celestine V. But the more
influential residues were those of Class I. The Pope had to solve a
problem that rulers are very frequently called upon to face: to find
ways, through appropriate combinations and for the purpose of

fighting their enemies, to avail themselves of the sentiments that
might make new enemies for them, or be of service to enemies who
were already there. Waves of religious fanaticism and superstition
were beating high upon the dikes of the Papacy; and it sought ma-
terials for
strengthening its
ramparts of that very fanaticism, that
very superstition. And so it is that the
policy of the Papacy with
regard to the Franciscans, which
to the superficial glance seems
vacillating and contradictory, proves on a deeper analysis of its sub-

stance, and with due allowances for exceptional cases such as that
of Celestine V, to have been in all
respects consistent and consist-
ently aimed at one objective. The Popes favoured the Franciscans
to the farthest limits of orthodoxy. When the Franciscans over-
stepped those limits, they repressed them. The Popes were willing
to use them as auxiliaries. They could not tolerate them as enemies.
They were glad to use them against heretics, and against rich and
powerful elements in the clergy who
were disposed to assert their
independence of the Holy See. Moral reform was a good weapon for
fighting such churchmen. But reform had to stop at the point
be-
yond which the Holy See itself would have been hurt. In the end
this latter conception prevailed; for, as always happens, the pre-
1260 THE MIND AND SOCIETY l8ll
1
tended return to the Gospel ended in being only a mask for heresy.
That indeed is the real reason why so many new admirers of St.
Francis have come forward in our day. They are simply enemies
of the Papacy and use praises of St. Francis as a weapon in their war.
1811. Active in them also is a residue of democratic humanitari-
anism, which was even more conspicuous in their predecessors not

only those Franciscans who were sticklers for the letter of the Rule,
but the Catharists and other sects of the kind. At bottom the activi-
ties of both were in the direction of destroying civilization, repre-
senting as they did a predominance of Class II residues, which are

always so powerful in the lower strata of society.
saw the absurdity of the Rule of St. Francis
1812. Innocent III
1
and was in doubt whether to approve or reject it. "Certainly," says
2
Tocco, "he could not reject these new forces which had unexpect-
edly come
to his aid in his fight on heresy; nor is there any doubt
that he gave his blessing to the Mendicant of Assisi without for-
bidding him to go forward with his work. But he never was easy
in his mind as to the Rule, which he thought did not take due
account of the real needs and tendencies of human nature, nor did
he ever consent to issue a bull approving it." Pope Honorius III took
that step in 1223. e saw a new ^
power rising and designed to take
full
advantage of it.
1 8 10 x We have a long letter of John XXII in which he voices keen displeasure

at the disobedience of the Minorites and rebukes them for trying to free themselves
of the control of the Holy See. Baronio (Rinaldi), Annales ecclesiastici, anno 1318,
XLV: ". . . such mental cases run in this wise (sic sunt castis mentis): that first
the unfortunate spirit swells with pride, then by an unhappy gradation, not to say
by a headlong plunge, it moves on to contention, and from contention to schism,
from schism to heresy and from heresy to blasphemy."
x
1812 Fleury, Histoire ccdesiastique, Vol. XX, Preface, pp. xii-xiii (speaking
of the Franciscans) "It would, it seems, have been to the greater advantage of the
:
Church for bishops and Popes to have applied themselves in earnest to reforming
the secular clergy and putting it back on the footing of the first four centuries, with-
out calling on these outside troops [the Franciscans] for help, so that there would
have been but two sorts of persons sacred to God: clerics appointed to supervise the
education and conduct of the faithful and absolutely subject to the bishops, and
then monks holding entirely apart from the world and busied exclusively with pray-
ing and labouring in silence. In the thirteenth century, however, the idea of such
perfection had been forgotten, and the impressive thing was the disorder to be seen
before one's eyes: the greed of the clergy, their expensive living, their effeminate
voluptuous habits, which had also spread to the endowed monasteries.'*
2
1812 Op. cit.. t p. 428.
1814 THE POPES AND THE FRANCISCANS 1 26 1
1813.The Popes were not the only ones willing to use the reli-
gious enthusiasm of the Franciscans for their own ends. The Em-
peror Frederick II had the very same intention, and he had no re-
ligion to speak of, being, as a type, the exact opposite of Celestine
1
V. Such the substance over which a veil of derivations was
spread.
Suppose now we look at it more closely.
1814. Immediately after the death of St. Francis, and
perhaps even
earlier, contention arose in the order between those who wished to
follow the Rule or, if one will, the precept of Jesus to the letter,
and those who were disposed Rule and Gospel
to reconcile both
1
with the requirements of life in society. In course of time the order
was broken up into three branches: the "Little Friars" (Fraticdli)
and the "Spirituals" (Spirituali}, both strict observers of the Rule,
but holding different theological views; then the "Conventuals"
1
1813 Preaching a return to "evangelical poverty" was ever the favourite weapon
of the enemies of the Papacy and Frederick II also used it. Tocco, Op. cit., pp. 447-48:
"As regards the secular clergy, Frederick's language is no different from the lan-
guage of the intransigent Franciscans, as witness his letter to the King of
England, Huillard-Breholles, Historia diplomatica Frederici Secundi, Vol. Ill,
p. 50: 'The primitive Church, in the days when she was producing in such
fertility the saints who are listed in the calendar, had been founded on pov-
erty and simplicity. But at no later date could anyone establish any founda-
tion save that which had been laid and established by Our Lord. Now because
they
are wallowing in wealth, lolling in wealth, building in wealth, there is fear lest
the wall of the Church be tottering and lest when the wall has been thrown down
"
the fall of the whole ensue.' And to combat Frederick, Gregory IX favoured the
intransigent party among the Franciscans. Tocco, Op. cit., pp. 445-46: "I think it
probable that the Pope broke with the Franciscan General for political reasons.
As we have already seen, the General was equally acceptable both to Gregory
and to Frederick, and Salimbcne tells us that he often acted as mediator between
them. Perhaps in these dealings he may have shown himself more favourable to the
Imperial cause. ... In view of that Gregory surrendered to the intransigent party
and not only deposed the unlucky General, but had him expelled from the order
and solemnly excommunicated him, and worse certainly would have befallen him
had not Frederick taken him under his protection. The shrewd Emperor, lying
under a charge of heresy, found it to his advantage to have on his side a comrade
of St. Francis who a few years before had been held in high esteem by the Pope
himself."
J
1814 Somewhat later, in 1311, a similar difference is defined in a bull by
Clement V: dementis Papae V Constitutiones, lib. V, tit. XI, DC verborum sig-
nificatione, cap. i, Exivi de paradiso (Friedberg, Vol. II, p. 1193): "In view of that
a very knotty question arose among the friars as to whether they were bound by
profession of the Rule to the stricdy meagre or 'poor' use of property requisite for
sustaining life (ad arctum et tenuem sive pauperem usum rerum), some of them
believing and saying that they had made a very strict renunciation in their vow as
2
(Conventual?) who interpreted the Rule somewhat liberally. Pope
Celestine V allowed another order to secede from the Friars Minor,
to be known Pope Celestine (Celestines) or Poor
as the Friars of
Hermits. This order too was uncompromising as to observance of
the Rule. That Pope was a simple soul and very devout. He did
not last long on the throne of St. Peter. On the other hand Pope
Boniface VIII, who replaced him, was a shrewd diplomat and per-
3
secuted the Poor Hermits.
1815. In a word, since it was impossible to live without property
and without providence, some subterfuge had to be found for in-
terpreting the Gospel precept and the Rule of St. Francis in such
a way that they would not jar too violently with property and provi-
dence. Derivations, as we have seen, are like rubber bands and can
be stretched to mean anything desired. It was therefore not dif-
regarded ownership of property, so that the strictest frugality and meagreness were
prescribed for them as regarded its use [i.e., quite apart from ownership]; others
holding to the contrary that they were bound by their profession to no practice of
poverty (ad nullum itsum pauper em) not expressly prescribed in the Rule, though
they were indeed bound to the moderate observance of temperance to the same
extent as other Christians and, concededly, more so."
2
1814 Tocco, Op. cit., p. 500, note: "Liber sententiarum inquisitionis Tholosanae,
p. 326: 'He said that he had heard from certain Friars Minor about the so-called
Spirituals of Narbonne and so he thought that things were in such a state that the
Friars Minor ought to be divided into three parts, namely, into the community of
the order that wishes to own barns and cellars, then the Brothers (Friars) and Little
Brothers who arc in Sicily under Fra Enrico de Ceva, and finally the friars called
Spirituals or Poor Friars and also Beguincs. And they [the friars in Narbonne] had
said that the first two divisions were destined to decline and be destroyed as not
observing the rule of the Blessed Francis, but that the third part, since it observed
"
the evangelical rule, was to endure to the end of the world.'
3
1814 Fleury, Histoire ecclesiastiqiie, Vol. XVIII, pp. 535-43: 'Those among the
Friars Minor who professed greatest zeal for strict observance did not fail to profit
by the favourable attitude of Pope Celestine towards austerity and reform. They
therefore sent two of their number to him, Fra Liberatus and Fra Pier de Macerata.
They called on the Pope . and requested that with his authorization, which no
. .
one would dare dispute, they should be allowed to live according to the purity of
their rule and the intent of St. Francis. That they readily obtained. But the Pope
further granted them permission to live together wheresoever they chose in order
to be at liberty to practise their strict observance. And he ordered that they
. . .
should no longer be called Friars Minor but Poor Hermits, and later on they came
to be called the Hermits of Pope Celestine [Celestines] So, though Celestine's in-
.
tentions were of the purest, the simplicity in which he lived his whole life, his in-
experience, and the feebleness due to age, led him into making many mistakes. . . .
Boniface began his pontificate by revoking the favours that Celestine had granted
through the abuse people had made of his simplicity."
alone one device, any number of devices. The prin-
ficult to find, let
cipal ones enjoined

observance of the letter on the friars, while other
persons did the owning and the saving for them. Gregory
IX as-
signed that function to "dummies," who were outsiders. John
XXII
assigned it to
Superiors in the Order, to whom the ordinary friars
owed obedience. That he did because his enemies were using the
point of the "dummies" as a weapon against him; but
had he
chosen, he could have stuck to Gregory IX's interpretation and made
itmean whatever he pleased.
1816. The derivation contrived by Gregory IX was an ingenious
one. The Rule forbade the friars to receive money. How then were
they to buy or sell? Very simple! A

person not bound to observe
the Rule receives the money and spends it for the friars! The friars
must hold no property of their own. How then can they own both
real and personal property ? No difficulty Some other persons hold
!
the bare title, and the friars enjoy the use of the property. So too
other persons are prevented from appropriating the property the
friars are using. They stick to the Rule, resisting nobody who would
rob them but along comes the titular owner and does the resisting.
;
Tolstoy, in his day, got along in just that fashion. He never "re-
sisted evil," he never repelled the thief who would despoil him. But
his wife was there, resisting, repelling, and managing the property
on which her husband lived and had his being.
1817. Innocent IV, in 1245, and Nicholas
III, in 1279, gave
sounder form to the theory. Pope Nicholas says that a distinction
has to be made between ownership, possession, and usufruct (usu-
fact), that there can be no calling that bars the use of the things
necessary for subsistence. He shows at great length that, in spirit,
the Rule of St. Francis conceded such use. The Rule says that friars
may own breviaries. That means usufruct of breviaries and other

books required in the performance of divine offices. The Rule allows
the brothers to preach:"The which of a certain presupposes knowl-
edge; and knowledge requires study, and one cannot suitably study
without the use of books. From all the which it appears that the
Rule grants the friars the use of things necessary to feeding and
clothing themselves, to the observance of divine worship, and to
learned study." Anyone desiring to make a gift to the friars means
to make a gift to God, "nor is there
person to whom, in the stead
of God, one may more fittingly transfer ownership than to the Holy
See and the person of the Roman Pontiff, Vicar of Christ, who is
x
the father of all men and especially of the Friars Minor." With the
ordinance, Exivi de paradise ... of Pope Clement V, we go back
for a brief spell to literal interpretation, and once more their lords
and ladyships, the birds who are fed by divine Providence, come on
2
the scene. Then came Pope John XXII, who was more keenly
awake to the exigencies of practical life; and since he had
grounds
for dissatisfaction with the dissident Friars Minor, he turned against
them. He found no
trouble in putting his finger on the weak spot
in Gregory's derivation and
showing how ridiculous it was to di-
vorce ownership from usufact as regards things that are consumed;
forit
truly is a laughable thought that the ownership of a piece of
bread should be of some other person than the one who eats it.
Since the quarrel among the Franciscans had degenerated, as things
have a way of going in such cases, into childish disputes as to the
cut and the length of Franciscan habits, John XXII decreed, in a
constitution of 1317, that it was for the Superiors of the Franciscans
to determine the cut of habits and the quality of cloth, and to lay
in stores of grain and wine, further reminding the brethren that the
3
principal virtue they were expected to show was obedience. But the
*
1817 Boniface VIII, Sexti decretales, lib. V, ///. 12, De vcrborum significatione,
cap. 3: Exiit qui seminat (Friedberg, Vol. II, p. 1109). And he continues with this
specification: "And that the ownership of such things may not seem to be uncer-
tain and
since the property that is offered, granted, or given is acquired by the son
for the father, by the slave for the master, by the monk for the monastery, we,
therefore, by this present constitution forever valid, rule (as our predecessor of
blessed memory Pope Innocent, fourth of that name, is known to have ruled)
that the proprietorship and ownership of utensils, books, and furnishings present
and future, which said Orders or said friars shall lawfully hold or of which they
shallhave usufruct, fully and freely belongs to us and to the Roman Church."
2
1817 Clement V, Constittitioncs, lib. V, tit. 11, De verborum significatione,
cap. i: Exivi de paradiso (Friedberg, Vol. II, p. 1198): "Inasmuch as the afore-
said saint [Francis], both in the examples he set in his life and through the words
of his Rule, made it clear that he desired that his brothers [friars] and sons,
should, trusting in Divine Providence, turn all their thoughts to God, who feeds
the fowls of the air which neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, it is not
plausible that it was his intent that they should have barns or cellars, since they
should hope to be able to live their lives through daily mendication."
3
1817 John XXII, Extravagantes, lib. XXII, ///. 14, De verborum significatione,
cap. i: Quorundam exigit (Friedberg, Vol. II, p. 1222) (The ordinance was pro-
claimed more than once and therefore bears various dates posterior to 1317): "By
1817 THE POPES AND THE FRANCISCANS 1265
Franciscans were not hushed. They made bold to defy the Pope's
expressed will,
and he was accordingly moved to expand his deriva-
4
tion. He revoked the bull of Nicholas III; and then, in the bull
Ad conditorem, he asserted that it was, in general, altogether per-

missible for one Pope to revoke the ordinances of his predecessors
and demonstrated the ineptitude of distinguishing between owner-
the authority of these presents we commit it to the judgment of said ministers,
guardians, and wardens to consider, determine, and rule as to the length, breadth,
thickness, thinness, shape, cut, or whatever similar attribute, of the habit, cowl, or
inner tunic that all Friars Minor of said order shall wear. ... In the matter of
the petition (consilio) of our afore-said friars, we same form
likewise and in the
by authority of these presents commit it to the judgment of the said ministers and
wardens to consider, determine, and rule as to how, when, where, and how often
they shall obtain and store up grain, bread, and wine for the subsistence of the
friars and as to the quality thereof and also as to whether it shall be stored and
kept in said barns and cellars. For it is to the hurt of religion if subordinates
. . .
are withdrawn from their proper obedience. Great is poverty but greater is purity
(integritas), and greatest of all is obedience if it be perfectly observed. For poverty
rules material things, purity the flesh, but obedience the mind and soul which, as it
were unbridled (cffraencs) and impatient of external control, it humbly brings
under the yoke of the will."
4
1817 In 1318, in Marseilles, four Friars Minor chose to go to the stake rather
than obey the Pope. The sentence of condemnation, quoted by Tocco, Op. cit., p.
516, says of them: "They asserted that the Most Holy Father John XXII did not
have and does not have the authority (potestatem) to make the statements, com-
mitments, and orders contained in a certain constitution or decretal beginning
Quo run dam cxigit and that they were not called upon to obey said Pope
. . .
(Domino Papae). Brought into our presence, they protested orally and in writing
that they stood by their protests and intended to stand by them till the Day of
Judgment ... to wit, that that which is against the observance and sense (intelli-
gentiam) of the Rule of the Friars Minor is consequently against the Gospel and
the faith otherwise it would not be exactly what the Gospel rule was ( ? alias non
esset penitus quod regida e v angelica) and that no mortal would be able to com-
y
pel them to lay aside their short tight habits."

John XXII, Extravagantcs, lib. XII,
tit. 14, DC vcrborum Quia quorundam mentes (Friedberg,
significatione, cap. 5:
Vol. II, p. 1230). The Pope rebukes and condemns the attitude of those who do
not bow to his ordinance Quorundam exigit, and says of the Friars Minor: "To
impugn the aforesaid constitutions on the grounds mentioned, they are reported
to have made public use of the spoken and written word. Anything, they say, in
the spheres of morals and faith that the Roman Pontiffs have once decided through
the key of knowledge remains immutable, so that it is unlawful for a successor to
cast doubt upon it or rule to its contrary; though they say the situation is different
in things that they [the Roman Pontiffs] have ordained through the key of power.
They say that the following words are contained in the confirmation of the Rule
of the Order of the Friars Minor by Honorius III, Gregory IX, Innocent IV, Alex-
ander IV, and Nicholas IV, our predecessors as supreme pontiffs: This is the evan-
gelical rule of Christ and one that imitates the Apostles in that it recognizes no
5
ship and usufruct in the case of things that are physically consumed.
He accordingly repudiated ownership of the property of the Friars
Minor, which they claimed was his, and handed it back to the friars
6
themselves to dispose of through their Superiors. Such great fluc-
tuations in interpretation show how truly insuperable the difficulties

were in the way of reconciling the theoretical strictness of the Fran-
ciscan Rule with practical life. In the case of the Franciscans we see
them enlarged, as it were, under a lens, but they are no less dis-
cernible in such doctrines as
pacifism, humanitarianism, and non-
resistance to evil, and also arise, though in differing and some-
they
times in minor proportions, in almost all ethical doctrines, all the-
ories of natural law,and other theories of the kind, which can be
defended only by resort to ingenious,
nay, thaumaturgic sophistries
and interpretations that strip them of every speck and particle of
definiteness.
individual or common property (nihil habet proprium vel commune) , but they
have simple usufact (usum jacti) in the things they use.' To all that
they go so far
as to add that the afore-said Supreme Pontiffs and
many general Councils have
ruled by the key of knowledge that the poverty of Christ and the
Apostles con-
sisted perfectly in an expropriation of temporal ownership of a civil or worldly
character and that their sustenance consisted of nothing but usufruct. From that
pure
they try to conclude that it has not been and is not lawful for the successors [of
those Popes] to make changes in any respect against those
premises."
6
1817 John XXII, Extravagantes, VI, 3, 14: Ad conditorcm canonum (Friedberg,
Vol. II, p. 1225). The following summary of the ordinance is
supplied by Lancelotto
in Corpus iuris canonici accadcmicum, Basel, 1783, Vol. II, p. 395 (Institutiones iuris
canonici) 'The Supreme Pontiff refutes the assertion that ownership of the property
:
coming into the possession of the Friars Minor has been held by the Roman Church,
simple usufact thereof being reserved to said friars in the constitution Exiit qui semi-
nat. He shows by many reasons that they cannot have simple usufact in anything;
and he rules that furthermore theRoman Church shall have no right or title of own-
ership in things that thenceforward shall be given or offered to said friars." Of

commodities for physical consumption the Pope says: "For who could be of mind
so unsound as to believe that so great a father ever meant to hold that in the case
of an egg, a piece of cheese, a crumb of bread, or of the other victuals that are
oftentimes given to such friars for consumption on the
spot (e vestigia) , the own-
ership belongs to the Roman Church, the use to the friars?"
6
1817 John XXII, Extravagantes, lib. XXII, tit. 14, cap. 3: Ad conditorem canonum
(Friedberg, Vol. II, p. 1225). The Pope expresses his eagerness to get back to verities
of fact and have done with fictions that might discredit the Church.
bring upon
Then he concludes: "Regarding the opinion of our friars, we declare by this edict
for all time valid that in the property which hereafter shall be
given or offered
to or otherwise acquired by the afore-said friars or order of friars
(with the ex-
ception of churches, oratories, workshops, dwellings, and vessels, books and vest-
1818. In our day Tolstoy has furnished some fresh
samples of
absurd derivations in his theory of non-resistance to evil. More or
less like him are those anti-militarists who would disarm their own
countries and dream of a universal peace, and further

splendour is
added to that egregious company by our enemies of alcoholic bever-
ages and amorous pleasures in fact, all material pleasures and by
our ultra-hygienists who holy horror of the microbe.
live in
1819.
Many among such are those who as preachers preach
all
well, but as practitioners practise badly. Words are one thing, actions
quite another. At best the more scrupulous among them try to rec-
oncile words with conduct. Often the person who admires and hails
Tolstoy's evangelical doctrine that we should not defend our prop-

erty against those who would relieve us of it shows himself, when
ments dedicated or to be dedicated to divine offices, which shall come to them
hereafter and to which the afore-said difficulties do not extend wherefore we do
not wish this constitution to apply to them) the Roman Church acquires no right
or title whatsoever in virtue of the above-mentioned ordinance or of any other
ordinance proclaimed specially on this matter by any of our predecessors, but
that such ordinances shall in this regard be held henceforward as null and void."
On this point there was a long and acrimonious dispute between the Pope and
the Franciscans, the latter supported by Ludwig of Bavaria; for, as usual, a real
issue lay concealed under the derivations in this case the quarrel between Papacy
and Empire. The Pope deposed and excommunicated Michael of Cesena, General
of the Franciscans.He then published the celebrated bull Ouia vir reprobus, in which
subtly and at length he refutes the former General's animadversions, and which
is evidently a comprehensive treatise on the whole matter. It is interesting to note
that the Pope perceived the ineptitude of taking a natural law, or law of nations,
as the basis of legality.However, he wanted to keep a natural law all the same,
so he went looking about for a derivation suited to the purpose and, as always
happens, readily found one, making human law a corollary of divine law: "That
no property right in temporal things could have been given to man by any
human law, but only by divine law, is evident; for it is granted that no one can
give anything away unless he be the owner of it, or by the will of the owner.
There is no doubt that God is the owner of all temporal things whether by right
of creation, since He created them out of nothing, or by right of manufacture,
since He made them of His materials. It follows that no king could rule as to own-
ership of such things save by will of God." Admitting the premises, the syllogism
is perfect; and if logic had anything to do with such things, we should have to
recognize that the Pope's reasoning shows not a wrinkle: "Whence it is evident
that neither by natural primeval law if it be taken as that law that is common
to all living creatures, though such a law does not legislate (/;//;// statuat} but
merely inclines or guides living creatures in common to the doing of certain things
nor by law of nations, nor by the law of kings or emperors, was property own-
ership in temporal things introduced, but it was conferred upon our first parents
by God who was and is the owner of them."
1268 THE MIND AND SOCIETY l82O
it comes to conduct, a relentless creditor who will not let a debtor
get away with a farthing, finding, as occasion requires, no end of

1
pretexts to justify such procedure amply. There are pacifists and
anti-militarists a-plenty who nevertheless will have their own coun-
tries
great and powerful in war and who can fish up the most in-
genious arguments in praise of "wars to end war." How many the
people who would prohibit the use of alcohol, but themselves con-
sume, for their health, they say, ether, morphine, or cocaine, or
drink enough tea to contract a malady that has been named "tea-
ism." And how many others go out with their mistresses on their
arms to work in campaigns "for the elevation of morals" or the
suppression of the "white-slave trade," and then justify

themselves
by the claim that they have a right to "live their own lives."
1820. Eusebius, Evangelica praeparatio, XIV, 7 (Opera, Vol. Ill,
pp. 1211-12)5 repeats after Numenius an anecdote, fictitious beyond

a doubt, but which shows as under a magnifying glass the issue here
in point. Numenius relates that one Lacides,
being secretly who was
robbed by his observed that the good things in his pantry
slaves,
kept disappearing but could not discover what was becoming of

them. He chanced to hear a discourse by Arcesilaus on the impos-
sibility
of our understanding anything. He was convinced forth-
with, and in his turn began professing the doctrine that we can
know nothing for certain, adducing in proof his own experience
with his pantry. One of his hearers, who knew the trick the slaves
were using, revealed it to him, whereupon the good man took meas-
ures to lock his pantry more securely. But the slaves, nothing
daunted, broke the seals and then brazenly told their master that
being certain of nothing, he could not be certain, either, that he
had put seals on the pantry. The game lasted a long time to the
damage and rage of poor Lacides; until he threw philosophy by
the board one day and said to his slaves: "Young men, in the schools
we reason in one way; but at home hereafter we are going to live in
quite another."
1821. Once one is started on the road of derivations it is
easy to
*
1819 There is nothing new under the Sun. This type of person has his coun-
terpart among the devout in all countries in all periods of history. The religious
fanatics of the past and our present-day humanitarians are of the same breed.
See,
in 1172 *, the quotations from Moliere and the Sorberiana.
1823 THE LOTTERY AND THE "ETHICAL STATE*' 1269
goto ridiculous extremes. In the sixteenth century one Simon Gedik

made a rejoinder in all earnestness to a book which set out to show
that women did not belong to the human race mulieres non esse
homines though it was just a satirical jest at the expense of the
1
Socinians.
1822. Another important illustration of the
ways in which people
try to escape the logical consequences of certain principles is the
case of morality. Civilized peoples naively imagine that they follow
in practice the principles of a certain theoretical ethics. In point of
fact, they act very differently indeed and then resort to subtle in-
terpretations and ingenious casuistries to reconcile theory and prac-

tice that are ever and anon discordant.
1823. step in the history of the civilized peoples we find

At every
applications of the principle that the end justifies the means, and
those who assert the principle explicitly are not the ones who make
most lavish use of it.
Every sect, every party, accuses its adversaries
of immoral acts, while it fails altogether to see its own. loudly How
have "liberals" not decried the misdeeds of "reactionary" govern-
ments, only to do worse themselves! In Italy the older governments
were accused of "speculating in immorality" in conducting lotteries,
but the highly moral government that succeeded them has main-
x
1821 Bayle, Dictionnaire historique, s.v. Gediccus, remarque (A): "The author
of the dissertation has no special grudge against women. He abuses them just inci-
dentally and quite indirectly. His principal aim is to ridicule the system of the
Socinians and their way of playing wtih the most positive texts of God's Word
touching the divinity of the Vcrbum. A journalist noted the fact long long ago. Here
iswhat he said, Nouvcllcs de la republiqnc des lettres, July, 1685, p. 802: *. . . The
Socinians pay with such wretched sophistries that they were once shown that with
their glosses one could eliminate from the Scriptures every passage tending to
prove that women are human beings I mean, of the same species as men. That
was the subject of a little book that appeared toward the end of the last century.
... A certain Simon Gedik, Prime Minister of Brandenburg, wrote an answer
[Defensio sexus muliebris, The Hague, 1638, new ed., 1707] in all seriousness,
failing to catch the intent of the author, which was to write a violent satire against
the Socinians.' Dobeneck used the same device, but quite unavailingly, against
Luther, writing books by Luther's method, and proving by passages from Scrip-
ture that Jesus Christ was not God at all, that God had to obey the Devil and
that the Holy Virgin did not preserve her virginity." "Theophile Raynaud," Bayle
continues, "had just given [Erotemata dc mails ac bonis libris, III, 3, no. 514
(Opera, Vol. XI, p. 366)] a fine example of the pqwer of verbal trickery, showing
that if one were to follow the principles of certain censors the Apostles' Creed
would not contain an item that could pass the censorship.*'
tained and continues to maintain that form of gambling. Judges
penalize gamblers in the name
of a government that derives an
1
annual income of tens of millions from the lottery. In France and
other countries horse-racing takes the place of the lottery. The Aus-
trian censors were ridiculous, but not more ridiculous than Luz-
zatti, in distributing fig-leaves right and left to statues in public

museums. The Neapolitan Bourbons, it is said, were friendly with
the Camorra; but the government that succeeded them does not
disdain to show its benevolence to the same "gangs," in order to get
parliamentary elections to its

liking.
1824. There are hosts of estimable people who have not a word
of censure for the men who cast ballots for absentees and for the
dead in southern France, yet who fly
into a fury, and in utter good
faith, at the mere thought of a Jesuit's contending that the end jus-
tifies the means. Among the people in Italy who tolerated the un-
l
1823 Martello, "Considerazioni in dijesa del giuoco d'azzardo," pp. 491-92: "I
have said that the lottery is a game of robbery. I was not speaking metaphorically.
That was the literal truth. The lottery is a game of robbery because it does not
limit winnings, as roulette, which is a game of pure chance, does. It keeps 85

its
of the 90 numbers in the urn in its own favour. In roulette the person who bets
I franc on one colour wins i franc; on 6 numbers, he wins 5 and gets back his own;
on the 'dozen' or 'column' (12 numbers), he wins u and gets back his own.
Anyone who bets i franc en plan, who bets, that is, i franc on any one number
of the 36, wins 35 and gets back his own. Anyone who desires to bet on the
bank bets on zero. The Royal Lottery pays ioj^ times the stake to the winner of
the 'simple draw.' If it operated on the same principle as roulette, it would
pay 1 8 times the stake in other words, as many more times the stake as there
are more probabilities in its favour (17+1). To the winner of the 'specified
draw' (estratto determinate) the Royal Lottery pays 525/2 times the stake, instead
of 90 (a 41.67 per cent robbery, if you please). From that point on the robbery
grows by leaps and bounds: to the winner of the ambo [two-number scries] it pays
250 times the stake, instead of 400 j4 times (a 37.58 per cent robbery); to the
winner of a terno [three-number series] it pays 4,250 times the stake, instead of
11,748 times (a 63.82 per cent robbery); to the winner of a quaterno [four-number
series] it pays 60,000 times the stake, instead of 511,038 (an 88.26 per cent robbery).
. . .
Observe, moreover, that whatever the stake may be for any ticket (terno, qua-
tcrno, cinqttina) the Royal Lottery refuses to pay the winner more than 400,000 lire;
so that the person who stakes 100 lire on a quaterno ought to receive a sum amount-
ing to 511,038 times the stake, or 51,103,800 lire; but since the winner of the quaterno
receives a sum amounting to 60,000 times the stake, a xoo-lire ticket ought to
bring him 6,000,000 lire. In point of fact, in virtue of the limitations shown above,
he receives only 400,000 lire, and the robbery, therefore, amounts to 93.33 per
cent. But that is not all. The Royal Lottery will not pay more than 6,000,000
lire to cover all the winnings from a single drawing on all the frames in the king-
27 1
lawful appropriations revealed by the bank investigations, and who
continue to tolerate similar "graft," are to be found honest citizens
who believe that they are faithfully following the principles of a
theoretical morality. Among the people in France who approved
of the State's Attorney-General, Bulot, when he declared that magis-
trates must bow to the "fait du prince" under penalty of dismissal,
are to be found individuals of at least average morality who believe

in all good faith that the present government has done away with
the abuses of justice which disgraced the old governments and that
if there were
privileged persons under the monarchy, under the
Republic there is equality before the law; nor is their faith in any
1
way shaken by cases such as the Rochette or Mme. Caillaux affairs.
1825. Measures for attaining a given end. So far our concern has
been with real movements. Let us now turn to a problem pertain-
ing to virtual movements and inquire as to what occurs when resi-

*
dues or derivations are modified ( 133-34)
dom; and the gains of any one drawing should amount to a sum greater than
if
6,000,000 lire, all the gains of all the tickets sold in all offices would be reduced
in corresponding proportions. In that case the robbery has no fixed percentage, but
it is greater than the percentage indicated above according to the sum above
6,000,000 that the gains may total. By this trick the state takes yearly a sum of
lire
over 90,000,000 lire from the meagre resources of the most numerous and least
pecunious portion of the Italian population." Such the "ethical state," such the "state
of right," of our moralists!
1 1
1824 For Bulot's remark see Pareto, Manuale, Chap. II, 5o "Sembat: The
:
State's Attorney has also spoken of some 'higher interest* in this case. Am I to infer
that there is a 'reason of state' to which a magistrate is required to bow? Bulot. On
pain of dismissal! Of course! (laughter)" In 1914 a parliamentary investigating

commission established that a French Attorney-General and a president of a Court
of Appeals had bowed before the "raison d'etat" incarnate in the person of one
Monis, and had favoured one Rochette, against the evidence and the law. At that
time many people were surprised and others were shocked at this practical appli-
cation of a theory that had been stated in words years before by State's Attorney
Bulot, which was perfectly well known to them, and which is continually being
2
applied by all parties in power in France ( 2262 ). Here we are merely trying to
call attention to the gap that exists between theory and practice, and at the same
time to the illusion under which people are labouring in believing that the two
things coincide. We are not passing judgment of any kind on the effects, whether
socially beneficial or otherwise, of such disaccord, nor on the effects beneficial or
otherwise of its being generally known or unknown to the public at large.
1825
1
We
shall conduct this research by considering certain groups of residues
and derivations separately ( 1687). That will give us a part of the phenomenon, but
only a part. To grasp it in its entirety we shall have to take all the elements acting
upon society and consider them as a whole. That task we reserve for our next
1826. We must keep before us here the classification of deriva-
tions outlined above in 1688: derivations proper and manifesta-

tions corresponding respectively to demonstrations and doctrines.
Let us take a group of sentiments, P, which gives rise to residues or,
better, to groups of residues, a, b, c. . . . From one of these, a, we
obtain, by way of derivations proper, m, n, p manifestations or . . .
doctrines, r, s, t and so for the other groups, b,c.

. . .
Only for . . .
the sake of simplicity do we take a single group of sentiments. In
reality we ought to consider larger

numbers of them, their effects ap-
pearing now distinct, now com-

bined in certain groups of resi-
dues. However, such a synthetic
view can readily be obtained from
the elements that we are about to
set forth.
1827. We may distinguish vari-

ous cases of virtual movements, i. The
suppressed case where a is
is the simplest. That suppression involves the suppression of mani-

festations r, s, t . . . and that would be the end of it were it not
that there are other groups like a that remain intact. When that is
the case, the manifestations r, s, t do disappear, but others of the

same type are still left. Furthermore the disappearance or weaken-
ing of the group a may be offset by a reenforcement in other resi-
dues of the same class ( 1742), or by the development of new ones.
1828. In that we are simply restating in different terms a situa-
tion which we noted above when we said that in a community at
all
large a class of residues taken as a whole varies but little, much
1
less than single genera and species.
chapter,where ( 2087) we shall study the composition of certain forces that we

here consider separately. Fundamental to our present research is the inquiry we
completed above in i?35-67> as to the reciprocal influence of residues and der-
ivations, but whereas at that time we were trying to determine the general char-
acter of that influence, here we are trying to see what it must be like in order to
realize certain specified purposes.
x
1828 The point is of great importance, but to treat it with the thoroughness
it deserves would require as much
space as this entire sociology. must therefore We
halt in our advance along that road, all the more since we have still a number of
other very important problems to examine and into them as well we shall be
unable to go as deeply as we would wish.
1832 CONTROL OF PUBLIC OPINION 1273
1829. 2. What happens if one or more of the derivations proper,
m, n, p modified or destroyed? That question we have al-
. . . is
ready answered in its general form, finding that in many cases der-
ivations (or, more
complex of derivations proper and
exactly, the
manifestations) were of secondary importance as compared with
residues, while the role of derivations proper was still less significant
and often times negligible. The production of such derivations is a
very easy matter, and if one is refuted another takes its
place forth-
with and there is no change whatever in the substantial situation.
However, that is
just a first
approximation. Secondary as the influ-
ence be and at times very feeble, the derivations proper can
may
never be absolutely without influence. To get a second approxima-
1
tion, therefore, one would have to see what that influence is.
1830. 3. What happens if one or more of the manifestations r, s, t
... are modified or eliminated?answer the question one has To

to recall all that we have learned, from examples without end, about
reciprocal influences of the residues a and the manifestations r, s, t.

. . . The principal and by far the most important influence is that
of a on r, s, t. . . . A whole class of residues (activity residues, Class
III) are driving the individuals who have them to produce those
manifestations. If that influence were the only one, if there were
no other similar pressures, the elimination of r would have no other
consequence than the disappearance of Conversely, if some public r.
authority or other compelled individuals to perform r, the only

effect of the compulsion would be the
appearance of r.
1831. That that is the main element in the situation is shown by
the fact that a person believes in a religion he feels a need for
if
performing the rites of its cult, whereas, conversely, to enforce ob-

servance of a cult upon persons without the corresponding religious
sentiments by no means engenders such sentiments in them.
1832. But in addition to this principal element there is a sec-
ondary one a reverse action, namely, of r upon a. i. Spontaneous

manifestations of certain sentiments have die effect of strengthen-
ing them. Religious sentiment inspires people to perform the rites

of a cult, and the performance intensifies the religious sentiment
x
1829 There again considerations of space prevent our dwelling too long on the
subject in these volumes. We must rest content with a few glimpses.
( 1747). Manifestations that are not spontaneous may sometimes

have similar effects, generally very feeble ones; but they also have
other effects in a contrary direction, in reaction to the violence to
which the individual has to submit. In certain cases such effects
may be very considerable. 2. If certain manifestations, r, are
sup-
the effect may be the reverse of what it was
pressed spontaneously,
in the case of spontaneous performance: the sentiments correspond-
ing to a may, that is, be weakened. A

similar effect, also very con-
siderable in certain cases, takes place when manifestations are scoffed
at with impunity. Ridicule is a weapon that often (not always)
proves effective in weakening residues of group-persistence. The sit-

uation where manifestations are suppressed by force is a complicated
1
one. In general one might say that if the sentiments corresponding
to the manifestations that are suppressed are at all strong, sentiments
2
are strengthened as a reaction to the suppression. If, instead, the
sentiments are weak, they may in the long run be weakened. Again
in general, the use of force to prevent overt scoffing at certain ob-
servances is more effective than the use of force to impose them.
To protect certain group-persistences (Class II residues) directly is
of little avail. To protect them indirectly by forbidding overt expres-
sions of disrespect towards them may often be most efficacious. That
is a
particular case
of the general rule that it is wiser and easier for
a to exploit existing residues than to modify them
government
( 1843).
1833. The reason
strong sentiments are strengthened is that,
why
in reality, the manifestation r is not suppressed; it merely ceases to
be public. But it endures in private, perhaps only in the secret of
the individual heart, and the sentiments are re-enforced by the very
obstacles that are thrown in the way of their expression. With that
qualification, therefore, one may say that to suppress r always
1832 A particular case of that we examined in

x
I752f.
2
1832 [From the French ed.: Literary observations in this sense abound. One
thinks of the well-known lines:
11
L* absence est a I' amour ce qu'est au feu le vent;
il eteint le petit, il allume le grand/'
("Absence is to love as wind to fire: the little one it extinguishes, the great one
it rouses.")]
weakens a to a greater or lesser extent, provided the suppression is
1
real and extends to the individual's inner thought.
1834. We now have the general explanation of the particular case
examined in 1748-54 above. If in the logico-experimental sciences
an assertion, A, is effectively refuted by showing that it is false
( 1748), that happens because the manifestation, r, the act of asser-
tion comes to an end, and because it has no sentiments, a, of any
particular strength to support it. The rule is proved by the exception,

when a scientist is swayed by personal vanity or some other senti-
ment, and holds to A
without regard to the logico-experimental
value of its demonstration. If, in matters involving sentiment and
non-logical conduct, opposition to the manifestation r does not de-

prive it of its vitality ( 1748), that is due to the fact that the senti-
ments manifested by r are not weakened, but, in some cases,
strengthened ( 1749-50).
1835. What we 1751) the indirect effect of refutations
called (
and persecutions is the effect of attacking manifestations that we
are considering here, the manifestation comprising the two elements
noted in the manifestation of sentiments or concepts pre-
1747
viously existing and corresponding to a, and the effect proper of the
derivation ( 1751).
1836. The sentiments that we call "strong" considering a popula-
tion or a social class as a whole, may be so intrinsically, or because
they are stirred by a large number of pressures, or because they are

shared by a large number of individuals. And so for sentiments
that we speak of as "weak." That is
why, in 1752, we took account
not only of the intrinsic strength of sentiments, but of the more or
less extensive numbers of facts and individuals that are affected by
this or that measure.
1837. When
the external suppression of r intensifies a, it follows,
as a consequence, that s, t ... are also intensified that, in other
\From if) 1 6 ed.: To many people it is a matter of no consequence as re-

l
1833
gards the social equilibrium, whether a derivation lapses from currency because
it is rejected by the public or because it is condemned by some public authority.
The two cases are, however, radically different. In the first case the lapse indi-
cates that a change is taking place in the social equilibrium; in the second, it merely
indicates a desire on the part of public authorities to change a situation by action
that, more often than not, will prove ineffective.]
words, there are cases where the weakening or elimination of one
manifestation, r, has the effect of intensifying other manifestations,
s, t. . . . That effect is very like the effect that results when one
group of residues weakened and other residues are intensified, by
is
way of compensation. Both those effects may be observable simul-

taneously.
1838. From what has just been said a number of important con-
sequences as regards virtual movements follow. Suppose we arrange
*
them under four heads:
a government desires to suppress a certain group of resi-
a. If
dues, a, it can do so most effectively by destroying, if possible, all

individuals who show such residues. The effectiveness of this meas-
ure is
by Spain, where the Inquisition succeeded in ex-
illustrated
tirpating heresy and free-thought. Had the Roman State been able
to deal with Christianity in similar fashion, it would probably have
been successful in extirpating it. It failed in that because the resi-
dues, a, that found expression in Christianity, r, were the same resi-
dues that found expression in the cult of Mithras, s; in the solar
(Osiris) cult, /; in Neo-Platonism, v; in Philo's mysticism, x; and in
many other ways, y, z f . . . and the Emperor Julian, a great enemy

of the Christians, shared those residues with them. All the manifesta-
tions t,v, x, y, z . . . , so different in appearances, for the most
r, s,
part belonged to the one group of sentiments, a, which were shared

by so many people that to destroy a would have meant destroying
the entire population, virtually, of the Roman
Empire, an enterprise
manifestly impossible. The Emperor Constantine acted more wisely
than his predecessors. He did not apply himself obstinately to de-
stroying or modifying the sentiments a. He exploited them as instru-
mentalities of government ( 1843).

1839. Suppression of the residues a may occur spontaneously, and
in that case we get real, instead of virtual, movements. Events that
deeply impress a population modify sentiments in the individuals
who have witnessed them very considerably. But when those in-
dividuals are all, or almost all, dead, their successors know of those
events only by hearsay or tradition and are much less deeply im-
pressed by them. In that sense, one may say, roughly, that the in-
l
1838 a, 1838-41; /?, 1842-49; y, 1850-59; 8, 1860-62.
1
84 1 EDUCATION 1
277
dividuals who harboured the sentiments corresponding to the group
1
a have disappeared.
1840. A similar situation arises
when, instead of disappearing, in-
dividuals harbouring the sentiments a come on the scene. That is
what took place in the Roman Empire when the ancient population
of Latium, and indeed of Italy, gave way to a population of freed-
men or other sorts of people hailing chiefly from the East. It is
very
inexact to speak of an invasion of the Roman Empire by Chris-
tianity.That invasion was not an invasion of ideas, of derivations;

it was an invasion of human
beings who brought with them resi-
dues that found expression in Christian derivations. The ancient
peoples of Rome, Latium, and Italy had certain residues with a cer-
tain religion corresponding. The Orientals had different residues
with, therefore, different religions corresponding. Rome conquered

them by force of arms and enslaved them; but in course of time
they became her freedmen, and then her citizens, and she allowed
the conquered peoples to flock to Rome from all the subject
prov-
inces,even from the despised Judaea. Not only Greece, therefore,
but Asia, Africa, and the Barbarian countries imported their senti-
ments, and the ideas or derivations corresponding, into Rome. The
Romans of the Empire, not only in the days of its decline but in its
period of glory, had nothing but a name in common with the people
who had conquered the Mediterranean basin.
1841. people imagine that a can be suppressed by effecting
Many
a change in education. That method may be fruitful of results if
the effect of the altered education is carried on through the individ-
ual's life. Otherwise it is of little or no avail. The future Christians
were educated in pagan schools. The Jesuits played schoolmaster
to most of the leaders among the enemies of Catholicism in France,
towards the end of the eighteenth century, as well as to most of the
1839
l
tne greater part of the individuals in France who were full-grown
By r 9 rl
at the time of the War of 1870 had passed from the scene; and to that fact was
due, in part at least, the reawakening of nationalism in the country. In the same
way, in Italy, by the year 1913 most of the individuals who had directly suffered
from the Austrian domination in Italy had disappeared; and that made it easier for
the Italian to treat Arabs who were defending their native land as
Government
rebels, and to maintain
try to an "equilibrium in the Adriatic" by forcing the
Greeks of Epirus to submit to domination by the Albanians, exactly as the Italians
of Lombardy and Venetia had once been forced under an Austrian yoke.
leaders of the French Revolution. Thatf does not prove that the effect
of education iszero. It shows that it {s just one among the many
that figure in the resultant registered in \human conduct.
1842. ft. With a view to influencing a, governments ordinarily at-
tack the manifestations r, s, t. . . . That policy
inspired not so is
much by any logical thinking as by the non-logical pressure of senti-

ments that are shocked by the manifestations r, s, t. The deriva- . . .
tion most commonly invoked runs: "The sentiments manifested in r

are harmful to society; therefore I will suppress r" A logico-experi-
mental reasoning would have to add: "because by suppressing the
manifestation r, I shall be destroying the sentiments that find their
expression in r" But that is the weak spot in the argument,
for it
is
by no means certain that to suppress the manifestation of a senti-
ment is to destroy the sentiment itself.
1843. A
truly imposing mass of fact stands there to show the scant
efficacy of trying to influence residues by attacking their manifesta-
tions or, what is worse, derivations inspired by them. Did the severi-
upon expressions of thought in the press serve to prevent

ties visited
firstthe French Revolution, then the fall of Charles in France, X

then the revolutionary disturbances that swept all Europe in '31 ?
Then, again, the disturbances of '48, the growth of revolutiorary
parties
under Napoleon III, and the uprising in Russia after the
Japanese War? And how ever could a press be more thoroughly
muzzled than it was in Russia at that time? At the apex of his
power, and still haloed by his victories over France and his founda-
tion of the German Empire, Bismarck seems to have tried to de-
stroy the residues underlying Socialism and Catholicism by sup-

pressing their manifestations in their respective parties. Yet he
achieved the precise opposite he strengthened them. The Socialist
party began polling the largest vote in Germany; and Catholicism,

in the party of the Centre, often wonpreponderant positions in the
German Government. 1 Shrewd practical man that he was, Bismarck
*
1843 In 1871, the "Old Catholic" movement started in Bavaria and the Bavarian
Prime Minister, Lutz, opened hostilities on the Roman Curia. Says Lefebvre de
Behaine, Leon XIII ct le prince dc Bismarc\, pp. 19, 48, 51: "Though on many
occasions afterwards Prince von Bismarck declined responsibility for that aggres-
it is hard to
sive policy, grant that he experienced any displeasure at seeing it
initiated by the Minister of Public Worship in one of the most important of the
Catholic states in Germany. ... As early as 1874, in other words before the end
himself finally came to recognize the mistake he had made in the
Kultur\amfj,? The government of Emperor William
very oppor- II
tunely reversed tactics and, instead of combating or trying to modify

the residues expressed in Catholicism, began utilizing them as tools
of policy. It was unable, or unwilling, to do the same with the senti-
ments manifested by the peoples in Alsace-Lorraine and Poland;
and in those instances its failure was as complete as in the case of
1
the Kultur\ampf ( 2247 ). The example of Poland indeed is truly
typical.In that case, one country had been divided into three parts.
In the two parts under the dominion of Russia and Prussia, the gov-
ernments combat or modify sentiments, and their policies
tried to
were utterly futile and ineffective. In the section under Austrian
dominion the government took advantage of the same sentiments
of the third year of the campaign against Rome, attentive observers could foresee
that the results of the campaign would be dubious, and it was noted that Prince
von Bismarck was manifesting less enthusiasm for the idea of a national German
Church. The conflict was to continue violent for a number of years; and cir-
. . .
cumstances unforeseen by the National Liberals had to supervene before Prince

von Bismarck definitely dissociated himself from a policy that had at first ap-
pealed to him but which seemed doomed to failure after the Catholic elements
in the Empire had answered threats against them by sending to the Reichstag a
minority that had acquired great importance under the name of the Group of
the Center, whereas the National Liberals were meeting stiffer and more enthusi-
astic opposition every day from Progressives and Socialists." Bismarck, Gedanfycn und
Erinnenmgen, p. 646 (Butler, Vol. II, p. 339) "One should think back to the time
:
when the Center, strong rather in the support of the Jesuits than of the Pope, re-
enforced by the Guelphs (and not only by those in Hanover), the Poles, the Alsatian
Francophiles, the Radical Democrats, the Social Democrats, the Liberals, and the Par-
ticularists, all united in one same sentiment of hostility to Empire and Dynasty,
possessed, under the leadership of this same Windthorst who had become a na-
tional saint since his death, as he was before, a safe and aggressive majority that
served as an effective check to the Emperor and the confederated governments."
2
1843 To tell the truth, Bismarck's mistake seems rather to have lain in an
error of political tactics than in any failure to appreciate the strength of residues
or the importance of using them. In fact, both before and after the Kulturkampf ,
he showed that he had the knack of using residues without trace of scruple. The
fanatical "intellectuals" who
supported the Kulturfympf imagined that Bismarck
shared their beliefs. Really he was just using those gentlemen as his tools. Busch,
Tagcbuchbldttcr (English, Vol. I, p. 220; passage omitted from German), Nov. 8,
"
1870: In October, 1870, rumours were rife that the Pope was leaving Rome: 'They
would not like to see him go/ added Hatzfeldt; 'it is in their interests [of the
Italians] that he should remain in Rome.' The Chief: Tes, certainly. But per-
haps he will be obliged to leave. But where would he go? Not to France, because
Garibaldi is there. He would not like to go to Austria. There remains for him
. . .
but Belgium or North Germany! As a matter of fact, he has already asked whether
I28O THE MIND AND SOCIETY 1^43
3
as instruments of policy,and its work met striking success. Rome
enjoyed the favour and goodwill of the peoples she conquered pre-
cisely because she respected their sentiments. English rule in India
continues to endure on the same grounds; and for identical reasons
Tunis is of all the French colonies the one where French rule is
most popular and most willingly accepted, for there the sentiments,
usages, and customs of the natives have been best respected. Peoples
more readily submit to heavy burdens than to offences against their
manners and customs, however slight and insignificant these may
seem to be. The revolt of the Sepoys in India was provoked, it is
said, by a rumour that the English were tying their cartridges with
strings greased in pork-fat (in those days the cartridge was torn
open with the teeth before being emptied into the gun). Minor acts
of arbitrary disregard in matters of language, religious usage, and,
in Oriental countries, behaviour toward women, are tolerated grudg-
we could grant him that asylum. I have no objection to it Cologne or Fulda. It

would be passing strange, but after all not so very inexplicable, and it would be
very useful to us to be recognized by Catholics as what we really arc, that is to

say, the sole power now existing that is capable of protecting the head of their
Church. and Charette, together with their Zouaves, could then go about
Stofflet
their business. We
should have the Poles on our side. The opposition of the ultra-
montanes would cease in Belgium and Bavaria. [There speaks the statesman who
knows the art of using residues.] But the King will not consent. He is
. . .
terribly afraid! He thinks all Prussia will be perverted and he himself would be
obliged to become a Catholic. ... I told him, however, that if the Pope begged
asylum he could not refuse it. ... And, after all, even if a few people in Ger-
many became Catholic again (I should certainly not do so), it would not matter
much, so long as they remained believing Christians. People ought to be more
tolerant in their way of thinking!' [Such a declaration by a practical man should
be pondered; it is rigorously scientific ( 1851).] The Chief then dilated on the
comic aspect of this migration of the Pope and his cardinals to Fulda, and con-
8
1843 Even in the case of Poland Bismarck seems to have seen clearly at one
time. Busch, Tagebuchblatter , Vol. I, p. 554 (English, Vol. I, p. 308), Dec. 20, 1870:
"
'You have no idea,' said the Chancellor, 'how pleased the Poles arc when they
sec that someone knows their mother-tongue. Not long ago I ran into some poor
devils in a military hospital. When I addressed them in Polish I could sec their
pale faces brighten to a smile. Too bad their gcncral-in-chicf docs not know their
language!' That was an indirect thrust at the Crown Prince, who had the com-
mand of the Polish forces. He
picked up the Chancellor's allusion with a smile:
'That is he said. 'You are always harping on that. But I
just like you, Bismarck,'
think I have told you times without end that I do not like that language and
refuse to learn same, my lord,' Bismarck replied, 'the Poles are good
it.' 'All the
"
soldiers and Great military leaders, such as Caesar and Napoleon,
fine fellows.'
have been past-masters in the art of using sentiments in their soldiers.
1843 BISMARCK AND THE "KULTURKAMPp" I28l
ingly. But we must not forget that what

may seem slight and in-
significant from the logical standpoint may be serious, nay, most im-
portant, from the standpoint of sentiments. Governments that are
not aware of that attain results directly opposite to their aims. In
1913 the German Chancellor explained to the Reichstag that his
difficulties with the inhabitants of Alsace-Lorraine arose from the
fact that they preferred their French to their German cousins. That
being so, the art of government lies in finding ways to take advan-
tage of such sentiments, not in wasting one's energies in futile efforts
to destroy them, the sole effect of the latter course very
frequently
being only to strengthen them. The person who is able to free him-
his own sentiments is
from the blind dominion of
self
capable of
utilizing the sentiments of other people for his own ends. If, in-
stead, a person is prey to his own sentiments, he cannot have the

knack of using the sentiments of others, and so shocks them to no
eluded: 'Of course the King could not see the humorous side of the affair.
But if only the Pope remains true to me, I shall know how His Majesty
to bring
round/" Ibid., Vol. II, p. in (English, Vol. I, p. 390), Jan. 30, 1871: "The Chief
had told the Frenchman, among other things, that to be consistent in one's policy
was frequently a mistake. One must modify one's course of action in ac-
. . .
cordance with events, with the situation of affairs and not according to one's . . .
opinions. One must not impose one's feelings and desires upon one's country."
Lcfebvre de Behaine, Op. cit., p. 25 (speaking of the outbreak of the KulturJâmpj) :
"Was not the moment propitious in Germany for beginning the Ktflturfompf, the
outlines ofwhich had already been drawn by Lutz? Would not Rome retreat at
that warning? Everything leads one to believe that that was Prince von Bismarck's
hope early in the year 1872. That thought came out in the speeches he delivered
before the Prussian Chamber on January 30 and 31 during the debate on the
budget of the Ministry of Public Worship. Alongside the rebuke addressed to the
clerical party for working to mobilize the Center group with a view to waging a
more effective war on the new state of things [In that the real cause of the war
that Bismarck is about to declare.], alongside the usual denunciations of the old
Rhenish confederacy, certain words of the Chancellor might have been read as
indicating a disposition on his part to enter on negotiations with the Vatican."
The Pope showed himself not too pliant and Bismarck set out to combat him; but
being a wise and a practical man, he soon realized that he had better things to do
than waste his energies in fatuous arguments in theology. In 1885 he submitted
his dispute with Spain over the Caroline Islands to the Pope's arbitration. Lefebvre
de Behaine, Ibid., pp. 198, 220: "On May 26, 1886, the King of Prussia proclaimed
a law in fifteen articles that abrogated a certain number of items in previous
laws, known as the Maige seize and dating for the most part from the years 1873-75.
>
. . .
Today Church is enjoying a profound peace in Germany. It is
the Catholic
free in itsteachings and has been liberated from all the impediments that it seemed
likely to be called on to suffer twenty-five years ago."
purpose and fails to derive any advantage from them.

The same
may be said, in general, of the relations between ruler and ruled.
The statesman of the greatest service to himself and his party is the
man who himself has no prejudices but knows how to profit by the
prejudices of others.
1844. Facts connected with the sex religion furnish another ex-
cellent example of the futility of attempts to destroy residues by
suppressing the manifestations that they provoke. It is doubtful

whether over the course of the centuries the hosts of laws and meas-
ures against sex immorality have had the slightest effect upon it;
so true is it that, if one were not on one's guard against any reason-
ing post hoc, propter hoc, one would be tempted to say that where
is most severe, there
legislation against immorality immorality is
most rampant. We may see under our very eyes that measures de-
signed to suppress a manifestation, r, serve only to strengthen other
manifestations, s, t. . . . Whenever war

declared on Cythera, is
Sodom, Lesbos, and Onan gain in vogue. In the countries where

public women are hunted down under pretext of suppressing the
"white-slave trade," adultery and annual marriages dissolved by easy
divorces flourish and prosper.
1845. In many situations dealt with by criminal law we have
manifestations of the same sort. Thefts and murders are not, of
course, theoretical manifestations; but it does not follow on that
account that they are independent of sentiments and are not mani-
festations of them. For that reason they present a number of traits
of the type just considered.
1. As a result of the
part that non-logical impulses play in them,
have little to do with reason. Threat of
they punishment is of little
avail inchecking felonies or crimes of passion, so called, because,
barring exception, such crimes originate in strong sentiments lead-
ing up to non-logical conduct. In the minor crimes sentiments are
less influential, and the part played by logic is correspondingly
greater; threat of punishment is more successful in controlling mis-
demeanours than murders.
2. The main cause of crimes, still
barring exception, lies in the
prevalence of certain sentiments, a. The theory that there are born
criminals merely adds to that that the individual derives his senti-
ments from heredity. The theory seems to be in part sound, but it
could hardly be accepted as comprehensive; for the sum of circum-
stances of time, place, and so on, in which the individual has lived,
have certainly modified some at least of the sentiments with which
he was born. But as contrasted with the theory of responsibility, so
called, which reduces all conduct to
logic, the theory of the born
criminal looks like the truth contrasted with error.
3. Among the least disputable facts of social science is the fact

that, so far in history, the effects of penalties as designed to reform
the criminal, and especially as regards major crimes, have been ex-
ceedingly scant even when, as is frequently the case, they have not
made the criminal worse. That is all in accord with the general law
that forcibly to suppress the manifestations of a given group of senti-
ments is often of little or no effect as regards diminishing the in-
tensity of sentiments in that group, and sometimes it enhances them.
Many efforts have been made to remedy that defect in criminal leg-
islation,and, to tell the truth, with no very appreciable results; and
the slight, or rather the insignificant, progress that has been made
has been made through influencing sentiments, a.
1846. 4. The only procedure that has proved effective in decreas-
ing the number of crimes is to rid society of criminals the pro-

cedure described as a in 1838.
moreover, that the general status of sentiments in
5. It is certain,
a community has its effect on crime. There are communities of
thieves, communities of swindlers, communities of murderers, and
so on. In other words, the groups of sentiments, a, b differ ac-
. . .
cording to peoples, places, and times, and often there are compensa-
tions between the various genera.
1847. 6. Erroneous, therefore, are all those reasonings which,
from the fact that a penalty is ineffective from the standpoint of
logical conduct,
conclude that it is ineffective in general. It is erro-
neous, for instance, to argue that the death-penalty is ineffective be-
cause logically, directly, it does not restrain a man from committing
murder. The penalty works in a different way. In the first place
and the fact cannot be questioned it does away with the murderer
and rids society of at least a few of the persons who have a fond-
ness for killing their neighbours. Then again it serves
indirectly to
invigorate sentiments of horror for crime. That can hardly be
doubted, once one thinks of the effectiveness of so called laws of
honour, which are without direct penal sanctions but produce such
an atmosphere through apposite sentiments that the majority of
men are loath to transgress them. So the Sicilian will hardly ever
disregard the prescriptions of omerta,

because he has inherited or
acquired sentiments which accord with those rules and the punish-
ments that are visited on infractions maintain and intensify those
1
sentiments.
To infer, for another example, that the so-called probation law
is innocuous from the assumed fact the real fact probably dif-
is
ferent that it has not increased the number of second offenders, is

also to reason erroneously. Modifications in sentiments take place
slowly, sometimes very very slowly. Generations must pass before

the effects of that law, or any other law of the sort, can be known
with certainty. Recidivity, moreover, is not the only factor to be
taken into account there is criminality in general. The effect of
the probation law extends beyond the criminal whom it
protects.
The population grows accustomed to thinking that a first
at large
crime may be committed with impunity; and if that manner of

thinking becomes ingrained in sentiment, diminishing the aversion
for crime that the civilized human being instinctively feels, crimi-
nality may increase in general without any corresponding increase in

recidivity. The whole-hearted punishment
of crimes that took place
over long periods of time in centuries past has contributed to the
maintenance of certain sentiments of aversion to crime, and those
sentiments we now men. It will be another long time
find active in
before they can be destroyed. Those nations which are nowadays
indulging in an orgy of humanitarianism are acting like the prodi-

gal son in frittering away the fortune he had inherited from his
father.
1848. In 1832 we discussed the effects produced by the possi-
bility of showing overt disrespect for certain manifestations of senti-

ment. Mild laws in general, the probation and suspended-sentence
law in particular, whereby society tends virtually to grant a citizen
l
1847 [From the 1916 ed.: According to the rules of omerta a member of the
Maffia or some other association of the sort pledges aid and fidelity to his comrades.
If they get into trouble with the public authorities or the courts, he must do nothing
to their disadvantage. Least of all can he ask the courts to settle any differences
he may have with them. When an attempt is made on his life, he may avenge
himself if possible, but in no case is he to make a complaint to the police.]
1850 RELIGIOUS FREEDOM 1285
the right to commit a first crime; the extreme mercifulness of courts
and juries; the kind-hearted patience of magistrates who allow crim-
6
inals to show contempt them
in public court ( 1716 ), and
for
sometimes to utter personal insults and ridicule the penalties with
which they are threatened; the comforts that have been provided in
certain "modern" under pretext of "reclaiming" the
prisons, where,
criminal, society shows him every consideration and gives him
greater ease than oftentimes he could have in his own home; the
mitigation of penalties already mild; frequent commutations and
pardons all such things allow a large number of individuals to
think lightly of crime and punishment of crime and to glory as
strong and free-thinking men in their lack of aversion to crime and

in their contempt for punishments that in many cases are more
imaginary than real The humanitarian religion strengthens these

sentiments, supplying the derivations in which they are expressed
and the myths that go to make up their theology.
1849. 7. Similar, in general, is the effect of theologies and of meta-
physical, or other, moralities, all of which, in so far as they are deri-

vations proper or manifestations of derivations have little or no
on crime. In so far as they are manifestations of senti-
direct effect
ments they seem to have effects, which, however, are largely at-
tributable to the sentiments themselves ( 1860). It follows that,
ignoring such indirect effects, little or nothing is to be gained by
trying to influence theories. The little gain that can

be made in that
way is due to the reaction of the derivations upon the sentiments

from which they derive and then to the influence of those sentiments
1
upon crime.
1850. y. Likewise in any inquiry as to the effects resulting from a
modification in a we
are confronted with a particular case of the
general uniformity obtaining in the action of residues correspond-

ing to a given sum of sentiments ( 1740 f.). Governments that are
working upon a in one way or another should understand that,
awares or unawares, they are influencing other residues of the same
1
class. Sometimes they are aware of it, and that is
why governments
1849 In that we have a particular case of the general law that we found pre-
*
vailing as to the influence of residues and derivations.

x
1850 The French Government either was not aware of that truth or else dis-
regarded it when, in trying to deal with certain religious sentiments that it con-
have patronized this or that
religion out of considerations of policy.
To justify
that course they have used, in addition to the fallacy
already examined in 1744 in which logical conduct is envisaged
instead of the non-logical, the argument that in protecting one genus
of residues protection is also extended to all other genera of residues
dependent upon a given sum of sentiments ( 1744). Commonly

used for that purpose are variations on the following type of deri-
vation: "The religious individual possesses sentiments that I de-
sire tohave in good citizens. I must therefore have everyone believe
in the religion X, which I have selected and which I will protect."
Suppose we
disregard questions as to the efficacy of the protection,
which usually consists in interference with religious manifestations.
That problem we have just discussed. Let us assume for the moment
that the interference is
really effective and proceed from there.
1851. Thelogico-experimental reasoning corresponding to the
derivation just stated would be: "The religious person possesses
sentiments that I desire good citizens to have; but a person can be
devout only if he possesses the sentiments of a specified religion;
therefore I will encourage the sentiments of that religion in my
citizens." The
proposition "A person can be religious only if he has
the sentiments of a specified religion" is
completely discredited by
experience, and many men know that ( 1843 2 ), even if
practical
they see fit not to admit as much in public. Many religions that are
different in forms are manifestations of substantially identical re-
ligious sentiments.The religious spirit, moreover, is ordinarily
stronger in heretics than in the followers of an established orthodoxy
protected by a government. Such a government is, to be sure, pro-
tecting a given theology and specified forms of worship, but
mean-
sidered harmful, it unintentionally damaged other sentiments of the same group,
among them the sentiment of patriotism, which, certainly, it had no intention of
impairing. In 1912, the French school-teachers assembled in convention at Chambcry
voiced sentiments of hostility to patriotism. Many politicians marvelled at such a
thing. But they might readily have foreseen it by giving just a thought to the
work they had themselves been doing. But if the germ inoculated by the French
"intellectuals'* found a favourable medium in a few school-teachers, it found a
sterile environment in the French population at large, especially in the lower
classes. Religious sentiments linger most tenaciously in those classes under one
form or another, and they are the source of those occasional tides of religious feel-
ing which rise and engulf the higher classes. That is what happened in France
with respect to sentiments of patriotism in the years 1911 and 1912.
time persecuting the very religious spirit that
it is it set out to foster.
A double error is involved in the policy: in the first
place, it con-
fuses derivations and residues, in the manner just stated, mistaking
theology for the religious spirit; then it confuses certain specified
residues with other residues of the same genus or kindred genera.
If the residues underlying a number of different religions are a\, fa,
a* . . . and if the whole sum of sentiments upon which those re-
ligions depend is
strengthened ( 1744), there will be an increase in
the religious spirit. But if #1 is
strengthened at the expense of 2 , a*
.. . the religious spirit is not necessarily intensified; it may actually
be reduced. To see how ineffective governmental protection is as a
means of strengthening religious residues, one has only to compare
the present state of Catholicism in the United States, where all
Christian sects enjoy the amplest freedom, with the state of that
same religion in France at times when it enjoyed governmental
protection, as under Napoleon III.
Another example would be Rome
under papal rule, where there was vigorous suppression of mani-
festations contrary to Catholicism, yet Catholic religious residues
1
were very feeble.
1852. The
error just elucidated has been sensed by many people,
but that perception, ordinarily, instead of being stated in logico-
experimental form has taken the form of a derivation that, from the
logico-experimental standpoint,
is as erroneous as the
theory which
it is used to combat. Dissenters have vaunted the "truth" of their
heresies as contrasted with the "error" of established religions. They

have set their own devoutness over against the lukewarm faith of
their adversaries. They have shown that as citizens they were just
as good as orthodox believers, in fact even better. And then along
came the metaphysicist and the thcorizer to apply their ingenuity
to the subject, fishing up from somewhere a "right" of the individual
conscience as against public authority; a sacrosanct "freedom of
thought" that is of such a lineage that it can be invoked for oneself

while being denied to others; a "tolerance" that the orthodox must
have for the dissenter, but which the dissenter is under no obliga-
tion to have for the orthodox; and no end of other such contrivances.
x
1851 The extent to which the religious spirit in the city of Rome had degen-
erated by the year 1830 or thereabouts may be measured to some degree by the
obscene satirical sonnets in Roman dialect of Belli (Sonnetti romancschi).
Such doctrines have at times succeeded in winning wide acceptance;
not by the soundness of their logic but by their correspondence with
sentiments that, originating under changing social conditions, even-
tually have come to conflict with the sentiments that were pre-
ponderant in a day gone by and which confused the religious spirit
in general with some one of its manifestations; and then
again by
their correspondence with sentiments originating in intensifications
of the instincts of combination and similar variations in other
residues.
1853. At this point it is in order to draw a distinction of great
importance. We have shown that if the purpose is to obtain the
advantages of devoutness the person whose function it is to regulate

the conduct of others should be somewhat,
nay, very largely, in-
different to religious forms; but the demonstration does not hold for
those who are to perform the conduct; and it would be a serious
error to consider valid for them. Quite to the
contrary, obstinate
it
devotion to one's own faith and aversion to the faiths of others is
generally an index of strong convictions, and an indication further

that the desired effects of devoutness will be rendered. One
might
say, elliptically, that it is better for the
person in whose conduct
one is interested to have such obstinacy and such aversions, provided
one thinking not of the derivations through which those attitudes
is
are expressed, but of the sentiments that stimulate the

religious
conviction 1744). If one should say that it "would be well" for
(
people to be tolerant of the differing beliefs of others, meanwhile

maintaining strong convictions as to their own, there could be no
objection except that such a pious wish would be assuming as absent
a tie, a correlation, that is
ordinarily present in
religious phenomena.
It islikewise advisable that the
person who is
utilizing the religious
convictions of others for social purposes should not himself
adopt
certain extreme manifestations of that
religious zeal; for ardent be-
lievers at times manifest their faith in manners
quite irrational or
even frankly ridiculous. 1 if one were to say as
Similarly, again,
1853
*
A phenomenon depending on the residues of Class III (activity). Human
beings, like animals, feel a need of expressing their sentiments by actions that it is
impossible to connect with the sentiments themselves by any logical or rational
nexus. The dog sees its master and wags its tail. No logical connexion between the
wagging and the dog's affection for its master can be established. If dogs had
moralists, the latter would probably demonstrate by any amount of fine-sounding
1854 RELIGIOUS FREEDOM 1289
actually do say that it "would be well" for people

to re-
many
frain from such manifestations, still feeling their own faiths none
the less strongly, the answer would be the same: that there can be no
objection to such a recommendation, except that to imagine

that it
can be carried out presupposes the absence of a tie, a correlation,
ordinarily found present in religious phenomena. That does not
prevent anyone from trying to attenuate the strength of the ties:
one may still strive to diminish the intolerance arising from certain
sentiments and to correct the absurdity and nonsense in certain of
their manifestations. One goes wrong when, disregarding the pres-
ence of the ties, one condemns them and sets out to eliminate the
2
consequences of sentiments that one is trying to conserve. The
difference just noted between the person who is regulating conduct
and the person who is performing it is of a general character. We
shall see other examples of it.
many
1854. It was for mere convenience of expression that we have
just been using the term "religion,"

which is not and cannot be
balderdash that to wag one's tail in such circumstances is altogether ridiculous;
but the dogs would let them talk on and continue showing their affection for their
masters by wagging their tails. Human beings act in the very same fashion.
2
1853 Not seldom the manifestations of sentiment on the part of the Pan-
Germanists are altogether irrational and exceedingly ridiculous. Now level-headed
Germans may be eager to weaken the tie that connects those manifestations with
patriotism in such a way that the patriotism will be as ardent as before and the
manifestations will cease or diminish in numbers and virulence. But so long as
that correlation subsists, the person who wants his patriotism must also resign him-
self to the manifestations of it. In France a reawakening of patriotism was ob-
servable as early as 1912 and it is still continuing at this moment (May, 1914),
attended by blatant manifestations on the stage and in literature. Not a few moralists
in France are scandalized at this "noisy jingoism" and are inveighing against it, so
betraying a belief on their part that such manifestations being fatuous prattle, the
sentiments from which they derive must be equally so. Such a blunder is worthy
of such people, who showing their ignorance of the correlations

are repeatedly
obtaining among social facts. It is all well enough to prefer that powerful senti-
ments should not be accompanied by manifestations that arc not strictly rational
and that the sentiments expressed through Class III residues (activity) should ac-
cordingly be attenuated in virulence; but so long as they retain their vigour, the
person who will have his sentiments must resign himself to accepting their mani-
festations also. It is of course true that among said moralists in France there arc
humanitarians who would abolish the sentiments as well. They dare not say so in
fear of public censure, but at heart they deplore the existence of patriotism, some-
times consciously, sometimes unconsciously, and dream of universal brotherhood.
Not daring to combat the sentiments of patriotism openly, they turn to fighting the
manifestations of it.
accurately defined. We
must therefore be on our guard against any
misapprehension that might arise from the haziness in its meaning.
The complexes called "religions" are made up of residues and
derivations. There are residues that are common to all of them,
religions. That is the

other residues that are peculiar to particular
chief reason why they cannot be
brought under a single definition.
Endless in number
the definitions hitherto proposed, and over them
people have quarrelled for centuries without coming to any con-

clusion. Other definitions will be
brought forward in the future,
and people will argue about them as well as about those of the
past, so long as human beings shall continue to feast themselves
on fatuous arguments of that type. As we
already know, with re-
ligions as with all other doctrines, social values depend to a very
slight extent upon derivations and to a very large extent upon
residues. Several
religions present an important group of residues,
made up principally of group-persistences, which correspond to
sentiments of discipline, submission, subordination. That fact has
been more or less
intuitively perceived by one government or an-
other and such governments have tried to
protect religion in order
to have loyal citizens. The sentiments in
question find their chief
form of expression in acts of worship; and from that it follows
that from the
standpoint of social utility forms of worship, rites,
are much more
important than theology. That view is contrary to
common opinion, but it accords with the facts.
1855. The great social value of the religion of ancient Rome lay in
was almost exclusively made up of
the very fact that that religion
and consequently contained a maximum of useful elements.
rites
Among the Christian sects Catholicism is far more effective than

any other for purposes of maintaining discipline.
1856. At this
point an objection suggests itself spontaneously to
the mind. Italy is a Catholic
country, and yet sentiments of obedi-
ence to law are much less
powerful there than they are in Prussia,
country. To make the objection stronger suppose we
a Protestant
disregard the fact that Prussian Lutheranism of all the Protestant

sects has laid greatest stress on and confine ourselves to
discipline,
the consideration, which
happens to contain the solution of the prob-
lem, that observable in Prussia is the simultaneous prevalence of a
number of kindred groups of residues, notable
among them residues
185*) DERIVATIONS AND REALITY 1291
expressing themselves in the monarchical faith and in the military

spirit,
to say nothing of submission to public authority. In Italy such
residues are weak. In Prussia they are very strong. In that we have
one of the many cases where one set of residues may be seen gain-
ing in vigour at the expense of kindred groups.
1857. The habit people have of paying their chief or exclusive
attention to derivations leads to their calling different things by the
same name. A
complex, for instance, where the derivations are all
alike comes to look like a single religion; whereas if we consider
the different residues that induce its
acceptance by different kinds of
people it is seen to consist of several. Take the case of Socialism. In
the lower classes, which look to that religion for betterment in
their conditions of living, Socialism chiefly accepted in virtue of
is
residues of personal integrity and, in addition, on grounds of in-

terest. In the
upper classes we find, first of all, people who are using
Socialism for their personal ends. Their conduct is predominantly
logical
we will therefore not linger upon it. Then again we find
people who are inspired to accept Socialism chiefly by residues of
sociality, among which residues of asceticism not seldom play an
important part. Considered, therefore, from the standpoint of resi-

dues, the Socialist religion of such people is altogether different
from the Socialist religion of the masses. $
So for other religions the Catholic, forinstance. Ignoring, as
usual, individuals who use that faith for personal ends, there remain
under a single canopy of derivations a number of religions differing
according to the residues that are brought into play; and among
them we find a class of residues in which the residues of asceticism
play a far more important part than all other groups. That fact has
been clearly perceived by the men who have governed the Catholic
Church; and they have found ways to recognize without changes
in derivations many varieties of residues, through a secular clergy,
a regular clergy, a laity, various orders of friars, and so on. And
in that we have another example that as usual shows that the art of
governing consists in knowing how to take advantage of the residues

one finds ready to hand ( 1843).
1858. From the standpoint of social utility, the ascetic residues are
not beneficial they are positively harmful. It is very probable, there-
fore, that the Socialist religion of the lower classes is socially bene-
1292 THE MIND AND SOCIETY ^1858
ficial,while the ascetic Socialism of the upper classes is socially
pernicious. Proletarian Socialism may be at bottom revolutionary,
but it is not in the least
opposed to discipline, in fact stresses it; and
the authority of Socialist leaders is often far better respected than
the authority of government officials. The Socialist religion is a great
school of discipline, and one may even go so far as to say that, from
that standpoint, it runs a close second to Catholicism. It has served
to strengthen Class V
residues (personal integrity) in people of the
lower strata of society. Better than any legislative enactment not
excepting compulsory education it has succeeded in raising the
molecules in an amorphous mass of humanity to dignified status as
citizens, and in so doing it has increased the capacities for action
of society as a whole. Ascetic Socialism, on the other hand, tends to
debilitate every sort of
energy. When at all effective it weakens
Class V residues in the higher strata of society, and of the few
individuals who accept it in good faith it makes cowards and dolts
who are useless to themselves and to others, so that if as fortu-
nately does not happen they were assigned any important role in
the government of society they would lead it to ruin. The practice
of such a religion by such individuals has no greater utility than
the macerations practised by the anchorites of yore in the African
deserts. Standing apart from real interests, ascetic Socialism pre-
from finding solutions on the basis of a balance
vents social conflicts
among such interests, and so occasions useless wasting of energies.

In a word, the religion of the proletarian, revolutionary Socialist has
contrary effects to the religion of the "intellectual" and "evolution-

ary" Socialist. That truth is intuitively perceived by bourgeois states-
men, who flirt with upper-class Socialism in order to use it for their
own ends, while they fiercelycombat the Socialism of proletarian
type, which they know would prevent them from continuing
to
1
live on their countries. And it is also sensed by not a few proletarian
Socialists, as when they "decline to cooperate" with "capitalists" and
"intellectuals," and refuse to abandon the "class-struggle." The same

*
1858 That very thing happened in Italy in the elections of 1913. Characteris-
'
tic the case of Rome, where the 'trail sformist" Socialist, Bissolati, was elected to the
parliament thanks to the support of the Government and to votes of dependents

of the royal house, defeating the revolutionary Socialist, Cipriani. Bissolati had had
the same support in the previous elections against Santini, a Conservative.
1859 SOCIALISM AND HUMANITARIANISM 1293
may be said of Syndicalism and Anarchism, or of other sects of the

kind that will gradually replace them. As we shall see farther along
(2i7of.), the use of force is indispensable to society; and when
the higher classes are averse to the use of force, which ordinarily
happens because the majority in those classes come to rely wholly

on their skill at chicanery, and the minority shrink from energetic
acts now throughstupidity, now through cowardice, it becomes
necessary, if society is to subsist and prosper, that that governing
class be replaced by another which is willing and able to use force.
Roman was saved from ruin by the legions of Caesar and

society
Octavius. So it may happen that our society will one day be saved
from decadence by the heirs of the Syndicalists and Anarchists of
our day.
1859. The weakness of the humanitarian religion does not lie in
the logico-experimental deficiencies of its derivations. From that
standpoint they are no better and no worse than the derivations of

other religions. But some of these contain residues beneficial to
individuals and society, whereas the humanitarian religion is sadly
lacking in such residues. But how

can a religion that has the good
of humanity solely at heart, and which is called "humanitarian"
for that very reason, be so destitute in residues correlated with
society's welfare? The answer to that objection we already know

( 1779). The principles from which the humanitarian doctrine is
logically derived in no way correspond with the facts. They merely

express in objective form a subjective sentiment of asceticism. The
intent of sincere humanitarians is to do good to society, just as the
intent of the child who killsa bird by too much fondling is to do
good to the bird. We are not for that matter forgetting that humani-
tarianism has had some socially desirable effects. For one thing it
has contributed to the mitigation of criminal penalties; and if among
these some were beneficial, so that society has suffered from the
mitigation, there were others that were useless, so that by their

mitigation society has gained ( 1861). But on the other hand,
humanitarianism is from the logico-experimental point of
worthless
view, whether because it has no slightest intrinsic soundness of a
scientific character, or more
especially because even if, on an assump-
tion devoid of any probability, it had some points of soundness, that
fact would not help as regards
spurring human beings to the re-
quired activities, for humanbeings are guided primarily by senti-

ment. A similar judgment may be passed upon the work of our
"intellectuals" as leading to few results that are beneficial and to
many that are very bad; because, from the standpoint of senti-
ments, they shut their eyes to realities as the latter stand reflected in
many sentiments that they condemn from failure to grasp their
role in society; and because, from the standpoint of logico-experi-
mental science, they reason not on facts but on derivations, and from
the latter draw, by a logic inopportunely thorough-going, inferences
that are altogether at war with the facts ( 1782 f.). And so for
the democratic religion in general. The many varieties of Socialism,
Syndicalism, Radicalism, Tolstoyism, pacifism, humanitarianism,

Solidarism, and so on, form a sum that may be said to belong to the
democratic religion, much as there was a sum of numberless sects
in the early days of the Christian religion. We
are now witnessing
the rise and dominance of the democratic religion, just as the men
of the first centuries of our era witnessed the rise of the Christian
religion and the beginnings of its dominion. The two phenomena

present many profoundly significant analogies. To get at their sub-
stance we have to brush derivations aside and reach down to resi-
dues. The both those two religions lies not in the least
social value of
in their respective theologies, but in the sentiments that they express.

As regards determining the social value of Marxism, to know
whether Marx's theory of "surplus value" is false or true is about as
important as knowing whether and how baptism eradicates sin in
trying to determine the social value of Christianity and that is of
no importance at all. Certain extravagances on the part of Syn-
dicalism do not prove the social worthlessness of the democratic
religion, any more than certain extravagances on the part of

the
Franciscans prove that Catholicism is socially worthless. The theory
of solidarity and the cosmogony of the Bible both lie equally far
distant from the domains of experimental reality; but that in no
wise diminishes the social importance of the religions to which
those theories belong. As we have time and time again insisted,
the experimental fatuity of those derivations and others of the kind
does not in any sense permit us to conclude that they are harmful
or even merely useless. There is little if any connexion between the
two things. The similarity between certain Christian and certain
democratic derivations explains why those two religions come to
merge in certain sects such as the Tolstoyans, the Christian Demo-
crats,the Liberal Protestants so called, Modernists, our latter-day
admirers of St. Francis, and so on. Brushing derivations aside, we
place ourselves in a position to see the great social transformation
that expressed itself in the origin of Christianity, and the equally
great social transformation that is now in progress and is finding

its
expression in the democratic religion. To determine the rela-
tions between those transformations and social is a
very
utility
serious and a very difficult problem; and to solve it we need a
theory of social utility that is far less rudimentary than any that at
the present time we could sketch even in outline. But at any rate
we are safe in saying that we will get a first approximation to a
solution by leaving derivations out of our calculations; for their
influence is
secondary and therefore to be considered only in later
and finer approximations. On the other hand, we must not fail to
consider the sentiments manifested by the transformations in ques-
tion; and we must consider them not objectively, apart from indi-
viduals, but in their relations to individuals; for the same sentiments
may be useful to some individuals and detrimental to others. Among
the things to ignore, finally, are secondary questions such as the
"sincerity" of this or that follower of the one or the other religion.

Every religion has its
parasites; but that is a secondary matter with
little
bearing upon the social value of a religion. Those of our con-
temporaries who do not share the democratic faith are in the same
situation were those pagans of old who witnessed
on the whole as
the inundation of the ancient world by Christianity. Some people
now vainly imagine, as those pagans imagined, that they can effec-
tively
check the progress of the religion they are fighting by re-
futing its derivations. Others find those theories so absurd that they
disdain giving a thought to them. And in that again they are fol-
1
lowing a precedent set by some of their ancient precursors. But
*
1859 Boissier, La fin du paganisme, Vol. II, pp. 243-44, expresses his surprise
that Macrobius does not so much as mention Christianity, which in his day was
sweeping Rome. "Our surprise is only the greater when we observe the same
pagan writers of the time, the grammarians, the orators, the
silence in almost all the
poets, and even the historians, though it seems very strange that an event such as
the triumph of the Church could be disregarded in an account of that past. Neither
Aurelius Victor nor Eutropius mentions Constantine's conversion, and one gets the
1296 THE MIND AND SOCIETY l86o
usually both these

moderns and the ancients are to be found adopt-
ing other derivations that are in no way
better than the ones they
reject.
occurs to few, one might say to none, to ignore derivations
It
facts and the rela-

altogether and apply themselves exclusively to
tions that obtain between them.
1860. 5. Lastly, one may be trying to abolish a certain manifesta-
tion, r,while retaining other manifestations, s, t or, conversely, . . .
to establish r without giving rise to s, t. Such a thing is always . . .
very difficult and often impossible. Before human beings will really
and regularly perform the conduct r, they must be imbued with the
sentiments underlying the residues, a, of which r is the consequence.
If they have those residues, s, t . will also put in an appearance

. .
along with r; if they do not have them, there will be no r, but also
no s, and no t. . . .
1861. Suppose our idea is to abolish the penalties, r, inflicted by

one or another religion on crimes of thought and heresy, and mean-
time to retain very heavy penalties, s, t ... for theft and murder.
Such a thing is not impossible there stands the example of ancient
Rome; a very difficult matter, for it took the so-called
but it is
civilized peoples of Europe centuries and centuries to achieve it.

Indeed even among those peoples the disappearance, or virtual dis-
appearance, of r has been attended by a marked enfeeblement in s, t
. .and that because the group of residues, a, on which all penalties
.
depended, was modified in the direction of a strengthening in the

sentiments of pity for criminals who broke the laws in force in
society. Certain interests, moreover, develop counter to the various
religions and that explains why there has been a greater mitigation
;
in penalties for crimes of heresy than for other crimes. After the
fall of the Second
Empire in France the interests of the Republicans
conflicted with the interests of the Catholics. As a result penalties
for offences against the Catholic Church, and
by extension, against
all Christian churches, were abolished. The
Empire, meantime, had
impression from them that all the principes of the fourth century were continuing
practice of the ancient cult. Certainly no mere chance brought them all to omit
reference to a religion they detested. It was by design: it was an understand-
ing, the significance of which could escape no one. Silence, haughty, insolent, be-
came with them the last protest allowed the proscribed religion. That tactic, for
that matter, was nothing new in Rome. From the very first day, high society
in Rome had made it a habit to fight Christianity with contempt."
1 86 1 LAW-MAKING 1
297
made itself champion (in words) of the sex religion; the Republic
therefore granted greater liberties in that field; though afterwards,
when the policies of the Empire had ceased to be an issue, a slight
1
reaction followed.
* c
1861 Some pages back ( 1716 ) we quoted one of the numberless instances
where in deference to humanitarian sentiments magistrates and juries allowed
criminals to insult judges on the bench and their attorneys to dispute rulings by
presiding magistrates in open court. Suppose here we show a contrast dating
from a day when tender hearts were not blinding the eyes of magistrates. Edmond
Goncourt, Journal des Goncourt, Vol. I, pp. 42-45 (Feb. 20, 1853), tells how he
and his brotherwere indicted and brought to trial, in 1853, for reprinting in a
newspaper a poem that had appeared without anyone's protesting in a book by
Sainte-Beuve that had won a crown from the French Academy: "Finally our case
was called. 'Prisoners to the dock!' ordered the presiding magistrate. The order
caused a sensation among the spectators. The dock was the detention pen for thieves!
Never had a press case even when tried in Criminal Sessions won a reporter a
Trisoner to the Dock!' The acting State's Attorney opened. In an access of
. . .
raging eloquence he pictured us as men without faith or honour, as sneaks and

vagabonds without family, without mothers, without sisters, without respect for
womanhood and, for a peroration lo his arraignment of us, as apostles of physical
love." The lines that had so stirred the wrath of the acting prosecutor ran:
"Croisant ses beaux membres nus

stir son Adonis qti'ellc baise,
et ltd pressant le doux flanc,
son con doinllettement blanc
mordille de trop grand alsc!'
Something worse than any crime of Bonnot, Gamier and Company! Goncourt
far
continues: "Then our attorney arose. He was just the defender we had been
looking for. He was far from repeating the pleas of Paillard de Villeneuve in de-
fence of Karr, by making bold to demand of the court how it dared to prosecute
us on the charge of an article that was itself not under prosecution and the author
of which was not in the dock beside us. He groaned, he wept over our crime, rep-
resenting us as callow youths, not all there in the upper story, in fact a little off."
The Court finally denounced the article, but acquitted the defendants as guiltless
of any "intent to insult public decency and sound morals." "In spite of anything
that may be written or said, the undeniable fact is that we were prosecuted in a
police court, seated in the dock with a policeman on either side of us, for quoting
five lines of Tahureau as printed in the Tableau historiqne et critique de la poesie
jranqaise by Sainte-Beuve, a work crowned by the Academy." Fools of the breed

that forgathers in societies for the improvement of morals may consider the pub-
lication of such lines a crime as serious as murder or burglary; but that cannot
possibly be admitted from the standpoint of social utility.
And here, now, is an example from the field of politics. Ollivier, L Empire
f
liberal,
Vol. IV, pp. 373-74. Ollivier was attorney for Vacherot, who was being prosecuted
for inciting his countrymen to hatred and contempt of the government in a book
called La democratic: "I began my rebuttal as follows: 'Gentlemen, in matters of
this sort the first requisite is extreme cautiousness. I shall make no answer to the
1862. The situation is no more different as regards place than as
regards time. In France offences against the Christian Church are en-
tirely exempt
from penalties. In England there are still some few
survivals of punishment for blasphemies. Crimes of sex heretics are
less zealously ferreted out and more lightly punished in France
than they are in England. Similar differences may be noted as
regards common crimes, which are treated with much greater leni-
ency in France than in England. Such contrasts result from the
human beings do their thinking not with the methods of
fact that
the logico-experimental sciences but in deference chiefly to senti-
ment (826f.).
1863. Difficulties in law-making. The obstacles that stand in the
way making a law perfectly adapted to a purpose which the

of
legislator has in view are of two kinds. In the first place, one has
todecide what the law is to be, and to do that solutions are required
not only for the particular problem which we have just been con-
sidering ( 1825), but for the other more general problem as to the
indirect effects a measure will have, the problem, in other words, of
the composition of social forces (2087). Even
assuming that the,
law-maker is to reason
logico-experimentally, he will find that the
necessary scientific elements for solving such problems are at present
lacking, though one may reasonably hope that as
sociology progresses
will some day be in a
it
position to supply them.
1864. But we are still nowhere the law now has to be applied
offensive parts of the prosecutor's address. His
appeal to passions was out of place
here. In entering this enclosure you who are our judges and we who are
defending
this book should all remember that we
are nothing but mouthpieces,
interpreters,
of the law.' The presiding justice interrupted me: 'Maltrc Ollivicr, you have said
something improper. Withdraw it!' I replied calmly and in surprise: Tour Honour,
I have said
nothing improper. I was still under the sway of the words I had been
The president retorted: 'Maitrc Ollivier, you said that the Ministry of
listening to.*
Justicehad made an appeal to passions. That is an impropriety. Withdraw it!' . . .
The Court left the bench, returning a moment later. [Ollivicr was again re-
. . .
quested to withdraw his remark. He refused:] Then, without leaving the bench,
the Court sentenced me to suspension from practice for three months and
adjourned
Vacherot's case for a week to give him time to choose another attorney." If acts
that sectarian fanatics and a
only magistracy consider crimes cannot
servile
be distinguished from acts so regarded by the reasonable desire that almost
every
human being feels not to be murdered, plundered, or robbed, it might in many cases
be the lesser evil if humanitarians would exercise their indulgence
upon the former
rather than upon the latter.
l866 DERIVATIONS AND REALITY 1299
practically!That can be done only by influencing interests and

sentiments; and it must not be
forgotten that the derivations which
will have to be used for that purpose are something altogether dif-
ferent from the logico-experimental reasonings that served to dis-
cover the law best suited to a given end. One has only to examine
the reasons that have been put forward in times past in behalf of
this or that social enactment to how
fatuous they have been;
see
that frequently people have aimed at one objective and attained
another; and that in the few cases where those in power have real-
ized a given purpose, they have carried their publics with them by
professing different purposes from the ones they realized and by

cajoling them with reasonings of a variety suited to the public
understanding, in other words, with arguments that are childishly
inadequate from the logico-experimental point of view. If, further-
more, in working for a given objective, one is in a position to in-
fluence interests and sentiments, to modify them, the modification
may have, in addition to the effects desired, other effects that are
not in the least intended; so that one still has to consider both the
intended and the incidental effects and see just what the social
utility
of their resultant will be. That like the
problem that prac-
is
tical mechanics solves in the construction of a machine. The machine
transforms part of the energy it consumes into a desired effect, part

it wastes, and the
part it uses advantageously is often very small as
compared with the part it wastes.
1865. So enactments have, in general, some effects that are
social
beneficial and others that are negative or harmful; but if one will
1
have the ones, one must of necessity put up with the others.
1866. Whenthe engineer has found the best machine, he has
little
difficulty in selling it,
and even without dispensing with der-
ivations altogether, he can for the most part utilize arguments that
are logico-experimental. Not so the statesman. For him that situation
is
precisely reversed.
His main resort must be derivations, oftentimes
absurd ones. He
can use logico-experimental arguments only by
exception. The choice

of a machine is primarily a logical act. There
is no harm in
showing, therefore, that, let us say, a steam-engine
1865
1
And here again one has to consider not only direct effects, which we are
at present examining, but indirect effects, with which we shall deal in the chapter
next following.
THE MIND AND SOCIETY 1867
converts only a small part of the heat generated in its fire-box into
useful labour. Such an admission is in fact
helpful, as pointing the
way to
increasing the proportion of energy profitably consumed. If
the choice of a machine were a
non-logical act, chiefly, if sentiment
played any notable part in it, an absurd theory asserting, for in-
stance, that the steam-engine wastes not the smallest particle of
fuel-energy might be used to great advantage ( 1868 f.). To sell
selling it. To win

a machine, there has to be someone interested in
approval for a social enactment, it is much more important it is

absolutely necessary that it have a champion. In both cases in-
dividual interest is a powerful factor; but where social measures are
concerned, sentiment is the factor most powerful by far, especially

the sentiment be "aroused" to the
point of becoming a religion.
if
In that case, it had better express itself in enthusiastic derivations

that overreach cold realities,
something very different from the
sceptical thinking of the logico-experimental sciences. All the same
those sciences are exerting some influence in our time, since
they
are accepted by the generality of men as derivations.
Progress in
the logico-experimental sciences has bred a sentiment of reverence
for them, and that sentiment has to be satisfied. But that is no very
difficult task, for man is satisfied if his derivation has a
the plain
remote, indeed a very very remote, semblance of being "scientific."
1867. What we have
just said with regard to the sentiments
manifested by derivations is
commonly recognized in the perception
that enthusiastic derivations are better calculated than cold reason-
ing to influence human conduct. This elliptical form of statement

may be passed, provided it be clearly understood that the capacity
in question lies not in the derivations but in the sentiments under-
lying them ( 2085).

1868. The influencing human conduct that is
capacity for
possessed by sentiments expressed in the form of derivations that

overstep experience and reality throws light upon a phenomenon
that has been well observed and Sorel, the
analyzed by Georges
fact, namely, that if a social doctrine (it would be more exact to
the sentiments manifested
say by a social doctrine) is to have any
*
influence, it has to take the form of a "myth." To restate in that
1
1868 Sorel, Reflexions sur la violence, pp. 92-94 (164-67) (Soule, pp. 133-36):
"Experience shows that constructions of a future indefinitely located in time may be
1869 EFFICACY OF IDEALS 1301
language an observation that we have many times made, we may say

that the social value of a doctrine, or of the sentiments which it
expresses, is not
to be
judged extrinsically by the mythical form that
it assumes
(they assume), which is only its means (their means)
of action, but intrinsically by the results that it achieves (they
achieve).
1869. Since the situation here not an easy one to grasp, a graph
is
may help to make it clearer. The picture we set before the reader
is Too exacting a scrutiny would even prove it

a very crude affair.
fallacious, but it will nevertheless serve to clarify the more
precise
statement that is possible with words. Ignoring the case where
people think they are going in one direction and are actually going
in another ( 1873), let us keep to the case where they are
going to
some extent at least in the direction desired. An
individual finds himself, let us say, at h, where he
is
enjoying a certain amount of utility represented
by the index ph. The idea is to induce him to go
on to m, where he will enjoy a greater utility, qm.
To state the matter to him in that fashion would
amount to way of rousing him to ac-
little in the
tion. It is wiser, therefore, to put before his eyes
the point T, located at quite a distance from the
curve km on the tangent hT, where he would
enjoy an enormous, though altogether fantastic, r

utility,
rT. The result now is somewhat analogous
Figure 20
to what happens where a material point
in the case
is moved
by a tangential force, hT, along a curve, hm. That is to say,
the individual aspires to T, and moves towards T, but, hampered by
all sorts of practical checks) he cannot hold to the
ties (correlations,
tangent hT. He is forced to keep to the curve and ends up at m,

whither, however, he might never have gone had he not been stim-
ulated by a tangential impulse along the line hT.
very effective and involve very few embarrassments when they are of a certain char-
acter. That is the case with myths that chance to embrace the strongest tendencies
of a people, party, or class, tendencies that in all the circumstances of life are for
ever presenting themselves to the mind with all the assertiveness of instincts, lend-
ing an aspect of full reality to those hopes of imminent action on which reforms of
the will are based. We know, for that matter, that these social myths in no way
prevent people from managing to profit by all the observations they make in the
I3O2 TREATISE ON GENERAL SOCIOLOGY 1870
1870. Evidently, in order to determine the conditions under which
the individual will be situated at m
one need not bother with T. The
index rT is at bottom arbitrary and has no relation to the real index,
mq, except the fact that progress in the direction of both and T m
lengthens the index of which the value was ph. Furthermore, it is
altogether immaterial that T
should be imaginary and impractical,
so long as m, for its part, is concrete and real.
1871. A
being capable of non-logical conduct only could be
pushed from h to m
unawares. But the human being is a logical
animal. He wants to know why he is moving in the direction hm.
And so a person who is moved by instinct, interest, or other pres-
sures along the course hm
exercises his imagination and hitches his
wagon to the star T. Then, through group-persistences, the imagi-

nary goal T acquires potency as sentiment in him and comes to serve,
even independently of other causes, to urge him along the course
hm. And it same influence upon other individuals, who
exerts the
society in which they live,

find the sentiment ready-made in the
and would have no other reasons, or very indifferent ones, for
moving along the line hm. In so far as the imaginary objective, T,
is mere
explanation, it satisfies the human desire for logical, or
pseudo-logical, ratiocination, but it can do little or nothing in the
way of determining conduct. As an explanation it has the limited
value that derivations have as approximating logico-experimental
reasonings more or less closely. The extent to which the trend, hm,
of the curve more or less
approximately coincides with the trend, hs,
of the tangent is the measure of the correspondence of the deriva-
tions with realities.
1872. The fact that m and T are different things and that to get
course of their lives nor from fulfilling their normal functions [Composition of
That can be shown by numberless examples. The first Christians
social forces.].
looked for the return of Christ, and for the total collapse of the pagan world fol-
lowed by the establishment of the Kingdom of the Saints, by the end of the first
generation. No such catastrophe occurred, but Christian thought took such advan-
tage of the apocalyptic myth that certain scholars of our time contend that the
whole preachment of Jesus bore on that theme alone. . . . One may readily see that
actual developments in the Revolution in no way resembled the enchanting pictures
that had enthralled its first converts. But could the Revolution have triumphed with-
out such pictures? . . .
Myths have to be thought of as instruments for influencing
the present, and any discussion as to ways of applying them materially to the course
of history is devoid of sense."
I8 74 DERIVATIONS AND REALITY 1303
to m one must aim at T has many consequences in addition to those
just noted, and we shall have occasion to advert to them in pages
hereafter.
1873. It may, and sometimes actually does happen, that things
develop not in the manner pictured in Figure 29, but in a manner
pictured in Figure 30. The individual desirous of moving along the
line hT m
order to improve his situation, moves instead from h to /
and so lessens his utility; which, from the index ph, diminishes to
the index vf. Such, among others, are cases where the derivations
have no correspondence with reality whatever, where, that is, the
p v
Figure 30 Figure 31
route hT
cannot be imagined as coinciding with the route hf even
roughly or even for the shortest distance. Oftentimes, further, the
impulse to move towards T actually carries one in an entirely dif-
1
ferent direction. To grasp this situation
again more clearly we may
have recourse to a crude graph. Figure 30 may be thought of as
representing a vertical cross-section of the surface hf over which
the individual has to move. Let us look at a horizontal projection
of that same surface, as in Figure 31. The point h is stimulated by
a force moving in the direction hT; but it encounters certain
obstacles (prejudices, sentiments, interests, and the like) that force
it to move
along the line chfg; and so, under pressure of the force
hT, it moves not towards
at all T
but brings up at /, in something
2
like the movement of a ship tacking against the wind.
1874. We have seen what may conceivably happen. It remains to
determine what actually does happen in the concrete. If we consider
that be it indeed within
history as a whole it is at once apparent
is the case which we decided to ignore at first (
*
1873 That 1869).
2
1873 substance of this paragraph will serve us again later on
The (21481".)
in examining phenomena of the same sort.
narrow limits acts which have
ideal goals, T, or are performed as
if
they had, must also in many cases achieve results that show a
gain in individual and social utility must, in other words, lead to

a point, m
(Figure 29), where the indices of utility tend to rise. In
point of fact, non-logical actions are still very numerous and still
very important in our time; and they were far more so in times
past.
The impellent of many such actions, the ideal, T, at which they
aim, is stated in theological, metaphysical, and like derivations;
while the practical purpose of human beings is the welfare and
prosperity of themselves and their societies. If the two goals were
antithetical, if the person aiming at the ideal, T, never attained prac-
tical benefits, it would never have been
possible for societies that
have made such great efforts to attain T to subsist and prosper.
Going back to Figure 29 ( 1869), observed fact shows that there
must have been many many cases in human history in which things
followed very much
the course pictured in that figure; that is to
say, aspiring to T, people must have looked to their interests and

gone to m\ for if, in almost all cases, things had gone the way of
Figure 30 ( 1873), if, that is, in striving for T people had always
reached / to their loss, human societies would have to show con-
tinuous decline. That has not been the case, and the hypothesis must
therefore be abandoned.
1875. If that all goes to show
that people have aimed at imagi-
nary goals and frequently attained real advantages, it by no means

follows that that has always been the case. So we have before us
still unsolved the
problem as to when and within what limits the
two aims coincide, given the circumstances of place and time in
which the given case arises. Nor do we know either whether, when,
and to what extent it may be desirable to substitute an imaginary
aim for a real aim. But before attacking those problems and ex-
amining the various solutions that have been proposed for them,
we are obliged to halt on a matter of more general bearing.
1
1876. Ideals and their relations to other social facts. Suppose we
1876
*
We examine these problems qualitatively just here, coming to quan-
are to
titative considerations in the next chapter ( 2121 f.). There too a definition of the
term "utility'* will be supplied. For the time being it will be sufficient to think of
that term as indicating a certain entity that is correlated with other social facts and
is susceptible of increase and decrease. If we had been following the deductive
method and working from the general to the particular, we should have begun with
1876 EFFICACY OF IDEALS 1305
have a society made up of individuals whose conduct, in part,
envisages certain ideal principles, T, either observing certain ideal
norms, or else performing non-logical actions that to an observer
seem to be consequences of such norms, such principles. we Now
want to determine the character and the consequences of the con-
duct performed and its bearing on various utilities (2ii5f.).
Two problems at once arise: i. What are the facts, in reality? 2.
How to observers viewing them from the outside, and
do they look
especially to the authors of theories and doctrines? In the case of
writers and specialists, the solutions of the problems are, in great
part at least, explicit; but for human beings in the mass they are
often implicit, that is to say, without formulating the solutions they
in fact find people conduct themselves as though they were acting
with reference to them. One might better say, to avoid the usual
danger of mistaking non-logical for logical conduct, that the conduct

of people is such that in seeking a logical principle as a premise
for it one is led to one of those solutions. The logical principle, it
follows, merely an inference drawn from the conduct by the

is
observer, and is not at all a principle on which the individual bases

his behaviour logically ( 2147 f.). Another problem further arises:
3. What manner of viewing facts is most desirable for individuals,
society,
and 2115 so on ( f.) ? But that problem
may be included in
the preceding if one think of a given belief as to facts as an ideal, T,
so corresponding to the first problem thus stated. And that also
prepares us to see that there is still a fourth problem, corresponding
the subjects we deal with in Chapter XII,* coming down from them to the matters
here in temdrButthat method is not îc^best suited to a sound understanding of
It is the qualitative problem thfct confronts us in the concrete whenever
puisûbject,
we t6\|ch up6jj social matters. That wa virtually the only problem ever considered
}n time*, oast, aX t
it continues to be for almost all writers today. So the concept of
titllitypresents itseH/in a somewhat vague fcnd uncertain manner, as happens with

concepts of the kind. Down to a few ycfrs ago writers did not feel the need of
felt,
ny greater prccisiopt In tftc case of a special variety of utility, the utility considered
in political economyvthe need came to be felt some time ago and gave rise to the
(theories
of purp ecpnonîcs. In thjis study ;we are trying to extend a similar exactness
io, other sort? of rftility, a^cl we arevfollo\binfc the same course that was followed in
x&nomics/ working, that from the b^ttefr known to the less known, from the
i>,
nirjft thwn the less exact to the more exact. That
iipperfect to the less imperfect,
nannef ot^xposition is less succftict &nd polfched than the deductive method, which
VO/KS injjthfixjppoitcdkection; buKit is^much clearer, much easier, and much more
lelpful for the person who desires to masteis# subject.
to the second above, and which can be stated in the question: 4. How
actually has the relation between utility and the manner in which
individuals interpret facts been viewed
by people, and especially by
2
writers Just here we are interested in problems i and 2
?
only. They
suggest the following subjects for our examination:
I. The ideal, T ( 1877-78)

I-i. Firstproblem ( 1877)
1-2. Second problem ( 1878)
II. Relations between T and m ( 1879-91)
II-i. First
problem ( 1879-82)
II-2. Second problem ( 1883-91)
11-20. T and m are not
distinguished or are at least re-
garded as
approximately identical ( 1883-84)
II-2#. The ideals, T, are distinguished sharply and a priori
from the utility, m ( 1885-91)
11-2^-a. Only certain purposes T are considered ( 1886)
II-2-/3. The imaginary purposes, T, and the utility, m, are
set
flatly
in opposition ( 1887)
11-2^-j/. Intermediate cases ( 1888-91)
III. How T is associated as an effect with certain causes ( 1892-
93)
III-i. First
problem ( 1892)
III-2. Second problem ( 1893)
IV. Character of the routes by which the ideal is reached ( 1894-

95)
IV-i. First problem ( 1894)
IV-2. Second problem ( 1895)
1
1877. I: The
ideal (purpose}, T. It lies outside experience.
I-i: First problem. In the case of animals seems to be T an in-
stinct pure and simple. It may also be an instinct with human be-
1876 We have many times already alluded to problems 3 and 4 without so desig-
2
nating them explicitly; and we shall have further occasion to sound them in the
course of this work. Further along ( 1896, 1932), we shall discuss them some-
what generally and in a particular case.
*
1877 Logico-experimental purposes that are realized through the arts and sci-
ences do not fall within our present purview.

ings in some few cases; but usually it is expressed in the form of

residues at least, and, to satisfy the need of logic felt by the human
2
being, in the form of manifestation-derivations
i688). It is essen-
(
tial to
distinguish the purpose, T-a, that an individual has of his own
accord from the purpose, T-/3, that others may try to induce him to
have. That distinction is of immense importance in human societies
because of the conflict the individual feels between his own ad-
vantage and the advantage of other individuals or society. The

history of morals and law is, one may say, the history of the efforts
that have been made to reconcile, by fair means or foul, those two
sorts of utility. In animals the conciliation is
by instinct, effected
and marvellous indeed the conciliation that is achieved between the
utility of the young
and the utility of the parents. Oftentimes it
involves the sacrifice of the latter to the former.Something of the
same sort happens in human beings; but their hunger for ratiocina-
tion prevents them from stopping at purely instinctive acts and
leads them on into the spacious field of derivations.
1878. 1-2: Second problem. People who stop to consider the ideals
(purposes) T have viewed them

in general as absolute, or at least
as experimental, principles, so ascribing an ostensibly real form to
imaginary principles. That has been the case not only in virtue of
the tendency of the residues of group-persistence, of which the T"s
are made
up, to assume absolute forms or at least an appearance
of concrete reality, but also in virtue of the practical advantage of
not allowing a doubt of any kind to lodge in the mind of the per-
son who is to be persuaded, and of utilizing, for that purpose, the
force which absoluteness, or at least the presumed reality,
confers
upon principles. Both motives are still active in our

day, the second,
in fact, is
gaming in strength with the progress of science, which is
conferring greater and greater authority upon reality. It is not

probable that either of them will disappear in any near future. One
may predict that there will continue to be absolute T's and imagi-
nary 7"s represented as real; for barring some change in the ties
we see functioning about us at present, society will never be able
to subsist without them (2143^). Writers who are unwilling to
2
1877 [Pareto speaking somewhat loosely. Strictly, manifestation-derivations,
is
i.e., derivatives, express the residue directly, the demand for logic being met by
derivations proper ( 1688). A. L.]
lose touch with the real world altogether are forced to recognize
the presence of such ideals in the past and at present. Some, however,
say that they will gradually disappear and that at the end of social
evolution mankind will have nothing but experimental aims.
1879. II: Relations of the purpose (ideal}, T, to the point, m, that
individuals actually attain, and to various utilities.
II-i: First problem. The solution of the objective
problem is to
be gathered from the whole sum of investigations that we are now
completing. It was partly to obtain such a solution that we felt
obliged to go so deeply into residues and derivations, for the purpose
of discovering the substance underlying outward forms. may We
say, in brief, that to aim at an imaginary objective, T, in order to
m, is frequently an indispensable yet none the less

attain a real end,
an imperfect means of achieving m. To use it is like using a ma-
chine which transforms only a part of the total energy that it con-
sumes into serviceable energy ( 1864 f.). So if someone were to
assert that to
replace the struggle to attain imaginary objectives, T,
with efforts to attain ends that were experimental, real, would result
in an elimination of waste and an increase in advantage to society,
he would not be going wrong. But neither would one be going
wrong in saying that to use machines that transform the whole of
their consumed energy into useful work would eliminate economic
waste and redound to the economic advantage of society,
1880. But we still have to know whether such a
thing is possible
the most important problem for those of us who do not care to live
in the clouds.As we have already noted ( 130 f.), if all the ties in
a social system hold their own, what is does not differ from what
might be; and possible cases are cases in which we assume as non-
existent certain ties that are actually found missing in real cases
(SJ2I 43
1881.
f.).
That
...
is admitted in substance, or at least
implicitly admitted,
by those who wouldreplace imaginary with real purposes and
ideals
so render social life logico-experimental throughout. But as a rule
they recognize only one tie ignorance. Ignorance being eliminated,

they have no doubt that society will follow the course they think
is the best. The tie of
ignorance may legitimately be said to have
been suppressed, at least in great part; for it is certain that there are
educated people in our time just as there have been educated people
l88l EFFICACY OF IDEALS 1309
in the past; and in society as a whole
knowledge has increased in
no obstacle blocks our path;
the course of the ages. So far, therefore,
but one rises insuperable in that part of the
argument which holds
that the tie of ignorance is the
only tie that has to be removed
before the conclusion is possible. If the most intelligent people we
know the "best-educated," to use a current term were also the
people who make most extensive use of logico-experimental prin-
ciples in social matters to the exclusion of all other principles, it
would be legitimate to conclude that, in course of time, such people

would reject everything of a non-experimental character; and that
other people, more or less their equals in knowledge, would also
be more or less like them in their exclusive acceptance of logico-
experimental principles. But the facts do not stand that way. If

theologians have diminished in number among our educated people
and lost much
of their power, metaphysicists, properly so called, are
still
prospering and enjoying fame and influence, to say nothing of
those metaphysicists who call themselves "positivists" or under some
other name are merrily overstepping the boundaries of the logico-
experimental. Many scientists who are supremely great in the

natural sciences, where they use logico-experimental principles ex-
clusively or almost so, forget

them entirely when they venture into
1
the social sciences. As regards the masses in the large, what one
1 88 1
*
A chemist or a physicist would be amused if an amateur who had never
made a special study of chemistry or physics should presume to pronounce judg-
ment on problems connected with those sciences. And yet such scientists, without
ever having read a book in the social sciences, set themselves up as oracles in con-
nexion with most knotty social problems (1435^). One of them confidently
decides that would be a great misfortune for humanity if Germany did not be-
it
come mistress of Europe, making her ''civilization" triumphant over Russian "bar-
barism." He seems not even remotely to suspect that to determine the effects upon
human evolution of German predominance, or Russian predominance, in Europe is
about as difficult a task as to determine the constitution of matter. That conies about
because the scientist, following the objective method in his chemistry or physics,
unwittingly falls under the spell of the subjective method in turning to the social
sciences. When he is talking about the structure of the atom, he keeps to what ex-
perience has taught him and discards sentiment. When he pronounces on Socialism,
imperialism, German "civilization," Russian "barbarism," and so on, he merely
voices the sentiments which those words or phrases awaken in him, and cares not
a fig about experience (historical observation and the like), of which he is almost
always totally ignorant. That anomaly is all the more striking when we see novel-
ists, poets, and playwrights pronouncing ex cathedra on social and economic matters
on which they are grossly uninformed. What connexion can there be between writ-
observes an unending alternation of theologies and systems of

is
metaphysics rather than any reduction in the total number of them

(2329^). That fact we have repeatedly stressed, and do so here
again in connexion with 2.
1882. Our
conclusions, therefore, will be that the pursuit of certain
imaginary aims, T, has been in the past, continues in the present, and
will probably continue in any near future, to be very advantageous
for human societies ( 1932); that oftentimes there may be several
concurrent aims, T, T', T" widely differing as regards deriva-
. . .
tions, but equivalent, or almost so, as regards their social utility
( 1740, 1850 f.) ; but that all that in no way proves that the pursuit
of other imaginary, theological, or metaphysical aims may not have
been detrimental to society in the past, or may not be in the present
or future 1873, Figure 30). Questions as to the utility of ideals
(
cannot be answered in general. One must specify which ideals one
is
considering, and then go on to determine their relations to other
social facts; and that must be done not only qualitatively, but
quantitatively as well ( 2142 f.). And one must further determine

whether there not be some proportion between the pursuit of
may
imaginary ideals and the pursuit of logico-experimental aims that is
more useful to society than any other proportion. Nor is that yet all.
Society a heterogeneous affair and that fact cannot be ignored.
is
The investigation therefore has to be made for each of the various

2
social classes in turn.
1883. ll-2i Second problem. Just here we are interested in the sub-
stance, rather than in the forms, of the doctrines that have been
current as to the relations of T and m. When they make any ex-
tensive use of derivations they are better analyzed in connexion with
III and IV.
11-20: T and m are not distinguished or are at least regarded as
ing a successful play and objectively solving a problem in social science? There is a
connexion, all the same! And that is where sentiment comes in. The notions such
people express in regard to social problems are absurd, fatuous, idiotic, from the
But from the standpoint of sentiment, they will please the
scientific standpoint.
same audiences that have applauded their plays. Such a public is, for the most part,
incapable of grasping a logico-experimental argument; but it feasts on sentimental
utterances that are suited to its mental powers. Such is the world, and one cannot
imagine how and when it is ever going to change.
1882 2
We are to do that in the chapter next following.
1883 DERIVATIONS AND REALITY 13 1 1
approximately identical. That can be done in two ways: A. One be-

lieves that the pursuit of the ideal is the best of attaining one's
way
own and other people's advantage one aims at T and attains m.
B. Conversely, one may believe that one is at an ideal, where-
aiming
as one is
really looking to one's own advantage or to the advantage
of others one aims at m
and preaches T. All that, however, is very
hazy and indefinite in the mind, as we shall better see in a less
general case (1897^), the various utilities in particular being

1
oftentimes confused.
A. [The conscious purpose is T. What actually is attained is m.]
Such doctrines are far more numerous and more important than
other sorts; for almost always the purpose of a doctrine is to per-
suade individuals to aim at an objective that yields an advantage
to other individuals or to society. If Ti be the selfish purpose that
yields the advantage, mi 9
of the individual, and T2 the altruistic pur-
x
1883 Here is an example that may serve as typical of vast numbers of such rea-
sonings. On Jan. 20, 1914, the French ministry introduced before the two Chambers
and successfully passed a bill appropriating 20,000 francs for a national funeral for
General Picquart. A member in the Senate rose to inquire just what services that
general had rendered the country. The premier, M. Doumergue, replied: "You ask
me what services General Picquart has rendered the country: he believed in imma-
nent justice and truth!"
What "immanent justice and truth" may be no one knows exactly, and M. Dou-
mergue perhaps less than anybody else. Still, there are so many kinds of truth that
such a handsome thing "immanent truth" may well have its place among them.
as
Let us ignore these goat's- wool subtleties, as Rabelais would have called them, and
concede without debate the existence of the respectable entities called "immanent
justice and truth," and go on to see what meanings M. Doumergue's statement may
have had. We may classify them roughly as follows:
a. There is an implicit principle from which one may infer that a real advantage,
namely, national welfare, will be obtained.

a-I. The advantage lies in winning the victory in case of war.
a-I-i. A
general who believes in "immanent justice and truth" is better fitted than
an other sort of general to discharge his function, which is to lead his troops to vic-
tory in case of war. Picquart held the belief in question; therefore he must have
contributed to assuring victory for his country in case of war. M. Doumergue, notice,
did not refer to the belief as an adornment over and above Picquart's merits as a
soldier. Of those merits he said nothing; and wisely, for what more he could have
said in Picquart's favour than what he said is very little indeed. A writer in the
Gazette dc Lausanne, Jan. 21, 1914, who was nevertheless kindly disposed towards
Picquart, wrote: "One may wonder and the question has been passionately argued
whether the hero of the Dreyfus affair was as soundly inspired in accepting the
compensation that the abrupt development in events brought his way. The very
peculiar prestige which haloed that attractive and rather enigmatic figure could only
pose yielding the utility m2 of other individuals or society, one may

say that the purpose of many many ethical theories is to merge jfi,
T2, mi and W2, into a single homogeneous mass. If the prime stress
is laid on the
utility, rni, of the individual,
and the aims Ti, T2 and
the utility m2 are represented as so much like it as to be identical
with it or almost so, we get the seeds that will sprout, by appropri-
ate derivations, into the various "utilitarian" ethical systems that
have flourished from the earliest historical times down to our own
suffer some diminution when the man agreed to become a cabinet minister like any
other and to submit, to an extent at least, to the limitations that the fact of belong-
ing to a political party necessarily involves. All the same, those who followed Gen-
eral Picquart's activities in the Ministry of War at close range know that his trans-
fer to the rue St. Dominique meant
a sort of perpetual conflict for him, in which
his instinctive independence of character was more than once at swords' points with
the passwords of party spirit. Thoroughly and justly to appraise his role during that
period, a sharp line of demarcation has to be drawn between what he had to grant
under pressure from his and notably the deplorable reduction of drill-
friends,
periods for reservists, and the services he rendered the army, most important here
the uncompromising resolve he manifested during the debates on the Artillery Ap-
propriations bill. It appears, on the other hand, that he was not entirely successful
in exercising the high command entrusted to him. Through a succession of circum-
stances he had missed the experience of intermediary commands and suddenly
found himself faced overnight with difficulties he was not accustomed to meeting.
His technical knowledge and an amazingly cultivated mind better equipped him
for directing certain services of the General Staff than to command large units in
the field. That perfect gentleman, whose smile was so engaging and whose thought
so ornate, was more of a scholar than a soldier. To look at him one had the impres-
sion that the personality which his moral courage illumined with such splendour was
hardly cast for the career he followed."

It would still seem therefore that belief in "immanent truth and justice" were the
chief requisite in a general. Was it from holding that belief that Philip of Macedon
defeated the Athenians at Chaeroneia, that Alexander the Great routed the Persians,
and Hannibal won his victory at Cannae? Hannibal's defeat at Zama must perhaps
have been due to some backsliding; but we may guess that Moltke was a virtual
fanatic to win as he won at Sedan. With all that it seems a little hard to agree; so
that the experimental basis of our syllogism collapses.
a-I-2. One may conceive of the effects of believing in immanent justice and truth
in somewhat more general and somewhat personalless terms, and those estimable
entities are then to be counted the gods-protectors of peoples. If the Israelites
among
were shielded in battle by their Jehovah, if Rome owed her victories to her divini-
ties, if the God of the Christians protected them against the Moslems, and the god
of Mohammed the Moslems against the Christians, one may readily admit that the
godhead Immanent-Truth-and-Justice can protect a people too. However, it is hardly
probable that such a notion of divine interposition could have figured explicitly
among the theories of a free-thinker such as M. Doumergue.
a-I-3- Belief in such entities may inspire men to achievements that will make
victory certain. That has been the case with many such beliefs; but it is not at all
1883 "IMMANENT JUSTICE AND TRUTH" 1313
and find literary expression all the way along from the fables that
were current in the infancy of the race down to the complicated
disquisitions
of Bentham and the Positivists. Most human beings are
unable to forget their own utility, mi. They must therefore be shown
that it is to their interests to aim at T2 and attain m2. If the main
apparent that the belief in Immanent-Truth-and-Justice is to be counted among them.

It has the ear-marks of being just a rhetorical belief of certain men of letters. That
certainly was not what M. Doumcrgue meant.

Being unable to show the utility of the belief as guaranteeing victory, suppose we
look about for some other utility.
a-H. The national utility envisaged is not of the military type, but some other.
a-II-i. It is more profitable to pursue certain "moral'* principles than material
prosperity.
a-II-2. The utility of having a certain form of government is superior to the util-
ity of winning a war. Those two principles M. Doumergue and those who applauded
him may well have had in mind, but it would have been diflicult to get a clear
statement of them out of those gentlemen. Our many difficulties in demonstrating
the utility of the principle may be obviated if we move on to another order of ideas:
/?.
Observance of the principle stated is an end in itself independent of any con-
sideration of utility.
yg-I.
Our sole concern must be to satisfy "immanent justice and truth": Do what
you ought, come what will! That, substantially, is the rule-of-life of all faiths that
it was the rule of the Christian martyrs. It is not
are at all vigorous apparent how-
ever that M. Doumergue and his friends bear any close resemblance to Christian
martyrs.
/J-II.
We must not worry about war there is not going to be a war, anyhow!
So the important thing is not to have generals who arc good fighters on the field
of battle, but generals who follow the "moral" principles of the party in power. A
believer in "immanent truth and justice" must be preferred to an able general. At
the head of our army we want not a Napoleon Bonaparte, but a St. Francis of
Assisi who holds a paid-up membership in the Radical party. Something like that
may well have been in the minds of M. Doumergue's friends. One must not forget
that they wanted Andre for their Minister of War and Pelletan for their Minister of
Marine and that those two gentlemen utterly disorganized the national defence of
France. M. Doumergue's party, moreover, opposed the three-years law and in every
way showed itself hostile to the army.
So now we are getting closer to the realities underlying the derivation "immanent
truth and justice":
is a mere euphemism for the interests of a group of politicians and
y. It "spec-
ulators" ( 2235). Those individuals found in the Dreyfus affair a ladder for climb-
ing into power, making money, and winning public honours, with the support of
a few "intellectuals" who swallowed the bait that was dangled before them and
took the euphemisms, immanent truth and immanent justice, for realities.
M. Doumergue's derivation has therefore to be translated into the following lan-
guage: "Picquart served our interests, and we are honouring him that we may in-
duce others to do as he did. For the country's defence we care not a hang. Come
what may, we stand by our interests, and the interests of our party."
stress is laid on T2, often represented as identical with Ti, and mi
and m2
are represented as more or less identical with T2 and Ti,
we get in germ the many theological and metaphysical systems of
ethics. In order to
bring T2 and mi closer together to the point of
identity, theological moralities resort to sanctions emanating from
their particular deities. Metaphysical ethics replace
gods with some
imperative or other ( 1886, 1938) and with no great success, one
must add.
1884. B. The schemer consciously aims at m
and preaches T;
but the same thing is also done by many individuals who are in all
good faith.
Cynically selfish people are rare and downright hypo-
crites equally majority of men merely desire to reconcile
so. The
their ownadvantage with the residues of sociality (Class IV);
realize their own happiness while
seeming to strive for the happi-
ness of others; cloak their self-seeking under mantles of religion,
ethics, patriotism, humanitarianism, party loyalty, and so on; work

for material satisfactions while seeming to be working only for
ideals. In that way, furthermore, such men are able to win the
support of people who are attracted by the beauty of the ideal, T,

but who would be indifferently, if at all, interested in the humble,
earthly purpose, m. That is why they go rummaging about for

theories adapted to the achievement of their purpose, and find
them without difficulty; for the market is
glutted with theories
manufactured by theologians, moralists, social writers, and other
people of the kind, who keep their counters covered with an article
so greatly in demand, and so are able to attain their own ad-

1
vantage while seeming only to be in quest of the sublime.
l
1884 The nineteenth century yielded a rich harvest of such derivations in the
course of the conflict between working-men and "capitalists" (who are really entre-
preneurs). The situation, substantially, is that between those two sorts of people
there is the usual conflict of interest that arises between any two parties drawing
up a contract in the economic field. Each, in other words, tries to bring the grist
to his own mill, each tries to make his own share as large as possible. Such the ob-
which they strove and are striving. But outwardly they
jectives for said and still
say,
and many believed and still believe, that their aim was and is the ideal, T.
From the manufacturers' side we did not get such very subtle reasonings. They
pointed to their concern for the welfare of the working-classes, the 'legitimate"
remuneration due to men who made an enterprise prosper by the art of combina-
tions, the social advantages of economic freedom, which they always remembered
when fixing wages and always forgot when fixing prices.
From the working-men's side came a flood of subtle theories that were agitated
l886 DERIVATIONS AND REALITY 1315
1885. \\-2b: The purposes, T, are distinguished sharply and a
priori from the utility, m. Ordinarily it only in appearances that
is
writers deal with the ideals T

in general. Actually what they have
chiefly or exclusively in view is certain particular purposes, T, of

their own.
1886. II-2^-a Only certain purposes, T, are considered. The writer
:
disregards the utility, m, or at the most thinks of it as a thing of little

or no account. So we get theological or metaphysical systems of
ethics that overlook utility altogether and set forth in absolute terms
what people ought to do; and also ascetic, mystical systems, and
others of that kind. Owing to the power that ascetic residues
normally have these latter have their social importance,

though
much less so than ethical systems of type I ( 1877). Asceticism is
generally an end in itself; but, in virtue of the supernatural sanc-
tions that it ordinarily invokes, it may sometimes develop into some-
by "intellectuals*' and accepted by the working-people in blind faith and without

any comprehension of them. From the Socialistic Utopias down to Marxism and
democratic or Socialistic radicalism, one finds vast numbers of doctrines that all use
draperies of gay colours to hide the very simple resolve to demand "a larger share
in the proceeds of economic production." But to state the idea in such simple terms
would weaken the case of the people who use it; for it would cost them the sup-
port they derive from the ideal character of a purpose and the backing of those
good souls who succumb to the lure of such theories. So in our derivations we will
appeal, as usual, to one sentiment or another. We will call the demands of the
workers "claims" to give the impression that they are demanding only something
that belongs to them and that will win us the support of Class V residues (indi-
vidual integrity). However, so simple a suggestion will not be enough: we had bet-
ter get the I- residues (logic) on our side; so we will evolve theories about the
"total product of labour," "surplus value," the need of having "a little more justice
in the world," and so on. The longer in words and the more difficult to grasp such
theories are, the more glamorously ideal will they make the objective at which we
say we are aiming.
But disregarding their fatuity as arguments and looking only at their substance,
one soon observes that it has been to the advantage of the working-classes to aim,
in that fashion, at fantastic ideals; for, in virtue of the stubborn battle that they
have fought for them and which they might perhaps not have fought under any
other inspiration, and thanks to valiant aid from the allies whom they have recruited
through the ideal character of their purposes, the working-classes have managed to
improve their lot very appreciably in the course of the nineteenth century. As re-
gards a nation or society as a whole, it is much more difficult to decide whether or
not that change has been for the better. An affirmative answer would seem to be
the more probable; but to prove it we should have first to consider the problem of
social and economic evolution synthetically; and that we cannot do till our next
chapter.
thing that has the look of a theological system, advocating, that is,
an imaginary utility instead of the real utility, m. Such appearances

are deceptive, for in view of the criterion we are using for our clas-
sification here, m is
essentially real.
1887. II-2#-/3: The ideal, T, and the utility, m, are set flatly in
ofposition. Writers commonly express themselves as though they

were considering all possible imaginary ends, whereas, at bottom,
they are contemplating certain specific ends only, which they desire
to replace with other ends equally imaginary. The conflict resulting
is between two theologies, two metaphysics, and not between
theology and metaphysics on the one side and logico-experimental
science on the other. Here are to be classed purely ascetic doctrines
that cherish no ideal of other-worldly happiness but are ends in
themselves, ignoring utility. And here too belong
deliberately
pessimistic systems which hold that no matter what the ideal pur-
sued mankind will never achieve "happiness" (which in that case
is a synonym^ for utility).
1888. II-2#-y: Intermediate cases. T and m are not distinguished
a priori; they are taken as different things that may stand now in
one, now in another, relation to each other. If such relations are
experimental, the logico-experimental solution is correctly per-

ceived in other words, our solution II-i is reached. If they are non-
experimental or are established a priori, we get various derivations.

Noteworthy among these are such doctrines as separate the imagi-
nary objectives, T, into two groups, one of which, Th, is said to be
infallibly beneficial, the other, Tf(, infallibly harmful, very very
harmful. Needless to say, the good ones, Th, are the ones that accord
with the religion of the given writer. This case very often blends
with the cases preceding; for as a rule writers by no means admit
that there any such division of the imaginary or merely ideal
is
ends, T, into the two classes, Th and T\. For them there is but one
class, Th, and the ends Th are the only ends that really exist. They,
therefore, are "real" ends, "true" ends, the ends Tf( being non-
existent, "unreal," "false." Since the purposes Th are the only real
ones in the eyes of such writers, the category Th takes the place
of the category T, to which we alluded in the preceding cases, and
is identical with it.
1889. Phenomena of that sort are observable in history whenever

1890 THEOLOGY OF PROGRESS 1317
attempts are made to replace one religion with another. In such

cases they are readily recognized. They are a little less obvious when
materialistic and positivistic doctrines, or others of the kind, open
fire on all
"religion"; yet a glance at all close readily reveals that such
doctrines differ from the religions which they are attacking not in
substance but in name only, and that, really, what is represented as
a conflict between "Reason" and positive religions is just a conflict
between theologies. One should not forget that if "Reason" is now-
adays being invoked against Christianity, was invoked by Chris-
it
tianity against paganism in a day gone by and that the modern

theology of Progress is new only in part, in other parts merely re-
peating the ideas of the past in different language.
1890. In the theology of Progress, the history of humanity is
chiefly, and perhaps exclusively,
the history of a struggle between a
principle of "evil," called "superstition," and a principle of "good,"

called "Science." To write history is
simply to paraphrase a verse
of Lucretius, DC rcrum natura, I, v. 101: "Tantum religio potuit
suadere malorum." The religion of Progress is polytheistic. "Super-
stition," queen of darkness, mistress of evil, has a retinue of inferior
deities, and, as
is
usually the case, there are some among them who
increase in prestige while others wane or even vanish from the earth.
At one time the auri sacra fames held first place in the hierarchy;
now that demon is quoted very low. In the heyday of Christian
fervour "Pagan Superstition" was in the ascendant as opposed to
"True Religion." In modern times "Private Property" came to dis-
pute the primacy of "Superstition," and Rousseau berated the poor
thing with appalling invectives. But in the days of the French Revo-
lution "Superstition" resumed her former throne, this time with an
ample household of paladins, and to wit, kings, nobles, and priests.

Then theoretical speculations had their turn again, and "Capitalism"
succeeded "Private Property" much as Jupiter succeeded Saturn of
old. Blessed the man who holds such a key of knowledge! Every
mystery, past, present, or future, yields to the magic password

"capitalism." Capitalism, and capitalism alone, is the cause of
poverty, ignorance, immorality, theft, murder, war. Little avails it
to produce the catalogues of those disciples of Messalina who have
been numerous in every age. It remains an article of faith that if
there were no capitalism all women would be chaste and prostitu-
1
tion would be abolished. Nor does it avail to point to savage peoples
who spend their lives in constant warfare. This new faith requires
one to believe that without capitalism there would be no wars of any
kind, though there are plenty of Socialists who fight in wars now-
adays and then excuse themselves with the casuistic plea that they
are opposed to wars in general but in favour of the particular war
that happens to be to their liking. If there are paupers, illiterates,
hoodlums, degenerates, drunkards, lunatics, spendthrifts, thieves,

assassins, conquerors, capitalism alone is to blame. The reasoning
by which all that is

proved is the usual post hoc, profiler hoc. Our
society is
"capitalistic." Its ills therefore originate in "capitalism."
There are, of course, other arguments too, but they come down, at
bottom, to the plain assertion that if people had all the things they
wanted they would not resort to crimes and cruelties in order to
procure them. Granting, then, that "capitalism" alone prevents
people from having all the things they want, it remains demon-
strated that capitalism is the root of all evil.
1891. Over against the principle of evil is set the principle of
good, which in a day gone by was "True Religion" and is nowadays

"Science." "Science" too surrounds herself with minor deities such
"
as "Democracy," "Humanitarianism," "Pacifism," Truth," "Justice"
all those entities, in short, which are deemed worthy of the epithet
x
1890 Well known the fact that there are married women with large incomes
who nevertheless themselves to add to the luxuries they already enjoy. It is an-
sell
swered that the poverty and the wealth produced by capitalism have the same effect.
That may be so. Let us see: If the explanation is sound, the situation in question
ought not to arise among people who have just modest incomes. Unfortunately that
is not the case. The woman of the petty bourgeoisie sells herself to get a stylish hat;
the society woman
sells herself to get a string of pearls but they both sell them-
selves. The
conclusion has to be that if all individuals in a given community had
exactly the same income, there would still be women ready to give themselves to
the men who were disposed to supply them with the things they want. The objec-
tion is urged, of course, that our society is corrupt because of the existence of the
capitalistic system; and that objection cannot be answered, for it is an article of
faith and faith transcends experience. Other fanatics, of the breed that organize
leagues against obscenity and the "white-slave trade," and societies for the "im-
provement of morals," deliberately shut their eyes to the light from such facts. It is
an article of faith with those innocent souls that the man always seduces the woman,
and that women therefore must be protected. Yet anybody willing to go to the
trouble of reading the newspapers and following cases in the courts will find that
it is more frequently the woman who misleads the man. Everywhere, in cases of
the unfaithful clerk, the dishonest cashier, the absconding banker, the army officer
"progressive," and which, like the angels of light fighting the

angels of darkness, fight other entities called "reactionary" and de-
fend and preserve our wretched humanity from the wiles of such
demons.
1892. Ill: How T is associated as an effect with certain causes.
III-i: First
problem. We have already seen one of the ways in which
that is done by trying to create a confusion between the ideals and
the utilities. But that is not the only way. Ideals and interests may
be identified by other devices; and then, in addition to interests,
people have passions and sentiments with which ideals may be

correlated. Furthermore, as regards means of
effecting the union of
ideals and other facts, there is not only persuasion but also con-
straint. The latter asserts itself in the hostility that is shown to
individuals who violate the
usages, customs, norms, that prevail in
a given society, and it is applied practically in penal law. With it
we are not concerned here. As regards means of persuasion, there
are the numberless productions of literature, from simple fairy-
stories all the way
along to the most complicated theological, ethical,
metaphysical, "positivistic," and like disquisitions. As we have over
and again repeated, the persuasive force of such productions resides
not in the derivations, but in the residues and interests that they call
turned spy, some woman is involved, and we get new confirmation of the judge's
apothegm, "Cherchez la jemme." The needs of such women are not the needs of a
modest comfortable standard of living, but the needs of extravagance and display;
and it is to satisfy such demands that men are often led to steal, betray, and some-
times commit murder. If there must be this craze for protection, why worry so much
about the seduction of women and so little about the seduction of men? Why is
there no ingenious brain to invent some other stupid phrase like the "white-slave
trade'* to apply to the case of the poor white man? Only a sick or childish mind
can imagine that it is just the material requirements of getting a living that drive
women to prostitution. With many women it is a case of vanity and love of ex-
travagance. Not a few others turn to the occupation out of indolence; and, in higher
social circles, there arc those who like the profession the way a hunter likes hunting
and the fisherman fishing. There too there is no lack of facts for those who choose
to see them. How many who
have been forcibly redeemed by simple-
the prostitutes
minded uplifters and provided with respectable and comfortable livings, only to
desert them and return to their old occupation for which they felt an incurable
homesickness? But many people refuse to see these facts, and others like them, be-
cause they are not telling the truth when they say they are trying to fight prostitu-
tion for the benefit of womanhood and to destroy the "white-slave trade" for the
benefit of said "slaves." Really all they are doing is coddling a theological antipathy
to pleasures of the senses.
I32O THE MIND AND SOCIETY
into play. It follows that
only those works of literature will live
which associate ideals with powerful residues and important inter-
ests. Such residues are
always available from some one of our classes.
Very effective are certain residues of group-persistence, which, taken
either singly or in combination with other residues (among which
chiefly those of sociality), supply the many entities with which

human beings have peopled their divine, metaphysical, and social
Olympuses. We may therefore foresee that ideals, T, will usually
be associated with such entities; and that is precisely what happens
in the case of theological and metaphysical systems of ethics and in
those moralities which are based upon reverence for tradition and
ancestral wisdom today represented by the infallibility of Prog-
ress and for the usages and customs of tribe, city, nation, or race.
In these latter cases, residues of sociality play a prominent part; and
ascetic residues (IV-) play the
leading role in ascetic systems.
If we are to remain in touch with realities, it must not be
forgot-
ten that many ideals, T, that state rules of conduct are, if not in
form, in substance at least, given are, that is, products of the
thinker's society, in which he finds them ready-made, and not prod-
ucts of his theoretical meditation. The quest, therefore, is not for
the ideal, T, but, T being given, for something with which it may
be correlated, and for the means of effecting the correlation ( 636,
1628). The ideal at which the individual is invited to gaze varies
but in time, as regards substance, at least; the residues to which
little
it is tied
vary somewhat more; the derivations and pseudo-scientific
reasonings serving to associate ideals and residues, much much
more.
1893. III-2: Second problem. In doctrines, in general, when ideals
do not stand by themselves as absolutes they are considered conse-
quences of theological or metaphysical principles or of interests; and
the result is those various moralities which we discovered in germ
in examining the relations of T and m ( i883f.). As for the na-
ture of the correlation, bluntly represented as rigorously logi-
it is
cal, and nowadays as scientific or even experimental. So the ideal, T,

is made to look like the statement of a theorem; and miraculous the
regularity with which

always manages to contain something that
it
was already present in the mind of the searcher, and not infre-
quently in the opinions of the community to which he belongs.
1896 VIRTUE AND HAPPINESS 132!
There is no chance that the theoretical moralist will ever end up
with a theorem that conflicts with his own conscience; and very
rarely with a theory conflicting with the ethics of the society in
which he lives. Conversely, if it is shown that a certain ideal, T, is
not a logical consequence of experimental, or at least "rational,"
principles, it is assumed as proved that it can only be harmful; and

there again it is a marvel to behold how regularly the ideals that are
so discovered to be contrary to experience, or at least to "reason,"
are the ideals of which the moralist disapproves or which run coun-
ter to the ethics of his community.
1894. IV: Character of the routes by which the ideal, T, is reached.
IV-i: First problem. This properly is an examination of derivations.
We have already completed it in great part and need not dwell fur-
1
ther upon the subject here.
1895. IV-2: Second problem. We are also familiar already with
the attitude that is taken toward such devices in statements of doc-
trine; for we have
repeatedly explained, and just above recalled,
that pseudo-scientific derivations and reasonings are represented as
logico-experimental, and that that procedure, though scientifically

untrue, may frequently lead to results that are socially beneficial.
1896.And now briefly for problems 3 and 4 as stated in 1876.
3. What manner of viewing facts is desirable for individuals, society,
and so on? Our main concern is with problem II-i ( 1876). For the
1
present us confine ourselves to stating it. It must not be taken
let
as relating to doctrines in themselves, apart from the individuals
who profess them, but as relating to the doctrines as viewed in con-

nexion with individuals and their functions in society. That fact
has always been perceived more or less vaguely by empiricists. It is
now denied a priori by the theology of "equality." Using terms of
1894 We first encountered (3o6f.) the devices that are used to give an ap-
*
pearance of logic to non-logical conduct performed with the ideal, T, in view. Such
devices are resorted to with the explicit, but more often implicit, intention of repre-
senting T and m
as identical. Logical conduct leads to m. If it is to lead to T as
well, T, logically, must be indistinguishable from m. Later on, in our examination

of derivations in general, we came upon other devices, and found them to be par-
ticular instances of facts that are general. We shall be meeting other particular in-
stances very shortly ( 1902 f.).
1896
1
We might repeat that the solution has to come from the sum of investiga-
tions which we have been conducting in these volumes. This problem we shall treat
more specially in our next chapter.
ordinary language, which, however, may be misleading because of

their inexactness, one might say that it may be best for people to
regard as "true" doctrines that are "false." Trying to come closer to

realities by using expressions somewhat more exact, we might say
that may be beneficial to society for people to regard as in accord
it
with experience (or with reality) doctrines that show no such ac-
cord.
4. How has the relation between and the manner in which

utility
facts are interpreted been viewed by people, and especially by

writers? Here again
empiricists have sometimes vaguely perceived
a
solution very like the logico-experimental solution just referred to.
Very few theorists, on the other hand, have had any inkling of it,
most of them accepting solutions corresponding to II-20. They have
confused "truth" and "utility," holding that it is always useful to in-
dividuals and community that people should view the facts under
their "true" aspect. If "truth" there means conformity with experi-
ence, the proposition is false, as empiricists of all times have readily

seen. If, as usually happens, "truth" means conformity with certain
nebulous ideas of the writer, the proposition may approximate ex-
perience or be altogether at variance with it, according as the
utility
of such ideas approximates experience or diverges from it
(1773^). Other ideals besides "truth" may be confused with

utility very frequently so, "justice." It is asserted, for instance, that
only what "true," "just," "moral," and the like, is "useful." Now-
is
adays the theology of "equality," which is an aspect of the theology

of Progress, shrinks with horror from the idea that it may be a good
thing for individuals to have a variety of different doctrines and pur-

2
sue differing ideals according to their functions in society. To get
a better understanding of the general theories just stated, and in
view of their great importance to sociology, it will be well for us
to analyze a particular case.
1897. Relations between observance of the of religion and
norms
morality and the attainment of happiness* People have at all times
2
1896 The other solutions are of less account and we need not dwell upon them
here. We can go no farther along this line at present because we have no exact no-
tions as to what the various utilities are (2115 f.). We shall therefore return to
this subject in the next chapter.
1897
*
O ne should re-read at this point the remarks we made in 1876 *.
wondered whether individual or community realized happiness by
following such rules. The problem is a more limited one than the
preceding. In the we
are not inquiring as to general rela-
first
place,
tionships, but asking merely whether or not happiness is realized.
That eliminates theological or metaphysical solutions of our \\-ib
type ( 1876), which envisage "duty" without reference to utility.
We can consider only such solutions as take account of some utility
2
or other, be it
imaginary. In the second place, the ideals, T,
real or
envisaged in the broader problems just examined not only comprise

observance of the rules of religion and morality, but are, in gen-
eral, all that is counselled or required by a faith or a vigorous senti-
ment. We therefore find among them other norms that are current
in society and deriving from tradition or some other such source,
along with sentimental, ideal, mythical, or other similar objectives.

In a word, utility here appears under a special form: the form of
"happiness."
1898. To solve the particular problem that we have set ourselves
we must first
give greater exactness to our statement of it. may We
disregard the very serious lack of definiteness in the terms "reli-
gion" and "morality," since they are not essential to the problem.
Things would still be the same were we to speak of the observance
of certain rules, to be designated by any names one chose and there-
fore also by the quite nebulous terms "religion" and "morality."
But there are two points in the statement where the vagueness is
important and cannot be disregarded. The first is the meaning of
the terms "happiness" and "unhappiness" ; and we shall see that
people have availed themselves of that vagueness in those very terms

in order to get the solutions of the problem that they desired
( 1904). The other is the vagueness as to who is to apply the norm

and who to attain the "happiness" or "unhappiness." In that con-
nexion the following distinctions are in order.
I. The conduct and the realization of
happiness or unhappiness
may be viewed as united in the same person or persons. One may
ask, that is: If a person scrupulously observes the rules of morality
2
1897 Efforts are frequently made to confuse the two kinds of solutions, for it is
not comfortable to leave "duty" floating in the air in that fashion, without any
bearing whatever on the real world. Solutions #2, #3 and 4 of 1902 are designed
to produce just that confusion.
and religion will he necessarily be happy and if he violates them,
unhappy? Or one may ask: If the individuals constituting a com-
munity observe or violate the afore-said rules will they be happy or
unhappy ?
II. The individuals who observe, or violate, the rules may be dif-
ferent from the individuals who profit, or suffer, in consequence.

Practical investigations have chiefly considered cases where an in-
dividual observes or violates certain rules and his descendants, or
his fellow-townsmen more generally, other people belonging to
or,
his community profit or suffer in consequence of his conduct.
1899. To give an affirmative answer to the question as to whether,
by following the rules of religion, morality, tradition, individuals

are themselves happy and procure the happiness of their neighbours,
is
generally advantageous to society. Such a remark carries us into
problem 3 of 1876; and if we would reason in a severely scientific
manner, we should keep it sharply distinct from problems i and 2
with which we are dealing here. Ordinary reasoning, which rests
primarily on accords of sentiment, usually fails to make the distinc-
tion; and for that very reason, from the very fact that
questions alto-
gether distinct are dealt with concurrently, affirmative solutions are
available in much greater numbers than negative solutions; and they
are deemed worthy of approval, whereas negative solutions and even
such as cast suspicion of doubt upon the affirmative are deemed rep-
rehensible.
1900. It
may be worth while observing that to give an altogether
affirmative answer to the two questions in 1898-! is to give an
answer that is at least partially negative to the questions in 1898-! I,
and vice versa. In fact, if a man can profit or suffer only by his own
conduct, by observing or violating certain precepts, that is, it fol-
lows that he cannot profit or suffer by the actions of others. And,
conversely, if he can profit or suffer by the conduct of others, it
follows that he does not profit or suffer only by his own.
1901. That is so simple and self-evident that, keeping to strict
logic,one can hardly understand how it could possibly be forgotten

or overlooked. And yet it is overlooked or forgotten by hosts of
writers; and the reason is the reason that we have so often had occa-
dominion of sentiment, which puts logic to flight
sion to stress: the
and prevents a man from remembering the principles of which his
1902 AFFIRMATIVE SOLUTIONS 1325
conduct presumably the logical consequence. Such principles are
is
visibleonly to the disinterested observer. They remain implicit for

the individual concerned ( 1876).
1902. Suppose we see just what solutions have been offered for
the problems just stated, whether they have been considered to-
gether or kept distinct; and first of all let us classify them:
AFFIRMATIVE SOLUTIONS ( 1903-98)
(Particular cases of the general theory II-20 ( 1876, 1883)):
A. Verbal solutions ( 1903-29)

Ai. Begging the question ( 1904-12)
Ai. Change of the meanings of precepts or norms from objec-
tive to subjective (
1913-18)
A$. Casuistry: interpretations of precepts and norms ( 1919-29)
B. Objective solutions. Terms "happiness" and "unhappiness" taken
in their ordinary senses ( 1930-98)
Bi. Assertions of perfect accord ( 1934-76)
(And, to evade exceptions:)
B2. Happiness and unhappiness removed in space and time
( 1977-88)
(Particular cases of the general theory 11-2^-a ( 1876, 1886)):
#3. Happiness and unhappiness located outside the real world

(1989-94)
#4. No interpretation is discoverable inscrutable are the ways
of the Lord ( 1995-98)
NEGATIVE SOLUTIONS ( 1999-2001)
(Particular case of the general theory II-2-/3 ( 1876, 1887)):
C. Absolute negation: pessimism ( 1999-2000)
(Particular case of the general theories I-i ( 1876, 1877) or 11-2^-y

(1876, 1888)):
D. Qualified negation. Two different situations that may have cer-
tain points in common ( 2001)
The solutions Bi and C

originate in the fact that each considers
one group of residues exclusively. The solutions A, 2, B$, and #4
93
originate in an effort to reconcile contradictory derivations
based on
different groups of residues. Solutions of the type include, in D
addition to intermediary solutions of the other varieties, the scien-
tific which aims exclusively at discovering uniformities.
solution,
Let us now examine these various types of solutions.
A. Verbal solutions. They belong to the large class of verbal
1903.
derivations that we analyzed in Chapter X; and the cases we are to
consider are just particular cases of that general phenomenon.
1904. Ai: Begging the question. One takes
advantage of the lack
of definiteness in ordinary
language ( 1898) to make the term
"happiness" signify the state
resulting from the observance of cer-
tain principles. That much granted, it is evident that if the happy
man is observes certain principles, the man who ob-
the man who
serves those principles is the happy man. The same thing can be
repeated for a community, a country, and so on.

1905. Diogenes Laertius states the views of the Stoics in the fol-
lowing terms: "Of existing things they say that some be good, some
evil, some indifferent. Good, accordingly, are virtue, justice, wisdom,
temperance, and other such things; evil the opposites thereof, and
to wit, folly, injustice, and others; and indifferent those things
which work neither benefit nor hurt, such as life, health, physical
pleasure, beauty, strength, wealth, glory, noble birth; and indifferent
likewise, the opposites of these, namely, death, disease, physical pain,
ugliness, weakness, poverty, obscurity, lowliness, and other like

*
things." That granted, it is
easy to prove that we ought to seek
*
1905 Zeno, VII, 101-02 (Hicks, Vol. II, pp. 207-09): Twv tie bvruv <j>aol rd ph ay-
add flvai rd fie mm, rd fie ovfitrepa. 'Ayaftd filv ovv rdq T dperd^ (f>p6vr/aiv fiutaioviwjv,
t t t
avfipeiav, outypoavvTjv f Kal ra hoiird- Ka/ca fie rd ivavria, dfypoovvrjv, ci6iniav t

Kal rd ônrn-
ovfierepa baa fiqre cjêAeZ fiijre pTidnrei, diov C^, vyfeia 7/fiovrj /cd/Uof laxvc, TrAowrof,
fie t t f
vfio$;ia fvykvuci' Kal rd roi'roi^ evavria 6dvaro

t tv6oo$ Tr6vo$ t ala%o(; daOiveia 7revta
t 9 t t 9
dfio$-ia t fivayEvsia, Kal rd rovroiq rcaparc'XfjGia. In the De finibus bonorum et malontm,

III, 8, 27-28, Cicero states: "Deinde quaero quis aut de misera vita fossil glonari aut
non de bcata? De sola igilur beala" Tacitus, Historiae, IV, 5: **He [Hclvidius
Priscus] followed doctors of philosophy (sapientiae) who accounted honourable
things as the only good ones, and dishonourable things as the only bad ones, and
power, nobility, and other things external to the mind, as neither good nor bad."
Plutarch, De Stoicorum repugnantiis , 13, quotes Chrysippus to this effect: "The
good is desirable, the desirable pleasing, the pleasing laudable, the laudable beauti-
ful [becoming]" (Td ayaftbv, aiper6v ro ffaiperbv, dpevrbv rb tfdpeffrbv, knaivertiv rb
fi'eTraiverov, xaMv). (Goodwin, Vol. IV, p. 440: "What is good is eligible, what
good things, eschew the bad, and ignore the indifferent; but in
say-
ing that, all that we
are saying is that by acting on certain norms
one attains the ideal of
acting on those norms. That is all undeni-
able, but it tells one exactly nothing. It is true that in the argument
of the Stoics there is a little
something more. They intimate, by an
association of ideas, that we ought to act so and so, and the moral
adjunct serves to conceal the tautology. Unfortunately, the supple-
ment is a purely metaphysical one.
1906. There is the further effort to confuse the
"good things" as
they are newly defined with "good things" as ordinarily under-
stood. Following that line, in expounding the doctrine of the Stoics,
Cicero has them say: "I ask you, furthermore, who could really
glory in the pursuit of a life of wretchedness, and not a happy

l
life?" that he tries slyly to leave the impression that the
By happy
life is
"glorious," forgetting that "glory" was reckoned by the Stoics
among the indifferent things.
Once one has left the field of reality to go wandering in imag-
inary worlds, one had better not stray from them if one would avoid
inevitable mishaps and contradictions that will sometimes look ridic-
ulous. Hegel's metaphysics continues to flourish, while his "philos-
ophy of nature" is defunct. He took a false step when he entered

is eligible is acceptable, what is acceptable is laudable, and what is laudable
is honest.'*) The argument gains in persuasive force from the many simultaneous
senses of the term KaMv beautiful, noble, honest, honourable, glorious. Plutarch
gives a second quotation that falls in with our verbal solutions, A. Says he: "The
good is delightful, the delightful praiseworthy, the praiseworthy beautiful" (
To
ayaflbv,xapr6v' TO 6e x a P r ^ v arfivdv TO de aefivbv, icaAoV). There again accessory
j
connotations of terms do a rushing business: x a P TOV is everything that makes

one, or ought to make one, happy; and it is assumed that no one will have the
effrontery to deny that one ought to be happy in the "good." The word ofpv6v
[from the root of atpo/iai, "to feel awe," "to worship"] has meanings stretching
all the way from "venerable," "honourable," "worthy of honour," to "magnificent"
and "surpassingly beautiful." And where the lunatic to deny that what is "mag-
nificent," or "worshipful" (ae/tv6v) 9 is also "beautiful" (itaMv) ?
*
1906 [The whole passage reads: "Their arguments conclude, therefore: Any-
thing that is good is in all respects praiseworthy, but what is praiseworthy is in all
respects honourable. Anything good therefore is honourable. Does that seem suffi-
ciently convincing? ... I ask you furthermore, who could really glory in a life of
wretchedness, and fail to glory in a happy (bcata) one? Only in the happy one,
therefore! Whence it follows that the happy life is worthy of being, so to say, glo-
ried in, which can really (jure) be the lot only of the life that is honourable.
Whence it follows that the honourable life is the happy life." A. L.]
on paths where ingenious metaphysical inanities dissolve in the light
of experience.
1907. Not a few writers of the ancient world ridiculed the chatter
of the Stoics and their resolve to seem what they were not. Athe-
naeus, Deipnosophistae, IV, 47, gives it as a doctrine of the Stoics
that "the Wise Man can do all things well; he can even cook a dish
of lentils sensibly"; and replying to the Stoic doctrine that wealth
is
nothing, he quotes, III, 63, lines of Theognetus to the effect that
"the books of the Stoics" had been the ruin of one of the speakers
1
in the dialogue who took that position. Horace also, Saturae, I, 3,
vv. 121-36, makes fun of the Stoics for being mendicants and posing
2
as kings.
1908. The author of the Treatise in Defence of Noble Birth (Pro
nobilitate), which is
generally attributed to Plutarch (Fragmenta et
spuria, pp. 61-80), facetiously describes the conflict that arose be-
tween the metaphysical divagations of the Stoics and realities (XVII,
2) : "But neither he [Chrysippus] nor any of the Stoics need to be
of noble birth; for they are followers of a philosophy that can, as
they boast, provide them with everything as with a magic wand,

and make them magnates, nobles, dandies, kings. But magnates of
wealth, they go begging a meal of others. Kings, they are obeyed
*
1907 Vv. 121-36: 'AvToTpo(j>v cov T&v fttov TO. fti/lMa ("Books have ruined your
life'*; Yonge: "Your books have turned your whole head upside down.")
2
1907 Vv. 124-26:
"... Si dives qui sapiens est

et sutor bonus et solus formosus et est rex,
cur optas quod habes?"
("If he who is wise is rich, and a good cobbler, and the one handsome man, and a
king to boot, why dost thou seek what thou hast?") Horace has someone answer
that the wise man is a good cobbler the way a singer is a good singer, even when
he is not singing; that is to say, the wise man has all the best qualities latent within
him. And then back comes Horace, vv. 133-36:
". . . Vellunt tibi barbam

lascivi pueri,quos tu nisi juste coerces,
urgeris turba circum te stante miser quc

rumperis, et latras, magnorum maxime regum!"
("Mischievous boys pluck at thy beard, and didst thou not keep them off with thy
thou wouldst be trampled on and crushed by the crowd that surrounds thee;
staff,
and in thy rage dost thou bark like a dog, O thou greatest of great kings!") Then,
vv. 137-38, he shows the Stoic going to a cheap bath-house for the despicable price
of a farthing ("dum tu quadrante lavatum rex ibis").
1910 THE STOIC SOLUTION 1329
by no one. Possessing all things, they are dependent on the rest of

us, and barely manage to pay their rent at the quarter-term."
1909. In the same way those
good souls who go about saying that
"the external world does not exist" and that may even be so, for
experimentally such a jumble of words means nothing take their

stand in a fantastic world that has nothing to do with practical life
( 95> 1820). Metaphysical concepts of that type have attained their
maximum development in the doctrines of Christian Science, ac-
cording to which, if one would escape suffering from an illness one
2
need only persuade oneself that the disease does not exist ( 1695 ).
To the truth, an idea that does not exist for a person is for him
tell
non-existent. But that is a mere tautology; and history shows that

in general certain concepts force themselves upon individuals, try
as they may to evade them. The followers of the Eddy woman, who
founded Christian Science, were within their rights in rejecting the
idea that she could die and in holding that that idea did not exist
for them. But the day came when the concept of her death forced
itself
upon them or, to state the situation more exactly, when their
concept could no longer accord with other concepts to which we
ordinarily give the name of death. That fact is enough for us and
spares us the pains of arguing the metaphysical question as to the
existence or non-existence of "death."
1910. It is likewise true that, for a given person, history is nothing
more nor less than the concept of history which he has in his mind,
and that if he is lacking in certain notions the portion of history
which corresponds to them is for him non-existent. But it is also an
observable fact that the ideas which a man may thus hold stand
more or less at odds with other ideas that he may subsequently
acquire, according to their greater or lesser correspondence with
what we call historical facts ( 1798). A Pole may never have heard
of the partition of his country, and he may imagine that it is still
an independent kingdom. For such a person the partition of Poland
is non-existent; and it
may remain non-existent for him for a long
time, for a whole lifetime if he is kept shut up in a lunatic asylum
and never returns to the state commonly known as the state of san-
ity.
But once he returns to the latter state, new ideas begin to con-
flict with the idea he has been
holding and they cure him of it.
That is the fact we commonly observe, and it is sufficient for us.
I33O TREATISE ON GENERAL SOCIOLOGY 19! I
We may leave it to others to amuse themselves deciding whether
the external world does or does not exist.
1911. Of the Ai
variety also an argument by Epictetus. He
is
1
begins by dividing things into two categories: "Things which are

under our control, and things which are not. Under our control
are: opinions, impulses, desires [appetites], aversions, and, in short,
every act of our doing. Not under our control are: our bodies,
wealth, fame, public distinctions, and, in short, everything which
is not of our doing. Those things which are under our control are,
by their proper nature, free, unchained, untrammelled those which ;
are not under our control are inert, slavish, bound, alien [under the
control of others]." That much granted, the rest could not be sim-
pler: "If that only which is yours [things under your control]
you consider yours, and that which is alien [not under your con-
trol], not yours, as yours it is not, no one will ever constrain you
nor bind you; nor will you rebuke or accuse any man; for you will
do nothing against your will, nor have injury of anyone; and you
will have no enemy, since no evil can be inflicted on you." It is true,
of course, that if you say that you do whatever you are forced to
do of your own accord, you may claim that you are doing nothing
against your will. So argued the person who on being thrown from
his horse remarked, "I was just dismounting."
1912. The doctrine of Epictetus and others of the sort, such as the
Christian's resignation to the will of God, are not scientific doc-
trines: they are consolations for people who cannot, or will not,
fight.
It is certain that pain is often alleviated by not thinking about
it and trying to imagine that it does not exist; and something of
the sort observable again in our time, in Christian Science; just
is
as there are instances where the physician, and more likely the
quack, alleviates pain by his simple presence. The favour with which
the doctrine of Epictetus was welcomed was one of the many symp-
toms presaging the imminent vogue of Christianity.
1913. of precepts or norms from
A2i Change of the meanings
objective to subjective. In the Ai type the tautology arose from
changes in the meanings of the terms "happiness," "unhappiness,"
"the good." In this variety it results from changes in the meanings
of the precepts. Needless to say, if we consider only such rules as the
1
1911 Dissertationcs, I, 1-3. See Pareto, Manuale, Chap. I.
1917 DERIVATIONS AND REALITY 133!
individual observes with pleasure, we may unhesitatingly assert that
he experiences pleasure in observing them.
1914. If we look at torture objectively, we may say that, in gen-
eral, it is human beings to suffer torture; but if,
a misfortune for
subjectively, we
consider the Christian martyr's feelings, we see that
it is a
blessing in his eyes to be tortured for his faith.
1915. When it is asserted that he who does evil cannot be
happy
because he suffers remorse, it is implicitly assumed that the wrong-
doer is capable of remorse. But it is not hard to see that in many
individuals remorse is either a sentiment present in negligible quan-
tities or not existing at all, and for such people, therefore, the pen-
1
alty threatened almost
not altogether a matter of indifference.
is if
1916. The majority of men and women who set out to reform
society assume, at bottom, that society will be made up of individ-
uals endowed with the sentiments and ideas with which they choose
to endow them, and only under those conditions can they promise
such persons happiness.
1917. Certain Protestant sects that no longer admit the divinity
of Christ are propagating a doctrine that is altogether subjective.
They say that Christ is the type of the perfect man. That is just an
idea of theirs; and they have no way of combating anyone who
might say, to the contrary, that He is the type of the imperfect man.
But such a weapon is available for anyone who believes in the divin-
ity
of Christ; for that divinity is an objective thing, independent of
individual opinion, and the unbeliever can therefore be threatened
with action on the part of the objective entity. But how threaten
him with the action of something that depends upon himself, and
which he can accept, modify, or reject, as he pleases? Furthermore
1915
l
De fmibus bonorum et malorum, II, 16, 51-53: "And so, Torquatus,
Cicero,
when you said that Epicurus declared that one could not live happily unless he lived
honourably, wisely, justly, I had the impression that you were boasting. There was
so much power in your words because of the majesty of the things they stood for,
that you looked taller to me. All the same, the deterrents you mentioned are
. . .
trifling and very weak all that about wicked men being tormented by their con-
sciences, and then by their fear of the punishment that overtakes them or which
they fearmay sometime overtake them. The wicked man must not be thought of as
a timidweak-minded creature who is always tormenting himself, whatever he does,
and fearing everything. Think of him rather as a person who is always shrewdly
calculating his interest, crafty, wide-awake, sly, always figuring how he can sin
again secretly, without witnesses or accomplices."
as regards theOld Testament, those same people beg the question:
They deny divine inspiration to such portions of the Old Testament
as they deem to be inconsistent with their own ethics. After that, of
course, they can safely conclude that their ethics accords with divine
inspiration.
1918. The that precepts have in a given society at a given
power
time lies chiefly in the fact that they are accepted by the majority
of individuals comprising that society, and that individuals who
violate them experience a sense of discomfort, find themselves ill at
ease. Such precepts are merely an expression, and no very exact one,
of the residues operating in that society. It is therefore bootless to
inquire whether observance of them is a source of pleasure to the

majority of individuals constituting the society and violation a
source of pain. If that were not the case, the precepts would not
express majority residues, would not, in other words, be the rule

in the community. The problem that has to be solved is quite an-
other. From the standpoint of individual pleasure (ophelimity), the
question is what effect the precepts have upon individuals not pos-
sessing the residues expressed in the precepts and how dissidents are
to be persuaded that they will experience a pleasure, or a pain, that
they do not directly feel. From the standpoint of utility the ques-
tion is whether observance of the precepts is useful to individual,
community, nation, and so on, in the sense given to the term "util-
ity," as, for instance, material prosperity, if material prosperity is
regarded as "useful." If
prevented from following an
an animal is
instinct, it may experience a sense of discomfort; but in the end,
possibly, its material welfare will be enhanced. If a statesman vio-

lates some norm that is
widely accepted in the community in which
he lives, he may experience a feeling of discomfort, and in the end
his conduct may prove detrimental to the community, but it may
also prove to be an advantage. Those are the situations which it is
important to examine.
1919. Ay. Casuistry: interpretations of precepts and norms. It is
to escape such sentiments of discomfort, experience in their stead the
pleasurable sentiments ensuing on observance, and at the same time

achieve the advantages of violation, that casuistry and interpretation
are resorted to a procedure furthermore that is necessary if certain
sentiments are to be satisfied and one is not to stray, in appearances
1920 ROMAN GOOD FAITH AND CASUISTRY 1333
at least, from the logical implications of the derivations. In that way
one gains the advantage, small or great, of being and not seeming,
of looking out for oneself yet of standing, in the eyes of people who
at times readily swallow sophistries and more
frequently still need
only an excuse for believing, as observers of morality and the
strict
proprieties and therefore deserving of the public's benevolence. That

may sometimes be done of design, but sometimes also in all good
faith. the casuistries that are used by governments and
Through
countries to justify this or that conduct on their part, the solus populi
suprema lex often enough transpires. If that fact were stated bluntly,
logical justification, and we would so get one of
it would be a sound
the negative solutions, D. But one is reluctant to offend believers in

affirmative solutions, so one tries to reconcile the irreconcilable by
representing the D 1
solutions as affirmative. Furthermore, those who
accuse and rebuke governments and countries for violating certain
norms rarely make clear just what solution they are adopting; they
do not make clear, that is, whether they deny that the salus fopuli
lies norm, and accept one of the affirmative
in a violation of the
solutions; or whether, accepting the solution and rejecting the D

salus poptdi, they would even at the risk of serious damage and
possibly of complete ruin adopt one of the metaphysical or the-
ological solutions ( 1897) and have the norms obeyed; or whether,
finally, rejecting the
solution D, they locate the salus populi in ad-
herence to some solution such as ^2, #2, #3. They try to persuade,
instead, by a simple vague accord of sentiments. With the effective
aid of casuistry and interpretation one may assert that the observ-
ance of certain precepts, certain norms, always redounds to the ma-
terial welfare of individuals, communities, countries, the human
race. It preached in general that one should always keep one's

is
promises; but then, in the particular cases in which it is found ad-

visable not to keep them, excellent pretexts are never wanting for
avoiding that duty.

1920. The history of Rome furnishes specimens of such interpre-
tations in abundance. Thanks to them the Romans were able to act
in bad faith and persuade themselves all the while that they were
acting in good faith. One example will suffice the trick by which
1
1919 [Literally Parcto said: "One tries to reconcile the irreconcilable by confus-
ing these with the solution D." A. L.]

1334 TREATISE ON GENERAL SOCIOLOGY Ip2O
the Romansdeceived the Numantians, while nevertheless preserving
every semblance of good faith. By virtue of that excellent piece of

casuistry Rome saved an army which might have been destroyed,
and saved her face by offering to surrender a consul for whom she
could have had no possible use as a general. The Numantians re-
fused the princely gift.Mancinus, the general, returned to Rome,
and what is more, got back his seat in the Senate
(Pomponius, in
the Digesta, L, 7, 17 (18), Corpus iuris civilis, Vol. I,
p. 955; Scott,
Vol. XI, p. 239). Such the miracles that can be
wrought if one has
1
a knack for casuistry.
*
1920 Mommsen, Romische Geschichte, Vol. II, p. 14 (Dixon, Vol. Ill, pp.
14-15): "On a mere rumour, which proved to be false, that the Cantabrians and
Vaccaei were marching to the relief of Numantia, the army evacuated its camp dur-
ing the night without orders and took refuge behind the lines that Nobilior had
built sixteen years before. Informed of the flight, the Numantians at once started in
pursuit of the Romans and surrounded them. The Romans now had no alternative
way out, sword in hand, or making peace on terms that would

except cutting their
now be dictated by the enemy. The consul was an honest man, weak, and of ob-
scure name. Fortunately Tiberius Gracchus was quaestor of the army. Worthy heir
of the prestige of his father, who had once been the masterly organizer of the Prov-
ince of the Ebro, he exerted pressure on the Celtibcrians and at their instance the
Numantians rested content with an equitable peace to which all the high officers in
the legions subscribed. But the Senate at once recalled its general, and after a long
debate brought before the people a motion that the precedent of the Treaty of the
Caudine Forks should be followed in the case. The treaty, that is, should not be
ratified, and responsibility for making it should be thrown back upon those who
had signed it. Following the rule of law, the whole corps of officers should have
been hit, without exception, but thanks to their powerful connexions, Gracchus and
the others were saved. Mancinus, unluckily for him, did not belong to the high
aristocracy. He alone was designated to pay for his own and the common mistake.
That day witnessed the spectacle of a Roman of consular rank being stripped of
his insigniaand led before the outposts of the enemy. The Numantians refused to
receive him (for that would have meant recognition of the abrogation of the treaty),
so that the degraded general spent a whole day in front of the city gates, naked,
with his hands tied behind his back." Florus, Epitoma de Tito Livio, I, 34, 5-8 (II,
18, 5-8; Forster, p. 153): "They decided [in the case of Pompey] to make a treaty
though they might have won a crushing victory. Then Hostilius Mancinus too they
so harassed with continuous slaughter that everybody fled at sight or sound of a
Numantian soldier. Yet in his case also they preferred to make a treaty, being satis-
fiedwith the proceeds of the booty, though they might have been cruel and extermi-
nated his army. But no less outraged at the disgrace and humiliation of this Numan-
tine treaty than at the treaty of the Caudine Forks, the Roman People expiated the
is so convinced of
discredit of the present crime by surrendering Mancinus." Florus
1921. Thestory of the Caudine Forks seems to have been copied
1
from the story of Numantia. If the
story is true, it furnishes proof
that such casuistry was a common
thing with the Romans; if the
story is false, it serves that
purpose even better; for in fabricating
such a story the Romans must certainly have taken pains to turn
out what seemed to them a good story; and their
copying from ac-
counts of the treaty of Numantia shows that
they found nothing in
those negotiations discreditable to the reputation for
honesty which
they were concerned to preserve and of which they were wont to
boast. That view is confirmed by Cicero; for in the treatise that he
wrote to teach us poor mortals our duties, he points approvingly to
the conduct of the Romans in the episodes at the Caudine Forks
and at Numantia. But Cicero was keen enough to see that to have
done honestly by the Numantians the Romans should have handed
over to them not the consul only, but the entire army, replacing it
the honesty of that procedure, that he goes on to exclaim, I, 19, i (Forster, p. 157) :
"To that extent was the Roman People handsome, distinguished, loyal, pure, mag-
nificent!'* Really, if the rules of justice and honesty can be manipulated in that
fashion, there can be no doubt that observance of them will always redound to the
material prosperity of a people. Vellcius Paterculus, Historia Rom an a, II, i, 4-5:
"That city [Numantia] whether because of its military ability, or the incompetence
of our generals, or the indulgence of chance, reduced, along with others of our
generals, Pompey, a man of great fame and the first of our consuls from the
Pompeian gens, to make a very humiliating peace, and to a no less base and cow-
ardly one, the consul Mancinus Hostilius. Influence saved Pompey from punish-
ment, Mancinus, his sense of shame, for on his own motion he was sent to Nu-
mantia that he might be handed over to the enemy by our heralds, naked, with
his hands bound behind his back. But just as had happened at the Caudine Forks,
the enemy refused to receive him, saying that a violation of faith by a people
could not be atoned for by the blood of one man.'* Those Numantians were good
fighters but very ordinary casuists.
l
1921 In his Storia di Roma, Vol. I, pp. 498-500, Ettore Pais considers the docu-
ment that Livy quotes regarding the peace of the Caudine Forks as fictitious: "The
story was invented to extenuate the moral responsibility of the Romans, who were
later on accused of having turned their backs on the traditional good faith of which
they were wont to boast. Livy's long narrative \_Ab urbe condita, IX, 1-12] is only
one of the many ornaments of the rhetoric, or pseudo-pragmatic, of the annalists,
designed to render less dishonourable first the defeat and then the treachery of the
Romans. . . . But it would be idle for us to show at any length that Livy's account
of the negotiations is unhistorical. A learned and penetrating critic of our day has
noted thatall details in the story were borrowed from later history, and especially
from the treaty of peace concluded with the Numantians by the consul Hostilius
Mancinus (137 B.C.)."
1336 THE MIND AND SOCIETY Ip22
in the situation in which it stood when it was extricated by a pact
2
that the Romans up refused to live to.
1922. In our "Ems despatch" has given rise to a

day the famous
debate resplendent with most handsome bits of casuistry. Says
1
Welschinger: "In his Wegweiser, or criticism of Bismarck's Re-
flections and Reminiscences (pp. 118-19), the historian Horst-Kohl
considers it 'an extraordinary fact' that King William should have
authorized his minister to communicate the despatch to the Ems
ambassadors and the press. 'The form,' he says, 'was the business of
the minister; and our social democracy, which is no worshipper of
country, is indescribably insolent in speaking of a falsification of

the Ems despatch, since Bismarck was acting simply in obedience
to a royal command with the consent of Moltke and Roon, and
under violent pressure from a sentiment of honour to the highest de-
gree aroused. Bismarck foresaw the injury that was being done to
our development as a nation by our increasing inclination to be too
accommodating. Convinced that the abyss which had been opened
between North and South by the differences in dynasties, manners,
and customs could be bridged only by a national war fought in
2
1921 DC officiis, III, 30, 109 (In question the tribunes and consuls, T. Veturius
and Sp. Postumius, who were handed over to the Samnites at the Caudine Forks) :
"They were surrendered ... in order that the treaty of peace with the Samnites
might be repudiated, and Postumius himself, who was to be the victim, was the
proposer of the bill and spoke in support of it. The same thing was done years later
by Caius Mancinus, who had concluded a treaty with the Numantians without the
authorization of the Senate. He too spoke in favour of the bill [ordering his sur-
render to the Numantians] which F. Furius and Sextus Atilius introduced [before
the comitia] in compliance with a resolution of the Senate. The bill was passed
and he was handed over to the enemy. He deported himself much more honourably
than Quintus Pompey, who in the same situation refused his assent, so that the
bill did not pass." This manipulation of the principle of public honour was
thought to be by legal analogies: Cicero, Pro Anlo Caccina, 34, 99:

justified "A Ro-
man citizen is surrendered that the state may be released from its pledge. If he is
accepted, he belongs to those to whom he has been delivered. If they do not accept
him, as the Numantians did not accept Mancinus, he retains his status unchanged
and his rights of citizenship." [In the De Officiis Cicero recounts with explicit dis-
approval another example of Roman
sharpness. Appointed to arbitrate a boundary
dispute between the people of Naples and the people of Nola, the Roman repre-
sentative urged moderation upon both parties and procured their signatures to con-
tracts accepting much
less territory than they were entitled to. The result was that
a large area wasbetween the boundary accepted by Nola and the boundary
left
accepted by Naples, and this was occupied forthwith by the Roman People. A. L.j
x
1922 La guerre de 1870, Vol. I, pp. 124-26.
1923 THE "EMS DESPATCH" 1337
common against an enemy who for centuries had ever stood pre-
pared, he gave the official communication a particular turn [This
historian would probably find nothing wrong with Pascal's famous
"Mohatra contract" in the Provinciales!] that put the French in the
painful dilemma either of declaring war themselves or bowing to
" 2
affront that Bismarck had contrived to
the give them/ All of
. . .
which reminds one of the famous "mental reservations" of the man

in Pascal's Provinciales, who was asked, "Has So and So passed this
way?" and replied, "No!" meaning "up his sleeve." Bismarck did not
falsify the Ems despatch he merely gave it a particular turn! It may
well be that the German social democracy is "no worshipper of
country"; but Horst-Kohl certainly seems to be no worshipper of
truth; and by "truth" we mean experimental truth; for there are so
many many "truths" that among them there may easily be one for
3
the personal use and consumption of the historian Horst-Kohl.
1923. Then, a breath later, the same "historian" turns champion
1 "
of the strictest morality. 'If the war broke out
through any fault
of the Germans, then the French are absolutely justified in com-
plaining of so brutal an enterprise and in demanding the return of

2
1922 [Pareto used a French translation that gave a "particular turn" to Kohl's
German. Kohl said not "eine besondere Fassung'' but simply "cine Fassung," a
small difference that considerably alters the stress. A. L.]
3
1922 Wclschinger makes Bismarck out a strong-willed, far-sighted man, who
prided himself on having "retouched" the despatch in such a way as to render war
inevitable. He unintentionally praises him when he says: "The Hamburgische
Nachrichtcn, the Prince's paper, unequivocally recognizes that in altering the
despatch Bismarck had forced France to take the initiative in the war and respon-
sibility for it and that he had so done a great service to the Fatherland. Had he
acted otherwise the war would not have taken place. 'The war was absolutely
necessary for establishing a united Germany. Had
that opportunity been allowed
to escape, some other pretext would have had to be found, a less adroit one per-
haps, which might have cost Germany the sympathies of Europe.' Bismarck jest-
ingly replied to a newspaper man who was expressing astonishment at his ex-
if that one had missed fire, some other would have been found.'
pedient: 'Oh,
"
'Blessed,' says Hans Delbrikk, 'blessed the hand that falsified the Ems despatch!'
Hohenlohe, Den](wurdigl(eitcn, May 6, 1874, Vol. II, p. 119 (Chrystal, Vol. II, p.
109): "At table Bismarck revived memories of 1870 his discussion with Roon
and Moltkc, who were beside themselves at the resignation of the Prince von
Hohenzollern and the King's good-natured assent; then the Abekcn despatch and
the abridgment of it that he, Bismarck, had made and which rendered war un-
avoidable." But rhetoricians, sophists, and casuists have their uses, because they
bake a bread that is suited to the teeth of the mass of people in a population.
*
1923 Welschinger, he. cit., p. 126.
Alsace-Lorraine, which is now in our hands, as the prize of vic-
"
tory.' If Horst-Kohl really believes what he says,
he is a man of
extraordinary ingenuousness. How many
changes would have to be
made in the boundaries of modern countries if each of them were
called upon to restore all territories conquered in wars for which it
was responsible! But there are people who listen approvingly to

such twaddle, and that is why it is worthy of attention. There are,
there have always been, there always will be, powerful individuals
princes, nations, aristocrats, plebeians, parties large, parties small

who disregard the laws of morality; and to defend their conduct
there always are, always have been, always will be, casuists in abun-
dance who stand at all now in good faith,
times ready to produce,
now in bad, now and now for money, justifications of the re-
for love
quisite cleverness and resonance. However, only those who can say
quia nominor leo enjoy the privilege of violating norms and finding
obliging casuists to show that they are observing them. As a matter
of fact, the reasonings of those worthy gentlemen convince in gen-
eral only people who are already convinced, or whose vision is
clouded by some strong sentiment by a worship, let us say, of the
sort mentioned by the casuist Horst-Kohl. Their influence, there-
fore, is slight, though it may serve to re-enforce the sentiments al-
ready existing that win them favourable reception in the first

place.
Conversely, condemnations of the powerful for violations of the
rules of ethics are approved and adopted chiefly by people who are
already their competitors or enemies, and who are inspired by senti-

ments of the same kind as the defenders and friends of the victims,
though in a contrary direction. As for the powerful themselves, they
pay little attention to such wars of words, to which they listen only
for the slight utility that may chance to derive from them. They let
2
others talk, while they go on doing.
2
1923 Notable among the moralists mentioned are the many who believe or at
least assume that the gods of ethical systems avenge wrongs exactly as do the
gods of theology. The influence of such people, so far as derivations have influ-
ence, is bad for the parties and countries to which they belong, in so far as they
tend to hamper suitable preparations for the resort to force, which after all is the
ultima ratio in such disputes, and to dissipate in fatuous chatter energies that
might more wisely be expended in action. Woe unto the party that counts upon
win the respect of its adversaries; and more luckless still the country that
ethics to
trusts its independence to international law rather than to force of arms. To per-
suade a people that the victories in civil or international conflicts go to virtue and
1924. There is a gradation between the cases where the
interpreta-
tion is made in good faith and the cases where it is made in bad
faith. These very very numerous; and if they are more
latter are
frequently observable among the ancients than among the moderns,

that is due probably to the mere fact that the ancients were less
hypocritical than the moderns.

1925. It is hard to believe that certain
pretexts were ever put for-
ward in good faith. Fearing the Epirotes, the Acarnanians besought
Rome for protection and the Roman Senate
accordingly sent ambas-
sadors to admonish the Aetolians "to withdraw their garrisons from
the cities of Acarnania in order that they might be free who alone
did not ally themselves with the Greeks against Troy, ancestress of
Rome" (Justin, Historiae Philippicae, 28, i; Clarke, p. 221). How
opportune for the Romans this sudden remembrance of their myth-
ological lore The books of Polyaenus and Frontinus on Stratagems
!
are full to the bindings of deceptions of every kind, and wisely did
Virgil remark that in war one depends either on valour or on

1
treachery.
1926. No one can imagine authorship of the maxim that the
why
end justifies the means should ever have been credited to the Jesuits.
It is as ancient as any known literature, and is
just another of the
interpretations advanced in the effort to reconcile practice with the-

ory.According to Plutarch, Agesilaus, 23, Agesilaus discoursed ad-
mirably on justice and set it above utility, in words, inverting the
1
terms only in his deeds. Judith also thought that in getting rid of
not to cunning to lead it to ruin by distracting it from adequate precautions
is
against cunning and from those long and laborious preparations which alone can
lead to victory. It is, in short, like persuading an army to use cardboard cannon
instead of steel. "Intellectuals" pride themselves on such idle chatter because they
are manufacturers and sellers of artillery of the cardboard variety not of the
steel.
*
1925 Acne'id, II, v. 390: Bolus an virtus, quis in hoste requirat? "Be it trickery,
be it valour who cares, in the case of an enemy?" Servius annotates (Thilo-Hagen,
Vol. I, p. 281): "Something seems to be missing, as
for instance: 'Who ever asks in
"
the case of an enemy whether virtue or treachery is best in war?*
*
1926 "Phoebidas having done the cruel deed of occupying the Cadmeia in
time of peace, all the Greeks were wroth, and above all the Spartans, especially
those among them who were hostile to Agesilaus. And angrily they inquired of
Phoebidas by whose order he had done that thing, turning their suspicion upon
Agesilaus himself. But Agesilaus did not hesitate to say openly in defence of
Phoebidas that one ought to consider whether such a deed were profitable, for
Holofernes the end justified the means, and on that account, partly,
the Protestants have banished her book from their Bible (leaving in
2
other things quite the equal of Judith's guile).
1927. The festival of the Apaturia at Athens was probably noth-
ing more than a festival of the phratries or clans; but the Athenians
invented an etymology that a glorification of fraud. As the
made it
story runs, ownership of certain

territories in
dispute between the
Athenians and the Boeotians was to be settled by a combat between
the kings of the two peoples. "Thymoetes, at that time king of
Athens, was afraid to fight and abdicated his throne in favour of

anyone willing to do battle with Xanthus, king of the Boeotians.
Melanthus, excited by the prize of a throne, accepted the duel, and
the contracts were drawn. At the moment of joining with his ad-
versary, were the figure of a beardless man

Melanthus spied as it
following in the train of Xanthus; and he cried aloud of a breach

in the pact, since Xanthus had someone to aid him. Knowing noth-
ing of such a thing, Xanthus was surprised and turned around, and
straightway Melanthus ran him through with a lance. . . . Where-
Athenian, at the bidding of an oracle, reared a temple to
after the
Dionysus Melanthidos [Bacchus of the Black Goat-Skin] and every

whatever was profitable to Sparta was done rightly even without orders. . . . Yet
in his words he always asserted that justice was the first of all the virtues. . . .
Not only did he save Phoebidas. He also persuaded the city to take the misdeed
upon and hold the Cadmcia.
itself Shortly therefore the suspicion arose that
. . .
the thing had indeed been done by Phoebidas, but that Agcsilaus had counselled
it." Xenophon, Hcllenica, V, 2, 32: "Agesilaus nevertheless said that if a man had
done aught to the harm of Lacedaemon, he would be justly punished; but that if the
deed were good, it was the law of the forefathers that it should be done without
orders.'* Yet Xenophon also says, Agesilaus, 10, 2, that Agesilaus was the type of
the virtuous man: "The virtue of Agcsilaus seems to me to be a model for those
who desire to be virtuous; for who, by imitating the pious man, would become
impious or the just man, unjust?*' In private matters as well, Agcsilaus was no
stickler for niceties. Plutarch, Agesilaus, 13, 5 (Perrin, Vol.
V, pp. 35-37): "In every
other respect he was a strict observer of the law; but in matters regarding friends
he considered too much justice an affectation. Often quoted in this connexion is
a brief note that he addressed to Hidrieus of Caria: 'If Nicias is innocent, acquit.
he "
If is guilty, for my sake acquit. In any event, acquit.'
2
1926Judith, 9:10-3: She prays God: "Smite by the deceit of my lips the servant
with the prince and the prince with the servant. And make my speech and
. . .
deceit to be their wound and strife." Why should this book not have its place
among the books that justify the Christian experience? There arc so many people
who think just as Judith thought, in time of war!
1928 ZEUS THE DECEIVER 134!
year celebrated a feast in his honour; and they sacrificed also to

Zeus the Deceiver, because they had profited by treachery in that
*
duel." Rare the mythological or historical narrative of
antiquity in
which treachery does not play some part, and ever with more praise
than blame.
1928. In the Iliad, II, v. 6, Zeus is not ashamed to send a "baneful
dream" to Agamemnon to tell him lies and mislead him. The
Greeks promise to save Dolon's life and then kill him. In the Odys-
sey, XIII, vv. 256-86, Ulysses utters as
many falsehoods as words and
Athena delighted. Even Dante, Inferno, XXXIII, v. 150, resorts
is
to a mental reservation when he promises to remove the "hard

veils" of ice from Fra Alberigo's face. Asked afterwards to fulfil his
promise, he refuses with the excuse:
E cortesia fu lui esser villano^
With such a wealth of interpretations at one's disposal, one may

justify any
conduct one chooses, and the same individual may suc-
cessively assert contradictory things without the slightest scruple as
2
to his logic.
*
1927 Cononis nanationes, 39 (Photius, Myriobiblon, pp. 446-47). See also the
scholiast of Aristophanes, Archancnses, v. 146, and Pax, v. 890 (Dubner, pp. 7, 391,
625; 198, 475, 625); Suidas, Lexicon, s.v. 'AiraTovpta* Harpocratio, Lexicon in decem
oratorcs, s.v. 'ATraroiyna, and Polyaenus, Strategematon, I, 19. Pausanius, Perie-
gesis, II, Corinth, 33, i, speaks of a temple to Athena Apaturia (the Deceiver)
reared by Aethra, who was tricked by Athena into commerce with Poseidon.
Strabo, Geographica, XI, 2, 10 (Jones, Vol. V, p. 201), mentions a temple to
Aphrodite Apaturia. According to the myth, says Strabo, the Giants were intending
violence to the goddess. She calls Heracles to her aid and hides him in a cave.
Then she promises to offer herself to each of the Giants in turn; and as each
enters, Heracles "treacherously'* (f a?r<ir?c) slays him.
1928
*
"And discourtesy to such a man was courtesy."
2
1928 Montaigne, Essais, II, 12: "Some pretend to the world that they believe
what they do not believe. Others, and in greater number, pretend it to themselves,
not being keen enough to see just what it means to believe. And then we find it
strange if we see that in the wars that are oppressing our country at this moment,
events arc for ever fluctuating and that change is the ordinary and common rule!
The reason is that we bring nothing to the matter save our own interest. The Justice
that is with one of the parties is there only as an ornament and covering. She is
indeed much touted; but she is not welcome there, nor is she lodger or bride
there. She is as it were on the lips of the advocate, not as in the hearts and affections
of the party. Those who take religion on the left, those who take it on the
. . .
right, those who say it is white, those who say it is black, use it in manners so
similar for their purposes of violence and ambition, and they behave so much alike
1929. Our Machiavelli's one wrong, if wrong one must call it,
*
was in manifesting his contempt for such idiocies when he wrote:
"How the use of treachery in waging war is a thing of glory. Albeit
the use of deceit in any connexion is a reprehensible thing [That
he says just
as an excuse for what he is
going to say, and so does not
mind the contradiction.], nevertheless in the conduct of war it is a
laudable and glorious thing, and he that vanquishes the enemy by
treachery is praised likewise as he who vanquishes him by force of

arms. The which may be seen through the judgments of those who
write the lives of great men . . . the ensamples whereof abound
so that I shall repeat none of them. This only will I say, that I do
not mean whereby one breaks the given word and
that the deceit
the plighted troth is if it wins
you a state and
a thing of glory, for
a crown, as aforesaid, it never wins you
glory. [Note the reason why
Machiavelli counsels abstention from a particular kind of treach-
ery.] For one's country has to be defended either in honour

. . .
or in dishonour, and in whichever wise is well defended. When . . .
the utter safety of one's country is at issue, there should be no ques-

tion of justice or injustice, pity or cruelty, honour or dishonour, but,
thrusting aside every other consideration, one should embrace that

counsel only which saves the country and preserves its freedom;
which thing has been proclaimed by the French [In our day the
Germans.] in word and ensampled in deed in defence of the majesty
2
of their king and the might of their realm." ( 1975 2449). ,
1930. B: Objective solutions. Rhetorical and philosophical divaga-

tions are largely a luxury, and practical life demands something else.
People want primarily to know how they should conduct them-

as regards extravagances and injustices, that they make it dubious and difficult
to believe that there is as much difference in their opinions as they pretend. . . .
See the horrible impudence with which we marshal divine arguments, and how
sacrilegiously we drop them or pick them up according as fortune has changed our
situation in these public storms. Take the solemn proposition as to whether it is
permitted a subject to rebel and take up arms against his prince in defence of re-
ligion, and remember on what lips its affirmative was to be heard last year as the
main buttress of a party! And the negative, the buttress of what other party! And
now from what quarter the affirmative and the negative are being sounded and
propounded and are arms any less noisy for the one cause than for the other?
And we burn people for saying that truth must be subject to the yoke of our needl
Yet how much worse than merely saying it is France doing 1"
a
1929 Dcca, III, 40, 41.
selves in order to achieve "happiness" in the ordinary sense of the
word as material well-being. They need answers therefore to the
objective problems that arise in that connexion. The masses at large

pay little attention to the sources of their rules. They are satisfied
so long as society has rules that are accepted and obeyed. In the
opposition that is aroused by any violation of them the sentiment
chiefly manifested hostile to any disturbance of the social
is
equilib-
rium (residue V-a). That sentiment is prominent in our most an-
cient biblical texts, and in general in the primitive periods of all
civilizations. It appears in almost unmixed form in the
feeling that
the violation of a taboo necessarily entails harmful consequences.
It
figures again in the notion that anything that is legal is
just,
which, substantially, is another way of saying that whatever is
legal
should voluntarily be respected, that an existing social equilibrium
should not be disturbed. Any intrusion on the part of reasoning is
arrested by the strength of the sentiment supporting existing norms
and also by their social utility. Reasoning therefore abandons logic
and experience, turns to sophistry, and so manages to force itself
upon sentiment without too great offence to the latter. The mix-
ture of sentiment andsophistical explanation is essentially heteroge-
neous, and that accounts for the amazing contradictions that are
1
never lacking in such reasonings. Around the equilibrium residue
as a nucleus other residues cluster, and notably those of the II- (sen-
timents taken as objective realities) and of the \\-YI (personifications)
varieties.
1931. These objective solutions, for the very reason that they are
such, are easily contradicted by the facts. The masses at large do not
mind that, not attaching any great importance to theories and ac-
cepting objective solutions that are visibly contradictory without

giving a thought to their inconsistency. Thinkers, theorists, and in-
dividuals accustomed to logical meditation insist on knowing the
sources of the norms that they are told should be observed, and
never rest till they have found origins for them, though these exist,
ordinarily, only in their own minds. Such people, moreover, are
annoyed, pained, at certain apparent discords between the-

restless,
ory and fact or between one theory and another, and do everything
1930
1
We encountered a number of examples in our study of derivations
( 1481 .)
in their power to attenuate, eliminate or dissemble them. In gen-
eral they do not altogether abandon objective solutions, especially
solutions of an optimistic trend, but strive
by appropriate inter-
pretations to explain away, or at least to explain, the exceptions

1
that undeniably are there. So we get our 52, #3, and 84 types of
solutions, which, starting out from the experimental field, finally

2
end by deserting it
altogether. The same grounds
enable us safely
to predict that in a given society of a certain stability the residues
that we find operative will for the most part be residues favourable
to preservation; and they also enable us to predict that in such
its
a society affirmative solutions to our problem will be the ones most
widely current and most readily accepted while such of ;

its individ-
ual members as feel a need for logical,
or pseudo-logical, develop-
ments will be using every means within reach and resorting to
every device of ingenious sophistry to eliminate very obtrusive con-

1931
*
That is a particular case of the use of derivations which we discussed
above in i737f.
2
1931 Maimonides excellently describes the hotchpotch of varying doctrine that
he himself was so familiar with, Guide of the Perplexed, III, 17, Theory (Munk, V
Vol. Ill, p. 125; Friedlander, Vol. Ill, p. 72): "Here then is a succinct epitome
of these differing opinions: All the varied conditions under which we find individual
human beings are regarded by Aristotle as due to nothing but pure chance, by the
Ashariyah as products of pure [divine] will, by the Mu'tazilites as products of
[divine] wisdom, by us [Jews] as the consequences to the individual of his works.
That is why, according to the Ashariyah, God may cause the good and virtuous
man to suffer in this lowly world and then damn him for all eternity to the fire
that issaid to be in the other world, for, one could say, God has willed it so. But
the Mu'tazilites think that that would be an injustice, and that a being that has
2
suffered, be it even an ant, as I have said [For the quotation see 1995 .] . . .
will have a compensation, the divine wisdom making him suffer that he might have
1
a compensation. We, finally, hold ." [For the quotation see just below,
. .
1934 .]
The theory of "final causes" also is a device for eliminating contradictions. Applied
to the conduct of the individual, it asserts that the purpose of such conduct, whether
the individual knows it or not, is always the individual "good" or the "good" of
the community, and by arguments that are sometimes ingenious, but quite often
absurd and childish, it goes on to discover that "good" where no such thing exists.
Following that method, it is easy to show that all actions leading to one same
goal can never be contradictory. The theory has the nine lives of a cat. Demolished
at one point, it bobs up at another, undergoing the most varied metamorphoses.
As has often been remarked, Darwinism degenerated into an application of final
causes to the forms of living beings. Metaphysicists make wide and various use of
the theory as applied to conduct ( 1521), nor do theologians by any means disdain
it. To have their turn with it, a number of writers have fished
up a certain "ex-
cogitation" and other delightful contraptions of that sort.
1932 THE PROBLEM OF EVIL 1345
tradictionsbetween solutions and experience. That, in fact, is actually
the case. We have already seen how derivations are used to create
confusions between individual welfare and the welfare of the com-
munity, and how that is done in order to encourage individuals to

work for the good of the community, believing, even when it is not
true, that they are working for their own good. In such cases that
is as beneficial socially as it is false experimentally.
1932. In order at this point will be a few remarks on solutions to
our problems 3 and 4, to which we alluded in general terms in
1896. The larger and more effective portion of the residues prev-
alent in a society cannot be altogether unfavourable to its
preser-
vation; for if that were the case, the society would break down and
cease to exist. Residues must, in part at least, be favourable to the
preservation of society; and it is in fact observable that the residues

operative in a given society are largely favourable to it. It is to the
advantage of that society, therefore, that neither such residues nor
the precepts (derivations) which express them should be impaired
or minimized. But that is best accomplished if the individual judges,
believes, imagines, that in observing those precepts, in accepting
those derivations, he is working for his own welfare. Speaking, then,
in general and very roughly, disregarding possible and in fact nu-
merous exceptions, one may say that it is advantageous to a society
that, at least in the minds of the majority of individuals not belong-
ing to the ruling class, problem 3 should be answered in the sense

that facts should be viewed not as they are in reality, but as they
are transfigured in the light of ideals. Therefore passing from the
general to the particular case here in hand, the relations of moral

conduct to happiness it is advantageous to society that individuals
not of the ruling classes should spontaneously accept, observe, re-
spect, revere, love, the precepts current in their society, prominent

among them roughly, inadequately, to be sure
the precepts called
precepts of "morality" and precepts of "religion" or we might

better say of "religions," including under that term not
only the
group-persistences commonly so named, but many other groups of
similar character. Hence power and the great effectiveness
the great
of the two forces, morality and religion, for the good of society; so
much so that one may say that no society can exist without them,
and that a decadence in morals and religion ordinarily coincides
1
with a decadence of society. Human beings, therefore, from the
remotest times from which their thoughts have come down to us,
have not gone wrong in solving problem 4 in the sense that it is
better for people to understand facts not as they are in reality, but
as they are pictured in the light of ideals; and using terms of ordi-
nary parlance in ascribing the highest importance to "morality"
and "religion," meaning in general the moralities and religions of
their own and countries; while a very small num-
particular times
ber of perspicacious and far-sighted persons were ascribing great
importance to "moralities" and "religions" in general, so coming

closer to reality, where the importance actually belongs to certain
group-persistences and to the non-logical conduct that is their con-

sequence, implicit or explicit. But for the very reason that there
has always been a gap more or less wide between them and reality,
it cannot be said that in
passing that judgment on "moralities" and
on "religions" in general, and worse still, on particular moralities,
particular religions, they have not sometimes overreached the truth,
so doing harm to society though aiming only at its welfare. They
have generally gone wrong in trying to justify their adherence to
their particular solutions of problem 4, almost always giving reasons
that were in some respect fallacious even when not imaginary and
fantastic. But that, after all, is a merely theoretical error, and there-
fore of importance; for, whatever the reasons,
little effects remain.
But seriously harmful, at all times then and now, is the error of
identifying morality and religion with some special morality and

some special religion, so giving to derivations an emphasis that be-
longs only to residues. So it has come about that whenever the
champions of such theories have had a clear field that particular
error has led to enormous wastage of energies in efforts to achieve
results of little or no consequence, and has occasioned untold and
altogether futile sufferings for many many human beings. And so

also it has happened that when such champions have met with re-
sistance, their antagonists also have conceived the mistaken notion

of extending to all group-persistences, to non-logical conduct of all
kinds, the objections that could justly be urged against the enforce-
ment of a specific derivation originating in certain specific group-
x 1
1932 Note that the problem here being solved qualitatively only
is ( 1876 ,
x
1897 ). Quantitative considerations will be introduced in Chapter XII.
persistences. given group-persistence, Q, which is beneficial to

If a
society,
finds expression in the derivations A, B, C, it is D . . .
usually detrimental to a society to try to enforce a specific deriva-
tion, A, to the exclusion of the others, B, C . . . whereas it is bene-

ficial to a society that individuals should adopt the derivations most
acceptable to them, thereby showing that they are harbouring the

2
residue, Q, which alone or almost alone
the important thing. is
1933. Negative solutions are not seldom capricious manifestations

of pessimism, outbursts on the part of individuals who have been
hurt or vanquished in the battles of life.
They do not assume pop-
ular forms very readily. Scientific solutions, which are not expres-
sions of sentiment but arise from observations of
very rare. fact, are
When they are put forward, they are correctly understood by very
few people; and that exactly was the fate of the scientific portions
of Machiavelli's theories ( 1975). Optimistic and pessimistic solu-
tions may exist side by side, for, as we havefrequently seen, con-
tradictory residues may be active simultaneously or successively in
the same individual. The masses at large ignore such contradic-
tions; the educated try to eliminate them, and the effort leads to one
or another of our solutions.
1934. Bi
Assertions of perfect accord. I cannot aver that a per-
:
fect accord, an accord embracing all the consequences, all the cor-
ollaries, that might be drawn from it, has ever been explicitly as-
serted. The assumptionof accord appears implicitly, however, in
utilitarian systems of ethics ( 1935). There is no lack of other doc-
trines that assert the accord in general, as an abstract theory, with-
out going to any great pains to determine just what consequences
1932
2
We
have frequently pointed to the logico-experimcntal weakness the ab-
surdity even of certain derivations; but we have also given repeated warnings
that in so doing we had no intention of minimizing in the slightest the social
utility of the residues of which they were manifestations. That usefulness is like-
wise not affected when we point to the harm that is done by trying to enforce
certain derivations. What we have said as to the experimental ineptness of the
derivations of certain religions and the harm that is done in trying to force some
of their derivations upon a public must not be understood, as is commonly the
case, in the sense that the group-persistences functioning in those religions are not
beneficial but harmful. such religions we even include the sex religion, with
Among
which we have frequently had to deal because of absurd and pernicious deriva-
tions connected with it.
1348 THE MIND AND SOCIETY T
935
1
would necessarily follow. Very very often such doctrines are merely
manifestations of vigorous sentiments that mistake desires for reali-
ties, as regards either the welfare of the individual or the welfare of
society; or else manifestations

of a resolute faith in certain entities
or principles altogether foreign to the experimental world. Fre-
quently, in fact almost always, they are stated in terms devoid

of
any exactness, and while taken literally they seem to assert some-
ex-
thing indubitable, the ambiguity of their language, their many
ceptions, their shifting interpretations, sap the
substance of the pre-
cept and draw the teeth of the assertion that the precept is con-
ducive to the welfare of the person observing it.
1935. From ancient times down to our own there have been the-
ories holding that violations of the norms of morality and, among
the ancients, more particularly of the norms of religion, result in
1934
x
Maimonides, Guide of the Perplexed, III, 17, Theory V (Munk, Vol. Ill,
x
pp. 127-27; Friedlander, Vol.
Ill, pp. 72-73) (continuing quotation in 1931 above):
"We [the Jews], finally, hold that everything that happens to a man is a conse-
quence of what he has come to deserve, that God is above injustice and punishes
him only among us who has earned punishment. That is what the law of Moses,
our Master, literally says, to wit, that all depends on merit; and to that purport
also our doctors in general rule. They expressly state that there is 'no death without
sin, and no punishment without transgression.' And further they say: 'To man is
measured with the measure he hath himself used' the text of the Mishnah. They
everywhere declare that for God justice is an utterly necessary thing, in other words,
that He rewards the pious man for his acts of piety and uprightness even when they
have not been enjoined on him by a prophet, and that He punishes each wicked
act that an individual has committed even when it has not been forbidden by a
prophet." On the maxim "No punishment without transgression," Munk, the

French translator of the Guide, comments, p. 127, note: "The commentator, Schem
Tob, rightly points out that that doctrine is refuted by the Talmud itself in the
same place, that it is a popular doctrine that is taught to the Jewish masses, but
that the Talmudists did not pretend to represent it as an unquestionable truth." In
his Politico,, I, 3 (Lyons, p. 8), Justus Lipsius quotes approvingly a dictum of Livy:
"Those who cherish the gods meet fortune in all their concerns, those who scorn
the gods, misfortune" "Omnia prospera eveniunt colentibtts dcos, adversa spernenti-
bus." Similar ideas are to be observed in hosts of writers of the past. Whether that
was or was not their actual opinion, they deemed it decorous and profitable to say
it was. The passage from Livy appears in Ab
urbe condita, V, 51, 5, and Livy him-
self adds an empirical illustration that Justus Lipsius docs not quote. In an oration
to the Romans, Camillus says: "Consider from the beginning the events happy and
unhappy of these past years, and you will find that all has gone well with us when
we have followed the gods, badly when we have ignored them." He goes on, 6-10,
to specify the war with Veii and the invasion by the Gauls, remarking that the
former ended happily because the Romans heeded warnings from the gods, the
latter disastrously because they disregarded such admonishments.
1936 REWARD AND PUNISHMENT 1349
unhappiness in this world, and observance of them in earthly hap-
piness. Specially interesting is one type of theory, the "utilitarian"
ethics, so called, which views morality as merely the expression of

a sound conception of utility. dishonest act A is
merely the conse-
quence of a mistaken conception of utility. A
perfect accordmore
between morality and utility could not be imagined; for it is the
strictly logical
accord of conclusion and premise in a syllogism.
Those theories have a scientific look and are made up of deriva-
tions with whichwe have already dealt ( 1485 f.). They come into
special
favour with people who aim at making human life com-
pletely rational and at banishing non-logical conduct, and so read-
ily
find places in the theologies of Reason, Science, and Progress.
1936. In other theologies, and in general in doctrines which do
not reject the ideal element, one meets theories that are different
from those just mentioned and which sometimes take on a sem-
blance of science. They do not
reject,
in fact they often stress, meta-
physical and theological elements. In general, keeping to the broad

lines such theories have in common, one notes the following traits:
i. Punishment of frequently pushed to the fore, while
violations is
rewards of observance are relegated to the background. That is

probably due to the fact that in human life pains are more numer-
ous and more keenly experienced than the good things. 2. The two
sorts of problems mentioned in 1898 are usually confused. One
all strictness, assert that an individual
might, in acting in conform-
ity
with the norms of morality and religion can, while achieving his
own happiness, in no way do harm to those committed to his care
or in any way related to him. But that is rarely asserted. It is taken
for granted rather than stated, being left in an implicit nebulous
form. There is much talk of rewards and
punishments but it is not
;
made clear whether they will go to the person who has done the
good or evil deed or will extend to others. As regards the person him-
self, pains are taken not to forget a way out, by postponing to some
indefinite time his garnering of the fruits of his conduct it is not
made clear, in other words, whether the idea is to resort or not to
group 82. 3. If one chose to be punc-
resort to the exceptions of our
tiliously exact,
one would have to note a confusion in assigning to
one same individual an act that he has performed at one moment
and the reward or punishment due him after a certain
lapse of time.
When the reasoning here in question is used, it is
implicitly assumed
that the individual one and the same in successive periods of time.
is
That cannot be granted as regards the physical body; though if one

admits a metaphysical entity called "soul" or otherwise, which re-
mains the same while the body changes, the unity of the individual
may be conceded; otherwise, if one is disposed to stickle for strict-
ness, one has to specify in just what sense such a unity is conceived.
4. These theories commonly present in great abundance and in

striking forms the contradictions alluded to above ( 1931). They
advance propositions and then implicitly or even explicitly proceed
to contradict them, now
asserting that every individual's happiness
or unhappiness is the result exclusively of his own conduct; then a
little later
making some statement from which it is apparent that
he suffers or prospers from the conduct of others. Oftentimes such
things are stated explicitly and no one seems to care about the in-
consistency. In reality, just as they think of the individual as a unit

throughout the various stages of his life, so they are often led to
taking the family, a given community, the nation, or humanity at
large as a unit. In that residues of group-persistence are at work,
for their function to transform such
is
groups or associations of ideas
and acts into units. In times
remotely past many people did not even
think of raising the question as to whether or not the
family was
to be considered a unit for
purposes of reward or punishment. So
now many people do not think of asking whether or not the ma-
terial
group that we call an individual should be regarded as a unit
in time ( 1982).
Many of the theories here in question pay no attention to
1937.
such problems, and in asserting that
"everybody" suffers or profits
by his or her conduct, they leave the of the term
meaning "every-
body" undefined. Then when an effort is made to define it, we
get
the theories of the #2, #3, and #4 varieties (of which
hereafter,
1977-98). Definiteness and logic are gravely lacking in connexion
with all such matters; though the
deficiency is readily understand-
able if one but thinks of the inconsistencies that theprevail among
residues active in the same individual, and the individual's desire
to surmount them in appearance if
nothing more. Sometimes,
when the contradictions involved are habitual and trite, there is no
trace of desire to eliminate them, and that not only with the
any
non-compromiser, who sees only one side to all questions, but even
with the plain man. In the long run the inconsistencies are lost sight
of they come to seem natural.Most people fail to notice them at
all, and act as if they did not exist. That is a very general fact and
may be observed in every department of human activity. Many
people, for instance, assume implicitly or explicitly that it is possible
to change, to altogether determine, the conduct of human beings
by reasonings, or by exhortations addressed to the sentiments. At the

same time they recognize the existence of traits such as are described
explicitly
in books along the lines of the Characters of Theophras-
tus, La Bruyere, and others, and implicitly in literary works too

numerous to count, from the Iliad and the Odyssey down to mod-
ern novels, and which, for that matter, are revealed to us in our
daily dealings with our neighbours. Now those two ways of view-
1
ing things are quite contradictory. The spendthrift and the miser,
1937
x
We have already seen many examples of disquisitions to the point. Here
is one more, of a very very common type: Pseudo-Turpin, Les fais et les gcstes le fort
roy Charlemaine t pp. 232-33 (Charlemaine, of course, is Charlemagne): "The next
day, on the point of three, came Agoulant [a Saracen] to Charlemaine to receive
baptism. At that time Charlemaine and his men were seated at table. Said Charle-
maine: 'Those whom you see gowned in silk, all red, are the bishops and priests
of our faith, who preach to us and impart the commandments of Our Lord. They
absolve us of our sins and bestow on us Our Lord's benedictions. Those whom you
see in black habits are monks and abbots. .And those next to them in white
. .
9
habits are called canons of the chapters (regies). Then Agoulant looked in an-
other direction and saw thirteen paupers clothed in tatters and eating on the
floor without table or table-cloth and with very little to eat and drink. And he
asked Charlemaine what people they were. 'They/ he answered, 'are people of
God, messengers of Our Lord Jesus Christ, whom we feed each day in honour of
the Twelve Apostles.' Then answered Agoulant: Those who are sitting about you
are very fortunate. They eat and drink liberally and are gowned well and nobly.
And why do you suffer those who you say are messengers of your God to be
hungry and uncomfortable and so poorly clothed and seated so far from you and
so badly served? One does a great insult to one's Lord in treating his messengers
in that way. Your religion which you say was so good clearly shows by what 1 see
that it is false.' Whereat he took leave of Charlemaine and went back to his people
and refused the holy baptism which he had decided to receive and the next day
ordered a battle against Charlemaine. Then the Emperor understood that he had
refused baptism because of the poor whom he had seen so badly served, and for
that reason Charlemaine commanded that the poor in the army should be de-
cently clothed and sufficiently provided with wines and meats." Boccaccio's Jew,
Decameron, I, 2, reasons in a manner directly opposite to Agoulant's. He goes to
Rome, notes the contrast between the evangelical purity that the Church preached
and the immorality of the Roman Curia, and asks to be baptized, deeming that
937
we may guess, have heard arguments
and sermons in goodly num-
ber against their sins. If they have not reformed, if lectures and
sermons have had no effect upon them, it isevident that something

else is determining their conduct and that that something else is
strong enough to offset reasoning and sermonizing. If, in spite of

all that has been said and written against intemperance, and in spite
of all that has been done to suppress it, there are still drunkards
galore, we have to recognize the presence of a force that makes for
intemperance and overbalances contrary forces. In propounding a

theory of non-logical actions in these volumes we have been doing
nothing more than giving scientific form to ideas that are more or
less
vaguely present in the minds of all or almost all men, ideas
that many writers have stated more or less clearly, and which facts
without number do not permit us to ignore. We are not denying
that reasonings and sermons may have their influence on people
( 1761 f.). We
do assert that their influence is not the exclusive
or, in many cases, the preponderant influence; that they are not the
only elements which determine human conduct; that other ele-

ments intervene, elements not belonging to the categories of rea-
sonings and sermons, or of derivations either. Now many people
deny thatin theory, but deport themselves in practical life as if
they
admitted it and they do not notice the contradiction. Now and
then a writer will observe that contradiction, or some other like it,
and draw upon for literary effects, ranging from the simple jest
it
to the full-fledged psychological portrait. Inconsistencies between
religion and practical life have inspired countless intellectual pro-

ductions that arrive now at the one, now at the other, of the oppo-
site conclusions, according to the purpose the author has in view
and according as he gives first place to religion or to practice. The
writer is
against the practical if he holds that practical life should
the Christian faith must be truly divine, since it is strong enough to resist such
causes of dissolution.Those are legends, tales, of long ago, but if anyone imagines
that the substance revealed under those forms no longer exists in our day, he need
only gaze about him to find similar inconsistencies very readily. Names only have
changed. Out of the twilight of the ancient gods new gods have arisen: the radiant
sun of Science, Progress, Democracy; the brilliant planets of that solar system called
Truth, Justice, Right, Exalted Patriotism, and others still; the luminous satellites
that take the name of Organization, Civilization, Nationalism, Imperialism, Xeno-
phobia, Solidarity, Humanitarianism, and so on, world without end. These new
religions are as packed with contradictions as the old.
1937 REWARD AND PUNISHMENT 1353
be conducted in strict accordance with religious theories. That is the
theme of preachers, ascetics, saints, and extremists of every kind.
He is
against religion if he holds that the necessities of life are sov-
ereign over doctrine, and is disposed to attack religion at its weakest

point. And that is the theme of atheists, materialists, the
"libertines"
of a day gone by, and generally of people who have only a luke-
warm faith or no faith at all. Between the two extremes fall our
casuists who, by dint of ingenious sophistries and acrobatic inter-
pretations, strive to reconcile the irreconcilable. Phenomena of the
same kind arise in the relations between religion and ethics, the
latterbeing sometimes regarded as a simple appendage to religion,
then again as an independent entity that must necessarily be in har-
mony with and then finally, in a counter-direction, as op-
religion,
posed to religion or to some one religious sect. At one moment in
history religion will be found passing judgment on morality, at an-
other moment, morality on religion. The early Christians main-
tained that morality demonstrated the superiority of their religion
over paganism. The pagans retorted to no great effect that pa-
triotism demonstrated the inferiority of Christianity to paganism.
Christiansand pagans, as well as the various Christian sects, have
hurled charges of immorality back and forth at one another and
used and abused that type of argument. It was one of the antago-
nisms between the severities of religious precept and the necessities
of practical life that inspired Pascal to write his Lettres provinciales,
a book that is admirable from the literary standpoint but false from
the standpoint of experimental reality, for it limits itself to denounc-
ing the sophistries of the casuists, but puts nothing in their stead, so
allowing the contradiction between doctrine and practical necessities
to subsist dissembled. The reasonings of the casuists have no logical
value. Pascal's precepts have no practical value. Contradictions be-
tween law and practical life, and especially between international
law and the necessities of statecraft, have existed from time im-
memorial: they literally swarm in Graeco-Roman history; they are
interwoven with religious questions in the Middle Ages; they per-
sist in
huge numbers in the centuries succeeding, and are far from
lacking in our own day. We
are dealing, in short, with a very gen-
eral phenomenon, of which the cases we are examining here are
particular instances.
1938. The
notion of reward or punishment following on conduct
has, besides pseudo-experimental form, two other forms that fre-
its
quently merge into one: the metaphysical and the religious. In the
metaphysical form reward or punishment necessarily follows the
conduct just why, not very clear. This form is
to tell the truth, is
often dissembled in our times under a pseudo-experimental garb,

but it remains substantially the same. In the religious form the rea-
son why the reward or punishment necessarily follows is known:
it is
by will of a divinity. But that interpretation opens the door to
the divinity's caprice; and generally he is not content with being a
more or custodian of morality, but acts also on his own
less strict
account, avenging offences or omissions that affect him personally

with as great severity as he avenges offences or omissions affecting
morality and not seldom with more.
1939. Whenreligious sentiments are strong, no one finds any-
to criticize in that situation, but let them
thing grow weaker, let
sentiments of benevolence towards one's fellows gain in strength,
and an effort is made to restrict as far as possible, and sometimes to
the point of elimination, this latter aspect of the divinity's action.
Then it is said that a religion is the more "advanced," the more "per-
fect," the more
the divinity busies himself with moral questions to
the disregard of everything else. But it is not ordinarily realized that
when religion goes in that direction, the limit that the "perfect re-
ligion" approaches is
non-religion, and the confusion of religion
with metaphysics ( 1917, 1883).
1940. And now it is
only fair that we should begin furnishing
proofs of the assertions we have been making; and the reader must
not be annoyed if in so doing we have to turn to details in them-
selves rather insignificant, for he will remember that theories have
no other value than their capacity for picturing facts whether the
facts be
great or small does not matter and that facts are the only
things that give theories value or deprive them of it. To tell the
truth, if one were to set out to give all the proofs, one would find
oneself obliged to quote the whole of history. There being no room
here for that, we can only do the next best thing, and select a few
cases thatmay serve as typical.
1941. Examples of inconsistencies may be found in virtually every
author who asserts the accord here in question. Sometimes the con-
tradictionis
explicit, that is to say, in a given work certain passages
will be found to contradict certain other passages; then again, the
contradiction is
implicit it
apparent, that is, in the inferences
is
that are to be drawn from one passage or another.

1942. Examples of the explicit contradiction are to be found in
Hesiod's Worths and Days. Many passages indicate that author's con-
viction that the wrongdoer is always punished. So, vv. 265-66: "He
bringeth evil upon himself who wrongeth another." Hesiod de-

votes threemore verses, 267-69, to showing that Zeus has an eye on
everything; and then, without any transition, he asserts, vv. 270-73:
"Now, verily, not I shall be just among men, nor my son; for woe
*
unto the just man
the unjust hath the greater right."
if
1943. Contradictions of that type abound in the moralists. We

are told, for example, in Ecclcsiasticus i 16, that "Wisdom filleth the :
house with things"; and then that "the wisdom of the poor man
all
doth exalt him and seateth him among the mighty." But how can
that be ? If the poor man was left
poor, his wisdom could not have
filled his house with all
things.
1944. Of the implicit contradiction, will give an example from
I
the ancient Hebrews. They believed, on the one side, that Jehovah
always rewarded the just ("righteous") and pious man with worldly
goods, and punished the unjust and impious by taking such goods
l
away; and, on the other, that the poor man enjoyed the favour of
*
1942 The verse following, 274, seems to be a gloss interpolated in the text:
"But methinketh not that that be the will of Zeus the High Thunderer." But be
it the will of Zeus or not, the fact noted by Hesiod still remains. Other verses also
stand in contradiction. In many places Hesiod insists that the man guilty of an
injustice does not escape the punishment he deserves and that the just man is
rewarded; whereas in describing the iron age in which we, presumably, are living,
vv. 190-93, he says: "No longer in grace will be the man faithful to his oath, nor
the just man, nor the good. Honour rather will be unto him who is guilty of
maleficence and hurt; right will stand in might and reverence will be no more."
*
1944 Piepenbring, Theologie dc I'Anden Testament, p. 208: "It comes out clearly
from the above, and from all documents of the first two periods, that the Israelites
believed only in an earthly remuneration for human acts. In the prophets, with
whom the punishment of sin on the one hand and hope of future salvation on
the other play such an important part, there is not the slightest trace of the notion
that sin may be punished and virtue rewarded in another life. According to the
general opinion of the Hebrews, God recompenses good works and punishes evil
in this world. Every misfortune is a divine punishment brought down upon one
by unfaithfulness, every blessing a reward deserved through fidelity. In a word,
THE MIND AND SOCIETY J
945
2
Jehovah. The two propositions lead to contradictory conclusions.
From the first, man ought to be just ("right-
one infers that the rich
eous"), pious, and pleasing
in the sight of the Lord, and the poor
man unjust, impious, displeasing to Jehovah. The inference from
the second is the exact reverse. The contradiction was a one glaring
and could not escape Hebrew thinkers, who exerted themselves in
various ways to be rid of it; but of that we shall speak later on
I
( 979)"
1945. Peoples have imagined, and still
imagine, that they win
their wars with the help of their gods. The group of associated sensa-
tions called a people is
regarded as a unit, and the conduct of each
single individual the aggregate is instrumental in at-
making up
tracting or alienating the favour of the gods. Sometimes the conduct
of a single individual is sufficient to cause a
punishment, and much
more rarely a reward, for the group as a whole. Sometimes it would
seem as
though the number of individuals had to be large enough
to constitute a considerable
portion of the group.
1946. As for the have own, and the
gods, every people may its
victorious people wins for itself

gods, and its who are enemies of
other peoples' gods, and these must be in no
way worshipped. The
type of that case would be the "jealous God" of the Hebrews. Then
again, peoples waging war upon each other may have each its own
gods, or gods in common; but in either event, each people had
better pay worship not only to own
gods, but to the gods of the
its
other also; and typical of that situation would be the Greeks and the
Romans with their gods. The Iliad has made ideas of that sort gen-
erally familiar. Finally, again, there may be only one god for two or
there is an exact relationship between misfortune and and

culpability, good fortune
merit." (Quotation continued in 1
1976 .)
2
1944 Jesus, p. 180: "The prophets, real tribunes and in a sense
Renan, Vie de
the boldest of tribunes, had thundered incessantly against the great and established
a strict relationship on the one side between the words 'rich,'
'impious/ Violent,'
"
'wicked,' and on the other between the words 'poor,' 'gentle,' 'humble, 'pious.'
3
1944 Bayle, Dictionnaire historique, s.v. Malherbe, remarque C (quoting Racan,
Vie de Malherbe, p. Ixxii): "Whenever beggars assured him that they would
pray
for him, Malherbe would answer that he did not think they had any great influence
in Heaven, considering the wretched estate in which it had left them in this world,
but that he did wish that M. de Luyne, or some other favourite, would put in a
word for him."
1948 GOD THE JUST: GOD THE AVENGER 1357
more belligerent peoples, and it is assumed that he decides in favour
of one as against the other according to certain rules that are not
very clearly determined but which among modern peoples tend to

merge with the norms of "morality," or "justice," as understood on
each side. Typical of such situations would be struggles between
two or more Catholic or two or more Protestant peoples. In wars
between Catholics and Protestants in a day gone by, it was easy to
set one belief over
against the other; but of late, warring peoples
have been talking rather as though there were no difference in be-
liefs and a common God had to decide whom to favour, with the
rules of "morality" and "justice" as His sole guide. All that, I need
hardly add, does not bear the most casual examination from the
logico-experimental point of view.
Damascus was besieged by the Crusaders,
1947. In 1148 the city of
who were repulsed and had to retreat. Christians and Moslems alike
made each their own god responsible for what happened, and each
side interpreted what happened to its own advantage. On that point
one may compare the story of Guillaume de Tyr with accounts by

1
Moslem writers.
1948. The God of Israel was not a little
capricious. The God of
the Christians, who succeeded him, not seldom acts in ways not
readily comprehensible. He
begins by giving a victory to the Cru-
saders, who are defending His faith; then withdraws His aid be-
cause we are told of their sins; and it would seem that His wrath
x
1947 Guillaume de Tyr, Histoirc des croisadcs, III, 10-11: "It seemed that the
city could not avoid falling very soon into the power of the Christian people
through the patronage of the But He who is 'terrible in His designs upon
divinity.
the sons of men'
(Ps. 65:4 ) had ?decided otherwise. I have just said that the city
was under very close siege and that the inhabitants had lost all hope of defence and
salvation . when, as a punishment of our sins, they came to base some hope on
. .
the cupidity of our soldiers. Meantime the Emperor Conrad, seeing that the
. . .
Lord had withdrawn His favour from him and that he was in no condition to
do anything of advantage to our realm, caused his ships to be put in order, took
leave of Jerusalem, and returned to his own states." Now, on the Moslem side,
the Eoo\ of the Two Gardens, Vol. IV, p. 59: "The Mussulman population evinced
very keen joy at the success that Allah had vouchsafed them, and offered numerous
thanksgivings to Heaven, which had hearkened favourably to the prayers that had
been made during those days of trial. Allah be praised and blessed! Shortly after
that sign of divine patronage, Nur ed-din came to the relief of Mo'in ed-din and
effected a junction with him in a village in the neighbourhood of Damascus."
1358 TREATISE ON GENERAL SOCIOLOGY T
949
must still this late day, for the Sepulchre of the Saviour
endure to
1
continues in the hands of the infidel.
1949. Needless to recall, because too well known, the old ordeals
and "judgments of God," which, ifwe keep to derivations, are
closely related to the theory that
God punishes evil conduct and
*
1948 Draper, History of the Conflict between Religion and Science, pp. 77, 91,
speaks of the conquest of Jerusalem by Kosroes [This quotation has already been
a
given in part in 1484 A. L.]: "In face of the world Magianism had insulted
.
Christianity, by profaning her most sacred places Bethlehem, Gcthsemane, Calvary

by burning the sepulchre of Christ, by rifling and destroying the churches, by
scattering to die winds priceless relics, by carrying off, with shouts of laughter,
the cross. Miracles had once abounded in Syria, in Egypt, in Asia Minor; there
was not a church which had not its long catalogue of them. Very often they were
displayed on unimportant occasions and in insignificant cases. In this supreme
moment, when such aid was most urgently demanded, not a miracle was worked.
Amazement filled the Christian populations of the East when they witnessed these
Persian sacrileges with impunity. The heavens should have rolled
perpetrated
asunder, the earth should have opened her abysses, the sword of the Almighty
should have flashed in the sky, the fate of the Sennacherib should have been re-
peated. But it was not so. . . .
[Speaking now of the conquest of Jerusalem by
the Saracens:] The
of Jerusalem! the loss of the metropolis of Christianity! In
fall
the ideas of that age the two antagonistic forms of faith had submitted themselves
to the ordeal of the judgment of God. Victory had awarded the prize of battle,
Jerusalem, to the Mohammedan; and, notwithstanding the temporary successes of

the Crusaders, after much more than a thousand years in his hands it remains to
this day." Draper errs in imagining that the Saracen victory was ever taken by
Christians as proof of the superiority of Mohammedanism over Christianity. Never
never have human beings used as much logic as that! Bayle, Dictionnaire historique,
s.v. Mahomet, remarque P. "[Bellarmino and other Jesuit controversialists] have
even been so rash as to count prosperity among the signs of the true Church.
It might easily have been foreseen that that would elicit an answer, for by those
two signs the Mohammedan Church will pass more appropriately than the Chris-
tian as the true Church.*' Bayet, Lemons de morale, p. 156. Probably with a view
to Bayet supplies a great deal of statistic that would
discrediting Christianity,
seem to have do with a treatise on ethics: "The religion with the greatest
little to
number of followers is Buddhism. There are about 500,000,000 Buddhists. [Really?
Bayet has counted them?] Next comes Christianity, which is divided into three
branches: 217,000,000 Catholics, 127,000,000 Protestants, and finally 120,000,000
human beings who belong to the Russian Church." Bayle, Op. cit., s.v. Mahomet 11,
remarque D: "I have noted that as regards triumphs the star of Mohammedanism
has prevailed over the star of Christianity [That could not be said today.], and
that if one had to judge the quality of those religions by the glory of temporal
successes, Mohammedanism would pass as the better. The Mohammedans are so
sure of that that they advance no stronger proof of the justice of their cause than
the striking successes with which God has favoured it ... [Then quoting Hot-
tinger, Historia orientalis, p. 338:] The success of infidel arms is another argu-
ment they use to stress the truth of their religion. Believing that God is
responsible
*
rewards the good. Bayle alludes to an incident that may serve as
an example of the comical inconsistencies involved in that theory.
The Chevalier de Guise, son of the Due de Guise, who had been
assassinated at Blois in 1588, killed the Baron de Lux in a street in
Paris on January 5, 1613. The Baron's son challenged the Chevalier
to a duel, and was also killed by the latter. "People," says Bayle, "did
not fail to notice the inequitableness of the outcome in two en-
counters in which the points of justice seemed to be the same. If
the Chevalier was entitled to success in his first duel because he was
trying to avenge his father's death, he should have lost in the second
where it was a question of squaring accounts with the son of the
man slain. Yet luck was with him in the second as well as
he had
in the That surprised many people and aroused considerable
first.
discussion. However, generally speaking, affairs of that sort are

settled according to the mores and the lesses of skill, courage, and
physical strength in the participants, or by fortuities of circumstance,

and not by the mores and the lesses of right on each side."
1950. In our day it is no longer believed that God indicates the
side that is in the right by the outcome of private duels; but it is
still more or less believed that He does so in wars between nations.
A "just" war must, for many persons, be a victorious war; and, con-
versely, a victorious war must necessarily be a "just" war. Many
Germans were, and still are, convinced that they won the War of
1870 because the Lord elected to award the victory to Germanic
"virility" as against Latin "decadence." That may well be; but it
may also be that the genius of Bismarck, Moltke, and Roon, as well
as the stupidhumanitarianism of Napoleon III, his ministers, his

democratic opposition, and not a few French conservatives, may
1
have had something to do with the German victories.
for all good happenings, they conclude that the greater their success in their
wars, the more clearly God indicates that He approves of their zeal and their
"
religion.' [A very free translation: Hottinger says: "Secundum motivum est vic-
toria eorum continua contra christianos, quod aliquos multiim movet. Unde victores
se nominant et gloriantur quasi victores totius mundi." A. L.]
x
1949 Op. cit. t s.v. Guise (Charles de Guise, due de Lorraine} , remarque F.
*
1950Busch, Tagebuchbliitter, Vol. I, pp. 103, 106, 332 (English, Vol. I, pp. 80-81,
204; French, Vol. I, pp. 64, 67, 172-73), Aug. 24, 1870: "Count Waldersee for
his part was eager 'to see that Babel [Paris] completely destroyed/ The Chancellor
interrupted: That in fact would not be a bad idea, but it is impossible for many
reasons, the main one that toomany Germans from Cologne and Frankfurt have
1360 THE MIND AND SOCIETY 195!
1951. It is
always a good thing for peoples to believe that their
gods are fighting on their side ( 1932). The King of Prussia was
altogether wise in proclaiming a day of prayer in his decree of July
21, 1870. Said he: "I must first thank God that at the first signs of
war one single sentiment welled up in all German hearts, the senti-
ment of a general rush to arms against oppression and the sentiment
of an inspiring hope in the victory which God will grant to our
just cause. My people will stand by me in this war as of yore it stood

by my father who sleeps in the Lord. In Him I put my every hope,
and I beseech my people to do likewise."
But God was being invoked in the same manner on the other
bank of the Rhine, just as Homer's gods in their time had been
invoked both by Greeks and Trojans. Napoleon III addressed the
French people with the words: "God will bless our efforts. A great
people defending a just cause is invincible." The God of the Chris-
tians failed to heed the prayer of the French, and led their army
to Sedan, just as the Zeus of the Iliad failed to heed the prayers of
the Trojans and countenanced the destruction of their city. Ollivier,
under whose premiership the "just," but, alas, ill-fated War of 1870
was declared, took comfort in the thought that if "justice" had not
been rewarded that time, it would be at some future time, at least.
He writes: 1 "By an intolerable piece of insolence he [Bismarck]
forces into awar a sovereign who has been systematically pacific [In
that the Emperor's original sin.] since the Italian campaign [The
origin of French misfortunes, as Thiers clearly saw.], without whose

acquiescence [This the unpardonable sin.] he would not even have
tempted fortune Sadowa [Where he defeated Austria, laid the
at
foundations for the defeat of France and the downfall of the

tender-hearted Napoleon III.] and who, ever favourable to the inde-
pendence of nations [Sacrificing his own country to those Utopias.],

1
considerable funds invested there. . . . Some distance beyond Saint-Aubin, I
[Busch] noticed on the side of the road a milestone with the indication: 'Paris, 241
kilometres.' So we were that near already! Thirty-two German miles from Babel!"
"
. . . 'She [the Countess von Bismarck] is quite well now/ the
Oct. 29, 1870:
Minister [Bismarck] answered, 'only, she is still suffering from her ferocious hatred
of the Gauls. She would like to see them all shot and stabbed to death, down to the
little babies, who, after all, cannot be held responsible for having such abominable
"
parents.' The Countess von Bismarck and her husband considered themselves, and
perhaps were, good Christians.
f
1951
*
L Empire liberal, Vol. I, pp. 30-31.
195* "ETERNAL JUSTICE" 1361
had decided, in spite of the alarums of his diplomats [Who saw a
little
light where that blind man could not be made to see any-
thing.], to place
no obstacle in the way of the free development of
Germany and so to add one more service to those
already rendered
by a generous France to the Germanic peoples in 1789, 1830, and
1848. [Those good German souls probably deserved rewards for their
virtues; but it was hard on the French to have to foot the bill in
the form of those five billions paid to Germany as an indemnity.]
'Ingratitude,' said Cavour, 'is the most odious of sins.' It is also the
clumsiest of calculations. [A gratuitous assertion on Ollivier's part,
without the slightest hint of a proof.] Bismarck designed to drown
in the blood of a common victory the antipathies of the states of the
South, which were still
smarting under their recent defeat. Far more
effectively than that dangerous remedy, a little patience would have
quieted the excitement. [Another assertion without hint of proof.]
A German unity achieved without dismemberment of France, cer-
tain as it would have been of a peaceful future, might have proved
a common blessing for all, and not a calamity. God sometimes
punishes by the gift of success. The future will tell!" Wait, nag of
mine, the grass will some day grow! Meantime, while that future
punishment coming in its own good hour, and which will fall
is
upon posterity anyhow, the Frenchmen of Ollivier's day are suffer-

ing, and the Germans of his day are gloating! Compare that insipid
ethical disquisition with Bismarck's realistic analyses, and one read-
2
ily
sees how and why Bismarck was to defeat Ollivier.
2
1951 Ollivier's history, notice, was a work in seventeen volumes, and pretended
to be a scientific study. It was therefore something entirely different in character
from the proclamations of William I and Napoleon III previously quoted, and from
other such expressions, where the purpose was not to discover truth, but to rouse
popular emotions and guide them into what were regarded as proper channels.
Bismarck goes about things in quite a different way in judging the conduct of
Napoleon III. Busch, Tagebuchblatter, Vol. 55 (English, Vol. I, p. 44; French,
I, p.
"
Vol. I, pp. 30-31), July 27, 1870: 'His policy has always been stupid. The Crimean
War was diametrically opposed to the interests of France, who needed an alliance or
at the very least a good understanding with Russia. And so with the war in Italy.
There he built up a rival for himself in the Mediterranean, North Africa, Tunisia,
and so on [Bismarck said that in 1870; he saw far and clearly.], who some day
may perhaps be dangerous. [Omitted from French:] The Italian people are much
more gifted than the French; only less numerous. The war in Mexico and France's
attitude in 1866 were also blunders, and there can be no doubt that in the hurri-
cane that is breaking today, the French themselves feel that they are committing
Welschinger, a writer who
from being in complete agree-
is far
3
ment with "The memory of the
Ollivier, also says in his turn:
War of 1870 and the Treaty of Frankfurt that was its lamentable
sequel will for a long time to come saving reparations, which lie in
the secret bosom of eternal Justice be a cause of bitterness between
the two nations." So,
besought for aid by two opposite sides, "eternal
Justice" did not know which way to turn and ended by preferring
the side that had the larger
army and the better prepared, and was
led by the better
generals.
1952. History shows that, as a rule, that is the side she prefers.
When the Theban army broke Spartan power at Leuctra, it was
effectively aided by "eternal Justice," who had decided at last to
avenge the two daughters of Scedasus girls who had been

raped,
ages earlier, by a number of Spartans (2437*), and their tombs
were located on the field where the battle of Leuctra took place.
Such intention on the part of the supernatural powers had been an-
nounced before the battle; but as Grote wisely observes: 1 "While
others were thus comforted
by the hope of superhuman aid, Epami-
nondas, to whom the order of the coming battle had been confided,
one "
last blunder.' Bismarck was
right, but he disregarded certain circumstances
that explain and extenuate. very true that the Crimean War was an error in
It is
French foreign policy, but it proved very useful as regarded domestic policy, giving
the government of Napoleon III a halo of glory so sadly lacking to the regime of
Louis Philippe. Furthermore, the error in foreign policy might easily have been
corrected by an alliance with Russia after the victory. The war in Italy arose from a
combination of humanitarian enthusiasms on the part of Napoleon III and interests
of international "speculators," who were beginning in those days
operations which
have become so extensive and influential in ours. The Mexican venture was
pri-
marily a manifestation of pathological humanitarianism. There is no excuse for the
attitude of Napoleon III in 1866. It was, as usual, the attitude of a humanitarian
with few brains. Thereafter things happened in a whirl. France looked like a
ship
blown rudderless over a stormy êa. Under the Republic, French foreign policy was
far superior to what it had been under
Napoleon III, and for the very reason
that it was more like Bismarck's realistic policy. That alone would more than
justify one's preferring the Republic to the Empire [in France]. The Republic's
domestic policy has not measured up to the standards of its
foreign policy, and
there is therefore a danger that the foreign policy may be
paralyzed by the do-
mestic. However, if the Republic is neglecting military preparedness, the Empire
was even more neglectful in that respect, and was more to blame, for it had the
power to force measures that far-sighted republicans, such as M. Poincare, cannot
obtain.
3
1951 La guerre de iSjo, Vol. II, p. 56.
l
1952 History of Greece, Vol. X, p. 178.
took care that no human precaution should be wanting." That, per-
haps, was what spurred and it is most
"eternal Justice" to action,
assuredly the thing that always should be done under similar cir-
cumstances. It is well enough to talk of "eternal Justice," but it is
better to make one's preparations as though she did not exist.
1953. Nowadays many individuals who have ceased to believe in
the supernatural have changed just the outward form of the deriva-
tion, replacing divine justice with a certain "immanent justice" or
a "justice immanent in things," which is a very handsome, but a
rather vague, entity. "Immanent Justice," however, prefers to operate
in private business rather than in martial enterprise, perhaps be-
cause she counts not a few pacifists among her worshippers
1
(i88 3 ).
1954. It is certain that among the ancient Hebrews and the Greeks
and Romans, the conduct of the divinity did not always dovetail
exactly with the upholding of morality and justice. There was an
added something, designed to assert some sort of divine preroga-
tive. That fact is distasteful to certain theorists, who would be bet-
ter satisfied if the discrepancy did So they bluntly deny it,
not exist.
disregarding the contradictions, patent or veiled, into which they

fall. That is
why they happen to give such splendid examples of
this sort of contradiction, and the more splendid, the more intelli-
gent, the more reasonable

and the better informed the writer hap-
pens to be.
1955. With the and so on down to the Catholic
Church Fathers,
theologians of our day, considerations of faith allowed no opening
for the admission that the God of the Old and the New Testaments
could ever do anything that was not perfectly moral and just. By
this or that interpretation, therefore, they modify the counter-con-
in the Scriptures. That is no concern of ours
ceptions that are stated
here, as taking us, to an extent at least, outside the experimental
field. We will note that among the Liberal Protestants there are
those who describe the ideas of the ancient Hebrews from an ex-
1
perimental point of view.

1956. We are obliged, however, to linger for a moment on the
x
1955 Piepenbring, Histoire du pcuplc d'lsracl, p. 245: "Really, as a consequence
of this supreme power, Jahvc extends favour or mercy to anyone He sees fit, like
the despots of the ancient Orient, who also enjoyed manifesting their power."
fact that inour day, in such a deluge of science and criticism, many
people profess an intention of remaining inside the logico-experi-

mental field, but shut their eyes to facts and foist upon peoples of
the pastmanners of thinking that in reality they never had. That
comes about because where sentiment is
rampant the critical sense
falters or even fails.

Maury, for instance, one of the best of scholars
1
on antiquity, expresses himself in the following terms:
classical
"Chastisement from Heaven threatened transgressors of the laws of
morality, just as there was recompense for good deeds. The Ion
of Euripides ends with an address that is put into the mouth of the
Chorus and declares that in the end the good find the reward of
virtue and the wicked just penalties for their crimes an idea which
is to be back as the days of Homer. Divine vengeance,
found as far
which nothing but
is the deity's resolve to let no crime go un-
punished, nothing but the deity's implacable aversion to wrong-

doing, always reaches the criminal. . . . The ancient myths de-
picting merely physical phenomena in the form of symbols or alle-
gories give way to more moral myths, where the purpose is to

emphasize this formidable principle of the inevitableness of divine
vengeance."
1957. If one were to stop at that
very authoritative opinion, one
would get the impression that the Greeks, and, in particular Euripi-
des, were inclined to solve our problem in the affirmative, that they
believed the gods always rewarded the good and chastised the
wicked. A
direct examination of the facts leads to a far different
1
conclusion.
1958. In the first place, in Euripides himself, the purport of not a
few passages is directly opposite to Maury's view. In Helen the
Chorus says that he does not know whether a god, or a non-god,
or someone betwixt and between, governs happenings in this world,
l
1956Histoire des religions de la Grece antique, Vol. Ill, pp. 48-49.
*
1957 The Chorus
in the Ion reads, vv. 1621-22 (Coleridge, Vol. I, p. 317): "Since
in the end the good obtain what they have deserved, so the wicked, as is natural,
can never be happy." Maury also quotes a Chorus in the Bacchae, vv. 882-87 (Cole-
ridge, Vol. II, p. 114): "Slowly but surely cometh the power of the gods, and
chastiseth those who cherish iniquity and in their folly refuse worship to the
gods." Here too, after all, the reference is to people who manage to obtain the
favour of the gods or else incur their wrath; but it is not clear whether because of
virtue or wickedness.
1961 ETHICS IN THE GREEK TRAGEDIES
1365
1
since one seesthem ever fluctuating now this way, now that. Worse
still, in The Madness of Hercules the Chorus says that the good
fare no better in this world than the wicked. 2
1959. Then, looking more closely at the tragedy quoted by
Maury, the Ion, one can hardly say that the conclusion of the Chorus
is so
very moral. Apollo violates the virgin Creusa and begets a son
of her, Ion by name. To conceal her
involuntary infidelity, Creusa
exposes the infant among the foundlings. Apollo proceeds to lie to
Xuthus, Creusa's husband, and misleads him into believing that Ion
is his own child, and the
god naively explains that his purpose in the
deceit to provide a rich and illustrious
is
family for Ion. Creusa
does not know that Ion is the child she abandoned, nor Ion that
Creusa is his mother.
Believing him a bastard of her husband, as the
god has averred, she tries to
poison him, and he, to get even, tries
to kill her. But she recognizes her child from a certain box he
carries, and Athena comes forward to dispel all doubt and confirm
Ion's true descent.
1960. It is not apparent just where, in all that, "the good'' come in
to get "in the end the reward of their virtue." will say nothing We
of Apollo, who is a very fair scoundrel; but not even Creusa seems
any more virtuous than the rest. One could hardly describe her
attempt to poison Ion as a virtue. The best that can be said for
her
is that she succeeded in
seducing a god. Poor Xuthus has done no
harm to anyone; and his reward is to be presented by the god with
a bastard not his own. Ion good enough fellow, if we overlook
is a
his little
slip
in trying to murder Creusa he does neither good nor
evil otherwise.Decidedly, the choice of such a play to show
how the
"good" are rewarded and the "wicked" punished can hardly be
called a convincing one.
1961. As a matter of fact, the tragedy leads, substantially, in an
1958 Helena, vv. 1137-43 (Coleridge, Vol. I, p. 358): "Who of mortal men,
*
having searched the ultimate purpose of things, can aver that he doth find therein
a thing that is god, not a god, or an intermediate being [demon], forasmuch as the
designs of Heaven do turn now hither, now thither, issuing in happenings un-
foreseen?"
1958
2
In Hercules jurens, vv. 655-58 (Coleridge, Vol. II, pp. 191-92), he says that
the good ought to have a double youth and be born again after dying, the wicked
of the gods doth sever the good from the
living only once: "No boundary
wicked."
altogether different direction: it shows that the protection of the

gods is a good thing to have. But it does not say that the protection
is won by virtue. That fact is more strikingly evident and
Maury should have noted the point in the Hippolytus. The un-
fortunate Phaedra did not "cherish iniquity," to use Maury's words;
nor was she neglectful in worship of the gods. Aphrodite admits
that Phaedra had built her a magnificent temple; but she cheerfully
sacrifices her to her own thirst for
vengeance on Hippolytus. The
goddess expressly declares, vv. 47-50 (Coleridge, Vol. I, p. 76):
"Verily a noble woman is Phaedra, but none the less shall she perish;
for no hurt of hers shall stay me that mine enemies sate not my
vengeance." When passages of that sort stand before one's eyes,

one's reason has to be under the sway of a sentiment indeed before
they can be quoted to exemplify that "divine vengeance, which is

nothing but the no crime go unpunished."
deity's resolve to let
1962.
Maury from is without
far
being good company. Even in our
day there are hosts of people who themselves deem it a good thing
to believe that virtue is rewarded and wickedness punished and
accordingly imagine that they find that idea expressed in all ages,
among all peoples, and even in writers whose thinking runs quite
in the contrary direction. It is important to note such facts, because
they indicate the strength, even in our day, of the residues of Class
II
(group-persistences). A writing the history of morals in
scientist
a given country is unable and unwilling to confine himself to his
quest for uniformities. He feels under some imperious constraint to

laud his own morality, his own political faith, his own religion;
so he steps aside from the field of scientific investigation, mounts the
pulpit, and begins

to preach.
1963. In a book which, for that matter, contains a wealth of
*
accurate observation and sound inference, one reads: "The essence
by every intelligent being during the

of religious faith, as professed
best days of Greece, may be summarized briefly as follows: There
is a
body of divine beings whose power is exercised over nature
and humanity, from whom good and evil derive, and whose favour
we can either win or alienate as we choose. The way to be pleasing
to them and make them propitious to us is, on the one hand, to per-
*
1963 Schoemann, Griechische Alterthumer, Vol. II, p. 119.
form honour the religious ceremonies to which they have
in their
always been accustomed and the requirement of which they them-

selves have laid upon us; and, on the other, to deport ourselves
properly, performing our duties to our state and our fellows, duties
that also either have been laid down for us as commandments by the
gods or by human beings inspired of the gods, or are revealed to each

of us by reason and conscience." In all that, substitute the word
"God" for "gods," and one gets the Christian's view of the Chris-
tian's religion. Schoemann is simply
transporting that view back
into the past, thereby furnishing another of the many examples
of group-persistences (Class II residues); and his readers get the
impression that the "eternal truths" of their morality and their

religion may indeed have been obscured by polytheism, but never-
theless subsisted in the conscience of every "intelligent being." And
what, pray, of people such as the atheists and the sceptics who did
not believe all those pretty things? A
twist of the wrist and they
are put out of court in virtue of our epithet "intelligent": we deny
them membership in the category of intelligent beings, and all is
well ( 1471, 1476). Where ever in the Greek authors did Schoe-
mann find that to have the gods "propitious" one needed only to
perform the religious ceremonies prescribed for their worship and

do one's duties? What ceremonies in honour of the gods had the
daughter of Agamemnon neglected to perform, in what duties

towards her fellows had she been remiss, that the gods should have
bidden her father to offer her in sacrifice? And Megara, wife of
Hercules, and their children for what backsliding in ceremonies
or duties had they deserved death at the hand of Hercules ? Euripides
represents the Fury, whom

Iris, at Hera's bidding, had commis-
sioned to deprive Hercules of his reason, as loath to execute so
dastardly a command, yet finally obeying; and it seems that

the Athenian public found nothing objectionable in the tradi-
tion that the poet followed. Howand when had Hector sinned
against the gods or his fellows that he should be slain by Achilles
?
And why should his body have been dragged around the walls of
Troy? And so on and on. One could continue marshalling such
legends indefinitely, did not the above suffice. To be sure, Plato
repudiates them and condemns them, and of him, perhaps, Schoe-
mann may have been thinking. But in that case he should have men-
tioned Plato by name and not gone talking about "every intelligent
being."
1964. a fragment of The Heliades (Daughters
Decharme quotes
of Helios) by Aeschylus that reads: "Zeus is the aether. Zeus is also
the Earth. Zeus is also the sky. Zeus is all things and that which is
1
above all
things." And Decharme then adds: "There is
nothing
loftier than a doctrine such as that, and same time,
nothing, at the
more contrary to popular religion. This wholly new conception
. . .
of Zeus, which at the time could have been the dream only of a
few great minds, enables us to appreciate the extent to which the
religion of Aeschylus surpassed that of his time." may disregard We
the subjective portion of the statement; the author has a certain
ideal and calls those who stand more or less close to him "great
minds." Let us look only at the facts. Is it, after all, true that the
tragedies of Aeschylus contain the conceptions alluded to, and not

the conceptions of the ordinary Greek religion? To tell the truth,
the solution of that problem would be of little moment to us if it
were a question merely of determining the personal opinions of
Aeschylus. But the fact that opinions were expressed in his tragedies
and that his tragedies were well received by Athenian audiences,
points the way to the residues by which the Athenian public was
swayed and that
of greater importance to us.
is
1965. Evident in the trilogy of the Oresteia is the conflict between

a conception of a spontaneous, automatic consequence of crime, and
a conception of a judgment that one might make of it, taking ac-
count of the circumstances under which it was committed. One
might say, indeed, purpose of the trilogy was to state the
that the
problem arising in that conflict and solve it. As will be remembered,

the Erinyes are frustrated by Apollo, which implies that the second
notion prevails over the first. However, the first is far from yielding
the ground entirely, and Apollo's pronouncements are far from
1
conclusive.
*
1964 [Fragmenta, 34 (70), Smyth, Vol. II, p. 403.] Decharme, La critique des
traditions religieuses chcz les Grccs, p. 102.
x
1965 Eumcnides, vv. 658-66. According to Apollo a mother is just the nurse of
a child, the real parent being the father; and in proof he adduces a mythological
argument: a male, he says, may become a father without the concert of a female,
for Athena was born of Zeus without ever being nourished in a womb.
1966 ETHICS IN THE GREEK TRAGEDIES 1369
1966. Passages in the trilogy that bear on the subject may be
grouped in three categories:

i.
Passages which assume that murder engenders murder or, in
general, that violations of certain norms lead to other violations
and that, quite apart from any idea of "justice" or "injustice," or at
least laying
slight
and
insignificant emphasis upon that idea. After
Clytemnestra has killed Agamemnon the Chorus lays the guilt for
the murder on an evil genius that has made its way into the house of
the children of Tantalus; and Clytemnestra says, Agamemnon, vv.
1475-80: "Rightly hast thou uttered judgment through the words

of thy the thrice-gravid demon of this line. For he doth
lips, naming
breed in our bowels a lust for blood; and ere the olden woe hath
spent itself, behold, new blood!" And then come bits like the fol-
lowing (Choephoroe (The Mourners}, 48): expiation is v. "What

1
there for a blood fallen on the earth?" "The murderer must . . .
2
pay his debt." Electra asks the Chorus what she must wish for her
father's assassins, Choephoroe, vv. 119-21: "Chorus. That to them go
a demon or a mortal man. Electra. A judge or an avenger, sayest
thou? Chorus. Pray only, someone who will slay them in their
3
turn."
In a word, the fatality that broods over the line of the Atrei'des
is a derivation from the conception of a necessary link between
crime and consequences. Like all derivations of the kind, it is
its
not very definite, and not very logical; and thence the difficulties
one encounters the moment one sets out to determine exactly what,
in particular, the author's doctrine was and, worse still, in general,
what people of the time understood by the word "fate"; for one is
hunting for something that does not exist, in other words, for a
definite doctrine, and no such doctrine is there. It is not, be it
remembered, that good necessarily engenders good, and evil evil.
A belief of that sort would presuppose, implicitly at least, a sentiment

of "justice." Instead, evil may originate in the good. Aeschylus states
that opinion clearly, though, to be sure, disagreeing with it. The
Chorus says, Agamemnon, vv. 750-60: "An ancient rule hath been
a long time among mortals : a great and consummated happiness of
* Tt yap hvrpov Treadvrof cu/zarof
1966
2
1966 Agamemnon, v. 1562: e/cr/m cJ'6
1966
8
The last line reads: 'A7r/U>f n <t*paovo' t OGTI$
I37O TREATISE ON GENERAL SOCIOLOGY 1967
man doth procreate, and endeth not seedless; but from good for-
tune springeth everlasting misery. But my sense doth differ from
the general. Iniquity in time mature doth breed its like; but a house
that is blessed with a fair progeny." And the Chorus
truly just is
continues, paraphrasing these first lines. Aegisthus alludes to the

successive crimes, bred one of the other, which weigh upon the
house of Atreus. Whatever the circumstances, the necessary and
inevitable consequence of homicide is a stain upon the killer, be he
guilty or not guilty, be the killing deliberate or involuntary ( 1253).

Aeschylus, however, has doubts on that point. The Chorus in the
Eumenides, Athena cannot judge Orestes, since he
v. 430, says that
is unclean from homicide and therefore

incompetent to take an oath.
But Athena replies: "Thou dost prefer the word of right to the
4
deed thereof'; in other words, "Thou dost prefer the forms of
justice to
the substance thereof." It is well to note that the problem
stated in, those terms is not solved and that Athena
is
expressing
just an? opinion, because the
proceeds, Orestes asserting and
trial
proving that he has been purified; because, in other words, the

5
obstacle alleged by the Eumenides has been removed.
1967. 2. Passages in which the idea of justice is the main one. In
the first
place, the whole trilogy leads up to the triumph of that
idea over ancient usages: the new gods vanquish the ancient god-
desses and become their masters. Then again, the conception- of
fatality is frequently made to accord with the conception of "justice."

We have just seen conflicts between the two ideas. Aeschylus,
Choephoroe, vv. 59-64, settles them in favour of "justice." "A god
and a sovereign god is success (evrvîa) among mortals. But
promptly do the scales of justice tip for those who dwell in the
light.
Those who dwell on the bourne betwixt the light and the
darkness suffer more tardily; and there are those who abide in
everlasting night." The Eumenides, Eumenides, vv. 313-20, boast

dispensers of justice: "Our wrath assaileth not the
that they are the
4
"KMetv dtmlus fidhhov ij Trpat-cu
1966
5
1966 Orestes says, Eumenides, vv. 445-52: "I am tainted of no crime nor soiled
are my hands as I sit by thine image." And he proves it: "I will give thee a firm
proof of these things," the proof being, substantially, as follows: The law enjoins
silence upon the person who has not cleansed himself, and he has cleansed himself
with blood and with water. The talk is all about one thing: the mechanical
efficiency of expiatory blood and water.
DERIVATIONS AND REALITY 137!
man who protendeth hands undefiled, and he doth live out his days
secure. But the culprit who hideth blood-stained hands, as doth this
man [Orestes], to him do we reveal ourselves in our good time, true
*
witnesses for the slain, avengers of blood."
Both these two types of passages are alike in that they indicate
punishment as the inevitable consequence of crime. They differ as
to the manner in which the punishment comes about. But if
every
crime leads to misfortunes, not all misfortunes are born of crimes:
that to say, punishments are inflicted for deeds that are not viola-
is
tions of the norms of justice and morality and, conversely, some

violations go unpunished. And so we get a third group of lines:
1968. 3. Passages where the idea of "justice" is entirely absent.
Clytemnestra describes the destruction of Troy, the slaughter of the
vanquished, the pillaging, the burning, Agamemnon, vv. 338-40. But
all that nothing: "If the victors revere their tutelary gods and
is
the temples of the conquered land, they shall not in their turn be
*
vanquished."
The envy of the
1969. gods, about which the writers of ancient
Greece had so much to say ( 1986), also figures in the trilogy.
Agamemnon, Agamemnon, vv. 946-47, fears he will oflfend the gods
by treading purple carpets; and the Chorus remarks, vv. 1001-07,
that happiness breeds misfortune, that human prosperity is ever
coming to grief on some hidden shoal. He counsels, therefore, as the

part of prudence, that one should throw away some portion of
one's possessions.
1970. The here in question are discernible in the words
conflicts
uttered by Zeus in the first canto of the Odyssey; and Eustathius
rightly perceived that they raised the problem of the good or evil
which an individual brings upon himself by his own conduct, and
of the good or evil that the gods, or Fate, bring upon him inde-
pendently of any conduct on his part. Zeus begins by complaining,

I, vv. 32-41, that men lay the blame for their woes upon the gods,
1967 Êtimenides (supplement), vv. 732-33, reads: "At the time and day ap-
pointed doth the mortal who spurneth the gods sustain his punishment." Cf.
Euripides, Eacchac, vv. 882-90, quoted above, 1956 *; and Solon, Elegiac, XIII
5
(IV), vv. 27-32 (for quotation see 1980 ).
x
1968 In a fragment of the Niobe (Smyth, Vol. II, p. 432), it is said that "evil
thoughts doth the god inspire in the minds of men when he would ruin a lineage
1*
utterly.
1
whereas they really bring them upon themselves. The theory is
obvious: Punishment is the fruit of crime, and Zeus is sole witness
of things that happen. Athena in reply, I, vv. 45-62, puts forward
another theory: the woes of men ought only to be punishments for
their evil deeds. Aegisthus was justly punished. But Ulysses
has
done no wrong. He ought not be punished by being kept far from
his homeland. Zeus again has his say, I, vv. 63-75. He has by this
time forgotten his declaration that mortals are wrong in laying the
blame for theirwoes upon the gods. He now says that the woes of
Ulysses are due to the wrath of Poseidon, who is tormenting him
for putting out the eye of the Cyclops. Yet in that act Ulysses could
in no sense have sinned against the norms of justice! And so we get
a third theory: The woes of men come upon them partly because
they do foolish things, and partly because they are tormented by
some god quite apart from any wrong they have done. The other
gods, it is true, do what they can to embarrass Poseidon in behalf
of Ulysses; but they liftnot a finger to help the poor Phaeacians,
whom also Poseidon is punishing, not for any wrong they have done,
but quite to the contrary, for their good deed in helping Ulysses back
to his home in obedience to the divine precept that would have
strangers regarded as coming from Zeus!

1971. With these passages and others of the kind before one, it
1
1970 'Tor from us they say that evils come, and they themselves of their folly
have evils beyond what fate hath ordained. E'en now against fate hath Aegisthus
taken the wedded wife of the son of Atreus and him hath he slain on his return,
knowing well the dire disaster that awaited him; for we had sent Hermes, shrewd
slayer of Argus, unto him and admonished him that he slay not Agamemnon and
woo not his wife, for on him would fall the vengeance of Orestes of the line of
Atreus, when he, become of age, should return to his homeland." The god's remarks
arc to be taken in the following sense: "For from us they say that evils come, whereas
they of their folly," etc. That eliminates a formal contradiction between this dec-
larationby Zeus and a subsequent ascription of the misfortunes of Ulysses to the
wrath of Poseidon. But the substantial contradiction remains; for, after all, even if
only a portion of mortal woe comes from the gods, mortals have not been shown
wrong in complaining of the gods for sending that portion. Cf. Iliad, XXIV, vv. 527-
32, and Plato's remarks on the subject in the Respublica, II, 18, 379. Plato concludes,
II, 19, 38oA, that no one should be allowed to say that Zeus is the author of the evils
that befall men; and that even if he be responsible, what he does is righteous and
just, asserving to improve the wicked by chastising them. And no poet, he goes on
to say, should be allowed to teach that a man so punished is unfortunate. In Plato,
metaphysics is superimposed upon theology, and Zeus is little more than an ex-
ecutor of the sentences of metaphysics ( 2349 1 ).
I97 2 ETHICS IN THE GREEK TRAGEDIES 1373
*
is hard to understand how Girard could say that, in the Odyssey,
"if there is an idea on which the whole sequence of events visibly
depends, it is that on the one hand, men draw chastisement upon
themselves by their persistence in evil and that on the other, a bril-
liant reward is held in store for
energetic and patient virtue." A
brilliant reward indeed was handed out to the wretched and
virtuous Phaeacians! The contradictions in the first canto seem not
to have been observed by whoever wrote the poem. Later on doubts
arose and efforts were made to solve the problems to which they give
rise. In his
commentary on Odyssey> I, v. 34, Eustathius ascribes the
misfortunes of human beings on the one hand to Zeus and Fate,
whom he regards as one, and on the other to the imprudence, or
better, to the recklessness (dratffla/Ua) of men who sometimes work
their own undoing. He seems chiefly to consider whether the mis-
2
fortunes are independent of what men do, or dependent on conduct.
The example just given is
1972. one of the many many that might
be offered to show that oftentimes to go looking for the idea a
writer has in a certain piece of literature is a bootless task, and for
the reason that, in such cases, there is no single idea ( 541) in the
mind either of the writer or of the public he addresses. Both writer
and public follow the lead of sentiment, which is satisfied with
propositions that are undefined and sometimes accepts them even
when contradictory. There are two sentiments in people: a senti-
ment inspired by "deserved" misfortunes, and a sentiment inspired
by "undeserved" misfortunes. If every misfortune is said to be de-
served, only the first sentiment may be operative in certain circum-

stances, the second remaining inactive. Conversely, if it be a ques-
*
Le sentiment religieux en Grece, p. 97.
1971
2
1971 As examples of misfortunes not dependent on what men do, Eustathius,
Vol. I, p. 14, calls the attention of the Greeks to their own "I lippolytus, who suf-
fered unjustly at the hands of the Cyprian," to "Heracles, who was persecuted by
the wrath of Hera," to Bellerophon, Euchenor, and Ulysses. As examples of men
responsible for their own mishaps, he mentions Aegisthus; then the comrades of
Ulysses, who feasted on the cattle belonging to the Sun; Achilles, who had the
option of growing old on Phthios or dying young at Troy; Alexandrus (Paris),

who deserted Oenone to abduct Helen; finally, Elpenor, who met his death while
heavy with wine [by falling off the roof of Circe's palace]. All of those suffered
through their own imprudence or recklessness: ef oi/cemf aravOahias OVTOI Trdoxovciv.
It is interesting that Eustathius treats on the same footing criminals such as
Aegisthus and Paris, merely imprudent men such as Elpenor, and men of high
aspiration such as Achilles.
tion of misfortunes brought upon the innocent by fate, the second
sentiment comes into play and the first remains inactive.
That must be kept in mind in speaking of the gods and of
1973.
fate, of the conflict between "justice" and "fatality." The Emperor
Julian ridicules the God of the Hebrews for losing His temper at
very slight provocation; but he forgets that the gods of paganism
were not slower to wrath. As a matter of fact, human beings are
accustomed to ascribe to their gods the character traits of powerful
1
men.
1974. Bayet's booklet, Lefons de morale, which I quote so often
because it is in general use in French public schools and therefore
contains theories that are safe-guarded by the law "for the pro-
tection of lay education," starts out by giving an affirmative solution
to the problem as towhether virtue leads to happiness. We are told
in fact, pp. 1-2, 26 (italics and capitals Bayet's) "Good actions are
:
those which are useful to us: that is to say, those which make us
REALLY HAPPY. Bad actions are those which are harmful to us: that
isto say, those which will make us UNHAPPY. It may be said there-
fore that morality teaches us what we should do in order to be
*
truly happy!' The person therefore who follows the teachings of
1973
*
Julian is Contra impium Julianum, V (Opera, Vol. IX,
quoted by St. Cyril,
p. 746): "What
provocation could be more frivolous than the one which here
kindles God's wrath, if this writer is to be believed!" In point is the incident re-
counted in Num. Chapter 25, where God slays thousands of the Israelites because
they had been marrying women of the Moabites and worshipping the gods of such
wives.
x
1974 p. 6, following Hesiod, he says (see
Bayet further avers, 1942), that
"those who
heed the teachings of morality are always happy. Peace reigns in their
land. They are not called upon to endure the frightful sufferings of war [Of
course, no moral country has ever been the victim of another country's aggression.]
. . the Earth provides them with food in abundance. The bees give them honey.
.
The sheep give them their wool. They are always rich and free from worries, fin
that the goddess Science really seems to be stealing the business of old-fashioned
Superstition ( 1984).] But when men do not heed morality, misfortune falls upon
them." Farther along, p. 163, Bayet describes the misfortunes of the Protestants
under the reign of Louis XIV. If it be granted that "those who heed the teachings
of morality are always happy," it necessarily follows that the Protestants, who were
certainly unhappy, had not heeded the teachings of morality. There are not a few
formal contradictions as well. On p. 146 one may read: "ONE SACRIFICES ONESELF
when one consents to be
unhappy that others be happy. ... In self-sacrifice
may
one not only makes others happy: ONE is HAPPY ONESELF." The same individual is
therefore happy and unhappy at the same time.
morality will be truly [Mark the word!] happy. But to dispel every
doubt Bayet, after stating his
general theory, proceeds to a par-
ticular case: "It is said that it is our duty not to lie. That means
that if we lie we shall, sooner or later [Mark the restriction!], be un-
happy and that if we refrain from lying, we shall be TRULY HAPPY."

Finally, in case there be somebody who has not yet understood, he
adds: "It is as stupid and as dangerous not to heed the teachings
of MORALITY as it not to heed the teachings of MEDICINE."
is
Excellent! The theory as stated is clear. But a little further along,

p. 26, the writer quotes a remark of F. Buisson, to the effect that
in a day gone by the French serfs (manants) were "bent to the
ground, dirty, underfed, and taxed in produce and labour at their

lord's caprice." In other words, they were unhappy. So, if the in-
dividual who observes the norms of morality is always happy, the
French serfs must have been a bad lot indeed. But that, certainly,
isnot what Bayet intended to say! There is better yet. As we saw
2
above ( 1716 ), Bayet finds that present conditions in society are
not just and that "everyone should desire a change." But if the
theory just stated is true, it follows that if the poor nowadays are
unhappy, it is because they do not observe the norms of morality.
The remedy would therefore be to begin observing
for their troubles
them; for, as "morality teaches us what we should do in

Bayet says,
order to be truly happy." But is that the author's conclusion? Not
in the least! He has forgotten what he said back there. His remedy
now to vote for the Deputies and Senators of the Radical party
is
2
( 1716 ). But if that is necessary and enough to achieve greater
happiness for the poor, why did Bayet begin by saying that their
happiness depended on observance of the norms of morality? He
might, it is true, reply that in his judgment to vote for the Deputies
and Senators of the Radical party is a norm of morality. That re-
joinder would take us back to our solutions Ai (petitio principii). If
everything that is
capable in an author's judgment of achieving hap-
piness is said to be "moral," one may surely conclude that, still ac-
cording to that author, whatever moral achieves happiness. The
is
begging of a question always gives an indisputable syllogism. Bayet's

"Science" is probably that estimable entity which has been deified
during these late has nothing whatever to do with

years; but it
logico-experimental science. Many centuries intervened between

975
the datewhen Homer wrote the first canto of the Odyssey and the
day when Bayet gave his booklet to the world. The literary value of
the two things may be different, but the same inconsistencies are
present in both. true that the author of the Odyssey was not so
It is
presumptuous as to pretend that he was dispelling the darkness of

"superstition" with the transparent radiance of a "Science" sacro-
sanct.
1975.What consequences follow when the person observing or
violating the norm is different from the persons who derive the ad-
vantages or suffer the penalties resulting from his conduct ( 1898-
II) ? When that question arises a writer will either completely dis-
regard the problem of the correspondence of the conduct to the

happiness or unhappiness of the individual, or merely hint in some
roundabout way at an implicit solution. In our day that is the
case especially in the relations between rulers and ruled; and,
in general, writers seem to incline more or less
implicitly to one
of the two following theses: (i) That rulers are
obliged to comply
with existing norms that that there
that the question
is all is to it,
of consequences is irrelevant; or (2) that rulers

may violate such
norms for the public benefit but that is taken for without granted
too much analysis and sometimes, indeed, is glossed over with asser-
tions to the contrary. In one way or another the
necessity of solving
the problem of the correspondence of conduct to
1
consequences is
evaded. Anyone viewing the facts not minded
objectively, anyone
x
1975 The Anti-Machiavel, ascribed to Frederick II of Prussia, takes the position,
Preface, pp. viii-ix, that history ought to ignore bad rulers: "Only the names of
good princes should be preserved in history, the others with their indolence, their
should be allowed to die for ever. History-books, it is true,
injustices, their crimes,
would be fewer on that basis, but humanity would be the gainer, and the honour
of living in history and seeing one's name pass on from future
ages to eternity
would be the recompense of virtue alone; Machiavelli's book would cease infecting
the schools of politics; contempt would be visited upon the self-contradictions in
which it always involved; and the world would be convinced that the true
is
policy of kings, based exclusively on justice, prudence, and goodness, is in every

way preferable to the disconnected and horrible system that Machiavelli had the
effrontery to offer to the public.*' In very truth one good way to defend a thesis
would be to suppress knowledge of the facts that tend to demolish it. Baylc, Diction-
nalre historiquc, s.v. Machiavel, remarque E: "Boccalini claims that since the
reading of history is permitted and recommended, it is a mistake to condemn the
reading of Machiavelli. That is a way of saying that history teaches the same max-
ims as the Prince of that author. In history they are to be seen as
put into practice,
whereas they arc merely counselled in the Prince. That be the reasonmay why many
1975 MACHIAVELLI 1377
deliberately to shut his eyes to the light, is forced willynilly to recog-

nize that it is not by being moralists that rulers make their countries
prosperous. But he says nothing, or else apologizes for what he says,

by laying the blame for the facts on a "corrupt" humanity. Yet not
even in that way will he escape the charge of immorality that was
hurled at Machiavelli for merely stating uniformities which any-
2
body can verify (2459). Machiavelli has
by a glance at history
been accused of plagiarizing Aristotle and other writers. The fact

is, he happens to coincide with such of them as have described
realities. The case of Machiavelli shows how hard it is to make a
scientific analysis. The run of men

are incapable of keeping separate
two inquiries that are altogether distinct; i. The examination of
what we have called ( 129) real movements, which is a study of
facts and their relations. Are the by Machiavelli true
facts as stated
or untrue ? Are the relations that he finds between them real or un-
real? Those questions seem to have no interest for many writers
who attack Machiavelli or defend him, their whole attention cen-
tring on the following: 2. The examination of what we have called
intelligent people deem that it would be desirable if no history were written (see
Mascardi, Dell' arte historica). [In fact, if the term of comparison between theory
and reality can be suppressed, the theory can be constructed at pleasure.] But look
out our Florentine is accused of enriching himself on the spoils of Aristotle! . . .
Gentillet accuses of plagiarizing Bartoli. I am surprised that no one says he

him
stole his maxims from the Angelic Doctor, the great St. Thomas Aquinas. You may
read in Naude's Coups d'etat [Williams, pp. 16-18] a long passage from the com-
mentary of Thomas Aquinas on Book V of Aristotle's Politics. Monsignor Amelot
proves [Examen du Prince de Machiavel'] that Machiavelli is only a pupil or inter-
preter of Tacitus."
2
1975 Among the many pertinent passages in Machiavelli I will refer again, for
the moment, to the two quoted above ( 1929). Ariosto also says, Orlando Furioso,
IV, i:
"Though an ill wind appear in simulation,

And for the most such quality offends,
'Tis plain that this in many a situation
Is found to further beneficial ends,
And save from blame and danger and vexation,

Since we converse not always with our friends,
In this less clear than clouded mortal life,
Beset with snares and full of envious strife." (Rose)
For Machiavelli further, cf. Deca, II, 13: "I hold it very true that seldom if ever do
men of low estate rise to high place without use of force and deceit, unless such
place has been devised to them by gift or inheritance, some other having come of it.
Nor do I believe that force alone will ever be found to suffice, but it will be easily
975
( 130) virtual movements, which concerns the measures suitable
for attaining certain ends. Assailants of Machiavelli accuse him of
inciting princes to becometyrants.

His defenders reply that he
merely shows how a prince can attain that objective, but without
commending it. The accusation and the defence may stand side by
side, but neither has anything to do with the problem of determining
what going to happen under certain hypothetical circumstances.
is
Practical man that he was, Machiavelli chose to consider a concrete
case, which so becomes a particular instance of the general inquiry.

He wrote The Prince; but he might have written a Republic along
the same identical lines and to some extent did so in his Deca, or
Discourses on the first Ten Boo\s of Livy. Had he lived in our day,
he might have studied the parliamentary system. The problem he
set himself was to discover the best means available to princes for
found that deceit alone may suffice. And the very things which princes are
. . .
forced to do in the beginnings of their increase, republics also are forced to do, until
such time as they be grown powerful and able to stand on force alone. ... It is
evident that the Romans in their early increase showed no lack of fraud, which has
always of necessity been used by those who from lowly beginnings would rise to
exalted station and which is the less reprehensible the more covert it is, as was that
of the Romans." // principe, 15: "But it being my intent to write something of
profit to men of experience in such matters, I have deemed it the wiser part to fol-
low rather the effectual truth of things than the imagination thereof. And verily
many have imagined republics and principalities that man has never seen, nor
known of in the fact; for betwixt the manner in which men live and the manner
in which they ought to live there is a distance so great that the man who abandons
what is done in favour of what ought to be done learns rather his ruin than his
preservation; for he who would in all circumstances make profession of virtue can-
not but come to ruin amidst the many who are rascals/' To that the Anti-Mac hiavcl,
pp. 167-68, replies: "Machiavelli contends that it is not possible to be altogether
good in this world, the human race being as wicked and corrupt as it is, without
perishing. I say, instead, that if one is not to perish, one must be good and prudent.
Men ordinarily are neither altogether good nor altogether wicked. [The writer either
does not know or is pretending not to know that those arc Machiavelli's very words,
Deca, I, 27. Cf. 1704.] But wicked, good, and indifferent will all alike support a
prince that is powerful, skilful, just. I had much rather wage war on a tyrant than
on a good king, on a Louis XI than on a Louis XII, on a Domitian than on a
Trajan; for the good king will be well served and the tyrant's subjects will join my
troops. . . . No good and wise king was ever dethroned in England even by a
great army. All their bad kings succumbed to competitors who never began a war
with as many as four thousand trained troops. Do not therefore be dishonest with
rascals.Be virtuous and intrepid with them. And you will make your people as vir-
tuous as you arc. Your neighbours will be eager to imitate you and the rascals will
tremble."
holding their power; and he took two hypothetical cases the case
where the prince has newly acquired power and the case where the
power has been inherited. He might have made similar investigations
along the same lines for other types of political organization; and
still
along the same lines, he might have broadened the scope of
his inquiry and considered the means most suitable for
acquiring
economic or military power, political influence, and other things
of the kind. In so doing he would gradually have
gone on from
the particular concrete case that he actually examined to the
general
problems of virtual movements which sociology considers today.
That would not have been possible in his time, just as it would not
have been possible in the day of his one great predecessor, Aris-
totlethe social sciences had not as
yet been born. That fact only
emphasizes the extraordinary force of Aristotle's genius and still
more of Machiavelli's, in that they were able to attain such heights
with the very imperfect materials supplied them by the
knowledge
of their time. But also serves to
it
emphasize the stolid ignorance of
certain of our contemporaries who are not capable even of
grasping
the importance of the problem studied by Machiavelli, and who
try
to meet him with a mass of ethical and sentimental chatter that has
no scientific status whatever, though they are ridiculous enough in
their presumption toimagine they are experts in the political and
social sciences. An amusing instance would, again, be Ollivier.
8
He
3
1975 Just a few examples ofOllivier's general approach to history: L'Empire
liberal, Vol. V, pp. 61-66, 257-78 (we are not considering the accuracy of Ollivier's
assertions, of course we accept them at face value, as hypotheses for discussion):
"Napoleon III had come back from being bound to a
Italy in the consciousness of
vigorous act of capital importance: the reorganization of his army. It was urgent to
correct defects that the prestige of victory hid from the public, but which he had,
so to say, touched with his hand. It was a laborious task. The laxity in atmosphere
due to the habits contracted in Africa was easy to remedy. . . . Much more difficult
the problem of increasing contingents in case of war. [Ollivier goes on to de-
. . .
scribe the efforts made in that direction and claims that an excellent
reorganization
of the army had been planned.] But to carry out that fundamental reform,
money
was needed, a great deal of money. Now the Minister of Finance, the Budget Com-
mission, and the Legislative Body were all for economies. Had the Emperor come
to ask for new credits to any considerable amount, there would have been a riot
and not only from the Opposition. He would have met in the Legislative Body as
stubborn a resistance as was beginning in Prussia against the Regent's plan for mili-
tary organization along the same lines as Randon's. [Randon was the French War
Minister.] There was this difference in the two situations. The resistance in Prussia
had more strength at its disposal than was the case in France. A long and
mighty
tries not very hard to establish the concordance of good works
with happiness by postponing the happiness to some future time
( 1951); but that point with him is more or less incidental. The
bulk of his seventeen-volume history is zealously devoted to present-
effortand doubtful of outcome was required in Prussia to rouse the Deputies in the
Landtag. The Emperor, on the other hand, was in a position to checkmate ill will
in the Legislative Body with no great difficulty. It would have made a noise, but it
would have voted the money. But while the Regent in Prussia threw himself head
down into the parliamentary fray, risking everything, the Emperor stopped short at
the distant glimpse of a battle. The why of that difference in conduct holds the
secret of what was afterwards to happen.*'
"What was to happen afterwards" was all in Prussia's favour, and supremely
disastrous to France. It is therefore self-evident that France would have been the
gainer had been inverted, if, that is, her rulers had done what the Prussian
if roles
Regent did and the rulers in Prussia what the Emperor of the French did. Ollivier
however proceeds, p. 65, to state his conception of the reasons for those differences
in the respective procedures: "William was getting ready for a war that he wanted
in order to establish Prussiansupremacy in Germany. Napoleon III did not think
that he needed another war
moral [sic!~] supremacy in Europe
to maintain his
the only supremacy he desired. [It was, and no mistake about it, a disaster for
France that her sovereign should be forgetting force to that extent and thinking
only of "morality."] The Emperor could see no cause for a war, in whatever
. . .
direction he looked. Germany was hostile but powerless. [A fine statesman

. . .
not to know that one must trust not to the weakness of the enemy but to one's own
strength!] He alone
could create a cause of war by trying to seize Belgium or the
Rhine. . . .Had he
harboured that calculation, he would surely have braved the
Legislative Body's resistance to a costly reorganization of the army. But he was
thinking less than ever of expansions and aggressions. [But other people were, and
to ignore that fact may have been very moral but it was certainly very short-
sighted.] He whole of his thought in his address to the Legis-

expressed the literal
"
lative Body: 'I and I shall neglect nothing to maintain it.'
sincerely desire peace,
What a pity it did not occur to some
Deputy to interrupt and shout at him: "Si vis
pacem, para helium!" Ollivier draws the picture of an estimable private citizen and
an utterly wretched statesman. Everything he says sounds praises of the former and
damnation of the latter ( 2457). And that is not all. Here we are at the Mexican
venture. Ollivier washes the Emperor clean of any charge of deciding on that ex-
pedition for financial reasons, and adds, p. 257: "And there was no motive of ambi-
tion either." Nor was he tied to the Empress's apron-strings, pp. 257-58: "There has
been more specious allusion to the influence of the Empress. Her imagination
. . .
was of a chivalric turn and flared up at these distant glimpses of glory and honour.
She used her eloquence and her seductive charms to convince the Emperor. He was
all the more accessible to such pressure in that he had private sins to obtain her
forgiveness for. [Exemplary such remorse! But it is not so exemplary to make one's
country pay the ransom for one's sins. Henry IV of France had his petticoats too,
but that did not prevent him from being a good statesman and a good general.]
However, he did not follow her lead blindly, any more than he did anybody else's.
. . .
[But here, at last, are the reasons for the expedition, according to Ollivier:]
His realmotive was different. He was inconsolable at not having realized his pro-
1975 NAPOLEON III
1381
ing Napoleon III as a perfect gentleman. Since, however, it is not to

be denied that fate was not kind to the Emperor Louis Napoleon,
itwould seem proved, if one is to accept Ollivier's assertions with
eyes closed, that good works are not necessarily conjoined with good
gramme 'From the Alps to the Adriatic* and blotted from the history of his race
the stain of Campo Formio. [What a tender conscience: remorse for his private sins
is not enough. He is remorseful for the sins of his forefathers, and does penance
for them, or rather has the country he is governing do the penance.] But resolved
never again to enter Italy, he was looking about for means of obtaining what he no
longer intended to take by force. [What a gentle kind-hearted soul, and what an
ass!] He had proposed to the English Foreign Office to suggest a sale of Venetia in
concert with him. ... In obtaining a throne for the Archduke Maximilian, Napo-
leon III saw an unexpected opening for the liberation of the captive province. He
hoped that Francis Joseph would be pleased at the gift he was making his family
and later on consent, perhaps, to let go of Venetia in exchange for an expansion on
the Danube. The ghost of Venice stalks the halls of the Tuileries,' Nigra wrote to
Ricasoli, 'and the spectre has taken Napoleon III by the hand and led him to sign
"
the order to overthrow Juarez to make room for the Austrian Archduke.' That
ghost must have said to him: "Till we meet again at Philippi-Sedan!" Bismarck
knew the art and a rich harvest it bore the country he was ruling of laying such
ghosts. But there is still no end. The war of 1866 supervenes. Napoleon III declares
his neutrality and so allows Prussian power to grow to gigantic proportions. He had
forgotten the warning issued by Machiavelli in the Dcca II, 22: "Pope Leo did
not yield to the wishes of the king [of France], but was persuaded by his council-
lors, so it was said, to remain neutral, on the ground that it was not to the interest
of the Church that either the King or the Swiss should become powerful in Italy,
and that if the country were to be restored to her ancient liberties, she must first
be freed from the mastery of them both. .And no case could be more opportune
. .
than the present, since both were in the field, and the Pope's forces were well or-
dered to appear anew on the borders of Lombardy . and the battle was going to
. .
be a bloody one to both sides and the victor would be so weakened that the Pope
could easily assail and vanquish him, so remaining to his glory lord of Lombardy
and arbiter of all Italy. How mistaken that opinion was appeared from the event;
for the Swiss being defeated after a desperate battle, the armies of the Pope and the
Spaniards, far from adventuring to attack the victors, made ready for flight"
( 2472). Describing the events of 1866 Ollivier has a glimmer of the realities. Says
he, Vol. VIII, pp. 189-200: "In view of the disappointments that had followed on
it seemed imprudent, to say the least, to set out just
the spectacular gesture in Italy,
advance the results of a war in which we were hav-
as spectacularly to regulate in
ing no part." But then straightway he falls back into the dark again, and resumes
dreaming. He quotes an article of his own in which he advanced principles to
which he ever after adhered: "Where Right stands is clear. In Italy Right stands
with the army advancing to the deliverance of Venice. In Germany it stands with
the army under Austrian leadership that is advancing to protect Frankfurt and de-
liver Dresden. Right does not allow us to lay hand to the Rhine provinces. Right
forbids Prussia to seize Hanover, Hesse, and the Duchies, and Austria to keep Ven-
ice." How many many places for the most estimable Monsieur Right to keep an
eye on! But when the cannon thundered at Sedan, Metz, and Paris, Monsieur Right
fortune. Furthermore, in the passage in which he trusts to the future
to change bad luck to better, he does not at all make clear just how
the future going to right the wrongs of people who will be dead
is
before the change for the better comes. He does not seem to have a
3
very definite theory ( 1995 ), nor does he try to explain the dis-
crepancy between the misadventures of the French in 1870 and the
exemplary conduct of their Emperor before that time. Are we to
understand that it is the caseonly the other way round of the
Achaeans, who suffered so grievously from the pride of Agamem-
non ? Or are we to adopt some other explanation ? Ollivier does not
notice that the justifications that he makes of Louis Napoleon's
conduct from the standpoint of personal morality constitute a
thorough-going condemnation of that sovereign's conduct as a
4
statesman.
1976. People of vigorous faith
generally regard the supreme good
as incarnate in their faith and are therefore led to believe that ob-
servance of its norms All the same,
necessarily brings happiness.
when the term "happiness" stands for something tangibly existing
in the experimental world, the assertion of perfect accord between
observance and happiness, or between violation and unhappiness,
is too frequently contradicted by observation of fact to win any
1
wide assent. But ways are found to eliminate the conflict by suitable
was nowhere to be found; and seeing that no one had heeded his prohibitions re-
garding Hanover, Hesse, and the rest, he refused in a pet to interfere with the
annexation of Alsace-Lorraine. There would still be a long story to tell, but enough
for the present. Farther along ( 2455 f.) we shall return to these same facts and
consider them from another standpoint.
4
1975 Ollivier himself shows him as absolutely destitute of foresight on many
occasions: for instance, Op. cit., Vol. V, p. 67: "Bent nevertheless on carrying out
the policy of army decentralization that had been haunting his mind ever since the
Crimean War and which was the only means of effecting a rapid passage from a
peace footing to a war footing, Napoleon III directed Randon to execute it without
any increase in credits, and since it was impossible on that basis, that amounted to
abandoning it. And in fact, from that time on, neither Emperor nor minister paid
any further attention to it." Only a half-wit would consider a thing indispensable
and then order it to be carried out under conditions known to be impossible. And
yet Napoleon III was an intelligent man; but if he saw the better, he followed the
worse under the influence of sentiments that were active in him sentiments corre-
3
sponding to residues of Class II
2454 ).(
*
1976 Piepenbring, Theologie de I'Ancicn Testament, pp. 208-09 (continuing the
quotation in 1944 *) "For a long time these ideas seem to have raised no serious
:
objection, for none is met with in the more ancient texts. But as the events of his-
explanations, and to the production of them many persons have

addressed themselves from ancient times down to the
present. Now
and then theorizers will cut an argument out of whole cloth; more
often, and also with better results, they borrow them from certain
expressions of residues found ready to hand. Group-persistences, for

instance, lead people to think of this or that community as a unit;
and the theorist can avail himself of that fact to explain how mem-
bers of it
may suffer harm without doing anything to deserve it.
All he needs is to lay the blame for the trouble on some other per-
son in the group ( 1979).
1977. 82: Happiness and unhappiness removed in space and in
time. A
person performs the conduct , which is said to be followed M
by a happening, P, it also being possible for P to occur by chance.
It isevident that the longer the lapse of time between the conduct,
M, and the happening, P, the greater the probability that P will hap-
pen by chance; in fact, if the lapse of time is at all long, the chances
that P will are so great as to amount virtually to certainty.
happen
If a
person with a weakness for predicting lottery numbers does not
confine himself to a single drawing but asks for a century's time for
a given number to be drawn, he can be almost certain, not to say
certain, that his
prediction will come true. In the same way, if the
prophecy has a long and indefinite time in which to come true,
there is no danger of being belied by the outcome in predicting
tory and of individual lives came to be better observed and more thoughtfully pon-
dered [It was not so much the observation as the reflection that was lacking. Be-
sides, the general form of statement is defective: those who pondered and those
who gave the matter no thought were different people.] it was seen [Not by every-
body.] that experience gave the lie at every step to the theory of remuneration, that
many were lucky

rascals in life, virtuous people unfortunate. Whence a great
many
embarrassment for those who did not shut their eyes to the facts [The very distinc-
tion that should be drawn.], a pitfall to cause the believer to stumble and fill him
with doubt. That difficulty made itself especially felt beginning with the time of
the Captivity. At that time therefore the most earnest efforts were made to over-
1
come it." (Quotation continued in 1979 .) Cicero, De natura deorum, III, 32, 81,
after a of examples exclaims: "But the day would be too short for me to
list
enumerate the good men who have had bad fortune, nor any less so if I were to
mention all the rascals who have prospered." In his treatise On Tardy Punishments
of Guilt (De sera numinis vindicta, 4; Goodwin, Vol. IV, pp. 144-45), Plutarch piles
derivation on derivation to show that the conduct of the deity is always just, not
forgetting to keep the road home clear by remarking that the ways of the Lord are
inscrutable (a 84 solution, 1902).
that if a country does wrong it will sooner or later be punished, and
if it conducts itself
nobly, rewarded. No nation in the course of
years and centuries is in all respects fortunate or in all respects un-

fortunate; and any prophet who is not under restrictions of time
will always find the reward or punishment he is looking for.
One way of removing in space and in time the fortunes and
misfortunes that come to human beings is to say that if a man hap-
pens to be unlucky, it is all to his advantage as serving to correct
him of some fault or sin, or leading others to improve themselves;
and much more rarely, it is said, if a scoundrel has a stroke of luck,
that his prosperity will prove to be his undoing, since he will be
blinded by his success and so rush to his ruin, or else that it will
help to discredit material prosperity in the eyes of others by show-

3
ing that even a rascal can enjoy it ( 1995 ).

1978. In view of the brevity of human life, an individual is less
likely than a country to find the desired correspondence in time be-

tween conduct and its consequences. Nevertheless it is rare enough
for an individual A to be altogether fortunate, altogether unfortu-
nate; so for the person also the desired correspondence will be

found between this or that act on his part and its reward or punish-
ment. We
get accordingly a large number of theories that defer
the given individual's retribution in time, and a large number of
others holding that a man's troubles work for his regeneration and
so, if he will only wait, turn out to his advantage. Anyone speaking
at a given moment and declaring that the future will tell whether a
bad deed punished, a good deed rewarded, cannot be definitely
is
silenced by experience; for the future is as unknown to us as it is

to him. But if he is stating a theory in general terms, if he under-
stands it as applying to the past and that is the way it is
usually
understood we ought by this time to know just
what punishments
or rewards have been allotted before death to the people we know
about; and proceeding in that fashion one finds that the theory is
in no wise by experience. That is not noticed by persons
verified
swayed by sentiment; and the case is like the one discussed in

2
1440 , where we found people believing that the female descend-
ants of men who drink wine lose the ability to suckle children, re-
gardless of the fact that if that

theory were true, not a woman
1979 THE SINS OF THE BATHERS 1385
capable of suckling children could any longer be found in vine-

growing countries.
1979. We will find it all the easier to discover some blessing or
misfortune to correlate with some specific act if we broaden the
scope of our quest from a single individual to a number of them.
Powerful residues incline people to think of the family as a unit,
and we can avail ourselves of that circumstance to find among a
man's descendants some individual who has received the reward or
punishment for his conduct. Success in such a quest is certain.

When in the long course of the ages has a man's posterity been
l
known to be uniformly fortunate, or uniformly unfortunate?
*
Piepenbring, Theologie de VAncien Testament, pp. 208-10 (continuing the
1979
x
quotation in 1976 ) "The difficulty may perhaps have been glimpsed in an earlier
:
period and efforts made to obviate it by saying that God punishes the sins of the
fathers in the children and rewards posterity for the fidelity of the forbears. [Inter-
esting the attempt at justification that Piepenbring then makes:] And one must say
that that principle has some foundation in the law of solidarity and heredity that
can be seen operating in everyday experience, where children often suffer from the
faults of their parents or benefit by their virtues." Piepenbring does not notice that
what he is proving is not at all what he pretends to be proving; he is merely show-
ing that there is a nexus between a child's status and his father's conduct. What he
ispromising to show is that the nexus is of a certain particular kind. It may well
be that the vices and virtues of parents always have consequences for their children;
but that does not prove that the sins of parents always have evil consequences for
the children a usurer or a burglar may leave his son a wealthy man; nor that the
virtues of parents always have good consequences for their children a philanthropic
fatherwho sacrifices himself for the good of others may leave his child in want.
To show that the sins of the fathers are punished, and their virtues rewarded, in
their children, such cases have to be eliminated a fact that Piepenbring completely
disregards, so giving another example of the lack of logic in these matters. He con-
tinues: "But thatrelatively ancient principle also raised objections and inspired the
sarcastic proverb in Jer. 31:29 and Ezek. 18:2: The fathers have eaten sour grapes
and the children's teeth are set on edge.' It was met with the thought that each indi-
vidual bore the penalties for his own sin (Jer. 31:30: "Everyone shall die for his own
iniquity"; Ezek. 18:3: "The soul that sinncth, it shall die"). That was a way of sus-
taining the traditional point of view and avoiding an explanation that attenuated
which the problem raised. But in that case, how surmount the
at least the difficulty
difficulty? It was preached that man has no right to question God, the creature the
Creator, the work its maker (Is. 29:16: "For shall the work say of him that made
it: He made me not?" 45:9 f.: "Woe unto him that striveth with his maker"; Jer.
18, 6: "As the clay in the potter's hand, so are ye in
is my
hand") [Our 84 solu-
tion inscrutable arc the ways of the Lord]; that far from being righteous (just),
man was in reality sinful (Ezek. 18:29 f.: "Are not your ways unequal?" 23:17 .;
Is. 58:3 [Solution A, a verbal solution.], or else that the prosperity of the wicked
f.)
was only a fleeting thing and always led up to a disastrous ending, whereas the
misfortunes of the righteous can be but transitory (Ps. 73:16-24: "Thou didst set
1980. Dionysius the Elder, tyrant of Syracuse, committed every
kind of crime and sacrilege and gaily laughed at it all.
Returning to
his capital after pillaging the temple of Proserpine at Locris, his
ship had favourable winds, and he remarked to his friends: "See
what a good voyage the immortal gods themselves vouchsafe the
blasphemer!" In reporting this anecdote Valerius Maximus mentions
other examples of impiety and concludes: "Albeit Dionysius paid
not the penalty due him, he suffered in the infamy of his son after
his death the punishment which in this life
slowly he evaded. If
divine wrath proceeds to its vengeance, it compensate tardiness with

a
severity." In Horace, a dead man, Archytus, asks a sailor to cover
his bones with a little sand and assures him that if he refuses he
1
will leave behind him a crime for his children to expiate. L. Cor-
them in slippery places"; 9:18 f.; 37; 49; 55:23; 64; 94:8-23; Prov. 23, 17 f.: "Thine
expectation shall not be cut off"). [A 82 solution happiness removed in space and
time.] In some passages the writer even rises to the notion [Note the ethical con-
notation in the term "rises," which is foreign to the experimental domain.] that
misfortune has salutaryeffects on a man just as correction is salutary for the child
(Prov. 3:11 f.: "My son, despise not the chastening of the Lord"; Deut. 8:2-5:
"Forty years in the wilderness to humble thee"; Lament. 3:27-30). [Again Z?2.] In
Isaiah, finally, comes the thought that the righteous may be called to suffer for the
wicked and so to spare them merited punishment (Is. 53:5: "He was wounded for
our transgressions" [#2.]). The problem mentioned so concerned and so em-
. . .
barrassed Hebrew thinkers that one of them felt impelled to sound it to the bottom
and devote the whole Book of Job to it" [A 84 solution, i.e., no solution is found:
inscrutable are the ways of the Lord. All this great varying of derivations is a quest
for a way of reaching a point that determined in advance (
is 1414, 1628)].
a
1980 De dictis jactisque memorabilibus I, i, Externa excmpla, 3.
,
*
1980 Oda, I, 28 (2), vv. lo-ii (30-31):
"Negligis immeritis nocituram

postmodo te natis jraudcm committere forsan."
("You think it a light matter to commit a wrong that can only do harm to your
innocent children after you.") However, the passage is variously rendered. The
Pseudo-Acron comments (Paris, 1519, p. 36): "Fraudem committere: either that in
his eagerness to go on trading he will commit an act of deceit that will affect his
posterity, or that a crime of such inhumanity \inhumanitatis: Paris, 1519, reads bet-
ter: inhumati piaculum: failure to perform burial] would harm his children; or,
in order to keep him from considering too long he [the poet] threatens that the
man himself will after all suffer the punishment for his crime." Another scholiast,
Porphyrio, says (Paris, 1519, p. 37): "Negligis immeritis nocituram: The order is
'you think it a light matter to commit a wrong/ But the meaning is: you take me
lightly, and you think it will be easy to trick me. But the deceit will fall upon those
born of you, in other words upon your children." There is no doubt in any event
as to the punishment falling upon the children.
nelius Sulla passed his whole life in unbroken prosperity, but Faustus
Sulla, his son, was slain by the soldiers of Sittius, and Publius Sulla,
2
his grandson, was among Catiline's accomplices. Dining with one
of his veterans at Bologna, Augustus asked him whether it were
true that the man who had been the first to lay hand to the image
3
of the goddess Anaitis in Armenia had died paralyzed and blind.
The veteran replied that Augustus owed his dinner to one of the
goddess's legs; that he, the veteran, had been the first to lay ax
to the image and that all he owned had come of that bit of plunder.
If we knew the history of all the descendants of the veteran in
question, we could no doubt find one who had been a victim of

some misfortune, and we could imagine that his bad luck was the
when the unhappy Croesus
penalty for his ancestor's crime. Just so
lost his
kingdom and his liberty,
he sent ambassadors to Delphi to
rebuke Apollo for the misfortunes that had come upon him. The
god, answering through the lips
of the Pythia, did not accuse
2
1980 Seneca, DC consolations, ad Martiam, 12: "I will begin with a most happy
man. Lucius Sulla lost his son, but that fact did not attenuate his malice (militiam
misprint for malitiani) nor his fierce vigour against his enemies at home and abroad,
nor did it cast suspicion of inappropriatencss upon the name \_Fcli x~\ which he im-
pudently (salvo) borrowed from the son he had lost. Nor did a Sulla so truly Felix
ever fear the wrath of the mortals on whose sufferings his own excessive good for-
tune rested, nor the envy of the gods, who were insulted by it" (quorum illud crimcn
crat: Lodge: "whose crime it was that Sulla was so happie"). Pliny, Historia natu-
VII, 44 (Bostock-Riley, Vol. II, pp. 190-91): "One
ralis, man so far, Lucius Sulla,
has presumed to take the name of Felix, but in his case it came drenched in civil
blood from the ruins of his country." Pliny, however, adds that Sulla died unhappy
because of the hatred of his fellow-citizens and the sufferings of his last illness.
Duruy, Histoirc des Remains, Vol. II, pp. 712, 715 (Mahaffy, Vol. II, pp. 722-25,
728), takes a wider sweep: "In human affairs, justice sometimes leaps a generation.
[A very interesting uniformity of which Duruy fails to give the slightest proof.] It
was at Pharsalia thirty years afterwards [after Sulla's death] that the Roman nobil-
ity expiated Sulla's proscriptions." Ethical declamations such as these still circulate
under the name of history. Duruy is even worried about the remorse that Sulla
should have felt, but which seems not to have troubled him. He observes that for
the Romans a striking success justified everything and adds: "That is why the ter-
rible dictator died without remorse. And so it will be with all those who interpose
a false principle between their science and their conduct." The inference, and cer-
tainly not the one Duruy intended, would be that it is a good thing to have "false
principles" if one wants to be happy. But the question is not whether a man's hap-
piness to "false principles," but whether he can be happy in spite of his mis-
is due
conduct, leaving other people, his family, his caste, his country, or perhaps human-
ity at large, to pay the penalty for his sins.
8
1980 Pliny, Historia naturalis f XXXIII, 24.
Croesus of ever having sinned against gods or men. He said: "The
lot decreed by Fate cannot be voided even by a god. Croesus hath
been smitten for the sin of his ancestral parent of the fifth genera-
tion." Had
he chanced to enjoy a uniformly happy life, his son
might have been called upon to suffer the penalty for the crime of
4
an ancestor of the sixth generation; and so on indefinitely.
1981. Notwithstanding iniquities too numerous to count, the
Romans enjoyed long centuries of prosperity; but nothing prevents
one from assuming that retribution came in the Barbarian invasions.
So the Mohammedan invasions of a later date may have punished
the sins of the Christians, and the Christian invasions of Moslem
lands today the sins of the old Mohammedans. He who seeks finds,
and with no great effort.
1982. The
"responsibility" for crimes, as well as "rewards" for
good behaviour, may not only pass on to posterity but be extended
to communities variously constituted. Wide-spread among the
4
1980 I, 91. In reporting the legend Herodotus finds noth-
Herodotus, Historiae,
ing to criticize in Larcher, however, in a note to his translation of the passage,
it.
quotes a remark by Cicero, DC natura dconim, III, 38, 90: "Do I understand you
to say that the power of the gods is such that even if a man has escaped punishment
for his crimes by dying, those punishments fall on his children, grandchildren, and
descendants? O
wondrous equity of the Gods! Would any state tolerate the pro-
poser of a law of that kind, so that a son or grandson would be condemned if his
father or grandfather had committed a crime?" Larcher himself adds: "The philos-
opher Bio (Plutarch, De sera numinis vindicta, 19; Goodwin, Vol. IV, p. 171) had
preferred to ridicule that idea. 'If a god,' he said, 'were to punish children for the
crimes of their father, he would be more ridiculous than a doctor giving somebody
a medicine because his father or grandfather had at one time been sick.' People were
still without a sound notion of the Divinity in the day of our historian. There was
none such except among the Jews." And he quotes Deut. 24:16 and Ezek. 18:20, but
forgets many other passages to the contrary, and notably, Ex. 20:5: "For I the Lord
thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto
the third and fourth generations of them that hate me." Another example of the way
in which a virulent sentiment leads the mind astray. Larcher certainly knew the pas-
sage in Exodus and others of that sort in the Bible, but he disregards them in defer-
ence to sentiment. [Awkward paragraphing led Pareto into telling the anecdote of
Croesus and his oracle twice in this paragraph. I eliminate the first account in the
translation. A. L.] Solon, Elegiae, XIII (IV), On Righteousness, vv. 27-32 (Bergk,
Vol. II, p. 43; Edmonds, Vol. I, pp. 127-28): "The man with a wicked heart does
not for ever remain in secret, but in the end reveals himself utterly. The one has his
merited punishment sooner, the other later. If it seems that some escape and are not
overtaken by the pursuing destiny of the gods, they are smitten in the end. The
price of their misdeeds their innocent children pay, or later, perchance, their grand-
children."
1983 THE SINS OF THE FATHERS 1389
ancients was the belief that a man's sins were visited upon all his
fellow-citizens. Rome
even managed to benefit by the rascality of
some of her consuls, but she never made a theory of it. When
fail to evince
ancient writers any reluctance in admitting that chil-
dren should pay the penality for the parent, they are evidently re-
garding the family as a unit represented by the paterfamilias; and
similarly, when they speak of a city's being smitten for the misdeeds
1
of one of its citizens, they are thinking of the city as a unit. "Just"
in both cases is the punishment of the whole for the sin of the part,
much as a person's whole body suffers "justly" for the deed of the
hand. In that lies the main
residue (group-persistence), and only
incidentally is it used for the derivations that are designed to

reconcile the punishment (or rewarding) of the group with the
guilt (or merit) of the individual. Furthermore, what we call "guilt"

is identified, to some extent, at least, with an uncleanness that alters
the integrity of the individual, his family, and the various groups
to which he belongs. Thence quite spontaneously comes a feeling
that the integrity has to be restored as regards not only the indi-
vidual but also his family and his other affiliations of one sort or
another ( 1231 f.)
1983. Interesting among the various derivations just alluded to
is one to the effect that a city is justly punished for the crimes of any
one of its citizens, since itcould have avoided the penalty by chastis-
1
ing the culprit itself. Incidents in plenty betray the artificial charac-
ter of that derivation. Oftentimes a city or a
community suffered
the punishment before it knew of any crime or offender, and there-
fore was quite unable to punish the offender directly or expiate
the crime in any way. Ancient legends recite hosts of instances where
nations are punished for unknown crimes that are not revealed till
afterwards by prophets or soothsayers. The Achaeans were com-
pletely in the dark as to why the plague was ravaging their camp,
and before they could learn the reason Calchas, protected by Achilles,
had to reveal that Apollo was angry, and the cause of his wrath
1982
*
De sera numinis vindicta, 15-16 (Goodwin, Vol. IV, pp. 166-68).
Plutarch,
*
1983 Glotz, La solidarity de la jamille dans le droit criminel en Grcce, pp.
563-64: "That a city should speedily be punished for the crime of a citizen or ruler
is only just and is easily understandable.
Responsible to the gods, the state had only
to purge itself by a measure of public safety, a 'noxal' repudiation through death
or banishment."
(Iliad, vv. 93-100). Furthermore, not even after the revelation has
I,
been made does it even remotely occur to anyone that the Achaeans
should have inflicted some punishment or other on Agamemnon,
and the plague ceases not because of any such punishment there
was none, either before or after but because of the satisfaction
given to Apollo. Agamemnon decides to restore Chryseis to her
father of his own accord, because (Iliad, I, v. 117) "He wishes his
2
people safe that it
perish not," and he squares accounts by taking
Briseis away from Achilles. How could the Thebans have avoided
being smitten by the plague, when they were utterly ignorant of
the crimes of which Oedipus had unintentionally become guilty?
In fact the oracle of Apollo does not tax them with any fault. It
merely prescribes an expiation, the way a physician might prescribe
3
a medicine for a patient.
1984. If a nation could suffer by the misconduct of its king, it
could also benefit by his good conduct. Hesiod describes the happi-
ness of peoples ruled by just kings, and their unhappiness if ruled
by unjust ones. In his case, the notion that the conduct of kings is
punished or rewarded in their peoples merges with the experimental
notion that the welfare or unhappiness of a people depends upon
1
its
having a good or a bad government.
2
1983 fir)
airoMaOai. Dugas-Montbel annotates, Vol.
Boi'Ao^' fyw /laov c6ov tppevai
I, p. "Zenodotus suppressed this line as expressing too commonplace an
23:
idea; but taking it in connexion with what goes before, the thought gains in lofti-
ness from the sacrifice Agamemnon is making, since he consents to return his cap-
tive only to help his people. I do not think the criticism of Zenodotus can be sub-
scribed to, and none of the modern editors accept it." Considerations as to the
"commonplaceness" or "loftiness" of this or that "thought" are foreign to Homeric
times. Agamemnon could not have spoken differently; he is simply making clear
why he does what no one could have compelled him to do.

8
1983 Sophocles, Oedipus rex, vv. 96-98 (Storr, Vol. I, pp. 12-13): "Phoebus our
king doth bid us drive forth, and no longer support, so long as it be inexpiable, a
pollution (piaGpa) which this land doth sustain."
x
1984 Hesiod, Opera et dies, vv. 260-61:
("So long as the people pays for the recklessness of its kings.") Elie Reclus, a writer
who cannot be so very well grounded in his antiquity, pictures the Greek king as
something like a Negro chief procuring rain and all sorts of good things for his
subjects by magic. Says he, Les primitifs, pp. 271-72: "Men [according to certain
ancient writers] would ask nothing better than to riot in debaucheries and roll in
crime, were it not for the monarchs who repress greed and violence and bridle the
nations with laws. In those conceptions it is not always easy to distinguish between
1985 DERIVATIONS AND REALITY 139!
1985. The groups that suffered for the guilt of a member could
be more or Accidental companionship with the
less fortuitous.
wicked could hurt. That may happen in the experimental world
under certain circumstances. A
person violating the norms of pru-
dence inside a powder-magazine may bring death to everybody in
its
neighbourhood. It is assumed that the same thing happens in
other cases where there no experimental demonstration. Caught in
is
a storm at sea, Diagoras was taxed by the sailors on his ship with
being the cause of their misfortune. He replied by pointing to other
ships that were also in danger on the same course and asking whether
his accusers thought those ships too had a Diagoras aboard. 1 The
answer would seem conclusive to many people; but it was not. If it
be assumed that the atheism of Diagoras could harm people who
were with him on the same ship, it is just as easy to assume that it
could harm everybody in his neighbourhood, even though they were
on other ships. It is a question only of more or of less, of extending
or restricting the area within which the impiety of Diagoras had the
2
effect of causing a storm.
the cases where the god delegates his powers to man and where man receives his
powers from the god. That is why Hindu doctrine taught that Indra never rains on
a realm that has lost its king. Ulysses, the crafty Ulysses, explained to the chaste
Penelope, Odyssey, XIX, v. 108: 'Under a virtuous prince the earth bears barley and
grain in plenty: the trees are laden with fruits, the sheep bear many coats a year
"
and the sea teems with fish. A good leader means all that to us.' If Reclus had
examined the text he was quoting and grasped its meaning, he would have seen
that it does not say that "a good leader means all that to us," but makes the bless-
ings originate $ fvyyraiw, which means, beyond question, "from his good gov-
ernment [his good leading]." The text earlier explains that this king "governeth
with justice" evdiKaiae dvtxw, and that for that reason "the people doth prosper
under him" aper&ffi 6 Aao* vn' avrov.
1985
x
Cicero, De
natura deorum, III, 37, 89: "Idemque \Diagoras\ t cum ci navi-
ganti vectores advcrsa tempestate timidi et pcrtcrriti dicerent non iniuria sibi illud
accidere [No wonder such a thing was happening to them.], qui ilium in eamdem
navem reccpissent, ostcndit cis in eodcm cursu multas alias laborantes, quaesivitque
num ctiam Us navibus Diagoram vchi credcrent."
2
1985 Horace, Oda, III, 2, vv. 29-32:
". . . Saepc Dicspitcr
neglectus inccsto addidit integrum:

raro antccedcntem scelcstum
deseruit pedc poena claudo."
("Often has a slighted Jupiter classed the innocent man with the blasphemer. Rarely
has Punishment, even be she slow of foot, failed to overtake the rogue accursed who
has gained a start upon her.")
1986. The "envy of the gods" (<p06vo<; Oe&v) did not allow a man
to live a whole lifetime in happiness, and it extended to his
posterity and
his community. It is curious to note that Plutarch re-
bukes Herodotus for believing in such a thing, DC Hcrodoti mdig-
nitate, XV (Goodwin, IV, p. 337), but then gives an example of it
1
himself from the life of Aemilius Paulus. In this, as in other in-
stances of the kind, Class II residues are working. Paulus Aemilius
and his children are taken as one unit and no one thinks of dis-
tinguishing the children from the father. The group, the aggregate,
must not be altogether fortunate and is smitten, in fact, in one of
its
parts.
1987. Modern
theorists are in the habit of bitterly reproving an-
cient "prejudices" whereby the sins of the father were visited upon
the son. They fail a similar thing in our own
to notice that there is
society, in the sense that the sins of the father benefit the son and
1
acquit him of guilt. For the modern criminal it is a great good for-
tune to be able to count somewhere his ancestry or other
among
relations a criminal, a lunatic, or just a mere drunkard, for in a
court of law that will win him a lighter penalty or, not seldom, an
acquittal.Things have come to such a pass that there is hardly a

criminal case nowadays where that sort of defence is not put for-
ward. The old metaphysical proof that was used to show that a son
should be punished because of his father's wrongdoing was neither
*
1986 Aemilius Paulus, 35, 36 (Perrin, Vol. VI, pp. 447-51). In a speech to the
Roman People Paulus Aemilius explains how extraordinarily favourable Fortune had
been to him and the army in the war against Perseus and in everything else down
to his return home. Then he adds, 36, 4-5: "Nevertheless, having come hither safely
and seeing the city full of joy and well-being and busily applied to the performance
of the sacrifices, I did not on that account cease to hold Fortune suspect, knowing
full well that the great favours she grants unto men are not pure and undefiled nor
without taint of divine envy. Nor was I freed of the fear that my soul had con-
ceived at these things, in sore dread lest some public calamity impend, until I had
experienced a grievous misfortune about my own private hearth. For in these sacred
days I have buried, one after the other, those noble sons who were all I had left to
succeed me."
*
1987 As usual ( 587) derivations prove the pro and the contra equally well.
With Plutarch, De sera numinis vindicta, 16 (Goodwin, Vol. IV, p. 167), the sins
of the father are disasters for the son, the justification being, he says, that children
inherit more or less of their father's character. In the eyes of our modern humani-
tarians the sins of the father benefit the son by winning him, in case he commits a
crime, a lighter penalty or an acquittal, for, say our humanitarians, the father's sins
diminish the son's "responsibility."
1990 REWARD IN HEAVEN 1393
more nor valid than the proof used nowadays to show that the
less
punishment which otherwise he deserves should for the same reasons

be either mitigated or remitted. When, then, the effort to find an
excuse for the criminal in the sins of his ancestors proves unavailing,
there the recourse of finding one in the crimes of "society,"
is still
which, having failed to provide for the criminal's happiness, is

"guilty" of his crime. And the punishment proceeds to fall not upon
"society," but upon some onemembers, who is chosen at ran-
of its
dom and has nothing whatever to do with the presumed guilt.2

1988. The concept of "solidarity" that makes the good incur the
punishment of the wicked appears here and there in antiquity and

lateron becomes fundamental in Catholicism. To steal the thunder
of the "Solidarists" and Socialists Brunetiere used to lay great stress
on the point.
1989. By. Happiness and unhappiness located outside the real
world. From the standpoint of formal logic, solutions of this type
are incontrovertible. As we have time and again repeated, experi-
mental science can have nothing whatever to do with anything
transcending the experimental domain. Its competence ends at the
boundaries.
1990. We might recall here, as a matter of purely experimental
competence, that the theory that supernatural retribution and recom-

2
1987 The classical case is that of the starving man who steals a loaf of bread.
That he should be allowed to go free is understandable enough; but it is less under-
standable that "society's" obligation not to let him starve should devolve upon one
baker chosen at random and not on society as a whole. The logic of the situation
would seem to be to acquit the starving man and have society pay the baker for
the stolen loaf. Another case by no means hypothetical: A woman aims a revolver
at her seducer, misses him, and hits a third party who has nothing to do with the
quarrel. A
sympathetic jury acquits her. Let us grant that the woman is excusable
as a victim led to crime by her lover's misdeeds. Yet why should the penalty for
the man's rascality devolve upon a third party who is absolutely innocent? To satisfy
sentiments of languorous pity humanitarian legislators approve "probation" and
"suspended sentence" laws, thanks to which a person who has committed a first
theft is at once put in a position to commit a second. And why should the luxury
of humaneness be paid for by the unfortunate victim of the second theft and not by
society as a whole? In general, assuming that, as some say, the crime is more the
doing of society than of the criminal, it is sound enough to conclude that the crim-
inal should be set free or made to pay some very light penalty; but the same reason-
ing exactly leads to the conclusion that the victim of the crime should, within the
limits of the possible, be indemnified by society. As it is, the criminal only is looked
after and no one gives a thought to the victim.
pense were inventions of potentates designed to control their peoples,

cannot stand. The notions of such retribution and recompense exist
independently of any preconceived design. They are associated with
those residues of group-persistence whereby human personality
endures after death. Practical men
have, of course, taken advantage
of such ideas, just as they have of other sentiments in society.
Theorists too may have used them to solve their particular problems,
and have given them literary, metaphysical, or pseudo-scientific
forms. But they did not invent them: they merely gave shape to a
matter already existing and, like the men of affairs, utilized them for
their personal ends.
1991. Maimonides acquaints us with the theory of a Moslem sect,
called the Qadarites, and another called the Mu'tazilites, who car-
1
ried the solutions of our 82 and 3 types to their extremest limits.
Ordinarily people do not go so far. What we
huge get, rather,
is
numbers of explanations that are of mixed type and, more especially,

vague and indefinite.
1992. More or less of the mixed type are interpretations that do
not defer the consequences of an act to an imaginary world, but rest
content with relegating them to the realm of the possible. It is said,
for instance: "This individual is happy, but he might have been
happier"; "It is hard on this man, but might have been worse."
it
The scope of the possible is not definable, and so one can prove any-
thing one chooses. Pleasant rhetorical disquisitions in all

periods of
history have been devoted to this theme.
*
1991 Maimonides, Guide of the Perplexed, III, 17, Theory IV (Munk, Vol. Ill,
pp. 122-23; Friedlander, Vol. Ill, p. 70): "If a manhas an infirmity by birth though
he has not yet sinned, they say that that is a consequence of Divine Wisdom and
that it is better for that individual to be deformed in that way than to have had a
perfect constitution. [Solution ( 82
1978).] We do not know
advantagein what his
lies [Solution #4.], though the thing has happened to him not as a punishment but
for his good. [#2.] They make the same answer when a good man perishes. It is
that he may have all the greater recompense in the other world. [Solution #3.]
They go even farther with their absurdities. When they are asked why God is just
towards man without being so towards other creatures, and for just what sin an
animal has its throat cut, they resort to the ridiculous answer that that is better
for the animal, that God will reward it in another life. [#3.] Yes, say they, even
the flea and the louse that have been killed are to have their recompense for that
from God; and so if the mouse that has been torn to pieces by cat or hawk is inno-
cent, Pivine Wisdom, they say, has required that it be that way with that mouse,
and God will make amends to it in another life for what has happened to it in this."
1993. A hermit, once upon a time, was condemning the judg-
ments of God because he saw men who lived wickedly blessed with
many goods and prosperous, and men who lived virtuously cursed
with many woes. An angel came to him and led him to the abode of
another hermit who had lived long years in penance but was now
minded to return to the temptations of the world. The angel threw
the hermit the latter over a precipice; and pointed out that his
death, which was apparently in ill keeping with his righteous life,
was really its reward, as it
transported him to eternal beatitude. And
so, going on, the angelshowed the hermit other instances where an
apparent evil proved really to be a blessing, and vice versa?*
1994. Let no one imagine that our own age does not produce its
fairy-tales of the same sort. When our teetotallers are invited to
gaze upon men who have lived to advanced old age or given proof
of extraordinary physical or intellectual prowess despite their addic-
tion to wines or other alcoholic beverages, they answer that if such
men had been temperate they would have lived to even greater age
or been physically and intellectually even more remarkable. A
ratherhandsome type of the virtuist once said in a lecture: "We hear
of supreme statesmen and soldiers who were not chaste men, and of
heroic generals who were not chaste men. That is true, but had
they been chaste men they would have been greater men than they
were." In reasoning, or rather ranting, in such fashion, people for-
get that the burden of proof rests with the person who makes the
statement and that appealing merely to the possible is a good way
to mistake fire-flies for lanterns.
x
1993 Etienne de Bourbon, Anecdotes historiques, 396: "A variant of this cele-
brated apologue has been published by Thomas Wright, Latin Stories, No. 7, pp.
10-12 [Dc angelo qid duxit heremitam ad diversa hospitia] following English manu-
scripts. It is also to be found in the Gesta Romanorum (a collection of the fifteenth

century) [Dick, No. 220, pp. 234-37; Swan, No. 80, Vol. I, pp. 274-80], in Meon's
Nonveau recueil de jabliaux et contes, Vol. II, pp. 216-35, in the sermons (Con-
dones, Turin, 1527) of Albert of Padua, a preacher of the fourteenth century, in
the English poems of Thomas Parnell {The Hermit], and in the Magnum speculum
exemplorum, Douai, 1605, Vol. I, p. 152. It supplies the theme for an incident in
M. de Voltaire's Zadig, Voltaire replacing the angel with another hermit. Le Clerc,
Histoire litteraire dc la France, Vol. XXIII, p. 128, thinks he can connect it in origin
with the old 'Lives' of the anchorites of the desert. It seems in fact to have come
from the East. It appears in Oriental collections and even in the Koran, XVIII,
many
64. And cf. Luzel, Legendes chrStiennes de la Bretagne, Saint-Brieuc, 1874, p. 14
[read Legendes chretiennes de la Basse Bretagne, Vol. II, pp. i-n]."
1995. 54: No interpretation is discoverable inscrutable are the
ways of the Lord.

1
We can say simply that we cannot know why an
act leads to certain consequences and shrug our shoulders as to
whether they be "just" or "unjust." That seems to be the conclusion
reached in the Book of Job, and such was the doctrine of the
Ashariyah, as described by Maimonides. Now if a person sits with
2
his mouth closed, nobody can object to what he is saying. In the

same way there could be no objection to a person's going no farther
than saying that he knows nothing about the ways of the Lord,
provided he sticks to that doctrine consistently. But that, as a rule, is
not the case. A writer will start out by showing that he knows all
the ins and outs of "the ways of the Lord," and only when he is
pressed with objections does he come out with the claim that the
Lord's ways are inscrutable. Of that procedure we have an instance
in the arguments of St. Augustine that may well serve as typical
of its class. It is a general procedure, however, and is frequently en-
3
countered in the writings of theologians and other thinkers.
x
1995 Dante, Paradiso, XIX, vv. 79-81: "Now who art thou that with vision of
a span wouldst sit upon a bench and judge a thousand miles away?" (Norton.)
2
1995 Guide of the Perplexed, III, 17, Theory III (Munk, Vol. Ill, p. 121; Fried-
lander, Vol. Ill, pp. 69-70): "Members of that sect claim that it has been God's
pleasure to send prophets, to command, forbid, terrify, inspire hopes or fears,
though we have no power to act ourselves. He may therefore require impossible
things of us, and it is altogether possible that even though obeying a commandment
we may be punished or, disobeying, rewarded. In a word, it follows from that view
that the acts of God have no final purpose. They carry the load of all such absurdi-
ties for the pleasure of safe-guarding that opinion, and they go so far as to hold
that if see an individual who was born blind or a leper and can ascribe to him
we
no previous sin that could have made him deserve such a lot, we are to say: 'That
isGod's will'; and there is no injustice in it, for they hold that God is at liberty to
inflicttorments on the man who has not sinned and shower blessings on the sinner."
3
1995 In all the works of St. Augustine there is a continuous swinging back and
forth between an assertion that the ways of the Lord are unknowable and the claim
that they are perfectly well known to St. Augustine: Contra adversarium legis et
profetarum (Opera, Vol. VIII, p. 605), I, 21, 45: "The Apostle cries (Rom. n:
4
33-34): O, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God!
How unsearchable are His judgments and His ways past finding out! For who hath
known the mind of the Lord? or who hath been His counsellor?' " In the DC civi-
tate Dei, all of Chapter XX is a disquisition on the inscrutability of the Lord's ways.
Both good men and evil, the Saint says, partake of this world's goods; then: "We
really know not of what judgment of God this good man be poor and this wicked
man rich; why the one rejoices who, it would seem, should be in torment because
of his corrupt living, whilst the other dwells in sorrow, who would seem to merit
happiness for his commendable behaviour." And he recites many parallel cases. "If,"
1997 "INSCRUTABLE ARE THE WAYS OF THE LORD" 1397
1996. inconsistency of saying that one does not know what
The
one pretends to know very well is ordinarily not noticed because
of a controlling sentiment. At bottom the reasoning is of the follow-
ing type: "A ought to be B. If observation does not show that, I am

why; but that does not lessen my confidence that
at a loss to tell A
ought to be B." When it assumes that form, experimental science
can find no fault with it, for the reason we have so often men-
tioned, that it
joins no issue with faith. But oftentimes the form,
implicitly at least, is a different one, approaching the following type :
=
"A B. If that fact is not observable, we labour under an illusion,
for in reality, in a manner unknown to me, B." When and A= A B
fall within the domain of
experience, logico-experimental science is
competent to deal with such a proposition. If it observes that A

is not equal to B, it cannot admit that A = B, nor does it care
whether one can or cannot determine the cause of that fact.
1997. In this case, again, the proposition that "the ways of the
Lord are unknowable" was not invented by the theorists who have
he says, "that were the constant rule, if all the wicked were at all times prosperous,
and all the good unfortunate, one might assume that the cause was a
just judgment
of God, compensating worldly blessings and sorrows with blessings and sorrows
eternal. But it also happens that the good enjoy worldly blessings and that the
wicked are visited with worldly sorrows; wherefore all the more are the judgments
of God unfathomable, and His ways unsearchable." That much clear, the Saint, it
would seem, ought to stop and try no farther to fathom the unfathomable designs
of God. But not at all! From beginning to end in his book the Saint fathoms and
fathoms, quite as if they were discoverable. By the end of Chapter XX, he has
adopted one of our solutions, #3, and predicts that on the Day of Judgment we
shall see the justice of the judgments of God, even of those judgments the justice
of which is hidden from our eyes. Specially interesting his frantic efforts
at present
to find justifications for the fact that the Barbarian invasions had smitten the good
as well as the wicked. First he resorts to a solution of our #2 type: "Those evils,"
he says, I, i, "are to be ascribed to Divine Providence, which is wont to use wars
to correct and punish the sinfulness [corruption] of men"; then, suddenly, he
switches to one of our #3 solutions, averring that Providence sometimes afflicts the
righteous, allowing them thereafter to pass on to a better world, or even to remain
in this world if he has designs for their further service (#4). He dwells on the
point that the pagan temples did not save the lives of their worshippers, whereas
Christian asylums were respected. That takes us altogether away from the matter of
the relations between good conduct or sinful conduct and rewards or punishments.
The temples seem to work their effects some intrinsic property, very
in virtue of
much like lightning-rods, some of which are effective, others not. Then back we go
to the thorny problem of the blessings of the wicked and the sorrows of the good,
I, 8: "It hath pleased divine Providence," he says, "to prepare future blessings for
the good which the wicked shall not have, and for the wicked sorrows which shall
utilized it.
They found the sentiment, which is associated with Class
II residues, ready-made in the masses at large, and one after another
they have taken advantage of it, giving its manifestations, to be

sure,such forms as they pleased.
1998. Close kin to solutions of this type are metaphysical solutions
such as Kant's "categorical imperative," which posit a certain con-
ception of "duty," without going on to tell what happens to the
person who
snaps his fingers at his "duty" and ignores it. Such
solutions are not free from the usual inconsistencies, since they
assume as known everything of which the author approves, bring-
ing in the unknown only when it becomes necessary to answer the
objections thatmay properly be urged. A
type of such reasonings
would be the following: "A ought to be done because it is a conse-
quence of B" "And why ought B to be done?" "Because it is a con-
sequence of C" And so on until one asks, let us say, "Why ought P
to be done?" The answer to that question is a categorical impera-
tive. These metaphysical solutions are, in
general, for the use and
consumption of metaphysicists. Practical men and the masses at
large take little notice of them.

not come nigh the righteous." That is a #3 solution. But Augustine does not dis-
card the Bi type completely; after all, he says, the good are not without some sin:
"They are afflicted, together with the wicked, not because they lead as bad a life as
the wicked, but because they are no less enamoured of life in the flesh." Then he
shows, I, 10, that the saints lose nothing in losing temporal blessings (Ai) and that
good Christians, for their part, cannot mourn such loss without manifesting an in-
The pagans were noting the fact that even nuns consecrated to God
clination to sin.
had been violated by the Barbarians. The Saint discusses that point at length, tack-
ing and lulling as usual between solutions of our various types. He draws, I, 26, a
distinction between material and spiritual virginity (a verbal solution of the Ai
type) and says that only the material could have been violated by the Barbarians,
not the spiritual. Why, he asks, I, 28, did God permit such outrages to holy women?
He begins with a #4 solution: "the judgments of God are unfathomable, His ways
unsearchable." But he keeps fathoming and searching all the same, and with no
great effort hits on a Bi solution: Had the nuns in question not perhaps sinned
through pride in their virginity? "Verumtamen interrogate fidcliter animas vestras
ne forte de isto integritatis et continentiae vel pudicitiae bono vos inflatius extulistis,
et humanis laudibus delectatae in hoc etiam aliqttibus invidistis" ("envying others in
your delight in human praises"). In any event, those who have not sinned may
consider that God sometimes permits evil that He may punish it on the Day of
Judgment (#3). But unsatisfied, evidently, with that answer, he reverts to a Bi

solution: Those nuns who had made no boast of their chastity had perhaps some
secret vanity that might have eventuated in vainglory had they escaped, amidst so
many calamities, the humiliation that they actually experienced. In his twisting and
1999. C: Absolute negation: pessimism. Such solutions count for
little in the social equilibrium. They are never popular. They have
vogue primarily among men

of letters and philosophers, and are
valuable only as manifestations of the psychic state of this or that
individual. In moments of discouragement many people repeat, as
we saw, with Brutus, "Virtue, thou art but a name." Many people
enjoy reading the pessimistic poems of Leopardi just as they enjoy
listening to a well-written tragedy. But neither poem nor tragedy
has much influence on their conduct.
2000. Oftentimes pessimism acts as a spur to material enjoyments,
and many people of literary inclinations will repeat the maxim:
"Let us eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die." In Russia,
after the war with Japan, there was a movement for revolution,
with eager hopes of an exciting future. The revolution was put
down, the hopes were dispelled. A period of discouragement fol-
lowed, with a marked impulse towards purely physical enjoyments.
2001. D: Qualified negation: two different situations that may
have certain points in common. If the reader has attentively con-
sidered the many facts we have been assembling and to them
others, many many others, might readily be added he will already
turning from one solution to another, unable ever to settle upon an idea that is
even remotely definite, St. Augustine is a model of which copies too numerous to
count are to be found all the way along down to modern times, to say nothing of
the copies that will be provided by the future. In 1951, we quoted Bismarck's
French antagonist, Ollivier, to the effect that ingratitude is sooner or later punished.
Now that theory is clear and definite. Do not be ungrateful if you are, you will
be punished. If, in spite of your ingratitude, you are at present soaring on the wings
of success, look out do not trust in it: God (or some metaphysical entity) is grant-
ing it you today, the better to punish you tomorrow. That is a solution of the
to
/?2 type. Barring the difference between the person who is rewarded for his conduct
and the person who is punished for the conduct of someone else ( 1975), the the-
ory has the merit of justifying possible divergences between good works and the
attainment of happiness. But further along, Ollivier switches from that solution to
another. Says he, L Empire liberal, Vol. Ill, p. 590: "Just as evil is sometimes
f
crowned with a success that is a scandal to justice, so the good sometimes leads only
to undeserved reverses. In that lies a dispensation of Providence that eludes our
understanding" a solution of the #4 type. It would seem that Ollivier, whenever

he finds it convenient, does know the designs of Providence, and so he knows that,
sooner or later, Providence always punishes the wicked. But when his convenience
liesin another direction, he says that he does not know the designs of Providence.
If he does not know them, how does he know that Providence is going to punish
the wicked at some future time? If he knows that Providence is going to punish
the wicked at some future time, how can he say that he does not know its designs ?
I4OO THE MIND AND SOCIETY 20O2
have perceived the scientific solution of the problems stated in
1897-
As regards the first, strict observance of the norms prevailing in
a given community has certain effects that are advantageous
to the individual, to the
community, and to individual and com-
munity; and then again other effects that are disadvantageous
(2121 f.). Ordinarily the advantages outweigh the disadvantages.
Both advantage and disadvantage, however, can be determined
only
by an examination of each particular case.
As regards the second problem, it is to a certain extent bene-
ficial to believe that observance of the norms
prevailing in a com-
munity is always advantageous to individual and community, and
that that belief should be neither doubted nor controverted. That
attitude too has drawbacks, but ordinarily the favourable effects
its
overbalance the bad, and again in order to determine what

they
are an analysis of each particular case is
necessary.
Returning to the more general problems stated in 1897, we ma Y
repeat to the letter everything that we have just said, replacing the
term "norms" with the expression "the residues operative in a com-
munity, and their consequences." After that, we have to restate the
different solutions given to those
problems by theologies and meta-
physical systems. As for the first, metaphysical systems, and the
theologies of religions self-styled as "positive," usually hold that
to act in accord with the
existing residues which they accept, and
with the consequences of those residues, can
only have effects that
are "good," "just," "beneficial." But the
theologies of Progress and
of Reason, Holy of Holies, declare that to act
according to those
residues (they call them
"prejudices") and their consequences can
only have effects that are bad, harmful, pernicious. Logico-experi-
mental science, as usual, accepts neither the one set nor the other
of those dogmatic assertions, but insists on
testing each particular
case by experience, which alone can determine the
utility or harm-
fulness of certain modes of conduct.
2002. The examination we have just completed supplies an ex-
cellent of certain doctrines
example that are
experimentally unsound
but nevertheless have their social For more than two
great utility.
thousand years moralists have been
investigating the relations pre-
sumably subsisting between strict observance of the norms of ethics
2002 THE SCIENTIFIC SOLUTION 140!
and the consequent happiness or unhappiness of individuals or com-
munities. They have not
yet succeeded either in finding a theory
that squares with the facts or in stating a theory that is definite in
form and exclusively made up of terms designating experimental
entities. They keep repeating the same things over and over again.
A theory is demolished, then bobs up again, to be demolished a
second time, and so things go on unendingly (6i6f.). Even in
our day, when historians and other practitioners of the social sciences
set out to judge human conduct according to "morality," they re-
frain from
stating, as they should,
which solution of the problem
they are adopting. They leave their solution implicit, veiled in a
nebula of sentiment, a procedure that enables them to it at
change
their convenience and often to have two or more contradictory ones
in succession. That conclusions drawn in such fashion from premises
that are left unstated and therefore uncertain, impalpable, nebulous,
must have scant logico-experimental value is readily understandable ;
and such conclusions win acceptance in virtue of sentiment, and

nothing else. The disputes that rage in connexion with them are
mere wars of words. If the ethics of Aristotle is compared with
modern ethical systems, one sees at once that the difference be-
tween the two is
enormously less than the difference between
Aristotle's physics and modern physics. And why? It cannot be
claimed that the men who have dealt with the natural sciences have
been individuals of greater genius than the men who have dealt
with ethics. Not seldom one and the same author Aristotle, for
instance has written on both physics and ethics; and then again,
history furnishes no indication whatever of any such differences in

mental ability. A
cause of the unequal progress in those different
researches might be sought in their intrinsic difficulty: one might say
that chemistry, physics, and geology have advanced more rapidly
than ethics because their problems are not so difficult. Socrates hap-
*
pened to say that they were more difficult and they surely are as
compared with reasonings based on sentiment. But leaving Socrates
aside, howexplain the fact that down to about the fifteenth century
physics, chemistry, and the other natural sciences had made no
greater progress than ethics ? If they were the easier, how is
it that
they failed to produce results before that time ? The fact is that the
1
2002 Xenophon, Memorabilia, I, i, 11-13.
I4O2 TREATISE ON GENERAL SOCIOLOGY 2OO3
natural sciencesmarched part passu with ethics, and sometimes even
fellbehind, so long as they used the same theological, metaphysical
in other words, sentimental method that ethics used. But they
parted company with ethics and rapidly advanced when they
changed procedure and began to use the experimental method. It is

therefore evident that the unequal progress of ethics and the natural
sciences must be due principally to the difference in methods.
But we are not through with our question-marks yet! Why that
difference in methods? Granted that it may have been due in the
first place to mere chance! But why has it held its
ground for cen-
turies, as it still continues to do? The Athenians were as angry at
Anaxagoras, who said that the sun was a red-hot stone, as they were
at Socrates, who preached an ethics of which
they did not approve.
In times nearer our own, the "errors" of Copernicus, reiterated by
Galileo, were as zealously persecuted as the moral "errors" of the
heretics. Why now is there a free field for "errors" of the first kind,
while "errors" of the second kind are persecuted by public opinion
at all events and to some extent also
by public authority? It is evi-
dent that the difference in effectsmust be an indication of forces
that are different also. Prominent among these forces must be
counted social utilities. Experimental researches, even if imbibed
or practised by the masses at large, have proved beneficial; whereas
ethical have, under the same circumstances, proved
researches
harmful in that they are for ever shaking the foundations of the
social order. And in that we have proof and counter-proof of the
consequences that ensue when experimental truth and social utility

coincide or diverge ( 73).
2003. Propagation of residues. If certain residues are modified in
certain members of a community, the modification may spread
directly,by imitation. But that case is hard to distinguish from the

case where the diffusion takes place indirectly by virtue of changes
in certain circumstances, which modify residues in certain indi-
viduals and then gradually in others. All the same, it is easy to de-
termine that the second case is much the more frequent of the two,
for modifications in residues are seen to
go hand in hand with
modifications in economic, political, and other circumstances.
2004. Propagation of derivations. Here too there are analogous
situations. Since residues are
among the chief circumstances de-
2OO4 PROPAGATION OF RESIDUES AND DERIVATIONS 1403
termining derivations, the three following cases may arise: i. There

may be propagation by imitation or in other direct ways. 2. There
may be propagation through modifications in the residues corre-
sponding to the derivations. 3. There may be propagation through
other circumstances affecting the community at large.
It is
important to remember that the same residue, A, may produce
many derivations, S, S' 5" ( 2086), and that choice between
, . . .
these may be determined by a variety of causes, even by very slight

ones caprice, fashion, circumstances of insignificant importance.
The same may be said of the various manifestations of certain resi-
dues, certain sentiments. Familiar the fact that every so often some
form of suicide comes into vogue, so manifesting a sentiment of
1
weariness with life.
*
2004 In the fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth centuries the finger of Satan
was seen in everything. If a hail-storm came, if some animal or a human being fell
sick or, what is worse, died under circumstances at all strange, some sorcerer or
sorceresshad to have been at work. The man who was keeping a black cat or black
dog in his house was harbouring the Devil; and if Heaven forefend! he also
kept a toad, no reasonable doubt whatever was left that he was the sorcerer. After
the Eulenburg case in Germany, any two men seen walking together in that coun-
try were suspected of degenerate relations. After the Paterno trial in Italy, any man
seen frequently with a woman was suspected of living upon her shame. In 1913 an
army officer was tried in Milan on an accusation brought by fellow-officers of his,
who had become obsessed with just such suspicions, though the trial proved that
they had no foundations whatever in fact. If those individuals had been living in
the sixteenth century, they would have accused their colleague, with the same con-
viction and the same reasonableness, of being in the pay of Satan. A suicide that
took place in August, 1913, gave a writer in the Giornale d'Jtalia (Aug. 27, 1913)
occasion to make certain reflections that clearly show the fluctuating instability of
public feeling. We
quote the article here, suppressing names as usual, since we arc
interested in the facts strictly in the abstract: "A suicide not for love . What . .
took place on the occasion of this suicide is something worthy of examination by

experts in mob psychology. At first everybody was filled with a sense of profound
pity for the woman who had so tragically cut short her days and for the man who
was left to mourn her. A drama of the heart was suffused with a perfume of ro-
mance, and that excited the sensibilities of the public and stirred its emotions. Then
the rumor spread that X
[the suicide's last lover] was showing himself indifferent
to the violent end of and a veritable right-about occurred in public
his mistress,
opinion. All the sympathy turned to the woman, all the suspicions upon the young
man. People began to ask why Z [the suicide] had killed herself, and they laid the
blame on X, who had driven her to that act by his cruel indifference perhaps to
be rid of her. From there they went on to insinuate, though in veiled ways, that he
had been living on the poor woman's shame, and the wildest, most astonishing con-
jectures became current. The confusion was worse confounded by a statement made
by Y [representative of Z's family]; and that gentleman for a day or two enjoyed
1404 THE MIND AND SOCIETY 2OC>5
From that it follows that imitation, conversely to what hap-

2005.
pens with residues, plays an important role in the propagation of

the forms of derivations and of certain other manifestations of resi-
dues. All the individuals who speak a given language express
almost identical sentiments in terms on the whole similar. In the
same way all individuals who live in a given environment and are
affected by its many influences are inclined to manifest almost
identical sentiments in very similar forms. The similarity extends
to the derivations, or manifestations, of different residues. Suppose
the derivations S, S', S" . . .
correspond to the residue A; the der-
ivations T, T, T" . . . to the residue B, the derivations U, U', U"
to the residue C, Then, let us imagine that S,T,U
and so on. . . .
are somehow similar, are of the same general character, and that we
can say the same for S', T', U' . then for S", T" U" and . . ',
. . .
so on. Now happens, as a result of certain circumstances, even

if it
circumstances in themselves insignificant, that S is chosen to ex-
press the residue A, it will also be likely that will be chosen to T

express B, U
to express C, and so on in other words, the terms
will be chosen from the similar series, S, T, U. In different . . .
circumstances, at some other time, the terms selected will be those

of the similar series S', U'. T
And the same will be the case
, . . .
for other series. That is what actually happens. We observe that
during a certain period in history theological derivations, S, T, U

. .
,
are in fashion and that at another period they give way to
.
certain metaphysical derivations, S' , T', U'. . . . Not so long ago, a

series of "positivist" derivations was in and a series of Dar-
vogue,
winian derivations, which were used to explain everything and
a real popularityand was the object of demonstrative expressions of sympathy which
came altogether as a surprise to him. But the truth began to transpire. Letters of Z
began coming to light. They showed clearly that the cause of the suicide had not
been love. A
few days before deciding to take the fatal step, the woman herself
declared that she loved no one. Then public conjecture turned to the part money
may have played in the affair; but positive information emanating from X's family
and an agreement concluded with Y [the representative of Z's family] showed that
those conjectures were altogether unfounded. What, then, was the kernel of the
affair? The suicide was the whim of a hysterical woman hungry for pleasures, luxu-
ries, and the excitements of a varied and adventurous life; and she had not had the
stamina to endure a moment
of unjustified discouragement. Investigations by the
police authorities will lead to nothing. The only blame that can be attached to X
is that he did not act with enough decision in
keeping a revolver out of reach of a
woman who had the soul and the brain of a child."
2OO8 THE VARIED FLUX OF SENTIMENTS 1405
more besides. Concrete situations are complicated. Imitation plays a
more or less important part in them, but many other circumstances
also have their influence ( 1766).
2006. Marxism gave rise to an infinitude of similar derivations,
S", T", U" . . .
designed to explain all social phenomenon by
,
"capitalism" ( 1890). In that instance imitation is evident enough.

Such derivations express residues depending chiefly upon social
and economic circumstances, but those same residues might just as
well have been expressed in other derivations. It has been due
chiefly to imitation that the derivations S", T", U" . have been . .
chosen.
2007. That must be kept in mind when we are trying to get at
residues through derivations. Great social currents often produce
general changes in derivations, leaving residues unaffected. Of that

we have encountered many examples in the course of these vol-
umes. One period in history may use the derivations S, T, U . . .
and another the derivations S', T', U' . .

and, keeping to forms,
.
we might conclude that a great change has taken place, that the
two periods represent two quite different epochs in civilization;
whereas, at bottom, it is a case of residues that are the same, or
almost the same, expressing themselves in different forms at different
times.
2008. The examples above would be particular cases of phenomena
much more general that may be observed when religious, ethical,
metaphysical, or mythical derivations are adapting themselves to
the necessities of practical life. Theories cannot be entirely severed
from the practical. There must be a certain adjustment between
them, and that adjustment is effected by a series of actions and re-
actions. As we have seen in every
page of these volumes and con-
trarily to ordinary opinion, especially the opinion of moralists, men
of letters, and pseudo-scientists the influence
of practice upon
theory is, in social matters, much greater than the influence of

theories upon practice. It is the theories that make the adjustment
and not
to practice, practice the adjustment to theories. But that
does not mean and that fact too we have repeatedly stressed that
theories have no influence onpractice. that it means is that
All
ordinarily the influence of theories upon practice is much weaker

than the influence of practice upon theories a quite different mat-
ter. An examination of the latter influence, therefore, taken by
itself, approximation to concrete realities that
often gives a first
could never be had from an exclusive consideration of the influ-

1
ence of theories upon practice.
2009. Interests. Individuals and communities are spurred by in-
stinct and reason to acquire possession of material goods that are

useful or merely pleasurable for purposes of living, as well as to
seek consideration and honours. Such impulses, which may be
called "interests," play in the mass a very important part in de-
termining the social equilibrium.

2010. The economic
sphere. That mass of interests falls in very
considerable part within the purview of the science of economics,
on which we should enter at this point had that science not already
produced a very important bibliography of its own to which we
need merely refer. Here we shall confine ourselves to a few remarks
on the relations of the economic element to the other branches of
sociology.
2011. Pure economics. Just as a "pure jurisprudence" might deal
with the inferences that are logically to be drawn from certain
principles of law, so the function of "pure economics" is to find the
inferences deducible from certain hypotheses (825). Both of these
two sciences are valid in the realm of concrete fact, inasmuch as the
hypotheses or principles that they posit play a preponderant role in

concrete phenomena. The historical evolution of human knowledge
resolves itself into a movement outwards, which proceeds by analysis
from the concrete to the abstract, followed by a movement back-
wards, which proceeds by synthesis from the abstract to the concrete.
Starting with the practical necessities of

measuring the surfaces of
fields and other lands, people go on to abstract researches such as
geometry, arithmetic, and algebra; and then they go back from

those abstract researches to the arts of the surveyor and the cartog-
rapher. We
have three treatises on "economics" in ancient Greek,
two of them attributed to Aristotle (the Oeconomica, though one,
at least, is not his), and the other to Xenophon (the Oeconomicus).
2008 * This single remark is enough to demonstrate the futility of many many
books addressed to the study of political or social phenomena, not to mention
works on economics. I took it into account in my Manuals by considering an objec-
tive and a subjective aspect in every phenomenon.
2013 PROPAGATION OF RESIDUES AND DERIVATIONS 1407
They consist of practical considerations on the art of domestic gov-
ernment for individuals and cities. From such considerations one
goes on to the abstractions of pure economics. From "pure econom-
ics,'* now, the question is to get back again to the study of concrete
situations. But knowledge of such realities will not be attained by
trying to give the practical characteristics of ancient economics to

the abstractions obtained by analysis; just as knowledge of geodesy
and the art of surveying was not obtained by trying to give con-
creteness to Euclid's geometry. The course that has been followed
in a great many such cases is
altogether different; it lies, funda-
mentally, in a synthesis of a number of theories.
In every period of history there have been people to proclaim the
uselessness of abstract researches. In a certain sense they have been
right. Oftentimes, any one among such researches, taken by itself

apart from the rest, has little or no bearing on practical needs. They
acquire practical utility only when they are taken in the mass and
because of the habits of that they inculcate. From that stand-
mind
point, "pure economics," taken by itself, is of no more use than any
number of theories in geometry, arithmetic, algebra, mechanics,
thermodynamics, and so on, which are taught in all schools of en-
gineering today. As regards direct utility,

the study of exchange in
pure economics is like the study that is made in every course in
physics of a body falling in a vacuum similar in its merits and in

its defects, in its usefulness and its uselessness.
feather falling A
through the air does not follow the law of bodies falling in a
vacuum, any more than this or that exchange in actual practice
follows the uniformities discovered by pure economics. The case of
the feather does not prove that the study of mechanics is useless,
just as failure to meet the actual requirements exchange does not

of
1
prove the uselessness of pure economics ( 87 ).
Theory has usually appeared after the art; the disquisitions

2012.
of the Roman jurists came after the judgments rendered by the
Roman praetors. So the work of Adam Smith followed on number-
less treatises on practical economic
problems, and the works of
Walras and Edgeworth in pure economics came after numberless
treatises on theoretical and
practical economics.
2013. Given certain creatures who have appetites or tastes and
who encounter certain obstacles in their attempt to satisfy them,
what is
going to happen? The question is answered by pure eco-
nomics, and it a science of great scope, owing to the no scant
is
variety in tastes and the enormously great variety in obstacles. The

results that it achieves form an integral and not unimportant part of
sociology, but only a part; and in certain situations it may even

be a slight and negligible part, a part at any rate that must be taken
in conjunction with other parts to yield the picture of what happens
in reality.
2014. Applied economics. Just as one proceeds from rational me-
chanics to applied mechanics by supplementing the former with
considerations on concrete problems, so one proceeds from pure
economics to applied economics. Rational mechanics, for instance,
yields a theory of leverage. Applied mechanics tells how to con-
struct a lever that one can use. Pure economics determines the func-
tion of money in the economic sphere of life. Applied economics
describes monetary systems now in existence,
monetary systems of
the past, their transformations, and so on. In that way we get closer
to the concrete, but we do not reach it. Applied mechanics describes
how the parts of a steam-engine function; but it the part of
is
thermodynamics to show how steam functions; and then we have to

resort to many other considerations, the economic included, before
we can make a wise choice of a power-plant. Applied economics sup-
plies abounteous store of information as to the nature and history
of monetary systems; but to know how and why they arose, we
have to appeal to other sources of knowledge. Ignoring geology and
metallurgy, which we have to consult to find out how precious
metals have been obtained, and confining ourselves to social forces
only, we have still to learn how and why certain governments have
and others have not; how and why the gold
falsified their currency,
monometallism of England exists side by side with the bandy-legged

bimetallism of France, the silver monometallism of China, and the
paper monetary system of Italy and other countries. Money is an

instrument of exchange and as such is studied by economics. But
it is also an instrument for
levying taxes without suspicion on the
part of the public at large that it is being taxed; and in that con-
nexion the study of money belongs to the various branches of
sociology. We have purposely chosen an instance in which the eco-
nomic element is
by far the preponderant one. In others the gap
20l6 THE SCIENCE OF ECONOMICS 1409
between theory and practice is more conspicuous. Pure economics
shows that the direct mark the restriction the direct effect of pro-
tection by customs tariffs is a destruction of wealth. Applied eco-
nomics confirms that inference. But neither pure nor applied eco-
nomics can explain why English free trade prevails side by side with
American, German, and other numerous protections, all differing
in the degree to which protection is carried and in their methods of
application. Worse still, nobody understands why English prosperity

has increased under free trade, while German prosperity has in-
creased under protection (22o8f.).
2015. Hearing, on the one hand, that according to economic theo-
ries the effect of protection was the destruction of wealth, and seeing,
on the other, that protectionist countries nevertheless prospered,

many people were at their wits' ends, and not knowing the real
causes of the paradox, excogitated imaginary ones. Some branded as
erroneous economic theories that they were not even able to under-
stand. Others condemned any sort of social theory except the one
they happened to hold. Some turned disciples of Don Quixote (who
knew how to make a balsam that was excellent for Don Quixotes,
but deadly to Sancho Panzas), and came out with some "national
economy" or other that would be profitable to themselves and their

friends. Others, unable to find a reason for what was, went around
dreaming as to what ought to be. Some deserted the treacherous

ground of economics and took their stand in the swamps of ethics
and metaphysics, and others and others and others went wandering
in other directions, now this way, now that; but all the ways they
went were equally far distant from the one way that could have led
to the goal the experimental study of those social forces which
influence the economic factor in life and modify it.
2016. The science of the classical economists, to describe it
briefly,
applied itself, in part at least, to the examination not only of what

was but also of what ought to be, so, to a greater or lesser extent,
substituting sermonizing for the objective study of facts. Such a pro-
cedure is excusable in the first economists; and, in fact, at the time
of Adam Smith and Jean Baptiste Say it would have been difficult to
follow any other course. In those days all civilization seemed to be
undergoing a new birth, materially and intellectually. Misery, ig-

norance, and prejudice belonged to the past. The future was for
I4IO TREATISE ON GENERAL SOCIOLOGY 2OI7
prosperity, knowledge, rational behaviour. A
new religion was daz-
zling the minds of men. "Science," Holy of Holies, was casting non-
logicalconduct into the outer darkness, leaving Logic and Reason,
Holiest of Holies, as sole dwellers on Olympus. In addition to such
general causes there were others of a particular character; for

economic science had taken a gigantic step forward, something com-
parable to the advance in physics and chemistry. It seemed natural,
therefore, that the analogy should be carried farther, that only
ignorance could defend the older economic, physical, and chemical

fancies against the new theories, that the older economic doctrines
should give way to the modern, much as the theory of the phlogiston
had given way to the theory of equivalents. In those circumstances
the chief function of the economist was to dissipate "ignorance"
by teaching and preaching the "truth."

That conception of things seemed to find a decisive and brilliant
experimental confirmation in the success of Cobden's League. There,

people could say, you have predictions come true! The learned elo-
quence of Cobden and his friends had dissipated the darkness of
ignorance, defeated and abolished protection, and established free
trade, whereat England had prospered incredibly. Everywhere
leagues in imitation of Cobden's came into being; and it really

seemed as though the whole economic structure of the world were
to be made
over in the directions indicated by the economists. But
not one of the leagues in question achieved results even remotely
comparable to Cobden's. For a short time it could be legitimately
hoped that the failure was due to the difficulties that lay in the way
of teaching the ignorant. But that excuse is no longer valid, and it is
evident even to the blind that if the ignorant do not learn, it is
because they will not. Blame for the failure was laid on the poli-
ticians also, for
leading the ignorant astray with their chicanery, and
that, one must say, squares to a very considerable extent with the
facts; but there is still the mystery as to how and why the politicians
came to be able to wield the power they wielded and in that we
get one of those economic situations where the problem is
evidently
subordinate to the sociological problem.
2017. The classical economists envisaged what ought to be; de-
termined on it
by with very very few principles; and
logic, starting
since the logic and the principles were valid for the whole ter-
2019 PROPAGATION OF RESIDUES AND DERIVATIONS 14! I
raqueous globe found laws that were no less comprehensive in

their validity. But then, when they found their conclusions at war
with the facts, it became necessary to locate the error, and, as usual,
they thought they could find it in the premises and in the theory.
These, therefore, they declared false they were only incomplete
and set out to reject them entirely, whereas they should have tried to
fill them out.
2018. Suppose a geometrician discovers the theorem of the square
of the hypotenuse. He rightly concludes that a right-angled triangle
with sides three and four metres long respectively will have a
hypotenuse five metres in length. He then decides to transfer the
results of his theory into practice and says: "No matter how the three
sides are assumed to be measured, the three numbers indicated will
always result." An
observer in Paris sets out to verify the statement.
He takes a piece of string and without stretching it at all measures
off two sides, one three metres, the other four metres, in length.
Stretching the string as tight as he can, he finds his hypotenuse is

4.60 metres in length. In London another observer proceeds with a
string the other way round, and for sides of three and four metres
finds a hypotenuse of 5.40 metres. The results of the theory do not
To re-establish the accord it is necessary simply
accord with the facts!
to add
to the geometric theory specifications as to manners of
measuring the sides, which specifications may in their turn give

rise to various theories. The sum
of such theories plus the geometric
theory will enable one to explain and foresee facts such as the out-
comes of the experiments in Paris and London.
2019. But instead of supplementing the theory in that way, certain
persons come forward, who knows from where, and in order to re-
establish the accord deny the existence of geometry outright, and
reject
the theorem of the square of the hypotenuse because it has
been obtained by an "abuse" of the deductive method and fails to
take due account of ethics, which is so very very important to
humanity. Incidentally, even if there could be some theorem of

the sort, they deny that it could be the same in both Paris and
London. So they proclaim the substitution of "national" geometries,
differing with each country, for "universal" geometry, and conclude

that instead of worrying over geometric theories people ought simply
to write the "history" of all the measurements of right-angled tri-
1412 THE MIND AND SOCIETY 2O2O
angles ever made. And if somewhere, sometime, in measuring a

right-angled triangle, a boy has blown his nose and failed to count
his centimetres correctly, they write an inspiring dissertation on the
"ethics" of blowing one's nose and describe the boy at length, noting
whether his hair was red or black and other fascinating details of the
kind. That, with but very little caricature, is a picture of many
writings of the "historical school" of political economy ( 1790 f.).

2020. For some time that school enjoyed a thriving success
through causes foreign to logico-experimental science. It was a

reaction of nationalistic against cosmopolitan sentiments, and in
general of the sentiments of group-persistence (Class II) against

sentiments connected with the instinct of combinations (Class I).
Its ethical element gave rise to academic Socialism, which satisfied
the hankerings of certain middle-class rationalists who were un-
willing to go as far as the cosmopolitan doctrines of Karl Marx.

But it also had effects with a bearing on logico-experimental science,
though remaining outside the experimental field.
By setting up
another error against the error of classical economics it called atten-
tion to both. Directly, in view of its ethical inclinations, it was less
experimental than the classical school; but indirectly, through the

stress it laid on history, it served to demolish an edifice that was in
a fairway towards overreaching experience and soaring off into
nebulous realms of metaphysics.
2021. Marx
too thought he was getting closer to realities in re-
jecting the theory of value and replacing that very imperfect concept
so widely current in his day with another, even more imperfect,
which was, bottom, a copy for the worse of Ricardo's. With his
at
theory of "surplus value" he too introduced ethical considerations

into places where they did not belong. His sociological work, on the
other hand, is better, and by far. He too helped to tear down the
ethico-humanitarian edifice of a classical economics based on middle-
; and his notion of the
class interests
"class-struggle" emphasized the
absolute necessity of adding new notions to the concepts of eco-
nomics if one were to arrive at knowledge of concrete realities. As
for Marx's ethics, it was no better than the "bourgeois" ethics, but
it was different; and that was enough to open the way to a percep-
tion of the errors in both.
2022. Evident in many other ways, too numerous to mention here,
2O22 INTERDEPENDENCE IN ECONOMICS 1413
became the need of adding new considerations to those used in cer-
tain economic theories if one were to
get closer to concrete realities.
To one such way we alluded above ( 38, 1592) the effort to obtain
such a supplement by taking advantage of the indefiniteness of the
term "value." In that the error lies not so much in the end as in the
means, a means so indirect and leading over a road so long, so
tortuous, so broken by pitfalls, as never to get one to the desired
destination. It would be something like setting out to learn all Latin
grammar by studying the conjunction etl It is true enough that all

roads lead to Rome; but that particular road was long indeed and
hardly passable. A number of economists today are aware that the
results of their science are more or less at variance with concrete
fact, and arealive to the necessity of perfecting it. They go wrong,
rather, in their choice of means to that end. They try obstinately to
get from their science alone the materials they know are needed for
a closer approximation to fact; whereas they should resort to other
sciences and go into them thoroughly not just incidentally for
their bearing on the given economic problem. The economists in
question are bent on changing sometimes on destroying instead

of supplementing. So they go round and round like squirrels in
their cages, chattering forever about "value," "capital," "interest,"
and so on, repeating for the hundredth time things known to
everybody, and looking for some new "principle" that will give a
"better" economics and for only a few of them, alas, does "better"
mean in better accord with the facts; for the majority it means in
better accord with certain sentiments they hold. Even with those
few their effort, for the present at least, is doomed to disappointment.
Until economic science is much farther advanced, "economic prin-
ciples" are less important to the economists than the reciprocal

bearings of the results of economics and the results of the other
social sciences.
Many economists are paying no attention to such
interrelations, for mastery of them is and fatiguing task re-
a long
quiring an extensive knowledge of facts; whereas anyone with a

little
imagination, a pen, and a few reams of paper can relieve him-
self of a chat on "principles."
What was just said applies also to many other doctrines that pur-
port to give theories of the phenomena of human society ( 2269,
2273). Any given social science, unless it is
purely and exclusively
1414 TREATISE ON GENERAL SOCIOLOGY 2O22
descriptive, unless it
confines itself to saying, "In such and such a
case A
was observed, and simultaneously 5, C, . . ." and refrains D
from drawing the slightest inference from that concurrence and
from passing judgment on it in any way at all, necessarily rests on
solutions of problems belonging to a category of which the general
type would be: "In what mutual correlation do A, B, C

stand to
each other?" And that type differs only in form from the following,
which envisages virtual movements ( 136): "If A arises in a situa-
tion where it was not observable before, or observable as changed in
its old situation, what other facts, B, C have arisen or changed . . .
,
with it ? If B arises in a situation where it was never observable be-

fore, or arises in modified form in its old situation, what other facts,
A, C , have.arisen or been modified with it?" And so on for
. .
C, D l
. . . . To visualize the situation more readily, suppose we
2022 1 Here we have one
of the many cases in which mathematical language en-
ables one an exactness and a rigour impossible in ordinary language. Let
to achieve
x, y, s f u, v be indices of the magnitudes of A, B, C.

. . . The relations (as . . .
we call them in the text) between A, B, C are then given by certain equations: . . .
System i:
<f> l (x, y . .
.) =o <
2 (x, y ...)== .
All the quantities x, y may be functions of the time t, which may, moreover,
. . .
figure explicitly in the System (of equations) which we have numbered i. This
system, if we assume the time as variable, represents the relationships of A, B, C . . .
and the evolution of those relationships Only a knowledge, vague and im- in time.
perfect as it may be, of System i enables us to have any knowledge at all of those
relationships and their evolution in time. Most writers do not take account of that
system, in fact are not even aware of its existence. But that does not prevent their
taking it, unwittingly, as the premise of their thinking. If it is assumed that the
number of equations in System i is equal to the number of unknowns, the un-
knowns are all determined. If it is assumed that the number of equations is smaller
than the number of unknowns which amounts to suppressing, hypothetically, some
condition ( 130) that really exists s, u, v . . .
may be taken as independent
variables, equal in number to the number of equations suppressed, and x, y . . .
may be assumed to be functions of those independent variables. If we differentiate

equations i with reference to the independent variables, we get a second system:
System2:
Bx Sy
I = I, 2 . . .
The total differentials dx, dy represent virtual movements that arise when it is . . .
assumed that the independent variables, s, u, v are changed into s -}- ds, u -\- du. . . .
,
. .These virtual movements are determined by the equations in System 2. In

.
mathematics, the Systems i and 2, or the systems into which they may be assumed
2022 PROPAGATION OF RESIDUES AND DERIVATIONS 1415
reduce the general case of relationship to the particular case of a
relationship of cause and effect between and B, C. It is evident A
that any social science proposing to determine the effects of the
interposition of the cause, A, has to be in a position to recognize the
effects, B, C. . . . That problem differs only in form from the fol-
lowing: "If is A
brought in or is modified, what effects, B, . . .
,
C
will arise or be modified?" Solutions of these problems may be asked
and of their synthesis
of the various branches of the social sciences
expressed in sociology. But many writers who deal with the social
sciences, far from having an even vaguely approximative notion of

the solutions, are incapable of understanding how problems should
be stated and are not even aware that they exist. The purpose of
their researches is, in general, to find arguments that will support
doctrines which they get from the intellectual set to which they be-
as transformed, are equivalents. Transition from the first to the second is effected
through differentiation, from the second to the first through integration. Very fre-
quently the second system is much more easy to establish directly than the first. If
nothing is known of those two systems, nothing known either of the relations that
is
may obtain between A, B, C. . .

something is known about those relations,
. If
something by that very fact is known about the Systems i and 2. To establish the
relations by considering not what is, but what "ought" to be, is to replace with
products of the imagination the Systems i and 2 that are yielded by experience
and to build on clouds. If there is only one independent variable, s, it is generally
called the "cause" of the "effects" x, y and its increase, ds, is called the "cause"
. . .
of the virtual movements dx, dy. When relations of cause and effect are alone
. . .
considered, what takes place, from the mathematical standpoint, is a reduction of

the Systems i and 2 to the following, or other equivalent systems:
System 3: </> 1 (x, s) =o <]> 2 (y f s) = o...

<j_ O <^> l <f>2
& $2
System 4: ds -j
dx o ds -\ dy o . . .
Ss Sx Ss Sy
These two systems are much easier to deal with than the systems i and 2, whether
in ordinary or in mathematical language ( 2092 1 ). It is advisable, therefore, to re-
place Systems i and 2 with them as often as possible. In some cases such substi-
tution yields a solution at least approximate of the problem that is being dealt with.
In other cases the substitution cannot be made, and then to replace the Systems i and
2 with the Systems 3 and 4 is impracticable because it would give results that have
nothing in common with reality. From the mathematical standpoint the integra-
tion of System 2 does not, as we have seen, reproduce System i only, but yields
more comprehensive solutions, one of which is the System i. To determine System i
exhaustively, therefore, other considerations have to be brought in. So the integra-
tion of System 4 not only reproduces System 3, but also introduces arbitrary con-
stants that have to be determined by other considerations. That, after all, is very
long or with which they are currying favour; from governmental

ministries that hire them or with which they would "stand well";
from the political or social parties with which they are affiliated;
from theological, metaphysical, ethical, patriotic, or other beliefs that
2
are advocates, rather than impartial
they happen to hold. They
judges. If they like A, the only question is how to show that all its
consequences are infallibly "advantageous"; if

they dislike A, "dis-
gcncrally the case in applications of mathematics to concrete facts. Even in the

elementary problems of algebra, when a solution is given by an equation of the
second degree, one often gets one root that is suitable to the problem and another
that has to be rejected as unsuitable. I make this remark here because of the inept
objection of a certain writer, who imagines that equations of type 2 cannot repre-
sent the solution of an economic problem, because they yield multiple solutions,
whereas there can be but one actual solution. To obtain a clearer understanding of
the general theory here set forth, one might study a particular case, such as the
determination of the economic equilibrium, with a system of the type 2. That I do
in the appendix to my Manttale, and in an article already mentioned ("Economic
mathematiquc") in the Encyclopedic dcs sciences mathcmatiques.

From the strictly mathematical point of view the independent variable in 3 and 4
may be changed, taking x instead of s, for instance. In such a case, in the ter-
minology of ordinary language, s would correspond to the "effect" and x to the
"cause." Such an interchange in terms is at times admissible, at other times not;
for in ordinary language the word "cause" is not just an independent variable; it
has other characteristics besides it has, for instance, to be anterior in time to its
"effect." So selling-price may be considered as the "effect," and cost of production

as the "cause"; or the relationship may be inverted, and cost of production
may be considered as the "effect" and selling-price as the "cause"; for in that case
there is a sequence of actions and reactions which enable one to assume at pleasure
that supply precedes demand or that demand precedes supply ( 2092 x ). In reality
there is a mutual correlation between demand and supply, and that correlation may
be stated theoretically by the equations of pure economics. However, as regards
terminology it would not be possible to invert in that way such a correlation as
the freezing of water in a pipe, called the "cause," and the bursting of the pipe
called an "effect," and to say that the bursting of the pipe is the "cause" of the
freezing. But if, terminology aside, we consider only the experimental relationship
between the two facts, taken apart from all other facts, it is altogether possible to
infer the bursting of the pipe from the freezing of water, and vice versa. In reality
there is a mutual correlation between the temperature that turns water into a solid
and the resistance of the container that holds the water. Resorting to mathematical
language, the science of thermodynamics is able to state that interrelation in

exact terms. Ordinary language, instead, states it roughly.
2
2022 many "economists" have repropounded and continue to repropound the
If
theory of fiat money (Pareto, Cours, 276), it is not so much from any ignorance on
their part of economic science as from eagerness to please the ministries and political
parties that use currency issues as a means of levying taxes surreptitiously.
2022 INTERDEPENDENCE IN ECONOMICS 1417
advantageous"; never of course even defining such terms or stating
3
just what utility (2in.)
they have in mind.
Sometimes the better of such writers barricade themselves in some
one department of science and try to refrain from any venturing
into departments in which they sense that a
danger lurks. So classi-
cal economists stoutly maintained that
they kept strictly aloof from
4
questions of politics. Others arrive at an identical point by adhering,
whether through prejudice, ignorance, mental indolence, or some
other brain condition, to ready-made solutions bearing on certain
5
subjects. So many economists accept the solutions of current moral-
ity without subjecting them to an even casual examination. In
former days they accepted the sanctity of private property, and now
that the wind is changing they fall under the spell of a more or
less diluted Socialism. Many writers take for granted the absolute
power of an entity that they call the "State," especially of a certain

"ethical State"; study under the microscope the insignificant effects
of the incidences of an income-tax and disregard the more important
influences that permit a government to impose an income-tax or
prevent it from doing so; lose their way in complicated calculations
of compound interest on the assumption that money-savers arrive
at their decisions by a logic that they have never never used and
overlook the "effects" of the income-tax on class-circulation
8
2022 Oftentimes they defend their views by resorting to the fallacy called
ignoratio elenchi evasion of an answer. If doubts are expressed as to the reality
of the relationships that they pretend to establish between A and B, C . .
they.
reply that such doubts emanate from heretics of the predominant religion (in days
gone by, Christianity and the monarchical faith; nowadays the religion of Progress
and Democracy), or from bad citizens, patriots, or
immoral, disreputable indi-
poor
viduals. Now the question really is who
voicing them, but whether the doubts
not is
are justified or dispelled by experience. There would be no fallacy if it were pos-

sible to establish an identity between experimental reality and the beliefs of the
numerous religions, the no numerous moralities, the various kinds of patriotism
less
beliefs frequently in contradiction one with another and the various conceptions
of honesty, and so on, that human beings hold. But not always is any such identity
alleged, and when it is, no experimental proof is, or can be, given of it; whereas
proofs to the contrary abound.
2022 * A
scientist of great merit, G. de Molinari, editor of the Journal des econo-
mistcs, never ceased repeating to his contributors: "Surtout, pas de politiquel"

6
2022 The author of these pages fell at one time into that error and must humbly
plead mca culpa. However, he has done his best to mend his ways: Errare humantim
cst, pcrscrvcrarc diabolicuml
(2025!:.) and the "effects" of class-circulation on the income-tax.
Not long ago it was an article of faith with such men that the
income-tax "ought" to be proportional; nowadays with their succes-

sors, it is an article of faith that it "ought" to be progressive. Often-
times, individuals who concern themselves with such matters do

not knowthat such changes in doctrines take place in correlation
with other social facts, or at least they err grotesquely as to the
nature of that correlation. In such ways and others still are the inter-
dependencies of social phenomena disregarded or misconstrued, and

at the
present time that is one of the most serious obstacles to prog-
ress in the social sciences.
2023. In solving problems such as the one stated in 2013 we
have to consider not just the economic phenomenon taken by itself,
but also the whole social situation, of which the economic situation
is
only a phase. Evidently, the general state, X, of a country may be
analyzed into two states; an economic state, A, and a non-economic
state, B. Let us assume that the economic state, A, develops into A '
Ifwe grant that knowledge of that development is sufficient to de-

termine the general social state, X' , which results from the change,
we therewith admit that A and B are independent, that it is possible
to cause variations in A without affecting B, and conversely. If we do
not admit that, neither can we grant that knowledge of A' is enough
to supply full knowledge of X '. Before we can have that, we must
know what B has been doing, that is to say, we must know B'; and
we cannot know B' unless we know the mutual relationship of
A and B. A number of economists have reasoned, not analytically
but on the gross concrete, as if A and B were independent, thinking
that they could study A without reference to B. That cannot be laid
up against the founders of the science, for problems have to be

studied one at a time, and an investigation of the influence of the
single element A
is a
necessary preparation for the investigation of
the combined influence of A
plus B. Champions of the economic
interpretation of history had the great merit of perceiving the cor-
relation of Aand B, but fell into the error of interpreting it as a
cause-and-effect relationship, where A
was the "cause" of B. Nor can
they, in turn, be blamed too severely for that; for before the real
character of the correlation of and A B
could be determined, it was
necessary to know that the correlation was there. Now that
progress
2025 CLASS-CIRCULATION 1419
in science has demonstrated the correlation, there is no excuse for
economists to continue in ignorance of it, nor are they excusable in
1
giving the correlation a form that it does not have in reality.
2024. Much has been done for the investigation of the economic
phase of society, and that much we shall utilize for a knowledge

of that special element in social life as a whole, taken apart from
other elements. In utilizing writings on economic science, we shall
find it advisable to eliminate everything relating directly or in-
directly to ethics, if
for no other reason, for the reason that not
being engaged in a special study of the ethical aspects of their sub-

ject,
writers and use indefinite ethical terms that, as we have
accept
shown repeatedly and at length, will yield any meaning one chooses.
We shall also eliminate everything that sounds like counsel, admoni-
tion, or preaching, or is designed to encourage this or that practical

conduct. Matters of that kind are foreign to science and have to be
kept out of scientific research, if one would avoid serious mistakes.

2025. Heterogeneousness of society and circulation among its vari-
ous dements* We have more than once found ourselves called upon
to consider the heterogeneous character of society, and we shall have
to consider it all the more closely now that we are coming to our
investigation of the conditions that determine the social equilibrium.

To have a clear road ahead of us, it would be wise to go into that
2
matter somewhat thoroughly at this point.
Whether certain theorists likeor not, the fact is that human

it
society is not a homogeneous thing, that individuals are physically,

morally, and intellectually different. Here we are interested in things
as they actually are. Of that fact, therefore, we have to take account.
And we must also take account of another fact: that the social
classes are not entirely distinct, even in countries where a caste sys-
tem prevails; and that in modern civilized countries circulation
among the various classes is

exceedingly rapid. To consider at all
*
2023 In our chapter next following we are to examine society as a whole,
taking the interdependence of A and B into account in its real form.
2025
*
A first rough sketch of the theory I am about to set forth was published
in my Systemes socialistes.
2
2025 The matter of social hetcrogeneousness and the question of circulation
among its various elements might be examined separately and apart from each other;
but since the phenomena corresponding to them appear in combination in the con-
crete, there will be advantages in considering them together, so avoiding repetitions.
1420 THE MIND AND SOCIETY 2O25
exhaustively here this matter of the diversity of the vastly numerous
social groups and the numberless ways in which they mix is out of
8
the question. As usual, therefore, since we cannot have the more,
we must rest content with the less and
try to make the problem easier
in order to have it more manageable. That is a first step along a
the
path that others may go on following. We shall consider the prob-

3
2025 Even if it could be done, it would be better, for the reasons stated in
540, not to carry the investigation beyond certain limits. When a number of ele-
ments, A, B, C P, Q, R, S . , are influencing a situation, it

. . . is important to
. .
have at the outset an idea, be it a very rough idea, of the quantitative total of
such influences and then go on to consider just certain elements, A, B . Pf the . .
influence of which is considerable, disregarding other elements, Q, R. . . . So we

get a first approximation, which
be succeeded by other approximations, if
may
there is anybody disposed, equipped, and at liberty to make them. Many people are
not aware of that an ignorance that has a number of causes, among which it may
be worth while to note the following: i. Habitual addiction to absolute, meta-
physical considerations, and verbal derivations of the sort that have been dealt
with throughout the course of these volumes ("natural law" or other such entities),
considerations and derivations that are something altogether different from the
quantitative notions of the experimental sciences. 2. An inclination to look, in his-
tory, primarily for the anecdote and the ethical judgment. An element, Q, which
may be having a virtually zero effect upon the phenomenon in hand, may
show very considerable index from the standpoint of anecdote or ethics.
a
Protestantism in its early phases has very fair indices of an anecdotal, moral, and
theological character. Its effects upon the ruling class in France were practically
nil, on the ruling classes in Prussia very considerable. Protestantism should there-
fore be disregarded in studying the French ruling classes, but taken into account in
studying ruling classes in Prussia. There are people who go even farther along
that path of error and place a scandalous love-affair of Julius Caesar's on a par
with his campaign in Gaul, or Napoleon's alleged licentiousness on a par with
his genius as a strategist. Those are the people who for centuries have been pre-
tending that the great and significant changes in human society have not seldom
been due to the whim of a sovereign, the caprice of some female favourite, or other
such spicy details of little or no moment. In the nineteenth century such people
seemed to be losing prestige; but of late they have come into vogue again, curtain-
ing the vacuum of their derivations with pompous verbal flourishes. 3. The pre-
sumption that to get the theory of a situation one must have "all the facts," down
to the most insignificant. If that were true, it would not be necessary to draw any
distinctions in the series A, B P, Q and such elements would all have
. . . . . .
to be placed on a footing. Another consequence would be that not a single natural

science could exist; for all the natural sciences are in a perpetual state of develop-
ment and came into being at a time when any number of terms in the series A, B
. .
Q . were unknown. What is more, we do not know all such terms even
P, . . .
now and never shall. The pretension in question may be excusable in Hegelians,
who withhold the name of science from Newton's astronomy; but it becomes some-
what ridiculous on the lips of people who admit that astronomy is a science and
ought to know, or be silent until they learn, that Newton founded modern astron-
2026 THE "ELITE" 1421
lem only in its
bearing on the social equilibrium and try to reduce
as far as possible the numbers of the groups and the modes of
circulation, putting under one head phenomena that prove to be
4
roughly and after a fashion similar.
2026. Social elites and their circulation*
Suppose we begin by giv-
omy at a time when among

the things that were then unknown and are now
known is to be counted the existence of a major planet, no less the planet Nep-
tune and many small planetoids. But such considerations can hardly be grasped
by people who have not mastered the fundamentals of the experimental method
or at least forget them when they begin chattering on social science. As we declared
very early in these volumes ( 20), our purpose in them is to build up a sociology
on the model of the experimental sciences and not on the model of the science of
Hegel, Vera, or any other mctaphysicist in fact it is our firm intention to keep
as far away as we from such "science." 4. And finally, intellectual lazi-
possibly can
ness, which is ever inclining people to take the smoother and less fatiguing road.
The effort required to bring important facts, A,B P, under a theory, or merely . . .
to determine their significance, greater than the effort required to find one such
is
fact, and greater, far far greater, than the effort required to find one of the less
important facts, Q, R. . . .
Indeed, some of those facts are the more easily deter-
mined in proportion as their influence upon a given situation is slight. Infinitely
required, and less genius, to add one more observation of
less intellectual effort is
fact to the facts that Kepler had before him in his

study of Mars than is required
to discover,as Kepler discovered, the approximate
shape of the orbit of Mars.
In Newton's time only a little patience was required to add a new observation to
the many then available as to the celestial bodies; but it took the genius of a
Newton to formulate a theory of universal gravitation. In the social sciences it takes
little talent to find some detail of fact that a writer has overlooked. The plain man
and many persons who are one subject or another are plain men
scientists in
in sociology has convenient encyclopaedias for such things, and a
"library rat," a
bookworm, can even go to the original sources. Hardly more effort is required to
write a history according to an ethics dictated by a man's own sentiment, and to
criticize everybody else who does not follow him in their beliefs. But it is a differ-
ent matter to find an experimental theory that, as a first approximation,
manages
to correlate the more important facts, A, B .
P; and people who are not fitted
. .
to make that effort should turn their talents to more congenial pursuits.
2025
4 A
general theory, of which the one with which we are dealing is only a
particular case, may be found stated in Sensini's "Teoria dell' equilibria di com-
posizione delle classi sociali."
2026 x Kolabinska, La circulation des en Prance, p. 5: "The outstanding idea
elites
9
in the term 'elite is 'superiority.' That
the only one I keep. I disregard secondary
is
connotations of appreciation or as to the utility of such superiority. I am not inter-

ested here in what is desirable. I am making a simple study of what is. In a
I mean by the elite in a society
broad sense people who possess in marked degree
qualities of intelligence, character, skill, capacity, of whatever kind. ... On the
other hand I entirely avoid any sort of judgment on the merits and utility of such
9
classes." [The phrase "circulation of elites? is well established in Continental litera-
ture. Pareto himself renders it in Italian as "circulation of the elite (selected, chosen,
ing a theoretical definition of the thing we are dealing with, making
it as exact as
possible, and then go on to see what practical consid-
erations we can replace it with to get a first approximation. Let us
for the moment completely disregard considerations as to the good
or bad, useful or harmful, praiseworthy or reprehensible character
of the various traits in individuals, and confine ourselves to degrees
to whether, in other words, the trait in a
given case be slight,
average, intense, or more exactly, to the index that may be assigned
to each individual with reference to the degree, or intensity, in him
of the trait in question.
2027. Let us assume that in every branch of human each
activity
individual is given an index which stands as a sign of his capacity,
very much the way grades are given in the various subjects in
examinations in school. The highest type of lawyer, for instance,
will be
given 10. The man who does not get a client will be given i
reserving zero for the man who is an out-and-out idiot. To the
man who has made his millions honestly or dishonestly as the
case may be we will give 10. To the man who has earned his
thousands we
will give 6; to such as just manage to keep out of
the poor-house, i, keeping zero for those who get in. To the woman
"in politics," such as the Aspasia of Pericles, the Maintenon of Louis
XIV, the Pompadour of Louis XV, who has managed to infatuate

a man power and play a part in the man's career, we shall give
of
some higher number, such as 8 or 9; to the strumpet who merely
satisfies the senses of such a man and exerts no influence on public
affairs, we shall give zero. To a clever rascal who knows how to fool
people and still keep clear of the penitentiary, we shall give 8, 9, or

10, according to the number of geese he has plucked and the amount
of money he has been able to get out of them. To the sneak-thief
who snatches a piece of silver from a restaurant table and runs away
into the arms of a policeman, we shall give i. To a poet like Carducci
we 9 according to our tastes;
shall give 8 or to a scribbler who
puts
people to rout with his sonnets we shall give zero. For chess-players
we can get very precise indices, noting what matches, and how
ruling, "better") classes." It is a cumbersome phrase and not very exact, and I see
no reason for preferring it to the more natural and, in most connexions, the more
exact, English phrase, class-circulation. A. L.]
many, they have won. And so on for all the branches of human
activity.
2028. We are speaking, remember, of an
not a potential,
actual,
state. If at an English examination a pupil
says: "I could know
if I chose to; I do not know
English very well any because I have
never seen fit to learn," the examiner replies: "I am not interested
in your alibi. The grade for what you know is zero." If, similarly,
someone says: "So-and-so does not steal, not because he couldn't, but
because he is
reply: "Very well, we admire
a gentleman," we him
for his self-control, but his grade as a thief is zero."
2029.There are people who worship Napoleon Bonaparte as a
god. There are people who hate him as the lowest of criminals.
Which are right? We do not choose to solve that question in con-
nexion with a quite different matter. Whether Napoleon was a good
man or a bad man, he was certainly not an idiot, nor a man of little
account, as millions of others are. He had exceptional qualities, and
that enough for us to give him a high ranking, though without
is
prejudice of any sort to questions that might be raised as to the ethics

of his qualities or their social utility.
2030. In short, we are here as usual resorting to scientific analysis,
which distinguishes one problem from another and studies each one
separately. As
usual, again, we are replacing imperceptible variations
in absolutely exact numbers with the sharp variations corresponding
to groupings by class, just as in examinations those who are passed
are sharply and
arbitrarily distinguished from those who are "failed,"
and just as in the matter of physical age we distinguish children
from young people, the young from the aged.
2031. So let us make a class of the people who have the highest
indices in their branch of activity, and to that class give the name
(119) of elite.
2032. For the particular investigation with which we are engaged,

a study of the social equilibrium, it will help if we further divide
that class into two classes: a governing elite, comprising individuals
who directly or indirectly play some considerable part in govern-
1
ment, and a non-governing elite, comprising the rest.
x
2032 Kolabinska, Op. cit., p. 6: "We have just enumerated different categories of
individuals comprising the elite. They may also be classified in many other ways.
For the purpose I have in view in this study it is better to divide the elite into two
2033. A chesschampion is certainly a member of the elite, but
it is no less certain that his merits as a chess-player do not open the
doors to political influence for him; and hence unless he has other
qualities to win
him that distinction, he is not a member of the
governing Mite. Mistresses of absolute monarchs have oftentimes
been members of the elite, either because of their beauty or because
of their intellectual endowments; but only a few of them, who have
had, in addition, the particular talents required by politics, have
played any part in government.
2034. So we get two strata in a population: (i) lower stratum, A
the non-elite, with whose possible influence on government we are
not just here concerned; then (2) a higher stratum, the elite, which
is divided into two: (a) a
governing elite; (b) a non-governing
elite.
2035. In the concrete, there are no examinations whereby each

person assigned to his proper place in these various classes. That
is
deficiency is made up for by other means, by various sorts of labels

that serve the purpose after a fashion. Such labels are the rule even
where there are examinations. The label "lawyer" is affixed to a
man who supposed to know something about the law and often
is
does, though sometimes again he is an ignoramus. So, the govern-
ing tlite contains individuals who wear labels

appropriate to political
offices of a certain altitude ministers, Senators, Deputies, chief
justices, generals, colonels, and so on making the apposite excep-

tions for those who have found their way into that exalted com-
pany without possessing qualities corresponding to the labels they
wear.
2036. Such exceptions are much more numerous than the excep-
engineers, millionaires (who have
tions
among lawyers, physicians,
made their own money), artists of distinction, and so on; for the
reason, among others, that in these latter departments of human

activity the labels are won directly by each individual, whereas in
the elite some of the labels the label of wealth, for instance are
hereditary. In former times there were hereditary labels in the
parts: one, which I will call M, will contain those individuals in the elite who share
in the government of the state, who make up what may be more or less vaguely
called 'the governing class.' The other part, N, will be made up of the remainder
of the elite when the part M
has been set off from it."
204 1 CLASS-CIRCULATION 1
425
governing elite also in our day hardly more than the label of king
remains in that status; but if direct inheritance has disappeared, in-
heritance powerful indirectly; and an individual who has in-
is still
herited a sizable patrimony can easily be named Senator in certain
countries, or can get himself elected to the parliament by buying

votes or, on occasion, by wheedling voters with assurances that he is
a democrat of democrats, a Socialist, an Anarchist. Wealth, family,
or social connexions also help in many other cases to win the label of
the elite in general, or of the governing elite in particular, for persons
who otherwise hold no claim upon it.
2037. In societies where the social unit is the family the label worn
by the head of the family also benefits all other members. In Rome,
the man who became Emperor generally raised his freedmen to the
higher class, and oftentimes, in fact, to the governing elite. For that
matter, now more, now fewer, of the freedmen taking part in the
Roman government possessed qualities good or bad that justified
their wearing the labels which they had won through imperial
bounty. In our societies, the social unit is the individual; but the
place that the individual occupies in society also benefits his wife,
his children, his connexions, his friends.
2038. If all these deviations from type were of little
importance,
they might be disregarded, as they are virtually disregarded in cases
where a diploma is required for the practice of a profession. Every-
one knows that there are persons who do not deserve their diplomas,
but experience shows that on the whole such exceptions may be
overlooked.
2039. One might, further, from certain points of view at least, dis-
regard deviations if
they remained more or constant quanti-
less
if there were
tatively only a negligible variation in proportions be-
tween the total of a class and the people who wear its label without
possessing the qualities corresponding.
2040. As a matter of fact, the real cases that we have to consider
in our societies differ from those two. The deviations are not so few
that they can be disregarded. Then again, their number is variable,
and the variations give rise to situations having an important bear-
ing on the social equilibrium. We are therefore required to make a
special study of them.
2041. Furthermore, the manner in which the various groups in a
population intermix has to be considered. In moving from one
group to another an individual generally brings with him certain
inclinations, sentiments, attitudes, that he has acquired in the group
from which he comes, and that circumstance cannot be
ignored.
2042. To this mixing, in the particular case in which
only two
groups, the flitc and the non-elite, are envisaged, the term "circu-
1
lation of elites'' has been applied in French, circulation des Elites
[or in more general terms "class-circulation"].

2043. In conclusion we must pay special attention (i), in the case
of one single group, to the proportions between the total of the
group and the number of individuals who are nominally members

of but do not possess the qualities requisite for effective member-
it
ship; and then (2), in the case of various groups, to the ways in
which transitions from one group to the other occur, and to the in-
tensity of that movement that is to

say,
to the velocity of the cir-
culation.
2044. Velocity in circulation has to be considered not only abso-
lutely but also in relation to the supply of and the demand for cer-
tain social elements. A country that is
always at peace does not re-
quire many soldiers in its governing class, and the production of

generals may be overexuberant as compared with the demand. But
when a country is in a state of continuous warfare many soldiers
are necessary,and though production remains at the same level it
may not meet the demand. That, we might note in passing, 1
has
been one of the causes for the collapse of many aristocracies.
2045. Another example. In a country where there is little indus-
try and little commerce, the supply of individuals possessing in high

*
2042 [And most inappropriately, for, in this sense, the phrase never meant
more than circulation within the elite. Furthermore, the elite is not the only class
to be considered, and the principles that apply to circulation within the elite apply
to circulation within such lower classes as one may choose for one purpose or an-
other to consider. A. L.]
1
2044 Kolabinska, Op. tit., p. 10: "Inadequate recruiting in the elite does not
result a mere numerical proportion between new members and old. Account
from
has to be taken of the number of persons who possess the qualities required for
membership in the governing elite but are refused admittance; or else, in an oppo-
site direction, the number of new members the elite might require but does not get.
In the first case, the production of persons possessing unusual qualities as regards
education may far surpass the number of such persons that the elite can accommo-
"
date, and then we get what has been called an 'intellectual proletariat.'
427
degree the qualities requisite for those types of activity exceeds the
demand. Then industry and commerce develop and the supply,
though remaining the same, no longer meets the demand.
2046. We must not confuse the state of law with the state of fact.
The latter alone, or almost alone, has a bearing on the social equilib-
rium. There are many examples of castes that are legally closed, but
into which, in point of fact, new-comers make their way, and often
in large numbers. On the other hand, what difference does it make
if a caste is
legally open, but conditions dc facto prevent new acces-
sions to it ? If a person who acquires wealth thereby becomes a mem-
ber of the governing class, but no one gets rich, it is as if the class
were closed; and if only a few get rich, it is as if the law erected
serious barriers against access to the caste.
Something of that sort
was observable towards the end of the Roman Empire. People who
acquired wealth entered the order of the curials. But only a few in-
dividuals made any money. Theoretically we might examine any
number of groups. Practically we have to confine ourselves to the
more important. We shall proceed by successive approximations,
starting with the simple and going on to the complex.

2047. Higher class and lower class in general. The least we can
do to divide society into two strata: a higher stratum, which usu-
is
ally contains the rulers, and a lower stratum, which usually con-
tains the ruled. That fact is so obvious that it has always forced itself
even upon the most casual observation, and so for the circulation of
individuals between the two strata. Even Plato had an inkling of
class-circulation and tried to regulate it artificially (278). The
"new man," the upstart, the parvenu, has always been a subject of
interest, and literature has analyzed him unendingly. Here, then,

we are merely giving a more exact form to things that have long
been perceived more or less vaguely. Above, in 1723 f we noted .,
a varying distribution of residues in the various social groupings,

and chiefly in the higher and the lower class. Such heterogeneous-
ness a fact perceived by the most superficial glance.
is
2048. Changes in Class I and Class II residues occurring within

the two social strata have an important influence in determining the
social equilibrium. They have been commonly observed by laymen
under a changes in "religious" sentiments, so called,
special form, as
in the higher stratum of society. It has often been noted that there
were times when religious sentiments seemed to lose ground, others
when they seemed to gain in strength, and that such undulations
corresponded to social movements of very considerable scope. The
uniformity might be more exactly described by saying that in the
higher stratum of society Class II residues gradually lose in strength,
until now and again they are reinforced by tides upwelling from
1
the lower stratum.
2049. Religious sentiments were very feeble in the higher classes
in Rome towards the end of the Republic; but they gained notably
in strength thereafter, through the rise to the higher classes of men
from the lower, of foreigners that is, freedmen, and others, whom
the Roman Empire raised in station ( 2549). They gained still fur-
ther in intensity in the days of the decadent Roman Empire, when
the government passed into the hands of a military plebs and a
bureaucracy originating in the lower classes. That was a time when

a predominance of Class II residues made itself manifest in a de-
* writers who are not equipped with this general conception fall into
2048 Many
contradictions. Sometimes the clarity of the facts forces itself upon them; then again
preconceptions will blur their view of things. Taine is an example. In the Ancien
regime he well notes (Chap. Ill) that the mind of the masses at large is steeped in
prejudices(is, in our terms, under the sway of Class II residues). On that basis
he should go on and conclude that the French Revolution was a particular case of
the religious revolution, where popular faith overwhelms the scepticism of the
higher But, consciously or otherwise, he succumbs to the influence of the
classes.
preconception that the higher classes are educators of the masses, and views un-
belief and impiety in the nobility, the Third Estate, and the higher clergy as among
the main causes of the Revolution. He notes the difference between France and
England in that regard and seems on the verge of ascribing to that circumstance
the fact that the revolution which occurred in France did not occur in England.
Says he, Bk. IV, Chap. II, sec. i (Vol. II, p. 118): "In England [the higher class]
speedily perceived the danger. Philosophy was precocious in England, native to
England. That does not matter. It never got acclimated there. Montesquieu wrote
in his travel note-book in 1729 (Notes sur VAngletene, p. 352): "No religion in
England. ... If
anyone brings up the subject of religion, he is laughed at.' Fifty
years later the public mind has about-faced: 'all those who have a tight roof over
their heads and a good coat on their backs' [The expression is Macaulay's.] have
seen what these new doctrines mean. In any event they feel that speculations in
the library must not become preachings on the streets. [They and Taine therefore
believe in the efficacy of such preachings.] Impiety seems to them bad manners.
They regard religion as the cement that holds public order together. That is be-
cause they are themselves public men, interested in doing things, participating in
the government and well taught by daily personal experience. . . . [Yet a few
lines before thatTaine had refuted himself:] When you talk religion or politics
with people, you find their minds almost always made up. Their preconceptions,
2051 HIGHER CLASS: LOWER CLASS 1429
cadence in literature and in the arts and sciences, and in invasions
by Oriental religions and especially Christianity.
2050. The Protestant Reformation in the sixteenth
century, the
Puritan Revolution in Cromwell's
day in England, the French Revo-
lution of 1789, are examples of great
religious tides originating in
the lower classes and rising to engulf the sceptical
higher classes.
An instance in our day would be the United States of America,
where this upward thrust of members of lower classes strong in
Class II residues very intense; and in that country one witnesses
is
the rise of no end of strange and

wholly unscientific religions such
as Christian Science that are utterly at war with
any sort of scien-
tific
thinking, and a mass of hypocritical laws for the enforcement
of morality that are replicas of laws of the
European Middle Ages.
2051. The upper stratum of
society, the elite, nominally contains
certain groups of
peoples, not always very sharply defined, that are
called aristocracies. There are cases in which the
majority of indi-
their interests, their situation in life, have convinced them already, and they will
listen to you only if you them aloud things they have been thinking in silence."
tell
If that is so, the

"preachings in the street" to which Taine alludes ought not to be
very effective, and if they are, it cannot be that people "will listen to you only if
you tell them aloud things they have been thinking in silence.*' As a matter of
fact, it is these latter hypotheses that the more closely approximate experience. The
mental state of the French people towards the end of the eighteenth century had
been but litde affected by the impiety of the higher classes, any more than the men-
tal state of the Romans had been affected
by the impiety of the contemporaries of
Lucretius, Cicero, and Caesar, or the mental state of the European masses by the
impiety of the nobility and higher clergy at the time of the Reformation. Belin,
Le commerce des livres prohibes a Paris de 1750 a 1789, pp. 104-05: "One may
assert that the works of the philosophers did not
directly reach the masses or the
lower bourgeoisie. The working-men, the tradesmen, did not know Voltaire and
Rousseau until the time of the Revolution, when their tribunes began to gloss
them in inflammatory harangues or to translate their maxims into legislation.
When they stepped into the limelight they had certainly not read the great books
of the century, though they could not have missed entirely the more celebrated of
the literary quarrels. The true disciples of the philosophes, the faithful patrons of
the pedlars of forbidden literature, were the nobles, the abbes, the members of the
privileged classes, idlers about the parlours of society who were on the look-out for
some distraction from tedium and threw themselves headlong into
their relentless
philosophical discussions and soon

themselves be vanquished by the new spirit
let
[That is all borne out by experience; the following less so.], without foreseeing the
remoter consequences of the premises that they were adopting so gaily. . . .
[Belin makes a further point:] The privileged for that matter were the only ones
who could afford the exorbitant prices that any lover of forbidden books had to
pay."
viduals belonging to such aristocracies actually possess the qualities
requisite for remaining there;

and then again there are cases where
considerable numbers of the individuals making up the class do not
possess those requisites. Such people may occupy more or less im-
portant places in the governing elite or they may be barred from it.
2052. In the beginning, military, religious, and commercial aris-
tocraries and plutocracies with a few exceptions not worth con-
sidering must have constituted parts of the governing elite and
sometimes have made up the whole of it. The victorious warrior,
the prosperous merchant, the opulent plutocrat, were men of such
parts, each in
his own field, as to be superior to the average individ-
ual. Under those circumstances the label corresponded to an actual
capacity. But as time goes by, considerable, sometimes very consid-

erable, differences arise between the capacity and the label; while
on the other hand, certain aristocracies originally figuring promi-
in the rising elite end by constituting an insignificant
ele-
nently
ment in it. That has happened especially to military aristocracies.
2053. Aristocracies do not last. Whatever the causes, it is an in-
contestable fact that after a certain length of time they pass away.
History is a graveyard of aristocracies. The Athenian "People" was

an aristocracy compared with the remainder of a population of
as
resident aliens and slaves. It vanished without leaving any descent.
The various aristocracies of Rome vanished in their time. So did the
aristocracies of the Barbarians. Where, in France, are the descend-
ants of the Prankish conquerors? The genealogies of the English
nobility have been very exactly kept; and they show that very few
families still remain to claim descent from the comrades of William
the Conqueror. The rest have vanished. In Germany the aristocracy
of the present day is very largely made up of descendants of vassals
of the lords of old. The populations of European countries have in-
creased enormously during the past few centuries. It is as certain
as certain can be that the aristocracies have not increased in
pro-
portion.
2054. They decay not in numbers only. They decay also in qual-
ity,
in the sense that they lose their vigour, that there is a decline in
the proportions of the residues which enabled them to win their
1
power and hold it. The governing class is restored not only in num-
x
2054 To that point we shall return presently ( 2190 ,)
2O59 CLASS-CIRCULATION 1
43 1
bers, but and that is the more important thing in quality, by
families rising from the lower classes and bringing with them the
vigour and the proportions of residues necessary for keeping them-

selves in power. It is also restored by the loss of its more degenerate
members.
2055. If one of those movements comes to an end, or worse still,
if
they both come an end, the governing class crashes to ruin and
to
often sweeps the whole of a nation along with it. Potent cause of
disturbance in the equilibrium is the accumulation of superior ele-
ments in the lower classes and, conversely, of inferior elements in
the higher classes. If human aristocracies were like thorough-breds
among which reproduce themselves over long periods of
animals,
time with approximately the same traits, the history of the human
race would be something altogether different from the history we
know.
2056. In virtue of class-circulation, the governing elite is
always
in a state of slow and continuous transformation. It flows on like a
never being today what it was yesterday. From time to time
river,
sudden and violent disturbances occur. There is a flood the river
overflows its banks. Afterwards, the new
governing elite again re-
sumes its slow transformation. The flood has subsided, the river is
again flowing normally in its wonted bed.
2057. Revolutions come about through accumulations in the
higher strata of society either because of a slowing-down in class-

circulation, or from other causes of decadent elements no longer
possessing the residues suitable for keeping them in power, and
shrinking from the use of force; while meantime in the lower strata
of society elements of superior quality are coming to the fore, pos-
sessing residues suitable for exercising the functions of government

and willing enough to use force.
2058. In general, in revolutions the members of the lower strata
are captained by leaders from the higher strata, because the latter
a tactic, while
possess the intellectual qualities required for outlining
lacking the combative residues supplied by the individuals from
the
lower strata.
2059. Violent movements take place by fits and starts, and effects
therefore do not follow immediately on their causes. After a gov-
erning class, or a nation, has maintained itself for long periods of
time on force and acquired great wealth, it may subsist for some
time still without
using force, buying off its adversaries and paying
not only in gold, but also in terms of the dignity and respect that
it had
formerly enjoyed and which constitute, as it were, a capital.
In the first stages of decline, power is maintained by bargainings
and and people are so deceived into thinking that that
concessions,
policy can be carried on indefinitely. So the decadent Roman Em-
pire bought peace of the Barbarians with money and honours. So
Louis XVI, in France, squandering in a very short time an ancestral
inheritance of love, respect, and almost religious reverence for the
monarchy, managed, by making repeated concessions, to be the

King of the Revolution. So the English aristocracy managed to pro-
long its term of power in the second half of the nineteenth century
down to the dawn of its decadence, which was heralded by the "Par-
liament Bill" in the first
years of the twentieth.

Vilfredo Pareto Mind and Society Part 3 Theory of Derivations

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Vilfredo Pareto Mind and Society Part 3 Theory of Derivations

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Vilfredo Pareto Mind and Society Part 3 Theory of Derivations

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

TEXT FLY WITHIN

THE BOOK ONLY

THE GENERAL FORM

EDITED BY ARTHUR LIVINGSTON

TRANSLATED BY ANDREW BONGIORNO AND ARTHUR LIVINGSTON

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

Chapter IX. DERIVATIONS 885

non-logico-experimental and the logico-experimental sciences,

vations. Study of Classes I, II and III.

Chapter X. DERIVATIONS: VERBAL PROOFS. 990

Study of derivations, Class IV.

Two problems present themselves: How do residues and deri-

vations function ? What bearing do they have, in so functioning,

depends as a rule on derivations, and to some extent at times

phenomena assume. Relations of residues and derivations to

reasoning illogically under the guidance of sentiment, we may

modifying residues. How social measures and legal enactments

problems arising under such relationships. Study of the prob-

heterogeneity and circulation between elements in society. Elites

Volume 111: Sentiment in Thinking

dealing with storms: and we found that they originated in the

counselled by long experience may be a blessing to his country.

that there must be some way of controlling storms. Around that

regards the derivation, our only problem would be to determine

give us the mere substance of the derivation, and derivations may

profitably be considered from other points of view.

special way here. Secondly, there is a question as to the relation

yet, because of some error in

explanation or demonstration offered. It is the type of argument

really means: "I do as I do

put in an appearance. That is our first intimation as to a general

rations, to the authority of supernatural beings or personifications

terminology of residues and derivations the matter we expounded

hunger were satisfied by logico-experimental reasonings only, there

experimental theories. But the human hunger for thinking is satisfied

in any number of ways; by pseudo-experimental reasonings, by

edge are the concrete reasonings that correspond to these cases. So

person who is influenced by a derivation imagines that he accepts

conflict) of residues. When, then, a person sets out to study social

history of political institutions. Metaphysics moreover has supplied

pose of persuading people to act in this or that manner deemed

apart from any purpose of immediate practical utility, and in the

phenomena (86). If one is

being in his sentiments and is therefore calculated to modify his

reasons, prominent among which is the preconception that the

leading role in human activity is played by logical thinking.

up of associations of ideas or residues. The enthymeme ignores one

ality (Class IV). The residue that is introduced for purposes of

meaning be stated in enthymemic form the wording will be: "Since

provokes, itand drop the intermediate propositions, we place our-

ideas, by residues, as opposed to strictly logical argument. Aristotle

instinctively sensed that when he said, Rhetorica, I, 2,

p. 19), that the enthymeme was the orator's syllogism. He was

right, Ibid., II, 21, 3 (Freese, p. 279), in viewing a maxim as a

accepted because it is part of an enthymeme and the enthymeme

fallacy, the one intellectual, the other moral. That approximately is

disagreeable conclusions alike provided they manage to arouse some

person assenting to the conclusion that the derivation reaches. When

primary appeal is to sentiment.