3 MILE DURKHEIM (1858–1917) - SAGE …...3 ÉMILE DURKHEIM (1858–1917) 85 Émile Durkheim There...

3 ÉMILE DURKHEIM (1858–1917)

85

Émile Durkheim

There can be no society which does not feel the need of upholding and reaf-firming at regular intervals the collective sentiments and the collective ideaswhich makes its unity and its personality. Now this moral remaking cannot beachieved except by the means of reunions, assemblies and meetings where theindividuals, being closely united to one another, reaffirm in common their com-mon sentiments.

(Durkheim 1912/1995:474–5)

� Anomie

� Social facts

� Social solidarity Mechanical solidarityOrganic solidarity

� Collective conscience

� Ritual

� Symbol

� Sacred and profane

� Collective representations

Key Concepts

Have you ever been to a professional sports event in a stadium full of fans? Or goneto a religious service and taken communion, or to a concert and danced in the aisles(or maybe a mosh pit)? How did these experiences make you feel? What do they

have in common? Is it possible to have this same type of experience if/when you are alone?How so or why not?

These are the sorts of issues that intrigued Émile Durkheim. Above all, he sought toexplain what held societies and social groups together—and how. In addressing these twinquestions, Durkheim studied a wide variety of phenomena—from suicide and crime, to abo-riginal religious totems and symbols. He was especially concerned about how modern,industrial societies can be held together when people don’t even know each other and whentheir experiences and social positions are so varied. In other words, how can social ties, thevery basis for society, be maintained in such an increasingly individualistic world?

03-Appelrouth-45294.qxd 8/23/2007 12:52 PM Page 85

Yet, Durkheim is an important figure in the history of sociology not only because of hisprovocative theories about social cohesion, but also because he helped found the disciplineof sociology. In contrast to some of the other figures whose works you will read in thisbook, Durkheim sought to delineate, both theoretically and methodologically, how sociol-ogy was different from existing schools of philosophy and history (which also examinedsocial issues). Before we discuss his ideas and work, however, let’s look at his biographyfor, like Marx, Durkheim’s personal experiences and historical situation deeply influencedhis perception and description of the social world.

A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH

Émile Durkheim was born in a small town in eastern France in 1858. In his youth hefollowed family tradition, studying Hebrew and the Talmud in order to become a rabbi.However, in his adolescence, Durkheim apparently rejected Judaism. Though he did notdisdain traditional religion, as a child of the Enlightenment (see Chapter 1) he came to con-sider both Christianity and Judaism outmoded in the modern world.

In 1879, Durkheim entered France’s most prestigious college, the École NormaleSupérieure in Paris, to study philosophy. However, by his third year, Durkheim had becomedisenchanted with the high-minded, literary, humanities curriculum at the Normale. Hedecided to pursue sociology, which he viewed as eminently more scientific, democratic, andpractical. Durkheim still maintained his interest in complex philosophical questions, but hewanted to examine them through a “rational,” “scientific” framework. His practical and sci-entific approach to central social issues would shape his ambition to use sociological meth-ods as a means for reconstituting the moral order of French society, which he saw decayingin the aftermath of the French Revolution. (Bellah 1973:xiii–xvi). Durkheim was especiallyconcerned about the abuse of power by political and military leaders, increasing rates ofdivorce and suicide, and rising anti-Semitism. It seemed to Durkheim that social bonds anda sense of community had broken down and social disorder had come to prevail.1

Upon graduation from the École Normale, Durkheim began teaching in small lycées(state-run secondary schools) near Paris. In 1887, he married Louise Dreyfus, a womanfrom the Alsace region of France. In the same year, Durkheim began his career as a profes-sor at the University of Bordeaux, where he quickly gained the reputation for being a com-mitted and exciting teacher. Émile and Louise soon had two children, Marie and Andre.

Durkheim was a serious and productive scholar. His first book, The Division of Labor inSociety, which was based on his doctoral dissertation, came out in 1893; his second, The Rulesof Sociological Method, appeared just 2 years later. In 1897, Suicide, perhaps his most well-known work, was published. The next year, Durkheim founded the journal L’Année Sociologique,which was one of the first sociology journals not only in France, but in the world. L’AnnéeSociologique was produced annually until the outbreak of World War I in 1914.

86 � FOUNDATIONS OF CLASSICAL SOCIOLOGICAL THEORY

1As indicated in Chapter 1, France had gone through numerous violent changes in government sincethe French Revolution in 1789. Between 1789 and 1870, there had been three monarchies, twoempires, and two republics, culminating in the notorious reign of Napoleon III, who overthrew thedemocratic government and ruled France for 20 years. Though the French Revolution had brought abrief period of democracy, it also sparked a terrifying persecution of all those who disagreed with therevolutionary leaders. Some 17,000 revolutionaries were executed in the infamous Reign of Terror, ledby Maximilien Robespierre. Consequently, political and social divisions in France intensified. Frenchconservatives called for a return to monarchy and a more prominent role for the Catholic Church. Indirect contrast, a growing, but still relatively small, class of urban workers demanded political rightsand a secular rather than religious education. At the same time, capitalists called for individual rightsand free markets, while radical socialists advocated abolishing private property altogether.


In 1902, with his reputation as a leading social philosopher and scientist established,Durkheim was offered a position at the prestigious Sorbonne University in Paris. As he haddone previously at Bordeaux, Durkheim quickly gained a large following at the Sorbonne.His education courses were compulsory for all students seeking teaching degrees in philos-ophy, history, literature, and languages. Durkheim also became an important administratorat the Sorbonne, serving on numerous councils and committees (Lukes 1985:372).

Yet not everyone was enamored with either Durkheim’s substantial power or his ideas.Durkheim’s notion that any social “thing”—including religion—could be studied sociologi-cally (i.e., scientifically) was particularly controversial, as was his adamant insistence on pro-viding students a moral, but secular, education. (These two issues will be discussed furtherbelow.) As Steven Lukes (1985:373), noted sociologist and Durkheim scholar, remarked, “Tofriends he was a prophet and an apostle, but to enemies he was a secular pope.”

Moreover, Durkheim identified with some of the goals of socialism, but he was unwill-ing to commit himself politically. Durkheim believed that sociologists should be committedto education, not political activism—his passion was for dispassionate, scientific research.

This apparent apoliticism, coupled with his focus on the moral constitution of societies(rather than conflict and revolution), has led some analysts to deem Durkheim politicallyconservative. However, as the eminent sociologist Robert Bellah (1973: xviii) points out, “totry to force Durkheim into the conservative side of some conservative/liberal dichotomy” isinappropriate. It ignores Durkheim’s “lifelong preoccupation with orderly, continuous socialchange toward greater social justice” (ibid.:xvii). In addition, to consider Durkheimpolitically conservative is also erroneous in light of how he was evaluated in his day.Durkheim was viewed as a radical modernist and liberal, who, though respectful of religion,was most committed to rationality, science, and humanism. Durkheim infuriated religiousconservatives, who desired to replace democracy with a monarchy and strengthen themilitary. He also came under fire because he opposed instituting Catholic education as thebasic curriculum.

Moreover, to label Durkheim “conservative” ignores his role in the “Dreyfus affair.”Alfred Dreyfus was a Jewish army colonel who was charged and convicted on false chargesof spying for Germany. The charges against Dreyfus were rooted in anti-Semitism, whichwas growing in the 1890s, alongside France’s military losses and economic dissatisfaction.Durkheim was very active in the Ligue des droits de l’homme (League of the Rights ofMen), which devoted itself to clearing Dreyfus of all charges.

Interestingly, Durkheim’s assessment of the Dreyfus affair reflects his lifelong concernfor the moral order of society. He saw the Dreyfus affair as symptomatic of a collectivemoral sickness, rather than merely anti-Semitism at the level of the individual. As Durkheim(1899, as cited by Lukes 1985) states,

When society undergoes suffering, it feels the need to find someone whom it can holdresponsible for its sickness, on whom it can avenge its misfortunes; and those againstwhom public opinion already discriminates are naturally designated for this role. Theseare the pariahs who serve as expiatory victims. What confirms me in this interpretationis the way in which the result of Dreyfus’s trial was greeted in 1894. There was a surgeof joy in the boulevards. People celebrated as a triumph what should have been a causeof public mourning. At least they knew whom to blame for the economic troubles andmoral distress in which they lived. The trouble came from the Jews. The charge had beenofficially proved. By this very fact alone, things already seemed to be getting better andpeople felt consoled. (p. 345)

In 1912, Durkheim’s culminating work, The Elementary Forms of Religious Life, waspublished. Shortly after that World War I broke out, and Durkheim’s life was thrown intoturmoil. His son, Andre, was killed in battle, spiraling Durkheim into a grief from which he

Émile Durkheim � 87


never fully recovered. On October 7, 1916, as he was leaving a committee meeting atthe Sorbonne, Durkheim suffered a stroke. He spent the next year resting and seemed tohave made much progress toward recovering. But on November 15, 1917, while inFontainebleau where he had gone for peace and fresh air, Durkheim died. He was 59 yearsold (ibid.:559).

INTELLECTUAL INFLUENCES AND CORE IDEAS

As indicated previously, Durkheim wrote a number of books and articles on a wide varietyof topics. Nevertheless, there are two major themes that transcend all of Durkheim’s work.First, Durkheim sought to articulate the nature of society and, hence, his view of sociologyas an academic discipline. Durkheim argued that society was a supraindividual force exist-ing independently of the actors who compose it. The task of sociology, then, is to analyzesocial facts—conditions and circumstances external to the individual that, nevertheless,determine one’s course of action. Durkheim argued that social facts can be ascertained byusing collective data, such as suicide and divorce rates. In other words, through systematiccollection of data, the patterns behind and within individual behavior can be uncovered.This emphasis on formal methods and objective data is what distinguished sociology fromphilosophy and put sociology “on the map” as a viable scientific discipline.

The significance of Durkheim’s position for the development of sociology as a distinctpursuit of knowledge cannot be overstated. As one of the first academics to hold a posi-tion in sociology, Durkheim was on the cutting edge of the birth of the new discipline.Nevertheless, his conviction that society is sui generis (an objective reality that is irre-ducible to the individuals that compose it) and amenable to scientific investigation owesmuch to the work of Auguste Comte (1798–1857). Not only had Comte coined the termsociology in 1839, he also contended that the social world could be studied in as rationaland scientific a way as physical scientists (chemists, physicists, biologists, etc.) study theirrespective domains. Moreover, Durkheim’s comparative and historical methodology was inlarge measure a continuation of the approach advocated earlier by Comte.

A second major theme found in Durkheim’s work is the issue of social solidarity, orthe cohesion of social groups. As you will see, all of the selections in this chapter—fromThe Division of Labor in Society, Suicide, The Rules of Sociological Method, and TheElementary Forms of Religious Life—explore the nature of the bonds that tie social groupsand/or the individual to society. Durkheim was especially concerned about modern societieswhere people often don’t know their neighbors (let alone everyone in the larger community)or worship together, and where people often hold jobs in impersonal companies and orga-nizations. Durkheim wondered how individuals could feel tied to one another in such anincreasingly individualistic world. This issue was of utmost importance, for he maintainedthat without some semblance of solidarity and moral cohesion, society could not exist.

In his emphasis on the nature of solidarity in “traditional” and “modern” societies,Durkheim again drew on Comte’s work as well as that of the British sociologist HerbertSpencer (1820–1903).2 Both Comte and Spencer formulated an organic view of society toexplain the developmental paths along which societies allegedly evolve. Such a view depictedsociety as a system of interrelated parts (religious institutions, the economy, government, the


2Durkheim was influenced by a number of scholars, not only Comte and Spencer. Some of the moreimportant figures in developing his views were the French Enlightenment intellectuals CharlesMontesquieu (1689–1775) and Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712–1778), Henri de Saint-Simon(1760–1825), Charles Renouvier (1815–1903), and the German experimental psychologist WilhemWundt (1832–1920).



family) that work together to form a unitary, stable whole, analogous to how the parts of thehuman body (lungs, kidneys, brain) function interdependently to sustain its general well-being. Moreover, as the organism (society and the body) grows in size, it becomes increasinglycomplex, due to the differentiation of its parts.

However, Durkheim was only partially sympathetic to the organic, evolutionary modelsdeveloped by Comte and Spencer. On one hand, Durkheim’s insistence that social solidar-ity is rooted in shared moral sentiments, and the sense of obligation they evoke, stems fromComte (and Jean-Jacques Rousseau as well). Likewise, his notion that the specialized divi-sion of labor characteristic of modern societies leads to greater interdependency andintegration owes much to Comte (as well as Saint-Simon). Nevertheless, Durkheim didnot embrace Comte’s assertion that all societies progress through a series of identifiable

Auguste Comte (1798–1857): The Father of “Social Physics”

Born in southern France during a most turbulent period in French history, AugusteComte was himself a turbulent figure. Though he excelled as a student, he had littlepatience for authority. Indeed, his obstinate temperament prevented him from com-pleting his studies at the newly established École Polytechnic, Paris’s elite university.Nevertheless, Comte was able to make a name for himself in the intellectual circlesof Paris. In 1817, he began working as a secretary and collaborator to Henri Saint-Simon. Their productive though fractious relationship came to an end 7 years later ina dispute over assigning authorship to one of Comte’s essays. Comte next set aboutdeveloping his system of positivist philosophy while working in minor academic posi-tions for meager wages.

Beginning in 1926, Comte offered a series of private lectures in an effort to dis-seminate his views. Though attended by eminent thinkers, the grandiosity of histheoretical system led some to dismiss his ideas. Nevertheless, Comte continuedundeterred, and from 1830 to 1842 he worked single-mindedly on his magnum opus,the six-volume Cours de philosophie positive. In the series, Comte not only outlineshis “Law of Three Stages” discussed earlier, but also delineates the proper methodsfor his new science of “social physics” as well as its fundamental task—the study ofsocial statics (order) and dynamics (progress). The work was well received in somescientific quarters, and Comte seemed poised to establish himself as a first-rate scholar.Unfortunately, his temperament again proved to be a hindrance to his success, bothpersonal and professional. His troubled marriage ended soon after Cours was com-pleted, and his petulance further alienated him from friends and colleagues while costinghim a position at the École. Comte’s life took a turn for the better, however, when in1844 he met and fell in love with Colthilde de Vaux. Their affair did not last long;Colthilde developed tuberculosis and died within a year of their first meeting. Comtededicated the rest of his life to “his angel.” In her memory he founded the Religion ofHumanity for which he proclaimed himself the High Priest. The new Church wasfounded on the principle of universal love as Comte abandoned his earlier commit-ment to science and positivism. Until his death in 1857, Comte sought not supportersfor his system of science, but converts to his Positive Church.

Note: This account of Comte’s biography is based largely on Lewis Coser’s (1977) discussionin Masters of Sociological Thought.

Significant Others


evolutionary stages. In particular, he dismissed Comte’s “Law of Three Stages” wherein allsocieties—as well as individual intellectual development—are said to pass from a theolog-ical stage characterized by “militaristic” communities led by priests, to a metaphysical stageorganized according to “legalistic” principles and controlled by lawyers and clergy, andfinally, to a positivist or scientific stage in which “industrial” societies are governed by tech-nocrats and, of course, sociologists.

In terms of Spencer, Durkheim was most influenced by Spencer’s theory on the evolu-tion of societies. According to Spencer, just as biological organisms become more differen-tiated as they grow and mature, so do small-scale, homogeneous communities becomeincreasingly complex and diverse as a result of population growth. The individuals living insimple societies are minimally dependent upon one another for meeting their survival andthat of the community as they each carry out similar tasks. As the size of the populationincreases, however, similarity and likeness is replaced by heterogeneity and a specializeddivision of labor. Individuals become interdependent upon one another as essential tasks aredivided among the society’s inhabitants. As a result, an individual’s well-being becomes tiedmore and more to the general welfare of the larger society. Ensuring the functional integra-tion of individuals now becomes the central issue for the survival of the society.


Herbert Spencer (1820–1903): Survival of the Fittest

Born in the English Midlands, Herbert Spencer’s early years were shaped largely byhis father and uncle. It was from these two men that Spencer received his education, aneducation that centered on math, physics, and chemistry. Moreover, it was from themthat Spencer was exposed to the radical religious and social doctrines that wouldinform his staunch individualism. With little formal instruction in history, literature,and languages, Spencer conceded to the limits of his education, and at the age of six-teen declined to attend university, opting instead to pursue a “practical” career as anengineer for the London and Birmingham Railway. Nevertheless, he would prove to bean avid student of, and a prolific writer on, a range of social and philosophical topics.

With the completion of the railway in 1841, Spencer earned his living by writingessays for a number of radical journals. Of particular note is a series of letters he pub-lished through a dissenting paper, The Nonconformist. Titled “The Proper Sphere ofGovernment,” the letters are an early expression of Spencer’s decidedly laissez-faireperspective. In them, Spencer argued that the role of government should be restrictedsolely to policing, while all other matters, including education, social welfare, andeconomic activities, should be left to the workings of the private sector. According toSpencer, government regulations interfere with the laws of human evolution which, ifleft unhampered, ensure the “survival of the fittest.” It is not hard to see that Spencer’sview of government still resonates with many American politicians and voters. Lesssanguine, however, is the racism and sexism that was interjected into Spencer’s argu-ment. Following the logic of his view, those who don’t survive, that is, succeed, aremerely fulfilling their evolutionary destiny. To the extent that women and people ofcolor are less “successful” than white males, their “failure” is deemed a product oftheir innate inferiority. Spencer ignored that both “success” and “failure” hinge notonly on individual aptitude and effort, but also on institutional and cultural dynamicsthat sustain a less than level playing field.

Significant Others


DURKHEIM’S THEORETICAL ORIENTATION

As discussed previously, Durkheim was most concerned with analyzing “social facts”: Hesought to uncover the preexisting social conditions that shape the parameters for individualbehavior. Consequently, Durkheim can be said to take a predominantly collectivist approachto order (see Figures 3.1 and 3.2).

In this regard, Durkheim’s perspective is compatible with that of Spencer. As discussedfurther below, Durkheim hypothesized that a different kind of solidarity was prevalent inmodern, as opposed to smaller, more traditional, societies. Durkheim’s equation of tradi-tional societies with “mechanical” solidarity and modern societies with “organic” solidarity(discussed on pp. 106–108) shares an affinity with Spencer’s classification of societies aseither “simple” or “compound.”

However, the two theorists diverge on the crucial point of integration. Spencer saw societyas composed of atomistic individuals each pursuing lines of self-interested conduct. In a clas-sic expression of utilitarian philosophy, Spencer maintained that a stable, well-functioningsocial whole is the outgrowth of individuals freely seeking to maximize their advantages.

By contrast, Durkheim (and Comte) took a far less utilitarian approach than Spencer.Durkheim emphasized that society is not a result or aftereffect of individual conduct; rather,it exists prior to, and thus shapes, individual action. In other words, individual lines of con-duct are the outgrowth of social arrangements, particularly those connected to the develop-mental stage of the division of labor. Social integration, then, cannot be an unintendedconsequence of an aggregate of individuals pursuing their self-interest. Instead, it is rootedin a shared moral code, for only it can sustain a harmonious social order. And it is this moralcode, along with the feelings of solidarity it generates, that forms the basis of all societies.Without the restraints imposed by a sense of moral obligation to others, the selfish pursuitof interests would destroy the social fabric.


NONRATIONAL

INDIVIDUAL COLLECTIVE

RATIONAL

Du Bois

Durkheim

Simmel

Mead

Weber

GilmanMarx

Figure 3.1 Durkheim’s Basic Theoretical Orientation


This approach is most readily apparent in Suicide. In this study, Durkheim begins withone of the most seemingly individualistic, psychologically motivated acts there is—suicide—in order to illuminate the social and moral parameters behind and within this allegedly “indi-vidual” behavior. So too, Durkheim’s emphasis on collective conscience and collectiverepresentations indicates an interest in the collective level of society (see Figure 3.2). Bycollective conscience, Durkheim means the “totality of beliefs and sentiments common toaverage citizens of the same society” that “forms a determinate system which has its ownlife” (1893/1984:38–39). In later work, Durkheim used the term collective representationsto refer to much the same thing. In any case, the point is Durkheim’s main concern is notwith the conscious or psychological state of specific individuals, but rather, the collectivebeliefs and sentiments that exist “independent of the particular conditions in which individ-uals are placed; they pass on and it remains” (ibid.:80).

This leads us to one of the most common criticisms of Durkheim. Because of his pre-occupation with social facts and the collective conscience, it is often claimed that he over-looks the role of the individual in producing and reproducing the social order. Durkheimmakes it seem like we’re just vessels for society’s will. Yet, this criticism ignores twoessential points. First, Durkheim not only acknowledged individual autonomy, he took itfor granted as an inevitable condition of modern societies. Durkheim sought to show how,in modern societies, increasing individuation could produce detrimental effects as individ-uals are often torn between competing normative prescriptions and rules. For instance, inSuicide, Durkheim maintains that rather than rest comfortably on all-pervasive norms andvalues, “a thirst arises for novelties, unfamiliar pleasures, nameless sensations, all of whichlose their savor once known . . . [but that] all these new sensations in their infinite quantity


NONRATIONAL

Anomie

Collective conscience

Collective representationssacred and profane

Social solidar itymechanical solidarityorganic solidarity

INDIVIDUAL COLLECTIVE

Division of labor

RATIONAL

Figure 3.2 Durkheim’s Core Concepts


cannot form a solid foundation for happiness to support one in days of trial”(1897/1951:256). To be sure, the criticism could still be made that Durkheim ignores indi-vidual agency in “traditional” societies based on mechanical solidarity. In thesesocieties, Durkheim does in fact posit a lack of individual autonomy, perhaps reflectingthe Enlightenment-driven, Eurocentric thinking of his day. (We discuss this issue morefully below.)

Relatedly, to assert that his orientation was singularly collectivist overlooks Durkheim’sassumption that collective life emerges in social interaction. For instance, a major part of hisanalysis of the elementary forms of religious life involved showing how mundane objects,such as lizards and plants, take on the sacredness of the totem (the symbol of the tribe) byvirtue of individuals coming together to participate in ritual practices. Similarly, in his studyof suicide, Durkheim examined marriage and divorce rates not simply because he was fas-cinated by abstract, collective dimensions of social life, but in order to uncover objectivefactors that measure the extent to which individuals are bound together in an increasinglyindividualistic world.

This leads us to the issue of action. In our view, Durkheim is primarily nonrationalist inhis orientation (see Figures 3.1 and 3.2); he focuses on how collective representations andmoral sentiments are a motivating force, much more so than “rational” or strategic interestsconnected to economic or political institutions. Yet, it is important to point out that inemphasizing the external nature of social facts, Durkheim also recognized that such facts arenot confined to the realm of ideas or feelings, but often possess a concrete reality as well.For instance, educational institutions and penal systems are also decisive for shaping thesocial order and individuals’ actions within it. Thus, social facts are capable of exerting botha moral and an institutional force. In the end, however, Durkheim stressed the nonrationalaspect of social facts as suggested in his supposition that the penal system (courts, legalcodes and their enforcement, etc.) ultimately rests on collective notions of morality, a com-plex symbolic system as to what is “right” and “wrong.” This issue will be discussed fur-ther in the next section in relationship to the specific selections you will read.

Readings

In this section, you will read selections from the four major books that Durkheimpublished during his lifetime: The Division of Labor in Society (1893), The Rulesof Sociological Method (1895), Suicide (1897), and The Elementary Forms ofReligious Life (1912). We begin with excerpts from The Rules of SociologicalMethod because, as you will see, it is here that Durkheim first laid out his basicconceptualization of sociology as a discipline and delineated his conceptof social facts. We then shift to The Division of Labor in Society, in whichDurkheim sets out the key concepts of mechanical and organic solidarity, andcollective conscience. This is followed by excerpts from Suicide, which isnotable, first, in that it exemplifies Durkheim’s distinctive approach to thestudy of the social world, and second, because it further delineates Durkheim’score concept of anomie. We conclude this chapter with excerpts from TheElementary Forms of Religious Life, which many theorists consider Durkheim’smost theoretically significant work. In The Elementary Forms of ReligiousLife, Durkheim takes an explicitly cultural turn, emphasizing the concepts ofritual and symbol, and the sacred and profane, and collective representations.


03-Appelrouth-45294.qxd 8/23/2007 12:52 PM 3

Introduction to The Rules of Sociological Method

In The Rules of Sociological Method (1895/1966:xiii), Durkheim makes at least three essen-tial points. Durkheim insists that (1) sociology is a distinct field of study and that (2) althoughthe social sciences are distinct from the natural sciences, the methods of the latter can beapplied to the former. In addition, Durkheim maintains that (3) the social field is also distinctfrom the psychological realm. Thus, sociology is the study of social phenomena or “socialfacts,” a very different enterprise from the study of an individual’s own ideas or will.

Specifically, Durkheim maintains that there are two different ways that social facts canbe identified. First, social facts are “general throughout the extent of a given society” at agiven stage in the evolution of that society (ibid.:xv,13). Second, albeit related, a social factis marked by “any manner of action . . . capable of exercising over the individual exteriorconstraint” (ibid.). In other words, a “social fact” is recognized by the “coercive powerwhich it exercises or is capable of exercising over individuals” (ibid.:10). This does notmean that there are no “exceptions” to a social fact, but that it is potentially universal in thesense that, given specific conditions, it will be likely to emerge (ibid.:xv).

The “coercive power” of social facts brings us to a critical issue raised in The Rulesof Sociological Method: crime. Durkheim argues that crime is inevitable or “normal” in allsocieties because crime defines the moral boundaries of a society and, in doing so, communi-cates to its inhabitants the range of acceptable behaviors. For Durkheim, crime is “normal” notbecause there will always be “bad” or “wicked” men and/or women in society (i.e., not forindividualistic, psychological reasons, though those may well exist too). Rather, Durkheimmaintains, “A society exempt from [crime] is utterly impossible” because crime affirms andreaffirms the collective sentiments upon which it is founded and which are necessary for itsexistence (ibid.:67). In other words, “It is impossible for all to be alike . . . there cannot be asociety in which the individuals do not differ more or less from the collective type”(ibid.:69,70). As a result, social mechanisms compelling conformity to existing or new lawsinevitably appear. Indeed, Durkheim maintains that even in a hypothetical “society of saints,”a “perfect cloister of exemplary individuals,” “faults” will appear, which will cause the same“scandal that the ordinary offense does in ordinary consciousnesses” (ibid.:68,69). Crime is“indispensable to the normal evolution of morality and law” because the formation and refor-mation of the collective conscience is never complete (ibid.).

Simply put, you cannot have a society without “crime” for the same reason that youcannot have a game without rules (i.e., you can do A, but not B) and consequences to ruleviolations (if you do B, this will happen). Thus, when children make up a new game theydevise both their own rules and consequences for rule infractions (e.g., you have to kickthe ball between the tree and the mailbox; if the ball touches your hands, you’re out). Sotoo, one could argue, society is like a game. There are rules (norms and laws), and thereare consequences or punishments if you break those norms/rules (whether social ostracismor jail); and, most importantly, it is crime and punishment themselves that help clarify andreaffirm what the rules of the game are and thus the basis of society itself.


The Rules of Sociological Method (1895)

Émile Durkheim

WHAT IS A SOCIAL FACT?

Before inquiring into the method suited to thestudy of social facts, it is important to know which

facts are commonly called “social.” This informa-tion is all the more necessary since the designation“social” is used with little precision. It is currentlyemployed for practically all phenomena generally



diffused within society, however small their socialinterest. But on that basis, there are, as it were, nohuman events that may not be called social. Eachindividual drinks, sleeps, eats, reasons; and it is tosociety’s interest that these functions be exercisedin an orderly manner. If, then, all these facts arecounted as “social” facts, sociology would haveno subject matter exclusively its own, and itsdomain would be confused with that of biologyand psychology.

But in reality there is in every society acertain group of phenomena which may bedifferentiated from those studied by the other nat-ural sciences. When I fulfill my obligations asbrother, husband, or citizen, when I execute mycontracts, I perform duties which are defined,externally to myself and my acts, in law and incustom. Even if they conform to my own senti-ments and I feel their reality subjectively, suchreality is still objective, for I did not create them;I merely inherited them through my education.How many times it happens, moreover, that weare ignorant of the details of the obligationsincumbent upon us, and that in order to acquaintourselves with them we must consult the law andits authorized interpreters! Similarly, the church-member finds the beliefs and practices of his reli-gious life ready-made at birth; their existenceprior to his own implies their existence outside ofhimself. The system of signs I use to express mythought, the system of currency I employ to paymy debts, the instruments of credit I utilize in mycommercial relations, the practices followed inmy profession, etc., function independently of myown use of them. And these statements can berepeated for each member of society. Here, then,are ways of acting, thinking, and feeling that pre-sent the noteworthy property of existing outsidethe individual consciousness.

These types of conduct or thought are notonly external to the individual but are, more-over, endowed with coercive power, by virtueof which they impose themselves upon him,independent of his individual will. Of course,when I fully consent and conform to them, thisconstraint is felt only slightly, if at all, and is

therefore unnecessary. But it is, nonetheless, anintrinsic characteristic of these facts, the proofthereof being that it asserts itself as soon as Iattempt to resist it. If I attempt to violate the law,it reacts against me so as to prevent my actbefore its accomplishment, or to nullify my vio-lation by restoring the damage, if it is accom-plished and reparable, or to make me expiate itif it cannot be compensated for otherwise.

In the case of purely moral maxims; the pub-lic conscience exercises a check on every actwhich offends it by means of the surveillance itexercises over the conduct of citizens, and theappropriate penalties at its disposal. In manycases the constraint is less violent, but never-theless it always exists. If I do not submit to theconventions of society, if in my dress I do notconform to the customs observed in my countryand in my class, the ridicule I provoke, thesocial isolation in which I am kept, produce,although in an attenuated form, the same effectsas a punishment in the strict sense of the word.The constraint is nonetheless efficacious forbeing indirect. I am not obliged to speak Frenchwith my fellow-countrymen nor to use the legalcurrency, but I cannot possibly do otherwise. IfI tried to escape this necessity, my attemptwould fail miserably. As an industrialist, I amfree to apply the technical methods of formercenturies; but by doing so, I should invite cer-tain ruin. Even when I free myself from theserules and violate them successfully, I am alwayscompelled to struggle with them. When finallyovercome, they make their constraining powersufficiently felt by the resistance they offer. Theenterprises of all innovators, including success-ful ones, come up against resistance of this kind.

Here, then, is a category of facts with verydistinctive characteristics: it consists of waysof acting, thinking, and feeling, external to theindividual, and endowed with a power of coer-cion, by reason of which they control him.These ways of thinking could not be confusedwith biological phenomena, since they consistof representations and of actions; nor with psy-chological phenomena, which exist only in the

Source: Reprinted with the permission of The Free Press, a Division of Simon & Schuster Adult PublishingGroup from The Rules of Sociological Method by Émile Durkheim, translated by Sarah A Solovay and John H.Mueller. Edited by E. G. Catlin. Copyright © 1966 by Sarah A. Solovay, John H. Mueller, George E. G. Catlin.All rights reserved.


individual consciousness and through it. Theyconstitute, thus, a new variety of phenomena;and it is to them exclusively that the term“social” ought to be applied. And this term fitsthem quite well, for it is clear that, since theirsource is not in the individual, their substratumcan be no other than society, either the politicalsociety as a whole or some one of the partialgroups it includes, such as religious denomi-nations, political, literary, and occupationalassociations, etc. On the other hand, this term“social” applies to them exclusively, for it has adistinct meaning only if it designates exclu-sively the phenomena which are not included inany of the categories of facts that have alreadybeen established and classified. These ways ofthinking and acting therefore constitute theproper domain of sociology. It is true that, whenwe define them with this word “constraint,” werisk shocking the zealous partisans of absoluteindividualism. For those who profess the com-plete autonomy of the individual, man’s dignityis diminished whenever he is made to feel thathe is not completely self-determinant. It is gen-erally accepted today, however, that most of ourideas and our tendencies are not developed byourselves but come to us from without. How canthey become a part of us except by imposingthemselves upon us? This is the whole meaningof our definition. And it is generally accepted,moreover, that social constraint is not necessar-ily incompatible with the individual personality.i

Since the examples that we have just cited(legal and moral regulations, religious faiths,financial systems, etc.) all consist of establishedbeliefs and practices, one might be led to believethat social facts exist only where there is somesocial organization. But there are other factswithout such crystallized form which have thesame objectivity and the same ascendancy overthe individual. These are called “social cur-rents.” Thus the great movements of enthusiasm,indignation, and pity in a crowd do not originatein any one of the particular individual con-sciousnesses. They come to each one of us fromwithout and can carry us away in spite of our-selves. Of course, it may happen that, in aban-doning myself to them unreservedly, I do not feel

the pressure they exert upon me. But it isrevealed as soon as I try to resist them. Let anindividual attempt to oppose one of these collec-tive manifestations, and the emotions that hedenies will turn against him. Now, if this powerof external coercion asserts itself so clearly incases of resistance, it must exist also in the first-mentioned cases, although we are unconsciousof it. We are then victims of the illusion of hav-ing ourselves created that which actually forceditself from without. If the complacency withwhich we permit ourselves to be carried alongconceals the pressure undergone, nevertheless itdoes not abolish it. Thus, air is no less heavybecause we do not detect its weight. So, even ifwe ourselves have spontaneously contributedto the production of the common emotion, theimpression we have received differs markedlyfrom that which we would have experienced ifwe had been alone. Also, once the crowd has dis-persed, that is, once these social influences haveceased to act upon us and we are alone again, theemotions which have passed through the mindappear strange to us, and we no longer recognizethem as ours. We realize that these feelings havebeen impressed upon us to a much greater extentthan they were created by us. It may evenhappen that they horrify us, so much were theycontrary to our nature. Thus, a group of individ-uals, most of whom are perfectly inoffensive,may, when gathered in a crowd, be drawn intoacts of atrocity. And what we say of these transi-tory outbursts applies similarly to those morepermanent currents of opinion on religious,political, literary, or artistic matters which areconstantly being formed around us, whether insociety as a whole or in more limited circles.

To confirm this definition of the social factby a characteristic illustration from commonexperience, one need only observe the mannerin which children are brought up. Consideringthe facts as they are and as they have alwaysbeen, it becomes immediately evident that alleducation is a continuous effort to impose on thechild ways of seeing, feeling, and acting whichhe could not have arrived at spontaneously.From the very first hours of his life, we compelhim to eat, drink, and sleep at regular hours; we


iWe do not intend to imply, however, that all constraints are normal. We shall return to this point later.


constrain him to cleanliness, calmness, andobedience; later we exert pressure upon him inorder that he may learn proper consideration forothers, respect for customs and conventions, theneed for work, etc. If, in time, this constraintceases to be felt, it is because it gradually givesrise to habits and to internal tendencies that ren-der constraint unnecessary; but nevertheless it isnot abolished, for it is still the source fromwhich these habits were derived. It is true that,according to Spencer, a rational education oughtto reject such methods, allowing the child to actin complete liberty; but as this pedagogic theoryhas never been applied by any known people, itmust be accepted only as an expression of per-sonal opinion, not as a fact which can contradictthe aforementioned observations. What makesthese facts particularly instructive is that the aimof education is, precisely, the socialization ofthe human being; the process of education,therefore, gives us in a nutshell the historicalfashion in which the social being is constituted.This unremitting pressure to which the child issubjected is the very pressure of the socialmilieu which tends to fashion him in its ownimage, and of which parents and teachers aremerely the representatives and intermediaries.

It follows that sociological phenomena can-not be defined by their universality. A thoughtwhich we find in every individual conscious-ness, a movement repeated by all individuals, isnot thereby a social fact. If sociologists havebeen satisfied with defining them by this char-acteristic, it is because they confused them withwhat one might call their reincarnation in theindividual. It is, however, the collective aspectsof the beliefs, tendencies, and practices of agroup that characterize truly social phenomena.As for the forms that the collective statesassume when refracted in the individual, theseare things of another sort. This duality is clearlydemonstrated by the fact that these two ordersof phenomena are frequently found dissociatedfrom one another. Indeed, certain of these socialmanners of acting and thinking acquire, by rea-son of their repetition, a certain rigidity whichon its own account crystallizes them, so to speak,and isolates them from the particular events

which reflect them. They thus acquire a body, atangible form, and constitute a reality in theirown right, quite distinct from the individualfacts which produce it. Collective habits areinherent not only in the successive acts whichthey determine but, by a privilege of which wefind no example in the biological realm, they aregiven permanent expression in a formula whichis repeated from mouth to mouth, transmitted byeducation, and fixed even in writing. Such is theorigin and nature of legal and moral rules, pop-ular aphorisms and proverbs, articles of faithwherein religious or political groups condensetheir beliefs, standards of taste established byliterary schools, etc. None of these can be foundentirely reproduced in the applications made ofthem by individuals, since they can exist evenwithout being actually applied.

No doubt, this dissociation does not alwaysmanifest itself with equal distinctness, but itsobvious existence in the important and numer-ous cases just cited is sufficient to prove that thesocial fact is a thing distinct from its individualmanifestations. Moreover, even when this disso-ciation is not immediately apparent, it may oftenbe disclosed by certain devices of method. Suchdissociation is indispensable if one wishes toseparate social facts from their alloys in order toobserve them in a state of purity. Currents ofopinion, with an intensity varying according tothe time and place, impel certain groups eitherto more marriages, for example, or to moresuicides, or to a higher or lower birthrate, etc.These currents are plainly social facts. At firstsight they seem inseparable from the forms theytake in individual cases. But statistics furnish uswith the means of isolating them. They are, infact, represented with considerable exactness bythe rates of births, marriages, and suicides, thatis, by the number obtained by dividing the aver-age annual total of marriages, births, suicides,by the number of persons whose ages lie withinthe range in which marriages, births, and sui-cides occur.ii Since each of these figures con-tains all the individual cases indiscriminately,the individual circumstances which may havehad a share in the production of the phenome-non are neutralized and, consequently, do not


iiSuicides do not occur at every age, and they take place with varying intensity at the different ages in which theyoccur.


contribute to its determination. The average,then, expresses a certain state of the group mind(l’âme collective).

Such are social phenomena, when disentan-gled from all foreign matter. As for their individ-ual manifestations, these are indeed, to a certainextent, social, since they partly reproduce a socialmodel. Each of them also depends, and to a largeextent, on the organopsychological constitutionof the individual and on the particular circum-stances in which he is placed. Thus they are notsociological phenomena in the strict sense of theword. They belong to two realms at once; onecould call them sociopsychological. They interestthe sociologist without constituting the immedi-ate subject matter of sociology. There exist in theinterior of organisms similar phenomena, com-pound in their nature, which form in their turn thesubject matter of the “hybrid sciences,” such asphysiological chemistry, for example.

The objection may be raised that a phenome-non is collective only if it is common to allmembers of society, or at least to most ofthem—in other words, if it is truly general. Thismay be true; but it is general because it is col-lective (that is, more or less obligatory), and cer-tainly not collective because general. It is agroup condition repeated in the individualbecause imposed on him. It is to be found ineach part because it exists in the whole, ratherthan in the whole because it exists in the parts.This becomes conspicuously evident in thosebeliefs and practices which are transmitted to usready-made by previous generations; we receiveand adopt them because, being both collectiveand ancient, they are invested with a particularauthority that education has taught us to recog-nize and respect. It is, of course, true that a vastportion of our social culture is transmitted to usin this way; but even when the social fact is duein part to our direct collaboration, its nature isnot different. A collective emotion which burstsforth suddenly and violently in a crowd does notexpress merely what all the individual senti-ments had in common; it is something entirelydifferent, as we have shown. It results from theirbeing together, a product of the actions andreactions which take place between individualconsciousnesses; and if each individual con-sciousness echoes the collective sentiment, it isby virtue of the special energy resident in its

collective origin. If all hearts beat in unison,this is not the result of a spontaneous and pre-established harmony but rather because an iden-tical force propels them in the same direction.Each is carried along by all.

We thus arrive at the point where we can for-mulate and delimit in a precise way the domainof sociology. It comprises only a limited groupof phenomena. A social fact is to be recognizedby the power of external coercion which it exer-cises or is capable of exercising over individu-als, and the presence of this power may berecognized in its turn either by the existence ofsome specific sanction or by the resistanceoffered against every individual effort that tendsto violate it. One can, however, define it also byits diffusion within the group, provided that,in conformity with our previous remarks, onetakes care to add as a second and essential char-acteristic that its own existence is independentof the individual forms it assumes in its diffu-sion. This last criterion is perhaps, in certaincases, easier to apply than the preceding one. Infact, the constraint is easy to ascertain when itexpresses itself externally by some direct reac-tion of society, as is the case in law, morals,beliefs, customs, and even fashions. But when itis only indirect, like the constraint which aneconomic organization exercises, it cannotalways be so easily detected. Generality com-bined with externality may, then, be easier toestablish. Moreover, this second definition isbut another form of the first; for if a mode ofbehavior whose existence is external to individ-ual consciousnesses becomes general, this canonly be brought about by its being imposedupon them.

But these several phenomena present thesame characteristic by which we defined theothers. These “ways of existing” are imposedon the individual precisely in the same fashionas the “ways of acting” of which we have spo-ken. Indeed, when we wish to know how asociety is divided politically, of what these divi-sions themselves are composed, and how com-plete is the fusion existing between them, weshall not achieve our purpose by physicalinspection and by geographical observations;for these phenomena are social, even when theyhave some basis in physical nature. It is only bya study of public law that a comprehension of



this organization is possible, for it is this lawthat determines the organization, as it equallydetermines our domestic and civil relations.This political organization is, then, no lessobligatory than the social facts mentionedabove. If the population crowds into our citiesinstead of scattering into the country, this is dueto a trend of public opinion, a collective drivethat imposes this concentration upon the indi-viduals. We can no more choose the style of ourhouses than of our clothing—at least, both areequally obligatory. The channels of communi-cation prescribe the direction of internal migra-tions and commerce, etc., and even their extent.Consequently, at the very most, it shouldbe necessary to add to the list of phenomenawhich we have enumerated as presenting thedistinctive criterion of a social fact only oneadditional category, “ways of existing”; and, asthis enumeration was not meant to be rigor-ously exhaustive, the addition would not beabsolutely necessary.

Such an addition is perhaps not necessary,for these “ways of existing” are only crystal-lized “ways of acting.” The political structureof a society is merely the way in which itscomponent segments have become accustomedto live with one another. If their relations aretraditionally intimate, the segments tend tofuse with one another, or, in the contrary case,to retain their identity. The type of habitationimposed upon us is merely the way in whichour contemporaries and our ancestors havebeen accustomed to construct their houses. Themethods of communication are merely thechannels which the regular currents of com-merce and migrations have dug, by flowing inthe same direction. To be sure, if the phenom-ena of a structural character alone presentedthis performance, one might believe that theyconstituted a distinct species. A legal regula-tion is an arrangement no less permanent thana type of architecture, and yet the regulation isa “physiological” fact. A simple moral maximis assuredly somewhat more malleable, but it is

much more rigid than a simple professionalcustom or a fashion. There is thus a wholeseries of degrees without a break in continuitybetween the facts of the most articulated struc-ture and those free currents of social life whichare not yet definitely molded. The differencesbetween them are, therefore, only differencesin the degree of consolidation they present.Both are simply life, more or less crystallized.No doubt, it may be of some advantage toreserve the term “morphological” for thosesocial facts which concern the social substra-tum, but only on condition of not overlookingthe fact that they are of the same nature as theothers. Our definition will then include thewhole relevant range of facts if we say: Asocial fact is every way of acting, fixed or not,capable of exercising on the individual anexternal constraint; or again, every way of act-ing which is general throughout a givensociety, while at the same time existing in itsown right independent of its individual mani-festations.iii [ . . . ]

THE NORMAL AND THE PATHOLOGICAL

If there is any fact whose pathological characterappears incontestable, that fact is crime. All cri-minologists are agreed on this point. Althoughthey explain this pathology differently, they areunanimous in recognizing it. But let us see ifthis problem does not demand a more extendedconsideration. . . .

Crime is present not only in the majority ofsocieties of one particular species but in allsocieties of all types. There is no society that isnot confronted with the problem of criminality.Its form changes; the acts thus characterizedare not the same everywhere; but, everywhereand always, there have been men who havebehaved in such a way as to draw upon them-selves penal repression. If, in proportion associeties pass from the lower to the highertypes, the rate of criminality, i.e., the relation


iiiThis close connection between life and structure, organ and function, may be easily proved in sociologybecause between these two extreme terms there exists a whole series of immediately observable intermediatestages which show the bond between them. Biology is not in the same favorable position. But we may wellbelieve that the inductions on this subject made by sociology are applicable to biology and that, in organisms aswell as in societies, only differences in degree exist between these two orders of facts.


between the yearly number of crimes and thepopulation, tended to decline, it might bebelieved that crime, while still normal, is tend-ing to lose this character of normality. But wehave no reason to believe that such a regres-sion is substantiated. Many facts would seemrather to indicate a movement in the oppositedirection. From the beginning of the [nine-teenth] century, statistics enable us to followthe course of criminality. It has everywhereincreased. In France the increase is nearly300 per cent. There is, then, no phenomenonthat presents more indisputably all the symp-toms of normality, since it appears closely con-nected with the conditions of all collective life.To make of crime a form of social morbiditywould be to admit that morbidity is notsomething accidental, but, on the contrary, thatin certain cases it grows out of the fundamen-tal constitution of the living organism; it wouldresult in wiping out all distinction between thephysiological and the pathological. No doubt itis possible that crime itself will have abnormalforms, as, for example, when its rate is unusu-ally high. This excess is, indeed, undoubtedlymorbid in nature. What is normal, simply, isthe existence of crimi nality, provided that itattains and does not exceed, for each socialtype, a certain level, which it is perhaps notimpossible to fix in conformity with the pre-ceding rules.iv

Here we are, then, in the presence of a con-clusion in appearance quite paradoxical. Let usmake no mistake. To classify crime among thephenomena of normal sociology is not to saymerely that it is an inevitable, although regret-table phenomenon, due to the incorrigiblewickedness of men; it is to affirm that it is a fac-tor in public health, an integral part of allhealthy societies. This result is, at first glance,surprising enough to have puzzled even our-selves for a long time. Once this first surprisehas been overcome, however, it is not difficultto find reasons explaining this normality and atthe same time confirming it.

In the first place crime is normal because asociety exempt from it is utterly impossible.Crime, we have shown elsewhere, consists of anact that offends certain very strong collectivesentiments. In a society in which criminal actsare no longer committed, the sentiments theyoffend would have to be found without excep-tion in all individual consciousnesses, and theymust be found to exist with the same degreeas sentiments contrary to them. Assuming thatthis condition could actually be realized, crimewould not thereby disappear; it would onlychange its form, for the very cause which wouldthus dry up the sources of criminality wouldimmediately open up new ones.

Indeed, for the collective sentiments whichare protected by the penal law of a people at aspecified moment of its history to take possessionof the public conscience or for them to acquire astronger hold where they have an insufficientgrip, they must acquire an intensity greater thanthat which they had hitherto had. The communityas a whole must experience them more vividly,for it can acquire from no other source the greaterforce necessary to control these individuals whoformerly were the most refractory. . . .

Imagine a society of saints, a perfect cloisterof exemplary individuals. Crimes, properly socalled, will there be unknown; but faults whichappear venial to the layman will create there thesame scandal that the ordinary offense does inordinary consciousnesses. If, then, this societyhas the power to judge and punish, it will definethese acts as criminal and will treat them assuch. For the same reason, the perfect andupright man judges his smallest failings with aseverity that the majority reserve for acts moretruly in the nature of an offense. Formerly, actsof violence against persons were more frequentthan they are today, because respect for indi-vidual dignity was less strong. As this hasincreased, these crimes have become more rare;and also, many acts violating this sentimenthave been introduced into the penal law whichwere not included there in primitive times.v


ivFrom the fact that crime is a phenomenon of normal sociology, it does not follow that the criminal is an indi-vidual normally constituted from the biological and psychological points of view. The two questions are inde-pendent of each other. This independence will be better understood when we have shown, later on, the differencebetween psychological and sociological facts.

vCalumny, insults, slander, fraud, etc.


In order to exhaust all the hypotheses logi-cally possible, it will perhaps be asked why thisunanimity does not extend to all collective sen-timents without exception. Why should not eventhe most feeble sentiment gather enough energyto prevent all dissent? The moral consciousnessof the society would be present in its entirety inall the individuals, which a vitality sufficientto prevent all acts offending it—the purely con-ventional faults as well as the crimes. But auniformity so universal and absolute is utterlyimpossible; for the immediate physical milieu inwhich each one of us is placed, the hereditaryantecedents, and the social influences vary fromone individual to the next, and consequentlydiversify consciousnesses. It is impossible forall to be alike, if only because each one has hisown organism and that these organisms occupydifferent areas in space. That is why, evenamong the lower peoples, where individualoriginality is very little developed, it neverthe-less does exist.

Thus, since there cannot be a society inwhich the individuals do not differ more or lessfrom the collective type, it is also inevitablethat, among these divergences, there are somewith a criminal character. What confers thischaracter upon them is not the intrinsic qualityof a given act but that definition which the col-lective conscience lends them. If the collectiveconscience is stronger, if it has enough authoritypractically to suppress these divergences, itwill also be more sensitive, more exacting; and,reacting against the slightest deviations with theenergy it otherwise displays only against moreconsiderable infractions, it will attribute to themthe same gravity as formerly to crimes. In otherwords, it will designate them as criminal.

Crime is, then, necessary; it is bound up withthe fundamental conditions of all social life, andby that very fact it is useful, because these con-ditions of which it is a part are themselves indis-pensable to the normal evolution of moralityand law.

Indeed, it is no longer possible today to dis-pute the fact that law and morality vary fromone social type to the next, nor that they changewithin the same type if the conditions of lifeare modified. But, in order that these trans-formations may be possible, the collective sen-timents at the basis of morality must not be

hostile to change, and consequently must havebut moderate energy. If they were too strong,they would no longer be plastic. Every patternis an obstacle to new patterns, to the extentthat the first pattern is inflexible. The better astructure is articulated, the more it offers ahealthy resistance to all modification; and thisis equally true of functional, as of anatomical,organization. If there were no crimes, this con-dition could not have been fulfilled; for sucha hypothesis presupposes that collective senti-ments have arrived at a degree of intensityunexampled in history. Nothing is good indefi-nitely and to an unlimited extent. The authoritywhich the moral conscience enjoys must not beexcessive; otherwise no one would dare criti-cize it, and it would too easily congeal into animmutable form. To make progress, individualoriginality must be able to express itself. Inorder that the originality of the idealist whosedreams transcend his century may find expres-sion, it is necessary that the originality of thecriminal, who is below the level of his time,shall also be possible. One does not occur with-out the other.

Nor is this all. Aside from this indirect utility,it happens that crime itself plays a useful role inthis evolution. Crime implies not only that theway remains open to necessary changes but thatin certain cases it directly prepares these changes.Where crime exists, collective sentiments aresufficiently flexible to take on a new form, andcrime sometimes helps to determine the formthey will take. How many times, indeed, it isonly an anticipation of future morality—a steptoward what will be! According to Athenian law,Socrates was a criminal, and his condemnationwas no more than just. However, his crime,namely, the independence of his thought, ren-dered a service not only to humanity but to hiscountry. It served to prepare a new morality andfaith which the Athenians needed, since the tra-ditions by which they had lived until then wereno longer in harmony with the current conditionsof life. Nor is the case of Socrates unique; it isreproduced periodically in history. It wouldnever have been possible to establish the freedomof thought we now enjoy if the regulations pro-hibiting it had not been violated before beingsolemnly abrogated. At that time, however, theviolation was a crime, since it was an offense



against sentiments still very keen in the averageconscience. And yet this crime was useful as aprelude to reforms which daily became morenecessary. Liberal philosophy had as its precur-sors the heretics of all kinds who were justly pun-ished by secular authorities during the entirecourse of the Middle Ages and until the eve ofmodern times.

From this point of view the fundamentalfacts of criminality present themselves to us inan entirely new light. Contrary to current ideas,the criminal no longer seems a totally unsocia-ble being, a sort of parasitic element, a strangeand inassimilable body, introduced into themidst of society.vi On the contrary, he plays adefinite role in social life. . . .


viWe have ourselves committed the error of speaking thus of the criminal, because of a failure to applyour rule (Division du travail social, pp. 395–96).

1Durkheim’s distinction between mechanical and organic solidarity was developed, in part, as a criti-cal response to the work of the German sociologist Ferdinand Tönnies. In his book, Gemeinschaft undGesellschaft, Tönnies argued that simpler, traditional societies (Gemeinschaft) were more “organic”and beneficial to the formation of social bonds. In contrast to Tönnies’s conservative orientation,Durkheim contended that complex, modern societies were, in fact, more “organic” and thus desirableby promoting individual liberties within a context of morally binding, shared social obligations.

Introduction to The Division of Labor in Society

In Durkheim’s first major work, The Division of Labor in Society (1893), which was basedon his doctoral dissertation, Durkheim explains how the division of labor (or specializationof tasks) characteristic of modern societies affects individuals as well as society as a whole.As you may recall, this issue had been of utmost concern to Marx as well. Marx contendedthat modern, competitive capitalism, and the specialized division of labor that sustained it,resulted in alienation. In contrast, Durkheim argued that economic specialization was notnecessarily “bad” for either the individual or the society as a whole. Instead, he argued thatan extensive division of labor could exist without necessarily jeopardizing the moral cohe-sion of a society or the opportunity for individuals to realize their interests.

How is this possible? Durkheim argued that there were two basic types of solidarity:mechanical and organic.1 Mechanical solidarity is typified by feelings of likeness. Mechanicalsolidarity is rooted in everyone doing/feeling the same thing. Durkheim maintained that thistype of solidarity is characteristic of small, traditional societies. In these “simple” societies,circumstances compel individuals to be generalists involved in the production and distribu-tion of a variety of goods. Indeed, in small, traditional societies, specialization in one taskto the exclusion of others is not possible because the society depends upon each individualproviding a host of contributions to the group. For instance, men, women, and children areoften all needed to pick crops at harvest time, and all partake in the harvest time celebra-tions as well.

Durkheim argued that a significant social consequence of the shared work experiencecharacteristic of traditional societies is a shared collective conscience. People in traditionalsocieties tend to feel “one and the same,” and it is this feeling of “oneness” that is integralin the maintenance of social order.

Yet, Durkheim saw that in large, complex societies, this type of solidarity was waning.In large, modern societies, labor is specialized; people do not necessarily all engage in thesame work or share the same ideas and beliefs. For Durkheim, organic solidarity refers to

❖



Photo 3.1a Durkheim maintained that different types of society exhibit different types ofsolidarity. Mechanical solidarity, based on likeness, is characteristic of small, traditionalsocieties, such as this village in Namibia (Africa).

Photo 3.1b Organic solidarity, based on specialization, is characteristic of large, modernindustrial societies, such as Brasilia (Brazil).


The Division of Labor in Society (1893)

Émile Durkheim


a type of solidarity in which each person is interdependent with others, forming a complexweb of cooperative associations. In such situations, solidarity (or a feeling of “oneness”)comes not from each person believing/doing the same thing, but from cultivating individualdifferences and knowing that each is doing her part for the good of the whole. Thus,Durkheim argued that the increasing specialization and individuation so readily apparentin modern industrial societies does not necessarily result in a decline in social stability orcohesion. Rather, the growth in a society’s density (the number of people living ina community) and consequent increasingly specialized division of labor can result in simplya different type of social cohesion.

Significantly, however, Durkheim maintained that organic solidarity does not automati-cally emerge in modern societies. Rather, it arises only when the division of labor is “spon-taneous” or voluntary. States Durkheim, “For the division of labor to produce solidarity, it isnot sufficient, then, that each have his task; it is still necessary that this task be fitting to him”(1893/1984:375). Moreover, a “normal” division of labor exists only when the specializationof tasks is not exaggerated. If the division of labor is pushed too far, there is a danger for theindividual to become “isolated in his special activity.” In such cases, the division of laborbecomes “a source of disintegration” for both the individual and society (ibid.). The individ-ual “no longer feels the idea of common work being done by those who work side by sidewith him” (ibid.). Meanwhile, a rigid division of labor can lead to “the institution of classesand castes . . . [which] is often a source of dissension” (ibid.:374). Durkheim used the termanomie (a lack of moral regulation) to describe the “pathological” consequences of an overlyspecialized division of labor. This is an important concept to which we will shortly return.

Most interestingly, then, it is not that Durkheim ignores the potentially harmful aspectsof the division of labor in modern societies; on the contrary, Durkheim acknowledges thatthe division of labor is problematic when it is “forced” and/or pushed to an extreme. Thisposition offers an important similarity as well as difference to that offered by Marx. As wenoted previously, Marx saw both alienation and class conflict as inevitable (or “normal”) incapitalist societies. By contrast, rather than seeing social conflict as a “normal” condition ofcapitalism, Durkheim maintained that anomie results only in “abnormal” conditions of over-specialization, when the rules of capitalism become too rigid and individuals are “forced”into a particular position in the division of labor.

Source: Reprinted and edited with the permission of The Free Press, a Division of Simon & Schuster AdultPublishing Group from The Division of Labor in Society by Émile Durkheim, translated by George Simpson.Copyright © 1947, 1964 by the Free Press. All rights reserved.

iAristotle, Nichomachean Ethics, E, 1133a, 16.

INTRODUCTION: THE PROBLEM

The division of labor is not of recent origin, butit was only at the end of the eighteenth centurythat social cognizance was taken of the princi-ple, though, until then, unwitting submissionhad been rendered to it. To be sure, several

thinkers from earliest times saw its importance;i

but Adam Smith was the first to attempt a theoryof it. Moreover, he adopted this phrase thatsocial science later lent to biology.

Nowadays, the phenomenon has developedso generally it is obvious to all. We need haveno further illusions about the tendencies of



iiDe Candolle, Histoire des Sciences et des Savants, 2nd ed., p. 263.

iiiThe confusion is not without its dangers. Thus, we sometimes ask if the individual conscience varies as the col-lective conscience. It all depends upon the sense in which the word is taken. If it represents social likenesses,the variation is inverse, as we shall see. If it signifies the total psychic life of society, the relation is direct. It isthus necessary to distinguish them.

modern industry; it advances steadily towardspowerful machines, towards great concentra-tions of forces and capital, and consequently tothe extreme division of labor. Occupations areinfinitely separated and specialized, not onlyinside the factories, but each product is itself aspecialty dependent upon others. Adam Smithand John Stuart Mill still hoped that agriculture,at least, would be an exception to the rule, andthey saw it as the last resort of small-scaleindustry. Although one must be careful not togeneralize unduly in such matters, neverthelessit is hard to deny today that the principalbranches of the agricultural industry are steadilybeing drawn into the general movement. Finally,business itself is ingeniously following andreflecting in all its shadings the infinite diversityof industrial enterprises; and, while this evolu-tion is realizing itself with unpremeditatedspontaneity, the economists, examining itscauses and appreciating its results, far from con-demning or opposing it, uphold it as necessary.They see in it the supreme law of humansocieties and the condition of their progress. Butthe division of labor is not peculiar to the eco-nomic world; we can observe its growing influ-ence in the most varied fields of society. Thepolitical, administrative, and judicial functionsare growing more and more specialized. It is thesame with the aesthetic and scientific functions.It is long since philosophy reigned as thescience unique; it has been broken into a multi-tude of special disciplines each of which hasits object, method, and though. “Men workingin the sciences have become increasingly morespecialized.”ii

MECHANICAL SOLIDARITY

We are now in a position to come to a conclusion.The totality of beliefs and sentiments com-

mon to average citizens of the same society

forms a determinate system which has its ownlife; one may call it the collective or commonconscience. No doubt, it has not a specificorgan as a substratum; it is, by definition, dif-fuse in every reach of society. Nevertheless, ithas specific characteristics which make it a dis-tinct reality. It is, in effect, independent of theparticular conditions in which individuals areplaced; they pass on and it remains. It is thesame in the North and in the South, in greatcities and in small, in different professions.Moreover, it does not change with each gen-eration, but, on the contrary, it connects succes-sive generations with one another. It is, thus, anentirely different thing from particular con-sciences, although it can be realized onlythrough them. It is the psychical type of society,a type which has its properties, its conditions ofexistence, its mode of development, just asindividual types, although in a different way.Thus understood, it has the right to be denotedby a special word. The one which we have justemployed is not, it is true, without ambiguity.As the terms, collective and social, are oftenconsidered synonymous, one is inclined tobelieve that the collective conscience is the totalsocial conscience, that is, extend it to includemore than the psychic life of society, although,particularly in advanced societies, it is only avery restricted part. Judicial, governmental, sci-entific, industrial, in short, all special functionsare of a psychic nature, since they consist insystems of representations and actions. They,however, are surely outside the common con-science. To avoid the confusioniii into which somehave fallen, the best way would be to create atechnical expression especially to designate thetotality of social similitudes. However, sincethe use of a new word, when not absolutely nec-essary, is not without inconvenience, we shallemploy the well-worn expression, collective orcommon conscience, but we shall always meanthe strict sense in which we have taken it.


We can, then, to resume the preceding ana-lysis, say that an act is criminal when it offendsstrong and defined states of the collectiveconscience.iv

The statement of this proposition is not gen-erally called into question, but it is ordinarilygiven a sense very different from that which itought to convey. We take it as if it expressed, notthe essential property of crime, but one of itsrepercussions. We well know that crime violatesvery pervasive and intense sentiments, but webelieve that this pervasiveness and this intensityderive from the criminal character of the act,which consequently remains to be defined. Wedo not deny that every delict is universallyreproved, but we take as agreed that the reproba-tion to which it is subjected results from itsdelictness. But we are hard put to say what thisdelictness consists of. In immorality which isparticularly serious? I wish such were the case,but that is to reply to the question by puttingone word in place of another, for it is preciselythe problem to understand what this immoralityis, and especially this particular immoralitywhich society reproves by means of organizedpunishment and which constitutes criminality. Itcan evidently come only from one or severalcharacteristics common to all criminologicaltypes. The only one which would satisfy thiscondition is that opposition between a crime,whatever it is, and certain collective sentiments. Itis, accordingly, this opposition which makescrime rather than being a derivative of crime. Inother words, we must not say that an actionshocks the common conscience because it iscriminal, but rather that it is criminal because itshocks the common conscience. We do notreprove it because it is a crime, but it is a crimebecause we reprove it. As for the intrinsic natureof these sentiments, it is impossible to specifythem. They have the most diverse objects andcannot be encompassed in a single formula. Wecan say that they relate neither to vital interestsof society nor to a minimum of justice. All thesedefinitions are inadequate. By this alone can werecognize it: a sentiment, whatever its origin and

end, is found in all consciences with a certaindegree of force and precision, and every actionwhich violates it is a crime. Contemporary psy-chology is more and more reverting to the ideaof Spinoza, according to which things are goodbecause we like them, as against our liking thembecause they are good. What is primary is thetendency, the inclination; the pleasure and painare only derivative facts. It is just so in sociallife. An act is socially bad because society dis-proves of it. But, it will be asked, are there notsome collective sentiments which result frompleasure and pain which society feels from con-tact with their ends? No doubt, but they do notall have this origin. A great many, if not thelarger part, come from other causes. Everythingthat leads activity to assume a definite form cangive rise to habits, whence result tendencieswhich must be satisfied. Moreover, it is these lat-ter tendencies which alone are truly fundamen-tal. The others are only special forms and moredeterminate. Thus, to find charm in such andsuch an object, collective sensibility mustalready be constituted so as to be able to enjoy it.If the corresponding sentiments are abolished,the most harmful act to society will not only betolerated, but even honored and proposed as anexample. Pleasure is incapable of creating animpulse out of whole cloth; it can only link thosesentiments which exist to such and such a partic-ular end, provided that the end be in accord withtheir original nature. . . .

ORGANIC SOLIDARITY

Since negative solidarity does not produce anyintegration by itself, and since, moreover, thereis nothing specific about it, we shall recognizeonly two kinds of positive solidarity which aredistinguishable by the following qualities:

1. The first binds the individual directly tosociety without any intermediary. In the second,he depends upon society, because he dependsupon the parts of which it is composed.


ivWe shall not consider the question whether the collective conscience is a conscience as is that of the individ-ual. By this term, we simply signify the totality of social likenesses, without prejudging the category by whichthis system of phenomena ought to be defined.


2. Society is not seen in the same aspect inthe two cases. In the first, what we call societyis a more or less organized totality of beliefs andsentiments common to all the members of thegroup: this is the collective type. On the otherhand, the society in which we are solitary in thesecond instance is a system of different, specialfunctions which definite relations unite. Thesetwo societies really make up only one. They aretwo aspects of one and the same reality, butnone the less they must be distinguished.

3. From this second difference there arisesanother which helps us to characterize and namethe two kinds of solidarity.

The first can be strong only if the ideas andtendencies common to all the members of thesociety are greater in number and intensity thanthose which pertain personally to each member.It is as much stronger as the excess is more con-siderable. But what makes our personality ishow much of our own individual qualities wehave, what distinguishes us from others. Thissolidarity can grow only in inverse ratio to per-sonality. There are in each of us, as we have said,two consciences: one which is common to ourgroup in its entirety, which, consequently, is notourself, but society living and acting within us;the other, on the contrary, represents that in uswhich is personal and distinct, that which makesus an individual.v Solidarity which comes fromlikenesses is at its maximum when the collectiveconscience completely envelops our whole con-science and coincides in all points with it. But, atthat moment, our individuality is nil. It can beborn only if the community takes smaller tollof us. There are, here, two contrary forces, onecentripetal, the other centrifugal, which cannotflourish at the same time. We cannot, at one andthe same time, develop ourselves in two oppositesenses. If we have a lively desire to think and actfor ourselves, we cannot be strongly inclined tothink and act as others do. If our ideal is to pre-sent a singular and personal appearance, we donot want to resemble everybody else. Moreover,at the moment when this solidarity exercises itsforce, our personality vanishes, as our definition

permits us to say, for we are no longer ourselves,but the collective life.

The social molecules which can be coherent inthis way can act together only in the measure thatthey have no actions of their own, as the moleculesof inorganic bodies. That is why we propose to callthis type of solidarity mechanical. The term doesnot signify that it is produced by mechanical andartificial means. We call it that only by analogy tothe cohesion which unites the elements of an inan-imate body, as opposed to that which makes aunity out of the elements of a living body. Whatjustifies this term is that the link which thus unitesthe individual to society is wholly analogous tothat which attaches a thing to a person. The indi-vidual conscience, considered in this light, is asimple dependent upon the collective type and fol-lows all of its movements, as the possessed objectfollows those of its owner. In societies where thistype of solidarity is highly developed, the individ-ual does not appear, as we shall see later.Individuality is something which the society pos-sesses. Thus, in these social types, personal rightsare not yet distinguished from real rights.

It is quite otherwise with the solidarity whichthe division of labor produces. Whereas the pre-vious type implies that individuals resemble eachother, this type presumes their difference. Thefirst is possible only in so far as the individualpersonality is absorbed into the collective per-sonality; the second is possible only if each onehas a sphere of action which is peculiar to him;that is, a personality. It is necessary, then, that thecollective conscience leave open a part of theindividual conscience in order that special func-tions may be established there, functions which itcannot regulate. The more this region is extended,the stronger is the cohesion which results fromthis solidarity. In effect, on the one hand, eachone depends as much more strictly on society aslabor is more divided; and, on the other, the activ-ity of each is as much more personal as it is morespecialized. Doubtless, as circumscribed as it is,it is never completely original. Even in the exer-cise of our occupation, we conform to usages, topractices which are common to our whole pro-fessional brotherhood. But, even in this instance,the yoke that we submit to is much less heavy


vHowever, these two consciences are not in regions geographically distinct from us, but penetrate from all sides.


than when society completely controls us, and itleaves much more place open for the free play ofour initiative. Here, then, the individuality of allgrows at the same time as that of its parts. Societybecomes more capable of collective movement,at the same time that each of its elements hasmore freedom of movement. This solidarityresembles that which we observe among thehigher animals. Each organ, in effect, has itsspecial physiognomy, its autonomy. And, more-over, the unity of the organism is as great as theindividuation of the parts is more marked.Because of this analogy, we propose to call thesolidarity which is due to the division of labor,organic. . . .

THE CAUSES

We can then formulate the following proposition:The division of labor varies in direct ratio with thevolume and density of societies, and, if it pro-gresses in a continuous manner in the course ofsocial development, it is because societies becomeregularly denser and generally more voluminous.

At all times, it is true, it has been well under-stood that there was a relation between thesetwo orders of fact, for, in order that functions bemore specialized, there must be more co-operators,and they must be related to co-operate. But,ordinarily, this state of societies is seen only asthe means by which the division of labor devel-ops, and not as the cause of its development.The latter is made to depend upon individualaspirations toward well-being and happiness,which can be satisfied so much better associeties are more extensive and more con-densed. The law we have just established isquite otherwise. We say, not that the growth andcondensation of societies permit, but that they

necessitate a greater division of labor. It is notan instrument by which the latter is realized; itis its determining cause.vi

THE FORCED DIVISION OF LABOR

It is not sufficient that there be rules, however, forsometimes the rules themselves are the cause ofevil. This is what occurs in class-wars. The insti-tution of classes and of castes constitutes an orga-nization of the division of labor, and it is a strictlyregulated organization, although it often is asource of dissension. The lower classes not being,or no longer being, satisfied with the role whichhas devolved upon them from custom or by lawaspire to functions which are closed to them andseek to dispossess those who are exercising thesefunctions. Thus civil wars arise which are due tothe manner in which labor is distributed.

There is nothing similar to this in the organ-ism. No doubt, during periods of crises, thedifferent tissues war against one another andnourish themselves at the expense of others.But never does one cell or organ seek to usurpa role different from the one which it is filling.The reason for this is that each anatomic ele-ment automatically executes its purpose. Itsconstitution, its place in the organism, deter-mines its vocation; its task is a consequence ofits nature. It can badly acquit itself, but it can-not assume another’s task unless the latterabandons it, as happens in the rare cases of sub-stitution that we have spoken of. It is not so insocieties. Here the possibility is greater. Thereis a greater distance between the hereditarydispositions of the individual and the socialfunction he will fill. The first do not imply thesecond with such immediate necessity. Thisspace, open to striving and deliberation, is also


viOn this point, we can still rely on Comte as authority. “I must,” he said “now indicate the progressive con-densation of our species as a last general concurrent element in regulating the effective speed of the socialmovement. We can first easily recognize that this influence contributes a great deal, especially in origin, in deter-mining a more special division of human labor, necessarily incompatible with a small number of co-operators.Besides, by a most intimate and little known property, although still most important, such a condensation stim-ulates directly, in a very powerful manner, the most rapid development of social evolution, either in driving indi-viduals to new efforts to assure themselves by more refined means of an existence which otherwise wouldbecome more difficult, or by obliging society with more stubborn and better concentrated energy to fight morestiffly against the more powerful effort of particular divergences. With one and the other, we see that it is not aquestion here of the absolute increase of the number of individuals, but especially of their more intense con-course in a given space.” Cours, IV, p. 455.


at the mercy of a multitude of causes which canmake individual nature deviate from its normaldirection and create a pathological state.Because this organization is more supple, it isalso more delicate and more accessible tochange. Doubtless, we are not, from birth, pre-destined to some special position; but we dohave tastes and aptitudes which limit our choice.If no care is taken of them, if they are cease-lessly disturbed by our daily occupations, weshall suffer and seek a way of putting an end toour suffering. But there is no other way out thanto change the established order and to set up anew one. For the division of labor to producesolidarity, it is not sufficient, then, that each havehis task; it is still necessary that this task be fit-ting to him. Now, it is this condition which isnot realized in the case we are examining. In effect,if the institution of classes or castes sometimesgives rise to anxiety and pain instead of pro-ducing solidarity, this is because the distribu-tion of social functions on which it rests doesnot respond, or rather no longer responds, to thedistribution of natural talents. . . .

CONCLUSION

But not only does the division of labor presentthe character by which we have defined moral-ity; it more and more tends to become the essen-tial condition of social solidarity. As we advancein the evolutionary scale, the ties which bind theindividual to his family, to his native soil, totraditions which the past has given to him, tocollective group usages, become loose. Moremobile, he changes his environment more eas-ily, leaves his people to go elsewhere to live amore autonomous existence, to a greater extentforms his own ideas and sentiments. Of course,the whole common conscience does not, on this

account, pass out of existence. At least therewill always remain this cult of personality, ofindividual dignity of which we have just beenspeaking, and which, today, is the rallying-pointof so many people. But how little a thing it iswhen one contemplates the ever increasingextent of social life, and, consequently, of indi-vidual consciences! For, as they become morevoluminous, as intelligence becomes richer,activity more varied, in order for morality toremain constant, that is to say, in order for theindividual to remain attached to the group witha force equal to that of yesterday, the ties whichbind him to it must become stronger and morenumerous. If, then, he formed no others thanthose which come from resemblances, theeffacement of the segmental type would beaccompanied by a systematic debasement ofmorality. Man would no longer be sufficientlyobligated; he would no longer feel about andabove him this salutary pressure of societywhich moderates his egoism and makes him amoral being. This is what gives moral value tothe division of labor. Through it, the individualbecomes cognizant of his dependence uponsociety; from it come the forces which keep himin check and restrain him. In short, since thedivision of labor becomes the chief source ofsocial solidarity, it becomes, at the same time,the foundation of the moral order.

We can then say that, in higher societies, ourduty is not to spread our activity over a largesurface, but to concentrate and specialize it. Wemust contract our horizon, choose a definitetask and immerse ourselves in it completely,instead of trying to make ourselves a sort ofcreative masterpiece, quite complete, whichcontains its worth in itself and not in the servicesthat it renders. Finally, this specialization oughtto be pushed as far as the elevation of the socialtype, without assigning any other limit to it.vii


viiThere is, however, probably another limit which we do not have to speak of since it concerns individualhygiene. It may be held that, in the light of our organico-psychic constitution, the division of labor cannot gobeyond a certain limit without disorders resulting. Without entering upon the question, let us straightaway saythat the extreme specialization at which biological functions have arrived does not seem favorable to thishypothesis. Moreover, in the very order of psychic and social functions, has not the division of labor, in its his-torical development, been carried to the last stage in the relations of men and women? Have not there been fac-ulties completely lost by both? Why cannot the same phenomenon occur between individuals of the same sex?Of course, it takes time for the organism to adapt itself to these changes, but we do not see why a day shouldcome when this adaptation would become impossible.


No doubt, we ought so to work as to realize inourselves the collective type as it exists. Thereare common sentiments, common ideas, with-out which, as has been said, one is not a man.The rule which orders us to specialize remainslimited by the contrary rule. Our conclusion isnot that it is good to press specialization as faras possible, but as far as necessary. As for thepart that is to be played by these two opposingnecessities, that is determined by experienceand cannot be calculated a priori. It is enoughfor us to have shown that the second is notof a different nature from the first, but that italso is moral, and that, moreover, this dutybecomes ever more important and pressing,because the general qualities which are inquestion suffice less and less to socialize theindividual. . . .

Let us first of all remark that it is difficult tosee why it would be more in keeping with thelogic of human nature to develop superficiallyrather than profoundly. Why would a more exten-sive activity, but more dispersed, be superior to amore concentrated, but circumscribed, activity?Why would there be more dignity in being com-plete and mediocre, rather than in living a morespecialized, but more intense life, particularly if itis thus possible for us to find what we have lostin this specialization, through our associationwith other beings who have what we lack andwho complete us? We take off from the principlethat man ought to realize his nature as man, toaccomplish his öικειoν εργoν, as Aristotle said.But this nature does not remain constant through-out history; it is modified with societies. Amonglower peoples, the proper duty of man is toresemble his companions, to realize in himself allthe traits of the collective type which are thenconfounded, much more than today, with thehuman type. But, in more advanced societies, hisnature is, in large part, to be an organ of society,

and his proper duty, consequently, is to play hisrole as an organ.

Moreover, far from being trammelled by theprogress of specialization, individual personal-ity develops with the division of labor.

To be a person is to be an autonomous sourceof action. Man acquires this quality only in so faras there is something in him which is his aloneand which individualizes him, as he is somethingmore than a simple incarnation of the generictype of his race and his group. It will be said thathe is endowed with free will and that is enoughto establish his personality. But although theremay be some of this liberty in him, an object ofso many discussions, it is not this metaphysical,impersonal, invariable attribute which can serveas the unique basis for concrete personality,which is empirical and variable with individuals.That could not be constituted by the whollyabstract power of choice between two opposites,but it is still necessary for this faculty to be exer-cised towards ends and aims which are proper tothe agent. In other words, the very materials ofconscience must have a personal character. Butwe have seen in the second book of this workthat this result is progressively produced as thedivision of labor progresses. The effacement ofthe segmental type, at the same time that itnecessitates a very great specialization, partiallylifts the individual conscience from the organicenvironment which supports it, as from thesocial environment which envelops it, and,accordingly, because of this double emancipa-tion, the individual becomes more of an inde-pendent factor in his own conduct. The divisionof labor itself contributes to this enfranchise-ment, for individual natures, while specializing,become more complex, and by that are in partfreed from collective action and hereditary influ-ences which can only enforce themselves uponsimple, general things. . . .


❖

Introduction to Suicide

Suicide (1897) is both a theoretical and methodological exemplar. In this famous study,Durkheim examines a phenomenon that most people think of as an intensely individualact—suicide—and demonstrates its social (rather than psychological) roots. His method for



doing this is to analyze rates of suicide between societies and historical periods and betweendifferent social groups within the same society. By linking the different suicide rates of par-ticular societies and social groups to the specific characteristics of that society/social group,Durkheim not only demonstrates that individual pathologies are rooted in social conditions;in addition, Durkheim shows how sociologists can scientifically study social behavior. Hisinnovative examination of suicide rates lent credibility to his conviction that sociologyshould be considered a viable scientific discipline.

Most importantly, Durkheim argues that the places with the highest rates of alcoholismand mental illness are not the areas with the highest suicide rates (thereby undermining thenotion that it is pathological psychological states that are solely determinative of the indi-vidual act of suicide). Rather, Durkheim maintains that suicide rates are highest in momentswhen, and in places where, individuals lack social and moral regulation and/or integration.In addition, as in his first book, The Division of Labor in Society, in Suicide Durkheim wasparticularly interested in delineating the fundamental differences between traditional andmodern societies. Durkheim sought to explain why suicide is rare in small, simple societieswhile much more frequent in modern, industrial ones. Parallel to his argument in TheDivision of Labor in Society, Durkheim argues that traditional and modern societies differnot only in their rates of suicide, but in the types of suicide that are prevalent as well.

Specifically, Durkheim saw two main characteristics of modern, industrial society: therewas (1) a lack of integration of the individual in the social group and (2) a lack of moral reg-ulation. Durkheim used the term egoism to refer to the lack of integration of the individual inthe social group. He used the term anomie to refer to a lack of moral regulation. Durkheimargued that both of these conditions—egoism and anomie—are “chronic” in modern, indus-trial society; and in extreme, pathological form, both egoism and anomie can result in sui-cide. Let’s look at these two different, albeit intimately interrelated, conditions in turn.

For Durkheim, egoistic suicide results from a pathological weakening of the bondsbetween the individual and the social group. This lack of integration is evident statistically,in that there are higher rates of suicide among single, divorced, and widowed persons thanamong married persons, and that there are higher rates of suicide among married personswithout children than there are among married persons with children. Additionally,Durkheim argued that egoism helps explain why suicide rates are higher among Protestantsthan Catholics or Jews: Protestantism emphasizes an individual relationship with God,which means that the individual is less bound to the religious clergy and members of thecongregation. Interestingly, then, Durkheim maintains that it is not Catholic doctrine thatinhibits the act of suicide; rather, it is Catholics’ social and spiritual bonds, their associa-tion with the priests, nuns, and other lay members of the congregation, that deters themfrom this act. Protestant rates of suicide are higher because Protestants are more morallyand spiritually isolated than the more communally oriented Jews and Catholics.

Durkheim saw an increase in egoistic suicide as a “natural” outgrowth of the individu-ation of modern, industrial societies. For instance, today it is quite common—especially inbig cities—for people to live alone. By contrast, in many traditional societies, it is virtu-ally unheard of for anyone to live by himself or herself. Children live with parents untilthey get married; parents move in with children (or vice versa) if a spouse dies; unmarriedsiblings live with either parents or brothers and sisters. As we noted above, Durkheimargued that in its extreme form, the type of social isolation found in modern societies canbe literally fatal.

Intertwined with a decrease in social integration in modern, industrial societies is adecrease in moral integration. Durkheim used the term anomie to refer to this lack of moralregulation. Anomic suicide is the pathological result of a lack of moral direction, when onefeels morally adrift. Durkheim viewed modern societies as “chronically” anomic or charac-terized by a lack of regulation of the individual by the collective.


Thus, for instance, modern industrial societies are religiously pluralistic, wherebypeople are more able to freely choose among a variety of religious faiths—or to choose notto “believe” at all. Similarly, today, many people choose to “identify”—or not—with aspecific part of their ethnic heritage. That we spend much time and energy searching for“identity”—I’m a punk! I’m Irish!—reflects a lack of moral regulation. To be sure, thereare many wonderful benefits from this increasing individuation that contrasts significantlyfrom small, traditional, homogeneous societies in which “who” you are is taken forgranted. In small, closed, indigenous societies without so many (or any) options, wherethere is one religion, one ethnic group, your place in that society is a cultural given—a“place” that may be quite oppressive. Not surprisingly, then, Durkheim asserts that sup-pressing individuation also can produce pathological consequences (this point will be dis-cussed further below).

The lack of moral regulation in modern societies is especially prevalent in times of intensesocial and personal change. During such periods, the authority of the family, the church, andthe community may be challenged or questioned, and without moral guidance and authority,individuals may feel like they have no moral anchor. The pursuit of individual desires andgoals can overtake moral concerns. However, Durkheim maintains that anomie can result notonly from “bad” social change, such as losing one’s job, or political crisis, but from “posi-tive” social change as well. Consider, for instance, what happens when someone wins the lot-tery. Most people think that if they were to win the lottery, they would experience only joyand happiness. Indeed, some people buy lottery tickets thinking, “If I win the ‘big one,’ allmy problems will be solved!” However, Durkheim contends that sudden life-changing eventscan bring on a battery of social and personal issues that one might not expect.

First, after winning the lottery, one might suddenly find oneself confronted with weightyexistential issues. Before the lottery, you may have simply worked—and worked hard—because you needed to earn a living. But now that you’ve won the lottery, you don’t knowwhat to do. By not having to work, you might start thinking about such things as the mean-ing of life that you had never thought about before. This feeling that you don’t know “whatto do” and “how to act” is a state of anomie.

In addition, you might start to wonder how much friends and family should get fromyour winnings. You might begin to feel like everyone just wants your money and that itis hard to tell who likes you and who just likes your new-found fame and fortune. Youmight feel like you can’t talk to your friends about your dilemma, that no one in your pre-vious social circle really “understands” you anymore. You may begin to find that youcan’t relate to the people from your old socioeconomic class, but that you can’t relate toanyone in your new class either. Thus, the sudden change brought about by winning thelottery can lead not only to feeling morally “anchorless” (anomie) but socially alone (ego-ism). A most extreme outcome of feeling this moral and social isolation would be suicide.

As we noted previously, Durkheim argued that traditional and modern societies arerooted in different social conditions. Compared to modern societies, social regulation isintensive in traditional societies, thus limiting the development of individuality. In extremeform, such restrictions can lead to altruistic suicide, where an individual gives his life forthe social group. According to Durkheim, this is the primary type of suicide that occurs insmall, traditional societies where individuation is minimal. The classic type of altruisticsuicide was the Aztecs’ practice of human sacrifice, in which a person was literally sacri-ficed for the moral or spiritual benefit of the group.1


1Durkheim briefly mentioned another type of suicide prevalent in “primitive” societies—“fatalisticsuicide.” For Durkheim, fatalistic suicide was rooted in hopelessness—the hopelessness of oppressedpeople, such as slaves, who had not even the slightest chance of changing their personal situation.


Today many sociologists find fault with Durkheim’s distinction between “modern” and“traditional” societies. This binary opposition seems to be a function of the Eurocentrismof his day: Social scientists tended to imagine that their societies were extremely“complex,” while “traditional” societies were just “simple.” Indeed, “traditional” and“modern” societies may have more in common than Durkheim let on. The degree of inte-gration of the individual into the collective social group is a complex process rather thana permanent state. For instance, even though Durkheim saw altruistic suicide as moreprevalent in “primitive” societies, sadly, it is far from absent in “modern” societies aswell. Not unlike the altruistic suicides in primitive societies, modern-day wars and suicidebombings are carried out on the premise that sacrificing one’s life is necessary for thefight to preserve or attain a sacred way of life for the group as a whole. Nowhere are thesimilarities between these expressions of altruistic suicide (soldiers, suicide bombers, and“primitive” human sacrifice) more readily apparent than in the tragic case of the Japanesekamikaze pilots of World War II. Shockingly, kamikaze flights were a principal tactic ofJapan in the last year of the war.2


2In October 1944, some 1,200 kamikaze (which means “god-wind”) plunged to their deaths in anattack on a U.S. naval fleet in the Leyte Gulf in the Philippines. Six months later, some 1,900kamikaze dove to their deaths in the battle of Okinawa, resulting in the death of more than 5,000American sailors. Most of those involved were men in their teens or early 20s; they were said to havegone to their deaths “joyfully,” having followed specific rituals of cleanliness, and equipped withbooks with uplifting thoughts to “transcend life and death” and “Be always pure-hearted and cheer-ful” (Daniel Ford, Review of Kamikaze: Japan’s Suicide Gods, by Albert Axell and Hideaki Kase,Wall Street Journal, September 10, 2002).

Photo 3.2 In a modern-day incident of altruistic suicide, a number of South VietnameseBuddhist monks used self-immolation to protest the persecution of the country’s majorityBuddhist population at the hands of the Catholic president, Ngo Dinh Diem. Here, QuangDuc burns himself to death on a Saigon street, June 11, 1963.



ANOMIC SUICIDE

But society is not only something attractingthe sentiments and activities of individualswith unequal force. It is also a power controllingthem. There is a relation between the way thisregulative action is performed and the socialsuicide-rate.

I

It is a well-known fact that economic crises havean aggravating effect on the suicidal tendency. . . .

In Vienna, in 1873 a financial crisis occurredwhich reached its height in 1874; the number ofsuicides immediately rose. From 141 in 1872,they rose to 153 in 1873 and 216 in 1874. Theincrease in 1874 is 53 per centi above 1872 and41 per cent above 1873. What proves this cata-strophe to have been the sole cause of theincrease is the special prominence of the increasewhen the crisis was acute, or during the first fourmonths of 1874. From January 1 to April 30 therehad been 48 suicides in 1871, 44 in 1872, 43 in1873; there were 73 in 1874. The increase is 70per cent.ii The same crisis occurring at the sametime in Frankfurt-on-Main produced the sameeffects there. In the years before 1874, 22 sui-cides were committed annually on the average; in1874 there were 32, or 45 per cent more. . . .

The famous crash is unforgotten which tookplace on the Paris Bourse during the winterof 1882. Its consequences were felt not onlyin Paris but throughout France. From 1874 to1886 the average annual increase was only

2 per cent; in 1882 it was 7 per cent. Moreover,it was unequally distributed among the differ-ent times of year, occurring principally duringthe first three months or at the very time of thecrash. Within these three months alone 59 percent of the total rise occurred. So distinctly isthe rise the result of unusual circumstances thatit not only is not encountered in 1881 but hasdisappeared in 1883, although on the whole thelatter year had a few more suicides than thepreceding one:

This relation is found not only in some excep-tional cases, but is the rule. The number ofbankruptcies is a barometer of adequate sensitivity,reflecting the variations of economic life. Whenthey increase abruptly from year to year, some seri-ous disturbance has certainly occurred. From 1845to 1869 there were sudden rises, symptomatic ofcrises, on three occasions. While the annualincrease in the number of bankruptcies during thisperiod is 3.2 per cent, it is 26 per cent in 1847, 37per cent in 1854 and 20 per cent in 1861. At thesethree moments, there is also to be observed anunusually rapid rise in the number of suicides.While the average annual increase during these

Source: Reprinted with the permission of The Free Press, a Division of Simon & Schuster Adult PublishingGroup from Suicide: A Study in Sociology by Émile Durkheim, translated by John A. Spaulding and GeorgeSimpson. Edited by George Simpson. Copyright © 1951 by The Free Press. Copyright renewed © 1979 by TheFree Press. All rights reserved.

iDurkheim incorrectly gives this figure as 51 per cent.—Ed.

iiIn 1874 over 1873.—Ed.

Suicide: A Study in Sociology (1897)

Émile Durkheim

1881 1882 1883

Annual 6,741 7,213 7,267Total (plus

7%)

First 1,589 1,770 1,604Three (plusMonths 11%)



24 years was only 2 per cent, it was 17 per cent in1847, 8 per cent in 1854 and 9 per cent in 1861.

But to what do these crises owe their influ-ence? Is it because they increase poverty bycausing public wealth to fluctuate? Is life morereadily renounced as it becomes more difficult?The explanation is seductively simple; and itagrees with the popular idea of suicide. But it iscontradicted by facts.

Actually, if voluntary deaths increasedbecause life was becoming more difficult,they should diminish perceptibly as comfortincreases. Now, although when the price of themost necessary foods rises excessively, suicidesgenerally do the same, they are not found tofall below the average in the opposite case. InPrussia, in 1850 wheat was quoted at the lowestpoint it reached during the entire period of1848–81; it was at 6.91 marks per 50 kilograms;yet at this very time suicides rose from 1,527where they were in 1849 to 1,736, or an increaseof 13 per cent, and continued to increase duringthe years 1851, 1852 and 1853 although thecheap market held. In 1858–59 a new fall tookplace; yet suicides rose from 2,038 in 1857 to2,126 in 1858, and to 2,146 in 1859. From 1863to 1866 prices which had reached 11.04 marks in1861 fell progressively to 7.95 marks in 1864and remained very reasonable for the wholeperiod; suicides during the same time increased17 per cent (2,112 in 1862, 2,485 in 1866).iii

Similar facts are observed in Bavaria. Accordingto a curve constructed by Mayriv for the period1835–61, the price of rye was lowest during theyears 1857–58 and 1858–59; now suicides,which in 1857 numbered only 286, rose to 329 in1858, to 387 in 1859. The same phenomenonhad already occurred during the years 1848– 50;at that time wheat had been very cheap inBavaria as well as throughout Europe. Yet, inspite of a slight temporary drop due to political

events, which we have mentioned, suicidesremained at the same level. There were 217 in1847, there were still 215 in 1848, and if theydropped for a moment to 189 in 1849, they roseagain in 1850 and reached 250.

So far is the increase in poverty from causingthe increase in suicide that even fortunate crises,the effect of which is abruptly to enhance acountry’s prosperity, affect suicide like eco-nomic disasters. . . .

The conquest of Rome by Victor-Emmanuelin 1870, by definitely forming the basis ofItalian unity, was the starting point for thecountry of a process of growth which is makingit one of the great powers of Europe. Trade andindustry received a sharp stimulus from it andsurprisingly rapid changes took place. Whereasin 1876, 4,459 steam boilers with a total of54,000 horse-power were enough for industrialneeds, the number of machines in 1887 was9,983 and their horse-power of 167,000 wasthreefold more. Of course the amount of pro-duction rose proportionately during the sametime.v Trade followed the same rising course;not only did the merchant marine, communica-tions and transportation develop, but the numberof persons and things transported doubled.vi

As this generally heightened activity caused anincrease in salaries (an increase of 35 per centis estimated to have taken place from 1873to 1889), the material comfort of workers rose,especially since the price of bread was fallingat the same time.vii Finally, according to calcula-tions by Bodio, private wealth rose from 45and a half billions on the average during theperiod 1875–80 to 51 billions during the years1880–85 and 54 billions and a half in1885–90.viii

Now, an unusual increase in the numberof suicides is observed parallel with thiscollective renaissance. From 1866 to 1870 they

iiiSee Starck, Verbrechen und Vergehen in Preussen, Berlin, 1884, p. 55.ivDie Gesetzmässigkeit im Gesellschaftsleben, p. 345.vSee Fornasari di Verce, La criminalita e le vicende economiche d’Italia, Turin 1894, pp. 7783.viIbid., pp. 108–117.viiIbid., pp. 86–104.viiiThe increase is less during the period 1885–90 because of a financial crisis.


were roughly stable; from 1871 to 1877 theyincreased 36 per cent. There were in

And since then the movement has continued.The total figure, 1,139 in 1877, was 1,463 in1889, a new increase of 28 per cent.

In Prussia the same phenomenon occurred ontwo occasions. In 1866 the kingdom received afirst enlargement. It annexed several importantprovinces, while becoming the head of theConfederation of the North. Immediately thisgrowth in glory and power was accompanied bya sudden rise in the number of suicides. Therehad been 123 suicides per million during theperiod 1856–60 per average year and only 122during the years 1861–65. In the five years,1866–70, in spite of the drop in 1870, the aver-age rose to 133. The year 1867, which immedi-ately followed victory, was that in which suicideachieved the highest point it had reached since1816 (1 suicide per 5,432 inhabitants, while in1864 there was only one case per 8,739).

On the morrow of the war of 1870 a newaccession of good fortune took place. Germanywas unified and placed entirely under Prussianhegemony. An enormous war indemnity addedto the public wealth; commerce and industrymade great strides. The development of suicidewas never so rapid. From 1875 to 1886 itincreased 90 per cent, from 3,278 cases to6,212.

World expositions, when successful, areconsidered favorable events in the existence ofa society. They stimulate business, bring moremoney into the country and are thought to

increase public prosperity, especially in the citywhere they take place. Yet, quite possibly, theyultimately take their toll in a considerably highernumber of suicides. Especially does this seem tohave been true of the Exposition of 1878. Therise that year was the highest occurring between1874 and 1886. It was 8 per cent, that is, higherthan the one caused by the crash of 1882. Andwhat almost proves the Exposition to have beenthe cause of this increase is that 86 per cent of ittook place precisely during the six months of theExposition.

In 1889 things were not identical all overFrance. But quite possibly the Boulanger crisisneutralized the contrary effects of the Expositionby its depressive influence on the growth of sui-cides. Certainly at Paris, although the politicalfeeling aroused must have had the same effect asin the rest of the country, things happened as in1878. For the 7 months of the Exposition, sui-cides increased almost 10 per cent, 9.66 to beexact, while through the remainder of the yearthey were below what they had been in 1888 andwhat they afterwards were in 1890.

It may well be that but for the Boulangerinfluence the rise would have been greater.

What proves still more conclusively that eco-nomic distress does not have the aggravatinginfluence often attributed to it, is that it tendsrather to produce the opposite effect. There isvery little suicide in Ireland, where the peasantryleads so wretched a life. Poverty-strickenCalabria has almost no suicides; Spain has atenth as many as France. Poverty may even beconsidered a protection. In the various Frenchdepartments the more people there are whohave independent means, the more numerous aresuicides. . . .


1864–70 29 suicides per million

1871 31 suicides per million





1876 36.5 suicides per million

1877 40.6 suicides per million

1888 1889 1890

The seven 517 567 540monthsof theExposition

The five 319 311 356othermonths


If therefore industrial or financial crisesincrease suicides, this is not because they causepoverty, since crises of prosperity have thesame result; it is because they are crises, that is,disturbances of the collective order.ix Every distur-bance of equilibrium, even though it achievesgreater comfort and a heightening of generalvitality, is an impulse to voluntary death. When-ever serious readjustments take place in the socialorder, whetheror not due to a sudden growth or toan unexpected catastrophe, men are more inclinedto self-destruction. How is this possible? How cansomething considered generally to improve exis-tence serve to detach men from it?

For the answer, some preliminary considera-tions are required.

II

No living being can be happy or even existunless his needs are sufficiently proportioned tohis means. In other words, if his needs requiremore than can be granted, or even merely some-thing of a different sort, they will be under con-tinual friction and can only function painfully.

Movements incapableof production with-out pain tend not tobe reproduced. Unsat-isfied tendencies atro-phy, and as the impulseto live is merely theresult of all the rest, itis bound to weaken asthe others relax.

In the animal, atleast in a normal con-dition, this equilibriumis established withautomatic spontaneitybecause the animaldepends on purelymaterial conditions.

All the organism needs is that the supplies ofsubstance and energy constantly employed in thevital process should be periodically renewed byequivalent quantities; that replacement be equiv-alent to use. When the void created by existencein its own resources is filled, the animal, satisfied,asks nothing further. Its power of reflection is notsufficiently developed to imagine other ends thanthose implicit in its physical nature. On the otherhand, as the work demanded of each organ itselfdepends on the general state of vital energy andthe needs of organic equilibrium, use is regulatedin turn by replacement and the balance is auto-matic. The limits of one are those of the other;both are fundamental to the constitution of theexistence in question, which cannot exceed them.

This is not the case with man, because mostof his needs are not dependent on his body ornot to the same degree. Strictly speaking, wemay consider that the quantity of material sup-plies necessary to the physical maintenance of ahuman life is subject to computation, thoughthis be less exact than in the preceding case anda wider margin left for the free combinations ofthe will; for beyond the indispensable minimumwhich satisfies nature when instinctive, a more


ixTo prove that an increase in prosperity diminishes suicides, the attempt has been made to show that theybecome less when emigration, the escape-valve of poverty, is widely practiced (See Legoyt, pp. 257–259). Butcases are numerous where parallelism instead of inverse proportions exist between the two. In Italy from 1876to 1890 the number of emigrants rose from 76 per 100,000 inhabitants to 335, a figure itself exceeded between1887 and 1889. At the same time suicides did not cease to grow in nnumbers.

Departments Where Suicides Were Committed(1878–1887; per 100,000 Inhabitants)

Suicides Number of Departments

From 48 to 43 5 127

From 38 to 31 6 73

From 30 to 24 6 69

From 23 to 18 15 59

From 17 to 13 18 49

From 12 to 8 26 49

From 7 to 3 10 42

Average Number ofPersons of Independent

Means per 1,000Inhabitants in Each Group

of Department (1886)


awakened reflection suggests better conditions,seemingly desirable ends craving fulfillment.Such appetites, however, admittedly sooner orlater reach a limit which they cannot pass. Buthow determine the quantity of well-being, com-fort or luxury legitimately to be craved by ahuman being? Nothing appears in man’s organicnor in his psychological constitution which setsa limit to such tendencies. The functioning ofindividual life does not require them to cease atone point rather than at another; the proof beingthat they have constantly increased since thebeginnings of history, receiving more and morecomplete satisfaction, yet with no weakeningof average health. Above all, how establishtheir proper variation with different conditionsof life, occupations, relative importance ofservices, etc.? In no society are they equallysatisfied in the different stages of the socialhierarchy. Yet human nature is substantially thesame among all men, in its essential qualities. Itis not human nature which can assign the vari-able limits necessary to our needs. They are thusunlimited so far as they depend on the individ-ual alone. Irrespective of any external regula-tory force, our capacity for feeling is in itself aninsatiable and bottomless abyss.

But if nothing external can restrain thiscapacity, it can only be a source of torment toitself. Unlimited desires are insatiable by defin-ition and insatiability is rightly considered asign of morbidity. Being unlimited, they con-stantly and infinitely surpass the means attheir command; they cannot be quenched.Inextinguishable thirst is constantly renewedtorture. It has been claimed, indeed, that humanactivity naturally aspires beyond assignable lim-its and sets itself unattainable goals. But howcan such an undetermined state be any more rec-onciled with the conditions of mental life thanwith the demands of physical life? All man’spleasure in acting, moving and exerting himselfimplies the sense that his efforts are not in vainand that by walking he has advanced. However,one does not advance when one walks towardno goal, or—which is the same thing—when hisgoal is infinity. Since the distance between usand it is always the same, whatever road wetake, we might as well have made the motionswithout progress from the spot. Even ourglances behind and our feeling of pride at the

distance covered can cause only deceptive satis-faction, since the remaining distance is not pro-portionately reduced. To pursue a goal which isby definition unattainable is to condemn oneselfto a state of perpetual unhappiness. Of course,man may hope contrary to all reason, and hopehas its pleasures even when unreasonable. Itmay sustain him for a time; but it cannot survivethe repeated disappointments of experienceindefinitely. What more can the future offer himthan the past, since he can never reach a tenablecondition nor even approach the glimpsedideal? Thus, the more one has, the more onewants, since satisfactions received only stimu-late instead of filling needs. Shall action as suchbe considered agreeable? First, only on condi-tion of blindness to its uselessness. Secondly,for this pleasure to be felt and to temper andhalf veil the accompanying painful unrest, suchunending motion must at least always be easyand unhampered. If it is interfered with onlyrestlessness is left, with the lack of ease whichit, itself, entails. But it would be a miracle if noinsurmountable obstacle were never encoun-tered. Our thread of life on these conditions ispretty thin, breakable at any instant.

To achieve any other result, the passions firstmust be limited. Only then can they be harmo-nized with the faculties and satisfied. But sincethe individual has no way of limiting them, thismust be done by some force exterior to him. Aregulative force must play the same role formoral needs which the organism plays for phys-ical needs. This means that the force can only bemoral. The awakening of conscience interruptedthe state of equilibrium of the animal’s dormantexistence; only conscience, therefore, can furnishthe means to re-establish it. Physical restraintwould be ineffective; hearts cannot be touchedby physio-chemical forces. So far as theappetites are not automatically restrained byphysiological mechanisms, they can be haltedonly by a limit that they recognize as just. Menwould never consent to restrict their desires ifthey felt justified in passing the assigned limit.But, for reasons given above, they cannot assignthemselves this law of justice. So they mustreceive it from an authority which they respect,to which they yield spontaneously. Eitherdirectly and as a whole or through the agencyof one of its organs, society alone can play this



moderating role; for it is the only moral powersuperior to the individual, the authority of whichhe accepts. It alone has the power necessary tostipulate law and to set the point beyond whichthe passions must not go. Finally, it alone canestimate the reward to be prospectively offeredto every class of human functionary, in the nameof the common interest.

As a matter of fact, at every moment ofhistory there is a dim perception, in the moralconsciousness of societies, of the respectivevalue of different social services, the relativereward due to each, and the consequent degreeof comfort appropriate on the average to work-ers in each occupation. The different functionsare graded in public opinion and a certain coef-ficient of well-being assigned to each, accordingto its place in the hierarchy. According toaccepted ideas, for example, a certain way ofliving is considered the upper limit to which aworkman may aspire in his efforts to improvehis existence, and there is another limit belowwhich he is not willingly permitted to fall unlesshe has seriously bemeaned himself. Both differfor city and country workers, for the domesticservant and the day-laborer, for the businessclerk and the official, etc. Likewise the man ofwealth is reproved if he lives the life of a poorman, but also if he seeks the refinements of lux-ury overmuch. Economists may protest in vain;public feeling will always be scandalized if anindividual spends too much wealth for whollysuperfluous use, and it even seems that thisseverity relaxes only in times of moral distur-bance.x A genuine regimen exists, therefore,although not always legally formulated, whichfixes with relative precision the maximumdegree of ease of living to which each socialclass may legitimately aspire. However, thereis nothing immutable about such a scale. Itchanges with the increase or decrease of collec-tive revenue and the changes occurring in themoral ideas of society. Thus what appears lux-ury to one period no longer does so to another;and the well-being which for long periods wasgranted to a class only by exception andsupererogation, finally appears strictly neces-sary and equitable.

Under this pressure, each in his spherevaguely realizes the extreme limit set to hisambitions and aspires to nothing beyond. Atleast if he respects regulations and is docile tocollective authority, that is, has a wholesomemoral constitution, he feels that it is not wellto ask more. Thus, an end and goal are set tothe passions. Truly, there is nothing rigid norabsolute about such determination. The eco-nomic ideal assigned each class of citizens isitself confined to certain limits, within whichthe desires have free range. But it is not infi-nite. This relative limitation and the modera-tion it involves, make men contented with theirlot while stimulating them moderately toimprove it; and this average contentmentcauses the feeling of calm, active happiness,the pleasure in existing and living which char-acterizes health for societies as well as for indi-viduals. Each person is then at least, generallyspeaking, in harmony with his condition, anddesires only what he may legitimately hope foras the normal reward of his activity. Besides,this does not condemn man to a sort of immo-bility. He may seek to give beauty to hislife; but his attempts in this direction may failwithout causing him to despair. For, lovingwhat he has and not fixing his desire solely onwhat he lacks, his wishes and hopes may fail ofwhat he has happened to aspire to, without hisbeing wholly destitute. He has the essentials.The equilibrium of his happiness is securebecause it is defined, and a few mishaps cannotdisconcert him.

But it would be of little use for everyone torecognize the justice of the hierarchy of func-tions established by public opinion, if he did notalso consider the distribution of these functionsjust. The workman is not in harmony with hissocial position if he is not convinced that he hashis deserts. If he feels justified in occupyinganother, what he has would not satisfy him. Soit is not enough for the average level of needsfor each social condition to be regulated by pub-lic opinion, but another, more precise rule, mustfix the way in which these conditions are opento individuals. There is no society in which suchregulation does not exist. It varies with times


xActually, this is a purely moral reprobation and can hardly be judicially implemented. We do not consider anyreestablishment of sumptuary laws desirable or even possible.


and places. Once it regarded birth as the almostexclusive principle of social classification;today it recognizes no other inherent inequalitythan hereditary fortune and merit. But in allthese various forms its object is unchanged. It isalso only possible, everywhere, as a restrictionupon individuals imposed by superior authority,that is, by collective authority. For it can beestablished only by requiring of one or anothergroup of men, usually of all, sacrifices and con-cessions in the name of the public interest.

Some, to be sure, have thought that this moralpressure would become unnecessary if men’s eco-nomic circumstances were only no longer deter-mined by heredity. If inheritance were abolished,the argument runs, if everyone began life withequal resources and if the competitive strugglewere fought out on a basis of perfect equality, noone could think its results unjust. Each wouldinstinctively feel that things are as they should be.

Truly, the nearer this ideal equality wereapproached, the less social restraint will be nec-essary. But it is only a matter of degree. One sortof heredity will always exist, that of natural tal-ent. Intelligence, taste, scientific, artistic, literaryor industrial ability, courage and manual dexter-ity are gifts received by each of us at birth, as theheir to wealth receives his capital or as thenobleman formerly received his title and func-tion. A moral discipline will therefore still berequired to make those less favored by natureaccept the lesser advantages which they owe tothe chance of birth. Shall it be demanded that allhave an equal share and that no advantage begiven those more useful and deserving? But thenthere would have to be a discipline far strongerto make these accept a treatment merely equal tothat of the mediocre and incapable.

But like the one first mentioned, this disci-pline can be useful only if considered just by thepeoples subject to it. When it is maintained onlyby custom and force, peace and harmonyare illusory; the spirit of unrest and discontentare latent; appetites superficially restrained areready to revolt. This happened in Rome andGreece when the faiths underlying the old orga-nization of the patricians and plebeians wereshaken, and in our modern societies when aris-tocratic prejudices began to lose their old ascen-dancy. But this state of upheaval is exceptional;

it occurs only when society is passing throughsome abnormal crisis. In normal conditions thecollective order is regarded as just by the greatmajority of persons. Therefore, when we saythat an authority is necessary to impose thisorder on individuals, we certainly do not meanthat violence is the only means of establishingit. Since this regulation is meant to restrain indi-vidual passions, it must come from a powerwhich dominates individuals; but this powermust also be obeyed through respect, not fear.

It is not true, that human activity can bereleased from all restraint. Nothing in the worldcan enjoy such a privilege. All existence being apart of the universe is relative to the remainder;its nature and method of manifestation accord-ingly depend not only on itself but on otherbeings, who consequently restrain and regulateit. Here there are only differences of degree andform between the mineral realm and the thinkingperson. Man’s characteristic privilege is that thebond he accepts is not physical but moral; that is,social. He is governed not by a material environ-ment brutally imposed on him, but by a con-science superior to his own, the superiority ofwhich he feels. Because the greater, better part ofhis existence transcends the body, he escapes thebody’s yoke, but is subject to that of society.

But when society is disturbed by somepainful crisis or by beneficent but abrupt transi-tions, it is momentarily incapable of exercisingthis influence; thence come the sudden rises inthe curve of suicides which we have pointed outabove.

In the case of economic disasters, indeed,something like a declassification occurs whichsuddenly casts certain individuals into a lowerstate than their previous one. Then they mustreduce their requirements, restrain their needs,learn greater self-control. All the advantagesof social influence are lost so far as they areconcerned; their moral education has to berecommenced. But society cannot adjust theminstantaneously to this new life and teach themto practice the increased self-repression towhich they are unaccustomed. So they are notadjusted to the condition forced on them, and itsvery prospect is intolerable; hence the sufferingwhich detaches them from a reduced existenceeven before they have made trial of it.



It is the same if the source of the crisis is anabrupt growth of power and wealth. Then, truly,as the conditions of life are changed, the stan-dard according to which needs were regulatedcan no longer remain the same; for it varies withsocial resources, since it largely determines theshare of each class of producers. The scale isupset; but a new scale cannot be immediatelyimprovised. Time is required for the public con-science to reclassify men and things. So long asthe social forces thus freed have not regainedequilibrium, their respective values are unknownand so all regulation is lacking for a time. Thelimits are unknown between the possible andthe impossible, what is just and what is unjust,legitimate claims and hopes and those which areimmoderate. Consequently, there is no restraintupon aspirations. If the disturbance is profound,it affects even the principles controlling the dis-tribution of men among various occupations.Since the relations between various parts ofsociety are necessarily modified, the ideasexpressing these relations must change. Someparticular class especially favored by the crisisis no longer resigned to its former lot, and, onthe other hand, the example of its greater goodfortune arouses all sorts of jealousy below andabout it. Appetites, not being controlled by apublic opinion become disoriented, no longerrecognize the limits proper to them. Besides,they are at the same time seized by a sort of nat-ural erethism simply by the greater intensity ofpublic life. With increased prosperity desiresincrease. At the very moment when traditionalrules have lost their authority, the richer prizeoffered these appetites stimulates them and makesthem more exigent and impatient of control. Thestate of de-regulation or anomy is thus furtherheightened by passions being less disciplined,precisely when they need more disciplining.

But then their very demands make fulfill-ment impossible. Overweening ambition alwaysexceeds the results obtained, great as they maybe, since there is no warning to pause here.Nothing gives satisfaction and all this agitationis uninterruptedly maintained without appease-ment. Above all, since this race for an unattain-able goal can give no other pleasure but that ofthe race itself, if it is one, once it is interruptedthe participants are left empty-handed. At the

same time the struggle grows more violent andpainful, both from being less controlled andbecause competition is greater. All classes con-tend among themselves because no establishedclassification any longer exists. Effort grows,just when it becomes less productive. Howcould the desire to live not be weakened undersuch conditions?

This explanation is confirmed by the remark-able immunity of poor countries. Poverty protectsagainst suicide because it is a restraint in itself.No matter how one acts, desires have to dependupon resources to some extent; actual possessionsare partly the criterion of those aspired to. So theless one has the less he is tempted to extend therange of his needs indefinitely. Lack of power,compelling moderation, accustoms men to it,while nothing excites envy if no one has super-fluity. Wealth, on the other hand, by the powerit bestows, deceives us into believing that wedepend on ourselves only. Reducing the resis-tance we encounter from objects, it suggeststhe possibility of unlimited success against them.The less limited one feels, the more intolerableall limitation appears. Not without reason, there-fore, have so many religions dwelt on the advan-tages and moral value of poverty. It is actuallythe best school for teaching self-restraint. Forcingus to constant self-discipline, it prepares us toaccept collective discipline with equanimity,while wealth, exalting the individual, may alwaysarouse the spirit of rebellion which is the verysource of immorality. This, of course, is no reasonwhy humanity should not improve its materialcondition. But though the moral danger involvedin every growth of prosperity is not irremediable,it should not be forgotten.

III

If anomy never appeared except, as in the aboveinstances, in intermittent spurts and acute crisis,it might cause the social suicide-rate to varyfrom time to time, but it would not be a regular,constant factor. In one sphere of social life,however—the sphere of trade and industry—itis actually in a chronic state.

For a whole century, economic progress hasmainly consisted in freeing industrial relations



from all regulation. Until very recently, it wasthe function of a whole system of moral forcesto exert this discipline. First, the influence ofreligion was felt alike by workers and masters,the poor and the rich. It consoled the formerand taught them contentment with their lot byinforming them of the providential nature of thesocial order, that the share of each class wasassigned by God himself, and by holding out thehope for just compensation in a world to comein return for the inequalities of this world. Itgoverned the latter, recalling that worldly inter-ests are not man’s entire lot, that they must besubordinate to other and higher interests, andthat they should therefore not be pursued with-out rule or measure. Temporal power, in turn,restrained the scope of economic functions byits supremacy over them and by the relativelysubordinate role it assigned them. Finally,within the business world proper, the occupa-tional groups by regulating salaries, the price ofproducts and production itself, indirectly fixedthe average level of income on which needs arepartially based by the very force of circum-stances. However, we do not mean to proposethis organization as a model. Clearly it would beinadequate to existing societies without greatchanges. What we stress is its existence, the factof its useful influence, and that nothing todayhas come to take its place.

Actually, religion has lost most of its power.And government, instead of regulating econo-mic life, has become its tool and servant. Themost opposite schools, orthodox economists andextreme socialists, unite to reduce government tothe role of a more or less passive intermediaryamong the various social functions. The formerwish to make it simply the guardian of individ-ual contracts; the latter leave it the task of doingthe collective bookkeeping, that is, of recordingthe demands of consumers, transmitting themto producers, inventorying the total revenue anddistributing it according to a fixed formula. Butboth refuse it any power to subordinate othersocial organs to itself and to make them con-verge toward one dominant aim. On both sidesnations are declared to have the single or chiefpurpose of achieving industrial prosperity;such is the implication of the dogma of econo-mic materialism, the basis of both apparentlyopposed systems. And as these theories merely

express the state of opinion, industry, instead ofbeing still regarded as a means to an end tran-scending itself, has become the supreme end ofindividuals and societies alike. Thereupon theappetites thus excited have become freed ofany limiting authority. By sanctifying them, so tospeak, this apotheosis of well-being has placedthem above all human law. Their restraint seemslike a sort of sacrilege. For this reason, even thepurely utilitarian regulation of them exercised bythe industrial world itself through the medium ofoccupational groups has been unable to persist.Ultimately, this liberation of desires has beenmade worse by the very development of industryand the almost infinite extension of the market.So long as the producer could gain his profitsonly in his immediate neighborhood, therestricted amount of possible gain could notmuch overexcite ambition. Now that he mayassume to have almost the entire world as hiscustomer, how could passions accept their for-mer confinement in the face of such limitlessprospects?

Such is the source of the excitement predom-inating in this part of society, and which hasthence extended to the other parts. There, thestate of crisis and anomy is constant and, so tospeak, normal. From top to bottom of the ladder,greed is aroused without knowing where to findultimate foothold. Nothing can calm it, since itsgoal is far beyond all it can attain. Reality seemsvalueless by comparison with the dreams offevered imaginations; reality is therefore aban-doned, but so too is possibility abandoned whenit in turn becomes reality. A thirst arises fornovelties, unfamiliar pleasures, nameless sensa-tions, all of which lose their savor once known.Henceforth one has no strength to endure theleast reverse. The whole fever subsides and thesterility of all the tumult is apparent, and it isseen that all these new sensations in their infi-nite quantity cannot form a solid foundation ofhappiness to support one during days of trial.The wise man, knowing how to enjoy achievedresults without having constantly to replacethem with others, finds in them an attachment tolife in the hour of difficulty. But the man whohas always pinned all his hopes on the futureand lived with his eyes fixed upon it, has noth-ing in the past as a comfort against the present’safflictions, for the past was nothing to him but a



series of hastily experienced stages. What blindedhim to himself was his expectation always tofind further on the happiness he had so farmissed. Now he is stopped in his tracks; fromnow on nothing remains behind or ahead of himto fix his gaze upon. Weariness alone, moreover,is enough to bring disillusionment, for he cannotin the end escape the futility of an endlesspursuit.

We may even wonder if this moral state is notprincipally what makes economic catastrophesof our day so fertile in suicides. In societieswhere a man is subjected to a healthy discipline,he submits more readily to the blows of chance.The necessary effort for sustaining a little morediscomfort costs him relatively little, since he isused to discomfort and constraint. But whenevery constraint is hateful in itself, how cancloser constraint not seem intolerable? Thereis no tendency to resignation in the feverishimpatience of men’s lives. When there is noother aim but to outstrip constantly the pointarrived at, how painful to be thrown back! Nowthis very lack of organization characterizing our

economic condition throws the door wide toevery sort of adventure. Since imagination ishungry for novelty, and ungoverned, it gropesat random. Setbacks necessarily increase withrisks and thus crises multiply, just when they arebecoming more destructive.

Yet these dispositions are so inbred that societyhas grown to accept them and is accustomed tothink them normal. It is everlastingly repeatedthat it is man’s nature to be eternally dissatisfied,constantly to advance, without relief or rest,toward an indefinite goal. The longing for infinityis daily represented as a mark of moral distinction,whereas it can only appear within unregulatedconsciences which elevate to a rule the lack ofrule from which they suffer. The doctrine of themost ruthless and swift progress has become anarticle of faith. But other theories appear parallelwith those praising the advantages of instability,which, generalizing the situation that gives thembirth, declare life evil, claim that it is richer ingrief than in pleasure and that it attracts men onlyby false claims. Since this disorder is greatest inthe economic world, it has most victims there.


Liberal* Trade Transportation Industry Agriculture Professions

France (1878–87)† 440 — 340 240 300

Switzerland (1876) 664 1,514 577 304 558

Italy (1866–76) 277 152.6 80.4 26.7 618‡

Prussia (1883–90) 754 — 456 315 832

Bavaria (1884–91) 465 — 369 153 454

Belgium (1886–90) 421 — 160 160 100

Wurttemberg (1873–78) 273 — 190 206 —

Saxony (1878) 341.59§ 71.17 —

Table XXIV Suicides per Million Persons of Different Occupations

* When statistics distinguish several different sorts of liberal occupation, we show as a specimen the one inwhich the suicide-rate is highest.

† From 1826 to 1880 economic functions seem less affected (see Compte-rendu of 1880); but were occupationalstatistics very accurate?

‡ This figure is reached only by men of letters.

§ Figure represents Trade, Transportation, and Industry combined for Saxony. Ed.


Industrial and commercial functions arereally among the occupations which furnish thegreatest number of suicides (see Table XXIV).Almost on a level with the liberal professions,they sometimes surpass them; they are espe-cially more afflicted than agriculture, where theold regulative forces still make their appearancefelt most and where the fever of business hasleast penetrated. Here is best called what wasonce the general constitution of the economicorder. And the divergence would be yet greaterif, among the suicides of industry, employerswere distinguished from workmen, for the for-mer are probably most stricken by the state ofanomy. The enormous rate of those with inde-pendent means (720 per million) sufficientlyshows that the possessors of most comfort suf-fer most. Everything that enforces subordinationattenuates the effects of this state. At least thehorizon of the lower classes is limited by thoseabove them, and for this same reason theirdesires are more modest. Those who have onlyempty space above them are almost inevitablylost in it, if no force restrains them.

Anomy, therefore, is a regular and specificfactor in suicide in our modern societies; one ofthe springs from which the annual contingentfeeds. So we have here a new type to distinguishfrom the others. It differs from them in itsdependence, not on the way in which individu-als are attached to society, but on how it regu-lates them. Egoistic suicide results from man’sno longer finding a basis for existence in life;altruistic suicide, because this basis for exis-tence appears to man situated beyond life itself.The third sort of suicide, the existence of whichhas just been shown, results from man’s activ-ity’s lacking regulation and his consequent suf-ferings. By virtue of its origin we shall assignthis last variety the name of anomic suicide.

Certainly, this and egoistic suicide have kin-dred ties. Both spring from society’s insufficientpresence in individuals. But the sphere of itsabsence is not the same in both cases. In egoisticsuicide it is deficient in truly collective activity,thus depriving the latter of object and meaning.In anomic suicide, society’s influence is lacking

in the basically individual passions, thus leavingthem without a check-rein. In spite of theirrelationship, therefore, the two types are inde-pendent of each other. We may offer societyeverything social in us, and still be unable tocontrol our desires; one may live in an anomicstate without being egoistic, and vice versa. Thesetwo sorts of suicide therefore do not draw theirchief recruits from the same social environments;one has its principal field among intellectualcareers, the world of thought—the other, theindustrial or commercial world.

IV

But economic anomy is not the only anomywhich may give rise to suicide.

The suicides occurring at the crisis of wid-owhood, of which we have already spokenxi arereally due to domestic anomy resulting from thedeath of husband or wife. A family catastropheoccurs which affects the survivor. He is notadapted to the new situation in which he findshimself and accordingly offers less resistance tosuicide.

But another variety of anomic suicide shoulddraw greater attention, both because it is morechronic and because it will serve to illustrate thenature and functions of marriage.

In the Annales de demographie interna-tionale (September 1882), Bertillon published aremarkable study of divorce, in which he provedthe following proposition: throughout Europethe number of suicides varies with that ofdivorces and separations [Table XXV illustratessuch variations]. . . .

INDIVIDUAL FORMS OF THE

DIFFERENT TYPES OF SUICIDE

One result now stands out prominently from ourinvestigation: namely, that there are not one butvarious forms of suicide. Of course, suicide isalways the act of a man who prefers death tolife. But the causes determining him are not of


xiSee above, Book II, Ch. 3.


the same sort in all cases: they are even some-times mutually opposed. Now, such differencein causes must reappear in their effects. We maytherefore be sure that there are several sorts ofsuicide which are distinct in quality from oneanother. But the certainty that these differencesexist is not enough; we need to observe themdirectly and know of what they consist. We needto see the characteristics of special suicidesgrouped in distinct classes corresponding to thetypes just distinguished. Thus we would followthe various currents which generate suicidefrom their social origins to their individual man-ifestations.

This morphological classification, which washardly possible at the commencement of this

study, may be undertaken now that an aetiologi-cal classification forms its basis. Indeed, we onlyneed to start with the three kinds of factorswhich we have just assigned to suicide anddiscover whether the distinctive properties itassumes in manifesting itself among individualpersons may be derived from them, and if so,how. Of course, not all the peculiarities whichsuicide may present can be deduced in this fash-ion; for some may exist which depend solely onthe person’s own nature. Each victim of suicidegives his act a personal stamp which expresseshis temperament, the special conditions in whichhe is involved, and which, consequently, cannotbe explained by the social and general causes ofthe phenomenon. But these causes in turn must


Suicides Annual Divorces per Million

per 1,000 Marriages Inhabitants

I. Countries Where Divorce and Separation Are Rare

Norway 0.54 (1875–80) 73Russia 1.6 (1871–77) 30England and Wales 1.3 (1871–79) 68Scotland 2.1 (1871–81) —Italy 3.05 (1871–73) 31Finland 3.9 (1875–79) 30.8

Averages 2.07 46.5

II. Countries Where Divorce and Separation Are of Average Frequency

Bavaria 5.0 (1881) 90.5Belgium 5.1 (1871–80) 68.5Holland 6.0 (1871–80) 35.5Sweden 6.4 (1871–80) 81Baden 6.5 (1874–79) 156.6France 7.5 (1871–79) 150Wurttemberg 8.4 (1876–78) 162.4Prussia — 133

Averages 6.4 109.6

III. Countries Where Divorce and Separation Are Frequent

Kingdom of Saxony 26.9 (1876–80) 299Denmark 38 (1871–80) 258Switzerland 47 (1876–80) 216

Averages 37.3 257

Table XXV Comparison of European States from the Point of View of Both Divorce and Suicide


stamp the suicides they determine with a shadeall their own, a special mark expressive of them.This collective mark we must find.

To be sure, this can be done only appro-ximately. We are not in a position to describemethodically all the suicides daily committedby men or committed in the course of history.We can only emphasize the most general andstriking characteristics without even havingan objective criterion for making the selec-tion. Moreover, we can only proceed deduc-tively in relating them to the respective causesfrom which they seem to spring. All that wecan do is to show their logical implication,though the reasoning may not always be ableto receive experimental confirmation. We donot forget that a deduction uncontrolled byexperiment is always questionable. Yet thisresearch is far from being useless, even withthese reservations. Even though it may beconsidered only a method of illustrating the

preceding results by examples, it wouldstill have the worth of giving them a moreconcrete character by connecting them moreclosely with the data of sense-perceptionand with the details of daily experience. Itwill also introduce some little distinctivenessinto this mass of facts usually lumpedtogether as though varying only by shades,though there are striking differences amongthem. Suicide is like mental alienation. Forthe popular mind the latter consists in asingle state, always identical, capable only ofsuperficial differentiation according to cir-cumstances. For the alienist, on the contrary,the word denotes many nosological types.Every suicide is, likewise, ordinarily consid-ered a victim of melancholy whose life hasbecome a burden to him. Actually, the acts bywhich a man renounces life belong to differentspecies, of wholly different moral and socialsignificance.


Introduction to The Elementary Forms of Religious Life

In his final and most theoretically acclaimed book, The Elementary Forms of Religious Life(1912), Durkheim sought to explain the way the moral realm worked by focusing on reli-gion. Durkheim saw religious ceremonies not merely as a celebration of supernaturaldeities, but as a worshipping of social life itself, such that as long as there are societies, therewill be religion (Robertson 1970:13).

In other words, for Durkheim, social life—whether in traditional or modern society—isinherently religious, for “religious force is nothing other than the collective and anonymousforce” of society (1912/1995:210). The worship of transcendent gods or spirits and therespect and awe accorded to their power is in actuality the worship of the social group andthe force it exerts over the individual. No matter how “simple” or “complex” the society,religion is thus a “system of ideas with which the individuals represent to themselves thesociety of which they are members, and the obscure but intimate relations which they havewith it . . . for it is an eternal truth that outside of us there exists something greater than us,with which we enter into communion” (ibid:257). For Durkheim, this outside power, this“something greater” is society.

In saying that social life is inherently religious, Durkheim defined religion in a verybroad way. For Durkheim, “religion” does not mean solely “churchly” or institutionalthings; rather, religion is a system of symbols and rituals about the sacred that is practicedby a community of believers. This definition of religion is often called “functionalist” ratherthan “substantive” because it emphasizes not the substantive content of religion, such asparticular rituals or doctrines (e.g., baptisms or bar mitzvahs, or belief in an afterlife, higherbeings, etc.), but the social function of religion.

❖



For Durkheim, the primary function of religion is to encode the system of relations of thegroup (Eliade and Couliano 1991:2). It focuses and reaffirms the collective sentiments andideas that hold the group together. Religious practices, accordingly, serve to bind partici-pants together in celebration of the society (Robertson 1970:15). As Durkheim (1912 /1995)states,

There can be no society which does not feel the need of upholding and reaffirming atregular intervals the collective sentiments and the collective ideas which makes its unityand its personality. Now this moral remaking cannot be achieved except by the means ofreunions, assemblies and meetings where the individuals, being closely united to oneanother, reaffirm in common their common sentiments. (p. 429)

This communal function of religion is carried out through the dual processes of ritual-ization and symbolization. A ritual is a highly routinized act, such as taking communion.As the name reveals, the Christian ritual of communion not only commemorates an histor-ical event in the life of Jesus; it also represents participation in the unity (“communion”) ofbelievers (McGuire 1997:187). Most interestingly, because they are practices (not beliefs orvalues), rituals can unite a social group regardless of individual differences in beliefs orstrength of convictions. It is the common experience and focus that binds the participantstogether (see Photos 3.3a and 3.3b).

This is why, for Durkheim, there is no essential difference between “religious” and “sec-ular” ritual acts. “Let us pray” (an opening moment in a religious service) and “Let us standfor the national anthem” (an opening moment of a baseball game) are both ritual acts thatbond the individual to a community. In exactly the same way, Durkheim suggested that thereis no essential difference between religious holidays, such as Passover or Christmas, and

Photo 3.3a The congregation of St. Martin de Tours Catholic Church steps forward to takecommunion in St. Martinsville, Louisiana.


secular holidays, such as Independence Day or Thanksgiving. Both are collective celebra-tions of identity and community (see Edles 2002:27–30).

As noted above, in addition to ritual practices, there is another important means throughwhich the communal function of religion is achieved: symbolization. A symbol is some-thing that stands for something else. It is a representation that calls up collective ideas andmeanings. Thus, for instance, the “cross” is a marker that symbolizes Christian spiritualityand/or tradition. Wearing a cross on a necklace often means that one is a Christian. It iden-tifies the wearer as a member of a specific religious community and/or specific shared ideas(e.g., a religious tradition in which Jesus Christ is understood as the son of God). Mostimportantly, symbols such as the cross are capable of calling up and reaffirming sharedmeaning and the feeling of community in between periodic ritual acts (such as religiouscelebrations and weekly church services). As Durkheim (1912/1995:232) states, “Withoutsymbols, social sentiments could have only a precarious existence.”

In The Elementary Forms of Religious Life, Durkheim explains that symbols are classi-fied as fundamentally sacred or profane. The sacred refers to the extraordinary, that whichis set apart from and “above and beyond” the everyday world. In direct contrast to thesacred realm, is the realm of the everyday world of the mundane or routine, or the profane.Most importantly, objects are intrinsically neither sacred nor profane; rather, their meaningor classification is continually produced and reproduced (and/or altered) in collectiveprocesses of ritualization and symbolization. Thus, for instance, lighting a candle caneither be a relatively mundane task to enhance one’s dinner table or it can be a sacred act,as in the case of the Jewish ritual of lighting a candle to commemorate the Sabbath(McGuire 1997:17). In the latter context, this act denotes a sacred moment as well as cel-ebration. This points to the central function of the distinction between the sacred and theprofane. It imposes an orderly system on the inherently untidy experience of living(Gamson 1998:141). Thus for instance, ritual practices (e.g., standing for the nationalanthem or lighting a candle to commemorate the Sabbath) transform a profane moment


Photo 3.3b Fans at sporting events often engage in communal ritual acts, such aschanting and doing “the wave.” As Durkheim (1912/1995:262) states, “It is byuttering the same cry, pronouncing the same word, or performing the same gesturein regard to some object that they become and feel themselves to be in unison.”


into a sacred moment; while sacred sites (churches, mosques, synagogues) differentiate“routine” places from those that compel attitudes of awe and inspiration. The symbolicplasticity of time and space is especially apparent in the way devout Muslims (who oftenmust pray in everyday, mundane settings in order to fulfill their religious duties) carry outthe frequent prayers required by their religion. They lay down a (sacred) prayer carpet intheir office or living room, thereby enabling them to convert a profane time and space intoa sacred time and space. This temporal and spatial reordering transforms the profane realmof work or home into a spiritual, sacred domain. Such acts, and countless others, help orderand organize our experience of the world by carving it into that which is extraordinary orsacred and that which is unremarkable or profane.


The Elementary Forms of Religious Life (1912)

Émile Durkheim

ORIGINS OF THESE BELIEFS

It is obviously not out of the sensations whichthe things serving as totems are able to arouse inthe mind; we have shown that these things arefrequently insignificant. The lizard, the caterpil-lar, the rat, the ant, the frog, the turkey, thebream-fish, the plum-tree, the cockatoo, etc., tocite only those names which appear frequently inthe lists of Australian totems, are not of a natureto produce upon men these great and strongimpressions which in a way resemble religiousemotions and which impress a sacred characterupon the objects they create. It is true that this isnot the case with the stars and the great atmos-pheric phenomena, which have, on the contrary,all that is necessary to strike the imaginationforcibly; but as a matter of fact, these serve onlyvery exceptionally as totems. It is even probablethat they were very slow in taking this office. Soit is not the intrinsic nature of the thing whosename the clan bears that marked it out to becomethe object of a cult. Also, if the sentiments whichit inspired were really the determining cause ofthe totemic rites and beliefs, it would be thepre-eminently sacred thing; the animals or plantsemployed as totems would play an eminent partin the religious life. But we know that the centreof the cult is actually elsewhere. It is the figurative

representations of this plant or animal and thetotemic emblems and symbols of every sort,which have the greatest sanctity; so it is in themthat is found the source of that religious nature,of which the real objects represented by theseemblems receive only a reflection.

Thus the totem is before all a symbol, a mate-rial expression of something else. But of what?

From the analysis to which we have been giv-ing our attention, it is evident that it expresses andsymbolizes two different sorts of things. In thefirst place, it is the outward and visible form ofwhat we have called the totemic principle or god.But it is also the symbol of the determined societycalled the clan. It is its flag; it is the sign by whicheach clan distinguishes itself from the others, thevisible mark of its personality, a mark borne byeverything which is a part of the clan under anytitle whatsoever, men, beasts or things. So if it isat once the symbol of the god and of the society,is that not because the god and the society are onlyone? How could the emblem of the group havebeen able to become the figure of this quasi-divin-ity, if the group and the divinity were two distinctrealities? The god of the clan, the totemic princi-ple, can therefore be nothing else than the clanitself, personified and represented to the imagina-tion under the visible form of the animal or veg-etable which serves as totem.

Source: Reprinted with the permission of The Free Press, a Division of Simon & Schuster Adult Publishing Groupfrom The Elementary Forms of Religious Life by Émile Durkheim. Translated by Karen Fields. Copyright © 1995by Karen E. Fields. All rights reserved.



But how has this apotheosis been possible, andhow did it happen to take place in this fashion?

II

In a general way, it is unquestionable thata society has all that is necessary to arouse thesensation of the divine in minds, merely by thepower that it has over them; for to its members itis what a god is to his worshippers. In fact, a godis, first of all, a being whom men think of assuperior to themselves, and upon whom they feelthat they depend. Whether it be a consciouspersonality, such as Zeus or Jahveh, or merelyabstract forces such as those in play in totemism,the worshipper, in the one case as in the other,believes himself held to certain manners of actingwhich are imposed upon him by the nature of thesacred principle with which he feels that he is incommunion. Now society also gives us the sen-sation of a perpetual dependence. Since it has anature which is peculiar to itself and differentfrom our individual nature, it pursues ends whichare likewise special to it; but, as it cannot attainthem except through our intermediacy, it imperi-ously demands our aid. It requires that, forgetfulof our own interest, we make ourselves its servi-tors, and it submits us to every sort of inconve-nience, privation and sacrifice, without whichsocial life would be impossible. It is because ofthis that at every instant we are obliged to submitourselves to rules of conduct and of thoughtwhich we have neither made nor desired, andwhich are sometimes even contrary to our mostfundamental inclinations and instincts.

Even if society were unable to obtain theseconcessions and sacrifices from us except by amaterial constraint, it might awaken in us onlythe idea of a physical force to which we mustgive way of necessity, instead of that of a moralpower such as religious adore. But as a matter offact, the empire which it holds over consciencesis due much less to the physical supremacy ofwhich it has the privilege than to the moralauthority with which it is invested. If we yield toits orders, it is not merely because it is strongenough to triumph over our resistance; it is

primarily because it is the object of a venerablerespect.

We say that an object, whether individual orcollective, inspires respect when the representationexpressing it in the mind is gifted with such a forcethat it automatically causes or inhibits actions,without regard for any consideration relative totheir useful or injurious effects. When we obeysomebody because of the moral authority whichwe recognize in him, we follow out his opinions,not because they seem wise, but because a certainsort of physical energy is imminent in the idea thatwe form of this person, which conquers our willand inclines it in the indicated direction. Respect isthe emotion which we experience when we feelthis interior and wholly spiritual pressure operat-ing upon us. Then we are not determined by theadvantages or inconveniences of the attitudewhich is prescribed or recommended to us; it is bythe way in which we represent to ourselves theperson recommending or prescribing it. This iswhy commands generally take a short, peremptoryform leaving no place for hesitation; it is because,in so far as it is a command and goes by its ownforce, it excludes all idea of deliberation or calcu-lation; it gets its efficacy from the intensity of themental state in which it is placed. It is this intensitywhich creates what is called a moral ascendancy.

Now the ways of action to which society isstrongly enough attached to impose them upon itsmembers, are, by that very fact, marked with adistinctive sign provocative of respect. Since theyare elaborated in common, the vigour with whichthey have been thought of by each particularmind is retained in all the other minds, and recip-rocally. The representations which express themwithin each of us have an intensity which nopurely private states of consciousness could everattain; for they have the strength of the innumer-able individual representations which haveserved to form each of them. It is society whospeaks through the mouths of those who affirmthem in our presence; it is society whom we hearin hearing them; and the voice of all has an accentwhich that of one alone could never have.i Thevery violence with which society reacts, by wayof blame or material suppression, against every

iSee our Division du travail social, 3rd ed., pp. 64 ff.


attempted dissidence, contributes to strengtheningits empire by manifesting the common convic-tion through this burst of ardour.ii In a word,when something is the object of such a state ofopinion, the representation which each individualhas of it gains a power of action from its originsand the conditions in which it was born, whicheven those feel who do not submit themselves toit. It tends to repel the representations which con-tradict it, and it keeps them at a distance; on theother hand, it commands those acts which willrealize it, and it does so, not by a material coer-cion or by the perspective of something of thissort, but by the simple radiation of the mentalenergy which it contains. It has an efficacy com-ing solely from its psychical properties, and it isby just this sign that moral authority is recog-nized. So opinion, primarily a social thing, is asource of authority, and it might even be askedwhether all authority is not the daughter of opin-ion.iii It may be objected that science is often theantagonist of opinion, whose errors it combatsand rectifies. But it cannot succeed in this task ifit does not have sufficient authority, and it canobtain this authority only from opinion itself. If apeople did not have faith in science, all the scien-tific demonstrations in the world would be with-out any influence whatsoever over their minds.Even to-day, if science happened to resist a verystrong current of public opinion, it would risklosing its credit there.iv

Since it is in spiritual ways that socialpressure exercises itself, it could not fail togive men the idea that outside themselves there

exist one or several powers, both moral and, atthe same time, efficacious, upon which theydepend. They must think of these powers, at leastin part, as outside themselves, for these addressthem in a tone of command and sometimes evenorder them to do violence to their most naturalinclinations. It is undoubtedly true that if theywere able to see that these influences which theyfeel emanate from society, then the mythologicalsystem of interpretations would never be born.But social action follows ways that are too cir-cuitous and obscure, and employs psychicalmechanisms that are too complex to allow theordinary observer to see when it comes. As longas scientific analysis does not come to teach it tothem, men know well that they are acted upon,but they do not know by whom. So they mustinvent by themselves the idea of these powerswith which they feel themselves in connection,and from that, we are able to catch a glimpse ofthe way by which they were led to representthem under forms that are really foreign to theirnature and to transfigure them by thought.

But a god is not merely an authority uponwhom we depend; it is a force upon which ourstrength relies. The man who has obeyed hisgod and who for this reason, believes the godis with him, approaches the world with confi-dence and with the feeling of an increasedenergy. Likewise, social action does not confineitself to demanding sacrifices, privations andefforts from us. For the collective force is notentirely outside of us; it does not act upon uswholly from without; but rather, since society


iiIbid., p. 76.iiiThis is the case at least with all moral authority recognized as such by the group as a whole.ivWe hope that this analysis and those which follow will put an end to an inexact interpretation of our thought,from which more than one misunderstanding has resulted. Since we have made constraint the outward sign bywhich social facts can be the most easily recognized and distinguished from the facts of individual psychology,it has been assumed that according to our opinion, physical constraint is the essential thing for social life. As amatter of fact, we have never considered it more than the material and apparent expression of an interior andprofound fact which is wholly ideal: this is moral authority. The problem of sociology—if we can speak of asociological problem—consists in seeking, among the different forms of external constraint, the different sortsof moral authority corresponding to them and in discovering the causes which have determined these latter. Theparticular question which we are treating in this present work has as its principal object, the discovery of theform under which that particular variety of moral authority which is inherent in all that is religious has beenborn, and out of what elements it is made. It will be seen presently that even if we do make social pressure oneof the distinctive characteristics of sociological phenomena, we do not mean to say that it is the only one. Weshall show another aspect of the collective life, nearly opposite to the preceding one, but none the less real.


cannot exist except in and through individualconsciousness,v this force must also penetrate usand organize itself within us; it thus becomes anintegral part of our being and by that very factthis is elevated and magnified.

There are occasions when this strengtheningand vivifying action of society is especially appar-ent. In the midst of an assembly animated by acommon passion, we become susceptible of actsand sentiments of which we are incapable whenreduced to our own forces; and when the assem-bly is dissolved and when, finding ourselves aloneagain, we fall back to our ordinary level, we arethen able to measure the height to which we havebeen raised above ourselves. History abounds inexamples of this sort. It is enough to think of thenight of the Fourth of August, 1789, when anassembly was suddenly led to an act of sacrificeand abnegation which each of its members hadrefused the day before, and at which they were allsurprised the day after.vi This is why all partiespolitical, economic or confessional, are careful tohave periodical reunions where their membersmay revivify their common faith by manifesting itin common. To strengthen those sentimentswhich, if left to themselves, would soon weaken,it is sufficient to bring those who hold themtogether and to put them into closer and moreactive relations with one another. This is theexplanation of the particular attitude of a manspeaking to a crowd, at least if he has succeededin entering into communion with it. His languagehas a grandiloquence that would be ridiculous inordinary circumstances; his gestures show a cer-tain domination; his very thought is impatient ofall rules, and easily falls into all sorts of excesses.It is because he feels within him an abnormalover-supply of force which overflows and tries toburst out from him; sometimes he even has the

feeling that he is dominated by a moral forcewhich is greater than he and of which he is onlythe interpreter. It is by this trait that we are able torecognize what has often been called the demonof oratorical inspiration. Now this exceptionalincrease of force is something very real; it comesto him from the very group which he addresses.The sentiments provoked by his words come backto him, but enlarged and amplified, and to thisdegree they strengthen his own sentiment. Thepassionate energies he arouses re-echo within himand quicken his vital tone. It is no longer a simpleindividual who speaks; it is a group incarnate andpersonified.

Besides these passing and intermittent states,there are other more durable ones, where thisstrengthening influence of society makes itselffelt with greater consequences and frequentlyeven with greater brilliancy. There are periods inhistory when, under the influence of some greatcollective shock, social interactions have becomemuch more frequent and active. Men look foreach other and assemble together more than ever.That general effervescence results which is char-acteristic of revolutionary or creative epochs.Now this greater activity results in a general stim-ulation of individual forces. Men see more anddifferently now than in normal times. Changes arenot merely of shades and degrees; men becomedifferent. The passions moving them are of suchan intensity that they cannot be satisfied except byviolent and unrestrained actions, actions of super-human heroism or of bloody barbarism. This iswhat explains the Crusades,vii for example, ormany of the scenes, either sublime or savage, ofthe French Revolution.viii Under the influence ofthe general exaltation, we see the most mediocreand inoffensive bourgeois become either a hero ora butcher.ix And so clearly are all these mental


vOf course this does not mean to say that the collective [conscience] does not have distinctive characteristics of itsown (on this point, see Représentations individuelles et représentations collectives, in Revue de Métaphysique etde Morale, 1898, pp. 273 ff.).

viThis is proved by the length and passionate character of the debates where a legal form was given to the reso-lutions made in a moment of collective enthusiasm. In the clergy as in the nobility, more than one person calledthis celebrated night the dupe’s night, or, with Rivarol, the St. Bartholomew of the estates (see Stoll, Suggestionund Hypnotismus in de Völkerpsychologie, 2nd ed., p. 618, n. 2).viiSee Stoll, op. cit., pp. 353 ff.viiiIbid., pp. 619, 635.ixIbid., pp. 622 ff.


processes the ones that are also at the root ofreligion that the individuals themselves have oftenpictured the pressure before which they thus gaveway in a distinctly religious form. The Crusadersbelieved that they felt God present in the midst ofthem, enjoining them to go to the conquest of theHoly Land; Joan of Arc believed that she obeyedcelestial voices.x

But it is not only in exceptional circum-stances that this stimulating action of societymakes itself felt; there is not, so to speak, amoment in our lives when some current ofenergy does not come to us from without. Theman who has done his duty finds, in the mani-festations of every sort expressing the sympa-thy, esteem or affection which his fellows havefor him, a feeling of comfort, of which he doesnot ordinarily take account, but which sustainshim, none the less. The sentiments whichsociety has for him raise the sentiments whichhe has for himself. Because he is in moral har-mony with his comrades, he has more confi-dence, courage and boldness in action, just likethe believer who thinks that he feels the regardof his god turned graciously towards him. It thusproduces, as it were, a perpetual sustenance ofour moral nature. Since this varies with a multi-tude of external circumstances, as our relationswith the groups about us are more or less activeand as these groups themselves vary, we cannotfail to feel that this moral support depends uponan external cause; but we do not perceive wherethis cause is nor what it is. So we ordinarilythink of it under the form of a moral powerwhich, though immanent in us, representswithin us something not ourselves: this is themoral conscience, of which, by the way, menhave never made even a slightly distinct repre-sentation except by the aid of religious symbols.

In addition to these free forces which are con-stantly coming to renew our own, there are otherswhich are fixed in the methods and traditions

which we employ. We speak a language that wedid not make; we use instruments that we did notinvent; we invoke rights that we did not found; atreasury of knowledge is transmitted to eachgeneration that it did not gather itself, etc. It is tosociety that we owe these varied benefits of civ-ilization, and if we do not ordinarily see thesource from which we get them, we at leastknow that they are not our own work. Now it isthese things that give man his own place amongthings; a man is a man only because he is civi-lized. So he could not escape the feeling that out-side of him there are active causes from whichhe gets the characteristic attributes of his natureand which, as benevolent powers, assist him,protect him and assure him of a privileged fate.And of course he must attribute to these powersa dignity corresponding to the great value of thegood things he attributes to them.xi

Thus the environment in which we liveseems to us to be peopled with forces that are atonce imperious and helpful, august and gra-cious, and with which we have relations. Sincethey exercise over us a pressure of which we areconscious, we are forced to localize them out-side ourselves, just as we do for the objectivecauses of our sensations. But the sentimentswhich they inspire in us differ in nature fromthose which we have for simple visible objects.As long as these latter are reduced to theirempirical characteristics as shown in ordinaryexperience, and as long as the religious imagi-nation has not metamorphosed them, we enter-tain for them no feeling which resemblesrespect, and they contain within them nothingthat is able to raise us outside ourselves.Therefore, the representations which expressthem appear to us to be very different fromthose aroused in us by collective influences. Thetwo form two distinct and separate mental statesin our consciousness, just as do the two forms oflife to which they correspond. Consequently, we


xThe emotions of fear and sorrow are able to develop similarly and to become intensified under these same con-ditions. As we shall see, they correspond to quite another aspect of the religious life (Bk. III, ch. v).xiThis is the other aspect of society which, while being imperative, appears at the same time to be good andgracious. It dominates us and assists us. If we have defined the social fact by the first of these characteristicsrather than the second, it is because it is more readily observable, for it is translated into outward and visiblesigns; but we have never thought of denying the second (see our Règles de la Méthode Sociologique, prefaceto the second edition, p. xx, n. 1).


get the impression that we are in relations withtwo distinct sorts of reality and that a sharplydrawn line of demarcation separates them fromeach other: on the one hand is the world of pro-fane things, on the other, that of sacred things.

Also, in the present day just as much as inthe past, we see society constantly creatingsacred things out of ordinary ones. If it happensto fall in love with a man and if it thinks it hasfound in him the principal aspirations thatmove it, as well as the means of satisfyingthem, this man will be raised above the othersand, as it were, deified. Opinion will invest himwith a majesty exactly analogous to that pro-tecting the gods. This is what has happened toso many sovereigns in whom their age hadfaith: if they were not made gods, they were atleast regarded as direct representatives of thedeity. And the fact that it is society alone whichis the author of these varieties of apotheosis, isevident since it frequently chances to conse-crate men thus who have no right to it fromtheir own merit. The simple deference inspiredby men invested with high social functions isnot different in nature from religious respect. Itis expressed by the same movements: a mankeeps at a distance from a high personage; heapproaches him only with precautions; in con-versing with him, he uses other gestures andlanguage than those used with ordinary mortals.The sentiment felt on these occasions is soclosely related to the religious sentiment thatmany peoples have confounded the two. Inorder to explain the consideration accorded toprinces, nobles and political chiefs, a sacredcharacter has been attributed to them. InMelanesia and Polynesia, for example, it is saidthat an influential man has mana, and that hisinfluence is due to this mana.xii However, it isevident that his situation is due solely to theimportance attributed to him by public opinion.

Thus the moral power conferred by opinion andthat with which sacred beings are invested areat bottom of a single origin and made up of thesame elements. That is why a single word isable to designate the two.

In addition to men, society also consecratesthings, especially ideas. If a belief is unani-mously shared by a people, then, for the reasonwhich we pointed out above, it is forbidden totouch it, that is to say, to deny it or to contest it.Now the prohibition of criticism is an interdic-tion like the others and proves the presence ofsomething sacred. Even to-day, howsoever greatmay be the liberty which we accord to others, aman who should totally deny progress orridicule the human ideal to which modern soci-eties are attached, would produce the effectof a sacrilege. There is at least one principlewhich those the most devoted to the free exam-ination of everything tend to place above dis-cussion and to regard as untouchable, that is tosay, as sacred: this is the very principle of freeexamination.

This aptitude of society for setting itself upas a god or for creating gods was never moreapparent than during the first years of theFrench Revolution. At this time, in fact, underthe influence of the general enthusiasm, thingspurely laïcal by nature were transformed bypublic opinion into sacred things: these werethe Fatherland, Liberty, Reason.xiii A religiontended to become established which had itsdogmas,xiv symbols,xv altarsxvi and feasts.xvii Itwas to these spontaneous aspirations that thecult of Reason and the Supreme Beingattempted to give a sort of official satisfaction.It is true that this religious renovation had onlyan ephemeral duration. But that was becausethe patriotic enthusiasm which at first trans-ported the masses soon relaxed.xviii The causebeing gone, the effect could not remain. But


xiiCodrington, The Melanesians, pp. 50, 103, 120. It is also generally thought that in the Polynesian languages,the word mana primitively had the sense of authority (see Tregear, Maori Comparative Dictionary, s.v.).xiiiSee Albert Mathiez, Les origines des cultes révolutionnaires (1789–1792).xivIbid., p. 24.xvIbid., pp. 29, 32.xviIbid., p. 30.xviiIbid., p. 46.xviiiSee Mathiez, La Théophilanthropie et la Culte décadaire, p. 36.


this experiment, though short-lived, keeps allits sociological interest. It remains true that inone determined case we have seen society andits essential ideas become, directly and withno transfiguration of any sort, the object of averitable cult.

All these facts allow us to catch glimpses ofhow the clan was able to awaken within itsmembers the idea that outside of them there existforces which dominate them and at the same timesustain them, that is to say in fine, religiousforces: it is because there is no society with whichthe primitive is more directly and closely con-nected. The bonds uniting him to the tribe aremuch more lax and more feebly felt. Althoughthis is not at all strange or foreign to him, it is withthe people of his own clan that he has the greatestnumber of things in common; it is the action ofthis group that he feels the most directly; so it isthis also which, in preference to all others, shouldexpress itself in religious symbols. . . .

III

One can readily conceive how, when arrivedat this state of exaltation, a man does not recog-nize himself any longer. Feeling himself domi-nated and carried away by some sort of anexternal power which makes him think and actdifferently than in normal times, he naturallyhas the impression of being himself no longer. Itseems to him that he has become a new being:the decorations he puts on and the masks thatcover his face and figure materially in this inte-rior transformation, and to a still greater extent,they aid in determining its nature. And as at thesame time all his companions feel themselvestransformed in the same way and express thissentiment by their cries, their gestures and theirgeneral attitude, everything is just as though hereally were transported into a special world,entirely different from the one where he ordi-narily lives, and into an environment filled withexceptionally intense forces that take hold ofhim and metamorphose him. How could suchexperiences as these, especially when they arerepeated every day for weeks, fail to leave inhim the conviction that there really exist twoheterogeneous and mutually incomparableworlds? One is that where his daily life dragswearily along; but he cannot penetrate into theother without at once entering into relations

with extraordinary powers that excite him to thepoint of frenzy. The first is the profane world,the second, that of sacred things.

So it is in the midst of these effervescentsocial environments and out of this efferves-cence itself that the religious idea seems to beborn. The theory that this is really its origin isconfirmed by the fact that in Australia the reallyreligious activity is almost entirely confined tothe moments when these assemblies are held. Tobe sure, there is no people among whom thegreat solemnities of the cult are not more or lessperiodic; but in the more advanced societies,there is not, so to speak, a day when someprayer or offering is not addressed to the godsand some ritual act is not performed. But inAustralia, on the contrary, apart from the cele-brations of the clan and tribe, the time is nearlyall filled with lay and profane occupations. Ofcourse there are prohibitions that should be andare preserved even during these periods of tem-poral activity; it is never permissible to kill oreat freely of the totemic animal, at least in thoseparts where the interdiction has retained its orig-inal vigour; but almost no positive rites are thencelebrated, and there are no ceremonies of anyimportance. These take place only in the midstof assembled groups. The religious life of theAustralian passes through successive phases ofcomplete lull and of superexcitation, and sociallife oscillates in the same rhythm. This putsclearly into evidence the bond uniting them toone another, but among the peoples called civi-lized, the relative continuity of the two blurstheir relations. It might even be asked whetherthe violence of this contrast was not necessaryto disengage the feeling of sacredness in its firstform. By concentrating itself almost entirely incertain determined moments, the collective lifehas been able to attain its greatest intensity andefficacy, and consequently to give men a moreactive sentiment of the double existence theylead and of the double nature in which theyparticipate. . . .

Now the totem is the flag of the clan. It istherefore natural that the impressions aroused bythe clan in individual minds—impressions ofdependence and of increased vitality—shouldfix themselves to the idea of the totem ratherthan that of the clan: for the clan is too complexa reality to be represented clearly in all its com-plex unity by such rudimentary intelligences.



More than that, the primitive does not even seethat these impressions come to him from thegroup. He does not know that the comingtogether of a number of men associated in thesame life results in disengaging new energies,which transform each of them. All that he knowsis that he is raised above himself and that he seesa different life from the one he ordinarily leads.However, he must connect these sensations tosome external object as their cause. Now whatdoes he see about him? On every side thosethings which appeal to his senses and strike hisimagination are the numerous images of thetotem. They are the waninga and the nurtunja,which are symbols of the sacred being. They arechuringa and bull-roarers, upon which are gener-ally carved combinations of lines having thesame significance. They are the decorations cov-ering the different parts of his body, which aretotemic marks. How could this image, repeatedeverywhere and in all sorts of forms, fail to standout with exceptional relief in his mind? Placedthus in the centre of the scene, it becomes repre-sentative. The sentiments experienced fix them-selves upon it, for it is the only concrete objectupon which they can fix themselves. It continuesto bring them to mind and to evoke them evenafter the assembly has dissolved, for it survivesthe assembly, being carved upon the instrumentsof the cult, upon the sides of rocks, upon buck-lers, etc. By it, the emotions experienced areperpetually sustained and revived. Everythinghappens just as if they inspired them directly. Itis still more natural to attribute them to it for,since they are common to the group, they can beassociated only with something that is equallycommon to all. Now the totemic emblem is theonly thing satisfying this condition. By defini-tion, it is common to all. During the ceremony, itis the centre of all regards. While generationschange, it remains the same; it is the permanentelement of the social life. So it is from it thatthose mysterious forces seem to emanate withwhich men feel that they are related, and thusthey have been led to represent these forcesunder the form of the animate or inanimate beingwhose name the clan bears.

When this point is once established, we arein a position to understand all that is essential inthe totemic beliefs.

Since religious force is nothing other than thecollective and anonymous force of the clan, andsince this can be represented in the mind only inthe form of the totem, the totemic emblem is likethe visible body of the god. Therefore, it is fromit that those kindly and dreadful actions seemto emanate, which the cult seeks to provoke orprevent; consequently, it is to it that the cult isaddressed. This is the explanation of why itholds the first place in the series of sacred things.

But the clan, like every other sort of society,can live only in and through the individual con-sciousnesses that compose it. So if religiousforce, in so far as it is conceived as incorporatedin the totemic emblem, appears to be outside ofthe individuals and to be endowed with a sortof transcendence over them, it, like the clan ofwhich it is the symbol, can be realized only inand through them; in this sense, it is imminentin them and they necessarily represent it assuch. They feel it present and active withinthem, for it is this which raises them to a supe-rior life. This is why men have believed thatthey contain within them a principle comparableto the one residing in the totem, and conse-quently, why they have attributed a sacred char-acter to themselves, but one less marked thanthat of the emblem. It is because the emblem isthe pre-eminent source of the religious life; theman participates in it only indirectly, as he iswell aware; he takes into account the fact thatthe force that transports him into the world ofsacred things is not inherent in him, but comesto him from the outside. . . .

But if this theory of totemism has enabled usto explain the most characteristic beliefs of thisreligion, it rests upon a fact not yet explained.When the idea of the totem, the emblem of theclan, is given, all the rest follows; but we muststill investigate how this idea has been formed.This is a double question and may be subdividedas follows: What has led the clan to choosean emblem? and why have these emblems beenborrowed from the animal and vegetable worlds,and particularly from the former?

That an emblem is useful as a rallying-centrefor any sort of a group it is superfluous to pointout. By expressing the social unity in a materialform, it makes this more obvious to all, and forthat very reason the use of emblematic symbols



must have spread quickly when once thought of.But more than that, this idea should sponta-neously arise out of the conditions of commonlife; for the emblem is not merely a convenientprocess for clarifying the sentiment society hasof itself: it also serves to create this sentiment; itis one of its constituent elements.

In fact, if left to themselves, individual con-sciousnesses are closed to each other; they cancommunicate only by means of signs whichexpress their internal states. If the communica-tion established between them is to become areal communion, that is to say, a fusion of allparticular sentiments into one common senti-ment, the signs expressing them must them-selves be fused into one single and uniqueresultant. It is the appearance of this that informsindividuals that they are in harmony and makesthem conscious of their moral unity. It is byuttering the same cry, pronouncing the sameword, or performing the same gesture in regardto some object that they become and feel them-selves to be in unison. It is true that individualrepresentations also cause reactions in the organ-ism that are not without importance; however,they can be thought of apart from these phys-ical reactions which accompany them or followthem, but which do not constitute them. But it isquite another matter with collective representa-tions. They presuppose that minds act and reactupon one another; they are the product of theseactions and reactions which are themselvespossible only through material intermediaries.These latter do not confine themselves to reveal-ing the mental state with which they are associ-ated; they aid in creating it. Individual mindscannot come in contact and communicate witheach other except by coming out of themselves;but they cannot do this except by movements. Soit is the homogeneity of these movements thatgives the group consciousness of itself and con-sequently makes it exist. When this homogeneityis once established and these movements haveonce taken a stereotyped form, they serve tosymbolize the corresponding representations.But they symbolize them only because they haveaided in forming them.

Moreover, without symbols, social senti-ments could have only a precarious existence.Though very strong as long as men are togetherand influence each other reciprocally, they existonly in the form of recollections after the assem-bly has ended, and when left to themselves,these become feebler and feebler; for since thegroup is now no longer present and active, indi-vidual temperaments easily regain the upperhand. The violent passions which may havebeen released in the heart of a crowd fall awayand are extinguished when this is dissolved, andmen ask themselves with astonishment howthey could ever have been so carried away fromtheir normal character. But if the movements bywhich these sentiments are expressed are con-nected with something that endures, the senti-ments themselves become more durable. Theseother things are constantly bringing them tomind and arousing them; it is as though thecause which excited them in the first place con-tinued to act. Thus these systems of emblems,which are necessary if society is to become con-scious of itself, are no less indispensable forassuring the continuation of this consciousness.

So we must refrain from regarding thesesymbols as simple artifices, as sorts of labelsattached to representations already made, inorder to make them more manageable: they arean integral part of them. Even the fact that col-lective sentiments are thus attached to thingscompletely foreign to them is not purely con-ventional: it illustrates under a conventionalform a real characteristic of social facts, that is,their transcendence over individual minds. Infact, it is known that social phenomena are born,not in individuals, but in the group. Whateverpart we may take in their origin, each of usreceives them from without.xix So when we rep-resent them to ourselves as emanating from amaterial object, we do not completely misun-derstand their nature. Of course they do notcome from the specific thing to which we con-nect them, but nevertheless, it is true that theirorigin is outside of us. If the moral force sus-taining the believer does not come from the idolhe adores or the emblem he venerates, still it is


xixOn this point see Régles de la méthode sociologique, pp. 5 ff.


from outside of him, as he is well aware. Theobjectivity of its symbol only translates itseternalness.

Thus social life, in all its aspects and in everyperiod of its history, is made possible only by avast symbolism. The material emblems and fig-urative representations with which we are moreespecially concerned in our present study, areone form of this; but there are many others.Collective sentiments can just as well becomeincarnate in persons or formulæ: some formulæare flags, while there are persons, either real ormythical, who are symbols. . . .

CONCLUSION

As we have progressed, we have established thefact that the fundamental categories of thought,and consequently of science, are of religiousorigin. We have seen that the same is true formagic and consequently for the differentprocesses which have issued from it. On the otherhand, it has long been known that up until a rela-tively advanced moment of evolution, moral andlegal rules have been indistinguishable from rit-ual prescriptions. In summing up, then, it may besaid that nearly all the great social institutionshave been born in religion.xx Now in order thatthese principal aspects of the collective life mayhave commenced by being only varied aspects ofthe religious life, it is obviously necessary thatthe religious life be the eminent form and, as itwere, the concentrated expression of the wholecollective life. If religion has given birth to allthat is essential in society, it is because the idea ofsociety is the soul of religion.

Religious forces are therefore human forces,moral forces. It is true that since collective sen-timents can become conscious of themselvesonly by fixing themselves upon external objects,they have not been able to take form without

adopting some of their characteristics fromother things: they have thus acquired a sort ofphysical nature; in this way they have come tomix themselves with the life of the materialworld, and then have considered themselvescapable of explaining what passes there. Butwhen they are considered only from this point ofview and in this role, only their most superficialaspect is seen. In reality, the essential elementsof which these collective sentiments are madehave been borrowed by the understanding. Itordinarily seems that they should have a humancharacter only when they are conceived underhuman forms;xxi but even the most impersonaland the most anonymous are nothing else thanobjectified sentiments.

It is only by regarding religion from this anglethat it is possible to see its real significance.If we stick closely to appearances, rites often givethe effect of purely manual operations: they areanointings, washings, meals. To consecratesomething, it is put in contact with a source ofreligious energy, just as to-day a body is put incontact with a source of heat or electricity towarm or electrize it; the two processes employedare not essentially different. Thus understood,religious technique seems to be a sort of mysticmechanics. But these material manoeuvres areonly the external envelope under which themental operations are hidden. Finally, there is noquestion of exercising a physical constraintupon blind and, incidentally, imaginary forces,but rather of reaching individual consciousnessesof giving them a direction and of discipliningthem. It is sometimes said that inferior religionsare materialistic. Such an expression is inexact.All religions, even the crudest, are in a sense spir-itualistic: for the powers they put in play arebefore all spiritual, and also their principal objectis to act upon the moral life. Thus it is seen thatwhatever has been done in the name of religioncannot have been done in vain: for it is necessarily


xxOnly one form of social activity has not yet been expressly attached to religion: that is economic activity.Sometimes processes that are derived from magic have, by that fact alone, an origin that is indirectly religious.Also, economic value is a sort of power or efficacy, and we know the religious origins of the idea of power. Also,richness can confer mana; therefore it has it. Hence it is seen that the ideas of economic value and of religiousvalue are not without connection. But the question of the nature of these connections has not yet been studied.

xxiIt is for this reason that Frazer and even Preuss set impersonal religious forces outside of, or at least on thethreshold of religion, to attach them to magic.


the society that did it, and it is humanity that hasreaped the fruits. . . .

II

Thus there is something eternal in religionwhich is destined to survive all the particularsymbols in which religious thought has succes-sively enveloped itself. There can be no societywhich does not feel the need of upholding andreaffirming at regular intervals the collectivesentiments and the collective ideas which makeits unity and its personality. Now this moralremaking cannot be achieved except by themeans of reunions, assemblies and meetingswhere the individuals, being closely united toone another, reaffirm in common their commonsentiments; hence come ceremonies which donot differ from regular religious ceremonies,either in their object, the results which theyproduce, or the processes employed to attainthese results. What essential difference is therebetween an assembly of Christians celebratingthe principal dates of the life of Christ, or of

Jews remembering the exodus from Egypt orthe promulgation of the decalogue, and areunion of citizens commemorating the promul-gation of a new moral or legal system or somegreat event in the national life?. . .

In summing up, then, we must say thatsociety is not at all the illogical or a-logical,incoherent and fantastic being which it has toooften been considered. Quite on the contrary, thecollective consciousness is the highest form ofthe psychic life, since it is the consciousnessof the consciousnesses. Being placed outside ofand above individual and local contingencies, itsees things only in their permanent and essentialaspects, which it crystallizes into communicableideas. At the same time that it sees from above,it sees farther; at every moment of time, itembraces all known reality; that is why it alonecan furnish the mind with the moulds which areapplicable to the totality of things and whichmake it possible to think of them. It does notcreate these moulds artificially; it finds themwithin itself; it does nothing but become con-scious of them . . .


� Discussion Questions �

1. Define mechanical and organic solidarity. Do these concepts help explain the divi-sion of labor in your family of origin? In your current (or most recent) place of employ-ment? How so or why not? Be specific.

2. Discuss the various types of suicide that Durkheim delineates using specificexamples. To what extent do you agree or disagree with the notion that different typesof suicide prevail in “modern” as opposed to “traditional” societies? Give concreteexamples.

3. Define and compare and contrast Marx’s concept of alienation and Durkheim’sconcept of anomie. How exactly do these concepts overlap? How are they different?

4. Discuss Durkheim’s notion of collective conscience. Why is it, that is, how can it be,that the collective conscience is not just a “sum” of individual consciousnesses? Use concreteexamples to explain.

5. Discuss specific moments of collective effervescence that you have experienced(e.g., concerts, church, etc.). What particular symbols and rituals were called up and usedto arouse this social state?


3 MILE DURKHEIM (1858–1917) - SAGE …...3 ÉMILE DURKHEIM (1858–1917) 85 Émile Durkheim There...

Documents

Transcript of 3 MILE DURKHEIM (1858–1917) - SAGE …...3 ÉMILE DURKHEIM (1858–1917) 85 Émile Durkheim There...