telligence; there is no middle ground. And in truth, scientifically
speaking, it comes down to the same thing. Let us suppose for
a moment that one of our human States, composed not of a few
thousand but of a few quadrillions or quintillions of men, hermetically sealed and inaccessible as individuals (like China, but infi-
nitely more populous still, and more closed) was known to us only
by the data of its statisticians, whose figures, made up of very large
numbers, recurred with extreme regularity. When a political or
social revolution, which would be revealed to us by an abrupt en-
largement or diminution of some of these numbers, took place in
this State, we might well be certain that we would be observing
a fact caused by individual ideas and passions, but we would re-
sist the temptation to become lost in superfluous conjectures on
the nature of these impenetrable causes even though they alone
were the real ones, and the wisest option would appear to us to
explain as best we could the unusual numbers by ingenious com-
parisons with clever manipulations of the normal numbers. We
would thereby arrive at least at clear results and symbolic truths.
Nonetheless, it would be important from time to time to recall the
purely symbolic nature of these truths; and precisely this is the
service which the theory of monads can offer to science.
III
We have seen that science, having pulverized the universe, neces-
sarily ends up by spiritualizing the dust thus created. However,
we now face an important objection. In any monadological or at-
omistic system, all phenomena are nebulous clouds resolvable
into the actions emanating from a multitude of agents who are
so many invisible and innumerable little gods. This polytheism—
this myriatheism, one might almost say—leaves unexplained the
26
Monadology and Sociology
universal agreement of phenomena, as imperfect as this may be.
If the elements of the world are born separate, independent and
autonomous, it is impossible to see why a great number of them
and many of the groups formed by them (for example all atoms
of oxygen or hydrogen) resemble each other, if not perfectly, as is
often supposed without sufficient reason, at least within certain
approximately fixed limits; it is impossible to see why many of
them, if not all, appear to be captive and subjugated, and to have
renounced the absolute liberty which their eternity implies; and
finally, it is impossible to see why order and not disorder, and in
first place the primary condition of order, namely increasing con-
centration rather than increasing dispersion, are the result of their
relations. Thus it seems necessary to have recourse to new hy-
potheses. As a complement to the closure of his monads, Leibniz
made each one a camera obscura where the whole universe of oth-
er monads is represented in a reduced form and from a particu-
lar angle; and moreover, he had to posit a pre-established harmo-
ny, in the same way that, as the complement of their wandering
blind atoms, materialists must invoke universal laws or a single
formula embracing all laws, a kind of mystical commandment
which all beings would obey and which was not produced by any
being, a kind of ineffable and unintelligible word which, having
never been pronounced by anyone, nonetheless would be heard
everywhere and forever. Besides, both atomists and monadolo-
gists equally represent their first elements, which they claim are
the sources of all reality, as swimming in the same space and the
same time, which are two realities or pseudo-realities of a singular
kind: deeply penetrating throughout the material realities which
were supposed impenetrable, and yet radically distinct from the
latter, despite the intimacy of this penetration. All these charac-
teristics are so many mysteries, which create a curious embarrass-
ment for the philosopher. Is there any hope of resolving them by
conceiving of open monads which would penetrate each other re-
ciprocally, rather than being mutually external? I believe there is,
and I note that on this point again, the progress of science, indeed
of modern science in general and not only of its most recent devel-
opments, favours the blossoming of a renewed monadology. The
Newtonian discovery of gravitation, of action at a distance (and at
any distance) of material elements on one another, shows how dif-
ficult it will be to make a case for their impenetrability. Each ele-
ment, hitherto conceived as a point, now becomes an indefinitely
Gabriel tarde
27
enlarged sphere of action (for analogy leads us to believe that grav-
ity, like all other physical forces, is propagated successively);30 and
all these interpenetrating spheres are so many domains proper to
each element, so many distinct though intermixed spaces, per-
haps, which we wrongly take to be a single unique space. The cen-
tre of each sphere is a point, which is uniquely defined by its prop-
erties, but in the end a point like any other; and besides, since
activity is the very essence of the elements, each of them exists
in its entirety in the place where it acts. The atom, in truth, if we
draw the implications of this point of view which is naturally sug-
gested by Newton’s law (which a few thinkers have occasionally
tried, and failed, to explain by the pressure of the ether), ceases to
be an atom; it is a universal medium [ milieu universel] or aspires to become one, a universe in itself, not only, as Leibniz wished to argue, a microcosm, but the entire cosmos vanquished and absorbed
by a single being. If, having thus resolved this rather supernat-
ural conception of space into real particular spaces or domains,
we could in the same way resolve a single Time, that hollow en-
tity, into multiple realities and elementary desires, then the only
remaining simplification would be to explain natural laws, the
similarity and repetition of phenomena and the multiplication of
similar phenomena (physical waves, living cells, social copies) by
the triumph of certain monads who desired these laws, imposed
these forms, subjected to their yoke and levelled with their scythe
a people of monads thus subjugated and made uniform, although
born free and original, all as eager ( avides) as their conquerors to dominate and assimilate the universe.—Just as much as space
and time, natural laws, those equally rootless and fantastical enti-
ties, would thus finally find their proper place and their point of
application among known realities. They would all have begun,
like our civil and political laws, by being the designs and projects
of individuals.—Thus we would in the simplest way possible meet
the fundamental objection made to any atomistic or monadologi-
cal attempt to resolve the continuity of phenomena into an ele-
mentary discontinuity. What do we place within the ultimate discon-
tinuity if not continuity? We place therein, as we will explain again below, the totality of other beings. At the basis of each thing are
all real or possible things.
30. According to Laplace, the gravific fluid, to use his expression, is propagated successively, but with a velocity at least millions of times faster than light. In one place he says 50 million times, in another 100 million.
28
Monadology and Sociology
IV
But this implies first of all that everything is a society, that every phenomenon is a social fact. Now, it is remarkable that science, following logically from its preceding tendencies, tends strangely to
generalize the concept of society. Science tells us of animal societ-
ies (see Espinas’ excellent book on this subject31), of cellular societ-
ies, and why not of atomic societies? I almost forgot to add societ-
ies of stars, solar and stellar systems. All sciences seem destined
to become branches of sociology. Of course, I am aware that, by a
mistaken apprehension of the direction of this current, some have
been led to the conclusion that societies are organisms; but the
truth is that, since the advent of cellular theory, organisms have on
the contrary become societies of a particular kind, fiercely exclu-
sive cities as imagined by a Lycurgus or a Rousseau, or better still,
religious congregations of a prodigious tenacity which equals the
majestic and invariable strangeness of their rites, an invariability
which nonetheless does not count against their individual mem-
bers’ diversity and force of invention.
That a philosopher such as Spencer should assimilate soci-
eties to organisms32 is not surprising, and fundamentally not
new, except perhaps for the extraordinary expenditure of imagi-
native erudition in the service of this view. But it is truly remark-
able that a highly circumspect natural scientist such as Edmond
Perrier can see in the assimilation of organisms to societies the
key to the mysteries of living things and the ultimate formula of
evolution. Having said that ‘ one may compare an animal or a plant
to a populous town, in which numerous corporations flourish, and
that blood cells are like merchants carrying with them in the liquid
wherein they swim the complex baggage which they trade’, he adds:
‘In the same way that we have employed every comparison fur-
nished by the degrees of consanguinity to express the relations of
animals to each other, before supposing that they were genuinely
related and in effect consanguineous, so the comparisons of or-
ganisms to societies and societies to organisms have recurred
ceaselessly to the present day, without anyone seeing in these
comparisons anything more than forms of expression. We, on
the contrary, have arrived at the conclusion that association played
31. [Trans. Note: See note 27 above.]
32. [Trans. Note: Herbert Spencer (1820-1903), philosopher. See ‘The Social Organism’ (1860), in Essays: Scientific, Political and Speculative, London, Williams and Norgate, 1868, vol. I, pp. 384-428.]
Gabriel tarde
29
a considerable, if not exclusive role in the gradual development of organisms’, and so on.33
It should however be noted at this point that science also in-
creasingly assimilates organisms to mechanisms, and that it low-
ers the barriers previously erected between the living and the in-
organic worlds. Why then may the molecule, for example, not be
a society just as much as the plant or the animal? The relative
regularity and permanence of the apparent opposition between
phenomena of a molecular order and phenomena of a cellular
or vital order should in no way lead us to reject this conjecture,
if, with Cournot, we consider further that human societies pass,
in the process of becoming civilized, from a barbaric and as it
were organic phase to a physical and mechanical phase. In the first stage, all the general facts of the instinctive development of their
genius, in their poetry, their arts, their languages, their customs
and their laws, curiously recall the characteristics and processes
of life; and thence they pass by degrees to an administrative, in-
dustrial, scientific, reasonable, and in a word mechanical phase,
which by the great numbers which it has at its disposal, arranged
in equal heaps by the statistician, gives rise to the appearance of
economic laws or pseudo-laws, which are so analogous in many
respects to physical laws, and particularly to the laws of statics.
From this similarity, which is supported by a whole mass of facts,
and for which I refer the reader to Cournot’s Treatise on the Order
of the Fundamental Ideas,34 it follows first of all that the chasm between the nature of inorganic beings and the nature of living
things is not unbridgeable (contrary to an error which Cournot
himself makes on this point), since we see the same evolution,
that of our societies, take on alternately the attributes of the latter
and those of the former. It follows secondly that if a living thing
is a society, a fortiori a purely mechanical being must also be one, since the progress of society consists in mechanization. A molecule would then be, compared to an organism or to a State, only
a kind of infinitely more numerous and more advanced nation,
arrived at the stationary period which J. S. Mill calls forth with
all his will.35
33. [Trans. Note: For Perrier, see note 15 above. This citation has not been traced (Tarde may be paraphrasing rather than citing exactly).]
34. [Trans. Note: Cournot, Traité (note 17), section IV.1 (ed. cited pp. 296-311).]
35. [Trans. Note: See J. S. Mill, ‘Of the Stationary State’, Principles of Political Economy, vol. II, book IV, ch. 6, 5th ed., London, Parker, Son & Bourn, 1862, pp.
320-326.]
30
Monadology and Sociology
Let us move immediately on to the most specious objection yet
made to this assimilation of organisms, and a fortiori of physical things, to societies. The most striking contrast between nations
and living bodies is that living bodies have defined and symmet-
ric contours, while the borders of nations or the walls of cities are
drawn on the earth with a capricious irregularity which clearly
demonstrates the absence of any pre-ordained plan. Spencer and
Espinas have responded in different ways to this difficulty,36 but, I
believe, there is another possible response.
The contrast cannot be denied—it is a very real one—but it
admits of a plausible explanation; here I offer a simplified version
of this explanation for ease of understanding. Leaving to one side
the defined and symmetrical nature of organic forms, let us fo-
cus solely on another characteristic linked to the former, namely
that the length, breadth and height of an organism are never in
extreme disproportion to one another. In snakes and poplar trees,
height or length is noticeably greater than the other dimensions; in
flatfish the thickness is much less; but, in any case, the dispropor-
tion visible in these extreme forms cannot be likened to that con-
sistently displayed by any given social aggregate. Take for example
China, which has a length and breadth of 3000 kilometres, but an
average height of only 1 or 2 metres, since the Chinese are rather
short and their buildings low. Even a mediaeval state consisting
of a single fortified town tightly constrained within its defensive
walls, and whose houses of several floors overhang the streets, still
has a very small thickness compared to its horizontal extension.
But does this latter example not put us on the trail of the desired
solution? It is in order to better resist external attack that a city is
fortified and agglomerated, and that floors mount up; if in mod-
ern capitals, where this huddling-up is not imposed by the insecu-
rity of the times, houses still tend to become ever taller, this is for
a reason which often conflicts with the preceding, namely to sat-
isfy the need felt by an ever-growing number of men to participate
in the social advantages of the greatest possible assembly of people
in the smallest possible space. If this lively instinct of sociability
which makes men want to agglomerate themselves, either to bet-
ter defend themselves or to develop themselves more fully, did not
36. [Trans. Note: Spencer’s and Espinas’ responses are in fact broadly similar, and primarily rest on questioning the presumption that the forms of organisms are necessarily well-defined and symmetrical (see e.g. Spencer, ‘The Social Organism’, edition cited, pp. 393-394; Espinas, Les Sociétés animales, pp. 216-217).]
Gabriel tarde
31
rapidly encounter an impassable limit, it is likely that we would see
nations composed of clusters of men towering into the air, support-
ed on the earth without spreading over it. But it is hardly necessary
to indicate why this is impossible. A nation which was as high as
it was wide would surpass the breathable zone of the earth’s atmo-
sphere by a considerable distance, and the earth’s crust provides no
material sufficiently solid for the titanic constructions demanded
by such urban development in a vertical direction. Besides, beyond
a height of a few metres, the resulting inconveniences outweigh
the advantages, as a result of man’s physical makeup, in which all
the senses and organs respond exclusively to the demands of hori-
zontal expansion. Man’s nature is to walk rather than climb, to see
forwards and not up or down, and so on. Finally, the enemies he
fears do not fly in the air but wander on the earth. In this light, it
would be of no use to a nation to be very tall. For cellular aggregates such as animals or plants, the situation is otherwise. They are just
as likely to be unexpectedly attacked from above as from the side,
and must therefore be prepared to defend themselves in every di-
rection. Moreover, the constitution of the anatomical elements
which make up living bodies is nowise limited to co-ordination in
the horizontal plane. There is therefore no obstacle to the unlimit-
ed satisfaction of the sociable instincts which we see in them.
This said, do we not see that, the more a social aggregate grows
in height at the expense of its two other dimensions, and in this
respect diminishes the (albeit still considerable) distance which
separates it from organic forms, the more it comes to resemble the
latter also by its regularity and by the increasing symmetry of its
external shape and internal structure? A large public corporation,
a government school, a barracks, or a monastery are all so many
highly centralized and highly disciplined small States, which con-
firm this perspective on the facts. Conversely, when an organized
being such as a lichen on occasion takes the form of a thin layer of
widely spread cells, it will be noted that its contours are ill-defined
and asymmetrical.
We may discover the significance of this symmetry which, as
a rule, is enjoyed by living forms, by another kind of consideration
borrowed once more from our societies. In vain have theorists at-
tempted to explain this symmetry by considerations of functional
utility. We may prove as much as we like, with Spencer, that lo-
comotion demanded that organisms pass from radial symmetry
to bilateral symmetry, which is lesser but more perfect, and that
32
Monadology and Sociology
where the maintenance of symmetry was incompatible with the
health of the individual or the perpetuation of the species (for ex-
ample in flatfish), the symmetry has been broken, in an exception
to the general rule. But it should not be forgotten that wherever
possible, all that could be retained of the primordial symmetry
whence life originated (probably spherical, that is to say full and
vague), and all that could be derived from the precise and truly
beautiful symmetry at which life arrives in its progress, has been
conserved or realized. Through the whole gamut of plant and ani-
mal life, from diatoms to orchids, from corals to man, the tenden-
cy towards symmetry is evident. Where does this tendency come
from? Observe that, in our social world, everything which results
not from a competition of intermingled plans which clash togeth-
er, but from an individual’s design executed without hindrance,
is symmetrical and regular. Kant’s philosophical monument
where volumes and chapters harmoniously reflect one another;
the administrative, financial and military systems established by
Napoleon I; the cities which the English have built in Guyana,
with their streets drawn by ruler, meeting at right angles, end-
ing in a square surrounded by lowered porticos; our churches,
our railway stations, and so on; everything, to repeat, which ema-
nates from a thought which is free, ambitious and strong, master
of itself and of others, seems to obey some internal necessity in
displaying the luxury of striking regularity and symmetry. Every
despot has a love of symmetry; if a writer, he must have constant
antitheses; if a philosopher, repeated dichotomies and trichoto-
mies; if a king, ceremony, etiquette, and military parades. If so,
and if, as will be shown below, the possibility of individuals’ ex-
ecuting their plans completely and on a large scale is a sign of so-
cial progress, it follows necessarily that the symmetrical and regu-
lar nature of living things attests to the high degree of perfection
achieved by cellular societies, and to the enlightened despotism to
which they are subject. We should not lose sight of the fact that,
since cellular societies are a thousand times older than human
societies, the inferiority of the latter is hardly surprising. Besides,
human societies are limited in their progress by the small num-
ber of men which the planet can support. The greatest empire of
the world, China, has only 300 or 400 million subjects. An organ-
ism which contained only this number of ultimate anatomical ele-
ments would necessarily be placed towards the bottom of the scale
of plant or animal life.
Gabriel tarde
33
Having thus met the objection which draws on organic form
to argue against the similarity of organisms to social groups, it
behoves us to say a word about another not inconsequential ob-
jection. Some have contrasted the variability of human societies,
even those which are slowest to change, with the relative fixity of
organic species. But if, as can be shown, the almost exclusive cause
of the internal differentiation of a social form should be sought in
the extra-social relations of its members, that is, in their relations,
either with the fauna, the flora, the soil, the atmosphere of their
country, or with the members of foreign societies which are differ-
ently constituted, this difference is not surprising. Due to the very
nature of its arrangement—which is entirely superficial and not vo-luminous, almost without thickness—to the extreme dispersion of
its elements, and to the multiplicity of intellectual and industrial
exchanges between one people and another, the social aggregate of
men includes an unusually low proportion of essentially conserva-
tive intra-social relations between its members, and prevents them
from maintaining among themselves the omnilateral social rela-
tions presupposed by the globular form of a cell or an organism.
In support of the above view, we may remark that external cu-
taneous cells, which have a monopoly on the principal extra-social
relations, are in every case the most easily modifiable. Nothing is
more variable than the skin and its appendages; in plants, the epi-dermis is in different cases glabrous, hairy, spiny, etc. This cannot
be explained solely by the heterogeneity of the external environ-
ment, which is presumed to be greater than that of the internal
environment. This latter point is not at all proven. Besides, and
consequently, it is always the external cells which set in motion
the variations of the rest of the organism. The proof is that the in-
ternal organs of new species, although modified to some extent
relative to the species from which they emerge, always undergo a
lesser modification than do the peripheral organs, and seem to be
laggards on the path of organic progress.37
Is it necessary to point out that, in the same way, most revolu-
tions in a State are due to the internal fermentation produced by
the introduction of new ideas which mobile populations, sailors,
37. To cite only one example