REVIEWS.
Les Lois Sociales. Esquisse d'une sociologie. Par G. Tarde. Paris: Felix Alcan, 1898. Pp. 172.
M. Tarde has presented in this little volume the substance of a course of lectures delivered at the College Libre des Sciences Sociales, October, 1897. The book is an epitome of the three principal books on sociology previously published by the same author, viz.: Les Lois de i' imitation, L' Opposition universelle, and La Logique sociale. It is also an attempt to show the relation which, in the author's own view, exists between the three books.
Whatever may be M. Tarde's permanent place in sociological theory, he is certainly a very prominent, perhaps the most prominent, figure just at present among the founders of the new science. All sociologists will accordingly welcome this brief r^sumd of his views.
The fundamental methodological conception of Tarde's system is that science is consideration of reality under three aspects, /. <•., the repetitions, the oppositions, and the adaptations with which the given portion of reality Is concerned. Scientific discovery involves detec- tion of these repetitions, oppositions, and adaptations in spite of the vari- ations, "dissymmetries," and "disharmonies" by which they are con- cealed (p. 10). Tracing out cause and effect is not the whole of science. If it were, pragmatic history would be the most perfect specimen of science. In addition to causes, we need to know the laws of phenomena. Hence science has to use the three keys named, to discover the laws of repetition, of opposition, of adaptation (p. 11).
These considerations indicate what sociology must do in order to deserve the name "science" (p. 13). Hence M. Tarde entitles the three chapters which make up the body of the book: chap, i, "The Repetition of Phenomena ; " chap. 2, " The Opposition of Phenomena ; " chap. 3, "The Adaptation of Phenomena." Starting with astronomy as an illustration, the author reaffirms (p. 18) that science always deals with similarities and repetitions, and that its progress is always an advance from obvious and extensive manifestations of these aspects to their hidden and microscopic forms. Passing from illustrations to
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