628 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY
of societies that are unified, not only with reference to political or creedal or any other single kind of social activity, but with refer- ence to all kinds at once. He writes :
The phrase "social groups" is a more comprehensive expression by which one means a community having the same type of civilization, which implies a combination of economic, legal, moral, religious, scientific, and political similarities. 1
In an article entitled "La realite sociale" he says that a society distinct from others, and unified with respect to the total tide of complex activities which the sociologist investi- gates, is a reality in a much completer sense than that in which the Nile or the Ganges is a reality. 4 He defends the statement thus:
The question is whether the social group forms a true totality* that is
objective and not merely subjective Even when not thought, the
chemical whole formed by the combination of several molecules, the astronomic whole formed by a solar system, the mechanical whole, etc., and a fortiori the organic whole, is something. Is the same true of the social whole? Yes.*
Special emphasis is laid upon the statement that society is unified not alone with respect to its subjective life. He says :
Societies (plural) are not merely masses of inter-spiritual action; they are at one and the same time masses of inter-spiritual and inter-corporeal actions, combined with many physical actions, united struggles with the forces of nature to repel and to utilize them. 1
Professor Tarde went out of his own way to emphasize the mate- rial unity of the social group, thus comprehensively considered. His more characteristic emphasis is upon the spiritual individu- ality of societies, expressed by the phrases "esprit sociale" and "moi social" phrases especially prominent in his Logique sociale. And in closing his article on "La realite sociale" he says: "The social organism is only a metaphor, but the social spirit is a reality." 8 The assumption even of a spiritual life of the community that is unified and distinct save in certain par-
- Let transformations du pouvoir, p. 2.
- Revue philosophique, Vol. LII, pp. 458, 459.
' The italic* in each instance are his.
- Loc. cit., p. 459. ' Ibid., p. 450- " Ibid,, p. 476.
