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be the first cause of every combination of a "chemical" charac- ter. To adopt the old Aristotelian distinction, the "elements" furnish the matter, while the law of their mutual action deter- mines the form of the combination. The cause of variation lies in the "element," while the law of interaction represents the repetition, the rhythm. A helpful analogy is supplied by the loom, which, although working in the same way, brings about different results according to the different material which it is called upon to weave.
III.
But there is another point. A theory which, like Durkheim's theory, postulates ( i ) the combination of individuals as the fundamental condition of society, and (2) the coalescence of these units or elements into a "compound" wholly different in character from the isolated constituents, must not only take into account the character of the elements, but also the way in which the elements react upon each other, i. e., what I have called the law of their interaction. How can we explain the wonderful result of association, the forming of "unetre psychique d'une espece nouvelle" (p. 350), an entirely new being in whom many individual minds appear to be, as Durkheim says, "penetrees ct fusionnees " (p. 127, MMode) , without presupposing the work- ing of a law of inter-cerebral or inter-elementary action, opera- ting whenever two minds at least (the elementary society) are brought into contact?' If it be true that association is, as Durkheim claims, a " facteur actif" (p. 350), a tremendous agency of transformation of the individual mind, this cannot become intelligible unless we admit the fundamental fact of the action of one brain upon another brain, of one upon many, of many upon one ; in short, the law of imitation. This law is strongly denied by Durkheim. But if we have to interpret his conception of the social phenomenon without the help of the imi- tation theory, the cyclopic scaffolding of a so-called "objective" sociology falls into ruins, and nothing is left of it but a certain
' I have also brought out the importance or this point in a review of Durkheim's book published in the July number of the Psychological Review.
