Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 4.djvu/189

 THE DELUSIONS OF DURKHEIM'S SOCIOLOGICAL

OBJECTIVISM.

I CANNOT leave without reply a letter from Professor Durk- heim to the editor of the American Journal of Sociology, published in the May number of that review, and purporting to be an exhaustive refutation of my criticism of Durkheim's book on Suicide. The French professor accuses me of superficiality and carelessness, claiming that the whole of my argument is based on the erreur mat^rielle of discussing, under his name, ideas entirely foreign to him. But it will prove an easy, though not agreeable, task to show the fallacy of Durkheim's alleged refutation.

I.

The debated point in my article is a statement bearing upon the logical defectiveness of Durkheim's theory of the social phenomenon. I wrote :

Durkheim's error consists .... in having misinterpreted the true relationship of the "element" to the "whole" in all combinations. Social fact exhibits properties of its own, but what is its point of departure, if not the combination of individuals ? These latter, undoubtedly, are an essential factor of the social phenomenon, for the same reason that the elements of a chemical combination are essential factors of the chemical compound. Durkheim completely overlooks the fact that a compound is explained both by the character of its elements and by the law of their interaction. He tries to explain the " product " by the "product," thus overthrowing the scientific conception of cause.

Durkheim declares this statement to be entirely erroneous, and claims to have unmistakably admitted that " individual " factors must be taken into account in order to explain the "social" compound. In proof of this assertion he quotes two passages from his book. The first (p. 363) is as follows : '

■ To avoid misunderstaodings, all quotations from D.'s books will be given in the original text in preference to a translation.

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