... the numerical equality of annualcontingents... can only be due to the permanent action of some impersonal cause which transcends all individual cases.... The proof that the reality of collect tendencies is no less than that of cosmic forces is that this reality is demonstrated in the same way, by the uniformity of effects.39

Such an argument, Durkheim admitted suggests that collective thoughts are of a different nature from individual thoughts, that the former have characteristics which the latter lack. But how can this be if there are only individuals in society? Durkheim's response was an argument by analogy alluded to in The Division of Labor40 and developed more fully in "Individual and Collective Representations" (1898).

The biological cell, Durkheim observed, is made up exclusively of inanimate atoms; but surely this doesn't mean that there is "nothing more" in animate nature. Similarly individual human beings, by associating with one another, form a psychical existence of a new species, which has its own manner of thinking and feeling: "When the consciousness of individuals, instead of remaining isolated, becomes grouped and combined," Durkheim observed, "something in the world has been altered.

Naturally this change produces others, this novelty engenders other novelties, phenomena appear whose characteristic qualities are not found in the elements composing them."41 Social life, Durkheim thus admitted, is essentially made up of representations; but collective representations are quite different from their individual counterparts. Indeed, Durkheim had no objection to calling sociology a kind of psychology, so long as we recall that social psychology has its own laws which are not those of individual psychology.

Moreover, it is simply not true that there are "only individuals" in society. First, a society contains a variety of material things (e.g., written laws, moral precepts and maxims, etc.) which "crystallize" social facts, and act upon the individual from without; and second, beneath these immobilized, sacrosanct forms are the diffused, mingling subjacent sentiments of which these material formulae are the mere signs, and which are equally external to the individual conscience. The result was a critique of Quetelet reminiscent of Kant's rejection of any empiricist ethics.

Struck by the statistical regularity of certain social phenomena over time, Quetelet had postulated "the average man" -- a definite type representing the most generalized characteristics of people in any given society.

Such an approach, Durkheim insisted, makes the origin of morality an insoluble mystery; for it conflates the collective type of a society with the average type of its individual members, and since the morality of such individuals reaches only a moderate intensity, the imperative, transcendent character of moral commands is left without an explanation. Beyond the vacuous conception of "God's will," Durkheim insisted, "no alternative exists but to leave morality hanging unexplained in the air or make it a system of collective states of conscience. Morality either springs from nothing given in the world of experience, or it springs from society."42

In fact, these three currents of opinion -- that the individual has a certain personality (egoism), that this personality should be sacrificed if the community required it (altruism), and that the individual is sensitive to ideas of social progress (anomie) -- coexist in all societies, turning individual inclinations in three different and opposed directions. Where these currents offset one another, the individual enjoys a state of equilibrium which protects him from suicide; but where one current exceeds a certain strength relative to others, it becomes a cause of self-inflicted death.

Moreover, this strength itself depends on three causes: the nature of the individuals composing the society, the manner of their association, and transitory occurrences which disrupt collective life. The first, of course, is virtually immutable, changing only gradually over a period of centuries; the only variable conditions, therefore, are social conditions, a fact which explains the stability observed by Quetelet so long as society remains unchanged.

The decisive influence of these currents, however, is rarely exerted throughout an entire society; on the contrary, its effect is typically felt within those particular environments whose conditions are especially favorable to the development of one current or another. But the conditions of each individual environment are themselves dependent on the more general conditions of the society as a whole -- the force of altruism in the army depends on the role of the military in the larger civilian population; egoistic suicide increases among Protestants to the extent that intellectual individualism is a feature of the entire society; and so on.

No collective sentiment can affect individuals, of course, when they are absolutely indisposed to it, but the same social causes that produce these currents also affect the way individuals are socialized, so that a society quite literally produces citizens with the appropriate dispositions at the same time that it molds the currents to which they will thus respond. Durkheim did not deny, therefore, that individual motives have a share in determining who commits suicide but he did insist that the nature and intensity of the "suicidogenic" current were factors independent of such psychological conditions.

Indeed, this was why Durkheim could claim that his theory, however "deterministic," was more consistent with the philosophical doctrine of free will than any psychologistic theory which makes the individual the source of social phenomena; for the intensity of his currents, like the virulence of an infectious disease, determines only the rate at which the population will be affected, not the identity of those to be struck down.

The last remark hinted at what we have seen to be one of Durkheim's preoccupations -- his repeated efforts to resolve philosophical quandaries by sociological means; and he soon turned to another: Should suicide be proscribed by morality? 43 This question, Durkheim observed, is typically dealt with by formulating certain general moral principles and then asking whether suicide logically contradicts these or not. But Durkheim insisted instead on an empirical sociological approach, examining the way in which real societies have actually treated suicide in the course of history, and then inquiring into the reasons for this treatment. This examination indicated that suicide has been long, widely, and severely condemned, but that such condemnations fell into two categories, indicating two historical stages.

In antiquity, suicide was a civil offense, and though the individual was forbidden to end his own life, the state might permit him to do so on certain occasions. But in modern societies, suicide is viewed as a religious crime, and the condemnation is thus both absolute and universal. The distinctive element in the second stage, Durkheim insists, is the Christian conception of the human personality as a "sacred" thing; henceforth, in so far as he retains his identity as a man, the individual shares that quality sui generis which religions ascribe to their gods: "He has become tinged with religious value; man has become a god for men. Therefore any attempt against his life suggests sacrilege."44

To Montesquieu or to Hume, such an argument, based on a religious premise, was less than compelling. But to Durkheim, agnostic though he was, the religious vestments of the argument were purely symbolic and did little to discredit it; on the contrary, for Durkheim, every symbol (however mystical) must correspond to something real, and the reality to which the "sacred individual" corresponds is that body of collective sentiments which, with the growth of social volume and density, the division of labor, and individual differences, has elevated the individual personality above that primitive, homogeneous community within which it was literally non-existent.45 This view that the human person is in some sense sacred, Durkheim insisted, is virtually the only common bond joining a modern society's members; far from injuring only himself, therefore the man who commits suicide violates the most fundamental maxim of the social orders a transgression which is reflected in and in turn justifies, its severe moral prohibition.

Such an appeal to the sacredness of individual life necessarily raised the question of the relation between suicide and homicide; and this in turn led Durkheim to another attack on the "Italian school" of Ferri and Morselli, for whom such acts were the result of the same psychological cause (moral degeneracy) under different social conditions (suicide is simply a homicide which, repressed by a pacific social environment, is directed back toward the self). Durkheim denied of course that the causes of suicide and homicide are either "psychological" or "the same," and also that the social conditions under which they occur are so consistently different; for, as we have seen there are different kinds of suicide with different, non-psychological causes, and while some of these are identical to those of homicide others are quite opposed to them.

Egoistic suicide, for example results from conditions of disintegration and social indifference which, by reducing the intensity of the passions and increasing the respect for the individual, decreases the tendency to homicide. Altruistic suicide, by contrast, springs from a reduced respect for the individual life, as does homicide; but these are the social conditions of primitive rather than civilized societies. Anomie suicide, however is produced by that more modern mood of exasperation and world-weariness which is equally conducive to homicide; and which kind of death will result is largely determined by the moral constitution of the individual in question.

If suicide and homicide vary inversely, Durkheim thus concluded it is not ( pace Ferri and Morselli) because they are differing social expressions of the same psychological phenomenon; on the contrary, it is because most modern suicides result from conditions of egoism which are hostile to homicides. And if the relationship between suicide and homicide is not perfectly inverse, it is because the special social conditions which favor either anomie or altruistic suicide are also favorable to homicide.46

Here was another sociological answer to a venerable philosophical question -- i.e., whether our feelings for others are mere extensions of our feelings for ourselves or, by contrast, are independent of such selfish sentiments altogether. Durkheim's answer was that both alternatives are misconceived. Feelings for others and feelings for ourselves are not unrelated, but neither does one spring from the other; on the contrary, both are derived from a third source: that estimate of the moral value of the individual rendered by the conscience collective at any point in time.

Where that estimate is low, as in primitive societies, our indifference to the pain and sadness of others, for example, is matched by our indifference to our own; but where that estimate is high, as in advanced societies, our concern for our own comfort is balanced by a concern for that of others. Our egoistic instincts, of course, will weaken feelings when applied to the first, and strengthen them in application to the second; but the same moral condition exists and is active in both cases.

Like The Division of Labor in Society, Suicide concludes with some thoroughly practical questions: What attitude should modern societies take towards suicide? Should reforms be undertaken to restrain it? Or must we accept it as it is? Again as in The Division of Labor, Durkheim's answers to these questions depended on whether the current state of suicide is to be considered "normal" or "abnormal," and, as he had already shown through the example of crime in The Rules of Sociological Method, the "immorality" of suicide did not necessarily point to the latter.

On the contrary, the statistical data going back to the eighteenth century, as well as legislation surviving from still earlier periods, suggested to Durkheim that suicide was a normal element in the constitution of all societies. In primitive societies and the modern military, for example, the strict subordination of the individual to the group renders altruistic suicide an indispensable part of collective discipline. Again, in societies where the dignity of the person is the supreme end of conduct, egoistic suicide flourishes. And again, in societies where economic progress is rapid and social restraints become slack, anomie suicides are inevitable.

But don't such currents of altruism, egoism, and anomie cause suicide only if excessive? And might such currents not be everywhere maintained at the same level of moderate intensity? Durkheim's initial response echoed his discussion of crime in The Rules -- there are special environments within each society which can be reached by such currents only if the latter are strengthened or weakened far above or below the more general societal norm. But again, as with crime, these special modifications of the current are not merely necessary; they are also useful, for the most general collective state is simply that best adapted to the most general circumstances, not to those exceptional circumstances to which a society must also be adapted.

A society in which intelligent individualism could not be exaggerated, for example, would be incapable of radical innovation, even if such innovation were necessary; inversely, a society in which such individualism could not be significantly reduced would be unable to adapt to the conditions of war, in which conformity and passive obedience are elevated into virtues. It is essential, therefore that such "special environments" be preserved as a part of the more general existence, so that a society might both respond to particular conditions and evolve gradually over time.47

Thus the spirit of renunciation, the taste for individuation, and the love of progress each have their place in every society, and cannot exist without generating suicide. But this does not mean that every suicido-genic current is "normal"; on the contrary, these currents must produce suicides only in a certain measure which varies from one society to another as well as over time. Here Durkheim was particularly concerned to dismiss the view that suicide, the rate of which had increased exponentially in western Europe since the eighteenth century, was the "ransom money" of civilization, the inevitable companion of social progress.

The rash of suicides which accompanied the growth of the Roman Empire, Durkheim admitted, might support such a view; but from the height of Rome to the Enlightenment, suicide rates increased only slightly, while Roman culture was assimilated and then surpassed by Christianity, the Renaissance, and the Reformation. Social progress, therefore, does not logically imply suicide, and the undeniably rapid growth of suicide in the late nineteenth century should be attributed not to the intrinsic nature of progress, but rather to these special conditions under which this particular phase of progress has occurred; and even without knowing the nature of these conditions, Durkheim insisted that the very rapidity of this growth indicated that they are morbid and pathological rather than normal.48

How, then, was this "pathological phenomenon" to be overcome? Durkheim clearly considered the present indulgence toward suicide excessive, but felt that increased penalties for self-inflicted deaths would be inefficacious. The proposed imposition of severe penalties, for example, ignored the fact that suicide is but an exaggeration of acts regarded as virtuous, which a society could hardly be expected resolutely to condemn; and the milder moral penalties (e.g., refusal of burial, denial of civil, political, or familial rights), like education, fail to touch suicide at its source. Indeed, both the legal and the educational systems are themselves products of the same currents that cause suicide itself.

The recent, pathological growth of suicide must thus be attacked at its egoistic and anomie.49 The rapid increase of egoistic suicides, for example, could be attributed to the increasing failure of society to integrate its individual members; and it could be counteracted only by re-establishing the bonds between the individual and the social group: "He must feel himself more solidary with a collective existence which precedes him in time, which survives him, and which encompasses him at all points."50

Which social groups were best prepared to exercise this reintegrative function? Certainly not the state, Durkheim insisted, for political society is too distant from the individual to affect his life forcefully and continuously. Neither is religion a binding force; for while the Roman Catholic Church once exercised an integrative influence, it did so at the cost of a freedom of thought it no longer has the authority to command. Even the family, traditionally the central cohesive force in the life of the individual, has proved susceptible to the same disintegrative currents responsible for the rapid increase of suicide. In fact, the state, religion, and the family were able to prevent suicides only because they were cohesive, integrated societies in themselves; and, having lost that character, they no longer have that effect.

But there is a group -- the "occupational group" or "corporation" -- that has enormous integrative and thus preventative potential. "Its influence on individuals is not intermittent," Durkheim emphasized for "it is always in contact with them by the constant exercise of the function of which it is the organ and in which they collaborate. It follows the workers wherever they go.... Wherever they are, they find it enveloping them, recalling them to their duties, supporting them at need. Finally," he concluded, "corporate action makes itself felt in every detail of our occupations, which are thus given a collective orientation."51

To fulfill this potential, however, the occupational groups must become a recognized organ of public life, outside of (though subject to)52 the state, and be granted definite social functions -- the supervision of insurance, welfare, and pensions; the settling of contractual disputes; the regulation of working conditions; etc. But above all, the occupational group must exercise a moral function: "Besides the rights and duties common to all men," Durkheim explained, "there are others depending on qualities peculiar to each occupation, the number of which increases in importance as occupational activity increasingly develops and diversifies. For each of these special disciplines," he concluded, "an equally special organ is needed, to apply and maintain it."53

But if this is the best way to combat "corrosive individual egoism," it is also the best means to combat anomie;54 for the same groups that re-integrate the individual into social life can also serve to regulate his aspirations: "Whenever excited appetites tended to exceed all limits," Durkheim explained, the corporation would have to decide the share that should equitably revert to each of the cooperative parts. Standing above its own members, it would have all necessary authority to demand indispensable sacrifices and concessions and impose order upon them.... Thus, a new sort of moral discipline would be established, without which all the scientific discoveries and economic progress in the world could produce only malcontents.55

The pathological increase in suicides is thus a result of the "moral poverty" of our age, Durkheim insisted, and a new moral discipline is required to cure it; but as always, he insisted that this moral poverty itself had structural causes, and thus a reform of social structure (i.e., decentralized occupational groups)56 was required to relieve its most morbid symptoms.

Notes: 39. 1897b: 309. Durkheim thus presented an alternative explanation for a phenomenon -- the statistical regularity of certain social phenomena over time -- first analyzed scientifically in Adolph Quetelet's Sur l'homme et le développment de ses facultés ou Essai de physique sociale (1835) and Du système social et des lois qui le régissent (1848). See Durkheim's discussion of these works on pp. 300-304. 40. Cf. 1893: 96-100. 41. 1897b: 310-11. 42. 1897b: 318. Durkheim insists that the alternative view -- that a whole is qualitatively identical with the sum of its parts, and an effect qualitatively reducible to the sum of its causes -- would render all change inexplicable; and he again attacks what he takes to be Tarde's defense of this position (cf. 1897b: 311-312). 43. See, for example, the famous arguments against such proscription presented in Montesquieu's Persian Letters (1721) and Hume s "On Suicide" (1783). 44. 1897b: 334. 45. This modern "cult of man" should not be confused with the "egoistic individualism" discussed earlier. The latter represents an insufficient state of integration which detaches the individual from society with dangerous consequences, the former unites the members of a society in a single thought, the disinterested impersonal conception of an "ideal humanity" which transcends and subordinates private, selfish goals (cf. 1897b: 330-337). 46. Durkheim recognized that the homicides produced by conditions of anomie and those produced by conditions of altruism could not be "of the same nature"; like suicide, therefore. homicide "is not a single, individual criminological entity, but must include a variety of species very different from one another" (1897b: 358). 47. Cf. the discussion of crime presented in 1897b: 98-104. 48. Cf. 1897b: 85-107. To these symptoms of pathology, Durkheim adds the rise of philosophical pessimism. Comparing his own intellectual milieu with that of Zeno and Epicurus, he points to the systems of Schopenhauer and Hartmann, and the more broadly based intellectual movements of anarchism, aestheticism, mysticism, and revolutionary socialism as evidence of a "collective melancholy" which "would not have penetrated consciousness so far if it had not undergone a morbid development" (1897b: 370). 49. The causes of altruistic suicide, as we have seen, played no role in the "morbid effervescence" of nineteenth-century suicides, and appeared instead to be declining. 50. Fatalistic suicide was already a subject of merely historical interest. 51. 1897b: 373-374. 52. 1897b: 379. Cf. the important Preface to the second edition of The Division of Labor (1902) which extends this argument. 53. The failure of the state to perform this regulative function in the past, Durkheim suggests, led to the eventual suppression of the medieval guilds altogether: "... if similar corporations of different localities had been connected with one another instead of remaining isolated. so as to forth a single system, if all these systems had been subject to the general influence of the State and thus kept in constant awareness of their solidarity, bureaucratic despotism and occupational egoism would have been kept within proper limits" (1897b: 381-382). 53. 1897b: 380. 54. Though not all kinds of anomie. The only way to reduce suicides arising from conjugal anomie (i.e.. divorce), Durkheim suggests, is to make marriage more indissoluble; but by thus diminishing the suicides of husbands, we would also increase those of wives, for whom the matrimonial bond is of considerably less benefit. This dilemma can he overcome, however. if we recall that the differential advantage enjoyed by the husband is due to the fact that his aspirations are of societal origin while the wife is more influenced by physiology. While Durkheim was sure that a woman could never fulfill the same social functions as a man, therefore, he still felt that granting women a more active and important role in society would eventually secure them the same advantages from matrimony hitherto enjoyed only by men (cf. 1897b: 384 386). 55. 1897b: 383. This parallel efficacy is due to the fact that, at least in part, anomie results from the same cause -- the "disaggregation" of social forces -- as does egoism; but in each case "the effect is different, depending on the "point of incidence" of this cause, and whether it "influences active and practical functions, or functions that are representative. The former it agitates and exasperates; the latter it disorients and disconcerts" (1897b: 382). 56. "Decentralization" was the watchword of a number of Durkheim's contemporaries who, recognizing the impotence of the monolithic state in the face of egoism and anomie, sought to restore to local groups some of their old autonomy. Durkheim's proposed reform was thus a specific variation on this more general theme. The particular advantage of occupational decentralization, he urged, is that, because each of these new centers of moral life would be the focus of only specialized activity, the individual could become attached to them, and they could become attached to one another, without the solidarity of the country as a whole being undermined (cf. 1897b: 390-391).

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