(It may be noted in passing that Tarde's "trinitarian" conception of value is not as artificial as it seems. It is simply a method of classification, and there are many subdivisions under each head. Economic value, e.g., is a subspecies within the group of utility values—"goods" include "pouvoirs," "droits," "mérites," and "richesses" (66). Our own conception is, of course, that values are thoroughly "pluralistic" as to their structure, and are "monistic" in their function.)
(64) The greater or less truth of a thing signifies three things diversely combined: the greater or smaller number, the greater or less social importance ("poids," "considération," "compétence," "reconnue") of the people who believe it, and the greater or less intensity of their belief in it. The greater or less utility of an object expresses the greater or less number of people who desire it in a given society at a given time, the greater or less social "poids" ("ici poids veut dire pouvoir et droit") of the persons who desire it, and the greater or less intensity of their desire for it. And so with beauty.
Here is, then, an explicit recognition of the element of the social weight of those who create a social value, as a factor coördinate with their number and the intensity of their desires, etc. Toward resolving it, however, Tarde makes no real contribution. If enough be read into the parenthetical expressions given above, following the word "poids" in each case, they would be found to harmonize with the theory of the writer, shortly to be set forth. As it happens, however, Tarde attempts to resolve this factor of the social weight of a participant in a social value, in an analogous case, and gives us a different sort of explanation. He is seeking a "glorio mètre," or measure of glory—for glory is a social value too. He finds that to determine a man's glory we must take account of two things: one his notoriety, and the other, the admiration in which he is held (71-72). The first is simple: we will count the number who watch him and talk about what he does. The second is harder, for we must not merely count the number who admire him, but also determine the importance of each as an admirer. But how get at this? Tarde suggests that the study of the cephalic index will throw light upon the problem—no satisfactory solution, I think!—but says that anyhow the problem is practically solved every day in university and administrative examinations.
Apart from the fact that conscious desire (or conscious belief, etc.), rather than functional power, is made the basis of Tarde's social value, and apart from the failure to give any real account of the origin of this "social weight," of the individuals in the group which creates the social value, there is a further defect in Tarde's analysis which cannot be strongly objected to. It is his effort to treat organic processes as if they were an arithmetical sum of elements. A sum of abstractions will not give you a concrete reality. A man's social weight is not a thing independent of relations, a thing which can be thrown now here and now there with the same results in each case. And two men, each with a definite social weight, do not have precisely twice that social weight when they combine with each other. Two great leaders of opposing, evenly balanced political parties, combining their influence, may secure wonderful results, leading both parties to agree on a programme, and carrying it through. Two equally great leaders, but both within the same party, may be unable to accomplish anything by combining their efforts. And it may happen that two men, each with great weight in his own sphere, would be so incongruous if they tried to coöperate, that their joint weight would be less than the weight of either alone. It is not a matter of arithmetical addition. Social power can be used in certain ways, and in certain organic connections. If we care to use a mechanical phrase, the effort to use it out of organic connections is apt to result in so much "friction" that much of the power is lost.
The objection to the insistence on the amount of conscious desire or feeling as a criterion of the amount of value holds for social values quite as much as for individual values. The social value of the gold standard, judging by the amount of desire and feeling involved, by the degree to which it was a factor in consciousness, was vastly greater during the campaign of 1896, while its validity was still in question, than it was after it had been validated, and made a really effective fact. Social value depends, not on conscious intensity, but on motivating power. The social consciousness, as the individual consciousness, is economical. And the need for conscious feeling, for conscious desire, in connection with social, as with individual, values, arises when values must be compared, when they are in question, when they must show themselves for what they are, that they may be brought into equilibrium with antagonistic values. And the amount of consciousness will not be greater than the need for it—and, alas, is rarely as great as the need! When a value becomes accepted, when its place is secure, when the equilibrium is established, conscious feeling and desire with reference to it tend to pass away, and peace comes.
Tarde seems to recognize this, indeed, when he says (72, n.):—
Of nobility, as of glory, it is proper to remark that it is a force, a means of action, for him who possesses it, but that it is a faith, a peace, for the people who accept it, and who, in believing in it, create it.
FOOTNOTES:
[154] Op. cit., chap. viii, esp. p. 243.
[155] Ibid., p. 319.