French Property Law

Does this sound right in english??? I translated from french?

Maybe an expression problem or even wrong information…please feel free to correct me

ENGLISH REFORMATION

1. Characteristics or the Reformation

Reformation brought special characteristics in England. It was the work of monarchs. When Henry VIII broke with Rome, he renounced the authority of the pope, but in all other respects remained committed to Catholic doctrine. Gradually, Lutheran and Calvinist ideas spread all over England, without producing a consensus. That is how Anglicanism arose, a faith that is half-Catholic and half-Protestant.

2.The Separation with Rome

Henry VIII( 1509-1547) proved to be a devoted catholic: He wrote a book against Lutheran doctrine, a book that gained him a title from the Pope that English monarchs still have today as “Defender of the Faith”. But from 1527 onwards, his attitude towards the Holy See changed: The reason being the divorce case.
Henry VIII had married Catherine of Aragon, the wife of his late brother. But since the Roman Catholic Church law forbade a man to marry his sister-in-law, permission from Pope Julius II was needed. (One that was refused, but Henry still went on to with his marriage).The union wasn’t a happy one: over six children, just one girl survived. All these misfortunes made the King believe that God was punishing him for marrying his sister-in-law, so he asked Pope Clement VII to annul his marriage (1526).
He wanted to marry Anne Boleyn, to be able to have a son, someone who would be heir of the throne. But the Pope was against this marriage, and after 6 years of waiting, Henry VIII ordered the English Clergy to reject the Pope’s authority and name him Head of the church in England. Then he got a divorce from the Archbishop of Canterbury and married Anne Boleyn.

3.Henry VIII supreme head of the church of England
The pope responded to Henry’s marriage as being invalid. Henry then established the Acts of Parliament by the Parliament. This law forbade the pope from having any authority in England and made Henry, “ the only supreme head of the Church of England”. The king removed all religious orders and confiscated their property. Nearly a quarter of England was secularized. The King kept a half for himself and put the rest on sale.
Even thought Henry denied the Pope’s authority, he continued living in accord with Catholic doctrines in all other respects. Intolerant just like almost all the men at that time, he dealt without pity those who didn’t think like him: he put to death his chancellor, Thomas Moore, who, despite being a good catholic, refused to submit to the Acts of supremacy, and at the same time he made all those who spread Lutheran doctrines in England perish.
The separation with Rome, the Acts of Supremacy and the abolition of religious orders were met with no serious opposition. The Clergy has always been suspicious of the papacy. On their side, the majority of the population no longer had respect for the Clergy: not for the bishops who often lived in luxury, nor for the priests who were considered ignorant, nor for the monks, accused of laziness and greed. The majority of the King subjects were therefore ready to obediently follow his policy.

4.The succession of the King and the confirmation of Anglicanism

Following the death of Henry VIII (1547) his three children inherited the throne, but neither of them imposed a special political religion on the people. It was especially the arrival of Elizabeth, the daughter of Anne Boleyn(1558-1603), to the throne, who tried to reinstate the system like it was at his father’s time: A catholic Church with its beliefs and ceremonies, where the authority of the Monarch replaced that of the Pope. Some months after her accession, she was elected by the Parliament as the Supreme Governor of the Church of England.
Few years after, in 1563, she decided to set, once and for all, the religious doctrine of England and published “the 39 articles of the Confession of faith”. This confession of faith opposed many catholic doctrines as the Council of Trent just exposed. Not only did it reject the Pope’s authority, but also that of the Tradition or the obligation of celibacy for the clergy.
However, Elizabeth kept the prayers of Catholicism (but translated into English), the priestly garments, and finally the hierarchy of priests, bishops and archbishops.
The Acts of Supremacy, The Acts of Uniformity, The 39 articles set, right down to our days, a special form of Christianity named Anglicanism.

Slavery Contract ? does the the law concede that kind of contracts ?

Here’s the Contract that got singed by a person i know online and now he’s wondering if His *owner* can use it againts him

Contract of Slavery

I ……..
Known hereafter always as

Slave…….

Do hereby formally renounce my right of liberty and give myself freely and without reservation into the ownership of my Mistress

Mistress……..

I fully understand and accept the following conditions of my future existence as the slave of my Mistress

I am the property of my Mistress, body and mind
I will obey my Mistress at all times without question or hesitation
I accept that my feelings, opinions and wishes are meaningless and irrelevant
I will speak only when spoken to
I will kiss my Mistress’ shoes, boots or feet as a greeting to her when and wherever I first meet her
I will always be naked in the presence of my Mistress or I will always dress up for an audiences with my Mistress in approved clothes: French maid uniform, high heels, stockings & suspenders, panties, wigs, full make-up etc.
I will fully learn my duties as a slave to my Mistress
I am to accept fitting punishments for any behaviour unfitting of a lowly slave
I accept that my body is useful only for the pleasure of my Mistress and that she may use my cock, mouth and anus for her sexual pleasure
I will accept any torture, punishment or humiliation my Mistress chooses for me
I will be completely honest about my fantasies and desires
I will confess any disobedience or failings and ask to be punished for them

Signed Mistress……… Witnessed Mistress…….. Signed Slave………

If you were elected Lord Mayor of London?

What changes, laws would you make, considering that there is a lot wrong with the Capital. I only ask because i can see this beautiful city being taken over by property developers being given free rein to despoil much of what is beautiful, glass boxes going up in the City and elsewhere, that do nothing to enhance the areas, and those areas that need urgent funding, for new and better housing and more sport facilities for all.
This may sound trivial but one thing i would do is build or reopen proper toilets, for some absurd reason they are far and few between, and the ones that exist are in a poor state of repair, or worse still filthy. And i would dispose of those open French style loos that have been installed. I often wonder what visitors to the capital make of it, after all it’s a basic necessity of life. And considering we are hosting the 2012 Olympics then isn’t it about time the powers that be took more pride in this city that over 7 million souls work and live in.
Ok, Mayor of London, it’s a hypothethical question at any rate, somethings you could change if given the power.

Did u know that the famous french scientist Jacques Cousteau embrassed islam before he died?

i asked a question abt scientific predictions and tellings in quran and i had an answer about the story of Jacques Cousteau embrassing islam , and here it is:

Jacques Cousteau Died as a Muslim

The great French scientist, oceanographer, initiator of research of the sea and ocean depths, inventor of an aqualung, underwater house, the device called diving saucer, author of many popular books and films, Jacque IV Cousteau is known in the entire world. But very few people know, that scientific research carried out by him and the reflection in the Qu’oran of many scientific signs, led him to accept Islam and he died as a Muslim.

Investigating open water spaces in Strait of Gibraltar, he discovered the surprising fact not explained by science: the existence of two water layers which do not mix with each other. They as if are divided by a film and have among themselves precise borders. Each of them has its own temperature, salt structure, animal and flora. These are waters of the Mediterranean Sea and Atlantic Ocean meeting each other in Strait of Gibraltar.

“In 1962″, – tells Jacque Cousteau, – “German scientists found out, that in Bab el Mandeb, where the waters of Gulf of Aden and the Red sea converge, the waters of the Red sea and the Indian ocean do not mix together. Following the example of colleagues, we began to find out whether waters of Atlantic Ocean and Mediterranean Sea mix up.”

Sea Barriers

“First, we investigated water of Mediterranean Sea – its natural level of salinity, density and forms of life inherent in it. We made the same in Atlantic Ocean. These two weights of water meet in Strait of Gibraltar already thousand years and it would be logical to assume, that these two huge water weights for a long time should get mixed up – their salinity and density should become identical, or, at least, similar. But even in places, where they converge closely, each of them keeps its properties. In other words, in places of merge of two weights of water, water curtain does not allow them to mix up”.

On detecting this blatant though improbable fact, the scientist was extremely surprised.

“I long rested on laurels at this surprising phenomenon which is not explained by laws of physics and chemistry”, – writes Cousteau.

But the scientist had an even greater surprise and admiration when he found out that this had written in Qu’oran for more than 1400 years. He learned about it from the French Doctor Moris Bukay (Maurice Bucaille), who had already accepted Islam.

And Allah swt says in the Holy Quoran:

“He has made the two seas to flow freely (so that) they meet together:
Between them is a barrier which they cannot pass”
(55: 19-20)

“When I told him about my discovery, he sceptically told me, that it has been told 1400 years back in the Qu’oran. It was for me as thundering during a clear sky. And really, so it appeared when I looked at translations of Qu’oran. Then I exclaimed: ‘I swear, that this Qu’oran from which the modern science lags behind on 1400 years, can not be speech of person. It is true speech of Almighty’. After that I accepted the Islam and each day I was amazed by truth, justice, ease, utility of this religion. I am indefinitely grateful that He opened my eyes for Truth”, – writes Cousteau.
unforgetable quotes from cousteau:

“I swear, that this Qu’oran, from which the modern science lags behind on 1400 years, cannot be speech of the person. It is true speech of Almighty”- Jacque Cousteau.
lol yes its embraced!

but its not tragic though cause the tragic is : embaressed
mostly they will deny that he converted cause they didnt chose to convert aswell

Photojournalism graduate school?

I just recently completed an undergraduate degree in Art History at a prestigious (though small) liberal arts college, and I was only a few classes away from double majoring in Studio Art with a focus in photography. I have a large portfolio of my works, and am considering getting a masters of arts or masters of science in photojournalism.

I want the program to include:

* Documentary photography
* Photo editing
* Lighting techniques in photography
* Online photojournalism
* Communication law
* History of photojournalism
* Ethical issues in photojournalism and mass media

I want to try and complete the program in 2-3 years, as I’d like to try and start a career asap.

What schools have a masters program? I’d like to avoid Boston University because I have slightly bad history with them. In a city would be best, such as Seattle or Portland or NYC. Also, I can go anywhere in France, as I speak fluent French.

I see photojournalism as opening more doors than my art history degree, as it might give me communication and technical skills that are applicable to the workforce (and it would at least allow me to set up a website where I could give myself some professional credit to at least take wedding and party pictures for money). After that, if I’m a total failure as a photographer and photojournalist, I’d like to try Cultural Property and Art Law.

Thoughts?

How does French Law handle allegations without an arrest?

In France, for instance, if someone were to be accused of something like theft, or something like that, but the person is never arrested, just asked to leave the store, property or whatever and never return. Is there a file created on that person linking their name with suspicion of a crime or does nothing happen since it didn’t go to the courts?

Cannot decide if I want to take Chinese, French, or Italian?

Ok I need to fulfill a year foreign language requirement for my college. I want to go to Law School and hopefully practice Sports & Entertainment Law. My back up is Intellectual Property just in case I can’t break into the sports world. But My question is should I take Chinese, French, or Italian. I want to take something useful, but also fun. And something that would also benefit me for the future. I am not to sold on Spanish because everyone speaks Spanish so that won’t really separate you from the pack. Any suggestions please?

Is it possible to move to Paris at the age of 18? (French people answering preferably)?

Hello!
Sorry, I’m new here – so excuse me if I am doing this wrong some how.
I’m very nearly 16 (in a couple of months), and I only have two years of school left now. (I’m from England) I’ve always adored the French culture, and I’ve always dreamed of living in Paris, and attending university there. I feel like the city will suit my personality perfectly.
Hopefully if I move, the language difference will not be too hard. Although I’m only 16, I think I know enough French at the moment to get by, and within the next two years I’ll be taking it further academically, and I’m sure that if I spend time in France the Summer before I am due to move over I’ll be okay. (Hopefully!!)
But I have a few questions;
What is the property ladder like in France? Are the prices much different to that of in Britain?
Is it easy to find somewhere to rent?
Are the locals friendly to foreigners? (those actually make an effort with the language and culture etc, not ignorant people who just expect everyone to speak English)
Are jobs readily available?
And most importantly, are there any good universities in Paris? I’ve heard that the Sorbonne is good but I really do not know that much about it. I would be interested in studying Law, is there a course available for international Law at any of the universities in Paris?

What is the way of life actually like in Paris?

Sorry for asking so many questions, and I’m sure there’s plenty that I’ve missed out (please feel free to mention anything that I’ve forgotten if you find it necessary.) I tried to Google everything but I think it’d be easier to get the information from someone French/lives is Paris.
Thank you

I need help understanding this article. Please see the article below. Thanks in advance.?

What is a Social Fact?

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Before beginning the search for the method appropriate to the study of social facts it is important to know what are the facts termed ‘social’.

The question is all the more necessary because the term is used without much precision. It is commonly used to designate almost all the phenomena that occur within society, however little social interest of some generality they present. Yet under this heading there is, so to speak, no human occurrence that cannot be called social. Every individual drinks, sleeps, eats, or employs his reason, and society has every interest in seeing that these functions are regularly exercised. If therefore these facts were social ones, sociology would possess no subject matter peculiarly its own, and its domain would be confused with that of biology and psychology.

However, in reality there is in every society a clearly determined group of phenomena separable, because of their distinct characteristics, from those that form the subject matter of other sciences of nature.

When I perform my duties as a brother, a husband or a citizen and carry out the commitments I have entered into, I fulfil obligations which are defined in law and custom and which are external to myself and my actions. Even when they conform to my own sentiments and when I feel their reality within me, that reality does not cease to be objective, for it is not I who have prescribed these duties; I have received them through education. Moreover, how often does it happen that we are ignorant of the details of the obligations that we must assume, and that, to know them, we must consult the legal code and its authorised interpreters! Similarly the believer has discovered from birth, ready fashioned, the beliefs and practices of his religious life; if they existed before he did, it follows that they exist outside him. The system of signs that I employ to express my thoughts, the monetary system I use to pay my debts, the credit instruments I utilise in my commercial relationships, the practices I follow in my profession, etc., all function independently of the use I make of them. Considering in turn each member of society, the foregoing remarks can be repeated for each single one of them. Thus there are ways of acting, thinking and feeling which possess the remarkable property of existing outside the consciousness of the individual.

Not only are these types of behaviour and thinking external to the individual, but they are endued with a compelling and coercive power by virtue of which, whether he wishes it or not, they impose themselves upon him. Undoubtedly when I conform to them of my own free will, this coercion is not felt or felt hardly at all, since it is unnecessary. None the less it is intrinsically a characteristic of these facts; the proof of this is that it asserts itself as soon as I try to resist. If I attempt to violate the rules of law they react against me so as to forestall my action, if there is still time. Alternatively, they annul it or make my action conform to the norm if it is already accomplished but capable of being reversed; or they cause me to pay the penalty for it if it is irreparable. If purely moral rules are at stake, the public conscience restricts any act which infringes them by the surveillance it exercises over the conduct of citizens and by the special punishments it has at its disposal. In other cases the constraint is less violent; nevertheless, it does not cease to exist. If I do not conform to ordinary conventions, if in my mode of dress I pay no heed to what is customary in my country and in my social class, the laughter I provoke, the social distance at which I am kept, produce, although in a more mitigated form, the same results as any real penalty. In other cases, although it may be indirect, constraint is no less effective. I am not forced to speak French with my compatriots, nor to use the legal currency, but it is impossible for me to do otherwise. If I tried to escape the necessity, my attempt would fail miserably. As an industrialist nothing prevents me from working with the processes and methods of the previous century, but if I do I will most certainly ruin myself. Even when in fact I can struggle free from these rules and successfully break them, it is never without being forced to fight against them. Even if in the end they are overcome, they make their constraining power sufficiently felt in the resistance that they afford. There is no innovator, even a fortunate one, whose ventures do not encounter opposition of this kind.

Here, then, is a category of facts which present very special characteristics: they consist of manners of acting, thinking and feeling external to the individual, which are invested with a coercive power by virtue of which they exercise control over him. Consequently, since they consist of representations and actions, they cannot be confused with organic phenomena, nor with psychical phenomena, which have no existence save in and through the individual consciousness. Thus they constitute a new species and to them must be exclusively assigned the term social. It is appropriate, since it is clear that, not having the individual as their substratum, they can have none other than society, either political society in its entirety or one of the partial groups that it includes – religious denominations, political and literary schools, occupational corporations, etc. Moreover, it is for such as these alone that the term is fitting, for the word ‘social’ has the sole meaning of designating those phenomena which fall into none of the categories of facts already constituted and labelled. They are consequently the proper field of sociology. It is true that this word ‘constraint’, in terms of which we define them, is in danger of infuriating those who zealously uphold out-and-out individualism. Since they maintain that the individual is completely autonomous, it seems to them that he is diminished every time he is made aware that he is not dependent on himself alone. Yet since it is indisputable today that most of our ideas and tendencies are not developed by ourselves, but come to us from outside, they can only penetrate us by imposing themselves upon us. This is all that our definition implies. Moreover, we know that all social constraints do not necessarily exclude the individual personality. [1]

Yet since the examples just cited (legal and moral rules, religious dogmas, financial systems, etc.) consist wholly of beliefs and practices already well established, in view of what has been said it might be maintained that no social fact can exist except where there is a well defined social organisation. But there are other facts which do not present themselves in this already crystallised form but which also possess the same objectivity and ascendancy over the individual. These are what are called social ‘currents’. Thus in a public gathering the great waves of enthusiasm, indignation and pity that are produced have their seat in no one individual consciousness. They come to each one of us from outside and can sweep us along in spite of ourselves. If perhaps I abandon myself to them I may not be conscious of the pressure that they are exerting upon me, but that pressure makes its presence felt immediately I attempt to struggle against them. If an individual tries to pit himself against one of these collective manifestations, the sentiments that he is rejecting will be turned against him. Now if this external coercive power asserts itself so acutely in cases of resistance, it must be because it exists in the other instances cited above without our being conscious of it. Hence we are the victims of an illusion which leads us to believe we have ourselves produced what has been imposed upon us externally. But if the willingness with which we let ourselves be carried along disguises the pressure we have undergone, it does not eradicate it. Thus air does not cease to have weight, although we no longer feel that weight. Even when we have individually and spontaneously shared in the common emotion, the impression we have experienced is utterly different from what we would have felt if we had been alone. Once the assembly has broken up and these social influences have ceased to act upon us, and we are once more on our own, the emotions we have felt seem an alien phenomenon, one in which we no longer recognise ourselves. It is then we perceive that we have undergone the emotions much more than generated them. These emotions may even perhaps fill us with horror, so much do they go against the grain. Thus individuals who are normally perfectly harmless may, when gathered together in a crowd, let themselves be drawn into acts of atrocity. And what we assert about these transitory outbreaks likewise applies to those more lasting movements of opinion which relate to religious, political, literary and artistic matters, etc., and which are constantly being produced around us, whether throughout society or in a more limited sphere.

Moreover, this definition of a social fact can be verified by examining an experience that is characteristic. It is sufficient to observe how children are brought up. If one views the facts as they are and indeed as they have always been, it is patently obvious that all education consists of a continual effort to impose upon the child ways of seeing, thinking and acting which he himself would not have arrived at spontaneously. From his earliest years we oblige him to eat, drink and sleep at regular hours, and to observe cleanliness, calm and obedience; later we force him to learn how to be mindful of others, to respect customs and conventions, and to work, etc. If this constraint in time ceases to be felt it is because it gradually gives rise to habits, to inner tendencies which render it superfluous; but they supplant the constraint only because they are derived from it. It is true that, in Spencer’s view, a rational education should shun such means and allow the child complete freedom to do what he will. Yet as this educational theory has never been put into practice among any known people, it can only be the personal expression of a desideratum and not a fact which can be established in contradiction to the other facts given above. What renders these latter facts particularly illuminating is that education sets out precisely with the object of creating a social being. Thus there can be seen, as in an abbreviated form, how the social being has been fashioned historically. The pressure to which the child is subjected unremittingly is the same pressure of the social environment which seeks to shape him in its own image, and in which parents and teachers are only the representatives and intermediaries.

Thus it is not the fact that they are general which can serve to characterise sociological phenomena. Thoughts to be found in the consciousness of each individual and movements which are repeated by all individuals are not for this reason social facts. If some have been content with using this characteristic in order to define them it is because they have been confused, wrongly, with what might be termed their individual incarnations. What constitutes social facts are the beliefs, tendencies and practices of the group taken collectively. But the forms that these collective states may assume when they are ‘refracted’ through individuals are things of a different kind. What irrefutably demonstrates this duality of kind is that these two categories of facts frequently are manifested dissociated from each other. Indeed some of these ways of acting or thinking acquire, by dint of repetition, a sort of consistency which, so to speak, separates them out, isolating them from the particular events which reflect them. Thus they assume a shape, a tangible form peculiar to them and constitute a reality sui generis vastly distinct from the individual facts which manifest that reality. Collective custom does not exist only in a state of immanence in the successive actions which it determines, but, by a privilege without example in the biological kingdom, expresses itself once and for all in a formula repeated by word of mouth, transmitted by education and even enshrined in the written word. Such are the origins and nature of legal and moral rules, aphorisms and popular sayings, articles of faith in which religious or political sects epitomise their beliefs, and standards of taste drawn up by literary schools, etc. None of these modes of acting and thinking are to be found wholly in the application made of them by individuals, since they can even exist without being applied at the time.

Undoubtedly this state of dissociation does not always present itself with equal distinctiveness. It is sufficient for dissociation to exist unquestionably in the numerous important instances cited, for us to prove that the social fact exists separately from its individual effects. Moreover, even when the dissociation is not immediately observable, it can often be made so with the help of certain methodological devices. Indeed it is essential to embark on such procedures if one wishes to refine out the social fact from any amalgam and so observe it in its pure state. Thus certain currents of opinion, whose intensity varies according to the time and country in which they occur, impel us, for example, towards marriage or suicide, towards higher or lower birth-rates, etc. Such currents are plainly social facts. At first sight they seem inseparable from the forms they assume in individual cases. But statistics afford us a means of isolating them. They are indeed not inaccurately represented by rates of births, marriages and suicides, that is, by the result obtained after dividing the average annual total of marriages, births, and voluntary homicides by the number of persons of an age to marry, produce children, or commit suicide. [2] Since each one of these statistics includes without distinction all individual cases, the individual circumstances which may have played some part in producing the phenomenon cancel each other out and consequently do not contribute to determining the nature of the phenomenon. What it expresses is a certain state of the collective mind.

That is what social phenomena are when stripped of all extraneous elements. As regards their private manifestations, these do indeed having something social about them, since in part they reproduce the collective model. But to a large extent each one depends also upon the psychical and organic constitution of the individual, and on the particular circumstances in which he is placed. Therefore they are not phenomena which are in the strict sense sociological. They depend on both domains at the same time, and could be termed socio-psychical. They are of interest to the sociologist without constituting the immediate content of sociology. The same characteristic is to be found in the organisms of those mixed phenomena of nature studied in the combined sciences such as biochemistry.

It may be objected that a phenomenon can only be collective if it is common to all the members of society, or at the very least to a majority, and consequently, if it is general. This is doubtless the case, but if it is general it is because it is collective (that is, more or less obligatory); but it is very far from being collective because it is general. It is a condition of the group repeated in individuals because it imposes itself upon them. It is in each part because it is in the whole, but far from being in the whole because it is in the parts. This is supremely evident in those beliefs and practices which are handed down to us ready fashioned by previous generations. We accept and adopt them because, since they are the work of the collectivity and one that is centuries old, they are invested with a special authority that our education has taught us to recognise and respect. It is worthy of note that the vast majority of social phenomena come to us in this way. But even when the social fact is partly due to our direct co-operation, it is no different in nature. An outburst of collective emotion in a gathering does not merely express the sum total of what individual feelings share in common, but is something of a very different order, as we have demonstrated. It is a product of shared existence, of actions and reactions called into play between the consciousnesses of individuals. If it is echoed in each one of them it is precisely by virtue of the special energy derived from its collective origins. If all hearts beat in unison, this is not as a consequence of a spontaneous, preestablished harmony; it is because one and the same force is propelling them in the same direction. Each one is borne along by the rest.

We have therefore succeeded in delineating for ourselves the exact field of sociology. It embraces one single, well defined group of phenomena. A social fact is identifiable through the power of external coercion which it exerts or is capable of exerting upon individuals. The presence of this power is in turn recognisable because of the existence of some pre-determined sanction, or through the resistance that the fact opposes to any individual action that may threaten it. However, it can also be defined by ascertaining how widespread it is within the group, provided that, as noted above, one is careful to add a second essential characteristic; this is, that it exists independently of the particular forms that it may assume in the process of spreading itself within the group. In certain cases this latter criterion can even be more easily applied than the former one. The presence of constraint is easily ascertainable when it is manifested externally through some direct reaction of society, as in the case of law, morality, beliefs, customs and even fashions. But when constraint is merely indirect, as with that exerted by an economic organization, it is not always so clearly discernible. Generality combined with objectivity may then be easier to establish. Moreover, this second definition is simply another formulation of the first one: if a mode of behaviour existing outside the consciousnesses of individuals becomes general, it can only do so by exerting pressure upon them. [3]

However, one may well ask whether this definition is complete. Indeed the facts which have provided us with its basis are all ways of functioning: they are ‘physiological’ in nature. But there are also collective ways of being, namely, social facts of an ‘anatomical’ or morphological nature. Sociology cannot dissociate itself from what concerns the substratum of collective life. Yet the number and nature of the elementary parts which constitute society, the way in which they are articulated, the degree of coalescence they have attained, the distribution of population over the earth’s surface, the extent and nature of the network of communications, the design of dwellings, etc., do not at first sight seem relatable to ways of acting, feeling or thinking.

Yet, first and foremost, these various phenomena present the same characteristic which has served us in defining the others. These ways of being impose themselves upon the individual just as do the ways of acting we have dealt with. In fact, when we wish to learn how a society is divided up politically, in what its divisions consist and the degree of solidarity that exists between them, it is not through physical inspection and geographical observation that we may come to find this out: such divisions are social, although they may have some physical basis. It is only through public law that we can study such political organisation, because this law is what determines its nature, just as it determines our domestic and civic relationships. The organisation is no less a form of compulsion. If the population clusters together in our cities instead of being scattered over the rural areas, it is because there exists a trend of opinion, a collective drive which imposes this concentration upon individuals. We can no more choose the design of our houses than the cut of our clothes – at least, the one is as much obligatory as the other. The communication network forcibly prescribes the direction of internal migrations or commercial exchanges, etc., and even their intensity. Consequently, at the most there are grounds for adding one further category to the list of phenomena already enumerated as bearing the distinctive stamp of a social fact. But as that enumeration was in no wise strictly exhaustive, this addition would not be indispensable.

Moreover, it does not even serve a purpose, for these ways of being are only ways of acting that have been consolidated. A society’s political structure is only the way in which its various component segments have become accustomed to living with each other. If relationships between them are traditionally close, the segments tend to merge together; if the contrary, they tend to remain distinct. The type of dwelling imposed upon us is merely the way in which everyone around us and, in part, previous generations, have customarily built their houses. The communication network is only the channel which has been cut by the regular current of commerce and migrations, etc., flowing in the same direction. Doubtless if phenomena of a morphological kind were the only ones that displayed this rigidity, it might be thought that they constituted a separate species. But a legal rule is no less permanent an arrangement than an architectural style, and yet it is a ‘physiological’ fact. A simple moral maxim is certainly more malleable, yet it is cast in forms much more rigid than a mere professional custom or fashion. Thus there exists a whole range of gradations which, without any break in continuity, join the most clearly delineated structural facts to those free currents of social life which are not yet caught in any definite mould. This therefore signifies that the differences between them concern only the degree to which they have become consolidated. Both are forms of life at varying stages of crystallisation. It would undoubtedly be advantageous to reserve the term ‘morphological’ for those social facts which relate to the social substratum, but only on condition that one is aware that they are of the same nature as the others.

Our definition will therefore subsume all that has to be defined it if states:

A social fact is any way of acting, whether fixed or not, capable of exerting over the individual an external constraint;
or:

which is general over the whole of a given society whilst having an existence of its own, independent of its individual manifestations. [4]

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Notes

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1. Moreover, this is not to say that all constraint is normal. We shall return to this point later.

2. Suicides do not occur at any age, nor do they occur at all ages of life with the same frequency.

3. It can be seen how far removed this definition of the social fact is from that which serves as the basis for the ingenious system of Tarde. We must first state that our research has nowhere led us to corroboration of the preponderant influence that Tarde attributes to imitation in the genesis of collective facts. Moreover, from this definition, which is not a theory but a mere resume of the immediate data observed, it seems clearly to follow that imitation does not always express, indeed never expresses, what is essential and characteristic in the social fact . Doubtless every social fact is imitated and has, as we have just shown, a tendency to become generalised, but this is because it is social, i.e. obligatory. Its capacity for expansion is not the cause but the consequence of its sociological character. If social facts were unique in bringing about this effect, imitation might serve, if not to explain them, at least to define them. But an individual state which impacts on others none the less remains individual. Moreover, one may speculate whether the term ‘imitation’ is indeed appropriate to designate a proliferation which occurs through some coercive influence. In such a single term very different phenomena, which need to be distinguished, are confused.

4. This close affinity of life and structure, organ and function, can be readily established in sociology because there exists between these two extremes a whole series of intermediate stages, immediately observable, which reveal the link between them. Biology lacks this methodological resource. But one may believe legitimately that sociological inductions on this subject are applicable to biology and that, in organisms as in societies, between these two categories of facts only differences in degree exist.