The polyandry of our great cities, however rife, is not an institution. The monogamic union, however rare, would be, nevertheless, an institution. Spencer, confounding monogamy de jure with monogamy de facto is unable to find "that social progress and progress toward a higher type of family life are uniformly connected." Had he drawn the above distinction, he would have viewed the pairing family of the Veddahs and other low types as a fact, but not an institution. "Property," too, is used in both senses. Sometimes it designates "things possessed;" sometimes it means "a conventional right to things." As an institution, property is certainly a subjective fact, to-wit, a general willingness to enforce by social sanctions a man's claim to things that have come to him in approved ways.
Again, if the institution is the thing to be explained, the ground is cut from underneath the lower human and sub-human sociology. For in a group of animals we find interactions, modes of mutual aid, habits of co-operation, etc. But do we find modes of life with a collective sanction annexed? Can we detect authorized relations imposed by the community upon reluctant members?
Since not only our relations to others are matters of social surveillance, but also our private life, some suggest that we adopt the social imperative as the unit. Now, an institution is a sanctioned relation; an imperative is a sanctioned action or belief. But in addition to these there exist important uniformities of belief, action, or feeling, which are in no wise binding on the individual. Imitation, or the influence of a common environment, extends through a population great planes of knowledge, opinion, or desire, which support the forms of collective life. Upon these platforms of common opinion or common will are erected imperatives and institutions. It is true that a uniformity of any kind tends to stiffen into a convention, tends even to develop the hard cutting edge of a social imperative. It is true that the prevalent tends to become the uniform, the uniform the expected, the expected the obligatory, the obligatory the compulsory. Still Durkheim is not warranted in enlarging the term "institution" so as to include myths, dogmas, legends, languages,
