Durkheim gives the name mechanical solidarity to the result that follows from the reliance of persons on the stability and integrity of their society, marked by the social similarities and psychological affinities between and among members of society (Durkheim 60-62). Mechanical solidarity is related to the "collective consciousness" (43 et passim). Violation of the collective, conformed opinion of society calls for defense of conformity, which in mechanical solidarity equals society: "When we demand the repression of crime," says Durkheim, "it is not because we are seeking a personal vengeance, but rather vengeance for something sacred which we vaguely feel is more or less outside and above us" (Durkheim 56). The individual identifies himself with the society and the society with himself.
Organic solidarity occurs because of interrelationship of individuals within that society owing to the division of labor necessary for social structure: "However richly endowed we may be, we always lack something . . . [and] seek in our friends those qualities we lack" (Durkheim 17). Individuals and groups rely upon one another and constitute the society itself, even where individuals share collective consciousness in the manner of mechanical solidarity. The text cites specialization of individuals within "a sphere of action that is peculiarly [their] own" (Durkheim 85). What Durkheim calls "special functions" of individuals, unregulated by collective consciousness, foster social "cohesion" and "solidarity" by their very diversity (85), much in the manner of higher-animal organisms:
[O]n the one hand each one of us depends more intimately upon society the more labour is divided up, and on the other, the activity of each one of us is correspondingly more specialized, the more personal it is. . . . Society becomes more effective . . . as each of its elements has more movements that are peculiarly its own (Durkheim 85).
A society of this type, ...