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Science cannot describe individuals, but only types. If human societies cannot be classified, they must remain inaccessible to scientific description.

Emile Durkheim

Melancholy suicide. – This is connected with a general state of extreme depression and exaggerated sadness, causing the patient no longer to realize sanely the bonds which connect him with people and things about him. Pleasures no longer attract.
EMILE DURKHEIM

Attract Connection Depression Melancholy Patience Pleasure Realize Suicide
Faith is not uprooted by dialectic proof; it must already be deeply shaken by other causes to be unable to withstand the shock of argument.
EMILE DURKHEIM

Argument Evidence Faith Reason Shock
It is only by historical analysis that we can discover what makes up man, since it is only in the course of history that he is formed.
EMILE DURKHEIM

Analysis Built Himself History Make Up Man
The man whose whole activity is diverted to inner meditation becomes insensible to all his surroundings.
EMILE DURKHEIM

Activity Man Meditation Surrounding
Religious phenomena are naturally arranged in two fundamental categories: beliefs and rites. The first are states of opinion, and consist in representations; the second are determined modes of action.
EMILE DURKHEIM

Action Belief Determination Opinion Phenomenon Religious State
Man is only a moral being because he lives in society, since morality consists in solidarity with the group, and varies according to that solidarity. Cause all social life to vanish, and moral life would vanish at the same time, having no object to cling to.
EMILE DURKHEIM

Cling Group Life Live Man Object Social Society Solidarity Vanish
Even one well-made observation will be enough in many cases, just as one well-constructed experiment often suffices for the establishment of a law.
EMILE DURKHEIM

Enough Establishment Experiment Law Observation Willing
The first and most basic rule is to consider social facts as things.
EMILE DURKHEIM

Basic Fact Rule Social
The totality of beliefs and sentiments common to the average members of a society forms a determinate system with a life of its own. It can be termed the collective or creative consciousness.
EMILE DURKHEIM

Belief Collection Creative Emotion Sentiment System
At first sight, one does not see what relations there can be between religion and logic.
EMILE DURKHEIM

Logic Relation Religion
Man could not live if he were entirely impervious to sadness. Many sorrows can be endured only by being embraced, and the pleasure taken in them naturally has a somewhat melancholy character.
EMILE DURKHEIM

Character Live Man Melancholy Sadness Sorrow
An act cannot be defined by the end sought by the actor, for an identical system of behaviour may be adjustable to too many different ends without altering its nature.
EMILE DURKHEIM

Act Change Define Different End Identity Nature Similar System
A mind that questions everything, unless strong enough to bear the weight of its ignorance, risks questioning itself and being engulfed in doubt.
EMILE DURKHEIM

Curiosity Mindset Question Risk
A monomaniac is a sick person whose mentality is perfectly healthy in all respects but one; he has a single flaw, clearly localized. At times, for example, he has an unreasonable and absurd desire to drink or steal or use abusive language; but all his other acts and all his other thoughts are strictly correct.
EMILE DURKHEIM

Absurd Drink Health Himself Language Perfection Person Sick Thinking Time
It is science, and not religion, which has taught men that things are complex and difficult to understand.
EMILE DURKHEIM

Complex Difficult Man Religion Science Teaching Understand
Each new generation is reared by its predecessor; the latter must therefore improve in order to improve its successor. The movement is circular.
EMILE DURKHEIM

Circular Generation Improvement Movement Order

Science cannot describe individuals, but only types. If human societies cannot be classified, they must remain inaccessible to scientific description.

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Science cannot describe individuals, but only types. If human societies cannot be classified, they must remain inaccessible to scientific description.

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Popular Authors

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