To Pursue A Goal Which Is By

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.

That Men Have An Interest In Knowing The World Which Surrounds Them, And Consequently That Their Reflection Should Have Been Applied To It At An Early Date, Is Something That Everyone Will Readily Admit.

Reality Seems Valueless By Comparison With The Dreams Of Fevered Imaginations; Reality Is Therefore Abandoned.

Men Have Been Obliged To Make For Themselves A Notion Of What Religion Is, Long Before The Science Of Religions Started Its Methodical Comparisons.

Sociological Method As We Practice It Rests Wholly On The Basic Principle That Social Facts Must Be Studied As Things, That Is, As Realities External To The Individual. There Is No Principle For Which We Have Received More Criticism; But None Is More Fundamental. Indubitably For Sociology To Be Possible, It Must Above All Have An Object All Its Own. It Must Take Cognizance Of A Reality Which Is Not In The Domain Of Other Sciences... There Can Be No Sociology Unless Societies Exist, And That Societies Cannot Exist If There Are Only Individuals.