Man Is A Moral Being, Only Because

The Christian Conceives Of His Abode On Earth In No More Delightful Colors Than The Jainist Sectarian. He Sees In It Only A Time Of Sad Trial; He Also Thinks That His True Country Is Not Of This World.

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.

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.

A Mind That Questions Everything, Unless Strong Enough To Bear The Weight Of Its Ignorance, Risks Questioning Itself And Being Engulfed In Doubt.

It Is A Quite Remarkable Fact That The Great Religions Of The Most Civilized Peoples Are More Deeply Fraught With Sadness Than The Simpler Beliefs Of Earlier Societies. This Certainly Does Not Mean That The Current Of Pessimism Is Eventually To Submerge The Other, But It Proves That It Does Not Lose Ground And That It Does Not Seem Destined To Disappear.