The Totality Of Beliefs And Sentiments Common

Our Whole Social Environment Seems To Us To Be Filled With Forces Which Really Exist Only In Our Own Minds.

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.

At This Point, An Urgent Question Arises: [...] Is It Our Duty To Seek To Become A Thorough And Complete Human Being, One Quite Sufficient Unto Himself; Or, On The Contrary, To Be Only A Part Of A Whole, The Organ Of An Organism? Briefly, Is The Division Of Labor, At The Same Time That It Is A Law Of Nature, Also A Moral Rule Of Human Conduct; And, If It Has This Latter Character, Why And In What Degree?

Society Is Not A Mere Sum Of Individuals. Rather, The System Formed By Their Association Represents A Specific Reality Which Has Its Own Characteristics... The Group Thinks, Feels, And Acts Quite Differently From The Way In Which Its Members Would Were They Isolated. If, Then, We Begin With The Individual, We Shall Be Able To Understand Nothing Of What Takes Place In The Group.

There Is No Sociology Worthy Of The Name Which Does Not Possess A Historical Character.