A Mind That Questions Everything, Unless Strong

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.

Social Life Comes From A Double Source, The Likeness Of Consciences And The Division Of Social Labour.

This Solidarity Can Grow Only In Inverse Ratio To Personality... Solidarity Which Comes From Likenesses Is At Its Maximum When The Collective Conscience Completely Envelops Our Whole Conscience And Coincides In All Points With It... When This Solidarity Exercises Its Force, Our Personality Vanishes, As Our Definition Permits Us To Say, For We Are No Longer Ourselves, But The Collective Life.

A Social Fact Is Every Way Of Acting, Fixed Or Not, Capable Of Exercising On The Individual An External Constraint; Or Again, Every Way Of Acting Which Is General Throughout A Given Society, While At The Same Time Existing In Its Own Right Independent Of Its Individual Manifestations.

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