ABSTRACT
The study of suicide deals with a pathological aspect of modern societies and with a phenomenon illuminating in the most striking way the relation of the individual to the collectivity. Emile Durkheim is anxious to show to what extent individuals are determined by the collective reality. The book Durkheim devoted to the problem of suicide is related in various ways to his study of the division of labor. Durkheim's study of suicide proceeds with the admirable precision of a dissertation by a normalien. It begins with a definition of the phenomenon, continues with a refutation of earlier interpretations, then comes a definition of the types of suicide, and finally, out of the definition of the types of suicide, there develops a general theory of the phenomenon. A hunger strike carried out until death is an example of suicide according to Durkheim's definition.
