ABSTRACT
David Émile Durkheim acknowledged as much when he disclosed a révélation in 1895 that put religion at the forefront in part because he said he had found a way to study it sociologically. Stephen Lukes contends that Smith "deeply impressed" Durkheim and that it must have been a "considerable revelation" given that before then he had published little on religion. Durkheim published little on religion before 1895, although in 1886, when he was still teaching philosophy in lycées near Paris, he reviewed Herbert Spencer's "Ecclesiastical Institutions". For Jean Marie Guyau, religion originates once humans can imagine a more powerful society superimposed above their own; one that is universal, more cultural and one possessing greater powers or potency—a "cosmic society". While Durkheim adhered to the functional logic of Comte and Spencer, he realized that to explain the division of labor solely by its end result or effect is more conjecture than science.
