ABSTRACT
The undeniable continuity of preoccupations as is testified by the first major text written by the sociologist and the last seems to confirm the view of the author of the Vocation actuelle de la sociologie. Most often, traditional exegesis of the youthful texts of Emile Durkheim is reduced to a thematic reading which has more to do with the free association of ideas or the simple comparison of terms than with a critical reading capable of reconstructing the genesis of a project. The young philosopher chose to go out and read the great text of the world, not to shut himself up meditating in his chambers; according to the evidence, he is attentive to the rumour of the age and to the noises of the street. It would thus be premature to believe that in 1886, Emile Durkheim is master of his problematic: too many questions are still imprecise, too many hazy notions, too many as yet unformulated problems.
