ABSTRACT
Durkheim's reasons for becoming a sociologist immediately suggest the nature of his intellectual assumptions and value-system. In the first place, although he respected at least one of his philosophy teachers at Normale, he was radically dissatisfied with the mystical abstractions, the literary and dilettante character of the philosophy to which he had been exposed as a student. The French state rewarded him by entrusting him with a course in social science at the University of Bordeaux-which marked the earliest official recognition in France of the new discipline of sociology. In approaching the sphere of religion, Durkheim-the rabbi's son turned unbeliever-adopted an attitude not dissimilar to that of William James, whose father had also been of the clergy. And in this attitude both James and Durkheim were innovators. The outbreak of the war swept Durkheim into a fever of public activity.
