SOURCE: "Sociology and Its Scientific Field," in Georg Simmel, edited by Lewis A. Coser, Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1965, pp. 43-9.

In the following essay, which first appeared in French in 1918, Durkheim characterizes Simmel's works as "intriguing" but concludes that they fall short of the objectives and scientific standards of sociology.

A science which has barely begun to exist has, and initially is bound to have, only an uncertain and vague sense of the area of reality that it is about to approach, and the extent and the limits of that area. It can gain a clearer picture only to the degree that it proceeds with its studies. And the heightened awareness of its subject matter that it acquires in this way is of the greatest importance; for the path of the scientist is the more secure the more orderly it becomes; and the more methodical it is, the more exact...