Emile Durkheim, a French scholar who lived from 1858 until 1917,
was one of the first intellectuals to use the term ''sociology''
to describe his work. In the early years of his career,
Durkheim's orientation was functionalist (The Division of Labor
in Society) and positivist (The Rules of Sociological Method);
in the early twentieth century he took a cultural turn and
became interested in religion (The Elementary Forms of Religious
Life). Throughout his career, Durkheim was a methodological
collectivist, andâ€”unlike Marx and Weber, who were interested
in social conflictâ€”was consistently interested in what holds
society together. Durkheim argues in The Division of Labor in
Society that the type of social solidarity has changed, due to
the increasing division of labor, from mechanical solidarity
between similar individuals to organic solidarity based on
difference. Inspired by Montesquieu, Durkheim tracks this change
in types of solidarity and change in what he termed the
''collective conscience'' by lookin