Emile Durkheim proposes in his book, Suicide: A Study in Sociology, that the "social suicide-rate can be explained only sociologically" (299). He claims that "at any given moment the moral constitution of society establishes the contingent of voluntary deaths" (Durkheim, 299). These statements have led to great debate over the individual and his/her power over this societal influence. I believe that Durkheim may be right in his findings because his analysis, if somewhat flawed can definitely support this hypothesis. The individuals are organized into social groups in society and it is the collective force of each social group which has its effect upon the individual, causing the individual to be unable to avoid his/her social circumstances. The social groups he discusses are organized according to religion and it is the relation of the individuals with one another in the social groups that effect the rates of suicide. Suicide, which he defines as the term "applied to all cases of death resulting directly or indirectly from a positive or negative act of the victim himself, which he knows will produce this result" (Durkheim, 44), is in effect a social disease to Durkheim and it is this attribution to which criticism has responded.

His use of religious records from various European countries to examine the rates of