| both sexes, economic levels, etc. It is the force which remains at large in a society because the doctrines explain all human existence. It gives the collective groups reason to be or not to be and if the doctrine states that a group should follow a leader such as a priest without questioning the doctrine, as in Catholicism, then the doctrine does exert a force over the group. I agree with Durkheim that it is the free inquiry which causes a group to question social existence and provides the environment for the act of suicide.
My problem, though, with Durkheim's investigation of religions is that he ignored a great many other religions which surely affect the rate of suicides and therefore integration. Two sociologists, Bernice Pescosolido and Sharon Georgianna identified Durkheim as revising his integration theory in later works to citing "religion as having regulative aspects" (34). They see Durkheim's discussion of integration in Suicide and later discussions of regulation in Durkheim's work as actually coming together to form a network theory. This strengthens Durkheim's argument because as they say, a "network perspective allows a dual conceptualization of separate functions of social ties" (Pescosolido and Georgianna, 34). They claim that "three sociohistorical trends (secularization, ecumenicalism, and evangelical revival) have altered the relationship between religion and society" (35). Not only does |