The economic crises, the warlike conflicts, the conflict between the bourgeoisie and proletariat, the exclusion of the land of the peasants, the sprouting of urban and ambient problems had to the population growth, the technological innovations, among others events, had directly reflected in the lives and the workmanships of both the authors. Durkheim defended in its works that these problems were not of economic nature, but yes of the moral fragility in the adequate behavior of the individuals. In this way, it demonstrated to be worried in developing a science that helped to find the answers for the social patologias. A social science that could find, through empirical inquiries, new moral ideas that the capacity had to guide the behavior of the individuals. Durkheim believed that the sociologist had the same functions of a doctor, to diagnosis the causes of the problems and to find the cure for the social illnesses. This similarity between the sociologist and the doctor already was clear in its first important workmanship, the Division of the Work. The central object of the sociology of Durkheim is social fact. For the author, it is any form of induction on the individuals, which is had as something exterior they, with an existence independent and established in all the society, which is considered, in turn, as characterized for the set of established social facts.

It can also be defined as a collective norm with independence and power of coercion on the individual. For Durkheim, the social facts constitute the object of study of Sociology, therefore they elapse of the life in society. defends that these possess three characteristics: ) Coercitividade – characteristic related with the force of the cultural standards of the group that the individuals integrate. These cultural standards are strong in such way that they compel the individuals the cumpriz them. b) Exterioridade – this characteristic transmits the fact of these standards of culture to be ' ' exteriors to indivduos' ' , that is the fact of they capsize the exterior and to be independent of its consciences.