Humans have, no doubt, always thought about their lives and the conditions of their existence. Such thoughts are the life-blood of religion, philosophy, ideology, and the many other ways that humans can think about themselves and their world. There is, therefore, nothing new in the basic impulse that eventually led to the emergence of sociology as a discipline concerned with understanding human behavior, interaction, and organization. Several things in which modern sociology is interested were certainly thought of by ancient philosophers, religious leaders, of Manu, Yagyavalkya, Kautilya,  Confucius, Aristotle, Plato and several other scholars certainly had a good deal of sociological content. Sociology is, after all, only the more systematic study of what people do in their daily lives and routines. But sociology did not emerge as an inevitable extension of what people typically do; rather, it arose from the rebirth or Renaissance in Europe after centuries of apparent stagnation and miserly. The rebirth or Renaissance represented a specific set of social changes which Europe underwent i.e. modernity. The roots of the ideas developed by the early sociologists lies in the social, economic and political conditions that prevailed in medieval Europe. The emergence of sociology as a scientific discipline can therefore be traced to that period of European history which saw such tremendous social, political and economic changes as embodied in the European Society is known as the ‘Enlightenment Period’.

To understand the social changes that were taking place in European society, it is important to know about the kind of society that existed in traditional Europe; i.e. prior to the Enlightenment period.

European society before enlightenment

Old Europe was traditional. Land was central to its economic system. There were owners of land, the feudal lords and the peasants who worked on the lands. Religion formed the corner stole of society. The religious heads decided what was moral, what was not. Family and kinship were central to the lives of the people. Monarchy was firmly rooted in society. The king was believed to be divinely ordained to rule over his people.

Social changes during the Renaissance period

Expansion of trade and commerce

Between 1450 to approximately 1800 there was a shift from the largely subsistence and stagnant economy of Medie­val Europe to a more dynamic and worldwide system. It involved tremendous expansion of trade and commerce that took place from the 15th century onwards. With the overseas discoveries[1] & conquests,  Europe’s trade with the Oriental or Eastern countries like India and China was earlier trans­acted by land routes. Subsequently, a shift from land routes to sea-routes[2] began... Remember, this was the era of expansion of trade and the beginnings of colonialism. The new business organisation and expansion of financial system[3] aided the process.

Rise of middle class

One of the most distinctive characteristics of this period was the rise of the middle class to economic power. By the end of the 17th century, the middle class had become an influential group in nearly every western European country. It included merchants, bankers, and ship owners, investors. Their power, at this stage, was mainly economic.

The growth of science and scientific thought

Medieval society was characterised by the feudal system. The Church was the epicentre of power authority and learning. Nothing could challenge the ‘dogmas’ or rigid beliefs of the Church. The ‘Renaissance’ period saw the beginning of the ‘Scientific Revolution’. It marked an area of description and criticism in the field of science. It was a clear break from the past, a challenge to old authority. Thus , the Enlightenment derived considerable inspiration from the scientific revolution of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The scientific revolution reached a symbolic peak, at least in the eye of eighteenth-century thinkers, with Newtonian physics.

The first major break from the entire system of ancient thought came with the work of the Dutchman, Nicholas Copernicus[4]. The Copernican revolution shattered the very foundations on which the old world rested. The work of physicists and mathematicians like Galileo Galilee (1564-1642), Johannes Kepler (1571-1630) and subsequently, Isaac Newton revolutionized science. It brought to the forefront the experimental method. Old ideas were challenged and alternatives were suggested.

Scientific methods thus came to be regarded as the most accurate, the most objective. When we study the emergence of the discipline of sociology, we will see how the use of the ‘scientific method’ in studying society was recommended. Dissection of the human body helped people gain a better upstanding of it’s working. This led to a lot of rethinking. The human organism came to be viewed in terms of interrelated parts and interconnected systems-this had its impact on the social thought of Comte, Spencer, Durkheim to name a few.

One of the most interesting contribution in Biology, which created a furor in the society of that time came when the British naturalist, Charles Darwin (1809-1882) published the “Origin of Species[5]” in 1859. Darwin also studied ‘human evolution’-tracing it in his work “Descent of Man” (1863). He traced the origins of the human species to some ape-like ancestors, which over the centuries, evolved into modern man. This book created uproar. It was believed that ‘God’ made man ‘in his own image” and conserva­tives were not willing to accept that they were descended from the monkey. Darwin’s evolutionary theory did, however gain wide acceptance. It was applied later on to the social world by ‘evolutionary’ thinkers, notably Herbert Spencer. Not just organisms, but societies were seen as constantly ‘evolving’ or developing from a lower to a higher stage.

Transition from feudalism to industrialism

The expansion of trade, rise of middle class and scientific revolution led to more widespread changes which came to known as industrial revolution. The Industrial Revolution began in late 17^th century in England. It brought about great changes in the social and economic life of the people first in England, then in other countries of Europe and later in other continents. In Europe, especially England, the discovery of new territories, explorations, growth of trade and commerce and the consequent growth of towns brought about an increase in demand for goods. New tools and techniques were dis­covered which could produce goods on a large-scale. A series of inventions in tools and techniques[6] and organisation of production took place which gave rise to the factory system of production. Thus, a change in economy from feudal to industrial and capitalist system of production developed. A class of capitalists emerged which controlled this industrial system.

Structural changes in society – migration and urbanism

With the change in the economy of society several social changes followed. New class of industrial workers, managers, capitalists emerged. In the strict sense , the urban areas started emerging , which were based only on new factories. Factory system lead to large scale migration of people to the cities. Women and children joined the work force in the factories. Thus Family relations got transformed with the emergence of nuclear families[7]. Religion was questioned. Religion lost its important position. Family loyalties gave way to ideological commitments. The position of women changed. And finally monarchy was overthrown.

Rise of liberal democracy- The French Revolution

The emergence of a new liberal democratic system in Europe was also not dissociated from the above mentioned changes. The fuller development of science and industrialism required a conducive and more tolerant political system. The political changes were occurring in Europe , which finally got their fuller expression in the French Revolution, which erupted in 1789. It marked a turning point in the history of human struggle for freedom and equality. In put an end to the age of feudalism and ushered in a new order of society. This revolution brought about far reaching changes in not only French society but in societies throughout Europe[8] . The French society was divided into feudal ‘estates[9]’. The struc­ture of the feudal French society comprised the ‘Three Estates’ i.e. nobility, clergy, peasants and others. There was a vast difference between the condition of the peasants and that of the clergy and the nobility. The peasants worked day and night but were overloaded with so many taxes. As compared to the peasants, the condition of the middle classes, comprising the merchants, bankers, lawyers, manufacturers, etc. was much better. These classes too belonged to the third estate. But it had no social status as compared with the status of the members of the first and the second estates.

Like in all absolute monarchies, the theory of the Divine Right of Kings was followed in France too. For about 200 years France, was ruled by the Kings of the Bourbon dynasty. Under the rule of the king, the ordinary people had no personal rights. They only served the King and his nobles in various capacities.  The kings of France, from Louis XIV onwards, fought costly wars which ruined the country and when Louis XIV died in 1715. France had become bankrupt. Louis XV instead of recovering from this ruin kept on borrowing money from bankers.

Certain intellectual developments in France proved to be the igniting force in bringing about the revolution. France, like some other European countries during the 18th cen­tury, had entered the age of reason and rationalism. Some of the major philosophers, whose ideas influenced the French people, were rationalists who believed that all true things could be proved by reason. Some of these thinkers were, Montesquieu[10] (1689-1755), Locke[11] (1632-1704), Voltaire[12] (1694-1778), and Rousseau[13] (1712-1778). The major ideas of these, and several other intellectuals, stuck the imagination of the French people. Middle class was deeply affected by these ideas of liberty and equality.

French revolution totally dismantled the feudal system and leaders advocated a democratic form of a political system and the society be organised on democratic lines.

Modernity

Taken together, the changes described above came seen as characterizing a modern society or as constituting an era of modernity. The belief system of modernity came to be based new ideologies of industrialism, urbanism, democratic thought and new science. The modernity

Emerging problems and Emergence of sociology

But the social change in Europe in general and rise of modernity in particular was not devoid of pain. These changes particularly industrialization and changes in political system brought a number of problems and developments which could not properly understood and explained with the help of the then existing academic disciplines. A brief summary of problems is given as under.

• The peasants in the new industrial society found themselves with thousands of other people like themselves, winding cotton in a textile mill. In the early years this working class, lived in poverty and squalor.
• Instead of the familiar countryside they found themselves in unhygienic living conditions. They were so­cially deprived. It was recognised that the poverty of this class of workers is not natural poverty but social poverty[14].
• With the increase in production, population started increasing. Rise of population led to the increased rate of urbanisation. The industrial cities grew rapidly. In the industrial cities socio-economic disparities were very wide. New cities were known as repositories of misery and inhumanity. It was these aspects of the new cities, which concerned the early sociologists.
• New type of Crimes like pick pocketing, house breaking, juvenile crime etc started increasing, which the contradicted  with the high ideals of democracy and science.
• The factory workers were involved in repetitive and boring work, the result of which they could not enjoy. In Marx­ist terms the worker became alienated from the product of his/her labour. City life in the industrial society became an altogether a different way of life.

All these were new developments in Europe for which there was no clear cut explanations. Intellectuals started thinking of reasons for this. This led to wide spread disorder in the society. Intellectual started looking for Science which can explain the changes and establish order in the society. The pace of political changes in France became an immediate context for the emergence of sociology.

• In France, the transition from feudal/autocratic system to democratic was not smooth, as leaders were not sure whether system will succeed or not. Democratic Institution were not developed and there was total chaos in society. At one point of time, even some thought of reverting back to old system. The Revolution and the century of political turmoil that followed provided early French sociologists with their basic intellectual problem. French intellectuals thought of need for a Science of Society which could predict the changes.

Thus, Change forces new ways of thinking to emerge, and so it was with the intellectual currents of The Enlightenment, the transformation of feudalism into capitalism, and the political upheaval that came with the demise of the old feudal order and the rise of the state. New material conditions force both ordinary people in their daily routines and scholars in their more systematic pursuit of understanding to reconceptualize the world. For much of the eighteenth century, scholars had been grappling with changes in the old order, trying to find comfort and promise in what was occurring. By the turn into the nineteenth century, the time was right for a new discipline, sociology.

Therefore, the sociology emerged as a distinct discipline in France. The idea of Sociology as a separate discipline was conceived by Saint Simon in France for the first time. He called it as Social physics. He thought that the changes could be predicted on the lines of physical Sciences. But the term sociology was coined later by Auguste Comte in 1838. Comte became the father of sociology, with the conceptualization of a distinct discipline.

Intellectual Influences Affecting the Emergence of Sociology

Intellectual background is an essential force behind conceptualization of new ideas. Apart from social changes the there were intellectual influences which also contributed the context for emergence of new discipline.

In England and Scotland, The Enlightenment was dominated by a group of thinkers who argued for a vision of human beings and society that both reflected and justified the industrial capitalism that first emerged in the British Isles. Scholars such as Adam Smith believed individuals are to be free of external constraint and allowed to compete, thereby creating a better society. In France, The Enlightenment is often termed the Age of Reason, and it was dominated by a group of scholars known as the philosophes. Sociology was born from the intellectual ferment generated by the French philosophes.

In the eighteen-century, French and German philosophers of history like Abbe’de Saint-Pierre, Giambattista Vico, Montesquieu, Voltaire, Herder, Ferguson, etc., and those in the early part of the nineteenth century like Hegel, Saint Simon, Comte contributed ideas which provided the earliest intellectual sources for the establishment of the discipline of sociology. 

Although, Sociology emerged as a response to the forces of change, which took place during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries in Europe. But much of the early sociology was affected by the thinkers of the Enlightenment. The initial subject matter, methodology and perspective were borrowed and developed under the influence of a number of intellectual themes.

Firstly, a scientific approach to the study of society dates back to the tradition of the Enlightenment. The eighteenth century thinkers began more consistently than any of their predecessors to study the human conditions in a scientific way using the methods of the natural sciences.

Secondly, they upheld reason as a measure to judge social insti­tutions and their suitability for human nature.

Thirdly, they believed that human beings are capable of attaining perfection. By criticizing and changing social institutions they can create for themselves even greater degree of freedom.

Sociological thinkers are concerned with the above three assump­tions. Apart from them, three other intellectual influences current in the post-Enlightenment period influenced the emergence of sociology in Europe. They can be identified as: The philosophy of history, the biological theories of evolution; and the surveys of social conditions.

In the early part of the nineteenth century the philosophy of history became an important intellectual influence. The social thinkers, who developed the philosophy of history such as, Abbe Saint Pierre, and Giambattista, were concerned with the whole of society and not merely the political, or the economic, or the cultural aspects. Body of knowledge in sociology has been derived from philosophy of history.

The influence of the philosophy of history was further reinforced by the biological theory of evolution. Sociology moved towards an evolutionary perspective, seeking to identify and account for the principal stages in social evolution. The writings of initial sociologists like Comte, Herbert Spencer and Durkheim reflect the liberal use of this perspective.

Scholars like Sinclair, Le Play and Booth conducted social surveys aimed at social reform in Scotland France and England respectively.  Social survey forms an important method in modern sociology. Social surveys initially established that poverty was not natural but social. Thus social survey was adopted as one of the initial methods of sociological inquiry.