So we can see why this sociology is so feeble when it approaches the exact sciences. It thinks it can explain hard disciplines in social terms, whereas those disciplines are almost always original and more subtle even in their definition of the social body than sociology itself…We cannot reduce the action of the microbe to a sociological explanation, since the action of the microbe redefined not only society but also nature and the ‘whole caboodle.’
The Pasturization of France, p. 38
