Sociology as a social science discipline exists only for 200 years. In the western world, the structure of the society began to change beginning from the 1600s. The Enlightenment period, impacted by the Renaissance, Reform and Scientific Revolution, changed the way of thinking about natural and social life in the 17th and 18th centuries. Changes in scientific inquiry that was used by natural scientists also impacted on various philosophers and this led to birth of sociology as a disciple of social science.