Publisher's Synopsis
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1922 edition. Excerpt: ... CHAPTER XVI THEORIES OF EARLY MENTALITY (Continued) Durkheim's Theories1 Durkheim's contribution to primitive mentality centers in a sociological interpretation of religion. In an introductory section to his latest work the author categorically rejects the theories of his predecessors, such as the animistic theory of Spencer and Tylor and the naturalistic hypothesis of Max Muller. Durkheim refuses to admit that nature itself has the power to arouse in the individual the religious emotion. He denies, moreover, that the idea of spiritual agents which stands in the center of all religions, could have been derived from illusions, such as dreams, or misinterpretations of echoes, reflections, shadows, or more or less striking states of the body, such as coma, disease, or death. "It is inadmissable," reflects Durkheim, "that systems of ideas like religions, which have held so considerable a place in history, and to which, in all times, men have come to receive the energy which they must have to live, should be made up of a tissue of illusions. To-day we are beginning to realize that law, morals and even scientific thought itself were born of religion, were for a long time confounded with it, and have remained penetrated with its spirit. How could a vain fantasy have been able to fashion the human consciousness so strongly and so durably? Surely it ought to be a principle of the science of religions that religion expresses nothing which does not exist in nature; for there are sciences only of natural phenomena. The only question is to learn from what part of nature these realities come and what has been able to make men represent them under this singular form which is peculiar to religious thought.'" 'Most of Durkheim's sociological theories...
