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The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life by Émile Durkheim

CHAPTER VII

240 words  |  Chapter 15

ORIGINS OF THESE BELIEFS--(_end_) _Origin of the Idea of the Totemic Principle or Mana_ I.--The totemic principle is the clan, but thought of under a more empirical form 205 II.--General reasons for which society is apt to awaken the sensation of the sacred and the divine--Society as an imperative moral force; the notion of moral authority--Society as a force which raises the individual outside of himself-- Facts which prove that society creates the sacred 206 III.--Reasons peculiar to Australian societies--The two phases through which the life of these societies alternatively passes: dispersion, concentration--Great collective effervescence during the periods of concentration--Examples--How the religious idea is born out of this effervescence 214 Why collective force has been thought of under totemic forms: it is the totem that is the emblem of the clan--Explanation of the principal totemic beliefs 219 IV.--Religion is not the product of fear--It expresses something real--Its essential idealism--This idealism is a general characteristic of collective mentality--Explanation of the external character of religious forces in relation to their subjects--The principle that _the part is equal to the whole_ 223 V.--Origin of the notion of emblem: emblems a necessary condition of collective representations--Why the clan has taken its emblems from the animal and vegetable kingdoms 230 VI.--The proneness of the primitive to confound the kingdoms and classes which we distinguish--Origins of these confusions--How they have blazed the way for scientific explanations--They do not exclude the tendency towards distinction and opposition 234
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Chapters

1. Chapter 1 2. INTRODUCTION 3. BOOK I 4. CHAPTER I 5. CHAPTER II 6. CHAPTER III 7. CHAPTER IV 8. BOOK II 9. CHAPTER I 10. CHAPTER II 11. CHAPTER III 12. CHAPTER IV 13. CHAPTER V 14. CHAPTER VI 15. CHAPTER VII 16. CHAPTER VIII 17. CHAPTER IX 18. BOOK III 19. CHAPTER I 20. CHAPTER II 21. CHAPTER III 22. CHAPTER IV 23. CHAPTER V 24. INTRODUCTION 25. BOOK I 26. CHAPTER I 27. CHAPTER II 28. CHAPTER III 29. CHAPTER IV 30. BOOK II 31. CHAPTER I 32. CHAPTER II 33. CHAPTER III 34. CHAPTER IV 35. CHAPTER V 36. CHAPTER VI 37. CHAPTER VII 38. CHAPTER VIII 39. CHAPTER IX 40. BOOK III 41. CHAPTER I 42. CHAPTER II 43. CHAPTER III 44. CHAPTER IV 45. CHAPTER V 46. 131. Here are designs, many of which evidently have the object of 47. 339. Must we see a trace of sexual totemism in the following custom of

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