The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life — John Shaqi
The Elementary Forms of the Religious LifeDurkheim, Émile
Religion
The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life
Durkheim, Émile
Cults; Religion; Religion -- Philosophy; Rites and ceremonies; Totemism
For Tylor, this extension of animism was due to the particular mentality
of the primitive who, like an infant, cannot distinguish the animate and
the inanimate. Since the first beings of which the child commences to
have an idea are men, that is, himself and those around him, it is upon
this model of human nature that he tends to think of everything. The
toys with which he plays, or the objects of every sort which affect his
senses, he regards as living beings like himself. Now the primitive
thinks like a child. Consequently, he also is inclined to endow all
things, even inanimate ones, with a nature analogous to his own. Then
if, for the reasons exposed above, he once arrives at the idea that man
is a body animated by a spirit, he must necessarily attribute a duality
of this sort and souls like his own even to inert bodies themselves. Yet
the sphere of action of the two could not be the same. The souls of men
have a direct influence only upon the world of men: they have a marked
preference for the human organism, even when death has given them their
liberty. On the other hand, the souls of things reside especially in
these things, and are regarded as the productive causes of all that
passes there. The first account for health and sickness, skilfulness or
unskilfulness, etc.; by the second are explained especially the
phenomena of the physical world, the movement of water-courses or the
stars, the germination of plants, the reproduction of animals, etc. Thus
the first philosophy of man, which is at the basis of the ancestor-cult,
is completed by a philosophy of the world.
In regard to these cosmic spirits, man finds himself in a state of
dependence still more evident than that in regard to the wandering
doubles of his ancestors. For he could have only ideal and imaginary
relations with the latter, but he depends upon things in reality; to
live, he has need of their concurrence; he then believes that he has an
equal need of the spirits which appear to animate these things and to
determine their diverse manifestations. He implores their assistance, he
solicits them with offerings and prayers, and the religion of man is
thus completed in a religion of nature.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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