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Contents
Introduction/Subject of our Study: Religious Sociology
and the Theory of Knowledge
1 Principal subject of the book: analysis of the simplest
religion known to determine the elementary forms of the re-
ligious life--Why they are more easily found and explained
in the primitive religions 		13
2 Secondary subject of research: the genesis of the
fundamental notions of thought or the categories--Reasons
for believing that their origin is religious and consequently
social--How a way of restating the theory of knowledge is
thus seen 		21
Book 1 /Preliminary Questions
1 Definition of Religious Phenomena and of Religion 37
Usefulness of a preliminary definition of religion; method
to be followed in seeking this definition--Why the usual defi-
nitions should be examined first 		37
1 Religion defined by the supernatural and mysterious--
Criticism: the notion of mystery is not primitive 		39
2 Religion defined in connection with the idea of God or
a spiritual being--Religions without gods--Rites in deistic
religions which imply no idea of divinity 		44
3 Search for a positive definition--Distinction between
beliefs and rites--Definition of beliefs--First characteristic:
division of things between sacred and profane--Distinctive
characteristics of this definition--Definition of rites in rela-
tion to beliefs--Definition of religion 		51
4 Necessity of another characteristic to distinguish magic
from religion--The idea of the Church--Do individualistic
religions exclude the idea of a Church? 		57

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Publication Information: Book Title: The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life. Contributors: Emile Durkheim - author, Joseph Ward Swain - transltr. Publisher: Free Press. Place of Publication: New York. Publication Year: 1965. Page Number: 5.
    
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