Review and Minor Notices

Abstract

Source(s) numérique(s) identifiée(s) : aucune Prof. Durkheim, who holds the chair of the Faculty of Letters at the University of Paris, has written an intensely interesting book, and has propounded in a most lucid manner his sociological theory of the origin of religion. Whether he succeeds or not in converting his opponents, they will at least admit that his study of Australian totemism is profoundly suggestive. The title of the volume indicates the object of his inquiry. He is searching for what is most primitive and fundamental in religion, for "the ever-present causes upon which the most essential forms of religious thought and practice depend." [1] These he finds among the Australian tribes, whose social structure, based on the clan, appears to him to be the most elementary form of social structure in existence. Occasional reference is made in the volume to North American totemism, but the author for the most part confines himself to Australia. Here, thanks to the investigations of Spencer and Gillen, and of the German missionary Strehlow, we have rich material to our hand. We are not sure, however, that Prof. Durkheim is right in his confident assertion that Australian totemism represents the most primitive form of social organization; nor has he, perhaps, allowed sufficiently for the existence of various strata of beliefs among the Australian tribes. He tends to treat Australian totemism too exclusively as a homogeneous whole, whereas, in point of fact, it may represent the result of a considerable evolution. Review and Minor NoticesArchives de sciences sociales des religions , Centenaire des <em>Formes élémentaires de la vie religieuse</em>