ABSTRACT
Les Formes elementaires de la vie religieuse represents Emile Durkheim's solution to the antithesis between science and religion. Science, by discovering the underlying reality of all religion, does not re-create a religion, but it gives us confidence in society's capacity to provide itself in every age with whatever gods it needs. The Les Formes elementaires de la vie religieuse may be considered from three points of view because it brings together three kinds of studies. It contains a description and a detailed analysis of the clan system and of totemism in certain Australian tribes, with allusions to tribes of America. Second, it contains a theory of the essence of religion drawn from a study of Australian totemism. Finally, it outlines a sociological interpretation of the forms of human thought, an attempt to explain categories in terms of social contexts; an introduction, therefore, to what is now referred to as the sociology of knowledge.
