The Elementary Forms of Religious Life

History alone enables the reader to break down an institution into its component parts, because it shows those parts to the reader as they are born in time, one after the other. Likewise, the particulars of religious facts are explained differently if naturism is placed at the beginning of religious evolution than if animism, or some other form, is placed there. Neither religious thinking nor religious practice is shared equally among the mass of the faithful. To return to religions: Exclusive consideration of the religious forms that are the most familiar to the reader long led to believe that the idea of god was characteristic of all that is religious. Religious representations are collective representations…