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Durkheim's Sociology of Religion Themes and Theories

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Durkheim’s Sociology of Religion: Themes and Theories ISBN: 9780227902554

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Durkheim's Sociology of Religion Themes and Theories

W.S.F. Pickering

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Cambridge CB12NT United Kingdom www.jamesclarke.co.uk [emailprotected]

ISBN: 978 0 227172971

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A record is available from the British Library Copyright© W.S.F. Pickering, 1984 First Published in 1984 by Routledge & Kegan Paul This edition first published by James Clarke & Co, 2009

All rights reserved. No part of this edition may be reproduced, stored electronically or in any retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without prior written permission from the Publisher [emailprotected]. LPML0211

To the memory of my father, Frederick Charles Pickering (1895-1967), who unwittingly introduced me to Durkheim's last and greatest work.

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Contents

Acknowledgments · xiv References, Notation, Translations

xvi

Abbreviations · xviii Introductory Remarks

xix

Part I Historical Perspectives 1 Durkheim's religious quest I Adolescent changes, family life and personal beliefs · 3 1 Introduction · 3 2 Boyhood, youth and the rejection of Judaism · 5 3 Psychoanalytic factors · 13 4 The significance of Jewishness · 14 5 Asceticism and family life · 18 6 His religious quest · 20 7 Patriotism, politics and war · 23 8 The epilogue · 27 2 Durkheim's religious quest II In professional achievement · 30 1 To greater things · 30 2 Disciples and the journal · 31 3 Influence in the realm of education · 34 4 'More a priest than a scholar'? · 40 3 The development of Durkheim's thought on religion I The early period · 47 1 The search for lines of demarcation · 47 2 Publications and substantive issues · 51 3 The beginnings and early influences · 55 4 Characteristics of the period · 58 vii LPML0211

CONTENTS

4 The development of Durkheim's thought on religion 11 The middle period · 60 1 The 'revelation' · 60 2 Durkheim's reading of Robertson Smith · 62 3 Feverish activity · 70 4 Characteristics · 74 5 The development of Durkheim's thought on religion Ill The final formulation · 77 1 The work continues with lectures, articles and the book · 77 2 The 1906-7 lectures: 'La Religion: les origines' · 79 3 Les Formes elementaires · 82 4 Its reception · 86 5 Continued glory and demise · 90

Part 11 Taking up Positions 6 Procedures and assumptions · 95 1 The religious beliefs of the sociologist · 95 2 The careful experiment · 102 3 The issue of totemism · 109

7 The sacred and the profane: the ground of religion I Defining the two poles · 115 1 Introduction · 115 2 Durkheim's development of the notion of the sacred · 116 3 Not the sacred but the sacred-profane · 117 4 Basic meanings · 124 5 The sacred's own binary system · 126 6 The origin and constitution of the sacred: the stamp of society · 130 7 The profane · 133 8 Trying to deal with the profane · 136

8 The sacred and the profane: the ground of religion 11 The relations between them: further analysis · 140 viii LPML0211

CONTENTS

1 2 3 4

The relation between the sacred and the profane · 140 The duality accepted and attacked · 143 Further characteristics of the sacred · 149 Conclusion · 159

9 Commitment to a definition · 163 1 Early and late attempts · 163 2 Phenomena: wholes, parts and facts · 165 3 Emphasis on coercive force: the attempt to be scientific · 170 4 Individual religious phenomena: their exclusion 175 5 Change in definition and the consequences · 177 6 Reasons for the change · 187 7 The definition: consequences for the discipline · 189 10 The problem of the social and the individual in religion · 193 1 Religion is a social phenomenon · 193 2 The individual admitted, but disregarded: a point of criticism · 195 3 Sociology has no option · 201 11 'All religions are false: all religions are true' · 205 1 Truth is the issue · 205 2 'All religions are false' · 206 3 Is religion then an illusion? · 207 4 Force, the indicator of reality · 209 5 'All religions are true' · 215 6 Some consequences of Durkheim's position · 217 7 All sociologists of religion start where Durkheim does · 220 8 Conclusion · 221

Part Ill Beliefs and Ideas 12 God's identity revealed · 227 1 God's locus in society · 227 2 God as society hypostasized · 231 3 'Proofs' · 235 ix LPML0211

CONTENTS

4 Criticisms · 239 5 The enterprise assessed · 242 13 Society: a divine being? · 244 1 The other side of the coin · 244 2 Indications of divine qualities · 245 3 The nature of society: divine in what sense? · 248 4 How original was Durkheim? · 257 5 Criticism and evaluation · 259 14 In the beginning: religion or society? · 262 1 True to his own principles · 262 2 All that is religious is social · 262 3 The primacy of religion: all that is social is religious? · 264 4 A meaningless paradox? · 268 5 Further considerations · 272 15 Representations, symbols and reality · 275 1 Introduction · 275 2 What is reality? · 276 3 Representations · 279 4 The sociological search: a change in direction? · 283 5 There are no unknowable symbols · 290 6 Things and symbols · 292 7 Religious representations: what do they represent? · 295 8 Conclusion · 297 16 The functions of religion: a case of misunderstanding? · 300 1 An old theoretical rock · 300 2 The two major functions · 301 3 The bases of the two functions · 305 4 Religion functions so as to stabilize and integrate society · 307 5 Religion as an agent for control in a negative or ascetical mode · 310 6 How many functions? · 311 7 Therefore religion is eternal · 313 8 Function, persistence and change · 315 X

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CONTENTS

Part IV Ritual and Effervescent Assembly 17 Ritual I Prolegomena · 321 1 Introduction: prominence and neglect · 321 2 Assumptions and method · 323 3 Early ideas about ritual · 326 4 The third period · 328 18 Ritual 11 Classification and function · 329 1 Definitions and basic classification · 329 2 Negative rites outlined: their function or effects · 330 3 Positive rites outlined: their function or effects · 332 4 Piacular rites · 339 5 An evaluation of Durkheim's primary classification of ritual · 341 6 Appraisal and the issue of one and many functions · 343 19 Ritual Ill Its relation to la vie serieuse · 352 1 La vie serieuse: la vie legere · 352 2 Aspects of la vie legere · 353 3 The dichotomy evaluated · 358 20 Ritual and myth: primacy or parity? · 362 1 The two components · 362 2 The primacy of ritual · 364 3 Primacy of myth and belief · 366 4 Myth and ritual: parity of status · 373 5 Parity of status: difficulties and problems

376

21 Effervescent assembly: the source of religious change and strength I The process · 380 1 Religious and social change · 380 2 Collective effervescence described · 382 3 Effervescence examined: two types or functions · 385 4 Further examples · 390 22 Effervescent assembly: the source of religious change and strength 11 Questions, criticisms and evaluation · 395 1 A psychological theory? · 395 2 The influence of other thinkers · 403 XI

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CONTENTS

3 4 5 6 7

Universality and limitations · 405 Problems of differentiation from ritual 408 The source of religion? · 411 Effervescence and representations · 412 The problem of creativity · 414

Part V Contemporary Religion 23 Durkheim's attitude to traditional religions · 421 1 Introduction · 421 2 Christianity praised · 422 3 Roman Catholicism: Durkheim's admiration and disgust · 427 4 Protestantism: did Durkheim understand it? · 435 5 A liberal or a medievalist? · 439 24 Secularization: the history of mankind · 442 1 The inevitability of religious change · 442 2 Words used by Durkheim relating to religious change and secularization · 443 3 Age-long secularization · 445 4 Recent secularization · 447 5 The effects of secularization on society · 451 6 Religious change, not secularization? 452 7 Some suggested explanations · 454 25 The invasion of religion by science · 457 1 Science, the real cause of secularization 2 The superiority of science as a source of knowledge · 461 3 Science is not god! · 464 4 Only a partial take-over? · 467 5 Resultant confusion · 468 6 Appraisal of Durkheim's analysis of secularization · 472

457

26 The new religion: the cult of man or society? · 476 1 Prognostication and the characteristics of a future religion · 476 xii LPML0211

CONTENTS

2 The source of religious revival: the working classes · 479 3 The emergence of an old French religion? 481 4 The heresy of egoism · 485 5 But who is god? Man or society? · 487 6 Can the cult be justified? Its theology and ritual · 490 7 Basically a system of morality · 498

Part VI Postscript 27 Sociologie religieuse: a hope that quickly fades · 503 1 Durkheim's vulnerability · 503 2 The eclipse of Durkheim's sociologie religieuse · 504 3 The storming of teachers' training colleges · 509 28 Sociologie religieuse: a case of exaggerated claims? · 513 1 Religion as demiurge · 513 2 The alleged destructiveness of Durkheim's sociologie religieuse · 518 3 A final look · 521 Notes · 524 Bibliographies · 535 1 Durkheim and religion · 535 2 On Durkheim and religion · 544 Name index · 563 Subject index · 569

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Acknowledgments

This book has been in the making for several years. It is hardly surprising, therefore, that a number of people have been consulted at various times. To mention them all by name would be impossible: they are sincerely thanked as a group, which is surely something Durkheim would have approved of! One person of the group, however, should be mentioned by name and that is Steven Lukes, who more than anyone else was most encouraging and helpful when the plans for the book were first drawn up. And with groups in mind, I certainly want to acknowledge the patience and understanding of members of the graduate seminar in the sociology of religion in the University of Newcastle upon Tyne who, over the years, have been forced to come face to face with much of the contents of this book. Their reassurance and above all, their never-failing criticisms have, I know, helped to produce a better book than otherwise would have been the case. To those who have read the entire manuscript or parts of it, I wish to extend my deep appreciation, especially to Sean Carey, but also to James Beckford, Mary Hesse, Robert A. Jones and Malcolm Ruel. They have eliminated some of the mistakes and weaknesses, and the many which remain can in no way be attributed to them. In order to complete the manuscript I was awarded in 1980 a Personal Research grant by the Social Science Research Council. As well as being grateful for that, I also wish to extend my sincere appreciation to the President and Fellows of Wolfson College, Cambridge, for electing me to a Visiting Fellowship for that year and providing a most congenial milieu in which to work. As on previous occasions in writing on Durkheim, I must thank Mrs A. Rule for her indomitable efforts as a typist. And now I must also thank my wife, who has given unstinting encouragement and assistance, and at the same time has suffered the fate of so many wives of people such as myself, in having to put up with xiv LPML0211

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

her husband's long hours of work and extended absences from home. They are of far more help than perhaps they realize.

W.S.F.P.

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References, notation, translations

The key to the references in the text is the author's name and the date of publication of the item mentioned. The number refers to the page number. Details of the item can be found in the bibliographies at the end of the book, under author and date. In the case of works by Durkheim, the author's name is not given in the reference and has to be assumed by the reader. If the author's name is mentioned in the sentence, it is not given in the · reference. The writings and English translations of Durkheim have been given the dating enumeration of Steven Lukes (1972:561ff.) and subsequently brought up to date by myself (Pickering 1978). One of the bibliographies is devoted solely to Durkheim's works which deal with religion and which is a slightly revised edition of a similar, earlier bibliography (Pickering 1975:305-10). Because of the frequent references to Les Formes e/ementaires de la vie religieuse (1912a), all references not marked by an author's name and without a date and without the word ibid., refer to this book. A given figure for the French text is nearly always followed by another, corresponding to Swain's translation (t.1915d), for example (603/422) means page 603 in Les Formes elementaires and page 422 in The Elementary Forms. Where possible an additional number is included which refers to the translation by Redding and Pickering (t.l975a) of parts of Les Formes elementaires, for example (603/422/151) means the references just cited, plus page 151 of Durkheim on Religion. Where quotations are from French texts which have not been translated into English before, I have translated the passages myself. Again, although generally recognized translations of Durkheim's works have been used, in several instances changes have been made where improvements in translations were thought desirable. The prefix t. in front of a date has been inserted to show the reference is to the translation. For problems over translating certain French words such as conscience, representation, and xvi LPML0211

REFERENCES, NOTATION, TRANSLATIONS

so on, the reader is asked to consult earlier books on Durkheim edited by the author (Pickering 1975:ix-x; 1979a:viii). The prefix r. before a date denotes that a previous item is reproduced in a book, the date of which follows the prefix. In some of Durkheim's works a second edition is commonly used, as in La Division du travail social (1893b, 2nd edn. 1902b). Also, certain articles are generally referred to reprinted in a book entitled Sociologie et philosophie (1924a). In both these examples and in cases of a further, unchanged edition of a work by Durkheim but using different page numbers, the r. has been dropped as in (1893b/1902b:22) and (1911b/1924a:20). The relevant page for the original or early edition, as indicated, is not given. The original dates of publication are retained in order to show, amongst other things, the date when the item was available to the public. The letters Ch. refer to a chapter in Durkheim's The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life, and the letters eh. to a chapter in this book or to another book to which reference is made.

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Abbreviations

AJS

American Journal of Sociology

AS

L'Annt?e sociologique

ASR

American Sociological Review

ASRel

Archives de sociologie des religions

BJS

British Journal of Sociology

BSFP

Bulletin de la Societe franraise de philosophie

EJS

European Journal of Sociology (Archives europeennes de sociologie)

JSSR

Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion

MF

Mercure de France

PR

Philosophical Review

RB

Revue bleue

RFS

Revue franraise de sociologie

RHPR

Revue d'histoire et de philosophie religieuses

RJS

Revue internationale de sociologie

RMM

Revue de metaphysique et de morale

RNS

Revue neo-scolastique

RP

Revue philosophique de la France et de l'etranger

SR

Sociological Review

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Introductory remarks

Sociology is commonly held to be a discipline which was crystallized in the nineteenth century against the background of an accelerating industrial revolution. It can also be described as a secular or even atheistic discipline. Yet Emile Durkheim (1858-1917), one of its pre-eminent founding fathers, standing alongside Max Weber (1864-1920) and Karl Marx (1818-83), gave to the study of religion a place of overriding importance in his attempt to explore social phenomena scientifically. Although he was not an orthodox believer, he had an innate reverence for religion. Any doubts about the primacy of religion within his scheme of thought are quickly dispelled in reading his book The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life (1912a). It now stands as one of the classics, not only in the sociology of religion but in sociology itself. As Steven Lukes, who has done so much to revive Durkheimian studies, said in a debate: 'I went and read The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life and had my mind blown, and as a result I just became totally immersed in Durkheim' (in Clark 1979:131). In many respects it remains the classic in the sociology of religion, for no other book has supplanted it. The contributions of Max Weber are considerable, but he never produced a book on religion which dealt with the subject in the broad sweep, or raised as many issues as Durkheim did, in what, as events turned out, was his last book. But besides being a classic in the sense that it is the corner-stone of a discipline, The Elementary Forms is also a classic in that it is constantly read and reread. It is published and republished. It is a fountain from which one continually gains academic refreshment and insight. It is a book that goes on living. Although The Elementary Forms contains Durkheim's most developed ideas on religion, to concentrate only on that book and to disregard all else he wrote on the subject, as many who concern themselves with Durkheim do, is an inadequate procedure in trying to come to grips with his analysis of religion, which is the purpose of this book. In the many articles and reviews that xix LPML0211

INTRODUCfORY REMARKS

Durkheim wrote and in virtually every book, there were allusions to religion (see Pickering 1975:323ff.). One can therefore only begin to understand the complexities of his thought and its paradoxes, if one is prepared to examine and evaluate the entire corpus of his writings which deal with religion and allied subjects. For Durkheim, religion is not only one social institution amongst other social institutions, it is of such significance that it explains other phenomena rather than being explained by them. It is thus scarcely surprising that it weaves its way into so many facets of social life in which he was interested. To be comprehensive, it is also necessary to give careful attention to Durkheim's many followers and critics at the time he was writing as well as subsequently. On the whole the views of his contemporaries, both friendly and hostile, especially those in France, have not up to now been given much attention (see, for example, Pickering 1975: 205-8 and 228-76). To approach a classic which has stood the test of time and triumphed over the attacks of critics, or to come to the work of a classical writer whose mind has been shown to be outstandingly great, means that the primary task must be to expound what the man has written. This is necessary for three reasons: The first is that, as with all classical works, the ideas involved and their ramifications are numerous and complex. Often in the course of time some become forgotten and need to be revived. So, for example, there has been a notable lack of attention given to Durkheim's theory of ritual and collective effervescence. The second is that largely because of its alleged atheistic, positivist and reductionist assumptions, Durkheim's work in the sociology of religion has been subject to stringent criticism. Continued attacks, however, often bring with them distortion of what the author originally meant. By concentrating on the weaker points his thought tends to be misinterpreted and not seen as a whole. The third reason is that to focus solely on the weaknesses of Durkheim's thought is to be small-minded. He made a similar point himself in connection with Montesquieu's theory and quoted with approval Paul Janet who complained that most commentators had been interested in showing only Montesquieu's errors (1892a/ t.1937b and 1953a/t.1960b:61). It would have been better, argued Janet, to have given 'a detailed idea of the vastness and obscurity of the subject he chose and of the intellectual power with which XX LPML0211

INTRODUCTORY REMARKS

he mastered it' (ibid.). The primary task must therefore be to try to expound Durkheim's thought. And while the present writer does not pretend to have the intellectual prowess of Durkheim, his intention is to try to follow Durkheim's own advice in the quotation from J an et and to apply it to the grand master of sociology himself. Immediately questions are raised. How is a commentator to proceed with his work? What principles are to guide him? What are his presuppositions? Such issues raise acute hermeneutical and historical problems, some of which have been broached by R. A. Jones in his article 'On understanding a sociological classic' (1977), where he actually considered The Elementary Forms. There is no intention to enter into the debate of how far interpretation should be purely historical or how far sociological; nor indeed to consider in detail the issue of whether, if at all, one can approach the task free from personal and ideological bias. Or, again, to raise what principles are involved in studying historically the work of the founding fathers of sociology, for example, principles recently raised by Quentin Skinner, who in approaching the history of political theory, would emphasize the intention of the author in what he was writing. All that is intended in these remarks is to state very briefly the principles which we hope and believe have been used and by which the work should be judged. The overall task is to come to terms with Durkheimian thought about religion, not to argue about how one comes to terms with any classic or Classical thought in general. Clearly such a wide issue has an important place in the academic world, but that place is not here. For our purposes the starting-point must always be the texts themselves, the careful appraisal of what they mean and at the same time the avoidance of reading into them what the commentator would like to see. It means continually going back to the French original and trying to wrestle with it, especially where it is obscure. Careful attention must be given to key words and phrases. Indeed this book must be judged on whether or not it is a faithful account of some of the work of Durkheim. The truth of the matter is that one cannot escape from the written word, from the texts themselves. The task is therefore to try to ascertain what Durkheim said. What he did not say, what he did not attempt to do is of little consequence. One can only judge him by what he did and by xxi LPML0211

INTRODUCTORY REMARKS

what he set out to do. Any other sort of judgment calls for a completely different set of criteria. In letting Durkheim's ideas speak for themselves, no attempt is made to try to compare the work of Durkheim with, say, that of Max Weber, far less to try to combine them. Durkheim's sociological thought stands on its own. It is a complete system, almost like a sociological Thomism. And let it be noted that Durkheim was very much attracted to medieval philosophy (see 1938a). His work therefore stands or falls by the completeness of the system. And with whom does one conflate St Thomas? To compare Durkheim in detail with other sociologists, especially in the matter of religion, is a futile exercise, only excusable as an examination question for undergraduates. To help elucidate the text and to understand Durkheim's aims and ideas, both his work and indeed his life have to be placed in a historical perspective. Durkheim, an enthusiastic liberal, humanist and agnostic, was very much a man of his time. This may sound a truism, but to take into account historical factors in evaluating his work, scientific and ahistorical as he claimed his conclusions to be, is imperative. His ideals cannot be understood apart from the fact that he was an ardent supporter, indeed an academic spokesman of and for France's Third Republic. Steven Lukes's intellectual biography of Durkheim, published in the early 1970s, has proved to be a model in providing a historical setting for the development of Durkheim's work. But in a study such as this, which focuses on religion, attention will have to be given to some of the religious issues of his day and at the same time to his own religious background, upbringing and ideals. On internal evidence, it has often been argued that Durkheim's thought underwent changes during his lifetime and such a possibility within the area of his analysis of religion will have to be examined. Although one must approach all classics with a degree of reverence and a readiness to follow their logic, complexity and imagination, this does not preclude criticism and assessment. The danger is to be critical before exposition, to be devastatingly negative before the picture has been unfolded. Here is a particular weakness of sociologists, not least at the present time, when criticism seems to be their main craft. Nor must it be forgotten that Durkheim was a severe critic himself, although he was never sarcastic and vitriolic, even in his controversy with Tarde. It was xxii LPML0211

INTRODUCTORY REMARKS

his opponents who tended to be the more aggressive (see Pickering 1975:347, 356). As we have had occasion to note, Durkheim's work, particularly that on religion, has been subject to much criticism, but such criticism needs to be sifted and evaluated. In the last analysis, exposition must give rise to assessment and criticism of some kind or another. The book has deliberately been given the subtitle 'Themes and theories'. The reason is simple enough. Durkheim's study of religion covers a vast number of topics. To write about them all and in detail would mean producing a book of inordinate length. Further, some of the topics are only tangential to Durkheim's main argument. Others cover issues now dead and buried. Some have had to be omitted because the space is required for more pressing issues. However, the main subjects that Durkheim dealt with can be readily grouped. The corpus of Durkheim's work on religion, highlighted as it is in The Elementary Forms, is to be divided as follows: 1 the methodology of the sociology of religion; 2 a theory of religion based on social origins; 3 the interpretation of the religion of certain Australian and other tribes; 4 ritual and collective effervescence; 5 modern religion, the decline of traditional religions, and the rise of 'secular' religions. The first contribution mentioned, that of methodology, is still of considerable importance to the current standing and understanding of the sociology of religion and must of necessity be treated in detail. His theory of religion based on social concepts is rejected today by most scholars, but it still has a number of interesting insights which should be considered on their own merits. Durkheim's contributions to the study of totemism and the religion of the Arunta and other tribes is still open to debate, although most scholars think that at the time he wrote his contributions were outstanding. But the interest here is only for the technically competent in anthropology and will only be incidentally alluded to in what follows. Durkheim's analysis of ritual, admittedly set within the context of primitive societies, has been little explored and, it is suggested, has still a great deal to offer. But even more important is Durkheim's notion of collective efferxxiii LPML0211

INTRODUCTORY REMARKS

vescence, since it provides some understanding of religious change and at the same time has particular relevance in the modern context - something confirmed by the observation of Eliade (1973:21). In turn, this has bearing on Durkheim's analysis of the modern religious situation which has so frequently been overlooked. What might be called his theories of secularization will be considered, particularly in connection with the rise of what might be called the cult of man. The reader is therefore warned in advance in the light of these emphases, that the following topics have not been dealt with in detail or as subjects in their own right: animism, naturism, magic, Australian totemism, the notion of the soul, and sacrifice. Yet there is another, altogether more controversial area. It is the sociology of knowledge which was so bound up with religion in The Elementary Forms and in which Durkheim was greatly interested. An earlier article which was incorporated in his book had the title 'Sociologie religieuse et tbeorie de la connaissance' (1909d). This branch of sociology is scarcely considered here. The criticism about such an omission is parried by the argument that to deal with the sociology of knowledge in Durkheim is to open up a vast territory which itself could be the subject of a book. It is stated unashamedly that the subject considered here - the substantive area - is religion. It is not society, social behaviour, social institutions or even epistemology. If we have concentrated on religion and drawn sharp lines of demarcation and are criticized for it, so be it. Relations with other social areas will inevitably be considered, but always one comes back to religion and so to the base of operations. We are therefore not offering a complete exposition of The Elementary Forms, but only those of parts that are relevant to our quest. No attention has been given to the question of how far Durkheim's Jewish background, particularly Jewish beliefs, affected his sociology. The question is a large one, full of methodological problems, and a consideration of Durkheim's sociology in toto which would be necessary, is beyond the confines of this book (see Filloux 1977:36ff.). In order not to create false expectations it must be said that in what follows there is no attempt to support an overall thesis about Durkheim's analysis of religion. Nor is there any conclusion which would allow Durkheim to be categorized as a positivist, a social xxiv LPML0211

INTRODUCTORY REMARKS

realist, an idealist, and so on. Is this how one is to judge a classic or a classical writer? Is this the way to deal with the writings of Plato, St Thomas Aquinas, or Karl Marx? Is their work to be summed up by one phrase, by one characteristic, by one thesis? As if this is all that is to be said! If this is so, the notion of a classic is meaningless. Rather, there is the attempt to look at some of the many aspects of Durkheim's work on religion, each on their own merits, and to appraise them accordingly. Every effort has been made to eschew a particular ideological approach in such a task. This is the intention at the outset: how far it has been realized is another matter. In brief, there are two purposes of the study. One is to set forth the truth about Durkheim by delineating his thought on the matter of religion. The other is to try to bring out the 'truth' of the truth of Durkheim, that is, the 'truth' of the analysis he so imaginatively put forward. And imagination he certainly had. That will become apparent in the various propositions and assertions that he made in his analysis of religion. What is more difficult to convey is his style of writing and great knowledge. To see this it is necessary to read the author himself. As Parodi said, Durkheim wrote 'avec une erudition imposante et une force dialectique incomparable' (1919: 136). The greatness of Durkheim is no better attested than by an Australian anthropologist, W. E. H. Stanner, an authority on Australian aboriginal religion, which forms the empirical core of Durkheim's great book on religion. Stanner wrote: for some at least, [there is] an impulse to turn back and to study again and again this inexhaustibly interesting scholar. There is a widespread view that everything of value which he wrote has long since been incorporated into the theory and practice of social anthropology. This does not seem to me true. (1967/r.1975:290) It is hoped that this book in some small way responds to such a call.

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Part I Historical Perspectives

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1

Durkheim's religious quest

I Adolescent changes, family life and personal beliefs 1 Introduction If the subject of this book is Durkheim's study of religion, why should an attempt be made to consider at the outset Durkheim's personal and academic life? His aim, after all, was to undertake an objective and scientific analysis of religion according to those canons of sociology which he himself had laid down. If that is the case, if the discoveries he made are to be judged by scientific criteria, his own life, beliefs and professional achievements can hardly have any bearing on such judgment. For example, one does not need to be acquainted with the life of Faraday in order to understand and make use of his discoveries in electricity. A different kind of challenge to even a brief inquiry into the life of the man, who was to dominate French sociology and to give it new life in the two decades before the First World War, might come from the fact that much has been recently written about Durkheim's life, particularly with the publication of a definitive intellectual biography by Steven Lukes (1972). To write anything new is virtually impossible: all the facts and sources have been well worked over. Both these questions need to be answered. The study of religion, like religion itself, is, when taken seriously, emotionally charged and ideologically evaluated. A student may set out with the strong conviction that he will be objective and fair, but few are those who in the long run achieve such objectivity. More than likely, the more radical the conclusions, the less neutral the outlook of the student. The liberal quest of many nineteenthcentury academics to analyse religion without bias has in the last

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analysis proved to be very difficult. It may well be that some writers have shown themselves to be fairer than others: the outcome is relative, not absolute. Since religion itself is based on a system or a group of values and ideas related to this world and, usually, to a world that is held to exist beyond it, it is inevitable that strong convictions enter into the study of religion, for such beliefs cut deep into matters of life and death, of what ultimately matters. Neutrality about religion, even as a subject for study, is rarely, if ever, achieved. The nature of modern disciplines associated with religion, no matter how much their aim is to be scientific - and it was certainly Durkheim's aim - are not free from the personal outlook of the scholars who work in them. In this respect personal involvement in the study of religion is markedly different from personal involvement likely in the work of natural scientists. In a study of morals, politics and religion one cannot completely filter out such values. There is obvious merit, therefore, that in coming to grips with the conclusions of a great scholar in the field of religion, one should also be aware of his personal life and the way he relates it to his academic thought and action. Such a procedure affords assistance in trying to know the way he reaches his conclusions, and more importantly, the axioms he assumes at the outset. In a book such as this, it would be remiss not to give some attention in the beginning to Durkheim's life, and in particular to those aspects of it directly associated with religion. And while, as we have said much has been written about his life, nevertheless we dare to dig over old ground in order to bring out more pointedly his religious attitudes and outlook. Here, the beginning links up with the end, for in the last part, before the conclusion of the book, we treat in some detail Durkheim's evaluation of western religions based on evidence from his own writings and we also attempt to assess what was his religious quest, apparent in his early life and expressed in his professional achievements. Further, those who might come to Durkheim for the first time through a study of his sociological analysis of religion, because their primary interest is in religion rather than in sociology, and who may not want to read a more general account of his life in another book, would benefit from some knowledge of his life and the part he played in the French academic world of his day. 4 LPML0211

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2 Boyhood, youth and the rejection of Judaism Emile Durkheim's background and upbringing were strongly religious. He was born on 15 April 1858, in the town of Epinal in Alsace-Lorraine, into a rabbinic family. His father Moise Durkheim (1805-96), himself the son of a rabbi, who in turn was also a rabbi's son, had come from Hagenau in Alsace in the 1830s. (For details about the childhood of Durkheim, see Lukes 1972:39ff.; Greenberg 1976.) Moise Durkheim had wanted to complete philosophical and scientific studies in Paris before he settled down as a rabbi, but financial difficulties prevented him (Greenberg 1976:625). As events turned out, he became the Chief Rabbi of the Vosges and Haute-Marne. Of the four children of the family, two were sons, neither of whom was destined to be a rabbi. Felix, who entered commerce, died relatively young, and Emile, the youngest child, born when his father was 53 years of age, also rejected the rabbinate and opted for an academic career. Emile went, as might be expected, to the rabbinical school at Epinal and was taught Hebrew, the Old Testament, the Talmud and Jewish doctrines, and this he did whilst attending the local state school. Alpert maintains that he did not study Hebrew systematically (1939:15). Through a personal communication made to Lukes from a distant relative of Durkheim, all seemed set for him to become a rabbi (1972:39 n.2). One assumes it was very much the wish of the family that the young boy should continue in its tradition and perhaps the local orthodox Jewish community felt the same. That he eventually said no to such a possibility must have been a disappointment to the family, especially to his father. And it was in all probability a rather emotionally wrought decision on Emile's part, for he would have realized the possibility of his family's hostility to or strong dislike of his decision. There is some evidence to suggest that Durkheim was never strongly attracted to the rabbinate. Lenoir, writing in the 1930s, made the point that he only toyed with rabbinic studies ('Les etudes rabbiniques ne furent qu'une velleite': Lenoir 1930:293). At what age Durkheim made up his mind not to proceed with the rabbinate, and when he told his parents, is not known. He did not talk about the event publicly nor did he mention it in his writings. It could have occurred at 5 LPML0211

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any time from the age of perhaps 12 or 13 until he went to the Ecole Normale Superieure in 1879 when he was 21, having attended the Lycee Louis-le-Grand in Paris a few years before and having failed the entrance examination to the Ecole twice. Although details of the event are lacking, it must have, been important in the life of the young Durkheim. It clearly shows that he was thought to be interested enough and clever enough to be a rabbi, and further, that he was prepared to accept the consequences of his action within the family. The second stage in Durkheim's early religious odyssey would seem to be an episode that has now become well-known, through the account of it by Durkheim's student and close friend, Georges Davy (1883-1976) (1919:183). The setting was the state school he attended in Epinal, where he showed himself to be an able pupil. When the event occurred is also not clear: perhaps it was shortly after his bar mitzvah at the age of 13. The story is that he was considerably influenced by an elderly female teacher who was a Catholic. As a result he underwent some form of spiritual crisis by which it is said he was attracted to mysticism and in the long run to the Catholic Church. He did not take the final step of crossing the religious divide: had he done so, he would have unquestionably precipitated further turmoil in the Durkheim household, if by this time he had already communicated his intention of not becoming a rabbi. Davy does not hesitate to remark that Durkheim did not take long to free himself from the crisis; and Davy seems to want to redeem what might be thought a weakness on the part of the grand master of sociology, for it might be seen to be a failure of judgment to become entangled in an undesirable religious flirtation. Apart from the remarks of Davy, we know nothing of what happened. But it seems legitimate to ask whether it was the institutions and liturgy of Catholicism which attracted Durkheim, as Auguste Comte had been attracted by them some fifty years earlier, and when he later incorporated them into his religion of humanity. Or was it, as Davy suggests, the search for some kind of mysticism, say, in the soul seeking union with God or in a striving after saintliness? Gaston Richard (1860-1945), once a collaborator and then an opponent of Durkheim, held that there were elements in Durkheim's nature which were strongly opposed to mysticism (see chs 23.4 and 9.5). Whether Davy and Richard meant the same thing by mysticism 6 LPML0211

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is difficult to say. Richard seemed to imply personal attitudes towards a divine source which involved an act of worship. Davy refers to the interlude as 'feminine' or 'womanish' (1919:182). What does this mean? Does it refer to the agent of the crisis? That he had a crush on the institutrice? Or, again, is it Davy's biased way of describing mysticism? A general observation might be made about Durkheim's flirtation with these forms of religion. It relates to the historical background of conversions from Judaism in nineteenth-century Europe. One might note that during the early part of the century, as Jews gradually gained their civil freedom in the face of a complicated political situation, the walls of their ghettos were broken down, if not literally, then certainly intellectually and socially. A consequence was that many of the Jews, who entered the professions which were now open to them but which before had remained closed, abandoned Judaism as a religion and were often converted to Catholicism or Protestantism, or more frequently became rationalists and agnostics. In the field of the social sciences one recalls Georg Simmel (1858-1918), an almost exact contemporary of Durkheim, a man of letters who was much interested in sociology and social psychology, and who became a Protestant. Generally, however, those who were pioneers in the human or social sciences rejected all established forms of religion. One can think of no great scholar in the nineteenth century in the social sciences who continued to practise as an orthodox Jew. Such sciences tend to be by nature agnostic or atheistic, and the personal lives of those who are devoted to them reflect a similar outlook. Two prominent examples come readily to mind: Marx with his unusual religious background- his father became a Protestant when he was 6 years old; and Sigmund Freud, who retained an academic interest in religion, but who felt that it was little more than a neurosis. Another point is that if Davy's description of the episode is accepted and the word mysticism is applicable, there are interesting though perhaps remote links with some of the facets of Durkheim's sociological thought which have escaped the attention of commentators. As we shall see, Durkheim's sociology, on account of the reverence he had for society, was thought by some to be 'spiritual' or even 'mystical' (see eh. 13.3). Such a charge is clearly quite contrary to the rationalist and scientific analysis of social behaviour which Durkheim was attempting to 7 LPML0211

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establish (see The Rules of Sociological Method 1895a/t.1938b). Patently what mysticism there is here is not that imputed to his adolescence; rather, it is associated with his so-called sociologism in which social factors are held to be of overriding importance compared with individual factors in explaining social behaviour. The alleged mysticism which was said to have engulfed his concept of society and his approach to collective representations had associated with them mysterious qualities which were not far removed from the divine. Society seemed to be above scientific analysis, despite Durkheim's claim to be scientific: it had a soul (l'ame collective). Writing in the late 1950s, Davy went so far as to state that Durkheim's rationalism was permeated with mysticism (1960:6). Clearly one does not want to make too strong a link between the adolescent episode in the school at Epinal and Durkheim's exaltation of the concept of society; nevertheless, the parallel is not without interest. The third step that Durkheim took in the religious journey of his younger days was the final rejection of the faith of his fathers and, with it, the rejection of all traditional forms of JudaeoChristian religion. Once again, little by way of biographical detail is known. Perhaps this stage could be divided into two parts intellectual and ritual- a rejection of the traditional monotheism which is at the heart of Judaism and Christianity, and the refusal to take part in synagogue worship and to follow Jewish laws and ritual requirements. His severance from Judaistic practice was probably not as decisive and as dramatic as one might suppose and there was probably no clear-cut date or event to mark it, althou~h here once again this is speculation. A reported comment from Etienne Halphen suggests that the final break with Judaism came while Durkheim was at the Ecole Normale Superieure, perhaps shortly after he arrived in 1879 (Lukes 1972:44 n.2). However, he may have rejected the theological claims of Judaism at some earlier time. Filloux has suggested that he abandoned his beliefs 'very quickly' (tres tot) (1970:31), but the reference is vague. Did Durkheim begin to have serious doubts about the claims of Jewish belief before his short-lived flirtation with Catholicism? It does seem likely that, for some years until he took what was for him the irrevocable step of totally abandoning orthodox Judaism, he entertained considerable doubts about the truth of religion. Lukes suggests that it was his friendship with two fellowS LPML0211

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students slightly senior to himself - Henri Bergson, a Jew who also rejected his faith, and Jean Jaures, who later became a socialist leader - which was instrumental in his eventual severance with Judaism. The question of time apart, what were the reasons for Durkheim's rejection of Jewish and, we might add, Christian belief? In the absence of personal testimony on the part of Durkheim, one can only infer them from his academic writings, from various references and asides. It would seem that at the very heart of his eventual disbelief was an uncertainty about the existence of God and the refusal to accept the traditional doctrines of the deity. As commonly understood, the truth of western religion turns on the fact that there is a God and that he has certain attributes or qualities - he is creator, almighty, totally good, and so on. It seems clear that certainly by the time he left the Ecole Normale, Durkheim could not accept the claims about God made by traditional religion. For him no God, defined as a spiritual being and existing beyond the universe, exists. Similarly, there are no spiritual beings and the soul, as traditionally defined, does not exist. Durkheim believed that these doctrines, as proclaimed within the Hebraic-Christian tradition, were totally unacceptable to anyone of an honest intellectual outlook. Nothing that can be called real exists outside the world as defined by the scientific mind or by everyday experience (see eh. 15.2). All that is in the world is the result of natural processes, including of course the work of man. Such a position epitomizes the outlook of any rationalist and agnostic. The claims of monotheism were rejected by Durkheim, it is suggested, because they did not match the findings of modern knowledge. The universality claimed by monotheism, that God is the God of the world, was contradictory to the growing awareness that in different societies around the world men haa different gods. Each society had its own conception of the deity, or in wider terms, what was ultimately true. In the face of su~h relativism it was impossible to believe that any one form was true and, by implication, others false. As Durkheim observed in his own writings, man makes his gods, or more accurately society makes gods for men. If there were one God, supreme and universal, all men would be aware of him and worship him. Comparative knowledge about religious systems other than those of the western world,

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brought about by missionaries, explorers and anthropologists, weakens the authority of any one system in which the claim is made that it possesses ultimate truth and rightness in religious matters. The same kind of inherent weakness also undermines any moral system, which is held to be true beyond the particular societies in which it is found. The clue which supports the hypothesis that this kind of thinking lay behind Durkheim's youthful rejection of religion and the opting for a relativist position, which after all was common in his day, is to be found in an essay he published in 1911, 'Jugements de valeur et jugements de realite'. The problem which Durkheim was discussing centred on the fact that men love and aspire to the ideals of goodness, beauty and truth. Yet such ideals are never realized, although men make such a world their sanctuary. Why should this be so? Durkheim responds: To this question, the theological hypothesis carries some semblance of a response. The world of ideas is taken as real and has objective existence, but an existence which is supraexperimental, and the empirical reality of which we are part comes from it and depends on it. We are then attached to the ideal as to the very source of our being. But despite the known difficulties that this conception raises when one so hypostasizes the ideal, it is at the same time immobilized, and every means of explaining its infinite variability is lost. We know today not only that the ideal varies according to human groups but that it ought to vary: the ideal for the Romans is not ours, nor should it be ours, and the scale of values changes similarly. These variations are not the product of human blindness, they are based on the nature of things. How can one explain them if the ideal expresses one unassailable reality? One is forced to admit then that God himself varies with space and time; but to what could this surprising diversity be attributed? The divine process will only be intelligible if God himself had the task of realizing the ideal which is beyond him; however, the problem would then be shifted. (1911b/1924a: 129-30/t.1953b:88-9; our italics) Although this was written about thirty years after his rejection of orthodox Judaism, it speaks of his awareness that theological relativism militates against, indeed denies a belief in the existence 10 LPML0211

Durkheim's Religious Quest I of an omnipotent, absolute God, as found in the Old Testament and implied in the New Testament. But the denial of ethnocentricism, be it religious or moral, brings with it its own problems, one of which is the denial of absolutes, and for the individual within a society making legitimate his own religious and moral beliefs. If the absolute goes, how is one to justify the rightness of one's own belief and action? Durkheim realized this and it was of constant concern to him in the development of ~is sociology. A society cannot be a healthy one where men live only according to half-committed beliefs and ideals. He was honest enough to face the problem in his studies on morality, education and religion (see, for example, 1909a(2) ). The dilemma that he saw was that in rejecting the truth-claims of a religion or moral system, the sense of authority is very seriously weakened and so the system becomes vitiated. Some kind of surrogate authority must be found and this, Durkheim felt, was in society itself. He was one of the few thinkers of his day who saw the social weaknesses of religious and moral relativism. It is one thing to abandon intellectually one's belief in God: it is another to cut oneself off irrevocably from a religious body in which one is deeply rooted. As an individual one can harbour doubts about religious tenets, one can even secretly deny them, for one's thoughts are hidden from the public gaze. Not so attendance at church, at the synagogue, not so the upholding of dietary laws, of abstinence and fasting. These are public acts which cannot be hidden: to absent oneself from them is to evoke query and judgment. To leave a closely knit religious group, such as that to which Durkheim was attached, may well bring upon the individual a reaction of social ostracism. Mixed marriages are also strongly disliked because of the threat they pose to the religious group and frequent in such marriages is the charge of infidelity to the group. As we have noted, Durkheim's refusal to proceed to the rabbinate most likely brought about a degree of family unhappiness, if not a certain amount of dishonour. It seems quite likely that Emile Durkheim's discarding of the customs and beliefs of the religion in which he was brought up and his adoption of Gentile habits probably bordered on the traumatic. This is Coser's opinion also, especially as Durkheim was an Ashkenazi Jew (1971:162; see following section and the footnote). Some of the emotional 11 LPML0211

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turmoil and feelings of guilt may be caught in an early review that he wrote of Guyau's L'Irreligion de l'avenir: The Christian who for the first time eats a normal meal on Good Friday, and the Jew who for the first time eats pork, experience a remorse which it is impossible to distinguish from moral remorse. (1887b:308/t.1975a:35). It is possible that he may have exaggerated the feelings of Chris-

tians in the case he cited. Apart from the fact that Protestants do not follow such a precept, the rule did not have the same status amongst Catholics (for whom it was subject to local custom) as had the taboo on the eating of pork amongst Jews. And writing a few years later in his doctoral thesis, The Division of Labour in Society, he again refers to the horror felt in eating a particular meat forbidden by society. Interestingly enough he observed in a footnote that a penal rule (which would include a taboo) should be conserved only if it is supported by a 'living and energetic' collective sentiment (1893b/1902b:76/t.1933b:107 n.45). Durkheim may have thrown off his orthodox beliefs and practices, but like others before and since, no matter what their religious affiliation, he tended to conform when he visited the parental home. Perhaps not to give offence, he attended synagogue worship with his mother. One incident which Durkheim found embarrassing is recalled by Filloux (1970:301). When as professor at the Sorbonne, Durkheim, under pressure from his mother, found himself attending the synagogue in Epinal on a holy day. The rabbi, seeing the son of his predecessor in the congregation, referred to the presence of an eminent person in their midst, which he said indicated that Judaism was still a flourishing religion. It might be noted that for reasons of conformity or otherwise, Durkheim married someone who was undoubtedly a Jewess, Louise Dreyfus. Her family home was in Alsace, where her father was in business in the iron trade. After Durkheim graduated from the Ecole Normale Superieure with very poor marks, perhaps due to a serious illness, he taught philosophy in various lycees until he was given a government grant to visit several German universities in the academic year 1885-6. Then in 1887 he was appointed charge de cours of social science and pedagogy in the University of Bordeaux. His marriage occurred just before he went there, 12 LPML0211

Durkheim's Religious Quest I but nothing is known of the religious outlook of Louise Durkheim: one imagines that she tended to adopt the views of her husband and we have no knowledge as to whether their children, Andre and Marie, were brought up as orthodox Jews. It seems most unlikely.

3 Psychoanalytic factors Greenberg's psycho-historical treatment of Durkheim's early years is interesting but not convincing. He argues, in using a parallel case, that of Henri Bergson, that the fathers of these two great contemporary nineteenth-century figures had in various ways failed, that the schools they had attended offered them models of success, that they both rejected their fathers in school years, and that in higher education they found a response to their needs and to their goal of assimilation into French society (1976:630). Once again the argument turns on a basic proposition of a psychological kind which uses the attitudes of sons towards their fathers to explain later attitudes and successes. These factors are also said to engender hard work and determination, not least in school and university (ibid.:633). How far one can accept Greenberg's position is in part determined by the degree to which the psychoanalytic theory of causation can be admitted; and in the case of Durkheim, whether there is in fact sufficient biographical material to substantiate the argument, even if the form be accepted. Durkheim's relations to his father are not well documented. One point that seems most doubtful, and which is of great interest to the present study, is the considerable enthusiasm that Durkheim showed for religious thought in the mid-1890s when he read Robertson Smith for the first time. Greenberg suggests that this was directly due to the death of his father, Moise Durkheim, in 1896 (ibid.:616 n.22) (see eh. 4.2 for a discussion of the reference to Robertson Smith). It should be noted, however, that Durkheim's interest in religion always seems to have been a strong one. It is difficult to know exactly in what ways Robertson Smith inspired Durkheim, but one thing seems certain, apart from substantive issues - he offered Durkheim a new way of approaching religion. Does the discovery of a method 13 LPML0211

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supply the right kind of evidence in dealing with personal problems? But further, there is the problem of the dates. Moise Durkheim died in February 1896. Durkheim in the famous reference to Robertson Smith indicates that it was in 1895 that the traumatic change occurred in his religious thinking (1970b/ r.Deploige 1911:402-3). The problem of Durkheim's relation to his father and the influence of the death of his father has subsequently been raised by Lacroix (1981), who has adopted the same position as Greenberg although he does not refer to him. The Robertson Smith episode of 1895, references to nervous complaints attributed to Durkheim, and even Durkheim's lack of political commitment as being due to a fear of castration, are all used by Lacroix to substantiate his position. But as Besnard rightly points out, as we have just observed, this does not constitute enough material on which to base a psychoanalytical argument and the material is far less than that for Max Weber in relation to his mental breakdown (1981:3). Further, the facts themselves are very dubious and the dates which are crucial to the argument are often wrong (ibid.). A psychoanalytical approach in trying to understand Durkheim's thought and action, especially that relating to religion, is a fruitless task because of the lack of adequate and firm evidence.

4 The significance of Jewishness Further attention must be given to Durkheim's Jewish background. The place of Jews in France, particularly in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, is a subject that has recently received considerable attention (see, for example, Aubery 1962; Bourdel 1974). Only limited aspects of a very wide subject are touched on here. The medium-sized town in which Durkheim was born is in the Vosges, near Strasbourg and Nancy. It is situated in a part of France where in times past Jewish refugees from the east usually arrived. They were generally of Ashkenazi descent and it is not surprising that eastern France as a whole, particularly Alsace, had in Durkheim's day proportionally more Jews than any other region of the country. 1 Epinal itself contained a large Jewish community 14 LPML0211

Durkheim's Religious Quest I with three synagogues. To the north, and on the same river as that on which Epinal stands, the Moselle, is Treves (Trier) where Karl Marx, also a Jew, was born some forty years before Emile Durkheim. The French Revolution had been one of the most important instruments in allowing Jews to leave their ghettos and in helping them to assimilate into Gentile life. However, the process of integration in Europe was not a smooth one and was continually subject to ups and downs. It received a serious setback in the 1880s, when socialists in their attack on capitalism switched their attention to Jews and accused them of being the worst offenders - accusations which Marx himself had once made, and in so doing pointed to the alleged evils of his own race. In France the crisis came with the Dreyfus affair in 1894, which dragged on for twelve long, tense years, and which has been so extensively documented. Over and above the question of the innocence or guilt of an army officer of Jewish birth, or even the question of anti-Semitism there quickly emerged issues of larger consequence - the rights of the individual, the concept of patriotism, the well-being of La Patrie, La Nation, France herself. Like the events of May 1968, but more decisively, the affair divided the country right down the middle. The old traditional divisions appeared: right versus left, Catholic versus Protestant; moreover, socialists themselves were divided, so were Catholics, so also were families. In the early days, mob action bordered on persecution as crowds shouted 'Death to the Jews'. The army and government administrative bodies attempted to remove from their ranks not only Jews but Protestants, republicans and Freemasons. Hostile action was attempted against any groups of individuals who were thought to be failing in a sense of patriotism. Durkheim, like many Jews at the time, suffered from verbal hostility (Peyre 1960a:14). As expected, he had no hesitation in standing on the side of the Dreyfusards not only in demanding justice for the wronged officer, but also in his support of liberal ideals which he and many others held were the foundation of the Third Republic, and which came under sustained attack during the crisis. Not only was Durkheim very quick to join the ranks of the Dreyfusards, but he also became a member of the supporting movement, the Ligue pour la Defence des Droits de l'Homme, which was formed partly on his suggestion. He became secretary for the Ligue in the Bordeaux region (for Durkheim's 15 LPML0211

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involvement in the Dreyfus affair, see Lukes 1972:ch. 17; also Lalande 1906:253; LaCapra 1972:76; Besse 1913:238; Clark 1973: 172-4). In 1898 he published an important article called 'L'Individualisme et les intellectuels' (1898c). In it he answered some of the charges levelled against the Dreyfusards, notably their lack of patriotism, and at the same time he helped to clarify the moral and social issues. Although the essay was of political importance, it was also significant for another reason, namely, that it was written while Durkheim was at Bordeaux and when he was beginning to formulate systematically his sociology of religion (sociologie religieuse) (see eh. 27). Certainly one result of the affair was increased anti-clericalism, and with this a heightened religious fervour amongst many believers. But beyond that, national division and internal hostility which had been engendered by the affair, strengthened what Durkheim had so clearly seen after the 1870 Franco-Prussian war: the need for France to realize its unity and to seek a morality based on an unambiguous, scientific foundation. For him, what happened to France during those years was an occasion of moral and political stirring: it was an example of his notion of effervescence (see chs. 21 and 22). The outcome was all to the good, for it was a great awakening which carried with it seeds of change and invigoration. Indeed, Durkheim greatly welcomed the intellectual and political activity which was fermented during the affair. But was Durkheim drawn to the ranks of the Dreyfusards to become their stalwart supporter on account of his loyalty to Judaism, or by a conviction about republican and liberal principles? Commentators such as Filloux and Lukes feel that Judaism per se was not a primary consideration (Filloux 1970:257; Lukes 1972:33 n.49). Strong moral considerations about freedom and human rights were of far greater importance to Durkheim than Jewish loyalties. But could it not be argued that the situation was probably more complex and that both issues were important to Durkheim? That he so quickly rallied to the Dreyfus cause, which was initially concerned with the problem of Jewishness, might suggest that he was quite ready to assist the movement on such grounds. It should be remembered that Durkheim supported certain Jewish organizations throughout his life, provided religious orthodoxy was not the criterion of membership. During the First World War he was a member of a large number of national 16 LPML0211

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committees, including the Comite Fran~aise d'Information et de !'Action aupres des Juifs des Pays Neutres (Davy 1919:193). Again, the origins of justice and of the rights of the individual can be traced back in part to the eighth-century Jewish prophets about whom Durkheim had learned as a boy. He was very much aware of the persecutions that the Jews in Europe had suffered through the centuries at the hands of Christians. One wonders therefore whether Jewish loyalty was of such secondary consideration as some have maintained. But there is further evidence that the Jewish question was always with him. During the 1914--18 war, anti-Semitism strangely enough was an ever-present threat to national unity. Durkheim was a sufficiently important figure in the public eye to suffer unpleasant attacks on account of his Jewishness, and that despite his patriotic pamphleteering (see, for example, 1915c). At one point he was castigated in the Libre Parole as 'a Boche with a false nose, representing the Kriegsministerium whose agents are swarming throughout France' (cited in a letter to Leon, 26 January 1916, quoted in Lukes 1972:557). He was also attacked by a senator, M. Gaudin de Vilaine, who requested an examination of residence permits to foreigners, including 'Frenchmen of foreign descent, such as M. Durkheim, a Professor at our Sorbonne' (ibid.). The scurrilous suggestion of the senator was vigorously denounced by a government official who gave high praise to Durkheim and forced de Vilaine to withdraw his remarks. During the latter part of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth century, there was a widespread movement in France towards national unity and away from loyalty to regions. It enabled France to reach a new level of self-consciousness. The movement was without reference to religion or to political party, and it was found as much amongst Catholics as amongst anticlericals. In the Catholic Church no better example of this is to be seen than in the Sacre Coeur de Montmartre, dedicated as it was to national repentance and unity. It was thought of as the Basilique du Voeu National. Durkheim's patriotism was of this genre. It was not to a region of France, say to Alsace, where he was born, but to the nation as a whole. It was the inevitable outcome of his early wish that France should be firmly united and as such he saw regional loyalty to be divisive. It is the case that in later life Durkheim does not seem to 17 LPML0211

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have been troubled about his Jewish origins, as for example was Sigmund Freud and perhaps Karl Marx. Quite naturally he opposed anti-Semitism, though not in a spirit of hatred: he certainly opposed Jewish extremism (1899d). He presented himself not so much as a Jew, who had guiltily rejected the faith and practice of his forebears, but as an enlightened, intellectual European liberal. There would appear to have been something in him that wanted to play down or quietly cover up his Jewishness. Was it, for example, an accident that he always referred to himself as Emile Durkheim, and not as David Durkheim?. He had been given both names, David Emile. He wanted to be accepted for what he was - an intellectual, and a devoted son of France, and in particular an ardent supporter of the Third Republic (see the following chapter). And it was to the country as a whole and not to a particular region of it that he showed his loyalty. He appears to have adopted without much difficulty a 'rational', commonsense attitude towards his Jewishness and here one might recall the example of Disraeli. His background neither obtruded so as to suggest it was the basis of some emotional or intellectual imbalance: nor was it repressed or totally denied. It was quietly laid on one side. To this degree Durkheim seems to have been happily integrated into Gentile society, whilst at the same time remaining in many respects loyal to Judaism. He was deracine yet felt himself embedded in a country which he virtually adored.

5 Asceticism and family life Although Durkheim became a non-believer at a relatively early period of his life, he firmly retained some of the moral precepts and ideals projected by western religion. One of these was asceticism; not the asceticism practised by hermits and monks, not one based on extreme physical deprivation, but an asceticism tempered by moderation and manifested in the form of selfcontrol and total dedication towards work. From his early days when he entered the Ecole Normale Superieure, Durkheim exhibited a firm belief in the importance of duty and moral integrity. Georges Davy, to whom we owe much of our knowledge of Durkheim's personal life, used the words 'la croyance au devoir' 18 LPML0211

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as being an outstanding quality of the young Durkheim (1919:182). Let it not be forgotten that Durkheim was no Protestant who might have been influenced by the so-called work ethic: indeed he seemed to have had but little understanding of Protestantism (see eh. 23.4). He was considerably influenced by Kant and neo-Kantianism, which can be seen in his concern for morality and for a high sense of duty which he held everyone in society should have. According to Filloux, the family from which he came was austere and showed great respect for the law (1970:8). Many of Emile's friends pointed to his cold, stoical and ascetic appearance (Davy 1919:194). Work, duty and justice seem to have been the foundation of his morality and happiness, even in the days of his youth (Davy 1960:6-7, 17). He also stood aloof from the arts and from games (see eh. 19.2). Hubert Bourgin, who came to know Durkheim at the turn of the century, wrote perhaps somewhat flamboyantly about the aura of authority and seriousness that surrounded this 'maitre imperieux' (1938:224). 'One felt oneself to be under the judgment and already under the authority of a man who had devoted himself to his task, his mission, and who in admitting you to his presence and within his circle, delegated to you a place within the responsibilities he had assumed' (ibid.:217). His main joy seems to have come in talking about ideas - a Spinoza type of joy, as one writer described it. His warmth was most apparent in conversation (Davy 1919:194). There can be no doubt that Durkheim worked prodigiously hard, and within the family he was helped a great deal by his wife in proof-reading and similar tasks (see AS, n.s., 11:8-9; also Lukes 1972:99 n.4). His own home was described as austere, in which the overriding ideals were work and duty (Davy 1960:17). (I have seen where he lived in Bordeaux - a conventional, middle-class terraced house.) Nevertheless, Durkheim's family seems to have been an extremely happy one in which there was warmth and tenderness (Greenberg 1976:627). Certainly Durkheim was very much a family man, devoted to his wife and children. In Louise Dreyfus he was said to have married just 'the right person'. (She had no family connection with the person involved in the later political scandal.) Durkheim was devoted to his two children, although it is reported that he refused to allow his gifted daughter to pursue her education (ibid.:627 n.28). In one sense Durkheim was well prepared to take on family duties, for at the death of his 19 LPML0211

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father, when he was young, he became the head of the family (LaCapra 1972:28). Thus, behind Durkheim's austere moral disposition there lurked a warm personality, which made him liked amongst his collaborators, although it must also be admitted that his relations with the members of the Annee Sociologie group were, at least in part, dominated by empire-building motives (see eh. 2.2). He seems to have needed collaborators more than they needed him and in many cases his relations with them were warmer than theirs with him. One wonders how right Greenberg is in suggesting that Durkheim was ambivalent towards the family as an institution, implying an ambivalence towards his own family. Greenberg's argument rests on the fact that discipline, if not asceticism, dominated the Durkheim family. Such a characteristic of Durkheim's own family seems beyond doubt. Greenberg's position about Durkheim's ambivalence rests on the doubtful assumption that family life and discipline verging on asceticism are totally incompatible, and that there cannot be a happy home life where there is such discipline. This is a very doubtful proposition, not only in general terms, but is virtually contrary to Durkheim's own thinking. Durkheim always considered that his most treasured lecture notes, which alas have been lost and which he took with him wherever he went, were those on the subject of the family (Lukes 1972:179). This might be a pointer that family life, both intellectually and emotionally, was of enormous importance to Durkheim himself, and he believed to society at large.

6 His religious quest We noted earlier that Durkheim firmly rejected traditional religion during his early manhood. The result was, as Filloux has said, that Durkheim 'called himself agnostic, rationalist and atheist' (1970:301). There is no reason whatever to deny the broad truth of the statement. But what is to be challenged is whether such a description, in some such form frequently repeated not only by Durkheim himself but also by his colleagues, is as straightforward an assertion as it seems to be. True, he was a rationalist in the broad sense of the word and was a devoted supporter of France's 20 LPML0211

Durkheim's Religious Quest I Third Republic which was to become avowedly secular. Yet, his attitudes towards religion were not as conventionally hostile or even negative as might be imagined from one's general knowledge of rationalism in France at the time. Despite his claims to follow the dictates of reason and science, he was not the thoroughgoing debunker of religion one imagines he might have been. Indeed, to declare one conclusion of our study at the beginning, there was much about Durkheim that could be called 'religious'. What marked him off from so many of his rationalist, anti-clerical contemporaries was that, as it will become apparent, he had a great reverence for religion. One could say that he was 'religious' about religion. Evans-Pritchard, who was critical of much of Durkheim's thought, but who was largely responsible for the translation of several of Durkheim's writings into English after the Second World War, supports this view in speaking of Durkheim's extraordinary interest in religion (1960:16 n.1). When Durkheim addressed a conference of Free Thinkers and Free Believers in Paris in 1914, he declared vehemently that he was as much opposed to those who were strongly anti-religious as he was to those who were dogmatic believers (1919b). Unlike so many rationalists of his time, and indeed before his day, he never mocked or derided religion, although he was often critical about the contemporary institutional brands of it (see eh. 23). The truth of the matter is that he saw a via media between traditional believers and anti-clericals, and pointed to both the desirability of new forms of religion and the fact that they were emerging anyway. He believed that the moral and social uncertainty of the times was in part due to the failure of traditional religions - Catholicism, Protestantism and Judaism - to offer a satisfying system of beliefs and rituals, which could even approximate to the intellectual demands of the day - demands based on reason and science (chs 24 and 25). The new patterns of religion which were in fact emerging were of the kind to which scientifically minded people such as himself could readily subscribe (eh. 26). Like many French intellectuals before him, Durkheim looked for a religion without God, but which at the same time contained what might loosely be called 'a spiritual element'. From the time of the Revolution, and indeed before it, France proved itself to be a veritable seed-bed of humanistic religions and sects. As such it was an earlier and secular challenge to the religious fertility of 21 LPML0211

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the United States. The French Revolution did not take the logical step of abolishing religion root and branch, but attempted to create forms which were in keeping with some of its basic ideals. Such forms centred on the code of reason and the institution of ritual and festivals associated with human and moral virtues. Later there was the Nouveau Christianisme of Saint-Simon, followed by the religion of humanity of Auguste Comte, who was for a time Saint-Simon's secretary. During this turbulent period, France might show itself to be anti-clerical and anti-Catholic, and even anti-Christian, but there were always those who searched for what might be called surrogate, humanistic religions, often highly ritualized as in the case of Comte's church. The theology, however, of such religions was always based on man and on human values. The goal was to create a Christian-like morality devoid of the 'false' premises of Christian belief and free from the inimical control of the Catholic clergy. Such an end is exemplified in the title of one group, Societe de Morale Chretienne, which existed in the 1820s. Durkheim categorically disassociated himself from these distinctive movements, which were carefully contrived inventions to bring about an institutional religion with man as its centre, accompanied by rituals in praise of him. For him new religious forms were not something which had to be deliberately engineered or promulgated: they emerged in history. Within society as a whole the new form of religion which he held was growing was one which took the shape of individualism. It was based on a deep respect for man in relation to other men and set within his social order. There existed in society a morality based on the dignity of the human personality, but which was mediated by society itself. His nephew, Marcel Mauss, said that 'morality was really the goal of his existence ... the foundation of his mind' (1925:9). And Davy somewhere made a similar point, that anyone is destined to fail to understand Durkheim's work unless it is realized 'that morality is at the centre of it . . . its end'. Some more recent commentators have gone so far as to suggest that Durkheim was more a moral philosopher than a sociologist. Bellah wrote in 1973 that Durkheim was 'a philosopher and moralist in the great French tradition of moral thought' (1973:x) and Wallwork's book, Durkheim: Morality and Milieu (1972), was the substantiation of the thesis that Durkheim 'stood in the classical tradition of moral 22 LPML0211

Durkheim's Religious Quest I philosophy that stemmed from Plato and Aristotle' (1972:vii). Such arguments as these receive support from the fact that after the publication of Les Formes e/ementaires de la vie religieuse, Durkheim set about writing what he hoped would be an even more important book, this time on moral philosophy. The war years interrupted his efforts and when he died he had only written the introduction (1920a; see Pickering 1979a:4). As we have hinted, there were, however, political reasons for upholding this emerging form of humanism which appeared to sway Durkheim more than purely theological reasons. It is true, as Richter says, that all Durkheim's endeavours were affected by his search for a religion minus a transcendental god (1960:203). The reasons for such a lifelong search were doubtless deep in his psyche, but from his writings and all other evidence the urge was to discover some quasi-transcendental base on which to build political stability and strength. It was an attempt to give a rational understanding of the sacred base for an emerging morality which could thus be strengthened and made more effective. Hence there was the prior need to understand religious life, because of its very close relation to morality and because in it is located, as nowhere else, the sacred. A deep concern for matters religious is thus at the heart of Durkheim's thought.

7 Patriotism, politics and war Epinal is situated in an area of France renowned in the nineteenth century for its sense of identity and for its patriotism. When he was only twelve years of age, Durkheim witnessed the 1870 FrancoPrussian war fought, as it were, on his very door step. After the French suffered their unexpected and humiliating defeat - the war lasted a bare three months - it was followed by the collapse of the Second Empire, the rise of the Third Republic and the Commune of 1871 with its chaos and bloodshed. Internal wrangling between the Orleanists, Legitimists and Bonapartists gave rise to continued instability, until eventually the republicans gained a moderately firm control in 1877. They were initially a somewhat divided group, since support came from many quarters, from 23 LPML0211

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thoroughgoing atheists, from Freemasons, anti-clericals, liberal Jews and Protestants. They formed an alliance against extremists who threatened them from the left and from the right. The right was, on the whole, a stronger group with an alliance between royalist factions, 'nationalists' and the supporters of the Catholic Church. One result of the war and the annexation of Alsace-Lorraine to the Germans was to engender in the young Durkheim a deep sense of patriotism and nationalism. He was struck by the uncertainty of the times, the humiliation of defeat, the multiplicity of political parties each striving for different goals, the pluralism of institutional religion. As Essertier said, he was living at the end of a century which was marked by every kind of confusion. In literature there was a vague sadness which may have exaggerated its importance, but traditional beliefs, a sense of duty, the love of one's country seemed to be at the point of sacrifice. What one held most deeply could be the subject of blasphemy and laughter (Essertier 1930:34). Durkheim was utterly convinced that a moral and intellectual crisis was afoot. Duties were no longer related to the realities of life and what was needed was a new discipline which could demonstrate the nature of the crisis and point to the need for moral integrity, national regeneration and reorganization. The moral fibre of France was to be tried again forty-five years later with the outbreak of the First World War. Once more the French and the Germans were at each other's throats, this time with the French seeking revenge for what had happened in 1870. And once more Durkheim, like so many other Frenchmen, was emotionally stirred, and now he was a man at the height of his powers. He had no hesitation in lending what intellectual weight he could to the cause of his country. As someone who was 'passionately devoted to science, justice, his native land' (Worms 1917:567), he found that everything he stood for was threatened by the war. Even when the clouds were beginning to gather at the turn of the century, he had no hesitation in making contributions to such subjects as militarism (1899b) and later patriotism and pacifism (1908a) (Lukes 1972:350). When the storm eventually broke, Durkheim showed a burning desire to see what he called a 'moral revival', which was necessary if France were to survive (Davy 1960:6). With the memories of 1870 rekindled, he

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held more strongly than ever that only through a sense of unity and moral fervour, coupled with justice within society, could France gather sufficient moral and social strength so as to be victorious in the war. As a public figure, he helped by writing a series of tracts, sometimes with the help of others, with such titles as: Qui a voulu la guerre? Les origines de la guerre d'apres les documents diplomatiques (1915b); L'Allemagne au-dessus de tout: la mentalite allemande et la guerre (1915c); Lettres a tous les Fran~ais (1916a).

These essays or tracts formed sections of a general volume, La Science fran~aise, which was sponsored by the French Ministry of Education; they were in response to German manifestos justifying the war. Durkheim's essays were amongst the last he wrote, for, as we have said, he died in 1917. Davy, writing just after Durkheim's death, made a great deal of his ardent patriotism and observed that his master had launched a strong appeal to his countrymen to have 'patience', 'confidence' and 'make a maximum effort for victory' (1919:190ff.). Recently there has come to light an open letter that Durkheim wrote during the war in an educational journal (1916c). In it he pays tribute to the heroism of the French troops and to the moral greatness of France; Ferdinand Buisson, whom he followed at the Sorbonne, wrote in a similar vein at much the same time (1916). Durkheim speaks of the soundness of moral education in France, meaning secular moral education, which he himself played a large part in fostering. He calls attention, however, to the weaknesses of the French in their individualism and nonchalant attitude towards national action. The schools in the future will have to have a greater respect for authority and a high sense of discipline, though not that 'mechanical, punctilious discipline' that was once practised. Once again, he employs religious terminology in asking that school discipline 'must appear to children as something good and sacred - the condition of their happiness and moral well-being'. The truth of the matter is that Durkheim was an ardent nationalist from his earliest days to his last. Davy recalled that in 1880, after he had been at the Ecole Normale for a year, he rejoiced greatly during the festivities of 14 July and spent the whole day

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on the streets, caught up in the enthusiasm of the occasion (Davy 1919:188). The morality which Durkheim saw emerging, and to which he committed himself, had in his eyes a sacred base in an unquestioning respect for the human personality. But it was not the human personality per se, in isolation, which was sacred, but rather, in its relation to society, to other people, who formed society. There were thus two principles - two 'deities' - and in this dyad Durkheim never saw any real or lasting conflict. Under normal conditions they were in complete harmony - the individual and society. Durkheim's basically 'religious' outlook was thus in part confirmed by the fact that he was always ready to see that the most cherished ideals and ideas within a society could be described as sacred (see chs 7 and 8). The sacred was at the very heart of religion; it was also at the heart of society. Hence what is basically a religious concept is the most satisfactory and indeed scientific way of analysing a society, even a society which at first sight is thoroughly secular. France's Third Republic, which had begun in 1870, had declared itself to be agnostic and had pursued such ·a policy at a time of moral and religious uncertainty. What Durkheim saw as his 'religious' task was to point very clearly to the emerging morality that was non-religious yet sacred, nationalistic yet universal in application, scientifically enlightened and yet authoritarian. Of course he wanted not only to point to the existence of such a morality, but in some way to strengthen it. Both these points are important. Obviously he was not alone in hoping to see this kind of morality firmly established in France- an essentially lay (lai"que) morality, the authority of which was firmly established in the state. His thinking was very close to that of Louis Liard, who was his patron and Directeur de l'Enseignement Superieur. Durkheim's unique contribution was in attempting to show the part that the new discipline of sociology could play in the moral strengthening of France along the lines proclaimed by the Third Republic. In an anonymous obituary, Durkheim's goal in helping to bring about the stability and spiritual invigoration of France is clearly set out: Already, during the days of his youth, following the Treaty of 26 LPML0211

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Frankfurt, he abandoned the idea of psychological research on quality and quantity in order to concentrate on work of an almost new kind in France. This was in finding in the science of societies the objective base for a re-organization of national life. (Anon. 1917:750--1) The writer makes plain the fact that Durkheim at an early age turned to sociology for what might be called political, pragmatic or ideological reasons. From the time Durkheim entered the Ecole Normale he was attracted by the problem of social justice (Essertier 1930:34). In this he was influenced by Jaures, who later became a prominent socialist thinker. Jaures was one year his senior as a student at the Ecole and through him h~ turned away from a formalist and intellectual approach to politics and radical philosophy. The search for moral justice received a more practical interest, although Durkheim never became a member of a socialist party. Hubert Bourgin suggests that in the last analysis Durkheim was more concerned with moral issues than he was with the development of sociology as a social science. He wrote: the founder and principal contributor to the French school of sociology was a sociologist more on moral grounds than on scientific grounds. Sociology was for him the only and certain means of reconstructing morality, which had been shattered by the very conditions of life in our society, which was too vast and overstretched. (1938:218) The task of sociology, as Durkheim saw it, was to construct the intellectual foundations of an imperative morality for the whole of society- a morality which was already in existence (ibid.:219). Thus, sociology had to give a 'theological' basis, which was essentially naturalistic and pragmatic, to the new quasi-religious morality that was emerging in France, and which was thought necessary for the well-being of the nation.

8 The epilogue When Durkheim died in 1917, the medical diagnosis of his death was a stroke, but it was commonly said that he died through a 27 LPML0211

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broken heart (Davy 1919:181; Lukes 1972:559). Although it was held that he always had delicate health, he was irrevocably saddened when he learnt in January 1916, that his only son, Andre, had died in a Bulgarian hospital from wounds he had received whilst commanding a rearguard action on a retreat at the Serbian front (Anon. 1918). Andre had been wounded before on the western front and his health had always been somewhat uncertain (Worms 1917:568). He had been taught by his father, who realized that in his son there was a promising linguist. The series of lectures on pragmatism (1955a) were specially intended for Andre, and in them were Durkheim's last academic references to religion. But the loss of his son was yet one more sorrow heaped on others for, as we shall see in the next chapter, Durkheim was already weighed down by the death of many of his most promising students and collaborators, members of his equipe, who had also been killed during the war. Obviously the saddest blow of all was the loss of his son. At such a time of misery and desolation, Durkheim yearned, it is said, for the consolation of religion. He had written objectively about the functions of religion and the help that it gave at such occasions as he was experiencing. Now he only encountered utter misery in the form of a personal vacuum. He could scarcely talk about the death of Andre (Davy 1919:181-2). In the darkness which surrounded him he categorically admitted that religion offered him no hope or comfort. He wrote to Xavier Leon: Of course I know that the religions are there, and that their practices are rich in experience that is unconscious and full of accumulated wisdom. But their wisdom is crude and empirical; nothing resembling ritual practices has been of use to me or seems effective to me. (Letter dated 20 April 1916; quoted in Lukes 1972:556) It is remarkable that having rejected the truth-value of all religions he should have momentarily turned to them in seeking consolation at the hour of crisis. Was the backward glance another pointer to Durkheim's religious nature? Clearly the edifice of the cult of man on which he had consciously based his beliefs had crumbled. The brittle foundations had given way in the face of the holocaust of the war. The hatred between civilized nations had rendered liberal humanism virtually untenable. Was it also such embittered 28 LPML0211

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suffering that caused him to forbid all ceremonial and speeches at his own funeral (Worms 1917:568)? Society, which he seemed to worship as a quasi-deity, offered not comfort but betrayaL

29 LPML0211

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11 In professional achievement 1 To greater things As we have noted, Durkheim was chosen to be a university lecturer in Bordeaux in 1887. The initiative for the appointment seems to have come from Alfred Espinas (1844-1932), who helped to make Bordeaux in his day the foremost university in France not only for the social sciences, but for pedagogy. In 1882 Espinas, famous for his doctorate of 1877, Les Societes animales, began giving a course of lectures on education under the auspices of the Municipality of Bordeaux. The purpose was to instil into future schoolteachers a sense of the social, which according to Espinas, was the means of revitalizing the soul of France. It was a successful course and when Espinas became dean of the faculty, the government did not hesitate to create a new chair in Pedagogie et Science Sociale. Durkheim was earmarked for this when he was made charge d'un cours. He eventually received the chair in 1895. Outstandingly able though he was, he had to wait a further seven years before he was appointed to the centre of academic life in France, Paris and the Sorbonne. Thus, it took him fifteen years of university life to reach the summit, but the period was the most arduous and fruitful part of his life (Lacroze 1966:169). It was said that while he was in Bordeaux he felt lonely and had a sense of powerlessness (Mauss 1979:210). The move to Paris meant that once again he followed in the footsteps of a prominent person, this time Ferdinand Buisson (1841-1932), a famous educationalist, who was made a member of the Chamber of Deputies in 1902. In 1906, after being charge d'un cours, Durkheim again became professor. He never moved from the Sorbonne. In pursuing a professional life, unmarked by dramatic events, he was 30 LPML0211

Durkheim's Religious Quest li able to establish himself as the doyen of sociology in France and in this was supported by a band of young and ardent disciples. Thus, during his lifetime he managed to lay the foundations of a kind of sociology which has now become generally accepted in and beyond the realms of his native France.

2 Disciples and the journal Durkheim firmly believed that the new science of sociology - his particular brand of sociology, as distinct from that of Comte or of German scholars - needed to be communicated to society at large. It was not a light to be hid under a bushel. It was not remote scholarship which was intended for a few obscure academics, concerned with minor points of past history. It was intended for public acceptance and assimilation. It had an important role to play in revitalizing society. This meant that not only should its conclusions be widely accepted by educated people as a whole, but that its findings should so captivate the minds of other scholars that they would feel themselves impelled to join the ranks of those who had given their lives to working professionally within the discipline. The great merit of Durkheim's sociology was that it did indeed penetrate other disciplines and that the ideas which emanated from him found their way into history, philosophy, psychology, political science, and so on. Durkheim was thus very concerned that what he had to say should be widely received and that the science should go from strength to strength. It was very far from his mind that the kind of knowledge with which he was associated should, as it were, find its own level by haphazard channels of communication. The knowledge had to be promulgated. He was a man with a mission - a gospel to proclaim - and like all preachers and prophets he felt impelled to declare his message to all, whether they would listen or not. But as a preacher taking the initiative, he was careful, and indeed in some cases fortunate, to find places and occasions when he could most effectively proclaim his ideas. There can be no doubt that although he was never committed to a political party, he was nevertheless a skilled politician, as well as being a fine 'preacher'. As is well known, Durkheim created around him, from rela31 LPML0211

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tively early on in his academic career, a band of disciples who became known as the Annee Sociologique school - Durkheim's equipe. Many of the individual members of the group became renowned by reason of their writing and because they received academic posts in France both during Durkheim's lifetime and afterwards. We should mention the names of Marcel Mauss, Celestin Bougie, Georges Davy, Paul Fauconnet, Paul Lapie, Henri Hubert, and so on. (Articles on the formation of Durkheim's equipe and some of its members constituted a special issue of the Revue fran~aise de sociologie: RFS, XX (1), 1979, see in particular the article by P. Besnard.) We can only deal summarily with Durkheim's extraordinarily successful endeavours to develop his sociology through this working group. Perhaps the best-known description of the group itself comes from the pen of someone who was a prominent member of what might be called the second generation, Georges Davy: There were some in fact around him who formed as it were a spiritual family, united by the tie of a common method and a common admiration for their master. They constituted, to coin a word which was clear to him, a little society sui generis, the clan of the Annee Sociologique. Durkheim created and maintained the spirit and the unity of this little society, without any tyranny by allowing full freedom to each member. He acted only through the extraordinary influence of his mind and his method. Everyone liked to go and see him, and at the same time receive his advice, and to be certain of the affectionate interest he had for them all. (1919:194-5) It is not surprising that amongst those who criticized Durkheim were some who looked upon the equipe as 'Jesuits' propagating the ideas of their master (the 'pope'?) in trying to establish a secular society. This accusation, if nothing else, points to the efficiency and effectiveness of the group of followers whom Durkheim had gathered around him. Correspondence has recently emerged, written by members of the group, such as Lapie and Bougie, which testifies to the close and warm relations Durkheim had with his disciples (see Etudes durkheimiennes. Bulletin d'information, Paris, 1977, no. 1, et seqq.). Perhaps it is not too cynical to say that Durkheim, because 32 LPML0211

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he was fired by his sense of mission and a desire to exert his influence, had a greater need to gain the help and co-operation of a group of followers, than perhaps the followers had of that which he had to offer them. Nevertheless, Durkheim's achievement was remarkable and his ability to hold together a group of disparate young scholars, working in various fields of learning but all interested in the application of sociology to their disciplines, has often been overlooked. No other sociologist had heretofore ventured along these lines and nearly all sociologists of his day were working very much on their own - for example, Simmel, Herbert Spencer, Max Weber, Ferdinand Toennies. Nor has any sociologist subsequently been able to weld together a group comparable to that which Durkheim created and nurtured. Perhaps the only exception is the Frankfurt school in the 1930s and durings its revival after the Second World War, although no one person dominated it. Durkheim held that the very nature of the subject of sociology required a collective response. Sociology is about groups, societies, institutions, and therefore it could only be developed by such means. Of course, some might want to argue that a need for security in Durkheim 's personality, perhaps due to his Jewish origins, caused him to work for a collective response - he felt it necessary to be supported by devotees (cf. the importance of 'we' in 1925a:274/t.1961a:240). There can be no doubt,, as Davy stresses, that the group was very much centred on the master himself. After he died, it lost its way and eventually fell into obscurity (see chs 27 and 28). It was not only the charismatic figure of Durkheim himself, who was the focal point of the academic zeal of the group; it was also the journal, L'Annee sociologique, which expressed their views and which was a labour of love. Such a journal had been suggested by Xavier Leon in the 1870s, many years before the first issue appeared in 1898. Leon was to become a close friend of Durkheim and the friendship lasted until Durkheim's death. Leon was a wealthy Jew who was the editor of the Revue de metaphysique et de morale, which he financially supported himself. The Annee sociologique was printed by Alcan in Paris - a firm which published all Durkheim's works as well as those of many of his group. Altogether twelve volumes containing articles and reviews were published, the last was in 1913. The publication of the journal made great demands on the editor. The attempt was to produce 33 LPML0211

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one volume each year and this entailed 'un labeur gigantesque', as Davy called it (1919:195). In Durkheim's day the journal was read in France as well as abroad, and not only by sociologists but by those in allied disciplines such as psychology, history, law and philosophy. Partly in imitation of German journals, much of the space was given to a systematic reviewing of books and articles. Some volumes were given over solely to this, as was vol. XI (1910) which extended to over 800 pages. The quality of the writing was remarkably high. Only one other sociological journal in France could be said to approximate to it, and that was the Revue internationale de sociologie, which was started earlier than the Annee, in 1893, with Renee Worms as its editor and which continued to be published until 1939. Its sociological outlook was eclectic, less rigorous than that of the Annee sociologique, but it drew on scholars outside France far more than did Durkheim's journal. The reasons which prompted Durkheim to seize the opportunity of editing the Annee were probably many and complex: a desire to see the discipline of sociology extended as far as possible, to acquaint the public with the findings of sociologists, to have a means of allowing his own colleagues to publish their findings (Alpert 1939:47-8). It is difficult to be precise about it. No one suggested that the editorship was undertaken in order to promulgate certain ideas about religion, but religion always received a prominent place in the journal through the large numbers of articles and reviews that were published in it year by year (see eh. 27 .2). It was said of the members who contributed to the Annee sociologique that they had 'a sympathy and even admiration for religious idealism, and in particular for Christian and Jewish faith and teachings' (source unknown). Was this an idle and fanciful characterization? One thing is certain; it was true enough of Durkheim himself.

3 Influence in the realm of education In one of his lectures on moral education, Durkheim said: The last twenty-five years in France have seen a great educational revolution, which was latent and half realized 34 LPML0211

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before then. We decided to give our children in our statesupported schools a purely secular moral education. (1925a:3/ t.l961a:3) In entering the arena of education, Durkheim did not find himself having to cut a special path, or to fight single-handed an overwhelming opposition. His aims were completely in keeping with what many others wanted, and changes of which he thoroughly approved were taking place in education. They were the reforms which in many ways made the Third Republic famous. Durkheim was certainly not alone in seeing that in the avowed policy of the Third Republic in the change to a secular education in the lycees and primary schools, there existed a means of propagating throughout France an ideology which was essentially rationalist and which it was hoped would bring about moral regeneration and social development. On this nearly all the supporters of the government were agreed. As we have said, Durkheim was unique in hoping that sociology would help to undergird the secular morality on which the hopes of so many were pinned. But Durkheim was not just a thinker; he was a man of action. For him the ultimate was praxis, defined in broad terms as a confluence of thought and action. People cannot convincingly teach what they do not believe. If a secular education is to be successfully promulgated, teachers of traditional religious convictions, or teachers employed by the Church, are not to be entrusted with it. If the content of education is to be radically changed, so must the outlook of the teachers. From the early 1880s, under the anti-clerical leadership of Jules Ferry, an agnostic who married a wealthy Protestant, moves were made by the French government to laicize or secularize all schools. This controversial legislation, which has been extensively documented, took considerable time to carry out (see Duveau 1957; Weill1925). The Catholic system of education, which had dominated the scene for so long, had to be dismantled. By 1906 the process was wellnigh complete and the teaching orders of the Church were no longer allowed to function as such. From then onwards free compulsory education in primary schools was put into practice. Further, in 1905, the Concordat of 1801 was finally broken and the Church was completely separated from the State: in some respects this was to the advantage of the Church, since 35 LPML0211

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it was allowed to manage its own affairs. From the 1890s onwards, as the religious were being excluded from teaching, a vacuum was created which had to be filled by lay teachers. It was estimated that 10,000 men and 40,000 women in religious orders had to be replaced (Bryant 1976:111). The task was gigantic and consequently members of the religious orders could still be found teaching in state schools up to the time of the First World War. The process required more legislation than that of Ferry and it came from the more vigorous anti-clericalism of the government of Waldeck-Rousseau and Combes, who capitalized on the rightwing extremism which was allied to the Church and which emerged during the Dreyfus affair. One of the problems that faced the government was to train a sufficient number of new teachers and to ensure that they were adequately prepared to carry out new tasks that were laid upon them. In place of the religious instruction that had formerly been given, the schools were now required to provide moral and civic teaching in accordance with the ideals of the Third Republic. The teacher was thus called upon to take a full part in trying to bring about moral and social progress in society. He had to teach an adapted Christian ethic, based not on a religious foundation, but on a secular one, in many respects middle-class in orientation. The instituteur (the schoolmaster) -or more often the institutrice - was called upon to exercise an extraordinarily important role in moulding the beliefs and morals of the young, in the way the priest did formerly. Thus the cure was to be replaced by the lay teacher - the 'Black Hussar' of the Republic, in the words of Peguy, the Catholic republicanist (see LaCapra 1972:59). As the change began to take place, the two dominant figures of the parish - the instituteur and the cure - became rivals for the loyalty of the parish or village. Mehl, in commenting that the influence of the Protestant minister was similar to that of the Catholic priest, described the situation as follows: In France, the Third Republic was so conscious of this de facto power exercised over the parish by the parish priest, who was usually unsympathetic to the regime and hostile to the secularization of the state and of the school, that it could not assure its own stability without installing a rival authority into the parish. This rival authority was the teacher. In the same

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paternalistic fashion, he became the counsellor of the inhabitants, the organizer of their spare-time activities, and the electoral agent of the Republic. (1965/t.1970:304) Thus unashamedly the schoolmaster assumed the role of a teacher of ideology, as well as imparting the three 'Rs' and other factual knowledge. Far from unity being brought to a parish, the presence of the rivals often meant that it was divided into two factions which were hostile to each other. The fact that the work of the lay teacher in many ways supplanted that of the priest in the local community was something which Durkheim strongly supported. Education at every level was of vital significance for a society. For France it was particularly the case. The teacher at the lycee, and especially in the primary school, had a part to play in building up the nation. Perhaps his own experience of being influenced by his Catholic institutrice convinced him of the power that schoolteachers could wield over their pupils (see eh. 1.2). In the task that faced the country in training teachers for a new kind of work, there existed a situation which was ideal for Durkheim's purposes, although he may not have been conscious of this at the beginning. From the time he began to teach in the university, he found himself having to lecture to students who were to be future teachers and this afforded him a great opportunity of spreading his ideas not only on the subject of sociology but, more dear to him, on the subject of morality too. In this way he was able to make a unique contribution to the problems of education in France and at the same time have a vehicle for propagating his doctrine (see 1916c; 1925a). Of the many academic achievements attributed to Durkheim, probably the description of him as the father of the sociology of education is the most accurate (see Pickering 1979a:99-125). There was no sociologist before his time, and no sociologist contemporary with him, who had given it any consideration worthy of the name, with the possible exception, of Herbert Spencer. Durkheim alone devoted much energy to the subject. Between one-third and two-thirds of his teaching time in Paris was said to have been given to educational subjects (according to Fauconnet in Durkheim 1922a:l/t.1956a:27). Did he wittingly choose to expend himself in this way? It is a difficult question to 37 LPML0211

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answer. His primary concerns were with the science of sociology and a secular morality, but as is well known, his first academic appointment in Bordeaux was charge d'un cours de science sociale et de pedagogie. Eight years later, in 1895, he was appointed professeur-adjoint, then professeur, and then had a chaire magistrate in science sociale (Worms 1917:564). When he was transferred to Paris in 1902 to follow Ferdinand Buisson, who was professor of education and who had been elected to the Chamber of Deputies, Durkheim was appointed as charge d'un cours de science de l'education and in 1906 professor of the science of education; it was only later, in 1913, at his request that the title was changed to professor of the science of education and sociology. Durkheim's entry into university life meant that he was provided with a niche, which was accompanied by security and status, in which he could develop his primary vocation, the study of sociology. It is probably not too much to say that when he took up his duties he looked upon lecturing to would-be teachers in various institutions as an academic chore. Although he saw the importance of such lectures to those who had such an important part to play in the future of France and even in the propagation of his ideas, he never seems to have relished this particular part of his work. Even the superb set of lectures which he gave in Paris, L'Evolution pedagogique en France (1938a), which was intended to make future teachers fully aware of their tasks, was said to have been given as a result of the demands of the university authorities and against his own will (Lukes 1972:379). Nevertheless, whether or not he felt that his time could be better used than in giving lectures to teachers, the fact remains that his influence in this area was very great. Durkheim has left to posterity several series of lectures on education as well as articles (see Lukes 1972:ch. 6 and pp. 617-20; Pickering 1979a:202-3). This is no occasion to try to expound his sociology of education as it is contained in these works or to assess his contribution to the discipline. The subject is vast. Our concern is much less ambitious and more practical. It is to show ways in which Durkheim attempted to ensure that his sociology and philosophy of education were universally accepted. To say that Durkheim had his own 'priests' in every town and village of the land is to make too bold a claim. On paper it seemed a possibility, but if the ideal was not realized at least it could be said that 38 LPML0211

Durkheim's Religious Quest II Durkheim made a very substantial contribution to education in the France of his day and in the decades that followed. This is in part borne out by the influence that Durkheim exerted in another area. In this case it was the government department responsible for higher education. Durkheim's political outlook has been the subject of much debate and speculation (Lukes 1972:ch. 12; LaCapra 1972:64ff.; Bryant 1976:114ff.; Filloux 1977). He never publicly allied himself to a particular political group, although he was socialist in outlook. Above all, as has been repeatedly said, he was an unwavering supporter of the Third Republic and indeed could be called one of its intellectual leaders (see 1904e; Bellah 1973:xxxvii). His political thinking was almost identical to that of the leaders of the Republic. When Durkheim went to Paris in 1902 his links with government officials became close. His advice was sought frequently. Clark has called him 'one of the most powerful university politicians in France' (1969:10). His association with influential figures in the department of education has suggested some kind of 'conspiratorial favoritism' (LaCapra 1972:33). LaCapra holds, however, that links between Durkheim and the government were not strictly of this kind but were due to a coincidence of ideas and connections with the government, and a common deep concern about the future of education in France (ibid.). Not everyone would agree with LaCapra's judgment. As Durkheim himself had received his early appointments through the government official Louis Liard, who as Directeur de l'Enseignement Superieur appears to have paved the way for his visit to Germany in 1885 to study the teaching of social science and his appointment to the University of Bordeaux two years afterwards, so Durkheim later sought to influence university appointments through his contacts in the department of education. Or so it seems. Little evidence has yet been found. But one can point to many of those who were members of the Annee Sociologique school who received teaching posts to the exclusion of other candidates not taught by or influenced by Durkheim (Clark 1968:68). One might point to Gaston Richard, who followed Durkheim at Bordeaux (see Pickering 1975:344; 1979b ). The chairs in question were usually established chairs in philosophy. What Durkheim seems to have been able to do was to have them filled by sociologists of his school, or to have the titles of the chairs changed to that of sociology and then filled 39 LPML0211

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them with his nominees. One example is that of Bougie, who was appointed to a chair in philosophy in Toulouse in 1902. While Durkheim was alive, no appointment in sociology to a university chair seems to have gone to a non-Durkheimian, and van Gennep, the well-known anthropologist, never received an academic appointment, nor did any member of the group associated with the Institut International de Sociologie, associated with the Revue internationale de sociologie (see eh. 27.3). Further, this policy seems to have persisted well after his death into the 1920s and 1930s. Such was the persistence of his influence.

4 'More a priest than a scholar'? Durkheim's dedication to a rational-empirical sociology, but above all his sense of mission that sociology had a leading role in strengthening the moral fibre of France, was accompanied by a firm determination to propagate the ideas of the new science. This vigour on the part of Durkheim created, nevertheless, hostility and was destined to draw forth even further hostility after his death (see eh. 27.3). One frequent charge was that his attitudes, policies and actions smacked of dogmatism. Such a charge clearly carries with it religious overtones - a dogmatism associated in particular with that of the Roman Catholic Church, and never more apparent than in its ultramontanist phase in the nineteenth century. The charge of dogmatism ill becomes a rationalist, a believer in democracy, someone who stands at the edge of the camp of anti-clericals. That such a charge can be made supports the motif drawn out here, namely, that in much of what Durkheim thought and did in his personal life and in his involvement in the academic world, there is the thread of what is little short of a religious quest. Can the charge be seriously sustained? To answer this one must look more precisely at the ways in which Durkheim was seen to be a dogmatist. One possibility can be eliminated immediately. In his personal relations and in his family life, what evidence there is all points to the fact that he was warm and generous, though ascetically inclined. Much the same might be said of his relations with the members of the inner circle of the Annee Sociologique

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group. Within certain parameters he seems to have allowed his collaborators considerable freedom of manoeuvre (Fauconnet 1927:18). The members of the equipe often disagreed with their master, although not on the basic methods and aims of the discipline which Durkheim had established (Branford 1918). There were disagreements, often in the area of religion; for example, Durkheim had different views about sacrifice compared with those of Hubert and Mauss. As Mauss himself said: 'We were not just a school of blind disciples centred on a master, a philosophe' (1979:210). These differences remained little more than internal squabbles and were never sufficient to cause any serious severance or disruption; the only exception was that centred on Gaston Richard (see eh. 23.4). Although the group has been described as a family, it was also a band of disciples who went out into the world to promulgate the ideas of their founder. At a more personal level, he wanted the co-operation and friendship of the group and deliberately created around him a contented, devoted community of scholars. Durkheim, ambitious for the discipline he championed, was without great personal ambition. It is true that in 1897 he applied for the chair of social philosophy at the College de France (RFS, XX, 1979:114--15). Nevertheless, he never seems to have manipulated situations so as to bring about his own professional advancement. To the contrary, there is an example, quoted by Lukes, that in 1908 at the age of 50 he turned down the possibility of the academic honour of having his name proposed for membership of the Institut. He felt that a philosopher called Evellin, of greater age than himself and at the end of his career, was a more worthy nomination (1972:377-8). Durkheim in fact never became a member, although he received the Legion d'Honneur in 1907. If the charge of dogmatism is to stand, it must be located in a wider, academic world. Here the charge could be one of political manipulation on behalf of other people, namely, that Durkheim used his authority and influence with the government to control appointments so that his own students and colleagues received chairs and lectureships. By this means his particular kind of sociology could be taught in as many universities as possible. There is considerable truth in this. Letters have now come to light in which he proposed the nomination of Paul Fauconnet to follow Celestin Bougie at the University of Toulouse, and nominated 41 LPML0211

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Maurice Halbwachs to a vacant position in the University of Lille (RFS, XX, 1979:115-17). He also supported Paul Huvelin, a professor of Roman law at Lyons, for a chair in Paris (ibid.). Of course not all Durkheimia~s were successful, notably Marcel Mauss, his nephew, the most learned of all the Durkheimians who never realized his potential (for a resume of the academic careers of Durkheimians, see Besnard 1979:28-30). When Durkheim came to Paris in 1902 it soon became apparent that he was assuming a position of great importance in the academic hierarchy. For various reasons, not least because of the subject he taught, this was resented. In 1911 a group of writers using the pseudonym Agathon launched a bitter attack. Taking a somewhat traditionalist stance, they accused Louis Liard, Directeur de l'Enseignement Superieur- Durkheim's patron indeed- of making him 'the regent of the Sorbonne, the all-powerful master' (quoted in Clark 1969:11). They argued that it was Durkheim who had won the victory for the new spirit in the Sorbonne (see also Dansette 1948, 11:47). Within the paramount university of France, he had gained a place on the most important committees, including the Council. He ensured that his sociology replaced the traditional philosophy and was the official doctrine of the university. Goblet d' Alviella said that the neo-sociology was the theology of the New Sorbonne (1913:219). For students taking degrees as teachers in philosophy, languages, literature and history, their only compulsory lectures were those Durkheim gave on education (Lukes 1972:372). Thus critics were not slow in attacking what they saw as Durkheim's powerful influence- his authoritarianism- and such attacks came from both left and right. Only Republicans appeared to support him. An opponent of Marxist persuasion, P. Nizan, accused Durkheim of being 'the watchdog' of the Third Republic in guarding its official morality (quoted in LaCapra 1972:62). Hostility also came not surprisingly from Catholic quarters, not least from Dom Besse who, in his book Les Religions lai'ques: Un romantisme religieux (1913), showed himself to be not only anti-Durkheim but also anti-Jewish, anti-socialist and anti-Protestant. His chapter, 'M. Durkheim en Sorbonne', was vitriolic in its attack not only on Durkheim's 'doctrine' but on 'the president of social science', who is the 'high priest of Humanity' and 'the great pontiff of lay religion'. Such phrases as these, coupled with one that reads 'ruling over the local 42 LPML0211

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priests as the cardinal', are to English ears hardly the language of sober judgment, yet they and others like them were commonly levelled against Durkheim and his alleged machinations, and were even used at times by his friends (for further details, see Lukes 1972:ch. 18). There were those who went so far as to suggest that at heart Durkheim was a cleric, not an academic. Bourgin, a member of the equipe, has written: He was a priest more than a scholar. He was a hierarchical figure. His mission was religious. As a revolutionary in religion and morality, this scholar wished to provide the grounds and support for morality for his contemporaries. He was no preacher: he was the priest of rules, to which it was necessary to adhere. (1938:218) But if priestly terms could be so readily applied by Frenchmen to Durkheim within the setting of the university, so equally applicable were those of the prophet. We have already shown that there was something about Durkheim which encouraged people to see him as a charismatic leader. As Davy said, he seemed like the prophet of some new religion (1919:194). And Durklieim never seems to have repudiated this kind of role, although as we shall see he deliberately rejected the religious ideology of Comte. Witness the well-known account of Bougle when he was walking past the cathedral of Notre Dame with Durkheim, who turned to him and said: 'It is from that chair that I should be speaking'. Was this the pang of regret from a possible rabbi manque, or the wish to be acknowledged as the ultimate spokesman of the emerging sociology with its moral and religious dimensions, or again, the yearning for a larger audience than that of the Sorbonne? Only speculation about these questions is possible. One thing, however, is true and that is that Durkheim had about him certain characteristics - his asceticism and sense of mission - that bestowed upon him the aura of an eighth-century prophet of Israel. Contemporary society stands under judgment! It has lost its moral fibre! It is poised on the brink of anomy and chaos! People need to repent, to be disciplined, to be obedient to the law, to the voice of society! Only by a change of heart will man be happy, free and escape from disaster! Preaching in season and out of season, Durkheim felt that he was a man for the times, a man needed by France, by the nation, if only it would listen to 43 LPML0211

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him. After his death, Pecaut wrote that Durkheim's 'faith was that society needed his ideas' (1918:2). The message of the prophet was validated by the charismatic power of the prophet. His presence was able to excite in certain people a deep moral faith (ibid.:1). He achieved a consistently high reputation for his ability as a teacher and, in particular, for his superb lecturing. He was an outstanding example in this of the ideal nineteenth-century liberal academic- precise, objective, fair, but with the fire of enthusiasm and the conviction that what he had to say was of great importance; that he was proclaiming some new scientific truth that had direct bearing on the well-being of society. His power over students in the lecture hall seems to have been electrifying (Bougie 1930:281-2). Maublanc describes it in detail: Those who wanted to get away from his influence had to escape from his course of lectures: on those who attended them, he willy-nilly imposed the power of his mind. How could one combat the authority of his serious, muffled voice, his laboured delivery, his powerful oratory, his cutting phrases, his deliberate movement of the hands, and his eyes which, under puckered brows and behind a pince-nez, flashed, like lightning, his ascetic illumined face? He was tall, thin, upright, dressed in black, with a pale head, his nose curved like that of a Jew, his beard with patches of grey amidst dark areas - he had the air of a rabbi who was also a mystic. (1930:297) Durkheim was in fact both prophet and priest- an ideal combination of roles according to many Christian theologians. He mediated between God (Society) and people (Filloux 1975:42). But he did so not only by fervently proclaiming a message but by skilfully employing institutional means, bureaucratic procedures, and exerted his influence in high places so as to ensure the acceptance of his message and the enactment of its implications. But there are no prophets without an authoritarian message, and no priests without a dogmatic creed. Like so many dogmatists, Durkheim disliked any dogmatism that threatened his own! He spoke about orthodox Christians and Jews in these terms: if he [a believer] values a denominational formula in an 44 LPML0211

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exclusive and uncompromising way, if he believes that he holds the truth about religion in its definitive form, then agreement is impossible. (1919b:101/t.1975a:184) But science and free thought to which Durkheim subscribed, have often contained within them that dogmatism which they have attacked. Durkheim was very intolerant of those who challenged some of the basic assumptions of science or who ideologically challenged the liberalism he so strongly upheld. Richard maintained that Durkheim's dogmatism was a denial of true freedom (1928:307). To others Durkheim's dogmatism was in his particular assumption about the priority of society, his sociologism (Maunier 1913:276; Cuvillier 1953:39; see chs 13 and 14). From his early days Durkheim strove to make sociology an incontestably scientific discipline and he hoped that the method which he adopted would be such that sociology could be placed alongside the natural sciences. Perhaps a change occurred when his hopes were not realized and he encountered far more opposition than he had anticipated. Here may be a clue to the alleged and perhaps exaggerated dogmatism of Durkheim. The charge comes from his opponents and it is often forgotten that between the 1890s and 1914 the Sorbonne was the bastion of scientific, rationalist and democratic principles. Much in the intellectual world of France at that time would seem to be challenging such ideas, for example, the thought of Bergson, Sorel, Maurice Barres, Verlaine and Mallarme (Coser 1971:161). When these issues were at stake Durkheim never compromised himself, and in this sense he might be said to have been dogmatic. Thus, Durkheim may well have realized that the possession of qualities associated with the work of prophet and priest were necessary in order to achieve the end he had set himself. Only a thoroughly dedicated man could have done what he did. As Peyre has observed: 'he felt intensely and thought fervently, systematically, with his heart as well as with his brain' (1960b:xvi). An anonymous writer has said that Durkheim was not one of those who allowed themselves to be complacent, who compromised with their principles, and with their consciences (Anon. 1917:749). Peyre argues that Durkheim was forced to wage an incessant war against the forces of prejudice and conservatism. Traditional religion, idealist philosophy, and old fashioned psychology were 45 LPML0211

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serious threats to his social science. Confronted with this 'irrational' opposition, Durkheim and his disciples could only respond with a 'dogmatic' fervour. The rational is often impotent to overcome the irrational. One might say that sociologically the 'political' situation called for a dogmatic approach, seen most clearly in some form of control of education at various levels. Rent~ Worms admitted that such determination had the effect of benefiting the movement which Durkheim led (1917:567). More recently, Terry Clark has accounted for Durkheim's success by the political power that he was able to exert over the government of his day, by the creation of a team of followers and by an uncompromising attitude about the nature of sociology (1973:ch. 6; see also Weisz 1979:83-112). Yet Durkheim's dogmatism was the dogmatism of the middle ground; in the matter of religion he upheld a rational approach that avoided the extremes of anti-clericalism, on the one hand, and orthodox dogmatism, on the other, and so he was able to pursue a via media in looking objectively at religion and avoiding the emotional overtones which were at the heart of the polar extremities. The question arises whether Durkheim's 'sensible' approach, coupled with professional determination, itself bordering on the religious, is intellectually tenable. It is this which the pages ahead attempt to answer.

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3

The development of Durkheim's thought on religion

I The early period 1 The search for lines of demarcation Gaston Richard observed that from 1895 to 1912 Durkheim was dedicated to the study of religion (1923:233/t.1975:244). He did not offer specific reasons for the choice of dates. Perhaps 1895 refers to the first course of lectures given by Durkheim on religion, although it was started in 1894. The contents of these lectures have been lost to posterity, but Marcel Mauss, his nephew, who was working under him in Bordeaux, helped to produce the material for the lectures (Mauss 1979:214). On the other hand, Richard might have chosen 1895 as the year when Durkheim received his sudden 'revelation', which came to him whilst reading Robertson Smith. The date 1912 obviously relates to the publication of Les Formes elementaires de la vie religieuse: le systeme totemique en Australie, which. stands at the culminating point of his thought on religion. Durkheim's great interest in religion, what we have called his religious quest, is apparent in every major work he published, in which some reference to religion is made, often but not always on a substantial scale. Much the same can be said for the articles he wrote. And many of the reviews he published in the Annee sociologique were on books dealing with religion, although the section of religion had several able contributors whom we have already mentioned (see the bibliographies at the end of this book; in Pickering 1975; see also eh. 5.1 and Table 3.1). Durkheim's academic interest in religion, however, goes further back than Richard's initial date, to the time he went to the Ecole Normale Superieure in 1879 and began to study under Fustel de Coulanges. It extended until the time he died in 1917. In so far as sociology was itself a new discipline, which was 47 LPML0211

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being shaped in the hands of Durkheim, it is not surprising that Durkheim's approach to it underwent some change. And if, in general, his sociology shifted course, as many people believed it did, it is only logical to surmise that for this and other reasons Durkheim's sociological approach to religion also underwent change. Even before Durkheim's death, observations were made about the alleged change in direction his thought was taking in a search for sociological explanation. Somewhere about the middle of the period between 1900 and 1910, Durkheim, it is argued, began to turn away from morphological factors, such as demographical and institutional influences, and to search behind these what might be called 'physical' or structural factors - to those directly related to ideas, to representations, that is, to idealistic or 'spiritual' influences. Ever since Davy drew attention to the change in 1911, a controversy has raged which has shown no signs of being resolved. Durkheim himself did not directly enter into it. (For a discussion on this, see chs 15.4 and 20.3.) Georges Davy also stated that Durkheim turned to the study of religious phenomena after completing his doctoral thesis, The Division of Labour in 1893 and writing The Rules of Sociological Method in 1895. His great concern with religion caused him, according to Davy, to realize the importance of 'spiritual' factors in his general approach to the study of society some twelve years later, around 1907 (1911:44). Whether in fact one can make such a causal connection as this is doubtful, for it is difficult to prove in the light of incomplete evidence, and further, it was never admitted by Durkheim himself. But at least Davy's statements about the changes in direction of Durkheim's thought raised the question of changes in his religious thought, and whether there are any close parallels between the two. Davy takes the straightforward position of dividing Durkheim's sociological thought into two stages: a 'non-idealist' stage, followed by an 'idealist' one. And it is to be assumed that he would divide Durkheim's religious thought accordingly by emphasizing the role of religious representations in the second period. Other commentators have also seen the development of his religious thought to be of two stages. For most the turning-point is 1895, and rests largely on Durkheim's own confession of the influence that Robertson Smith's thought had over him. What actually happened emerged, strangely enough, twelve years later, 48 LPML0211

Development of Durkheim's Thought on Religion I

in 1907 in a letter he wrote in the Belgian journal, Revue neoscolastique (1907b). Alpert (1939:215), Parsons (1937:409n.), Stanner (1967:220ff.) and more recently Lukes (1972:237ff.) accept this confession as denoting the only significant change in his religious thought. Lukes characterizes the two stages in this way. Before 1895, Durkheim's work is seen as 'pre-ethnographic' and is contrasted with the later period when Durkheim became saturated with Australian Aboriginal studies, which were the key to his final work (ibid. :240). The early period is 'largely formal', 'rather simpliste' and containing uncertain hypotheses. His later work is 'considerably more nuanced and complex'; he 'tested, modified and extended his hypotheses'. Another writer who appears to settle for a two-stage development of Durkheim's religious thought is Stanner. In his admirable essay, 'Reflections on Durkheim and Aboriginal religion', he suggests that Durkheim passed through a creative period between 1898 and 1907, during which time his ideas were crystallized and received confirmation in detailed ethnographic studies (1967:220,227). Is one to assume from this that little of significance occurred after 1907, or that the period before 1898 was of no importance? If The Elementary Forms represents the peak of Durkheim's creativity, it should not be forgotten that it did not suddenly burst in upon the academic world unheralded or unanticipated. Much of it was communicated to university students and indeed others in a public course of lecturers Durkheim delivered in the Sorbonne between 1906 and 1907, and which constituted an early working of the book. The lectures were quickly published in summary form in an academic journal through the efforts of a listener, P. Fontana (Durkheim 1907f). Two years later Durkheim himself published two articles, 'Sociologie religieuse et tbeorie de la connaissance' (1909d), and 'Examen critique des systemes classiques sur les origines de la pensee religieuse' (1909c) in the Revue de metaphysique et de morale and the Revue philosophique respectively. With minor changes, they appeared as chapters in The Elementary Forms (from 1909d, pp. 754-8 were omitted). These facts clearly demonstrate that Durkheim's great book did not suddenly emerge as the result of a revelation or a hastily conducted piece of research. Not only did it take a considerable time to prepare for publication - at least six years - it included a 49 LPML0211

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vast amount of ethnographic material which represented the fruit of many years' study and reflection. But disregarding the question of aboriginal material, the book represents the final outcome of long and continual thought which went through fairly well-marked stages. For reasons that will be advanced, we shall divide the development of Durkheim's religious thought into three periods. Isambert has recently come to a similar conclusion (1976:37). They are: I The early period (1880-95): from the time he entered the Ecole Normale Superieure to just before he began to read Robertson Smith; II The middle period (1895-1906): from the time of his acceptance of Robertson Smith's ideas to about 1906; Ill The final formulation (1906-17): from the time he delivered the course of lectures in the Sorbonne on the origin of religion to his death. The dates are only approximate ones. When can ideas be said to begin? When do they change? So often it is impossible to attach any precise date, even if the individual concerned is asked to give it. As a rule ideas emerge gradually, and only after a period of gestation do they become crystallized. But the fixing of dates is even more difficult when the individual concerned is dead and has left few personal details. And in the case of Durkheim, the one sure date of 1895 is somewhat blurred. Did the event mentioned in 1895 extend over a longish period or was it immediate? And in using the only evidence we have, the dates of articles and books, there are added difficulties of knowing whether the published material was written well before the date of publication. That is particularly acute for items published around the dividing dates between the stages. It is ridiculous to sugges~ that the dates which we have given to the three stages of Durkheim's thought are in any way precise. Obviously we have tried to be as accurate as possible, but it might be said that the dates do little more than to indicate 'about the time of'. Clearly there were shifts in Durkheim's thought, but they were in no way dramatic (see eh. 20.3; Bellah 1973:xlvi). One thing is quite certain; Durkheim never underwent a volte-face in the matter of religion. Most of his ideas evident at the end of his life were latent, if not abundantly clear, in his earlier writings. What 50 LPML0211

Development of Durkheim's Thought on Religion I

one witnesses is a development and interlinking of ideas through the stages into a coherent system of great ingenuity, but as we shall show, elements of them Durkheim possessed from an early age. It should be emphasized that in relating Durkheim's thought on religion to certain periods of his life, we are not suggesting that they are marked by radical changes in his ideas, but that they relate to phases in his academic productivity in the subject which are accompanied by one or two changes and by certain shifts of emphasis.

2 Publications and substantive issues The importance of the first period in the development of Durkheim's thought on religion lies in the fact that in it three books of his were written, two of which had largish and important sections devoted to religion. The first book was his doctoral thesis, De la Division du travail social (1893b); the second did not contain a great deal on religion, it was his manifesto for sociology; Les Regles de la methode sociologique (1895a); the third was Le Suicide: etude de sociologie. The last was published in 1897, admittedly outside the period, but on the evidence of Gaston Richard, who was in charge of reviewing books in the section on criminality in L'Annee sociologique, the book was written a good time before it went to the publishers (1923:230/t.1975:242). For this reason the book has been placed in what we have called the first period of the development of Durkheim's thought. The young Durkheim wrote only a handful of reviews or reviewarticles which were associated with religion. Amongst them was a review of Guyau's L 'Irreligion de I' avenir (1887b) and an account of Wundt's analysis of religion (1887c). Interestingly enough there were no reviews on totemism. (The details of the various items relating to religion in the three periods of the development of Durkheim's thought are given in Table 3.1, which shows the method that was employed in compiling the table. For items on totemism, see Pickering 1975:311-13). Durkheim's earliest attitudes towards religion emerge most clearly in his review of the Ecclesiastical Institutions - itself a sociological study (see 1886a:65-9/t.1975a:18-23). Here he states 51 LPML0211

LPML0211

~

Books published (English titles)

1897a

1895a

1893b

Division of Labour in Society The Rules of Sociological Method Suicide: A Study in Sociology (see text)

1950a

Socialism and Saint-Simon

1928a

Published posthumously (English titles)

1918b

1925a 1938a

1900-1

II

La Religion

(1880-95)

Early period

Professional Ethics and Civil Morals Moral Education The Evolution of Educational Thought Montesquieu and Rousseau

Les Formes elementaires de la religion

(1895-1906)

Middle period

1912a

1955a

1906-7

(1906-17)

Final formulation

The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life

Pragmatisme et sociologie

La Religion: les origines

Ill

The development of Durkheim's sociological analysis of religion according to lectures, books, articles and reviews

1894-5

3.1

Lecture courses (Unpublished)

TABLE

rJJ

tl'l

~

(")

tl'l

rJJ

"'...,

tl'l

...,

~ t'"'

;::; "'

rJJ

:= b

LPML0211

V.l

Vl

3.1-Continued

Early period

4

1886a 1887b 1887c 1890a

(1880-95)

Middle period

21

1901a(i) 1901h 1903a(i) 1903a(ii)(57) 1903c 1905a(ii)(2) 1905e 1906a(6) 1906b 1906e

(1895-1906)

1897e 1898a(ii) 1898a(iii)(13) 1898b 1898c 1899a(i) 1899a(ii) 1899d 1900a(45) 1900a(47) 1900c

II

1907a(17) 1907b 1907c 1907f1 1909a(i) 1909a(ii) 1909c 1909d 1910a(ii)(2)

m

.g

25

.......

at;· Ci" ;:::

~

.....

~

§

......

~ ~

~

§" ...,-

~

~

1911b 1913b 1911c(l) 1914a t::J ~ 1911c(3) 1915c -.::: ~ 1913a(i)(2) 1917b 1913a(ii)(6) & 1918b 1919b2 ;: (7) ~ ;::: 1913a(ii)(9) 1968c ...... 1913a(ii)(10) .Q., 1913a(ii)(ll) & t::J (12) ~ 1913a(ii)(15)

(1906-17)

Final formulation

Sources: Lukes 1972: 617-20, 561-90; and the Bibliography at the end of this book. The titles of the articles and reviews are omitted, but they can be determined from the dating-enumeration given in the Bibliography. 1 Summary of lecture course, 1906-7. 2 Extempore lecture.

Number of articles and reviews from above

Articles and reviews

TABLE

HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVES

that sociology is not concerned with metaphysical speculation such as is normally associated with religion. By contrast, the sociologist is to examine the practical effects of what is in fact a complex phenomenon. Religion dictates to people actions, ideas and sentiments, and it also possesses its own authority. Therefore, like law and morality, it has a regulating function in society and creates social equilibrium. This means that law, morality and religion can all be legitimately studied by sociology. Belief has a priority over religious action because common beliefs are necessary for society to exist. This is historically the case. What the future of such beliefs, religious and social, will be in the West cannot be foreseen. But based on these sociological observations, religion in some form or the other can be said to go on for ever, for it is essential to the existence of society. Durkheim postulated what he thought were secondary characteristics of religion, namely, the notion of God, belief in life after death, a sense of the mysterious, a collection of individual beliefs. The important question is to find what God symbolizes 'hides and expresses'. He urged the distinction between the sociology of religions and the history of religions. Ideas change and their documentation devolves on the historian. The sociologist sees that when these changes occur the ideas no longer fulfil their functions, as they fail to ensure the adaptation of individuals to external circumstances. In The Division of Labour, Durkheim emphasized the positive relation between penal law and religion in societies marked by mechanical solidarity (primitive societies). Religion always acts as a coercive or constraining force over individuals, forcing them to believe or behave in particular ways, as he says in the review we have just mentioned. Religion demands personal sacrifice from those who adhere to it. Sacrilege, which indicates the presence of religion, is severely punished in primitive societies, not least for ritual offences. With the advance of history, 'religion tends to embrace a smaller and smaller portion of social life'. Formerly religion was coterrninous with the political. Today, in western societies marked by organic life, the individual is freed from the demands of belief and practice made by traditional religions. The new form of religion is without a transcendental concept of God and is focused on man himself - on the individual. The change has been brought about not least through Christianity, which itself has placed less emphasis on cult and punishment and more on 54 LPML0211

Development of Durkheim's Thought on Religion I

morals and ideals. Free thought began to emerge through medieval scholasticism, which gave primary place to reason. Traditional religions are opposed to science, since science studies man as part of nature, and part of the universe. Philosophy became prominent as theology receded into the background, because religion lost its hold over society. Reflective thought and science undermine a belief in God, who is no longer seen to be omnipotent and omnipresent. There has yet to be a scientific definition of religion, but any such definition would not make God an essential element since Buddhism is without gods and many religious laws make no reference to gods. Religion is basically a social phenomenon. In many respects Durkheim's Suicide shows a much more convincing approach to religion than The Division of Labour. In part this is helped by the fact that Durkheim is in the main only concerned with that aspect of religion which has direct bearing on the phenomenon of suicide. He shows how doctrinally the traditional churches in the West have opposed suicide in considering it an immoral act. Nevertheless in European countries there are different rates of suicide and Durkheim attempted to show how the social and theological characteristics of Catholicism and Protestantism in some way account for the different levels of suicide. He holds that the Church of today, because of its weak control over society, is powerless to prevent suicidal tendencies. Within a wider context, religion is a system of symbols by which society becomes conscious of itself. In the last analysis, man worships society which is seen as the gods hypostasized. Once again, Durkheim argues that the new religion in the West is centred on man worshipping himself.

3 The beginnings and early influences It would seem that after he left the Ecole Normale Superieure

Durkheim's interest in religion received a considerable boost from Lucien Herr, the librarian at the Ecole, whose acquaintance was renewed when Durkheim taught at the Lycee de St Quentin in Paris in 1885-6. It was while he was at the Lycee that Durkheim was given six months' leave to tour German universities, including 55 LPML0211

HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVES

Berlin, Marburg and Leipzig. About this time Herr drew his attention to Frazer's article on totemism in the Encyclopaedia Britannica (Mauss 1927:9; Lukes 1972:183 n.13). But first the interest was mainly in the connection which Frazer made between totemism and exogamy. Durkheim supported the idea, although Frazer later rejected it. His introduction to Frazer's article at least made him aware of the growing science of religions, which was largely stimulated by the work of such English scholars as Frazer, Spencer, Tylor and others. His acquaintance with these writers was also encouraged by his nephew, Marcel Mauss, who quickly joined Durkheim as a student at Bordeaux when Durkheim went there in 1887. As we shall see, Durkheim openly admitted that the science of religion was in the first instance an English and American discipline (see eh. 4). There can be no doubt that in his formative years, Durkheim was far more influenced by Fustel de Coulanges in the matter of religious analysis than by Saint-Simon or Comte (Evans-Pritchard 1960:11,12n.). This can be said despite the fact that Durkheim for the greater part of his life held that the religion of the present and that of the future was one centred on man himself, a position that was held by Saint-Simon and Comte as well as by other French thinkers. The influence of Fustel over Durkheim was quite simply that Durkheim followed the academic historical analysis of the professor of classics rather than the speculations of political and social philosophers. Numa Denis Fustel de Coulanges (1830-89) was professor at the Sorbonne and then director of the Ecole Normale Superieure, who before had been professor at Strasbourg and who was forced to leave after the 1870 war. Himself a normalien he taught Durkheim while he was at the Ecole between 1879 and 1882. 1 Fustel's influence over those with a sociological bent stemmed from his well-known book, La Cite antique: etude sur le culte, le droit, les institutions de la Grece et de Rome, published in 1864 shortly after he had gone to Strasbourg and translated into English in 1873 as The Ancient City. Fustel de Coulanges's argument was based on the assumption that in the matter of social institutions the Greeks and the Romans had a great deal in common. A comparison of their beliefs and laws demonstrated that their religion was at the heart of their family life. It established marriage and paternal authority, fixed the order of relationships, and 56 LPML0211

Development of Durkheim's Thought on Religion I

governed the right of property and the right of inheritance. Extending itself beyond the family, religion formed a still larger association in connection with the city and controlled it, as it controlled the family. From their religion came every institution of the Greeks and Romans, including private law. The city based all its principles, its rules, its customs, its magistracies on it. As time proceeded, the ancient religion was modified and private law and political institutions were changed with it. Thus, Fustel argued, religion is of prime importance and is the oldest of the institutions of these ancient peoples. Of course, it had at its centre an ancestor cult in which the head of the family acted as the priest. To each family the dead are seen to be the deities and in this way deities are established for the city. Fustel held that the oldest type of religion was the cult of the dead, which he thought was the earliest element of the religion of Greeks and Romans, and according to the Laws of Manu, the most ancient form of worship among Hindus. Keeping in mind ideas which Durkheim was to be identified with in later years, particularly during the second period (see eh. 6), it should be noted that Fustel held that religion was the absolute master, for everything had come from religion, that is to say, from beliefs which men held about the divinity. Religion, law and government were compounded and were but three different aspects of the same thing. What is more important for sociologists as a whole is that Fustel holds that ideas bring about social changes, that worship symbolized by the sacred fire is at the centre of family life in the classical world and that religion is at the centre of social life itself. Needless to say, Fustel de Coulanges has not been without his critics; for example, he is said to have misunderstood gens in seeing it as only a vast agnatic family (Lowie 1937:197ff.). During his early period, Durkheim himself was critical of his teacher for deducing social arguments from religious ones (1893b/1902b:l54/ t.l933b:178-9). For Durkheim, religion is a reflection of some aspect of social reality (Jones 1974): but Durkheim's criticism at this point turns out to be an ambivalent one, because he reflects Fustel's thought after his 'conversion' in the second period. Durkheim, however, disagreed with Fustel over the question of the cult of the dead, which Durkheim maintained was not central in the evolution of religious ideas. 57 LPML0211

HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVES

Overall, it is not surprising that Camille Jullian, an admirer and expositor of the work of Fustel, held that there were close parallels between La Cite antique and Les Formes e/ementaires (see Lukes 1972:60-3). Both books showed that religion held a central place in society and that the tribe or city, which was held to be sacred, is a social whole and constitutes as well an ecclesiastical body. Also, forces are at work in society which are contrary, yet superior, to physical forces.

4 Characteristics of the period Stanner, pointing to an earlier period, but using dates different to our own, asserted that Durkheim failed to provide in it a systematic answer to three questions: 'the intimate but elusive relations between religion and social order; the place of religion in a sociological schema; and the status of religion as determined or determining' (1967/r.1975:282). We suggest that Durkheim attempted to deal with these issues in a later period, but whether he ever solved them satisfactorily is open to dispute. Behind Stanner's observation, however, lies a more general and acceptable notion, namely, that Durkheim's approach in the first period is relatively disjointed and contains a number of important but none the less unrelated hypotheses and propositions. Compared with the full blossoming of his ideas later on, this period is marked by a crudeness and lack of subtlety in his analysis of religion (see Jones 1981). Parsons has held that in the earliest period Durkheim saw the relation between society and religion, but that he saw the importance of religion only after he had developed the notion of social control (1937:409). However, in the light of Durkheim's review of Spencer's Ecclesiastical Institutions, Parsons's conclusion must be challenged, for in that review, written as early as 1886, Durkheim states categorically that religion along with law and morality are control mechanisms of society (1886a:69/t.1975a:23). What is significant is that in the early period Durkheim advanced propositions which he never rejected, but which in the course of time he refined and related one to the other, in some cases introducing additional elements. As Richard said, Durkheim never really changed his basic attitude toward religion as he proceeded 58 LPML0211

Development of Durkheim's Thought on Religion I

in his academic career (1928:299). Fundamental ideas which appeared in The Division of Labour and Suicide can also be seen in The Elementary Forms. Over and above the themes which interested Durkheim in this period, and which we have very briefly noted, one was of overriding concern; this was the search for the origin of religion. Like all those who were interested in the science of religion in his day, he was one with them in pursuing such a quest. In this early period he openly rejects theories of Spencer, Reville, Muller and Hartmann, and even the sociological theory of Guyau was also criticized. Durkheim did not always openly raise the question of the origin of religion, but it is clear to see that it was of enormous importance to him and that he sought an answer to it not in trying to find a unique historical event or events which were impossible to verify, but rather to find the origin of religion in the very structure of the phenomenon itself. To this end he devoted his labours.

59 LPML0211

4

The development of Durkheim's thought on religion

11 The middle period 1 The 'revelation' The period from about 1895 to 1906 constituted what were the most eventful years of Durkheim's life, not only intellectually but professionally. In their midst, in 1902, he was invited to take up the lectureship at the University of Paris. To be sure, this creative period was fruitful in the development of his sociology in general, but in particular it was characterized by a turning-point at its beginning in his sociological approach to religion. It heralded what we have called the middle period. We might have known nothing about the event, but for an accident which prompted Durkheim to write about it publicly. It emerged in the correspondence he entered into in a Catholic philosophical journal, Revue neo-scolastique, in 1907. Simon Deploige, then or subsequently a priest, published a series of articles vigorously attacking Durkheim, and in particular his concept of the science of morals and his social realism. In this he was accused of bestowing metaphysical status on society and giving it a place superior to that of the individual. The articles were subsequently published in 1911 in book form as Le Conftit de la morale et la sociologie and it was later translated into English (1938). Not surprisingly, the articles were strongly negative in their condemnation of sociology, and in a brief, positive fashion Deploige advocated a return to the teachings of St Thomas Aquinas. Durkheim responded by reviewing the book negatively in the Annee sociologique (1913a(ii)(15) ). What propelled Durkheim to write a letter to the editor of the Revue neo-scolastique in the first place, however, was not so much an attack on his sociology as the charge made by Deploige that his articles had 60 LPML0211

Development of Durkheim's Thought on Religion II been borrowed from German authors and that he had carefully disguised the fact (1907b:606). In particular. the case against him was that he had 'simply taken over Wundt's theory of moral ends' and used it without acknowledging his debt. Durkheim defended himself by retorting that it was he who had introduced to the French public the work of Wundt and other German writers of the same school in articles he published in 1887 (see 1887c). In a second letter dated 8 November 1907, Durkheim returned once more to the charges Deploige had made against him. It was in the course of this letter that, out of the blue as it were, he acknowledged the enormous influence of Robertson Smith on his thought. Durkheim wrote: On page 343 note 1, it is affirmed that I found in Wundt the idea that religion is the matrix of moral and juridical ideas etc. I read Wundt in 1887 and yet it was only in 1895 that I had a clear understanding of the important role played by religion in social life. It was in that year that I found the method of approaching the study of religion sociologically for the first time. It was a revelation to me. During 1895 a line of demarcation was drawn in the development of my thought, so much so that all my earlier research had to be looked at afresh and made to harmonize with these new views. Wundt's Ethik read eight years previously had nothing to do with this change in direction. It was entirely the result of the studies of religious history which I had just undertaken and notably the reading of the work of Robertson Smith and his school. (1907b:613) Durkheim again repeated the refutation of the charge when he later reviewed Deploige's book and stated that the science of religion was essentially an English and American discipline, not a German one, and that he owed a great deal to authors of those schools (1913a(ii)(15) ). The confession in the second letter of 1907, describing his intellectual conversion in his approach to the sociological study of religion, has become a 'proof-text' and no analysis of Durkheim's approach to religion can fail to include it. How far the letter was well known at the time is difficult to ascertain. Very few writers seem to have referred to it, but Gaston Richard was acquainted with it, saw its importance and quoted it in his article of 1923 (1923:229-30/t.l975:241). One wonders who 61 LPML0211

HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVES

introduced Durkheim to Robertson Smith. Isambert suggests that it may have been two of his disciples, Hubert and Mauss, for they developed Smith's idea of the sacred and sacrifice (1976). British writers on religion, with the exception of Smith and Spencer, were not interested in sociology, although they attempted to treat religion 'scientifically'.

2 Durkheim's reading of Robertson Smith In what ways, then, was Durkheim's thought so radically changed as a result of reading Robertson Smith? It is vexatious that despite Durkheim's reference to the event as a revelation (revelation), he never disclosed its nature in detail, and indeed, as we have just noted, were it not for a controversial correspondence on an allied matter, the secret in all probability would have gone with him to the grave. In the course of subsequent events, Durkheim made only a few references to Robertson Smith and they were in his essay on totemism (1902a(i) ), in the 1906lectures (1907b) and in The Elementary Forms. Strange to relate, there was no mention of him in the important article on defining religion (1899a(ii) ). That this 'conversion experience' is so poorly documented has meant that scholars are left guessing about its content. No one knows for sure what elements of Robertson Smith were of such revelatory importance to Durkheim. Evans-Pritchard has suggested that there were four ideas which Durkheim derived from Robertson Smith (1965:56). They were: primitive religion is basically a clan cult; the cult is totemic; the god of the clan is the clan divinized; totemism is the most elementary form of religion known to man. Such a position as that of Evans-Pritchard would suggest that almost exclusive of any other hypothesis, Durkheim only adopted those hypotheses associated with totemism and the clan in their relation to religion. It was these that were of overriding importance to him. There can be no doubt that totemism seen as a primitive religion was crucial to Durkheim in his arguments in The Elementary Forms. But to concentrate exclusively on totemism is far too narrow an approach, and we would suggest that there are other influences at work of equal importance. To 62 LPML0211

Development of Durkheim's Thought on Religion II

substantiate this it is necessary to take a brief look at Robertson Smith's work. Although a theologian and Old Testament scholar, William Robertson Smith (1846--94) was interested in anthropological issues and in applying them to the Old Testament. Much of the controversy which surrounded him related to his higher criticism, which in part he learned from his studies in Germany. As a professor in Aberdeen, he was forced to vacate his chair owing to hostility from the Church of Scotland. He then went to Cambridge and, with a fellowship at Christ's College and a readership in Arabic, he remained there for the rest of his life. His last book, the one which so much influenced Durkheim, The Religion of the Semites, showed that his interests extended beyond the Jews in considering the peoples in the area as a whole. The book was first published in 1889: the second edition of 1894, published posthumously, contained certain changes that were made in a somewhat mysterious manner. It was probably this 1894 edition that Durkheim first read. Robertson Smith held that the religion of the Hebrews had to be considered not as an isolated religion but as one amongst, and indeed influenced by, the religions of surrounding peoples. Christianity and Islam were also examples of religions growing out of other religions, for no religion grows out of nothing (1889/ 1894:1-2). Thus Smith, as an Old Testament scholar, firmly stood in the camp of those who might be called advocates of comparative religion, whose origin can be traced back to John Spencer (1630-93) of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, who is often referred to as the father of comparative religion (ibid.:vi). Another assumption that Smith made was that all religions contained two dominant components, belief and ritual. Due to the influence of Christianity, and its rejection of all that might be called superstitious, scholars in their approach to religions, including Christianity itself, began by examining the component of belief, that is, the creeds of the religion (ibid.:16; see eh. 17.1 in this volume). For Smith this method was incorrect, as many ancient religions had no creeds. It was better to examine first their ritual, which could be carried out with accuracy, since ritual was obligatory and not subject to variation which is to be found in the component of belief (ibid.:18). In early societies myths were open to change and it was obvious that people's beliefs were by no 63 LPML0211

HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVES

means uniform. Myths later gave place to creeds, as in Christianity. Another assumption - one that Durkheim had already accepted and which Robertson Smith stressed - was that in early societies the religious realm and the political realm were coextensive, and consequently an offence committed against a religious ordinance was in fact also an offence against the state. To study religious institutions in such societies meant also studying their political institutions. Thus, religion was not to be viewed through spiritual concepts, for it was not a means of saving souls but a vehicle of assuring the welfare of society, and as such, meant its material well-being (ibid. :29). It is clearly evident that Robertson Smith encouraged Durkheim to make the distinction between religion and magic. In his early essay published in 1899 on defining religious phenomena, and written shortly after the 'Smith revelation', he declared that religion and magic had to be separated although the two are not always distinguishable (1899a(ii):21n.2/t.1975a:99n.24). Durkheim does not develop the point and one detects a certain amount of hesitancy on his part, perhaps due to the fact that he was attempting to define religion in terms of obligatory beliefs and actions (see eh. 9.3). However, by the time he gave the lectures on religion in 1906--7, which were the basis of his later book, he was clear in his own mind about the opposition between magic and religion, and in The Elementary Forms his arguments are well enunciated (58ff./42ff./119ff.). The contrast is made on the basis of his definition of religion. 'In magic there is no church', but there is in religion (see eh. 9.5). The magician creates a clientele, not a band of devoted followers who constantly consult him and who create relationships one with another by reason of common beliefs and practices. Magic is diffuse and individualistic: religion is social. Smith stressed the fact that in the eyes of religious leaders, magical practices are illicit (1889/1894:264). They therefore stood outside the realm of religion. In religion, man 'was bound always to think and act with and for the community'. To enter into private relations with supernatural powers, for that is what magic means, is to be castigated as being anti-social. Durkheim openly admits in a footnote in The Elementary Forms that Robertson Smith had already made the contrast between magic and religion, and we might add, in a similar way as Durkheim made it (63 n.l/45 n.2/ 162 n.28). 64 LPML0211

Development of Durkheim's Thought on Religion /I

One of Robertson Smith's many contributions to the anthropological study of religion was, as we have just noted, in the considerable place that he gave to ritual as a basis for analysis. Durkheim also followed Smith in this respect, but whereas Smith gave prominence to ritual over belief, Durkheim was ambivalent about it (see eh. 20). His interest in ideas and representations, absent at a theoretical level in the work of Smith, probably meant that in the last analysis Durkheim holds that beliefs have primacy over ritual, although in many places he appears to give ritual and belief equal importance. Certainly one undergirds the other. Smith never shared Durkheim's interest in epistemological or even metaphysical problems - problems that Durkheim held arose out of the sociology of religion. The need to study primitive societies in order to reach an understanding of religious phenomena Durkheim did not derive from Robertson Smith; nevertheless, one feels that his position in this respect was strengthened by what he read of Smith. The clan system was held to be the earliest and therefore the most important form of social organization known to man and is associated with totemism (Smith 1889/1894:277ff.). Durkheim praised Smith for extending McLennan's ideas on totemism by showing that totemism is not just a cult of animals or plants, for it presupposes a 'likeness in nature, either natural or acquired, of men and animals (or plants)' (127/90). Smith held that the matrilineal clan, which was not to be identified with the larger household, was to be seen as the basis of Semitic society, and each clan had a sacred relation to a species animal. Smith, however, was honest enough to hold, and others have subsequently agreed, that there was not in fact much evidence for clan structure amongst the Semites. But at that stage of anthropological knowledge, it seemed likely to many that totemism was the most primitive form of social organization and that every society had sprung from it. It was logical, therefore, to deduce that the Semites had once passed through a totemic stage (see eh. 6.3). Robertson Smith's theory of sacrifice, Durkheim agreed, was revolutionary (480-500/336-50; 1970f:635-6; see Jones 1981). Totemic sacrifice, according to Robertson Smith, was not just a family occasion, nor was it a propitiary act towards the divinity, but was an act of communion with the gods. Primarily it was a periodical public feast of clansmen and such an occasion brought 65 LPML0211

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the clans together. What was sacred was that which belonged to the clan. The private slaughter of animals for a man's personal sacrifice did not possess the character of the sacred which was attached to public offerings. 'No life and no obligation was sacred unless it was brought within the charmed circle of kindred blood' (Smith 188911894:287). Primitive men drew no sharp distinction between the existence, of gods, men and beasts. There was a close relation between families of men and animals. Thus a sociological identification was possible between the god and the clan which met in the representation of the individual totemic animal. This was most obvious on occasions of clan sacrifice, when the totemic animal was slaughtered and eaten. Therefore, by this act, the clansmen ate and killed their 'god', and so entered into communion with it. Clan sacrifice, therefore, was a sacramental meal from which, as a result of 'consuming their god', men would feel strengthened and united. It was on such occasions that the totemic beast could be killed, but later this sacrificial rule was relaxed (ibid. :290). Smith also connected Semitic forms of sacrifice, which he held were totemic in origin, with those of the Romans, Syrians and Assyrians. In his theory of sacrifice, Robertson Smith's arguments were based in part on Semitic evidence, but much was also based on generalized notions of totemism which were derived from other pre-literate societies, and these assumptions were later found to be unwarrantable. There were at least two propositions put forward by Robertson Smith which Durkheim accepted, but which misled him. First, that sacrifice began with totemism: there is no evidence to support it and many tribes do not have sacrificial rituals (see Evans-Pritchard 1965:52). Second, that totemism is universal: however, certain data run counter to the claim, since not every society has passed through such a stage, and also that in all totemic societies where an animal is held to be sacred, it is never killed - the only exception is amongst the Australian Aboriginals which Durkheim selected for his ethnographic evidence in The Elementary Forms. Amongst these tribes there is a complex pattern of totemism (see eh. 6.3). Generally speaking, both anthropologists and Old Testament theologians have found Robertson Smith's views on totemism and totemic sacrifice exaggerated. Durkheim was not uncritical, however, of Smith's theory of sacrifice (see 1907f:637-8). He admitted that 'it is to the totem 66 LPML0211

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that humanity owes the principle of the common meal' (127/90) (and might we add, also, to Robertson Smith?) and continued: It is true that the theory of Smith can now be shown onesided; it is no longer adequate for the facts actually known; but for all that, it contains an ingenious theory and has exercised a most fertile influence upon the science of religions. In the end Durkheim rejects Smith's theory of sacrifice as he does that of his collaborators, Hubert and Mauss, in their essay on sacrifice (1899). In another way, however, Durkheim was also critical of Smith's approach to sacrifice. The Scot Classified types of sacrifice according to the method of sacrifice and the nature of the animals and food offered. Durkheim rejected this somewhat naive approach. Nor did he follow him in holding that sacred places, regions and things could be seen to be sacred on utilitarian grounds, that is, on account of their inherently obvious or useful qualities - qualities that would have been apparent to the worshippers. Durkheim lauded Robertson Smith for pointing out the ambiguity that is to be found within the concept of sacredness and showing that it contained beneficent and antagonistic forces (584-6/ 409-10; see eh. 7.3). He also spoke appreciatively of Smith's notion of the contagiousness of the sacred (457/319-20). He noted his observation that ancient Arabs tattooed themselves with pictures of animals (164 n.8/117 n.7). But Durkheim, as we have seen, was not uncritical of Smith. Another example of this was his rejection of Smith's notion, held in common with other scholars, that the cult of nature is an extension of the cult of the dead (91165). The question remains: what was the flash of insight that Durkheim received from reading Robertson Smith? Durkheim refers to method - to a new way of looking at religion - to discovering, in fact, the sociological method of examining religion. And this comes not only from reading Robertson Smith, although chiefly so, but from studies of religious history. Sumpf has suggested that, in Smith's work, Durkheim grasped the notion of germinal principle. Since religion cannot be analysed as a sui generis entity as society could, there had to be some sense of continuity (1965:67-8; see eh. 9.2). In Smith there is to be found the notion 67 LPML0211

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of a germinal principle - some substructure - which accounts for distance and prevents complete disparity and fracture. This solution by Sumpf is imaginative, but one wonders whether there is sufficient evidence for such an assertion. Concepts such as continuity, germinal principle, or their equivalents, are not extensively to be found in Durkheim (but see 1899a(i)/t.1960c:350). Even more serious is the fact that, in his review of Spencer's Ecclesiastical Institutions in 1886 (that is, in the first period, not the second), Durkheim refers to the notion of germ (1886a:64-5/ t.1975a:16-17). It could well be argued that in referring to method, Durkheim meant the study of totemism and nothing more, because he came to believe that the elementary form of religious life would reveal the nature of more complex phenomena in the realm of religion. This is Evans-Pritchard's position, as we have noted, as well as Stanner's (1967/r.1975:281). Admittedly, Durkheim did not write about the subject before 1894, although he had read books on it (for example, Frazer's early studies on totemism). But does 'methodology' refer only to totemism? Surely it is something more (Giddens (1978:83) would appear to agree also). The Scottish theologian concentrated his attention on one particular group, the Semites. He attempted to show the influence of social factors upon their religion and the influence of religion on their social life. His studies gave rise to generalizations about religion and social organization. The method was in contradiction to that particular comparative method, then so much in vogue in the hands of Frazer and others, which abstracted examples of customs, ideas and rituals from societies around the world and then from such an array of items attempted to make generalizations. We suggest that it was this concentration on one society that was so methodologically important to Durkheim. As Smith focused on the Semites, so Durkheim was to concentrate his attention on the Arunta of central Australia, and to a far lesser degree, on other totemic tribes. Using the field studies of Spencer and Gillen, and others, he made 'one well-conducted experiment' and this detailed case-study he held was adequate in the production of scientific knowledge (593/4151144). Indeed, one might be tempted to say that in the matter of method Durkheim in Les Formes elementaires achieved with the Arunta what Robertson Smith achieved with the Semites. In recent years Tiryakian has supported this view. 68 LPML0211

Development of Durkheim's Thought on Religion II His argument, however, goes further, and reaching beyond overt evidence, he holds that despite its intellectual appeal, the Religion of the Semites was a 'revelation' to Durkheim in discovering his roots as a Jew, or at least some of them (1979a:111). The position is dangerous. For one thing it is far-fetched because there is no evidence to suggest that Durkheim ever forgot his Jewish roots or needed to have them dramatically illuminated. And for another, to suggest that Durkheim's involvement in studies of the Arunta was a religious fulfilment - a discovery of what Judaism was like in some basic way - might well be offensive to Jews in so far as Arunta life is equated with Jewish life, or at least is of the same order. It would have been a different matter if Durkheim himself had made such a confession. Another evaluation comes from Giddens who suggests that Durkheim found British and American anthropologists, including, we would add, Robertson Smith in his anthropological approach to the Old Testament, thought-provoking because in them he encountered detailed studies such as were not to be found elsewhere (1978:83). Frazer and Tylor might have employed a faulty method, but their work contained a wealth of material absent in German ethnologists on whom Durkheim had leant when he wrote his earlier work, The Division of Labour in 1893 (ibid.). This kind of approach is too vague. The intellectual change of direction - one could almost call it an intellectual crisis - which undoubtedly occurred in the mid-1890s has to be located in the work of Robertson Smith. No one can be sure what in the work influenced Durkheim. Detailed issues about religion and ritual? Concentration on the social inter-relations contained in one society? The need to study in detail a primitive society? Totemism? Philippe Besnard has recently indicated that it is the third possibility that contains the nature of the change (1981:4). Between 1894 and 1895 Durkheim suddenly seems to change from a near indifference to primitive societies to a considerable concern for them, as in the 1894-5 lectures in Bordeaux on religion in which he declared in a letter to Hamelin that a large part of them were devoted to 'les formes elementaires de la religion'. This set of lectures might be seen to cover the dividing line of before and after the 'Smith event'. They are thus difficult to place in one stage or the other. What, however, gives weight to this sensible general solution to the problem is that the lectures on religion

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given in Paris six years later (1901-2) were in fact called 'Les Formes elementaires de la religion'! But the enigma remains. Do 'les formes elementaires de la religion' refer to totemism or to something more general, say to the social components of a preliterate society without regard to its type? Any solution to the problem will have to take into consideration Durkheim's overwhelming concern with totemism, which dominated the lectures he gave in 1906 and 1907 and which was methodologically central in his book - a book which bore a title very similar to the phrase just mentioned (see following chapter, especially section 2).

3 Feverish activity Although the middle period was a highly creative one, it was also one in which Durkheim did not publish a single book. Roughly in the middle of it he moved from the University of Bordeaux to the prestigious Sorbonne. This meant, as we have seen, that in addition to his strictly academic work, he found himself immersed in a great deal of administrative and political activity (see eh. 2.2). Further, he was forced to continue to deliver a considerable number of courses of lectures, some of which he did not appear to relish and would probably have preferred lecturing on more strictly sociological topics (Lukes 1972:619-20). These were in education (see eh. 2.3). Some he had already given in Bordeaux, others he had to prepare de novo. That he published no books meant that his more sustained thought reached only a student audience. For various reasons the lectures could not be published and it was only after his death that they gradually appeared, as certain disciples gained access to the texts and were prepared to edit them. His lectures entitled 'L'Education morale', which he began to deliver in Bordeaux in 1898 and subsequently in Paris, appeared in book form in 1925. Nowhere, perhaps, did he more clearly enunciate his plea for a secular morality which would replace a theologically based morality than in this book. Lectures entitled 'L'Histoire de l'enseignement secondaire en France' were started in 1904 and were expanded and repeated in an almost statutory fashion at the Ecole Normale Superieure for the whole time that 70 LPML0211

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he was professor at the Sorbonne. They were published in 1938 and did not become well-known until recently either in or outside France. In the matter of religion, Durkheim outlines the role of the Church in education from its very early days to modern times. Particularly interesting are his observations about the Jesuits. The lectures point to Durkheim's great ability as a historian (see eh. 23.3). Mention also ought to be made of lectures concerned with Rousseau which Durkheim delivered in 1901-2 and which were posthumously published in 1918 (1918b). In them there appears Durkheim's own closeness to some of Rousseau's views in the matter of religion: that law is religious in nature, that religion is the basis of social order and that a religious foundation is required for morality. In 1896 he gave a course of lectures with the title, 'Cours de sociologie: Physique generate des moeurs et du droit'. These were extended year by year, but a definitive draft was made between 1898 and 1900 (Lukes 1972:255). They were published after the Second World War through the efforts of a Turkish professor of law, H. N. Kubali, who had been introduced to the manuscripts of the lectures by Marcel Mauss. They were published in 1950 and translated as Professional Ethics and Civic Morals in 1957. In these lectures Durkheim attempted to deal with basic moral and legal problems and to show that in the past religion lay close to the foundation of both of them. The importance of this book in understanding the development of Durkheim's religious thought is frequently overlooked. In it are contained in summary form nearly all his major hypotheses on religion: the notion of the sacred, religion as a non-illusory reality, the divinity as a symbolic form of society, the modern cult of the individual and so on. In 1900--1, just before he left Bordeaux, he gave the course of lectures with the title 'Les Formes elementaires de la religion', to which reference has just been made. Their contents are totally unknown. Clearly, from the title, they are a forerunner of his great book, and it is interesting to note that for this Durkheim changed 'religion' to 'religious life'. That Durkheim did not have the satisfaction of seeing a book published in his name during this otherwise very fruitful period can be largely attributed to the time he spent in other activities. In addition to his lecturing and duties of administration there 71 LPML0211

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appeared in 1898 the first issue of L'Annee sociologique. The importance of this journal, both for sociology and the Durkheimian enterprise, has already been noted (see eh. 2.2). The amount of effort that Durkheim put into the production of the journal was enormous. This was not only to be seen in editing and producing it, but also in writing articles and in the numerous reviews which he contributed to it. In reviewing he tended to concentrate on examining books on the family and on totemism, but he also reviewed books which were specifically about religion or which raised religious subjects. According to our reckoning, there were published during this period 21 such articles and reviews, and a good number of items relating to totemism, which he saw as being so important to his analysis of religion (see Table 3.1; Pickering 1975:311-12). Amongst the more important articles which raised religious issues the following should be noted: 'Representations individuelles et representations collectives' (1898b), 'L'Individualisme et les intellectuels' (1898c), 'De la Definition des pbenomenes religieux' (1899a(ii) ), (with Mauss) 'De Quelques formes primitives de classification' (1903a(i)), 'La Determination du fait moral' (1906b). Durkheim covered many topics of a religious kind other than those just mentioned. They are too numerous to be covered separately and only the more important ones will be raised here and in the chapters ahead. From all the evidence available it would seem that he began for the first time to work on the problem of the definition of religion. This he did in one of the articles above, which appeared in the second volume of the Annee sociologique with the title 'De la Definition des pbenomenes religieux' (1899a(ii) ). Whether this article was based on one or several of the lectures Durkheim gave on religion in the series of 1894-5 is difficult to know. It might be argued that it was written as a result of the new insights that he had gained from reading Robertson Smith. As we shall show, the judgment of Lukes that the essay is of little consequence is a hasty one (Lukes 1972:240; see eh. 9). In the essay he convincingly demonstrated the controlling or coercive force that religious beliefs and rituals exercise over individuals (see also 1900c). This encouraged him to attempt to 72 LPML0211

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define religion in terms of a coercive force in a way that fitted in with his definition of a social fact that he had established in The Rules of Sociological Method {1895a). He contrasted religious phenomena which emerged from society and which exerted a 'real' force over individuals with those which were associated with individual religious phenomena and which exerted a more feeble force over the one or the few. The notion of the sacred is raised, but it does not have the dominant place in his system that it was later to assume. He proclaimed religion as the most primitive of all social institutions- the fountain from which all others have emerged {1897e). This was to be reiterated on many occasions as he postulated that religion is the basis of all social institutions (ibid.; 1899a(i) ) . The proposition that religion is based on the notion of constraint rests not least in the fact that its representations have the form of dogmas and myths which demand acceptance (see eh. 15). By contrast, science is not based on such constraint and rests on reason and experiment; it is therefore open to intellectual challenge and to modification (1901h). Traditional religious representations which claim to be true cannot in fact be accepted by intellectuals today. Science by its unfailing method has undermined religious belief in terms of knowledge about phenomena (1925a; 1905a(ii)(2) ). The rationalist contention that religion will automatically die, however, is not true. In the place of traditional religious beliefs there has emerged a common belief in man himself and so man has become a god for men (1898c). Durkheim's theoretical argument rests on the proposition that at the heart of every society there are collective representations which are necessary for its existence. Whether they are to be found within religion as traditionally thought of, or outside it, is beside the point (1899a(ii); 1925a; 1950a). The contemporary cult of man fits the bill admirably (1906e). Crucial to the notion of morality is the authority that supports it: in traditional societies this authority is based on God or some equivalent concept. In modern society, which rejects this particular authority, some other authority has to be found - indeed it already exists. It is in society itself. This in fact has been so all down history (1906e; 1925a). This very close relationship between society and morality, between society and religion, encourages Durkheim once again to state that God is society hypostasized (see eh. 12.2).

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4 Characteristics There can be no doubt that the ten years or so which correspond to the middle period were marked by intense intellectual activity. Durkheim had reached the high plateau of his academic life. Much of the activity was focused on religion. As has already been observed, the first period was one in which religion had full recognition within the sociological framework. The 'revelation' of 1895 acted as a spur in intensifying Durkheim's search for religion in heretofore unrecognized places. It seemed as if he had discovered that religion was the missing key to open most, if not all, sociological doors. Through the 'revelation' he had unearthed what so many had overlooked. His discovery could be said to give rise to the technical name sociologie religieuse and this was inevitably linked with his own name (see eh. 27). It was not that religion was explained through a study of religion, but society now had its mysteries revealed by the mystery of religion and religion itself was to be understood by its relation to society. We have already had occasion to note how during this period, as editor of the new journal, L'Annee sociologique, he devoted much space to religious subjects (see eh. 2.2). In the preface to the second volume published in 1899 he explains this and how he had come to see religion as the basis of nearly all human institutions. This year, as well as last, our analyses are headed by those concerning the sociology of religion. The according of the first rank to this sort of phenomenon has produced some astonishment, but it is these phenomena which are the germ from which all others - or at least almost all others - are derived. Religion contains in itself from the very beginning, even if in an indistinct state, all the elements which in dissociating themselves from it, articulating themselves, and combining with one another in a thousand ways, have given rise to the various manifestations of collective life. From myths and legends have issued forth science and poetry; from religious ornamentations and cult ceremonials have come the plastic arts; from ritual practice were born law and morals. One cannot understand our perception of the world, our philosophical conceptions of the soul, of immortality, of life, if one does not know the religious beliefs which are their

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primordial forms. Kinship started out as an essentially religious tie; punishment, contract, gift, and homage are transformations of expiatory, contractual, communal, honorary sacrifices, and so on. At most one may ask whether economic organization is an exception and derives from another source; although we do not think so, we grant that the question must be kept in abeyance. At any rate, a great number of problems change their aspects completely as soon as their connections with the sociology of religion are recognized. Our efforts must therefore be aimed at tracing these connections. Besides, there is no social science that is more capable of rapid progress, for the materials that have already been gathered are quite considerable and are ready to be elaborated sociologically. (1899a(i): ii/t.1960c:350-1; our italics) His general attitude to religion as the 'open-sesame' of all institutions is seen also in a letter from Paul Lapie to Celestin Bougie, written about this time in 1897. Both were to become members of the inner corps of the Annee Sociologique group. Basically he [Durkheim] is explaining everything at this moment by religion, the prevention of marriages between relatives is a religious matter, punishment is a religious phenomenon in its origins; everything is religious. I could only offer a weak protest. (Lapie 1976:8-9) Is it being too bold to suggest that Durkheim's unbounding enthusiasm for religion as a key to understanding society is reflected in what he saw as the essence of society itself? In his famous essay written at this time, 'Representations individuelles et representations collectives', he states that mental life consists of a complexity of strata, too specialized for the conscious mind to pierce. This can be described as 'spiritual' and as such was at this time becoming subject to positive science (shades of Comte!). And further, if individual representational life can be labelled spiritual, social life is hyperspiritual (1898b/1924a:47-8/ t.1953b:33-4). Of the many ideas that Durkheim dealt with in the second period, some were little more than refinements of concepts and notions that he had established in the earlier period: others were 75 LPML0211

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quite new. He had yet to consolidate and develop the advances he had made in the second period, to add one or two more, so that all his ideas were of a piece. This was the genius of Durkheim - to weave diverse material into an all-embracing pattern. The task was taken up in the last phase of the development of his thought on religion.

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5

The development of Durkheim's thought on religion

Ill The final formulation 1 The work continues with lectures, articles and the book

The third and final period can be said to start with a course of lectures on religion Durkheim gave in the Sorbonne in 1906-7 (1907f) and reaches its peak with the publication of Les Formes e/ementaires de la vie religieuse: le systeme totemique en Australie in 1912. It ends with.Durkheim's death in 1917. It is essentially a period of consolidation and final formulation of ideas, many of ·which were clear in his mind much earlier (Richard 1928:298 n.1). The feverish and creative activity of the middle period continues as Durkheim substantiated his ideas with empirical evidence. All through his academic life he was a prodigiously hard worker. While he was in Bordeaux the rector of the university said he was the hardest working of all the teachers: it is hardly likely that such endeavours were relaxed once he reached Paris. His relentless work pattern probably engendered what might have been something approaching a mental breakdown (see Lukes 1972:100 n.7; Lacroix 1981:147; Besnard 1981:3). Nothing, however, of a serious nature happened. Durkheim continued to give a number of lecture courses at the Sorbonne and other academic institutions, including the Ecole Normale Superieure where he went on with his lectures on the Formation et developpement de l'enseignement secondaire en France (1938a; see eh. 4). With the advent of war, however, the amount of lecturing declined (Lukes 1972:620). As in former periods, most of the lecture courses he gave were on the subject of education of one kind or another. (From the records of courses 77 LPML0211

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given by Durkheim throughout his academic career, 15 out of 26 were on this subject; see Pickering 1979a:101-2.) In the middle period, Durkheim published no books at all: in the final period there was only one, to which we have just referred, which is beyond doubt his greatest work. One book which appeared posthumously touched on religious issues and was based on lectures given in this period. It was entitled Pragmatisme et sociologie (1955a). The lectures on pragmatism were given in the Sorbonne in the academic year, 1913-14, with Durkheim's son, Andre, particularly in mind. They were largely an attack on the work of the American psychologist and philosopher, William James. One lecture was devoted to The Varieties of Religious Experience in which Durkheim held that James neglected the social institutions of religion, such as churches, and emphasized the interior life. He saw another weakness to the indifference of James to theological ideas, particularly whether God exists. He was more concerned with seeing whether or not beliefs about God could be reconciled with religion. Durkheim's work on the Annee sociologique proceeded unabated, with the publication of four volumes. The war curtailed publication and the last issue appeared in 1913. The place given to religion remained much the same in the number of reviews by Durkheim. He wrote no articles on the subject, apait from 'notes' on religious systems in primitive societies, which were mainly concerned with the problem of classification (1910a(ii)(2) and 1913a(i)(2) ). Nevertheless articles and contributions which referred to religion continued to flow from his pen, and these included reviews. We estimate that they numbered 25, including those published posthumously (see Table 3.1). His interest in totemism, so much in evidence in The Elementary Forms, went from strength to strength, if the number of reviews (23) is a guide. In two items Durkheim emphasizes some facets of his thought which are latent elsewhere, but never before clearly enunciated. The first appeared in the proceedings of the Societe Francraise de Philosophie for 1913 in which Durkheim was asked to introduce a discussion of his recently published book on religion (1913b). In a lengthy and complex debate, many themes were raised: animism, naturism, reductionism, the nature of the sacred, religion as an illusion, and so on. Durkheim, however, seemed keen 78 LPML0211

Development of Durkheim's Thought on Religion Ill to put forward his idea that man possesses two components or beings within himself. The duality can be seen in terms of the soul and the body, an extension of the sacred and profane, the egoistic appetites and moral action, the individual and the social. These ideas were reiterated in the second item, an article published a year later, 'Le Dualisme de la nature humaine et ses conditions sociales' (1914a).

2 The 1906-7 lectures: 'La Religion: les origines' The course of lectures 'La Religion: les origines', given in the Sorbonne between 1906 and 1907, was his second. course on religion and heralds, as we have suggested, the emergence of the final period of Durkheim's religious thought. The lectures might be said to constitute the initial draft of The Elementary Forms and would probably not be known to us but for the reporting of them by Paul Fontana for the journal, Revue de philosophie (1907f). Although it was a journal which emanated from the Institut Catholique in Paris, and which claimed to be a liberal and 'open' publication, it is surprising nevertheless that it should have devoted 51 pages of volume VII to the work of a sociologist whose agnostic or atheistic outlook was so well known. Not surprisingly, the editor, Peillaube, found it necessary in the last of three sections, perhaps because of the criticism of readers, to state in an introductory footnote that the intention of publishing the report of the lectures was to offer a simple, objective account of them and that it did not imply editorial approval of the ideas (ibid.:620). Thanks to the journal's interest in secular theories of religion and the realization of the importance of the lectures, we at least possess an outline of what Durkheim said. He starts by declaring the need to define religious phenomena externally so as to distinguish them from other phenomena. Only at the end of the study can one hope to define the essence of religion. The difficulty in defining religion is that as observers or actors, men have preconceived ideas which must be abandoned in order to establish a satisfactory definition. Any such definition must apply to all religions. As in an earlier article (1899a(ii) ) Durkheim rejects notions of 79 LPML0211

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religion based on the work of H. Spencer and Max Muller. He also states that religion cannot be defined in terms of the idea of the supernatural, of God (Reville) and of spiritual beings (Tylor), and to support his case he refers to Buddhism where such concepts are absent. More positively, he states that the definition of religious phenomena must have as its base the notion of the sacred and the profane. They are opposites, separated by interdicts. Magic is excluded from the definition since it is anti-religious. Religion is finally defined as a system of beliefs and practices related to sacred things - beliefs and practices common to a concrete collectivity. In searching for the origin of the notion of the soul, why it is sacred in character and why the worship of souls or spirits is extended to nature, Durkheim criticizes both the animist theories of Spencer and Tylor and the naturist theory of Muller. He turns to totemism as the key. Totemism is the most primitive form of social organization known to man. The totem is the badge: it is society symbolized or hypostasized. Therefore the totem is not only the emblem of the clan, it is the centre of a religious system. Indeed, in totemism man himself is seen to be sacred and the world itself takes on a religious character. Collective totemism which refers to the entire group is differentiated from the profane. Durkheim introduces the concept of mana as religious force, which is basically the totemic principle. Religion is not an illusion. Its reality is seen in the fact that God is society transfigured or hypostasized. Historically, religion has been the point of advance for philosophy and science for it has been their predecessor. Using the evidence of totemism, Durkheim explains the origin and qualities of the soul, spirits, genies, demons, gods. In his analysis of ritual, he develops a typology of negative rites (including interdicts) and positive rites (including sacrifice). He points to the reality of religion to those immersed in it, especially in common worship. Religion is not an aberration. When a group assembles, individual representations are chased away and are seen, through common interests and beliefs, to be profane. Those who participate in such rituals feel a warmth which reassures them and gives them strength. Therefore the cult has something about it that is eternal. There exists an elan d'intelligence which in the absence of logical reasons is the faith without which there can be no religion.

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Development of Durkheim's Thought on Religion Ill This brief resume of the outline of the lectures shows that they roughly correspond to The Elementary Forms published six years later. If Fontana's notes can be relied upon - and we have no reasons to doubt their accuracy, for in many cases there are careful references to books quoted by Durkheim- some important differences can be seen between the lectures and the book. Such differences demonstrate the development of Durkheim's thought during this period. We note the points of difference in summary form. Some will be treated in detail in future chapters. 1 There is some uncertainty in defining religion. The notion of the sacred is now included as well as reference made to a collectivity, but it lacks the sharpness of the 1912 definition. 2 The lectures make some but not exclusive use of Australian Aboriginal material. This is a distinctive feature of the book. In the lectures totemism is treated extensively and in a more general way. 3 There is, not surprisingly, no reference to the 'one wellconducted experiment' (593/4151144), nor do the lectures seem to have been written with this end in view. 4 The notion of effervescence as the fountain of religious vitality, which received added impetus from Durkheim's study of Australian ethnography, is absent, although he had made earlier references to it (see eh. 21). 5 The section on ritual in the book is more rigorously developed, with chapters on imitative, representative and piacular rites. 6 There is no reference to problems of epistemology which were so prominent in The Elementary Forms. 7 The notion of representation is little in evidence. It is legitimate to conclude that most, though not all Durkheim's

ideas on religion, are to be found in the 1906-7 lectures. What Durkheim achieved in the period between the lectures and the book was to refine them, add to them, but above all, substantiate them by an almost exclusive and very detailed application of totemic ethnography of Australian Aboriginal tribes, with some reference to other totemic groups, notably those in North America. His concern for and developed ideas about totemism are very much within this third period.

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3 Les Formes elementaires The publication of what in fact turned out to be Durkheim's most important book, Les Formes elementaires de la vie religieuse: le systeme totemique en Australie in 1912 evoked a great number of reviews. It was a book that could not be disregarded and represented a detailed sociological analysis of religion amongst a primitive Australian people, the Arunta, with references to other totemic groups. Probably no book in the field of religion has combined such a wealth of ethnographic material with theoretical propositions. Needless to say, it contained a host of controversial points, but despite that, it was seen at the time to be a potential classic and indeed it has become so. It was quickly translated into English by an American, J. W. Swain, and published in London and New York in 1915: the translation shows signs of being hurried and although it is far from good it has not been superseded (see Nisbet 1976; also t.1975a:102-66). Interestingly enough, the subtitle of the English translation was: A Study in Religious Sociology and this replaced le systeme totemique en Australie. The reason for the change has never been explained. Was it done with Durkheim's approval? Why the change anyway? Was it to emphasize the sociological nature of the book: that here was a basically new approach in the study of religious phenomena, as indeed it was? Or was it because of the book's reliance on totemism, which had come under particular criticism, that it was thought desirable to omit reference to it in the title? There is no evidence beyond the printed text itself to answer these questions. Some of the conclusions, and indeed part of the argument in the main body of the text, were concerned with the sociology of knowledge which Durkheim claimed had religious roots. Not without significance is the fact that in the third impression of the English translation of 1954 no subtitle was printed. (The writer has attempted to find out why the original change was made to the English translation by writing to the publishers involved, but they have kept no records or correspondence going back to that date.) · The main title is interesting. After rejecting the name he gave to the series of lectures he delivered in 1906-7, he adopted another title that was somewhat familiar. In the fifth volume of the Annee

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Development of Durkheim's Thought on Religion Ill sociologique, which was published in 1902, 'Formes elementaires de la vie religeuse' appeared as a subsection of the second section of reviews called 'Sociologie religieuse'. In the introduction to the section, the authors, Hubert and Mauss, said of 'Formes elementaires de la vie religieuse' (did they invent the phrase?) that the subsection would include items on totemism, rites, beliefs and the organization of primitive peoples (1902:190). This is very much in line with the importance Durkheim attached to his methodological approach (see eh. 6.2). The arguments and propositions of Les Formes elementaires are numerous and complex, some of which will be covered in detail in the pages ahead. For the person who has not read the book we offer an interesting review in the Annee sociologique, which is in fact a resume of the book. It is interestiQg because it was written by the author himself - reviewing his own book! - in conjunction with his nephew, Marcel Mauss (1913a(ii)(ll) and (12):94-8/t.1975a:178-80). One would expect that the resume was accurate, even if it was written not by Durkheim but by Mauss, since he did the ethnographic research. No one has decided who in fact was the author or whether they did it together. By contrast, Frazer's Totemism and Exogamy, vol. IV, was reviewed together with Les Formes. We offer the following quotation.

Durkheim's book differs from the preceding one in its method as much as in its general approach and conclusions. In a comprehensive survey Frazer tried to cover all the peoples among whom totemism in a more or less developed form is to be found. Durkheim, on the other hand, has concentrated all his efforts on a well-defined and limited group of societies; a group, however, among whom the features displayed by totemism are sufficiently pronounced as to enable the study of them to meet with most chances of success. Australia was chosen as the area for observation and everything pointed to its fitness to play this role. Nevertheless, references have sometimes been made to American totemism on those occasions when a comparison could serve to illuminate or to define more accurately the Australian facts. Secondly, whilst for Frazer totemism is merely a disorganized accumulation of magical superstitions, for Durkheim it is a religion in the true sense of the word. What 83 LPML0211

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characterizes religion, in fact, is the distinction between the sacred and the profane. Thus the totem is sacred; it cannot be approached, it is held in respect, it is surrounded by prohibitions and at the same time positive virtues are attributed to it. However, what proves the religious character of totemism better than anything else is the actual analysis of the beliefs and practices of which it is composed. All the essential elements of a religion are to be found among them. Finally, if Frazer refused to see a proper religious system in totemism, it is because he failed to recognize its social character. Durkheim has set himself the task of throwing this character into relief. The object at the centre of totemic religion, the object which is pre-eminently sacred, is not the totemic animal but the pictorial representation of it. It is because this symbol is the emblem or flag of the clan. If the symbol of the group is sacred, is this not because the sentiments inspired by the group relate to the sign which is an expression and a reminder of it? Indeed, Durkheim shows how each collectivity inspires in its members sentiments which are identical in nature with religious sentiments. In a similar way to the deity, it acts on individuals categorically, it demands sacrifices and privations from them and it gives them comfort. It requires that they should act contrary to their nature and it sustains them. These propositions have been established not only by analyses of general psychology, but also by studies of conditions of groups peculiar to Australian societies. The individual within a group is taken out of himself, goes into a genuine state of ecstasy, lives a life sui generis which is contrasted in its intensity and impersonality with the one the individual leads in the course of his ordinary existence. Besides, it is a fact that society produces sacred things at will and then stamps on them the characteristics of religion. If the moral force which is the soul of religion is divested of its material symbols, what remains is collective power. This explains why, in so many lower religions, the power worshipped by the members of the cult is known in an anonymous and impersonal form; it is the Melanesian and Polynesian mana, the wakan of the Sioux, etc. The same idea is also to be found in Australia where the object worshipped in totemism is a vague force which is diffused 84 LPML0211

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throughout the animal (or vegetable) species, throughout the whole clan, at the same time as it is inherent in the totemic emblem. Because this anonymous force is entirely moral, that is to say made up of ideas and sentiments, it can only live and act in and through particular consciences. Accordingly, it permeates them, and in so doing assumes individual characteristics. The fragment which each of us carries within him takes on a particular aspect by the very fact of being intermingled with our individual life, of bearing the imprint of our organism and of our temperament. Each of these fragments is a soul. That is how the idea of a soul came into being. It gives expression to the higher part of ourselves, it is the sum of the ideals which interpret collectivity in us, and which each of us incarnates in his own fashion. The author shows, by analysing Australian and American facts, how indeed the soul is merely a particularized form of the totemic force among these peoples. Along with the idea of the soul, the idea of the personality was introduced into the domain of religion and, as a result, mythological formations of a new kind became possible. From souls to spirits, there is but a single step. Once the idea of spirits was accepted, it was to spirits that the great social or religious institutions were attributed. Thus were born, in the popular imagination, the civilizing heroes. Finally, there is a group of rites which play a leading role in the social life of these peoples, namely, initiation rites. Initiation is not peculiar to any clan; it is a tribal and even an intertribal cult, for representatives of different tribes are summoned to them. The mythical personality connected with these rites, then, occupied a separate place in religion; it was revered not by one clan but by the tribe and even several tribes. As the purpose of the initiation was to 'make men', this personality was also considered to be the creator of humanity. Thence came the idea of a great god, acknowledged by vast groups of human beings and visualized as the father of mankind. With this conception, we are already within reach of every religion which goes beyond totemism. Such conclusions, drawn from the analysis of the beliefs, are subsequently confirmed by a study of the cult, which also

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determines the meaning and functions of the different rites. On this occasion, the author attempts a classification of the principal forms of the cult. First of all, he distinguishes between the negative cult and the positive cult. The first, which is made up of abstentions, consists in the observance of prohibitions. To the negative cult are naturally linked the ascetic rites which are nothing more than the exaggerated practice of the prohibitions. As for the positive cult, it includes all active ritual performances. Those studied in this book are sacrifice, all the essential elements being included in the intichiuma, mimetical rites, representative or dramatic rites, and expiatory rites. The last are in contrast to all the others, as doleful rites are contrasted to joyful ones: they express a special aspect of the cult. In relation to each of these kinds of rite, the author attempts to discover which collective states of the soul they express, maintain, or restore, and in this way to demonstrate the extent to which the details of ritual action are bound up in the most essential aspects of social life. In the end, this interpretation of religion appears, above all, to be consistent with a system of actions aimed at making and perpetually remaking the soul of the collectivity and of the individual. Although it has a speculative part to play. its principal function is dynamogenic. It gives the individual the strength which enables him to surpass himself, to rise above his nature and to keep it under control. The only moral forces superior to those which the individual qua individual has at his command are those issuing from individuals in association. That is why religious forces are and can only be collective forces.

4 Its reception Overall praise for the book was immediate and in some cases almost tumultuous. For example, Gustave Belot, who wrote as a philosopher interested in sociology and was often critical of Durkheim, wrote that Durkheim in his analysis of the religious sentiment 'has extricated from it one of its sources with a force, 86 LPML0211

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an ingenuity, and an original viewpoint, to which one cannot give too much praise' (1913a:356). Indeed, enthusiasm for the book, as well as for Durkheim's work on religion as a whole, was generous even from those who opposed him at several points. Of the many examples available, we mention one or two more. A. A. Goldenweiser wrote: 'Sharp is the author's wit and brilliant his argumentation' (1917:124). And earlier, Malinowski, then little heard of, and who was himself to become as famous as Goldenweiser, said that the book was such 'as could only be given by one of the acutest and most brilliant living sociologists' (1913:531). But praise has continued to be echoed from one generation to another, and for a case in point in more recent times we turn to the leading British anthropologist, Evans-Pritchard, who although sharply critical of Durkheim wrote of The Elementary Forms: Emile Durkheim's thesis is more than just neat; it is brilliant and imaginative, almost poetical; and he had an insight into a psychological fundamental of religion; the elimination of the self, the denial of individuality, its having no meaning, or even existence, save as part of something greater, and other, than the self. (1965:64) The contemporary French sociologist, Raymond Aron, whose outlook is more akin to Weber than Durkheim, praised The Elementary Forms as 'le plus important, le plus profond, le plus original' of all his works (1967a:345). And this is precisely what it is. (Those who wish to encounter further examples of praise could turn to Bellah (1973:xliii-lii), Hartland (1913:92), LaCapra (1972:26), Lukes (1972:482), Worsley {1956:61); and this is but a selection!) Evaluations of specific issues enshrined in The Elementary Forms will appear in the pages ahead. Here we point briefly to general strengths and weaknesses of the book raised by various scholars. The verdict of most was and still is that the book was theoretically brilliant. As Burridge has recently written, some sixty years after it was published: There can be few anthropological studies today which do not in some way stand upon the theoretical insights of Durkheim. (1973:49) The conceptual framework Durkheim produced must always be 87 LPML0211

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seen as 'relevant and significant'. It was later anthropologists who were able to give flesh and blood to Durkheim's theoretical skeleton (ibid.). There were others who took the contrary view. From them the conceptual framework was weak, but Durkheim's attention to detail and his great use of ethnography was much praised. Often such critics felt that Durkheim had undermined the whole religious enterprise by denying the proclaimed truth of religion. Richard was one such person (see especially 1923), but so also was the more anthropologically renowned scholar Wilhelm Schmidt (1868-1954). Writing as a Roman Catholic as well as an anthropologist, he observed that possibly no book had reaped so many eulogies in detail and yet had been so generally repudiated in its main propositions (1926,1:579, quoted in Lowie 1937:198). Claude Levi-Strauss, who on his own admission owed a great deal to Durkheim, wrote somewhat scathingly about Durkheim's theoretical contribution as contrasted to his ability in making ethnographical deductions. He said: 'As a theory of religion, his book is unacceptable, while the best Australian field workers hailed it as the forerunner of the discoveries they made only several years later' (1945:536). Levi-Strauss's comment draws attention to the fact that Durkheim's analysis of totemism was what brought forth most praise or most criticism. The subject of totemism and Durkheim's interpretation is raised in the next chapter (see eh. 6.3). Other anthropological scholars were equally critical of Durkheim's use of ethnographical material - van Gennep, Goldenweiser, Schmidt, Malinowski, and so on. Schmidt made the interesting remark that Durkheim's failures in ethnology were due to the fact that he took such a time to produce the book, which was based on earlier plans and ideas. The sciences of ethnology and comparative religion had moved so fast that they had left behind ideas which Durkheim had acquired earlier and which he had not modified accordingly (1931:115). Apart from the overall question of general praise and criticism of the book that was the culmination of Durkheim's academic work, there is the allied issue of trying to encapsulate The Elementary Forms by describing it or speaking of its essence in a few words or a sentence. Thus, Giddens has recently written: 'The main underlying body of theory [of the book) is functional in 88 LPML0211

Development of Durkheim's Thought on Religion Ill character' (1971:106). Scholars such as Talcott Parsons and Radcliffe-Brown in formulating sociological and anthropological theories have held that Durkheim, through his book, is the founder of what might be called a structural-functional approach not only to religion but to all social phenomena. Seger has written that Durkheim's functional approach to religion 'stands essentially unchanged' (1957:69). She goes on to say that modern scholars have merely added further connections, introduced negative corollaries and made necessary elaborations. Other writers have laid emphasis on this approach of Durkheim, such as Alpert, Bellah, Coser, Nisbet, and so on. A great deal turns on what is meant by function, functional and functionalism. In what precise way or ways Durkheim can be said to be a functionalist in the matter of religion is raised in some detail in chapter 16 below. Whereas early commentators appeared to praise Durkheim for his approach and indeed summed up The Elementary Forms as a functionalist classic, it should not be overlooked that functionalism is no longer seen as a satisfactory theory as it was held to be in the period between, say, 1930 and 1950. But functionalism is not the only mould in which scholars have cast The Elementary Forms. Many social theorists have read into it the foundation or manifestation of a particular theory they support or claim to have founded. Hence Talcott Parsons sees it as being on the verge of a voluntaristic theory of action (1949:439); and again, as containing a general theory of action systems and a treatise on symbolic realism, the forerunner of modern French structuralism (1973:175). It is also basically a theory of social change according to Bellah (1959/r.Nisbet 1965:168ff.), and Pope (1973:411). Stanner, on the other hand, has written that 'the work substantially is a study of the sociology of totemism and of the social determination of categories' (1967:229). Tiryakian (1978:39) holds that its intention was to formulate a new religion, one of overcoming contemporary spiritual malaise or anomy. We do not wish to cite further ways in which commentators have attempted to summarize in a sentence or phrase the message of The Elementary Forms. Our position is that all such 'reductionism' misses the enormous wealth of ideas and imagination which make up the book. It stands beyond all such compression as any classic does. Encapsulation produces distortion and is belit89 LPML0211

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tling. Further, it usually contains overtones which speak of either uncritical enthusiasm or denigration. Another danger, however, of encapsulation is that the perpetrator claims to know the intention of the author. Nothing is more dangerous where it is not overtly stated. All too easily one can read into the book what was not intended. In the case of Durkheim, as we wish to show, no simple formula can do justice to his paradoxical thinking. Any formula merely distorts or oversimplifies. That there have been so many different encapsulations of The Elementary Forms points to its classical nature. All classics have to be interpreted: that they are thought worth interpreting makes them classics (see Introductory Remarks). No one can deny that Durkheim's concern in The Elementary Forms is to unearth the origins of religion. This he openly admits, but goes on to say that he proposes to proceed 'under new conditions' (10/8/109; Durkheim's italics). He planned to do this by exploring in what he called a scientific manner the social consequences of religion, consequences which are ever-present. Here is the one avowed purpose of his book and by that it must be judged (see 1-20/1-28/102-12). There is of course another end in view which relates to the realm of epistemology - in finding a sociological solution to the problem of categories of thought. Durkheim hoped that in studying totemistic groups he could, as it were, kill two birds with one stone. One, the problem of the origins of religion; the other that of the alleged innateness of ideas, we leave to one side, since it raises so many philosophical issues (see Introductory Remarks; 12-28/9-20).

5 Continued glory and demise The publication of Les Formes e/ementaires added to Durkheim's already established prestige. He continued on occasions to reiterate the motif of the book and to introduce one or two new themes (see section 1 of this chapter). The further step he planned was a definitive book on morals (see Pickering 1975). The carnage of the First World War meant a radical curtailment of his academic achievements, and as we have already noted, he turned his attention to the war effort and to the writing of pamphlets to strengthen 90 LPML0211

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as he hoped the morale of his beloved France (see eh. 1.7). In one of the pamphlets (1915c), he touched on religion in referring to its liberal-humanistic form as being a rallying point for the French in their hour of direst need. So ended a sustained and determined effort to combine a scientific approach to religion with undergirding new forms of religion centred on man himself. How Durkheim's analysis of religion fared after his death and the wavering fortunes of the remnant of the Annee Sociologique group are taken up in part VI (chs 27 and 28). In the last few chapters an attempt has been made to divide the development of Durkheim's academic approach to religion into three main periods. This has meant showing in the broad sweep the many themes and ideas he raised in his work on the subject. From now on attention will be focused on a selection of the issues which have been mentioned.

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6

Procedures and assumptions

Just before the Second World War Barnes and Becker, in their study of the founding fathers of sociology, wrote that: Critics have insisted ... that Durkheim introduced quite as many methodological errors as he had rejected. (1938:750) We intend in this chapter to examine a few of the alleged errors and false assumptions in the matter of method connected with his sociological approach to religion, which critics pointed out during his lifetime and which have been referred to ever since.

1 The religious beliefs of the sociologist It has already been observed that Durkheim was from an early age an unrepentant and publicly self-confessed agnostic, even atheist (see eh. 1.2). It has also been noted that he set his heart on examining religion as a social phenomenon and this he did by using what he thought were scientific procedures. Such procedures he believed would be acceptable to any man who stood by the canons of science. He was charged, nevertheless, both in his day and subsequently, with duplicity for failing to approach religion with the neutrality and objectivity of a scientist studying given data. His atheistic outlook meant that at the outset he was biased in denying the reality of the phenomena which is held by the believer - the existence of some supernatural power (see especially, Richard 191la, 1923 and 1925). The charge raises the long-debated issue of the personal beliefs and religious commitment of the scientist or observer in approaching religious behaviour with the intention of understanding or explaining it. Religious issues raise philosophical questions and are emotionally charged. Put in the sentiments of Max Weber, can the scientist be at least initially value-free in looking at what is most likely to 95 LPML0211

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involve him in a personal way? He is surely committed one way or the other. All we wish to do here is to ascertain Durkheim's position. To offer some kind of final solution to the problem is not within our terms of reference and in any case the issue is virtually insoluble. When the subject for analysis is religion, the scientist, according to Durkheim, must be someone who has a certain natural sympathy with the believer and with the ideals of his religion. The scientist must stand where the religious person stands and see the situation through his eyes. Hostility, especially an initial hostility, is as it were counter-productive. In a spontaneous speech about his ideas on religion and given towards the end of his life Durkheim unequivocally declared the need for sensitivity towards religion on the part of the observer. In taking the aggressive atheist to task, he said: 'Let him feel it (the religious sentiment] as the believer feels it; what it is to the believer is really what it is' (1919b:l01/t.l975a:184). As it is necessary to have a poetic ear to understand poetry, so it is necessary to have a religious ear in order to understand what religion is about. Durkheim employs the analogy of seeing colours: he who does not bring to the study of religion a sort of religious sentiment cannot speak about it! He is like a blind man trying to talk about colour. (ibid.) Durkheim also speaks of the impossibility of communicating 'the sense of colours to a man blind from birth' in connection with instilling a sense of the social in someone who is an anarchist (1909a(2):230/t.1979a:137). And he went on to say: I recognized that it was hard for me to convey a notion of what society and morality are to a person whose mind is afflicted with social and moral blindness, so long as he remains in that state. (ibid. :2311138) In the speech just mentioned, Durkheim repeatedly states that the scientist has to be 'religious'. Thus: There cannot be a rational interpretation of religion which is fundamentally irreligious; an irreligious interpretation of religion would be an interpretation which denied the phenomenon it was trying to explain. (1919b:102/t.1975a:185)

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Procedures and Assumptions Durkheim here attacks those rationalists and atheists who see religion as being without any reality, that is, an hallucination, or a force ideologically poisonous or at best totally undesirable. For Durkheim, as we shall see, religious phenomena are real and therefore within the legitimate purview of the scientist (eh. 11). In confronting 'religion in the same mental state as the believer' (ibid.:lOl/184), Durkheim adopts a position which at first sight might seem similar to that of Max Weber in his notion of Verstehen. He held that the sociologist should attempt to see the meaning of a social situation through the eyes of the person experiencing it. Here he was putting forward a formal procedure in the study of social situations, be they religious or otherwise. Durkheim's purpose was slightly different, in so far as he was not proposing what might be strictly called a method but, rather, a sympathetic attitude within a particular methodological approach. When Weber speaks, however, of the necessity of having a 'musical ear' for what is being studied, his sentiments are very close to those of Durkheim. In more recent times Joachim Wach, in many ways inclined towards a Weberian approach to the study of religious phenomena, held that 'the enquirer must feel an affinity for his subject, and he must be trained to interpret his material with sympathetic understanding' (1947:10). Such an approach continues to this day: there seems to be no other. Thus Fabian speaks of the necessity of finding 'a way in' and 'a way out' of field-work - engagement and disengagement (1979:167). Field-workers must have technical competence and at the same time a sympathy for the subject being studied. The scientist, however, is in an ambiguous position. He has to be sympathetic to the outlook and behaviour of the religious practitioner, but he also has to stand outside and take a long, cool, objective view of what is going on. The point is that his sympathy has to be bounded by limits: it is not the same as identity. If the scientist aspires to be totally identified (and total identification is impossible anyway), then his particular approach, his analysis of the situation, will have nothing to offer. He must in some way be different. And Durkheim has no hesitation in pointing to one clear line of demarcation - no scientist can accept the dogmatism of the believer where such dogmatism makes metaphysical assertions about truth. In speaking to Free Believers in 97 LPML0211

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the 1913 conference, in the unrehearsed speech already referred to, he said: To be sure, if he [the believer) values a denominational formula in an exclusive and uncompromising way, if he believes that he holds the truth about religion in a definitive form, then agreement is impossible. (1919b:101/t.l975a:184) More specifically, as we shall show, Durkheim rejects that reality central to belief, the existence of a supernatural power, of gods or God. For him no scientist could accept such a belief for it is directly opposed to the assumptions of science (see eh. 25.2). He had a strong dislike for what might be called apologists for the faith, especially those who wrote 'apologetic sociology', that is, 'sociology' which is used to confirm a spiritual or ecclesiastical standpoint. Such a person was Toniolo, an obscure Italian sociologist (see 1906a(6) ). One might mention other names, people not necessarily writing in the name of sociology, such as Deploige, Laberthonniere and Le Roy. Durkheim saw himself as a figure opposed to any kind of apologetics, be they in the name of religion or those dedicated to its abolition. Science stands in its own right and is to be judged by its own merits. Science saw religion, he claimed, as a system of representations expressing imperfectly a reality (ibid.). The facts of religion, derived in part from history and given special treatment by sociology, are to be treated with respect. Science always adopts a reverential attitude towards facts: science needs no apologetic. The ambiguity of Durkheim's position arises from his use of the notion of reality. His assumption is to deny the proclaimed reality and to concentrate on that reality which might be said to transcend the transcendent. Thus, Durkheim could say: If, however, he [the believer) considers that formulae are only

provisional expressions which last and can only last a certain time, if he thinks that they are all imperfect, that the essential thing is not the letter of these formulae but the reality they hide ... I believe that up to a certain point there is an enterprise we can embark upon by common consent. (1919b: 101-2/t.1975a: 184-5) Despite Durkheim's assertion that science has to be free from metaphysical speculation ( 1895a/1901c: 139/t.1938b: 141)- and who 98 LPML0211

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would disagree with him? - the claim that science was able to declare what is real is something which indeed is to be challenged (see eh. 15). His scientism was criticized by a doctoral candidate, J. Segond, who wrote a thesis on prayer and presented it in 1911 in the University of Paris. We quote part of the conversation (1911e:33/t.1968e/r .1972:652): mystics do not understand the essence of prayer. You have to look for it. SEGOND: Who knows this essence? DURKHEIM: We do, when we study phenomena. SEGOND: Phenomena are not minds. DURKHEIM: Let us leave that aside ... DURKHEIM: • . .

It is obvious that Durkheim is not content to let phenomena

determine what is real. The scientist must go beyond phenomena to find reality and his superior knowledge enables him to do this. Apart from such extravagant claims, the issue of reality or essence remains very much with the philosopher, not the scientist. In philosophical circles today, however, it is seldom considered. In the last analysis, it is argued by most that what is real cannot be objectively determined, but is subjectively selected. Durkheim, in enunciating principles by which sociology is to proceed as a science, stated that initially 'all preconceptions, no matter their kind, had to be eradicated' (1895a/1901c:311 t.1938b:31). Here he stands very much in the tradition of Descartes in doubting all ideas previously received in order to arrive at the truth. Political and religious beliefs which carry with them such emotional overtones are particularly hostile to any firm beliefs which may challenge or contradict them. It is repugnant to some people that ideas they hold dear should be examined objectively in 'cold, dry analysis' (ibid.). None the less such analysis is required in a scientific examination of social facts. No one today would quibble with such a position. To drive home his case Durkheim gives an example of someone who does not in fact take this stand. He quotes some words from James Darmsteter, professor at the College de France, who was an authority on the history of religions and translator into French of the Zend Avesta. Woe to the scholar who approaches divine matters without 99 LPML0211

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having in the depth of his consciousness, in the innermost indestructible regions of his being, where the souls of his ancestors sleep, an unknown sanctuary from which rises now and then the aroma of incense, a line of a psalm, a sorrowful or triumphant cry that as a child he sent to heaven along with his brothers, and that creates immediate communion with the prophets of yore! (ibid.:33/33) Durkheim has nothing to do with what he labels as the 'mysticism' implied in the quotation, and mysticism for him is 'essentially a disguised empiricism, a negation of all science' (ibid.). There can be no doubt that Darmsteter allows his mind full imagination in describing in somewhat idealist terms the nature of religious sympathy. But conceding such imagination, does not Durkheim's condemnation conflict with his demand, already mentioned, that some kind of 'religious resonance' is required on the part of the inquirer or listener? And supposing there is a contradiction here in Durkheim's thought, one is tempted to suggest two possible explanations. Either Durkheim changed his position from the early 1890s or earlier to the period just before the First World War, so abandoning a rigidly defined position which lacked religious sympathy, to one that was coupled with more understanding; or that his thought in this matter indeed contains an inbuilt paradox where the observer or listener has to be both sympathetic and at the same time unsympathetic. Which of these alternatives is correct is difficult to say. It depends a great deal on what Durkheim meant by mysticism, which according to Richard he strongly disliked and attacked (Richard 1923:130/t.l975:233; see eh. 1.2). Is Darmsteter in fact appealing to mysticism and saying that it is necessary to have some kind of mystical experience in order to understand religion? Or, is he not rather putting forward the notion that the religious observer can only do his work if he has some kind of religious resonance with the people or phenomena he is studying? One is inclined to believe that the first of the alternatives just mentioned is correct, and that there was a change in Durkheim's attitude to a recognition that the sociologist who studies religion must have a strong reverence for it. In the early days of his writing, when he was trying to establish sociology, he was forced to make out a case for ice-cold objectivity, but as he grew more sure of himself in later years he was prepared to take 100 LPML0211

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a less rigid stand and to see the necessity of the sociologist getting near to the religious person in order to understand the nature of religion itself. Richard's judgment about Durkheim is too harsh and misses the point. Richard wrote: Religion appears to be explained through the eyes of someone who considers it without living it and who sees it to be only a purely external phenomenon. (1923:234/t.1975:245) Similar attacks came from the Catholic apologist, Deploige (1905, 1907 and 1911). Richard assumes the untenable position that the only person who is capable of understanding religion is someone who is a firm believer. It is now generally agreed that a sociologist who embarks on a study of religious phenomena must adopt agnostic procedures and should hold an open mind about the existence of superhuman forces (see eh. 28.2). A strong denial or strong affirmation about such forces or beings undermines a scientific approach. As Stanner has written: It is plainly a mistake to allow enquiry to be ruled by the

philosophical notion that religion or metaphysical objects do not exist. They do exist for many peoples under study and the facts of study are what they are because of that. To ignore it is to manipulate the facts illegitimately. (1966:viii) Although Durkheim's scientism is to be rejected, his attempt to look at religious phenomena dispassionately and to reject apologetic extremisms has led to the development of the sociology of religion and to the acceptance of a method which has proved to be very valuable. As Le Bras said: In a period when religion was only the subject of blind squabbling and frequently bitter passions for the majority of Frenchmen, Durkheim appeared advocating a scientific study of social facts, and even if all his conclusions could not command the assent of Christians, they were presented with calm and tact. (1966:53) Georges Davy, not a Catholic as was Le Bras, saw that Durkheim's zeal as a prophet never prevented him making an objective

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study, and in Davy's eyes an honourable study of religious phenomena and their permanent significance (1960:6).

2 The careful experiment In accordance with the aims of science Durkheim wished to establish generalizations about religion and its place in the structure of society. Such generalizations would have universal applicability, irrespective of the type of religion and the society in which it was found. To create these universals it w~s necessary to examine carefully a particular society, or in other words, in the spirit of science, to undertake 'one well-conducted experiment' from which laws could be deduced (593/415/144; see also 1901a(iii)(17):341). Such an 'experiment' stood at the heart of Les Formes elementaires. Indeed, it might be said that the book is a writing-up of the experiment. Durkheim felt that to concentrate on one society and focus on its religious institutions as a whole was a far superior methodological procedure than to follow the one then in vogue, the comparative method (133/94). It may well be, as we have suggested, that Durkheim adopted this method from reading Robertson Smith's book on the Semites (see eh. 4.2). There can be little doubt that focusing on a particular soCiety in order to advance anthropological and sociological knowledge became well established as a result of Durkheim's work. Of course ethnographic studies existed before the time of Durkheim and indeed he relied on them in his book, but what he attempted to do was to go beyond the ethnographic and to derive from it generalizations which heretofore had been sought only by the comparative method. Durkheim thus rejects the method of such anthropologists as Frazer and Tylor, who attempted to compare particular elements in different societies and make generalizations aboutthose elements (1913a(ii)(ll) and (12):96/t.l975a:178). LeviStrauss states what is now perhaps a truism, namely, the method of the one well-tried experiment avoids the pitfalls of the comparative method in extracting common elements from disparate societies and from such relatedness making deductions (1945:516). Having postulated the need to explore the relations between 102 LPML0211

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religious phenomena and other social phenomena within one society, the question arises what kind of society should be selected for the experiment? It is tempting to suggest that any society would do, in the same way as any piece of zinc or any portion of human tissue can be used in experiments in the natural sciences. But Durkheim seems to reject this openness. For his 'experiment' he deliberately sought a particular type of society, one totemic in organization, and for this purpose he settled for the Arunta of central Australia. He also turned to totemic groups in North America when evidence was lacking in that tribe. He selected such societies because he believed that they exhibited the most simple of social structures - structures devoid of accretions which accumulate in the course of development. In Durkheim's eyes the need was to select for experimental purposes the most basic type of society known to man. The simpler the structures, the easier it would be to draw generalizations. Thus, the 'experiment', the raw data, rests solely on ethnographical material about the Arunta and associated tribes which, at the time that he was writing, was becoming widely known to anthropologists through a number of field-workers such as Spencer and Gillen, Mrs Parker· and Strehlow. All seems set to proceed, but logical and commonsensical as these methodological assumptions appear, several criticisms and queries arise at the very outset. We select three of them. (a) Is it that only one experiment is really necessary? (b) Can universals be drawn from primitive religion? (c) Was it necessary to employ a totemic group? Durkheim claims that his conclusions are derived from one careful study. His reasoning is clearly in line with methods used in certain natural sciences. But has he judged aright? Surely no scientist would claim that just one experiment 'proves a law', especially an initial experiment. Rather, scientific certainty is derived from repeating similar experiments whieh produce similar results and so 'demonstrate' the law. And in more sophisticated Popperian analysis, experiments may be performed in order to try to falsify the law or to show under what conditions the law is or is not applicable. The point is that experiments can often go wrong, mistakes are made, freak results occur, calculations turn out to be inaccurate. These errors have to be eliminated before 103 LPML0211

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one is sure that the experiment 'works'. In his assertion about the 'one well-conducted experiment' Durkheim assumes that it is well conducted, that no miscalculations have been made, that all alien factors have been accounted for or eliminated. Strangely enough, he does not ask for further experiments to be carried out, say with other tribes, or the experiment to be tested in a modern industrial society. In this Durkheim exhibits a dogmatic pride. He presents a QED: his conclusions can be no other than they are. That he performed an experiment of the kind he did is totally acceptable: what is to be challenged is the notion that further experiments have no merit since, a priori, the outcome will be the same. The humility and caution of the great natural scientists in making their claims appear to be absent in Durkheim, whose intention it was to make sociology a science. What worried many critics at the time was that Durkheim, in deriving conclusions which applied to religions as a whole, made his starting-point a primitive religion. He happily moved from the Arunta to Christianity, and thence to modern humanistic forms of religion derived from it. Here was the rub. It was unpalatable that one could compare in a positive way facets of a primitive religion with those of a most sophisticated religion, which often for the critics contained ultimate truth. The Catholic modernist philosopher, E. Le Roy, attacked Durkheim at this point in the famous 1913 debate (see 1913:94) and Loisy, also a Catholic modernist and a theologian, made a similar point in a critical review (1913:46). Loisy went further when he accused Durkheim of defining religion in terms of inferior religions and not the most developed religions. Such critics did not object to Durkheim studying primitive religions per se and making generalizations about them. This is a laudable practice. What is wrong is to cross the line and to state that what applied to one applied to all. What relates to the primitive has to stay with the primitive. Such limitations were completely contrary to Durkheim's overall intention. With no strong personal religious conviction, van Gennep held that it was wrong to make generalizations about religion - a continuing institution - from forms such as totemism, which have ceased to be or never were vital to the institution in question (1920:43). Now, it should be said that unlike Tylor, Frazer and Spencer, 104 LPML0211

Procedures and Assumptions Durkheim did not despise the religion of 'inferior' societies; he neither denigrated it nor wrote it off as superstition and hocuspocus. He had a reverence for all religion, including primitive religion (see eh. 23). For him it was not barbaric or stupid, but had an important and significant place in the lives of its practitioners. What people did had social purpose and meaning and this applied as much to those participating in primitive religion as it did to those involved in Christianity (see eh. 11). All religions are 'species of one and the same genus' (6/41106). Durkheim wrote: Primitive religions are no less worthy of respect than any other. They answer the same necessities, they play the same role, they are subject to the same causes. Just as much as any other religions, they are able to demonstrate the nature of religious life and consequently help to resolve the problem that we intend to study. (4/31104) In one sense this begs the issue. It is a case of petitio principii (see Lukes 1972:31). In the book he sets out to make generalizations derived from primitive religions which apply to those of a more sophisticated kind, whereas in the quotations just mentioned he reads into primitive religions facets of more developed religions. It has been pointed out by Raymond Aron that Durkheim was able to leap from totemic religions to religions of salvation, from the simplest to the most developed, because he held that fundamentally all religion is the same in that it is society worshipping itself (1967b, 1:65; but see eh. 16). It should, however, be pointed out that what Durkheim was trying to do in the opening of The Elementary Forms was not to propose a formal definition of religion, which was to come later, but to try to defend the soundness of his scientific procedure in focusing on a primitive society. He only wished to do one thing and that was to convince his readers that religion amongst primitive peoples had to be taken with as much seriousness as amongst societies in Europe. In order to make his point he used arguments which gave too much away. He might have warded off attacks, if he had made an appeal for a sympathetic understanding of the place of religion in primitive societies in the way in which he did in his extemporaneous speech in 1913 (1913b; see section 1 of this chapter). In his arguments to demonstrate the importance of primitive religions, one sees the search for something essential 105 LPML0211

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behind the phenomena. This inevitably gives rise to considerable philosophical and theological problems. As we have just seen, there were those who criticized Durkheim not so much for leaping from primitive to developed religions as in defining religion in a way that suited primitive religion. To define it thus inevitably skews the final outcome. This is not really a serious charge and Durkheim categorically repudiated it face to face with his accusers (1913b:94). In so far as his final definition of religion is concerned, it applied equally to all religions and this he always said was a basic premise of establishing the definition (see eh. 9). He always admitted the variability of the content of religion in different societies (see Belot 1909:6). It worried him in his early attempt to delineate and define religion when external characteristics were the sole criterion. He therefore sought common characteristics beneath the surface. Today anthropologists and sociologists are less keen to make the leap that Durkheim never thought twice about making. Thus, Stanner, in his work amongst Australian pre-literate societies the very societies on which Durkheim based his arguments - said, and it seems he had Durkheim very much in mind, that he thought he ought to take an Aboriginal religion 'as significant in its own right' and not to use the study 'mainly to discover the extent to which it expressed or reflected facts and preoccupations of the social order' (1966:vi). Stanner's intention was to study the religion as it is and 'not as a mirror of something else' (ibid.). Further, he resisted the temptation 'to draw from the single instance any conclusions about all religion' (ibid.). In contrast to Durkheim, here is a case of science proceeding slowly and carefully accumulating data from various 'experiments' and so eventually reaching, it is hoped, the generalizations. Conclusions of wide applicability are not sought in haste. It is assumed that one of the reasons why Durkheim sees religions as 'all species of the one and same genus' (6/4/106) is that he is an evolutionist in the broad sense of the word, that is, he holds that social institutions develop in the course of time. As history proceeds, it produces within them accretions and complexities. There is thus continuity and change. It is true that a phenomenon can be studied in any of its forms, early or late, but in order to understand what is happening it is best to analyse it as the point of its basic structure. With such a general evolutionist approach, 106 LPML0211

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and drawing on the methods of biology, Durkheim held that basic structures were to be found in what is primitive - what is historically early. Thus, to see religion most clearly and in its essential components it is necessary to study it in its most simple, that is, its most primitive form, before it has been 'denatured' or dissected by 'studied' reflections as man tries to explain his own actions (9/ 7/108). In the selection of a totemic society Durkheim thought he had found the simplest and most basic social structures known to man - a society therefore which fulfilled his initial theoretical considerations. Not without good reason, he decided that the title of the book should include the phrase les formes elementaires (see chs 4.3 and 5.3). The core of his argument rests precisely on these elementary totemic forms - what they are and what they mean. In a letter Durkheim wrote to Richard in 1899 he said: 'There are . . . a certain number of elementary notions (I do not say of logical simplicity) which dominate all man's moral evolution' (1928b:299 n.1). Here indeed is Durkheim's confession of evolutionism! In fact, according to Schmidt 'Durkheim revelled in the most orthodox forms of Evolutionism' (1931:116). Evans-Pritchard went too far in calling Durkheim 'an evolutionary fanatic' (1981:161). When Marc Boegner challenged Durkheim as to whether or not the most rudimentary forms of religion revealed its essential elements, Durkheim, interestingly enough, defended himself in part by admitting the advantages in studying more advanced forms and said: I will go so far as to add that a certain knowledge of more advanced forms helps in understanding the simpler forms. It is, however, with these latter that research must first concern itself. (1919b:143/t.1975a:188) One wonders what precisely the knowledge of more advanced forms was. Are there not signs in the hiddenness of what he is saying of some uncertainty? Is he not in fact reading into primitive religions a priori elements derived from religions of advanced societies? Was it in fact necessary for Durkheim to employ data deliberately and exclusively of a totemic tribe? Talcott Parsons thought not (1937:411). He suggested that the ethnographic details were incidental to the general theoretical analysis of religion. In one 107 LPML0211

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sense he is right, because if the experiment threw up conclusions which have universal validity, any society in which there is a religious system would do to 'prove' them. That is an obvious scientific inference. Is not the whole enterprise thrown into jeopardy, if this principle is denied? Seger, in supporting Parsons and attacking critics, held that the Australian material was of little value and that Les Formes elementaires could have been written 'without more than passing reference to Australian or any other primitive peoples' (1957:20). Seger apparently makes little distinction between a theory and its proof and would seem to subscribe to the contention that Durkheim's theories are selfevident or based on common sense. Yet the fact remains that religions are open to great variability and it would appear that what one can deduce from a particular religion must also be variable, for certain facets of religion are absent in one religion but present in another. Durkheim could hardly have drawn the conclusions he did about ritual, had he chosen a modern western society, where the overriding religious system might be said to be that of humanism, what he called the cult of the individual (see eh. 26). Indeed, it seems that he deliberately avoided carrying out detailed studies of the religion of his day, save those in connection with suicide (see 1897a). Stanner strongly supports the idea that it is impossible to separate the subject-matter of the book from the details of the society studied. 'In the matter of aboriginal religion ... the details are the very stuff of the "crucial" experiment' (Stanner 1967/ r.1975:301). 'The experiment is crucial to the theory' (ibid.). Stanner's position is strengthened by the fact that Durkheim set his sights specifically on a society that had not been secularized, even in Durkheim's sense of the term (see eh. 24). It would seem that his intention was to choose a group in which religion was allpervasive, that is, where its influence was at a maximum and at the same time to avoid societies where religions or world-views coexist, as in pluralism. There is therefore truth in the contention that Durkheim sought for his experiment a society characterized by mechanical solidarity, that is, by sameness of belief and action amongst its members, rather than one marked by organic solidarity, which may be said to be held together by a high level of division of labour (see 1893b). In the first type of society, as Durkheim had declared in his 1893 thesis, religious and social life 108 LPML0211

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are virtually synonymous (ibid.:1431169). While it is evident that in the notion of mechanical and organic solidarity Durkheim was referring to ideal types, nevertheless his choice of a totemic society was one in which he believed that the influence of religion was as great as that in any society known to man. In the course of events Durkheim's choice was not the best for his purposes. Totemic societies are not the earliest known to man nor are they the simplest (see the following section). Van Gennep was not slow to make the point in reviewing Les Formes elementaires: for him Australian societies were 'highly complex', not simple and primitive as Durkheim held (1913:389/t.1975:206; and 1920:42). One sees that in Durkheim's theoretical position there is a conflict - the search for what is structurally simple - some simple, primitive form; and at the same time wanting to find a society where religion is all-pervasive, encompassing the whole of a society's life. These demands may be contrary to one another. Where religion embraces the whole of society, it is more than likely on logical grounds, to be more complex than in cases where it touches only limited areas of life, as in a modern society in the throes of secularization. It is difficult to see how one can have it both ways. Perhaps it was that Durkheim held that in a society where religion was all-encompassing, its belief-systems would be simple and straightforward and its rituals easy to understand. This would seem almost to deny his fundamental position of entering sympathetically into the religious beliefs and practices of those whom the anthropologist is studying. The observer admits this in his heart, but with his mind he is sceptical and assumes that primitive religious systems are somewhat naive, that is, elementary. They are simple to their intellectual reasoning and in what they are trying to achieve. Continual ethnographic and anthropological research today points to an opposite conclusion.

3 The issue of totemism As Durkheim's earlier book on suicide (1897a) was based to a large extent on statistical material and is often seen to be a classic in the use of that kind of data, so his Elementary Forms is a classic in its exclusive and extensive use of ethnographical material 109 LPML0211

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related in the main to one tribe, the Arunta. Three-fifths of the chapters are devoted to such material. Of the many issues raised by the publication of Les Formes elementaires, the one which caused most debate amongst specialists in anthropology was Durkheim's use of ethnograpic material, and in particular his interpretation of totemic societies.! At the time he was writing, totemism was a key issue on which a vast amount of intellectual effort was expended. When Durkheim's book was published the dust was beginning to settle and totemism was ceasing to be the anthropological issue. An increasing quantity of ethnographic material came to light in the period from the late 1880s to the time just before the First World War. This challenged, amongst other things, evolutionary theories, which saw totemism as a crucial stage through which every society was believed to have passed, and which was held to be the earliest societal form known to modern man. Since that time totemism has become one subject amongst others. Most of the outstanding issues seem to have been laid to rest, not least by Levi-Strauss in his small book published in the 1960s, Le Totemisme aujourd'hui (1962a; see also Poole 1969). It is interesting to note that when Durkheim introduced a discussion on his then recently published book at a meeting of the Societe Franc;aise de Philosophie, there was not one reference to the religious beliefs and practices of the Arunta made either by Durkheim or his interlocutors (1913b). It was in anthropological reviews that specific questions about totemism were raised by such academics as Goldenweiser, Malinowski, Schmidt and RadcliffeBrown in correspondence with Durkheim (see Peristiany 1960; also eh. 5.4). With the controversies over totemism now a matter of history, those who are drawn to read Les Formes elementaires do so for insight and inspiration within the confines of the sociology of religion (or perhaps epistemology), and for the brilliance and interrelatedness of ideas of a theoretical kind, not for an accurate analysis of totemic material. Durkheim cannot be seen to be an authority on totemism, and today the subject stands within the province of a highly specialised anthropology. For these reasons totemism will not be dealt with here in detail, either in itself, or in connection with Les Formes elementaires, except to offer a few general comments that might be of interest. Steven Lukes has

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made careful resumes of the issues which can be easily consulted (1972:454, 477-82, 520-9). To summarize Durkheim's own position, it could be said that he saw in totemism a primitive and even ab origine principle of social life. As a type of social organization through which every society has passed, totemism was therefore a social logos (van Gennep 1913/t.1975). It was a religious system intimately linked with the social. In it, therefore, was not only a social but also a religious logos. Perhaps by accident, but more likely by design, he chose a type of society - a pantotemism - which suited his purposes excellently. Stanner's contention is that after 1895- after his 'conversion'Durkheim turned to a study of totemism, for until then he had not seen it 'either as part of a social arrangement leading to religion or as the source of all religions' (1967/r.1975:281). To help him achieve the enormous task of mastering the mass of material which then was emerging on totemism, he was aided by his nephew, Marcel Mauss, who undoubtedly provided Durkheim with selections of materials used in Les Formes elementaires (see Karady 1968:xxvii n.40). As we have seen, Durkheim ·also reviewed a large number of books and articles on the subject in the Annee sociologique (see eh. 4.3; also the bibliography in Pickering 1975:311-13). Very shortly after the 1895 incident, Durkheim published as the first article of the first issue of the Annee sociologique, 'La Prohibition de l'inceste et ses origines' (1898a(ii)). Durkheim used Australian totemism to maintain his argument that the totem is a god; that it is related to exogamy, which itself rests on the incest taboo. Clearly the article forms a prelude to the later book. By 1908 such had been his reading on totemism that he knew, he said, more about the primitive people of Australia than he did about Frenchmen (1908a(3) ). Durkheim, as an armchair anthropologist, in the company of Frazer, Tylor, McLennan, Hartland and many others, relied on the findings of missionaries, colonial administrators and professional ethnographers. There have been both good and bad armchair anthropologists. In which category was Durkheim? Did he perform his 'one well-conducted experiment' with care? To answer these questions one can only rely on the comments of experts, of those who were contemporaries of Durkheim as well as those who have continued to study totemism. 111 LPML0211

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There is always the problem of the reliability of sources, of the accuracy of the observation of field-workers. Van Gennep, who himself wrote extensively on totemism, accused Durkheim of never once doubting the quality of the findings of others (1913:389/ t.1975:205). Goldenweiser made the same point (1915:723ff.). For van Gennep the materials available through the works of Howitt, Spencer and Gillen were full of errors and were not to be relied on. Ethnographically, he held, Australia like South America was a 'dark continent'. Van Gennep was scathing, stating that Durkheim had gone headlong into the Australian labyrinth where so many others, such as Lang and Schmidt, had lost their way (1913:389/t.1975:206). In van Gennep's doctoral thesis published in 1920, his attack was more sustained and detailed. One of the reasons why Durkheim failed to analyse totemism correctly was because of his doctrine of society being sui generis, which led him to see the totem as a god (1920:4(}...1). The point quite simply was that Durkheim was not au courant with the thought of anthropologists on totemism (ibid. :68). There was the question of the legitimacy of deductions. Wilhelm Schmidt attacked Durkheim for making totemism his pantotemism - the source of religion and deducing religious ideas from totemism: totemism is related to magic (1931:117). Goldenweiser held that it was wrong for Durkheim to see individual totemism, a belief in guardian spirits, as being an extension of clan totemism (1915:725). He also held that when Durkheim could not find relevant material amongst the Australian aboriginals (for example, there was an absence of totemic tattooing), he readily fell back on North American data (ibid.:724). Evans-Pritchard, at a somewhat later date, criticized Durkheim for being wrong in seeing the clan as the corporate group; rather it is the horde or tribe (1965:65). And, Stanner, speaking with the authority of one who has done extensive research into Australian Aborigines, said that Durkheim showed misunderstanding of Australian tribes by falsely distinguishing the totemic clan from the local group or clan and by relying too much on evidence from central Australia (1967:225). These brief examples, where 'Durkheim the anthropologist' lays himself open to criticism, should be balanced by those of an opposite kind where his work in connection with the Arunta is praised. Goldenweiser spoke warmly of his originality (1915:727). 112 LPML0211

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And R. H. Lowie, critical of Durkheim at many points, gives him high marks for The Elementary Forms, which he says is 'the only comprehensive effort since Tylor's day to unify religious data from a wholly novel angle' so that methodologically it reveals 'considerable acumen' (1925:154). He summed up the work as 'a noteworthy mental exercise' and would rank it as a land mark 'if dialectic ingenuity sufficed to achieve greatness in empirical sciences' (ibid.:157). Malinowski also spoke well of Durkheim's use of ethnographic material (1913). About ten years after Durkheim's death, Lloyd Warner spent three years in North-East Arnhem, west of the Gulf of Carpenteria, studying groups called Murngin. His task, it was said, was to rework Durkheim's theses by undertaking original field-work. His endeavours were greatly praised by Elkin (1937), himself an authority on Australian aboriginal ethnography. Elkin held that Durkheim showed great ability in analysing the ceremonial and social life of the Arunta from secondary sources and his conviction was substantiated by the findings of Warner. In passing, it might be noted that in A Black Civilization (1937), Warner showed himself to be no slavish follower of Durkheim. Citing his own work on the ritual of the Murngin, he was critical of Durkheim's definition of magic and held, in opposition to Durkheim, that it could not be separated from religion. He pressed his point by stating that magical activity amongst the Murngin possessed an organizational element akin to that of religion - a point he made in great detail in an article which he published a year earlier than the book (1936). More recently Evans-Pritchard, despite the fact that he was an authority on certain African tribes, not Australian, wrote: 'I am convinced that no field study of totemism has excelled Durkheim's analysis' (1960:24). And more specifically: In his treatment of totemism he shows the total inadequacy of those who take the view . . . that it is to be explained in terms of utility, and he shows, I think, convincingly that the regard paid to the totemic creatures is both secondary and symbolic. (ibid.:18-19) Yet Durkheim's analysis was inadequate, according to EvansPritchard. He never asked the question, what is totemism? And he wrongly thought that North American totemism (where the 113 LPML0211

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word 'totem' is found) is the same as that of central Australian tribes (1981:157ff.). We have briefly presented evidence to show that authorities have been equally divided about Durkheim's use of the totemic material. Great criticism is balanced by great praise. Much of the weakness of his position arises from the assumptions that he made about totemism and, although we do not wish to enter into a detailed consideration of these, below is presented, in summary form, generally agreed conclusions about totemism which contradicted Durkheim's assumptions. Totemism is a pattern of social organization, not a religion or form of religion. Not all societies have gone through a phase of totemism. The Arunta are not the most primitive tribe known to man. Australian totemism is not typical of totemism as a whole. Totemism is not always associated with clans. Totemism is not the same throughout all aboriginal tribes in Australia and elsewhere. Totemism and clan organization are highly complex (a society which has the most primitive material culture does not necessarily have a primitive system of social organization). Members of a primitive society do not have such uniformity of thought as Durkheim imagined. Durkheim implied incorrectly that primitive man cannot distinguish between many things which are clearly differentiated by modern man.

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7

The sacred and the profane: the ground of religion

I Defining the two poles 1 Introduction For Durkheim, at the heart of every religion stands the sacred. Religion rests on the simple fact that men from time immemorial and in all societies have given certain objects, people and ideas an inviolable status. Around such objects which constitute the domain of the sacred, religion functions through related systems of belief and ritual. In this sense, Durkheim gives a prior place to the sacred even over religion itself. This primacy appears not only in his definition of religion, which will be discussed in a following chapter, but in his analysis and aetiology of religion. One of the consequences of making the sacred, which is an irreducible entity, the reality of religion is that religion is treated in a much wider context than it might otherwise have been, if, for example, the base were a belief in supernatural beings or the notion of the spiritual. There can be no doubt that Durkheim's strong adherence to the sacred and his development of the concept opened up new horizons in the realm of anthropology and sociology, which through the influence of the Annee Sociologique school have had lasting consequences. Durkheim must be credited for much of the responsibility for encouraging scholars to assume and develop such an approach to religion. Some would go so far as to say that, forgetting all else he wrote, this was his greatest contribution to the discipline (for example, Lalande 1932, 2:722). There are others, on the other hand, who would challenge its value and would maintain that Durkheim's strongly reasoned but rigid position has been instrumental in holding back anthropological studies of religion, as Stanner has argued in his detailed appraisal of certain aspects of Durkheim's work (1967/r.l975:290). 115 LPML0211

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However, one thing is quite clear: it is tha:t no one before, or perhaps subsequently, has so systematically and rigorously applied the concept of the sacred to the whole area of religious and even social life. Praise continues to be accorded to Durkheim's power of logical development, but at the same time, as has often been said and as we wish to demonstrate, the term has proved difficult to handle in the way he envisaged it. We shall only briefly point to the way Durkheim developed the concept in the early periods of his academic life. By contrast, it was Hubert and Mauss who worked more on the idea than did Durkheim (see Isambert 1976). They extended the notion of the sacred from the ideas of Robertson Smith, as in their essay on sacrifice (1899).

2 Durkheim's development of the notion of the sacred For many years Durkheim struggled to produce a definition of religion required by his conceptualist approach to science and at the same time one that would fit coherently into his system of social thought (see eh. 9). He wanted to discover a satisfactory base to analyse religion scientifically and at the same time a base that delineated the essential elements of religion, or what one might call the reality of religion. From early times he rejected those definitions which were related to theories of naturalism and animism. But despite the problems of definition, he seems always to have accepted the validity of the concept of the sacred. He was hardly a pioneer in employing the term, for he was considerably influenced by Fustel de Coulanges who used it in analysing social life in the Roman Empire. Reading Robertson Smith in 1895 obviously confirmed his predilection for the term, although he was to go well beyond Robertson Smith's use in developing the sacred-profane dichotomy (see eh. 4.2). In 1899 in his essay 'Concerning the definition of religious phenomena' there were the first signs of his developing the concept systematically. Although he was convinced of the centrality of the sacred in religious and social life, he defined religion in that essay not in terms of sacredness but of obligation. This paper could well be called an early essay on the sacred. He refers to the primacy and independence 116 LPML0211

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of the sacred over gods; he saw ritual as the action-element of religion which was concerned with sacred things; he points to the irreducibility of the sacred and the fundamental place of the sacred-profane dichotomy in religious and social life, and so on. A good many of his theses on the sacred appear in this early paper. They were never denied subsequently: they were merely amplified. The notion of the sacred, and with it the profane, began to appear in various contexts within articles, lectures and books which flowed from Durkheim's pen. We shall have occasion to refer amongst others to Professional Ethics and Civic Morals (1950a/t.1957a), which were lectures crystallized between 1898 and 1900; Moral Education (1925a/t.1961a), lectures given in 1902-3; 'The determination of moral facts' (1906b); and The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life (1912a/t.1915d). After some hesitancy Durkheim finally took the leap and logically developed his position by defining religion in terms of the sacred. Thus, the concept was accorded an irrevocable and final place in his analysis. When precisely this leap occurred is difficult to determine. The assertion of the centrality of the sacred to religion was not made officially public until the publication of The Elementary Forms, although, in his lectures of 1906-7, according to the report which has been handed down to us, he came very close to his finally established position (1907f; chs 5.2 and 9.5) .. It would seem that Durkheim slowly developed the concept and eventually shows its most fruitful application to the whole area of ritual (see chs 17 and 18).

3 Not the sacred but the sacred-profane Yet Durkheim did not see the sacred as an isolated concept. It does not stand on its own nor is it unitary in the sense that suicide is unitary, for the sacred is to be understood, and only has meaning, by reason of its opposite, the profane. The sacred stands as one element in a dichotomous or binary system. In 1898 in the preface to the first volume of the Annee sociologique he wrote: The true character of the Roman sacer is very difficult to grasp and, above all, to understand if one does not see it in relation to the Polynesian taboo. (1898a(i):ii/t.1960c:342) 117 LPML0211

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And about the same time, in a series of lectures he was giving in Bordeaux on certain aspects of morality entitled 'Physique generale des moeurs et du droit' and in connection with the sacredness of property, he expanded the idea of the sacred as consisting of things set apart, and its opposite, the notion of taboo (1950a:172ff./t.1957a:143ff.). Thus here and elsewhere he compares a concept which emerged in classical European society with one of primitive society, removed very far from the first by space and perhaps time. By so doing, he creates difficulty rather than, as was his intention, eliminating it. However, in general usage Durkheim employs the dichotomy sacred-profane, which has Latin roots, rather than sacred-taboo. Durkheim claims that he uses the notion of taboo in order to understand the profane and therefore the sacred. Interestingly enough, Frazer also associated sacer with taboo. But why does Durkheim feel forced to place the sacred within a bipartite division? There appear to be several reasons. One is purely empirical. Man views the world in this way - the facts are plain to see. We have the impression of being in communication with two sorts of reality, which are distinct in themselves and are clearly separated from each other by a line of demarcation. On the one hand there is the world of profane things, and on the other hand that of sacred things. (304/212/131) What man sees with his own eyes is therefore a duality and this duality of things sacred and things profane is the basis of all religious thought and organization. This Durkheim never ceased to proclaim (for example, 1899a(ii): 19/t.1975a:90; 50/36/113). But another reason does not relate so much to things as they are observed, but more to the way man thinks about things. 'This duality,' he says, 'is only the objective expression of that which exists in our representations' (1899a(ii):19/t.1975a:90; see eh. 15). Basically, therefore, the division of things into the sacred and profane comes from man himself, from the way he thinks about the world. The dualism exists 'in his head'. Man has devised it. It comes to the individual from society and is, as it were, turned back on to society in order that man may understand it. Durkheim wrote: 118 LPML0211

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Sacred things are those whose representations society itself has fashioned .... Profane things, conversely, are those which each of us constructs from our own sense data and experience; the ideas we have about them have as their subject matter unadulterated, individual impressions, and that is why they do not have the same prestige in our eyes as the preceding ones. (ibid. :25/95) Dichotomies and paradoxes abound in Durkheim's thought. They stemmed no doubt from his philosophical leanings towards Kant and neo-Kantianism, a school of philosophy which was dominant in France at the time. He somewhat startled his colleagues by his article 'Le Dualisme de la nature humaine et ses conditions sociales' (1914a) and a debate with academics on the same subject which he introduced himself (1913b). In these, he adopted a markedly metaphysical position about the nature of man, which was based on the traditional Jewish-Christian notion that man has a soul and a body. The dualism in a social direction is seeing man as homo duplex, who has two irreducible components - the social and the individual. This idea he first seems to have put forward in the early 1890s in his doctoral thesis - there are in man two consciences: one, common to, and derived from the group; the other, unique to the individual (1893b/1902b:99/t.l933b:129-30). But Durkheim later extended the idea that what man absorbs from the social (corresponding to the soul) is sacred and what is individual, what the individual develops of himself, corresponding to the body, is profane. The duality of our nature is thus only a particular case of that division of things into the sacred and the profane that is the foundation of all religions, and it must be explained on the basis of the same principles. (1914a/t.1960c: 335) There is thus an extension of the primal duality, sacred-profane, to the constituent elements of man himself. Further, each pole in no matter which set is qualitatively different from the other related pole. Each collects around itself data of a contrasting kind. This is borne out by the words of the previous quotation: 'they constitute two kinds of intellectual phenomena'. And Durkheim gives the reason for this by stating that 'one type is produced by a single brain and a single mind, the other by a plurality of brains and 119 LPML0211

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minds acting and reacting. on each other' (1899a(ii):25-6/ t.1975a:95). The profane is associated with all that is individual: the sacred with all that is collective. We can break down the contrast further: Sacred things are those whose representation society itself has fashioned; it includes all sorts of collective states, common traditions and emotions, feelings which have a relationship to objects of general interest, etc.; and all those elements are combined according to the appropriate laws of social mentality. (ibid.) Profane things 'are those which each of us constructs from our sense data and experience; the ideas we have about them have as their subject-matter unadulterated, individual impressions' (ibid.). Already we have had occasion to mention several dichotomies which Durkheim used. His love of them caused him readily to extend them and the extensions are implicitly based on logic or experience. We set out the dichotomies that have so far emerged and add to them others of the same family which are apparent in his work in various places. sacred

plurality of minds

collective representations

profane

single minds

individual representations

social activity

'society'

isolated or individual activity

'individual'

spiritual temporal

collective religious phenomena individual religious phenomena

soul

culture

'new' man religiously initiated

body

nature

'old' man remaining in the profane

:--:---

mysterious

irrational 1

intelligible

rational

Granet (1884--1940), a later disciple of Durkheim, held that the basic duality had its origins in contrasting states of social life (1930:290). The inference is that these states preceded the dichotomy in time. Such states were: (1) in social gathering, assembly and effervescence; and (2) at periods of social dispersion and isolation. Quite clearly Granet is pointing to the social life of the Arunta who ethnographically formed the foundation of The 120 LPML0211

The Sacred and the Profane I Elementary Forms (see eh. 21.2). Although Granet is right in maintaining that Durkheim pointed to some socially structured base for the concepts - and the two seasonal periods in question were associated with the sacred and the profane - one doubts whether Durkheim received such inspiration from studying the Australian Aboriginals. Admittedly he was writing about the sacred-profane dichotomy in the mid-1890s, and before articles were published by the Annee Sociologique school which dealt with Australian aboriginal material, for example, his article with M. Mauss, 'De Quelques formes primitives de classification', published in 1903. A monograph raising similar problems was that by M. Mauss and H. Beuchat, 'Essai sur les variations saisonnieres des societes eskimos. Etudes de morphologie sociale', written in 1906. It is legitimate to argue that Durkheim's faith in dualities was strengthened by his acquaintance with the study of what he held was the most primitive type of society known to man, namely, totemism, which is based on a system of moieties and clans. What is doubtful is whether such material initiated in his mind the sacred-profane dichotomy. But Granet's observation raises another problem. What comes first? The concept of the sacred and profane, or a dichotomous social organization which gives rise to the concepts? There are references in Durkheim which lead to contradictory answers. On the one hand, Durkheim's sociology of knowledge suggests that social structures generate concepts, representations (see eh. 15); in other words, how man lives in society gives rise to the way in which he thinks about it. But on the other hand, the way man views nature and establishes social structure is in some measure determined by concepts he already has. This last position is borne out by the fact that the sacred-profane dichotomy cannot be reduced to something else, say, nature itself: it is not to be seen in terms of some prior mental structure, a representation. It is something sui generis. In Durkheim's terms, the sacred-profane dichotomy has no point of reference beyond itself. How, then, are these two contradictory approaches to be resolved? As always, Durkheim is not concerned with historical origins. These can never be determined, since we have no record of the events that took place. Rather, man lives in a dynamic society which is understood in part by seeing the two movements acting dialecti-

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cally. Social structure generates concepts: concepts generate social structure. Mary Douglas has argued that the rigid separation of the sacred and the profane is 'a necessary step' in Durkheim's theory of social integration: 'it expressed the opposition between the individual and society' (1966:21; see eh. 10). But why was it a necessary step? Does one have to accept the sacred-profane dichotomy in order to have a theory of integration by which the individual is incorporated into society? Hardly so. The extension is necessary for Durkheim because he sees society as having the characteristics of the sacred, and, having started on the path of dichotomies and dualities, it is logically necessary to extend them. Socialization thus means not only the incorporation of the individual into society, but the embracing of the sacred by the individual - 'for a long time the initiation into sacred things was also the operation by which the socialization of the individual was completed' by this means the individual became 'a new man' (1899a(ii):26/ t.1975a:96). Thus the sacred and the profane express 'in symbolic language the duality of the individual and the social' (ibid.). Man as a species becomes sacred, which in the long run means that individuals in some way become sacred. We have already noted that Durkheim categorically argued that man is a homo duplex by extending the notion of the soul (and reason) and the body (and passions) to the collective (and social) and the individual (and personal) (1914a/t.1960c:336ff. ). Commentators from Durkheim's time onwards have drawn attention to his association of the dichotomy of the sacred and the profane with that of the social and the individual. Goldenweiser (1915/r.l975:217) was quick to emphasize this, as was Durkheim's admirer and critic, Gustave Belot, who wrote of Durkheim's doctrine that it 'joins morality and religion, and opposes the sacredness of the social being with the bundle of trivia which have as their foundation the needs of individuals' (1913a:338). The relation of the individual to society is a dominant theme in classical sociology and few have been more concerned with it than Durkheim himself. It is quite clear that, in answer to the critics, the solution that he attempts is basically a religious one by extending the problem of the individual and society to the area of the sacred and the profane. Not long ago Thomas Luckmann strongly supported Durkheim's position in his book The 122 LPML0211

The Sacred and the Profane I Invisible Religion, in seeing the necessity of expressing the human problem of socialization in religious terms (1963/t.1967/r.1970:26). However, the relation of these two basic dichotomies is complex. Mary Douglas, forced to take into account Durkheim's doctrine of man, has somewhat modified her earlier position and written: 'The dichotomy profane and sacred is not isomorphic with that between the individual and society' (1975:xiii). Rightly, she is opposed to a simple extension so frequently made by commentators, for example, Steven Lukes, who boldly states that the sacred-profane dichotomy is of the same order as other dichotomies, being derived from the individual and social dichotomy (1972:26). If the individual is equated with socialized man, and within the moral context, then the individual is himself sacred, having a status not far removed from that of God. Lukes and others only seem to be re-echoing what Durkheim himself wrote in the 1899 essay, 'Concerning the definition of religious phenomena'. Exactly at this time Durkheim also wrote about the sacred status of man and the individual in his apologia 'Individualism and the intellectuals' (1898c/t.1969/r.1973). One can marginally solve the problem by saying that when Durkheim speaks of the sacred and the profane extended to the social and the individual, he has at the back of his mind the primitive society where this dichotomy fits, as, for example, in his description of societies characterized by mechanical solidarity (see 1893b/t.l933b). Whereas, when he suggests that the individual is sacred, he is referring to a society marked by organic solidarity (ibid.) in which greater place is given to the individual and where individual freedom is fully recognized and given quasi-sacred status (see eh. 26). It may appear that Durkheim's sacred-profane dichotomy constitutes a duality based on static concepts. If they were intended to be so, then clearly Durkheim is in considerable difficulty in extending them to the social and the individual within a modern context. But even within primitive man, the consensus element of society - the social- is linked with the social element in the individual. Man as an individual can never be totally profane. Perhaps one should differentiate between a symbolic extension of the duality, as in the case of the social and the individual in general, and an ontological extension, where one is talking about man himself as being both sacred and profane. Durkheim does not spell out this distinction and the dichotomous extensions,

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although fascinating by their imaginative, logical connection, do not bear close examination unless one is prepared to introduce certain conditions and to differentiate them in the ways we have suggested. It must be stressed that in Durkheim's thought two different sets of phenomena are polarized around the sacred and the profane, two different sets of ideas. As Durkheim was to write: 'sacred things differ from profane things in their very nature and ... their essence is different' (54/42/118). He claims that 'always and everywhere' man has visualized the sacred and the profane as separate classes of objects - 'separate genera, two worlds which have nothing in common. The forces operating in the one are not simply those found in the other raised a few degrees; they are of a different order' (53/38/15). He seemed to find evidence for this in every religion he knew: in primitive societies, in Judaism, in Christianity, and in the Greek world as well (see 1938a/1969f:33, 322/t.1977a:25,281).

4 Basic meanings Having opened up some of the basic problems which surround Durkheim's use of the sacred-profane dichotomy, we must retrace our steps and examine closely the meanings of the words. The point was first made in 1909 by Marett in his book The Threshold of Religion that the concepts sacred and profane have different meanings in French compared with their English counterparts. Since these terms are crucial, it is necessary to look at their meanings in the different languages. Latin roots

Both sacred and sacre are derived from the Latin sacer, which means holy or consecrated. But it can also mean accursed or horrible, as something devoted to a divinity for destruction, and hence criminal, impious, wicked, infamous. (Lewis and Short, A Latin Dictionary, 1969 edn) Profanus literally means before or outside the temple (profanum). By derivation, it means that which is not sacred, or 124 LPML0211

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consecrated, thus it implies unholy, common, profane: by transference, wicked, impious, unlearned, ignorant. The French sacre and profane

Three meanings are to be distinguished for the word sacre: 1 holy, consecrated, as in a holy place, sacred art; 2 inviolable - that which cannot be broken - as in 'mon devoir sacre' (my bounden duty); 3 damned, cursed, profane, bloody: 'Votre sacre chien' (your damned dog); in this sense, an ambiguous one, the adjective is always placed before the noun. Profane is more complex. The verb profaner means to profane or desecrate (a church), to violate (a grave) and to misuse (one's talents). The adjective can mean:

1(a) 1(b) 1(c) 2(a) 2(b) 2(c)

profane in the sense of secular (history, music); unhallowed, ungodly; impious, sacrilegious; uninitiated person, outsider, layman; an ecclesiastical person outside the fold; an irreverent or ungodly person.

(Harrap's New Standard French and English Dictionary, 1972) English meanings The Oxford Dictionary (1933) offers five meanings of the word sacred:

1 consecrated to (a deity); dedicated, set apart (to some person); 2 of things, places, persons, set apart for or dedicated to some religious purpose; to various animals and plants that have been considered sacred to certain deities; 3 as an epithet to royalty; 4 secured by religious sentiment, reverence, sense of justice etc., against violation in encroachment; of a person or his office sacrosanct, inviolable; 5 accursed (from Latin sacer) (now rare). The verb profane means to desecrate, violate, misuse, or (rare) to blaspheme. The adjective implies: 125 LPML0211

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1 pertaining to the sacred or biblical, that is, secular, lay, common; as opposed to ecclesiastical; also of persons, not initiated, therefore uninitiated, lay, Philistine; 2 applied to things or people regarded as unholy, or as desecrating what is holy or sacred; unhallowed, ritually unclean or polluted, especially the rites of an alien religion; 3 characterized by disregard or contempt of sacred things, especially taking God's name in vain, irreverent, blasphemous, impious, irreligious. Durkheim's meanings

What did Durkheim imply by the sacred? He focuses on a meaning that is common in all three languages - that which is consecrated or holy. In one place he writes of the sacred as that which is set apart (1906b/1924a: 103/t.1953b:70)- that which society holds in its highest esteem which is not to be challenged or desecrated. In another place, sacred things are said to be 'invested with a particular dignity that raises them above our empirical individuality, and that confers upon them a sort of transcendent reality' (1925a: ll/t.l961a/r .1975: 197). And what of the profane? Here Durkheim is far less precise. The profane is that which threatens, undermines or abolishes the sacred, 'destroys its essential attributes' (1906b/1924a:103/ t.1953b:70). It is therefore negatively defined in relation to the sacred. This approach raises many problems which will be considered in the pages ahead as well as those associated with the concept of the sacred.

5 The sacred's own binary system Durkheim begins his task of analysing religion by focusing on what he holds is a rigid, universal binary system - the sacred and the profane. But as he proceeds he is forced to modify such a clear bipartite approach for the reason that one pole contains its own binary system. The sacred is not 'one' but 'two'. Durkheim develops this idea in a complex passage (584ff./409ff.) where he refers to Robertson Smith as originally observing the ambiguity 126 LPML0211

The Sacred and the Profane I

of the sacred itself. Durkheim argues that two kinds of religious forces exist: 1 beneficent powers or forces, impersonal or diffused, anthropomorphic, protectors, gods, holy places, inspiring love and gratitude (we would call these benevolent and 'pure' forces); 2 evil or impure powers, productive of disorder, death, sickness, for example, corpses, menstrual blood (by contrast, we would call these malevolent and impure forces). As would be expected, each is opposed to the other - one forbids the other - each is locked in a radical antagonism - and 'thus the whole religious life gravitates about two contrary poles between which there is the same opposition as between the pure and the impure, the saintly and the sacrilegious, the divine and the diabolic' (586/410). Durkheim reminds us, however, that these two poles are not those of the sacred and the profane. Each component of the sacred stands opposed to the profane as the following excerpt makes clear: But at the same time as these two aspects of the religious life are opposed to one another, there exists a strong bond between them. Firstly, both the aspects maintain the same relation with profane beings: they [profane beings] must abstain from every contact with impure beings just as from very holy things. The first [impure things] are no less forbidden than the second [very holy things]; they are equally withdrawn from circulation. This is to say that they [impure things] too are sacred. Doubtless the sentiments which the two inspire are not identical; respect is one thing; disgust and horror another. However, in order that the movements be the same in both cases, it is essential that the sentiments expressed do not differ in nature. And in effect, there is horror in religious respect, above all, when it is very intense, and the fear inspired by malign powers is not as a rule without some elements of reverence. (ibid.) Lalande is right in observing that within the duality of the sacred, what is sacred can come from opposite kinds of forces. For example, what is sacred can be created as much by purity and pure

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things as by impurity and impure things (1932, 2:722). Durkheim's position about the sacred can be expressed diagrammatically:

s a c e d

)~'

things

beneficent powers

collective well-being

reverence/ fear

- joy(?)

Impure things

malevolent powers

collective ill-being

fear/ reverence

- dejection (?)

In passing we should note that Durkheim posits a similar duality within the sphere of morality, and indeed said that the dualities were of the same order. What man calls morality contains positive and negative elements - those which point to the good, which are to be loved and sought after, and elements which relate to the forbidden, to evil, to that which is not to be violated (1906b/ 1924a:53/t.1953b:36). The dichotomy within the sacred itself is difficult for the Englishman to grasp, for the common usage of the word sacred does not usually imply malevolent beings, or the concept of the impure. Such ideas and phenomena lie within the sphere not of the sacred but the profane (see the basic meanings given above). At the same time we should be reminded of the meaning of the French word sacre, which of course does permit the dichotomy and which no doubt forced Durkheim to take the path he did. As Marett said: 'L'idee du sacre may be appropriate enough in French, since sacre can stand either for "holy" or for "damned"; but it is an abuse of the English language to speak of "sacredness" of some accursed wizard' (1914:110). The best example for the Englishman of what Durkheim meant is to be found in the notion of good and bad angels: both are sacred, yet one stands in opposition to the other. Theoretically there seems to be no problem for Durkheim. Benevolent and malevolent beings, the pure and the impure, are not separate classes (genera) but two separate and opposed subclasses (species) within the class called sacred (588/411). He offers the example of menstrual blood. It is sacred. On occasions it can be used for healing, yet it is basically impure (ibid.). Robertson Smith never explained the ambiguity within the sacred. Durkheim was perplexed by it and raised the question of how it was that evil forces have great power. Why are evil forces religious in nature? It was a particular problem for him in the 128 LPML0211

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light of his analysis of religion because, first, religion (the sacred) is a force in society, perhaps the most powerful force, and second, as we shall see, religion is 'created' by society (see chs 14, and 3), the overall existence of religion is for the good of society. Why should a society create forces which threaten its destruction? Such forces are an enemy to Durkheim's logic. He observed that the threat of evil is removed by piacular rites (589/412; see eh. 18). In these rites the deity is placated. Evil beings are projected in such rites as collective states about suffering in society. When suffering and misfortune befall a society, the members interpret the events as caused by beings outside the society. Piacular rites seek to appease such beings and therefore alleviate social suffering, in some cases, through vicarious human suffering. Thus religion by such anti-social collective representations is able to deal with social miseries, be they short-lived or continual. Durkheim solves his dilemma at the price of a somewhat crude theory of origins, not far removed from those of Tylor and Muller which he so readily rejected. He says that religion consists inter alia of collective representations about the ultimate welfare of a society including representations which appear to threaten it. Evil representations are dealt with by religion in being able to neutralize them. Thus these representations are created by society - by religion - so that religion creates evil powers and at the same time provides a system to defuse them or at least control them. In general terms, this may be acceptable. What is to be challenged is Durkheim's arguments within his own system. 1 He postulates that malevolent powers are collective representations of suffering which are only incidental and are briefly treated compared with his search for theories about other aspects of religion which are dealt with at length. 2 What he in fact is suggesting is that religion is based on a conceptualization of 'natural' events which are a threat to society and the individual. If this is so, then what is at the heart of Durkheim's system is

really a theodicy and religion thus becomes a means of overcoming suffering in its various forms. He rejects one theory of naturism (Muller's), only to accept implicitly another, or at least to suggest that really the base of religion is suffering. It is an inevitable conclusion of Durkheim's concept of the duality of the sacred. 129 LPML0211

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6 The origin and constitution of the sacred: the stamp of society As we have noted, the dichotomy between the sacred and the profane has parallels with, and perhaps its origins in, the contrast between community or gathered life, on the one hand, and individual or separated life, on the other. However, this fact by itself - the social structuralist origin of the dichotomy - hardly accounts for the qualities and characteristics of what constitutes the sacred per se, or why certain objects, words, people, actions and so on, become set apart and receive unique and inviolable status. The sacred for Durkheim seems to appear mysteriously with the selection of certain things as being categorized as sacred. From individual objects the notion of the sacred is extended to classes of similar objects, from objects to persons, to ideas, to ideals. Finally, there emerges the domain or kingdom of the sacred which includes all that is sacred and becomes an almost abstract entity (50/361113). Is what is sacred due to a natural feeling of awe about the thing or person in question? At a time when so much ethnographic material was being collected both in terms of artefacts and ways of living, there was an understandable tendency to account for such strange phenomena as being endowed with awe. Durkheim was one of the first to question this as a satisfactory explanation. Earlier, Robertson Smith had suggested objects were deemed to be sacred quite simply because their 'natural' qualities were inherently mysterious or useful (1889/1894:165ff.). In other words sacredness is determined according to 'naturalism' or utilitarianism. The argument against such an explanation, Durkheim held, rests on the fact that what constitutes the sacred varies from society to society. No two societies agree on its content, even where the societies are contiguous. Van Gennep adopted a similar position: the sacred is not absolute, for it is brought into play as a result of particular circumstances (1909/t.1960: 12-13). Confirmation that naturalism or utilitarianism had to be rejected as a basis for what is sacred came in particular from Durkheim's study of totemism. Certain animals which were held to be sacred were not necessarily the most magnificent or superior of creatures. It was the insignificant ones which were worshipped, for example, the ant. 130 LPML0211

The Sacred and the Profane I

Thus, there exists no alternative but to see that what constitutes the sacred is relative, and from this it may be deduced that no one item is universally held to be of this category. Each society creates what is specifically sacred without any necessary recognition or awareness of what it is in other societies, or of its own inherent qualities. Such relativism creates problems in defining religion, for religion so delineated rests on a concept not on a thing, person, or god which has concrete form. In one sense anything can stand for the sacred and therefore anything can be 'religion' or 'religious'. In this way, the sacred and religion have no boundaries. But on the other hand, the acceptance of a thoroughgoing relativism completely undermines any explanation that might be based upon naturalistic or utilitarian grounds (327/339/ 138; see also 1913a(ii)(ll) and (12)/t.1975a: 178-9). The sacred is therefore that which is decided by society. Associated with each sacred item or class of items there is a representation - an idea or ideal that is supported collectively (see eh. 15). Durkheim writes in his article on the dualism of human nature and its social conditions: 'Sacred things are simply collective ideals that have fixed themselves on material objects' (1914a/ t.1960c:335). This association of the sacred with representations collectives Durkheim made on a number of occasions, starting with his early essay on defining religion where an empirical representation is contrasted with that associated with the sacred, which is based on tradition, for which man has a special respect (1899a(ii):19/t.1975a:90). Thus sacredness has as its basis a mental concept which is not dependent on the natural or utilitarian properties of the thing, idea or person which is held to be sacred. It means that the key lies in the ideas and values which are at the basis of society and which are collectively expressed by its representations. A representation is an idea or concept: it is a way of thinking about an object (see eh. 15). In The Elementary Forms, Durkheim spoke of the sacred character of something being superadded or superimposed (surajouter, superposer) on it: quite simply one might say, stamped upon it (328/229/138; 602/4211150). But who does the stamping? There can be only one answer - society. As always society is Durkheim's deus ex machina. He is right in suggesting that the original cause - the historic moment of decision - can seldom if ever be discovered. All one can say is that it happened 131 LPML0211

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within the context of a society and with its approval and acceptance. The reasons for the setting apart and stamping what is specifically sacred or holy may seem to modern western eyes as being irrational rather than rational. But the individual social object is integrated within the sacred complex and is part of the total ideology of the society. Society alone has the right of imprimatur. These sentiments Durkheim frequently repeats, as for example when he writes: 'Society alone is the originator of such apotheoses' - apotheoses where people are raised through representations to the level of a saint or god (304/212-13/131). The sacred cannot have a supra-social origin. There is no higher power than the social in Durkheim's eyes. If certain items are sacred, beyond a geographical or social boundary, this is because social ideas are liable to spread. Durkheim strongly supports a diffusionist approach at this point (609/427/155). Durkheim's position is relativist in the matter of the content of the sacred. It means that the content can also change with time and can 'be acquired and lost' (Stanner 1967/r.1975:295). This is clearly in accordance with the facts. What was sacred yesterday may be less sacred today, and tomorrow totally desacralized. In speaking about the challenge of science to religion, Durkheim said that religion constituted a reality that could not be dissolved by science because religion is based on the sacred and the sacred is never dissolved - it is continually coming into existence (1909a(1); eh. 25). But to follow Durkheim to this further step means accepting the eternality of both the concept of the sacred and the existence of a meaningful content. Can it be said that the sacred exists in every society, whether or not the members of the society accept the con

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