CHAPTER VII. Origins of These Beliefs--(_end_)

ORIGINS OF THESE BELIEFS--(end)

Origin of the Idea of the Totemic Principle or Mana

I.--The totemic principle is the clan, but thought of under a more empirical form 205

II.--General reasons for which society is apt to awaken the sensation of the sacred and the divine--Society as an imperative moral force; the notion of moral authority--Society as a force which raises the individual outside of himself-- Facts which prove that society creates the sacred 206

III.--Reasons peculiar to Australian societies--The two phases through which the life of these societies alternatively passes: dispersion, concentration--Great collective effervescence during the periods of concentration--Examples--How the religious idea is born out of this effervescence 214

Why collective force has been thought of under totemic forms: it is the totem that is the emblem of the clan--Explanation of the principal totemic beliefs 219

IV.--Religion is not the product of fear--It expresses something real--Its essential idealism--This idealism is a general characteristic of collective mentality--Explanation of the external character of religious forces in relation to their subjects--The principle that the part is equal to the whole 223

V.--Origin of the notion of emblem: emblems a necessary condition of collective representations--Why the clan has taken its emblems from the animal and vegetable kingdoms 230

VI.--The proneness of the primitive to confound the kingdoms and classes which we distinguish--Origins of these confusions--How they have blazed the way for scientific explanations--They do not exclude the tendency towards distinction and opposition 234