Audio Books →The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life [Audiobook]

This study, he hoped, would 'lead to an understanding of the religious nature of man, that is to say, to show us an essential and permanent aspect of humanity'. He further wrote, 'The most barbarous and the most fantastic rites and the strangest myths translate some human need, some aspect of life, either individual or social. The reasons with which the faithful justify them may be, and generally are, erroneous; but the true reasons do not cease to exist and it is the duty of science to discover them.' Religion, he concludes, was a basic social institution. Durkheim shone his spotlight on practices among the Aborigines of Australia and other societies - including the Sioux, Samoan and Melanesian - with the intention of extrapolating his findings into the broader, modern world. David Émile Durkheim (1858-1917), played a leading role in establishing the discipline of sociology - becoming the first professor of sociology in France. His major works include The Division of Labour in Society (1893) and Suicide (1897), but The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life (1912) is still widely read today. Mike Rogers gives an engaged reading.