The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life by Émile Durkheim
INTRODUCTION
SUBJECT OF OUR STUDY: RELIGIOUS SOCIOLOGY AND THE THEORY OF
KNOWLEDGE
PAGE
I.--Principal subject of the book: analysis of the simplest
religion known to determine the elementary forms of the
religious life--Why they are more easily found and explained
in the primitive religions 1
II.--Secondary subject of research: the genesis of the
fundamental notions of thought or the categories--Reasons for
believing that their origin is religious and consequently
social--How a way of restating the theory of knowledge is
thus seen 9