The Religion and Philosophy of the Veda and Upanishads v1.c11.s3.39

v1.c11.s3.39

Another aspect of the same view is to be seen in the theory of totemism presented by Durkheim,¹ who lays stress on the part played in religion by the tribal consciousness, and sees in the god the creation of that consciousness as a hypostasis of itself, the object chosen to render the conception present to the senses being often, but not necessarily always, an animal. He declares that animism or animatism cannot explain religion, but it is wholly impossible to concede to his arguments against either theory conclusive weight, while his own expression for the fundamental character of religion is obviously wholly incapable of proof, being purely a psychological theory, which has no strong support other than the postulate, which he never attempts to prove, that the mind of the Australian aborigine is the mind of a really primitive man.² He rejects the theories of totemism adduced by other scholars such as Tylor, Hill Tout, and Andrew Lang, but in no case are his own arguments convincing or even in the main plausible, nor can it be said that any real explanation of totemism is to be derived from them.