A Sociological View of Religion

The recent publication in an English translation of Professor Durkheim's study of the Elementary Forms of the Religious Life affords an opportunity for a brief consideration of the modern attempt to explain religion in terms of sociology. Although the book in its French form is not quite new[], it still holds the field as a solid contribution representing the views of a most important present-day school of thought. It ought specially to arrest the attention of missionaries, as the sociologica.