The Social Function of Religious Belief

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER TTT THE SOCIOLOGICAL ASPECT OF RELIGION We have now passed in brief review some of the most characteristic definitions of religion. We have pointed out what we conceive to be their shortcomings, and sought to recognize the truth in each, growing, for the most part, out of the dogmatic and...
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Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER TTT THE SOCIOLOGICAL ASPECT OF RELIGION We have now passed in brief review some of the most characteristic definitions of religion. We have pointed out what we conceive to be their shortcomings, and sought to recognize the truth in each, growing, for the most part, out of the dogmatic and speculative methods. None of them seems to be sufficiently extensive, certainly not from the standpoint of the sociologist. But we are not yet ready for the formulation of our own conception of what religion is. We must first pass to a consideration of the function of religion in human society as others have conceived that function. From what we know of the universality and prominence of the religious attitude among mankind it may be supposed to play an important and useful part in the development of society. Whatjaid then does jeUffiea-oanserve ? As before, we will first hear what others have said on this point, only in this instance, confining ourselves entirely to the views of anthropological and sociological writers as alone of interest for the purposes of this discussion. To this class belongs, first of all, Auguste Comte, clarum et venerabile nomen, that of the pioneer of modern sociological science. In attempting to describe and set a value upon Comte's theory of religion we must keep in mind that, like all other pathfinders in the wide wilderness of thought, he was distinctly the child of his age. He was typically French. His theories were largely the condensed Zeitgeist of post-revolutionary France. He wrote at a time when the inevitable reaction against the extreme theories that had given France the guillotine, theories represented by Rousseau, had already made itself felt. For Rousseau the individual was everything, society nothing. For Comte society was everythi...