宗教生活的基本形式
当人们集合起来，彼此之间形成亲密关系的时候，当人们拥有共同的观念和情感的时候，神圣存在才达到了它们的最大强度。而集会解散，每个人都返回到自己独特的生活中以后，神圣存在也会逐渐丧失自己的原动力。当曰常经验的洪流逐渐湮没这些神圣存在的时候，如果我们找不到办法重新把神圣存在唤回到我们的意识里，使它们得到再生，那么神圣存在便会很快陷入无意识之中。如果我们认为它们越来越无力的话，那么它们对我们来说也就越来越不重要了，它们便成了越来越不受重视的无足轻重的东西。这样，我们便从另一个角度得知，神圣存在必然需要人的帮助。这第二个缘由对于它们的存在来说甚至比前者更加重要，因为它自始至终都存在。只有在宗教还没有脱离它们的宇宙基础的情况下，物质生活的间断性才会对宗教信仰产生影响；相反，社会生活的间歇性却是不可规避的，甚至是那些最具观念论色彩的宗教也无法逃脱其影响。
不仅如此,正因为只有在对人的思想的依赖状态中,诸神才能找到自身存在的基础，所以人们就会相信人的帮助是有效的。这里,能够更新关于神圣存在的集体表现的唯一方式，就是从宗教生活的根源,也就是说,从集合起来的群体出发重新调整它们。外界事物经历着周期性的危机，这些危机也唤起了各种情感，正是这些情感使亲眼目睹这些危机的人集合起来，商讨如何去对付它们。只要他们相互团结，彼此就会感到非常惬意，因为他们共同找到了疗救危机的办法。在这个重新构筑起来的群体的心中，共同的信念非常自然地获得了新生；因为这种信念再次得到了它最初形成时的各种条件，所以它也就再次诞生了。这种重新铸就的信念，很容易战胜所有从个体心灵中产生的私下里的疑虑。神圣事物的意象重新获得了足够的力量，来拒斥内在和外在因素对它的削弱作用。尽管人们表面上经受了挫折，但他们不再相信诸神会死去，因为他们感觉到神就活在他们的心中。不管为救助诸神而采取的手段有多么残酷，那都绝不是徒劳无功的，紧接着发生的所有事情都可以证实，它们确实起了作用。人们显得更加自信，因为他们觉得自己更强大了；而他们确实也更强大了，因为处在衰微状态的宗教力又一次在他们意识中被唤醒了。
因此，我们务必要慎重，绝不能像史密斯那样，认为膜拜只是以人的受益为基础的，而与诸神毫无关系；因为诸神对膜拜的需要绝对不亚于崇拜者对膜拜的需要。当然，没有神，人就不能生存；不过另一方面，如果人不进行膜拜，神也会死去。让凡俗主体与神圣事物进行沟通，并不是唯一的目的，膜拜必须使神存活下来，使它们得到永无休止的再造和更新。诚然，物质上的供奉仅仅凭借其自身特性，是无法使诸神得到更新的；起到了这个作用的，乃是这些膜拜活动本身所伴随、所唤醒的精神状态。膜拜存在的真正原因，甚至是那些在表面上最具有物质色彩的原因，也并不存在于膜拜所规定的各种行为之中，而应该存在于借助这些行为产生出来的内在的和精神的更新过程之中。崇拜者奉献给神的真实事物，并不是他摆放在祭坛上的食物，也不是从他的血管里流出的血，而是他的思想。实际上，这就是一种服务的交换，是神与其崇拜者之间的互相需要。有时候，人们把祭祀原则定义为等量交换的法则，这并不是功利主义理论家后来的发明：等量交换明确表达了祭祀体系的机制，而且从更普遍的意义来说，它也体现了整个积极膜拜的机制。所以，史密斯所说的循环是很真实的；不过，其中没有任何东西使其根源蒙羞。它正是以这样的事实为基础的：尽管神圣存在凌驾于人类之上，但它只能存在于人类意识之中。
然而，倘若我们进一步地分析宗教符号所表现的实在而不是宗教符号本身，考察一下它们在仪式中究竟起了什么样的作用，那么这种循环也就会更自然地展现在我们面前，我们也可以更加透彻地理解它得以存在的意义和根源。正如我们试图确证的那样，如果说神圣本原不过是变了形的、人格化的社会而已，那么我们就应该能用有关世俗的、社会的术语来诠释膜拜。事实上，不管是社会生活还是仪式，都经历了一种循环。一方面，个体从社会那里获得了其本身的精华，这给了他与众不同的特性和相对于其他存在的特殊地位，给了他知识文化和道德文化。如果我们把人从他的语言、科学、艺术和道德信仰中抽离出来，他们就会沦为动物。所以，人类本性中最具有特色的属性是从社会中来的。然而，另一方面，社会也只有在个体之中并通过个体才能存在和生存。倘若个体心灵和信仰中的社会的观念消逝殆尽的话，群体的传统和宏图就不会被个体感受到，不会为个体所分享，社会也就寿终正寝了。我们曾用于神性的说法同样也可以用于社会：只有在人类意识中，社会才能是真实的，才能找到自己的容身之地，而这个地方恰恰是我们可以给它的。现在，我们已经知道了没有崇拜者就没有神、没有神就没有人类存在的真实原因,这就是:对社会而言，神仅仅是它的符号表达，而没有个体就没有社会，一如没有社会也就没有个体。
至此，我们已经触及到所有膜拜都构筑其上的坚硬的基石了。也正是这种根基，导致了膜拜自从人类社会形成以来就始终存续着。当我们搞清了宗教仪式的构成要素及其发展趋向以后，不禁会感到万分惊诧：人类是怎样想到它们的呢？尤其是，人们为什么对它们坚信不移呢？一小把随风飘逝的尘埃，几小滴落在祭坛石块和岩石上的血，就能维持一个动物物种，或者是一个神的生命，这种幻觉究竟是由何而来的呢？对于这个问题的解决，我们无疑已经前进了一步，我们发现，这些不管是从外部来看，还是从表面来看都显得毫无理由的活动，背后都隐藏着一种精神机制，这个机制不仅为这些活动赋予了意义，而且还为其提供了道德意涵。然而，这样还无法确定，这种机制本身是不是由纯粹的幻像构成的。我们业已指出，这种心理过程可以使信仰者产生这样的想象：仪式能够产生他们重获新生所需要的精神力量。不过，尽管这种信仰从心理角度来说是可以解释的，但它却不具有任何客观价值。如果我们想了解仪式的功效，而不把它看作是长期为人类所滥用的谵狂的结果，那么我们就必须表明，膜拜的作用确实是定期地再造一种精神存在，这种存在不仅依赖于我们，而且我们也赖以存在于它。而的确有这种存在:它就是社会。
不管宗教仪典的重要性是多么小，它都能使群体诉诸行动，能使群体集合起来，举行仪式。所以说，宗教仪典的首要作用就是使个体聚集起来，加深个体之间的关系，使彼此更加亲密。通过这一事实，个体意识的内容也会发生变化。在日常生活里，功利的和个体的追求吸引了人们绝大部分的注意力。每个人都关注着自己的个人事务；对大多数人来说，之所以这样做，主要是为了满足物质生活的迫切需要，私人利益始终是经济活动的主要动机。当然，社会情感从来没有完全消失。我们始终与他人保持着联系；教育灌输给我们的习惯、观念和取向，规定着我们与他人的关系，让我们总是感受到社会的影响。但是，由于必然要为日常生活而奋斗，这使社会情感无时无刻不受到各种相反倾向的对抗与牵制。社会情感依靠自身固有的能量，会有效地多少保持一段时间，但是这种能量没有得到更新。它们仅仅依赖着过去，继而随着时间的流逝而渐渐枯竭，如果在持续不断的冲突和摩擦中丝毫得不到力量的补充，那么它们必将消耗殆尽。
外文文献出处：Emile Durkheim. The Elementary of Religions Life[M].The Free Press,1995.
外文文献原文附后
The Elementary of Religions Life
by
Emile Durkheim
Translated and with an Introduction :
Karen E.Fields
The Elementary of Religions Life
by
Emile Durkheim
They achieve their greatest intensity when the individuals are assembled and in direct relations with one another, at the moment when everyone communes in the same idea or emotion.Once the assembly is dissolved and each person has returned to his own existence , those representations lose more and more of their original energy. Overlaid little by litter by the rising flood of day-to-day sensations , they would eventually disappear into the unconscious , unless we found some means of calling them back to consciousness and revitalizing them.Now they cannot weaken without the scared beingsrsquo; losing their reality, because the sacred beings exist only in and through their representations.If we thinks less hard about them they count fr less to us and we counts less on them;they exits to lesser degree. Thus, here again is a points of view from which the favors of men are necessary to them.This second reason to help them is even more important than the first, for it has existed from time immemorial.The intermittences of physical life affect religious beliefs only when religious are not yet detached from their cosmic magma.But the intermittences of social life are inevitable, and even the most idealistic religions can never escape them.
Moreover,it is because the gods are in this state of dependence on the thought of man that man can believe his help to be efficacious. The only way to renew the collective representations that refer to sacred beings is to plunge them again into the very source of religious life: assembled groups. The emotions aroused by the periodic crises through which external things pass induce the men witnessing them to come together, so that they can see what it is best to do. But by the very fact of being assembled, they comfort one another; they find the remedy because they seek it together. The shared faith comes to life again quite naturally in the midst of reconstitited collectivity. It is reborn because it finds itself once again in the same conditions in which it was first born. Once it is restored, it easily overcomes аll the private doubts that had managed to arise in individual minds. The mental image ^ of the sacred things regains strength sufficient to withstand the inward or external causes that tended to weaken it. Despite the obvious failures, one can no longer believe that the gods will die, because they are felt to live again in the depths of onersquo;s own self. No matter how crude the techniques used to help the gods, they cannot seem unavailing, because everything happens as if they really were working. People are more confident because they feel stronger, and they are stronger in reality be- cause the
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The Elementary of Religions Life
by
Emile Durkheim
They achieve their greatest intensity when the individuals are assembled and in direct relations with one another, at the moment when everyone communes in the same idea or emotion.Once the assembly is dissolved and each person has returned to his own existence , those representations lose more and more of their original energy. Overlaid little by litter by the rising flood of day-to-day sensations , they would eventually disappear into the unconscious , unless we found some means of calling them back to consciousness and revitalizing them.Now they cannot weaken without the scared beingsrsquo; losing their reality, because the sacred beings exist only in and through their representations.If we thinks less hard about them they count fr less to us and we counts less on them;they exits to lesser degree. Thus, here again is a points of view from which the favors of men are necessary to them.This second reason to help them is even more important than the first, for it has existed from time immemorial.The intermittences of physical life affect religious beliefs only when religious are not yet detached from their cosmic magma.But the intermittences of social life are inevitable, and even the most idealistic religions can never escape them.
Moreover,it is because the gods are in this state of dependence on the thought of man that man can believe his help to be efficacious. The only way to renew the collective representations that refer to sacred beings is to plunge them again into the very source of religious life: assembled groups. The emotions aroused by the periodic crises through which external things pass induce the men witnessing them to come together, so that they can see what it is best to do. But by the very fact of being assembled, they comfort one another; they find the remedy because they seek it together. The shared faith comes to life again quite naturally in the midst of reconstitited collectivity. It is reborn because it finds itself once again in the same conditions in which it was first born. Once it is restored, it easily overcomes аll the private doubts that had managed to arise in individual minds. The mental image ^ of the sacred things regains strength sufficient to withstand the inward or external causes that tended to weaken it. Despite the obvious failures, one can no longer believe that the gods will die, because they are felt to live again in the depths of onersquo;s own self. No matter how crude the techniques used to help the gods, they cannot seem unavailing, because everything happens as if they really were working. People are more confident because they feel stronger, and they are stronger in reality be- cause the strength that was flagging has been reawakened in their consciousnesses.
It is necessary, then, to refrain from believing, with Smith, that the cult was instituted only for the benefit of men and that the gods have no use for it. They still need it as much as their faithful do. No doubt, the men could not live without the gods; but on the other hand, the gods would die if they were not worshipped. Thus the purpose of the cult is not only to bring the profane into communion with sacred beings but also to keep the sacred beings alive, to remake and regenerate them perpetually. To be sure, the material offerings do not produce this remaking through their own virtues but through mental states that reawaken and accompany these doings, which are empty in themselves. The true raison detre of even those cults that are most materialistic in appearance is not to be sought in the actions they prescribe but in the inward and moral renewal that the actions help to bring about. What the worshipper in reality gives his god is not the food he places on the altar or the blood that he causes to flow from his veins: It is his thought. Nevertheless, there remains a mutually reinforcing exchange of good deeds between the deity and his worshippers. The rule do ut des^ by which the principle of sacrifice has sometimes been defined, is not a recent invention by utilitarian theorists; it simply makes explicit the mechanics of the sacrificial system itself and, more generally, that of the whole positive cult. Thus, the circle Smith pointed out is quite real, but nothing about it offends the intelligence. It arises from the fact that although sacred beings are superior to men, they can live only in human consciousnesses.
But if, pressing the analysis further and substituting for the religious symbols the realities they express, we inquire into the way those realities behave within the rite, this circle will seem to us even more natural, and we will better understand its sense and purpose. If, as I have tried to establish, the sacred principle is nothing other than society hypostasized and transfigured, it should be possible to interpret ritual life in secular and social terms. Like ritual life, social life in fact moves in a circle. On the one hand, the individual gets the best part of himself from society—all that gives him a distinctive character and place among other beings, his intellectual and moral culture. Let language, sciences, arts, and moral beliefs be taken from man, and he falls to the rank of animality; therefore the distinctive attributes of human nature come to us from society. On the other hand, however, society exists and lives only in and through individuals. Let the idea of society be extinguished in individual minds, let the beliefs, traditions, and aspirations of the collectivity be felt and shared by individuals no longer, and the society will die. Thus we can repeat about society what was previously said about the deity: It has reality only to the extent that it has a place in human consciousnesses, and that place is made for society by us. We now glimpse the profound reason why the gods can no more do without their faithful than the faithful can do without t
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