THE ELEMENTARY FORMS OF RELIGIOUS LIFE summarizes Durkheim's approach and clearly exemplifies his vision of the social world. In this work on primitive religion, ÉMILE DURKHEIM (1858-1917) provides an excellent description of the culture and society of Australian Aborigines. In his prologue, Santiago González Noriega points out the interest of this work as a theory of group unity and symbolism, while also highlighting some of its basic theses, such as the search for a functional equivalent of the old religions in our contemporary secular societies and the extremely close relationship between the delimitation of human groups and the system of beliefs shared by their members, which are made visible in perceptible symbols. Other works by Durkheim in this collection include The Rules of Sociological Method and Other Writings on the Philosophy of the Social Sciences.