Note 735 — Chapter VII · ORIGINS OF THESE BELIEFS—end Origin of the Idea of the Totemic Principle or Mana

Another cause has contributed much to this fusion; this is the extreme contagiousness of religious forces. They seize upon every object within their reach, whatever it may be. Thus a single religious force may animate the most diverse things which, by that very fact, become closely connected and classified within a single group. We shall return again to this contagiousness, when we shall show that it comes from the social origins of the idea of sacredness (Bk. III, ch. i, in fine).