涂尔干认为: 宗教中的集体生活以及在此基础上形成的集体意识与精神是非常重要的; 宗教生活本质上是一种集体生活, 而集体生活也即宗教聚集不能相隔过久; 之所以要维持定期的集体生活从根本上说是保持宗教伦理与理想的需要。但是, 若对中国宗教加以考察我们会发现, 它似乎普遍缺少集体意识和集体精神。对于一般的信众而言, 中国宗教, 无论是道教还是佛教都没有严格定期的集体生活, 不仅如此, 多教崇拜实际上也瓦解了这种可能。进一步, 由于得不到集体生活中更高目标的激励, 中国宗教一般来说只是满足于功利与具体层面, 缺乏伦理与理想追求。

According to Durkheim, the collective life in religion and the collective consciousness and mind based on it are very important. In essence, the religious life is a collective life, which means the interval between religious gatherings should not be too long. The reason why the regular collective life should be maintained lies in that there is fundamentally a demand of keeping religious morals and ideals. Chinese religions, however, are obviously short of collective consciousness and spirit. Neither Taoists nor Buddhists have a strictly fixed collective life. Moreover, polytheism crumbles such a possibility indeed. Furthermore, owing to a lack of encouragement under higher aims in the collective life, Chinese religions are simply satisfied with utilities without a pursuit of morality and ideal.