for we cannot consider that as intellect, which is but the instrument of natural desires.

may

And yet Fourier persuaded himself that man was such; he contemplated him as such, when he formed the project of grouping the members of the human family in his new formed associations. His was professedly a passional arrangement. He charged it as a fault on Christianity that it taught the necessity of repressing the passions and inclinations of nature, that it had imposed habits of self-restraint, and mortification of the desires of the flesh. And he proclaimed it as the sum and essence of his doctrine and discovery that: ATTRACTIONS ARE PROPORTIONAL TO DESTINIES. That man has but to throw himself unhesitatingly upon the attractions that solicit him, to follow his bent or bents which way soever, or however far they lead him, in order to attain his true destiny and to fulfil his mission. Is it necessary, after the mere enunciation of such a proposition, to go into the discussion as to whether man, being such as we know him, and such as all time and all institutions have proved him, and such as all revealed religions have pronounced him, can exist in any society where notions like these shall be instilled into him, and shall not drag down to irreclaimable ruin the whole structure of human existence? In contradiction with authority and with facts, Fourier treats of human passions, which he nevertheless makes the only motives of the soul, as if they were the keys of an organ, sleeping in a perpetual calm till the hand of the master of music shall touch them softly or with emphasis, protracting or cutting short their sound. We will not say how much there is in this fatal to his doctrine of universal analogy, or how much of confusion in itself. Does he not make the keys of the passions self-moving, and even carrying away with them the soul on which they act? Where then is their analogy with the keys of an organ, that are mute till the musician touches them? But suppose that the passional keys are also mute till the presiding genius shall call them out. Suppose the world Fourierized, and the omniarch, or one of the douzarchs, or onzarchs, to propose a symphony upon some particular passion! When the musician sits down to his instrument he is certain

that the sounds he is about to draw forth from the various keys will be the same that he produced one half hour before; but what security has the Fourierite that the persons composing his diapason shall not meanwhile have experienced, one an increase, and another a diminution, of energy and intensity, according to the caprice, or the variety of the passion in the subject?

So much, then, for the musical analogy, which is so necessary a part of Fourier's plan; and we might conclude already by saying, so much also for the harmony of the passions so unblushingly assumed as certain, in the proposed associations. Yet as the exorbitant and untrue imagination of Fourier did not intend his theory of the passions to remain as an idle speculation, but made it the very life and essence of the system he proposed to construct in outward society, we cannot be too explicit in pointing out its errors. The denial of liberty to the human will is in nowise accidental to the rest of the plan, but, on the contrary, is one of its fundamental princ ples. For if we leave in each individua! of the human race the power of choosing or rejecting, of following or resisting the various attractions that solicit him, there will be an end of this necessary harmony Indeed, in an association such as Four imagines, personality seems itself a c tradiction, as the theory requires th what are called persons should be incaps ble of occupying any place or following an bent but the one that destiny has, a priori measured out for them. We find a m striking example in matters of love, wh he classes as one of the affective passions it is clear that he considers each mar woman as swayed and controlled by a p ticular phase of this passion. in the abstract and not in the concrete t he dreams of, when he supposes it is: operate in harmony, and he farther poses that it is this abstract phase wh is to carry each one to the group wher properly belongs, and that there it find its satisfaction without any contrari But how different will the real passion the real group prove from the imagin In the former it will be love in the conc": that will sway the individual. This will be attracted towards that woman, « in her turn has been attracted tow

another man. Yet in all the cases that must arise from these various attractions, there will be no jarring, no awaking of the passions of envy, jealousy, grief, or hatred! For Fourier attributes these to the subversive order, as only arising from the faults of the present civilization. In the harmony of Fourierism, forsooth, either no two men will ever love the same woman, or the mutual knowledge of this affection will never excite any other emotion than one of complacency in the breasts of each! Or to vary the case: either death will itself be forever abrogated by men turning Fourierites, (which has not quite been asserted as yet at least in its absolute form,) or, when the wife, the mother, or the child dies, it will so happen, as a law of nature, that at the same moment the affection of the friends of such an one towards her will have been fully satisfied, and will then turn away cheerfully to form new relationships. Truly, this new science would be wonderful were it not absurd.

It is here that we should properly treat in detail of Fourier's doctrine respecting the intercourse of the sexes. But as this is always a delicate subject, so in respect to Socialism, and to Fourier's principles in particular, we doubt whether even the advantage of overwhelming his abominable system with a torrent of public indignation could compensate for defiling our pages and the English language with a bare recital of the outrages that he proposes not only against Christian morals but against the modesty which man

has

hitherto been found to cherish even in the barbarous and savage states. Our pen refuses the task, and we confine ourselves to generalities. As we have seen, it is Fourier's general principle that man's true destiny is to follow all the attractions of his nature and he avows it as one of its legitimate results, that as there should be groups of vestals in his association to satisfy the passion or attraction for chastity, so there must be groups and series for gallantry and mock sentiment; and so on down to lower and lower groups, even to the bacchantes and bayaderes, for whom he has reserved a place of honor and consideration. Add to this the instability of marriages, which he makes depend on the temporary caprice of the united pair, who are free to be divorced and re-married indefinitely, (if

it be not a scandal to apply the term marriage to such unions,) and what a picture does it present of the morals of Fourierism! We cannot better illustrate it than by a passage from a report made by a converted Saint Simonian of a dispute between Enfantin, the "Supreme Father" of Saint Simonism, and two of his revolted children who had declared their intention of withdrawing from him "and from his doctrine, which at bottom was nothing else than a hideous promiscuity."

Carnot.- -"Your doctrine is the making a rule of adultery.'

Enfantin.-"This doctrine will never lead to adultery; adultery exists only because one nature is crushed by another, for which it has no attraction. The ideas that I advance, on the contrary, will prevent adultery.'

Dugiel."It is true there will be no more adultery, for vice will be legitimatised, reduced to rule. It is in this sense only that you can self can judge that it is so, if you have studied say there will be no more adultery. You yourthe general principles on which all these ideas

rest.""

And it is to the study of these very principles that we would earnestly invite the candid among the Socialists, if it might be, but at any rate, we demand such an examination on the part of persons not identified with Socialist theories, and to whose opinion, whether with reason or not, weight may be attached, before they venture to speculate as to the permissibility or the innocency of Fourierism in any shape, or with any amount of modifications. Every odious abomination of Communism that has been charged on Fourierism is a legitimate consequence of the first principles of the latter system, and would inevitably follow quick upon the reduction of the Socialist theory to practice. Socialists substitute aggregations of the race as the basis of civil life, instead of the marriage, or family relation, which God made the basis, and which their highest pretension is but to tolerate as a phase in association. And into this association are to be invited men and women, to whom it is to be said: "You are now delivered from the restraints of civilization, which are evil; henceforth your passions are to be your only guides, and the satisfaction of them

* Religion St. Simonienne, p. 42.

least the "negative toleration of creeds and parties" as the great end and aim of philanthropists. This is explicit, and it is well to understand the true character of Fourierism, which avows such sentiments. The effort of the Fourierites to separate the theoretical from the practical side of their system fails in justice. They should remember in the first place that with their founder practice and theory were alike mere reveries, which, despite the talent and devotion that have been wasted on the cause, have never been able to be realized. But quite apart from this fatal defect, when they say that they do not necessarily jar with received doctrines in morals and religion, because their school contemplates only "industrial organization," they are guilty of another fallacy. If they contemplated the organization of labor in subordination to received, conservative, Christian institutions, their plea would have some validity. But we owe them small thanks for their exclusive devotion to "industrial organization," when we have learned that it is because it makes a negation of the old religion and morals; because it exalts material interests to the place of first importance; and makes material ganization" the "unitary rule of operation" in "law, government, morals, and religion."

" or

Fourierism subjects all things to material ́nterests; and in this keeps up its.agreenent with its twin-brother St. Simonism. The last named "religion" expressed its arliest characteristics in the name of its irst periodical publication-the Produceur; and the score of writers who conributed to its columns, with a single exeption, applied themselves almost entirely o industrial or material points of view. his exception was a distinguished St. imonian, Augustus Comte, who systemazed what his co-laborers had done. But he system which alone was found to nswer was one which should essay to 'evate what they called moral and politi7l sciences to the scale of physical sciices, which latter of course were consided as of chief importance. When therere the Fourierites profess to devote emselves exclusively to the organization labor, it is not at all from acquiescence the moral and religious principles which ey have found in force, but because such

a commencement is their natural and obvious point of departure.

But so surely as they ever find room for the development of their principles, (and they must either develop or perish,) they will find, that they have left a great void in their system, and that they "have neglected one of the faces of nature, and that the most noble and most beautiful of its faces--that of love, or of woman." This was the case also in the St. Simonian family," or religion,"* to which Fourierism bears so close a resemblance that the history of the former might serve at once as an account and a prophecy of the latter. We have just said that at its first organization, this sect devoted itself to the development of what they termed positive ideas on labor and the organization of Industry. But those who in the end proved themselves the true heirs of the "family" and retained its name, were organized but a short time on the industrial basis, ere they complained of this "too exclusive attention to positive and material questions." They said that the religion of the Productives, (as the conductors of the journal called Le Producteur were styled,) was imperfect, being fitted only for men, but that to be true it must embrace women and men. Then the Producteur was superseded by the Organisateur, a great display was made of the rehabilitation of the religious sentiments, of conscience, of personal revelation, and inspiration; finally, by the "appeal to woman" the "family" became and took the name of a "religion." And what was that religion? It is an entire subject by itself, but if we had space to discuss it, it would be easy to show that it was from the first involved wholly, and therefore a legitimate development of the fundamental principles common to all parties of Socialists. Socialists are tolerant of all dogmas purely theological, because they believe in none, and because, if their general principles are admitted they will in their development root out all remains

* Some of the uninitiated have supposed that the name Saint Simonians has been given to this sect on account of their having canonized one Simon, who was their founder. For those who are ignomention that their founder was Count Henry de rant of their history, we think it worth while to Saint-Simon; and that, therefore, Saint-Simonians was their original appellation, long before the apotheosis that they did make both of Saint Simon and of his successor Enfantin.