Fourierism repugnant to Christianity
Brownson's Quarterly Review, October, 1844
ART. II. — 1. Charles Fourier, sa Vie et sa Thuorie. Par Ch. Pellarin, Docteur en Medecine. Paris : a Librairie de l'Ecole Societaire. 1843. 2d ed. 12mo. pp. 55G.
2. The Phalanx; Organ of the Doctrine of Association. Semi-monthly. New-York. Vol. I. Nos. 14 and 15.
THE remarks we made, incidentally and for the purpose of illustrating an argument, in our number for July, on the moral and religious bearings of some of the leading dogmata of the Pourierists, seem to have given some offence to the American Associationists; and their organ, The Phalanx, in its 14th and 15th numbers, replies to them with considerable spirit and severity. It treats us personally with very little respect, accuses us of gross, almost culpable, ignorance ; calls us superficial, stupid, arrogant, self-conceited ; and asserts that we have wholly misapprehended and misrepresented the principles of the new Fourier religion. What relates to us personally in the reply of The Phalanx we shall pass over unnoticed, (save so far as to tell its editor, that his statement, that Mr. Brownson was formerly a blacksmith, is not true,) for it is Fourierism, and not we, that is on trial, and it is not good logic to conclude from our personal character to the truth or falsity of Fourier's doctrines. But to the charge of having misrepresented Fourierism, we feel bound, in justice to ourselves and our readers, to offer a reply.
It was far from our purpose in the remarks we made, as was apparent on their very face, to enter into any general exposition of Fourierism, or special discussion of its truth or falsity. We referred to Fourierism only incidentally, and for the sole purpose of illustrating certain points in., an argument we were conducting. Yet, we own, that, in alluding to it, and setting forth some few of its principles, we were bound to set forth these principles fairly ; and, if we misstated, misrepresented, or in any way falsified them, we were inexcusable. We have read over the " notes " The Phalanx has appended to our remarks, with the care and attention they deserve. We hoped to discover from them that we were mistaken in our estimate of Fourierism, for it affords us no pleasure to see any portion of our brethren advocating immoral and infidel doctrines; but we are obliged to confess that we cannot perceive that they convict us of having done the Fourierists any injustice, and the charges we brought, instead of being removed, have, we are sorry to say, been confirmed.
The charges we brought against Fourierism were substantially three; 1. It is repugnant to Christianity; It supersedes the necessity of the Church ; 3. Even admitting its speculative truth, it is impotent to effect the social ameliorations it promises. These, no doubt, are serious charges, and, if they can be sustained, or any one of them, Fourierism is not only unworthy of our support, but deserving of our decided opposition. Are these charges well founded ? or are they false, growing, as The Phalanx pretends, out of the ignorance or malice of him who prefers them ? This is the question before us, and which we propose to discuss at some little length, and with sufficient thoroughness to satisfy our Fourierists that the charges Avere not made inconsiderately, nor on slight grounds.
Before proceeding to this discussion, a word must be said as to the criterion by which we are to determine what is or is not Christianity. That the Fourierists very generally in public, and some of them in private, profess to be Christians, and that many of them may even believe themselves to be Christians, and really are Christians, according to their reading of Christianity, we have never denied, but frankly admitted, in the article which has given the offence. But this is not the question. The real question is, Are the Fourier dogmata repugnant or not to Christian dogmata ? In asking this question, we of course assume that Christianity is something certain and fixed, not vague and fluctuating, varying with each individual interpreter. We do not propose our own private interpretations, and ask that they be accepted as Christianity, nor do we accept as Christianity the private interpretations of others. It is idle to talk about Christian truth at all, unless there be a common standard, a fixed and invariable standard, to which all are bound to conform, on pain of losing their right to the Christian name. This standard is the word of God, as preserved and interpreted by the Church. The Church is the only authorized interpreter of Christian truth ; and to know what really are the Christian dogmata, we must consult her symbols, the decrees of councils, and the writings of the Fathers and accredited doctors. This is the only practicable rule. Any other rule would oblige us to accept the vagaries of every enthusiast, visionary, or ignorant speculator, however repugnant to truth and morals, as the revealed word of God. Is Fourierism, in its leading principles, — not in its merely practical arrangements, concerning which we have as yet instituted no inquiry, — repugnant to Christianity, as authoritatively interpreted by the Church? We say that it is. In proof of this, we have said, addressing the Fourierists,—
" Your very starting point is nt the opposite pole from Christianity, and your method [of reform] is the very opposite of that enjoined by the ever-blessed Son of God. You assume the perfection of human nature, the essential holiness of all man's instincts, passions, and tendencies, and contend that the evil in the world comes from causes extraneous to man ; from causes which restrain, repress, his natural instincts and passions, and hinder their free, full, and harmonious development. This is your starting point. Christianity, all the world knows, teaches that evil comes from within, from man's abuse of the freedom essential to his being as man, and that, in consequence of this abuse, man's nature has become exceedingly disordered, his appetites and affections depraved, his moral tastes vitiated, so that he craves and relishes the meat that perisheth, rather than the meat that endureth unto everlasting life."
Assuming this statement of the view which the Christian religion takes of human nature, the origin of evil, and its effects on the moral nature of the sinner, to be correct, and assuming also our assertion with regard to Fourierism to be warranted by the facts in the case, the repugnance of Fourierism to Christianity on this capital point is too obvious to be mistaken. The Phalanx concedes the correctness of the statement, so far as it concerns the doctrines of Christianity ; but distinguishes in regard to the statement of what the Fourierists teach. It admits that Fourierism teaches the original perfection of human nature, and the essential holiness of all the instincts, passions, &c. ; but contends that by the Fall this perfection and this holiness were lost, "so that man now is corrupt in nearly all his ways and his thoughts," which, it contends, conforms to the Christian doctrine. Therefore there is no discrepancy between Fourierism and Christianity.
J3ut we deny the right of the Fourierists, on their own principles, to make this distinction. We say that they assert the essential holiness of the instincts and of human nature, even as surviving the Fall; and that the corruption which they admit is not a corruption of man's nature, does not affect the sources of human activity, the springs of action, but is merely the effect of the medium in which man acts, and the external direction and application of his activity. In proof, we quote The Phalanx itself. " What, then," it asks, (p. 109,) "do we mean by the essential perfection of man's instincts, &c. &c. ? Why, we mean that the same essential passions, which, misdirected and misapplied, lead only to evil, would, if rightly directed, lead to good." If this means any thing beyond a mere truism, it must mean that the instincts and passions are in themselves pure, and not at all, as such, affected by the Fall; for otherwise the evil would attach to them, and not merely to their direction and application.
Mr. Godwin, who is the writer of the reply to us in The Phalanx, says, in his Popular Vieio of the Doctrines of Charles Fourier, (p. 42,) " Now Fourier promises to man a social system, in which order will be produced by the free action of the passions. But let no one be so silly as to conclude from this, that we ask men to abandon themselves to their inclinations in the actual state of society. Constraint is indispensable in a false medium; liberty is foreign to it, and engenders, when fully indulged, only disorder and confusion." Here is no condemnation of the inclinations ; but simply of the actual condition of society, as a false medium. Correct the medium, reorganize the social state, and then the abandonment to our inclinations would be lawful; which supposes the inclinations themselves to be incorrupt and legitimate.
Mr. Brisbane, the great apostle of the Fourier religion in this country, who enjoyed the advantage of the personal instructions of Fourier, and to whose exertions, more than to those of any other one man, the doctrine owes its popularity among us, may be quoted to the same effect.
" Moralists, philosophers, and legislators, seeing the passions perverted by a false order of things, and shocked at the discords and enormities which they engender in their deranged and perverted action, have supposed that the evil, was in man, not in the social organization Instead of condemning the passions, —the most perfect work of the Divinity on this earth,— we should condemn our false societies and legislators. But philosophers and legislators have had more confidence in their work than in God's; and, instead of blaming their social laws and institutions, they have henped upon MAN the dark load of injustice, vice, and degradation, which should rest alone on their false theories and doctrines. The condemnation of man has gone on from age to age, until he has become degraded in his own eyes, and the doctrine of the depravity of human nature has become firmly established. This blasphemous doctrine, this practical atheism, is the foundation on which all past and present societies have been and are based; and we see in their disastrous and odious results a true picture of their outrageous foundation, insulting alike to the Divinity and to the dignity of man." — Boston Quarterly Review, Vol. IV. pp. 495 - 497.
This would seem to be conclusive. Dr. Pellarin, in the work quoted at the head of this article, — a work written by one of the early disciples of Fourier, one of his ardent friends and admirers, who lived for years in personal intercourse and intimacy with him, and which is published by the assent and with the authorization of the Fourier or Societary School in Paris, and therefore worthy to be quoted as a Fourier confession of faith, — is more conclusive yet.
" If we rise to this conception, a truly religious one, that all the manifestations of the faculties of human nature were designed by its Author for a useful employment, that nothing exists in him, in his passional no less than in his intellectual constitution, or physical organization, which is not called to contribute to social harmony, to the good of the collective mass, and of the individual; if we seek a form of society which shall call forth the free exercise of all these faculties, which shall employ advantageously all the passional forces of which the human heart is the focus, we shall do precisely what Fourier has done. Making no account of the prejudices which condemn such or such a manifestation of human nature, as soon as observation had revealed to him a passional force, he sought to discover the social use which could be made of it, and finally succeeded in demonstrating that there is really not a single passion of which a social use may not be made, and, consequently, that there is not one which is fatally doomed to produce evil, disorder, here below.
" It is in these conditions, apparently so rash, and which at first sight seem to indicate only a madman, that the author of the Theory of Association has always placed and maintained himself for the construction of the whole of his vast system.
" Thus, then, the excellence of human nature, such as God
made it, the acceptation of all the inclinations [penchants) which
it bears with it, — here is Fourier's point of departure, his primi
tive fundamental datum. Hence he is led to interdict all
restraint as a legitimate means of acting on men. It is only
by attraction, by charm, that he obliges them to accomplish
their task in society, but in a society organized differently from
ours, in which duty is almost always painful, and the practice
of goodness little else than self-sacrifice.
"The words of Jean Paul, which I have cited at the head M
of the biography of Fourier, 'He cut.no one of the fibres
which vibrate in the human soul, but attuned them all,' —
these words apply admirably to Fourier, and can wholly apply
only to him. It would be impossible to characterize the pha-
lansterian philosophy better than by these words. Here, in fact, is our fundamental dogma, a dogma which is admitted only with restrictions, more or less numerous, and all very inconsequent, by the other philosophical schools which engage the attention of man and society. In admitting the goodness of the nature of man, and the liolincss of all the inclinations which God has placed in his heart, and which nothing but false social combinations can convert into vices, (for is not our civilization like those Harpies which befouled and changed into impurities whatever they touched 1) — in admitting, I say, these bases, we are led by the irresistible force of logic to adopt the views which the disciples of Fourier profess on social conditions. This first point conceded, we are, unless we show ourselves illogical, phalansterians, completely phalansterian. Let us, on the contrary, question the native excellence of man, we forthwith fall into systems of repression and constraint, in which every liberal view is an exception, in fact, an inconsequence ; and we cease from that moment to be really phalansterians, whatever parts of the system we may in other respects adopt." — Charles Fourier, sa Vic ct Theorie, pp. 311-314.
What can be more to the point ? The goodness, the excellence, the perfection, as we said, of human nature, and the holiness of all its inclinations, passions, or tendencies, are here expressly affirmed, made the point of departure, the fundamental dogma of the phalansterian school, — so essential, that he who accepts this dogma is a phalansterian completely, and that he who calls it in question is not and cannot be a phalansterian.
Let it not be said that this applies only to man in his state of primitive justice and sanctity, before transgression ; for so to restrict it would be to make sheer nonsense of Fourierism, or at least to reduce very considera-ably the novelty of Fourier's boasted discovery. All, who know any thing of Fourierism at all, know perfectly well that it affirms this of human nature as it now is, if taken for what it is in itself. Human nature, according to it, has lost nothing, has undergone no change, suffered, no essential modification, by the Fall; and requires no change, no renewal, no intrinsic succour, to recover from the effects of the Fall. Does not Mr. Brisbane deny the depravity of human nature ? Does not Mr. Godwin attribute the evil solely to the " false medium " in which it acts ? Does not even The Phalanx assert the purity and sanctity of the springs of action, and confine the wrong solely to the external direction and application of the action ? But let us hear a poet, M. Auguste Demesmay, whom Fourier loved : " Cesse done, a la fin, une entrcpriso vnine ; Changer le coeur humain ! Tu mourrais a la peine. DIEU fit les passions, il les faut accepter. Leul1 essor enmprim^ dut les rendie futales; Trop semblables alors a ces fortes cuvales Qti'on pent guider,— mais non clompter."
According to Dr. Pellarin, it is not possible to corrupt the passions. All that can be done is simply to modify the form under which they are manifested. Human nature is to-day what it always was, for nature is the same at all times and places ; and we have now, even to-day, only to descend to the bottom of the heart, to learn the will of God, and what is suitable to man.
" We may," he says, " it is true, by the aid of education, give a certain direction to ideas; we may inspire such or such a mode of seeing on certain points, and consequently modify the ibrm under which PASSION, that great and universal motive power of the human being, shall manifest itself; but to prevent it from being born in the human heart, to stifle it, is impossible. In vain do we attempt to force a passion from following its natural tendencies, to compel it to renounce the end which has been assigned it, or to make it deviate from the end originally imposed upon it by the hand of God himself. Do what we may, it will not cease to aspire always to it; and indirectly and circuitously, whenever it cannot do so directly." — Ib. pp. 307, 308.
And again he says,—
" In this alternative between nature, ONE at all times and places, like the thought of God, of which it is the expression,— in this alternative between nature, always perfectly consequent in the attractions which it impresses on living beings, and the incoherent principles of society, contradictory one to another, and all more or less wretched, we do not hesitate to decide in favor of nature; from it alone we take our own compass, and from it alone we demand the criterion of social things, — much surer, much more constant, than all the variable rules, created, according to the necessities of circumstances, to serve as stays to the diverse societies which we see sharing the earth among them, and no one of which societies is entirely in harmony with the natural inclinations of our race. To ascertain what is suitable to man, we have only to descend to the bottom of our heart, learn what it demands, and accept that interior voice as a holy revelation, a divine appeal to our true and legitimate destiny." —Ib. pp. 318, 319.
This is sufficient to establish our first proposition, that the Fourierists assume, as their point of departure, the perfection of human nature, and the essential holiness of all its passions, instincts, and tendencies, and not only as it was before the Fall, but as it now is. But Christianity denies this, and asserts that man by sin lost the justice and sanctity (justitiam ct sanctitatem) in which he was originally constituted. Therefore the doctrine of the Fourierists is repugnant to Christianity.
But The Phalanx asserts that the Fourier school admits the Fall. We reply, that it does not admit it in the Christian sense, and, properly speaking, in no sense at all. The Fall, according to the Fourierists, is not a fall; for it is the passage from the first social state to the second, in the ascending scale. They recognize in the life of Humanity seven phases, corresponding to the seven phases of individual life ; namely, Birth, Infancy, Youth, Maturity, Decline, Decrepitude, and Death. Maturity is the Apogee, or Plenitude ; Birth, Infancy, and Youth belong to the ascending scale ; Decline, Decrepitude, and Death, to the descending scale. Edenism, or the social state which obtained before the Fall, and of which, according to Fourier, some vestiges lately remained among the South Sea Islanders, corresponds to Infancy; and the Fall is the passage from this to savagism, which corresponds to Youth, and elevates the race one degree nearer the Apogee, or Plenitude, and therefore is a rise, not a fall.
"The first period [Edenism]," says Mr. Godwin, and he reports Fourier's doctrine correctly, " has a limit, since it is necessary that man should acquire power and force. When milk ceases to be agreeable to the child, when its growing wants demand a more substantial nourishment, a painful crisis, DKNTITION, or Teething, furnishes it with instruments for grinding and assimilating the stronger kinds of food. In the, same way, the._croa(ion of the instruments of power and force is a painful crisis for humanity; for the production of science, art, and industry is effected during those incoherent periods which can produce neither happiness nor harmony, since their mission is to create that industry and those sciences which are the means and materials of harmony.
"Many natural causes brought about the rupture of the first society, the principal of which was the increase of population, which gradually reduced the primitive abundance, and changed it into scarcity. So soon as this was felt, the harmonious tie was broken, the feeling of individual selfishness began to control men, and the Primitive Association was dissolved !
" Here we have the great social fact which Moses has impressed upon his Scphcr, Eve, the Will of Man, corrupted by the Serpent, an emblem of cunning, cupidity, and selfishness, seduces Adam, the Universal Man. The tree, covered with fruits, symbol of material wealth, is the determining cause, and the serpent the potential cause, of evil.
" The tree, which was the source of life [death?], was also the source of good and evil. It was only by eating of its fruits, that man lost his primitive ignorance [innocence ?], and that he will begin, through a life of sorrows, to learn, to know, to discover. After the Fall, Adam, the Universal Man, driven from Paradise, was deprived of the blessings of the first society, the elements of which are dissolved at his death. The death of Adam, the Universal Man, is the dissolution of the primitive humanitary unity, and different peoples cover the earth under the name of his children. Humanity is no longer one man, but many men. Adam is condemned to earn Ins bread by the sweat of his brow, until the time of his social redemption, when the serpent's head will be bruised by the annihilation of selfishness. The seed of the Woman, or voli-tive faculty of Man, restored to its true passional destiny, will bruise the head of the serpent under its feet." — Popular Vino of the. Doctrines of Charles Fouriert p. 30.
From this it appears that the Fall of man was the Dentition or Teething of humanity. The theologians, who have mourned over the Fall, and lamented the loss of Eden as a curse, have been as unreasonable and foolish as the mother who should weep to find her child cutting its teeth. One does got some new notions by studying in the school of Fourier, it must be confessed. But the Fourierists are very inconsistent in calling this transition a curse, for it is no more to be regretted than the passage from helpless infancy to lusty youth, and was absolutely necessary, if man was ever to attain to power and force. But how repugnant all this is to the Christian doctrine of the Fall, of the primitive disobedience which brought death into our world, and all our woo, it needs not to say ; nor is it hardly worth our while, to point out the utter incompatibility of this interpretation of the Mosaic narrative with the authorized doctrines of the Church. Yet we cannot forbear remarking, that it is something new to make the tree of the knowledge of good and evil the same with the tree of life. We had supposed the tree of life, which grew in the garden, to be another tree than that whose fruit was forbidden ; nor had we gathered from the Mosaic account, that the forbidden tree was the source of good as well as evil, and that the redemption was to come through the very agency that caused our ruin. Eve, unhappy mother of us all, disappears, resolved into the will of man; and so man's will was made out of one of his ribs, and he himself was seduced by his will. As if, aside from his will, after his will was corrupted, there was any man to be seduced ! The seed of the woman, which all the Fathers agreed in holding to be the Incarnate Word, born of the Blessed Virgin, is man's volitive faculty, and the volitive faculty is therefore the seed or progeny of man's will; which implies that the will precedes the faculty or power to will. Redemption is not to come through Christ, but through man's own volitive faculty ; and yet Fourierism is identical with Christianity ! Mr. Godwin's, or rather Fourier's, interpretation of this passage of sacred history makes God lie, and the serpent tell the truth. It presupposes that the serpent told the truth, when he said, "Ye shall not surely die, but be as gods, knowing good and evil" j for it affirms, that, by eating the forbidden fruit, man got rid of his primitive ignorance, and began to learn, to know, to discover. We had supposed the serpent lied, and that the eyes of our first parents were opened only to behold their own shame, and that they lost no little of their primitive understanding of divine things, and that it was in bitter irony, that the Lord God said, " Behold, the man has become as one of us." This interpretation also, since it makes good and evil come from the same source, and since it makes material wealth the fruit which brought the evil, makes material wealth, the goods of this world, the redeemer and saviour of men. Yet, in declaring Fourierism repugnant to Christianity, we only showed our ignorance of its very elements ! Is it not rather they who affirm the Christian character of Fourierism, who are ignorant of the very elements of the Christian religion ? But be this as it may, this account of the Fall proves, that the Fourierists, unless they deceive themselves, do not deal fairly with us, when they profess to believe in the Fall of man, for they understand by the fall of man quite another thing from what Christians do.
We dwell long on this first point, because it is fundamental. Fourierism, as Dr. Pellarin has well seen, must stand or fall with the doctrine of the perfection of man's nature, and the sanctity of all human inclinations. For, if human nature were depraved, and the sources of human activity corrupted, it would be absurd to seek a state of society which should conform in all respects to man's nature, and give free action to all his passions. But this is what Fourier attempts. Human nature being given, such as it is, his problem is, to find a social order which shall be in all respects adapted to it. Nothing in man is to be changed or modified. What appears to us to be evil, and what actually produces evil, is good in itself, and would produce good, could it only go straight to the end it seeks. Thus, in enumerating the seven rights of man, he reckons the right to steal as one, and makes it a reproach to existing society, that it does not provide for the enjoyment of this right, but seeks to repress the thievish propensity. The propensity exists ; therefore it was implanted in man by the Creator ; therefore, inasmuch as the Creator is good and perfect, it is good, and if society were what it should be, it would be turned to a good account. So, also, of the disposition to intrigue, to cabal, to lie, to cheat, &c. It is given us by the Creator, and, like all the Creator's works, is good, and given for a useful purpose, and would serve a useful purpose, were it not for our subversive social institutions. Whatever Christians look upon as evil in man, as the corruption of nature, making us by nature children of wrath, and which they seek, by divine grace, by religious discipline, and pious exercises, to subdue or to eradicate, he accepts as good and holy, and only seeks to find it employment.
This is Fourierism. Human nature is right, all is right, but the medium in which man acts. Now what is to be done ? We are to find and adopt a social order which shall employ harmoniously all the passions, as well those now termed evil, as those now termed good. What is our guide in finding this order ? ATTRACTION. Every passion, desire, or whatever you choose to call it, tends naturally, or is naturally drawn, to the end which was assigned it by the Creator. This is attraction, and is in each proportional to destiny. The discovery of this law is the great boast of Fourier. ATTRACTIONS piiopoitTioNAL TO DESTINIES, — this, according to him is the law of the universe. All beings are attracted in the exact proportion of their destiny in social harmony. Now, study man, ascertain for what he has an affinity, or to what he is naturally attracted, and you know what is the end for which he was made. Proceed now to organize society, so that each may, in all respects, go to the end for which he has an affinity, or to which he is attracted, and you have a perfect state of society, that very social order, which God, in making man as he has, has himself decreed. All this evidently assumes the perfection of human nature, and the sanctity of the inclinations, and that it is impossible that man should crave what he ought not to have, and what God has not designed he should have. It is evident, then, that the perfection of human nature is fundamental in Fourier's doctrine ; that he builds all on the assumption of this perfection. We may therefore conclude that we were right in the first instance of discrepancy we adduced between Fourierism and Christianity.
2. We asserted, that Fourierists contend " that the evil in the world comes from causes extraneous to man ; from causes which restrain, repress, his natural instincts and passions, and hinder their free, full, and harmonious development." The Phalanx makes a feeble attempt to deny this, and asserts, adopting our own words, that the evil comes, as Christianity teaches, " from man's abuse of the freedom essential to his being as man." We think The Phalanx mistaken in this assertion ; for, on Fourier principles, allowing these principles to be consistent with each other, it is impossible, in the nature of things, that it should come from Vithin, from man's abuse of his freedom. The passions, according to Fourier, cover the whole voluntary activity of man, and these, we have seen, arc always holy and legitimate, at least in their source, that is, in man, though they may be evil at the other extremity. But man can abuse his freedom only by a wrong voluntary act, that is to say. by willing what he ought not to will. The abuse is in the willing what is wrong. It is the active, that is, according to Fourier, the passional, nature that wills. But how is it possible for an activity, or a passional nature, that is holy, without ceasing to be holy, to will that which is wrong ?
Will, taken entitatively, or ontologically, is, if we understand Fourier's philosophy, not distinguishable from passion. Taken phenomenally, it is merely the effort to which the soul is determined by the passions. In the first case, it is passion ; in the second, it is the effect of passion, or passion rendering itself effective. In either case, if we assume the invariable rectitude of passion, we must also assume the invariable rectitude of will. The will, then, is always right. The will and liberty are identical; or, at least, will differs from liberty only in this, that liberty is will in potentia, while will is liberty in actu. Evidently, then, where there is no abuse of will, that is, no wrong willing, there can be no abuse of liberty. But there is no wrong willing, as before proved. Therefore, there is no abuse of liberty, or freedom. Consequently, the evil in the world does not come from man's abuse of his freedom.
Once more. What is Fourier's boasted discovery ? "Attractions proportional to destinies." Newton discovered this law in the material world ; Fourier has discovered it in the moral world; and as Newton calculated its effects in physical science, so has Fourier calculated its effects in social and industrial science. This law is the same in all worlds, otherwise the universe would have no unitary principle. On this, Fourier, in his great work published in 1822, in which he developes his science, insists ad nauseam. If this law be the same in all worlds, then it must operate in the moral world precisely as in the physical world. Theif man must be attracted to his destiny in the same manner as a body is attracted to the earth's centre. It is as impossible, then, for man to abuse his liberty, to withdraw himself from his destiny, as it is for the falling body to arrest its descent and begin to reascend. He must needs go straight to his end, unless turned aside by some force acting from without, which overpowers the force acting from within. There can no evil originate, then, from man himself, unless we assume, what the Fouricrists must deny, that it is evil to fulfil our destiny.
We are not ignorant that Fourier alleges, in opposition to this conclusion, what he terms duplicity of action, or duality of movement, of which, he says, every being in the universe is susceptible; but we do not choose to be the dupe of mere words. According to his fundamental doctrine of attraction, duality of movement — that is, one movement, normal, in the direction assigned by the Creator, the effect of which is good ; and another, which is subversive, in a contrary direction, the effect of which is evil — is utterly impossible. When Fourier speaks of attraction, we presume him to mean something, and to mean that attraction in the moral world, in all worlds, is precisely what Newton has found it to be in the material world. If so, it must operate uniformly, constantly, invariably, necessarily, and draw, impel, as Mr. Godwin says, each being in the universe to its destined end, unless crossed or counteracted by some force acting from without. But whence the crossing, contradictory, disturbing force, in a universe made after the most perfect model, governed by one and the same universal law, namely, attractions proportional to destinies ? To get a disturbing force, it would be necessary to assume two original principles, one good, the other evil, coeternal and eternally warring one against the other; which is not only contrary to the gospel, but to Fourier's own theory of universal unity. We therefore, designedly, make no account of what Fourier calls the subversive development, for he recognizes none of the necessary conditions, and assigns no original principle or cause of subversive action.
But without insisting on this, we have other grounds for denying that the Fourierists hold that the evil comes from man's abuse of his own freedom. In Mr. Godwin's book, already quoted, we have a chapter on Good and Evil (Chapter III.), in which he attempts to answer the question of the origin of evil, and in this not one word is said of man's abuse of his freedom. Mr. Godwin, we make no doubt, writes the reply to us in The Phalanx, of which he is one of the conductors ; at any rate, The Phalanx refers to him as authority on the moral and religious bearings of Fourierism. But this is not all. Mr. Godwin's work is, in the main, nothing but a free translation, as he himself informs us, of the Vu-e Synthetique, by one of the ablest and most distinguished members of the Fourier school in France. The work, then, is good authority. Evil in this chapter is assumed to have originated in man's primitive ignorance. " Evil," says Mr. Godwin, " is ignorance ; with the advent of science, it disappears." God made the universe well, after the most perfect model. The machine is admirably constructed, and will work well, and produce the results intended, if worked according to the intention of the maker. But an ignorant person, not understanding the mechanism of the machine, very foolishly charges himself with its management, and, of course, it goes wrong, and makes sad work. In this way evil conies. God has constructed the machine wisely, but we do not know how to use it; no one, before Charles Fourier, ever taught us how to use it. But Mr. Godwin forgets that man himself is a part of the general mechanism of the universe, and in some sense the machine to be managed, as well as the one to manage it; and therefore, if he, through ignorance or any other cause, is unable to perform from the first moment his allotted part in the machine, be it what it may, the machine itself is imperfect, and the engineer has failed, either in its construction, or in the generation or application of its motive power. It is of little avail that the mechanism be perfect, if the motive power be inadequate or irregular. The inadequacy or irregularity of the motive power, or the unslrilfuluess of the directing or managing power, is just as much a defect as would be the want of the necessary complement of springs, wheels, or cogs. A mill, though admirably contrived to be driven by steam, would be ill constructed, if intended to be driven by water. A perfect ship, to be propelled by sails, would be imperfect, if intended to be propelled by steam. A machine, which, from the nature of the case, must be worked by a weak or ignorant person, would by no means be adapted to its end, if so contrived as to be capable of being worked only by a Samson or a Solomon. Wisdom consists in adapting means to ends, and, where the constructor has the choice of both means and ends, we can hardly call him wise, if he fails to adapt them to each other.
According to our Fourierists, the Creator made a machine, or something which may be represented under the figure of a machine, which man was to manage ; that is to say, a part was assigned to man in the universe to perform, to which man through ignorance was inadequate, and from this proceeds the evil of which we complain. Now, we demand, wherefore a wise and good Creator assigns to any being in the universe a part disproportioned to the powers of that being. We demand, furthermore, how it can comport with wisdom and goodness to do so. The Creator is infinite, and can do whatever does not imply a contradiction. It implies no contradiction to allot to each a part proportioned to his capacity. Wherefore, then, has the Creator assigned to man a task beyond his capacity ? Mr. Godwin says, God cannot construct a machine that will work well, when managed by one ignorant of its mechanism. Be it so; but why does he intrust the management of a machine to one who does not understand its mechanism ?
But Mr. Godwin — and he speaks the sentiments of his master — contends not only that the evil comes from man's ignorance of the mechanism he was to direct, but that man himself was created in this ignorance. We ask, then, if man was to be blamed for being ignorant. God made him ignorant, placed him in a world with which he was unacquainted, and whose laws he knew not. Was this man's fault ? Did this ignorance proceed from man's own abuse of his freedom ? Of course not. But the evil comes from this ignorance. Therefore evil does not come from man's abuse of his freedom. This ignorance has its origin in a cause extraneous to human activity. But man is all in his activity; for, save so far as active force, he does not exist, has no being, as we have demonstrated in our criticism on the Critik tier reinen Vernuvft. Therefore, the evil in the world, since it proceeds from this ignorance, comes from a cause or causes extraneous to man.
Again, ignorance is a predicate — a negative predicate
— of the faculty of intelligence. But Fourierists sep
arate the intelligence from man, and declare it to be
not man, but one of'his servants. We quote, in proof,
Dr. Pellarin.
" As to the famous definition of man by M. de Bonald,
' Man is an intelligence served by organs,' it omits what is
principal in man. It would be much more correct to say, that
man is a combination of DESIRES (or passions) served by an in
telligence and a body Thus, whilst the end to which
we are socially destined was marked in an immutable manner by passional attraction, which urges us unceasingly towards it,
— Intelligence, which had for its task to discover the means of
attaining it,— Intelligence, trampling under its feet the instincts
of our nature, and rebelling against the will of God revealed
by the tendencies of Attraction, — Intelligence, we say, took it
into its head itself to assign another end to our destiny, an arbitrary end, in view of which it has pretended to recast and fashion the heart of man to suit itself. It has presumptuously arrogated to itself the right of deciding such or such a thing to be good or evil, according as that thing agrees or disagrees with the chimerical end of which it has dreamed." — Vie et Theoric, p. 334.
There can be no question that the Intelligence is a rascally knave; but because he takes it into his head to leave his master's service and to set up on his own account, shall we hold the master responsible for all his peccadilloes? The master is the "combination of desires," and is, as we have proved over and over again, according to the Fourierists, perfect and holy. He must, then, have commanded his servant properly ; and all would have gone on well, if the servant had only obeyed orders and done his duty. It is all the fault of Intelligence, and Intelligence is no more the man than is the body. Then the faults it commits are no more the faults of the man than the involuntary twitches and spasms of the muscular fibres. The man is identical with the passional nature, as shown by Dr. Pellarin's definition. The passional nature and the voluntary nature are declared by Fourier, as Mr. Godwin informs us, (p. 43,) to be identical, and we have ourselves identified will and liberty. Consequently, the man is identical with liberty. But intelligence is separate from man, as shown above. Therefore, the intelligence is separate from liberty. But the evil comes from ignorance, or defect or defection of intelligence. Therefore, it does not come from the abuse of liberty, as The Phalanx alleges. But Christianity teaches that evil originates in man's abuse of liberty. Therefore, Fourierism, which denies this, is repugnant to Christianity.
Once more ; we question the statement of The Phalanx for another reason. Mr. Godwin, in the passage we have quoted from his Popular Vieiv concerning the loss of Eden, which resulted from the primitive transgression, attributes that loss to natural causes, by which he must understand other than voluntary causes. The principal of these causes, he says, was a scarcity of provisions, brought about by a superabundant population. Then the cause was not in man, but in the fact, that restraint was exercised, or threatened to be exercised, on his passion for food. If there had been no let or hinderance to this natural passion, there would have been no individual selfishness, no transgression, no evil. It was not owing, then, to any perversity of the will, but, as Malthus would say, to the fact, that population had outrun the means of subsistence; and the evil could have been prevented only by a check on population, that is, by restraining a natural propensity. We are not caricaturing Fourierism. We speak with all gravity, and are far from exaggerating in a single feature or a single line. The whole system is sustained by reasoning just like this of Mr. Godwin's. Evil in all cases comes from poverty, from a deficiency in the external means, whether material or moral, of meeting the internal demand. The default of the object results in the subversion of the passion, whence results the long catalogue of evils which afflict us. No Fourierist, who has comprehended the master, will have the hardihood to deny this, Whatever of internal corruption, or subversion of man, there may be, all has been superinduced by man's inability to find in his circumstances and relations his legitimate satisfactions. Hence Mr. Dana, of the Brook Farm Association, and one of the writers The Phalanx commends, says, —
" We do not make war upon any part of human nature, but only upon its false circumstances and subversive conditions. God has formed no creature with innate desires and necessities for which there is no means of supply. Nor is man an exception to this universal law, and only in false and unnatural circumstances and relations can he fail to be a partaker of the universal satisfactions. The first result, then, of a true order of society will be the means of complete and just satisfaction for the fundamental or sensuous [sensual?] wants of man." — Association in its Connexion with Education and Rdigion) p. 26.
Before quitting this part of the subject, we have a word or two to say on the doctrine of the Pourierists concerning the primitive state of man. They regard the paradisaical state, what they call Edenism, as a state of infancy, in which man is ignorant, without power or force. They consider man before he sinned as less knowing, less strong and energetic, than afterwards. Thus by sin came wisdom, power, and force. How far this is removed from the Christian doctrine, that by sin man lost the justice and sanctity in which he was constituted, and that the wages of sin is death,—death temporal, spiritual, and eternal, —we trust our readers have no occasion to be told. But we wish to consider it in another point of view. We would like to know where, in the Sacred Scriptures, we find the evidence that the primitive man was thus ignorant and weak ? Moses says not one word of it, but, on the contrary, teaches us that Adam was not thus ignorant ; for the Lord God brought the various animals to Adam, to see what he would call them, " and whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was the name thereof. And Adam gave names to all cattle, and to the fowl of the air, and to every beast of the field." This seems to imply that the man was not altogether ignorant, and we much doubt whether the great Charles Fourier himself ever knew enough to give to every living thing its appropriate name ; for the name which Adam gave was the true name, a name which expressed the nature and character of the creature named, — "And whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was the name thereof." The Church has always held the opposite view, and inferred from the free and open communion which Adam enjoyed with his Maker, not to speak of his intercourse with the angels, that he was really more knowing than any of his posterity. Moreover, there would have been great injustice in punishing him so severely for his transgression, if he had sinned merely through ignorance. He was punished because he sinned knowingly, voluntarily, without any reason or motive out of himself, save the temptation of the Devil, which temptation he had the ability to resist. This, we believe, is the Christian view. Whether Adam knew what he knew by the single forces of his nature, or by supernatural illumination and grace, it is not necessary now to inquire. But this much is certain, — he possessed perfect human nature, and was constituted in a state of complete justice and sanctity, stood in the favor of God, and would have known no evil, would have lived for ever, without undergoing the change we call death, had he not sinned. He knew and communed with God ; and knowledge of God includes all other knowledge; for who knows the Creator knows the creature. But this knowledge he lost by the Fall; and it was not till after the Fall, that man was found in that state of ignorance and weakness, which the Fourierists assume to have been his primitive state. In asserting the contrary, Fourierism does but give another proof of its utter repugnancy to Christianity.
II. We pass now to our second charge against Fourierism ; namely, that it seeks to supersede the Church.
We have elaborated the points we have considered, as some of our readers may think, at an unreasonable length ; but we have done so not for the sake of vindicating ourselves from the charge of having misrepresented Fourierism, but because the whole Fourier doctrine, even down to its minutest phalansterian arrangements, is involved in them. If the Fourier doctrine is not, on these points, what we have endeavoured to show that it is, it is nothing but a string of absurdities and contradictions from beginning to end. It has no systematic sense or consistency, no theoretic principle, no regular logical progression. It is, moreover, only on the supposition of the goodness of human nature and the sanctity of the inclinations, and the further supposition, that the disorder which exists has its cause in the false industrial and social systems which have obtained, and still obtain, that the remedy proposed can have any adaptation to the disease, or any promise of proving effectual. This is so obvious, that we shall spend no time in proving it, but proceed at once to show that the remedy it proposes is as different from that proposed by Christianity as is its view of the disease.
In our number for July, addressing the Pourierists, we say, —
" Christianity assumes that the evil originates in man's abuse of his freedom, that here [in this abuse] is the cause of that evil in nature and outward circumstances; which reacts upon him with such terrible vengeance; it therefore proposes, as its method of recovery, to lay the axe at the root of the tree, to cut off the evil in its source, by purifying the heart, out of which are the issues of life You reverse this ; the natural instincts, appetites, passions, and affections of man, you hold, are only so many revelations of the will of the Creator; and the fact, that man possesses these, is a sure indication that it was the will of God that they should be gratified."
The Phalanx does not and will not contradict this statement. The statement, so far as concerns the Christian doctrine, all will admit ; so far as it concerns Fourierism, the quotations we have made abundantly prove its correctness. The work proposed by Christianity is, to regenerate the soul, to purify the heart, and to bring man into communion with God ; the work proposed by Charles Fourier is, to find and establish a social and industrial order which shall afford a free and full gratification to all our desires, to all our inclinations, or tendencies. The difference in the point of view of each leads necessarily to this difference in the work proposed by each. Christianity, regarding man as being by nature, since the Fall, a child of wrath, prone to evil, unclean within and without, sold under sin, in bondage to the Devil, who has power over him, seeks to deliver him from this bondage, to restore him to inward moral freedom, to cure him of evil concupiscence, and present him holy and blameless, covered with the robe of Christ's righteousness, before his God. In a word, it regards man as inwardly diseased, and it seeks to cure him. Fourierism, on the contrary, regards man as whole in himself, but as the victim of the false medium in which he lives. He is as the plant struggling to work its way up to the light, but kept down and turned out of its direct course upward by overlaying rocks, which it is too feeble to push aside. Man is diseased, but only so far as affected by the surrounding medium. The seat of the disease is in the medium, not in him. Its effort, therefore, is to heal the medium, — sure that then man himself will be instantly convalescent. According to Christianity, the seat of the disease is in man ; according to Fourierism, it is in social and industrial institutions. Here is a broad distinction, and there must needs be a wide difference between the disease recognized by the one and the disease recognized by the other, and one would naturally conclude, a priori, an equally wide difference between the remedy proposed by the one and that proposed by the other. Let us see if it be so. Christianity proposes to remedy the disease by removing the curse under which man by nature labors. This it does by the blood of the atonement, applied to the individual by the water of baptism, which is called the "washing of regeneration," and by the infusion of confirming and strengthening grace, whereby the sinner is freed from the dominion of sin, is strengthened to keep the law of God, and to attain to true justice, sanctity, and love. It renews and communicates the poxoer of a higher life, gives us the power to become sons of God. It presupposes, that by sin we lost our sonship, and by nature have not power to regain it, nor to retain it; and it recognizes the necessity of our receiving supernatural aid, which aid, when received, becomes in us the ability to will and to do what God commands. The great practical matter is the communication of this ability or power, which is " Christ formed within us, the hope of glory." The grdat question concerns the means by which it is communicated. These means are chiefly the sacraments of the Church, which only the Church has, and which only the Church can rightfully administer. Hence, the Church becomes, under God, in the hands, so to speak, of the Holy Spirit, the medium of our redemption from sin, our restoration to justice and sanctity, and growth in true knowledge and love. For this purpose Christ founded the Church, for this end he sustains it by his presence with it " all days unto the consummation of the world."
Now, Fourierism, by asserting the native holiness of man and his instincts, and transferring the seat of the disease from man to the medium in which he lives, declares this remedy unnecessary, so far as it concerns man himself, and obviously inappropriate, so far as concerns the diseased medium. It declares, then, that there is no necessity for the sacraments, because there is no need of the infusion of supernatural power, and, therefore, no need of the Church to possess and administer the sacraments by which it is communicated. It goes further still, and asserts that there was no need of the atonement, therefore no need of the Christian Sacrifice, and then no need of Christ, and then, of course, that Christianity is all " much ado about nothing." We defy The Phalanx to get away from this conclusion. Whoso denies the Fall, in the Christian sense, and the corruption of human nature through Adam's sin, denies all necessity of the Christian dispensation, and virtually the Christian religion itself. There is no use in multiplying words on this point. We repeat, then, what we said in our July number, — " Christianity is a system of means divinely devised and instituted for the recovery of man from sin, his restoration to justice and sanctity, and his growth in knowledge and love. This system of means you [the Fourierists] reject, and substitute therefor the discoveries of Fourier, and for the Christian Church, its ministries, sacraments, and disciplines, the Fourier phalanx, with its groups, series, and alternations of labor." YVhat now shall we say to The Phalanx's denial that the Fourierists reject Christianity as a system of means divinely devised and instituted for the recovery of man ? All we can say is, if they accept it, they are much less consequent reasoners than we have given them credit for. Christianity, with its ministries, sacraments, and disciplines, is, on their hypothesis, superfluous and absurd. But The Phalanx itself furnishes us the proof that the Fourierisls, at least the American Associationists, do reject the Christian Church, and propose to substitute in its place Industrial Associations. The Church, according to St. Paul, is the body of our Lord, that in which is embodied the law of the spirit of life. The Associationists, whose organ The Phalanx is, in their address to the public, quoted by The Phalanx, against us, say, —
" But we take higher than this merely defensive ground ; we have positive principles to teach ; we are propagandists ; and while we refrain from mingling with the peculiar religious feelings of any sect or individual, we yet assert that the true organization of every sect is to be found only in the principle of Association. Religious truth is the principle of unity and harmony ; but it cannot be realized in practice, universally, without a correspondent unity of action in the sphere of worldly interests. , Association is the true form for the practical embodiment of religious truth and love ; and while attractive industry and unitary combination are not themselves religious unity, they are the body or collective form in which alone the ordinances of Christianity, the spirit of religion, the Universal Church, can be incorporated, practically, incessantly; for, without the body, the spirit cannot be fully manifested on earth." — The Phalanx, p. 201.
This, though expressed with great caution, is sufficiently explicit, when taken in connexion with what precedes it. The views of the Associationists, on the subject of the Church, are, so far as we can collect them, that there are certain great and eternal laws, according to which God has created and by which he governs the universe. These may be called NATURAL LAWS. The prophets and seers of old times naturally or supernaturally discovered some of them, Jesus discovered and proclaimed several more of them, and Charles Fourier has discovered and proclaimed the rest. These laws are all of one unitary system, and, therefore, all harmonize. Hence, there is no discrepancy between the discoveries of Fourier and those of Jesus ; therefore, no discrepancy between Fourierism and Christianity, The Fourierist accepts the discoveries of Jesus, and asks, as he thinks he well may, the Christian to accept the discoveries of Fourier as the complement of the others. But the mere discovery of these laws is not enough for their practical realization. The great superiority of Fourier over all his predecessors is, that he has discovered the practical method of realizing them, which is technically called ATTRACTIVE INDUSTRY, or ASSOCIATION. NOW, this practical realization, or the adoption of Attractive Industry, will be the realization of the true Church, to which the Church which has thus far existed has been only a prelude, a sort of prophecy of what was to be in the fulness of times, at the second coming of Christ. We are sure that wo state their views on this point correctly, though perhaps more nakedly than they would be willing to state them themselves.
We must be brief in our comments on this, for we are exceeding our limits. We remark, in the first place, that here is no recognition of supernatural power, no doctrine of grace, beyond the simple revelation of the Natural Laws. This was all that a Fourierist could demand ; for, placing evil in ignorance, which disappears with the advent of science, he could see no necessity for any thing more than for the truth to be discovered and told. There was no moral disease in man to be healed, there were no obstructions to obedience to truth, when known, to be removed. All he wants is a prophet in his saviour; he has no need that he should also be a priest and king. On this point he falls short of Christianity, and is Christian only in name.
We remark, in the second place, that the Church is looked upon as a human contrivance for practically embodying the truth discovered, not a divine institution supernaturally founded and sustained for the teaching of truth and the communication of life. As yet it has never existed, says The Phalanx, save in potentia, — as a prophecy, not as a reality, — only as something that is to be, not as something which is. " We do not deny the spiritual truth of religion," says Mr. Godwin, as quoted by The Phalanx: " We desire to organize a body to receive that truth, — a practical reality, not a mockery." So, thus far, religious truth has had no embodiment, has been no reality, but a mockery. And The Phalanx, in its innocence, quotes such statements as these, to prove that we did the Fourierists injustice in charging them with rejecting the Christian Church ! Really, The Phalanx makes the rejection more decided than we had supposed, and its defence has made the Fourierists appear more thoroughly infidel than we had ourselves believed.
Perhaps the writer in The Phalanx will feel hurt, if we do not take some notice of the novel church theory which he quotes from The Pathfinder, in which he inserted it some time since, in reply to some essays of ours on the Mission of Jesus and the Church, published in the Boston Christian World; but, really, he must excuse us; we are tired of novelties; and the simple fact, that a theory of the Christian Church is new, is with us a sufficient reason for refusing to receive it. It is enough for us to say, that Mr. Godwin's theory is not that which the Church has authorized. It is not that which the Christian world has ever recognized as from God, and, therefore, we have nothing to do with it. We are simply concerned to know, whether the Fourierists believe in the Church, not whether they believe in a church. If they do not believe in the Church in the sense in which Christians always have believed and still believe in it, they do not believe in the Christian Church, " the Church of God, which he hath purchased with his own blood."
We must tell The Phalanx, that the extract he makes from what he terms an "accredited publication" does not, as its writer seems to imagine, express the Catholic doctrine. In the first place, the Catholic believes the Church came into the world perfectly formed, and that it received all truth from the beginning, and, therefore, can make no progress, save in the application of truth to the life and progress of individuals and society. It effects a growth in individuals and in society, but it has no growth of its own. It is immutable, like
its Author, and is unchangeable amid all changes, immovable amid all fluctuations, the representative of the eternal and unchangeable God. What it was eighteen hundred years ago, it is now, and will be to the end of time. The Catholic, moreover, believes the Church not only to be authoritative, but infallible, in all that concerns faith and the principles of morals, and authoritative because infallible. He would shrink from the tyrannical doctrine put forth by The Phalanx, that a man is bound to submit to a fallible church. Liberty of opinion, in his view, is in being required to obey only the authority of God. Holding the voice that speaks in the Church, when the Church speaks authoritatively, to be the voice of God, he holds it no infringement of liberty to be bound to obey it, for he obeys only truth itself. But he would hold his right of private judgment abridged, destroyed, by the doctrine of The Phalanx, (p. 303,) that every man is to obey the established church, although that church is fallible, and to abide in the church wherein he was born, be it what sort of a church it may. If The Phalanx chooses to believe so, it is his affair, not ours ; but we beg him not to call it Catholic doctrine.
We must tell The Phalanx that his great talk about the word of God does not deceive us any more than his professions of Catholicity. He must accept the ivhole word of God, and in the sense the Church understands it, before we can admit his orthodoxy ; and so long as we find him able, with his professed reverence for the word of God, to accept and defend such notions as we have seen are entertained by the Fourierists, we shall have no great difficulty in determining how much his reverence for the word of God is worth. But enough of this.
From the account we have given, it would seem to be pretty clear that the Fourierists may admit that Jesus did reveal- some of the hidden laws of nature, gave to men a somewhat clearer insight into their spiritual nature, and furnished them with several noble precepts, yet they recognize in him neither the priestly nor the kingly character, at least, in the Christian sense ; that, though they recognize a church, they do not recognize the Christian Church, but teach doctrines which make it superfluous, and an absurdity ; and that the church they do believe in is a church which is yet to be constituted, and to be constituted by human hands, and, in fact, by the adoption of Attractive Industry. The adoption of this was not possible before Fourier. Therefore, a true church, in their sense, has never been possible till now. But a church founded by man, or a church which grows up naturally around certain ideas, is not the Christian Church. For the Christian Church was formed a priori, and placed in the world in advance of the natural effects of the truths it teaches; and since the Fourierists accept no such church as this, we say we were right in accusing them of rejecting the Christian Church.
We have not space to touch upon all the points raised by the reply of The Phalanx to our remarks, but we have seen no reason for modifying our former statements in any respect whatever. Notwithstanding the stare of The Phalanx, and its accusation of libel, at what we said concerning the relation of the sexes in the phalansterian world, its editor does not contradict us; for he knows that we had ample authority for our statement, that Fourier recognizes the necessity and legitimacy of a sexual indulgence which extends beyond the Christian rule, although he thinks it may probably be three hundred years before it will do to introduce definite arrangements on the subject. Will The Phalanx deny this ? Here is what Mr. Godwin himself reports to be the doctrine of Fourier.
" Departing from the vestalate, each one will enter into some
corporation, having constancy for its rule ; many will stop there ;
hut others are so peculiarly formed, that they will join themselves
to other corporations, more or less severe, as may be agreeable,
to their inclinations and temperaments The first organi
zation is that of the vestalic corporation, devoted to the most
purely spiritual relations between the sexes, and which is sur
rounded by the most attractive charms and the most ennobling honors, to retain its members as long as possible within its instructions; another would be the corporation of constancy, as we have said, at which the most part of men and women would stop ; while others again, named Bacchantes, Bayaderes, &c, would pass into other corporations not so strict in their requirements. Such characters as Aspasia, Ninon de l'Enclos, &c, Fourier regards as essential parts in the variety of the human race, who will always exist, who must be allowed for in every scheme of philosophy, and whom society, instead of rudely thrusting from its charities, must turn to some good account." — Popular Vieio, pp. 88, 89.
If the reader will turn to our July number, (p. 314,) lie may see and judge for himself whether we libelled the Fourierists. We libelled them only on the principle, " the greater the truth, the greater the libel." We did no more than state the simple truth. We have, we trust, as many charities for human frailty as any of our brethren, and are more wont to weep than to exult over the fallen, or the victims of any passion, however improper or dangerous may be its unrestrained indulgence ; but when new philosophies and new schemes of reform are brought forward, and the public are called upon to adopt them,*we believe it is no lack of charity on our part to lay open their real character, that those who do adopt them may know beforehand what it is they are adopting.
But the probability is, that we have not the whole of Fourier's doctrine on love and its relations ; for he complains, in his work published in 1822, that he had, in deference to public prejudice, refrained from enlarging as much on the subject as he wished, and had confined himself mainly to negative statements. Mr. Godwin admits that Fourier was in favor of divorce, when the parties do not find themselves mutually fitted to each other; which is contrary to the Christian rule.
We accused the Fourierists of presenting only Epicurean motives for adopting their scheme. The PJut-lanx denies this, and says something about self-denial being an essential function of the soul ; but we assure The Phalanx, that, with every disposition to do full justice to the doctrines it defends, we do not understand how self-denial can comport with Fourier's fundamental principles, unless he brings it under the famous head of exceptions; especially when, as The Phalanx itself alleges, self-denial is necessary only while under the
curse, and that in Harmony, all our duties, &c, " will
be in entire concordance with the gratification of all
our essential desires." Moreover, the Pourierists make
poverty the primal curse, and have no hope of social
redemption but through wealth and luxury. Fourier
romances on the wonderful increase of wealth that
would instantly take place, if his system should be
adopted. He would, if our memory serves us right,
pay off, out of extra gains, the whole national debt of
England, in twelve years. Whoever has heard Mr.
Brisbane lecture, or read his books, must be satisfied
that the increase of wealth, and the multiplication of
luxuries, of the means of gratifying all the senses, are
the grand motives he holds out. The Fourierist has no
indulgence for poverty. He does not say, Blessed are
the poor, and woe unto the rich ; but, Blessed are the
rich, and cursed are the poor. He has no conception
that pure, unalloyed bliss may be tasted in a poor man's
dwelling, and under a coarse and tattered coat. As to
pleasure, Fourier himself, in the work we have already
alluded to, his great work, tells us, that in Harmony,
that is, in the new world he is to introduce, the normal
length of life will be one hundred and forty-four years;
and he urges, as one of the motives for adopting it, that
in our present state of society a beautiful woman can.
enjoy the pleasures of love for only about fifteen years,
but in Harmony, one hundred and twenty years. Surely,
therefore, every beautiful woman ought to become a
Fourierist forthwith ! Yet The Phalanx assures us
that they adopt the starting point and method of Christ!
The Fourierists place their master on the same line —
we shudder to say it — with our ever blessed Saviour, ,
and pretend that he proceeded in the same way that Jesus did. Is this so ? Jesus preached the Gospel to the poor, and found, amid poor boatmen and fishermen of the Lake of Gennesaret, disciples who could become efficient ministers of his religion, and pillars of his Church ; but Fourier could do nothing with the poor, and they nothing for him. He could not commence operations without a million of dollars in advance, and his biographer tells us of the pains he took to enlist the court and nobility in his cause. He even advertised publicly for a rich disciple, appointed the time and place when and where he would receive the millionnaire. But, alas ! no millionnaire came. No such disciple has as yet been found; and though it is almost forty years since Fourier first made his brilliant discovery, a Fourier establishment, according to the principles and arrangements of the master, does not as yet exist on the face of the globe. The grand experiment has not yet been made. Men of genius, of talent, of science, of learning, have been recruited in great numbers, but no millionnaire, and we should think the Fourierists would soon begin to exclaim, " How hardly shall they who have riches enter into the kingdom of heaven ! "
We have said that the Fourierists place their master on the same line with the Author and Finisher of our faith. M. Considerant, in his oration at the tomb of Fourier, calls him " the redeemer of the world." The Phalanx quotes, in its 14th number, Fourier's reply to the Gazette de France, in which Fourier modestly disclaims the title of Messiah, on the ground that the Messiah is a title not usually appropriated to the teachers of science ; yet he seems to intimate that he may be the Paraclete, he who was to come after Jesus. He says, (Fauss. Indust., p. 463,) as quoted by Dr. Pella-rin, in the work before us, p. 268, —
" There are two person ages'from whom I cannot isolate myself without denying myself, — they are Jesus Christ and — Newton ! Jesus predicted, and urgently called men to the discovery of, Attractive Industry. His contemporaries refused the task. Sixteen hundred years aftervvards, Newton began the calculation of Attraction in the material world only, without applying it to industry, to the societary mechanism, of which / am the inventor. Blind in relation to this, Newton has been singularly clear-sighted in all else. My doctrine unites itself (se rallie) in every point to his, and to the precepts of Jesus Christ, which I am about to extract from the Gospel. How, then, could I outrage my tioo guides ? I defy any one to find in my treatises and writings a single phrase, when speaking of Jesus Christ, in which I do not praise his noble character and his lofty wisdom."
Could a man who believed Jesus Christ to be anything more than a man have ever written these sentences ? With what inimitable coolness Fourier places himself, Newton, and our Saviour, on the same line, claiming for himself superiority over Newton, and for Newton superiority over Jesus, the Son of God! Jesus prophesied, but did not make, the discovery. Newton began the discovery, Fourier completed it, and therefore is to be honored as their complement; and yet he.was a Christian, because he never failed, when speaking of Jesus Christ, to praise (faire Viloge) his noble character and lofty wisdom. O Fourier, didst thou ever fall down at the foot of his Cross and adore him as thy God, as '' Deum de Deo, Lumen de Lumine; genitum, non factuni; consubstantialem Patri, per quern omni'a facta sunt" ? If thou hadst, thou hadst never spoken of him in these terms.
If we had room, and thought it worth our while, we would touch upon Fourier's notion of immortality, — of the metempsychosis, the trans and m-migrations of souls eight hundred and ten times, and finally all but a few choice souls expiring with the soul of the globe to which they are attached, — of the cordons of aroma by which the planets communicate one with another, —of his denial of the scriptural doctrine, that all the human family have sprung from the same original pair, and his assertion of the original creation of thirty-two couples, &c, &c. ; but our respect for the many really excellent qualities of Fourier disposes us to cast a veil over these and similar absurdities, which make one feel that their author was, on some points at least, hardly sane. We hope his disciples will not press us too hard, nor insist too strenuously on our reverencing Fourier as a Christian believer.
The Fourierists contend that Fourier proclaimed his doctrines as scientific discoveries, and that they should be judged of on scientific grounds. They can hardly be serious in this, for there is nothing like science in Fourier's works, and hardly an attempt, so far as we can discover, at scientific investigation, or scientific proof. He was all his life haunted with the fear of plagiarism; but, for the life of us, we cannot call to mind a single doctrine peculiar to him, that would be worth one's while to filch. We have thus far spoken of his views only in their relations to the Christian religion ; but we are prepared to controvert them as philosophy, and as economy. We accept not one of his leading doctrines, and we are prepared to demonstrate that all the evils which prevail in our present social state, and some new ones, might exist in the order he proposes to introduce ; and we may do so some time hereafter, if Fourierism should not soon give place to some newer novelty. We assure The Phalanx, that it is not because we have not studied Fourierism in any but its religious and moral aspects, that we have treated it in no others. We have taken considerable pains to fathom the whole system, and we hold ourselves to have some knowledge of it. But for us to reject it, it is sufficient to know that it contradicts our religion; and this is one great reason why we do not treat it as a science. There is no science, if true, that can be hostile to religion ; and when we find a pretended science striking at the foundation of the Gospel, we know by that fact alone that it is no genuine science.
The Fourierists appear to think it is hard that they cannot be permitted to advocate the science of Association without being attacked by the friends of religion. We assure them, no friend of religion attacks them because they advocate Association, or because they seek to lessen the evils of society and augment the sum of social well-being. In all this they have the sympathy and prayers of every Christian believer. They are opposed, because they advocate a doctrine of association which is hostile to Christianity, — because they assume,
as their premises, principles which are repugnant to the Gospel, and, therefore, do themselves commence by making an attack on religion. If they could find in the Christian philosophy their data, or if they confined themselves to merely practical arrangements for social and industrial ameliorations, without assuming to bring out a new philosophy, a new theology, no Christian would disturb them. But, with their fundamental doctrines, we cannot, if we would, go with them in their practical arrangements, without renouncing our allegiance to the Son of God. They tell us that they interfere with the religious feelings of no class of professed Christians, and they, no doubt, really believe what they profess. But they do interfere with the faith of Christians, and of every class of Christians, — except modern transcendentalists,—in almost every book they write, or discourse they publish. How, then, are we to be silent ? Doubtless, it is painful to every philanthropic mind, who has seen and felt somewhat of the evils of life, to be found opposing any class of men seriously and honestly laboring to remove them, and more especially when many of those he must oppose have been for years his own personal friends and associates, and who, perhaps, are only seeking to realize what he and they had dreamed in common, and on principles which he had been the foremost to proclaim. But, when a man sees clearly that he must oppose them, not in their benevolence, not in their philanthropic zeal, not in their singleness of purpose, purity of heart, and lofty aspirations, but in their false philosophy and unsound theology, or be false to his Master in heaven, and therefore to his brethren on earth, he must do it, at whatever sacrifice it may be of personal feeling.
Yet we cannot close this too protracted article without saying that we have too recently, ourselves, entertained many of the views we condemn in the Associa-tionists, and we know all too well the mental and moral sophistries by which one is enabled to entertain them without feeling that he is opposing the Christian doctrines, to have personally any but feelings of charity and respect for them. They do not see their doctrines in the light we do, and we ourselves did not, when we were, in some measure, with them; for, if they did, they would be as unwilling to defend them as we are. We know many of these men, and we have the greatest confidence in their integrity ; and while we have no quarter for their doctrines, we should regret to find ourselves insensible to their many personal virtues.
The great and leading error of the Associationists is not, indeed, in their too high estimate of the dignity and worth of the human soul, — for Christ, by his death, has ennobled every soul; but in their overlooking the necessity of supernatural grace to enable a man, any man, to will and to do the will of God, and in not perceiving that the mere discovery of truth is not sufficient to give us the power to obey it. Here is their fatal mistake. They may respond by calling us ignorant, conceited, arrogant, what they will, and ask, Who are you to lecture us? but though we are nothing, and think full as lowly of ourselves as others can think of us, we dare affirm this truth, for we but echo an authority before which all must bow. We are in bondage ; the good that we would we do not, the evil that we would not that we do. There is a law in our members that brings us into captivity to the law of sin and death. No human arrangements, no industrial and unitary combinations, can deliver us from the body of this death. Nothing can deliver us but the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the benefits of his mission and death personally applied by the communication of the Holy Spirit. It is in no-idle cant, we speak this solemn truth, but in deep and earnest conviction, to which, after years of wandering, we have been forced by a power stronger than our own. And till we receive this grace, till we are freed from this death, are made free by the Son of God, it is in vain we attempt social ameliorations. They will all prove abortive. For there is none other name given under heaven among men whereby we must be saved. Not by the increase of goods, not by the multiplication of material wealth and luxuries for the gratification of the senses, will peace, order, and love be established among men ; but by a meek and quiet spirit, by humility, lowly reverence for God, by feeling that blessed in very deed are the poor, and the poor in spirit. O, Jesus was the true reformer! he gave us the law of all reform; and do not dream that the order he established is to pass away, and be succeeded by another; for his kingdom is to endure for ever, and of its increase there is to be no end.
The third charge we brought against Fourier's plan of reorganization—namely, that, admitting its speculative truth, it is impotent to effect the social reforms it promises — we pass over, for The Phalanx has not undertaken to controvert what we have said in its support. When a Fourierist shall comprehend and refute the principle contended for in our essay, No Church, no Reform, inserted in this Journal for April last, we will consider this charge of the practical impotence of Fourierism somewhat further. Till then, nothing more needs to be said.