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"Then," resumed Michel Ardan, "would not this be an opportunity for making that experiment we could not attempt when we were bathed in the solar rays?" "Now or never," answered Barbicane, "for we are usefully situated in order to verify the temperature of space, and see whether the calculations of Fourier or Pouillet are correct." "Any way it is cold enough," said Michel.
The three thinkers who claimed to have discovered the secret of social development had also in view the practical object of remoulding society on general scientific principles, and they became the founders of sects, Fourier, Saint-Simon, and Comte.
Many sermons very much applauded at Paris in the mouth of high dignitaries of the Church were emanations from the pen of the schoolboy of twelve years of age. It would be impossible in the present day to trace those first compositions of the youth Fourier, since, while divulging the plagiarism, he had the discretion never to name those who profited by it.
There existed strong grounds at the time for supposing that four Cheiks Ulémas had rendered themselves accomplices of the treason. Upon his return to Egypt, Bonaparte confided the investigation of this grave affair to Fourier. "Do not," said he, "submit half measures to me. You have to pronounce judgment upon high personages: we must either cut off their heads or invite them to dinner."
Never mind: many a man of genius is ungainly enough; and Nature, if you will observe, as if to make up to him for his uncomeliness, has arrayed him as Solomon in all his glory never was arrayed, and so fulfilled one of the proposals of old Fourier that scavengers, chimney- sweeps, and other workers in disgusting employments, should be rewarded for their self-sacrifice in behalf of the public weal by some peculiar badge of honour, or laurel crown.
He explained it at Paris to the pupils of the Polytechnic School; he developed it upon the banks of the Nile in presence of the Institute of Egypt; at Grenoble, from the year 1802, it was his favourite subject of conversation with the Professors of the Central School and of the Faculty of Sciences; this finally, contained the elements of the work which Fourier was engaged in seeing through the press when death put an end to his career.
To be a philanthropist, a philosopher, a feudal queen, amid the blessings and the praise of dependent hundreds that was my new ideal; for that I turned the whole force of my intellect to the study of history, of social and economic questions. From Bentham and Malthus to Fourier and Proudhon, I read them all.
The different phases of our adventurous expedition are there characterized with the greatest care. Fourier carries his scruples to so great a length as to attempt to prove that it was just. I have said only so far as to attempt, for in that case there might have been something to deduct from the second part of the eulogium of Fontanes.
There are certain extreme expressions of Socialism that you will connect with the names of Owen and Fourier, and with Noyes's "History of American Socialism," in which the abolition of monopoly is carried out with logical completeness to the abolition of marriage, and in which the idea seems to be to extend the limits of the Family and of intimate intercourse to include all humanity.
The brilliant suggestions of Saint-Simon, the writings of Bazard and Enfantin, the vagaries of Fourier, might be dismissed as curious rather than serious propositions, but the massive system wrought out by Comte's speculative genius his organic scheme of human knowledge, his elaborate analysis of history, his new science of sociology was a great fact with which European thought was forced to reckon.
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