“Les attractions sont proportionnelles aux destinées,
La série distribue les harmonies.”
Fourier wrote three works of importance. The first is the one already mentioned, “La Théorie des Quatre Mouvements et des Destinées Générales”—“The Theory of the Four Movements and the General Destinies”—published in 1808. The four movements were social, animal, organic, and material, giving us society, animal life, organic life, and the material world. The object is to show that one law, that of attraction, governs them all. Newton discovered the law of one movement, the material; Fourier, that this same law of attraction pervaded all four movements. This discovery prepared the way for the most astonishing and most fortunate event which could happen to this globe—viz., “the sudden passage from social chaos to universal harmony.”[67] This work was considered incomplete by Fourier himself, and the fantastic notions and ridiculous prophecies contained in it were the subject of so much ridicule and criticism that for a long time he would not mention the book, and was unwilling to hear others speak of it. When he was afterwards urged to republish it he refused, saying that it contained errors, and he should be obliged to rewrite it, to make it satisfactory to himself.[68]
Fourier’s chief work was his “Traité de l’Association Domestique Agricole ou Attraction Industrielle”—“Treatise on Domestic Rural Association or Industrial Attraction”—published subsequently in his complete works under the title of “La Théorie de l’Unité Universelle”[69]—“The Theory of Universal Unity.” The first edition appeared in 1822. The fourteen years between the appearance of the “Théorie des Quatre Mouvements” and the “Traité de l’Association” were passed in meditation, in revolving and evolving plans in his mind.
He worked out a complete philosophy in the “Traité.” His system not only included man and the earth, but the heavens above and the waters under the earth. His scientific notions were crude in the extreme. Nature was composed of eternal and indestructible principles—of God, active and moving principle; of matter, passive principle; and of justice or mathematics, the regulating principle of the universe, to which God himself was subject. One of the most curious features of Fourier’s system is the use he makes of figures. Pythagoras himself did not attach more importance to them. They revealed to him hitherto undisclosed secrets, so that he was able to give a precise answer to any conceivable question. They enabled him to prophesy. He foresaw that the existence of the human race on this earth was to continue until it completed a period of eighty thousand years. This period is divided into four phases, two of them ascending phases of vibration or gradation, and two descending phases of vibration or degradation. The following table gives the four phases:
| ASCENDING VIBRATION.[70] | |||
| FIRST PHASE. | |||
| Infancy, or ascending incoherence, 1/16 | = | 5,000 | years. |
| SECOND PHASE. | |||
| Growth, or ascending combination, 7/16 | = | 35,000 | years. |
| DESCENDING VIBRATION. | |||
| THIRD PHASE. | |||
| Decline, or descending combination, 7/16 | = | 35,000 | years. |
| FOURTH PHASE. | |||
| Dotage, or descending incoherence, 1/16 | = | 5,000 | years. |
| Total, | 80,000 | years. | |
The life of the race thus resembles the life of man. The earth is just progressing out of its infancy. It will have passed into the second phase when it has adopted Fourier’s plan of association. Its life up to the present time has been weak, childlike, and full of sufferings, but it is to receive reparation for this in seventy thousand happy years, surpassing in good fortune any previously described millennium. Lions will become servitors of man, and draw his carriage from one end of France to another in a single day; while whales will pull his ships across the waters, provided he does not prefer to ride on the back of a seal. Sea-water will become a more delightful beverage than lemonade; while a bright light at the North Pole will not only render that part of the world inhabitable, but will diffuse an exquisite aroma over all the earth. Our bodies are part of the earth, and it suffers with us. When we adopt Fourier’s scheme we shall cease to suffer, and shall release the earth from its ills. Our souls are also parts of the great world-soul, and no part can be in pain without bringing grief to the whole. As St. Paul has it, “The whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together.”
Fourier believed, further, in the immortality of the soul, in its existence hereafter, and in its previous existence. He held to the transmigration of the soul, and in its frequent return to this earth to partake in the happy future of the human race. According to him, mind is always joined to matter so that it may ever enjoy material pleasures. When the mind leaves one body it unites itself to another, and always to a higher one. It develops continually. It passes also from world to world, though ever and anon returning to the earth. Our souls will have existed in one hundred and ten different worlds before the end of our planetary system. The planets themselves have immortal souls, which are also subject to transmigration. At the expiration of eighty thousand years the soul of the earth will take up its abode in another and more perfect body.
But it is not necessary to devote more time to these nonsensical speculations. It is not on their account that Fourier is remembered. He himself recognized the fact that his chief merit was the production of his social system. On this point he says:
“But what do these accessories impart to the principal affair, which is the art of organizing combined industry, whence will issue a fourfold product; good morals; the accord of the three classes—rich, middle, and poor; the discontinuance of party quarrels, the cessation of pests, revolutions, and fiscal penury; and universal unity?