stronger-there is no loss of power-this is the Divine law. But justice alone will give the requisite patience. The consummation of social progress is to arrive at this beau ideal. To make individual man perfect, morally, is impossible, for that would be equivalent to Divinity, but to perfect, intellectually, the conception of the law, is not only possible, but assumed as practicable by all legislators. The law is assumed to be perfect, and always more perfect than the individual; no man can be so good as the law of his own country-there never was a law so bad as as not to be better than its subjects. The law is the perfection of justice, because, as Sir William Blackstone avers, it is founded on the law of Nature, and it is neither just nor binding unless it be in accordance with the law of Nature.

To perfect the conception of Law, therefore, is the first, and great aim of Fourier. Individual training then proceeds under a perfect master-he sets out a priori, with unity and harmony, as the postulates of the argument. Man, as a phenomenal existence in nature, was first a physical unity, as every material individual is; in that one condition, he was relatively perfect, there being no division in humanity; but as divisions multiplied by generation, the want of a moral union became apparent, this want of moral union, is the condition of the fall-man's birth into time is the fall itself. The moral union is the restoration from the fall; when man becomes morally one, even as he was primitively, a physical unity. Fourier has not expressed himself in this manner, but this is his idea of unity in mankind. Now as it is impossible to begin with mankind in toto, to form this moral union, we must begin with a portion; and that portion must be neither an individual, nor a family related by blood, but a family related by moral and spiritual relationship, or feelings a small type of universal man, namely, an association containing individual representatives of all that human society consists of. Each association, of this description, becomes a little world, a microcosm, which like Adam, the first man, reproduces its own likeness, and gradually replenishes the world with moral or spiritual families. It is a new species of generation. It is evident, therefore, that the whole theory is illustrated by the organic form of one association, even as human nature is illustrated by the organic form of one man.

Progress begins individually. In the individual it has hitherto been progressing; but there is a limit to the individual system of training, beyond which it cannot go. There are vices which it necessarily cherishes. The man, his wife and children, being one isolated interest, must have isolated feelings; and even the best of men, under such influences, cannot denude themselves of the individualism of their condition. By enlarging the family alone, can the affections and the sympathy be expanded, so as to form a type of universality? That type is a Phalanstere, what in England is vulgarly denominated a community. But with Fourier, the idea of a community is essentially different from that of Owen, having three distinct classes-men of capital, of talent, and of labour, with wages for each, and a guarantee of the minimum of subsistence, and that a comfortable subsistence, for all. Fourier, like Owen, considers that about 2000 individuals, or 400 families, are required to constitute a little type or model of universal society; and as all society is based upon agricultural industry, he begins agriculturally, and

calls this model the Association Domestique Agricole. This association will consist of men of capital, who may or may not reside in the Phalanstere;" of men of talent, of men of industry; and one man may belong to one, two, or all of these classes.

The principal moral agent by which the industry of this Phalange is propelled corresponds to that by which the planets are maintained in their orbits, and by which a stone falls to the ground: namely, attraction. Industry, to be vigorous, must be attractive. Now, a man can learn more trades than one, and be a better workman in two than in one only. In two or three years, a man is as good a tailor as ever he will be; and, in these three years, he may learn shoe-making also, and carpentering; and find himself, at the end of these three years, as well skilled in these three trades as he would have been in one only. Fellenberg has already solved this question at Hofwyl, where the young men have a most extensive experimental knowledge of mechanics; and can handle a needle, an awl, a plane, and a chisel, in a workman-like manner, producing specimens of handiwork which we could not distinguish from those of the best London markets. Fourier recommends the adoption of this system for social labour: thus carrying out the system of the division of labour, by which art is improved, and destroying the aversion that the division of labour has so copiously infused into human industry. His short sittings (seances) of two hours at most, are the basis of attractive industry. A man may work two hours, patiently, three times a-week making pin-heads, who would be wretched indeed were he doomed to toil perpetually at this one employment. But the pin-maker of one sitting may be the carpenter of another and tailor of a third; and on another occasion may be relaxing both legs and arms, and strengthening sinew and muscle by hammering a piece of red-hot iron in the smithy. In all these employments, he may be quite au fait; for the one will be relief and relaxation from the other.

To carry on industry in the most economical and attractive manner, Fourier recommends series and groups for the different departments, and affirms that one man may belong to thirty different groups or series. These series and sub-series would so divide and sub-divide the labour of the community, that in one little association almost every useful art might be pursued, and some always carried to great perfection, according to the prevailing genius of the party, the climate, and locality. To make this industry as active as possible, rivalry is necessary between the groups. The groups must compete even to antipathy: for there is vigour in antagonism. This is the law of discord, which is essential to harmony. Concord alone cannot produce music; but as each man does or may belong to thirty different groups, he co-operates on one occasion with him with whom he competes on another; and thus the law of concord subdues the law of discord, and produces an harmonious combination of active and energetic faculties.

This large family of 2000 individuals would occupy one palace, each individual family being provided with separate apartments, with power to eat alone or in company, at discretion; but as one kitchen, one laundry, one bake-house and oven, one nursery, one school, would serve for all; it is evident that the domestic economy of this palace would be greater than that of four hundred separate houses, whilst additional comforts

would be enjoyed by all, in cleanliness, saving of time, nursery, and education of children. The economy of farming would also be great. The estate of such a phalanstere would enjoy all the advantages of a large farm; advantages so great, that agriculture is at present mainly retarded by the inability of farmers to do justice to the soil. Where," asks Arthur Young, " is the little farmer to be found who will cover his whole farm with marl at the rate of 100 or 150 tons per acre? Who will drain all his land at the expense of 21. or 31. an acre? Who will pay a heavy price for the manure of towns, and convey it thirty miles by land carriage? Who will float his meadows at the expense of 51. an acre? Who, to improve the breed of his sheep, will give a thousand guineas for the use of a single ram for a single season? Who will send across the kingdom for new implements, and for men to use them? Who will employ and pay men for residing in provinces where practices are found which they want to introduce into their farms? At the very mention of such exertions, common in England, what mind can be so perversely framed as to imagine for a single moment that such things are to be effected by little farmers? Deduct from agriculture all the practices which have made it flourishing in this island, and you have precisely the management of little farms." Thus it appears that the individual system of farming, or farming on a small scale, is the lowest species of agriculture, a single step beyond the savage state; but by the co-operation which capital procures to the wealthy landholder, a species of association is formed consisting of master, servants, capital, and talent, by which the productiveness of the soil is so greatly increased, that, according to an intelligent and scientific farmer, Mr. Oliver, of Lochend, in comparing the system of 1723 with that of the present day, the quantity raised is twelve times greater under the new than under the old system. But even yet the capital and labour are insufficient. The land still calls for labour; and may it not be the design of Providence thus to urge on man to social organization, by which alone that labour can be obtained in masses upon an economical and comfortable system? Fourier's phalanstere is a large farm, consisting of about nine square miles, or three miles in breadth; so that the dwelling will not be more than a mile and a half from the extremities. The government has all the unity and vigour of monarchy, by residing in an individual selected by the majority for his competency: and hence it may be said to combine all the advantages of a large farm with the additional advantage of an enormous increase of labour, equal to capital, and, as large a deduction of expense, arising from the economy of one building; this economy, consisting of saving of land, saving of roads, saving of enclosures, saving of fuel, of time, both for men and women; and, above all, the advantages derivable from variety of employment, by which almost the implements of industry could be constructed by the establishment itself. Such an establishment could do what no landed proprietor can accomplish for want of capital. It could concentrate all mechanical industry within itself; it could be self-sufficient, always excepting its dependence upon other localities for material in which its own is defective.

"Fourier promises," says Abel Trauson in the Revue Encyclopedique, "to lead the passions to equilibrium by the influence of pleasures, not by moral discourses, the method hitherto adopted by all moralists- a

method which, however, has never succeeded." It is the education of the heart and not of the intellect only-the heart cannot be effectively taught by words alone; it is taught by condition, by circumstances and its own mystic feelings therein. The heart ruminates; and whilst it ruminates, it discusses its own relationship with surrounding things. When these surrounding things are the creation of selfishness and injustice, in which erring egotism with its thievish paws acts the most distinguished part; the heart becomes a rebel, the passions are in mutiny, reason becomes disordered by the fever of the imagination; suspicion reigns paramount, it regards the moralist as an impostor, the priest as a deceiver, the judge'as a tyrant. But when these surrounding things are the creations of justice and the social interest; how very different is the rumination of the heart! The heart is not prone to evil thoughts in a good social condition; it is highly susceptible of kind impressions, it is highly sensitive to justice-there is a common sense of justice in all men, even in children-It is felt; and the feeling is accompanied with lightness of heart and goodness of purpose-How easy, how very easy it is to teach men morals by condition, how difficult how impossible to make them good, independent of condition! The heart is the best scholar in the school of morals. Moralists have hitherto taught the head chiefly. But, say the objectors, man is insatiable; he will never be content even with this-" But why," says Fourier," despair of the goodness of God in creation before we have studied his designs in the calculations of the social permanent Revelation or impassioned attraction, of which one cannot determine the ultimate object but in proceeding regularly by analysis and synthesis. But this calculation seems absurd at first sight. It informs us that every one desires to possess millions and a palace. How can these be given to all the world. Frivolous objections! Is this a motive to abandon a study? Pursue it without fear. Follow the precepts of your philosophers which enjoin you to explore the whole domain of science. Finish therefore that which Newton has commenced, the calculus of attraction. It will teach you that that which desires millions and a palace desires too little; for in the social state the poorest of men will enjoy five hundred thousand palaces, where he will find gratuitously much more pleasure than a King of France can procure with thirty five millions of revenue."

We have given a vague idea of a phalanstere, without entering into any of the critical details and numerical calculations, and metaphysical analyses and syntheses and protheses of the author; of which the curious student will find a goodly array in Fourier's works. In attempting to perfect the several sciences, a result which can only be obtained when all the other sciences are perfect, Fourier has frequently put his imagination on the rack for invention. That a perfect harmonicon exists in the universe-in the divine mind, is a species of axiom which only the atheist or anarchist will deny; and moreover, that the harmony of nature in all its parts is expressible, numerically and geometrically, as well as morally and poetically, must be conceded by every enlarged and universalizing mind. Religion has consecrated three, and seven, and ten, and twelve in a peculiar manner; science has latterly confirmed this act of consecration in many departments of knowledge. There are evidently certain numbers which are distinguished more than others by a species

of nobility; and a wide field of thought is yet unexplored in the regions of numerical analogy. But it is very evident that many castles must be built in the air before a solid structure upon a permanent foundation be erected. Much may be learned from Fourier's digest of moral philosophy; but that it is final is somewhat dubious or rather indubious. The threefold basis of Labour, Capital, and Skill, is perhaps indisputable-This is the triune power of society; numerically harmonising with the theological trinity, but it may be disputed whether the following mode of determining the value of each be founded on the divine law. Fourier distinguishes twelve principal passions, amongst which he enumerates 1st, the five senses, corresponding to labour; rather selfish than social; 2d, four social passions-viz. Friendship, Ambition, Love, Familism, corresponding to capital or the acquisitive principle; and 3d, three other passions which are the essential sources of social organization-viz. the Love of Variety—(La Papillonne), the Spirit of Party-(Cabilisme) and Public Speech (Compositisme), corresponding to talent as the organising principle. These three classes, consisting of 5, 4, 3, according to Fourier, should divide the profits of industry in the same proportion. Labour receiving five-twelfths; Capital four-twelfths; and Talent, threetwelfths. Whether this be natural or not, there is this advantage in it, that a system so linked together, numerically and analogically, is easily learned, easily remembered; and therefore more useful than one which is not numerical.

There is one very beautiful idea of Fourier's, which we must not forget to notice, en passant, namely, that of industrial armies. The old armies are evil, and belong to what Fourier calls the era of incoherence ascendante, but as the laws of God or nature are eternal, though progressively developed in a progressive being, these armies of destruction and misery are convertible into armies of destruction and happiness, by the operation of another motive of destructive activity; an activity that destroys not the bodies of men for the purpose of founding dynasties and extending empires; but an activity that destroys the barrenness of the soil, and the impossibility of the wild and desolate regions of the earth. Armies that enter upon the peaceful campaigns of agricultural industry, to till the ground, to drain the marshes, to fructify bogs and deserts, to build bridges, and to found colonies in uninhabited and desolate lands, are amid the sublime conceptions of the social philosophers. This agricultural regeneration of the earth's surface is, in Fourier's eyes, but the humble commencement of a re-creation by man, as the representative of God; in which re-creation, all that is evil at present, will gradually assume the form of a blessing, or become the basis upon which a new creation will arise to bless and curse not. Not only will the earth itself be subdued, and thoroughly transformed into a garden of pleasure; but the brute creation will be re-created by the development of the Divine gift of understanding in man, to whom the old world is merely the raw material, with which he himself reconstructs another and a better. Here begins the romance of Fourierism, and here many of his practical disciples leave him entirely, whilst the imagination delights to follow the magician, as he conjures ages and worlds yet unborn to the wondering fancy. We have been highly diverted with some of those fancies, many of which are amusing, and all of which