Chapter 7. Charles Fourier

¹ Œuvres Complètes, vol. 1, p. 285. The so-called Œuvres Complètes of Fourier extend to six large volumes. Vol. 1 comprises the Théorie des Quatre Mouvemens; vols. 2–5 are given up comprehensively to the Théorie de l'Unité Universelle, some of which was originally published under another title; vol. 6 contains Le Nouveau Monde Industriel et Sociétaire. The Œuvres Complètes (published between 1841 and 1845) are, however, anything but complete. Apart from some substantial works, there are quite a number of other volumes drawn from his manuscripts and articles. The most important omission from the Complete Works, and the only one to which it will be necessary to refer here, is La Fausse Industrie. Unless otherwise indicated, references are to the six volumes of the Complete Works.

¹ Vol. 1, p. 29.

²Fausse Industrie, p. G. 8.

³ Vol. 3, pp. 112–114.

⁴ Vol. 3, p. 272.

¹ Vol. 1, p. 272.

² For example, very emphatically and characteristically, in Karl Barth: ‘The creation is under a debt of gratitude to God’ (The Knowledge of God and the Service of God, p. 38). Even viewed exclusively as a theological problem, the answer obviously should depend, in part, on how we are predestined to spend eternity.

¹ Vol. 1, p. 50. The reader who has the option should read the first volume in the original edition of 1808 when it appeared anonymously as Théorie des Quatre Mouvemens et des Destinées Générales, and was professedly published in Leipzig, for the sufficient reason that it had, of course, no connection with Leipzig. In particular, the Chart showing the various phases of cosmic history is a wonderful thing to gaze at in the ‘Leipzig’ edition, whereas in the Complete Works it is merely a chart.

¹ Vol. 6, pp. 448–449.

³ Vol. 3, p. 322.

¹ Fourier's astronomy (if this is astronomy) is, like everything else he concerns himself with, scattered throughout all his works, but it will be found in a peculiarly clotted and concentrated form in a note in vol. 4 of the Complete Works, pp, 241—268. Probably nowhere else in literature is it possible to point to so much that is surprising, compacted in the space of 28 pages.

¹ While there is almost nothing that the reader may not find in Fourier, he should perhaps be warned that he will not find one pleasing fiction frequently attributed to him. It was for long currently believed that he had foretold that men would in the happy future be equipped with long tails with an eye on the tip. It would doubtless be a useful endowment for a harassed housewife, tidying an untidy cupboard; but the fiction seems to spring from malicious satire rather than from the authentic text of Fourier.

² Vol. 1, p. 128.

¹ Vol. 4, p. 69.

² Vol. 6, pp. 33–34 (as translated in Selections from the Works of Fourier, Social Science Series). After the manner of Fourier, the same passage occurs elsewhere (vol. 2, Part II, pp. 38–39), with some variations in the examples of our divided interests: the soldier wishes for a good war, in order to secure promotion by the slaughter of half his comrades; the parson wishes ‘de bon morts,’ i.e. funerals at 1000 francs a head; the wine-merchant wishes ‘bonnes grêles sur les vendanges et bonnes gelées sur les bourgeons.’

¹ Vol. 4, pp. 173–179.

² Vol. 1, p. 339.

³ Vol. 3, p. 199–202.

¹ Vol. 3, p. 219.

² Vol. 6, p. 43 (as translated in Selections from the Works of Fourier).

³ Vol. 1, p. 377; Fausse Industrie, pp. 535–536.

⁴ Vol. 1, p. 359.

⁵ Vol. 3, pp. 204, 217.

¹ Vol. 6, p. 156.

² Vol. 3, p. 246.

¹ Like the hero of one of Hauptmann's novels, Fourier would have found the petition, ‘Lead us not into temptation,’ rather curious in its implications.

¹ Vol. 4, p. 409.

² Vol. 4, p. 405.

¹ Vol. 4, p. 407.

² Vol. 4, p. 408.

¹Fausse Industrie, p. F. 7.

² Vol. 3, p. 4.

³ Vol. 5, p. 511.

¹ Vol. 6, p. 115.

² Scores of quotations could be produced to show that Fourier held the idea of equality in complete abhorrence. The point ought not to require further emphasising but for the fact that Mr. Shaw invites his Intelligent Woman to read, among much more, ‘the speculations of Saint-Simon, the Communism of Fourier,’ etc., and adds that ‘if they do not mean equality of income they mean nothing that will save civilisation.’ How even Mr. Shaw, even in instructing his Intelligent Woman, could give utterance to such a perverse judgment, is difficult to understand. Presumably he did not brush up his Fourier—nor his Saint-Simon—before meeting his pupil, who, though intelligent, was singularly ignorant, or at least Mr. Shaw constantly addresses her as if she were—which again, of course, may not prove anything one way or the other. For a comparable example of unblemished and impeccable inaccuracy, we must go to Mr. Bertrand Russell, in whose eyes Saint-Simon was essentially a mediaevalist who disliked industrialism and the modern world (Freedom and Organisation, p. 207). The things they do say!

³ Vol. 2, p. 147.

¹ Vol. 3, p. 15.

¹Fausse Industrie, p. Z. 7.

²E.g. vol. 2, p. 199, and, of course, elsewhere.

¹ Vol. 4, pp. 276–278.

² Vol. 3, p. 179.

³Fausse Industrie, p. 490.

⁴ Vol. 4, p. 445.

¹ Vol. 5, pp. 158–162. Extracts, however, do not do justice to Fourier's arguments that this madness for dirt, la manie de saleté, is a part of the divine mechanism of attraction, and that here, as always, the Creator ‘a donc bien fait tout ce qu'il a fait.’ The whole passage should be read by discriminating readers.

² Vol. 4, p. 540.

³ Vol. 5, p. 57.

⁴ Vol. 5, p. 102.

⁵ Vol. 5, pp. 42, 53.

¹ Vol. 6, p. 181.

² Vol. 6, p. 173, etc.

³ Vol. 5, p. 76. It is interesting to note how much (probably unconscious) Fourierism there is in Dr. Enid Charles's proposals regarding education in The Menace of Under-population: ‘In a rational system of education a child would begin by learning to perform all the manual operations carried out by the adults round him’ (p. 221). She goes on to consider the advantageous results which would follow ‘if the child becomes a producer soon after birth.’ The phrases might be, in substance, direct transcripts from Fourier.

⁴ Vol. 5, pp. 55, 57–58.

⁵ Vol. 5, pp. 178, etc.

¹ Vol. 5, p. 468; Fausse Industrie, pp. 585, 586.

² Vol. 1, pp. 211–212.

³ Vol. 4, p. 118.

¹ The tradition of antagonism to the family shows strange persistence. Take, e.g. Professor Laski, in a passage where the argument may be confused, but the intention is clear:

‘I suspect, indeed, that it is not accident that both the teaching of Jesus and the doctrine of the Communist Manifesto are at one in their emphasis upon the danger of the family which, in an acquisitive society, acts as a barrier between men and women, instead of a link which binds them together. For it is the central faith, alike of the Gospels and of Socialism, that there is neither Jew nor Greek, neither bond nor free; but where the claim of son upon parents, or brother upon brother, is set in terms of the view that proximity of relationship means that one's property is proportionately available to one's kin also, the family becomes the nurse of avarice and narrowness, a hindrance, rather than a help, to fraternity in the commonwealth’ (Faith, Reason and Civilisation, p. 97).

While the family gets all the knocks in this matter, it may be observed that there is a potential conflict with the ultimate socialist ideal, wherever there is, in the pedantic words of Godwin, any preference among our fellows, not based on ‘reasons which equally appeal to all understandings.’ The anti-social consequences of such irrational preferences are admirably depicted by Zorobabel in his hymn in praise of women: ‘A man taketh his sword, and goeth his way to rob and to steal, to sail upon the sea and upon rivers; and looketh upon a lion, and goeth in the darkness; and when he hath stolen, spoiled and robbed, he bringeth it to his love.’

² Fausse Industrie, p. T. 8.

³ Vol. 1, pp. 195–196.

⁴ Vol. 4, p. 154.

⁵ Vol. 5, p. 120.

⁶ Vol. 1, p. 170.

¹ Vol. 1, p. 245.

² If the envious reader seeks enlightenment as to what exactly is a parcours, he may first of all study Fourier's own definition:

‘Le parcours est l'amalgame d'une masse de plaisirs goûtés successivement dans une courte séance, enchaînés avec art dans un même local, se rehaussant l'un par l'autre, se succédant a des instants si rapprochés qu'on ne fasse que glisser sur chacun, y donner seulement quelques minutes, à peine un quart d'heure à chaque jouissance’ (vol. 4, p. 188).

Secondly, and perhaps with greater advantage, he may study a parcours in concrete form, and observe a crowded hour of glorious life, as experienced by Dorval, who in the course of sixty minutes experienced eight major pleasures: (1) and (2)—a double pleasure of the senses and the soul, and therefore counting as two—he succeeds with a woman to whom he has been making advances; (3) she hands him the commission of a lucrative post she has obtained for him; (4) they pass to the salon, where he meets a dear friend whom he had thought dead; (5) presently there enters a great man, a Buffon, a Corneille, whom Dorval had wished to meet; (6) an exquisite dinner, at which (7) Dorval finds himself next to an influential personage who engages to help him; and lastly (8) in the course of the repast he receives a message that he has won a law-suit. It happens, just like that, in Harmony. And apparently, even with three parcours a day, the springs of happiness continue to well, though doubtless the constituent elements vary. Presumably the man who lost the law-suit was not having his parcours just then.

Substantially the same parcours figures in vol. 6, pp. 348–349, with Léandre as the happy man.

¹ Vol. 4, p. 372.

² Vol. 1, p. 233.

³Fausse Industrie, p. 577 et seq.

⁴ Vol. 5, p. 347.

⁵ Perhaps the most sustained and unrestrained flight of Fourier's imagination is found in his account of the great battle of the Pâtés, fought out by contending armies (of cooks, of course) near Babylon, with sixty empires participating, and reported on from day to day in the Bulletin de Babylone, and ending with the synchronised popping of the corks of 300,000 bottles of sparkling wine. Next year's contest: a battle of Omelettes soufflées (vol. 5, pp. 352 et seq.).