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, Bayadères, &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 View, pp. 88, 89.

If the reader will turn to our July number, (p. 314,) he 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 Phalanx 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 Fourierists 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 forth with! 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. Considérant, 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. Pellarin, in the work before us, p. 268,

"There are two personages 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 afterwards, Newton began the calculation of Attraction in the material world only, without applying it to industry, to the societary mechanism, of which I 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 two 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 any thing 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 l'éloge) 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 factum; consubstantialem Patri, per quem omnia 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 cis-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,