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Title: Fourierism Author: William Batchelder Greene Date: April 13, 1844 Language: en Topics: Charles Fourier, letter Source: https://www.libertarian-labyrinth.org/blazing-star-library/12765/
to the editor of the courier:
Dear Sir,—The frequent conventions held by the Associationists, in this
city and in New-York, have attracted the attention of the public. to
their doctrine. But the technology in which these disciples of Fourier
generally express their principles, being itself very difficult, renders
the understanding of their system almost impossible. Hence the common
question, What are the Fourierists trying to do?
I think the lecture of Mr. Charles A. Dana, before the New-England
Fourier Society, on “the connection of Association with Religion,” will
answer the question. Mr.-Dana is one of the best of the Fourierist
writers, and his productions have the merit of being perfectly
intelligible. Thinking that an exposition of the doctrine may be
acceptable to your readers, I send you the following notice of the
lecture in question.
Mr. Dana contends, if I understand him rightly, that man is endowed with
native tendencies, or passions, which must be taken as guides in every
true social mechanism. Whenever we wish to follow the ways of God, to
arrive at the practice of justice and truth, we must refer to the
passional nature of man as the rule of divine and permanent
interpretation. Men are now in such relations with each other, that it
is impossible for one to follow the impulses of his nature, without
interfering with his neighbor. This state of things creates disorder in
society, and in the individual; and disorder is the cause of the present
chaotic condition of humanity. Every one endeavors to act out his own
impulses, to follow his own interests ; and the clashing of passion and
interest which results, is the cause of the misery that now covers the
earth. Competition is the root of all evil.
A true order of society would enable man to act out all his passional
nature. Society should, therefore, be so arranged as to render it
impossible for one man to act according to his own pleasure, without
acting at the same time for the interests of all. We must find some
means of so arranging society, that there shall be a harmony of
interests—not a balancing of interests, but such an arrangement that no
conflict whatever shall be possible. If there were a balancing of
interests, there would also be conflict and compromise, which supposes
the necessity of self-denial. But in a well-ordered society there can be
no self-denial, no check upon the impulses and passions; for it is the
chief end of man to follow always his own interest and inclination, and
if any inclination or passion be checked, the end and aim of association
is not attained. “We affirm,” says Mr. Dana, “that the human passions
are to be brought into harmony, that is, into unity with themselves,
with universal laws, ad with the Divine will, not by outward restraint,
but by entire freedom to act according to their own laws. Here let us
not be misunderstood. We are as far from advocating the passions, in the
midst of social institutions, founded either on chance or on arbitrary
devices, as the most zealous of our opponents.”
The cause of human misery is not, then, in man, but in the order of
circumstances in which he is placed. “For once for all I deny that there
is any innate and fixed evil in human nature. The human passions do not
produce the horrible results we everywhere behold, the vice, the sin,
and the misery that reign both without and within us, by an inevitable
necessity.” ‘Do you ask whence the discord? I shall not discuss that
question, but simply reply that it is the force of growth, that it is
the tottering of infancy.” In a true order of society it would be proper
and right for each man to give full play to his passions; but, under the
present system, restraint must be inculcated; for the circumstances with
which we are surrounded are evil, and, for this reasons, it is necessary
to modify the action of the passional nature. Laws are made not on
account of the wickedness of man, but to meet the evils in the
organization of society. Man is holy, his passion and instincts are
holy; the evils in this world result from the restrictions established
by law and society, which force those passions into wrong directions.
Whether a man’s action shall be good or evil, depends not upon himself,
but upon the organization of society. When the organization is perfect,
man acts out his whole passional nature in its full harmony—when it is
imperfect, his action is disordered, evil. There is no hope, therefore,
of reforming tho individual man, the cause of the evil is not in him; if
we wish for reform, we must commence at once with society itself, When
we have once given the true organization to society, all individuals
will be what they should be. “Besides,” says the lecturer, “the end of
Christianity is not the salvation of individuals, but the
transfiguration of Humanity; it cannot be accomplished in you and me,
but only in the whole race.” “While there is disease and imperfection in
any part of the human body, there cannot be perfect health in any
individual, Perfect men and women are possible only in a perfect
society.”
The radical impulses ‘of the soul are of three sorts,—sensitive, social,
intellectual. That which is of primary importance, that which ought
first to attract our study when we investigate the nature of man, is the
passional nature. The intellect is merely an instrument in the hands of
the passional nature, “When we have discovered the laws of the passions,
and the conditions of their harmonious development and action, we may
fitly enter into the study of the intellectual or instrumental
faculties. For it is plain to the dullest perception, that the latter
are as much the servants and instruments of the former, as are the hands
or the feet.” The will evidently shares the fate of the intelligence ;
it is the result of passional action. Philosophers have been accustomed
to speak of three primary. modes of operation of the human
soul—sensibility, intelligence, and volition. But this is an unnecessary
complication; there is but one fundamental function of the soul, and
that is sensibility—the passional nature. Intelligence is a mere
instrument in the hands of the passions; volition is the mere result of
their operation.
Man is an instrument well tuned, upon whom external circumstances play
whatever music they will. Hunger, thirst, misfortune, the ingratitude of
friends, draw from him the harmonies of desire, feeling, apathy, &c.; a
music far otherwise wonderful than that of the harp or organ. There is
for man an outward necessity, over which he has no control until he has
been modified by it; he is the victim of circumstances. There is for him
also an internal necessity, the original constitution of his passional
nature. The infinite variety in a man’s life is never the result of
internal changes, operated by his own causative energy, but is
occasioned by the variety of external circumstances in which he may be
placed. For the tendencies of his nature are implanted in him from the
beginning; they are mere passions, and have no operation upon
themselves, and must, therefore, be permanent and unchanging. They have
one direction in the beginning; they have one manner of operation, and
this they preserve to the end. If there be any other faculty of the
soul, it can have no effect in changing the passional nature; for this
faculty, be it intelligence or will, is but a mere instrument under the
control of the original tendencies.
We come now to the bearing of the doctrine upon Religion, to the
definition of the Religious Sentiment. As society is in its true state
when the passions and interests of each man are in harmony with those of
all men, and these of all men are in harmony with those of each
individual, so the soul is in its true state when the passions develop
themselves in harmony with each other, when they operate without
discord, in a perfect unity. And, that this harmonious development
should be possible, it is necessary that there should be in the soul a
radical impulse, belonging alike to all the impulses, which tends to
bring them into harmony, into unison. “This is not,” says the lecturer,
“an individual and separate impulse, but a tendency existing in all the
passions, modifying, controlling and connecting all, and forever seeking
to bring them into unison. It is, if I may say so, the soul itself
acting in all its members. This, then, which in philosophical or
technical language, we call Unityism, or the passion for Unity, is what,
in moral language, we call the Conscience, and in religious language,
the, Religious Sentiment. The great office of this passion is to bring
man into Unity with God, which is his Universal or Religious Destiny.”
Having endeavored to give a fair statement of the lecturer’s doctrine, I
shall make a few remarks in relation to its nature, and probable
tendency. Firstly, the doctrine is one of unmitigated necessity. Mr.
Dwight, in a lecture bound up with the one under consideration, says
that “the word necessity will acquire an altogether new and pleasanter
meaning” when the productive industry of man is reconciled with his
natural tendencies, of “passional attractions.” But nothing in either of
the lectures has tended to convince me of the correctness of his remark.
It is useless to dwell longer on this feature; every man’s consciousness
asserts human freedom, and protests against the doctrine of absolute
necessity.
I will admit with the lecturer that “it is plain to the dullest
perception that the intellectual faculties are as much the servants and
instruments of the passions as are the hands or the feet;” but, may I be
permitted to ask, is this plain to any other than the the dullest
perception? I can understand why this position should find a place in
the lecturer’s system; for, if the intelligence were a mere instrument,
there would be no such thing as human freedom. Man is free because he is
a reasonable being, and, if we place his reason under the control of his
passions, we place his liberty under the same control—in a word, this is
but another way of denying that he has any liberty whatever.
The harmony of the passions is to be secured by giving to each man the
power to act out his own inclinations according to the laws of his
passional nature. Under a true order of society there must be,
therefore, no law, no restraint, on the free action of the passions, All
this is very. simple, but I still find one difficulty. Under the present
evil system, the marriage relation is subjected to positive institution,
Law pretends to govern. the indisciplinable wanderings of the passions,
and binds one husband to one wife, no matter what his or her passional
nature may happen to be. If we remove these positive-institutions, these
laws, I see nothing but unlimited freedom of divorce, notwithstanding
associational arrangements, which can save even a vestige of the
marriage relation.
To pass now to.the purely religious application, I deny that what Mr.
Dana calls “Unityism, or the passion for unity, is what in religious
language: we call the Religious Sentiment.” This passion for unity, for
harmony in all the impulses of the soul, may, indeed tend to the
completeness of the soul itself, but it brings man into no relation
whatever with God. It commences, it has its progress and operation,
entirely within the sphere of the soul itself., The Religious sentiment
has been generally supposed to involve a feeling of duty, a sentiment of
the relation of the individual soul to the Father of Spirits. But the
doctrine of this lecture can give no place to the idea of duty, it can
acknowledge no necessity for the being of a God—at least of a living,
personal, and self-conscious God. The system, in short, gives us a
religion without a God, a philosophy without human liberty, and an order
of social organization without law, without any check whatever upon the
action of the passions.
Yours very truly,
W. B. G.