ch I had become a follower in studying
Fourier, I suddenly perceived that by reasoning I was becoming
incredulous; that on each article of the creed my reason and my faith
were at variance, and that my six weeks' labor was wholly lost. I saw
that the Fourierists--in spite of their inexhaustible gabble, and their
extravagant pretension to decide in all things--were neither savants,
nor logicians, nor even believers; that they were SCIENTIFIC QUACKS, who
were led more by their self-love than their conscience to labor for the
triumph of their sect, and to whom all means were good that would reach
that end. I then understood why to the Epicureans they promised women,
wine, music, and a sea of luxury; to the rigorists, maintenance of
marriage, purity of morals, and temperance; to laborers, high wages;
to proprietors, large incomes; to philosophers, solutions the secret
of which Fourier alone possessed; to priests, a costly religion and
magnificent festivals; to savants, knowledge of an unimaginable nature;
to each, indeed, that which he most desired. In the beginning,
this seemed to me droll; in the end, I regarded it as the height of
impudence. No, sir; no one yet knows of the foolishness and infamy which
the phalansterian system contains. That is a subject which I mean to
treat as soon as I have balanced my accounts with property. [73]

It is rumored that the Fourierists think of leaving France and going to
the new world to found a phalanstery. When a house threatens to fall,
the rats scamper away; that is because they are rats. Men do better;
they rebuild it. Not long since, the St. Simonians, despairing of their
country which paid no heed to them, proudly shook the dust from their
feet, and started for the Orient to fight the battle of free woman.
Pride, wilfulness, mad selfishness! True charity, like true faith,
does not worry, never despairs; it seeks neither its own glory, nor
its interest, nor empire; it does every thing for all, speaks with
indulgence to the reason and the will, and desires to conquer only by
persuasion and sacrifice. Remain in France, Fourierists, if the progress
of humanity is the only thing which you have at heart! There is more to
do here than in the new world. Otherwise, go! you are nothing but liars
and hypocrites!

The foregoing statement by no means embraces all the political elements,
all the opinions and tendencies, which threaten the future of property;
but it ought to satisfy any one