s, they regarded themselves as inspired. Fourier, who held
peculiar ideas concerning the visions of somnambulists, and who believed
in the possibility of developing the magnetic power to such an extent as
to enable us to commune with invisible beings, might, if he were living,
pass also for a Gnostic.

The Adamites attend mass entirely naked, from motives of chastity. Jean
Jacques Rousseau, who took the sleep of the senses for chastity, and who
saw in modesty only a refinement of pleasure, inclined towards Adamism.
I know such a sect, whose members usually celebrate their mysteries in
the costume of Venus coming from the bath.

The Pre-Adamites believe that men existed before the first man. I once
met a Pre-Adamite. True, he was deaf and a Fourierist.

The Pelagians deny grace, and attribute all the merit of good works to
liberty. The Fourierists, who teach that man's nature and passions are
good, are reversed Pelagians; they give all to grace, and nothing to
liberty.

The Socinians, deists in all other respects, admit an original
revelation. Many people are Socinians to-day, who do not suspect it, and
who regard their opinions as new.

The Neo-Christians are those simpletons who admire Christianity because
it has produced bells and cathedrals. Base in soul, corrupt in heart,
dissolute in mind and senses, the Neo-Christians seek especially after
the external form, and admire religion, as they love women, for its
physical beauty. They believe in a coming revelation, as well as a
transfiguration of Catholicism. They will sing masses at the grand
spectacle in the phalanstery.]

[Footnote 73: It should be understood that the above refers only to the
moral and political doctrines of Fourier,--doctrines which, like all
philosophical and religious systems, have their root and _raison
d'existence_ in society itself, and for this reason deserve to be
examined. The peculiar speculations of Fourier and his sect concerning
cosmogony, geology, natural history, physiology, and psychology, I leave
to the attention of those who would think it their duty to seriously
refute the fables of Blue Beard and the Ass's Skin.]

[Footnote 74: A writer for the radical press, M. Louis Raybaud, said, in
the preface to his "Studies of Contemporary Reformers:" "Who does not
know that morality is relative? Aside from a few grand sentiments which
are strikingly instinctive, the measure of human acts varies with
nations and climates, and only ci