Fourier had sprung from Saint-Simon, he
denied him in part, and if Saint-Simon's doctrine ended in a kind of
mystical sensuality, the other's conducted to an inacceptable regimenting
of society. Proudhon, for his part, demolished without rebuilding
anything. Comte, who created method and declared science to be the one
and only sovereign, had not even suspected the advent of the social
crisis which now threatened to sweep all away, and had finished
personally as a mere worshipper of love, overpowered by woman.
Nevertheless, these two, Comte and Proudhon, entered the lists and fought
against the others, Fourier and Saint-Simon; the combat between them or
their disciples becoming so bitter and so blind that the truths common to
them all at first seemed obscured and disfigured beyond recognition. Now,
however, that evolution had slowly transformed Pierre, those common
truths seemed to him as irrefutable, as clear as the sunlight itself.
Amidst the chaos of conflicting assertions which was to be found in the
gospels of those social messiahs, there were certain similar phrases and
principles which recurred again and again, the defence of the poor, the
idea of a new and just division of the riches of the world in accordance
with individual labour and merit, and particularly the search for a new
law of labour which would enable this fresh distribution to be made
equitably. Since all the precursory men of genius agreed so closely upon
those points, must they not be the very foundations of to-morrow's new
religion, the necessary faith which this century must bequeath to the
coming century, in order that the latter may make of it a human religion
of peace, solidarity and love?

Then, all at once, there came a leap in Pierre's thoughts. He fancied
himself at the Madeleine once more, listening to the address on the New
Spirit delivered by Monseigneur Martha, who had predicted that Paris, now
reconverted to Christianity, would, thanks to the Sacred Heart, become
the ruler of the world. But no, but no! If Paris reigned, it was because
it was able to exercise its intelligence freely. To set the cross and the
mystic and repulsive symbolism of a bleeding heart above it was simply so
much falsehood. Although they might rear edifices of pride and domination
as if to crush Paris with their very weight, although they might try to
stop science in the name of a dead ideal and in the hope of setting their
clutches upon the coming century, these