Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Introduction
- Principal events in Fourier's life
- A brief note on further reading (in English)
- Translator's introduction
- The Theory of the Four Movements and of the General Destinies
- 1808 Introduction
- Preliminary discourse
- Plan
- First part: Exposition of some branches of the general destinies
- Second part: Description of the various branches of the private or domestic destinies
- Third part: Confirmation derived from the inadequacy of the inexact sciences to deal with all the problems that the civilised mechanism presents
- First demonstration: Freemasonry and its still unknown properties
- Second demonstration: The insular monopoly and its still unknown properties
- Interlude: System of development of Civilisation
- Third demonstration: Commercial licence: Its known vices and its unknown dangers
- Epilogue: On the social chaos of the globe
- Omitted chapter
- Note A
- Advice to the civilised
- 1818 Introduction
- Index
- Cambridge Texts in the History of Political Thought
Epilogue: On the social chaos of the globe
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Introduction
- Principal events in Fourier's life
- A brief note on further reading (in English)
- Translator's introduction
- The Theory of the Four Movements and of the General Destinies
- 1808 Introduction
- Preliminary discourse
- Plan
- First part: Exposition of some branches of the general destinies
- Second part: Description of the various branches of the private or domestic destinies
- Third part: Confirmation derived from the inadequacy of the inexact sciences to deal with all the problems that the civilised mechanism presents
- First demonstration: Freemasonry and its still unknown properties
- Second demonstration: The insular monopoly and its still unknown properties
- Interlude: System of development of Civilisation
- Third demonstration: Commercial licence: Its known vices and its unknown dangers
- Epilogue: On the social chaos of the globe
- Omitted chapter
- Note A
- Advice to the civilised
- 1818 Introduction
- Index
- Cambridge Texts in the History of Political Thought
Summary
You authors of the inexact sciences claim to be working for the good of the whole human race. Do you think that the six hundred million barbarians and savages are not part of it? Yet they suffer. And what have you done for them? Nothing. Your systems are only applicable in Civilisation, whose misfortunes are aggravated each time your policies are put into practice. When you possess the art of making us happy, perhaps you will think you are fulfilling God's design by trying to limit happiness to the inhabitants of Civilisation, who occupy only a tiny part of the globe. But God sees the human race as a single family, all of whose members have a right to its blessings. He wants either the whole of mankind to be happy, or nobody at all.
If you want to promote the wishes of God you must seek for a social order that is applicable to the whole of the globe, not just to a few nations. The vastly greater number of savages and barbarians ought to warn you that they must be governed and controlled by attraction, not by force. Do you imagine you could win them over by the prospect of your customs, which can only be maintained by the use of gallows and bayonets? Customs which even your own people hate, and which all countries would rise up against if they were not held back by fear of the whip!
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Fourier: 'The Theory of the Four Movements' , pp. 273 - 281Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1996