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Leader (1850-1860), 15th February 1851, Edition Town of 1, Page 152, Untitled Article

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      Lays of the Minnesingers to Poetry ; and is interesting as compared with the Italian and French Novelists of the Middle Ages . All antiquarians will pounce upon this work ; and , perhaps , Mr . Bohn will find it worth translating for his series .

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      Some curious calculations connected with the press lie before us , which show that the three parties of " Order " — " Bonapartist "—and " Opposition" are thus distributed . The " Party of Order" ( Legitimists and Orleanists ) daily subscribes for 85 , 000 copies ; the " Bonapartists " for 60 , 000 copies ; the "Opposition" ( Republicans and Socialists ) , 129 ) 000 . With regard to particular papers , these are some of the figures : — Le Constitutionnel 30 , 000 copies . La Presse . 24 , 000 „ LaPatrie 14 , 000 „ Journal des Dlbatt 11 , 000 ,, Le National 5 , 000 „ In Madrid , it appears , there are fifty-six journals and reviews . The three parties of Carlists , Progressists , and Moderates , are represented by La Esperanza , El Clamor Publico , and El Heraldo ; of which the Carlist paper has by far the greatest circulation in the provinces . But whoever casts his eye over one of these Spanish papers , and compares it with a French or English papers will see at once the difference between an active political life and a stagnant indifference and ignorance . The stupid tyranny which disgraces Prussia at this moment is strikingly illustrated in the case of Frkiligrath , the Republican poet , stated elsewhere in our columns . We will not dwell upon the subject ; it is enough to point the attention of our readers that way , and leave it to the comment of their own indignant feelings .

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      FOUBIER ON THE PASSIONS . The Patsiont of the Human Soul . By Charles Fourier . Translated from the French by the Keverend John Reynell Morell . With Critical Annotations , a Biography of Fourier , and a General Introduction , by Hugh Doherty . 2 yoIs . London : Bailliere . Thb existence in society of abnormal men—of men by no means insane in any proper sense of that word , yet differing from the mass of their fellows by the possession of some mental peculiarity or redundancy , producing the appearance of a craze in all that they do—is a fact yet to be taken largely into account in our speculations regarding the causes that have determined and are still determining the career of the human race . Such abnormal men are to be found everywhere ; we sometimes detect one by the unnatural haze of his eye , among our fellow-passengers in an omnibus . And in history there have been instances of ahnormals , if we may so call them , who , chancing to add to the peculiarity , whatever it was , that made them such , a colossal allowance of all the ordinary and normal faculties of human nature , have been enabled by this double endowment to play a part transcending all common estimates of what the intellect of man can do . In this class of men—men

      abnormal in the form , and at the same time conspicuous for the degree , of their faculties—may be ranked Socrates , Mahomet , Sweden borg , and several others . Among women , Joan of Arc ought perhaps to be placed in the same category . For the full appreciation of such characters , one must employ a higher calculus than that which suffices for the appreciation of the more usual examples of human eminence . To seek , for example , to explain Mahomet or his activity , by any notions of what mere intellectual originality coupled with moral vehemence may effect , sinking the fact that he believed himself to have habitual intercourse with angels , is at once arrant cowardliness in speculation , and a falsification of history .

      In regarding these almonnals , the higher specimens of which have figured ho powerfully m history , it is possible , we think , to distinguish two kinds of them . To one class we would give the name of Sensitives , or Sensitive Abnorvinls , making use for that purpose of the language of Baron Keichenba , eh . This chemist hat * proved that a considerable proportion of the human speciesperhaps not less than one-fourth or

      one-fifthpossess a nervous organization that renders them sensible of phenomena in nature that completely escape the notice of others . These sensitives , as he calls thtn ^ fof ^ hft tinct cHhienees from magnets , crystals /^^ lJ ^ ftttrnM ^ dv , the Him , the moon , trees , ^ W ^ -rlhr

      science . Without going into that controversy , we simply avail ourselves of the now admitted fact that a considerable proportion of human beings are so constituted as to be cognizant of miscellaneous phenomena to which the human race in general is quite blind . A man possessing this redundancy of perceiving-power in so high a degree as to be accounted a seer , or visionary in the mesmeric circles , we would call a Sensitive Abnormal j and any person in whom this sensitive abnormalism should be found conjoined with a large allowance of the ordinary powers and virtues of human

      stars , and , in fact , all substances , and organisms whatever ; they perceive flames and lights rising from crystals , magnets , the human hand , newmade graves , &c . &c . ; in short , they are cognizant , under natural or artificial circumstances , of a perfect infinitude of phenomena passing in the universe unrecognized by the majority of men—phenomena which sometimes affect their own being in a manner astoundingly powerful . Other inquirers carry out Reichenbach ' s investigations so far as to make clairvoyance , the power of prophecy , the power of healing by ' touch , &c , alleged matters of pure

      nature , would be likely , we think , to play a striking part among his fellow men . But , distinct from this class of abnormals , we think we perceive some evidence of the existence of another class , whom we would name Dogmatics , or Dogmatic Abnormals . These are persons who differ from their fellows , not by an excess of passive perceiving-power , but by an excess of active conceiving-power . They have come into the world , not with a sensitive organization which enables them to take in a wider range of phenomena than other people , but with some idiosyncrasy or derangement in what Kant

      calls the d , priori forms or moulds that constitute the thinking Faculty . The internal mechanism by which they conceive and work up what the outward world presents to them is unusual , so that though they may see only the same phenomena as other people , they necessarily acquire from these phenomena quite a different set of notions or conceptions . By the structure of their minds they are led to affirm most positively numerous propositions for which no one except themselves can see a particle of evidence . Persons so constituted we call Dogmatics , from the fact that

      their attitude with respect to their fellow-men in maintaining their opinions must necessarily be one of constant asseveration without the possibility of proof . It is clear that a person may possess this dogmatic species of abnormalism without possessing the other ; and it is clear also that if a person were an abnormal of both kinds , that is , if he were both a Sensitive and a Dogmatic—all his mental manifestations would be in a double degree astonishing and unusual . It is not unlikely that some of the more notable personages of history have walked through life with this twofold consciousness of sepa ation from the rest of the race .

      I ' ourier , we believe , belonged rather to the class of Dogmatic , than to that of Sensitive , Abnormals . We do not know that he was in any degree endowed with the power of perceiving more phenomena than other people ; but certainly there have been few instances of men equally dogmatic , equally incited by the necessities of their intellectual structure to affirm propositions lying wholly out of the circle of possible evidence . Born in 1772 , and educated for business , Fourier commenced his career as a teacher of mankind at the mature age of between thirty and forty ; and the muss of writings which he produced

      between that period and his death in 1837 , part of which he published in his lifetime , but the greater portion of which he left to his disciples in manuscript , contains probably a greater amount of pure solitary affirmation , pure despotic interference with the world's ordinary ways of thinking , than any other mass of writings in the whole library of modern literature . \ t is chiefly as the father of one of the prevalent forms of Socialism that Fourier is known ; but those who know him only in this aspect can have no idea of the real character of the man . The social theories of Fourier were but a

      fraction , and , it may be said , the most sensible and business-like fraction of his multifarious contributions to modern thought ; and one must ; turn to his speculations in cosmogony and physical science in general , if one would estimate the whole amount of that craze , eccentricity , or whatever else we may choose to call it , that distinguished him from hi 8 contemporaries . His Socialism wns , indeed , in his own mind a deduction from , or , at leant , the practical complement of his cosmological and psychological speculations ; but he was himself willing that it , should be viewed apart by the uninitiated

      and discussed on its own merits , his more esoteric doctrines being left as a kind of locked chest of treasure to be appreciated by future times . In social and political subjects , we have said , Fourier is comparatively a sane and intelligible man ; it is in physical science , and in what pertains to it , that he runs his career of dogmatic riot . Some of his extravagances irj this field of speculation must be already familiar to our readersmatter of laughter as they have been for the last few years . We shall , however , mention a few of them by way of illustration .

      The stars , according to Fourier , are animated beings like men . They form groups and societies , and exercise the functions of procreation and industry like human individuals . Their ordinary industry consists in ever and anon producing new substances or combinations—new minerals , new vegetables , new animals — which they exchange with each other . Thus the various substances on our globe are contributions to it from all the

      members of our particular solar system . The elephant , the oak , and the diamond come from the Sun ; the horse , the lily , and the ruby from Saturn ; the cow , the jonquil , and the topaz from Jupiter ; the dog , the violet , and the opal are indigenous to the earth itself ; and so ~ on with the animals , plants , and minerals . All the members of our solar system are inhabited by beings like ourselves , more or less advanced in faculty . The planet Mercury is the

      most highly gifted . Ihe whole duration of our earth is to be 80 , 000 years , and it is now only about the 8000 th year of its age . Our species consists of the mixed progeny of sixteen distinct races originally created—nine of which were placed in the old and seven in the American hemispiww . We are as yet in a rude state ; and in the process of time the whole constitution of our earth , and of its inhabitants , will sustain extraordinary changes . The polar ice will disappear ; the salt sea-water will be change d into a kind of lemonade ; these

      will be a climate universally agreeable ; new minerals will be created by the use of which in optical instruments we shall sweep a greater horizon of our sphere than at present , and also see through what are now opaque bodies ; new vegetables will be created with wonderful properties ; and new animals will be created by means of which , when trained like our present horses , we shall travel over the earth at immense rates , swim in the sea , or fly safely in the air . We shall also be able to hold telegraphic communications with the planets , the sun , and even the most distant stars—which

      last are not really so distant as they seem , for at present our solar system is begirt by a kind of vitiating filmy sphere or crystalline , which beats back the gaze of our eyes and telescopes , and renders all our conclusions with respect to the sidereal universe false and nugatorj ' . When the earth has reached its climax of improvement , it will begin to decline and go into second infancy ; and , finally , when its course is completely run , it will discharge its freight of human beings into some other planet , which will continue the old song in a higher strain . Meanwhile , men die and are born again by turns . When men die they go into an invisible world , or heaven , where they remain for a period the double

      of that during which they have lived on earth ; then they reenter other bodies and lead anew life—he who was formerly a king , reappearing , perhaps , as a beggar , and vice versa . Lastly , all things and processes have been constructed by the Deity on principles of free and measured series ; that is , either on principles of ordinary numerical sequence , 1 , 2 , < l , 4 , 5 , &c , or on a principle of recurring intervals and accords , analogous to that of the musical scale . What is done according to free series , constitutes , as it were , the prose or rough work of the universe ; the measured or musical series has been reserved by nature for her grander efforts , her poetic exercitations . The numbers 7 and 12 are the favourite numbers of the Deity .

      We could multiply these instances of Fourier ' s extravagant , dogmatisms by the addition of thousands more . These , however , will mi / lice to verify our view of Fourier us a man abnormal in the mechanism or a priori forms of his thought . To make this assertion a little : more precise , wo should say , that Inn abnormalism consisted chieily in these two thingsa confusion in his mind between the faculties of conception and belief , n » if two of his cerebral convolutions ( to employ phrenological language ) had run into one , ho as to incorporate their functions ; andanunpreeedente u' development in his mind of the notion of universal unison , harmony , or analogy . In the first place , we fancy , whatever Fourier thought , whatever notion , or vagary arose in his mind " , he

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      152 © & * ILeaKtV . [ Saturda y

  • Citation
    • Leader (1850-1860), Feb. 15, 1851, page 152, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1870/page/12/