Modern French Philosophy | Page 7

feeling essentially religious. Its progress is a feature of the whole century.
The most notable expression of the new socialistic idea was that of Count Henri de Saint-Simon (1760-1825), a relative of the celebrated Duke. He had great confidence in the power of science as an instrument for social reconstruction, and he took over from a medical man, Dr. Burdin, the notions which, later on, Auguste Comte was to formulate into the doctrines of Positivism. Saint-Simon's influence showed itself while the century was young, his first work _Lettres d'un Habitant de Gen��ve_ appearing in 1803. In this he outlined a scheme for placing the authoritative power of the community, not in the hands of Church and State, but in a freely elected body of thinkers and artistes. He then endeavoured to urge the importance of order in society, as a counterpart to the order erected by science in the world of knowledge. To this end was directed his _Introduction aux Travaux scientifiques du Dix-neuvi��me Si��cle_ (1807-8). He also indicated the importance for social welfare of abandoning the preoccupation with an imaginary heaven, and pointed out that the more social and political theory could be emancipated from the influence of theological dogmas the better. At the same time he quite recognised the importance of religious beliefs to a community, and his sociological view of religion foreshadowed Guyau's study, an important work which will claim our attention in due course.
In 1813, Saint-Simon published his _M��moire sur la Science de l'Homme_, in which he laid down notions which were the germ of Auguste Comte's Law of the Three Stages. With the peace which followed the Battle of Waterloo, a tremendous stimulus was given in France to industrial activity, and Saint-Simon formulated his motto "All by industry and all for industry." Real power, he showed, lay not in the hands of governments or government agents, but with the industrial class. Society therefore should be organised in the manner most favourable to the working class. Ultimate economic and political power rests with them. These ideas he set forth in _L'Industrie_, 1817-18, La Politique, 1819, _L'Organisateur_, 1819-30, _Le Syst��me industriel_, 1821-22, _Le Cat��chisme des Industriels_, 1822-24. Since 1817 among his fellow- workers were now Augustin Thierry and young Auguste Comte, his secretary, the most important figure in the history of the first half of the century.
Finding that exposition and reasoned demonstration of his ideas were not sufficient, Saint-Simon made appeal to sentiment by his Appel aux Philanthropes, a treatise on human brotherhood and solidarity. This he followed up in 1825 by his last book, published the year of his death, Le Nouveau Christianisme. This book endeavoured to outline a religion which should prove itself capable of reorganising society by inculcating the brotherhood of man in a more effective manner than that of the Christian Church. _Fraternit��_ was the watchword he stressed, and he placed women on an equal political and social footing with men. He set forth the grave deficiencies of the Christian doctrines as proclaimed by Catholic and Protestant alike. Both are cursed by the sin of individualism, the virtue of saving one's own soul, while no attempt at social salvation is made. Both Catholics and Protestants he labelled vile heretics, inasmuch as they have turned aside from the social teaching of Christianity. If we are to love our neighbour as ourselves we must as a whole community work for the betterment of our fellows socially, by erecting a form of society more in accord with Christian principles. We must strive to do it here and now, and not sit piously getting ready for the next world. We must not think it religious to despise the body or material welfare. God manifests Himself as matter and spirit, so Religion must not despise economics but rather unite industry and science as Love unites spirit and matter. Eternal Life, of which Christianity makes so much, is not to be sought, argued Saint-Simon, in another world, but here and now in the love and service of our brothers, in the uplift of humanity as a whole.
Saint-Simon believed in a fated progress and an inevitable betterment of the condition of the working classes. The influence of Hegel's view of history and Condorcet's social theories is apparent in some of his writings. His insistence upon organisation, social authority and the depreciative view of liberty which he held show well how he was the real father of many later doctrines and of applications of these doctrines, as for example by Lenin in the Soviet system of Bolshevik Russia. Saint-Simon foreshadowed the dictatorship of the proletariat, although his scheme of social organisation involved a triple division of humanity into intellectuals, artists and industrials. Many of his doctrines had a definite communistic tendency. Among them we find indicated the abolition of all hereditary rights