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
- First account: On the progressive household of the seventh period, and on the discontents of the sexes in the incoherent household
- Second account: On the splendour of the combined order
- Third part: Confirmation derived from the inadequacy of the inexact sciences to deal with all the problems that the civilised mechanism presents
- Omitted chapter
- Note A
- Advice to the civilised
- 1818 Introduction
- Index
- Cambridge Texts in the History of Political Thought
Second account: On the splendour of the combined order
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
- First account: On the progressive household of the seventh period, and on the discontents of the sexes in the incoherent household
- Second account: On the splendour of the combined order
- Third part: Confirmation derived from the inadequacy of the inexact sciences to deal with all the problems that the civilised mechanism presents
- Omitted chapter
- Note A
- Advice to the civilised
- 1818 Introduction
- Index
- Cambridge Texts in the History of Political Thought
Summary
To familiarise yourselves with the luxury I shall be describing, you should re-read Note A, on the organisation of the progressive Series, in order to understand how an order so contrary to our customs will give diametrically opposite results, and produce as much magnificence as our incoherent labours produce misery and anxiety.
Order of topics dealt with in the second Account
The splendour of the arts and sciences.
Entertainment and knight–errantry.
Combined gastronomy,
Considered
in its political sense,
it its material sense,
in its passionate sense.
The amorous policy for recruiting armies.
You may complain that this is confusing, because the division is a post-hoc one, as I observed of the first account.
You must not lose sight of the fact that, in order to put the wonders I shall describe into operation, the combined order will have the help of four new passions which we have little or no sense of in the civilised order, where everything is opposed to their development.
These passions, which I have named
10th. The intermeshing,
11th. The varying,
12th. The graduating,
13th. Harmonyism,
can only work freely in the progressive Series; and as we are not used to such delightful passions they will seem as new as love seems to young people when they experience it for the first time.
This view may not seem very comforting to those who have already spent their best years in the gloom of Civilisation, but they should take heart: these new pleasures will be for people of all ages, and their anticipation should not be a cause for despair except during the interval that must elapse until the foundation of the combined order.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Fourier: 'The Theory of the Four Movements' , pp. 151 - 190Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1996