SAINT-SIMON, COMTE DE. 



SAINT-SIMON, COMTE DE. 



248 



was marriage. The lady he married was Mademoiselle de Champcrand, 

 the daughter of one of his fellow officers in the American expedition. 

 The experiment did not answer; it was ended after a few years by a 

 divorce by mutual consent ; and, childless by the first marriage, the 

 lady contracted a second. " Both during and after his marriage," says 

 one of Saint-Simon's biographers, " he continued to pursue, in the 

 most indefatigable manner, his prescribed career of experimentation. 

 Balls and dinners followed each other in rapid succession ; every new 

 situation that money could create was devised and prepared ; good and 

 evil were confounded, play, discussion, and debauch were alike gone 

 into ; the experience of years was crushed iuto a short space ; even 

 old age was artificially realised by medicaments ; and, that the loath- 

 some might not be wanting, this enthusiast for the universal would 

 inoculate himself with contagious diseases." Such a course Saint- 

 Simon justified to himself by distinguishing between a man who 

 undertook it from sheer love of pleasure and a man who undertook it 

 in the spirit of the highest theoretical philosophy and for great ends. 

 The one was going to perdition ; the other would emerge supremely 

 virtuous. Saint-Simon himself, at all events, emerged supremely poor. 

 In 1807. about which time his course of education ended, he was in 

 such abject poverty that he was glad to accept the post of clerk in a 

 Mont de Pietd, or Government Loan-office, at a salary of about 40Z. a 

 year. Subsequently he lived on the charity of an old friend named 

 Diard ; on whose death, in 1812, he was again destitute. 



It was high time now that Saint-Simon should be setting about his 

 " mission." He was now fifty-two years of age, about which time, 

 according to his own scheme of a model life, a man, after having gone 

 through the process of education, ought to begin " to resume his 

 observations and to establish theories." Accordingly it was in 1812, 

 when his circumstances were at their worst, that he gave to the world 

 his first publication, entitled ' Letters from an Inhabitant of Geneva to 

 his Contemporaries.' In this work he propounded the germs of his 

 social philosophy, and iu particular that peculiar distinction between 

 the spiritual and the temporal powers to which his system attached so 

 much importance the distinction being in fact an adaptation of the 

 mediaeval distinction of the Romish Church to modern, society, so as 

 to make all men of thought take the place of the spiritual order, 

 while the rest of society should constitute the temporal. " The 

 spiritual power in the hands of the savans; the temporal power in 

 the hands of the men of property ; the power of naming the individuals 

 called to perform the functions of leaders in the hands of the masses ; 

 for salary to the governing class, the consideration which they receive." 

 Such was the compendium given of the Saint-Simonian politics. The 

 ' Letters ' were followed by aa ' Introduction to the Scientific Labours 

 of the Nineteenth Century,' suggested by the demand which Napoleon I. 

 had addressed to the Institute, for a general account of the progress of 

 science iu Europe since 1789. In this work, Saint-Simon denounced 

 what he called the "anarchy" prevalent in the intellectual world, 

 and propounded his notions as to the means of attaining intellectual 

 order. 



It was about the time of the Restoration that, struck by the ori- 

 ginality of the thought and the style of the foregoing works, a few 

 ardent young men gathered round Saint-Simon, as pupils round a 

 master. Among his first disciples were M. Olinde Rodrigues, a young 

 Jew ; M. Augustin Thierry, since so well known as a historian ; and 

 M. Auguste Cointe, the future author of the so called ' Positive Philo- 

 sophy.' Such pupils probably brought as much as they received ; but 

 Saint-Simon exercised over them the fascination of an enthusiast, and 

 implanting in them his general doctrines, he directed their efforts and 

 prescribed their separate tasks. In 1814, there appeared, 'The Reor- 

 ganisation of European Society ; or on the necessity and the means of 

 uniting the peoples of Europe into one body-politic, preserving to 

 each its own nationality ; by Henri Saint-Simon and Augustin Thitrry.' 

 Besides this work in conjunction with Thierry, Saint-Simon published 

 in 1819 a small pamphlet entitled 'Parabole,' in which the superiority 

 of the industrial classes on the one hand and the intellectual classes 

 on the other, over the classes usually held in social esteem, was 

 asserted with much pungency aud wit. A prosecution was grounded 

 on this tract as being of revolutionary tendency; but the result was 

 an acquittal. The doctrines of this tract were more methodically 

 expressed in subsequent writings particularly in the 'Catechisme des 

 Industriels.' In this work " he takes a retrospective view of the course 

 of French history, dividing it into several epochs and showing what 

 interests were predominant in each. Then, having established these 

 two propositions firat, that the industrial classes are the most useful 

 to society ; and secondly, that the proportion of these classes to the 

 rest of society has been continually increasing he proceeds to predict 

 the downfall of the existing military and feudal regime and the 

 establishment in its stead of a new or industrial regime." In this 

 work Saint-Simon announced another, in which the ' Scientific System 

 of Education ' corresponding to the coming era should be discussed 

 theoretically, under his auspices, by his pupil M. Auguste Comte. 

 -When the ' Systeme de Politique Positive ' of M. Comte however did 

 appear (the germ of the work subsequently developed into the well- 

 known ' Cours de Philosophic Positive ' of the same author) Saint- 

 Simon waa but partially pleased with it. It expounded his system of 

 politics, he said, from the Aristotelian point of view, and neglected 

 too much the sentimental and religious elements. 



New pupils including M. Bazard andM. Eufantin were attaching 

 themselves to the little Saint-Simonian band ; but still the progress 

 was so small, that the founder in his poverty and obscurity began to 

 despond. On the 9th of March 1823 he attempted suicide; but, the 

 pistol being misdirected, he recovered with the loss of an eye. Clearly 

 by this time his faith in his own views and in his own destiny, had 

 passed the ordinary bounds of intellectual dogmatism and had assumed 

 something of the character of a ' craze." His last bequest to the 

 world was to be a new Religion ! The exposition of this new Religion 

 was given forth in his ' Nouveau Christianisme" (1825), which may be 

 regarded as Saint-Simon's own final summary of his views. " In this 

 work the ruling idea is that Christianity is a great progressive system, 

 rolling, as it were, over the ages, acting on the thoughts aud actions of 

 men, but continually imbibing in return fresh power out of the mind 

 of the race and retaining only as its eternal and immutable principle 

 this one adage ' Love one another.' Of this great progress of Christi- 

 anity, the first stage, according to Saint-Simon had been Catholicism. 

 After it had come the Protestantism of Luther. Lastly, he, Saint- 

 Simon, was the harbinger of a new and triumphant stage the Saint- 

 Simonian phase of Christianity." So far as the nature of this new 

 or Saint-Simonian Religion was defined, its peculiarity was to rest on 

 two principles the one relating to the end after which humanity was 

 to strive ; the other to the means whereby this end was to be attained. 

 " The most rapid possible amelioration, physical and moral, of the 

 condition of the class the most numerous and poor," such was the 

 first principle, defining the end prescribed by the new Religion for all 

 the efforts and labours of humanity. To the attainment of this end, 

 however, a right organisation of society was indispensable ; and the 

 principle of this organisation or reconstruction was forrnulised as 

 follows : " To each man a vocation according to his capacity, aud to 

 each capacity a recompense according to its works." From this last 

 principle it will be seen that Saint-Simon was the reverse of an Equali- 

 tarian or Communist. The cardinal maxim of his system, indeed, 

 was that nature had made men unequal in capacities, and that the 

 right organisation of society was that of a hierarchy of ranks, gra- 

 duated according to capacity and not according to any artificial 

 method. 



In order to assist in the popular diffusion of his views, Saint-Simon, 

 with the assistance of his pupils, founded a journal called ' Le Produc- 

 teur.' This was the last act of his life. On the 19th of May 1825, he 

 died, after much ill-health and suffering, at the age of sixty-five. His 

 favourite pupils Rodrigues, Thierry, Comte, Bazard, aud Enfantiu 

 were with him to receive his last instructions. " It has been 

 imagined," he said, "that all religion must disappear. But religion 

 cannot disappear from the world : it can only change its form. Do 

 not forget this, and remember that, in order to do great thiugs, one 

 must be enthusiastic (pour faire de grandes choses il faut etre pas- 

 sionne 1 )." This was said especially to Rodrigues, and probably with 

 some reference to Comte, whose difference from his master in the 

 matter in question was already decided. 



The history of Saint-Sitnonianisrn after Saint-Simon's death is very 

 curious. The 'Producteur' was carried on by Rodrigues, with the 

 help of Bazard, Enfantin, and others, while Comte seceded and struck 

 out a career of his own, in the course of which, according to some, he 

 has been rather unfair to the memory of his master. In the ' Produc- 

 teur ' however there were expounded only the more practical views of 

 Saint-Simon relating to the re-organisation of industry and the like : 

 the more esoteric views being kept back. Some of the liberal poli- 

 ticians of France who had no affection for Saint-Simon or his doctrines 

 as, for example, Armand Carrel were thus among the writers in the 

 journal. Meanwhile, however, the more fanatical Saiut-Simonians 

 were active in other ways ; and Saint-Simoniauism, as a religion, and 

 not a mere collection of doctrines which might be criticised and dis- 

 cussed, was spreading among the younger minds of France. At last, 

 M. Bazard, clothing himself in the mantle of his dead master, auuouuced 

 himself as his successor, and advertised a course of lectures on his 

 creed. Rodrigues and Enfantin joined him, and fresh pupils attached 

 themselves, some of whom, as MM. Hypolite Carnot, Michel Chevalier, 

 and Charles Duveyrier, have since acquired a high name in France, 

 quite apart from Saint-Simoniauism. These formed a little church ; a 

 kind of mystical theosophy was propounded, with the ideas of Saint- 

 Simon in the middle of it; and the believers regaled each other with 

 speculations as to the coming future of the world, when society should 

 be arranged on Saint-Simonian principles, and the supreme law should 

 reside in a Saint-Simonian pontiff or universal chief, topping a mag- 

 nificent hierarchy of intellectual men, all working and all paid accord- 

 ing to their capacities. While indulging in these dreams however the 

 sect did not lose sight of actual society and actual politic?. They 

 direct d their assaults in particular against the law of inheritance, aa a 

 part of the existing system which, in the interests of Saint-Simouianism, 

 they ought to break down. That nit-n should bequeath property, and 

 thus place their heirs in artificial places of power, wa* contrary, they 

 said, to the true idea of hierarchy according to personal merit. 



In 1830 the Associates started a weekly journal in Paris called 

 ' L'Orgauisateur.' They also dwelt together in the Rue Monsigny 

 Bazard and Eufautiu acting as joint-presidents of the establish- 

 ment. These two men were very different in character Bazard being 

 the more shrewd and logical, Enfautin the more fervid and fanatical. 



