xiv PREFACE 



Proud and encouraging ideal, that may perchance 

 one day be changed into a living, palpitating 

 reality ! 



Let us believe that its coming is at hand ; for in 

 this base world only what is earnestly hoped for 

 and expected is capable of realisation. 



Setting aside the doctrine and the luminous 

 horizons that its author reveals to us on evoking 

 with prophetic vision the future society, disdainful 

 of individual capital and addicted to the worship of 

 Nature, there are in this book many suggestive 

 ideas and conceptions which, even separated from 

 the fundamental thesis, have a peculiar value and 

 brilliancy, like jewels set in an artistic crown. 



One of them is assimilation of life to a rhythm, 

 to a system of waves comparable in principle to 

 the palpitations of the ether or to the most 

 complete order of relations marked in the tables 

 of Mendeleef and Sir W. Crookes. 



At first sight the idea seems obscure arid even 

 difficult of conception ; but reflecting upon it, one 

 discovers luminous facets and most interesting 

 points of view. 



Because, in brief, life represents a complex 

 system of forces, of vibrations in ascending pro- 

 gression. Like an orchestra successively rein- 

 forced, organisation begins with the mono-rhythmic 



