EDENISM AND HARMONY. 
803 
can develop themselves and grow — grow sufficiently in intelligence 
to understand the necessity of labor — in physical force, to compel 
stubborn nature to furnish their daily subsistence. 
The duration of Edenism, alas ! was too short for the Earth and 
its humanity. All the religions of the peoples of the Earth re- 
gret this paradisaical era ; these regrets are excusable, but they 
denote the weakness of man’s intelligence, and the little faith he 
has in the goodness of his God. The eyes which God has given 
to man are made to look before and not behind. The religious 
and sensible man ought to busy himself about the future and not 
about the past. 
France’s famous pass- word, en avant''), onward, must be 
that of entire humanity. I do not mourn the happiness of Eden 
for the reason that I expect better, and that I desire more. 
In fact, this happiness of Eden that has been so much talked 
about, was but a poor affair if we compare it to what we shall en- 
joy in France, and everywhere, when we shall have realized har- 
mony upon our globe ; or if we compare it to what the harmoni- 
ans of Saturn or of Herschel now enjoy. It was, if you please, 
the happy quietude of the period of infancy compared with the 
intoxicating pleasures of the period of love. The Farad isians 
were ignorant of luxury, and luxury is the focus toward which 
the collective impulsions of all the senses converge. FTow what 
sort of happiness is it, that cannot satisfy the full development of 
the senses ? 
One day in harmony when we shall have reduced the moralist 
and the warrior to a perfect state of myth, of saurian, of dragon; 
diamonds, perfumes, and essences will pour forth at the smallest 
festivals; woman will put the seas and forests, beasts and plants 
under contribution to add, by dress, to the power of her charms, 
of which the statues of Phidias now offer but a pale idea. Music 
wdll display its innumerable orchestras of singers and instrumental 
performers, to raise the hymns of prayer and of labor. At this 
time we shall not be far from confounding in our obscure recol- 
lections, the abode of the terrestrial paradise, with that of Siberia 
and of Ireland, where the laborers die of famine by thousands. 
I know not of what paste are moulded those Christian gentle- 
