ants of the village show the spring, and cherish the belief that it is the poor rejected Undine, who in this manner still embraces her husband in her loving arms. -Undine.

OURIER, FRANÇOIS CHARLES MARIE, a French social economist; born at Besançon, Franche Comté, April 7, 1772; died at Paris, October 10, 1837. He was the son of a linen-draper, was educated in his native town, and when eighteen years old became a clerk in a mercantile house in Lyons. Later he obtained a position as traveling clerk in France, Germany, and Holland. In 1793 he commenced business in Lyons with the capital left him by his father; but when Lyons was pillaged by the army of the Convention he lost his property, and escaped death only by enlisting as a private soldier. At the end of two years he was discharged on account of ill health.

He had always disliked mercantile life, but there was no other way open to him, and he again became a clerk in a house, which employed him to superintend the destruction of a large quantity of rice that had been spoiled by being kept too long, in order to force prices up during a time of scarcity. This added to his disgust with commercial methods, and led him to devote himself to the study of social, commercial, and political questions, with a view to the prevention of abuses and the furtherance of human organization and progress. In 1799, believing that he had found a clew in "the universal laws of attraction," he applied himself to construct his theory of Universal Unity, on which he based his plans of practical association. His first

work, a general prospectus of his theory, was published in 1808 under the title of Théorie des Quatre Mouvements et des Destinées Générales. This theory, known as Fourierism, contemplates the organization of society into phalanxes or co-operative groups, each large enough for all social and industrial requirements, arranged according to occupations, capacities, and attractions, and living in common dwellings. It attracted little attention, and was soon withdrawn by its author from circulation. In 1822 he published two volumes of his work on Universal Unity, entitled L'Association Domestique Agricole, which appeared later as La Théorie de l'Unité Universelle. Besides containing a variety of speculations on philosophical and metaphysical questions, the work sets forth the author's theory and plans of association, involving many topics. The remaining seven volumes of the work were not then published. In 1829 Fourier issued an abridgment in one volume, entitled Le Nouveau Monde Industrielle-et Sociétaire, which attracted attention, and led to a negotiation with Baron Capel, Minister of Public Works, for an experiment of the plan of association. The revolution of 1830 destroyed Fourier's hopes in this direction, but his theories had gained numerous converts, and in 1832 Le Phalanstère, ou La Reforme Industrielle, a weekly journal, was established as an organ of the socialistic doctrines. A joint-stock company was formed, and an estate was purchased, with a view to a practical experiment of association. The community that had begun the experiment was soon dispersed for lack of money to carry it on. In 1835 Fourier published the first volume of a work entitled False Industry, Fragmentary, Repulsive, and Lying, and the Antidote, a Natural,

Combined, Attractive, and Truthful Industry, giving Quadruple Products. A second volume of this work. was in press at the time of his death in 1837.

AFFINITIES IN FRIENDSHIP.

Affinities in friendship are then, it appears, of two kinds; there is affinity of character, and affinity of industry or action. Let us choose the word action, which is better suited to our prejudices, because our readers cannot conceive what is meant by an affinity in industry, nor how the pleasure of making clogs can give birth amongst a collection of men to a fiery friendship and a devotion without bounds. They will be able to form an idea of affinity of action, if we apply it to the case of a meal; this action makes men cheerful; but industrial action is much more jovial in harmony than a cheerful meal is with us. Numerous intrigues prevail in the most trifling labor of the harmonians; hence it comes that the affinity of action is to them as strong a friendly tie as the affinity of character. You will see the proof of this in the mechanism of the passional series, and you must admit provisionally this motive of the affinity of action, since we perceive even in the present day accidental proofs of it in certain kinds of work, where enthusiasm presides without any interested motive.

a

It seems, then, that Friendship, so extolled by our philosophers, is a passion very little known to them. They consider in Friendship only one of two springs the spiritual, or the affinity of characters; and they regard even this only in its simple working, in the form of identity or accord of tastes. They forget that affinity of character is founded just as much upon contrast tie as strong as that of identity. An individual frequently delights us by his complete contrast to our own character. If he is dull and silent, he makes a diversion to the boisterous pastimes of a jovial man; if he is gay and witty, he derides the misanthrope. Whence it follows, that Friendship, even if we only consider one of its springs, is still of compound essence; for the single VOL. X.-10

spring of the affinity of character presents two diametrically opposite ties, which are:

Affinity { Spiritual, by identity.

Spiritual, by contrast.

Characters that present the greatest contrasts become sympathetic when they reach a certain degree of opposition. . . . Contrast is as different from antipathy as diversity is from discord. Diversity is often a germ of esteem and friendship between two writers; it establishes between them a homogeneous diversity or emulative competition, which is in fact very opposite to what is called discord, quarreling, antipathy, heterogeneity. Two barristers, who have pleaded cleverly against each other in a striking cause, will mutually esteem each other after the struggle. The celebrated friendship of Theseus and Pirithous arose from a furious combat, in which they long fought together and appreciated each other's bravery.

The existing friendship has not, therefore, philosophical insipidities as its only source. If we may believe our distillers of fine sentiments, it appears that two men cannot be friends except they agree in sobbing out tenderness for the good of trade and the constitution. We see, on the contrary, that friendships are formed between the most contrasted as well as between identical characters. Let us remark on this head that contrast is not contrariety, just as diversity is not discord. Thus in Love, as in Friendship, contrast and diversity are germs of sympathy to us, whereas contrariety and discord are germs of antipathy.

The affinity of characters is, then, a compound and not a simple spring in Friendship, since it operates through the two extremes, through contrast or counter-accord as well as through identity or accord. This spring is therefore made up of two elements, which are identity and

contrast.

If it can be proved (and I pledge myself to do it) that the other spring of Friendship, or affinity of industrial tastes, is in like manner composed of two elements which form ties through contrast and identity, it will re

sult from it that Friendship, strictly analyzed, is composed of four elements, two of which are furnished by the spiritual spring in identity and contrast, and two furnished by the material spring in identity and contrast. Friendship is not, therefore, a passion of a compound essence, but of an essence bi-compounded of four elements.-The Passions of the Human Soul.

THE UNIVERSAL SIDEREAL LANGUAGE.

This is the place to usher on the stage the muse and the poetical invocations to the learned of all sizes. Come forth all ye cohorts, with all your -ologies and -ismstheologists of all degrees, geologists, archæologists, chronologists, psychologists and ideologists; you also natural philosophers, geometers, doctors, chemists, and naturalist's; you, especially, grammarians, who have to lead the march figure in the advance guard, and sustain the first fire; for it will be necessary to employ exclusively your ministry during one year at least, in order to collect and explain the signs, the rudiments, and the syntax of the natural language that will be transmitted to us by the stars. Once initiated into this universal language of harmony, the human mind will no longer know any limits; it will learn more in one year of sidereal transmissions than it would have learnt in ten thousand years of incoherent studies. The gouty, the rheumatic, the hydrophobic, will come to the telegraph to ask for the remedy for their sufferings; one hour later, they will know it by transmission from those stars, at present the object of our jokes, and which will become shortly the objects of our idolatry. Each of the classes of savans will come in turn to gain the explanation of the mysteries which for three thousand years have clogged science, and all the problems will be solved in an instant.

The geometer who cannot pass beyond the problems of the fourth degree will learn the theory that gives the solutions of the twentieth and hundredth degrees. The astronomer will be informed of all that is going on in the stars of the vault, and of the milky way, and in the universes, whereof ours is only an individual. A hope