Lecture 7 Revolution in the Nineteenth Century

Fr. Seraphim of Platina.
Orthodox Survival Course

Essential to understanding these difficult times is Fr Seraphim Rose’s and Father Herman Podmoshensky’s “Orthodox Survival Course”, a rare and most valued orthodox resource. Fr. Seraphim and Fr. Herman taught this course in the 70;s at the Platina monastery.

When reading, you should keep in mind that this is a transcript of the live oral speech of Father Seraphim, and not a written and slowly thought-out text.


Lecture 7
Revolution in the Nineteenth Century

We will begin this lecture with a quote from Metropolitan Anastassy, from his memoirs, which is called, well, it’s just a collection of his memoirs on various topics. We will begin this way because he was a profound churchman in the full tradition of Orthodoxy, in whom, as in other great churchmen, great hierarchs, the spirit of the Church is, as it were, incarnated; that is, they are the ones to whom we look for mature wisdom, not only on narrow Church questions, but on this whole question of the Revolution for example. He comes from a Russia which had a particular, special relation to the Revolution, as we’ll see the next lecture. And what he says has particular weight because it comes from outside, as it were, the main place where the Revolution began. It comes from someone who was very deep, both in thought and feeling. And he has a very interesting observation to make about the French Revolution.

This part is called “From Conversation with My Own Heart.” He says, “In the French Revolution, as in a mirror, the light-minded character of this people was reflected. Its striving for posing, for beautiful phrases and gestures inspired by vainglory. All the heroes and the ordinary activists in this Revolution, even the most moderate and serious of them, the Gerondists, remind one of actors who stand before the face of a numerous audience and think only about what their contemporaries and their descendants will think of them. They gave themselves over to orgies on the eve of being beheaded so as to show by this their faked manliness of spirit. Many of them even strove to have themselves painted in the carts taking them to the guillotine which was for them the last “scene” in this world. None of them thought about their responsibility before God, before history or before their own conscience in this fatal moment for the country.”

This is a very profound judgment. And we’ll see that it is even more true of the nineteenth century which is filled with these revolutionary agents who are so posed and so fake and you can look around you today and see the same thing. Everybody comes up with a new plan for society; everybody’s dreaming about who they are going to bomb, how they are going to make a name for themselves, how they are going to bring about the final revolution; and they’re all extremely shallow and posing. And they have no basis, no idea of responsibility before God, no idea that they are going to be called to account for their life — nothing but this senseless fever they have to spread the revolution. And they don’t even know what it’s all about. They’re obviously just puppets in a play which is being played. They don’t know who is the author or where it’s going. And when they’re finally shot down themselves, they just become, as even the Communists say, “manure” for the revolution, the future happiness of mankind.

But we now will follow the example of such as Metropolitan Anastassy who thought very deeply on the question of the Revolution, and try to get behind the ideas and the thoughts that are going on among people. And see if we can understand why these things happened, what the end of them is. We will see especially in the nineteenth century, an age of egotists which probably has never been equalled before. These posers and egotists. Everyone comes up with a new theory: it’s been revealed to him, it’s the latest thing and the most fantastic idea. There was a great feeling of freedom. You know, remember that Wordsworth talked about it being alive in the dawn of the French Revolution. Everybody was so overjoyed; it’s a new age that’s coming. And this same feeling persists throughout this early part of the nineteenth century when everybody comes up with a new social system. And they come up with the most fantastic schemes. If you go back now and read, you can see this is a golden age for crackpots. They come up with ideas of theocracy. There was a fantastic thinker, Poplardolevie, who reconstructed the ancient Hebrew language and translated Genesis with a metaphysical interpretation of it. And then he came up with an idea of a great theocracy.

And, by the way, this very same spirit is reflected in Greece where it came a little bit later in the crackpot, Makrakis, at the end of the century, who thought he was first one to prove the existence of the Holy Trinity by reason and so forth — the same idea, some kind of spirit of overwhelming pride, at the same time extremely shallow. And this, of course, is totally foreign to Orthodoxy. And the reason it could come was because Christianity was lost.

The period we come to now, this period — actually it’s contemporaneous with the Revolution itself. In fact, it begins just before the Revolution and carries on after the Revolution. It’s the period of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century. Here we have many conflicting revolutionary ideas. We’ll examine a few of them in a minute. And one wonders how are we to tell which are the important ideas. And the key to that is looking at around us in the world today, because the revolution is the historical process which has produced the world of today. And we can see the key ideas by examining chiefly the one form of the revolution which is dominant today, that is, Communism, and even threatens to swallow up the whole world, and also by examining our own philosophical, spiritual environment in the free world to see what it is that moves people in the free world.

Much of the thought in the nineteenth century would have seemed the fantasies of some kind of crackpots, if Marxism had not conquered Russia and now half the world and shown us that these ideas are very much a part of the spirit of our own times. And there’s definite reasons why they’ve triumphed.

We will not try to trace any one revolutionary school, such is liberalism, or socialism, communism, or any of the secret societies, even if this were possible, because we want to understand the mind that gave these birth, that is, the revolutionary mentality.

There are in this age, if possible, even more secret societies than existed in the eighteenth century. And it becomes even ridiculous, there are so many of them. And they, each one is involved with being a conspirator, of hiding its plan from the rest of them, trying to gain dominance. And the ones who are in the lower ranks are afraid there’s a higher secret that’s not been revealed to them. And they’re afraid that it’s not what they want. And they’re going from one to the next. There’s one kind of group in Italy which sits before bonfires in the darkness in the moonlight thinking about how to unite Italy and make Italy the centre of the world, revive the Roman Empire and all kinds of fantastic things — blood oaths, and all this kind of thing — which especially the young people of that Romantic Age were very inspired by.

It’s not possible to see how influential each one of these little sects was. Obviously they had a great part to play because in many of these revolutions, at the right time, there were people who came and inspired the people to march the right direction in order to get their revolutionary ideas across. But this is actually secondary importance because whatever they achieved by their conspiracies would not have been able to be preserved had it not been for the fact that the spirit of the times was receptive to it. And that’s what we want to examine, the spirit of the times, which is primary.

In the next lecture we’ll also look at the conservative reaction against the Revolution to see if we can’t get a picture of the whole developing mentality of the nineteenth century which produced the present world which we live in, which has revolutionary ideas and governments standing against so-called “conservatism.” We will see whether this can be called conservatism or not. In fact, we’ll see some very interesting revolutionary ideas in the middle of these conservatives. This world, We’ll discuss chiefly the time of [the] post-Napoleonic age, because this is the time when thinkers had to stop and ask themselves what was the meaning of the Revolution and where do we go next.

The first thing that happened when Napoleon was overthrown and the Revolution was crushed — or so it looked, the whole of Europe presided over by the magnificent, romantic Alexander from Russia [who] came to the West and proceeded to reconstruct the society of Europe — there was a political reaction; it’s called the “age of the political reaction.” The Bourbon dynasty was restored under the brother of Louis XVI, Louis XVIII, who was quite willing to live under the new conditions. And it was not actually much of a restoration. It was a new idea, that is, a constitutional monarchy. It was not the old absolutism of the eighteenth century. Therefore the revolutionary ideas already gained somewhat of an acceptance.

This restoration meant that the churches were open; of course, they were already opened in the time of Napoleon, but there was no more Napoleon to be bringing the Revolution to everybody else. And there was somewhat the freedom of the press where all kinds of wild ideas could be expressed and also the conservative ideas. But underneath this whole society, the restored monarchy in France, there was a strong undercurrent of revolutionary unrest — not because the people were particularly unhappy with their lot, although of course there were many grievances especially because it was the age of rising industrialism and, of course, the lot of the workers got worse and worse — but mainly because these ideas were in the air. And just because Napoleon was defeated, these ideas did not go away. They formed the climate of the times, the spirit of the age.

In France there was one revolutionary outburst in 1830 in which the Bourbon dynasty was finally chased away. And the poor Charles X had to leave his slippers behind him as he fled in his coach to England. And the Orleans dynasty came in, I believe, a cousin of the last Bourbon king. And he was very much a man of the people, had even taking part in the Revolution, and called himself [king] “by the grace of God and the people,” that is, he put them both together. He’s going to be both a traditionalist and a revolutionary. And we’ll see later on what Nicholas I in Russia thought about that. But he in turn was chased out, and I think he left his slippers behind, as the new Revolution in 1848 overthrew him.

We’ll look a little in the next lecture at what happened in that Revolution which is actually a repetition of 1789 to 1793 — and rather hilarious if you don’t count all the people that were killed — and ended with the clown monarch Napoleon III who was one of the most lightheaded monarchs probably Europe ever had, [who] ended up by rushing off to defeat the Germans, leaving Paris open. He lost all his armies and Paris was taken by the Germans in the worst defeat France ever saw. But that’s already in the next lecture.

Most historians regard the history of the nineteenth century as the battle between reaction — summed up by the name of Metternich, the prime minister of Austria and the Holy Alliance, that is, aII these nations who had the restored monarchs — against the revolution or freedom, as the workman and the bourgeoisie tried to gain their freedom from the nobles and the kings. But this is a very superficial view. The real battle is much deeper than that.

This time, not just the time after 1815 but the time before, a decade or two before, the whole time of the Revolution and afterwards through the first half of the nineteenth century, is the age of Romanticism. This is the time when the Enlightenment ideas of reason, of humanitarianism, of Voltaire and Diderot, the rights of man, the making [of] constitutions, thinking things through and coming up with logical deductions which will save mankind — all this is rejected. But it is rejected only for its one-sidedness, many of the more positive ideas — actually humanitarian ideal, and the overthrowing of the old system of the absolutism — are not so much rejected. But there’s rather an irrational feeling, which actually comes straight from Rousseau, already in the middle of the eighteenth century, of a religion of feeling and a sympathy for all kinds of mysterious things and mysticism. But now this is reduced to this world. There’s a great deal of sympathy for the Middle Ages and for the national past of every country, whereas the Enlightenment age was an international age.

So you get people going around like the Grimm brothers to collect fairy tales, and the folk songs and tales of the people. And as far as the religion is concerned, of course, there’s a great revival of Catholicism; and it becomes now fashionable to be seen at the Mass. But at the same time it becomes something new. It’s not exactly like it was in the old regime. It’s very much of a this-worldly atmosphere about it, and a great revival of occultism for several decades. It’s at the same time, from before the Revolution. And one can say that there is a search for some kind of new Christianity which will harmonize with the philosophy of the Enlightenment, keep the best features of the philosophy of the Enlightenment and reject the one-sidedness, such as, Voltaire’s anti-Christianity and the atheism of the later thinkers.

This is the age of the great Romantic poets, the search for marvels, religion of inspiration and enthusiasm, new revelations, and the poets being carried away by their imagination — poems and stories about ruins and moonlight and darkness and all kinds of the darker side of life, the mysterious side.

This is the time of Caliostro, who, by the way, was mixed up with one the plots to overthrow the king in 1789, and [Franz Anton] Mesmer the hypnotist. And in fact one of the French writers at this time, [Johann Kaspar] Lavater, said that Mesmer went around and laid hands on people’s heads, hypnotized them and healed them and all kinds of things. And this one man said that this is the modern equivalent of the Apostles laying on of the hands, which in our times comes out in the charismatic movement. And San Martin, the unknown philosopher, as he was called, was mixed up with one of these lodges actually which helped inspire the revolution, got mixed up very much with occultism. In fact, I met his son, Martiniste, some years ago, who was, claimed to be eighty years old and looked much younger and has the secret of long life and health and success; but there doesn’t seem to be too much there, too much spirituality.

One can say that this is the second age of Romance in the history of Europe, the first one being the Middle Ages. In between these two ages there was the development of the scientific world-view and the age of reason. But now comes the reaction which produces back to something which something like the Middle Ages, only now it’s going to be not within Catholicism that this romanticism comes out, but beyond Catholicism.

There was a deep awareness in this period that the past, even though there was a political restoration and a longing for the past, and the poetry written about the Middle Ages, and everyone became enthusiastic about stained glass windows and so forth; still there was an awareness that the past could not be recaptured, the old Europe, the Old Regime was gone. And there was a deep undercurrent at this time, a longing for a new unity, a new kind of golden age something like the Middle Ages where everyone was inspired by a common ideal and art would flourish and the sciences would progress harmoniously. And this very feeling, this desire for some kind of new unity is, as we’ll see, very much of a chiliastic idea. And in fact, we can say that this whole period including the Revolution and the romanticism of the poets and artists, and the mysticism of the sects and lodges, and as we’ll also see even the Christian sects, is part of one great outburst of chiliastic fervour.

There are at this time so many prophets, so many people who’ve gotten the answer. It’s been revealed to them what is the future of mankind, what is the truth.

This is like the movement of the earlier Anabaptists we already looked at a little bit and those sects; only now it is on a much greater scale, because it enters not only the sectarian, religious sphere but enters into the main sphere of philosophy and politics.

In the eighteenth century there are many of these chiliastic sects, the Shakers, the Rappites, and so forth. And in this very time a little bit later there come other chiliastic sects, the Adventists, the Mormons and many, many others, the Irvingites, and so forth. We’ll look at a few of them in a minute. And these are only a small reflection of this attitude of mind which deeply penetrated the men of this time and which goes on even today.

We will try to look at these all in a way together, because it’s usual to think that the sectarian mentality is one thing; and the mentality which enlightened men, people who to go to college and have degrees and so forth and are capable of rational thought, they are something else. But we’ll see here that in this time all these currents are very much mixed up.

4. Example: German Romantic poet Novalis. Schenk: 13-15.

We’ll give as an example of this chiliastic mentality, a couple of quotes from the German Romantic poet, Novalis, who wrote a novel, which I think is called Hans von Ertandinger, one of the early Romantic novels about the search for the mysterious blue flower, in which he wrote a few things about his chiliastic ideas. He, by the way, [and] the great “thinkers” who had a great deal to sort of inspire this movement were all born about 1770 interestingly enough. It’s the very year Beethoven was born. We’ll see later on Saint-Simon, Owen, Fourier, these people, and Novalis was also born in 1772, I believe, and died in ‘29, at the turn of the century.

He [Novalis] said, “‘Christendom had again to become living and active.... As yet there is no Religion. We must first found a training school of genuine Religion. Think ye that there is Religion? Religion must be made and produced through the union of a number of men. The fullest germs of the new religion lie in Christianity, but they also lie comparatively neglected.’ And in another passage: ‘Who says that the Bible is finished? May it not be that the Bible is in the process of growing?’...[Novalis’ disciple wrote:] He wrote in 1797: ‘Oh these blind people who are talking about atheism! Does a theist as yet exist? Is any human intellect already master of the idea of divinity?’

“...Novalis...saw in the Christian religion the germ of democracy.”

“-It is also, I think, highly significant that Novalis even anticipated the Utopian and Marxian Socialist expectation that there will be no need for a legal order in the society of the future, or at any rate that the number of laws will decrease, for: ‘Laws are the complement of imperfect characters.’

“...[In Novalis’] pamphlet Die Christenheit oder Europa ...We find in it the same emphasis on the paramount importance of religion: ‘It is impossible for secular powers to find their balance; a third element, secular and transcendental at the same time, can alone fulfil this task. ...Religion alone can again awaken all Europe, it alone can safeguard the nations.’ ...Novalis, like so many Utopians, turned his eyes to the far distant past: ‘Princes referred their dispute to the father of Christianity [the Pope], and willingly cast down their crowns and dignities at this feet.’ Here we have a typical example of a Utopia attributed to a past period;...‘...a new golden Period, with heavenly features, a prophetic wonder-working, wound-healing one, comforting us and enkindling hopes of eternal life.’ And in another passage: ‘The old and new world are engaged in warfare.... Perchance, in these events, as in the sciences, a more intimate and varied connection between the European States is at hand.’ And Novalis’ ultimate aim was that: ‘Europe may again awaken and the states form but one.’”

D. Chiliasm in early Socialist “Prophets” — the Utopian Socialists.

1. Owen. 1771-1858

a. life 5-7

b. New Lanark (still exists unchanged today): Industrial community under benevolent capitalist. 20,000 visitors 1815-1825, including Nicholas I. Largest cotton spinning mill in Britain. 1500 employees. 12-hour day, low pay but many ol(occupational?) benefits — low rent, free medical care, schools, food at cost. Produced “order, neatness and regularity.” Aspects of life: 158. But later he saw that the factory wasn’t the ideal.

c. Background of his further ideas in religious communitarianism — millennial sects of 18th-19th century: Ephrata Community, Moravian Brethren, (and later similar movements — Mormonism, Adventism); especially influenced by Shakers and Rappites, and tried his experiments by buying the Rappite town of Harmony Indiana. Owen’s was a secular continuation of an established religious experiment.

d. New Harmony

Idyllic agricultural community described by a disciple — 58-9. But radical ideas — end of family system p. 58-60. Sought, like other early Socialists, a “science of man.” Owenism did not degenerate into a sect — had sectarian tone from the beginning. Shakers and Swedenborgians became Owenites and Owenites became Shakers — ex. p. 108. One disciple wanted to be made “bishop” — 124. Owen felt himself [to be an] agent of a mission — 134.

e. Owen in America: 106. New Harmony described — 164-5. Enthusiasm quickly died out. Communism experiments in American in 1840 were Fourierist.

f. Illustrations — p. 20, 84, 100 a-b, 116 a-b, 132 a-b.

g. Owen is carried away by spiritism — 250-1.

2. Fourier 1772-1837

a. Life: Son of wealthy cloth-merchant, good education, trained in France, Germany,
Italy. Inherited much property from his father, but lost it in the Revolution 1803, published article on European(?) politics which interested Napoleon. Became small businessman, spent leisure on his work on new organization of society.

b. Ideas: against individualism and competition (i. e., Liberalism), new theory of cooperation for the harmonious development of human nature. Free development of human nature through unrestrained indulgence of passions, which will result in harmony (this discovery he thought, ranked him with Newton, discovery of gravity - so St. Simon also). Wanted to reorganize all of society on this basis — society to be composed of phalansteres with 1600 people each, common building (phalanstere) and soil. Phalansteres of uniform design. Dirty work done by children, no one required to do anything he didn’t like. Marriage abolished, new arrangement substituted for it.

c. No one paid attention to his first two works, his third work 1829 “The New Industrial World” began to attract disciples; he attacked Owen and St. Simon in “The Charlatanism of Two Sects.” A disciple started a community in 1832, but it quickly failed; Fourier waited in vain for a wealthy capitalist to give money for new experiments.

d. Made fantastic prophecies of future paradise on earth: sea would turn into lemonade, men would be 7 feet tall, live to 144, have 120 years of free love. Men would progress, there would be 30 million scientists and great as Newton, and 30 million poets as great as Shakespeare.

e. Brook Farm in Massachusetts, started 1841 “to combine thinker and worker,” became Fourierist “phalanx” — 1845, but collapsed by 1847. Dostoyevsky and others influenced.

3. St. Simon 1760-1825

a. Life: pp. xix-xxv.

“-Claude Henri de Rouvroi, Compte de Saint-Simon, who was born in 1760 and died in 1825, was in a sense the child of both the Old Regime and the philosophy of the Enlightenment.”

“Saint-Simon fought at the battle of Yorktown for ‘industrial liberty,’ and in his early twenties he devised plans for the building of canals to join the Pacific and the Atlantic in Nicaragua and to link Madrid with the sea. Upon his return to France, he used his wealth to gather as his tutors the most eminent scientists of France. His soon-spent wealth was restored during the Revolution when he speculated in church lands, though he consequently almost lost his head under Robespierre. Once more he surrounded himself with the savants of the time, travelled to Germany and England, and unsuccessfully tried to marry Mme. de Stael. Slowly his ideas on scientific method, industrialism, and the application of science to social organization took systematic shape; and from 1802 onward, they appeared in a steady stream of pamphlets and books. Falling again poverty-stricken, Saint-Simon became dependent on the charity of a former servant. After 1810, he was surrounded by a following of young engineers from the Ecole Polytechnigue, chief among whom were Augustin Thierry and Auguste Compte, who acted as his secretaries and collaborated in his writings. Apparently disappointed by his lack of success in persuading the rulers and the intelligentsia to support his proposal for social reconstruction, Saint-Simon attempted suicide in 1823. His last work, the New Christianity, with its religion of human brotherhood, appeared in the year of his death, 1825.”

“Saint-Simon acknowledged [Condorcet] as one of the strongest influences on his own thought.” [In Condorcet’s writings] “Saint-Simon saw the perfection of scientific methodology as the basis of human progress.... In a last phase, Saint-Simon in the New Christianity called for a religion based upon brotherly love and concerned with achieving bless on earth. The basic concern of religion was to be the speediest amelioration of the lot of the poor.”

“The term ‘Saint-Simonianism’ refers here to the disciples of Saint-Simon. It must be made clear that Saint-Simonianism, while maintaining certain basic tenets, from its beginning until its dissolution, continuously underwent changes in others. Yet a basic unity existed in its attempt to put an end to what was regarded at the revolutionary situation of the age.”

“The theory was expounded in a series of public lectures held biweekly after December 17, 1828, and known as the Doctrine of Saint-Simon. An Exposition. First Year (1828-29).... While this second phase of the Saint-Simonian movement had a general unity of thought, there emerged slowly a stronger religious and political emphasis which tended to subordinate the earlier scientific and industrial interest.... This new emphasis led to the establishment of a hierarchically organized Saint-Simonian church in late December, 1829. The doctrine was propagated through public ‘sermons’ and ‘teachings’ in Paris, by mission sent to the provinces and to Belgium, by pamphlets, an above all through the pages of the weekly Organisateur and the daily Globe. The Globe had been the famous liberal paper of the twenties and became Saint-Simonian in November, 1830, after the conversion of its manager, Pierre Leroux, to the new religion. In the Globe, the Saint-Simonians received their greatest degree of attention....”

“The Saint-Simonian church foreshadowed the basic structure and philosophy of the Religion of Humanity of Compte in his later years. Buchez, the later Catholic socialist, was a member of the Saint-Simonian hierarchy. Heine and Franz Liszt regularly attended the Sunday meetings. Carlyle and Mill corresponded with the society. Sainte-Beuve and George Sand expressed their keen interest and approval, while Lamartine, Balzac, and Lamennais watched with mixed emotions. Stendhal, Benjamin Constant, and Fourier found the new philosophy sufficiently important to attack it. Even Goethe, while criticizing the Saint-Simonian collectivism...regularly received the Globe.... The new religion claimed over 40,000 adherents by the middle of 1831 and was well known to every educated person in Europe.”

“The disintegration of this ‘second phase,’ during which Saint-Simonianism was concerned primarily with social reorganization, was precipitated by the conflict within the movement on the question of woman. While there had been general agreement that woman, traditionally exploited like the worker, should be emancipated socially, a new orientation emerged under the leadership of Enfantin which increasingly emphasized the importance of the question of woman, finally advocated free love, and identified the outcome of history with the ‘emancipation’ and ‘sanctification’ of the flesh. this heightened feminism led to a schism, to the rupture of Bazard with the movement, the consequent departure of other members, and to legal persecutions after January, 1832. On April 20, 1832, the last issue of the Globe appeared, and the second phase of the movement’s history may be said to have ended.

“In the third phase characterized by heightened feminism and pantheistic religious thought after 1832, the concern with social and political problems lessened. The Saint-Simonians were now less interested in propagating the faith than in preparing for a more propitious time by the education of a hierarchy. They withdrew to a monastic life. The trials which resulted in the imprisonment of Enfantin further weakened the movement, which dissolved as an organized group after Enfantin’s departure to Egypt in search of the ‘Woman Messiah.’ Later in the century, the Saint-Simonians were to be prominent in financial and industrial projects, such as the creation of the Cr;dit Mobilier, the extension of the French railroad net, and the construction of the Suez Canal.”

b. Influences — secular chiliasm, especially Lessing [Gotthold Ephraim Lessing] with philosophy of eternal striving and religion of the heart (and through him, Joachim of Fiore). Lessing: “If God held concealed in his right hand all truth, and in His left only the ever eager impulse after truth, (even though coupled with the condition that I should ever and always err,) and said to me, ‘Choose!’, I should reverently take his left hand and say, ‘Father give unto me! The absolute truth is for Thee alone?” But believed in revelation which brought human race from lower to higher stages. Man will progress to the state of not requiring belief in future life to do good, but will to do good for itself — then will the eternal gospel, the 3rd Age of the Holy Spirit, come! Freemasons his ideal, who wait for the sunrise of the new age, and throw down barriers of religion, the state, and nationality.

(So: a romantic even in age of Enlightenment.) God is the soul of the world.

Thus: Owen influenced by sectarians; Fourier by revolutionaries, St. Simon by chiliastic tradition of Joachim of Fiore.

c. Philosophy: New Age 4;

“...There have been no more philosophic doctrines worthy of the name than there have been general states of mankind, but the phenomenon of an orderly social order has occurred only twice in the series of civilization to which we belong and which forms an uninterrupted chain extending to our own time, namely in antiquity and in the Middle Ages. The new general state which we proclaim for the future will form the third link in this chain; it will not be identical with its predecessors but will offer striking analogies to them with respect to order and unity. It will follow upon the various periods of the crisis that has been disturbing us for three centuries; it will appear finally as a consequence of the law of the development of mankind.”

cause of today’s evil: 11.

“...We shall state that the cause of evil is to be sought in the lack of unity in social outlook; and the remedy will be found in the discovery of this unity.”

We live in ruins of the Middle Ages: 18.

“We dwell in the midst of the rubble, the living rubble of medieval society which continues to bemoan its fate.”

We must not just negate the Middle Ages 22-3-4.

“-It was believed that the solution of the problem consisted in putting a minus sign before all the terms of the formula of the Middle Ages, but this strange solution could only engender anarchy.

“We, who accept neither the Middle Ages nor constitutionalism, leap beyond the limits of the present.... The time is approaching when the nations will abandon the banners of a disorderly and thoughtless liberalism to enter lovingly into a state of peace and happiness, abandoning mistrust and recognizing that legitimate power can exist on earth.”

Unitary view of future 24-5.

“The doctrine that we are proclaiming is to take possession of the entire man, and to give the three great human faculties a common goal and a harmonious direction. By its means, the sciences will make unified progress towards the most speedy development; industry, regulated in the interest of all, will no longer present the frightening spectacle of an arena; and the fine arts, once more animated by ardent sympathy, will reveal to us the feelings of enthusiasm in a common life, whose gentle influence will make itself felt in the most secret joys of private life.”

Times are fulfilled 40.

“Rid yourselves of all fear, gentlemen, and do not struggle against the torrent which carries you onward to a happy future; put an end to the uncertainty which weakens your hearts and strikes you with impotence. Embrace the altar of reconciliation lovingly, for the times have been fulfilled and the hour is about to strike when, according to the Saint-Simonian transformation of the Christian word, all shall be called and all shall be chosen.”

Old must be destroyed 50.

“For the happiness of mankind requires that the work of destruction, to which this method has been applied with such effect, be completed.”

New and final state 56-7.

“-...Today mankind is travelling toward a final state which will be exempted from the long and painful alternatives and under which progress will take place without interruption, without crises, in a continuous, regular, and constant fashion. We are marching toward a world where religion and philosophy, cult and the fine arts, dogma and science will no longer be divided.... The destruction of the former order of things has been as radical as possible in the absence of the revelation of the new order to be established.”

Goal: “universal association” = brotherhood 58,

“...This continuous succession of seeming grandeur and apparent decline, commonly called the vicissitudes of mankind, is nothing but the regular series of efforts made by mankind to attain a final goal.

This goal is universal association, which is to say, the association of all men on the entire surface of the globe in all spheres of their relationships.”

Christianity failed 60, 71.

“Christianity, whose principle and expansive force have long since been exhausted, embraced in its love and sanctified by its law only one of the modes of human existence, and did not succeed in establishing its rule — now failing — over more than a portion of mankind.”

“The entire world is progressing toward unity of doctrine and action. This is our most general profession of faith. This is the direction which a philosophical examination of the past permits us to trace. Until the day when this great concept, born of the genius of our master, together with its general developments, can become the direct object of the endeavours of the human spirit, all previous social progress must be considered as preparatory, all attempts at organization as partial and successive initiations to the cult of unity and to the reign of order over the entire globe, the territorial possession of the great human family.”

Future is religion 202-3.

“-We certainly do not claim to be heroes for introducing the foundations of a new religion to you. In this indulgent, or rather indifferent, century, all opinions, as we know, can appear without danger, especially when they seem not to go beyond the narrow confines of a philosophic school. But we also know that we are speaking to men who consider themselves superior because they are unbelievers, and who smile scornfully at all religious ideas, which they regulate to the dark ages, to what they call the barbarism of the Middle Ages, and to the childhood of mankind. We do not fear to brave this smile. Voltarean sarcasm and the arrogant scorn of modern materialism can dispel from some men’s hearts the vague sentimentality common today. They can frighten away and confound that type of individual religiosity which in vain seeks forms to express itself, but they are powerless to destroy deep conviction.

“Yes, gentlemen, we have come here to expose ourselves to this sarcasm and scorn. For following Saint-Simon and in his name, we come to proclaim that mankind has a religious future; that the religion of the future will be greater and more powerful than all those in the past; that it will, like those which preceded it, be the synthesis of all conceptions of mankind and, moreover, of all modes of being. Not only will it dominate the political order, but the political order will be totally a religious institution; for nothing will be conceived of outside of God or will develop outside of His law. Let us add finally that this religion will embrace the entire world because the law of God is universal.”

Science and religion 206, 266.

“Take the religious standpoint, but one more elevated and broader than any mankind has yet attained. As long as science preserves its atheistic character, which is considered essential to it, science will not give expression to man’s faculty to know successively and progressively the laws by which God governs the world: in brief, the providential plan. None of the discoveries upon which atheism, when threatened, relies will be able to escape the formula: ‘This is how God manifests himself.’

“No, gentlemen, it is not the destiny of science, as many seem to believe, to be the eternal enemy of religion and constantly to restrict religion’s realm in order some day entirely to dispossess it. On the contrary, science is called upon to extend and constantly to strengthen the realm of religion, since each of science’s advances is to give man a broader view of God and of His plans for mankind.”

“We foresaw a time, no longer distant, when the sciences, freed from the influence of the dogmas of criticism and viewed in a much broader and general fashion than they are today, would no longer be considered antagonistic to religion, but rather as the means given to the human mind to know the laws by which God governs the world; the providential plan.”

Tribute to Revolution’s work of destruction 208-9.

“-We have shown previously that critical epochs can be divided into two distinct periods: one forms the beginning of those epochs during which society, united by a fervent faith in the doctrines of destruction, acts in concert to overthrow the former religious and social institution; the other comprises the interval separating destruction from reconstruction during which men, disgusted with the past and the uncertainties of the future, are no longer united by any faith or common enterprises. What we have said concerning the absence of morality in critical periods refers only to the second of the two periods which they include, but not at all to the first, or to the men who figure in it and who, through some sort of inconsistency, preach hatred through love; call for destruction while believing to be building; provoke disorder because they desire order; and establish slavery on the altar they erect to liberty. Gentlemen, let us admire these men. Let us pity them merely for having been given the terrible mission which they have fulfilled with devotion and love for mankind. Let us pity them, for they were born to love and their entire life was dedicated to hate. But let us not forget that the pity with which they inspire us should be a lesson to us; that it should increase our desires and confirm our hopes in a better future — in a future in which the men who are capable of love will ceaselessly be able to apply their love.”

Man must have faith 211.

“Mankind never lacks faith. One will no more have to ask whether man has the inclination to believe than whether he will some day renounce love. Rather, it is merely a question of knowing on which men and ideas he will bestow his confidence and for what guarantees he will ask before abandoning himself to them.”

New prophet 213.

“We do not hesitate to say with you that what is not atheism today is ignorance and superstition. But if we want to heal mankind of this wound, if we want it to abandon the beliefs and practices which we consider unworthy of it, if we want it to leave the Church of the Middle Ages, we must open the Church of the future. Let us stand ready, as de Maistre has said, for a tremendous event in the divine order toward which, as all must notice, we are marching in an accelerated speed. Let us say with him that there is no longer religion on earth and that mankind cannot remain in this state. But more fortunate than de Maistre, we shall no longer wait for the man of genius whom he prophesies and who, according to him, shall soon reveal to the world the natural affinity of religion and science. Saint-Simon has appeared.”

Religion of future 265.

“While proclaiming that religion is destined to assert its rule over society, we certainly are as far from holding that any of the religious institutions of the past should be re-established as we are from claiming to lead society back to the old state of war or slavery. We proclaim a new moral and political state. This is just as thoroughly a new religious state: for to us religion, politics, and morals are merely different names for the same fact.... The religion of the future is called upon to take its place in the political order; but to be exact, when considered in its totality, the political institution of the future must be a religious institution.”

d. Importance: saw new world view must be religious. Socialism is not enough — there must be a synthesis of politics-science-religion (confined field theory of mind). Today we see the great defect of Marxism — it is not religious and mankind must have religion, as St. Simon saw. This “New Christianity” is a thorough attempt to complete the process begun in the Middle Ages: to improve on Christianity.