It was
easy to adopt his formula of "_honors according to usefulness_";
they believed in it.
Usefulness, not wealth, station or any artificial distinction, was to
receive the highest rank and the greatest honors and favors from the
body politic. It might be an invention of the mind; it might be some
Herculean or disagreeable labor of the body, or it might be some
enthusiasm imparted from some brilliant soul, that would win the honor;
but it could be given to none except those who had won it by superior
usefulness, whether that usefulness came from doing the work in the
"sacred legion"--who were a body of persons who did unattractive work
from a sense of duty--or in any other body or group.
It was easy to adopt "_attractive industry_," another of Fourier's
mottoes, for were they not trying mind and body to make it so? And
finally, it was easy to adopt the aphorism that the attractions of life
in the universe are in proportion to the destinies they assist in
accomplishing--"_attractions are proportionate to destinies_," as
it is translated. Certainly it was simple and easy to grasp and
believe, when explained so well as it had been by Fourier, and by
Brisbane and Godwin, his American translators.
Pages:
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66