With regard to the family and the relation of the sexes, the school of Saint-Simon advocated the complete emancipation of woman and her entire equality with man. The ‘social individual’ is man and woman, who are associated in the triple function of religion, the State, and the family. In its official declarations the school maintained the sanctity of the Christian law of marriage. On this point Enfantin fell into a prurient and fantastic latitudinarianism, which made the school a scandal to France, but many of the most prominent members besides Bazard refused to follow him. Connected with the last-mentioned doctrines was their famous theory of the ‘rehabilitation of the flesh,’ deduced from the philosophic theory of the school, which was a species of pantheism, though they repudiated the name. On this theory they rejected the dualism so much emphasised by Catholic Christianity in its penances and mortifications, and held that the body should be restored to its due place of honour. It is a vague principle, of which the ethical character depends on the interpretation; and it was variously interpreted in the school of Saint-Simon. It was certainly immoral as held by Enfantin, by whom it was developed into a kind of sensual mysticism, a system of free love with a religious sanction.[1] The good and bad aspects of the Saint-Simon socialism are too obvious to require elucidation. The antagonism between the old economic order and the new had only begun to declare itself. The extent and violence of the disease were not yet apparent: both diagnosis and remedy were superficial and premature. Such deep-seated organic disorder was not to be conjured away by the waving of a magic wand. The movement was all too utopian and extravagant in much of its activity. The most prominent portion of the school attacked social order in its essential point—the family morality—adopting the worst features of a fantastic, arrogant, and prurient sacerdotalism, and parading them in the face of Europe. Thus it happened that a school which attracted so many of the most brilliant and promising young men of France, which was so striking and original in its criticism of the existing condition of things, which was so strong in the spirit of initiative, and was in many ways so noble, unselfish, and aspiring, sank amidst the laughter and indignation of a scandalised society. ----- [1] An excellent edition of the works of Saint-Simon and Enfantin was begun by survivors of the sect in (Paris) 1865, and now numbers forty vols. See Reybaud, _Études sur les réformateurs modernes_ (7th edition, Paris 1864); Janet, _Saint-Simon et le Saint-Simonisme_ (Paris, 1878); A. J. Booth, _Saint-Simon and Saint-Simonism_ (London, 1871). _FOURIER_