The speedy passage from social chaos to universal harmony contemplated by Fourier can, as we have seen, be accomplished only by one method, by giving to the human passions their natural development. For this end, a complete break with civilisation must be made. We must have new social arrangements suitable to human nature and in harmony with the intentions of the Creator. These Fourier provides in the _phalange_. In its normal form the _phalange_ was to consist of four hundred families or eighteen hundred persons, living on a square league of land, self-contained and self-sufficing for the most part, and combining within itself the means for the free development of the most varied likings and capacities. It was an institution in which agriculture, industry, the appliances and opportunities of enjoyment, and generally of the widest and freest human development, are combined, the interests of individual freedom and of common union being reconciled in a way hitherto unknown and unimagined. While the _phalange_ is the social unit, the individuals composing it will arrange themselves in groups of seven or nine persons; from twenty-four to thirty-two groups form a series, and these unite to form a _phalange_—all according to principles of attraction, of free elective affinity. The dwelling of the _phalange_ was the _phalanstère_, a vast, beautiful, and commodious structure, where life could be arranged to suit every one, common or solitary, according to preference; but under such conditions there would be neither excuse nor motive for the selfish seclusion, isolation, and suspicion so prevalent in civilisation. In such an institution it is obvious that government under the form of compulsion and restraint would be reduced to a minimum. The officials of the _phalange_ would be elected. The _phalange_, itself was an experiment on a local scale, which could easily be made, and once successfully made would lead to world-wide imitation. They would freely group themselves into wider combinations with elected chiefs, and the _phalanges_ of the whole world would form a great federation with a single elected chief, resident at Constantinople, which would be the universal capital. In all the arrangements of the _phalange_ the principle of free attraction would be observed. Love would be free. Free unions should be formed, which could be dissolved, or which might grow into permanent marriage.