Infancy, or ascending incoherence, 1/16 = 5,000 years. SECOND PHASE. Growth, or ascending combination, 7/16 = 35,000 years. DESCENDING VIBRATION. THIRD PHASE. Decline, or descending combination, 7/16 = 35,000 years. FOURTH PHASE. Dotage, or descending incoherence, 1/16 = 5,000 years. ------------- Total, 80,000 years. The life of the race thus resembles the life of man. The earth is just progressing out of its infancy. It will have passed into the second phase when it has adopted Fourier’s plan of association. Its life up to the present time has been weak, childlike, and full of sufferings, but it is to receive reparation for this in seventy thousand happy years, surpassing in good fortune any previously described millennium. Lions will become servitors of man, and draw his carriage from one end of France to another in a single day; while whales will pull his ships across the waters, provided he does not prefer to ride on the back of a seal. Sea-water will become a more delightful beverage than lemonade; while a bright light at the North Pole will not only render that part of the world inhabitable, but will diffuse an exquisite aroma over all the earth. Our bodies are part of the earth, and it suffers with us. When we adopt Fourier’s scheme we shall cease to suffer, and shall release the earth from its ills. Our souls are also parts of the great world-soul, and no part can be in pain without bringing grief to the whole. As St. Paul has it, “The whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together.” Fourier believed, further, in the immortality of the soul, in its existence hereafter, and in its previous existence. He held to the transmigration of the soul, and in its frequent return to this earth to partake in the happy future of the human race. According to him, mind is always joined to matter so that it may ever enjoy material pleasures. When the mind leaves one body it unites itself to another, and always to a higher one. It develops continually. It passes also from world to world, though ever and anon returning to the earth. Our souls will have existed in one hundred and ten different worlds before the end of our planetary system. The planets themselves have immortal souls, which are also subject to transmigration. At the expiration of eighty thousand years the soul of the earth will take up its abode in another and more perfect body. But it is not necessary to devote more time to these nonsensical speculations. It is not on their account that Fourier is remembered. He himself recognized the fact that his chief merit was the production of his social system. On this point he says: