“But what do these accessories impart to the principal affair, which is the art of organizing combined industry, whence will issue a fourfold product; good morals; the accord of the three classes—rich, middle, and poor; the discontinuance of party quarrels, the cessation of pests, revolutions, and fiscal penury; and universal unity? “My detractors condemn themselves in attacking me on account of my views touching the new sciences—cosmogony, psychogony, analogy—which lie outside of the domain of the theory of combined industry. Although it should prove true that these new sciences are erroneous and foolish,[71] it does not remain less certain that I am the first and the only one who has presented a plan for associating inequalities and for quadrupling the products of industry in employing such passions, characters, and instincts as nature has given us. This is the only point upon which people ought to fix their attention, and not upon sciences which have only been announced.” The “Traité de l’Association” is prolix and tedious. It abounds in meaningless combinations of figures, letters, and hieroglyphics. New and strange words, coined without necessity, often render the thoughts difficult to understand. The wheat which it undoubtedly contains is buried beneath such an immense pile of chaff that it is too likely to be overlooked. Fortunately, Fourier has given us a better and more condensed exposition of his doctrine in the “Nouveau Monde Industriel et Sociétaire”—“The New Industrial and Social World”—published in 1829,[72] and the latest of his more important works. The central idea of Fourier’s social scheme is association. The all-pervading attraction which he discovered draws man to man and reveals the will of God. It is passionate attraction—_attraction passionnelle_. It urges men to union. This law of attraction is universal and eternal, but men have thrown obstacles in its way so that it has not had free course. Consequently, we have been driven into wrong and abnormal paths. When we return to right ways—when we follow the directions given us by attraction, as indicated in our twelve passions or desires—universal harmony will again reign. Economic goods—an indispensable condition of human development—will be obtained in abundance. Products will be increased many fold, owing, first, to the operation of the passion to labor and to benefit society; secondly, to the economy of associated effort.