As a matter of fact, every society is a species of communism--a kind of co-operation in which selfishness, in spite of itself, benefits the community. Every industrious man adds to the wealth, not only of his nation, but to that of the world. Every inventor increases human power, and every sculptor, painter and poet adds to the value of human life. Fourier, touched by the sufferings of the poor as well as by the barren joys of hoarded wealth, and discovering the vast advantages of combined effort, and the immense economy of co-operation, sought to find some way for men to help themselves by helping each other. He endeavored to do away with monopoly and competition, and to ascertain some method by which the sensuous, the moral, and the intellectual passions of man could be gratified. For my part I can place no confidence in any system that does away, or tends to do away, with the institution of marriage. I can conceive of no civilization of which the family must not be the unit. Societies cannot be made; they must grow. Philosophers may predict, but they cannot create. They may point out as many ways as they please; but after all, humanity will travel in paths of its own. Fourier sustained about the same relation to this world that Swedenborg did to the other. There must be something wrong about the brain of one who solemnly asserts that, "the elephant, the ox and the diamond, were created by the sun; the horse, the lily and the ruby, by Saturn; the cow, the jonquil and the topaz by Jupiter; and the dog, the violet and the opal stones by the earth itself." And yet, forgetting these aberrations of the mind, this lunacy of a great and loving soul, for one, I hold in tender-est regard the memory of Charles Fourier, one of the best and noblest of our race.