The announcement of a future age of gold, which I quoted above, is taken from a pamphlet which he issued, in conjunction with his secretary, Augustin Thierry the historian, after the fall of Napoleon. [Footnote:  De la reorganisation de la societe europeenne, p. 111 (1814).] In it he revived the idea of the Abbe de Saint-Pierre for the abolition of war, and proposed a new organisation of Europe more ambitious and Utopian than the Abbe’s league of states.  At this moment he saw in parliamentary government, which the restored Bourbons were establishing in France, a sovran remedy for political disorder, and he imagined that if this political system were introduced in all the states of Europe a long step would have been taken to the perpetuation of peace.  If the old enemies France and England formed a close alliance there would be little difficulty in creating ultimately a European state like the American Commonwealth, with a parliamentary government supreme over the state governments.  Here is the germ of the idea of a “parliament of man.”

3.

Saint-Simon, however, did not construct a definite system for the attainment of social perfection.  He left it to disciples to develop the doctrine which he sketched.  In the year of his death (1825) Olinde Rodrigues and Enfantin founded a journal, the Producteur, to present to humanity the one thing which humanity, in the opinion of their master, then most needed, a new general doctrine. [Footnote:  The best study of the Saint-Simonian school is that of G. Weill, L’Ecole saint-simonienne, son histoire, son influence jusqu’a nos jours (1896), to which I am much indebted.]

History shows that peoples have been moving from isolation to union, from war to peace, from antagonism to association.  The programme for the future is association scientifically organised.  The Catholic Church in the Middle Ages offered the example of a great social organisation resting on a general doctrine.  The modern world must also be a social organisation, but the general doctrine will be scientific, not religious.  The spiritual power must reside, not in priests but in savants, who will direct the progress of science and public education.  Each member of the community will have his place and duties assigned to him.  Society consists of three classes of workers—­industrial workers, savants, and artists.  A commission of eminent workers of each class will determine the place of every individual according to his capacities.  Complete equality is absurd; inequality, based on merit, is reasonable and necessary.  It is a modern error to distrust state authority.  A power directing national forces is requisite, to propose great ideas and to make the innovations necessary for Progress.  Such an organisation will promote progress in all domains:  in science by co-operation, in industry by credit, and in art too, for artists will learn to express the ideas and sentiments of their own age.  There are signs already of a tendency towards something of this kind; its realisation must be procured, not by revolution but by gradual change.