Francois Marie Charles Fourier, a French writer on social science, born in Besancon, April 7, 1772, died in Paris, Oct. 10, 1837. From his earliest infancy he manifested a singular originality and force of character. At school he was diligent and quick to learn. The prizes for French themes and Latin verse are assigned to him in the records of the town school for the year 1785. But his favorite early studies were geography, botany, and music. His pocket money was spent in buying globes and charts, and much of his leisure time he devoted to the cultivation of flowers. He was sufficiently master of music to be enabled to construct a new musical notation by which all the different voices and instruments may give the same name to the same note, instead of employing seven or eight different keys or particular scales. On leaving school he was sent to Lyons, where he entered as clerk in a commercial house; but having a desire to travel, he engaged soon after with a house whose business connections extended over France, Germany, Switzerland, Holland, and Belgium. This gave him the opportunities for observation which he desired.

In 1793, having received about 100,000 francs as his share of his father's property, he began business for himself in Lyons, embarking his whole fortune in colonial produce, which he purchased at Marseilles, and expected to sell at the former city. But just then the troops of the convention occupied Lyons, and pillaged the inhabitants, taking the greater part of Fourier's fortune. The Lyonnese rose against the revolutionists, and Fourier joined them, but the insurrection was promptly suppressed. Fourier was cast into prison for five days, hourly expecting to be led out to the guillotine, and only escaped by accident. Flying to Besancon, he was again incarcerated as a suspicious person. By joining the revolutionary army, he was enabled to exchange the cell for the saddle, and served nearly two years as a trooper in the army of the Rhine. He obtained his discharge on account of ill health, Jan. 24, 1795. During his connection with the army he made important military suggestions to the government, for which he received its thanks through Carnot. Subsequently also he attracted the attention of Gen. Bonaparte by a political essay put forth in a local journal. On regaining his liberty, he resumed his commercial pursuits.

Employed in a wholesale warehouse at Marseilles, he was chosen to superintend a body of men while they secretly cast an immense quantity of rice into the sea. France had been suffering from scarcity during the year, and these monopolizers had allowed their stores to rot rather than sell them at a reasonable profit. Fourier afterward devoted himself to the study of the means of effectually preventing such abuses of monopoly. ' In 1799 he believed that he had discoveredthe universal laws of attraction," and the essential destiny of humanity upon earth. He spent many years in elaborating these discoveries; his first work, called Theorie des quatre mouvements et des destinies generates, was not published till 1808, when he issued the first volume, which was merely a prospectus of the work, intended to procure the means of publishing the rest by subscription; but France being then agitated by the projects of Napoleon, no attention was given to it. It did not make a single convert till 1814, when a copy of it fell into the hands of Muiron of Besancon. As it bore the imprint of Leip-sic, without the name or address of the author, it was a long time before he was able to find out Fourier, who then resided at Bel-ley. Muiron afterward assisted him in the preparation and publication of his works.

In 1822 Fourier removed to Besancon, and published the first two volumes of his work under the title of Traite de Vassociation domestique agricole, which in its latest form appeared under the more imposing title of Traite de l'unite unuerselle, and was the great work of his life. As originally conceived, it was meant to embrace nine volumes, in the following order: 1, the abstract principles of passional attraction, and their partial application to industrial associations; 2, familiar synthesis of the principles of attraction, and their equilibrium in practice; 3, the analysis of man's physical, moral, and mental nature, individually and collectively, with regard to individual society and universal unity; 4, methodical synthesis and transcendental theory; 5, commercial duplicity and ruinous competition; 6, the false development of human nature, and a regular analysis and synthesis of a false development of universal nature, as an exception to universal harmony; 7, universal analogy and illustrations to cosmogony; 8, the scientific theory of the immortality of the soul; and 9, dictionary of contents and references to the whole work. Two volumes only were printed at Paris, and these attracted no attention.

Five years later Fou-rier drew up a brief summary of their contents under the title of Nouveau monde industriel et societaire, in the hope of getting them into notice in that way. In 1831, when the St. Simonians began to make a stir in France, Fourier, who had established himself in Paris, published a pamphlet against them and the followers of Robert Owen, accusing them of utter ignorance of social science, and of gross charlatanry in their pretensions; and from that time his writings began to receive the attention of minds inclined to such studies. Many of the disciples of St. Simon, seeing the more precise and scientific nature of Fourier's socialism, abandoned their old master for this new teacher. On June 1, 1832, a journal of the socialistic doctrines of Fourier was begun under the name of Le Phalanstere. A joint-stock company was formed to realize the new theory of association, and one gentleman, M. Baudet Dulary, bought an estate at a cost of 500,000 francs. Operations were commenced, but for the want of paying shareholders the community dispersed.