MORELLY. - French political writer, of whom it is known only that he lived around the middle of the 18th century and that he resided at Vitry-le-François.

Various works of doubtful attribution go under his name. Certainly by the same author are the two best-known writings, the Naufrage des îles flottantes ou la Basiliade, (Messina [but Paris] 1753), and the Code de la Nature (Amsterdam 1755) « Partout chez le vrai sage », as the Code explicitly states. The first narrates, in poetic form, the happy life of an egalitarian society against which the prejudices (the îles flottantes) of men are shipwrecked. In the Code, attributed to Diderot and to Toussaint, the communistic ideal is taken up again with scientific intentions. Starting from the premise of the natural goodness of man, absolute equality, brought about by attributing every property to the State, is considered the only solution that prevents man from falling into evil. Education and religion, founded on nature, abandon every metaphysical inquiry or notion. A complex system of elections ensures the government of the most expert and the wisest. This conception exercised great influence on Babeuf and the egalitarians during the French Revolution.

Bibliography3 works

BIBL.: Code, ed. E. Dollénas, Paris 1910; A. Lichtenberger, Le socialisme au XVIIIe siècle, ibid. 1895; A. Reverdy, M. Idées philosophiques, économiques et politiques, Poitiers 1909. Cf. also the translation of the Code by M. E. Landau and the introduction by V. Volgin (Moscow 1947, in Russian).

Sergio Cotta

@incollection{ec8_morelly, author = {Cotta, Sergio}, title = {Morelly}, booktitle = {Enciclopedia Cattolica}, volume = {VIII}, pages = {1409--1410}, note = {Cited by column}, publisher = {Ente per l’Enciclopedia Cattolica e per il Libro Cattolico}, address = {Città del Vaticano}, year = {1952}, url = {https://azioneromana.com/article/morelly} }

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