SAINT-SIMONISM. — SAINT-SIMON left at his death not a school in the strict sense of the term, but a group of friends of whom Olindo Rodrigues was the guiding spirit. They set themselves the task of giving life to one of the last projects of the master, the founding of a newspaper of doctrine and propaganda, *Le Producteur*, which lasted until October 1826. It fulfilled the task of making the Saint-Simonian thought known to a wider circle; doctrinally it remained at the scientific stage of the master’s thought, merely accentuating the anti-liberal polemic. In the years 1826–29 the Saint-Simonians organised themselves in the form of a school and gave systematic ideological expression to their principles in the *Exposition de la doctrine* (1829). From the social point of view, this work firmly asserts the abolition of inheritance; only the ability to put them into practice gives the right to possess the means of production; “to each according to his capacities, to each capacity according to its works.” Privileges of birth were to disappear entirely, and the right of inheritance was to belong solely to the state, which had become an association of workers. But the most characteristic trait of this writing is the transformation of doctrine into religion and the affirmation of the religious future of humanity. The conflict between science and religion is proper to critical epochs; organic ages, on the other hand, are characterised by their intimate unity. Even in the history of religion one must see a development, and therefore the religious revolution of our times cannot be a simple restoration of Christianity, on account of the fundamental error contained in it, namely the separation of the spiritual from the temporal. Affirming their unity and, consequently, the rehabilitation of the flesh is the task of the Saint-Simonian revelation. The way was now open for the transformation of doctrine into religion and of the school into a church. At Christmas 1829, “Fathers of the Family” of the Saint-Simonians were elected: St.-Amand Bazard (1791–1832) and Prosper Enfantin (1796–1864). The former represented the rationalist direction, inclined even to agreements with liberalism, albeit limited to the struggle against reaction; the latter, the religious and theocratic direction, intransigently anti-liberal. Between 1830 and 1832 the church was constituted through the two experiences of communal life at rue Monsigny and at Ménilmontant. Enfantin succeeded in prevailing, despite the schism of Bazard and the subsequent break with Olindo Rodrigues and Michel Chevalier, who had directed the newspaper *Le Globe*, which had become, from the end of 1830, the organ of the school. The disagreement between Bazard and Enfantin arose over the latter’s ideas on the rehabilitation of the flesh and the abolition of marriage; but it also originated in the fact that Bazard intended to remain faithful to the idea of liberty, whose sacrifice was demanded by Enfantin’s theocratic line. Enfantin’s philosophical-religious ideas are essentially a transposition into a fantastic pantheistic metaphysics of SAINT-SIMON’s social anti-dividualism: the linking of individual life with collective life finds its metaphysical sanction in the thesis that all souls, finite manifestations of the infinite, participate in the divine eternity. There is neither birth nor death, because the same soul incarnates in different individuals without ceasing to be itself.
The scant echo aroused by his ideas turned Enfantin’s attention towards the East as the land of religious revelations. In his view, practical Saint-Simonism had to begin by realising the unity of the East (religion) and the West (industry). “A great act of worship” which was to bear the traits of the new industrial civilisation would symbolise this unity; Enfantin, a curious mixture of bizarre dreamer and realistic man of action, saw it in the cutting of the Suez Isthmus. The Saint-Simonian family therefore moved to Egypt, in the hope of Mehmet ‘Ali’s support. When they failed to convince him, the Saint-Simonians accepted his proposal to devote their activity to the construction of a dam on the Nile: the success of this work was to signify the beginning of the industrial organisation of the East. But the works were postponed; many Saint-Simonians remained unemployed, others died of a plague epidemic. The expedition to Egypt cost three years (1834–37). After this failure, Enfantin thought that the best way to carry out his programme was through the support of princes, and he placed his hopes in Louis-Philippe, who was to become the king of workers. This “apostolate among princes” brought him nothing but an appointment as a member of the Scientific Commission of Algeria (1840–41), which enabled him to write a book on the colonisation of that region, but nothing concrete for the success of the Saint-Simonian idea. After 1841 he devoted himself to industrial activity, in the belief that only the industrialisation of society could create the favourable conditions for the realisation of his political-religious programme. He concerned himself with the problems of the French railway network and played a decisive part in the fusion of small railway companies into large ones. Politically he increasingly accentuated, especially after the experience of 1848, his opposition both to liberalism and to revolutionary socialism. This naturally led him to adhere to the Second Empire: it seemed to him that only authority could guarantee the conditions for social reforms. A similar evolution was undergone by other Saint-Simonians, the most notable of whom is Michel Chevalier, who became one of Napoleon III’s most listened-to economic advisers. Thus the Saint-Simonian movement attained reality by collaborating in the industrialisation of France, but lost (relegating to distant hopes) the revolutionary and messianic aspect. To the organic exposition of the philosophical-religious element of his work, Enfantin still devoted two books, *La Science de l’homme* (1858) and *La vie éternelle* (1861), which had few readers. With his death (31 August 1864) one may say that the Saint-Simonian school came to an end.
