THE MAN OF AFFAIRSunder masses of ill-digested facts. ‘I wanted to make an encyclo
paedia,’ he said ironically to Darimon; he almost succeeded, but
it was at the expense of his argument. Yet, despite the failure of
this attempt to embrace the salient facts of every field o f know
ledge within the covers of one book and within one philosophical
system, The Creation of Order remains by no means so unreadable
as its author claimed in his pessimistic moments.
Its systematic basis shows significant parallels with the theories
of both Comte and Fourier. Though Proudhon would have
denied the influence o f Comte, it seems hardly accidental that he
should have chosen to place so much emphasis on the triad of
‘Religion, Philosophy, Science: faith, sophism and method,’
which he declares to be the ‘epochs of education o f the human
race,’ and which bear a striking resemblance to the three ‘states’ of
the positivists— the theological, metaphysical and positive. Both
religion and philosophy, in Proudhon’s eyes, are necessary stages
in the progress of human understanding, and here their validity
rests, but they are destined to be superseded by science.
Fourier’s influence is even clearer than Comte’s, and is acknow
ledged with an emphasis which Proudhon later regretted. The
point of maximum contact lies in Proudhon’s acceptance of the
‘Serial Law,’ the feature o f Fourier’s system which had struck him
most forcibly when he first encountered the Phalansterian in
Besangon, and the only major aspect of Fourier’s work he did not
attack and reject.1 He declared, it is true, that Fourier had not
in fact realised the full implications o f the law he had discovered,
but gave him credit for having been the first to expound it.s
The Serial Law, Proudhon claimed, is the method by which
science can put into operation the attribute which distinguishes
it from philosophy— its lack of concern for questions of substance
and cause. Science seeks to discover, not why things exist, but
1 A curious minor idea of Fourier which he also retained was the notion of
the ‘Little Hordes,’ by which the natural cruelty and love of dirt displayed
by most children could be put to social use by encouraging them to organise
into companies to undertake the community’s scavenging, and other func
tions which adults normally regard with distaste, but for which children are
often observed to display a somewhat incomprehensible liking.
1 Pierre Leroux was later to show that the Serial Law, or its essential basis,
had existed long before Fourier; this is only one of the instances in which, in
this book, Proudhon claimed originality, on behalf of himself or others, for
ideas already in circulation but which the lag in his reading had not allowed
him to discover in writing.