Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Introduction
- Principal events in Fourier's life
- A brief note on further reading (in English)
- Translator's introduction
- The Theory of the Four Movements and of the General Destinies
- 1808 Introduction
- Preliminary discourse
- Plan
- First part: Exposition of some branches of the general destinies
- Second part: Description of the various branches of the private or domestic destinies
- Third part: Confirmation derived from the inadequacy of the inexact sciences to deal with all the problems that the civilised mechanism presents
- Omitted chapter
- Note A
- Advice to the civilised
- 1818 Introduction
- Index
- Cambridge Texts in the History of Political Thought
Plan
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Introduction
- Principal events in Fourier's life
- A brief note on further reading (in English)
- Translator's introduction
- The Theory of the Four Movements and of the General Destinies
- 1808 Introduction
- Preliminary discourse
- Plan
- First part: Exposition of some branches of the general destinies
- Second part: Description of the various branches of the private or domestic destinies
- Third part: Confirmation derived from the inadequacy of the inexact sciences to deal with all the problems that the civilised mechanism presents
- Omitted chapter
- Note A
- Advice to the civilised
- 1818 Introduction
- Index
- Cambridge Texts in the History of Political Thought
Summary
In these two treatises, I shall talk about the following topics:
What are the destinies? What different branches make up the whole system? What indications and methods did the human mind need in order to arrive at the discovery of the general system of the destinies?
I shall not separate these questions, as it would be hard for me to treat them in isolation. There is a lot of repetition in this book, and perhaps there ought to be more, to sustain attention to a subject so new and so opposed to all the philosophical prejudices the world is imbued with.
I shall divide this prospectus into three parts: Exposition, Descriptions and Confirmation.
1. The Exposition will cover some of the branches of the General Destinies: a subject as elevated and extensive as this will not interest the majority of readers, but it will be interspersed with enough curious detail to compensate for some dry passages. This first part is therefore addressed to the curious, to those studious men who are not afraid of encountering and overcoming a few obstacles in order to penetrate profound mysteries; they will be agreeably surprised to find expositions in this first part of such various subjects as the origin of societies, their future succession, and the material and social revolutions of our globe and of other worlds.
- Type
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- Information
- Fourier: 'The Theory of the Four Movements' , pp. 29 - 32Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1996