The Arcades Project - Operi

quite eccentric in its outward aspect, this elongated building with its Greco-Roman
vestibule and windowless walls was to be the place where a new sexual ethic was
pioneered. To reach the goal of higher sexual morality, the spectacle of human
dissipation in the oikema, in the house of uninhibited passions, was supposed to
lead to the path of virtue and to 'Hymen's altar.' Later, the architect decided that
it would be better . .. to grant nature its rights . ... A new, more liberated form of
marriage was to be instituted in the oikema, which the architect wanted to situate
in the most beautiful of landscapes." Emil Kaufmann, Von Ledoux bis Le Co,.busier:
Ursprung und Entwicklung der autonomen Architektur (Vienna and
Leipzig, 1933), p. 36. [W17a,4]
"During a large part of his life, Grandville was much preoccupied with the general
idea of Analogy." Ch. Baudelaire, Oeuvres, ed. Le Dantec, vol. 2 ,
p. 197 ("Quelques caricaturistes franc;ais").4:1 [W17a,5]
H. J. Hunt, Le Socialisme et Ie Romantisme en France: Etude de la presse socialiste de
1830 a 1848 (Oxford, 1935), provides, on p. 122, a notably concise and felici­
tous statement of the main lines of Fourier's doctrine. The utopian element
recedes into the background, and the proximity to Newton becomes clear. Pas­
sion is the force of attraction as experienced in the subject; it is what makes
"work" into a process as natural as the fall of an apple. [W17a,6]
In contrast to the Saint-Simonians, Fourier has no use for mysticism in aesthetic
matters. In his general doctrine he is certainly mystical, utopian, messianic if you
will, but in speaking of art he never once utters the word priesthood.' . .. "Vanity
takes over and impels artists and scientists to sacrifice their fortune [which they
would have needed to preserve their independence] to the phantoms of pride. '"
H. J. Hunt, Le Socialisme et Ie Romantisme en France (Oxford, 1935), PI'. 123-
124. [W18]