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Collection: The Collected Works of John Stuart Mill

243.: REPLY TO DR. PRATI EXAMINER, 23 MAR., 1834, PP. 185-6 - John Stuart Mill, The Collected Works of John Stuart Mill, Volume XXIII - Newspaper Writings August 1831 - October 1834 Part II [1831]

Edition used:

The Collected Works of John Stuart Mill, Volume XXIII - Newspaper Writings August 1831 - October 1834 Part II, ed. Ann P. Robson and John M. Robson, Introduction by Ann P. Robson and John M. Robson (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1986).

Part of: Collected Works of John Stuart Mill, in 33 vols.

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243.

REPLY TO DR. PRATI

EXAMINER, 23 MAR., 1834, PP. 185-6

This article answers a letter from Prati (which was not printed and has not been located) objecting to Mill’s comments in No. 234. The news item, headed “London, March 23, 1834,” is described in Mill’s bibliography as “A notice in answer to a letter from Dr. Prati, in the Examiner of 23d March 1834” (MacMinn, p. 39). It is listed in the Somerville College set of the Examiner as “Paragraphs on the St Simonian Missionaries.”

we have received a letter from Dr. Prati, the St. Simonian preacher (which from its length and the press of other matter, we are unable to insert) in reply to that part of the article on St. Simonism in our paper of the 2nd of February, which related to himself and his “Chief,” M. Fontana. We had stated that M. Fontana “was sent by no one, had credentials from no one;” and that after considerable personal inquiry, we have not been able to ascertain that he ever was an acknowledged member of the St. Simonian body, or is known personally to any one of the remarkable men from whom St. Simonism has derived its celebrity. Dr. Prati informs us, and has produced such evidence as convinces us, that M. Fontana did belong to the St. Simonian society, and took his departure for England with the knowledge and sanction of those members of the society who were assembled at Ménilmontant. These facts are no doubt of considerable importance to M. Fontana personally, and we are glad, therefore, by publishing them, to remove any impression to his disadvantage which may have been conceived from our former statement. The substance, however, of our assertions remains untouched: the same documents which prove that M. Fontana was recognized as a teacher of St. Simonism, prove that he was not selected as such. His departure took place at the period of a general dispersion of the society, when all organized or concerted propagandism was abandoned, and whosoever chose to go forth of his own accord and teach St. Simonism, received the permission and authority of the père suprême, M. Enfantin, to do so. M. Fontana, therefore, and not the society, remains burthened with the responsibility of whatever discredit may attach to the cause from the feebleness of its advocate.

Dr. Prati further informs us, that there are still St. Simonians, and publications avowedly St. Simonian, in France, and that although the Chief, M. Enfantin, had formally dissolved the society, he subsequently proclaimed its resuscitation. “From on board Le Prince Héréditaire, Sept. 22nd, 1833, he addressed a letter to all the St. Simonian family, in which he reassumed his authority, and issued general orders to all his followers to hold themselves in residence.”1 So far, therefore, we stand corrected. It remains to be seen whether this resumption of the empire after an abdication, will succeed better with M. Enfantin than it did with the Emperor Dioclesian.2

Dr. Prati enters into some particulars of his own personal literary history, for the purpose, apparently, of proving himself to be no pretender: but this was altogether unnecessary as far as we are concerned; for his name and character were honorably known to us before St. Simonism existed: nor had we ever even a momentary thought to his disadvantage, unless it be such to deem him inadequate to the task he has undertaken of founding a new religion in England. “Our voice,” he says, “begins already to penetrate the mass:” if so, he has our cordial congratulations. He will make no proselytes but at the expense of far worse errors.

The tone and spirit of Dr. Prati’s letter do honour to his candour and good temper; qualities in which we cannot forbear to state, no St. Simonian apostle was ever yet found deficient. We forgive him his sarcasm upon ourselves, for having reserved our praises of St. Simonism until we considered it as defunct. We reserved them until we considered it as calumniated. If he refer to our papers of 29th January, and 9th September 1832, he will see that we formerly expressed ourselves on the subject of St. Simonism exactly as we do now.3 But we did not exert ourselves to force a discussion, which we knew would do no good either to St. Simonism or to the cause of truth. We did not wish to draw down upon men and doctrines that we respect the insults and calumnies which, now when the mischief is done, we are willing and eager to join in repelling.

[1 ]Prati presumably reproduced in his letter Enfantin’s letter to Hoart, Bruneau, Rogé, and Massol (which Mill of course had not seen). The latter may be found in Oeuvres de Saint-Simon et d’Enfantin, Vol. IX, pp. 99-108. The end of the passage (presumably in Prati’s English) renders the original’s “Revenons à notre place” (p. 103).

[2 ]Diocletian (245-313), Emperor of Rome 284-305, abdicated in 305 and retired to Salona, but did not resume power. Mill may be thinking of Maximianus I (ca. 240-310), who had shared power with Diocletian, and abdicated with him. Persuaded to resume power in 306, he had to abdicate again in 307. In 308, he became Emperor for a third time, chosen by the soldiers; later the same year, he was once more removed, and in 310 he committed suicide.

[3 ]Nos. 140 and 180.