The Doctrine of Humanity - Aphorisms
From Corvus Editions
(1848; 32 pages) - Despite their lengthy careers and importance in their own time, Pierre and Jules Leroux have become something like “The Socialist Founders that Time Forgot.” (Actually, of course, Pierre claimed to have coined the terms “socialisme” and “individualisme” in the 1830s, in order to mark extremes of social organization that should be avoided, but, like Proudhon, he warmed to the term as it came to represent the movement to solve “the social problem.”)
Pierre Leroux in particular was an influence on mutualists Pierre-Joseph Proudhon and William Batchelder Greene, as well as anarchist communist Joseph Dejacque. But his influence has been hard to gauge, since none of his major works have been completely translated into English, and most of the existing selections appeared in the 19th century.
This collection of aphorisms, compiled in 1848 by associates of the Leroux brothers, is no substitute for those translations. But it is a fascinating sketch of their philosophy, and a very useful first helping of work in translation.
