Pierre Leroux and the Circulus:
Soil, Socialism and Salvation in
Nineteenth-Century France
Ceri Crossley
Abstract: This chapter examines attempts by the mid-nineteenthcentury French socialist Pierre Leroux to establish an alternative, reformist relationship between man and the earth, one that focussed in a
disconcertingly literal way on the recycling of human excrement as an
organic fertilizer. This proved to be an original but futile challenge to
both the growing chemical fertilizer industry and capitalist models of
wealth circulation.
At its most basic the circulus refers to the natural processes of ingestion, digestion and excretion. In nineteenth-century France, however,
it took on a wider significance. Pierre Larousse’s Grand dictionnaire
universel (1869) proposed the following definition: “Théorie socialiste
qui fonde le droit de vivre sur la possibilité pour chaque homme de
suffire à sa propre subsistance au moyen de son propre engrais utilisé
par l’agriculture”.
1 Pierre Leroux (1797-1871) is generally credited
with developing the economic, political and social consequences of
the idea.
2 A prolific writer, philosopher and left-wing activist he used
___________________________
1 The entry was largely composed of quotations from Leroux, although it drew attention to similarities between his views and those of the American economists Henry
Charles Carey (1793-1879) and Erasmus Peshire Smith (1814-82). On the question of
the foundation of the right to life the article took Leroux to task, pointing out that human waste had to be transformed before being able to sustain life: “il faut du temps,
du travail et du capital”. Pierre Larousse, Grand dictionnaire universel du XIX siècle,
17 vols (Paris: Larousse, 1869), IV, pp. 335-36.
2 For an excellent anthology see Pierre Leroux, À la source perdue du socialisme
français, ed. Bruno Viard (Paris: Desclée de Brouwer, 1997). I would like to record
Soil, Socialism and Salvation in
Nineteenth-Century France
Ceri Crossley
Abstract: This chapter examines attempts by the mid-nineteenthcentury French socialist Pierre Leroux to establish an alternative, reformist relationship between man and the earth, one that focussed in a
disconcertingly literal way on the recycling of human excrement as an
organic fertilizer. This proved to be an original but futile challenge to
both the growing chemical fertilizer industry and capitalist models of
wealth circulation.
At its most basic the circulus refers to the natural processes of ingestion, digestion and excretion. In nineteenth-century France, however,
it took on a wider significance. Pierre Larousse’s Grand dictionnaire
universel (1869) proposed the following definition: “Théorie socialiste
qui fonde le droit de vivre sur la possibilité pour chaque homme de
suffire à sa propre subsistance au moyen de son propre engrais utilisé
par l’agriculture”.
1 Pierre Leroux (1797-1871) is generally credited
with developing the economic, political and social consequences of
the idea.
2 A prolific writer, philosopher and left-wing activist he used
___________________________
1 The entry was largely composed of quotations from Leroux, although it drew attention to similarities between his views and those of the American economists Henry
Charles Carey (1793-1879) and Erasmus Peshire Smith (1814-82). On the question of
the foundation of the right to life the article took Leroux to task, pointing out that human waste had to be transformed before being able to sustain life: “il faut du temps,
du travail et du capital”. Pierre Larousse, Grand dictionnaire universel du XIX siècle,
17 vols (Paris: Larousse, 1869), IV, pp. 335-36.
2 For an excellent anthology see Pierre Leroux, À la source perdue du socialisme
français, ed. Bruno Viard (Paris: Desclée de Brouwer, 1997). I would like to record