Pierre Leroux and the Circulus
111
ne crois pas à la philosophie chimique de Liebig, et je la nie” (p. 159).
He accepted that nitrogen-enriched manures could make a contribution but he repudiated any attempt to explain soil fertility exclusively
in terms of the combination of chemicals. Liebig’s wrongheaded
intention had been to substitute “un procédé artificiel au procédé de la
Nature” (p. 178). Leroux criticized the ideas of Jean Girardin and
Alphonse du Breuil who claimed that plants grew best in a soil containing naturally occurring mineral salts mixed with an appropriate
amount of humus. Equally in error, in his view, were those who followed Albrecht Thaer and urged the extensive use of animal as opposed to human manure. In Leroux’s judgment, while professional
scientists accurately analysed the components of healthy soil, they
displayed a disturbing ignorance regarding the manner in which the
soil’s constituent elements actually combined to form an entity that
possessed life. Leroux observed that humans ate bread, not a mixture
of flour and salt. And, like bread, the soil was alive and life-giving.
The very idea of spreading factory-produced phosphates over the
fields was anathema to Leroux who held that Liebig’s followers were
doing real harm to the French countryside. To prove his point he put
his own ideas into practice between 1845 and 1848 at the agricultural
colony that he and a group of his supporters set up at Boussac in the
Creuse as part of his project for a socialist printing works.
Twentieth-century proponents of organic farming often drew
inspiration from communities in India and China that had traditionally
returned human waste to the earth. Leroux was of the same opinion.
He revered the Chinese as masters and praised them for having instigated a system of agriculture based on natural law. In support of his
arguments he reproduced extracts from a series of articles by a certain
Dr Yvan that bore the title, “Les Vespasiennes chinoises ou supériorité des agriculteurs chinois sur ceux d’Europe” (pp. 144-49).
18 In
Leroux’s eyes the cycle of nature was a process that resembled that
which twentieth-century supporters of the organic movement came to
call the wheel of life. A chain of solidarity linked the animal, vegeta___________________________
18 According to Leroux, Yvan had visited China in an official capacity as doctor to the
French Ambassador T. de Lagrenée (1800-62) who had been sent by the government
in 1843 on a two-year mission to China that centred on negotiating commercial treaties between the two countries. Yvan’s articles had originally appeared in the journal,
La Feuille du village in 1849. The editor of the review, Pierre Joigneaux, was a friend
of Leroux.
111
ne crois pas à la philosophie chimique de Liebig, et je la nie” (p. 159).
He accepted that nitrogen-enriched manures could make a contribution but he repudiated any attempt to explain soil fertility exclusively
in terms of the combination of chemicals. Liebig’s wrongheaded
intention had been to substitute “un procédé artificiel au procédé de la
Nature” (p. 178). Leroux criticized the ideas of Jean Girardin and
Alphonse du Breuil who claimed that plants grew best in a soil containing naturally occurring mineral salts mixed with an appropriate
amount of humus. Equally in error, in his view, were those who followed Albrecht Thaer and urged the extensive use of animal as opposed to human manure. In Leroux’s judgment, while professional
scientists accurately analysed the components of healthy soil, they
displayed a disturbing ignorance regarding the manner in which the
soil’s constituent elements actually combined to form an entity that
possessed life. Leroux observed that humans ate bread, not a mixture
of flour and salt. And, like bread, the soil was alive and life-giving.
The very idea of spreading factory-produced phosphates over the
fields was anathema to Leroux who held that Liebig’s followers were
doing real harm to the French countryside. To prove his point he put
his own ideas into practice between 1845 and 1848 at the agricultural
colony that he and a group of his supporters set up at Boussac in the
Creuse as part of his project for a socialist printing works.
Twentieth-century proponents of organic farming often drew
inspiration from communities in India and China that had traditionally
returned human waste to the earth. Leroux was of the same opinion.
He revered the Chinese as masters and praised them for having instigated a system of agriculture based on natural law. In support of his
arguments he reproduced extracts from a series of articles by a certain
Dr Yvan that bore the title, “Les Vespasiennes chinoises ou supériorité des agriculteurs chinois sur ceux d’Europe” (pp. 144-49).
18 In
Leroux’s eyes the cycle of nature was a process that resembled that
which twentieth-century supporters of the organic movement came to
call the wheel of life. A chain of solidarity linked the animal, vegeta___________________________
18 According to Leroux, Yvan had visited China in an official capacity as doctor to the
French Ambassador T. de Lagrenée (1800-62) who had been sent by the government
in 1843 on a two-year mission to China that centred on negotiating commercial treaties between the two countries. Yvan’s articles had originally appeared in the journal,
La Feuille du village in 1849. The editor of the review, Pierre Joigneaux, was a friend
of Leroux.