Less than a month after Saint-Simon's death his friends and disciples constituted themselves into a formal association in order to realize the project of another journal which he still had discussed with them. Producteur, which appeared in six volumes in 1825 and 1826, was edited by the group under the leadership of Olinde Rodrigues, with the collaboration of Auguste Comte and some others who were not strictly members. Soon another young engineer, who had seen Saint-Simon only once when Rodrigues introduced him, was to become the outstanding figure of the group and the editor of its journal.
Barthélemy-Prosper ]Bnfantin was the son of a banker. He had entered the Ecole polytechnique but had left it in 1814, two years before Comte, and, like him, without completing the course. He had since entered business, spent some years traveling and working in Germany and Russia, and had recently devoted some time to the study of political economy and particularly to the works of Jeremy Bentham. Although his education as an engineer had remained incomplete, or perhaps because of this, his belief in the unlimited powers of the mathematical and technical sciences remained one of the most characteristic features of his intellectual makeup. As he explained on one occasion, ``When I have found the words probabilities, logarithm, asymptote, I am happy, because I have regained the road which leads me to formulas and forms.''14.1 An uncommonly handsome man according to the views of his contemporaries, he seems to have possessed great personal charm, which made it possible for him gradually to swing the entire Saint-Simonian movement in the direction into which his sentimental and mystical bent led him. But he also commanded considerable powers of intellect which enabled him to make important contributions before Saint-Simonism passed from its philosophical to its religious phase.14.2
It has been said, with some truth, that Saint-Simonism was born after Saint-Simon's death.14.3 However pregnant in suggestions Saint-Simon's writings were, he never achieved a coherent system. It is probably also true that the very obscurity of his writings was one of the greatest incentives for his disciples to develop his doctrines further. It also explains why the importance of the joint efforts of Saint-Simon and his pupils has rarely been properly appreciated. The natural tendency of those who have recognized it has been to ascribe too much to Saint-Simon himself. Others, who have been led by this to study Saint-Simon's own writings, have been bound to turn away disappointed. Although almost all ideas of the school can be found somewhere in the works that have appeared in Saint-Simon's name,14.4 the real force which decisively influenced European thought was the Saint-Simonians and not Saint-Simon himself. And we must never forget that the greatest of the Saint-Simonians in their early years, and the medium through whom many of them had received the doctrine of the master,14.5 was Auguste Comte, who, as we know, still contributed to the Producteur, although he was no longer a member of the group and soon broke off all relations with it.