Berghahn Books

Louis de Bonald's Traditionalist Science of Society and Early Nineteenth-Century Biological

Thought
Author(s): Arthur McCalla
Source: Historical Reflections / Réflexions Historiques, Vol. 30, No. 2 (Summer 2004), pp. 337-
357
Published by: Berghahn Books
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Louis de Bonald's Traditionalist Science

of Society and Early Nineteenth-Century

Biological Thought

Arthur McCalla

The familiar,thoughincreasinglycontested,account ofEnlightenment

and post-Enlightenmentcultural historydepicts a struggle between
progressivescience and reactionaryreligion.While recentscholarshiphas
demonstratedthe falsityof thisaccount, at least forthe period before the
1870s, fromthe perspectiveof the historyof science,1 scholars of religion
have been slower to show how Christianthinkers, even conservativeones,
drew on science fortheirideological purposes. In thecomplex intellectual,
social and political context of early nineteenth-centuryFrance, for
example, the conservative theoristof Catholic Traditionalism,Louis de
Bonald, broughttogethercertain strands of contemporaryscience and
religion in defense of a traditionalsocial order and in opposition to
alternativecompounds of science and religion.The early nineteenth-
centurycontroversy inbiologicalthoughtbetween fixistsand transformists
paralleled a contemporarycontroversyin religion over the nature of
providence. Far froma science versus religionscenario, itwas a case of
alliances between religious and scientific thought corresponding to

1. John Science
Brooke,
Hedley andReligion:
SomeHistorical
Perspectives
(Cambridge,
1991),pp.33-42.

Arthur
McCallaisvisiting
Associate
Professor atReedCollege.
ofReligion
©2004HISTORICAL
REFLECTIONS/REFLEXIONS Vol.30,no.2
HISTORIQUES,

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338 Historical Reflections/Reflexions Historiques

positionstaken on theproblemofreconcilingan eternaldivineorderwith

historicalchange. In Britainthese matterswere argued inthelanguage and
intellectual frameworkof natural theology.But in France, where this
traditionwas in any case weak, the experience of the French Revolution
relocated the debate to the social implicationsof religiousand scientific
ideas. This articleexplores the nexus of providence,biologyand political
libertyin earlynineteenth-century French thoughtby analyzingBonald's
science of society in relation to his own discussion of (in particular)
Georges Cuvierand Jean-BaptisteLamarck.

Bonald's science of society

Louis-Gabriel-Amboise, vicomtede Bonald (1 754-1840), was bom inthe

Aveyron intoan old family theprovincialnobilitywitha long traditionof
of
public service.After a Catholic education and a period of militaryservice,
Bonald became mayor of Millau in the years immediatelybefore the
French Revolution. He initiallyserved the new regime as President of
Departmental Assembly of Aveyron,but turned sharply against the
Revolutionwiththe passage of the CivilConstitutionof the Clergyin 1790.
Recognizingthathe could no longerreconcile his principleswiththose of
the Revolution,Bonald resignedhis officesand inJanuary1791 joined the
emigration.Aftera short,largelyuneventfulcampaign in the Armyof the
Prince de Cond6, Bonald settledin Heidelberg,where he remained until
1795. In thiscenter of Royalistopposition,he wrote Theorie du pouvoir
politique et religieux. In 1795 Bonald moved his familyto Constance,
Switzerland. There he polished his manuscript and arranged for its
publication.Duringthisperiod he wrote threeof his principalworks,Le
Divorce, Essai analytique sur les lois naturellesand Legislationprimitive,
which appeared in 1800, 1801 and 1802 respectively.Togetherwith the
Theoriedu pouvoiret religieux,theseworksconstitutethecore ofBonald's
Catholic Traditionalistoppositionto the Revolutionaryorder.
When Bonald's civilpositionwas regularizedbytheamnestyNapoleon
offeredto emigresafterthePeace ofAmiensin 1802, he returnedto Millau
and eventuallyaccepted fromNapoleon a positionon the Council of the
University(the body overseeing the reorganized system of public
education). Duringthe Napoleonic period, Bonald published articles in
conservativejournalsand laboured on the major work thatwould appear
in 1818 as Recherches philosophiques. Bonald joyfullywelcomed the
Restorationof the Bourbon monarchyand became a leader of the Ultras,
thecounterrevolutionary partyagitatingfora returnto a monarchicalorder
untrammeledby constitutionalrestrictions. When the JulyRevolutionof
1830 replaced the Bourbon line withthe OrteanistLouis-Philippe,Bonald

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 Louis de Bonald 339

decried the new regime as a collection of usurpers and resigned his

offices.2
Bonald differsfromother Catholic Traditionalistssuch as Joseph de
Maistre and the early Felicite de Lamennais in that he grounded his
arguments on a rational analysis of society and humanityratherthan
biblical or patristicauthority. He understoodhis versionofTraditionalism,
as T
known sociological raditionalism, as a science ofsociety.We mustnot,
however,understand his Traditionalism as scientificin a modern sense; it
was a religioussystemexpressed the mechanistic and logical formof
in
Enlightenmentrationalism.
Bonald's firstwork,Theoriedu pouvoirpolitiqueetreligieux( 1796) ,sets
out thebasic theme thathe would restatein all subsequent writings:there
are two types of societies- of man with God, or religion,and of men
among themselves- each of which have only one natural constitution:
Christianity forreligioussociety,monarchyforcivil society. Their union
The sociological Traditionalismbywhich Bonald
resultsin social stability.3
supported this claim was a theologyof power (social, hierarchicaland
ternary), supportedbyanepistemologyofprimitive revelationvia language.
The being of God is power; inversely,power reveals God. Since power
informssocial organization,God is the source and principleof society;
society,forits part,is hierarchicalbecause it reproduces the relationof
God to his creation.4And yet,hierarchyforBonald does notconsist simply
of the binaryrelationof subordinatorand subordinated;thereis always a
third,intermediateelement, resultingin a universalternary.The abstract
form of this ternaryruns Cause/Means/Effect,and it is reproduced
analogically in all areas of human existence: in theology,it becomes:
God/Mediator/Humanity; in politics:Power/Minister/Subject; in the family:
Father/Mother/Child; inthe social order: King/Nobility/People; ingrammar:
noun/verb/object. And so on. Because no order, any aspect of life,can
in
forBonald exhibitany otherformthanthisternarystructure,a changeless
syntaxclassifies and orders all diversityaccording to an a prioriform.
Bonald's semiotic triadism nullifies individualityby assigning every
phenomenon its one and onlyplace in his systemof hierarchiesand by
conceiving of it as the instantiationof a functionaland metaphysical

see Henri
careerofBonald,
2. Onthelifeandpolitical De Bonald(NewYork,
Moulinie,
ed.Paris,1916),pp.1-144.
1979;first
La Philosophie
3. LouisFoucher, enFranceau XIXesiecle(Paris,1955),p.
catholique
22.
4. GerardGengembre, ou I'histoire
La Contre-Revolution, (Paris,1989),
desesperante
p. 127.

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340 Historical Reflections/Reflexions Historiques

essence.5 Bonald presentsthisprocess as one of scientificclassification,

but it is, as has oftenbeen noted, a classificatoryproject designed to
eliminateall alternativeordersto hisown.6Mostimmediately,itlegitimates
and promotes the social orderof pre-Revolutionary France by identifying
thatorder,and onlythatorder,as the social application of the universal
ternary.7
Bonald's sociological Traditionalismis supported by interdependent
theoriesofprimitive revelationand language.Inthe"Discourspr61iminaire"
thatprefaces Legislationprimitive(1802), Bonald argues thatwhile our
rationalnature is innate, no specific truthsare innate; all knowledge is
mediated bylanguage [parole ], which in turnwas revealed primitively by
God to the firstman and has since been transmittedby society. This
linguistictheorydoes not appear in Theorie du pouvoir politique et
religieux.Bonald worked itout,drawingheavilyfromthearticle"Langage"
in the Encyclopedic and other contemporaryauthors,8beginning from
around 1800 (elements of it appear in the Essai analytique sur les lois
naturelles of that year, and it is fullydeveloped and centrallyplaced in
Legislationprimitive). Thiswas thelastmajor change in Bonald's thinking;
once he had added his linguistictheoryhis core thoughtunderwent
remarkablylittlefurtherdevelopment. Bonald regarded the theoryas a
fundamentaldiscovery.By identifying language and thought,and making
thoughtknown onlyby the speech thatexpresses it,his linguistictheory
subordinatedhumanityto an exteriorauthority. Ittherebyprovidedsupport
and confirmation, froman entirelyseparate realm of human experience,
forthe assertionthatthe social orderis divinelyestablished and ordered.
"Language," as Gengembre notes, "secures the politics."9
In the numerous methodological statementsscattered throughouthis
works, Bonald proclaims that he writes from the authority,not of
revelation,butofreason and history:"I rejecttheauthority oftheologyand
the certitudeoffaith;I invokeonlythe authority ofhistoryand thewitness

5. W. JayReedy,"TheHistorical ImaginaryofSocialSciencein Post-Revolutionary

France:Bonald,
Saint-Simon,
Comte,"HistoryoftheHumanSciences7 (1994):5.
6. PierreMacherey,"Bonald
etla philosophic,"
RevuedeSynthase 108(1987):17.
7. W. Jay Reedy,"FromEnlightenment to Counter-Enlightenment Semiotics:
Authoritative
Discourse andtheReactionarySocialScienceofLouisde Bonald," Historical
Reflexions
Reflections/ 26(2000):68.
historiques
8. JeanBastier, etpolitique
"Linguistique dansla pens£ede Louisde Bonald,"Revue
dessciences etth£ologiques
philosophiques 58(1974):541.
9. Gengembre, La Contre~R4volution
,p. 160.

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 Louis de Bonald 341

of our senses."10 In wishing to institutean analytical science of society,

Bonald is in no way rejectingthe truthof revelation;itis as an apologetic
writerthathe wishes to convince thosewho do notaccept theauthorityof
revelationand itstruth.In the "Avertissement"to Du traitede Westphalie
(published in pamphlet formin the Mercurede France between Januaiy
1801 and February1802,thenappended to the finalvolume ofLegislation
primitive), he declares:

This general manner of consideringthe object is to the science of

society,or the relationsamong moral beings,thatwhich algebra or
analysis is to thescience ofextended bodies, or therelationsamong
physical beings; and one may consider it as a general method,
appropriateto resolve specificquestions."

Bonald's analyticalmethod discovers thegeneral principlesofsocietyand

the relations that constituteorder, therebyrevealing the general and
constant laws of the moral world and the social necessity of thatwhich
humanitymust believe and accept.
Bonald's conception of rigorousdemonstrationis to deduce general
maxims or principles,then to demonstratetheirnecessary existence by
citingempiricalhistoricaldata. This is what he means bywritingfromthe
authorityof reason and history,and thisis the declared structureof both
Theorie du pouvoir politique et religieux and Legislation primitive .'2
Bonald's often-citedclaim thathe provesreligionbyhistory13 hinges on his
conception of historyas the demonstration of previously deduced
principles.The mercenarynatureofBonald's use ofhistoryhas been noted
by several commentators.14 Bonald himself,in his historiographicalessay,
"De la maniere d'ecrirel'histoire"(1807), freelyand proudlyacknowledges
his subordinationof empiricalfactsto general principles:"even the most
numerous facts,and classified in the most methodical order, are only
collectionsofscatteredanecdotes ifone does notrelatethemall to a small

10. Louisde Bonald,Thronedu pouvoirpolitiqueet religieux (1796) in Oeuvres

completes,15vols.(Geneve,1982),14:204-5.
11. LouisdeBonald, primitive,
Legislation considiree
parlesseuleslumieresdela raison
(1802)inOeuvres 4:341-42.
completes,
12. Bonald,inOeuvres
completes,14:233; 2:1.
13. Bonald,Theorie
dupouvoirpolitiqueetreligieux
inOeuvres completes,14:9.
14. Gengembre, La Coritre-Re
volution
, p. 173;W. JayReedy,"Language, Counter-
Revolutionandthe'TwoCultures':
Bonald's Traditionalist Journal
Scientism," oftheHistory
ofIdeas44(1983):590;Bastier, etpolitique,"
"Linguistique p.559.

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342 Historical Reflections/Reflexions Historiques

number of general principlesthat indicate theircause and predict their

results."15
Bonald's approach saves one fromthe messiness of actual history:
"those who see the facts in the principlesthatprecede them, have no
need ... to consume theirtimeand theirmentalenergyin retainingdetails
that are often insignificant, almost always contested, and sometimes
contradictory."16True to his principle,Bonald largelyignoredthehistorical
and ethnographic literatureof his day.17 This subordination of the
messiness ofhistoryto principlesand laws bymeans ofa deductive model
produces, in Reedy's phrase, a "historical imaginary"; that is, an
antihistorical,antirelativist
representationof historythatuses scientized
language in order to suppress the plasticityof the past and eliminate
subversivereadings of historyof the sortexploited by the enemies of the
ancien regime.18For Bonald, moreover,notjusthis language is scientized;
because God manifestshis willbyan inviolateorder,to reinscribesociety
under the divine law is at one and the same time to instituteit as a
science.19 Conversely, true science manifests the divinely-established
order.Bonald used hisscience ofsocietyless to argue forhisdesired social
order (thathad already been deduced a priori) than to demonstratethat
any departure fromit bringsdisaster. Predictingand retrodictingevents
based on thecorrectorcorruptedarrangementofa givensociety'spolitical
grammaris preciselywhat Bonald claimed his science of society made
possible, and indeed what established itas a science.20

Development

AlthoughBonald's science ofsocietydisplaysand defends an inviolate

orderimposed fromwithoutby God, itneverthelesspossesses a concept
of development. Bonald, in fact, adopts the model of biological

15. Bonald,inOeuvres compl&es, 11:107.

16. Bonald,De la manured'6crire I'histoire
(1807)inOeuvrescompletes, 11:108.
17.Jean-Ren^ Derr£, Lamennais, ses amis,et le mouoement des id£esa I'^poque
romantique (Paris,1962),p. 18.
18. Reedy,"TheHistoricalImaginary ofSocialScienceinPost-Revolutionary
France,"pp.
2-4.
19. EdgarHoc6dez, Histoire
dela th€ologieau XIX& Vol.1: Decadenceetr£veil
Steele, de
la thtologie,
1800-1831 (Paris,1949),p.80.
20. Reedy,"TheHistoricalImaginary ofSocialScienceinPost-RevolutionaryFrance,"p.
7.

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 Louis de Bonald 343

preformationism21 and applies itto the social order: "Truth,like humanity

and like society,is a seed thatdevelops by the succession of time and
generations."22The resultis a developmentalschema, orwhatwe may call
a social preformationism,in which, just as the oak is in the acom
according to preformationist natural history,institutionspresent in the
of
germ primitivesociety unfold over time,attainingtheirmaturity onlyin
the era ofChristianmonarchies.23More concretely,societydevelops from
a state of imperfectsocial integrationcharacterizedby isolated families,
throughmore advanced states of social integrationcharacterized by
absolutism,aristocracyand the corporativesocietyof the Old Regime, to
the public state that Bonald anticipates will soon appear in France.24
Despite, therefore,the permanence of power, Bonald's sociological
Traditionalismdoes not implysocial immobilism.Stasis, in his view, is
possible onlyat the culminationof the process of development.25
Bonald's sequence of development follows a patternimposed by a
power externalto the social orderitself:

In politicalsociety,a general and collective being, the general will

is thiswill or thistendencythateverybeing has ofattainingthe end
forwhich ithas been created; a will or tendencythat,joined to the
means of reachingthe end, constitutethe nature of thisbeing. But
thiswill and these means, which constitutethe nature of a being,
have been givento itbytheCreator,who created beings foran end ,
and by consequence with the will and the means of attainingit.
Therefore,the general will of societyhas been given to the society
by God himself:thiswill is the will of God.... It is the effectof this
preservinggeneral will thatmen who believe in the existence of
God call Providence.26

21. See Francois, Jacob,TheLogicofLife:AHistory ofHeredity,trans.

Betty Spillmann
(Princeton, 1973),pp.52-66.
22. Bonald, primitiue
Legislation inOeuvres completes,2:412.
23. Gengembre, La Contre-Revolution
,p. 222.
24. DavidKlinck, TheFrench Counterrevolutionary LouisdeBonald(.NewYork,
Theorist
1996),p. 102.
25. Macherey, "Bonald p. 17;Bonald,
etla philosophic," primitiue
Legislation inOeuvres
completes , 3:4.
26. Bonald, Theoriedupouvoir politique inOeuvres
etreligieux , 14:126.
completes

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344 Historical Reflections/Reflexions Historiques

Bonald here offerswhat Reedy calls his "scientized or 'naturalized'gloss

of Providence."27And yet it is naturalizedonly up to a point; there is an
order to social development onlybecause divine will has imposed this
particularorderon thesystem.Bonald here closelyapproximatestheview
of nature underlyingearly seventeenth-centuryphysics. Newton and
Kepler,forexample, conceived of the Book of Natureas a textthatGod
had writtenin a contingentlanguage (mathematical or empirical). The
orderofnaturehad been imposed by God, but itwas thisparticularorder
as a resultof a freechoice of the all-powerfuldivine will ratherthan an
imprinting of the divinenatureitself.28
Bonald customarily refers to the successive unfolding of social
institutionsaccording to the patternimposed by the divine will by the
eighteenth-century In the Essai analytique Bonald
term,"perfectibility."
notes that Enlightenmentproponents of social progress (perfectibilite
sociale ] such as Condorcetwere correctto proclaimit,butmisunderstood
its true nature. Given the lamentable consequences of the falsified
Enlightenment idea ofprogress,Bonald continues,itis understandablethat
Catholics have opposed any doctrineof progress.29 And yet,perfectibility,
properlyunderstood, both distinguisheshumanityfrom animals and
establishes the necessity of socially-mediated tradition by which
individualsbecome maturehuman beings.30
Bonald's concept ofdevelopmentis closelylinkedto his redefinition of
the term"nature"and itscognates.

As modem philosophyhas strangelyabused the word nature,it is

necessary to determineitstruesense. The natureor the essence of
each being is thatwhich constitutesit such thatit is, and without
which it would not be thisbeing... God created beings with the
mostperfectnature,and placed theminthenecessaryrelations,that
is to say, the [one] most appropriateto theirend.31

"TheHistorical
27. Reedy, ofSocialScienceinPost-Revolutionary
Imaginary France,"
p.
6.
28. JamesJ.Bono,TheWordofGodandtheLanguages ofMan:InterpretingNaturein
Modern
Early ScienceandMedicine (Madison,1995),p.83.
29. Louisde Bonald, surlesloisnaturelles
Essaianalytique social(1800)in
de I'ordre
Oeuvrescompletes,1:36-37.
30. Louis de Bonald,Recherches philosophiques sur les premiersobjets des
connaissancesmorales(1818)inOeuvrescompletes ,9:323,327-28.
31. Bonald, dupouvoir
Th^orie el religieux
politique inOeuvrescompletes, 13:44-45.

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 Louis de Bonald 345

This teleological definitionof "nature" furtherimplies an originalstate,

distinctfromthe developed state to which Bonald awards thedesignation
"natural."Bonald calls thisoriginalstate the newly-bornor natal [natif]
state: "The acorn, thechildis thenatal state; theoak, thegrownman is the
natural state."32He characterizes the natal state as one ofweakness and
imperfection, whereas the naturalstate is one ofdevelopment,fulfillment
and perfection.33
The Enlightenment, Bonald charges,ina parallelerrorto itsfalsification
of "perfectibility,"
disastrouslyconfused "natal" and "natural."34 A proper,
Traditionalistunderstandingof "natural" enables one to see that the
philosophes' celebration of the noble savage mistakes a natal being for
natural man. And yet Bonald cautions against equating civilized with
urbane. To the extentthata societyrebels againstthedivinely-established
social order, it becomes savage, regardless of its material or artistic
accomplishments.35
Bonald's distinctionbetween nataland natural,as applied to humanity,
carrieswithita view ofhistory as a process ofhumanization,or thegradual
attainmentof our pre-existentessence. As a specific application of the
general principlethat"truth, always ancient and always new, sown at the
beginningof time,is developed and maturesthrougheveryage,"36history
is the realization of both a potentialityand a divine intention.The
natal/naturaldistinctionprovides Bonald's ultimate explanation forthe
French Revolution. It was a "variation" from the divinely-imposed
teleological development of history.Bonald uses the term "variation"
polemicallyafterthefashionofBossuet's Histoiredes variationsdes Eglises
protestantes (1688). But because of Bonald's teleological
developmentalism,the Revolutionwas a variationof a particularsort. It
was a degeneration, or a fall, of a particular society from the state
appropriate to its stage of development. As such, it was a betrayal of
a regressionfrommaturity
perfectibility, toward infancy,fromcivilization
to savagery.37While identifyingthe Revolutionaries as savages was

32. Bonald, Legislation inOeuvres

primitive completes,3:214.
33. Ibid.,3:215,see also3:216.
34. Ibid.,2:231-32.
2:217-18.
35. Ibid., Bonaldexpandsonthistheme ina short from
piecedating 1810,Des
nationspoliesetdesnations , thefinal
civilisees sentence ofwhichsumsupthesituation
of
contemporary France:"inthefinalreckoning, we havelostincivilization
whatwe have
gainedinurbanity ."Oeuvres completes , 11:325.
36. Bonald, Legislation inOeuvres
primitive completes,3:242-43.
37. Gengembre, La Contre-Revolution, p. 68.

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346 Historical Reflections/Reflexions Historiques

common among counterrevolutionaries,for Bonald "savagely" is not

simply a term of opprobrium; it corresponds to his teleological
developmentalism.
Turningto the question of the cause of thisregression,Bonald linksit
to what he considers to be the fundamentalissue of the day: the rightsof
the individualin relationto society,or,as Bonald poses the question: will
humanitysubmitto thedivineorderor rebelagainstit?38 The principalform
of rebellion in contemporaryEurope is individualism.39 The immediate
source of the individualisterroris what Bonald calls modem philosophy,
thephilosophyoffreeexaminationand theindividualreason embodied in
Rousseau's Du contract social, Montesquieu's Esprit des lois, and
Condorcet's Esquisse des progresde I'esprithumain, threeworks which,
despite theirdifferences,all place the individualabove society.40Bonald
definesmodem philosophyas "theartofexplainingeverything, ofordering
everything withoutthe cooperation of the Divinity,"and declares itto be
atheism.41
Bonald traces this lamentable philosophy to Descartes, whom he
considers to have erredin assertingthatthoughtcontainsideas anteriorto
language. This led to the furthererrorof the universal,methodical doubt
thathe placed at the base of all scientificknowledge, both physical and
moral. While Bonald applauds Descartes's overthrowof the scientific
method of Aristotleand the Scholastics, he argues that Cartesian
methodical doubt, justifiedin physics, is disastrous in moral science,
where one must prejudge the general truthsinscribedin us by societyvia
language.Catastrophically, theeighteenthcenturymade generalizeddoubt
and the principle of intellectual autonomy the basis of the critical
philosophythatit applied to the natureof man and society,yieldingthe
predictable fruitof scepticism and the destructionof the great human
Bonald thereforeidentifiesDescartes as thephilosophicalsource
beliefs.42
of criticalindividualism,the mother-error of the eighteenthcentury.This

38. Bonald,Th€oriedupouvoir etreligieux

politique inOeuvres 14:488.
completes,
39. Reedynotesthattheterm doesnotappearinBonald's
"individualisme" writinguntil
themid-1820s,aboutthetimetheSaint-SimoniansintroducedthetermintoFrench.Before
thisBonaldusedthephrase"ihomme ."W.JayReedy,
particular "TheTraditionalist
Critique
ofIndividualism France:TheCase ofLouisde Bonald,"
in Post-Revolutionary Historyof
Political
Thought 16(1995):5In.
De Bonald
40. MouliniS, ,pp.165-66.
41. Louisde Bonald,De la philosophic
moraleetpolitiquedu XVIII&
si&cle(1805)in
Oeuvrescompletes 87.
, 10:86,
42. Bonald, inOeuvres
primitive
Legislation ,2:31-40.
completes

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 Louis de Bonald 347

is therootofBonald's convictionthatcontemporaryCatholic thoughtmust

freeitselffromCartesian theology.
Even thoughDescartes is the source ofphilosophicalindividualism,he
is not the ultimate source of the individualisterror.The i/r-sourceof
individualismis the ProtestantReformation.Lutherand Calvin,"falseand
limitedspirits,"43 effecteda religiousrevolutionby abolishing the visible
authority of the Church and consecrating individual judgement [sens
priue].44This spiritualindividualism,which set up individualreason as a
finaljudge of beliefsand observances, led to the multiplicity of sects, the
disintegrationof all the dogmas thatguaranteed the infallibleauthorityof
the Church,and finally, by the means ofrationalistphilosophy,to atheism
and political disorder. Descartes, then Rousseau, Montesquieu and
Condorcet, serve, in Bonald's analysis, as intermediariesbetween the
religious revolution and the socio-political revolution.This sequence
Reformation/pMosop/jes/French Revolutionis at once a genealogyoferror
and formsyetanotherBonaldian ternary, an application to modem history
of the abstractformulationCause/Means/Effect.
Bonald's view oftheRevolutionas a degenerationwhich resultedfrom
strayingfromthe appropriatestage ofdevelopment because of a modem
individualistspiritdistinguisheshis explanation of the Revolution from
those of other counter-revolutionariesin an important respect: by
attributing the Revolutionto human action, Bonald rendered itintelligible
in rational terms rather than locating its cause in the mysteryof
supernaturalprovidence.45This is not to say thatBonald dispenses with
providence altogether; rather,his providence is law-like and not an
arbitrarydivine intervention.If we switch metaphors fromBossuet to
naturalhistory, fromthinking ofthe Revolutionas a variationto thinking of
it as a social monster,we see once again how Bonald's social science
corresponds to (although does not derive from)preformationist natural
history.In opposing the Renaissance view that monsters resulted from
iniquityand bore witness to an act or even thoughtcontraryto the orderof
theworld,thepreformationists held thatmonstrosity resultedfromchance
errorsintheunfoldingofthepreformedanimicules according to a divinely-
established pattern.46 Justas teratology,the studyofmonsters,became an
importanttool of analysis for the study of generation (albeit, among
transformists such as EtienneGeoffroy forwhom monstrosity
Saint-Hilaire,

43. Bonald,TMoriedupouvoir inOeuvres

etreligieux
politique 14:177.
completes,
44. Bonald,Essaianalytique
inOeuvres completes, 1:57.
45. Gengembre, La Contre-Reuolution
,p.67.
46. Jacob,TheLogicofLife,
pp.27,72,78.

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348 Historical Reflections/Reflexions Historiques

resulted froman accidental modificationof the formativeforce of a

fetus),47so Bonald's analysis of the Revolutionis an example of a social
teratologyinwhich themonstrouserrorilluminatesbycontrastthe correct
developmentalprocess. Finally,fornaturalhistoriansofthelate eighteenth
century,monsterswere unviable and would inevitablydie off.This view
both parallels and undergirdsBonald's faiththatthe social monsterofthe
revolutionaryorder cannot endure, and corresponds to Bossuet's
convictionthatall theologicalvariationsfromthe divinewill must fail.
Bonald's developmentalism may appear to sit awkwardly with his
analytical science of society that attemptsto rule out social change by
identifyingone particularsocial orderas divinelyestablished. Gengembre
similarlynotes that,"The tensionbetween thehorrorofhistoryand itsfaith
in a science of Historyirremediablyrends the Counter-Revolution. "48But
we mustbe precise as to the natureof the historythathorrifiesBonald. It
is a horrorof contingent,radical, individualisticchange ratherthan an
unfoldingaccording to teleological law. The key is the manner (and
implications)of change; not change itself.

Bonald and Cuvier

Bonald draws an analogy,inone ofhisPensees, between his deductive

science of society and the new science of comparative anatomy: "ifwe
know the political laws of a long-extinctnation,we are able to work out
the events of its politicallife,somewhat as in comparative anatomy one
can reconstructan unknown animal fromthe smallest part.'"19 Bonald is
alludinghere to the work of Georges Cuvier.
Cuvier's synthesis of comparative anatomy, taxonomy and
palaeontology rested on the theoreticalconcept of the "subordinationof
characters,"or the functionalintegrity of an organism,bywhich mutually
dependent parts coexist in a creature under the regulationof laws as
certainas those ofmathematics.The subordinationofcharactersor,inyet
anotherformulation ofhis governingconcept, the necessary conditionsof
existence foran animal,is theconceptual heartofbothCuvier'ssystematic
comparativeanatomyinLegons d'anatomie compare ( 1800-1805) and the
paleontological reconstructionscollected inRecherchessurles ossemens

47. TobyAppel,TheCuvier-Geoffroy Debate:French in theDecadesbefore

Biology
Darwin(Oxford, 1987),pp.125-30.
48. Gengembre, La Contre
-Revolution
,p.213.
49. Louisde Bonald,Pens£essurdivers
sujets(1817) inOeuvres ,6:20.
completes

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 Louis de Bonald 349

fossiles de quadrupedes (181 2). 50 Cuvier laid out his procedure in a

discussion of fossil animals, the Especes de quadrupedes (1801). An
expanded version of this textappears in the "Discours preliminaire"to
Recherches sur les ossemens fossiles,which Bonald cites in Recherches
philosophiques (1818).

In thelivingstate,all thebones are attached to each other,and form

an ensemble among which all the partsare coordinated.The place
thateach occupies is easy to recognize by itsgeneral form,and by
the number and positionof theirarticulatingfacets one can judge
thenumberand directionofthebones thatwere attached to it.Now
thenumber,direction,and shape ofthebones composing each part
of the body determine the movements that part can make, and
consequently the functionsit can fulfill. Each part in turnis in a
necessary relationwith all the such
others, thatup to a certainpoint
one can inferthe ensemble fromany one of them,and vice versa.
Forexample, when theteethofan animal are such as theymustbe,
forthe animal to feed on flesh,we can be sure without further
examinationthatthewhole systemofitsdigestiveorgans is adapted
forthis kind of food, and that its whole framework,its organs of
locomotion,and even itssense organs,are made in such a way as
to make it skillfulin perceiving,pursuingand seizing its prey. In
effect,these relationsare the necessary conditionsof existence of
the animal, and it is evident thatifthingswere not so thisanimal
could not subsist.5'

A famous storytells of one of Cuvier's students,dressed in a devil's

costume, awakening thegreatman in themiddle ofthe nightwiththe cry,
"
"Cuvier,Cuvier,I have come to eat you! Cuvierreportedlyopened hiseyes
and replied,"Allcreatureswithhoms and hooves are herbivores.You can't
eat me," and went back to sleep. A less apocryphal,perhaps, example of
the deductive power of the theoreticalconcept of the "subordinationof
characters" is the case of a fossilizedvertebrateCuviersuspected was a
marsupial fromdetails of its skeleton and teeth. He decided to stage a
dramatictest.In thepresence ofwitnesses who could vouch forhis having
predictedthathe would discover the distinctivemorphologicalstructures
thatsupportthepouch in livingmarsupials,he cut away a partof thefossil

50. Appel, J.S. Rudwick,

Debate,pp.41,43;Martin
TheCuvier-Ceoffroy GeorgesCuvier,
FossilBones,and Geological
Catastrophes:New Translations ofthe
and Interpretations
Primary 1997),p.26.
Texts(Chicago,
51. Translated
inRudwick, Cuvier,
Georges p.50

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350 Historical Reflections/Reflexions Historiques

specimen and proved his point.52Itis as a deductive model according to

which the relationshipbetween the partand thewhole is based on law or
principlethatBonald cited Cuvierin the Pens6e. Bonald recognized the
between Cuvier'sconceptionofthesubordinationofcharactersand
affinity
his own deductive science of society and drew on the prestige of the
scientistin supportofhis theologicalrationalism.

Bonald and biological transformism

In Recherchesphilosophiques Bonald insistson the fixity of species.53

Once again, his authorityis Cuvier,who was convinced thatto abandon
the concept of the fixity of species would subvertthe whole taxonomic
enterprise.54 Bonald's oppositionto biologicaltransformism is anythingbut
casual. His principalaim in Chapter XII of Recherches philosophiques,
which is devoted to thequestion oftheoriginsofhumans,is to counterthe
materialistand transformist theoriesofthecontributors to theDictionnaire
d'histoirenaturelle 1
( 775) and Cabanis' Rapports physiqueetdu morale
du
de I'homme (1802). The urgency of this task arose fromthese theories
being linkedto the social and philosophicaldoctrinesof the Revolution.
Bonald identifiestwo distinctelementsinmaterialisttheoriesofhuman
origins: spontaneous generation and transformism.After a lengthy
quotation from the Dictionnaire d'histoire naturelle on the gradual
emergence of humanityfromimperfectsketches or drafts,he concludes
withhisown summationofthisview: "Natureormatterthereforefora long
time attempted,groped, sketched before producing man." But such a
view, he assures his readers, is contraryto reason because an organism,
inwhich liferesultsfromthe mutualrelationoforgans,would notbe able
to survive as a sketch. Bonald attributes the hypotheses of both
spontaneous generationand of transformism to the deleterious effectsof
an unrulyimaginationdisruptiveof the divine order.55Bonald here is
entirelyin accord withmainstreameighteenth-century thought,forwhich,
equally in itsfreethinking, Deist and orthodox Christian guises, imagination
corrupts the truelight of reason.
AfterlinkingCabanis and the contributorsthe Dictionnaired'histoire
naturelle to the materialistLa Mettrie,"a universallyreviled writer,"56

p.68.
52. Ibid.,
53. Bonald,Recherches inOeuvres
philosophiques 9:284.
completes,
54. Rudwick, Cuvier
Georges ,p. 17.
55. Bonald,Recherches inOeuvres
philosophiques ,9:257-60.
completes
9:265.
56. Ibid.,

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 Louis de Bonald 351

Bonald returnsto the issue of transformism. In addition to its materialist

associations, transformist theories of human origins require immense
amounts oftime.Bonald accordinglycitesscientificauthority. He first
notes
an observationin theTrait# de mineralogiebyAbbe Rene-JustHatiy(1 743-
1822), a distinguishedcrystallographer and professorofmineralogyat the
Museum d'HistoireNaturelle,to the effectthatseveral verywell-known
geologists now agreed that our continentsare not of an ancient date.
Bonald thenadds that:"The most renownofour naturalists,M. Cuvier,has
placed thisthesisbeyond dispute. See, in theDiscours preliminaireto his
greatwork on animal fossils,the proofsthatthissavant gives of theyouth
of our continents,and of the recentrevolutionof the globe."57
Bonald reduces the controversyover the originsof livingthingsto a
question of the possibilityof spontaneous movement, and notes its
similarityto the "moral" question of whether language was inventedby
man or communicated to him by a superiorbeing. He goes on to remark
that since the question of spontaneous or communicated movement
belongs at once to philosophyand physics, it can be treated by both
reasoningand the observationoffacts.58 The testimonyofboth is univocal
and decisive: "all our ideas in the rationalorder,all our sensations in the
materialorder,even all our activitiesin the industrialorder,offerus clear
and distinctnotionsof communicated motion,and none of spontaneous
motion."Bonald concludes that,"Thereis nothingabsolutelyspontaneous,
no more in physics than in morals, and to our eyes as to our reason
everything in the world of motionas in theworld of actions and relations
is succession that has an origin, progression that has a firstterm,
generationthathas an author."59
It is importantto recognize thatBonald thinksabout transformism in
termsof Classical physics,and not thebiologyoforganismswhich at that
timewas emerging.In these years,Lamarck,G. R. Treviranusand Lorenz
Oken established "biology"as a new science that,ratherthanconceiving
ofplantsand animals as particularclasses ofnaturalbodies conformingto
thelaws ofmechanics thatgoverninanimateobjects,instead studies them
as livingorganisms endowed with singular propertiesas a result of a
special kind of organization. This idea of organization postulated a
goal- life- thatis no longerimposed fromwithout,buthas itsoriginin the

Asfarbackas Legislation
57. Ibid.,9:271-72. BonaldhadpraisedJean-Andre
primitive,
Deluc'sLettresgeologiques( 1798,alsoknown surI'histoire
as Lettres physiquede la terre
) as
"a magnificent commentary on Moses' account of and
creation, the finest
monument that
physicshasconsecrated toreligion." inOeuvres
primitive
Legislation completes,4:27.
58. Bonald, Recherches philosophiquesinOeuvres 9:293.
completes,
59. Ibid.,9:297,298.

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352 Historical Reflections/ Reflexions Historiques

organizationitself.60The shiftfroman externalimpositionof order to an

internalimpetuswas keyto the contemporaryview, shared by Bonald, of
Lamarck and Cuvier, or, more generally,transformists and flxists,as,
the
respectively, enemy and friend of religion.
Lamarck attributesto animal lifean internalforce thatgraduallybut
ceaselessly increases thecomplexityand perfectionoftheorganizationof
organisms. Driven by this impulse, and provoked by external
circumstances thatdisturbtheirregularprogressand startthem on fresh
linesofdevelopment,theoperationsofnatureunfoldaccording to a "plan"
bywhich new beings are formedto match the conditionsof the world in
which they must live.61 The new biological concept of life and
transformism are correlatesin the evolutionaryvision Lamarck set out in
Philosophie zoologique. Lamarck at times speaks of thisinternalforcein
mechanistic,at othertimesinvitalistic, language. The formersuggeststhat
nature is autonomous and operates by the necessity of laws; thatlatter
implies a Creatorand subordinatesthe operations of nature to the divine
will. Though he never fullyresolved this ambiguity,Lamarck rejected
teleology:nothingin the operations of nature indicates the pursuitof an
end; in naturethereis neitherintention,nor goal, norwill.62
Andyet,to returnto thecentralambiguityofhistheory,while Lamarck's
rejection of teleology conflictedwith orthodox creationism,he did not
want his system to be understood as atheistic. Lamarck distinguished
between God's creativeact and themodalitybywhich he acts; thatis,God
acts throughthe secondary causes of the operations of nature. Further,
nature's productive activitythat makes the transformationof species
possible is delegated to nature fromGod. Lamarck's insistence thathis
system is not atheistic depends precisely on this distinctionof active
(almost demiurgic) nature from the material universe. This critical
distinctionnotwithstanding, Lamarck was widely held during the first
decades of the nineteenth century to have dispensed with God.
Contemporariesperceived theimplicationofan internalimpetusreplacing

60. Jacob,TheLogicof Life,pp. 87-89.Bonaldrecognized thatthepostulatesof

spontaneous generation,transformismandan ancient earthcametogether intheworkof
Lamarck:
Jean-Baptiste "alltheseprinciples,
I say,arerecalledandpresentedas axiomsin
a recentworkentitled:Philosophiezoologique(twowordsbizarrelyjoinedandastonished
to findthemselvestogether)."Bonald,Recherches inOeuorescompletes,
philosophiques
9:289-90.
TheLogicofLife,
61. Jacob, pp.147-48.
62. Madeleine
Barth61emy-Madaule, Lamarck theMythical trans.
Precursor, M.H.Shank
(Cambridge, 1982),pp.25,31.

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 Louis de Bonald 353

an independentcreationofeach species bya Creator:whateverLamarck's

God mightbe, itwas not the God of the Bible.
Cuvier's Recherches swrles ossemens fossiles, forits part,had been
hailed from its publication as providing the biblical tradition with
paleontological support.63While inno way subordinatinghis own research
to theological positions, Cuvier allowed his scientifictheories to be
perceived as defendingthe biblical view of the creation of species, the
recent creation of humanity,and the Flood. His science itself,moreover,
entailed certain metaphysical commitments. The concept of the
subordinationofcharactersimplies thatthe Creatorforesaw the needs of
each species and created just those organs necessary to satisfythem.
Cuvierintended the teleologyimplicitin his concept of the subordination
ofcharactersto be understoodas a defense ofGod's providentialconcern
forhis creatures.64Cuvier's most explicitdiscussion of the linkbetween
zoological theoryand religionoccurs in "Nature,"his 1825 contributionto
the Dictiormairedes sciences naturelles, in which he argues that, in
opposition to the presuppositionof a Creator, the various transformist
theorieshold in common the false beliefthatnature has an autonomous
existence apart fromGod. The attemptsbytransformists to endow nature
itselfwith activity,as thoughit possessed an independent wisdom and
power, lead to pantheismor materialism.65

Providence

David Klinckhas recentlyclaimed that"In Bonald's thinkingphysical

science and mathematics combined withbiologyto produce the idea of
power as generatingsocieties fromwithinitself:ordered sets of relations
But,as we have seen, the new science of
and functions,or structures."66
withinthe organizationofthe
biology,withitsconcept oflifeas originating
organism,was vigorouslyrepudiated by Bonald. In place of generation
fromwithin,it is a matterof order imposed fromoutside the systemby
God. Bonald's conception of himselfas a social scientistmeans thathe
largely avoided theological language, but his system does not, as
Gengembre claims,67 avoid explicit recourse to providence. Rather,

63. Itwascelebrated as suchintheAbb£ de Tours

Philosophic
Gley's ,a handbook
widely
usedinseminaries andCatholic ses amis,pp.22,24.
Lamennais,
colleges.Derr£,
64. Appel, TheCuvier-GeoffroyDebate,p.58.
65. Ibid.,
p. 137.
66. Klinck,TheFrench Counterrevolutionary ,p.62.
Theorist
67. Gengembre, La Contre-R6volution,p.222.

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354 Historical Reflections/Reflexions Historiques

developmentforBonald is always providentially-directed in the sense that

itfollowsa patternexternallyimposed by the transcendentGod.
This point leads to a broader critique of Klinck's interpretation. The
thesis of Klinck'sstudyis thatscholars (notablyReedy and Gengembre)
have been wrong to present Bonald as a Christianmetaphysician and
believerina transcendentdeity.Klinck'srevisionary positionis thatBonald
discarded thesense oftranscendence thathad underlainthemetaphysics
and theologyof earliercenturiesand replaced itwithan immanentthis-
worldliness incompatible with any sort of Christianspiritualism.Klinck
locates Bonald inan intellectualworldofpost-Revolutionary Europe whose
task was "to constructa purelyanthropologicalperception of human
relationships,withouthavingrecourse to theologyand metaphysicsand
theirideas offirst and finalcauses. " Bonald accordingly"combined an idea
of the relational nature of the world, derived frommathematics and
physicalscience, withcontemporaryorganicismand vitalismto create a
very original view of human life as an autonomous, self-regulating,
structuring process forBonald, God had become inseparable fromthe
structuring process and itssystems."Concludingthat"Bonald specifically
sought to break away from the seventeenth-and eighteenth-century
identification of human lifewiththe innerworld of the mind or the soul,
and to relocate human lifein the external world of society,history,and
language,"68Klinckidentifieshimas a precursorofnotonlyAugusteComte
and Saint-Simon, but of twentieth-centuryFrench sociology and
structuralism.
Itis certainlytruethatBonald eliminatesscholastic causes, and Klinck
is correct to emphasize Bonald's antisubjectivism.But Bonald does not
assert the autonomyof social life.As we have seen, the false positingof
autonomy is precisely what most disturbs him in the theories of
revolutionariesand contemporarytransformists. Amos Funkensteinhas
studied what he calls "secular theology";thatis, a seventeenth-century
discourse in which theological concerns were expressed in terms of
secular knowledge. The stresslaid by the secular theologianson the self-
sufficiency oftheworldand theautonomyofmankindeventuallyled to the
rejection theologyand even ofreligionby new generationsofsavants.69
of
But thishistoricaloutcome must notbe confused withthe positionof the
secular theologiansthemselves.And yet,is thisnotwhat Klinckhas done,
substitutingBonald forthe seventeenth-century secular theologians and

TheFrench
68. Klinck, Theorist
Counterrevolutionary ,p. 10-12.
69. AmosFunkenstein, andtheScientific
Theology Imaginationfrom
theMiddle
Agesto
theSeventeenth 1986),p.346.
(Princeton,
Century

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 Louis de Bonald 355

theFrenchpositivistsforthenew generationsofsavants?Bonald combated

subjectivismwiththeattemptto discoverthose generaland constantlaws
governingthe social systemthathad been established bya power outside
the system. Bonald is a Christianmetaphysician in the sense that his
rationalismdiscovers thecontingentorderfortheworld established bythe
transcendentGod. What Klinckidentifiesas Bonald's immanentismand
autonomyare onlyrelativelyso withinthesystem;thatis,thetranscendent
God established the social systemto runhenceforthon itsown, just as he
so established the celestial mechanics.
The mattersat stake in Bonald's conception of providence may be
dramatized by contrastinghis science of societywith the philosophyof
historyof Pierre-Simon Ballanche (1776-1847). Ballanche began his
intellectualcareer as an acolyte of both Bonald and Joseph de Maistre,
adopting the theory of primitiverevelation according to which God
imposed societyand language on humanity.Butas his thoughtdeveloped,
throughEssais sur les institutionssociales (1818) to the Essais de
palingenesie sociale (1827-31), Ballanche modifiedhis Traditionalismby
introducinga progressivistelement. Rather than merely acting out the
unfoldingofa divinely-imposed pattern,human beings are activehistorical
agents who work out, under the direction of providence, their own
rehabilitationfromthe effectsofthe Fall in the progressivetransformation
hence, his titleofsocial palingenesis,or social rebirth.
ofsocial institutions;
While continuingto assert its governance of human affairs,Ballanche
historicizesprovidencebylocatingthedivinelaw thatgovernshistoryinthe
unfoldingofthe historicalprocess itself.In factthe FrenchRevolutionas a
palingeneticmomentrevealed social evolutionto be the guidingprinciple
of history.70
Ballanche's philosophyof historycelebrates the spread of libertyand
promises the ultimatetriumphof the plebeians. But while the increase of
liberty,or social progress, is a positive value for Ballanche, this
prometheanism is tempered by Ballanche's insistence on the spiritual
nature and purpose of the social order. Ballanche is thereforesocially
conservative,and was criticizedas such bycontemporaryliberals.Andyet,
the genuine progressivismin his thoughtdeeply troubled the Catholic
Traditionalists,movingJoseph de Maistreto writeBallanche a cautionary
letterwarning him thathis progressivismhad infectedhis Traditionalism
witha "revolutionary The justice of Maistre'scharge is bome out
spirit."71

70. Arthur ARomantic

McCalla, ofHistory
ThePhilosophy
Historiosophy: ofPierre-Simon
Ballanche(LeidenandBoston,
1998),pp.173-84,
303,258.
71. See Charles-Augustin Portraits
Sainte-Beuve, 5 vols.(Paris,1869-
contemporains,
1870,2:27-29.

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356 Historical Reflections/Reflexions Historiques

bytheinfluenceexercised byBallanche's philosophyofhistoryon thenext

generationof liberaland socialist religio-socialtheorists,includingEdgar
Quinet, Pierre Leroux and Philippe Buchez. From Vico's heterogenyof
ends to Hegel's cunning of reason and beyond, theories in which
providence operates indirectlyby means of some mode of internal
directiondemonstratehow thefreeand oftenselfishactions ofindividuals
and groupsunwittingly produce desirable social and spiritualoutcomes.72
Ballanche's social palingenesis is anothersuch theory.Allthese historical
constructionsof an internally-directed providentialismposit a degree of
human autonomy incompatible with Bonald's science of society; their
prometheanismdisruptsthedivinely-ordained hierarchiesand transgresses
the laws fromwhich theyare deduced.
The Darwiniantheoryof evolutionswept away the notionsof both an
externally imposed divine order and providentially-directed interned
development and to
subjected livingbeings contingency and regulation
fromwithina singlevast systemcomprisingtheearthand everything on it.
This revolutionmarks the beginningof modem biological thought.73 The
discipline of history underwent a parallel transformation as historical
explanation became immanent to historyand historians gradually
renounced recourse to extra-historicalagencies guiding the course of
events (althoughthe influenceofGerman Idealism, notablyHegelianism,
persistedthroughout thenineteenthcentury).74 Neitheroftherivalsofearly
nineteenth-century Frenchbiology,Cuvierand Lamarck,qualifyas modem
biological thinkers(althoughboth men contributedimportantideas to its
neitherBonald nor Ballanche are scientifichistorians.
arrival);similarly,
We now have a tendencyto conflateexternally-imposed and internally-
directed providentialistpositions in both religion and science, and to
contrast both to secular positions. In early nineteenth-century France,
however, there was bitteropposition between partisans of externally-
imposedversusinternally-directed providence.Alliancesbetween religious
and scientificthoughtcorresponded to positionstaken in thisdebate, and
their socio-political corollaries. Partisans of an externally-imposed
providentialismprivilegedorderand advocated both social and biological
fixism;partisansofan internally-directed providentialism privilegedliberty
and featuredsocial and biological transformism.
Recognizingthatbothscience and religionare complex social activities
allows us to move beyond a science versus religionmodel to see how

72. Funkenstein,
Theology andtheScientific ,p.204.
Imagination
73. Jacob,
TheLogicofLife,
pp.172-73.
74. SeeGeorg TheGerman
Iggers, ofHistory
Conception seconded.1983).
(Middletown,

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 Louis de Bonald 357

particular historical constructions,such as Bonald's mobilization of

Cuvier's science to defend a traditionalsocial order, unite science and
religionfora particularend and withina particularintellectual,social and
politicalcontext.

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