But if, on the contrary, the opponents of the principle of authority insist: The object of society is the greatest happiness of its members, and the object of marriage the welfare of the family, we are left free to find out what this welfare and this greatest happiness are. And if they further say: "Moral purity consists in that species of relation between beings of opposite sexes which conduces most to their development and mutual happiness, taking the farthest off as well as the immediate results of the union into consideration," this definition, supposing it to be accepted or put to the test of experiment, leaves such freedom for thorough and scientific investigation into all that concerns the health of the body, of the soul, and of society as has never before been known.
Order and refinement! These were the watchwords of the champions of the principle of authority. By all means let us have order and refinement—but what men have had to learn, and what they will learn even though it should take them centuries, is that order and refinement are the work of science or natural development, and never are or can be the work of arbitrary legislation, or of a criminal code and a public opinion founded upon tradition and authority. There is no real ordering, no real order of society but that which is the result of scientific insight into the nature of man. All societies—the society called the family as well as that called the state—exist, not for their own sake, but for the sake of men, for the purpose of enabling each individual composing them to attain certain great aims and great benefits. Such aims and benefits are personal development, moral purity, the education of the young, the protection of women.
If these objects can only be attained in the manner indicated by the principle of authority, then of course liberty, in so many other domains regarded as a blessing, is in these domains to be regarded as a curse, and is to be attacked and exterminated. But if they can possibly be attained in other ways, possibly be attained better in other ways (and such a possibility is difficult to disprove), if, finally, the measure of attainment arrived at in the traditional manner is hardly worth taking into account, then absolutely free inquiry, without regard to human or superhuman authority, is man's bounden duty. In a century such as that in which we live the principle of authority, as the principle which prevents all free inquiry, is the worst, the most stupid, and the most degrading that can be imagined, and stands self-condemned. The man who, by deriding or forbidding free investigation into any social question whatsoever, prevents, as he undoubtedly does, the suggestion of hypotheses and the trying of practical experiments which might prove to be of value to his fellow-men, is a criminal, for whom, if there were equity and justice upon earth, no punishment would be considered too severe. It unfortunately happens that the majority of educated men are criminals of this class, so that the prospect of having them punished is very slight.
Bonald was such a criminal; but in his outward circumstances we can find no trace of the pursuit of an avenging Nemesis. He lived to the age of eighty-six, and was all his life one of the most influential and respected men of his period. He died in 1840, full of days and of honour.
[1] Louis de Viel-Castel, Histoire de la Restauration, iv. 487.
[2] "La société a pour parvenir à sa fin, qui est sa conservation, des lois". Du Divorce, 107.
[3] Progrès de la révolution et de la guerre contre l'église, p. 35.
[4] John Stuart Mill, Autobiography, p. 256.
[5] See, for example, Stephen Pearl Andrews, Love, Marriage, and Divorce (New York); also Émile de Girardin, L'homme et la femme.