BONALD, LOUIS GABRIEL AMBROISE DE

French statesman and social and political theorist, whose writings not only epitomized traditionalism but also influenced significantly the development of sociological theory; b. Le Monna, near Millau (Rouergue, Aveyron), France, Oct. 2, 1754; d. Paris, Nov. 23, 1840. His family, Catholic and of the "nobility of the robe" (magistrates), had him educated by the Oratorians of Juilly, where he came under the influence of Malebranche's philosophy. He emigrated during the French Revolution but later found favor with Napoleon and returned to France. Under the Restoration monarchy, he was elected to the Académie Française (1816) and named vicomte (1821) and peer (1823). As the leading theorist of the ultraroyalists, he opposed all liberal tendencies. After the Revolution of 1830, he resigned his peerage and retired to Le Monna.

The purpose Bonald set for himself in his writings was to overcome the effects of Enlightenment rationalism by establishing, after the manner of a geometrician proving a series of theorems, the principles upon which a well-ordered society would be founded. To him these included a union of an absolute political power with an absolute religious power in a hierarchical society ordering every aspect of life according to immutable principles arrived at by deduction. Bonald argued first that since man cannot have invented language, God must have revealed it to the first man, and with it all religious, social, and moral truths. It followed that tradition and not individual human reason was the necessary means of attaining truth. The argument embodied all the basic elements of traditionalism, including a failure to distinguish between the natural and supernatural orders of reality, but when the traditionalist position—as a kind of fideism—was condemned by the Catholic Church, Bonald's works were not specifically included in the condemnation (cf. Denz. 2811–2814, 3026). His principal writings are La Théorie du pouvoir politique et religieux (1796), which sets forth his main thesis regarding the nature of society; and La Législation primitive … (1802) and Recherches philosophiques … (1818), which together embody most of his arguments.

Bonald's originality lay in his ability to construct an internally consistent system that could treat politics, social organization, religion, the arts, education, and, in theory, all elements in a culture as interacting functions within a closed order. An a priori explanation was applicable to all. His ideas were assimilated in such varied intellectual traditions as those represented by Henri de Saint-Simon, Félicité de Lamennais, Auguste Comte, Hippolyte Taine, and Charles Maurras; the explanation lies principally in the fact that Bonald, grappling with the problem of the relationship between the individual and society, resolved it in favor of man's being, and being only, a product of society. Thus, both the authoritarian and the positivistic implications of Bonald's work have assured it a place in the history of ideas.

Bibliography: Oeuvres complètes, ed. j. p. migne, 3 v. (Paris 1859). c. constantin, Dictionnaire de théologie catholique 2:958–961. h. mouliniÈ, De Bonald: La Vie, la carrière politique, la doctrine (Paris 1916). r. spaemann, Der Ursprung der Soziologie aus dem Geist der Restauration: Studien über L. G. A. de Bonald (Munich 1959). m. h. quinlan, The Historical Thought of the Vicomte de Bonald (Washington 1953).

[m. h. quinlan]