464 PHILOSOPHICAL THOUGHT. 



been called -Traditionalism, is worked out in detail and 

 results in the dictum that law is the servant of morality 

 and morality the servant of theology. Only Divine in- 

 stitution gives stability to any sovereignty, otherwise the 

 latter would be exposed to continual change. 



It is philosophically interesting to note that de Bonald 

 finds the original and primitive instrument towards social 

 order to be language, the spoken word, and that he con- 

 siders this, together with the human intellect of which it 

 is the first and most important function, to be a Divine 

 revelation. We may incidentally note also that his con- 

 temporary in Germany, Herder, likewise looked upon the 

 origin of language as one of the fundamental questions 

 in the larger problem of humanity. 



Still further in the direction of reaction proceeds de 

 Maistre, who looks upon the whole revolutionary move- 

 ment as a chastisement inflicted by Providence on the 

 French nation. He does not believe in any form of 

 government deliberately formed by human beings. Social 

 order grows out of historical conditions, its best form 

 is a monarchy, but above the monarch he places the 

 religious Head, the worldly representative of God, the 

 Pope, who has to act as a kind of supreme arbiter in 

 case of international wars or of internal conflicts such as 

 that between oppressors and oppressed. He believes in 

 a general restoration of religion. His principal works 

 appeared during the first twenty years of the century. 

 He is considered to be the founder of what is now 

 termed Ultramontanism. 1 



1 The phase in modern thought 

 usually termed the Catholic re- 

 action in the beginning of the 



century, and represented in France 

 by de Bonald, de Maistre, and 

 Chateaubriand (1768 - 1848), had 



