But, absurd in many of its details as Bonald's theory is, it is valuable, nay, precious, as being in all its main features a consistent application of the principle of authority in the domain of the family. Bonald has, what semi-liberals never have, a keen perception of the connection between the political and the social principles of the Revolution. He is not able, like those whose very essence is foolish inconsistency, to separate the former from the latter, and to overlook the fact that the traditional theory of marriage, which is still in part the accepted one, is most intimately connected with the traditional theory of the state, which is now generally rejected. The connection becomes obvious whenever the matter is discussed. The American slave-owners defended themselves against the accusations of the abolitionists by declaring that the relations existing between slaves and their masters were in no respect vitally different from those existing in the family and in marriage. We see, too, that quite as much has been said and written against the permissibility of divorce in any case whatever as would be said and written to-day against a proposal to increase the facility of divorce, or, indeed, against any change in the received conception of what makes the union of man and woman desirable. In this province, as in every other, the principle of authority has as its opponent the principle of free thought--in various forms. If we leave the socialistic theories (which we shall consider later in connection with the Saint-Simonists) altogether out of the question, we find authority confronted in the matter under discussion by free thought in the shape of the principle of individualism, as developed by English, French, and American thinkers. The code of laws drafted by the Convention, from which extracts have been given above, is based on this principle, the fundamental idea of which is that it is not, as is generally maintained, the family, but the individual human being who is the main pillar of society, and that this individual is sovereign. The doctrine of the sovereignty of God, as proclaimed by the devotees of hereditary autocracy, and the ambiguous doctrine of the sovereignty of the people, as proclaimed by the revolutionary worshippers of the majority, are superseded by the doctrine of _the sovereignty of the individual_ (an expression first employed by the American writer Samuel Warren, from whom it was borrowed by John Stuart Mill).[4] Sovereignty of the individual ensures, as the phrase implies, the absolute liberty of every human being--prohibits any man's usurping any authority or control whatever over other men. The adherents of this doctrine say: _Either_ tutelage for every one, _i.e._ censorship of the press, a regular police-spy system, passports, tariffs, prohibition of divorce, laws regulating the intercourse of the sexes--the whole system of arbitrary restriction of the freedom of the individual, _or_ the