Lamennais' theory, consistently developed, would lead to acceptance of the vote of the majority as the proof of truth. But our final destination is, as we know, the Catholic religion. It is interesting to follow the vaults by which the principle of authority, conceived of as it is in this work, carries us straight into the arms of the church.
Lamennais begins by defining all learning, all apprehension, as the obeying of an authority. This is the same as Bonald's theory, that we accept language upon the authority of those who teach us it, and accept along with it the truths which are necessary to self-preservation, truths which God in his all-powerful word (_i.e._ language) has revealed to every people upon earth. Our intellectual life, _the law of which is obedience_, is, then, simply a participation in the highest reason, a perfect harmony with the witness which the infinite being has borne of himself. Divine reason, which communicates itself by means of language, is the first cause of the existence of reasonable beings, and faith their necessary manner of being. Thus the principle of certainty and the principle of life are one.
Man being created for truth, the reason of universal humanity cannot err. Very different is it with the reason of the individual, which can be overwhelmed by doubt. If it separates itself from society it dies. _Væ soli!_ exclaims Lamennais. The proud man imagines when he is required to bow to authority that what is demanded of him is that he shall yield up his reason. He is mistaken. Authority is simply universal reason, reason revealed through a witness. "It animates and preserves the universe which it has created. Without it no existence, no truth, no order."
It is, then, authority alone which gives us certainty concerning religion. "Religion is not only doctrine, not only systematised knowledge--it is also, it is essentially, a law." But there is no law without authority; these two ideas involve each other. Thus religion is necessarily based upon authority--the true religion upon supreme authority. It is defined as: "The sum of the laws which follow from the nature of reasonable beings;" and to learn what these are we must, consequently, have recourse to authority.