Tocqueville Final

Historians who write in aristocratic ages generally attribute everything that happens to the will and character of particular men, and they will unhesitantly suppose slight accidents to be the cause of the greatest revolutions.

With great sagacity they trace the smallest causes and often leave the greatest unnoticed. Historians who live in democratic ages show contrary tendences.

Most of them attribute hardly any influence over the destinies of manking ot individuals, or over the fate of a people to the citizens

But they make great general causes responsible for the smallest particular events.

Not content to show how events have occurred they pride themselves on proving that they could not have happened differently. They see a ntaion which has reached a certain point in its history, and they aassert that it was bound to have followed the path that led it there. That is easier than demonstrating how it might have taken a better road

In reading historians of aristocratic ages, those of antiquity in particular, it would seem that in order to be master of his fate and to govern his fellows a man need only to be a master of himself

Perusing the histories written nowadays one would suppose that man had no power, neither over himself, nor over his surroundings.

Classical historians taught how to command; those of our own time teach next to nothing but how to obey. In their writings the author often figures large, but humanity is always tiny.

If this doctrine of fatality, so attractive to those who write history in democratic periods, passes from authors tor eaders, infects the whol mass of te commuinty, and tkaes possession of the public mind, it will soon paralyze the activities of modern society and bring christians down to the level of turks.

I woul add that usch a doctrien is particularly dangerous at the present moment. Our contemporaries are all too much inclided to doubts about free will, since each of them feels himself confined on every side of his own weekness.

But they will freely admit the strength and independence of men united in a body social

It is important not to let this idea grow dim, for we need to raise men’s souls, not to complete their prostration.

The task is no longer to preserve the particular advatnges which inequality of conditions had procurred for men, but to secrue those new benefits which equality may supply. We should not strive to be like our father but should try to attain that form of greatness and of happiness which is proper to ourselves.

for myself, looking back now from the extreme end of my task and seeing at a distance but collected together, all the various things which had attracked my close attention upon my way, I am full of fears and hopes.

I see great dangers which may be warded off and might evils may be avoided or kept in check; and I am ever increasingly confirmed in my belief that for democratic nations to be virtuous and propserous, it is enough if they will to be so.

I am aware that many of my contemporaies think that nations on earth are never their own masters and that they are bound to obey some insuperable and unthinking power, the product of preexisting facts, of race, or soil, or climate.

These are false and cowardly doctrines which can only produce feeble men and pusillanimous nations. Providnece did not make mankind entirely free or completely enslaved.

Providence has in truth drawn a predestined circle around each man beyong which he cannot pass but within those vast limits man is strong and free, and so are peoples.

The nations of our day cannot prevent conditions of equality from spreading in their midst.

But it depends upon themselves whether equality is to lead to survitude or freedom, knowledge or barbarism, prosperity or wretchedness.

I have sought to expose the perils with equality threatens human freedom because I firmly believe that those dangers are both the most formidable and the least foreseen of those which the future has in store.

But I do not think that they are insurmountable.

We should lay down extensive but clear and fixed limits to the field of social power. Private people should be given certain rights and the undisputed enjoyment of such rights. The individual should be allowed to keep the little freedom, strength, and originality left to him.

His position in face of society should be raised and supported. Such, I think, should be the chief aim of any legislator in the age opening before us.

It would seem the sovereigns now only seek to do great things with men. I wish that they would try a little more to make men great, that they shuold attach less importance to the work and more to the workman…

that they should constantly remember that a nation cannot long remain great if each man is individual weak, and that no one has yet devised a form of society or a political combination which can make a people energetic when it is composed of citizens are flabby and feeble. I t

I think that at all times I should have loved freedom, but in the times in which we live, I am disposed to worship it.

On the other hand, I am convinced that in the age now opening before us those who try to base authority on priviledge and aristocracy will fail.

It really is difficult to imagine how poeple who have entirely given up managing their own affairs could make a wise choice of those who are ti di that for them.

One should never expect a liberal energetic, and wise government to originate in the votes of a people of servants

A great many people nowadays very easily fall in with this brand of compromise between administrative despotism and the sovereignty of the people.

That is not good enough for me. I am much less interested in the question who my master is than in the fact of obedience.

Our contemporaries are a prey to two conflicting passions: they feel the need of guidance, and they long to stay free.

Their imagination conceives a government which is unitary, protective, and all-powerful, but elected by the people. Centralization is combined with the sovereignty of the poeple

Having thus taken each citizen in turn in its powerful grasp and shaped him to its will, government than extends its embrace to include the whole of society. It covers the whole of social life with a network of petty, complicated rules that are both minute and uniform, through which even men of the greatest originality and the most vigorous temperant cannot force their head above the crowd.

It does not break men’s will but softens bends and guides it it seldom enjoins but often inhibits action it does not destroy anything but prevents much being born it is not at all tyrannical but it hinders retrains enervants stifles and stultifies so much that in the end each nation is no more than a flock of timid and hardworking arnimals with the government as its shepherd

Over this kind of men stands an immense, protective power which is along responsible for securing their enjoyment and wathing over their fate

It provides for their security, foresees and supplies their necessities, facilitates their pleasures, manages their principle concerns, directions their industry, makes rules for their testamnents, and divides their inheritances. Why should it not entirely relieve them from the trouble of thinking and all the cares of living?

Mankind for him consists in his children and personal friends. As for the rest of his fellow citizens, they are near enough but he does not notice them

He touches them but feels nothing. He exists in and for himself, and though he stull may have a family, one can at least say that he has not got a fatherland.

Taking into considerations the trivial nature of men’s passions now, the softeness of their mores, the extend of their education, the purity of their religion their steady habits of patient work and the restraint which they all show in the indulgence of both their vices and their virtues I do not expect their leaders to be tyrants but rather schoolmasters

Thus I think that the type of oppression which threatens democracies is different from anything there has never been in the world before. Our contemporaries will find no prototype of it in their memories. I have myself vainly searched for a word which will exactly will exactly express the whole of the concpetion I have formed.

I asser that there is no country in Europe in which public administration has not become not only more centralized but also more inquisitive and minute.

Everywhere it meddles more than of old in private affairs. It controls in its own fashion more actin and more of their details, and ever increasingly takes its place beside and above the individual helping advising and constraining him

The sovereigns power having spread as we have seen over the entire sphere of previously existing authorities is not satisfied with that but goes on to extent in every direction over the domain heretofore reserved for personal independence

A multitude of actions which formerly were entirely free from the control of society are now subject thereto and this is constantly increasing

In most countries now education as well as charity has become a national concern. The state recieves, and often takes, the children from its mother’s arms to hand it over to its functionaries; it takes the responsibility for forming the feelings and shaping the ideas of each generation

Uniformity prevails in schoolwork as in everything else; diversity as well as freedom is daily vanishing

Refelcting on what has already been said, one is both startled and alarmed to see how everything in Europe seems to tend towards the indefinite extension of the prerogatives of the central power and to make the status of the individual weaker, more subordinate, and more precarious

The democratic nations of Europe share all the general and permanent tendencies which are leading the Americans toward the centralization of power, and they are also influenced by a great many secondary and accidental causes which do not apply in America. Each step they take toward equaltiy seems to bring them nearer to despotism

The chief and, in a sense, the only condition necessary in order to succeed in centralizing the surpreme power in a democratic society is to love equality or to make believe that you do so.

Thus the art of despotism once so complicated has been simplified; one may almost say that it has been reduced to a single principle

Men who live in times of equality naturall love the central power and willingly extend its prerogatives.

But if it happens that this power faithfully represents their interests and is an exact mirror of their instincts, there is hardly any limit to the confidence that will repose in it, for they feel that everything they give it is given to themselves.

I think that extreme centralization of political power ultimately enervates society and thus, in the end, weakens the government too.

But I do not deny that with the power of soicety thus centralized, great undertakings can be carried through at a given time and for a specific purpose

That is especially true in war, in which success depends much more on the capacity all one’s power

to bear quickly at a given point than on the actual extent of one’s resources

I think that in the dawning centuries of democracy

individual independence and local liberties will always be the products of art. Centralized government will be the natural thing

Every central power which follows its natural instincts loves equality and favors it.

For equality singularly facilitares, extends, and secures its influence.O

One can also assert that every central government worships uniformity; uniformity saves it the troble of inquiring into infinite details, which would be necessary if the rules were made to suit men instead of subjecting all men indiscriminately ot the same rule.

The government’s faults are forgiven for the sake of its tastes, only with reluctance is public confidence withdrawn, whatever its excesses or mistakes, and it is restored at the first call. Democratic people often hate those in whose hands the central power is vested, but they often love that power itself.

I am certainly not the one to say that such inclinations are invincible, for my chief aim in writing this book is to combat them.

I am only asserting that in our time a secret force constantly fosters them in the human heart, and if they are simply left unchecked they will fill it all

The inhabitatns of democracies having neither superiors or inferiors nor habitual and necessary partners readily fall back upon themselves and think of themselves in isolation. I went into that matter at length when discussing individualism.

It is therefore always an effort for such men to tear themselves away from their private affairs and pay attention to those of the community; the natural inclination is to leave the only visible and permanent representative of collective interests, that is to say, the state, to look after them

Our contemporaries therefore are much less divided than is commonly supposed. They do argue constantly about what should have sovereign power, but they readily agree about the duties and rights of that power.

They all think of the government as a sole simply providentail and creative force

In both cases these oppostute mental attitutes in the end turn into instincts and habits so blind and invincible that, with few exceptions, they still control men’s behavior.

In contrast to which, nowadays governments wear themselfs out imposing uniform customs and laws on populations with nothing yet in common

Morever in politics as in philosophy and religion democratic peoples give a ready welcome to simply general ideas

They are put off by complicated systems and like to picutre a great nation in which every citizens resembles one set type and is controlled by one single power

Next after the idea of a single central power that of uniform legislation eqaully spontaneously takes its place in the though of men in times of equality

The faintest differeces in the political institutions of a single people give him plain and legistaltive uniformity strikes him as the first condition of good government

But this notion of a uniform rule imposed equally on all members of the body social seems to have been strange to men’s thoughts in ages of aristocracy.

Either it did not enter their heads or else they rejected it

Nations easily see the former tendency and resist it. But they let themselves by carried along by the latter without seeing it. So it is most important to point it out

For my part, far from blaming equality for the intractability it inspires, I am chiefly disposed to praise it just for that

I am convinced that anarchy is not the greatest of the ills to be feared in democatic times, but the least

Two tendences int he fact result from equality, the one first leads men directly to independence and could suddenly push them right over into anarchy; the other, by a more roundabout and secret but also more certain raod, leads to them to servitute

This love of independence is the first and most striking freature of the political effects of equality and the one which frightens timid spirits the most

As the citizens have no direct influence on one another, as soon as the central power that holds them in place begins to falter, it would seem that disorder must reach a climax and that, each citizen drawing separately aside, the fabric of society must fall into dust

for my part I have no hesitation in saying that although the American woman never leaves her domestic sphere and is in some respects very dependent within it nowhere does she enjoy a higher station.

And now that I come near the end of this book which which I have recorded so many considerable achievements of the American if anyone asks me what I think the chief cause of the extraordinary prosperity and growing power of its nation, I should answer that it is due to the surperiority of their women

Thus, then, while they have allowed the social inferiority of woman to continue, they have done everything to raise her morally and intellectually to the level of man.

In this I think they have wonderfully understood the true conception of democratic progress.

It may, moreoever, be said that our moral standards accord a strange immunity to man, so that virtue is one thing in his case and quite another for his spouse, and that the same act can be seen by public opinion as a crime in the one but onyl a fault ni the other.

The Americans know nothing of this unfair division of duties and rights. With them the seducer is as much dishonored as his victim

Americans constantly display complete confidence in their spouses judgement and deep respect for their freedom. Tehy hold that woman’s mind is just as capable as man’s of discovering the naked truth, and her heart as firm to facce it.

They have never sought to place her virtue, any more than his under the protection of prejudice ignorance or fear

If the American woman is never allowed to leave the quiet sphere of domestic duties, she is also never forced to do so.

As a result American woman who are often manly in their intelligence and in their energy usually preserve great delicacy of personal appearance and always have the manners of women though they sometimes show the minds and hearts of men

In america more than anywhere else in the world, care has been taken constantly to trace clearly distinct sphere of action for the two sexes, and both are required to keep in step, but along paths along are never the same.

You will never find American women in charge of the external relations of the family, managing a business or interfering in politics;but they are also never obliged to undertake rough laborer’s work or any task requiring hard physical exertion

That is far from being the American viewof the sort of democratic equality which can be brought about between man and woman. They think that nature, which created such great differences between the physical and moral constituion of men and women, clearly intended to give their diverse faculties a diverse employement; and they consider that progress consists not in making dissimilar creaties do roughly the same things but in giving both a chance to do their job as well as possible.

The Americans have applied to the sexes the great principle of political economy which now dominates industry. They have carefully separated the functoins of man and of woman so that the great work of soicety may be better performed

In Europe there are people who confusing the divergent attributes of the sexes claim to make of man and woman creatures who are, not equal only but actually similar.

It is easy to see that the sort of equality forced on both sexes degrades them both, and that so coarse a jumble of nature’s work could produce nothing but feeble men and unseemly women

I have shown how democracy destroys or modifies those varous inequalities which are in origin social. But is that the end of the matter?

May it not ultimately come to change the great inequality between mamn and woman which has up till now seemed based on the eternal foundations of nature?

At the time of their highest culture the Romans strangled the generals of their enemies when they had dragged them in triumph behind their chariots, and they delievered prisoners over to wild beats for the amusement of the poeple.

Cicero who raised such a storm of complaint about the crucifixation of a Roman citizen, had nothing to say about this atrocious abuse of victor.I

it is evident that in his eyes a stranger is not of the same type of humanity a roman

but as people become more like one another they show themselves reciprocally more compassionate and the law of nations becomes more general

There is a circumstance which conclusively shows that this singular mildness of the Americans is chiefly due to their social condition and that is the way they treat their slaves

It may be that, generally speaking, there is no European colony in the New World where the physical conditions of the blacks are less hard than in the US Nevertheless slaves there suffer terrible affliction and are constantly subject to very cruel punishments

There is no country in which criminal justice is administered with more kindness than in the US. While the English seem bent on carefully preserving in their penal legislation the bloody traces of the Middle ages the Americans have almost elimnated capital punishment from their codes

North America is, I think, the only country on earth which has not taken the life of a single citizen for political offenses during the last fifty years

In democratic ages men rarely sacrifice themselves for another, but they show a general compassion for all the human race. One never sees them inflict pointless suffering, and they are glad to relieve the sorrows of others when they can do so without much trouble to themselves. They are not disinterested but they are gentle

Although the Americans may be said to have reduced egoism to a social and philosophic theory, they nonetheless show themselves . They are not disintersted but ehy are gentle

On the other hand whatever enervates and lowers it wekaens it for ever purpose the least as well as the greatest and threatend to make it almost equally impotent in both. Therefore the soul must remain great and strong, if only that it may from time to time put its strength and greatness at the service of the body

If men ever came to be content with physical things only, it seems like that they woudl gradually lose the art of producing them and would end up enjoying them without discernment and without improvement like animals

It is because man is able to raise himself above the things of the body and evnen to scorn itself, a matter of which the beasts have not the least notion, that he can mutliple these same good things of the body to a degree of which they have no conception

Whatever elevates, enlarges, and expands the soul makes it more able to succeed even in those undertakings which are not the soul’s concern

Why is it then, that animals only know how to satisfy their primary and coarest needs, whereas we can infinitely vary and continually increase our delights

That which makes than the brutes in this is that we employ our souls to find which instinct along directs them

But preachers in America are continually coming down to earth. Indeed they find it difficult to take their eyes off it. The better to touch their heaers, they are foever pointing out how religious beliefs favor freedome and public order…

and it is often difficult to be sure when listening to them whether the main object of religion is to procure eternal felicity in the next world or prosperity in this

Not only do the Americans practice their religion out of self interest but they often even place in this world the interest which they have in practicing it.

Priests in the Middle Ages spoke of nothing but the other life; they hardly took any trouble to prove that a sincere Christian might be happy here belowT

They practice their religion therefore without shame and without weakness. But in the very midst of their zeal one generally sees something so quiet, so methodical

so calculated that it would seem that the head rather than the heart leads them to the foot of the altar

Even if he does feel some doubt about the objects of his hopes he will not easily let that hold him back, and he will think it wise to risk some of the good things of this world to save his claims to the immense inhereitance promise in the next

If we make a mistake by thinking the Christian religion true, Pascal has said, we have no great thing to lose. But if we make a mistake by thinking it false, how dreadful is our case

Hence I do not thing that interest is the only driving force behind men of religion.

But I do not think that interest is the chief means used by religious themselves to guide men, and I have no doubt that that is how they work on the crowd and become popular

Christianity does..teach that we must prefer others to ourselves in order to gain heaven. But Christianity also teaches that we must do good to our fellows for love of god.

That is a sublime utterance; man’s mind filled with understanding of God’s thought; he sees that order is God’s plan in freedom labors for this great design ever sacrificing his private interests for this wondrous ordering of all that is, and expecting no other rewaard than the joy of contemplating it

I do not think that the doctrine of self-interest as preached in American is in all respect self-evidennt. but it does contain many truths so clear that for men to see them it is enough to educate them.

Hence it is all important for them to be educated, for the age of blind sacrifice and instintctive virtues is already long past and I see a time approaching in which freedom public peace, and social stability willl not be able to last without educationIf

If citizens attaining equality were to remain ignorant and coarse it would be difficult to foresee any limit to the stupid exccesses into which their selfishness might lead them and no one could..

foretell into what shameful troubles they might plunge themselves for fear of sacrificing some of their own well-being for the prosperity of their fellow men

I do not think, by and large, that there is more egoism among us than in America the only difference is that there it is enlightened while here it is not. Every american has the sense to sacrifice some of his private interst to sve the rest. we want to keep and often lose the lot

I see around nothing but people bent publically on proving by word and deed that what is useful is never wrong. is there no chance of finding some who will make the public understand that what is right may be useful

The doctrine of self-interest properly understood does not inspire great sacrifices but ever day it prompts some small ones by itself it cannot make a man virtuous but its discipline shapes a lot of orderly…

temperate moderate careful and self-controlled citizens. If it does not lead the will directly to cvirtue it establihses habits which unconciously turn it that way

The Ameriacns on the other hand enjoy explaining almost ever act of their lives on the principle of self-interest properly understood. It gives them pleasure to pooint to point out how an unlightened self love continually leads them to help one another and disposes them freely to give part of their time and wealth for the good of the state.

But the Americans are hardly prepared to admit that tehy do give way to emotions of this sort. They prefer to give the credit to their philosphoy rather than to themselves

when the world was under the control of a few rich and powerful men, they liked to entertain a sublime conception of the duties of man. It gratified them to make out that it is a glorious thing to forget oneself and that one should do good without self-interest as God himself does. That was offical doctrine of morality at that time.

I doubt whether men were better in times of aristocracy than at aother times. but certainly they talked continually about the beauties of virtue. Only in secret did they study its utility

These are undoubtedly great benefits and one can understand why, to gain or keep them, a nation may agree for a time to impose galling restrictions on itself; but still a nation should know what price it pays for these blessing.

To save a man’s life, I can understand cutting off his arm. But I don’t want anyone to tell me that he will be as dexterous without it.

In this way by the enjoyment of a dagnerous liberty the Americans learn the art of rendering the dangers of freedom less formidable

One hears it said that such and such a ntaion could not maintain internal peaceinspire respect for its laws or establish a stable government if it dod not set struct limits to the right of association

I do not asser that there can be no civil associations in a country in which political associations are forbidden for men canot live in society without undertaking some thnigs in common

But I maintain that in such a country civil associations will always be few feebly conceived and unskillfully managed and either will never form any vast design or will fail in the execution of them

I think that a democratic people without any national representatives assembly but with a great number of small local powers would in the end have more newspapers than would another people government by a centralized administration and an elected legislature.

I find the best explanation for the prodigious growth of the daily press in the US in the fact that there the greatest national freedom is combined with all manner of local liberties

In democratic countires knowledge of how to combine is the mother of all other forms of knowledge on its progress depends that of all the others.

Among laws controlling human societies there is one more precise and clearer, it seems to me than all the others. If men are to remain civilized or to become civilized the art of asociation must developand improve among them at the same speed as equaltity of conditions spreads

Nothing…more deserves than the intellectual and moral associations in America. American political and industrial associations easily catch our eyes but the others tend not to be noticed.

And even if we do notice them we tend to misunderstand them, hardly ever having seen anything similar before. however, we should recognizze that the latter are as necessary as the former to the american people perhaps more so. I ah

I have shown how these influences are reduced almost to nothing in democratic countries

they must therefore be artificially created and only associations can do that

It is easy to see the time coming in which men will be less and less able to produce by each alone the commonest bare necessities of life….

And if ultimately as a result of the minute subdivision of landed property the land itself is so infinitely parceled out that it can only be culitvated by associations of laborers must the head of the government leave the helm of state to gude the plow

A government could take the place of some of the largest associations in America and some particular states of the Union have already attempted that

But what political power could ever carry on the vast multitude of lesser undertakings which associations daily enable American citizens to control?

I know know that mnay of my contemporaries are not the least embarrassed by this difficulty. They claim that as the citizens become weaker and more helpless, the government must become proprtionately more skillful and active so that society should do what is no longer possible for individuals.

they think that answeres the whol problem, but I thnik that they are mistaken

A people in which individuals had lost the power of carrying through great enterprises by themselves without acquring the faculty of doing them together would soon fall back into barbarism

unhappily the same social conditions that render associations so necessary to democratic nations alos make their formation more difficult there than elsewhere.B

But among democratic people all the citizens are independent and weak. They can hardly do anything for thsemvles and none of them is in a position to force his fellows to help him.

They would all therefore find themselves helpless if they did not learn to help each other vooluntarily

In the US political associations are only one small part of the immense number of different types of associations found there. Americans of all ages all stations in life, and all types of disposiition are forever forming associations

Finally if they want to proclaim a truth or propagate some feeling by the encouragement of a great example they form an association. In ever case, at the head of any new undertaking where in france you would find the government or in England some territorial magnate in the US you are sure to find an association

There are more men in France who regard equality of conditions as the first of evils and political liberty as the second. When forced to submit to the former, they strive at least to escape the latter

But for my part, I maintain that there is only one effective remedy against the evisl which equality may cause, and that is political liberty

At first it is of necessity that men attent do the public interest afterward by choice. What had been calculation becomes instinct.

By dint of working for the godo of his fellow citizens, he in the end acquires a habit and taste for serving them

Some brilliant achievement may win a people’s favor at one stroke. But to gain the affection and respect of your immediate neighbors, a long succession of little services rendered and of obscure good deeds, a constant habit of kindness and an established reputation for disinterestedness are required

Local liberties then which induce a great number of citizens to value the affection of their kindred and neighbors bring men constatnly into contact despite the instincts which separate them and force them to help one another

But if it is a question of takign a road past his property he sees at onece that this small public matter has a point to him the close interests and there is no need to point out to him the close connection between his private profit and the general interest

This far more may be done by entusting citizens with management of minor affairs than by handing over control of great matters toward interesting them in the public welfare and convincing them that they constantly stand in need of one another in order to provide for it

The lawgivers of America did not suppose that a general representation of the whole nation would suffice to ward off a disorder at once so natural to the body social of a democracy and so fatal.

They thought it also right to give each paty of the land its own political life so that there shuold be an infinite number of occasions for the citizens to act together and so that every day they should feel that they depend on one another

Liberty engenders particualr hatreds but despotism is responsible for general indifference

The Americans have used liberty to combat the individualism born of equality and they have won

Equality puts men side by side without a common link to hold them firm. Despotims raises barriers to keep them apart. It disposes them not to think of their fellows and turns indifferences into a sort of public virture

Despotism dangerous at all times is therefore particularly to be feared in ages of democracy

it is easy to see that in such ages men have a peculair need for freedom

citizens who are bound to tkae part in public affairs must turn from the private interests and occassionaly take a look at something other than themselves

This vices originating in despotism are precisely those favored by equality

The two opposites fatally complete and support each other

Despotism by its very nature suspicious sees the isolation of men as the best guarantee of its own permanence. So it usually does all it can to isolate them. Of all the vices of the human heart egoism is that which suits it best.

He calls those who try to unite their efforts to create a general prosperity turbulent and restless spirits and twisting the natural meaning of words he calls those good citizens who care for none but themselves

Thus not only does democracracy make men forget their ancestors but also clouds their view of their descendants and isolates them from their contemporaries.

Each man is forever thrown back on himself alone, and there is danger that he may be shut in the solitiude of his own heart

As social equality spreads there are more and more people who though neither ruch nor powerful enough to have much hiold over others have gained or kept enough wealth and enough understanding to look after their own needs

They form the habit of thinking of themselves in isolation and imagine that their whole destiny is in their own hands

Individualism is a calm considered feeling which disposes each citizen to isolate himself from the mess of his fellows and withdraw into the circle of family and friends; with this little society formed to his taste he gladly leaves the greater society to look after itself

Individualism is of democratic origin and threatens to grow as conditions get more qual

they want equality in freedom and if they cannot have that they still want equality in slavery. they will put up with poverty, servitude, and barbarsism but they will not endure aristocracy

I have shown how in ages of equality every man finds his beliefs within himself and I shall now go on to show that all his feelings are turning in on himselfthe

the passion for equality seeps into every corner of the human heart expands and fills the whole it is no use telling them that by this blind surrender to an exclusive passion they are compromising their dearest interests they are deaf

it is no use pointing out that freedom is slipping from their grasp while they look the other awy they are blind or rather they can see but one thing to covet in the whole world

Democratic peoples always like equality but there are times when their passion for it turns to delirum. This happens when the old social hierarchy long meanced finally collapses after a severe internal struggle and the barriers of rank are at length thrown down.

At such times men pounce on equality as their booty and cling to it as a precious treasure they fear to have snatched away