 Part 2, CHAPTER XI and XII of Democracy in America, Vol. 2. CHAPTER XI. It may be supposed, from what has just been said, that the love of physical gratifications must constantly urge the Americans to irregularities in morals, disturb the peace of families, and threaten the security of society at large. Such is not the case. The passion for physical gratifications produces in democracies effects very different from those which it occasions in aristocratic nations. It sometimes happens that, wearied with public affairs and sated with opulence, admits the ruin of religious belief and the decline of the state, the heart of an aristocracy, may by degrees be seduced to the pursuit of sensual enjoyments only. At other times the power of the monarch or the weakness of the people, without stripping the nobility of their fortune, compels them to stand aloof from the administration of affairs, and whilst the road to mighty enterprise is closed, abandons them to the inquiitude of their own desires. They then fall back heavily upon themselves and seek in the pleasures of the body oblivion of their former greatness. When the members of an aristocratic body are thus exclusively devoted to the pursuit of physical gratifications, they commonly concentrate in that direction all the energy which they derive from their long experience of power. Such men are not satisfied with the pursuit of comfort. They require sumptuous depravity and splendid corruption. The worship they pay, the senses, is a gorgeous one, and they seem to vie with each other in the art of degrading their own natures. The stronger, the more famous, and the more free an aristocracy has been, the more depraved will it then become, and however brilliant may have been the luster of its virtues, I dare predict that they will always be surpassed by the splendor of its vices. The taste for physical gratifications leads a democratic people into no such excesses. The love of well-being is there displayed as a tenacious, exclusive universal passion, but its range is confined. To build enormous palaces, to conquer or to mimic nature, to ransack the world in order to gratify the passions of man is not thought of. But to add a few roots of land to your field, to plant an orchard, to enlarge a dwelling, to be always making life more comfortable and convenient, to avoid trouble and to satisfy the smallest wants without effort and almost without cost. These are small objects, but the soul clings to them. It dwells upon them closely and day by day, till they at last shut out the rest of the world and sometimes intervene between itself and heaven. As it may be said, can only be applicable to those members of the community who are in humble circumstances. Wealthier individuals will display tastes akin to those which belong to them in aristocratic ages. I can test. The proposition in point of physical gratifications. The most opulent members of a democracy will not display taste very different from those of the people, whether it be that springing from the people they really share those tastes, or that they esteem it a duty to submit to them. In democratic society the sensuality of the public has taken a moderate and tranquil course to which all are bound to conform. It is as difficult to depart from the common rule by one's vices as by one's virtues. Each men who live amidst democratic nations are therefore more intent on providing for their smallest wants than for their extraordinary enjoyments. They gratify a number of petty desires without indulging in any great irregularities of passion, thus they are more apt to become ennevarated than debauched. The special taste which the men of democratic ages entertain for physical enjoyments is not naturally opposed to the principles of public order. Nay, it often stands in need of order that it may be gratified. Nor is it adverse to regularity of morals. For good morals contribute to public tranquility and are favorable to industry. It may even be frequently combined with a species of religious morality. Men wish to be as well off as they can in this world without foregoing their chance of another. Some physical gratifications cannot be indulged in without crime. From such they strictly abstain. The enjoyment of others is sanctioned by religion and morality. To these the heart, the imagination, and life itself are unreservedly given up, till and snatching at these lesser gifts. Men lose sight of those more precious possessions which constitute the glory and the greatness of mankind. The reproach I address to the principle of equality is not that it leads men away in the pursuit of forbidden enjoyments, but that it absorbs them wholly in quest of those which are allowed. By these means a kind of virtuous materialism may ultimately be established in the world which would not corrupt but innervate the soul and noiselessly unbend its springs of action. See in America, Volume 2, by Alex Day Tocqueville, translated by Henry Reeve, Part 2, Chapter 12, Causes of Fanatical Enthusiasm in some Americans. Although the desire of acquiring the good things of this world is the prevailing passion of the American people, certain momentary outbreaks occur when their souls seem suddenly to burst the bonds of matter by which they are restrained, and to soar imputuitously toward heaven. In all the states of the Union, but especially in the half-peopled country of the far west, wandering preachers may be met with who hawk about the Word of God from place to place. Whole families, old men, women and children cross rough passes and untrodden wiles, coming from a great distance to join a camp meeting, where they totally forget for several days and nights in listening to these discourses, the cares of business, and even the most urgent wants of the body. Here and there in the midst of American society, you meet with men full of a fanatical and almost wild enthusiasm which hardly exists in Europe. From time to time strange sex arise, which endeavor to strike out extraordinary paths to eternal happiness. Religious insanity is very common in the United States. Nor ought these facts to surprise us. It was not man who implanted in himself the taste for what is infinite, and the love of what is immortal. Those lofty instincts are not the offspring of his capricious will. Their steadfast foundation is fixed in human nature, and they exist in spite of his efforts. He may cross and distort them, destroy them he cannot. The soul has wants which must be satisfied, and whatever pains be taken to divert it from itself, it soon grows weary, restless, and disquieted amidst the enjoyments of sense. If ever the faculties of the great majority of mankind were exclusively bent upon the pursuit of material objects, it might be anticipated that an amazing reaction would take place in the souls of some men. They would drift at large in the world of spirits, for fear of remaining shackled by the close bondage of the body. It is not then wonderful if, in the midst of a community whose thoughts tend earthward, a small number of individuals are to be found who turn their looks to heaven. I should be surprised if mysticism did not soon make some advance amongst a people solely engaged in promoting its own worldly welfare. It is said that the deserts of the Thebad were peopled by the persecutions of the emperors and the massacres of the circus. I should rather say that it was by the luxuries of Rome and the Epicurean philosophy of Greece, if their social condition, their present circumstances, and their laws did not confine the minds of the Americans so closely to the pursuit of worldly welfare. It is probable that they would display more reserve and more experience whenever their attention is turned to things in material. And that they would check themselves without difficulty. But they feel imprisoned within bounds which they will apparently never be allowed to pass. As soon as they have passed these bounds, their minds know not where to fix themselves, and they often rush unrestrained beyond the range of common sense. CHAPTER XII. PART II. CHAPTERS XIII AND XIV. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. CHAPTER XIII. IN CERTAIN REMOTE CORNERS OF THE OLD WORLD. YOU MAY STILL SOMETIMES DUMBLE UPON A SMALL DISTRICT, WHICH SEEMS TO HAVE BEEN FORGOTTEN AMIDST THE GENERAL TOLMOLT, AND TO HAVE REMAINED STATIONARY WHILE EVERYTHING AROUND IT WAS IN MOTION. The inhabitants are for the most part extremely ignorant and poor. They take no part in the business of the country, and they are frequently oppressed by the government. Yet their countenances are generally placid, and their spirits light. In America I saw the freest and most enlightened mend, placed in the happiest circumstances which the world affords. It seemed to me, as if a cloud habitually hung upon their brow, and I thought them serious and almost sad even in their pleasures. The chief reason of this contrast is that the former do not think of the ills they endure. The latter are forever brooding over advantages they do not possess. It is strange to see with what feverish adore the Americans pursue their own welfare, and to watch the vague dread that constantly torments them lest they should not have chosen the shortest path which may lead to it. A native of the United States clings to this world's goods as if he were certain never to die, and he is so hasty in grasping all within his reach that one would suppose he was constantly afraid of not living long enough to enjoy them. He clutches everything. He holds nothing fast, but soon loosens his grasp to pursue fresh gratifications. In the United States a man builds a house to spend his latter years in it, and he sells it before the roof is on. He plants a garden, and lets it just as the trees are coming into bearing. He brings a field into tillage, and leaves other men to gather the crops. He embraces a profession and gives it up. He settles in a place which he soon afterwards leaves, to carry on his changeable longings elsewhere. If his private affairs leave him any leisure, he instantly plunges into the vortex of politics, and if at the end of a year of unrementing labor he finds he has a few days' vacation, his eager curiosity whirls him over the vast extent of the United States, and he will travel fifteen hundred miles in a few days to shake off his happiness. Death at length overtakes him. It is before he is weary of his bootless chase of that complete felicity which is forever on the wing. At first sight there is something surprising in this strange unrest of so many happy men, restless in the midst of abundance. The spectacle itself is, however, as old as the world. The novelty is to see a whole people furnish an exemplification of it. Their taste for physical gratifications must be regarded as the original source of that secret inquietude which the actions of the Americans betray, and of that inconstancy of which they afford fresh examples every day. He who has set his heart exclusively upon the pursuit of worldly welfare is always in a hurry, for he has but a limited time at his disposal to reach it, to grasp it, and to enjoy it. The recollection of the brevity of life is a constant spur to him, besides the good things which he possesses. He every instant fancies a thousand others which death will prevent him from trying if he does not try them soon. This thought fills him with anxiety, fear, and regret, and keeps his mind in ceaseless trepidation, which leads him perpetually to change his plans and his abode. If in addition to the taste for physical well-being a social condition be super-added in which the laws and customs make no condition permanent. Fear is a great additional stimulant to his restlessness of temper. Men will then be seen continually to change their track, for fear of missing the shortest cut to happiness. It may readily be conceived that if men passionately bent upon physical gratifications, desire eagerly, they are also easily discouraged, as their ultimate object is to enjoy the means to reach that object must be prompt and easy, or the trouble of acquiring the gratification would be greater than the gratification itself. Their prevailing frame of mind then is at once adorant and relaxed, violent and ineverated. Death is often less dreaded than perseverance in continuous efforts to one end. The equality of conditions leads by a still, straighter road to several of the effects which I have here described. Will all the privileges of birth and fortune all abolished, when all professions are accessible to all, and a man's own energies may place him at the top of any one of them? An easy and unbounded career seems open to his ambition, and he will readily persuade himself that he is born to no vulgar destinies. But this is an erroneous notion, which is corrected by daily experience. The same equality which allows every citizen to conceive these lofty hopes renders all the citizens less able to realize them. It circumscribes their powers on every side, whilst it gives freer scope to their desires. Not only are they themselves powerless, but they are met at every step by immense obstacles, which they did not at first perceive. They have swept away the privileges of some of their fellow creatures which stood in their way, but they have opened the door to universal competition. The barrier has changed its shape rather than its position. When men are nearly alike, and all follow the same tract, it is very difficult for any one individual to walk quick and cleave away through the dense throng which surrounds and presses him. This constant strife between the propincities springing from the equality of conditions, and the means it supplies to satisfy them, harasses and wearies the mind. It is possible to conceive men arrived at a degree of freedom which should completely content them. They would then enjoy their independence without anxiety and without impatience. But men will never establish any equality with which they can be contented. Whatever efforts a people may make, they will never succeed in reducing all the conditions of society to a perfect level. And even if they unhappily attained that absolute and complete depression, the inequality of minds would still remain, which, coming directly from the hand of God, will forever escape the laws of man. However, democratic then, the social state and the political constitution of a people may be, it is certain that every member of the community will always find out several points about him which command his own position, and we may foresee that his looks will be dodgily fixed in that direction. When inequality of conditions is the common law of society, the most marked inequalities do not strike the eye. When everything is nearly on the same level, the slightest are marked enough to hurt it. Hence, the desire of equality always becomes more insatiable in proportion as equality is more complete. Amongst democratic nations, men easily attain a certain equality of conditions. They can never attain the equality they desire. It perpetually retires before them, yet without hiding itself from their sight, and in retiring draws them on. At every moment they think they are about to grasp it. It escapes at every moment from their hold. They are near enough to see its charms, but too far off to enjoy them. And before they have fully tasted its delights, they die. To these causes much be attributed that strange melancholy which, off times, will haunt the inhabitants of democratic countries in the midst of their abundance, and that disgust at life which sometimes seizes upon them in the midst of calm and easy circumstances. Complaints are made in France that the number of suicides increases. In America, suicide is rare, but insanity is said to be more common than anywhere else. These are all different symptoms of the same disease. The Americans do not put an end to their lives, however disquieted they may be, because their religion forbids it, and amongst them materialism may be said hardly to exist, not withstanding the general passion for physical gratification. The will resists. Reason frequently gives way. In democratic ages, enjoyments are more intense than in the ages of aristocracy, and especially the number of those who partake in them is larger. But on the other hand, it must be admitted that man's hopes and his desires are oftener blasted, the soul is more stricken and perturbed, and care itself more keen. Volume 2 by Alexis de Tocqueville, translated by Henry Reeve, Part 2, Chapter 14, Taste for Physical Gratifications United in America to Love of Freedom and Attention to Public Affairs When a democratic state turns to absolute monarchy, the activity which was before directed to public and to private affairs is all at once centered upon the latter. The immediate consequence is, for some time, great physical prosperity. But this impulse soon slackens, and the amount of productivity industry is checked. I know not if a single trading or manufacturing people can be cited, from the Tyrians down to the Florentines, and the English, who are not a free people also. There is therefore a close bond and necessary relation between these two elements, freedom and productive industry. This proposition is generally true of all nations, but especially of democratic nations. I have already shown that men who live in ages of equality continually require to form associations in order to procure the things they covet, and, on the other hand, I have shown how great political freedom improves and diffuses the art of association. Freedom in these ages is therefore especially favorable to the production of wealth, nor is it difficult to perceive that deposism is especially adverse to the same result. The nature of a despotic power in democratic ages is not to be fierce or cruel, but minute and meddling. Despotism of this kind, though it does not trample on humanity, is directly opposed to the genius of commerce and the pursuits of industry. Thus the democratic ages require to be free in order more readily to procure those physical enjoyments for which they are always longing. It sometimes happens, however, that the excessive taste they conceive for these same enjoyments abandons them to the first master who appears. The passion for worldly welfare then defeats itself, and, without perceiving it, throws the object of their desires to a greater distance. There is indeed a most dangerous passage in the history of a democratic people. In the taste for physical gratifications amongst such a people has grown more rapidly than their education and their experience of free institutions. The time will come when men are carried away and lose all self-restraint at the sight of the new possessions they are about to lay hold upon. In their intense and exclusive anxiety to make a fortune, they lose sight of the close connection which exists between the private fortune of each of them and the prosperity of all. It is not necessary to do violence to such a people in order to strip them of the rights they enjoy. They themselves willingly loosen their hold. The discharge of political duties appears to them to be a troublesome annoyance, which diverts them from their occupations and business. If they be required to elect representatives, to support the government by personal service, to meet on public business, they have no time. They cannot waste their precious time in useless engagements. Such idle amusements are unsuited to serious men who are engaged with the more important interests of life. These people think they are following the principle of self-interest, but the idea they entertain of that principle is a very rude one, and the better to look after what they call their business. They neglect their chief business, which is to remain their own masters. As the citizens who work do not care to attend to public business, and as the class which might devote its leisure to those duties has ceased to exist, the place of the government is, as it were, unfilled. If at that critical moment some able and ambitious man grasps the supreme power, he will find the road to every kind of usurption be opened before him. If he does but attend for some time to the material prosperity of the country, no more will be demanded of him. Of all, he must ensure public tranquility. Men who are possessed by the passion of physical gratification generally find out that the turmoil of freedom disturbs their welfare, before they discover how freedom itself serves to promote it. If the slightest rumor of public commotion intrudes into the petty pleasures of private life, they are aroused and alarmed by it. The fear of anarchy perpetually haunts them, and they are always ready to fling away their freedom at the first disturbance. I readily admit that public tranquility is a great good, but at the same time I cannot forget that all nations have been enslaved by being kept in good order. Certainly it is not to be inferred that nations ought to despise public tranquility, but that state ought not to content them. A nation which asks nothing of its government but the maintenance of order is already a slave at heart, the slave of its own well-being, awaiting but the hand that will bind it. By such a nation the despotism of faction is not less to be dreaded than the despotism of an individual. When the bulk of the community is engrossed by private concerns, the smallest parties need not despair of getting the upper hand in public affairs. At such times it is not rare to see upon the great stage of the world, as we see at our theatres, a multitude represented by a few players, who alone speak in the name of an absent or inattentive crowd. They alone are in action, whilst all are stationary. They regulate everything by their own caprice. They change the laws. They tyrannize it will over the manners of the country. And then men wander to see into how small a number of weak and worthless hands a great people may fall. Hitherto the Americans have fortunately escaped all the perils which I have just pointed out. And in this respect they are really deserving of admiration. Perhaps there is no country in the world where fewer idle men are to be met with than in America, or where all who work are more eager to promote their own welfare. But if the passion of the Americans for physical gratifications is viminate, at least it is not indiscriminating, and reason, though unable to restrain it, still directs its course. An American attends to his private concerns as if he were alone in the world, and the next minute he gives himself up to the common will as if he had forgotten them. At one time he seems animated by the most selfish cupidity. At another by the most lively patriotism. The human heart cannot be thus divided. The inhabitants of the United States alternately display so strong and so similar a passion for their own welfare and for their freedom, that it may be supposed that these passions are united and mingled in some part of their character. And indeed the Americans believe their freedom to be the best instrument and surest safeguard of their welfare. They are attached to the one by the other. They by no means think that they are not called upon to take apart in the public will. They believe, on the contrary, that their chief business is to secure for themselves a government which will allow them to acquire the things they covet, and which will not debar them from the peaceful enjoyment of those possessions which they have acquired. CHAPTER XIV. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. CHAPTER XV. In the United States, on the seventh day of every week, the trading and working life of the nation seems suspended. All noises cease. A deep tranquility, say, rather a solemn calm of meditation, succeeds the turmoil of the week, and the soul resumes possession and contemplation of itself. Upon this day the marts of traffic are deserted. Every member of the community accompanied by his children goes to church, where he listens to strange language that would seem unsuited to his ear. He is told of the countless evils caused by pride and covetedness. He is reminded of the necessity of checking his desires, of the finer pleasures which belong to virtue alone, and of the true happiness which attends it. On his return home he does not turn to the ledgers of his calling, but he opens the Book of Holy Scripture. There he meets with sublime or affecting descriptions of the greatness and goodness of the Creator, of the infinite magnificence of the handiwork of God, of the lofty destinies of man, of his duties, and of his immortal privileges. Thus it is that the American at times steals an hour from himself and laying aside for a while the petty passions which agitate his life, and the ephemeral interest which engross it, he strays at once into an ideal world where all is great, eternal, and pure. I have endeavored to point out in another part of this work the causes to which the maintenance of the political institutions of the Americans is attributable, and religion appeared to be one of the most prominent amongst them. I am now treating of the Americans in an individual capacity, and I again observe that religion is not less useful to each citizen than to the whole state. The Americans show by their practice that they feel the high necessity of imparting morality to democratic communities by means of religion. What they think of themselves in this respect is a truth of which every democratic nation ought to be thoroughly persuaded. I do not doubt that the social and political constitution of a people predisposes them to adopt a certain belief and certain tastes which afterwards flourish without difficulty amongst them, whilst the same causes may divert a people from certain opinions and propensities without any voluntary effort, and, as it were, without any distinct consciousness on their part. The whole art of the legislature is correctly to discern beforehand these natural inclinations of communities of men in order to know whether they should be assisted or whether it may not be necessary to check them. For the duties incumbent on the legislature differ at different times. The goal toward which the human race ought ever to be tending is alone stationary. The means of reaching it are perpetually to be varied. If I had been born in an aristocratic age, in the midst of a nation where the hereditary wealth of some and the irremediable perninary of others should equally divert men from the idea of bettering their condition, and hold the soul as it were in a state of torpor fixed on the contemplation of another world, I should then wish that it were possible for me to rouse that people to a sense of their wants. I should seek to discover more rapid and more easy means for satisfying the fresh desires which I might have awakened, and directing the most strenuous efforts of the human mind to physical pursuits. I should endeavor to stimulate it to promote the well-being of man. If it happened that some men were immoderately incited to the pursuit of riches and displayed an excessive liking for physical gratifications, I should not be alarmed. These peculiar symptoms would soon be absorbed in the general aspect of the people. The attention of the legislatures of democracies is called to other cares. Give democratic nations education and freedom and leave them alone. They will soon learn to draw from this world all the benefits which it can afford. They will improve each of the useful arts, and will day by day render life more comfortable, more convenient, and more easy. Our social condition naturally urges them in this direction. I do not fear that they will slacken their course. But whilst man takes delight in this honest and lawful pursuit of his well-being, it is to be apprehended that he may in the end lose the use of his sublimus faculties, and that whilst he is busy in improving all around him, he may at length degrade himself. Here only does the peril lie. It should therefore be the unceasing object of the legislatures of democracies, and of all the virtuous and enlightened men who live there, to raise the souls of their fellow men and keep them lifted up towards heaven. It is necessary that all who feel an interest in the future destinies of democratic society should unite, and that all should make joint and continual efforts to diffuse the love of the infinite, a sense of greatness, and a love of pleasures, not of earth. If amongst the opinions of democratic people any of those pernicious theories exist which tend to inoculate that all perishes with the body, let men by whom such theories are professed be marked as the natural foes of such a people. The materialists are offensive to me in many respects, their doctrines I hold to be pernicious, and I am disgusted at their arrogance. If their system could be of any utility to man it would seem to be by giving him a modest opinion of himself. But these reasoners show that it is not so, and when they think they have said enough to establish that they are brutes, they show themselves as proud as if they had demonstrated that they are gods. Materialism is, amongst all nations, a dangerous disease of the human mind. But it is more especially to be dreaded amongst a democratic people, because it readily amalgates with that vice which is most familiar to the heart under such circumstances. Democracy encourages a taste for physical gratification, this taste, if it become excessive soon disposes men to believe that all is matter only, and materialism in turn hurries them back with mad impatience to these same delights. Which is the fatal circle within which democratic nations are driven round? It were well that they should see the danger and hold back. Most religions are only general, simple, and practical means of teaching men the doctrine of the immortality of the soul. That is the greatest benefit which a democratic people derives. From its belief, and hence belief, is more necessary to such a people than all others. When therefore any religion has struck its roots deep into democracy, beware lest you disturb them, but rather watch it carefully, as the most precious bequest of aristocratic ages. Seek not to supersede the old religious opinions of men by new ones, lest in the passage from one faith to another the soul being left for a while stripped of all belief. The love of physical gratifications should grow upon it and fill it wholly. The doctrine of metempsychosis is assuredly not more rational than that of materialism. Nevertheless, if it were absolutely necessary that a democracy should choose one of the two, I should not hesitate to decide that the community would run less risk of being brutalized by believing that the soul of man will pass into the carcass of a hog than by believing that the soul of man is nothing at all. The belief in a supersensual and immortal principle united for a time to matter is so indispensable to man's greatness that its effects are striking even when it is not united to the doctrine of future reward and punishment, and when it holds no more than that after death the divine principle contained in man is absorbed in the deity or transferred to animate the frame of another creature. Men holding so imperfect a belief will still consider the body as the secondary and inferior portion of their nature, and they will despise it even whilst they yield to its influence, whereas they have a natural esteem and secret admiration for the in-material part of man, even though they sometimes refuse to submit to its dominion. That is enough to give a lofty cast to their opinions and their taste, and to bid them tinned with no interested motive, and as it were by impulse to pure feelings and elevated thoughts. It is not certain that Socrates and his followers had very fixed opinions as to what would befall man hereafter, but the sole point of belief on which they were determined, that the soul has nothing in common with the body and survives it, was enough to give the Platonic philosophy that sublime aspiration by which it is distinguished. It is clear from the works of Plato that many philosophical writers, his predecessors or contemporaries, professed materialism. These writers have not reached us or have reached us in mere fragments. The same thing has happened in almost all ages. The greater part of the most famous minds in literature adhere to the doctrines of supersensual philosophy. The instinct and the taste of the human race maintain those doctrines. They save them often times in spite of men themselves, and raise the names of their defenders above the tide of time. It must not then be supposed that at any period or under any political condition the passion for physical gratifications and the opinions which are super-induced by that passion can ever content a whole people. The heart of man is of a larger mold. It can at once comprise a taste for the possessions of earth and the love of those of heaven. At times it may seem to cling devotedly to the one, but it will never be long without thinking of the other. If it be easy to see that it is more particularly important in democratic ages that spiritual opinions should prevail, it is not easy to say by what means those who govern democratic nations may make them predominant. I am no believer in the prosperity any more than in the durability of official philosophies, and as to state religions I have always held that if they be sometimes of momentary service to the interest of political power they always, sooner or later, become fatal to the church. Where do I think with those who assert that to raise religion in the eyes of the people and to make them do honor to her spiritual doctrines it is desirable indirectly to give her ministers a political influence which the laws deny them? I am so much alive to the almost inevitable dangers which beset religious belief whenever the clergy take part in public affairs. And I am so convinced that Christianity must be maintained at any cost in the bosom of modern democracies that I had rather shut up the priesthood within the sanctuary than allow them to step beyond it. What means then remain in the hands of constituted authorities to bring men back to spiritual opinions or to hold them fast to the religion by which those opinions are suggested? My answer will do me harm in the eyes of politicians. I believe that the sole effectual means which governments can employ in order to have the doctrine of the immortality of the soul duly respected is ever to act as if they believed in it themselves, and I think that it is only by scrupulous conformity to religious morality in great affairs that they can hope to teach the community at large to know, to love, and to observe it in the lesser concerns of life. Democracy in America, Volume 2 by Alex de Tocqueville, translated by Henry Reeve, Part 2, Chapter 16, That Excessive Care of Worldly Welfare May Impair That Welfare There is a closer tie than is commonly supposed between the improvement of the soul and the amelioration of what belongs to the body. Man may leave these two things apart and consider each of them alternately, but he cannot sever them entirely without at last losing sight of one and of the other. The beasts have the same senses as ourselves, and very nearly the same appetites. We have no sensual passions which are not common to our race and theirs, and which are not to be found, at least in the germ, in a dog as well as in a man. Wince, is it then that the animals can only provide for their first and lowest wants, whereas we can infinitely vary and endlessly increase our enjoyments? We are superior to the beasts in this, that we use our souls to find out those material benefits to which they are only led by instinct. In man the angel teaches the brute the art of contending its desires. It is because man is capable of rising above the things of the body, and of contemning life itself, of which the beasts have not the least notion, that he can multiply these same things of the body to a degree which inferior races are equally unable to conceive. Whatever elevates, enlarges, and expands the soul, renders it more capable of succeeding in those very undertakings which concern it not. Whatever on the other hand, innervates, lowers it, weakens it, for all purposes, the chiefest as well as the least, and threatens to render it almost equally impotent for the one and for the other. Hence the soul must remain great and strong, though it were only to devote its strength and greatness from time to time to the service of the body. If men were ever to content themselves with material objects, it is probable that they would lose by degrees the art of producing them, and they would enjoy them in the end like the brutes, without discernment and without improvement. CHAPTER XII OF VOLUME II OF DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA by Alexis de Tocqueville, translated by Henry Reeve. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. That in times marked by equality of conditions and skeptical opinions, it is important to remove to a distance the objects of human actions. In the ages of faith the final end of life is placed beyond life. The men of those ages, therefore naturally, and in a manner involuntarily, accustom themselves to fix their gaze for a long course of years on some immovable object, towards which they are constantly tending. And they learn by insensible degrees to oppress a multitude of petty, passing desires, in order to be better able to content that great and lasting desire which possesses them. When these same men engage in the affairs of this world, the same habits may be traced in their conduct. They are apt to set up some general and certain aim and end to their actions here and below, towards which all their efforts are directed. They do not turn from day to day to chase some novel object of desire, but they have subtle designs which they never worry of pursuing. This explains why religious nations have so often achieved such lasting results. For whilst they are thinking only of the other world, they have found out the great secret of success in this. Nations give men a general habit of conducting themselves with a view to futurity. In this respect, they are not less useful to happiness in this life than to felicity hereafter, and this is one of their chief political characteristics. But in proportion as the light of faith grows dim, the range of man's sight is circumscribed, as if the end and aim of human actions appeared every day to be more within his reach. When men have once allowed themselves to think no more of what is to befall them after life, they readily lapse into that complete and brutal indifference to futurity, which is but too conformable to some propensities of mankind. As soon as they have lost the habit of placing their chief hopes upon remote events, they naturally seek to gratify without delay their smallest desire, and no sooner do they despair of living forever than they are disposed to act as if they were to exist but for a single day. In skeptical ages it is always therefore to be feared that men may perpetually give way to their daily casual desires, and that wholly renouncing whatever cannot be acquired without protracted effort, they may establish nothing great, permanent, and calm. If the social condition of a people under these circumstances becomes democratic, the danger which I here point out is thereby increased. When everyone is constantly striving to change his position, when an immense field for competition is thrown open to all, when wealth is amassed or dissipated in the shortest possible space of time amidst the turmoil of democracy, visions of sudden and easy fortunes, of great possessions easily won and lost, of chance under all of its forms, haunt the mind, the instability of society itself fosters the natural instability of man's designs. In the midst of these perpetual fluctuations of his lot, the present grows upon his mind until it conceals futurity from his sight, and his looks go no further than the moral. In those countries in which unhappily irreligion and democracy coexist, the most important duty of philosophers and of those in power is to be always striving to place the objects of human actions far beyond man's immediate range. Circumstcribed by the character of his country and his age, the moralist must learn to vindicate his principles in that position. He must constantly endeavor to show his contemporaries that, even in the midst of the perpetual commotion around them, it is easier than they think to conceive and to execute protracted undertakings. He must teach them that, although the aspect of mankind may have changed, the methods by which men may provide for their prosperity in this world are still the same, that amongst democratic nations as well as elsewhere, it is only by resisting a thousand petty selfish passions of the hour that the general and unquenchable passion for happiness can be satisfied. The task of those in power is not less clearly marked out. At all times it is important that those who govern nations should act with a view towards the future. But this is even more necessary in democratic and skeptical ages than in any others. By acting thus, the leading men of democracies not only make the public affairs prosperous, but they also teach private individuals, by their example, the art of managing private concern. Above all, they must strive as much as possible to banish chance from the sphere of politics. This sudden and undeserved promotion of a courtier produces only a transient impression in an aristocratic country. As the aggregate institutions and opinions of the nation habitually compel men to advance slowly in tracks which they cannot get out of. But nothing is more pernicious than a similar instance of favor exhibited to the eyes of a democratic people. They give the last impulse to the public mind in a direction where everything hurries it onwards. At times of skepticism and equality more especially, the favor of the people or of the prince, which chance may confer or chance withhold, ought never stand in lieu of attainment or services. It is desirable that every advancement should there appear to be the result of some effort, so that no greatness should be of too easy a requirement, and that ambition should be obliged to fix its gaze long upon an object before it is gratified. Governments must apply themselves to restore to men that love of the future which religion and the state of society no longer inspire them. And without saying so, they must practically teach the community day by day that wealth, fame, and power are the rewards of labor, that great success stands at the utmost range of long desires, and that nothing lasting is obtained but what is obtained by toil. When men have accustomed themselves to foresee from afar what is likely to befall in the world and to feed upon hopes, they can hardly confine their minds within the precise circumference of life, and they are ready to break the boundary and cast their looks beyond. I do not doubt that by training the members of a community to think of their future condition in this world, they would be gradually and unconsciously brought nearer to religious convictions. Thus, the means which allow men up to a certain point, to go without religion, are perhaps, after all, the only means we still possess for bringing mankind back by a long and roundabout path to a state of faith, and of Chapter 17, Chapter 18, that amongst the Americans all honest callings are honorable. A democratic people, where there is no hereditary wealth, every man works to earn a living, or has worked, or is born of parents who have worked. The notion of labor is therefore presented to the mind on every side as the necessary, natural, and honest condition of human existence. Not only is labor not dishonorable amongst such a people, but it is held in honor. The prejudice is not against it, but in its favor. In the United States, a wealthy man thinks that he owes it to public opinion to devote his leisure to some kind of industrial or commercial pursuit, or to public business. He would think himself in bad repute if he employed his life solely in living. It is for the purpose of escaping this obligation to work that so many rich Americans come to Europe, where they find some scattered remains of aristocratic society, amongst which idleness is still held in honor. Equality of conditions not only ennobles the notion of labor in men's estimation, but it raises the notion of labor as a source of profit. In aristocracies it is not exactly labor that is despised, but labor with a view to profit. Labor is honorific in itself when it is undertaken at the sole bidding of ambition or of virtue. Yet in aristocratic society it constantly happens that he who works for honor is not insensible to the attractions of profit. But these two desires only intermingle in the innermost depths of his soul. He carefully hides from every eye the point at which they join. He would feign conceal it from himself. In aristocratic countries there are few public officers who do not affect to serve their country without interested motives. Their salary is an incident of which they think but little, and of which they always affect not to think at all. Thus the notion of profit is kept distinct from that of labor. However they may be united in point of fact they are not thought of together. In democratic communities these two notions are, on the contrary, always palpably united. As the desire of well-being is universal, as fortunes are slender or fluctuating, as everyone wants either to increase his own resources or to provide fresh one for his progeny, men clearly see that it is profit which, if not holy, at least partially leads them to work. Even those who are principally actuated by the love of fame are necessarily made familiar with the thought that they are not exclusively actuated by that motive, and they discover that the desire of getting a living is mingled in their minds with the desire of making life illustrious. As soon as, on one hand, labor is held by the whole community to be an honorable necessity of man's condition, and, on the other, as soon as labor is always ostensibly performed, holy or in part, for the purposes of earning remuneration, the immense interval which separated different callings in aristocratic society disappears. If they are not all alike all at least have one feature in common. No profession exists in which men do not work for money, and the remuneration which is common to them all gives them all an air of resemblance. This serves to explain the opinions which Americans entertain with respect to different callings. In America no one is degraded because he worked, for everyone about him works also, nor is anyone humiliated by the notion of receiving pay, for the President of the United States also works for pay. He is paid for commanding, other men for obeying orders. In the United States professions are more or less laborious, more or less profitable, but they are never either high or low. Every honest calling is honorable. End of Chapter 18. End of Part 20. This has been a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org. This reading was done by Ralph Volpe. Part 2, chapters 19 and 20 of Democracy in America Volume 2. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Anna Simon. Democracy in America Volume 2 by Alexis de Tocqueville, translated by Henry Reeve. Part 2, chapter 19. That almost all the Americans follow industrial callings. Agriculture is, perhaps, of all the useful arts that which improves most slowly amongst democratic nations. Frequently, indeed, it would seem to be stationary, because other arts are making rapid strides towards perfection. On the other hand, almost all the tastes and habits which the equality of condition and genders naturally lead men to commercial and industrial occupations. Suppose an active, enlightened and free man enjoying a competency but full of desires. He is too poor to live in idleness. He is rich enough to feel himself protected from the immediate fear of want, and he thinks how he can better his condition. This man has conceived a taste for physical gratifications which thousands of his fellow men indulge in around him. He has himself begun to enjoy these pleasures, and he is eager to increase his means of satisfying these tastes more completely. But life is slipping away. Time is urgent. To what is he to turn? The cultivation of the ground promises an almost certain result to his exertions, but a slow one. Men are not enriched by it without patience and toil. Agriculture is therefore only suited to those who have already large superfluous wealth, or to those whose penury bids them only seek a better subsistence. The choice of such a man as we have supposed is soon made. He sells his plot of ground, leaves his dwelling, and embarks in some hazardous but lucrative calling. Democratic communities abound in men of this kind, and in proportion as the equality of conditions becomes greater, their multitude increases. Thus democracy not only swells the number of working men, but it leads men to prefer one kind of labor to another, and whilst it diverts them from agriculture, it encourages their taste for commerce and manufacturers. This spirit may be observed even amongst the richest members of the community. In democratic countries, however opulent a man is supposed to be, he is almost always discontented with his fortune, because he finds that he is less rich than his father was, and he fears that his sons will be less rich than himself. Most rich men in democracies are therefore constantly haunted by the desire of obtaining wealth, and they naturally turn their attention to trade and manufacturers, which appear to offer the readiest and most powerful means of success. In this respect they share the instinct of the poor without feeling the same necessities. Say rather they feel the most imperious of all necessities, that of not sinking in the world. In aristocracies the rich are at the same time those who govern. The attention which they unseasonally devote to important public affairs diverts them from the lesser cares which trade and manufacturers demand. If the will of an individual happens, nevertheless, to turn his attention to business, the will of the body to which he belongs will immediately debar him from pursuing it. For however men may declaim against the rule of numbers they cannot wholly escape their sway, and even amongst those aristocratic bodies which most obstinately refuse to acknowledge the rights of the majority of the nation, a private majority is formed which governs the rest. This, however, strikes me as an exceptional and transitory circumstance. When wealth is become the only symbol of aristocracy it is very difficult for the wealthy to maintain sole possession of political power to the exclusion of all other men. The aristocracy of birth and pure democracy are at the two extremes of the social and political state of nations. Between them, moneyed aristocracy finds its place. The letter approximates to the aristocracy of birth by conferring great privileges on a small number of persons. It's so far belongs to the democratic element that these privileges may be successfully acquired by all. It frequently forms a natural transition between these two conditions of society, and it is difficult to say whether it closes the reign of aristocratic institutions or whether it already opens the new era of democracy. In democratic countries, where money does not lead those who possess it to political power but often remove them from it, the rich do not know how to spend their leisure. They are driven into active life by the inquiritude and the greatness of their desires and by the extent of their resources, and by the taste for what is extraordinary, which is almost always felt by those who rise by whatsoever means above the crowd. Trade is the only road open to them. In democracies, nothing is more great or more brilliant than commerce. It attracts the attention of the public and fills the imagination of the multitude. All energetic passions are directed towards it. Neither their own prejudices nor those of anybody else can prevent the rich from devoting themselves to it. The wealthy members of democracies never form a body which has manners and regulations of its own. The opinions peculiar to their class do not restrain them, and the common opinions of their country urge them on. Moreover, as all the large fortunes which are to be met with in democratic community are of commercial growth, many generations must succeed each other before their possessors can have entirely laid aside their habits of business. Circumstried within the narrow space which politics leave them, rich men in democracies eagerly embark in commercial enterprise. There they can extend and employ their natural advantages, and indeed it is even by the boldness and the magnitude of their industrial speculations that we may measure the slight esteem in which productive industry would have been held by them if they had been born amidst an aristocracy. A similar observation is likewise applicable to all men living in democracies, whether they be poor or rich. Those who live in the midst of democratic fluctuations have always before their eyes the phantom of chance, and they end by liking all undertakings in which chance plays a part. They are therefore all led to engage in commerce, not only for the sake of the profit it holds out to them, but for the love of the constant excitement occasioned by that pursuit. The United States of America have only been emancipated for half a century, in 1840, from the state of colonial dependence in which they stood to Great Britain. The number of large fortunes there is small, and capital is still scarce. Yet no people in the world has made such rapid progress in trade and manufacturers as the Americans. They constitute at the present day the second maritime nation in the world, and although their manufacturers have to struggle with almost insurmountable natural impediments, they are not prevented from making great and daily advances. In the United States, the greatest undertakings and speculations are executed without difficulty because the whole population is engaged in productive industry, and because the poorest as well as the most opulent members of the Commonwealth are ready to combine their efforts for these purposes. The consequence is that a stranger is constantly amazed by the immense public works executed by a nation which contains, so to speak, no rich man. The Americans arrived but as yesterday on the territory which they inhabit, and they have already changed the whole order of nature for their own advantage. They have joined the Hudson to the Mississippi, and made the Atlantic Ocean communicate with the Gulf of Mexico across a continent of more than 500 leagues in extent which separates the two seas. The longest railroads which have been constructed up to the present time are in America, but what most astonishes me in the United States is not so much the marvellous grandeur of some undertakings as the innumerable multitude of small ones. Almost all the farmers of the United States combine some trade with agriculture. Most of them make agriculture itself a trade. It seldom happens that an American farmer settles for good upon the land which he occupies, especially in their districts of the far west, he brings land into tillage in order to sell it again, and not to farm it. He builds a farmhouse on the speculation that as the state of the country will soon be changed by the increase of population a good price will be gotten for it. Every year a swarm of the inhabitants of the north arrive in the southern states and settle in the ponds with a cotton plant and a sugar cane grow. These men cultivate the soil in order to make it produce in a few years enough to enrich them, and they already look forward to the time when they may return home to enjoy the competency thus acquired. Thus the Americans carry their business-like qualities into agriculture, and their trading passions are displayed in that as in their other pursuits. The Americans make immense progress in productive industry because they all devote themselves to it at once, and for this same reason they are exposed to very unexpected and formidable embarrassments. As they are all engaged in commerce, their commercial affairs are affected by such various and complex causes that it is impossible to foresee what difficulties may arise. As they are all more or less engaged in productive industry, at the least shock given to business, all private fortunes are put in jeopardy at the same time, and the state is shaken. I believe that the return of these commercial panics is an endemic disease of the democratic nations of our age. It may be rendered less dangerous, but it cannot be cured, because it does not originate in accidental circumstances, but in the temperament of these nations. CHAPTER XX. That aristocracy may be engendered by manufacturers. I have shown that democracy is favourable to the growth of manufacturers, and that it increases without limit the numbers of the manufacturing classes. We shall now see by what side-road manufacturers may possibly in their turn bring men back to aristocracy. It is acknowledged that when a workman is engaged every day upon the same detail, the whole commodity is produced with greater ease, promptitude and economy. It is likewise acknowledged that the cost of the production of manufactured goods is diminished by the extent of the establishment in which they are made, and by the amount of capital employed or of credit. These truths had long been imperfectly discerned, but in our time they have been demonstrated. They have been already applied to many very important kinds of manufacturers, and the humblest will gradually be governed by them. I know of nothing in politics which deserves to fix the attention of the legislator more closely than these two new axioms of the science of manufacturers. When a workman is unceasingly and exclusively engaged in the fabrication of one thing, he ultimately does his work with singular dexterity, but at the same time he loses the general faculty of implying his mind to the direction of the work. He every day becomes more adored and less industrious, so that it may be said of him that in proportion as the workman improves, the man is degraded. What can be expected of a man who has spent twenty years of his life in making heads for pins? And to what can that mighty human intelligence, which has so often stirred the world, be applied in him, excepted be to investigate the best method of making pins' heads? When a workman has spent a considerable portion of his existence in this manner, his thoughts are forever set upon the object of his daily toil. His body has contracted certain fixed habits which he can never shake off. In a word, he no longer belongs to himself, but to the calling which he has chosen. It is in vain that laws and manners have been at the pains to level all barriers round such a man, and to open to him on every side a thousand different paths to fortune. A theory of manufacturers more powerful than manners and laws binds him to a craft, and frequently to a spot which he cannot leave. It assigns to him a certain place in society beyond which he cannot go. In the midst of universal movement, it has rendered him stationary. In proportion is the principle of the division of labour is more extensively applied, the workman becomes more weak, more narrow-minded, and more dependent. The art advances, the artisan recedes. On the other hand, in proportion as it becomes more manifest that the productions of manufacturers are by so much the cheaper and better as the manufacturer is larger, and the amount of capital employed more considerable. Wealthy and educated men come forward to embark on manufacturers which were here to fall, abandoned, to poor or ignorant handicrafts men. The magnitude of the efforts required and the importance of the results to be obtained attract them. Thus, at the very time at which the science of manufacturers lowers the class of workmen, it raises the class of masters. Whereas the workman concentrates his faculties more and more upon the study of his single detail, the master surveys a more extensive whole, and the mind of the latter is enlarged in proportion as that of the former is narrowed. In a short time the one role require nothing but physical strength without intelligence. The other stands in need of science and almost of genius to ensure success. This man resembles more and more the administrator of a vast empire, that man a brute. The master and the workman have then here no similarity, and their differences increase every day. They are only connected as the two rings at the extremities of a long chain. Each of them fills the station which is made for him, and out of which he does not get. The one is continually, closely, and necessarily dependent upon the other, and seems it's much more to obey as that other is to command. What is this but aristocracy? As the conditions of man constituting the nation become more and more equal, the demand for manufactured commodities becomes more general and more extensive, and the cheapness which places these objects within the reach of slender fortunes becomes a great element of success. Hence there are every day more men of great opulence and education who devote their wealth and knowledge to manufacturers, and who seek by opening large establishments and by a strict division of labour to meet the fresh demands which are made on all sides. Thus in proportion as the mass of the nation turns to democracy, that particular class which is engaged in manufacturers becomes more aristocratic. Men grow more alike in the one, more different in the other, and inequality increases in a less numerous class in the same ratio in which it decreases in the community. Hence it would appear on searching to the bottom that aristocracy should naturally spring out of the bosom of democracy. But this kind of aristocracy by no means resembles those kinds which proceeded it. It will be observed at once that as it applies exclusively to manufacturers and to some manufacturing callings it is a monstrous exception in the general aspect of society. The small aristocratic societies which are formed by some manufacturers in the midst of the immense democracy of our age contain like the great aristocratic societies of former ages some men who are very opulent and a multitude who are wretchedly poor. The poor have few means of escaping from their condition and becoming rich, but the rich are constantly becoming poor or they give up business when they have realized a fortune. Thus the elements of which the class of the poor is composed are fixed, but the elements of which the class of the rich is composed are not so. To say the truth, though there are rich men, the class of rich men does not exist. For these rich individuals have no feelings or purposes in common, no mutual traditions or mutual hopes. They are their full members, but nobody. Not only are the rich not compactly united amongst themselves, but there is no real bond between them and the poor. Their relative position is not a permanent one. They are constantly drawn together or separated by their interests. The workman is generally dependent on the master, but not on any particular master. These two men meet in the factory, but know not each other elsewhere, and whilst they come into contact on one point, they stand very wide apart on all others. The manufacturer asks nothing of the workman but his labor. The workman expects nothing from him but his wages. The one contracts no obligation to protect nor the other to defend, and they are not permanently connected either by habit or by duty. The aristocracy created by business rarely settles in the midst of the manufacturing population which it directs. The object is not to govern their population, but to use it. An aristocracy thus constituted can have no great hold upon those whom it employs, and even if it succeed in retaining them at one moment, they escape the next. It knows not how to will, and it cannot act. The territorial aristocracy of former ages was either bound by law or thought itself bound by usage to come to the relief of its serving man and to sucker at their distresses. But the manufacturing aristocracy of our age first impoverishes and debases the man who serve it, and then abandons them to be supported by the charity of the public. This is a natural consequence of what has been said before. Between the workmen and the master there are frequent relations, but no real partnership. I am of opinion upon the whole that the manufacturing aristocracy which is growing up under our eyes is one of the harshest which ever existed in the world, but at the same time it is one of the most confined and least dangerous. Nevertheless the friends of democracy should keep their eyes anxiously fixed in this direction, for if ever a permanent inequality of conditions and aristocracy again penetrate into the world it may be predicted that this is the channel by which they will enter. End of part 2 chapters 19 and 20. Part 3 chapters 1 and 2 of Democracy in America volume 2. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org recording by Anosimon. Democracy in America volume 2 by Alexis de Tocque translated by Henry Reeve. Part 3 Influence of Democracy on Menors Properly So-Called. Chapter 1 that menors are softened as social conditions become more equal. We perceive that for several ages social conditions have tended to equality and we discover that in the course of the same period the menors of society have been softened. Are these two things merely contemporaneous or does any secret link exist between them so that the one cannot go on without making the other advance? Several causes may concur to render the menors of a people less rude but of all these causes the most powerful appears to me to be the equality of conditions. Equality of conditions and growing civility in menors are then in my eyes not only contemporaneous occurrences but correlated effects. When the fabulists seek to interest us in the actions of beasts they invest them with human notions and passions. The poets who sing of spirits and angels do the same. There is no wretched and so deep nor any happiness so pure as to fill the human mind and touch the heart unless we are ourselves held up to our own eyes under other features. This is strictly applicable to the subject upon which we are at present engaged. When all men are irrevocably marshaled in an aristocratic community according to their professions their property and their birth the members of each class considering themselves as children of the same family cherish a constant and lively sympathy towards each other which can never be felt in an equal degree by the citizens of a democracy but the same feeling does not exist between the several classes towards each other amongst an aristocratic people each caste has its own opinions feelings rights manners and modes of living thus the men of whom each caste is composed do not resemble the mass of their fellow citizens they do not think or feel in the same manner and they scarcely believe that they belong to the same human race they cannot therefore thoroughly understand what others feel nor judge of others by themselves yet they are sometimes eager to lend each other mutual aid but this is not contrary to my previous observation these aristocratic institutions which made the beings of one and the same race so different nevertheless bound them to each other by close political ties although the serve had no natural interest in the fate of nobles he did not the less think himself obliged to devote his person to the service of the noble who happened to be his lord and although the noble held himself to be of a different nature from that of his serves he nevertheless held that his duty and his honor constrained him to defend at the risk of his own life those who dwelled upon his domains it is evident that these mutual obligations did not originate in the law of nature but in the law of society and that the claim of social duty was more stringent than that of mere humanity these services were not supposed to be due from man to man but to the vessel or to the lord feudal institutions awakened a lively sympathy for the sufferings of certain men but none at all for the miseries of mankind they infused generosity rather than mildness into the manners of the time and although they prompted men to great acts of self-devotion they engendered no real sympathies for real sympathies can only exist between those who are alike and in aristocratic ages men acknowledged none but the members of their own caste to be like themselves when the chronicles of the middle ages who all belong to the aristocracy by birth or education relate the tragical end of a noble their grief flows apace whereas they tell you at a breath and without wincing of massacres and tortures inflicted on the common sort of people not that these writers felt habitual hatred or systematic disdain for the people war between the several classes of the community was not yet declared they were impelled by an instinct rather than by a passion as they had formed no clear notion of a poor man's sufferings they cared but little for his fate the same feelings animated the lower orders whenever the feudal tie was broken the same ages which witnessed so many heroic acts of self devotion on the part of vessels for their lords were stained with atrocious barbarities exercised from time to time by the lower classes on the higher it must not be supposed that this mutual insensibility arose solely from the absence of public order and education for traces of it are to be found in the following centuries which became tranquil and enlightened whilst they remained aristocratic in 1675 the lower classes in britney revolted at the imposition of a new tax these disturbances were put down with unexampled atrocity observe the language in which madame the saviour or witness of these horrors relates them to her daughter and console yourself by this pleasure of the pain you have to try to write you have therefore messed up the whole province there will be no satisfaction to mess up all of britain unless we are tired of feeling the wind do you want to know news of reine we made a tax of 100,000 pounds on the bourgeois and if we find this sum in 24 hours it will be doubled and demanded by the soldiers we chased and banished a whole big street and defended to welcome them under the pain of life of the kind that we saw all these miserable old people, women sleeping, children and laughing in tears at the exit of this city without knowing where to go we roared in front of a violin that had started the dance and the piris of the timbre paper he was exiled after his death and these four neighborhoods exposed to the four corners of the city we took 60 bourgeois and we start tomorrow the punishments this province is a beautiful example for the others and above all to respect the governors and the governors and not to throw stones in their garden you are talking to me pleasantly about our miseries we are no longer surrounded one in eight days to maintain justice it is true that the pandemic seems to me now a refreshment I have a whole other idea of justice since I am in this country your gallerinas seem to me a society given by people who have withdrawn from the world to lead a soft life it would be a mistake to suppose that madame the Sivigny who wrote these lines was a selfish or cruel person she was passionately attached to her children and very ready to sympathize in the sorrows of her friends nay her letters show that she treated her vassals and servants with kindness and indulgence but madame the Sivigny had no clear notion of suffering in anyone who was not a person of quality in our time the harshest man writing to the most insensible person of his acquaintance would not venture wantonly to indulge in the cruel jocularity which I've quoted and even if his own menace allowed him to do so the menace of society at large would forbid it once this is arise have we more sensibility than our forefathers I know not that we have but I am sure that our insensibility is extended to a far greater range of objects when all the ranks of a community are nearly equal as all men think and feel in nearly the same manner each of them may judge in a moment of the sensations of all the others he casts a rapid glance upon himself and that is enough there is no wretchedness into which he cannot readily enter and a secret instinct reveals to him its extent it signifies not that strangers or foes be the sufferers imagination puts him in their place something like a personal feeling as mingled with his pity makes himself suffer whilst the body of his fellow creatures and torture in democratic ages men rarely sacrifice themselves for one another but they display general compassion for the members of the human race they inflict no useless ills and they are happy to relieve the griefs of others when they can do so without much hurting themselves they are not as interested but they are humane although the americans have in a manner reduced egotism to a social and philosophical theory they are nevertheless extremely open to compassion in no country is criminal justice administered with more mildness than in the united states whilst the english seemed disposed carefully to retain the bloody traces of the dark ages in their penal legislation the americans have almost expunged capital punishment from their codes North america is, i think, the only one country upon earth in which the life of no one citizen has been taken for a political offense in the course of the last 50 years the circumstance which conclusively shows that this single immolpness of the americans arises chiefly from their social condition is the manner in which they treat their slaves perhaps there is not upon the whole a single european colony in the new world in which the physical condition of the blacks is less severe than in the united states yet the slaves still endure horrid sufferings there and are constantly exposed to barbarous punishments it is easy to perceive that a lot of these unhappy beings inspires their masters with but little compassion and that they look upon slavery not only as an institution which is profitable to them but as an evil which does not affect them thus the same man who is full of humanity towards his fellow creatures when they are at the same time his equals becomes insensible to their reflections as soon as that equality ceases his mildness should therefore be attributed to the equality of conditions rather than to civilization and education what i have here remarked of individuals is to a certain extent applicable to nations when each nation has its distinct opinions belief laws and customs it looks upon itself as the whole of mankind and is moved by no sorrows but its own should war break out between two nations animated by this feeling it is sure to be waged with great cruelty at the time of their highest culture the romans slaughtered the generals of their enemies after having dragged them in triumph behind the car and they flung their prisoners to the beasts of the circus for the amusement of the people she saw who declaimed so vehemently at the notion of crucifying a roman citizen had not a word to say against these horrible abuses of victory it is evident that in his eyes a barbarian did not belong to the same human race as a roman on the contrary in proportion as nations become more like each other they become reciprocally more compassionate and the law of nations is mitigated chapter 2 that democracy renders the habitual intercourse of the americans simple and easy democracy does not attach man strongly to each other but it places their habitual intercourse upon an easier footing if two englishmen chance to meet at the antibodies where they are surrounded by strangers whose language and manners are almost unknown to them they will first stare at each other with much curiosity and a kind of secret uneasiness they will then turn away or if one accosts the other they will take care only to converse with a constrained and absent air upon very unimportant subjects yet there is no enmity between these men they have never seen each other before and each believes the other to be your respectable person why then should they stand so cautiously apart we must go back to england to learn the reason when it is birth alone independent of wealth which classes man in society everyone knows exactly what his own position is upon the social scale he does not seek to rise he does not fear to sink in a community thus organized men of different castes communicate very little with each other but if accident brings them together they are ready to converse without hoping or fearing to lose their own position their intercourse is not upon a footing of equality but it is not constrained when moneyed aristocracy succeeds to aristocracy of birth the case is altered the privileges of some are still extremely great but the possibility of acquiring those privileges is open to all once it follows that those who possess them are constantly haunted by the apprehension of losing them or of other men's sharing them those who do not yet enjoy them long to possess them at any cost or if they fail to appear at least to possess them which is not impossible as the social importance of men is no longer ostensibly and permanently fixed by blood and is infinitely varied by wealth ranks still exist but it is not easy clearly to distinguish at a glance those who respectively belong to them secret hostilities then arise in the community one set of men endeavor by innumerable artifices to penetrate or to appear to penetrate amongst those who are above them another set are constantly in arms against these usurpers of their rights rather the same individual does both at once and whilst he seeks to raise himself into a higher circle he is always on the defensive against the intrusion of those below him such is the condition of England at the present time and I am of opinion that the peculiarity before adverted to is principally to be attributed to this cause as aristocratic pride is still extremely great amongst of English and as the limits of aristocracy are ill-defined everybody lives in constant dread less advanced should be taken of his familiarity unable to judge at once of the social position of those he meets an Englishman prudently avoids all contact with them men are afraid lest some slight service rendered should draw them into an unsuitable acquaintance they dread civilities and they avoid the obtrusive gratitude of a stranger quite as much as his hatred many people attribute these singular antisocial propensities and the reserved and taciturn bearing of the English to purely physical causes I may admit that there is something of it in their race but much more of it is attributable to their social condition as is proved by the contrast for the Americans in America where the privileges of birth never existed and where riches confer no peculiar rights on their processors men unacquainted with each other are very ready to frequent the same places and find neither peril nor advantage in the free interchange of their thoughts if they meet by accident they neither seek nor avoid intercourse their manner is therefore natural frank and open it is easy to see that they hardly expect or apprehend anything from each other and that they do not care to display any more than to conceal their position in the world if their demeanor is often cold and serious it is never haughty or constrained and if they do not converse it is because they are not in a humor to talk not because they think it their interest to be silent in a foreign country two Americans are at once friends simply because they are Americans they are repulsed by no prejudice they are attracted by their common country for two Englishmen the same blood is not enough they must be brought together by the same rank the Americans remark this unsociable mood of the English as much as the French do and they are not less astonished by it yet the Americans are connected with England by their origin their religion their language and partially by their manners they only differ in their social condition it may therefore be inferred that the reserve of the English proceeds from the constitution of their country much more than from that of its inhabitants End of part three chapters one and two part three chapters three and four of democracy in America volume two this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org recording by Anno Simon democracy in America volume two by Alexis de Tocqueville translated by Henry Reeve part three chapter three why the Americans show so little sensitiveness in their own country and are so sensitive in Europe the temper of the Americans is vindictive like that of all serious and reflecting nations they hardly ever forget an offense but it is not easy to offend them and their resentment is as slow to kindle as it is to obeyed in aristocratic communities where a small number of persons manage everything the outward intercourse of men is subject to settled conventional rules everyone then thinks he knows exactly what marks of respect of condescension he ought to display and none are presumed to be ignorant of the science of etiquette these usages are the first class in society afterwards serve as a model to all the others besides which each of the letter lays down a code of its own to which all its members are bound to conform thus the rules of politeness form a complex system of legislation which it is difficult to be perfectly master of but from which it is dangerous for anyone to deviate so that men are constantly exposed involuntarily to inflict or to receive bitter affronts but as the distinctions of rank are obliterated as men differing in education and in birth meet and mingle in the same places of resort it is almost impossible to agree upon the rules of good breeding as its laws are uncertain to disobey them is not a crime even in the eyes of those who know what they are men attach more importance to intentions than to forms and they grow less civil but at the same time less quarrelsome there are many little attentions which an American does not care about he thinks they are not due to him or he presumes that they are not known to be due he therefore either does not perceive a rudeness or he forgives it his menace become less courteous and his character more plain and masculine the mutual indulgence which the Americans display and the manly confidence with which they treat each other also results from another deeper and more general cause which I have already adverted to in the preceding chapter in the United States the distinctions of rank in civil society are slight in political society there are no an American therefore does not think himself bound to pay particular attentions to any of his fellow citizens nor does he require such attentions from them towards himself as it does not see that it is his interest eagerly to seek the company of any of his countrymen he is slow to fancy that his own company is declined despising no one on account of his station he does not imagine that anyone can despise him for that cause and until he has clearly perceived an insult he does not suppose that in the front was intended the social condition of the Americans naturally accustoms them not to take offenses small matters and on the other hand the democratic freedom which they enjoy transfuses this same mildness of temper into the character of the nation the political institutions of the united states constantly bring citizens of all ranks into contact and compel them to pursue great undertakings in concert people thus engaged have scarcely time to attend to the details of etiquette and they are besides too strongly interested in living harmoniously for them to stick at such things they therefore soon acquire a habit of considering the feelings and opinions of those whom they meet more than their manners and they do not allow themselves to be annoyed by trifles I have often remarked in the united states that it is not easy to make a man understand that his presence may be dispensed with hence will not always suffice to shake him off I contradict an American at every word he says to show him that his conversation bores me he instantly labors with fresh pertinacity to convince me I preserve a docked silence and he thinks I am meditating deeply on the truth which he is uttering at last I rush from his company and he supposes that some urgent business hurries me elsewhere this man will never understand that he worries me to extinction unless I tell him so and the only way to get rid of him is to make him my enemy for life it appears surprising at first sight that the same man transported to Europe suddenly becomes so sensitive and captures that I often find it as difficult to avoid offending him here as it was to put him out of countenance these two opposite effects proceed from the same cause democratic institutions generally give men a lofty notion of their country and of themselves an american leaves his country with a heart swollen with pride on arriving in europe he at once finds out that we are not so engrossed by the united states and the great people which inhabits them as he had supposed and this begins to annoy him he has been informed that the conditions of society are not equal in our part of the globe and he observes that among the nations of europe the traces of rank are not wholly obliterated that wealth and birth still retain some indeterminate privileges which force themselves upon his notice whilst they allude definition he is therefore profoundly ignorant of the place which he ought to occupy in this half-ruined skill of classes which are sufficiently distinct to hate and despise each other yet sufficiently alike for him to be always confounding them he's afraid of ranging himself too high still more is he afraid of being ranged too low this twofold peril keeps his mind constantly on the stretch and embarrasses all he says and does he learns from tradition that in europe ceremonial observances were infinitely varied according to different ranks this recollection of former times completes his perplexity and he is the more afraid of not obtaining those marks of respect which are due to him as he does not exactly know in what they consist he is like a man surrounded by traps society is not a recreation for him but a serious toil he weighs your least actions interrogates your looks and scrutinizes all your say lest there should be some hidden illusion to front him i doubt whether there was ever a provincial man of quality so punctilious and breeding as he is he endeavors to attend to the slightest rules of etiquette and does not allow one of them to be waived towards himself he is full of scruples and at the same time of pretensions he wishes to do enough but fears to do too much and as he does not very well know the limits of the one or of the other he keeps up a haughty and embarrassed air of reserve but this is not all he was yet another double of the human heart an american is forever talking of the admirable equality which prevails in the united states allowed he makes it the boast of his country but in secret he deplores it for himself and he aspires to show that for his part he is an exception to the general state of things which he vans there is hardly an american to be met with who does not claim some remote kindred with the first founders of the colonies and as for the skeens of the noble families of england america seemed to me to be covered with them when an opulent american arrives in europe his first care is to surround himself with all the luxuries of wealth he is so afraid of being taken for the plain citizen of a democracy that he adopts a hundred distorted ways of bringing some new instance of his wealth before you every day his house will be in the most fashionable part of the town he will always be surrounded by a host of servants i've heard an american complain that in the best houses of paris the society was rather mixed the taste which prevails there was not pure enough for him and he ventured to hint that in his opinion there was a want of elegance of manner he could not accustomed himself to see wit concealed under such unpretending forms these contrasts are not the surprises if the vestiges of former aristocratic distinctions were not so completely effaced in the united states the americans would be less simple and less tolerant in their own country they would require less and be less fond of borrowed manners in ours chapter four consequences of the three preceding chapters when men feel natural compassion for their mutual sufferings when they're brought together by easy and frequent intercourse and no sensitive feelings keep them asunder it may readily be supposed that they will lend assistance to one another whenever it is needed when an american asks for the cooperation of his fellow citizens it is seldom refused and i've often seen it afforded spontaneously and with great good will if an accident happens on the highway everybody hastens to help the sufferer if some great and sudden calamity befalls a family the purses of a thousand strangers are at once willingly opened and small but numerous donations pour in to relieve their distress it often happens amongst the most civilized nations of the globe that a poor wretch is as friendless in the midst of a crowd as a savage in his wilds this is hardly ever the case in the united states the americans who are always cold and often cause in their manners seldom show insensibility and if they do not proffer services eagerly yet they do not refuse to render them all this is not in contradiction to what i have said before on the subject of individualism the two things are so far from combating each other that i can see how they agree equality of conditions whilst it makes men feel their independence shows them their own weakness they are free but exposed to a thousand accidents and experience soon teaches them that although they do not habitually require the assistance of others a time almost always comes when they cannot do without it we constantly see in europe that men of the same profession are ever ready to assist each other they are all exposed to the same ills and that is enough to teach them to seek mutual preservatives however hard-hearted and selfish they may otherwise be when one of them falls into danger from which the others may save him by a slight transient sacrifice or a sudden effort they do not fail to make the attempt not that they are deeply interested in his fate for if by chance their exertions are unavailing they immediately forget the object of them and return to their own business but a sort of tacit and almost involuntary agreement has been passed between them by which each one owes to the others a temporary support which he may claim for himself in turn extend to a people the remark here apply to a class and you will understand my meaning a similar covenant exists in fact between all the citizens of a democracy they all feel themselves subject to the same weakness and the same dangers and their interest as well as their sympathy makes it a rule with them to lend each other mutual assistance when required the more equal social conditions become the more demand display this reciprocal disposition to oblige each other in democracies no great benefits are conferred but good offices are constantly rendered a man seldom displays self-devotion but all men are ready to be of service to one another end of part three chapters three and four