 Part 1 Chapter 21 of Democracy in America Volume 2. Amongst aristocratic nations all the members of the community are connected with and dependent upon each other. The graduated scale of different ranks acts as a tie, which keeps everyone in his proper place and the whole body in subordination. Something of the same kind always occurs in the political assemblies of these nations. Parties naturally range themselves under certain leaders, whom they can obey by a sort of instinct, which is the only result of habits contracted elsewhere. They carry the manners of general society into the lesser assemblage. In democratic countries it often happens that a great number of citizens are tending to the same point, but each one only moves thither, or at least flatters himself that he moves of his own accord. Accustomed to regulate his doings by personal impulse alone, he does not willingly submit to dictation from without. This taste and habit of independence accompany him into the councils of the nation. If he consents to connect himself with other men in the prosecution of the same purpose, at least he chooses to remain free to contribute to the common success after his own fashion. Hence it is that in democratic countries, parties are so impatient of control and are never manageable except in moments of great public danger. Even then the authority of leaders, which under such circumstances may be able to make men act or speak, hardly ever reaches the extent of making them keep silence. Amongst aristocratic nations the members of political assemblies are at the same time members of the aristocracy. Each of them enjoys high established rank in his own right, and the position which he occupies in the assembly is often less important in his eyes than that which he feels in the country. This consoles him for playing no part in the discussion of public affairs and restrains him from too eagerly attempting to play an insignificant one. In America it generally happens that a representative only becomes somebody from his position in the assembly. He is therefore perpetually haunted by a craving to acquire importance there, and he feels a petulant desire to be constantly obtruding his opinions upon the house. His own vanity is not the only stimulant which urges him in on this course, but that of his constituents and the continual necessity of propitiating them. Amongst aristocratic nations a member of the legislature is rarely in strict dependence upon his constituents. He is frequently to them a sort of unavoidable representative. Sometimes they are themselves strictly dependent upon him, and if at length they reject him he may easily get elected elsewhere, or retiring from public office he may still enjoy the pleasures of splendid idleness. In a democratic country like the United States a representative has hardly ever a lasting hold on the minds of his constituents. However small an electoral body may be the fluctuations of democracy are constantly changing its aspect. It must therefore be courted unceasingly. He is never sure of his supporters, and if they forsake him he is left without a resource, for his natural position is not sufficiently elevated for him to be easily known to those not close to him, and with the complete state of independence prevailing among the people he cannot hope that his friends or the government will send him down to be returned by an electoral body unacquainted with him. The seeds of his fortune are therefore sown in his own neighborhood. From that nook of earth he must start to raise himself to the command of a people and to influence the destinies of the world. Thus it is natural that in democratic countries the members of political assemblies think more of their constituents than of their party, whilst in aristocracies they think more of their party than of their constituents. But what ought to be said to gratify constituents is not always what ought to be said in order to serve the party to which representatives profess to belong. The general interest of a party frequently demands that members belonging to it should not speak on great questions which they understand imperfectly, that they should speak but little on those minor questions which impede the great ones, lastly and for the most part that they should not speak at all. To keep silence is the most youthful service that an indifferent spokesman can render to the Commonwealth. Constituents, however, do not think so. The population of a district sends a representative to take apart in the government of a country because they entertain a very lofty notion of his merits. As men appear greater in proportion to the littleness of the objects by which they are surrounded, it may be assumed that the opinion entertained of the delegate will be so much higher as talents are more rare among his constituents. It will therefore frequently happen that the less constituents have to expect from their representative the more they will anticipate from him, and, however incompetent he may be, they will not fail to call upon him for signal exertions corresponding to the rank they have conferred upon him. Independently of his position as a legislator of the state, electors also regard their representative as the natural patron of the constituency in the legislature. They almost consider him as the proxy of each of his supporters, and they flatter themselves that he will not be less zealous in defense of their private interests than in those of the country. Thus electors are well assured beforehand that the representative of their choice will be an orator, that he will speak often if he can, and that in case he is forced to refrain, he will strive at any rate to compress into his less frequent orations and inquiry into all the great questions of state, combined with the statement of all the petty grievances they have themselves to complain to. So that, though he be not able to come forward frequently, he should, on each occasion, prove what he is capable of doing, and that, instead of perpetually lavishing his powers, he should occasionally condense them in small compass, so as to furnish a sort of complete and brilliant epitome of his constituents and himself. On these terms they will vote for him at the next election. These conditions drive worthy men of humble abilities to despair, who knowing their own powers would never voluntarily have come forward. But, thus urged on, the representative begins to speak, to the great alarm of his friends, and rushing imprudently into the midst of the most celebrated orators, he perplexes the debate and wearies the house. All laws which tend to make the representative more dependent on the elector not only affect the conduct of the legislators, as I have remarked elsewhere, but also their language. The exercise is simultaneous influence on affairs themselves, and on the manner in which affairs are discussed. There is hardly a member of Congress who can make up his mind to go home without having dispatched at least one speech to his constituents, nor who will endure any interruption until he is introduced into his harangue whatever useful suggestions may be made touching the four and twenty states of which the union is composed, and especially the district which he represents. He therefore presents to the mind of his auditors a succession of great general truths, which he himself only comprehends and expresses confusedly, and of petty minutiae, which he is but too able to discover and to point out. The consequence is that the debates of the great assembly are frequently vague and perplexed, and that they seem rather to drag their slow length along than to advance towards a distinct object. Some such state of things will, I believe, always arise in the public assemblies of democracies. Propitious circumstances and good laws might succeed in drawing to the legislature of a democratic people men very superior to those who are returned by the Americans to Congress. But nothing will ever prevent the men of slender abilities who sit there from obtruding themselves with complacency and in all ways upon the public. The evil does not appear to me to be susceptible of entire cure, because it not only originates in the tactics of that assembly, but in its constitution and in that of the country. The inhabitants of the United States seem themselves to consider the matter in this light, and they show their long experience of parliamentary life not by abstaining from making bad speeches, but by courageously submitting to hear them made. They are resigned to it, as to an evil which they know to be inevitable. We have shown the petty side of political debates in democratic assemblies. Let us now exhibit the more imposing one. The proceedings within the Parliament of England for the last 150 years have never occasioned any great sensation out of that country. The opinions and feelings expressed by the speakers have never awakened much sympathy, even amongst the nations placed nearest to the great arena of British liberty. Whereas Europe was excited by the very first debates which took place in the small colonial assemblies of America at the time of the Revolution. This was attributable not only to particular and fortuitous circumstances, but to general and lasting causes. I can conceive nothing more admirable or powerful than a great orator debating on great questions of state in a democratic assembly. As no particular class is ever represented there by men commissioned to defend its own interests, it is always to the whole nation, and in the name of the whole nation, that the orator speaks. This expands his thoughts and heightens his power of language. As precedents have there but little weight, as there are no longer any privileges attached to certain property, nor any rights inherent in certain bodies or in certain individuals, the mind must have recourse to general truths derived from human nature to resolve the particular question under discussion. Hence the political debates of a democratic people, however small it may be, have a degree of breadth which frequently renders them attractive to mankind. All men are interested by them because they treat of man who is everywhere the same. Among the greatest aristocratic nations, on the contrary, the most general questions are almost always argued on some special grounds derived from the practice of a particular time or the rights of a particular class which interests that class alone or at most the people among whom that class happens to exist. It is owing to this, as much as to the greatness of the French people and to the favorable disposition of the nations who listen to them, that the great effect which the French political debates sometimes produce in the world must be attributed. The orators of France frequently speak to mankind, even when they are addressing their countrymen only. End of Part 1, Chapter 21 Part 12, Chapters 1 and 2 of Section 2 of Democracy in America, Volume 2, by Alexis de Tulfill 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. This reading is done by Ralph Volpe. Democracy in America, by Alexis de Tulfill Volume 2, Section 2 Influence of Democracy on Feelings of Americans Chapter 1 Why Democratic nations show a more ardent and enduring love of equality than of liberty? The first and most intense passion, which is engendered by the equality of conditions is, I hardly need say, the love of that same equality. My readers will therefore not be surprised that I speak of it before all others. Everybody has remarked that in our time, and especially in France, this passion for equality is every day gaining ground in the human heart. It has been said a hundred times that our contemporaries are far more ardently and tenaciously attached to equity than to freedom. But as I do not find that the causes of the fact have been sufficiently analyzed, I shall endeavor to point them out. It is possible to imagine an extreme point at which freedom and equity would meet and be confounded together. Let us suppose that all the members of the community were to take part in government, and each of them has an equal right to take part in it. As none is different from his fellows, none can exercise a tyrannical power. Men will be perfectly free because they will all be entirely equal, and they will all be perfectly equal because they will be entirely free. To this ideal state, democratic nations tend. Such is the completest form that equity can assume upon earth, but there are a thousand others which, without being equally perfect, are not less cherished by those nations. The principle of equality may be established in civil society without prevailing in the political world. Equal rights may exist of indulging in the same pleasures, of entering the same professions, of frequenting the same places. In a word, of living in the same manner and seeking wealth by the same means, although all men do not take an equal share in government. A kind of equality may even be established in the political world, though there should be no political freedom there. A man may be the equal of all his countrymen save one, who is the master of all without distinction, and who selects equally from among them all the agents of his power. Several other combinations might be easily imagined, by which very great equality would be united to institutions more or less free, or even to institutions wholly without freedom. Although men cannot become absolutely equal unless they be entirely free, and consequently equality pushed to its furthest extent may be confounded with freedom, yet there is good reason for distinguishing the one from the other. The tastes which men have for liberty, and that which they have for equality, are, in fact, two different things, and I am not afraid to add that amongst democratic nations they are two unequal things. Upon close inspection it will be seen that there is in every age some particular and preponderating fact with which all others are connected. This fact almost always gives birth to some pregnant idea, or some ruling passion, which attracts to itself and bears away in its course all the feelings and opinions of the time. It is like a great stream towards which each of the surrounding rivulets seems to flow. Freedom has appeared in the world at different times and under various forms. It has not been exclusively bound to any social condition, and it is not confined to democracy. Freedom cannot, therefore, form the distinguishing characteristic of democratic ages. The particular and preponderating fact which marks those ages as its own is the equality of conditions. The ruling passions of men in those periods is love of this equality. Ask not what singular charm the men of democratic ages find in being equal, or what special reasons they may have for clinging so tenaciously to equality rather than to the other advantages which society holds out to them. Equality is the distinguishing characteristic of the age they live in, that of itself is enough to explain that they prefer it to all the rest. But independently of this reason there are several others which will at all times habitually lead men to prefer equality to freedom. If a people could ever succeed in destroying, or even in diminishing the equality which prevailed in his own body, this could only be accomplished by long and laborious efforts. Its social condition must be modified, its laws abolished, its opinions superseded, its habits changed, its manners corrupted. But political liberty is more easily lost. To neglect to hold it fast is to allow it to escape. Men, therefore, not only cling to equality because it is dear to them, they also adhere to it because they think it will last forever. That political freedom may compromise in its excesses, the tranquility, the property, the lives of individuals, is obvious to the narrowest and most unthinking mind. But, on the contrary, none but the attentive and the clear-sighted men perceive the perils with which equality threatens us, and they commonly avoid pointing them out. They know that the calamities they apprehend are remote, and flatter themselves that they will only fall upon future generations, for which the present generation takes but little thought. The evils which freedom sometimes bring with it are immediate, they are apparent to all, and all are more or less affected by them. The evils which extreme equality may produce are slowly disclosed, they creep gradually into the social frame. They are only seen at intervals, and at the moment at which they become most violent, habit already causes them to be no longer felt. The advantages which freedom brings are only shown by length of time, and it is always easy to mistake the cause in which they originate. The advantages of equality are instantaneous, and they may be constantly traced from their source. Political liberty bestows exalted pleasures from time to time upon a certain number of citizens. Equality, every day, confers a number of small enjoyments on every man. The charms of equality are instantly felt, and are within the reach of all. The noblest hearts are not insensible to them, and the most vulgar souls exalt in them. The passion which equality engenders must therefore be at once strong and general. Men cannot enjoy political liberty unpurchased by some sacrifices, and they never obtain it without great exertions. But the pleasures of equality are self-prophered. Each of the petty incidents of life seems to occasion them, and in order to taste them nothing is required but to live. Democratic nations are, at all times, fond of equality. But there are certain epochs at which the passion they entertain for it swells to the height of fury. This occurs at the moment when the old social system, long-menaced, completes its own destruction after a last, intestine struggle, and when the barriers of rank are at length thrown down. At such times men pounce upon equality as their booty, and they cling to it as some precious treasures which they fear to lose. The passion for equality penetrates on every side into men's hearts, expands there, and fills them entirely. Tell them not by this blind surrender of themselves to an exclusive passion they risk their dearest interests. They are deaf. Show them not freedom escaping from their grasp whilst they are looking another way. They are blind. Or rather, they can discern but one sole object to be desired in the universe. What I have said is applicable to all democratic nations. What I am about to say concerns the French alone. Amongst most modern nations, and especially amongst all those of the continent of Europe, the taste and idea of freedom only began to exist and to extend themselves at the time when social conditions were tending to equality and as a consequence of that very equality. Absolute kings were the most efficient levelers of ranks amongst their subjects. Amongst these nations equality preceded freedom. Equality was therefore a fact of some standing when freedom was still a novelty. The one had already created customs, opinion and laws belonging to it while the other alone and for the first time came into actual existence. Thus the latter was still only an affair of opinion and taste while the former had already crept into the habits of the people, possessed itself of their manners and given a particular turn to the smallest action of their lives. Can it be wondered that the men of our own time prefer the one to the other? I think that democratic communities have a natural taste for freedom. Left to themselves, they will seek it, cherish it and view any privation of it with regret. But for equality their passion is ardent, insatiable, incessant, invincible. They call for equality in freedom and if they cannot obtain that they still call for equality in slavery. They will endure poverty, servitude, barbarism, but they will not endure aristocracy. This is true at all times and especially true in our own. All men and all powers seeking to cope with this irresistible passion will be overthrown and destroyed by it. In our age freedom cannot be established without it and despotism itself cannot reign without its support. Chapter 2 of Individualism in Democratic Countries I have shown how it is in ages of equity every man seeks his opinions within himself. I am now about to show how it is that in the same ages all his feelings are turned towards himself alone. Individualism. Footnote A. I adopt the expression of the original, however strange it may seem to the English ear. Partly because it illustrates the remark on the introduction of general terms into democratic language which was made in a preceding chapter. And partly because I know of no English word exactly equivalent to the expression. The chapter itself defines the meaning attached to it by the author. Translators note. Returning to text. Individualism is a novel expression to which a novel idea has given birth. Our fathers were only acquainted with egotism. Egotism is a passionate and exaggerated love of self which leads a man to connect everything with his own person and to prefer himself to everything in the world. Individualism is a mature and calm feeling which disposes each member of the community to sever himself from the mass of his fellow creatures and to draw apart with his family and his friend so that after he thus forms a little circle of his own he willingly leaves society at large to itself. Egotism originates in blind instinct. Individualism proceeds from erroneous judgment more than from depraved feeling. It originates as much in the deficiencies of the mind as in the perversity of the heart. Egotism blights the germ of all virtue. Individualism, at first, only saps the virtues of public life. But in the long run it attacks and destroys all others and is at length absorbed in downright egotism. Egotism is a vice as old as the world which does not belong to one form of society more than to another. Individualism is of democratic origin and it threatens to spread in the same ratio as the equality of conditions. Among aristocratic nations, as families remain for centuries in the same condition, often on the same spot, all generations become as it were contemporaneous. A man almost always knows his forefathers and respects them. He thinks he already sees his remote descendants and he loves them. He willingly imposes duties on himself towards the former and the latter and he will frequently sacrifice his personal gratifications to those who went before and to those who will come after him. Aristocratic institutions have, moreover, the effect of closely binding every man to several of his fellow citizens. As the classes of an aristocratic people are strongly marked and permanent, each of them is regarded by its own members as sort of a lesser country, more tangible and more cherished than the country at large. As in aristocratic communities, all the citizens occupy fixed positions, one above the other. The result is that each of them always sees a man above himself whose patronage is necessary to him and below himself another man whose cooperation he may claim. Men living in aristocratic ages are therefore almost always closely attached to something placed out of their own sphere and they are often disposed to forget themselves. It is true that in those ages the notions of human fellowship is faint and that men seldom think of sacrificing themselves for mankind, but they often sacrifice themselves for other men. In democratic ages, on the contrary, when the duties of each individual to the race are much more clear, devoted service to any one man becomes more rare. The bond of human affection is extended, but it is relaxed. Amongst democratic nations, new families are constantly springing up, others are constantly falling away, and all that remains change their condition. The wolf of time is every instant broken and the track of generations be faced. Those who went before are soon forgotten. Of those who will come after, no one has any idea. The interest of man is confined to those in close propinquity to himself. As each class approximates to other classes and intermingles with them, its members become indifferent and as strangers to one another. Aristocracy had made a chain of all the members of the community, from the peasant to the king. Democracy breaks that chain and severs every link of it. As social conditions become more equal, the number of persons increase who, although they are neither rich enough nor powerful enough to exercise any great influence over their fellow creatures, have nevertheless acquired or retained sufficient education and fortune to satisfy their own wants. They own nothing to any man. They expect nothing from any man. They acquire the habits of always considering themselves as standing alone, and they are apt to imagine that their whole destiny is in their own hand. Thus not only does democracy make every man forget his ancestors, but it hides his descendants and separates his contemporaries from him. It throws him back forever upon himself alone and threatens in the end to confine him entirely within the solitude of his own heart. End of Part 12, Section 2, Chapters 1 and 2, Democracy in America by Alexis Detockville. Read by Ralph Volpe. Part 13, Democracy in America by Alexis Detockville. Translated by Henry Reeve. 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. This reading is done by Ralph Volpe. Part 2, Chapters 3 and 4, Chapter 3. Individualism stronger at the close of a democratic revolution than at other periods. The period when the construction of democratic society upon the ruins of an aristocracy has just been completed is especially that at which this separation of men from one another and the egotism resulting from it most forcibly strike the observation. Democratic communities not only contain a large number of independent citizens, but they are constantly filled with men who, having entered but yesterday upon their independent conditions, are intoxicated with their new power. They entertain a presumptuous confidence in their strength. And as they do not suppose that they can hence forward ever have occasion to claim the assistance of their fellow creatures, they do not scruple to show that they care for nobody but themselves. An aristocracy seldom yields without a protracted struggle, in a course of which implacable animosities are kindled between the different classes of society. These passions survive the victory and traces of them may be observed in the midst of the democratic confusion which ensues. Those members of the community who were at the top of the late graduations of rank cannot immediately forget their former greatness. They will long regard themselves as alien in the midst of the newly composed society. They look upon all those whom this state of society has made their equals as oppressors whose destiny can excite no sympathy. They have lost sight of their former equals and feel no longer bound by a common interest to their fate. Each of them, standing aloof, thinks that he is reduced to care for himself alone. Those, on the contrary, who were formerly at the foot of the social scale, and who have been brought up to the common level by the sudden revolution, cannot enjoy their newly acquired independence without secret uneasiness. And if they meet with some of their former superiors on the same footing as themselves, they stand aloof from them with an expression of triumph and of fear. It is, then, commonly at the outset of democratic society that citizens are most disposed to live apart. Democracy leads men not to draw near to their fellow creatures, but democratic revolutions lead them to shun each other, and perpetuate in a state of equality the animosities which a state of inequality engender. The great advantage of the American is that they have arrived at a state of democracy without having to endure a democratic revolution, and they are born equal instead of becoming so. End of Chapter 3. Chapter 4. That the Americans combat the effects of individualism by free institutions. Despotism, which is of a very timorous nature, is never more secure of continuance than when it can keep men asunder, and all its influence is commonly exerted for that purpose. No vice of a human heart is so acceptable to it as egotism. A despot easily forgives his subjects for not loving him, provided they do not love each other. He does not ask them to assist him in governing the state. It is enough that they do not aspire to govern it themselves. He stigmatizes as turbulent and unruly spirits those who would combine their exertions to promote the prosperity of the community, and, perverting the natural meaning of words, he applauds as good citizens those who have no sympathy for any but themselves. Thus the vices which despotism engenders are precisely those which equality fosters. These two things mutually and perniciously compete and assist each other. Equality places men side by side, unconnected by any common time. Despotism raises barriers to keep them asunder. The former predisposes them not to consider their fellow creatures. The latter makes general indifference a sort of public virtue. Despotism, then, which is at all times dangerous, is more particularly to be feared in democratic ages. It is easy to see that those same ages men stand most in need of freedom. When the members of a community are forced to attend to public affairs, they are necessarily drawn from the circle of their own interests and snatched at times from self-observation. As soon as a man begins to treat of public affairs in public, he begins to perceive that he is not so independent of his fellow men as he had first imagined, and that, in order to obtain their support, he must often lend them his cooperation. When the public is supreme, there is no man who does not feel the value of public goodwill or who does not endeavor to court it by drawing to himself the esteem and affection of those amongst whom he is to live. Many of the passions which congeal and keep asunder human hearts are then obliged to retire and hide below the surface. Pride must be dissembled, disdain dares not break out, egotism fears its own self. Under a free government, as most public offices are elected, the men whose elevated minds or aspiring hopes are too closely circumscribed in private life constantly feel that they cannot do without the population which surrounds them. Men learn at such times to think of their fellow men from ambitious motives, and they frequently find it, in a manner, their interests to forget themselves. I may here be met by an objection derived from electioneering intrigue, the meanness of candidates, and the calamities of their opponents. These are opportunities for animosity which occur the oftener the more frequent elections become. Such evils are doubtless great, but they are transient, whereas the benefits which attend them remain. The desire of being elected may lead some men for a time to violent hostility, but this same desire leads all men in the long run mutually to support each other. And if it happens that an election accidentally severs to friends, the election system brings a multitude of citizens permanently together who would always have remained unknown to each other. Freedom engenders private animosity, but despotism gives birth to general indifference. The Americans have combated by free institutions the tendency of equality to keep men asunder, and they have subdued it. The legislators of America did not suppose that a general representation of the whole nation would suffice to ward off disorder at once so natural to the frame of democratic society and so fatal. They also thought that it would be well to infuse political life into each portion of the territory in order to multiply to an indefinite extent opportunities of acting in concert for all the members of the community and to make them constantly feel their mutual dependence on each other. The plan was a wise one. The general affairs of a country only engage the attention of leading politicians who assemble from time to time in the same places. And as they often lose sight of each other afterwards, no lasting ties are established between them. But if the object is to have the local affairs of a district conducted by the men who reside there, the same persons are always in contact and they are, in a manner, forced to be acquainted and to adapt themselves to one another. It is difficult to draw a man out of his own circle to interest him in the destiny of the state, because he does not clearly understand what the influence the destiny of the state can have upon his own lot. But if it be proposed to make a road cross the end of his estate, he will see at a glance that there is a connection between this small public affair and his greatest private affairs, and he will discover, without it being shown him, the close tie which unites private to general interest. Thus far more may be done by entrusting to the citizens the administration of minor affairs than by surrendering to them the control of important ones towards interesting them in the public welfare and convincing them that they constantly stand a need of one another to provide for it. A brilliant achievement may win for you the favor of a people at one stroke, but to earn the love and respect of the population which surrounds you, a long succession of little services rendered of obscure good deeds, a constant habit of kindness, and a established reputation for disinterestedness will be required. Local freedom, then, which leads a great number of citizens to value the affections of their neighbors and of their kindred, perpetually brings men together and forces them to help one another despite of the propensities which sever them. In the United States, the more opulent citizens take care not to stand aloof from the people. On the contrary, they constantly keep on easy terms with the lower classes. They listen to them. They speak to them every day. They know that the rich in democracies always stand in need of the poor, and that in democratic ages you attach a poor man to you more by your manner than by benefits conferred. The magnitude of such benefits, which sets off the difference of conditions, causes a secret irritation to those who reap advantage from them. But the charm of simplicity of manners is almost irresistible. Their affability carries men away, and even their want of polish is not always displeasing. This truth does not take root at once in the minds of the rich. They generally resist it as long as the democratic revolution lasts, and they do not acknowledge it immediately after the revolution is accomplished. They are very ready to do good to the people, but they still choose to keep them at arm's length. They think that that is sufficient, but they are mistaken. They might spend fortunes thus without warming the hearts of the population around them. That population does not ask them for the sacrifice of their money, but of their pride. It would seem as if every imagination in the United States were upon the stretch to invent means of increasing the wealth and identifying the wants of the public. The best informed inhabitants of each district constantly use their information to discover new truths which may augment the general prosperity, and if they have made any such discoveries, they eagerly surrender them to the mass of the people. When the vices and weaknesses frequently exhibited by those who govern in America are closely examined, the prosperity of the people occasions, but improperly occasions, surprise. Elected magistrates do not make the American democracy flourish. It flourishes because the magistrates are elective. It would be unjust to suppose that the patriotism and zeal which every American displays for the welfare of his fellow citizens are wholly insincere. Although private interest dictates the greater part of human actions in the United States as well as elsewhere, it does not regulate them all. I must say that I have often seen Americans make great and real sacrifices to the public welfare, and I have remarked a hundred instances in which they hardly ever fail to lend faithful support to each other. The free institutions which the inhabitants of the United States possess and the political rights of which they make so much use remind every citizen, and in a thousand ways, that he lives in society. They every instant oppress upon his mind the notion that it is the duty, as well as the interest of men, to make themselves useful to their fellow creatures, and as he sees no particular grounds of animosity to them, since he is never either their master or their slave, his heart readily leans to the side of kindness. Men attend to the interests of the public, first by necessity, afterwards by choice. What was intentional becomes instinct, and by dint of working for the good of one's fellow citizens, the habit and taste for serving them is at length acquired. Many people in France consider equality of conditions as one evil, and political freedom as a second. When they are obliged to yield to the former, they strive at least to escape from the latter. But I contend that in order to combat the evils which equality may produce, there is only one effectual remedy, namely political freedom. End of Chapter 4 End of Part 13 Democracy in America by Alexis de Tocqueville, translated by Henry Reeve Part 14 Chapters 5 and 6 of Democracy in America Volume 2 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. This recording is by Ralph Volpe. Chapter 5 of the use which the Americans make of public association in civil life. I do not propose to speak of those political associations by the aid of which men endeavor to defend themselves against the despotic influence of a majority or against the aggressions of regal power. That subject I have already treated. If each citizen did not learn in proportion as he is individually becomes more feeble and consequently more incapable of preserving his freedom single handed, to combine with his fellow citizen for the purpose of defending it, it is clear that tyranny would unavoidably increase together with equality. Those associations only which are formed in civil life without reference to political objects are here averted to. The political associations which exist in the United States are only a single feature in the midst of an immense assemblage of associations in that country. Americans of all ages, all conditions and all dispositions constantly form associations. They have not only commercial and manufacturing companies in which all take part, but associations of a thousand other kinds, religious, moral, serious, futile, extensive or restricted, enormous or diminutive. The Americans make associations to give entertainments, to found establishments for education, to build ends, to construct churches, to diffuse books, to send missionaries to the antitaphodes and in this manner they found hospitals, prisons and schools. If it be proposed to advance some truth or to foster some feeling by the encouragement of a great example, they form a society. Whenever at the head of some new undertaking you would see the government in France or a man of rank in England, in the United States you will be sure to find an association. I met with several kinds of associations in America of which I confess I had no previous notion and I have often admired the extreme skill with which the inhabitants of the United States succeed in proposing a common object to the exertions of a great many men and in getting them voluntarily to pursue it. I have since traveled over England whence the Americans have taken some of their laws and many of their customs. And it seems to me that the principle of association was by no means so consistently or so adroitly used in that country. The English often perform great things singly whereas the Americans form associations for the smallest undertaking. It is evident that the former people consider association as a powerful means of action but the latter seem to regard it as the only means they have of acting. Thus the most democratic country on the face of the year is that in which men have in our times carried to the highest perfection the art of pursuing in common the object of their common desire and have applied this new science to the greatest number of purposes. Is this the result of accident or is there in reality any necessary connection between the principle of association and that of equality? Aristocratic communities always contain amongst a multitude of persons who by themselves are powerless. A small number of powerful and wealthy citizens each of whom can achieve great undertaking single-handed. In aristocratic societies men do not need to combine in order to act because they are strongly held together. Every wealthy and powerful citizen constitutes the head of a permanent and compulsory association composed of all those who are dependent upon him or whom he makes subservient to the execution of his design. Amongst democratic nations, on the contrary all the citizens are independent and feeble they can hardly do anything by themselves and none of them can oblige his fellow men to lend him their assistance. They all, therefore, fall into a state of incapacity if they do not learn voluntarily to help each other. If men living in democratic countries had no right and no inclination to associate for political purposes their independence would be in great jeopardy but they might long preserve their wealth and their cultivation. Whereas if they never acquire the habit of forming associations in ordinary life civilization itself would be in danger. A people amongst which individuals should lose the power of achieving great things single-handed without acquiring the means of producing them by united exertion would soon relapse into barbarism. Unhappily the same social condition which renders associations so necessary to democratic nations renders their formation more difficult amongst those nations than amongst all others. When several members of an aristocracy agree to combine they easily succeed in doing so as each of them brings great strength to the partnership. The number of its members may be very limited and when the members of an association are limited in number they may easily become mutually acquainted understand each other and establish fixed regulation. The same opportunities do not occur amongst democratic nations where the associated members must always be very numerous for their association to have any power. I am aware that many of my countrymen are not in the least embarrassed by this difficulty. Given that the more enfeebled and incompetent the citizens become the more able and active the government ought to be rendered in order that society at large may execute what individuals can no longer accomplish. They believe this answers the whole difficulty but I think they are mistaken. A government might perform the part of some of the largest American company and several states, members of the union have already attempted it. But what political power could ever carry on the vast multitude of lesser undertakings which the American citizens perform every day with the assistance of their principle of association? It is easy to foresee that the time is drawing near when man will be less and less able to produce of himself alone the commonest necessities of life. The task of the governing power will therefore perpetually increase and its very efforts will extend it every day. The more it stands in the place of association the more will individuals losing the notion of combining together require its assistance. These are causes and effects which unceasingly engender each other. Will the administration of the country ultimately assume the management of all manufacturers which no single citizen is able to carry on? And if a time at length arrives when in consequence of the extreme subdivision of landed property the soil is split into an indefinite number of parcels so that it can only be cultivated by companies of husbandmen will it be necessary that the head of the government should leave the helm of state to follow the plow? The morals and the intelligence of the democratic people would be as much endangered as its business and manufacturers if the government ever wholly usurped the place of private companies. Feelings and opinions are recruited the heart is enlarged and the human mind is developed by no other means than by the reciprocal influence of men upon each other. I have shown that these influences are almost no in democratic country they must therefore be artificially created and this can only be accomplished by association. When the members of an aristocratic community adopt a new opinion or conceive a new sentiment they give it a station as it were besides themselves upon the lofty platform where they stand and the opinions or sentiments so conspicuous to the eyes of the multitude are easily introduced into the minds and hearts of all around. In democratic countries the governing power alone is naturally in the condition to act in this manner but it is easy to see that its action is always inadequate and often dangerous. A government can no more be competent to keep alive and to renew the circulation of opinions and feelings amongst the great people than to manage all the speculations of productive industry. No sooner does a government attempt to go beyond its political sphere and to inter-upond this new track than it exercises even unintentionally an insupportable tyranny. For a government can only dictate strict rules the opinions which it favors are rigidly enforced and it is never easy to discriminate between its advice and its command. Worse still will be the case if the government really believes itself interested in preventing all circulation of ideas. It will then stand motionless and oppressed by the heaviness of voluntary toper. Governments therefore should not be the only active powers associations ought in democratic nations to stand and move of those powerful private individuals whom the equity of conditions has swept away. As soon as several of the inhabitants of the United States have taken up an opinion or a feeling which they wish to promote to the world they look out for mutual assistance and as soon as they have found each other out they combine. From that moment they are no longer isolated men but a power seen from afar whose actions serve as an example and whose language is listened to. The first time I heard in the United States that 100,000 men had bound themselves publicly to abstain from spiritous liquors it appeared to me more like a joke than a serious engagement and I did not at once perceive why these temperate citizens could not content themselves with drinking water by their own fireside. I at last understood that 300,000 Americans alarmed by the progress of drunkenness around them had made up their mind to patronize temperance. They acted just in the same way as a man of high rank who should dress very plainly in order to inspire the humbler orders with contempt of luxury. It is probable that if these 100,000 men had lived in France each of them would singly have memorialized the government to watch the public houses all over the kingdom. Nothing, in my opinion, is more deserving of our attention than the intellectual and moral associations of America. The political and industrial associations of that country strike us forcibly but the others elude our observation or if we discover them we understand them imperfectly because we have hardly ever seen anything of the kind. It must, however, be acknowledged that they are as necessary to the American people as the former and perhaps more so. In democratic countries the science of association of science, the progress of all the rest depends upon the progress it has made. Amongst the laws which rule human society there is one which seems to be more precise and clear than all others. If men are to remain civilized or to become so the art of associating together must grow and improve in the same ratio in which the equality of conditions is increased. End of Chapter 5 Chapter 6 of the relation between public associations and newspapers when men are no longer united amongst themselves by firm and lasting ties it is impossible to obtain the cooperation of any great number of them unless you can persuade every man whose concurrence you require that his private interest obliges him voluntarily to unite his exertions to the exertions of all the rest. This can only be habitually and conveniently affected by means of a newspaper. Nothing but a newspaper can drop the same thought into a thousand minds at the same moment. A newspaper is an advisor who does not require to be sought but who comes of his own accord and talks to you briefly every day of the common wheel without distracting you from your private affair. Newspapers, therefore become more necessary in proportion as men become more equal and individualism more to be feared. To suppose that they only serve to protect freedom should be to diminish their importance. They maintain civilization. I shall not deny that in democratic countries newspapers frequently lead the citizens to launch together in very ill-digested schemes but if there were no newspapers there would be no common activity. The evil which they produce is therefore much less than that which they cure. The effect of a newspaper is not only to suggest the same purpose to a great number of persons but also to furnish the means for executing in common the designs which they may have singly conceived. The principal citizens who inhabit an aristocratic country discern each other from afar and if they wish to unite their forces they move towards each other drawing a multitude of men after them. This frequently happens on the contrary in democratic countries that a great number of men who wish or who want to combine cannot accomplish it because as they are very insignificant and lost amidst the crowd they cannot see and do not know where to find one another. A newspaper then takes up the notion or feeling which had occurred simultaneously to each of them. All are then immediately guided towards this beacon and these wandering minds which had long sought each other in darkness at length meet and unite. The newspaper brought them together and the newspaper is still necessary to keep them united. In order that an association amongst a democratic people should have any power to be a numerous body. The persons of whom it is composed are therefore scattered over a wide extent and each of them is detained in the place of his domicile by the narrowness of his income or by the small unrementing exertion by which he earns it. Means then must be found to converse every day without seeing each other and to take steps in common without having met. Any democratic association can do without newspapers. There is consequently a necessary connection between public associations and newspapers. Newspapers make associations and associations make newspapers and if it has been correctly advanced that the associations will increase in number as the conditions of men become more equal. It is not less certain that newspapers increases in proportion to that of association. Thus it is in America that we find at the same time the greatest number of associations and of newspapers. This connection between the number of newspapers and that of association leads us to the discovery of a further connection between the state of the periodical press and the form of administration in a country. It shows that the number of newspapers must diminish or increase amongst a democratic people in proportion as its administration is more or less centralized. For amongst democratic nations the exercise of local powers cannot be entrusted to the principal members of the community as in aristocracy. Those powers must either be abolished or placed in the hands of a large number of men who then in fact constitute an association permanently established by law for the purpose of administering the affairs of a certain extent of territory and they require a journal to bring them every day in the midst of their own minor concern some intelligence of the state of their public wheel. The more numerous local powers are the greater is the number of men entrusted by law and as this one is hourly felt the more profusely do the newspapers abound. The extraordinary subdivision of administrative power has much more to do with the enormous number of American newspapers than the great political freedom of the country and the absolute liberty of the press. If all the inhabitants of the union had suffrage they would only extend to the choice of their legislators in Congress. They would require but few newspapers because they would only have to act together on a few very important but very rare occasion. But within the pale of the great association of the nation lesser associations have been established by law in every county, every city and indeed in every village for the purposes of the local administration. The laws of the country thus compel every American to cooperate every day of his life with some of his fellow citizens for a common purpose and each of them requires a newspaper to inform him what all the others are doing. I am of the opinion that a Democratic people footnote footnote I say a Democratic people the administration of an aristocratic people may be the reverse of centralized and yet the want of a newspaper may be little felt because local powers are then vested in the hands of a very small number of men who either act apart or who know each other and can easily meet and come to an understanding end of footnote return to the text. I am of the opinion that a Democratic people without any national representative assembly but with a great number of small local powers would have in the end more newspapers than any other people governed by a centralized administration and an elective legislation. What best explains to me the enormous circulation of the daily press in the United States is that amongst the Americans I find the utmost national freedom combined with local freedom of kind. There is a prevailing opinion in France and England that the circulation of newspapers would be indefinitely increased by the removing of taxes which have been laid upon the press. This is a very exaggerated estimate of the effects of such a reform. Newspapers increase in numbers not according to their cheapness but according to the more or less frequent want which a great number intercommunication and combination. In like manner I should attribute the increasing influence of the daily press to causes more general than those by which it is commonly explained. A newspaper can only subsist on the condition of publishing sediments or principles common to a large number of men. A newspaper therefore always represents an association which is composed of its habitual readers. This association may be more or less defined, more or less restricted, more or less numerous, but the fact that the newspaper keeps a lie is proof that at least the germ of such an association exists in the minds of its readers. This leads me to a last reflection with which I shall conclude this chapter. The more equal the conditions men become and the less strong men individually are the more easily do they give way to the currents of the multitude and the more difficult it is for them to adhere by themselves to an opinion which the multitudes discard. A newspaper represents an association. It may be said to address each of its readers in the name of all the others and to exert its influence over them in proportion to their individual weakness. The power of the newspaper press must therefore increase as the social conditions of men become more equal. End of Chapter 6 End of Part 14 Democracy in America Volume 2 by Alexis de Tocqueville translated by Henry Reeve Volume 2 This is a LibriVox recording of the national democracy in America by Alexis de Tocqueville translated by Henry Reeve Volume 2 This is a LibriVox recording of the is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. This reading is done by Ralph Volpe, Chapter 7, Connection of Civil and Political Associations. There is only one country on the face of the earth where citizens enjoy unlimited freedom of association for political purposes. This same country is the only one in the world where the continual exercise of the right of association has been introduced into civil life, and where all the advantages which civilization can confer are procured by means of it. In all the countries where political associations are prohibited, civil associations are rare. It is hardly probable that this is the result of accident, but the inference should rather be that there is a natural and perhaps necessary connection between these two kinds of associations. Certain men happen to have a common interest in some concern. Either a commercial undertaking is to be managed, or some speculation in manufacture to be tried. They meet, they combine, and thus by degrees they become familiar with the principle of association. The greater is the multiplicity of small affairs, the more do men, even without knowing it, acquire the facility in prosecuting great undertakings in common. Civil associations, therefore, make political association, but on the other hand, political association singularly strengthens and improves associations for civil purposes. In civil life every man may, strictly speaking, fancy that he can provide for his own once. In politics he can fancy no such thing. When a people, then, have any knowledge of public life, the notion of association, and the wish to coalesce, present themselves every day to the minds of the whole community. Whatever natural repugnance may restrain men from acting in concert, they will always be ready to combine for the sake of a party. Thus, political life makes the love and practice of association more general. It imparts a desire of union, and it teaches the means of combination to numbers of men who would have always lived apart. Politics not only gives birth to numerous associations, but to associations of great extent. In civil life it seldom happens that any one interest draws a very large number of men to act in concert. Much skill is required to bring such an interest into existence, but in politics opportunities present themselves every day. Now, it is solely in great associations that the general value of the principle of association is displayed. Citizens who are individually powerless do not very clearly anticipate the strength which they may acquire by uniting together. It must be shown to them in order to be understood. Hence, it is often easier to collect a multitude for a public purpose than a few persons. A thousand citizens do not see what interest they have in combining together. Ten thousand will be perfectly aware of it. In politics, men combine for great undertaking, and the use they make of the principle of association in important affairs practically teaches them that it is in their interest to help each other in those of less moment. A political association draws a number of individuals at the same time out of their own circle. However they may be naturally kept asunder by age, mind, and fortune, it places them nearer together and brings them into contact. Once met, they can always meet again. Men can embark in few civil partnerships without risking a portion of their possessions. This is the case with all manufacturing and trading companies. When men are as yet but little versed in the art of association and are unacquainted with its principle rules, they are afraid when they first combine in this manner of buying their experience dear. They therefore prefer depriving themselves of a powerful instrument of success to running the risk which attends the use of it. They are, however, less reluctant to join political associations, which appear to them to be without danger because they adventure no money in them. But they cannot belong to these associations for any length of time without finding out how order is maintained amongst a large number of men, and by what contrivance they are made to advance harmoniously and methodically to the same object. Thus they learn to surrender their own will to that of all the rest, and to make their own exertions subordinate to the common impulse, things which it is not less necessary to know in civil than in political associations. Political associations may therefore be considered as large free schools for all the members of the community go to learn the general theory of association. But even if political association did not contribute directly to the progress of civil association to destroy the former would be to impair the latter. When citizens can only meet in public for certain purposes, they regard such meetings as strange proceedings of rare occurrence, and they rarely think at all about it. When they are allowed to meet freely for all purposes, they ultimately look upon public association as the universal, or in a manner the sole means which men can employ to accomplish the different purposes they may have in view. Every new want instantly revives the notion. The art of association then becomes, as I have said before, the mother of action studied and applied by all. When some kinds of associations are prohibited and others allowed, it is difficult to distinguish the former from the latter beforehand. In this state of doubt men abstain from them altogether, and a sort of public opinion passes current which tends to cause any association whatever to be regarded as a bold and almost illicit enterprise. This is more especially true when the executive government has a discretionary power of allowing or prohibiting associations. When certain associations are simply prohibited by law, and the courts of justice have to punish infringements of that law, the evil is far less considerable. Then every citizen knows beforehand pretty nearly what he has to expect. He judges himself before he is judged by the law, and, abstaining from prohibited associations, he embarks in those which are legally sanctioned. It is by these restrictions that all free nations have always admitted the right of association might be limited. And if the legislature should invest a man with a power of ascertaining beforehand which associations are dangerous and which are useful, and should authorize him to destroy all associations in the bud or allow them to be formed, as nobody would be able to foresee in what cases associations might be established and in what cases they would be put down, the spirit of association would be entirely paralyzed. The former of these laws would only assail certain associations. The latter would apply to society itself and inflict an injury upon it. I can conceive that a regular government may have recourse to the former, but I do not conceive that any government has the right of enacting the latter. It is therefore comirical to suppose that the spirit of association, when it is repressed on some one point, will nevertheless display the same vigor on all others, and that if men be allowed to prosecute certain undertakings in common, that is quite enough for them to eagerly set about them. When the members of a community are allowed and accustomed to combine for all purposes, they will combine as readily for the lesser as for the more important one. But if they are only allowed to combine for small affairs, they will neither incline nor be able to affect it. It is in vain that you will leave them entirely free to prosecute their businesses on joint stock accounts. They will hardly care to avail themselves of the rights you have granted them, and, after having exhausted your strength in vain efforts to put down prohibited associations, you will be surprised that you cannot persuade men to form the associations you encourage. I do not say that there can be no civil associations in a country where political association is prohibited, for men can never live in society without embarking in some common undertakings. But I maintain that in such a country civil associations will always be few in number, feebly planned, unskillfully managed, that they will never form any vast designs, or that they will fail in the execution of them. This naturally leads me to think that freedom of association in political manners is not so dangerous to the public tranquility as it is supposed, and that possibly, after having agitated for society for some time, it may strengthen the state in the end. In democratic countries political associations are, so to speak, the only powerful persons who aspire to rule the state. Accordingly, the governments of our time look upon associations of this kind just as sovereigns in the Middle Ages regarded the great vassals of the crown. They entertain a sort of instinctive abhorrence of them, and they combat them on all occasions. They bear, on the contrary, a natural goodwill to civil associations, because they readily discover that instead of directing the minds of the community to public affairs, these institutions serve to divert them from such reflections, and that by engaging them more and more in the pursuits of objects which cannot be attained without public tranquility, they deter them from revolution. But these governments do not attend to the fact that political associations tend amazingly to multiply and facilitate those of a civil character, and that by avoiding a dangerous evil they deprive themselves of an officiacious remedy. When you see the Americans freely and constantly forming associations for the purpose of promoting some political principle, of raising one man to the head of affairs, or of resting power from another, you have some difficulty in understanding that men so independent do not constantly fall into the abuse of freedom. If, on the other hand, you survey the infinite number of trading companies which are in operation in the United States, and perceive that the Americans are on every side unceasingly engaged in the execution of important and difficult plans which the slightest revolution would throw into confusion, you will readily comprehend why a people so well employed are by no means tempted to perturb the state, nor destroy the public tranquility by which they all profit. Is it enough to observe these things separately, or should we not discover the hidden tie which connects them? In their political associations, the Americans of all conditions, minds, and ages, daily acquire a general taste for association and grow accustomed to the use of it. They meet together in large numbers, they converse, they listen to each other, and they are mutually stimulated to all sorts of undertaking. They afterwards transfer to civil life the notions they have thus acquired, and make them subservient to a thousand purposes. Thus, it is by the enjoyment of a dangerous freedom that the Americans learn the art of rendering the dangers of freedom less formidable. If a certain moment in the existence of a nation be selected, it is easy to prove that political associations perturb the state and paralyze productive industry, but take the whole life of a people, and it may perhaps be easy to demonstrate that the freedom of association in political matters is favorable to the prosperity and even to the tranquility of the community. I said in the former part of this work, quote, the unrestrained liberty of political association cannot be entirely assimilated to the liberty of the press. The one is at the same time less necessary and more dangerous than the other. A nation may confine it within certain limits without ceasing to be mistress of itself, and it may sometimes be obliged to do so in order to maintain its own authority, unquote. And further on, I added, quote, it cannot be denied that the unrestrained liberty of association for political purposes is the last degree of liberty which a people is fit for. If it does not throw them into anarchy, it perpetually brings them, as it were, to the verge of it, unquote. Thus I do not think that a nation is always at liberty to invest its citizens with an absolute right of association for political purposes, and I doubt whether in any country or in any age it be wise to set no limits to the freedom of association. A certain nation, it has said, could not maintain tranquility in the community, cause the laws to be respected, or establish a lasting government if the right of association were not confined within narrow limits. These blessings are doubtless and valuable, and I can imagine that, to acquire or preserve them, a nation may impose upon itself severe temporary restrictions. But still, it is well that the nation should know at what price these blessings are purchased. I can understand that it may be advisable to cut off a man's arm in order to save his life, but it would be ridiculous to assert that he will be as dexterous as he was before he lost it. End of Chapter 7, Chapter 8. The Americans combat individualism by the principle of interest rightly understood. When the world was managed by a few rich and powerful individuals, these persons loved to entertain a lofty idea of the duties of man. They were fond of professing that it is praiseworthy to forget one's self, and that good should be done without hope of reward, as it is by the deity himself. Such were the standard opinions of the time in morals. I doubt whether men were more virtuous in aristocratic ages than in others, but they were incessantly talking of the beauties of virtue, and its utility was only studied in secret. But since the imagination takes less lofty flights, and every man's thoughts are centered in himself, moralists are alarmed by this idea of self-sacrifice, and they no longer venture to present it to the human mind. They therefore content themselves with inquiring whether the personal advantage of each member of the community does not consist in working for the good of all, and when they have hit upon some point on which private interest and public interest meet and amalgamate, they are eager to bring it into notice. Observations of this kind are gradually multiplied. What was only a single remark becomes a general principle, and it is held as a truth that each man serves himself in serving his fellow creatures, and that his private interest is to do good. I have already shown, in several parts of this work, by what means the inhabitants of the United States almost always manage to combine their own advantage with that of their fellow citizens. My present purpose is to point out the general rule which enables them to do so. In the United States hardly anybody talks of the beauty of virtue, but they maintain that virtue is useful, and they prove it every day. The American moralists do not profess that men ought to sacrifice themselves for their fellow creatures, because it is noble to make such sacrifices. But they boldly aver that such sacrifices are as necessary to him who imposes them upon himself as to him for whose sake they are made. They have found out that in their country and their age man is brought home to himself by an irresistible force, and losing all hope of stopping that force, they turn all their thoughts to the direction of it. They therefore do not deny that every man may follow his own interests, but they endeavor to prove that it is the interest of every man to be virtuous. I shall not here enter into the reasons they allege which would divert me from my subject. Suffice it to say that they have convinced their fellow countrymen. Montaigne said long ago, quote, Were I not to follow the straight road for its straightness? I should follow it for having found by experience that in the end it is commonly the happiest and most useful track, unquote. The doctrine of interest rightly understood is not then new, but amongst the Americans of our time it finds universal acceptance. It has become popular there. You may trace it at the bottom of all their actions. You will remark it in all they say. It is as often to be met on the lips of a poor man as of the rich. In Europe the principle of interest is much grosser than it is in America, but at the same time it is less common and especially it is less avowed. Among us men still constantly feign great abnegation which they no longer feel. The Americans, on the contrary, are fond of explaining almost all the actions of their lives by the principle of interest rightly understood. They show with complacency how an enlightened regard for themselves constantly prompts them to assist each other and inclines them willingly to sacrifice a portion of their time and property to the welfare of the state. In this respect I think they frequently fail to do themselves justice, for in the United States, as well as elsewhere, people are sometimes seen to give way to those disinterested and spontaneous impulses which are natural to man. But the Americans seldom allow that they yield to emotions of this kind. They are more anxious to do honor to their philosophy than to themselves. I might hear pause without attempting to pass a judgment on what I have described. The extreme difficulty of the subject would be my excuse, but I shall not avail myself of it. And I had rather that my readers, clearly perceiving my object, should refuse to follow me than I should leave them in suspense. The principle of interest rightly understood is not a lofty one, but it is clear and sure. It does not aim at mighty objects, but it attains, without excessive exertion, all those at which it aims. As it lies within the reach of all capacities, everyone can, without difficulty, apprehend and retain it. By its admirable conformity to human weaknesses, it easily obtains great domination. Nor is that domination precarious, since the principle checks one personal interest by another, and uses to direct the passion the very same instruments which excites them. The principle of interest rightly understood produces no great acts of self-sacrifice, but it suggests daily small acts of self-denial. By itself it cannot suffice to make a man virtuous, but it disciplines a number of citizens in the habits of regularity, temperance, moderation, foresight, self-command. And if it does not lead men straight to virtue by with a will, it gradually draws them in that direction by their habits. If the principle of interest rightly understood were to sway the whole moral world, extraordinary virtues would doubtless be more rare. But I think that gross depravity would then also be less common. The principle of interest rightly understood perhaps prevents some men from rising far above the level of mankind, but a great number of other men who are falling far below it are caught and restrained by it. Observe some few individuals they are lowered by it. Survey mankind it is raised. I am not afraid to say that the principle of interest rightly understood appears to me the best suit of all philosophical theories to the ones of the men of our time, and that I regard it as their chief remaining security against themselves. Towards it, therefore, the minds of the moralists of our age should turn. Even should they judge it to be incomplete, it must nevertheless be adopted as necessary. I do not think upon the whole that there is more egotism amongst us than in America. The only difference is that there it is enlightened. Here it is not. Every American will sacrifice a portion of his private interest to preserve the rest. We would feign preserve the whole, and oftentimes the whole is lost. Everybody I see about me seems bent on teaching his contemporary by precept and example that what is useful is never wrong. Will nobody undertake to make them understand how what is right may be useful? No power upon the earth can prevent the increasing equality of conditions from inclining the human mind to seek out what is useful, or from leading every member of the community to be wrapped up in himself. It must therefore be expected that personal interest will become more than ever the principle if not the soul, spring of men's actions. But it remains to be seen how each man will understand his personal interests. If the members of a community, as they become more equal, become more ignorant and coarse, it is difficult to foresee to what pitch of stupid excesses their egotism may lead them. And no one can foretell into what disgrace and wretchedness they would plunge themselves, least they should have to sacrifice something of their own well-being to the prosperity of their fellow creatures. I do not think that the system of interest, as it is professed in America, is, in all of its part, self-evident. But it contains a great number of truths so evident that men, if they are but educated, cannot fail to see them. Educate then, at any rate, for the age of implicit self-sacrifice and instinctive virtues is already flicking far away from us. And the time is fast approaching when freedom, public peace, and social order itself will not be able to exist without education. End of Chapter 8. End of Part 15. Democracy in America by Alexis de Tocqueville translated by Henry Reeve, Volume 2. This reading was done by Ralph Volte. Part 2. Chapters 9 and 10 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 herehis.com. Democracy in America, Volume 2 by Alexis de Tocqueville translated by Henry Reeve. Part 2. Chapter 9. That the Americans apply the principle of interest rightly understood to religious matters. If the principle of interest rightly understood had nothing but the present world in view, it would be very insufficient, for there are many sacrifices which can only find their recompense in another, and whatever ingenuity may be put forth to demonstrate the utility of virtue, it will never be an easy task to make that man live a right who has no thoughts of dying. It is therefore necessary to ascertain whether the principle of interest rightly understood is easily compatible with religious belief. The philosophers who inculcate this system of morals tell men that to be happy in this life, they must watch their own passions and steadily control their excess. That lasting happiness can only be secured by renouncing a thousand transient gratifications, and that a man must perpetually triumph over himself in order to secure his own advantage. The founders of almost all religions have held the same language, the track they point out to man is the same, only that the goal is more remote. Instead of placing in this world the reward of the sacrifices they impose, they transport it to another. Nevertheless, I cannot believe that all those who practice virtue from religious motives are only actuated by the hope of recompense. I have known zealous Christians who constantly forgot themselves to work with greater adore for the happiness of their fellow men, and I have heard them declare that all they did was only to earn the blessings of a future state. I cannot but think that they deceive themselves. I respect them too much to believe them. Christianity, indeed, teaches that a man must prefer his neighbor to himself in order to gain eternal life. But Christianity also teaches that men ought to benefit their fellow creatures for the love of God. A sublime expression. Man, searching by his intellect into the divine conception, and seeing that order is the purpose of God, freely combines to prosecute the great design. And whilst he sacrifices his personal interests to this consummate order of all created things, expects no other recompense than the pleasure of contemplating it. I do not believe that interest is the sole motive of religious men. But I believe that interest is the principal means which religions themselves employ to govern men, and I do not question that this way they strike into the multitude and become popular. It is not easy clearly to perceive why the principle of interest rightly understood should keep aloof from religious opinions, and it seems to me more easy to show why it should draw men to them. Let it be supposed that, in order to obtain happiness in this world, a man combats his instinct on all occasions and deliberately calculates every action of his life, that instead of yielding blindly to the impetuitity of first desires, he has learned the art of resisting them, and that he has accustomed himself to sacrifice without an effort the pleasure of a moment to the lasting interest of his whole life. If such a man believes in the religion which he professes, it will cost him but little to submit to the restrictions it may impose. Reason herself counsels him to obey, and habit has prepared him to endure them. If he should have conceived any doubts as to the object of his hopes, still he will not easily allow himself to be stopped by them, and he will decide that it is wise to risk some of the advantages of this world in order to preserve his rights to the great inheritance promised him in another. To be mistaken in believing that the Christian religion is true, says Pascal, is no great loss to anyone, but how dreadful to be mistaken in believing it to be false. The Americans do not affect a brutal indifference to a future state. They affect no prurel pride in despising perils which they hope to escape from. They therefore profess their religion without shame and without weakness, but there generally is, even in their zeal, something so indescribably tranquil, methodical, and deliberate that it would seem as if the head, far more than the heart, brought them to the foot of the altar. The Americans not only follow their religion from interest, but they often place in this world the interest which makes them follow it. In the Middle Ages the clergy spoke of nothing but a future state. They hardly cared to prove that a sincere Christian may be a happy man here below. But the American preachers are constantly referring to the earth, and it is only with great difficulty that they can divert their attention from it. To touch their congregations they always show them how favorable religious opinions are to freedom and public tranquility. And it is often difficult to ascertain from their discourses whether the principal object of religion is to procure eternal felicity in the other world, or prosperity in this. End of Part 2, Chapter 9. Democracy in America, Volume 2, by Alex De Tocqueville, translated by Henry Reeve. Part 2, Chapter 10. Of the Taste for Physical Well-Being in America In America the passion for physical well-being is not always exclusive, but it is general, and if all do not feel it in the same manner, yet it is felt by all. Carefully to satisfy all, even the least wants of the body, and to provide the little conveniences of life, is uppermost in every mind. Something of an analogous character is more and more apparent in Europe. Amongst the causes which produce these similar consequences in both hemispheres, several are so connected with my subject as to deserve notice. When riches are hereditarily fixed in families, there are a great number of men who enjoy the comforts of life without feeling an exclusive taste for those comforts. The heart of man is not so much caught by the undisturbed possession of anything valuable as by the desire as yet imperfectly satisfied of possessing it, and by the incessant dread of losing it. In aristocratic communities, the wealthy, never having experienced a condition different from their own, entertain no fear of changing it. The existence of such conditions hardly occurs to them. The comforts of life are not to them the end of life but simply a way of living. They regard them as existence itself, enjoyed, but scarcely thought of. As the natural and instinctive taste which all men feel for being well off is thus satisfied without trouble and without apprehension, their faculties are turned elsewhere, and cling to a more arduous and more lofty undertakings which excite and engross their minds. Hence it is that in the midst of physical gratifications the members of an aristocracy often display a haughty contempt of these very enjoyments and exhibit singular powers of endurance under the pervation of them. All the revolutions which have ever shaken or destroyed aristocracies have shown how easily men accustomed to supervellous luxuries can do without the necessities of life, whereas men who have toiled to acquire a competency can hardly live after they have lost it. If I turn my observation from the upper to the lower classes, I find analogous effects produced by opposite causes. Amongst a nation where aristocracy predominates in society and keeps it stationary, the people in the end get as much accustomed to poverty as the rich to their opulence. The latter bestow no anxiety on their physical comforts because they enjoy them without an effort. The former do not think of things which they despair of obtaining and which they hardly know enough to desire them. In communities of this kind, the imagination of the poor is driven to seek another world. The miseries of real life enclose it around, but it escapes from their control and flies to seek its pleasures far beyond. When, on the contrary, the distinctions of ranks are confounded together and privileges are destroyed, when hereditary property is subdivided and education and freedom widely diffused. The desire of acquiring the comforts of the world haunts the imagination of the poor and the dread of losing them that of the rich. Many scanty fortunes spring up. Those who possess them have a sufficient share of physical gratifications to conceive a taste for these pleasures not enough to satisfy it. They never procure them without exertion and they never indulge in them without apprehension. They are therefore always straining to pursue or to retain gratification so delightful, so imperfect, so fugitive. If I were to inquire what passion is most natural to men who are stimulated and circumscribed by the obscurity of their birth to the mediocrity of their fortune, I could discover none more peculiarly appropriate to their condition than this love of physical prosperity. The passion for physical comforts is essentially a passion of the middle classes. With those classes it grows and spreads. With them it preponderates. From them it mounts into the higher orders of society and descends into the mass of the people. I never met in America with any citizen so poor as not to cast a glance of hope and envy on the enjoyments of the rich. Or whose imagination did not possess itself by anticipation of those good things which fate still obstinately withheld from him? On the other hand, I never perceived amongst the wealthier inhabitants of the United States that proud contempt of physical gratifications which is sometimes to be met with even in the most opulent and desolate aristocracies. Most of these wealthy persons were once poor. They have felt the sting of want. They were long a prey to adverse fortunes. And now that the victory is won, the passions which accompanied the contest have survived it. Their minds are, as it were, intoxicated by the small enjoyments which they have pursued for forty years. Not but that in the United States as elsewhere. There are a certain number of wealthy persons who, having come into their property by inheritance, possess without exertion and opulence they have not earned. But even these men are not less devotedly attached to the pleasures of material life. The love of well-being has now become the predominant taste of the nation. The great current of Anne's passions runs in that channel and sweeps everything along in its course. End of Part 2, Chapter 10