Democracy In America, Volume 2 (of 2)

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DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA

By Alexis De Tocqueville


Translated by Henry Reeve





Book Two: Influence Of Democracy On Progress Of Opinion In
the United States.





De Tocqueville's Preface To The Second Part

The Americans live in a democratic state of society, which has naturally
suggested to them certain laws and a certain political character. This
same state of society has, moreover, engendered amongst them a
multitude of feelings and opinions which were unknown amongst the elder
aristocratic communities of Europe: it has destroyed or modified all the
relations which before existed, and established others of a novel kind.
The--aspect of civil society has been no less affected by these changes
than that of the political world. The former subject has been treated
of in the work on the Democracy of America, which I published five years
ago; to examine the latter is the object of the present book; but these
two parts complete each other, and form one and the same work.

I must at once warn the reader against an error which would be extremely
prejudicial to me. When he finds that I attribute so many different
consequences to the principle of equality, he may thence infer that I
consider that principle to be the sole cause of all that takes place in
the present age: but this would be to impute to me a very narrow view. A
multitude of opinions, feelings, and propensities are now in existence,
which owe their origin to circumstances unconnected with or even
contrary to the principle of equality. Thus if I were to select the
United States as an example, I could easily prove that the nature of the
country, the origin of its inhabitants, the religion of its founders,
their acquired knowledge, and their former habits, have exercised, and
still exercise, independently of democracy, a vast influence upon the
thoughts and feelings of that people. Different causes, but no less
distinct from the circumstance of the equality of conditions, might be
traced in Europe, and would explain a great portion of the occurrences
taking place amongst us.

I acknowledge the existence of all these different causes, and their
power, but my subject does not lead me to treat of them. I have not
undertaken to unfold the reason of all our inclinations and all our
notions: my only object is to show in what respects the principle of
equality has modified both the former and the latter.

Some readers may perhaps be astonished that--firmly persuaded as I
am that the democratic revolution which we are witnessing is an
irresistible fact against which it would be neither desirable nor wise
to struggle--I should often have had occasion in this book to address
language of such severity to those democratic communities which this
revolution has brought into being. My answer is simply, that it is
because I am not an adversary of democracy, that I have sought to speak
of democracy in all sincerity.

Men will not accept truth at the hands of their enemies, and truth is
seldom offered to them by their friends: for this reason I have spoken
it. I was persuaded that many would take upon themselves to announce the
new blessings which the principle of equality promises to mankind, but
that few would dare to point out from afar the dangers with which
it threatens them. To those perils therefore I have turned my chief
attention, and believing that I had discovered them clearly, I have not
had the cowardice to leave them untold.

I trust that my readers will find in this Second Part that impartiality
which seems to have been remarked in the former work. Placed as I am in
the midst of the conflicting opinions between which we are divided,
I have endeavored to suppress within me for a time the favorable
sympathies or the adverse emotions with which each of them inspires
me. If those who read this book can find a single sentence intended to
flatter any of the great parties which have agitated my country, or any
of those petty factions which now harass and weaken it, let such readers
raise their voices to accuse me.

The subject I have sought to embrace is immense, for it includes the
greater part of the feelings and opinions to which the new state of
society has given birth. Such a subject is doubtless above my strength,
and in treating it I have not succeeded in satisfying myself. But, if
I have not been able to reach the goal which I had in view, my readers
will at least do me the justice to acknowledge that I have conceived and
followed up my undertaking in a spirit not unworthy of success.

A. De T.

March, 1840




Section I: Influence of Democracy on the Action of Intellect in The
United States.




Chapter I: Philosophical Method Among the Americans

I think that in no country in the civilized world is less attention
paid to philosophy than in the United States. The Americans have no
philosophical school of their own; and they care but little for all
the schools into which Europe is divided, the very names of which are
scarcely known to them. Nevertheless it is easy to perceive that almost
all the inhabitants of the United States conduct their understanding in
the same manner, and govern it by the same rules; that is to say,
that without ever having taken the trouble to define the rules of a
philosophical method, they are in possession of one, common to the whole
people. To evade the bondage of system and habit, of family maxims,
class opinions, and, in some degree, of national prejudices; to accept
tradition only as a means of information, and existing facts only as a
lesson used in doing otherwise, and doing better; to seek the reason
of things for one's self, and in one's self alone; to tend to results
without being bound to means, and to aim at the substance through the
form;--such are the principal characteristics of what I shall call the
philosophical method of the Americans. But if I go further, and if I
seek amongst these characteristics that which predominates over and
includes almost all the rest, I discover that in most of the operations
of the mind, each American appeals to the individual exercise of his own
understanding alone. America is therefore one of the countries in the
world where philosophy is least studied, and where the precepts of
Descartes are best applied. Nor is this surprising. The Americans do not
read the works of Descartes, because their social condition deters them
from speculative studies; but they follow his maxims because this very
social condition naturally disposes their understanding to adopt them.
In the midst of the continual movement which agitates a democratic
community, the tie which unites one generation to another is relaxed
or broken; every man readily loses the trace of the ideas of his
forefathers or takes no care about them. Nor can men living in this
state of society derive their belief from the opinions of the class to
which they belong, for, so to speak, there are no longer any classes, or
those which still exist are composed of such mobile elements, that
their body can never exercise a real control over its members. As to the
influence which the intelligence of one man has on that of another, it
must necessarily be very limited in a country where the citizens, placed
on the footing of a general similitude, are all closely seen by each
other; and where, as no signs of incontestable greatness or superiority
are perceived in any one of them, they are constantly brought back to
their own reason as the most obvious and proximate source of truth. It
is not only confidence in this or that man which is then destroyed, but
the taste for trusting the ipse dixit of any man whatsoever. Everyone
shuts himself up in his own breast, and affects from that point to judge
the world.

The practice which obtains amongst the Americans of fixing the standard
of their judgment in themselves alone, leads them to other habits of
mind. As they perceive that they succeed in resolving without assistance
all the little difficulties which their practical life presents, they
readily conclude that everything in the world may be explained, and that
nothing in it transcends the limits of the understanding. Thus they fall
to denying what they cannot comprehend; which leaves them but little
faith for whatever is extraordinary, and an almost insurmountable
distaste for whatever is supernatural. As it is on their own testimony
that they are accustomed to rely, they like to discern the object which
engages their attention with extreme clearness; they therefore strip off
as much as possible all that covers it, they rid themselves of whatever
separates them from it, they remove whatever conceals it from sight,
in order to view it more closely and in the broad light of day. This
disposition of the mind soon leads them to contemn forms, which they
regard as useless and inconvenient veils placed between them and the
truth.

The Americans then have not required to extract their philosophical
method from books; they have found it in themselves. The same thing may
be remarked in what has taken place in Europe. This same method has
only been established and made popular in Europe in proportion as the
condition of society has become more equal, and men have grown more like
each other. Let us consider for a moment the connection of the periods
in which this change may be traced. In the sixteenth century the
Reformers subjected some of the dogmas of the ancient faith to the
scrutiny of private judgment; but they still withheld from it the
judgment of all the rest. In the seventeenth century, Bacon in the
natural sciences, and Descartes in the study of philosophy in the strict
sense of the term, abolished recognized formulas, destroyed the
empire of tradition, and overthrew the authority of the schools. The
philosophers of the eighteenth century, generalizing at length the same
principle, undertook to submit to the private judgment of each man all
the objects of his belief.

Who does not perceive that Luther, Descartes, and Voltaire employed
the same method, and that they differed only in the greater or less use
which they professed should be made of it? Why did the Reformers confine
themselves so closely within the circle of religious ideas? Why did
Descartes, choosing only to apply his method to certain matters, though
he had made it fit to be applied to all, declare that men might judge
for themselves in matters philosophical but not in matters political?
How happened it that in the eighteenth century those general
applications were all at once drawn from this same method, which
Descartes and his predecessors had either not perceived or had rejected?
To what, lastly, is the fact to be attributed, that at this period
the method we are speaking of suddenly emerged from the schools, to
penetrate into society and become the common standard of intelligence;
and that, after it had become popular among the French, it has been
ostensibly adopted or secretly followed by all the nations of Europe?

The philosophical method here designated may have been engendered in
the sixteenth century--it may have been more accurately defined and more
extensively applied in the seventeenth; but neither in the one nor in
the other could it be commonly adopted. Political laws, the condition
of society, and the habits of mind which are derived from these causes,
were as yet opposed to it. It was discovered at a time when men were
beginning to equalize and assimilate their conditions. It could only be
generally followed in ages when those conditions had at length become
nearly equal, and men nearly alike.

The philosophical method of the eighteenth century is then not only
French, but it is democratic; and this explains why it was so readily
admitted throughout Europe, where it has contributed so powerfully to
change the face of society. It is not because the French have changed
their former opinions, and altered their former manners, that they have
convulsed the world; but because they were the first to generalize and
bring to light a philosophical method, by the assistance of which it
became easy to attack all that was old, and to open a path to all that
was new.

If it be asked why, at the present day, this same method is more
rigorously followed and more frequently applied by the French than by
the Americans, although the principle of equality be no less complete,
and of more ancient date, amongst the latter people, the fact may be
attributed to two circumstances, which it is essential to have clearly
understood in the first instance. It must never be forgotten that
religion gave birth to Anglo-American society. In the United States
religion is therefore commingled with all the habits of the nation and
all the feelings of patriotism; whence it derives a peculiar force.
To this powerful reason another of no less intensity may be added: in
American religion has, as it were, laid down its own limits. Religious
institutions have remained wholly distinct from political institutions,
so that former laws have been easily changed whilst former belief has
remained unshaken. Christianity has therefore retained a strong hold on
the public mind in America; and, I would more particularly remark, that
its sway is not only that of a philosophical doctrine which has been
adopted upon inquiry, but of a religion which is believed without
discussion. In the United States Christian sects are infinitely
diversified and perpetually modified; but Christianity itself is a fact
so irresistibly established, that no one undertakes either to attack or
to defend it. The Americans, having admitted the principal doctrines of
the Christian religion without inquiry, are obliged to accept in like
manner a great number of moral truths originating in it and connected
with it. Hence the activity of individual analysis is restrained within
narrow limits, and many of the most important of human opinions are
removed from the range of its influence.

The second circumstance to which I have alluded is the following: the
social condition and the constitution of the Americans are democratic,
but they have not had a democratic revolution. They arrived upon the
soil they occupy in nearly the condition in which we see them at the
present day; and this is of very considerable importance.

There are no revolutions which do not shake existing belief, enervate
authority, and throw doubts over commonly received ideas. The effect of
all revolutions is therefore, more or less, to surrender men to their
own guidance, and to open to the mind of every man a void and almost
unlimited range of speculation. When equality of conditions succeeds
a protracted conflict between the different classes of which the elder
society was composed, envy, hatred, and uncharitableness, pride, and
exaggerated self-confidence are apt to seize upon the human heart,
and plant their sway there for a time. This, independently of equality
itself, tends powerfully to divide men--to lead them to mistrust the
judgment of others, and to seek the light of truth nowhere but in their
own understandings. Everyone then attempts to be his own sufficient
guide, and makes it his boast to form his own opinions on all subjects.
Men are no longer bound together by ideas, but by interests; and it
would seem as if human opinions were reduced to a sort of intellectual
dust, scattered on every side, unable to collect, unable to cohere.

Thus, that independence of mind which equality supposes to exist, is
never so great, nor ever appears so excessive, as at the time when
equality is beginning to establish itself, and in the course of that
painful labor by which it is established. That sort of intellectual
freedom which equality may give ought, therefore, to be very carefully
distinguished from the anarchy which revolution brings. Each of these
two things must be severally considered, in order not to conceive
exaggerated hopes or fears of the future.

I believe that the men who will live under the new forms of society will
make frequent use of their private judgment; but I am far from thinking
that they will often abuse it. This is attributable to a cause of more
general application to all democratic countries, and which, in the
long run, must needs restrain in them the independence of individual
speculation within fixed, and sometimes narrow, limits. I shall proceed
to point out this cause in the next chapter.




Chapter II: Of The Principal Source Of Belief Among Democratic Nations

At different periods dogmatical belief is more or less abundant. It
arises in different ways, and it may change its object or its form; but
under no circumstances will dogmatical belief cease to exist, or, in
other words, men will never cease to entertain some implicit opinions
without trying them by actual discussion. If everyone undertook to form
his own opinions and to seek for truth by isolated paths struck out by
himself alone, it is not to be supposed that any considerable number of
men would ever unite in any common belief. But obviously without such
common belief no society can prosper--say rather no society can subsist;
for without ideas held in common, there is no common action, and without
common action, there may still be men, but there is no social body. In
order that society should exist, and, a fortiori, that a society should
prosper, it is required that all the minds of the citizens should be
rallied and held together by certain predominant ideas; and this cannot
be the case, unless each of them sometimes draws his opinions from the
common source, and consents to accept certain matters of belief at the
hands of the community.

If I now consider man in his isolated capacity, I find that dogmatical
belief is not less indispensable to him in order to live alone, than it
is to enable him to co-operate with his fellow-creatures. If man were
forced to demonstrate to himself all the truths of which he makes
daily use, his task would never end. He would exhaust his strength
in preparatory exercises, without advancing beyond them. As, from the
shortness of his life, he has not the time, nor, from the limits of his
intelligence, the capacity, to accomplish this, he is reduced to take
upon trust a number of facts and opinions which he has not had either
the time or the power to verify himself, but which men of greater
ability have sought out, or which the world adopts. On this groundwork
he raises for himself the structure of his own thoughts; nor is he led
to proceed in this manner by choice so much as he is constrained by the
inflexible law of his condition. There is no philosopher of such great
parts in the world, but that he believes a million of things on the
faith of other people, and supposes a great many more truths than he
demonstrates. This is not only necessary but desirable. A man who should
undertake to inquire into everything for himself, could devote to each
thing but little time and attention. His task would keep his mind in
perpetual unrest, which would prevent him from penetrating to the depth
of any truth, or of grappling his mind indissolubly to any conviction.
His intellect would be at once independent and powerless. He must
therefore make his choice from amongst the various objects of human
belief, and he must adopt many opinions without discussion, in order
to search the better into that smaller number which he sets apart for
investigation. It is true that whoever receives an opinion on the word
of another, does so far enslave his mind; but it is a salutary servitude
which allows him to make a good use of freedom.

A principle of authority must then always occur, under all
circumstances, in some part or other of the moral and intellectual
world. Its place is variable, but a place it necessarily has. The
independence of individual minds may be greater, or it may be less:
unbounded it cannot be. Thus the question is, not to know whether any
intellectual authority exists in the ages of democracy, but simply where
it resides and by what standard it is to be measured.

I have shown in the preceding chapter how the equality of conditions
leads men to entertain a sort of instinctive incredulity of the
supernatural, and a very lofty and often exaggerated opinion of the
human understanding. The men who live at a period of social equality are
not therefore easily led to place that intellectual authority to which
they bow either beyond or above humanity. They commonly seek for the
sources of truth in themselves, or in those who are like themselves.
This would be enough to prove that at such periods no new religion could
be established, and that all schemes for such a purpose would be not
only impious but absurd and irrational. It may be foreseen that a
democratic people will not easily give credence to divine missions; that
they will turn modern prophets to a ready jest; and they that will seek
to discover the chief arbiter of their belief within, and not beyond,
the limits of their kind.

When the ranks of society are unequal, and men unlike each other in
condition, there are some individuals invested with all the power of
superior intelligence, learning, and enlightenment, whilst the multitude
is sunk in ignorance and prejudice. Men living at these aristocratic
periods are therefore naturally induced to shape their opinions by the
superior standard of a person or a class of persons, whilst they are
averse to recognize the infallibility of the mass of the people.

The contrary takes place in ages of equality. The nearer the citizens
are drawn to the common level of an equal and similar condition, the
less prone does each man become to place implicit faith in a certain man
or a certain class of men. But his readiness to believe the multitude
increases, and opinion is more than ever mistress of the world. Not only
is common opinion the only guide which private judgment retains amongst
a democratic people, but amongst such a people it possesses a power
infinitely beyond what it has elsewhere. At periods of equality men have
no faith in one another, by reason of their common resemblance; but this
very resemblance gives them almost unbounded confidence in the judgment
of the public; for it would not seem probable, as they are all endowed
with equal means of judging, but that the greater truth should go with
the greater number.

When the inhabitant of a democratic country compares himself
individually with all those about him, he feels with pride that he is
the equal of any one of them; but when he comes to survey the totality
of his fellows, and to place himself in contrast to so huge a body,
he is instantly overwhelmed by the sense of his own insignificance and
weakness. The same equality which renders him independent of each of his
fellow-citizens taken severally, exposes him alone and unprotected to
the influence of the greater number. The public has therefore among a
democratic people a singular power, of which aristocratic nations could
never so much as conceive an idea; for it does not persuade to certain
opinions, but it enforces them, and infuses them into the faculties by a
sort of enormous pressure of the minds of all upon the reason of each.

In the United States the majority undertakes to supply a multitude of
ready-made opinions for the use of individuals, who are thus relieved
from the necessity of forming opinions of their own. Everybody there
adopts great numbers of theories, on philosophy, morals, and politics,
without inquiry, upon public trust; and if we look to it very narrowly,
it will be perceived that religion herself holds her sway there, much
less as a doctrine of revelation than as a commonly received opinion.
The fact that the political laws of the Americans are such that the
majority rules the community with sovereign sway, materially increases
the power which that majority naturally exercises over the mind. For
nothing is more customary in man than to recognize superior wisdom in
the person of his oppressor. This political omnipotence of the majority
in the United States doubtless augments the influence which public
opinion would obtain without it over the mind of each member of the
community; but the foundations of that influence do not rest upon it.
They must be sought for in the principle of equality itself, not in the
more or less popular institutions which men living under that condition
may give themselves. The intellectual dominion of the greater number
would probably be less absolute amongst a democratic people governed
by a king than in the sphere of a pure democracy, but it will always be
extremely absolute; and by whatever political laws men are governed in
the ages of equality, it may be foreseen that faith in public
opinion will become a species of religion there, and the majority its
ministering prophet.

Thus intellectual authority will be different, but it will not be
diminished; and far from thinking that it will disappear, I augur that
it may readily acquire too much preponderance, and confine the action
of private judgment within narrower limits than are suited either to
the greatness or the happiness of the human race. In the principle of
equality I very clearly discern two tendencies; the one leading the mind
of every man to untried thoughts, the other inclined to prohibit him
from thinking at all. And I perceive how, under the dominion of certain
laws, democracy would extinguish that liberty of the mind to which a
democratic social condition is favorable; so that, after having broken
all the bondage once imposed on it by ranks or by men, the human mind
would be closely fettered to the general will of the greatest number.