in the United States, nothing struck me more forcibly than the general
equality of conditions. I readily discovered the prodigious influence
which this primary fact exercises on the whole course of society, by
giving a certain direction to public opinion, and a certain tenor to
the laws; by imparting new maxims to the governing powers, and peculiar
habits to the governed. I speedily perceived that the influence of this
fact extends far beyond the political character and the laws of the
country, and that it has no less empire over civil society than over
the Government; it creates opinions, engenders sentiments, suggests the
ordinary practices of life, and modifies whatever it does not produce.
The more I advanced in the study of American society, the more I
perceived that the equality of conditions is the fundamental fact from
which all others seem to be derived, and the central point at which all
my observations constantly terminated.

I then turned my thoughts to our own hemisphere, where I imagined that
I discerned something analogous to the spectacle which the New World
presented to me. I observed that the equality of conditions is daily
progressing towards those extreme limits which it seems to have reached
in the United States, and that the democracy which governs the American
communities appears to be rapidly rising into power in Europe. I hence
conceived the idea of the book which is now before the reader.

It is evident to all alike that a great democratic revolution is
going on amongst us; but there are two opinions as to its nature and
consequences. To some it appears to be a novel accident, which as such
may still be checked; to others it seems irresistible, because it is the
most uniform, the most ancient, and the most permanent tendency which is
to be found in history. Let us recollect the situation of France seven
hundred years ago, when the territory was divided amongst a small number