be more general; the sciences may be less perfectly cultivated, but
ignorance will be less common; the impetuosity of the feelings will be
repressed, and the habits of the nation softened; there will be more
vices and fewer crimes. In the absence of enthusiasm and of an
ardent faith, great sacrifices may be obtained from the members of a
commonwealth by an appeal to their understandings and their experience;
each individual will feel the same necessity for uniting with his
fellow-citizens to protect his own weakness; and as he knows that if
they are to assist he must co-operate, he will readily perceive that his
personal interest is identified with the interest of the community. The
nation, taken as a whole, will be less brilliant, less glorious, and
perhaps less strong; but the majority of the citizens will enjoy a
greater degree of prosperity, and the people will remain quiet, not
because it despairs of amelioration, but because it is conscious of the
advantages of its condition. If all the consequences of this state of
things were not good or useful, society would at least have appropriated
all such as were useful and good; and having once and for ever
renounced the social advantages of aristocracy, mankind would enter into
possession of all the benefits which democracy can afford.

But here it may be asked what we have adopted in the place of those
institutions, those ideas, and those customs of our forefathers which
we have abandoned. The spell of royalty is broken, but it has not been
succeeded by the majesty of the laws; the people has learned to despise
all authority, but fear now extorts a larger tribute of obedience than
that which was formerly paid by reverence and by love.

I perceive that we have destroyed those independent beings which were
able to cope with tyranny single-handed; but it is the Government
that has inherited the privileges of which families, corporations, and