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,