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