in exploring the common sources of truth, and in improving at the same
time all that can minister to the pleasures or satisfy the wants of man.
At the head of the enlightened nations of the Old World the inhabitants
of the United States more particularly distinguished one, to which they
were closely united by a common origin and by kindred habits. Amongst
this people they found distinguished men of science, artists of skill,
writers of eminence, and they were enabled to enjoy the treasures of the
intellect without requiring to labor in amassing them. I cannot consent
to separate America from Europe, in spite of the ocean which intervenes.
I consider the people of the United States as that portion of the
English people which is commissioned to explore the wilds of the New
World; whilst the rest of the nation, enjoying more leisure and less
harassed by the drudgery of life, may devote its energies to thought,
and enlarge in all directions the empire of the mind. The position of
the Americans is therefore quite exceptional, and it may be believed
that no democratic people will ever be placed in a similar one. Their
strictly Puritanical origin--their exclusively commercial habits--even
the country they inhabit, which seems to divert their minds from the
pursuit of science, literature, and the arts--the proximity of Europe,
which allows them to neglect these pursuits without relapsing into
barbarism--a thousand special causes, of which I have only been able to
point out the most important--have singularly concurred to fix the mind
of the American upon purely practical objects. His passions, his wants,
his education, and everything about him seem to unite in drawing the
native of the United States earthward: his religion alone bids him turn,
from time to time, a transient and distracted glance to heaven. Let us
cease then to view all democratic nations under the mask of the American
people, and let us attempt to survey them at length with their own
proper features.