The practice which obtains amongst the Americans of fixing the standard
of their judgment in themselves alone, leads them to other habits of
mind. As they perceive that they succeed in resolving without assistance
all the little difficulties which their practical life presents, they
readily conclude that everything in the world may be explained, and that
nothing in it transcends the limits of the understanding. Thus they fall
to denying what they cannot comprehend; which leaves them but little
faith for whatever is extraordinary, and an almost insurmountable
distaste for whatever is supernatural. As it is on their own testimony
that they are accustomed to rely, they like to discern the object which
engages their attention with extreme clearness; they therefore strip off
as much as possible all that covers it, they rid themselves of whatever
separates them from it, they remove whatever conceals it from sight,
in order to view it more closely and in the broad light of day. This
disposition of the mind soon leads them to contemn forms, which they
regard as useless and inconvenient veils placed between them and the
truth.

The Americans then have not required to extract their philosophical
method from books; they have found it in themselves. The same thing may
be remarked in what has taken place in Europe. This same method has
only been established and made popular in Europe in proportion as the
condition of society has become more equal, and men have grown more like
each other. Let us consider for a moment the connection of the periods
in which this change may be traced. In the sixteenth century the
Reformers subjected some of the dogmas of the ancient faith to the
scrutiny of private judgment; but they still withheld from it the
judgment of all the rest. In the seventeenth century, Bacon in the
natural sciences, and Descartes in the study of philosophy in the strict