age of themselves and their armies, but the lesser roads are yet in a state of nature, and impassable in winter. They erected universities, but the mass of the nation have no schools. Those universities have given to the world men of letters, whose productions were sealed books to the mass of their countrymen, and philosophers whose discoveries were useless to the nation, because the people were not sufficiently advanced to profit by them. They erected the column, and to support it, they now desire to surround it by common schools, and thus form the pyramid. Had they commenced with them, it is difficult to imagine the height at which the intel lectual character of the nation might now have arrived.

In England we find fewer palaces than in France, but the people are better lodged. The great roads are not maintained by government, but the small ones are kept in good order. The universities are not supported out of the taxes, and the consequence is, that a large portion of the people are enabled to obtain education. To a much greater extent than in France has the system resembled that of the United States; and it is now desired to give it a much closer resemblance, by establishing common schools. With every extension of that system, there must be increase of intellectual activity in the nation, and increased disposition to cultivate literature, science, and the arts; and with intellectual improvement there must be a daily increasing knowledge of the existence of rights, and daily increasing power to maintain them. Political freedom is the necessary consequence of increased productive power, and improvement of physical, moral, and intellectual condition; and with every extension of political rights, there is an increased tendency to further intellectual improvement.

Our author says, that if it be deemed expedient to divert the moral and intellectual activity of man to the production of comfort, and to the acquirement of the necessaries of life, giving them habits of peace, and producing general prosperity; giving to each individual the greatest degree of enjoyment, and the least degree of misery; there can be no surer means of satisfying such desires, than "by equalizing the condition of man, and establishing democratic institutions."* If, however, "it be your intention to confer a certain elevation upon the human mind, and to teach it to regard the things of this world with generous feelings; to inspire men with a scorn of mere temporal advantage; to give birth to living convic tions, and to keep alive the spirit of honourable devotedness; if you hold it a good thing to refine the habits, to embellish the manners, to cultivate the arts of a nation, and to promote the love of poetry,

Democracy in America, vol. ii. p. 142.

of beauty, and of renown; you must avoid the government of democracy, which would be a very uncertain guide to the end you have in view." Very little study is sufficient to show that, with the increase of wealth, and the general improvement of condition, the human mind attains a higher elevation-that the things of this world are regarded with more generous feelings-that men are more disposed to devote themselves to the accomplishment of any object tending to benefit the human racet-that there is a higher degree of refinement, and a greater disposition to cultivate the arts -and yet every increase of wealth is attended by an increasing tendency to democracy. The "spirit of honourable devotedness"— "the disposition to cultivate the arts," and to promote the love of that "renown" which results from successful efforts at improving the condition of man-prevails in England to a greater degree than in any other part of Europe, yet in none has there been so near an approach to equality of rights—in none is the tendency to perfect equality so great-in none is its early accomplishment so certain.

The causes which contribute to the maintenance of the democratic republic in the United States are, according to our author, reducible to three heads, viz.‡

I. The peculiar and accidental situation in which Providence has placed the Americans.

II. The laws.

III. The customs and manners of the people.

There is nothing peculiar in the situation in which the people are placed. That of the Spanish provinces of South America, of Mexico and Guatimala, is precisely similar, yet they cannot establish democratic institutions. Their growth was restrained by laws which forbade the exercise of the rights of person or of property, and the consequence was, that when they threw off the yoke of Spain, they were totally unfit to govern themselves. Instead of uniting together, as did the thirteen provinces of North America, they have been incessantly engaged in making war upon each other. Buenos Ayres and Chili, Chili and Peru, Peru and Bolivia, Montevideo and Buenos Ayres, are constantly endeavouring to see which shall do each other most harm-they have prevented the accumulation of wealth, and the improvement of physical and moral condition, without which there can be no improvement of political condition. Had Massachusetts and Connecticut, Virginia

Democracy in America, vol. ii. p. 141.

The reader may compare the influence upon the feelings exercised by the systems of France and the United States, by reference to chapter xiii. of our second volume. Democracy in America, vol. ii. p. 202.

and Maryland, South Carolina and Georgia, been unceasingly at war with each other, there could have been no democracy in America. Perceiving this fact, M. de Tocqueville says that the laws and manners are the "efficient causes."

With every improvement in the condition of the people of England, we see a disposition to change all those laws which tend to the maintenance of inequality. Laws thus vary with, and are evidences of, public opinion. Public opinion varies with moral condition. Moral condition with physical condition. Physical condition is dependent upon the increase of wealth. To say that laws exist which favour the establishment of equality of political rights, is to say that there is a constant increase of the productive power, accompanied by a constant improvement of physical, moral, and intellectual condition, and that the people are gradually becoming more and more sensible of the advantage resulting from perfect security of person and property, and of the necessity of granting it to others if they desire it for themselves.

The manners of a people are dependent upon the increase or decrease of wealth. In the first case we find a constantly increasing tendency to independence of feeling, and harmony of action, such as is observed by M. de Tocqueville to exist in America. Men observe "the connexion of public order and public prosperity," and they learn "that one cannot subsist without the other," whereas, in the second, they find themselves becoming daily more dependent, and are daily less disposed to unite with their fellow men for the maintenance of public order, and daily more and more disposed to obtain by force those necessaries or comforts of life which labour will not produce.

In the outset, our author informs his readers that equality of condition is the fundamental fact from which all others seem to be derived, "giving a certain direction to public opinion, and a certain tenor to the laws; by imparting new maxims to the governing powers, and peculiar habits to the governed." He now says, that the laws and manners thus produced are the "efficient causes" of the maintenance of the democratic system.

A system which establishes perfect equality of political condition, securing to cach individual uncontrolled exercise of his

* Democracy in America, vol. ii., p. 215.

Ibid., Introduction, p. xiii.

VOL. III.-32

+ Ibid., p. 219.

own rights of person and property, producing a habit of freedom and a necessity for abstaining from interference with the exercise by others of those rights which he desires for himself, is a democracy. To say that the existence of equality is the cause of the continuance of democracy, is precisely similar to asserting that the existence of wealth is the cause why people continue wealthy. Yet such is the result at which we must arrive, if we assume equality of condition as a "fundamental” fact, instead of considering it as a consequence of some preexisting fact, as it is. By prudence and industry, individuals are enabled to accumulate capital to be employed in aid of their labour; and by the maintenance of peace and cheap government, communities are enabled to increase their numbers, their capital, and their productive power, with a constant tendency to equality of political condition-or self-government. Here we have the "fundamental" causes of the increase of wealth among individuals, and of the growth of democracy in communities.

M. de Tocqueville deems it a question not " of easy solution, whether the aristocracy or democracy is most fit to govern a country." That question we leave to our readers to solve. All we desire to do is, to show them that the democratic form is that towards which all nations tend, as they improve in their physical and moral condition. Nature, therefore, points to it as that at which all nations must eventually arrive, and as that which will be accompanied by the greatest development of the moral and intellectual powers of man.

We have thus offered our opinions of some of the views of M. de Tocqueville. His work is certainly an extraordinary one, when we consider the brief time that was occupied in the inquiries which led to its publication; but he has, we think, fallen into numerous errors, some of which we have now pointed out. We feel satisfied that if he had, with his powerful mind, spent half a dozen years in the United States, making himself master of the working of the system, instead of depending upon the observations of individuals much less qualified than himself to form correct opinions, he would have produced a very different book. Had he done so, he would have perceived that the "fundamental" facts at the base of the whole system, are peace, rapid increase of capital and of production, and an equally rapid increase in the labourer's proportion, tending constantly to improvement and equality of physical, moral, intellectual, and political condition.

Democracy in America, vol. ii., p. 30.

CHAPTER IX.

CONCLUSION.

THE following propositions embrace the several points which we have endeavoured to establish.

I. That mankind tend to increase in numbers, and that under favourable circumstances they may double in from twenty-five to thirty years.

II. That there is a tendency to the accumulation, by each generation, of capital, in the form of houses, farms, canals, rail-roads, and other machinery, for the benefit of that which is to succeed it, and that, when not prevented by human interference, there must be a steady increase in the ratio of capital to population, as we know to have been the case, although in different degrees, in England, Scotland, France, the United States, and other countries, for centuries past.

III. That each successive generation should therefore be enabled to apply its labour more advantageously than that which preceded it, gradually substituting coal drawn from the bowels of the earth for the wood which before had been taken from the surface-iron and steel for flint-rail-roads and canals for horse and mule paths-ships and steamboats for canoes-the cotton of India and America, and the silk of China, for the skin of the ox and the sheep-the spinning-jenny and the power-loom for the distaff and hand-loom-and the power of the steam-engine for that of man-bringing into action those soils which, from difference of situation, or of quality, had been deemed inferior, and with each successive substitution diminishing the severity of labour, while increasing its reward.

IV. That the power of cultivating the soils that from quality were deemed inferior, and obtaining therefrom a constantly increasing supply of the necessaries and conveniences of life