a democratic people can have no aptitude and no taste for science, literature, or art
it must be acknowledged that amongst few of the civilized nations of our time have the higher sciences made less progress than in the united states; and in few have great artists, fine poets, or celebrated writers been more rare. many europeans, struck by this fact, have looked upon it as a natural and inevitable result of equality; and they have supposed that if a democratic state of society and democratic institutions were ever to prevail over the whole earth, the human mind would gradually find its beacon-lights grow dim, and men would relapse into a period of darkness. to reason thus is, i think, to confound several ideas which it is important to divide and to examine separately: it is to mingle, unintentionally, what is democratic with what is only american.
the religion professed by the first emigrants, and bequeathed by them to their descendants, simple in its form of worship, austere and almost harsh in its principles, and hostile to external symbols and to ceremonial pomp, is naturally unfavorable to the fine arts, and only yields a reluctant sufferance to the pleasures of literature. the americans are a very old and a very enlightened people, who have fallen upon a new and unbounded country, where they may extend themselves at pleasure, and which they may fertilize without difficulty. this state of things is without a parallel in the history of the world. in america, then, every one finds facilities, unknown elsewhere, for making or increasing his fortune. the spirit of gain is always on the stretch, and the human mind, constantly diverted from the pleasures of imagination and the labors of the intellect, is there swayed by no impulse but the pursuit of wealth. not only are manufacturing and commercial classes to be found in the united states, as they are in all other countries; but what never occurred elsewhere, the whole community is simultaneously engaged in productive industry and commerce. i am convinced that, if the americans had been alone in the world, with the freedom and the knowledge acquired by their forefathers, and the passions which are their own, they would not have been slow to discover that progress cannot long be made in the application of the sciences without cultivating the theory of them; that all the arts are perfected by one another: and, however absorbed they might have been by the pursuit of the principal object of their desires, they would speedily have admitted, that it is necessary to turn aside from it occasionally, in order the better to attain it in the end.
the taste for the pleasures of the mind is moreover so natural to the heart of civilized man, that amongst the polite nations, which are least disposed to give themselves up to these pursuits, a certain number of citizens are always to be found who take part in them. this intellectual craving, when once felt, would very soon have been satisfied. but at the very time when the americans were naturally inclined to require nothing of science but its special applications to the useful arts and the means of rendering life comfortable, learned and literary europe was engaged 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.
it is possible to conceive a people not subdivided into any castes or scale of ranks; in which the law, recognizing no privileges, should divide inherited property into equal shares; but which, at the same time, should be without knowledge and without freedom. nor is this an empty hypothesis: a despot may find that it is his interest to render his subjects equal and to leave them ignorant, in order more easily to keep them slaves. not only would a democratic people of this kind show neither aptitude nor taste for science, literature, or art, but it would probably never arrive at the possession of them. the law of descent would of itself provide for the destruction of fortunes at each succeeding generation; and new fortunes would be acquired by none. the poor man, without either knowledge or freedom, would not so much as conceive the idea of raising himself to wealth; and the rich man would allow himself to be degraded to poverty, without a notion of self-defence. between these two members of the community complete and invincible equality would soon be established.
no one would then have time or taste to devote himself to the pursuits or pleasures of the intellect; but all men would remain paralyzed by a state of common ignorance and equal servitude. when i conceive a democratic society of this kind, i fancy myself in one of those low, close, and gloomy abodes, where the light which breaks in from without soon faints and fades away. a sudden heaviness overpowers me, and i grope through the surrounding darkness, to find the aperture which will restore me to daylight and the air.
but all this is not applicable to men already enlightened who retain their freedom, after having abolished from amongst them those peculiar and hereditary rights which perpetuated the tenure of property in the hands of certain individuals or certain bodies. when men living in a democratic state of society are enlightened, they readily discover that they are confined and fixed within no limits which constrain them to take up with their present fortune. they all therefore conceive the idea of increasing it; if they are free, they all attempt it, but all do not succeed in the same manner. the legislature, it is true, no longer grants privileges, but they are bestowed by nature. as natural inequality is very great, fortunes become unequal as soon as every man exerts all his faculties to get rich. the law of descent prevents the establishment of wealthy families; but it does not prevent the existence of wealthy individuals. it constantly brings back the members of the community to a common level, from which they as constantly escape: and the inequality of fortunes augments in proportion as knowledge is diffused and liberty increased.
a sect which arose in our time, and was celebrated for its talents and its extravagance, proposed to concentrate all property into the hands of a central power, whose function it should afterwards be to parcel it out to individuals, according to their capacity. this would have been a method of escaping from that complete and eternal equality which seems to threaten democratic society. but it would be a simpler and less dangerous remedy to grant no privilege to any, giving to all equal cultivation and equal independence, and leaving everyone to determine his own position. natural inequality will very soon make way for itself, and wealth will spontaneously pass into the hands of the most capable.
free and democratic communities, then, will always contain a considerable number of people enjoying opulence or competency. the wealthy will not be so closely linked to each other as the members of the former aristocratic class of society: their propensities will be different, and they will scarcely ever enjoy leisure as secure or as complete: but they will be far more numerous than those who belonged to that class of society could ever be. these persons will not be strictly confined to the cares of practical life, and they will still be able, though in different degrees, to indulge in the pursuits and pleasures of the intellect. in those pleasures they will indulge; for if it be true that the human mind leans on one side to the narrow, the practical, and the useful, it naturally rises on the other to the infinite, the spiritual, and the beautiful. physical wants confine it to the earth; but, as soon as the tie is loosened, it will unbend itself again.
not only will the number of those who can take an interest in the productions of the mind be enlarged, but the taste for intellectual enjoyment will descend, step by step, even to those who, in aristocratic societies, seem to have neither time nor ability to in indulge in them. when hereditary wealth, the privileges of rank, and the prerogatives of birth have ceased to be, and when every man derives his strength from himself alone, it becomes evident that the chief cause of disparity between the fortunes of men is the mind. whatever tends to invigorate, to extend, or to adorn the mind, instantly rises to great value. the utility of knowledge becomes singularly conspicuous even to the eyes of the multitude: those who have no taste for its charms set store upon its results, and make some efforts to acquire it. in free and enlightened democratic ages, there is nothing to separate men from each other or to retain them in their peculiar sphere; they rise or sink with extreme rapidity. all classes live in perpetual intercourse from their great proximity to each other. they communicate and intermingle every day—they imitate and envy one other: this suggests to the people many ideas, notions, and desires which it would never have entertained if the distinctions of rank had been fixed and society at rest. in such nations the servant never considers himself as an entire stranger to the pleasures and toils of his master, nor the poor man to those of the rich; the rural population assimilates itself to that of the towns, and the provinces to the capital. no one easily allows himself to be reduced to the mere material cares of life; and the humblest artisan casts at times an eager and a furtive glance into the higher regions of the intellect. people do not read with the same notions or in the same manner as they do in an aristocratic community; but the circle of readers is unceasingly expanded, till it includes all the citizens.
as soon as the multitude begins to take an interest in the labors of the mind, it finds out that to excel in some of them is a powerful method of acquiring fame, power, or wealth. the restless ambition which equality begets instantly takes this direction as it does all others. the number of those who cultivate science, letters, and the arts, becomes immense. the intellectual world starts into prodigious activity: everyone endeavors to open for himself a path there, and to draw the eyes of the public after him. something analogous occurs to what happens in society in the united states, politically considered. what is done is often imperfect, but the attempts are innumerable; and, although the results of individual effort are commonly very small, the total amount is always very large.
it is therefore not true to assert that men living in democratic ages are naturally indifferent to science, literature, and the arts: only it must be acknowledged that they cultivate them after their own fashion, and bring to the task their own peculiar qualifications and deficiencies.
