8. Chapter VIII: The Principle Of Equality Suggests To The Americans
The Idea Of The Indefinite Perfectibility Of Man
Equality suggests to the human mind several ideas which
would not have originated from any other source, and it modifies
almost all those previously entertained. I take as an example
the idea of human perfectibility, because it is one of the
principal notions that the intellect can conceive, and because it
constitutes of itself a great philosophical theory, which is
every instant to be traced by its consequences in the practice of
human affairs. Although man has many points of resemblance with
the brute creation, one characteristic is peculiar to himself -he improves: they are incapable of improvement. Mankind could
not fail to discover this difference from its earliest period.
The idea of perfectibility is therefore as old as the world;
equality did not give birth to it, although it has imparted to it
a novel character.
When the citizens of a community are classed according to
their rank, their profession, or their birth, and when all men
are constrained to follow the career which happens to open before
them, everyone thinks that the utmost limits of human power are
to be discerned in proximity to himself, and none seeks any
longer to resist the inevitable law of his destiny. Not indeed
that an aristocratic people absolutely contests man's faculty of
self-improvement, but they do not hold it to be indefinite;
amelioration they conceive, but not change: they imagine that the
future condition of society may be better, but not essentially
different; and whilst they admit that mankind has made vast
strides in improvement, and may still have some to make, they
assign to it beforehand certain impassable limits. Thus they do
not presume that they have arrived at the supreme good or at
absolute truth (what people or what man was ever wild enough to
imagine it?) but they cherish a persuasion that they have pretty
nearly reached that degree of greatness and knowledge which our
imperfect nature admits of; and as nothing moves about them they
are willing to fancy that everything is in its fit place. Then it
is that the legislator affects to lay down eternal laws; that
kings and nations will raise none but imperishable monuments; and
that the present generation undertakes to spare generations to
come the care of regulating their destinies.
In proportion as castes disappear and the classes of society
approximate -as manners, customs, and laws vary, from the
tumultuous intercourse of men -as new facts arise -as new truths
are brought to light -as ancient opinions are dissipated, and
others take their place -the image of an ideal perfection,
forever on the wing, presents itself to the human mind. Continual
changes are then every instant occurring under the observation of
every man: the position of some is rendered worse; and he learns
but too well, that no people and no individual, how enlightened
soever they may be, can lay claim to infallibility; -the
condition of others is improved; whence he infers that man is
endowed with an indefinite faculty of improvement. His reverses
teach him that none may hope to have discovered absolute good -his success stimulates him to the never-ending pursuit of it.
Thus, forever seeking -forever falling, to rise again -often
disappointed, but not discouraged -he tends unceasingly towards
that unmeasured greatness so indistinctly visible at the end of
the long track which humanity has yet to tread. It can hardly be
believed how many facts naturally flow from the philosophical
theory of the indefinite perfectibility of man, or how strong an
influence it exercises even on men who, living entirely for the
purposes of action and not of thought, seem to conform their
actions to it, without knowing anything about it. I accost an
American sailor, and I inquire why the ships of his country are
built so as to last but for a short time; he answers without
hesitation that the art of navigation is every day making such
rapid progress, that the finest vessel would become almost
useless if it lasted beyond a certain number of years. In these
words, which fell accidentally and on a particular subject from a
man of rude attainments, I recognize the general and systematic
idea upon which a great people directs all its concerns.
Aristocratic nations are naturally too apt to narrow the
scope of human perfectibility; democratic nations to expand it
beyond compass.