2. Chapter II: Of Individualism In Democratic Countries
I have shown how it is that in ages of equality every man
seeks for his opinions within himself: I am now about to show how
it is that, in the same ages, all his feelings are turned towards
himselfalone. Individualism [1] is a novel expression, to which a
novel idea has given birth. Our fathers were only acquainted
with egotism. Egotism is a passionate and exaggerated love of
self, which leads a man to connect everything with his own
person, and to prefer himself to everything in the world.
Individualism is a mature and calm feeling, which disposes each
member of the community to sever himself from the mass of his
fellow-creatures; and to draw apart with his family and his
friends; so that, after he has thus formed a little circle of his
own, he willingly leaves society at large to itself. Egotism
originates in blind instinct: individualism proceeds from
erroneous judgment more than from depraved feelings; it
originates as much in the deficiencies of the mind as in the
perversity of the heart. Egotism blights the germ of all virtue;
individualism, at first, only saps the virtues of public life;
but, in the long run, it attacks and destroys all others, and is
at length absorbed in downright egotism. Egotism is a vice as
old as the world, which does not belong to one form of society
more than to another: individualism is of democratic origin, and
it threatens to spread in the same ratio as the equality of
conditions.
Amongst aristocratic nations, as families remain for
centuries in the same condition, often on the same spot, all
generations become as it were contemporaneous. A man almost
always knows his forefathers, and respects them: he thinks he
already sees his remote descendants, and he loves them. He
willingly imposes duties on himself towards the former and the
latter; and he will frequently sacrifice his personal
gratifications to those who went before and to those who will
come after him. Aristocratic institutions have, moreover, the
effect of closely binding every man to several of his
fellow-citizens. As the classes of an aristocratic people are
strongly marked and permanent, each of them is regarded by its
own members as a sort of lesser country, more tangible and more
cherished than the country at large. As in aristocratic
communities all the citizens occupy fixed positions, one above
the other, the result is that each of them always sees a man
above himself whose patronage is necessary to him, and below
himself another man whose co-operation he may claim. Men living
in aristocratic ages are therefore almost always closely attached
to something placed out of their own sphere, and they are often
disposed to forget themselves. It is true that in those ages the
notion of human fellowship is faint, and that men seldom think of
sacrificing themselves for mankind; but they often sacrifice
themselves for other men. In democratic ages, on the contrary,
when the duties of each individual to the race are much more
clear, devoted service to any one man becomes more rare; the bond
of human affection is extended, but it is relaxed.
Amongst democratic nations new families are constantly
springing up, others are constantly falling away, and all that
remain change their condition; the woof of time is every instant
broken, and the track of generations effaced. Those who went
before are soon forgotten; of those who will come after no one
has any idea: the interest of man is confined to those in close
propinquity to himself. As each class approximates to other
classes, and intermingles with them, its members become
indifferent and as strangers to one another. Aristocracy had
made a chain of all the members of the community, from the
peasant to the king: democracy breaks that chain, and severs
every link of it. As social conditions become more equal, the
number of persons increases who, although they are neither rich
enough nor powerful enough to exercise any great influence over
their fellow-creatures, have nevertheless acquired or retained
sufficient education and fortune to satisfy their own wants.
They owe nothing to any man, they expect nothing from any man;
they acquire the habit of always considering themselves as
standing alone, and they are apt to imagine that their whole
destiny is in their own hands. Thus not only does democracy make
every man forget his ancestors, but it hides his descendants, and
separates his contemporaries from him; it throws him back forever
upon himself alone, and threatens in the end to confine him
entirely within the solitude of his own heart.
[1]
[I adopt the expression of the original, however
strange it may seem to the English ear, partly because it
illustrates the remark on the introduction of general terms into
democratic language which was made in a preceding chapter, and
partly because I know of no English word exactly equivalent to
the expression. The chapter itself defines the meaning attached
to it by the author. -Translator's Note.]]