11. Chapter XI: Peculiar Effects Of The Love Of Physical
Gratifications In Democratic Ages
It may be supposed, from what has just been said, that the
love of physical gratifications must constantly urge the
Americans to irregularities in morals, disturb the peace of
families, and threaten the security of society at large. Such is
not the case: the passion for physical gratifications produces in
democracies effects very different from those which it occasions
in aristocratic nations. It sometimes happens that, wearied with
public affairs and sated with opulence, amidst the ruin of
religious belief and the decline of the State, the heart of an
aristocracy may by degrees be seduced to the pursuit of sensual
enjoyments only. At other times the power of the monarch or the
weakness of the people, without stripping the nobility of their
fortune, compels them to stand aloof from the administration of
affairs, and whilst the road to mighty enterprise is closed,
abandons them to the inquietude of their own desires; they then
fall back heavily upon themselves, and seek in the pleasures of
the body oblivion of their former greatness. When the members of
an aristocratic body are thus exclusively devoted to the pursuit
of physical gratifications, they commonly concentrate in that
direction all the energy which they derive from their long
experience of power. Such men are not satisfied with the pursuit
of comfort; they require sumptuous depravity and splendid
corruption. The worship they pay the senses is a gorgeous one;
and they seem to vie with each other in the art of degrading
their own natures. The stronger, the more famous, and the more
free an aristocracy has been, the more depraved will it then
become; and however brilliant may have been the lustre of its
virtues, I dare predict that they will always be surpassed by the
splendor of its vices.
The taste for physical gratifications leads a democratic
people into no such excesses. The love of well-being is there
displayed as a tenacious, exclusive, universal passion; but its
range is confined. To build enormous palaces, to conquer or to
mimic nature, to ransack the world in order to gratify the
passions of a man, is not thought of: but to add a few roods of
land to your field, to plant an orchard, to enlarge a dwelling,
to be always making life more comfortable and convenient, to
avoid trouble, and to satisfy the smallest wants without effort
and almost without cost. These are small objects, but the soul
clings to them; it dwells upon them closely and day by day, till
they at last shut out the rest of the world, and sometimes
intervene between itself and heaven.
This, it may be said, can only be applicable to those
members of the community who are in humble circumstances;
wealthier individuals will display tastes akin to those which
belonged to them in aristocratic ages. I contest the
proposition: in point of physical gratifications, the most
opulent members of a democracy will not display tastes very
different from those of the people; whether it be that, springing
from the people, they really share those tastes, or that they
esteem it a duty to submit to them. In democratic society the
sensuality of the public has taken a moderate and tranquil
course, to which all are bound to conform: it is as difficult to
depart from the common rule by one's vices as by one's virtues.
Rich men who live amidst democratic nations are therefore more
intent on providing for their smallest wants than for their
extraordinary enjoyments; they gratify a number of petty desires,
without indulging in any great irregularities of passion: thus
they are more apt to become enervated than debauched.
The especial taste which the men of democratic ages
entertain for physical enjoyments is not naturally opposed to the
principles of public order; nay, it often stands in need of order
that it may be gratified. Nor is it adverse to regularity of
morals, for good morals contribute to public tranquillity and are
favorable to industry. It may even be frequently combined with a
species of religious morality: men wish to be as well off as they
can in this world, without foregoing their chance of another.
Some physical gratifications cannot be indulged in without crime;
from such they strictly abstain. The enjoyment of others is
sanctioned by religion and morality; to these the heart, the
imagination, and life itself are unreservedly given up; till, in
snatching at these lesser gifts, men lose sight of those more
precious possessions which constitute the glory and the greatness
of mankind. The reproach I address to the principle of equality,
is not that it leads men away in the pursuit of forbidden
enjoyments, but that it absorbs them wholly in quest of those
which are allowed. By these means, a kind of virtuous
materialism may ultimately be established in the world, which
would not corrupt, but enervate the soul, and noiselessly unbend
its springs of action.