4. Chapter IV: Consequences Of The Three Preceding Chapters
When men feel a natural compassion for their mutual
sufferings -when they are brought together by easy and frequent
intercourse, and no sensitive feelings keep them asunder -it may
readily be supposed that they will lend assistance to one another
whenever it is needed. When an American asks for the
co-operation of his fellow-citizens it is seldom refused, and I
have often seen it afforded spontaneously and with great
goodwill. If an accident happens on the highway, everybody
hastens to help the sufferer; if some great and sudden calamity
befalls a family, the purses of a thousand strangers are at once
willingly opened, and small but numerous donations pour in to
relieve their distress. It often happens amongst the most
civilized nations of the globe, that a poor wretch is as
friendless in the midst of a crowd as the savage in his wilds:
this is hardly ever the case in the United States. The
Americans, who are always cold and often coarse in their manners,
seldom show insensibility; and if they do not proffer services
eagerly, yet they do not refuse to render them.
All this is not in contradiction to what I have said before
on the subject of individualism. The two things are so far from
combating each other, that I can see how they agree. Equality of
conditions, whilst it makes men feel their independence, shows
them their own weakness: they are free, but exposed to a thousand
accidents; and experience soon teaches them that, although they
do not habitually require the assistance of others, a time almost
always comes when they cannot do without it. We constantly see
in Europe that men of the same profession are ever ready to
assist each other; they are all exposed to the same ills, and
that is enough to teach them to seek mutual preservatives,
however hard-hearted and selfish they may otherwise be. When
one of them falls into danger, from which the others may save him
by a slight transient sacrifice or a sudden effort, they do not
fail to make the attempt. Not that they are deeply interested in
his fate; for if, by chance, their exertions are unavailing, they
immediately forget the object of them, and return to their own
business; but a sort of tacit and almost involuntary agreement
has been passed between them, by which each one owes to the
others a temporary support which he may claim for himself in
turn. Extend to a people the remark here applied to a class, and
you will understand my meaning. A similar covenant exists in
fact between all the citizens of a democracy: they all feel
themselves subject to the same weakness and the same dangers; and
their interest, as well as their sympathy, makes it a rule with
them to lend each other mutual assistance when required. The more
equal social conditions become, the more do men display this
reciprocal disposition to oblige each other. In democracies no
great benefits are conferred, but good offices are constantly
rendered: a man seldom displays self-devotion, but all men are
ready to be of service to one another.