Democracy In America, vol 2 | Page 7

each of them sometimes draws his
opinions from the common source, and consents to accept certain
matters of belief at the hands of the community.
If I now consider man in his isolated capacity, I find that dogmatical
belief is not less indispensable to him in order to live alone, than it is to
enable him to co-operate with his fellow- creatures. If man were forced
to demonstrate to himself all the truths of which he makes daily use, his
task would never end. He would exhaust his strength in preparatory
exercises, without advancing beyond them. As, from the shortness of
his life, he has not the time, nor, from the limits of his intelligence, the
capacity, to accomplish this, he is reduced to take upon trust a number
of facts and opinions which he has not had either the time or the power
to verify himself, but which men of greater ability have sought out, or
which the world adopts. On this groundwork he raises for himself the
structure of his own thoughts; nor is he led to proceed in this manner by
choice so much as he is constrainsd by the inflexible law of his
condition. There is no philosopher of such great parts in the world, but
that he believes a million of things on the faith of other people, and
supposes a great many more truths than he demonstrates. This is not
only necessary but desirable. A man who should undertake to inquire
into everything for himself, could devote to each thing but little time
and attention. His task would keep his mind in perpetual unrest, which
would prevent him from penetrating to the depth of any truth, or of
grappling his mind indissolubly to any conviction. His intellect would
be at once independent and powerless. He must therefore make his
choice from amongst the various objects of human belief, and he must
adopt many opinions without discussion, in order to search the better
into that smaller number which he sets apart for investigation. It is true
that whoever receives an opinion on the word of another, does so far
enslave his mind; but it is a salutary servitude which allows him to
make a good use of freedom.
A principle of authority must then always occur, under all
circumstances, in some part or other of the moral and intellectual world.
Its place is variable, but a place it necessarily has. The independence of
individual minds may be greater, or it may be less: unbounded it cannot
be. Thus the question is, not to know whether any intellectual authority
exists in the ages of democracy, but simply where it resides and by

what standard it is to be measured.
I have shown in the preceding chapter how the equality of conditions
leads men to entertain a sort of instinctive incredulity of the
supernatural, and a very lofty and often exaggerated opinion of the
human understanding. The men who live at a period of social equality
are not therefore easily led to place that intellectual authority to which
they bow either beyond or above humanity. They commonly seek for
the sources of truth in themselves, or in those who are like themselves.
This would be enough to prove that at such periods no new religion
could be established, and that all schemes for such a purpose would be
not only impious but absurd and irrational. It may be foreseen that a
democratic people will not easily give credence to divine missions; that
they will turn modern prophets to a ready jest; and they that will seek to
discover the chief arbiter of their belief within, and not beyond, the
limits of their kind.
When the ranks of society are unequal, and men unlike each other in
condition, there are some individuals invested with all the power of
superior intelligence, learning, and enlightenment, whilst the multitude
is sunk in ignorance and prejudice. Men living at these aristocratic
periods are therefore naturally induced to shape their opinions by the
superior standard of a person or a class of persons, whilst they are
averse to recognize the infallibility of the mass of the people.
The contrary takes place in ages of equality. The nearer the citizens are
drawn to the common level of an equal and similar condition, the less
prone does each man become to place implicit faith in a certain man or
a certain class of men. But his readiness to believe the multitude
increases, and opinion is more than ever mistress of the world. Not only
is common opinion the only guide which private judgment retains
amongst a democratic people, but amongst such a people it possesses a
power infinitely beyond what it has elsewhere. At periods of equality
men have no faith in one another, by reason