sition, the waves follow one another to the far west, the froth
and scum, boiling in the advance.

America is, indeed, well worth the study of the philosopher. A vast
nation forming, society ever changing, all in motion and activity,
nothing complete, the old continent pouring in her surplus to supply the
loss of the eastern states, all busy as a hive, full of energy and
activity. Every year multitudes swarm off from the east, like bees: not
the young only, but the old, quitting the close-built cities, society,
and refinement, to settle down in some lone spot in the vast prairies,
where the rich soil offers to them the certain prospect of their
families and children being one day possessed of competency and wealth.

To write upon America _as a nation_ would be absurd, for nation,
properly speaking, it is not; but to consider it in its present chaotic
state, is well worth the labour. It would not only exhibit to the
living a somewhat new picture of the human mind, but, as a curious page
in the Philosophy of History, it would hereafter serve as a subject of
review for the Americans themselves.

It is not my intention to follow the individualising plans of the
majority of those who have preceded me in this country. I did not sail
across the Atlantic to ascertain whether the Americans eat their dinners
with two-prong iron, or three-prong silver forks, with chopsticks, or
their fingers; it is quite sufficient for me to know that they do eat
and drink; if they did not, it would be a curious anomaly which I should
not pass over. My object was, to examine and ascertain _what were the
effects of a democratic form of government and climate upon a people
which, with all its foreign admixture, may still be considered as
English_.

It is a fact that our virtues and our vices depend more upon
circumstances than upon ourselves, and there are no circumstances which
operate so powerfully upon us as government and climate. Let it not be
supposed that, in the above assertion, I mean to extenuate vice, or
imply that we are not free agents. Naturally prone to vices in general,
circumstances will render us more prone to one description of vice than
to another; but that is no reason why we should not be answerable for
it, since it is our duty to guard against the besetting sin. But as an
agent in this point the form of government under which we live is,
perhaps, the most powerful in its effects, and thus we constantly hear
of vice