en guided. They still used the formula, without
asking for its meaning: they retained the instrument, but they no longer
possessed the art of altering or renewing it. The Chinese, then, had
lost the power of change; for them to improve was impossible. They
were compelled, at all times and in all points, to imitate their
predecessors, lest they should stray into utter darkness, by deviating
for an instant from the path already laid down for them. The source of
human knowledge was all but dry; and though the stream still ran on, it
could neither swell its waters nor alter its channel. Notwithstanding
this, China had subsisted peaceably for centuries. The invaders who had
conquered the country assumed the manners of the inhabitants, and
order prevailed there. A sort of physical prosperity was everywhere
discernible: revolutions were rare, and war was, so to speak, unknown.

It is then a fallacy to flatter ourselves with the reflection that the
barbarians are still far from us; for if there be some nations which
allow civilization to be torn from their grasp, there are others who
trample it themselves under their feet.

Chapter XI: Of The Spirit In Which The Americans Cultivate The Arts

It would be to waste the time of my readers and my own if I strove
to demonstrate how the general mediocrity of fortunes, the absence of
superfluous wealth, the universal desire of comfort, and the constant
efforts by which everyone attempts to procure it, make the taste for the
useful predominate over the love of the beautiful in the heart of man.
Democratic nations, amongst which all these things exist, will therefore
cultivate the arts which serve to render life easy, in preference to
those whose object is to adorn it. They will habitually prefer the
useful to the beautiful, and they will require that the beautiful should
be useful. But I propose to go further; and after having pointed out
this first feature, to sketch several others.

It commonly happens that in the ages of privilege the practice of
almost all the arts becomes a privilege; and that every profession is
a separate walk, upon which it is not allowable for everyone to enter.
Even when productive industry is free, the fixed character which
belongs to aristocratic nations gradually segregates all the persons who
practise the same art, till they form a distinct class, always composed
of the same families, whose members are all known to each other, and
amongst whom a p