ontracted,
under more prosperous circumstances, certain wants, which remain after
the means of satisfying such wants are gone; and they are anxiously
looking out for some surreptitious method of providing for them. On the
other hand, there are always in democracies a large number of men whose
fortune is upon the increase, but whose desires grow much faster than
their fortunes: and who gloat upon the gifts of wealth in anticipation,
long before they have means to command them. Such men eager to find some
short cut to these gratifications, already almost within their reach.
From the combination of these causes the result is, that in democracies
there are always a multitude of individuals whose wants are above their
means, and who are very willing to take up with imperfect satisfaction
rather than abandon the object of their desires.

The artisan readily understands these passions, for he himself partakes
in them: in an aristocracy he would seek to sell his workmanship at a
high price to the few; he now conceives that the more expeditious way of
getting rich is to sell them at a low price to all. But there are only
two ways of lowering the price of commodities. The first is to discover
some better, shorter, and more ingenious method of producing them: the
second is to manufacture a larger quantity of goods, nearly similar,
but of less value. Amongst a democratic population, all the intellectual
faculties of the workman are directed to these two objects: he strives
to invent methods which may enable him not only to work better, but
quicker and cheaper; or, if he cannot succeed in that, to diminish the
intrinsic qualities of the thing he makes, without rendering it wholly
unfit for the use for which it is intended. When none but the wealthy
had watches, they were almost all very good ones: few are now made which
are worth much, but everybody has one in his pocket. Thus the democratic
principle not only tends to direct the human mind to the useful arts,
but it induces the artisan to produce with greater rapidity a quantity
of imperfect commodities, and the consumer to content himself with these
commodities.

Not that in democracies the arts are incapable of producing very
commendable works, if such be required. This may occasionally be the
case, if customers appear who are ready to pay for time and trouble.
In this rivalry of every kind of industry--in the midst of this immense
competition and these countless experiments, so