l exercise, independently of democracy, a vast influence upon the
thoughts and feelings of that people. Different causes, but no less
distinct from the circumstance of the equality of conditions, might be
traced in Europe, and would explain a great portion of the occurrences
taking place amongst us.

I acknowledge the existence of all these different causes, and their
power, but my subject does not lead me to treat of them. I have not
undertaken to unfold the reason of all our inclinations and all our
notions: my only object is to show in what respects the principle of
equality has modified both the former and the latter.

Some readers may perhaps be astonished that--firmly persuaded as I
am that the democratic revolution which we are witnessing is an
irresistible fact against which it would be neither desirable nor wise
to struggle--I should often have had occasion in this book to address
language of such severity to those democratic communities which this
revolution has brought into being. My answer is simply, that it is
because I am not an adversary of democracy, that I have sought to speak
of democracy in all sincerity.

Men will not accept truth at the hands of their enemies, and truth is
seldom offered to them by their friends: for this reason I have spoken
it. I was persuaded that many would take upon themselves to announce the
new blessings which the principle of equality promises to mankind, but
that few would dare to point out from afar the dangers with which
it threatens them. To those perils therefore I have turned my chief
attention, and believing that I had discovered them clearly, I have not
had the cowardice to leave them untold.

I trust that my readers will find in this Second Part that impartiality
which seems to have been remarked in the former work. Placed as I am in
the midst of the conflicting opinions between which we are divided,
I have endeavored to suppress within me for a time the favorable
sympathies or the adverse emotions with which each of them inspires
me. If those who read this book can find a single sentence intended to
flatter any of the great parties which have agitated my country, or any
of those petty factions which now harass and weaken it, let such readers
raise their voices to accuse me.

The subject I have sought to embrace is immense, for it includes the
greater part of the feelings and opinions to which the new state of
society has given birth. Such a subject is doubtles