hey therefore content themselves with
inquiring whether the personal advantage of each member of the community
does not consist in working for the good of all; and when they have hit
upon some point on which private interest and public interest meet and
amalgamate, they are eager to bring it into notice. Observations of this
kind are gradually multiplied: what was only a single remark becomes a
general principle; and it is held as a truth that man serves himself
in serving his fellow-creatures, and that his private interest is to do
good.

I have already shown, in several parts of this work, by what means the
inhabitants of the United States almost always manage to combine their
own advantage with that of their fellow-citizens: my present purpose is
to point out the general rule which enables them to do so. In the United
States hardly anybody talks of the beauty of virtue; but they maintain
that virtue is useful, and prove it every day. The American moralists
do not profess that men ought to sacrifice themselves for their
fellow-creatures because it is noble to make such sacrifices; but they
boldly aver that such sacrifices are as necessary to him who imposes
them upon himself as to him for whose sake they are made. They have
found out that in their country and their age man is brought home to
himself by an irresistible force; and losing all hope of stopping
that force, they turn all their thoughts to the direction of it. They
therefore do not deny that every man may follow his own interest;
but they endeavor to prove that it is the interest of every man to be
virtuous. I shall not here enter into the reasons they allege, which
would divert me from my subject: suffice it to say that they have
convinced their fellow-countrymen.

Montaigne said long ago: "Were I not to follow the straight road for its
straightness, I should follow it for having found by experience that in
the end it is commonly the happiest and most useful track." The doctrine
of interest rightly understood is not, then, new, but amongst the
Americans of our time it finds universal acceptance: it has become
popular there; you may trace it at the bottom of all their actions, you
will remark it in all they say. It is as often to be met with on the
lips of the poor man as of the rich. In Europe the principle of interest
is much grosser than it is in America, but at the same time it is
less common, and especially it is less avowed; amongst us, men still
con