w it,
are caught and restrained by it. Observe some few individuals, they are
lowered by it; survey mankind, it is raised. I am not afraid to say that
the principle of interest, rightly understood, appears to me the best
suited of all philosophical theories to the wants of the men of our
time, and that I regard it as their chief remaining security against
themselves. Towards it, therefore, the minds of the moralists of our
age should turn; even should they judge it to be incomplete, it must
nevertheless be adopted as necessary.

I do not think upon the whole that there is more egotism amongst us than
in America; the only difference is, that there it is enlightened--here
it is not. Every American will sacrifice a portion of his private
interests to preserve the rest; we would fain preserve the whole, and
oftentimes the whole is lost. Everybody I see about me seems bent on
teaching his contemporaries, by precept and example, that what is useful
is never wrong. Will nobody undertake to make them understand how what
is right may be useful? No power upon earth can prevent the increasing
equality of conditions from inclining the human mind to seek out what is
useful, or from leading every member of the community to be wrapped up
in himself. It must therefore be expected that personal interest will
become more than ever the principal, if not the sole, spring of men's
actions; but it remains to be seen how each man will understand his
personal interest. If the members of a community, as they become more
equal, become more ignorant and coarse, it is difficult to foresee to
what pitch of stupid excesses their egotism may lead them; and no one
can foretell into what disgrace and wretchedness they would plunge
themselves, lest they should have to sacrifice something of their own
well-being to the prosperity of their fellow-creatures. I do not think
that the system of interest, as it is professed in America, is, in all
its parts, self-evident; but it contains a great number of truths so
evident that men, if they are but educated, cannot fail to see them.
Educate, then, at any rate; for the age of implicit self-sacrifice and
instinctive virtues is already flitting far away from us, and the time
is fast approaching when freedom, public peace, and social order itself
will not be able to exist without education.

Chapter IX: That The Americans Apply The Principle Of Interest Rightly
Understood To Religious Matters

If the princ