the majority of the nation, a private majority
is formed which governs the rest. *b

[Footnote b: Some aristocracies, however, have devoted themselves
eagerly to commerce, and have cultivated manufactures with success. The
history of the world might furnish several conspicuous examples. But,
generally speaking, it may be affirmed that the aristocratic principle
is not favorable to the growth of trade and manufactures. Moneyed
aristocracies are the only exception to the rule. Amongst such
aristocracies there are hardly any desires which do not require wealth
to satisfy them; the love of riches becomes, so to speak, the high road
of human passions, which is crossed by or connected with all lesser
tracks. The love of money and the thirst for that distinction which
attaches to power, are then so closely intermixed in the same souls,
that it becomes difficult to discover whether men grow covetous from
ambition, or whether they are ambitious from covetousness. This is
the case in England, where men seek to get rich in order to arrive at
distinction, and seek distinctions as a manifestation of their wealth.
The mind is then seized by both ends, and hurried into trade and
manufactures, which are the shortest roads that lead to opulence.

This, however, strikes me as an exceptional and transitory circumstance.
When wealth is become the only symbol of aristocracy, it is very
difficult for the wealthy to maintain sole possession of political
power, to the exclusion of all other men. The aristocracy of birth and
pure democracy are at the two extremes of the social and political state
of nations: between them moneyed aristocracy finds its place. The latter
approximates to the aristocracy of birth by conferring great privileges
on a small number of persons; it so far belongs to the democratic
element, that these privileges may be successively acquired by all. It
frequently forms a natural transition between these two conditions
of society, and it is difficult to say whether it closes the reign of
aristocratic institutions, or whether it already opens the new era of
democracy.]

In democratic countries, where money does not lead those who possess it
to political power, but often removes them from it, the rich do not
know how to spend their leisure. They are driven into active life by the
inquietude and the greatness of their desires, by the extent of their
resources, and by the taste for what is extraordinary, which is almost
alway