nvestigate truths for himself. It may readily be perceived that
a method of this kind must insensibly beget a tendency to general ideas
in the human mind. When I repudiate the traditions of rank, profession,
and birth; when I escape from the authority of example, to seek out, by
the single effort of my reason, the path to be followed, I am inclined
to derive the motives of my opinions from human nature itself; which
leads me necessarily, and almost unconsciously, to adopt a great number
of very general notions.

All that I have here said explains the reasons for which the English
display much less readiness and taste or the generalization of ideas
than their American progeny, and still less again than their French
neighbors; and likewise the reason for which the English of the present
day display more of these qualities than their forefathers did. The
English have long been a very enlightened and a very aristocratic
nation; their enlightened condition urged them constantly to generalize,
and their aristocratic habits confined them to particularize. Hence
arose that philosophy, at once bold and timid, broad and narrow,
which has hitherto prevailed in England, and which still obstructs and
stagnates in so many minds in that country.

Independently of the causes I have pointed out in what goes before,
others may be discerned less apparent, but no less efficacious, which
engender amongst almost every democratic people a taste, and frequently
a passion, for general ideas. An accurate distinction must be taken
between ideas of this kind. Some are the result of slow, minute, and
conscientious labor of the mind, and these extend the sphere of human
knowledge; others spring up at once from the first rapid exercise of the
wits, and beget none but very superficial and very uncertain notions.
Men who live in ages of equality have a great deal of curiosity and very
little leisure; their life is so practical, so confused, so excited, so
active, that but little time remains to them for thought. Such men are
prone to general ideas because they spare them the trouble of studying
particulars; they contain, if I may so speak, a great deal in a little
compass, and give, in a little time, a great return. If then, upon a
brief and inattentive investigation, a common relation is thought to be
detected between certain obtects, inquiry is not pushed any further; and
without examining in detail how far these different objects differ or
agree, t