it. An aristocracy thus
constituted can have no great hold upon those whom it employs; and even
if it succeed in retaining them at one moment, they escape the next; it
knows not how to will, and it cannot act. The territorial aristocracy of
former ages was either bound by law, or thought itself bound by
usage, to come to the relief of its serving-men, and to succor
their distresses. But the manufacturing aristocracy of our age first
impoverishes and debases the men who serve it, and then abandons them to
be supported by the charity of the public. This is a natural consequence
of what has been said before. Between the workmen and the master there
are frequent relations, but no real partnership.

I am of opinion, upon the whole, that the manufacturing aristocracy
which is growing up under our eyes is one of the harshest which ever
existed in the world; but at the same time it is one of the most
confined and least dangerous. Nevertheless the friends of democracy
should keep their eyes anxiously fixed in this direction; for if ever a
permanent inequality of conditions and aristocracy again penetrate into
the world, it may be predicted that this is the channel by which they
will enter.

Book Three: Influence Of Democracy On Manners, Properly So Called

Chapter I: That Manners Are Softened As Social Conditions Become More
Equal

We perceive that for several ages social conditions have tended to
equality, and we discover that in the course of the same period the
manners of society have been softened. Are these two things merely
contemporaneous, or does any secret link exist between them, so that the
one cannot go on without making the other advance? Several causes may
concur to render the manners of a people less rude; but, of all
these causes, the most powerful appears to me to be the equality of
conditions. Equality of conditions and growing civility in manners are,
then, in my eyes, not only contemporaneous occurrences, but correlative
facts. When the fabulists seek to interest us in the actions of beasts,
they invest them with human notions and passions; the poets who sing of
spirits and angels do the same; there is no wretchedness so deep, nor
any happiness so pure, as to fill the human mind and touch the heart,
unless we are ourselves held up to our own eyes under other features.

This is strictly applicable to the subject upon which we are at present
engaged. When all men are irrevocably marshalled in a