uch is the fact as it appears upon the
surface of things: to discover the causes of that fact, it is necessary
to search the matter thoroughly.

No communities have ever yet existed in which social conditions have
been so equal that there were neither rich nor poor, and consequently
neither masters nor servants. Democracy does not prevent the existence
of these two classes, but it changes their dispositions and modifies
their mutual relations. Amongst aristocratic nations servants form a
distinct class, not more variously composed than that of masters. A
settled order is soon established; in the former as well as in the
latter class a scale is formed, with numerous distinctions or marked
gradations of rank, and generations succeed each other thus without any
change of position. These two communities are superposed one above the
other, always distinct, but regulated by analogous principles. This
aristocratic constitution does not exert a less powerful influence
on the notions and manners of servants than on those of masters; and,
although the effects are different, the same cause may easily be traced.
Both classes constitute small communities in the heart of the nation,
and certain permanent notions of right and wrong are ultimately
engendered amongst them. The different acts of human life are viewed by
one particular and unchanging light. In the society of servants, as in
that of masters, men exercise a great influence over each other: they
acknowledge settled rules, and in the absence of law they are guided by
a sort of public opinion: their habits are settled, and their conduct is
placed under a certain control.

These men, whose destiny is to obey, certainly do not understand fame,
virtue, honesty, and honor in the same manner as their masters; but they
have a pride, a virtue, and an honesty pertaining to their condition;
and they have a notion, if I may use the expression, of a sort of
servile honor. *a Because a class is mean, it must not be supposed that
all who belong to it are mean-hearted; to think so would be a great
mistake. However lowly it may be, he who is foremost there, and who
has no notion of quitting it, occupies an aristocratic position which
inspires him with lofty feelings, pride, and self-respect, that fit
him for the higher virtues and actions above the common. Amongst
aristocratic nations it was by no means rare to find men of noble and
vigorous minds in the service of the great, who felt not t