y long terms; the
domestic economy of that period shows that leases for ninety-nine years
were more frequent then than leases for twelve years are now. Men then
believed that families were immortal; men's conditions seemed settled
forever, and the whole of society appeared to be so fixed, that it
was not supposed that anything would ever be stirred or shaken in its
structure. In ages of equality, the human mind takes a different bent;
the prevailing notion is that nothing abides, and man is haunted by
the thought of mutability. Under this impression the landowner and
the tenant himself are instinctively averse to protracted terms of
obligation; they are afraid of being tied up to-morrow by the contract
which benefits them today. They have vague anticipations of some sudden
and unforeseen change in their conditions; they mistrust themselves;
they fear lest their taste should change, and lest they should lament
that they cannot rid themselves of what they coveted; nor are such fears
unfounded, for in democratic ages that which is most fluctuating amidst
the fluctuation of all around is the heart of man.

Chapter VII: Influence Of Democracy On Wages

Most of the remarks which I have already made in speaking of servants
and masters, may be applied to masters and workmen. As the gradations
of the social scale come to be less observed, whilst the great sink the
humble rise, and as poverty as well as opulence ceases to be hereditary,
the distance both in reality and in opinion, which heretofore separated
the workman from the master, is lessened every day. The workman
conceives a more lofty opinion of his rights, of his future, of himself;
he is filled with new ambition and with new desires, he is harassed by
new wants. Every instant he views with longing eyes the profits of his
employer; and in order to share them, he strives to dispose of his labor
at a higher rate, and he generally succeeds at length in the attempt.
In democratic countries, as well as elsewhere, most of the branches
of productive industry are carried on at a small cost, by men little
removed by their wealth or education above the level of those whom they
employ. These manufacturing speculators are extremely numerous; their
interests differ; they cannot therefore easily concert or combine their
exertions. On the other hand the workmen have almost always some sure
resources, which enable them to refuse to work when they cannot get
what they conceive to