terated from their memory in
a day. The passions which a revolution has roused do not disappear at
its close. A sense of instability remains in the midst of re-established
order: a notion of easy success survives the strange vicissitudes which
gave it birth; desires still remain extremely enlarged, when the means
of satisfying them are diminished day by day. The taste for large
fortunes subsists, though large fortunes are rare: and on every side we
trace the ravages of inordinate and hapless ambition kindled in hearts
which they consume in secret and in vain.

At length, however, the last vestiges of the struggle are effaced; the
remains of aristocracy completely disappear; the great events by which
its fall was attended are forgotten; peace succeeds to war, and the sway
of order is restored in the new realm; desires are again adapted to the
means by which they may be fulfilled; the wants, the opinions, and
the feelings of men cohere once more; the level of the community is
permanently determined, and democratic society established. A democratic
nation, arrived at this permanent and regular state of things, will
present a very different spectacle from that which we have just
described; and we may readily conclude that, if ambition becomes great
whilst the conditions of society are growing equal, it loses that
quality when they have grown so. As wealth is subdivided and knowledge
diffused, no one is entirely destitute of education or of property;
the privileges and disqualifications of caste being abolished, and
men having shattered the bonds which held them fixed, the notion of
advancement suggests itself to every mind, the desire to rise swells in
every heart, and all men want to mount above their station: ambition is
the universal feeling.

But if the equality of conditions gives some resources to all the
members of the community, it also prevents any of them from having
resources of great extent, which necessarily circumscribes their desires
within somewhat narrow limits. Thus amongst democratic nations ambition
is ardent and continual, but its aim is not habitually lofty; and life
is generally spent in eagerly coveting small objects which are within
reach. What chiefly diverts the men of democracies from lofty ambition
is not the scantiness of their fortunes, but the vehemence of the
exertions they daily make to improve them. They strain their faculties
to the utmost to achieve paltry results, and this cannot fail