den effort
to a higher purpose. It is believed by some that modern society will be
ever changing its aspect; for myself, I fear that it will ultimately be
too invariably fixed in the same institutions, the same prejudices, the
same manners, so that mankind will be stopped and circumscribed; that
the mind will swing backwards and forwards forever, without begetting
fresh ideas; that man will waste his strength in bootless and solitary
trifling; and, though in continual motion, that humanity will cease to
advance.

Chapter XXII: Why Democratic Nations Are Naturally Desirous Of Peace,
And Democratic Armies Of War

The same interests, the same fears, the same passions which deter
democratic nations from revolutions, deter them also from war; the
spirit of military glory and the spirit of revolution are weakened at
the same time and by the same causes. The ever-increasing numbers of men
of property--lovers of peace, the growth of personal wealth which war
so rapidly consumes, the mildness of manners, the gentleness of heart,
those tendencies to pity which are engendered by the equality
of conditions, that coolness of understanding which renders men
comparatively insensible to the violent and poetical excitement of
arms--all these causes concur to quench the military spirit. I think it
may be admitted as a general and constant rule, that, amongst civilized
nations, the warlike passions will become more rare and less intense in
proportion as social conditions shall be more equal. War is nevertheless
an occurrence to which all nations are subject, democratic nations as
well as others. Whatever taste they may have for peace, they must hold
themselves in readiness to repel aggression, or in other words they must
have an army.

Fortune, which has conferred so many peculiar benefits upon the
inhabitants of the United States, has placed them in the midst of a
wilderness, where they have, so to speak, no neighbors: a few thousand
soldiers are sufficient for their wants; but this is peculiar to
America, not to democracy. The equality of conditions, and the
manners as well as the institutions resulting from it, do not exempt
a democratic people from the necessity of standing armies, and their
armies always exercise a powerful influence over their fate. It is
therefore of singular importance to inquire what are the natural
propensities of the men of whom these armies are composed.

Amongst aristocratic nations, especially amo