s common to all the citizens, the
evident consequence is that each of them remains but for a few years
on active duty. Thus it is in the nature of things that the soldier in
democracies only passes through the army, whilst among most aristocratic
nations the military profession is one which the soldier adopts, or
which is imposed upon him, for life.

This has important consequences. Amongst the soldiers of a democratic
army, some acquire a taste for military life, but the majority, being
enlisted against their will, and ever ready to go back to their
homes, do not consider themselves as seriously engaged in the military
profession, and are always thinking of quitting it. Such men do not
contract the wants, and only half partake in the passions, which that
mode of life engenders. They adapt themselves to their military duties,
but their minds are still attached to the interests and the duties which
engaged them in civil life. They do not therefore imbibe the spirit of
the army--or rather, they infuse the spirit of the community at large
into the army, and retain it there. Amongst democratic nations the
private soldiers remain most like civilians: upon them the habits of the
nation have the firmest hold, and public opinion most influence. It is
by the instrumentality of the private soldiers especially that it may
be possible to infuse into a democratic army the love of freedom and
the respect of rights, if these principles have once been successfully
inculcated on the people at large. The reverse happens amongst
aristocratic nations, where the soldiery have eventually nothing in
common with their fellow-citizens, and where they live amongst them as
strangers, and often as enemies. In aristocratic armies the officers
are the conservative element, because the officers alone have retained a
strict connection with civil society, and never forego their purpose
of resuming their place in it sooner or later: in democratic armies the
private soldiers stand in this position, and from the same cause.

It often happens, on the contrary, that in these same democratic armies
the officers contract tastes and wants wholly distinct from those of
the nation--a fact which may be thus accounted for. Amongst democratic
nations, the man who becomes an officer severs all the ties which bound
him to civil life; he leaves it forever; he has no interest to resume
it. His true country is the army, since he owes all he has to the rank
he has attai