All
the members of society are in ceaseless stir and transformation. Now it
is in the nature of all governments to seek constantly to enlarge their
sphere of action; hence it is almost impossible that such a government
should not ultimately succeed, because it acts with a fixed principle
and a constant will, upon men, whose position, whose notions, and whose
desires are in continual vacillation. It frequently happens that the
members of the community promote the influence of the central power
without intending it. Democratic ages are periods of experiment,
innovation, and adventure. At such times there are always a multitude of
men engaged in difficult or novel undertakings, which they follow alone,
without caring for their fellowmen. Such persons may be ready to admit,
as a general principle, that the public authority ought not to interfere
in private concerns; but, by an exception to that rule, each of them
craves for its assistance in the particular concern on which he is
engaged, and seeks to draw upon the influence of the government for his
own benefit, though he would restrict it on all other occasions. If a
large number of men apply this particular exception to a great
variety of different purposes, the sphere of the central power extends
insensibly in all directions, although each of them wishes it to be
circumscribed. Thus a democratic government increases its power simply
by the fact of its permanence. Time is on its side; every incident
befriends it; the passions of individuals unconsciously promote it; and
it may be asserted, that the older a democratic community is, the more
centralized will its government become.]

The hatred which men bear to privilege increases in proportion as
privileges become more scarce and less considerable, so that democratic
passions would seem to burn most fiercely at the very time when they
have least fuel. I have already given the reason of this phenomenon.
When all conditions are unequal, no inequality is so great as to offend
the eye; whereas the slightest dissimilarity is odious in the midst
of general uniformity: the more complete is this uniformity, the more
insupportable does the sight of such a difference become. Hence it is
natural that the love of equality should constantly increase together
with equality itself, and that it should grow by what it feeds upon.
This never-dying, ever-kindling hatred, which sets a democratic people
against the smallest privileges, is pec