gentleness of their
morality, their regular and industrious habits, and the restraint which
they almost all observe in their vices no less than in their virtues,
I have no fear that they will meet with tyrants in their rulers, but
rather guardians. *a I think then that the species of oppression by
which democratic nations are menaced is unlike anything which ever
before existed in the world: our contemporaries will find no prototype
of it in their memories. I am trying myself to choose an expression
which will accurately convey the whole of the idea I have formed of it,
but in vain; the old words "despotism" and "tyranny" are inappropriate:
the thing itself is new; and since I cannot name it, I must attempt to
define it.

[Footnote a: See Appendix Y.]

I seek to trace the novel features under which despotism may appear
in the world. The first thing that strikes the observation is
an innumerable multitude of men all equal and alike, incessantly
endeavoring to procure the petty and paltry pleasures with which they
glut their lives. Each of them, living apart, is as a stranger to the
fate of all the rest--his children and his private friends constitute to
him the whole of mankind; as for the rest of his fellow-citizens, he is
close to them, but he sees them not--he touches them, but he feels them
not; he exists but in himself and for himself alone; and if his kindred
still remain to him, he may be said at any rate to have lost his
country. Above this race of men stands an immense and tutelary power,
which takes upon itself alone to secure their gratifications, and
to watch over their fate. That power is absolute, minute, regular,
provident, and mild. It would be like the authority of a parent, if,
like that authority, its object was to prepare men for manhood; but it
seeks on the contrary to keep them in perpetual childhood: it is well
content that the people should rejoice, provided they think of nothing
but rejoicing. For their happiness such a government willingly labors,
but it chooses to be the sole agent and the only arbiter of that
happiness: it provides for their security, foresees and supplies their
necessities, facilitates their pleasures, manages their principal
concerns, directs their industry, regulates the descent of property, and
subdivides their inheritances--what remains, but to spare them all
the care of thinking and all the trouble of living? Thus it every day
renders the exercise of the free agency of