ain whatever independence,
strength, and original power he still possesses; to raise him by the
side of society at large, and uphold him in that position--these appear
to me the main objects of legislators in the ages upon which we are now
entering. It would seem as if the rulers of our time sought only to use
men in order to make things great; I wish that they would try a little
more to make great men; that they would set less value on the work, and
more upon the workman; that they would never forget that a nation cannot
long remain strong when every man belonging to it is individually weak,
and that no form or combination of social polity has yet been devised,
to make an energetic people out of a community of pusillanimous and
enfeebled citizens.

I trace amongst our contemporaries two contrary notions which are
equally injurious. One set of men can perceive nothing in the principle
of equality but the anarchical tendencies which it engenders: they
dread their own free agency--they fear themselves. Other thinkers, less
numerous but more enlightened, take a different view: besides that track
which starts from the principle of equality to terminate in anarchy,
they have at last discovered the road which seems to lead men to
inevitable servitude. They shape their souls beforehand to this
necessary condition; and, despairing of remaining free, they already
do obeisance in their hearts to the master who is soon to appear. The
former abandon freedom, because they think it dangerous; the latter,
because they hold it to be impossible. If I had entertained the latter
conviction, I should not have written this book, but I should have
confined myself to deploring in secret the destiny of mankind. I have
sought to point out the dangers to which the principle of equality
exposes the independence of man, because I firmly believe that these
dangers are the most formidable, as well as the least foreseen, of all
those which futurity holds in store: but I do not think that they are
insurmountable. The men who live in the democratic ages upon which we
are entering have naturally a taste for independence: they are naturally
impatient of regulation, and they are wearied by the permanence even of
the condition they themselves prefer. They are fond of power; but they
are prone to despise and hate those who wield it, and they easily elude
its grasp by their own mobility and insignificance. These propensities
will always manifest themselves,