Democracy in America by Alexis Tocqueville

Author:Alexis Tocqueville
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
Published: 2008-12-31T10:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 2

THE PRINCIPAL SOURCE OF BELIEFS AMONG DEMOCRATIC NATIONS

Depending on the times, beliefs of a dogmatic character are more or less common. They arise in different ways and can change their shape and object; but it is not possible for such dogmatic opinions not to exist—that is to say, opinions which men take on trust and without discussion. If every man chose to form for himself all his opinions in an isolated pursuit for truth along paths followed by himself alone, it is unlikely that a great number of men would ever come together in any commonly shared belief.

But it is easy to see that no social grouping can prosper without shared beliefs or rather there are none which exist in that way; for, without commonly accepted ideas, there is no common action, and without common action, men exist separately but not as a social unit. For society to exist and all the more so, for such a society to prosper, all the citizens’ minds must be united and held together by a few principal ideas. This could not possibly exist unless each of them occasionally draws his opinions from the same source and agrees to accept a certain number of ready-formed beliefs.

If I now consider men as individuals, I find that dogmatic beliefs are no less vital for a man on his own than for when he acts in common with his fellows.

If man was forced to prove for himself all the truths he employs each day, he would never reach an end; he would drain his energies in initial experiment without advancing at all. Since there is not the time, because of the short span of our lives, nor the ability, because of the limitations of our minds, to act in that way, he is reduced to the taking on trust a host of facts and opinions which he has neither the time nor the power to examine and verify by his own efforts but which have been discovered by abler minds than his or which have been adopted by the populace. Upon this primary foundation he erects the structure of his own thought. He is not brought to this manner of advancing by his own will but is limited by the unbending laws of his own condition.

Every great philosopher in the world believes a million things upon the authority of someone else and supposes many more truths than he can prove.

This is not merely necessary but desirable. A man who might attempt everything by himself could grant only scant time and attention to each thing. This would keep his mind in a state of constant agitation, preventing him from arriving at a deep understanding of any truth or from reaching a conviction with any certainty. His intelligence would be simultaneously independent and weakened. Therefore, he must, amid all the diverse human opinions, make a choice and accept many beliefs without any argument so as to deepen his understanding of a small number of them which he has examined carefully.

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