The Tocqueville Reader: A Life in Letters and Politics by Olivier Zunz;Alan S. Kahan

Author:Olivier Zunz;Alan S. Kahan [Kahan, Olivier Zunz;Alan S.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2008-05-30T11:19:00+00:00

I lie histori;ms who seek to describe what occurs in dernu>cratic societies are right, therefore, in assigning much to general causes and in devoting their chief attention to discover them: but the' are wron" in wholly dcnving the special influence of individuals because they cannot easily trace or ti)llovw it. Historians who live in democratic ages not only are prone to assi,,gn a great cause to every incident, but they are also given to connecting incidents together so as to deduce a system from them. In aristocratic ages, as the attention of historians is constantly drawn to individuals, the connection of events escapes them: or rather they do not believe in any such connection. To them, the thread of history seems constantly to be broken by the course of one man's life. In democratic ages, on the contrary, as the historian sees much more of actions than of actors, he may easily establish some kind of sequence and methodical order among the former.

Ancient literature, which is so rich in tiny historical Coiupositions, cloy, not contain a sill-L, Treat historical system, while the poorest of modern literatures abound with them. It would appear that the ancient historians did not make suttirient use of those general theories which our historical writers are ever ready to carry to excess.

"Those who write in democratic ages have another more dangerous tendency. When the traces of individual action upon nations are lost, it often happens that you see the world move without the impelling fi>rce being evident. As it becomes extremely difficult to discern and analyze the reasons that, acting separately on the will of each niernnber of the conuuunity, concur in the end to produce niovennent in the whole mass, Wien are led to believe that this nioveinent is involuntary anal that societies unconsciously obey some superior force ruling over them. But even when the general fact that governs the private volition of all individuals is supposed to be discovered upon the earth, the principle of human free-will is not made certain. A cause sufficiently extensive to affect millions of men at once and sufficiently strong to bend them all together in the same direction may well seem irresistible, having seen that mankind do yield to it, the mind is close to the inference that mankind cannot resist it.

Historians who live in democratic ages, then, not only deny that the few have ally power of acting upon the destiny of a people, but deprive the people themselves of the power of modifying their own condition, and they subject therm either to an inflexible Providence or to some blind necessity. According to them, each nation is indissolubly bound by its position, its origin, its antecedents, and its character to a certain lot that no efforts can ever change They involve one generation with another, and thus, going back form age to age, and ti-oni necessity to n(cessity, back to the origin of the world, they f:)rge a tight and enormous chain, which girds and hinds the human race.

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