|
The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Democracy In America, Volume 2 by Alexis de Toqueville: it seldom exhibits to an equal degree in aristocratic
communities. The common aspect of democratic nations will
present a great number of small and very rational objects of
ambition, from amongst which a few ill-controlled desires of a
larger growth will at intervals break out: but no such a thing as
ambition conceived and contrived on a vast scale is to be met
with there.
I have shown elsewhere by what secret influence the
principle of equality makes the passion for physical
gratifications and the exclusive love of the present predominate
in the human heart: these different propensities mingle with the
| 
