ublic opinion of their own and a species of corporate
pride soon spring up. In a class or guild of this kind, each artisan has
not only his fortune to make, but his reputation to preserve. He is not
exclusively swayed by his own interest, or even by that of his customer,
but by that of the body to which he belongs; and the interest of that
body is, that each artisan should produce the best possible workmanship.
In aristocratic ages, the object of the arts is therefore to manufacture
as well as possible--not with the greatest despatch, or at the lowest
rate.

When, on the contrary, every profession is open to all--when a multitude
of persons are constantly embracing and abandoning it--and when its
several members are strangers to each other, indifferent, and from their
numbers hardly seen amongst themselves; the social tie is destroyed,
and each workman, standing alone, endeavors simply to gain the greatest
possible quantity of money at the least possible cost. The will of the
customer is then his only limit. But at the same time a corresponding
revolution takes place in the customer also. In countries in which
riches as well as power are concentrated and retained in the hands of
the few, the use of the greater part of this world's goods belongs to a
small number of individuals, who are always the same. Necessity, public
opinion, or moderate desires exclude all others from the enjoyment
of them. As this aristocratic class remains fixed at the pinnacle of
greatness on which it stands, without diminution or increase, it is
always acted upon by the same wants and affected by them in the same
manner. The men of whom it is composed naturally derive from their
superior and hereditary position a taste for what is extremely well made
and lasting. This affects the general way of thinking of the nation in
relation to the arts. It often occurs, among such a people, that even
the peasant will rather go without the object he covets, than procure it
in a state of imperfection. In aristocracies, then, the handicraftsmen
work for only a limited number of very fastidious customers: the
profit they hope to make depends principally on the perfection of their
workmanship.

Such is no longer the case when, all privileges being abolished, ranks
are intermingled, and men are forever rising or sinking upon the ladder
of society. Amongst a democratic people a number of citizens always
exist whose patrimony is divided and decreasing. They have c