a novel expression, to which a novel idea has given
birth. Our fathers were only acquainted with egotism. Egotism is a
passionate and exaggerated love of self, which leads a man to connect
everything with his own person, and to prefer himself to everything in
the world. Individualism is a mature and calm feeling, which disposes
each member of the community to sever himself from the mass of his
fellow-creatures; and to draw apart with his family and his friends; so
that, after he has thus formed a little circle of his own, he willingly
leaves society at large to itself. Egotism originates in blind instinct:
individualism proceeds from erroneous judgment more than from depraved
feelings; it originates as much in the deficiencies of the mind as in
the perversity of the heart. Egotism blights the germ of all virtue;
individualism, at first, only saps the virtues of public life; but,
in the long run, it attacks and destroys all others, and is at length
absorbed in downright egotism. Egotism is a vice as old as the world,
which does not belong to one form of society more than to another:
individualism is of democratic origin, and it threatens to spread in the
same ratio as the equality of conditions.

[Footnote a: [I adopt the expression of the original, however strange it
may seem to the English ear, partly because it illustrates the remark
on the introduction of general terms into democratic language which was
made in a preceding chapter, and partly because I know of no English
word exactly equivalent to the expression. The chapter itself defines
the meaning attached to it by the author.--Translator's Note.]]

Amongst aristocratic nations, as families remain for centuries in the
same condition, often on the same spot, all generations become as it
were contemporaneous. A man almost always knows his forefathers, and
respects them: he thinks he already sees his remote descendants, and he
loves them. He willingly imposes duties on himself towards the
former and the latter; and he will frequently sacrifice his personal
gratifications to those who went before and to those who will come after
him. Aristocratic institutions have, moreover, the effect of closely
binding every man to several of his fellow-citizens. As the classes of
an aristocratic people are strongly marked and permanent, each of
them is regarded by its own members as a sort of lesser country,
more tangible and more cherished than the country at large. As in
arist