ity any necessary connection between the
principle of association and that of equality? Aristocratic communities
always contain, amongst a multitude of persons who by themselves are
powerless, a small number of powerful and wealthy citizens, each of whom
can achieve great undertakings single-handed. In aristocratic societies
men do not need to combine in order to act, because they are strongly
held together. Every wealthy and powerful citizen constitutes the head
of a permanent and compulsory association, composed of all those who are
dependent upon him, or whom he makes subservient to the execution of his
designs. Amongst democratic nations, on the contrary, all the citizens
are independent and feeble; they can do hardly anything by themselves,
and none of them can oblige his fellow-men to lend him their assistance.
They all, therefore, fall into a state of incapacity, if they do not
learn voluntarily to help each other. If men living in democratic
countries had no right and no inclination to associate for political
purposes, their independence would be in great jeopardy; but they might
long preserve their wealth and their cultivation: whereas if they
never acquired the habit of forming associations in ordinary life,
civilization itself would be endangered. A people amongst which
individuals should lose the power of achieving great things
single-handed, without acquiring the means of producing them by united
exertions, would soon relapse into barbarism.

Unhappily, the same social condition which renders associations so
necessary to democratic nations, renders their formation more difficult
amongst those nations than amongst all others. When several members of
an aristocracy agree to combine, they easily succeed in doing so; as
each of them brings great strength to the partnership, the number of its
members may be very limited; and when the members of an association
are limited in number, they may easily become mutually acquainted,
understand each other, and establish fixed regulations. The same
opportunities do not occur amongst democratic nations, where the
associated members must always be very numerous for their association to
have any power.

I am aware that many of my countrymen are not in the least embarrassed
by this difficulty. They contend that the more enfeebled and incompetent
the citizens become, the more able and active the government ought to
be rendered, in order that society at large may execute what