individuals
can no longer accomplish. They believe this answers the whole
difficulty, but I think they are mistaken. A government might perform
the part of some of the largest American companies; and several States,
members of the Union, have already attempted it; but what political
power could ever carry on the vast multitude of lesser undertakings
which the American citizens perform every day, with the assistance of
the principle of association? It is easy to foresee that the time is
drawing near when man will be less and less able to produce, of himself
alone, the commonest necessaries of life. The task of the governing
power will therefore perpetually increase, and its very efforts will
extend it every day. The more it stands in the place of associations,
the more will individuals, losing the notion of combining together,
require its assistance: these are causes and effects which unceasingly
engender each other. Will the administration of the country ultimately
assume the management of all the manufacturers, which no single
citizen is able to carry on? And if a time at length arrives, when, in
consequence of the extreme subdivision of landed property, the soil
is split into an infinite number of parcels, so that it can only be
cultivated by companies of husbandmen, will it be necessary that the
head of the government should leave the helm of state to follow the
plough? The morals and the intelligence of a democratic people would be
as much endangered as its business and manufactures, if the government
ever wholly usurped the place of private companies.

Feelings and opinions are recruited, the heart is enlarged, and the
human mind is developed by no other means than by the reciprocal
influence of men upon each other. I have shown that these influences are
almost null in democratic countries; they must therefore be artificially
created, and this can only be accomplished by associations.

When the members of an aristocratic community adopt a new opinion, or
conceive a new sentiment, they give it a station, as it were, beside
themselves, upon the lofty platform where they stand; and opinions
or sentiments so conspicuous to the eyes of the multitude are easily
introduced into the minds or hearts of all around. In democratic
countries the governing power alone is naturally in a condition to
act in this manner; but it is easy to see that its action is always
inadequate, and often dangerous. A government can no more be co