d that the intellectual anarchy which we witness about us
is not, as many men suppose, the natural state of democratic nations.
I think it is rather to be regarded as an accident peculiar to their
youth, and that it only breaks out at that period of transition when men
have already snapped the former ties which bound them together, but are
still amazingly different in origin, education, and manners; so that,
having retained opinions, propensities and tastes of great diversity,
nothing any longer prevents men from avowing them openly. The leading
opinions of men become similar in proportion as their conditions
assimilate; such appears to me to be the general and permanent law--the
rest is casual and transient.

I believe that it will rarely happen to any man amongst a democratic
community, suddenly to frame a system of notions very remote from
that which his contemporaries have adopted; and if some such innovator
appeared, I apprehend that he would have great difficulty in finding
listeners, still more in finding believers. When the conditions of men
are almost equal, they do not easily allow themselves to be persuaded by
each other. As they all live in close intercourse, as they have learned
the same things together, and as they lead the same life, they are not
naturally disposed to take one of themselves for a guide, and to follow
him implicitly. Men seldom take the opinion of their equal, or of a
man like themselves, upon trust. Not only is confidence in the superior
attainments of certain individuals weakened amongst democratic nations,
as I have elsewhere remarked, but the general notion of the intellectual
superiority which any man whatsoever may acquire in relation to the rest
of the community is soon overshadowed. As men grow more like each other,
the doctrine of the equality of the intellect gradually infuses itself
into their opinions; and it becomes more difficult for any innovator to
acquire or to exert much influence over the minds of a people. In such
communities sudden intellectual revolutions will therefore be rare; for,
if we read aright the history of the world, we shall find that great and
rapid changes in human opinions have been produced far less by the force
of reasoning than by the authority of a name. Observe, too, that as the
men who live in democratic societies are not connected with each other
by any tie, each of them must be convinced individually; whilst in
aristocratic society it is enough to