f strong character, of incorruptible integrity, of thoughtful
moderation, and of fixed principles are more dangerous to the permanence
of despotic rule than the Victor Hugos, the Ledru Rollins, or the
Orsinis. It is the men with whom the love of liberty is founded upon
intellectual and moral convictions, not those with whom it is a hot and
reckless passion, that are the most to be feared by a ruler whose power
is based on the ignorance, the fears, the selfish ambitions, and the
material interests of the people whom he flatters and corrupts.

Tocqueville was born a thinker. His physical organization was delicate,
but he had an energy of spirit which led him often to overtask his
bodily forces in long-continued mental exertions. Without brilliancy
of imagination and with little liveliness of fancy, he possessed the
faculty of acute and discriminating observation, and early acquired the
rare power of deep and continuous reflection. His mind was large and
calm. The candor of his intellect was never stained by passion. He had
not the faculties of an original discoverer in the domain of abstract
truth, but, as an investigator of the causes of political and social
conditions, of the relation between particular facts and general
theories, of the influence of systems and institutions upon the life of
communities, he has rarely been surpassed. His book on "Democracy in
America," and still more his later work on "The Old Regime and the
Revolution," display in a remarkable degree the union of philosophic
insight and practical good sense, of clearness of thought and
condensation of statement.

But, however great the value of his writings may be, a still greater
value attaches to the character of the man himself, as it is displayed
in these volumes. M. de Beaumont's brief and affectionate memoir of his
friend, and Tocqueville's own letters, are not so much narratives of
events as evidences of character. His life was, indeed, not marked with
extraordinary incidents. It was the life of a man whose career was
limited both by his own temperament and by the public circumstances of
his times; of one who set more value upon ideas than upon events; who
sought intellectual satisfactions and distinctions rather than personal
advancement; who affected his contemporaries by his thought and his
integrity of principle more than by power of commanding position or
energy of resolute will. Although for many years in public life, he made
little mark