habits to the governed.

I speedily perceived that the influence of this fact extends far beyond
the political character and the laws of the country, and that it has no
less empire over civil society than over the government; it creates
opinions, engenders sentiments, the ordinary practices of life, and
modifies whatever it does not produce.

The more I advanced in the study of American society, the more I
perceived that the equality of conditions is the fundamental fact from
which all others seem to be derived, and the central point at which all
my observations constantly terminated.

I then turned my thoughts to our own hemisphere, where I imagined that I
discerned something analogous to the spectacle which the New World
presented to me. I observed that the equality of conditions is daily
advancing towards those extreme limits which it seems to have reached in
the United States; and that the democracy which governs the American
communities, appears to be rapidly rising into power in Europe.

I hence conceived the idea of the book which is now before the reader.

It is evident to all alike that a great democratic revolution is going
on among us; but there are two opinions as to its nature and
consequences. To some it appears to be a novel accident, which as such
may still be checked; to others it seems irresistible, because it is the
most uniform, the most ancient, and the most permanent tendency which is
to be found in history.

Let us recollect the situation of France seven hundred years ago, when