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CHAPTER VIII.
THE AMERICANS COMBAT INDIVIDUALISM BY THE PRINCIPLE OF INTEREST
RIGHTLY UNDERSTOOD.
When the world was managed by a few rich and powerful
individuals, these persons loved to entertain a lofty idea of the duties
of man. They were fond of professing that it is praiseworthy
to forget oneself, and that good should be done without hope of
reward, as it is by the Deity himself. Such were the standard
opinions of that time in morals.
I doubt whether men were more virtuous in aristocratic ages than in others; but they were incessantly talking of the beauties of virtue, and its utility was only studied in secret. But since the imagination takes less lofty flights and every man's thoughts are centered in himself, moralists are alarmed by this idea of self-sacrifice, and they no longer venture to present it to the human mind. They therefore content themselves with inquiring whether the personal advantage of each member of the community does not consist in working for the good of all; and when they have hit upon some point on which private interest and public interest meet and amalgamate, they are eager to bring it into notice. Observations of this kind are gradually multiplied: what was only a single remark becomes a general principle; and it is held as a truth that man serves himself in serving his fellow-creatures, and that his private interest is to do good.
I have already shown, in several parts of this work, by what means the inhabitants of the United States almost always manage to combine their own advantage with that of their fellow-citizens: my present purpose is to point out the general rule which enables them to do so. In the United States hardly anybody talks of the beauty of virtue; but they maintain that virtue is useful, and prove
