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CHAPTER XIV.
TASTE FOR PHYSICAL GRATIFICATIONS UNITED IN AMERICA TO LOVE
OF FREEDOM AND ATTENTION TO PUBLIC AFFAIRS.
When a democratic state turns to absolute monarchy, the activity
which was before directed to public and to private affairs is all
at once centred upon the latter: the immediate consequence is, for
some time, great physical prosperity; but this impulse soon slackens,
and the amount of productive industry is checked. I know not if
a single trading or manufacturing people can be cited, from the
Tyrians down to the Florentines and the English, who were not a
free people also. There is therefore a close bond and necessary relation
between these two elements—freedom and productive industry.
This proposition is generally true of all nations, but especially of democratic nations. I have already shown that men who live in ages of equality continually require to form associations in order to procure the things they covet; and, on the other hand, I have shown how great political freedom improves and diffuses the art of association. Freedom, in these ages, is therefore especially favorable to the production of wealth; nor is it difficult to perceive, that despotism is especially adverse to the same result.
The nature of despotic power in democratic ages is not to be fierce or cruel, but minute and meddling. Despotism of this kind, though it does not trample on humanity, is directly opposed to the genius of commerce and the pursuits of industry.
Thus the men of democratic ages require to be free in order more readily to procure those physical enjoyments for which they are always longing. It sometimes happens, however, that the excessive taste they conceive for these same enjoyments abandons them to the first master who appears. The passion for worldly welfare then defeats itself, and, without perceiving it, throws the object of their desires to a greater distance.
