Leo Strauss on Alexis de Tocqueville.  Transcript from class session.

Excerpt:

Tocqueville, living two generations after Burke, accepted modern democracy on a Burkian basis, without accepting all the [?] of natural religion.  That is the starting point of Tocqueville.  Tocqueville was here for a very short time, making some inquiries for the French Government.  The result of his observations was these remarkable two volumes I believe that no book comparable in breadth and depth has ever been produced afterwards.  I believe in no other case in regard to any other country; that a man after such a short sojourn in a country could give such a comprehensive and profound analysis.  Tocqueville had, of course, an excellent teacher, Montesquieu.  Those familiar with Montesquieu’s turn of phrase recognize the master immediately in the work of the pupil.  I think the next great book of this kind was Lord Bryce’s Modern Democracy.  But that is not comparable in depth to Tocqueville’s book though it may be correct in many points where Tocqueville was wrong.  But Tocqueville still has the heritage of a great eighteenth century philosophic analysis.  Now Tocqueville accepts the verdict of providence.  Providence has decided in favor of democracy.  He makes an important distinction between the sane and moderate democracy which we find in the United States and the revolutionary extremist democracy which justly aroused the ire of Edmund Burke.  In other words, America shows to Europe its own future.  And therefore for a respectable possibility for Europe we have to understand America.  I cannot touch on Tocqueville’s analysis of American institutions.  They are very important, even if obsolete in particulars; the fundamental principles are still of utmost interest.  I must forego all this and turn to his analysis of democracy.

By the way, one great difficulty in studying Tocqueville is that he speaks of democracy in America, and he thinks, of course, of democracy in general.  Sometimes the features are absolutely American and not exportable.  In other cases he speaks of [?] things and the reader himself must make the distinction between the typically democratic and the peculiarly America.  Now what is his analysis of the democratic spirit?

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