Raymond Aron, Main Currents in Sociological Thought: Montesuieu, Compte, Marx, Tocqueville, and the Sociologists and the Revolution of 1848, trans. Richard Howard and Helen Weaver (New York: Basic Books, 1965)

Excerpt:

Tocqueville is not ordinarily included among the founders of sociology; I consider this neglect of Tocqueville’s sociological writings unjustified.  But I have still another reason for wishing to discuss him.  For in studying Montesquieu, Comte, and Marx, the relation between economic phenomena and the political organization of society was necessarily central to my analyses.  Each time I explained first the interpretation give by the thinker of the society in which he was living.  The historical diagnosis was the primary fact to which I relate the system of each sociologist.  Tocqueville’s historical diagnosis differs from that of Comte or Marx.  Instead of giving priority either to the industrial reality, as Comte did, or to the capitalist reality, as Marx did, he gave priority to the democratic reality.  I shall attempt to define what Tocqueville meant by the irresistible advance of modern societies toward democracy.  And I shall explore the manner in which Tocqueville himself conceived his work and, as we might say in a language unknown to him, the manner in which he conceived sociology.

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