4) What is the thesis or the main idea of the text? Among democratic nations, men easily attain a certain equality of condition, but they can
never attain as much as they desire.
It is possible to conceive of men arrived at a degree of freedom that should completely
content them; they would then enjoy their independence without anxiety and without
Impatience.
The spectacle itself, however, is as old as the world; the novelty is to see a whole people
furnish an exemplification of it.
O The Americans are "forever brooding over advantages they do not possess."
These are all different symptoms of the same disease. The Americans do not put an end to
their lives, however disquieted they may be, because their religion forbids it; and among
them materialism may be sald hardly to exist, notwithstanding the general passion for
physical gratification. The will resists, but reason frequently gives way.