《论美国的民主·卷二·二部·第二章·民主国家的个人主义》第1节
I have shown how it is that in ages of equality every man seeks for his opinions within himself: I am now about to show how it is that, in the same ages, all his feelings are turned towards himself alone. Individualism is a novel expression, to which a novel idea has given birth. Our fathers were only acquainted with egotism. Egotism is a passionate and exaggerated love of self, which leads a man to connect everything with his own person, and to prefer himself to everything in the world. Individualism is a mature and calm feeling, which disposes each member of the community to sever himself from the mass of his fellow-creatures; and to draw apart with his family and his friends; so that, after he has thus formed a little circle of his own, he willingly leaves society at large to itself. Egotism originates in blind instinct: individualism proceeds from erroneous judgment more than from depraved feelings; it originates as much in the deficiencies of the mind as in the perversity of the heart. Egotism blights the germ of all virtue; individualism, at first, only saps the virtues of public life; but, in the long run, it attacks and destroys all others, and is at length absorbed in downright egotism. Egotism is a vice as old as the world, which does not belong to one form of society more than to another: individualism is of democratic origin, and it threatens to spread in the same ratio as the equality of conditions.
注释摘要
托克维尔在这一段里做了一个贯穿全书的概念切换：从思想的领域转到情感的领域。上一章他论证的是，在身份平等的时代，每个人都回到自身去寻找意见的权威，不再信靠传统或某个特定阶层的判断。现在他要把同一个逻辑推到底——感情上的权威也一样收缩，最终落在自己一个人身上。为了说清这种事，他造了一个新词。 他说的 individualisme 是十九世纪法语里一个刚冒头的词…