Never fettered by axioms, they avoid all prejudices that come from the past; not more attached to one line of operation than another, they are not prone to employ an old method rather than a new; without rooted habits, they easily shake off the influence which other nations might exercise. Their firm conviction is that their country is unlike any other, and that their situation is without a precedent in all the history of the world. Xo natural boundary restrains, in this country, the efforts of man, and what is not yet done is only what he has not yet attempted to do.

"The perpetual change," remarks De Tocqueville, "which goes on in the United States, the frequent vicissitudes of fortune, accomj)anied by such unforeseen fluctuations in private and in public wealth, serve to keep the minds of the citizens in a perpetual state of feverish agitation, which admirably invigorates their exertions, and keeps them in a state of excitement above the ordinary level of mankind. The whole life of an American is passed like a game of chance, a revoluti onarv crisis or a battle. As the same causes are continually in operation throughout the country, they ultimately impart an irresistible im- .pulse to the national character. The American, taken as a chance specimen of his country, must then be a man of singular warmth in his desires, enterprising, fond of adventure, and above all of innovation. The same bent is manifested in all that he does; he introduces it into his political laws, his religious doctrine, his theories of social economy, and his domestic