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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Democracy In America, Volume 2 by Alexis de Toqueville: unbounded confidence in the judgment of the public; for it would
not seem probable, as they are all endowed with equal means of
judging, but that the greater truth should go with the greater
number.
When the inhabitant of a democratic country compares himself
individually with all those about him, he feels with pride that
he is the equal of any one of them; but when he comes to survey
the totality of his fellows, and to place himself in contrast to
so huge a body, he is instantly overwhelmed by the sense of his
own insignificance and weakness. The same equality which renders
him independent of each of his fellow-citizens taken severally,
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