Tocqueville's Point of Departure

Tocqueville's understanding of religion has been the subject of, to say the least, considerable commentary. Outside the question of his personal faith, where letters are the chief evidence, the literature has focused primarily on Democracy in America and to a lesser extent on The Old Regime and the Revolution. This focus is justified by the considerable attention Tocqueville devoted to religion in these works, particularly in Democracy. Their subject matter naturally led Tocqueville to focus his discussion of religion on Christianity because America and France were predominantly Christian nations. Although Democracy contains a notable chapter on pantheism and brief comments on Islam and on the Hindu/Buddhist doctrine of metempsychosis, commentary that relies on Tocqueville's chief works for his views on religion is largely limited to discussing his view of Christianity or of religion in general.