ABSTRACT
Tocqueville draws a crucial distinction between providential (sacred) and political (secular) history. Like St Augustine and Bossuet, he narrates the events on earth, but sees them as directed from Heaven. History, for Tocqueville, is a providentially guided movement towards democracy; a movement towards a more or less discernible order of things. Tocqueville is convinced that divine laws govern the course of events and that God’s will can be discerned in the fortunes of civilizations. The course followed by human history ultimately amounts, for Tocqueville, to much more than a meaningless sequence of events. He sets himself the task to search for an overarching pattern or design endowed with an intellectually and morally acceptable meaning. According to Tocqueville, Providence shapes the conditions for making choices. All particular accidents are drawn together by God according to His will. Hence the reality of historical activity is not doubtful for Tocqueville, but has its place within a providential order. The relationship between historical change, the transition from aristocracy to democracy, and the providential order is intimate. The belief in the existence of a providential history implies faith in a divine purpose of history – the belief that principles for action guide humankind towards moral distinctions. For Tocqueville, history must always be interpreted on the grounds of faith. That is, he tries to comprehend what has taken place in the history of civilization by accepting Revelation in history as a guide and he gives an interpretation of the contents of the providential works.
