The Influence of One Man
Book of Mormon Notes - Thursday, October 19, 2023, Alma 46
One plain evidence of the authenticity, historicity, and truth of the Book of Mormon is that no democratic historian could have concocted such a history of such a people.
Why? Because Mormon’s record is replete with heroic examples and tributes to, and warnings about, the influence of the actions of particular individuals.
Alexis de Tocqueville observed that one of the tendencies particular to historians in democratic centuries is to attribute more influence to general causes instead of to particular individuals in the unfolding events of history.
Read Tocqueville’s observations (which were written only shortly after the Book of Mormon was published) and consider whether anyone in the democratic United States, let alone a newlywed farm-boy in his early twenties with little to no formal education, could have possibly written such a lengthy book in just a few months, especially a book that contains many evidences of ancient and aristocratic authorship:
Historians who write in aristocratic centuries ordinarily make all events depend on the particular will and the mood of certain men, and they readily link the most important revolutions to the slightest accidents. They wisely make the smallest causes stand out, and often they do not see the greatest ones.
Historians who live in democratic centuries show completely opposite tendencies.
Most of them attribute to the individual almost no influence on the destiny of the species, or to citizens on the fate of the people. But, in return, they give great general causes to all the small particular facts. [In their eyes, all events are linked together by a tight and necessary chain, and therefore they sometimes end up by denying nations control over themselves and by contesting the liberty of having been able to do what they did.] These contrasting tendencies can be explained.
When historians in aristocratic centuries cast their eyes on the world theater, they notice first of all a very small number of principal actors who lead the whole play. These great characters, who keep themselves at the front of the stage, stop their view and hold it; while they apply themselves to uncovering the secret motives that make the latter act and speak, they forget the rest.
The importance of the things that they see a few men do gives them an exaggerated idea of the influence that one man is able to exercise, and naturally disposes them to believe that you must always go back to the particular action of an individual to explain the movements of the crowd.
When, on the contrary, all citizens are independent of each other, and when each one of them is weak, you do not discover any one of them who exercises a very great or, above all, a very enduring power over the mass. At first view, individuals seem absolutely powerless over the mass, and you would say that society moves all by itself by the free and spontaneous participation of all the men who compose it.
That naturally leads the human mind to search for the general reason that has been able to strike so many minds all at once in this way and turn them simultaneously in the same direction.
I am very persuaded that, among democratic nations themselves, the genius, the vices or the virtues of certain individuals delay or precipitate the natural course of the destiny of the people; but these sorts of fortuitous and secondary causes are infinitely more varied, more hidden, more complicated, less powerful, and consequently more difficult to disentangle and to trace in times of equality than in the centuries of aristocracy, when it is only a matter of analyzing, amid general facts, the particular action of a single man or of a few men.
The historian soon becomes tired of such a work; his mind becomes lost amid this labyrinth, and, not able to succeed in seeing clearly and in bringing sufficiently to light individual influences, he denies them. He prefers to speak to us about the nature of races, about the physical constitution of a country, or about the spirit of civilization [attributed to nature before the heaviness of air was discovered>]. That shortens his work, and, at less cost, better satisfies the reader.
M. de Lafayette said somewhere in his Memoires that the exaggerated system of general causes brought marvelous consolations to mediocre public men. I add that it gives admirable consolations to mediocre historians. It always provides them with a few great reasons that promptly pull them through at the most difficult point in their book, and it favors the weakness or laziness of their minds, all the while honoring its depth.
For me, I think that there is no period when one part of the events of this world must not be attributed to very general facts, and another to very particular influences. These two causes are always found; only their relationship differs. General facts explain more things in democratic centuries than in aristocratic centuries, and particular influences fewer. In times of aristocracy, it is the opposite; particular influences are stronger, and general causes are weaker, as long as you do not consider as a general cause the very fact of inequality of conditions, which allows a few individuals to thwart the natural tendencies of all the others.
So historians who try to portray what is happening in democratic societies are right to give a large role to general causes and to apply themselves principally to discovering them; but they are wrong to deny entirely the particular action of individuals, because it is difficult to find and to follow it [and to content themselves often with great words when great causes elude them].
Not only are historians who live in democratic centuries drawn to giving a great cause to each fact, but also they are led to linking facts and making a system emerge.
In aristocratic centuries, since the attention of historians is diverted at every moment toward individuals, the sequence of events escapes them, or rather they do not believe in such a sequence. The thread of history seems to them broken at every instant by the passage of a man.
In democratic centuries, on the contrary, the historian, seeing far fewer actors and many more actions, can easily establish a relationship and a methodical order among them.
Ancient literature, which has left us such beautiful histories, offers not a single great historical system, while the most miserable modern literatures are swarming with them. It seems that ancient historians did not make enough use of these general theories that our historians are always ready to abuse.
Those who write in democratic centuries have another, more dangerous tendency.
When the trace of the action of individuals or nations becomes lost, it often happens that you see the world move without uncovering the motor. Since it becomes very difficult to see and to analyze the reasons that, acting separately on the will of each citizen, end by producing the movement of the people, you are tempted to believe that the movement is not voluntary and that societies, without knowing it, obey a superior force that dominates them.
Even if you should discover on earth the general fact that directs the particular will of all individuals, that does not save human liberty. A cause vast enough to be applied at the same time to millions of men, and strong enough to bend all of them in the same direction, easily seems irresistible; after seeing that you yielded to it, you are very close to believing that it could not be resisted.
So historians who live in democratic times not only deny to a few citizens the power to act on the destiny of the people, they also take away from peoples themselves the ability to modify their own fate, and subject them either to an inflexible providence or to a sort of blind fatality. According to these historians, each nation is invincibly tied, by its position, its origin, its antecedents, its nature, to a certain destiny that all its efforts cannot change. They make the generations stand together with each other, and, going back in this way, from age to age and from necessary events to necessary events, to the origin of the world, they make a tight and immense chain that envelops the entire human species and binds it.
It is not enough for them to show how facts happened; they like as well to reveal that it could not have happened otherwise. They consider a nation that has reached a certain place in its history, and assert that it has been forced to follow the road that led it there. That is easier than teaching what it could have done to take a better route.
It seems, while reading the historians of aristocratic ages and particularly those of antiquity, that, in order to become master of his fate and govern his fellows, man has only to know how to control himself. You would say, while surveying the histories written in our time, that man can do nothing, either for himself or around him. The historians of antiquity taught how to command; those of our days scarcely teach anything except how to obey. In their writings, the author often appears great, but humanity is always small.
If this doctrine of fatality, which has so many attractions for those who write history in democratic times, by passing from the writers to their readers, in this way penetrated the entire mass of citizens and took hold of the public mind, you can predict that it would soon paralyze the movement of new societies and would reduce Christians to Turks.
I will say, moreover, that such a doctrine is particularly dangerous in this period in which we live; our contemporaries are all too inclined to doubt free will, because each of them feels limited on all sides by his weakness, but they still readily grant strength and independence to men gathered in a social body. Care must be taken not to obscure this idea, for it is a matter of lifting up souls and not finally demoralizing them.
Of course the Book of Mormon is not merely a history. But it is clear that Mormon, and every Book of Mormon author as far as I can tell, attributes much more influence to the actions of particular individuals than merely to general causes. Lehi’s actions changed the course of history and fulfilled in part the prophesies for Joseph’s seed. Nephi’s actions changed the course of history, also fulfilling prophesy. Individuals and their actions loom large throughout the Book of Mormon. Abinadi, for example, changed the course of Nephite history and influenced generations of Nephites, and generations of readers of the Book of Mormon. When we reach Mormon’s record of Chief Captain Moroni, it is clear that this man, this hero, not only influenced the story of the Nephites, but that his courageous actions made all the difference for saving their civilization from complete and utter destruction at the hands of the Lamanites. A democratic historian would not have written in the same way.
I’ve also noticed that the actions and influence of individuals in the Book of Mormon is not limited to the prophets, heroes, and righteous leaders. Think of the negative influence of Laman and Lemuel, Sherem, Nehor, King Noah, Amlici, Zerahemnah, and in this chapter, Amalikiah, just to name a few. Again, individuals and their actions loom large throughout the Book of Mormon, for good and for evil. And Mormon explicitly mentions this fact in one of his class “thus we see” lessons drawn from his abridgment of Nephite history:
Thus we see how aquick the children of men do bforget the Lord their God, yea, how quick to do ciniquity, and to be led away by the evil one.
Yea, and we also see the great awickedness one very wicked man can cause to take place among the children of men. (Alma 46:8-9)
In a way, I suppose, Mormon notes both the general causes - the short memories and wickedness of people in general - and the power of one wicked individual’s influence, in this case Amalikiah. Perhaps this is because the social state of the Nephites was not entirely aristocratic, nor was it entirely democratic. It was an interesting mix, and this interesting mix may have influenced Mormon’s methods and manner of writing. But our democratic social state in modern America also influences the way that we read the Book of Mormon, and it seems to me that Mormon deliberately wrote in such a way as to counteract and challenge many of our modern democratic tendencies.
That’s a long enough preface to the problems that Helaman and Moroni faced because of Amalikiah and the lower judges in the land who were seeking for power. Who was this Amalikiah? What was he trying to accomplish?
Now the leader of those who were wroth against their brethren was a large and a strong man; and his name was aAmalickiah.
And Amalickiah was desirous to be a aking; and those people who were wroth were also desirous that he should be their king; and they were the greater part of them the lower bjudges of the land, and they were seeking for power.
And they had been led by the aflatteries of Amalickiah, that if they would support him and establish him to be their king that he would make them rulers over the people.
Thus they were led away by Amalickiah to dissensions, notwithstanding the preaching of Helaman and his brethren, yea, notwithstanding their exceedingly great care over the church, for they were ahigh priests over the church.
And there were many in the church who believed in the aflattering words of Amalickiah, therefore they bdissented even from the church; and thus were the affairs of the people of Nephi exceedingly precarious and dangerous, notwithstanding their great cvictory which they had had over the Lamanites, and their great rejoicings which they had had because of their ddeliverance by the hand of the Lord. (Alma 46:3-7)
Amalickiah was a tyrant and a demagogue. Perhaps not surprisingly, like many of the tyrants and demagogues in the Book of Mormon, Amalickiah was a large and a strong man. Mormon notes, however, that heroes like Nephi and the Brother of Jared were large and mighty men. Again, individuals and their personal characteristics and actions loom large in the Book of Mormon. This Amalickiah will turn out to be a major pain in the Nephite backside. In fact, by treachery and intrigue, Amalickiah will even become the king of the Lamanites:
And it came to pass, that when the Lamanites saw that their chief captains were all slain they fled into the wilderness. And it came to pass that they returned to the land of Nephi, to inform their king, Amalickiah, who was a Nephite by birth, concerning their great loss. (Alma 49:25)
Remember too that the scalp-less Zerahemnah is probably lurking around somewhere in the background of all of this, and the brave Teancum is taking notes about the cause of all of this war and bloodshed.
What was Mormon trying to teach us by all of this? What did he see in the last days, and how would these things help those of us who are trying to navigate through the last days?
Amalickiah used flattery to increase his power. It seems to be the tendency of those who seek power to gather with others who seek power because someone with more power has promised to give them more power in exchange for helping to increase his or her own power. In simpler terms, the powerful know how to flatter power-seekers with promises of more power. This may be the political and social reality, but the spiritual reality is the opposite:
We are children of God with a majestic destiny. We can be changed to become like Him and have “a fulness of joy.”13 Satan, on the other hand, would have us be miserable like he is.14 We have the ability to choose whom we follow.15 When we follow Satan, we give him power.16 When we follow God, He gives us power.
Mormon sharpens the contrast between Chief Captain Moroni - a man who was not seeking for power, but who enjoyed godly power and legitimate political and military authority - and Amalickiah - a wicked man who sought after power through flattery in order to subjugate others. Lest we suppose that members of the Church were immune to such flattery, and that they were willing to hearken unto the prophet Helaman, Mormon informs us that many, even in the Church, believed in the aflattering words of Amalickiah, and then bdissented from the church. As much as external Lamanite aggression was constantly a problem for the Nephites, the more serious problem was always internal dissension and rebellion.
Mormon laments that these Nephites so quickly forgot what the Lord had done for them by sending Moroni to them and delivering them from their enemies, the Lamanites, and he draws forth one of his patented “thus we see” lessons for his latter-day audience, namely us:
Thus we see how aquick the children of men do bforget the Lord their God, yea, how quick to do ciniquity, and to be led away by the evil one.
Yea, and we also see the great awickedness one very wicked man can cause to take place among the children of men.
Yea, we see that Amalickiah, because he was a man of cunning device and a man of many flattering words, that he led away the hearts of many people to do wickedly; yea, and to seek to adestroy the church of God, and to destroy the foundation of bliberty which God had granted unto them, or which blessing God had sent upon the face of the land for the crighteous’ sake. (Alma 46:8-10)
This human tendency to forget the Lord is a major theme throughout the Book of Mormon, and especially in the Book of Helaman. The evil influence of one very wicked man is also a major theme, but it is constantly contrasted with the righteous influence of one very righteous man - men such as Chief Captain Moroni, Helaman, the brothers Lehi and Nephi, and so forth. The pinnacle of this contrast is, of course, the contrast between the devil and our Savior Jesus Christ.
What was Chief Captain Moroni’s reaction to Amalickiah’s treachery and the dissensions that he caused? This will be the subject of my next post…