The Molecule of More

PROGRESS

to soar impetuously towards heaven.

In this single sentence we see the passionate pursuit of more as well as
an attraction to things beyond the realm of the physical senses—even
a reference to the extrapersonal space of up, the realm of heaven. Toc-
queville found that behaviors of this nature were particularly common
“in the half-peopled country of the Far West,” a notion consistent with
the likelihood that the adventurous pioneers who settled the western
states were more likely to have risk-taking, sensation-seeking personali-
ties, and possibly genetic loading for hyperdopaminergic states.
A subsequent chapter titled “Causes of the Restless Spirit of Amer-
icans in the Midst of Their Prosperity” expanded on the dopaminergic
theme of never enough. Tocqueville noted that despite living in “the
happiest circumstances which the  world affords,” Americans pursued a 
better life with “feverish ardor.” He wrote:

In the United States a man builds a house to spend his later years in, and he

sells it before the roof is on: he plants a garden, and rents it just as the trees

are coming into bearing: he brings a field into tillage, and leaves other men

to gather the crops: he embraces a profession, and gives it up: he settles in a

place, which he soon afterwards leaves, to carry his changeable belongings

elsewhere. If his private affairs leave him any leisure, he instantly plunges

into the vortex of politics; and if at the end of a year of unremitting labor

he finds he has a few days’ vacation, his eager curiosity whirls him over the

vast extent of the United States, and he will travel fifteen hundred miles in

a few days, to shake off his happiness.

Tocqueville described a nation inhabited by hyperthymics.

INVENTORS, ENTREPRENEURS, AND

NOBEL PRIZE WINNERS

As a nation of immigrants, the United States has racked up spectacular
dopaminergic achievements. According to a research brief published