re experience than
his Chief, and can seldom set up his own knowledge to overrule the
opinion, or to guide the judgment, of his superior.

But on the Continent, changes of Ministers are oftener changes of
individual men from personal causes, than changes of parties from
political convulsions; and therefore when the Chief retires, the
Under-Secretary remains. There are consequently in all the public
offices abroad a number of men who have spent the greater part of
their lives in their respective departments, and who by their long
experience are full of knowledge of what has been done in former
times, and of the most convenient and easy manner of doing what may be
required in the time present. This affords to the Chiefs an additional
motive for leaning upon their subordinates, and gives to those
subordinates still more real influence.

This class of subordinate men has, from the fact of its being
possessed of so much power, been invested by the jargon of the day
with the title of "Bureaucratic"--a name fabricated in imitation of
the words "aristocratic" and "democratic," each being compounded of
the word "cratic," which is a corruption from the Greek word "kratos,"
which means power; and the prefix, denoting the particular class of
society whose power is meant to be expressed. Thus "_aristo_-cratic"
is the power of the upper, or, as in Greek it is called, the "aristos"
class of society; "_demo_-cratic" is the power of the people, which in
Greek is called the "demos"; and "_bureau_-cratic" is the power of the
public offices or "bureaus," for which latter the French name has been
taken instead of a Greek word.

It appears, then, to be the opinion of Lord William Russell, that this
second class of public men in Prussia are animated by a desire to
see the general policy of their country rendered more national and
independent than it has hitherto been; that for this purpose they were
desirous of urging on the Government to take its stand against foreign
influence upon some point or other, not much caring what that
point might be; that they thought it would be difficult to choose a
political question, because on such a question the King of Prussia
might be against them, and that consequently they chose a religious
question, on which they knew they should have the King with them;
and that accordingly they led the Government on to a quarrel with the
Court of Rome, and with the Catholic or Austrian party in Germany,
more with