affairs, which no special man can have, and
which is only gained by diversified action. But this utility of leading
minds used to generalise, and acting upon various materials, is
entirely dependent upon their position. They must not be at the
bottom--they must not even be half way up--they must be at the top. A
merchant's clerk would be a child at a bank counter; but the merchant
himself could, very likely, give good, clear, and useful advice in a
bank court. The merchant's clerk would be equally at sea in a railway
office, but the merchant himself could give good advice, very likely,
at a board of directors. The summits (if I may so say) of the various
kinds of business are, like the tops of mountains, much more alike than
the parts below--the bare principles are much the same; it is only the
rich variegated details of the lower strata that so contrast with one
another. But it needs travelling to know that the summits ARE the same.
Those who live on one mountain believe that THEIR mountain is wholly
unlike all others.

The application of this principle to Parliamentary government is very
plain; it shows at once that the intrusion from without upon an office
of an exterior head of the office, is not an evil, but that, on the
contrary, it is essential to the perfection of that office. If it is
left to itself, the office will become technical, self-absorbed,
self-multiplying. It will be likely to overlook the end in the means;
it will fail from narrowness of mind; it will be eager in seeming to
do; it will be idle in real doing. An extrinsic chief is the fit
corrector of such errors. He can say to the permanent chief, skilled in
the forms and pompous with the memories of his office, "Will you, Sir,
explain to me how this regulation conduces to the end in view?
According to the natural view of things, the applicant should state the
whole of his wishes to one clerk on one paper; you make him say it to
five clerks on five papers." Or, again, "Does it not appear to you,
Sir, that the reason of this formality is extinct? When we were
building wood ships, it was quite right to have such precautions
against fire; but now that we are building iron ships," etc., etc. If a
junior clerk asked these questions, he would be "pooh-poohed!" It is
only the head of an office that can get them answered. It is he, and he
only, that brings the rubbish of office to the burning-glass of sense.

The immense importance of such a fresh mind is g