| | | What mankind really wish to economize is thought. | Admirable speculators publish beautiful eulogiums on the | employment of the faculties, and the universal creed is, | that the exertion of the reason is the highest and truest of | human enjoyments; yet if a steady observer really looks at | actual life, he will see that men never think if they can help | it ~~ that they require to be goaded towards its ~~ that they | invent devices to avoid it ~~ that, if possible, to enjoy | themselves in this. | One of these devices is, activity. People rush to and fro. | They are never still. They go to eight committees in a day, | taking care to be pretty late at each ~~ they look at their | watches the moment they get there ~~ they spurt out rapid | errors. If you suggest a little reflection before doing | anything, they say,

“Don’t bother about that now; | ”

and when all has gone wrong, they have the | ready plea,

“I was so occupied, I could not give it | a thought.”

In their own circles, such men are | always considered wonderful men of business. it is natural | their wives and families should believe in them; for they | spend so much toil and trouble, they make everybody so | uncomfortable, in order to boil a pea, that those who know | no better of course suppose that the pea is boiled. | Nevertheless it is not ~~ this impetuous activity is content | with the boiling apparatus, and does not regard the useful | result. It is among our middle classes, who are often held | up as the sole models of men of action, that this kind of | error is most rife. Place an active, uneducated man in | miscellaneous affairs, and it is nearly certain that he will | commit this mistake. He will being to do | something ~~ he will state that he is a

“practical man” |

~~ it will never strike him that there is an essential | preliminary to wise exertion. His mind has not been trained | to observe the varied relations of complicated phenomena, | or to unravel the knotty thread of tangled topics; and so he | will be apt to work ten hours a day at what it is scarcely | necessary to do at all. He will leave undone the one little, | essential, difficult matter ~~ the point of judgment | ~~ on which alone it was necessary to act or to | decide. We do not say that the middle classes manage | their own affairs on this principle, though there is a great | deal more of it, even in them, than a charitable philosopher | would be ready to suspect. Still they have habit, and | bringing up, and arithmetic to control them. The ledger | guides the mind ~~ the sense of responsibility, of actual | definite money-loss, represses undue activity, and compels | men to a certain discretion. But if such persons ~~ and | they are exactly those whom a Government, if compelled | to select, would, from their conspicuousness, choose as | the representative men of the middle classes ~~ were | placed among great national affairs, and not paid a | per-centage on those affairs, but an inevitable salary from the | indestructible taxation, they would act as very | busy Members of Parliament now act. They would run | quickly from committee to committee, and make a tour of | great questions. | In our administrative departments, happily, this state of | things does not prevail. A certain aristocratic laisser | aller rather pervades them. In a public office, it would | be indecorous to rush like a mighty wind. yet it would be a | great error to imagine that, in so large a department of | human life, no expedient to economise thought and to | dispense pro tanto, with the pain of reflection, | had been discovered and adopted. That resource is what | are called business habits. There is such a thing as the | pomp of order. In every public office there is a grave official | personage, who is always neat, whose papers are always | file, whose handwriting is always regular, who is | considered a monster of experience, who can minute any | proceeding, and docket any document. There is no finer or | more saving investment of exertion than the formation of | such habits. Under their safeguard, you may omit anything, | and commit every blunder. The English people never | expect anyone to be original. If | it can be said,

“The gentleman whose conduct is so | harshly impugned is a man of long experience, who is not | wont to act hastily ~~ who is remarkable for official | precision ~~ in whom many Secretaries of State have | placed much reliance,”

that will do; and it will not be | too anxiously inquired what such a man has done. The | immense probability is that he has done nothing. He is well | aware that, so long as he is safe, he is happy. His | education, too, has not fitted him for much exertion. He | entered the office young ~~ he copied letters for five years | ~~ he made an index of papers for nine months ~~ he | made analyses of documents for five years more. When he | commenced at last to transact business, it was of a strictly | formal character; and he was upwards of twenty years in | the public service before he ever decided on anything of | essential importance. No wonder that he is unwilling to | decide anything ~~ that he refers everything ~~ that he | corresponds in his best handwriting with another public | office ~~ that, when you want him, you find him entering a | minute,

“That after mature deliberation, my Lords have | postponed the consideration of what has taken place.”

| In actual life, it is really very difficult not to over-estimate | the usefulness of such a man. His appearance is so | regular ~~ his habits so precise ~~ he has such a | command of the instruments of utility ~~ that it is difficult to | imagine he does nothing. Only after considerable | observation can it be learnt that it is this very command | over the forms of action which enables him safely to | neglect its essence ~~ that it is his very familiarity with the | rules of experience that enables him to apply them | mechanically to instances to which they have only an | outward reference and no real applicability. It is odd how | some of the most gifted of our Administrative Reformers | mistake the true point. The honourable member for | Tynemouth, for example, who is a man of business, | brought a great charge against the Admiralty that they did | not keep the accounts duly and precisely. Of course Sir | James Graham had no difficulty in showing that the figures | were excellently summed, that the ledger was for ever | posted, that all the entries were made most legibly and with | extreme care. The more plausible charge would have been | precisely the contrary; for it is the tendency of official men | to regard what goes on within the office as always more | important that what takes place without it. The most | probable assumption would have been, that the entries | were most correct, but that the transactions were wrong ~~ | that the book-keeping was admirable, but the affairs | recorded feeble and insufficient. Arithmetic is, indeed, one | of the established devices of the pseudo-official mind. | When he is much pressed, he commonly adds up | something. The mechanical nature of the operation rather | suits him ~~ he does it quite right ~~ and his notion of | figures rather resembles that of a celebrated actuary, | whose wife observed,

“Isn’t it very odd that the | Government could send out things three thousand miles, | and that Filder could not get them up six,”

| and who replied,

“My dear, how you talk, consider the | figures, it was only an error of one-fifth per cent.”

Very | many sums are commonly done, and publicly quoted, | which have no more real relation to the subject-matter than | that of this gifted gentleman. | Our constitution presents us with yet another contrast to | that simple and patient reflection which would naturally | seem to be the habit of mind fitted for the judicious conduct | of political affairs. All politicians are required to have all | opinions. A voting acquaintance with all topics is required | from every member of Parliament. From those in high | place much more is exacted ~~ they are required to have a | ready, producible, defensible view of all great questions. | Mr. Macaulay, who has been placed in a position to | observe, tells us that, in his judgment, the effects of this | are the most serious set-off to the advantages of free | government. The habit of debating, and the necessity of | making a speech, compel the finest intellects in the country | to put forward daily arguments such as no man of sense | would think of putting into a scientific treatise. He might | have gone further, and said that the habit of always | advancing a view commonly destroys the capacity for | holding a view. The laxity of principle imputed to old | politicians is, by the time they are old, as much intellectual | as moral. They have argued on all sides of everything, till | they can believe on no side of anything. A characteristic of | the same sort has been observed in journalism. One of our | most celebrated contemporaries was asked his opinion on | ten great subjects in succession, and on its appearing that | he had no opinion, he said apologetically,

“You see, | Ma’am, I have written for the Times.” | We are well aware that something of this kind is inevitable. | We do not expect from a professional politician the | elaborate consideration of a closet philosopher ~~ their | ends are different, and their responsibilities are different. | We do not wish to abolish official form, and to abandon the | most delicate of practical matters to the sudden rash of the | uncultivated mind. We admit ~~ if need were, we would | maintain ~~ that there are many settled habits ~~ that | there is a certain exterior show and seeming ~~ the | possession of which is, in this world, a necessary | preliminary to important employment. People will not trust | you to act well unless you seem to be a person who would | act well. Nor do we forget that business is an affair of the | body as well as of mind. In our objection to a precipitate | and unthinking strength, we have no desire to reduce the | public service to a sole ability. We would only stipulate that, | previously to all action, in the midst of the correct forms, | and without respect to the exigencies of debate, our public | men should find room for some painful thought ~~ should | give themselves at least a reasonable time for patient and | anxious reflection.