e relates to the assemblies of the Empire.

The Saturday Review said, some years since, that the ability of
Parliament was a "protected ability": that there was at the door a
differential duty of at least 2000 pounds a year. Accordingly the House
of Commons, representing only mind coupled with property, is not equal
in mind to a legislature chosen for mind only, and whether accompanied
by wealth or not. But I do not for a moment wish to see a
representation of pure mind; it would be contrary to the main thesis of
this essay. I maintain that Parliament ought to embody the public
opinion of the English nation; and, certainly, that opinion is much
more fixed by its property than by its mind. The "too clever by half"
people who live in "Bohemia," ought to have no more influence in
Parliament than they have in England, and they can scarcely have less.
Only, after every great abatement and deduction, I think the country
would bear a little more mind; and that there is a profusion of opulent
dulness in Parliament which might a little--though only a little--be
pruned away.

The only function of Parliament which remains to be considered is the
informing function, as I just now called it; the function which belongs
to it, or to members of it, to bring before the nation the ideas,
grievances, and wishes of special classes. This must not be confounded
with what I have called its teaching function. In life, no doubt, the
two run one into another. But so do many things which it is very
important in definition to separate. The facts of two things being
often found together is rather a reason for, than an objection to,
separating them, in idea. Sometimes they are NOT found together, and
then we may be puzzled if we have not trained ourselves to separate
them. The teaching function brings true ideas before the nation, and is
the function of its highest minds. The expressive function brings only
special ideas, and is the function of but special minds. Each class has
its ideas, wants, and notions; and certain brains are ingrained with
them. Such sectarian conceptions are not those by which a determining
nation should regulate its action, nor are orators, mainly animated by
such conceptions, safe guides in policy. But those orators should be
heard; those conceptions should be kept in sight. The great maxim of
modern thought is not only the toleration of everything, but the
examination of everything. It is by examining very bare, very du