APPENDIX 381chosen and trained officials. Conscious of the importance of this pro-
blem Speransky give it his particular attention. In our opinion, this is
where he departs most radically from the point of view and methodology
of his superiors. The latter, as we have seen, had wanted to entrust the
implementation of reforms, as well as a good part of current affairs, to
the nobility or to an hereditary elite playing the role of intermediary
between tsar and people. Speransky, on the contrary, makes no room
for the initiative and self-government of corporate bodies. He refuses
to recognize the competence of officials whose professional know how
hl;l.s been acquired purely empirically, through the routine practices of
administration. 20 In order to make a new start by introducing a system
different in its very principles, new men, a renovated body of officials,
are needed. These new men must have a clear idea of general principles,
they should not be tied by past traditions and practices. If they need
masters and guides, let them find them among the Natural Law philo-
sophes and jurists - Aristotle, Grotius, Pufendorff - not among the
empiricists Montesquieu and Blackstone. 21 Russia needs inspired thin-
kers whose lively minds and imagination are tempered only by reflection
and experience. 22 These new men must be familiar with foreign ideas
and examples; to this end they should be sent for study to Western
Europe.^23 There they would be warned against errors which have
been made abroad in the past, while at the same time they would come
into contact with what is newest and most important from a theoretical
point of view. Obviously, one schould select young people for such study
trips; and Speransky rejects without hesitation the existing class of ser-
vice officials and appeals for the creation of a new bureaucracy. The
latter would be recruited among young men who have acquired broad
and deep theoretical knowledge and who are animated by a zeal for
reform and transformation. They will not be encumbered by hoary
traditions, consequently they will be wide open to the examples and
teachings of the West. One cannot help thinking that in formulating
the basic requirements and traits of this new bureaucracy Speransky was
inspired by his own career and that of his friends from the seminary who
had entered government service. Indeed, the students from the eccles-
iastical schools were virutally the only ones to have had the opportuni-
ty of obtaining the desirable theoretical preparation, and in the case20 "Otryvok 0 "komissif ulozhenHil", Proekty i zapiski, p. 27
21 Ibid. p. 20
22 Ibid. p. 27
23 I~id., p. 27