A gas company which should also be a kindergarten would, we expect, light the streets poorly and teach the children badly." [2201] And the reason is that an instrument, whatever it may be, a mechanical tool, or physiological organ, or human association, is always a system of pieces whose effects converge to a given end; it matters little whether the pieces are bits of wood and metal, as in the tool, cells and fibers, as in the organ, souls and understandings, as in the association; the essential thing is the convergence of their effects; for the more convergent these effects, the more efficient is the instrument in the realization of its end.

But, through this convergence, it takes one direction exclusively and cannot take any other; it cannot operate at once in two different senses; it cannot possibly turn to the right and at the same time turn to the left.

If any social instrument devised for a special service is made to act additionally for another, it will perform its own office badly as well the one it usurps.

Of the two works executed by it, the first injures the second and the second injures the first one.

The end, ordinarily, is the sacrifice of one to the other, and, most frequently, the failure of both.
II.