The ministers were called upon first; for they were still full of sense of duty. Through the sudden increase in responsibility the king achieved in them a sudden greater alertness in the execution of their tasks.

“So far every single minister had taken the success of his activity for granted, and being so unreflective he had naturally assumed that the source of his achievements lay only in his own doing duty. So everyone thought to himself, ”When I am active, success comes about, and if I were not active, how could there be success - since success springs from my activity like the wind from the stirred air?”

“Thus the ministers thought their ministerial activity to be the open, well-known secret of success, and the logic of their conclusions was indeed amazingly obvious.