THE SYNOPTIC MIND: AN IDEAL OF LEADERSHIP

GEORGE R. DODSON

ST. LOUIS

To be able to reflect the mind and sentiment of one's own generation and be the interpreter of its aspirations is a great thing, but to succeed in giving to a noble and enduring ideal of humanity its classic expression, to voice clearly the deepest needs and highest dreams of many centuries, is the supreme performance, which is beyond the power of all but the few geniuses who are large enough to represent our race. Of all the saints, sages, and saviours who have studied the drama of human life, no one has ever surveyed it from a greater height than Plato, nor has any mind surpassed his in comprehensiveness and insight. And his conclusion, his matured conviction, was that humanity's most urgent need is for adequate leadership. The goal of the ideal system of education which is outlined in the Republic was the discovery, selection, and training of what he calls "synopticminded men" to be the leaders of the state. The youths to be prepared for this high function were first to be selected from those apparently most promising, and then submitted to a course of physical and mental discipline lasting through the greater part of life. This was a sifting process, and from time to time the failures were dropped. The finer natures continued their elementary studies till the age of twenty, when they were submitted to a new test of their capacity for leadership. Up to that time their manner of study was to be appropriate to youth. Their knowledge, being necessarily a mass of unconnected and unrelated fragments, could not be embraced in a unitary view. But when the synthetic powers ripen, the time arrives to attempt an organization of the mental content, to put together the things that have been, and are being, learned, and comprehensiveness becomes an ideal of the mind.

Plato's statement is as follows: "The sciences which they have learned in their early education without any order will now be

brought together, and they will be able to see the natural relationship of them to one another and to true being." The Greek word for the ideal aimed at is oúvoys; that is, these hitherto unrelated subjects will be combined into a synoptic view. The possession of a talent for doing this, of a synoptic mind, is the criterion by which selection is to be made for still higher advancement. Plato has another name for minds of this type; indeed, he generally calls them "dialectical," but he explicitly states that in his usage the two words mean exactly the same thing, and his whole theory of education is based on his conviction that only those minds that possess the capacity for putting things together in a comprehensive view and thus seeing them in their natural relations are fitted for the higher studies which equip men for leadership.

The experience of the ages has confirmed the insight of this famous thinker. That one of the greatest needs of humanity is for a supply of synoptic-minded men to manage its affairs and direct its development is as nearly an unquestioned truth as we are likely to meet with in these critical days. And it is of the most profound and even vital significance for all who are set to be leaders, and not least for the ministers of liberal churches. There are those who look to us for guidance in the conduct of the greatest and highest of human interests. It is not only our privilege, but our business, to be men with a cosmic outlook, and to strive toward a comprehensive and unitary view, even though it must necessarily be tentative and incomplete; and, while no one can reach the height of Plato's ideal for the philosopher and be a "spectator of all time and existence," we can and ought to have some sense of the frame in which our human life is set, to look down the long vistas of evolution, and attain to some inspiring conception of our place in the great process, of the achievements of the past, and of humanity's reasonable hopes for the future.

And how sublime is the vast drama! Science cannot fill out the details, but its outlines of the magnificent scheme are doubtless something like the truth. Standing by the seashore last summer, my imagination vainly tried to picture what I know must have taken place, the living jelly coming out of the water, organizing itself, multiplying and specializing its cells, acquiring

skeleton, organs of sense and locomotion, nervous system and brain, until distinctively human activities appear and humanity with its advancing intellectual, moral, social, and religious life is an established fact on the earth.

And because the great process is still going on, because in us it has become self-conscious, because humanity is not only being pushed up by cosmic forces as formerly, but is now also deliberately climbing up, striving toward its native ideals and thus cooperating in its own evolution, because it is in need of leaders who can help to clarify its thoughts and bring into distinct consciousness the noble ideals that lie implicitly but obscurely in its heart, the moral and religious teacher has a work to do, a work which he can hope to perform successfully only as he is a man whose habit of mind is comprehensive and synoptic, and whose ideal and constant effort is to see life sanely and see it whole. I venture, then, to offer some thoughts on the present situation, and to suggest an answer to the question, What o'clock is it in the evolution of human life? For, I think it safe to assume, what we are chiefly interested in is not religion only, but the evolution of human life on this planet. It is not possible to detach the religious aspect of life from the rest of it, since religious thought and feeling are the blossoming, the outflowering of the whole process. The higher life must be cultivated, as indeed it must be lived, as one life. And if I emphasize the intellectual phase of this higher life, it is because this emphasis seems at present to be sorely needed. The philosophers and religious writers of today vie with one another in exalting the importance of the voluntaristic aspect of our human existence, and in disparaging the activity of the seeker for truth who loves it for its own sake as well as for its uses, who believes with the noblest minds of all ages that the knowledge of truth is a good in itself, that copía is one of the natural goals of human striving. A flood of books, essays and sermons, is coming from the press the avowed purpose of which is to establish the irrational and, in practice, largely immoral principle of the "will to believe," that is, to justify the procedure of those who assume to be true any mystical or irrational doctrine which they may conjecture to be of help in the business of life.

Jesus is said to have looked on the multitudes with compassion, regarding them as sheep without a shepherd. The situation has improved somewhat, but the multitudes need compassion still. Many of its leaders have lost their way, and are seeking in the bogs of pragmatism and other forms of anti-philosophy for humanity's highway. Some have even given up rational ideals, and profess no longer to believe that the universe is an order the truth of which it is possible for us to know. To understand how this disqualifies them for leadership, it is only necessary to remember that all inspiring preaching, every message that has ennobled the lives of men, has been marked by two characteristics, namely, faith in the worth of human nature and in the reality of truth.

In order to make it perfectly clear that the greatest need of our excessively specialized and subdivided modern life is for synoptic-minded men, it is necessary to consider in the large the development of humanity's higher life as it appears from the point of view of the philosophical psychologist. Other classifications may, of course, be made by those who have other interests at heart, but I think it will be recognized that the picture to be presented is no mere fancy of mine, but that what I am saying the facts themselves say to all who can appreciate their significance. There are, then, three great stages in the evolution of thought, namely:

1. The primitive confused awareness.

2. The clearing up of this confusion through the making of distinctions.

3. The synoptic view in which the things distinguished are seen together.

The first stage need not detain us long. Everyone who has studied the history of thought knows that distinctions which are familiar to us were not made in ancient times. Thus there was a period when the problem of the relation of mind and body had not arisen because these two aspects of reality were not yet clearly distinguished. Matter and spirit were regarded as different forms of a single substance. "Whatever acts is body," it was said. "Mind is the subtlest form of body, but it is body nevertheless." The soul-atoms were thought to differ from those

skeleton, organs of sense and locomotion, nervous system and brain, until distinctively human activities appear and humanity with its advancing intellectual, moral, social, and religious life is an established fact on the earth.

And because the great process is still going on, because in us it has become self-conscious, because humanity is not only being pushed up by cosmic forces as formerly, but is now also deliberately climbing up, striving toward its native ideals and thus cooperating in its own evolution, because it is in need of leaders who can help to clarify its thoughts and bring into distinct consciousness the noble ideals that lie implicitly but obscurely in its heart, the moral and religious teacher has a work to do, a work which he can hope to perform successfully only as he is a man whose habit of mind is comprehensive and synoptic, and whose ideal and constant effort is to see life sanely and see it whole. I venture, then, to offer some thoughts on the present situation, and to suggest an answer to the question, What o'clock is it in the evolution of human life? For, I think it safe to assume, what we are chiefly interested in is not religion only, but the evolution of human life on this planet. It is not possible to detach the religious aspect of life from the rest of it, since religious thought and feeling are the blossoming, the outflowering of the whole process. The higher life must be cultivated, as indeed it must be lived, as one life. And if I emphasize the intellectual phase of this higher life, it is because this emphasis seems at present to be sorely needed. The philosophers and religious writers of today vie with one another in exalting the importance of the voluntaristic aspect of our human existence, and in disparaging the activity of the seeker for truth who loves it for its own sake as well as for its uses, who believes with the noblest minds of all ages that the knowledge of truth is a good in itself, that Oewpía is one of the natural goals of human striving. A flood of books, essays and sermons, is coming from the press the avowed purpose of which is to establish the irrational and, in practice, largely immoral principle of the "will to believe," that is, to justify the procedure of those who assume to be true any mystical or irrational doctrine which they may conjecture to be of help in the business of life.