Education for Privacy; M. ten Hoor

To come nearer home, compute the sum of all college and university presidents, deans, and profesors who have in the last five years attended meetings devoted to the improvement of education. Compare that figure with the number of those who remained on the campus work ing, and you will find proof even in academia. What Is an Expert? As further evidence, and as a striking symptom, there is the recent popularity of educational surveys. Most states and many institutions have experienced several. I have lived through eleven, without noticeable improve ment in myself or my neighbors. Note the procedure and the technique, for there you will find the 'moral. The surveyors are always from another state or another insti tution. This is in accordance with the well-known prin ciple that an expert is an ordinary person who is away [ 147] from home. These outsiders are brought in because of their objectivity, objectivity being the capacity for dis covering faults abroad which you cannot recognize at home. To be a good educational surveyor-or any kind of social analyst, for that matter-you must have a sharp eye for foreign motes but a dull one for domestic beams.

You must be a contented extrovert, so that, after diagnos ing the faults of others, you can continue to live in perfect comfort with your own. Too Few Followers I must confess that I view all this indiscriminate altru ism with a jaundiced eye. It does seem to me that these days there are too many leaders and too few followers; too many preachers and too few sinners-self-conscious sinners, that is. If this were an illustrated article, I would insert at this point a wonderful cartoon I saw not long ago. A little boy was asking an obviously as tounded and embarrassed father, "But if we're here to help others, what are the others here for?" Nobody has time these days to improve himself, so busy is he with attempts to improve his neighbor. There is something wrong with that equation. It seems to me that it is time to try to balance it. I suggest that this can be done by shifting some weight from one side to the other, by shift ing the emphasis from social improvement to self-im provement. I suggest that over the door of every academic cubicle there should hang the sign which Thoreau had over the door of his hut: tltIMy .destiny [148 ] mended here, not yours." In short, I propose to make a plea for education for privacy.

How To Feel Virtuous Before undertaking to identify some of the elements of this type of education, I should like to oHer some justiRcation of my skepticism concerning the present emphasis on social-mindedness in education. To begin with, it is so easy to assume that your neighbor is much worse off than yourself. The universality of this tendency is undoubtedly accounted for psychologically by its attractive by-products. The assumption produces a feel ing of comfort. If there is some slight suspicion that all is not well within, it is compensating to concentrate on the plight of one~s neighbor. Since attention to him is distracting, it keeps the individual from· worrying about himself. To do something about a neighbor's ignorance also makes one feel virtuous. This absorbing concern for the improvement of one's neighbor is undoubtedly a product of civilization. It is doubtful if primitive man worried much about it. The cannibal, in fact~ represents the other extreme: He uses his neighbor solely for his own improvement.

A Complex with Variations In the second place, I doubt if the reformer always has the wisdom necessary to direct the lives of so many peo ple-but this is certainly assumed. How many people are [149 ] there who have demonstrated the capacity to prescribe for others? If an individual makes a mistake in trying to improve himself, this is not so serious; but consider the consequences if· he has induced all his neighbors to do the same thing. History is filled with examples of sel£ confident leaders who led their followers straight to a common catastrophe. The fact is that we still know so little about human personality in the concrete. To be sure, there are excellent textbook pictures, with reveal ing analytical tables and graphs. But this is personality in the abstract. Any physician will tell you that he rarely finds a textbook picture in a patient. Not only is every human being a complex with variations, but there is the environment in which that complex functions and the accidental circumstances which confuse the vision and disrupt life.

Nor has the reformer too much reason for assuming that he has discerned the good life for his neighbors. Let us take as a familiar example the characteristic projection by parents into the lives of their children. This is some thing we can readily understand and, because it is suf fused with parental affection, forgive. But how many parents are there who realize that each child is to some extent a new complex of elements and who can bring themselves to substitute that confounding reality for the fond subjective creation? Too often the recommenda tion of a way of life is nothing more than the advocacy of a personal preference. From subjectivism in this sense of the term there is no complete escape. Even leadership is personalized in an [ 150 ] individual. Hitler was an individual: He spun his fan tastic and criminal notions out of his own warped· private personality. It is, therefore, terribly important that every thing shall be right in the reformer before he undertakes to reform others. "Nobody,>'says a character in Norman Douglas' South Wind, "has the right to call himself well disposed towards society until he has grasped the ele mentary fact that the only way to improve society is to improve oneself.:>:> And may I suggest in this connection that a major in the social sciences does not automatically qualify a student for social leadership?

SelfishUnselfishness Further reason for doubt is to be found in the charac teristic reactions of the hypersocial-minded. They be come so indignant when people resist their ministrations. They are so determinedly selfish in their unselfishness. Ideas, particularly ideas designed for the improvement of others, so quickly become inflated. In extreme cases they devour themselves. How antagonistic even educators become over professional differences as to how the igno rant should be rendered less sol Note the bitterness between rival reform groups. Let us not forget that human beings have killed one another in the mass even on the authority of their religions. Note how political leaders fall out, quarrel, conspire, injure one another in their unselfish efforts to save the country. In the absence of sophistication and modesty, reform notions grow into delusions; their advocates become more and [151 ] more autocratic; leadership becomes pathological; the desire to help one's fellow men is transformed into fanaticism and tyranny-and societies become authori tarian.

Everybody Is anJndividual Here lies the explanation of the tendency of hyperso cial-mindedness to suppress individualism and to pro duce too much uniformity. There are good reasons for doubting the wisdom of this lack of interest in the indi vidual as a unique personality. There is, to begin with, the obvious and inescapable fact that everybody is an in dividual. The higher the scale of life, the more individuals differ and the greater their potentialities for differing. Society must make provision for individual differences. Authoritarianisms of the type of national socialism and communism are primitivistic; for they propose to tum back the course of social change and to establish soci eties in which individuals shall have a status more closely resembling that of ants, bees, or even of atoms or electrons than of human personalities. They have forgotten, or pro pose to ignore, the incontrovertible fact that the great works of art, literature, music, philosophy, religion, and science-that is, the world's great manifestations of excel lence and leadership-were the products of intensely individual persons. Indeed, some of the world's great geniuses have been self-centered, unsocial, and iconoclas tic, with little or no interest in the improvement of their fellow men.

But society can well afford that. A regimented society [152 ] will not only suppress and possibly ultimately breed out these ~~exaggerated" individuals, but will generally dis courage the manifestations of the adventurous and origi nal spirit. Government and education designed to do this will bring about a tragic cultural impoverishment in human life; for individual differences enrich life, they 'stimulate the intelligence and the imagination, and they invite comparison and criticism. They keep the individual alive as an individual, and not merely as a bearer of the racial genius or a servant of the State. Some LawsNecessary It is true that modern life requires a certain amount of regimentation. Individuals obviously cannot be permit ted to run amuck. At least the great majority of persons must adapt themselves to other persons. Mechanical con trivances, such as traffic lights, must replace individual judgment; laws are to some extent substitutes for indi vidual choice. But let us not forget that it is not the basic purpose of these substitutes to repress individuality, but rather to make possible a more general and richer reali zation of individuality. It is not the purpose of social organization to reduce man to the subhuman, but to create more favorable opportunities for the realization of what is uniquely human.

The need of complex societies for a high degree of organization is one reason why so much attention is focused· on the improvement of the other fellow. Espe cially in a democracy, where everyone is more or less [153 ] free to advocate schemes for the improvement of society, lively and self-confident minds are inclined to expend their intellectual and emotional potential on reform movements. The attention of the reformer is consequently drawn away from contemplation of the state of his own soul. Since he is so happily exercised in improving others, the habit of self-examination gradually atrophies. How then can he be sure that he is the right person to pre scribe for his neighbors? Should he not stop now and· then to take an inventory of his resources? Does he in fact have these resources? It is because I have serious doubts of this sort, and because of the increasing neglect in education of attention to the accumulation of these re sources, that I feel it time to make a plea for education for privacy.

A Plea for Privacy What now are the essential elements of this education for privacy? In speaking of elements it is, of course, implied that the ideal construct of these elements consti tutes an organized whole, a personality. It is this ideal at which we aim, though we know full well that in any concrete individual, no matter how well educated after the formula which we shall propose, one or the other desirable characteristic is certain to be under-or over emphasized. The first requirement, clearly, is to learn how to think not out loud or in print, but privately. The thinker him.. self, not his neighbor, is to be the beneficiary. To think does not mean to spend hours in idle daydreaming or [ 154] in vagrant imaginings, or to make occasional impulsive sallies at ideas which happen to appear before the atten tion. The reference is certainly not to the semi-somnolent and comfortable ruminations which go on in the wander ing mind of an inattentive student in the classroom.

What is meant is systematic reflection, the constant pur pose of which is to bring order out of the multiplicity and variety of things in which the human being is immersed. Experi'ence without Understanding To be sure, many people go through life with their senses alert, observing and savoring in generous measure the richness of the world about them. But what they experience they retain only in the form of materials for recollection. The mind gradually accumulates a rich in ventory of goods, which can be brought out on display when there is social opportunity for it. But the relation ship of these resources in the mind is one of mere contiguity, like that of goods in a department store. Experience has not resulted in an over-all understanding because it has not been systematically thought about. Such individuals ... see all sights from pole to pole, And glance, and nod, and bustle by, And never once possess (their) soul Before (they) die.

To possess one's soul in an intellectual sense means to [155 ] have found some answer, or partial answer, to the ques tions: What is the nature of this world in which I find myself, what is my place in it, and what must be my attitude toward it? The problem is one of intellectual and spiritual orientation. A Disorganized Mind The benefits of such intellectual and spiritual adap tion have been extolled by the wise men of all ages and all countries. A "view of life" prepares us for what life brings us, for what happens to us in our physical environ ment, and most important of all, for what people turn out to be and for what they do. To be spiritually and intellectually lost in the world, on the contrary, is to be unarmed and helpless. A disorganized mind is unprepared for reality and easily frustrated. The fate that awaits the individual so afflicted is to be always a stranger and a wanderer in the world. The cClost soul" of literature, the ultimate in tragic creation, suffers from this great spiritual illness.

It may be unfortunate, but it is a fact that the sharper and livelier the intelligence and the more sensitive the spirit, the more serious the danger of disorientation. The simple-minded find life simple. Plants find themselves easy to live with, no doubt; for it cannot be difficult to vegetate successfully. It is not likely that the cow's ruminations are philosophical. Man, for better or worse, is a rational animal. The more he thinks, the greater the need of organization among his [ 156] ideas. The more subjects a student studies in college, the more extensive the potential disorder of his mind. It is not surprising that the scholarly mind, lost in a Babel of learning, seeks escape into a clearly defined speciality, and the practical mind, as soon as its owner has permis sion, into the comforts of a business, a profession, or domesticity. To be sure, we must integrate the curricu lum. But what good is this if the professor's mind re mains perched on its gaunt pinnacle or secluded in the laboratory?

Religious Experience The systematic way to the attainment of the organiza tion of ideas is through philosophy and religion. It is true that the great intellectual constructions of the meta physicians are not available to all men, and that even to the initiated they sometimes offer but poor comfort. Moreover, all of us have known individuals of great simplicity and humbleness of mind, quite untutored in dialectic, who somehow and in the simplest terms have securely located themselves in the cosmos. Especially in the realm of religious experience do we find examples of this. The spirit seems to have found peace in terms of some all-embracing conviction or great renunciation. But this is not often possible for the inquisi tive and analytical mind. To cast all burdens upon the Lord in one grand resolve sometimes implies ignorance of the nature of those bur dens. There is only consciousness of their oppressive [157 ] weight, but no understanding of their nature or causes.

To be sure, the critical intelligence may also come ulti mately to make this renunciation; but it will not feel justified in doing so until it has reflected upon causes and relationships and seen the problem of human trouble and sorrow whole. The solution must be a conquest, not an escape. Need for Philosophy For this, the mind certainly needs philosophy, sacred or secular. No learned profession, however, can offer the inquiring mind an officIalformula which every man need only apply in order to be permanently on understanding terms with the world. To be sure, there are systems of metaphysics, sacred and secular, from which the troubled spirit can choose a ready-made synthesis. But this does not make the chosen system of ideas an integral part of the inner personality. Intellectual orientation to the world must be something more than an acquisition; it must be an organic growth. The student should by all means seek out the great religious and philosophical thinkers, study their systems, and add their insights to his own. But in the last analysis he must work out his own solution, for such a solution must be the end product of his own reflection in the context of his otvn experience.

Only through the alchemy of private reflection do philosophical ideas become private resources. Only then will they be available in time of crisis. When the normal course of existence is interrupted by conflict and frustra[158 ] tion, it is a bit late to begin developing fundamental guiding ideas; that is the time to apply them. Admiral Byrd Alone A dramatic example of the saving grace of such re sources is related by Admiral Byrd in his book on his expedition to the South Pole, entitled Alone. He had been left behind by the expedition .. in a dugout located several feet below the surface of the icecap. From this he periodically emerged through a vertical tunnel to make scientific observations. It happened that the heater in his subterranean shelter developed a leak of which he was not aware. Before he realized it, he had been danger ously poisoned, and he· became seriously ill. During his convalescence he found himself struggling to overcome not only the physical damage done to his body, but also a deep spiritual depression, an obstinate conviction of the meaninglessness of life, which threatened to overwhelm him. There was no physician or psychoanalyst or cleric available. His fellow-explorers would not return for months. He was absolutely alone. He had to guide him self out of this slough of despair. This he· did, after many agonizing days, by steady thinking, by "digging down into" his intellectual resources. And it was then, to use his own homely but vivid phrase, that he "uncovered the pay-dirt of philosophy." He did not then collect the materials of his readjustment; he used them to recover his sanity. In this crisis, what would he have done with out these resources?

[159 ] Not Completely Free But periods of crisis are not the only time when man needs an orderly mind. If a ship is to hold its course, it needs a steady helm in good weather as well as in bad. I hasten to remark that this figure of speech has. serious limitations, for a navigator has his chart prepared when he begins his voyage. Man, on the· contrary, is faced with the problem of making a chart as he goes along. As a matter of fact, the plan of life is, for every man to some extent, an unconscious precipitate of his experience. We are not completely free agents; compulsion and fate, in the form of the physical world, our fellow men and social institutions, push the individual this way and that. What happens to him and what he becomes are clearly the result of a complex of inner and outer compulsions, over many of which he has no control. The Greek Chorus Weare not here primarily concerned with action, however, but with interpretation. In philosophical re flection, the individual to some extent plays the part of the Greek chorus. He observes himself as actor in a cos mic setting. If he does so systematically, he will grad ually discern not only his own role, but the direction of the whole drama. Only when he understands the mean ing of the play can he orient himself in it. Such an understanding, vague and incomplete though it may be, will enable him to achieve his own view of life. If he is [160 ] so fortunate as to see (what seems to him) the truth and to see it whole, he will thenceforth have a vision of the .future as well as an understanding of the present and the past. If a rational man does not do that, why should he consider himself the crown of creation? If he does accom plish this, he can exult with the poet Dyer: My mind to me a kingdom is; Such present joys therein I find As far exceeds all earthly bliss Look, what I lack my mind supplies.

Lo, thus I triumph like a king, Content with that my mind doth bring. The Uneasy Conscience In education for privacy, however, more is involved than philosophical orientation to the cosmos. There is equally urgent need for education in the establishment and maintenance of moral harmony. From the days of primitive religion, through Greek tragedy, the Christian epic of sin and salvation, and modern psychology, Freu dian and non-Freudian, to contemporary existentialism, there runs the theme of the uneasy conscience. The dramatic specter of moral guilt is the principal character in many of the greatest creations of literary genius. No matter what the learned explanation, the psychological state is one of inner moral disharmony. Though it may have outer causes, it is a private affiiction and must be [ 161 ] cured privately. In moments of despair or periods of cynicism we may doubt the existence or discernibility of moral meaning in the universe; but such a conclusion does not relieve the individual of the necessity for solving his personal moral problem. Even complete moral negativism, if not itself a moral philosophy, leaves the individual no recourse but to establish a private moral order in his life of action and reflection.

Moral Resources Here again, the more sensitive the individual, the greater the potentiality for disorganization. It is the sen sitive who are the most deeply wounded by moral indif ference, disorder, and brutality. The predisposing causes of moral disorganization may be in the people and the things We love, in the institutions which demand that we conform to their customs and taboos, in the great world which so often mocks our need for moral signifi cance and order. But a vision of the good life, the spirit must have; for devoid of it, the imagination is without moral perspective, conduct without guiding principles, and action without trustworthy habits. For an individual so unprepared for life, confusion will efface meaning and create frustration, with the onset in the case of the unusually sensitive spirit of pathological disturbances which may for a period or for a lifetime destroy happiness. Education for privacy must therefore include the education of the moral personality, the grad ual acquisition by the self of moral resources. Here, too, [162 ] there are available to the student in generous measure the works of the great philosophical and religious think ers; for probably no one of the persistent problems of life has had more of their systematic and concentrated attention. It is relevant here to note that the previously discussed philosophical orientation to the world is some times the foundation for moral orientation.

EmotionalStability A third requirement in the education of the personality is the development of emotional stability. Of all the immediate causes of unhappiness, emotional disorder is unquestionably the most serious and the most common. Currently there is a feeling that under the pressures of modem life its incidence is steadily increasing. Unfortu nately, emotions are the component of the personality about which we know the least, as modern science has come to realize. Our ignorance is largely a consequence of the fact that traditionally the emotions have been con sidered to be effects rather than causes. Preoccupation with the Hattering conviction that man is a rational animal has been attended with the assump tion that therefore our emotions are under the domi nation of the reason. This assumption has been one of the basic tenets of formal education, though puzzled par ents and self-conscious adults no doubt have all along had their suspicions. In our day, educators are being enlightened by psychology and the medical sciences on the subject of the devastating power of the emotions.

[163 ] Moreover, the modem conception of the integrated per sonality has redirected our approach to this subject, so that now we hypothesize and investigate in terms of interrelations and interactions. The simple classical vision of the reason enthroned in the psyche, making judg ments, issuing commands, and directing the conscious life of the individual, is difficult to maintain in the face of the past and current spectacle of human behavior. Education in Self-Control Let us grant that the contemporary individual lives in an age in which, as Goethe put it, "humanity twists and turns like a person on a sickbed trying to find a comfort able position;" To offset this, however, he has the advan tage of a better understanding of the compulsive and disruptive power of the emotions. He is aware of their insidious tendency to direct· his thinking and affect his judgment. He knows that they feed on themselves and that, if they are of the destructive kind, they can bring him to the verge of despair. He knows that they can completely disorient him, isolating him from the friend ship and sympathy of his fellow men, and estranging him from the beauty and utility of the world. He must learn that there is little he can do to remove the external causes, the irritants in his social and physical environ ment. In order to maintain or restore emotional stability within himself, he must learn to control the effects of these irritants on himself. Education of the emotions is education in self-control, in equanimity and serenity.

[164 ] Live with Yourself To these three objectives of education for privacy-the attainment of a philosophical point of view, a steady vision of the good life, and serenity of spirit-I should like to add one more: The individual should be able to live entertainingly with himself. He should accumulate resources on which he can draw when he is at leisure. The universal symptom of the absence of such resources is the homely but hapless state of boredom. It is an anomalous condition of the spirit, a state of indifference lying between pain and pleasure. Neither the mind nor the hands can find anything interesting to do. In contrast with the other troubles of the spirit which have been mentioned, there is little excuse for this great emptiness. For there is a marvelous cure for boredom, universally available, readily tapped, and virtually inexhaustible: the fine arts. On Reading This claim hardly needs defense. Nor is it necessary to enumerate the arts and to identify their respective potentialities for beguiling the mind and the heart. For illustrative purposes, however, let us consider one form of art enjoyment which is available to virtually every nor mal human being, young or old, learned or simple, saint or sinner-reading. Its great virtue for education for pri vacy is that it is a strictly private experience. No other human being is necessary to the reader at the moment of reading. He can take his book with him to the jungle or [ 165] the desert, on the ocean or the mountaintop. He can select his company at will, and rid himself of it by a turn of the hand. It is potentially an inexhaustible re source. All ages of history; all countries; all varieties of human·beings, and even of animals and plants and physi cal things; the entire range of human thoughts and feel..

ings, hopes and fears, conquests and failures, victories and defeats; the real and the ideal-all are available at the turn of a page for the reader~s contemplation and understanding. The Arts When we measure the impoverishment of him to whom this world is literally and figuratively a closed book, whose ear is deaf to music and whose eye blind to the glories of painting and sculpture, we come to realize the responsibility of liberal education for instruction in the arts. I say instruction purposely, because I believe that the presentation of opportunities for enjoyment and training in appreciation are not enough. There should also be instruction and encouragement in the production of art. As even the bungling amateur knows, there is no greater source of pleasure than creative activity. The training of the most modest talent is an enrich ment of a personality and develops another private re source for leisure hours. Even the unsuccessful attempt to create art, moreover, clarifies the understanding of art.

To be sure, just as it is not necesary to trouble our friends with our thoughts, so it is not necessary to bore our friends with our productions. It is, after all, not the [ 166] improvement of the neighbor but the improvement of oneself that is the immediate object of education for privacy. An understanding of the world, a vision of the good life, serenity of spirit, appreciation and practice of the fine arts-these, then, are the elements of the· integrated personality, the development of which is the immediate object of liberal education. These are the resources which are accumulated in the course of education for privacy. Why, now, is it so important for every individual to possess these resources? In the first place, simply because he is going to need them. We never know when we are going to lose our external resources, our public posses sions. Without private resources the individual has nothing to turn to when disappointment, frustration, or misfortune become his lot. In the great depression which is still vivid in our memories, there were many individ uals who possessed only external resources. When they lost these, life was over for them. They could not go on living with themselves because of their intellectual, moral, emotional, and artistic poverty., He who possessed these resources, however, could exclaim with Thoreau: "Oh, how I laugh when I think of my vague, indefinite richesI No run on the bank can drain it, for my wealth is not possession but enjoyment."

Resources of the spirit are like savings: They must be accumulated before they are needed. When they are needed, there is no substitute for them. Sooner or later, the individual faces the world alone, and that moment may overwhelm him if he has no inner resources. [167 ] Distraction helps but little and betrays us when we least expect it. We can escape our physical environment and our neighbors, but we cannot escape ourselves. Everyone with any maturity of experience and self knowledge knows that the loneliest moments are some times experienced in the midst of the greatest crowds and the most elaborate entertainments. "The man at war with himself is at war, though he sits in a garden surrounded by Rowers and singing birds," says the nov elist Cloete in Congo Song. The Psychopathic Leader And now, in conclusion, I wish again to pay my respects to the other half-truth, the improvement of others, which was so cavalierly dismissed in the begin ning of this essay. That objective, together with the other objective, self-improvement, compose the whole truth, which is the grand objective of liberal education. Educa tion for privacy and education for public service consti tute education of the whole personality. He who is not educated for privacy is hardly fit to educate others. The blind cannot lead the blind. The man who is not at peace with himself cannot be trusted to lead his fellow men in the ways of peace.

The unbalanced leader is certain to unbalance the society in which he functions. Even the leader who is intent on the side of the good but who is a fanatic will stimulate fanaticism in his followers, arouse dogmatism and bigotry, and induce oppression and cruelty. When he [ 168 ] is on the side of evil, he will lead his followers into such excesses and wickedness as will shame all humanity, and which even the innocent will wish to forget as soon as possible. Social pathology must in the last analysis be focused on the sickness of the individuals who compose the society. It is pure imagination, if not nonsense, to ascribe the ignorance, unbalance, and wickedness of a collection of human beings to a mysterious social entity such as the group mind or the social organism. We might as well divorce the concept of an epidemic from the notion of the individuals who are ill, or ascribe hunger to a societal stomach. People mislead one another exactly as they infect one another. The psychopathic leader is potentially as dangerous as the carrier of an infectious disease.

The Safe Leader The safe leader, in terms of the elements of education for privacy, is one who understands his place in the world and can thus envisage the place of his fellow men; who can morally respect himself and can thus be re spected by others; who has learned to control his emo tions and can thus be trusted to exert control over others; who has learned to live in peace and contentment with himself and can thus with propriety urge others to do likewise. We are living in a world and in a time when powedul leaders with millions of fanatical followers are commit ted to the forcible regimentation of their fellow men, according to formulas which have no initial authority but [ 169] that of their own private dogmatism. They not only refuse to recognize the right of private thought and per sonal conscience to be considered in the management of public affairs, but they have abolished the concept of the individual as a private personality and have reduced him to the level of the bee in the hive. To restore the individual to his former dignity as a human being is the urgent need of the day. This, in my opinion, should be the special objective of contemporary education.

First Lead Yourself But liberal education must so educate the individual that he is manifestly worthy of having his dignity recog nized. If he wishes to lead his fellows, he must first learn to lead himself. Without education for privacy he will neither merit leadership nor learn to recognize it in others. He will strive in vain for happiness and success in private or public life until he has achieved under standing, goodness, serenity, and contentment within himself. That, according to my exegesis, is in this con nection the meaning of the Biblical text: "For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?" It is surely what Thomas Hardy meant when he wrote: He who is with himseH dissatisfied, Though all the world find satisfaction in him, Is like a rainbow-coloured bird gone blind, That gives delight it shares not. [170 ] TALKING TO OURSELVES "BUT WHAT'S the use of talking to ourselves? What's the point of sending literature on free enterprise to people who are already sold on free enterprise? Is it not true that the real problem is one of reaching the masses those who really need some sound ideas?"