DEMOCRACY'S HOPE

Evening Post, Volume CXXII, Issue 74, 24 September 1936, Page 22

DEMOCRACY'S HOPE

THE LIMITS OF MIND

COMPLEXITIES OF LIFE

Psychology and its relation to social problems and politics was the subject discussed at last night's general meeting of the Wellington Philosophical Society, when Dr. C. E. Beeby gave an address on "Tha Limits of Mind." The human mind, he remarked, had' limits which appeared unalterable, except perhaps by breeding. These limits were seen most obviously in the case of the senses of sight and hearing, which were sensitive to only a narrow range of stimuli.

When he leaves the sphere of the senses the psychologist, said the lecturer, has no method of measuring the relations of mind to the objective world, and so no method of plotting its limits. There is an exception in one sphere—the span of attention. Experiment shows that the average man is capable of grasping only about six distinct objects in one act of attention. Here rise the difficulties of the biologist. From its very nature a living organism cannot be understood in parts, and the whole involves so many factors that it cannot be grasped in one instantaneous mental act. This fact of the indivisibility of life may thus place it for ever beyond man's understanding.

The psychologist's task is even harder. He lacks almost entirely a symbolism that will enable him to get beyond the facts of immediate experience. Psychology is thus much more concrete than physics. Sociology combines the difficulties of the biological sciences with new ones of its own. Even the simplest social situation cannot be grasped in its entirety. It can be conceptually torn asunder by an army of specialists, but there is no mind capable of bringing all the factors concerned to a focus in one magnificent act of comprehension comparable to that of Einstein. Failing that, the social scientist must always "hedge" by prefacing every statement with "Other things being equal. .. ." One great difficulty is that the findings of the social sciences are generally expressed in the bulky language of the written or spoken word. Not till they invent a new and more compact symbolism will specialists in the social sciences be able to see a wide enough range of facts in relation to one another to give them any real control over social situations. The social sciences await a new "sociological mathematics," a developing symbolism that -will enable their complexity to bo brought step by step within the grasp, of the expert mind. Until we get that, all views of the social system are incomplete and onesided, and fit basis for only the most tentative and experimental of actions. The average mind, however, is uncomfortable in the presence of tentative generalisations and hastens to eretet partial truths into superficial philosophies. This is only the scientist's passion for simplification working at a low and premature level. Both arise from a desire to bring experience within the limits of a single act of comprehension. DEMOCRACY DIFFICULT. The democratic state is relatively formless and its significance is extremely difficult to grasp intellectually. Symbols such as the flag and the crown provide focusing points, but even with these, the huge modern democratic state is in constant danger of being wrecked by the passion of the ordinary man for simplification. Fascism is such a simplification. The political structure of the Fascist State is radical, with the dictator at the hub. The simplest mind is capable of grasping the concept of a man-to-man loyalty between himself and Hitler. Fascism gets its strength • from the fact that it recognises the limits of mind and capitalises the desire for simplicity of structure. Its simplification is such, however, that further growth becomes- impossible. The Soviet State also implicitly recognises the limits of mind and tries to solve its problems by a pyramidal .structure. The citizen's first loyalty is to an easily-understood local body, the factory or village Soviet Such Soviets serve a double purpose: • (1) They select out men with the widest mental grasp to act on the higher-order Soviets; (2) they train such men in the techniques of transcending mental limits. In theory the Communist structure is excellent, but it becomes too cpmplex after the second stage of the pyramid, and only the simplified dictatorship of the Communist Party makes it workable. Democracy refuses to consider the mental limits of the citizen and assumes that every man can grasp its complex structure. If it is to survive (and despite its failings its virtues are such that its survival seems imperative) it is faced with the task of inventing a political mechanism wide enough to include all parts of the State and yet simple enough to be within the grasp of the ordinary citizen. The main work of education is to expand that grasp by a training in the laws of this mechanism, this applied "sociological mathematics." Unless such mechanism can be evolved, and such a use made of education, democracy must break down to something simpler and cruder. In the long run man can be loyal only to that which he understands, or thinks he understands. The situation is complicated by the fact that, for practical purposes, man's mind is not limited equally in all directions. As already stated, situations that can be analysed into meaningful parts can be grasped more easily than those which can be understood only "in toto." Hence man's understanding of and control and mechanical relations is far. ahead of his understanding of human and social relations. So the more efficient mechanical side of his mind, by constantly improving methods of communication and expanding his effective world is making daily more complex the task of social organisation for which he is already so ill-fitted. In the same way his mechanical production of goods outstrips his capacity for equitable distribution of them, since this is essentially a social problem. A mind equally limited in all directions would soon reach equilibrium, but ours progresses on different fronts. The _jnost important practical corollary of this is in the sphere of education. SOCIAL EDUCATION NECESSARY. Since our minds are best adapted to the understanding of external and mechanical relations, the easiest education to give is one in the physical sciences. The sciences taught at school are commonly physics and chemistry. The social sciences, with the exception of a little mechanically-treated history and geography, are almost ignored. Even the mathematics is the mathematics of the physical sciences, which helps the citizen little if at all with the understanding of year book or. budget. The effect is to reinforce those aspects of life which are already overdeveloped in relation to the rest, and to render still greater.the disequilibrium between mechanical and social thinking. One of the generally accepted principles pf modern education is that the teacher should find what the individual can do best and train him to do it still better. It now appears '■■ that an even

more important principle may be to discover where the human mind is most limited and train it in the techniques of transcending those limits. If that is so the proper study of man is most certainly man.

Simplification of some kind there 'must be in our political and social structure if man is to get a grip of his world. The choice lies between a relatively cheap and easy breaking up into smaller and tighter national groups and the rational, scientific simplification which comes from a realistic understanding of the principles at work in society. Nor, in a democracy, can such understanding be left to rulers alone. The only hope of democracy lies in a social education, not-merely in the sense of the understanding of social relations, but also in the sense of practising them in increasingly complex social situations.