in the majority of cases I do not even suppose he realises it is there. (To the educated mind) the spell seems to be part of the man himself, because no one except himself has made him narrow-minded; and one is reminded of Shakespeare's remark, “The fault, dear Brutus, lies not in our stars, but in ourselves, that we are underlings”.
On the other hand, broad-mindedness by itself is no qualification for doing anything. No-one (except a few quaint scientists) would suggest that the community would be better run by biologists or astronomers than by politicians. A liberal education does not fit a man to be a lawyer without further specialised training. In other words to cope with the everyday situations in life, men and women specialise, and acquire in a narrow field sufficient knowledge and experience to approach problems in that field in a professional spirit. This can of course lead to a man submerging his personality, until, for instance, he can only think and talk as a lawyer, like Scrooge; just as the parochially minded person can only think parochially. But I see no need for this, nor advantage to be gained from it. In the long run, in my opinion, it can only lead to a man becoming so engrossed in his subject that he can no longer see the wood for the trees; i.e. he loses the ability to view a problem in broad perspective. The correct professional approach surely is for a man, by disciplining his mind, to be able to sustain a single-minded professional outlook for long periods of time without undue effort (e.g. as a lawyer in the law courts); it is not to submerge his consciousness until he can think and talk in no other way?
Be this as it may, the only relevant conclusions for present purposes are that a man's consciousness may be overshadowed and limited permanently by something intangible, as with the parochially minded man; or it may be temporarily limited by a conscious act of will in order to liberate the discipline and training of the mind, and make possible the professional approach to life's…