The meister-spieler must possess a rare combination of gifts. He must reach a high standard in several different directions and must combine talents seldom found together. He must be mathematician, historian, statesman and philosopher —in varying degrees. He must understand symbols and fluently articulate their meaning in words. He must contemplate the particular, in terms of the general, and touch abstract and concrete in the same flight of thought. He must study the present in the light of the past for the purposes of the future. No part of man's nature or his institutions must be entirely outside of his regard. He must be purposeful and disinterested in a simultaneous mood, as aloof and incorruptible as an artist, yet as near to earth as his less gifted kind.