compass of mind

There have been many men of a larger reach and compass of mind, and some of a keener insight and sagacity, but none, of a more stern, inflexible, self-sacrificing devotion to what they esteemed to be true.

Without comparing their merits, we must admit that the compression of so much into a few short narratives shows intensity as well as compass of mind.

He is a man of great compass of mind.

For, as it will be allowed that he possessed greater compass of mind, and was more in the habit of exercising thought than the people whose opinions he described, so it may thence be readily inferred, that, what to them was confused and unconnected, as is commonly the case with the superstitions of the illiterate in all countries, his philosophical genius, working on obvious and remote analogies, wrought into order, and stamped with the semblance, at least, of theoretical consistency.