Chapter I

Never, in my memory, has intercourse with thoughtful men been as suggestive and stimulating as it has been since the war broke out. It is hardly possible, to-day, to enter into conversation with an educated person without noting the emergence of some new point of view. Under the strain and pressure of the time mens’ minds are yielding ideas and making discoveries. There is in consequence a certain vividness in the intellectual life of the country which relieves, to some extent, the moral distress. In the presence of danger our intelligence, our imagination, our will, are unusually wide awake. We begin to perceive the limits of accepted forms of thought, the inadequacy of the standards by which we have been accustomed to pass judgement on life and on history, and the partial nature of truths we had regarded as final and complete. A great disturbance, like that of an earthquake, is passing beneath our life, and the elements of that life are rearranging themselves in new perspectives. We are virtually living in another world compared with that in which we were alive eight months ago.

The world before the war was comparatively _safe_; the world of to-day is _threatened_. Eight months ago we looked out into a future which seemed assured. We were laying out plans, buying, selling, building, marrying and giving in marriage, like the men of old before the Lord rained fire on Sodom and Gomorrah. Our sons were growing up and we were arranging their peaceful careers. To-day our sons are in arms, and under orders for the front, and as they gather round us for the parting feast, we thank God that we cannot raise the veil of the future. Our most intimate ties are threatened with possibilities of which we dare not think. Thus at the very centre of our life the earthquake begins, and it runs outward until every idea, every habit of mind, every interest, every conviction, has received some share of the shock. But the shock, far from paralysing the nation’s mind, serves rather to liberate its reserves of intellectual vitality. The new world in which we find ourselves is not terrible only; it is full of challenge to our thinking faculties. It provides a daily stimulus to spiritual curiosity. Thus the intercourse of thoughtful men grows more vivid, and it becomes easy to understand how, from conditions like these, new births of the soul have come to nations; times of danger and calamity being often followed by times of creativeness in all the arts of life.

Ladies and gentlemen, are we not all _thinking more_ than we did before the war began—thinking more deeply, more earnestly, more constantly? There is a new thoughtfulness in the air which is raising the level of intelligence in all classes of the community. The matters we are thinking about are big and terrible and splendid, all at the same time. We are asking questions which it is an education to ask, even though for the time being we cannot answer them. Because the questions are great questions they are giving us a juster sense of proportion. We are thinking a little more about our duties and a little less about our rights. ‘Business’ still goes on; but not quite as usual, for something more important than business is in our minds. We are measuring ourselves by higher standards. The heroism of the forces, the daily spectacle of our young men going to the war, reminds us of ethical truths we had half forgotten. Great questions about society and civilization are challenging our minds and compelling us to look at them from new angles of vision. It is good for us to be ‘brought up sharp’ by these things. Still better, that we should be forced to think of them not as mere academic questions, but as questions of life and death. And best of all, when the whole people is forced to think about them _at the same time_. We are coming _together_ into the presence of these problems. That makes an enormous difference. One reason why the great concerns of life are not better cared for is that in normal times the interest taken in them is piecemeal. You think of them to-day and I think of them to-morrow, with the result that I am hot while you are cold, and I am critical while you are enthusiastic. But the new thoughtfulness is not of that broken, interrupted kind. It is simultaneous and widespread. We are all in it at once. You remember what Emerson says about the strange things that may happen when God lets loose a thinker on this planet. But this time a thinking community has been let loose. Momentous results are bound to follow.

I am inclined to believe that the mind of the nation was never in a more hopeful frame. I cannot go to the length of a writer in one of the daily papers who says that England was never so happy. The tragedy is too deep for that. But I do think that England was never so promising. What will come from her awakened thoughtfulness no man can predict. But if it should turn out to be better than the best we have ever hoped for, there would be no cause for surprise.