ng to say against precisely so much
of naturalism as is indeed an established result of common sense and of
the scientific study of nature. The theory of the loyal life involves
nothing superstitious--no trust in magic, no leaning upon the
intervention of such spiritual agencies as the old mythologies
conceived. And yet, as I shall insist, nobody can understand and
practise the loyal spirit without tending thereby to get a true view of
the nature of things, a genuine touch with reality, which cannot be
gained without seeing that, however much of a mechanism nature may
appear to be, the real world is something much more than a mechanism,
and much more significant than are the waters which wear away stones.

Let me indicate what I mean by repeating in brief my doctrine of
loyalty--with reference to the spirit which it involves, and with
reference to the view of the realities of human life which it inevitably
includes.

Whoever is loyal has found some cause, I have said,--a cause to which,
by his inner interests, he is indeed attracted so that the cause is
fascinating to his sentiments. But the cause is also one to which the
loyal man is meanwhile practically and voluntarily devoted, so that his
loyalty is no mere glow of enthusiasm, but is an affair of his deeds as
well as of his emotions. Loyalty I therefore defined as the
thorough-going and practical devotion of a self to a cause. Why loyalty
is a duty; how loyalty is possible for every normal human being; how it
can appear early in youth, and then grow though life; how it can be at
once faithful to its own, and yet can constantly enlarge its scope; how
it can become universally human in its interests without losing its
concreteness, and without failing to keep in touch with the personal
affections and the private concerns of the loyal person; how loyalty is
a virtue for all men, however humble and however exalted they may be;
how the loyal service of the tasks of a single possibly narrow life can
be viewed as a service of the cause of universal loyalty, and so of the
interests of all humanity; how all special duties of life can be stated
in terms of a duly generalized spirit of loyalty; and how moral
conflicts can be solved, and moral divisions made, in the light of the
principle of loyalty; all this I have asserted, although here is indeed
no time for adequate discussion. But hereupon I want to concentrate our
whole attention, not upon the consequences and applicatio