ns of the
doctrine of loyalty, but upon the most central characteristic of the
loyal spirit. This central characteristic of the loyal spirit consists
in the fact that it conceives and values its cause as a reality, as an
object that has a being of its own; while the type of reality which
belongs to a cause is different from the type of reality which we
ascribe either to a thing in the physical world or to a law of nature. A
cause is never a mere mechanism. It is an essentially spiritual reality.
If the loyal human being is right in the account which he gives of his
cause, then the real world contains beings which are not mere natural
objects, and is subject to laws which, without in the least running
counter to the laws of outer nature, are the laws of an essentially
spiritual realm, whose type of being is superior to that possessed by
the order of nature which our industrial arts use. Either, then, loyalty
is altogether a service of myths, or else the causes which the loyal
serve belong to a realm of real being which is above the level of mere
natural fact and natural law. In the latter case the real world is not
indifferent to our human search for values. The modern naturalistic and
mechanical views of reality are not, indeed, false within their own
proper range, but they are inadequate to tell us the whole truth. And
reality contains, further, and is characterized by, an essentially
spiritual order of being.

I have been speaking to persons who, as I have trusted, well know, so
far as they have yet had time to learn the lessons of life, something of
what loyalty means. Come, then, let us consider what is the sort of
object that you have present to your mind when you are loyal to a cause.
If your cause is a reality, what kind of a being is it? If causes are
realities, then in what sort of a real world do you live?

I have already indicated that, while loyalty always includes personal
affections, while you can never be loyal to what you take to be a merely
abstract principle, nevertheless, it is equally true that you can never
be genuinely loyal merely to an individual human being, taken just as
this detached creature. You can, indeed, love your friend, viewed just
as this individual. But love for an individual is so far just a fondness
for a fascinating human presence, and is essentially capricious, whether
it lasts or is transient. You can be, and should be, loyal to your
friendship, to the union of yourself and you