vidualism--philosophic or commercial--is borne like a
bubble on the waters of national tribulation and counts for nothing in
the mass of collective effort demanded from us. Industry, commerce, art,
learning, science, energy, enthusiasm, every gift and power within the
range of human capacity, is requisitioned for the efficient pursuit of
war. Liberty of action, of speech, ancient rights which were won by
centuries of struggle, are taken away because we are more useful and
less troublesome without them. We are made parts of the machinery of
State, and we have to be drilled and welded into the proper shape.

The changes imposed on us from without are thorough and have been
surprisingly many, but the changes taking place within our own souls are
deeper and likely to surprise us more in the end. Everything has been
found untenable. Theories and systems are shaken by the great upheaval.
Civilization has become a question instead of a postulate. All human
thought is undergoing a process of retrospection, drawn by a desire to
find a new and stable beginning. Take down Spencer and Comte or Lecky
and Kidd from your bookshelf and try to settle down to a contented
contemplation of the sociological tenets of the past. You will fail, for
you will feel that this is a new world with burning problems and
compelling facts which cannot be covered by the old systems. Take down
the old books of religious comfort--Thomas a Kempis, or Bunyan, or St.
Augustine, and you feel their remoteness from the new agonies of soul.
But it is not only the old books of piety which fail to satisfy the
hunger of to-day; the mass of devotional writings, especially produced
to meet the needs of the war, are painfully inadequate. Rightly or
wrongly, there is a sense of the inadequacy of the thought of the past
to meet the need of the present. It invades every recess of the mind, it
interposes itself in science as well as in religion; it leaves us no
peace.

There can be no doubt about it: we are blighted by the great
destructiveness. All attempts to keep the war from our thoughts are
destined to fail. Without being struck in an air-raid or torpedoed on
the high seas, there is a sufficiency of destructive force in the daily
events and in our accommodation to live on for them or in spite of them.

Hence the universal demand for reconstruction. It is a blessed word: we
cling to it, we live by it. So many buildings have tumbled about our
ears, so many foundations