NOTE TO PART I OF THE BOOK
In my experience, judging from the men I have met in life and the men whose lives I have read about, the really strong men of the world have been men of strong belief—and mostly men with a strong belief in a personal God.
Faith is a very wonderful thing, call it what you please. There is in Faith an enormous dynamic energy the origin of which, analyse it as much as I will, leaves me utterly baffled and bewildered.
One might say that it is an orientation of the mind, a pointing of all the thoughts in one definite direction by which the mind, as a machine, gains harmony which is expressed in power of action, and I believe the co-ordination of the functions of the mind under a common governing belief does, in part, explain the miraculous power conferred on men by Faith.
Also one might say that the mind capable of great faith is essentially a positive mind, a direct mind, and a constructive mind.
Also one might say a great many things, and yet leave the foundation of the question as deeply involved in darkness as ever, and the mind of a Newman, a Gladstone, or a Cromwell the same towering mystery.
But the fact remains clear that the man without belief in something above and beyond this world, or in something in this world, some tide, or core, or essence of which his own little life is a part, loses the alliance of that power which we indicate in the word Faith.
There is no doubt at all that the western world has lost power, and that England is losing power daily by the steady loss of Faith.
The crude, hard faith in a personal God which is vanishing from among us is a dynamic force that is passing away, and it is being replaced by what?