Note 59 — Chapter V · PATRIOTISM AND POWER IN WAR AND PEACE

Dr L. P. Jacks, Editor of The Hibbert Journal, tells us that before the War the English nation, regarded from the moral point of view, was a scene of ‘indescribable confusion; a moral chaos.’ But there has come to it ‘the peace of mind that comes to every man who, after tossing about among uncertainties, finds at last a mission, a cause to which he can devote himself.’ For this reason, he says, the War has actually made the English people happier than they were before: ‘brighter, more cheerful. The Englishman worries less about himself.... The tone and substance of conversation are better.... There is more health in our souls and perhaps in our bodies.’ And he tells how the War cured a friend of insomnia. (The Peacefulness of Being at War, New Republic, September 11, 1915).