It is only with great diffidence that the following considerations on a difficult subject are put forward in the hope of being of possible assistance to others. By unbelief is meant the initial reluctance to accept the doctrines of Christianity as well as the disinclination to retain them that often comes upon those who devote themselves to an intellectual life. This unbelief occurs especially during the formative period, usually, but not necessarily, the years spent by young people at a university, or the time immediately following. The purpose of this essay is to try to isolate the various elements in modern life that tend to disturb settled faith in Christianity, and very briefly to indicate some way of trying to counteract them. Many of the causes are common to all periods of history, some are proper to our own age or have unusual strength now. This account does not pretend to be more than a limited and partial sketch.

Behind every problem of modern instability there lies, first, a fundamental insecurity in social life, affecting all of us in many and sometimes unsuspected ways. This insecurity is manifested in the multiplicity and diversity of moral and political, personal and emotional standards all round ; these react in their turn to make more acute the basic insecurity in the soul—it may sometimes amount to a positive fear of life.