On Eric Hoffer’s View of Holy Cause

“Faith in a holy cause is to a considerable extent a substitute for the lost faith in ourselves.” ~ Eric Hoffer in The True Believer.

This statement by Eric Hoffer is not logical because he fails to define the term “ourselves.” How do we recognize ourselves? A consciousness cannot focus on itself. The only way a man can become conscious of himself is by becoming conscious of something else. The term “ourselves” does not represent a vacuum—it represents our worldly experiences, including our experiences of the causes that we see as “holy.” 

Who are we? How can we know ourselves without considering the causes that we see as holy. We can’t. A man without faith must be a man without a self. He will be a faceless stranger to himself. Faith in a holy cause is the fountainhead of faith in ourselves.