Zurayk's first notable publication, based on a lecture that he gave in 1938, was entitled The Arab Consciousness (al-Wa`i al-`Arabi). In the book, he introduced the concept of the "Arab mission" and stated that the aim of each nation was "the message it brings to human culture and general civilization" and that a nation without a mission was not worthy of the name.[17] The consciousness of having a "national mission" would bring the Arab struggle for independence new strength and meaning and would regain for the Arabs their world role. As for the Arab mission itself, in the current age it would be “to absorb the knowledge of the West and to join it with the views that have arisen in reaction to it, and to combine them in a new unity that will be a sign of the coming life, and that the Arabs will spread to the world as they spread their brilliant civilization in the past ages”.[18]