National Being | Page 3

a power in humanity, but it should never enter into national policy. It
is a dangerous element in human life, though it is an essential part of
our strangely compounded nature. But in national life it is the most
dangerous of all guides. There are springs of power in ourselves which
in passion we draw on and are amazed at their depth and intensity, yet
we do not make these the master light of our being, but rather those
divine laws which we have apprehended and brooded upon, and which
shine with clear and steady light in our souls. As creatures rise in the
scale of being the dominant factor in life changes. In vegetation it may
be appetite; instinct in bird and beast for man a life at once passionate
and intellectual; but the greater beings, the stars and planets, must
wheel in the heavens under the guidance of inexorable and inflexible
law. Now the State is higher in the scale of being than the individual,

and it should be dominated solely by moral and intellectual principles.
These are not the outcome of passion or prejudice, but of arduous
thought. National ideals must be built up with the same conscious
deliberation of purpose as the architect of the Parthenon conceived its
lofty harmony of shining marble lines, or as the architect of Rheims
Cathedral designed its intricate magnificence and mystery. Nations
which form their ideals and marry them in the hurry of passion are
likely to repent without leisure, and they will not be able to divorce
those ideals without prolonged domestic squabbles and public
cleansing of dirty linen. If we are to build a body for the soul of Ireland
it ought not to be a matter of reckless estimates or jerry- building. We
have been told, during my lifetime at least, not to criticize leaders, to
trust leaders, and so intellectual discussion ceased and the high
principles on which national action should be based became less and
less understood, less and less common possessions. The nation was not
conceived of as a democracy freely discussing its laws but as a secret
society with political chiefs meeting in the dark and issuing orders. No
doubt our political chieftains loved their country, but love has many
degrees of expression from the basest to the highest. The basest love
will wreck everything, even the life of the beloved, to gratify ignoble
desires. The highest love conspires with the imaginative reason to bring
about every beautiful circumstance around the beloved which will
permit of the highest development of its life. There is no real love apart
from this intellectual brooding. Men who love Ireland ignobly brawl
about her in their cups, quarrel about her with their neighbor, allow no
freedom of thought of her or service of her other than their own, take to
the cudgel and the rifle, and join sectarian orders or lodges to ensure
that Ireland will be made in their own ignoble image. Those who love
Ireland nobly desire for her the highest of human destinies. They would
ransack the ages and accumulate wisdom to make Irish life seem as
noble in men's eyes as any the world has known. The better minds in
every race, eliminating passion and prejudice, by the exercise of the
imaginative reason have revealed to their countrymen ideals which they
recognized were implicit in national character. It is such discoveries we
have yet to make about ourselves to unite us to fulfill our destiny. We
have to discover what is fundamental in Irish character, the affections,
leanings, tendencies towards one or more of the eternal principles

which have governed and inspired all great human effort, all great
civilizations from the dawn of history. A nation is but a host of men
united by some God-begotten mood, some hope of liberty or dream of
power or beauty or justice or brotherhood, and until that master idea is
manifested to us there is no shining star to guide the ship of our
destinies.
Our civilization must depend on the quality of thought engendered in
the national being. We have to do for Ireland--though we hope with less
arrogance--what the long and illustrious line of German thinkers,
scientists, poets, philosophers, and historians did for Germany, or what
the poets and artists of Greece did for the Athenians: and that is, to
create national ideals, which will dominate the policy of statesmen, the
actions of citizens, the universities, the social organizations, the
administration of State departments, and unite in one spirit urban and
rural life. Unless this is done Ireland will be like Portugal, or any of the
corrupt little penny-dreadful nationalities which so continually disturb
the peace of the world with internal revolutions and external brawlings,
and we shall only have achieved the mechanism of nationality, but