PRINCIPLE IN ACTION
I
Our philosophy is valueless unless we bring it into life. With
sufficient ingenuity we might frame theory after theory, and if they
could not be put to the test of a work-a-day existence we but add
another to the many dead theories that litter the History of Philosophy.
Our principles are not to argue about, or write about, or hold meetings
about, but primarily to give us a rule of life. To ignore this is to
waste time and energy. To observe and follow it is to take from the
clouds something that appeals to us, work it into life, by it interpret
the problems to hand, make our choice between opposing standards, and
maintain our fidelity to the true one against every opposition and
through every fitful though terrible depression; so shall we startle
people with its reality, and make for it a disciple or an opponent, but
always at once convince the generation that there is a serious work in
hand.
II
If our philosophy is to be worked into life the first thing naturally is
to review the situation. If we are to judge rightly, we must understand
the present, draw from the past its lesson, and shape our plans for the
future true to the principles that govern and inform every generation.
Let us survey the past, taking a sufficiently wide view between two
points--say '98 and our own time--and we see certain definite
conditions. Great luminous years--'98, '03, '48, '67, rise up, witness
to a great principle, readiness for sacrifice, unshaken belief in truth,
valour and freedom, and a flag that will ultimately prevail. In these
years the people had vision, the blood quickened, a living flame swept
the land, scorching up hypocrisy, deceit, meanness, and lighting all
brave hearts to high hope and achievement--for, the whimperers
notwithstanding, it was always achievement to challenge the enemy and
stagger his power, though yet his expulsion is delayed. Between the
glorious years of the living flame there intervened pallid times of
depression, where every disease of soul and body crept into the open.
True hearts lived, scattered here and there, believing still but
disorganised and bewildered--the leaders were stricken down and in their
place, obscuring the beauty of life, the grandeur of the past, and our
future destiny, came time-servers, flatterers, hypocrites, open
traffickers in honour and public decency, fastening their mean authority
on the land. These are the two great resting-places in our historic
survey: the generation of the living flame and the generation of
despair; and it is for us to decide--for the decision rests with
us--whether we shall in our time merely mark time or write another
luminous chapter in the splendid history of our race.
III
Let us consider these two generations apart, to understand their
distinctive features more clearly for our own guidance. Take first the
years of vision and the general effort to replant the old flag on our
walls. With the first enthusiasts breathing the living flame abroad,
the kindling hope, the widening fires, the deepening dream, there grows
a consciousness of the greatness of the goal, of the general duty, of
the individual responsibility for higher character, steadier work, and
purer motive; and gradually meanness, trickeries, and treacheries are
weeded out of the individual and national consciousness: there is a
realisation of a time come to restore the nation's independence, and
with passion and enthusiasm are fused a fine resolve and nerve. All the
excited doings of the feverish or pallid years are put by as unworthy or
futile. The great idea inspires a great fight; and that fight is made,
and, notwithstanding any reverse, must be recorded great. Whatever
concourse of circumstances mar the dream and delay the victory, those
brave years are as a torch in witness to the ideal, in justification of
its soldiers and in promise of final success.
IV
Let us examine now the deadening years that intervene between the great
fights for freedom. We have known something of these times ourselves,
have touched on them already, and need not further draw out the
demoralising things that corrupt and dishearten us. But what we urgently
require to study is the kind of effort--more often the absence of
effort--made in such years by those who keep their belief in freedom and
feel at times impelled in some way or other to action. They have
followed a lost battle, and in the aftermath of defeat they are numbed
into despair. They refuse to surrender to the forces of the hour, but
they lack the fine faith and enthusiasm of the braver years that
challenged these forces at every point and stood or fell by the issue.
They lie apathetic till, moved by some particular meanness or treachery,
they are roused to spasmodic anger, rush to act in some spasmodic
way--generally futile, and then relapse into helplessness again. They
lack the vision that inspires every moment, discerns a sure way, and
heightens the spirit to battle without ceasing, which is characteristic
of the great years. They tacitly accept that theirs is a useless
generation, that the enemy is in the ascendant, that they cannot unseat
him, and their action, where any is made, is but to show their attitude,
never to convince opponents that the battle is again beginning, that
this is a bid for freedom, that history will be called on to record
their fight and pay tribute to their times. Their action has never this
great significance. When stung to fitful madness by the boastful
votaries of power, their occasional frantic efforts are more as relief
to their feelings than destructive to the tyranny in being. Let us
realise this to the full; and seeing the futility in other years of
every pathetic makeshift to annoy or circumvent the enemy, put by
futilities and do a great work to justify our time.
V
We have, then, to consider and decide our immediate attitude to life,
where we stand. There are errors to remove. The first is the assumption
that we are only required to acknowledge the flag in places, offer it
allegiance at certain meetings at certain times that form but a small
part of our existence; while we allow ourselves to be dispensed from
fidelity to our principles when in other places, where other standards
are either explicitly or tacitly recognised. That we must carry our flag
everywhere; that there must be no dispensation: these are the cardinal
points of our philosophy. Life is a great battlefield, and any hour in
the day a man's flag may be challenged and he must stand and justify it.
An idea you hold as true is not to be professed only where it is
proclaimed; it will whisper and you must be its prophet in strange
places; it is insistent of all things--you must glory in it or deny it;
there is no escaping it, and there is no middle way; wherever your path
lies it will cross you and you must choose.
Beware lest on any plea you put it by. You cannot elect to do nothing;
the concourse of circumstances would take you to some side; to do
nothing is still to take a side. Priest, poet, professor, public man,
professional man, business man, tradesman--everyone will be called to
answer; in every walk of life the true idea will find the false in
conflict and the battle must be fought out there--the battle is lost
when we satisfy ourselves with an academic debate in our spare moments.
This is a debating club age, and a plea for an ideal is often wasted,
taken as a mere point in an argument; but to walk among men fighting
passionately for it as a thing believed in, is to make it real, to
influence men never reached in other ways; it is to arrest attention,
arouse interest and quicken the masses to advance. And wherever the
appeal for the flag is calling us the snare of the enemy is in wait. Our
history so bristles with instances that a particular concrete case need
not be cited. We know that priests will get more patronage if they
discourage the national idea; that professors will get more emoluments
and honours if they can ban it; that public men will receive places and
titles if they betray it; that the professional man will be promised
more aggrandisement, the business man more commerce, and the tradesman
more traffic of his kind--if only he put by the flag. Most treacherous
and insidious the temptation will come to the man, young and able,
everywhere. It will say, "You have ability; come into the light--only
put that by; it keeps you obscure. And what purpose does it serve now?
Be practical; come." And you may weaken and yield and enter the light
for the general applause, but the old idea will rankle deep down till
smothered out, and you will stand in the splendour--a failure,
miserable, hopeless, not apparent, indeed, but for all that, final. You
may stand your ground, refuse the bribe, uphold the flag, and be rated
a fool and a failure, but they who rate you so will not understand that
you have won a battle greater than all the triumphs of empires; you will
keep alive in your soul true light and enduring beauty; you will hear
the music eternally in the heart of the high enthusiast and have vision
of ultimate victory that has sustained all the world over the efforts of
centuries, that uplifts the individual, consolidates the nation, and
leads a wandering race from the desert into the Promised Land.
VI
If we are to justify ourselves in our time we must have done with
dispensations. Many honest men are astray on this point and think
attitudes justifiable that are at the root of all our failures. What is
the weakness? It is so simple to explain and so easy to understand that
one must wonder how we have been ignoring it quietly and generally so
long. A man, as we have seen, acknowledges his flag in certain places;
in other places it is challenged and he pulls it down. He is dispensed.
He believes in his heart, may even write an anonymous letter to the
paper, will salute the flag again elsewhere, but he will not carry his
flag through every fight and through every day. When a particular crisis
arises, which involves our public boards, public men, and business men
in action, that requires a decision for or against the nation, he will
find it in his place in life not wise to be prominent on his own side,
and he is silently absent from his meetings--he gives a subscription but
excuses himself from attendance. He satisfies himself with private
professions of faith and whispered encouragement to those who fill the
gap--words that won't be heard at a distance--and, worst of all, he
thinks, because some stake in life may be jeopardised by bolder action,
he is justified. The answer is, simply he is not justified. Nor should
anyone who is prepared to take the risk himself take it on himself to
absolve others--nor, least of all, openly preach a milder doctrine to
lead others who are timid to the farther goal, believed in at heart.
Encourage them by all means to practise their principles as far as they
go; never restrict yours, or you will find yourself saying things you
can't altogether approve; and if you tell a man to do things you can't
altogether approve, and keep on telling him, it wears into you, and a
thing you once held in abhorrence you come to think of with
indifference. You change insensibly. Old friends rage at you, and
because of it you rage at them--not knowing how you have changed. You
dare not let what you believe lie in abeyance or say things inconsistent
with it, else to-morrow you'll be puzzled to say what you believe. You
will hardly say two things to fit each other. Let us have no half
policies. Our policy must be full, clear, consistent, to satisfy the
restless, inquiring minds; when we win all such over, the merely passive
people will follow. It should be clear that no man can dispense himself
or his fellow from a grave duty; but for all that we have been liberal
with our dispensations, and it has left us in confusion and failure. On
the understanding that we will be heroes to-morrow, we evade being men
to-day. We think of some hazy hour in the future when we may get a call
to great things; we realise not that the call is now, that the fight is
afoot, that we must take the flag from its hidden resting-place and
carry it boldly into life. So near a struggle may touch us with dread;
but to dread provoking a fight is to endure without resistance all the
consequences of a lost battle--a battle that might have been won. And
if we are to be fit for the heroic to-morrow we must arise and be men
to-day.
VII
At times we find ourselves on neutral ground. The exigencies of the
struggle involve this; and unfortunately we have in our midst sincere
men who do not believe in restoring Ireland to her original
independence. Perhaps, from a tendency to lose our balance at times, it
is well to have near by these men whose obvious sincerity may serve as a
correcting influence. We have to make them one with us; in the meantime
we meet them on neutral ground for some common purpose. Yet, we must
take our flag everywhere? Yes, that is fundamental. What then of the
places where men of diverging views meet; do we abjure the flag? By no
means. The understanding here is not to force our views on others, but
we must keep our principles clear in mind that no hostile view be forced
on us. We must see to it that neutrality be observed. One of the
pitfalls to be aware of is, that something which on our principles we
should not recognise, is assumed as recognised by others because to
attack it would be to violate neutrality. But if it may not be resisted,
it may not be recognised; this is neutrality; it is to stand on equal
terms. And since grave matters divide us--not directly concerned in our
national struggle for freedom--let the dangerous idea be banished, that
in entering on common ground we decry all opposing beliefs. For men who
hold beliefs as vital it would not be creditable to either side to put
them easily by. No, we do not ask them to forget themselves, but to
respect one another--an entirely greater and more honourable principle.
On neutral ground a man is not called on to abjure his flag; rather he
and his flag are in sanctuary.
VIII
When we find the national idea touches life at every point, we begin to
realise how frequent the call is to defend it without warning. It is not
that men directly raise the idea purposely to reject it, but that their
habit of life, to which they expect all to conform, is unconsciously
assuming that our ruling principle can have no place now or in the
future. Their assumption that the _status quo_ cannot be changed will
be the cause of most collision at first; and we must be quietly ready
with the counter-assumption, stand for the old idea and justify it. We
must realise, too, that the number of people who have definite, strong,
well-developed views against ours are comparatively small. This small
number embraces the English Government that commands forces, obeying it
without reason, and influencing the general mass of people whose general
attitude is indecision--adrift with the ruling force. It is this general
mass of men we must permeate with the true idea, and give them more
decision, more courage, more pride of race, and bring them to prove
worthy of the race. They will begin to have confidence in the Cause when
they begin to see it vindicated amongst them day by day; and that
vindication must be our duty. That duty will not be to seek; it will
offer itself and we shall have our test. How? Consider when men come
together for any purpose where different views prevail and general
things of no great moment form the subject of debate--suddenly,
unconsciously or tentatively, one will raise some idea that may divide
the company--say, acknowledging the English Crown in Ireland, putting
by the claim for freedom, in the foolish hope of some material gain.
There is much nonsense talked and confusion abroad on this head, and it
is quite possible a man, believing in Ireland's full claim, will find
himself in a large company who ought to stand for Ireland, yet who have
lost a clear conception of her rights. But he will find that they have
no clear conception the other way, either; they are confused and
generally pliable; and so, when the challenging idea is introduced, if
he is quick and clear with the vital points, he can tear the surface off
the many nostrums of the hour and prove them mean, worthless, and
degrading; and, doing so, he will be forming the minds about him. He
must be ready; that is the great need. Understand how a conversation is
often turned by a chance word, and how governed by one man who has
passionate, well-defined views, while others are cold and undecided. Be
that one man. You do not know where the circumstances of life will take
you; your flag may be directly challenged to your face, and you must
reveal yourself. These are things to avoid. Be firm, rather than
aggressive; but be always quietly prepared for the aggressive man; that
is to inspire confidence in the timid. Avoid vituperation as a disease,
but have your facts clear and ready for friend or foe. Whenever, and
wherever least expected, a false idea comes wandering forth, put in at
once a luminous word or two to clear the air, hearten friends and keep
them steady. If you find yourself alone in the midst of opponents, who
assume you are with them and expect your co-operation, you put them
right with a word. This will arrest them; they will understand where you
stand, and that you are ready; and they will generally yield you
respect. But whether it involve a fight or not, thus do you declare your
attitude. We may conveniently call it--putting up the flag.
IX
It is well to consider something of the opposition that confronts a man
who tries to fill his life with a brave purpose. He will be told it is
an illusion; he is a dreamer, a crank, or a fool. And it may serve a
purpose to see if our critics are blinded by no illusion, to contrast
our folly with their wisdom. Here is one pushing by who will not be a
fool, as he thinks--he's for the emigrant-ship. Ask yourself if the
people who go out from the remote places of Ireland, quiet-spoken and
ruddy-faced, and return after a few years loud-voiced and pallid, have
found things exactly as their hope. They protest, yes; but their voice
and colour belie them. Take the other man who does not emigrate but who
has his fling at home, who "knocks around" and tells you to do likewise
and be no fool--mark him for your guidance. You will find his leisure is
boisterous, but never gay. Catch him between whiles off his guard and
you will find the deadening lassitude of his life. This votary of
pleasure has a burden to carry in whatever walk of life, high or low. On
the higher plane he may have a more fastidious club or two, a more
epicurean sense of enjoyment, more leisure and more luxury; but the type
wherever found is the same. Life is an utter burden to him; in his soul
is no interest, no inspiration, no energy, and no hope. Let him be no
object of envy. Here a friend pats you on the shoulder: "Quite right; be
neither an emigrant nor a waster; but be practical; have no illusions;
deal with possibilities--who can say what is in the future? We must
face these facts." Our confident friend lacks a sense of humour. He
would put your plan by for its bearing on the future, but he proposes
one himself that the future must justify. He tells you circumstances
will not be in your favour: he assumes them in his own. But we only
claim that our principles will rule the future as they have ruled the
past; for the circumstances no man can speak. He calls you a dreamer for
your principles, but he can't show, now nor in history, that his
exemplars were ever justified. We are all dreamers, then; but some have
ugly dreams, while the dreams of others are beautiful worlds,
star-lighted and full of music.
X
Let the newborn enthusiast, just come eagerly to the flag, be warned of
hours of depression that seize even the most earnest, the boldest and
the strongest. Our work is the work of men, subject to such vicissitudes
as hover around all human enterprise; and every man enrolled must face
hard struggles and dark hours. Then the depression rushes down like a
horrible, cold, dark mist that obscures every beautiful thing and every
ray of hope. It may come from many causes: perhaps, a body not too
robust, worn down by a tireless mind; perhaps, the memory of long years
of effort, seemingly swallowed in oblivion and futility; perhaps contact
with men on your own side whose presence there is a puzzle, who have no
character and no conception of the grandeur of the Cause, and whose
mean, petty, underhand jealousies numb you--you who think anyone
claiming so fine a flag as ours should be naturally brave,
straightforward and generous; perhaps the seemingly overwhelming
strength of the enemy, and the listlessness of thousands who would hail
freedom with rapture, but who now stand aloof in despair--and along with
all this and intensifying it, the voice of our self-complacent practical
friend, who has but sarcasm for a high impulse, and for an immutable
principle the latest expedient of the hour. Through such an experience
must the soldier of freedom live. But as surely as such an hour comes,
there comes also a star to break the darkened sky; let those who feel
the battle-weariness at times remember. When in places there may be but
one or two to fight, it may seem of no avail; still let them be true
and their numbers will be multiplied: love of truth is infectious. When
progress is arrested, don't brood on what is, but on what was once
achieved, what has since survived, and what we may yet achieve. If some
have grown lax and temporise a little, with more firmness on your part
mingle a little sympathy for them. It is harder to live a consistent
life than die a brave death. Most men of generous instincts would rouse
all their courage to a supreme moment and die for the Cause; but to rise
to that supreme moment frequently and without warning is the burden of
life for the Cause; and it is because of its exhausting strain and
exacting demands that so many men have failed. We must get men to
realise that to live is as daring as to die. But confusion has been made
in our time by the glib phrase: "You are not asked now to die for
Ireland, but to live for her," without insisting that the life shall aim
at the ideal, the brave and the true. To slip apologetically through
existence is not life. If such a mean philosophy went abroad, we would
soon find the land a place of shivering creatures, without the capacity
to live or the courage to die--calamity, surely. All these circumstances
make for the hour of depression; and it may well be in such an hour,
amid apathy and treachery, cold friends and active enemies, with
worn-down frame and baffled mind, you, pleading for the Old Cause, may
feel your voice is indeed a voice crying in the wilderness; and it may
serve till the blood warms again and the imagination recover its glow,
to think how a Voice, that cried in the wilderness thousands of years
ago, is potent and inspiring now, where the voice of the "practical" man
sends no whisper across the waste of years.
XI
What, then, to conclude, must be our decision? To take our philosophy
into life. When we do that generally, in a deep and significant sense
our War of Independence will have begun. Let there be no deferring a
duty to a more convenient future. It is as possible that an opening for
freedom may be thrust on us, as that we shall be required to organise a
formal war with the usual movements of armies; in our assumptions for
the second, let us not be guilty of the fatal error of overlooking the
first. As in other spheres, so in politics we have our conventions; and
how little they may be proven has been lately seen, when England went
through a war of debate,[Footnote: Debate over House of Lords.] largely
unreal, over her constitution and her liberties, even while foreign wars
and complications were still being debated; and in the middle of it all,
suddenly, from a local labour dispute, putting by all thought of the
constitution, feeling as comparatively insignificant the fear of
invasion, all England stood shuddering on the verge of frantic civil
war;[Footnote: The Railway strike.] and all Ireland, when the moment of
possible freedom was given, when England might have been hardly able to
save herself, much less to hold us--Ireland, thinking and working in old
grooves, lay helpless. Let us draw the moral. We cannot tell what
unsuspected development may spring on us from the future, but we can
always be prepared by understanding that the vital hour is the hour at
hand. Let the brave choice now be made, and let the life around be
governed by it; let every man stand to his colours and strike his flag
to none; then shall we recover ground in all directions, and our time
shall be recorded, not with the deadening but with the luminous years.
In all the vicissitudes of the fight, let us not be distracted by the
meanness of the mere time-server nor the treachery of the enemy, but be
collected and cool; and remembering the many who are not with us from
honest motives or unsuspected fears, live to show our belief beautiful
and true and, in the eternal sense, practical. Then shall those who are
worth convincing be held, and our difference may reduce itself to what
is possible; then will they come to realise that he who maintains a
great faith unshaken will make more things possible than the opportunist
of the hour; then will they understand how much more is possible than
they had ever dared to dream: they will have a vision of the goal; and
with that vision will be born a steady enthusiasm, a clear purpose, and
a resolute soul. The regeneration of the land will be no longer a
distant dream but a shaping reality; the living flame will sweep through
all hearts again; and Ireland will enter her last battle for freedom to
emerge and reassume her place among the nations of the earth.