as he who dies to defend it. He does not change his
face and nature with the changing times. He is loyal always and most
wonderfully lovable, because in the darkest times, when banned as wild,
wicked and rebelly, he is loyal still as from the beginning, and will be
to the end. Yes, Tone is the true Irish Loyalist, and every aider and
abettor of the enemy a rebel to Ireland and the Irish race.

II

When you insist on examining the question in the light of first
principles your opportunist opponent at once feels the weakness of his
position and always turns the point on your consistency. It is well,
then, in advance to understand the relative value and importance of
argument as argument in the statement of any case. A body of principles
is primarily of value, not as affording a case that can be argued with
ingenuity, but as enshrining one great principle that shines through and
informs the rest, that illumines the mind of the individual, that warms,
clarifies and invigorates--that, so to speak, puts the mind in focus,
gets the facts of existence into perspective, and gives the individual
everything in its right place and true proportion. It brings a man to
the point where he does not dispute but believes. He has been wandering
about cold and irresolute, tasting all philosophies, or none, and
drinking deep despair. He does not understand the want in his soul while
he has been looking for some panacea for its cure till the great light
streams on him, and instead of receiving something he finds himself.
That is it. There is a power of vision latent in us, clouded by error;
the true philosophy dissipates the cloud and leaves the vision clear,
wonderful and inspiring. He who acquired that vision is impervious to
argument--it is not that he despises argument; on the contrary, he
always uses it to its full strength. But he has had awakened within him
something which the mere logician can never deduce, and that mysterious
something is the explanation of his transformed life. He was a doubter,
a falterer, a failure; he has become a believer, a fighter, a conqueror.
You miss his significance completely when you take him for a theorist.
The theorist propounds a view to which he must convert the world; the
philosopher has a rule of life to immediately put into practice. His
spirit flashes with a swiftness that can be encircled by no theory. It
is his glory to have over and above a new penetrating argument in the
mind--a new and