ht that must whisper to us: "Persevere and
conquer, and to-morrow our finest opponent will be our finest panegyrist
when the battle has been fought and won."

V

In conclusion, in the concrete this simple fact will suffice: we have
established immutable principles; the concrete circumstances are
contingent and vary. It is admirably put in the following passage: "The
historical and sociological sciences, so carefully cultivated in modern
times, have proved to evidence that social conditions _vary_ with the
epoch and the country, that they are the resultant of quite a number of
fluctuating influences, and that, accordingly, the science of Natural
Right should not merely establish _immutable_ principles bearing on the
moral end of man, but should likewise deal with the _contingent_
circumstances accompanying the application of those principles." (De
Wulf, _Scholasticism, Old and New_, Part 2, Chap. 2, Sec. 33.) Yes, and
if we apply principles to-morrow, it is not with the conditions of
to-day we must deal, but "with the contingent circumstances accompanying
the application of those principles." Let that be emphasised. The
conditions of twenty years ago are vastly changed to-day; and how
altered the conditions of to-morrow can be, how astonishing can be the
change in the short span of twenty years, let this fact prove. Ireland
in '48 was prostrate after a successful starvation and an unsuccessful
rising--to all appearances this time hopelessly crushed; yet within
twenty years another rising was planned that shook English government in
Ireland to its foundations. Let us bear in mind this further from De
Wulf: "Sociology, understood in the wider and larger sense, is
transforming the methods of the science of Natural Right." In view of
that transformation he is wise who looks to to-morrow. What De Wulf
concludes we may well endorse, when he asks us to take facts as they are
brought to light and study "each question on its merits, in the light of
these facts and not merely in its present setting but as presented in
the pages of history." It can be fairly said of those who have always
stood for the separation of Ireland from the British Empire, that they
alone have always appealed to historical evidence, have always regarded
the conditions of the moment as transient, have always discussed
possible future contingencies. The men who temporised were always
hypnotised by the conditions of the hour. But in the life-story of a
n