be it remarked, equivalent to showing that the policy of Home Rule is
unwise; still less that the policy of defended. Home Rule is unlikely to
be adopted by the nation. Masses of human beings must generally, as
individuals must often, trust to the guidance of feeling. The difference
between the sentiment which ought and the sentiment which ought not to
determine national conduct is, that the one admits and the other does
not admit of justification on grounds of reason or experience. Reasoning
is the test, not the source of wise action. Slavery was abolished, the
abuses of the _ancien regime_ were destroyed, Italian unity was created
under the stress of emotions which carried away thousands who could not
have logically defended the impulse which governed their acts. But in
these, as in other cases in which humanity has been carried forward
along the path of progress by the force of emotion, the enthusiasm of
the time could, in so far as it worked for good, be justified on
grounds of reason. Man is (difficult though it often be to believe the
fact) a rational being, in so far at least that he is constrained to
defend on argumentative grounds courses of action dictated by feeling.
From this law of human nature Home Rulers have neither the power nor, in
fairness be it added, the wish to escape. Their influence is due to the
condition of public sentiment, but they justify their policy by
arguments which are the intellectual equivalents for the moral feelings
which go to constitute the opinion of the day. Of these arguments, those
which require statement and examination can be conveniently summed up
under six heads--the argument from foreign experience, the argument from
the will of the Irish people, the argument from the lessons of Irish
history, the argument from the virtues of self-government, the argument
from the necessity for Coercion Acts, the argument from the
inconvenience to England of refusing Home Rule to Ireland.

[Sidenote: Argument 1. Foreign experience.]