politicians are prepared to accept Home Rule is grounded to a far greater extent than any one who respects the character of England likes to confess upon the naive but intense conviction that it is too much to expect from five hundred and more English gentlemen that they should take the trouble of withstanding the continuous pressure exerted by eighty-six Parnellites.  Cowardice masks itself under the show of compromise, and men of eminent respectability yield to the terror of being bored concessions which their forefathers would have refused to the threat of armed rebellion.  It is unnecessary to explain how this condition of opinion, under which the best and the lowest feelings of human nature are blended in a current of democratic sentiment, predisposes large bodies of Englishmen towards acquiescence in the Home Rule movement.  My aim is not so much to analyse with precision the mode in which the cause of Home Rule is fostered by the moral atmosphere of the day, as to insist upon the all-important consideration that the progress of the Home Rule movement is due rather to the encouragement it derives from prevailing sentiment than to any intellectual conviction on the part of Englishmen that it is dictated by considerations of sound policy.

CHAPTER IV.

ENGLISH ARGUMENTS IN FAVOUR OF HOME RULE.

[Sidenote:  Arguments by which Home Rule policy defended.]

To lay stress upon the consideration that the Home Rule movement in England derives its force from the condition of public feeling is not, 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