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 nation stretching over thousands of years, the British occupation is a contingent circumstance, and the immutable principle is the Liberty of the Irish People.

CHAPTER XIX

THE BEARNA BAOGHAIL—­CONCLUSION

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