The true speaking absolutely is prior to the good, as appears from two reasons. First because the true is more closely related to being, which is prior to good. . . . Secondly, . . . knowledge naturally precedes appetite.” (Summa, la Qu. 16, Art 4, Eng. trans.)

The object of the intellect (i.e. Truth) “is more simple and more absolute than the object of the will” (i.e. goodness). Therefore the intellect in itself and absolutely is higher and nobler than the will—yet “the love of God is better than the knowledge of God ; but on the contrary, the knowledge of corporeal things is better than the love thereof. Absolutely, however, the intellect is better than the will.” (Ibid., Qu. 82, Part 3.)

These two texts from the Summa of the Blackfriar St. Thomas Aquinas must outline the attitude of Blackfriars towards Truth.

I was swallowing some coffee in the Paddington refreshment-room when my neighbour said to me suddenly :

“‘Ave you seen Tarzan of the Apes?”

“I’m afraid not, Sergeant,” said I (for he was an R.A.M.C. Sergeant, and happier than many a man need be). “But I’ve noticed the posters.”

“Ar,” said he. “Now if you sets store by Lord Darwin’s the’ry, I won’t say as that ain’t how it mightn’t ‘ave happened.”

“There you are !” said I discreetly.

“There’s some,” said he, “as may ; and there’s some as mayn’t. But you take it from me, may or mayn’t, there’s some wot’ll think different from wot they do. Nor yet from wot they did.”

Failing to disentangle this, and seeing that ten o’clock was imminent, I was unable to probe further his philosophy, and said “Good night.”

The present hue and cry against the profiteer, whose elusive personality escapes arrest, and the discussion vehemently waged on die merits or demerits of “nationalization” divert attention from the root of the matter—the purpose or end of all productive labour.

Ignoring the fundamental, the campaign against profiteering is naturally unsuccessful, and the arguments for and against “nationalization” are frequently irrelevant.

The assumption that the present relations of capital and labour are, subject to slight modification, permanent, or, to put it m another way, that the directing control of labour must remain in the hands of the possessor of capital, commonly sways our minds. And this assumption, made somewhat rashly, largely prevents our clearing up present difficulties, or getting at the question of the purpose of production. Is the purpose private gain and profit? or the convenience and comfort of the community?

At this juncture, St. Patrick’s-tide, 1920, being the hundred and twentieth anniversary of a Union which without uniting Ireland to England has come near to disuniting totally the whole English-speaking world, it is best to consider the Irish question not as theory or sentiment, but in the light of cold dynamics.

There is no certainty in political forces ; but the economical approach the status of an exact science. Enthusiasms, hatreds, friendships, agreements, disagreements may be transmuted or evaporated between nations over-night. Journalism can play a great part in creating friendliness or arousing hatred, but, as its name implies, its influence must be ephemeral unless some material event or economic tendency pin it down. A good instance of this was William Hearst’s power to fill the United States with a hatred for Spain, but which required the sinking of a warship to materialize. Idealisms may blaze up for the moment. They may even flicker for centuries like will-o’-the-wisps on the fringe of the world’s thought, but they can never be reduced to practice without the conjunction of economical laws which are as blind and ruthless as those of Nature herself.

The receipt of a bill from a Midland bookseller from whom I had made some purchases first drew my attention to this subject. The details in his bill of the books which had been ordered were written in a beautiful penmanship, and when the receipt arrived it was a pleasure to notice that the terms of acknowledgment were written in the same lettering as the printed name and address of the bookseller at the top of the sheet. Apparently the fount of type had been designed from his handwriting. This delighted me so much that I wrote a letter saying that I had not supposed it possible for anyone to add to the pleasure of an ordinary receipt, until my creditor had done so by presenting me with a distinguished example of penmanship. Thereupon the following letter arrived. It deserves to be quoted as a rare example of a simple, commercial transaction beautifully done. Readers, however, must be content with the substance which, stripped of its beautiful form, reads as follows :

“Dear Sir,

“Accept my thanks for your kind letter and remittance. Your words of praise gave me great pleasure, and I thank you for them. Caligraphy has been my delight since childhood, and is still my greatest joy and consolation. I get plenty of scribbling now, since I am almost alone in this little book-business, yet compared to the output of authorship my efforts are tiny in comparison.”

If we attempt to realize with any distinctness the life of the Middle Ages in this country, we are at first baffled by the fact that, while our fundamental human nature, with its passions and weakness, its heroism and its aspirations, remains much the same throughout recorded time, the material framework and the habits of society, the knowledge of nature and the philosophy of belief and conduct, all of which influence our judgment and colour the language in which we express it, have changed enormously. We find it very difficult to grasp the real reasons why men created the institutions under which they lived and clung to them when they seemed to have decayed, to understand why their point of view was so different from our own, or, indeed, to realize at all that the people, who dressed and lodged and bought and sold, and at times acted so differently from ourselves, were men and women like ourselves and, generally, at least, as practical and as keen-witted as we are.

Indeed, the modern English people, ultimately as a result of that orgy of destructive licence which is called the Reformation, and immediately as a mental effect of the unstable and irrational social conditions which have grown out of that revolt, seems to have lost all sense of historic time, as (and, perhaps, because) it has lost most of its popular traditions. To the average modem Englishman fifty years back is ancient history, while five hundred years ago, if he attempts to think of such a distant period at all, is a dim period in which queer, primitive people acted in queer ways from sheer ignorance and barbarism.

Napoleon once said the love of country was the first virtue of civilized man. Opinions differ as to the desirability, one may say the “virtuousness,” of some virtues, but in all ages the patriot has been one whom men have delighted to honour.

Yet though all agree that “Patriotism” is a great good, the word itself is travestied almost as frequently as other great words, e.g. “Mysticism,” “Rights,” etc. etc.

One conception there is, beautiful, poetical, and partially true ; it is the more emotional love of country, one may say of the material country, its hills and glens, plains and streams, and along with these go its traditions, all for which it stands. Men look up to their land as something which possesses them, to which they owe fealty, the land of their fathers, the cradle of their race, the beloved spot of Mother Earth round which clings all that mysterious something which makes “home.” It is an intense absorbing love which passes into a kind of worship, which produces the national literature of a country ; it is the sentiment with which the Frenchman speaks of “La France,” the Italian of “Italia,” the Irishman of “Erin,” the Scot of “Bonnie Scotland,” and the Englishman, too, of his “Motherland” (though he can call it “Blighty” and looks upon it rather as a cherished and priceless possession than as a goddess with the right to command his all). A certain proportion of such affection must exist in all Patriotism, but the thing itself is more than this.