If they are right, then we must picture Ireland as the victim of a radical immoralism.

We must think of her as a personality violated in its ideals, and arrested in its development.

And, indeed, that is no bad way of thinking: it is the one formula which summarises the whole of her experience.

But the phrasing is perhaps too high and absolute; and the decline and fall of Mr Balfour are a terrible example to those of us who, being young, might otherwise take metaphysics too solemnly.

It will, therefore, at this stage be enough to repeat that, in contemplating the discontent and unrest which constitute the Irish difficulty, Great Britain is contemplating the work of her own hands, the creation of her own mind.
For that reason we can make no progress until we ascertain what sort of mind we have to deal with.
I do not disguise from myself the extremely unpleasant nature of this inquiry.