The arguments by which it is defended are important, but they bear to it much the same relation that a table of the wave-lengths of various rays of light bears to the immediate glory of a sunrise.

There is another obstacle.

Self-government, like other spiritual realities, say love or civilisation, is too vast, obvious, and natural to be easily imprisoned in words.

You are certainly in love; suppose you were suddenly asked "to state the case" for love?
You are probably civilised; suppose you were suddenly asked "to state the case for civilisation"?
So it is with the Home Rule idea.

To ask what is the gate of entrance to it is like asking what was the gate of entrance to hundred-gated Thebes.