rinciples in man is the
conquest of matter by the spirit. This dramatic sundering on earth
of virtues in unison in the heavens explains the struggle between
Protestantism and Catholicism, between nationality and imperialism,
between individualist and socialist, between dynamic and static in
philosophy. Indeed in the last analysis all human conflicts are the
balancing on earth of the manifestation of divine principles which are
one in the unmanifest spirit.

The civilization we create, the social order we build up, must provide
for essential freedom for the individual and for solidarity of the
nation. Now essential freedom is denied to men if they are in their
condition servile. Can we contemplate the permanent existence of a
servile class in Ireland? For, disguise it how we will, our present
industrial system is practically a form of slavery for the workers,
differing in externals only from the ages when the serf had a collar
round his neck. He has now freedom to change from master to master, and
can even seek for a master in other countries; but he must, in any
case, accept the relation of servant to master. The old slave could be
whipped. In the new order the wage slave can be starved, and the fact
that many of the rulers of industry use their power benevolently does
not make the existing relation between employer and employed right, or
the social order one whose permanence can be justified. Men will gladly
labor if they feel that their labor conspires with that of all other
workers for the general good; but there is something loathsome to the
spirit in the condition of the labor market, where labor is regarded as
a commodity to be bought and sold like soap or candles. For that truly
describes how it is with labor in our industrial system: we can buy
labor, which means we can buy human life and thought, a portion of God's
being, and make a profit out of it. By so selling himself the worker is
enslaved and limited in a thousand ways. The power of dismissal of one
person by another at whim acts against independence of character, or the
free expression or opinion in thought, in politics, and in religion. The
soul is stunted in its growth, and spiritual life made subordinate
to material interests. To deny essential freedom to the soul is the
greatest of all crimes, and such denial has in all ages evoked the
deepest anger among men. When freedom has been threatened nations have
risen up maddened and exultant, and the clang