s because this
difficulty, which Irish social and economic reformers still encounter,
and with which they must deal sympathetically if they are to succeed in
the work of national regeneration, strikingly illustrates the two-sided
character of the Irish Question and the never-to-be-forgotten
inter-dependence of the sentimental and the practical in Ireland. I
admit that this condition which adds to the interest of the problem, and
perhaps makes it more amenable to rapid solution, is an indication of a
weakness of moral fibre to which must be largely attributed our failure
to be master of our circumstances. Indeed, as I come into closer touch
with the efforts which are now being made to raise the material
condition of the people, the more convinced I become, much as my
practical training has made me resist the conviction, that the Irish
Question is, in its most difficult and most important aspects, the
problem of the Irish mind, and that the solution of this problem is to
be found in the strengthening of Irish character.

With this enunciation of the main proposition of my book, I may now
indicate the order in which I shall endeavour to establish its truth. I
have said enough to show that I do not ignore the historical causes of
our present state; but with so many facts with which we can deal
confronting us, I propose to review the chief living influences to which
the Irish mind and character are still subjected. These influences fall
naturally into three distinct categories and will be treated in the
three succeeding chapters. The first will show the effect upon the Irish
mind of its obsession by politics. The next will deal with the influence
of religious systems upon the secular life of the people. I shall then
show how education, which should not only have been the most potent of
all the three influences in bringing our national life into line with
the progress of the age, but should also have modified the operation of
the other two causes, has aggravated rather than cured the malady.

Whatever impression I may succeed in making upon others, I may here
state that, as the result of observation and reflection, the conclusion
has been forced upon me that the Irish mind is suffering from
considerable functional derangement, but not, so far as I can discern,
from any organic disease. This is the basis of my optimism. I shall
submit in another chapter, which will conclude the first, the critical
part of my book, certain new