An intellectual man will loathe a disordered
society.
We may say with certainty that the external circumstances of people are
a measure of their inner life. Our mean and disordered little country
towns in Ireland, with their drink-shops, their disregard of cleanliness
or beauty, accord with the character of the civilians who inhabit them.
Whenever we develop an intellectual life these things will be altered,
but not in priority to the spiritual mood. House by house, village by
village, the character of a civilization changes as the character of the
individuals change. When we begin to build up a lofty world within the
national soul, soon the country becomes beautiful and worthy of respect
in its externals. That building up of the inner world we have
neglected. Our excited political controversies, our playing at
militarism, have tended to bring men's thoughts from central depths to
surfaces. Life is drawn to its frontiers away from its spiritual base,
and behind the surfaces we have little to fall back on. Few of our
notorieties could be trusted to think out any economic or social problem
thoroughly and efficiently.
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