civilization. No artist takes up his paints and brushes and begins
to work on his canvas without a clear idea burning in his brain of
what he has to do, else were his work all smudges. Does anyone
think that out of all these little cabins and farmhouses dotting
the green of Ireland there will come harmonious effort to a common
end without organization and set purpose? The idea and plan of a
great rural civilization must shine like a burning lamp in the
imagination of the youth of Ireland, or we shall only be at cross-
purposes and end in little fatuities. We are very fond in Ireland
of talking of Ireland a nation. The word "nation" has a kind of
satisfying sound, but I am afraid it is an empty word with no rich
significance to most who use it. The word "laboratory" has as fine
a sound, but only the practical scientist has a true conception of
what may take place there, what roar of strange forces, what mingling
of subtle elements, what mystery and magnificence in atomic life.
The word without the idea is like the purse without the coin, the
skull without the soul, or any other sham or empty deceit. Nations
are not built up by the repetition of words, but by the organizing
of intellectual forces. If any of my readers would like to know
what kind of thought goes to the building up of a great nation,
let him read the life of Alexander Hamilton by Oliver. To that
extraordinary man the United States owe their constitution, almost
their existence. To him, far more than to Washington, the idea,
plan, shape of all that marvelous dominion owes its origin and
character. He seemed to hold in his brain, while America was yet
a group of half-barbaric settlements, the idea of what it might
become. He laid down the plans, the constitution, the foreign policy,
the trade policy, the relation of State to State, and it is only
within the last few years almost, that America has realized that she
had in Hamilton a supreme political and social intelligence, the