Page:The Irish Constitution Explained.djvu/60



It is the duty of a Constitution, not merely to provide for the present, but to leave itself lissom and flexible for the development of the future. If those developments can in any way be foreseen, it is its duty further, to indicate them by allowing specifically for them, without of necessity pledging the future to them. How far these indications may profitably be carried is a question not so easy to answer. Times differ. Constitutions made at a time of fixed social and political ideas, are necessarily fixed in their provisions. Constitutions made at a time, such as the present, when social and political ideas are rapidly shifting and changing must needs indicate the likelihood of change in certain directions; and make allowance for such changes. It is therefore striking to notice that in nearly every Constitution made during and since the Great War such indications are scattered freely. And from that fact alone the historian of the future could tell with assurance that these were years of rapidly changing conceptions.

We in Ireland cannot but have a share in these changes. Fortunately for us, heirs of an ancient tradition, in looking forward we look backward, and in looking backward we look forward. We may, and often do, use phrases identical with those used by other nations; but in many cases it will be found by the thoughtful student that what to them is often social theory, to us is a slumbering historic 58