Science in the modern world has many uses; its chief use, however, is
to provide long words to cover the errors of the rich. The word
“kleptomania” is a vulgar example of what I mean. It is on a par with
that strange theory, always advanced when a wealthy or prominent person
is in the dock, that exposure is more of a punishment for the rich than
for the poor. Of course, the very reverse is the truth. Exposure is
more of a punishment for the poor than for the rich. The richer a man
is the easier it is for him to be a tramp. The richer a man is the
easier it is for him to be popular and generally respected in the
Cannibal Islands. But the poorer a man is the more likely it is that
he will have to use his past life whenever he wants to get a bed for
the night. Honour is a luxury for aristocrats, but it is a necessity
for hall-porters. This is a secondary matter, but it is an example of
the general proposition I offer—the proposition that an enormous
amount of modern ingenuity is expended on finding defences for the
indefensible conduct of the powerful. As I have said above, these
defences generally exhibit themselves most emphatically in the form of
appeals to physical science. And of all the forms in which science, or
pseudo-science, has come to the rescue of the rich and stupid, there is
none so singular as the singular invention of the theory of races.
When a wealthy nation like the English discovers the perfectly patent
fact that it is making a ludicrous mess of the government of a poorer
nation like the Irish, it pauses for a moment in consternation, and
then begins to talk about Celts and Teutons. As far as I can
understand the theory, the Irish are Celts and the English are Teutons.
Of course, the Irish are not Celts any more than the English are
Teutons. I have not followed the ethnological discussion with much
energy, but the last scientific conclusion which I read inclined on the
whole to the summary that the English were mainly Celtic and the Irish
mainly Teutonic. But no man alive, with even the glimmering of a real
scientific sense, would ever dream of applying the terms “Celtic” or
“Teutonic” to either of them in any positive or useful sense.
That sort of thing must be left to people who talk about the
Anglo-Saxon race, and extend the expression to America. How much of the
blood of the Angles and Saxons (whoever they were) there remains in our
mixed British, Roman, German, Dane, Norman, and Picard stock is a
matter only interesting to wild antiquaries. And how much of that
diluted blood can possibly remain in that roaring whirlpool of America
into which a cataract of Swedes, Jews, Germans, Irishmen, and Italians
is perpetually pouring, is a matter only interesting to lunatics. It
would have been wiser for the English governing class to have called
upon some other god. All other gods, however weak and warring, at least
boast of being constant. But science boasts of being in a flux for
ever; boasts of being unstable as water.
And England and the English governing class never did call on this
absurd deity of race until it seemed, for an instant, that they had no
other god to call on. All the most genuine Englishmen in history would
have yawned or laughed in your face if you had begun to talk about
Anglo-Saxons. If you had attempted to substitute the ideal of race for
the ideal of nationality, I really do not like to think what they would
have said. I certainly should not like to have been the officer of
Nelson who suddenly discovered his French blood on the eve of
Trafalgar. I should not like to have been the Norfolk or Suffolk
gentleman who had to expound to Admiral Blake by what demonstrable ties
of genealogy he was irrevocably bound to the Dutch. The truth of the
whole matter is very simple. Nationality exists, and has nothing in the
world to do with race. Nationality is a thing like a church or a secret
society; it is a product of the human soul and will; it is a spiritual
product. And there are men in the modern world who would think anything
and do anything rather than admit that anything could be a spiritual
product.
A nation, however, as it confronts the modern world, is a purely
spiritual product. Sometimes it has been born in independence, like
Scotland. Sometimes it has been born in dependence, in subjugation,
like Ireland. Sometimes it is a large thing cohering out of many
smaller things, like Italy. Sometimes it is a small thing breaking
away from larger things, like Poland. But in each and every case its
quality is purely spiritual, or, if you will, purely psychological. It
is a moment when five men become a sixth man. Every one knows it who
has ever founded a club. It is a moment when five places become one
place. Every one must know it who has ever had to repel an invasion.
Mr. Timothy Healy, the most serious intellect in the present House of
Commons, summed up nationality to perfection when he simply called it
something for which people will die, As he excellently said in reply to
Lord Hugh Cecil, “No one, not even the noble lord, would die for the
meridian of Greenwich.” And that is the great tribute to its purely
psychological character. It is idle to ask why Greenwich should not
cohere in this spiritual manner while Athens or Sparta did. It is like
asking why a man falls in love with one woman and not with another.
Now, of this great spiritual coherence, independent of external
circumstances, or of race, or of any obvious physical thing, Ireland is
the most remarkable example. Rome conquered nations, but Ireland has
conquered races. The Norman has gone there and become Irish, the
Scotchman has gone there and become Irish, the Spaniard has gone there
and become Irish, even the bitter soldier of Cromwell has gone there
and become Irish. Ireland, which did not exist even politically, has
been stronger than all the races that existed scientifically. The
purest Germanic blood, the purest Norman blood, the purest blood of the
passionate Scotch patriot, has not been so attractive as a nation
without a flag. Ireland, unrecognized and oppressed, has easily
absorbed races, as such trifles are easily absorbed. She has easily
disposed of physical science, as such superstitions are easily disposed
of. Nationality in its weakness has been stronger than ethnology in
its strength. Five triumphant races have been absorbed, have been
defeated by a defeated nationality.
This being the true and strange glory of Ireland, it is impossible to
hear without impatience of the attempt so constantly made among her
modern sympathizers to talk about Celts and Celticism. Who were the
Celts? I defy anybody to say. Who are the Irish? I defy any one to be
indifferent, or to pretend not to know. Mr. W. B. Yeats, the great
Irish genius who has appeared in our time, shows his own admirable
penetration in discarding altogether the argument from a Celtic race.
But he does not wholly escape, and his followers hardly ever escape,
the general objection to the Celtic argument. The tendency of that
argument is to represent the Irish or the Celts as a strange and
separate race, as a tribe of eccentrics in the modern world immersed in
dim legends and fruitless dreams. Its tendency is to exhibit the Irish
as odd, because they see the fairies. Its trend is to make the Irish
seem weird and wild because they sing old songs and join in strange
dances. But this is quite an error; indeed, it is the opposite of the
truth. It is the English who are odd because they do not see the
fairies. It is the inhabitants of Kensington who are weird and wild
because they do not sing old songs and join in strange dances. In all
this the Irish are not in the least strange and separate, are not in
the least Celtic, as the word is commonly and popularly used. In all
this the Irish are simply an ordinary sensible nation, living the life
of any other ordinary and sensible nation which has not been either
sodden with smoke or oppressed by money-lenders, or otherwise corrupted
with wealth and science. There is nothing Celtic about having legends.
It is merely human. The Germans, who are (I suppose) Teutonic, have
hundreds of legends, wherever it happens that the Germans are human.
There is nothing Celtic about loving poetry; the English loved poetry
more, perhaps, than any other people before they came under the shadow
of the chimney-pot and the shadow of the chimney-pot hat. It is not
Ireland which is mad and mystic; it is Manchester which is mad and
mystic, which is incredible, which is a wild exception among human
things. Ireland has no need to play the silly game of the science of
races; Ireland has no need to pretend to be a tribe of visionaries
apart. In the matter of visions, Ireland is more than a nation, it is a
model nation.