I have not in all this written anything about the relations of Ireland
with other countries, or even with our neighbors, in whose political
household we have lived for so many centuries in intimate hostility.
I have considered this indeed, but did not wish, nor do I now wish,
in anything I may write, to say one word which would add to that old
hostility. Race hatred is the cheapest and basest of all national
passions, and it is the nature of hatred, as it is the nature of love,
to change us into the likeness of that which we contemplate. We grow
nobly like what we adore, and ignobly like what we hate; and no people
in Ireland became so anglicized in intellect and temperament, and even
in the manner of expression, as those who hated our neighbors most. All
hatreds long persisted in bring us to every baseness for which we hated
others. The only laws which we cannot break with impunity are divine
laws, and no law is more eternally sure in its workings than that which
condemns us to be even as that we condemned. Hate is the high commander
of so many armies that an inquiry into the origin of this passion is
at least as needful as histories of other contemporary notorieties. Not
emperors or parliaments alone raise armies, but this passion also. It
will sustain nations in defeat. When everything seems lost this wild
captain will appear and the scattered forces are reunited. They will be
as oblivious of danger as if they were divinely inspired, but if they
win their battle it is to become like the conquered foe. All great
wars in history, all conquests, all national antagonisms, result in an
exchange of characteristics. It is because I wish Ireland to be itself,
to act from its own will and its own centre, that I deprecate hatred as
a force in national life. It is always possible to win a cause without
the aid of this base helper, who betrays us ever in the hour of victory.

When a man finds the feeling of hate for another rising vehemently in
himself, he should take it as a warning that conscience is battling
in his own being with that very thing he loathes. Nations hate other
nations for the evil which is in themselves; but they are as little
given to self-analysis as individuals, and while they are right to
overcome evil, they should first try to understand the genesis of the
passion in their own nature. If we understand this, many of the ironies
of history will be intelligible. We will understand why it was that our
country