e 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. Irel