1887 SCIENCE AND POLITICS 39 



informant was right. She wishes me to tell you that 

 she replied to her informant that she felt quite sure that 

 if you wrote it, it was because you thought it. 



To which Huxley replied : — 



I am much obliged for your letter, which is just such 

 as I felt sure you would write. 



Pray thank Mrs. Stokes for her kind message. I am 

 very grateful for her confidence in my uprightness of 

 intention. 



We must agree to differ. 



It may be needful for me and those who agree with 

 me to place our oi:)inions on record ; but you may depend 

 upon it that nothing will be done v/hich can suggest any 

 lack of friendship or respect for our President. 



It will be seen from this correspondence and the 

 letter to Sir J. Donnelly of July 15 (p. 28), that 

 Huxley was a staunch Unionist. Not that he 

 considered the actual course of English rule in 

 Ireland ideal ; his main point was that under the 

 circumstances the establishment of Home Rule was 

 a distinct betrayal of trust, considering that on the 

 strength of Government promises, an immense number 

 of persons had entered into contracts, had bought 

 land, and staked their fortunes in Ireland, who would 

 be ruined by the establishment of Home Rule. 

 Moreover, he held that the right of self-preservation 

 entitled a nation to refuse to establish at its very 

 gates a power which could, and perhaps would, be 

 a danger to its own existence. Of the capacity of 

 the Irish peasant for self-government he bad no high 

 opinion, and what he had seen of the country, and 



