Darwin would not have been an Englishman, if he had not entertained political opinions of some sort. He could not pretend to escape the tradition so strongly planted in the blood of the race. He does indeed resent the suggestion that politics are more important than science: ‘Did you see a sneer some time ago in the _Times_ about how incomparably more interesting politics were compared with science even to scientific men?... Jeffrey, in one of his letters, I remember, says that making an effective speech in Parliament is a far grander thing than writing the grandest history. All this seems to me a poor short-sighted view.’[318] But he has been brought up a Whig, a Liberal, and Whig prejudices are inherent in his system. This was true in the early days of the Beagle voyage: ‘The Captain does everything in his power to assist me, and we get on very well, but I thank my better fortune he has not made me a renegade to Whig principles.’[319] And it remained true to old age. When answering a questionnaire in 1873, he described himself as ‘Liberal or Radical,’[320] but the radicalism was of a very conservative and English order. The Whig partisanship even shows itself in quite normal fashion in hatred of the Tories, and on this head the tolerant and kindly scientist expresses himself with a rather amusing bitterness: ‘Thank God, the cold-hearted Tories, who, as J. Mackintosh used to say, have no enthusiasm, except against enthusiasm, have for the present run their race.’[321] But these outbursts are not to be taken very seriously. There are occasional glimpses of interest in current public men and current public affairs. Lord Bryce gives a striking account of a visit which Gladstone paid to the great thinker. Darwin’s comment was, ‘he seemed to be quite unaware that he was a great man, and talked to us as if he had been an ordinary person like ourselves.’ On which Bryce remarks: ‘The friend who was with me and I could not but look at each other and exchange covert smiles. We were feeling toward Darwin just as he had felt toward Gladstone.’[322] During the early portion of the Franco-German War Darwin’s sympathy, like that of many Englishmen, was with Germany: ‘I have not yet met a soul in England who does not rejoice in the splendid triumph of Germany over France: it is a most just retribution against that vainglorious, war-liking nation.’[323] But the struggles of party politics, as they went on about him, aroused little attention and little ardor.