Note (return) — Chapter IV

Mazzini believed, with Bismarck, that no State could be well governed unless it consisted of a homogeneous nation. But Bismarck's policy of the artificial assimilation of the weaker by the stronger type seemed to him the vilest form of tyranny; and he based his own plans for the reconstruction of Europe upon the purpose of God, as revealed by the existing correspondence of national uniformities with geographical facts. 'God,' he said, 'divided humanity into distinct groups or nuclei upon the face of the earth.... Evil governments have disfigured the Divine design. Nevertheless you may still trace it, distinctly marked out—at least as far as Europe is concerned—by the course of the great rivers, the direction of the higher mountains, and other geographical conditions.'[101]