Note (return) — Chapter IV

For Mazzini the divinely indicated nation stood therefore between the individual man and the unimaginable multitude of the human race. A man could comprehend and love his nation because it consisted of beings like himself 'speaking the same language, gifted with the same tendencies and educated by the same historical tradition,'[105] and could be thought of as a single national entity. The nation was 'the intermediate term between humanity and the individual,'[106] and man could only attain to the conception of humanity by picturing it to himself as a mosaic of homogeneous nations. 'Nations are the citizens of humanity as individuals are the citizens of the nation,'[107] and again, 'The pact of humanity cannot be signed by individuals, but only by free and equal peoples, possessing a name, a banner, and the consciousness of a distinct existence.'[108]