nity, the will, and thereby an effective existence.
The right of a nation to its independence is derived not from a
literary and ideal consciousness of its own existence, much less from
a _de facto_ situation more or less inert and unconscious, but from an
active consciousness, from an active political will disposed to
demonstrate in its right; that is to say, a kind of State already in
its pride (_in fieri_). The State, in fact, as a universal ethical
will, is the creator of right.

11. Dynamic Reality.

The nation as a State is an ethical reality which exists and lives in
measure as it develops. A standstill is its death. Therefore the
State is not only the authority which governs and which gives the
forms of law and the worth of the spiritual life to the individual
wills, but it is also the power which gives effect to its will in
foreign matters, causing it to be recognised and respected by
demonstrating through facts the universality of all the manifestations
necessary for its development. Hence it is organization as well as
expansion, and it may be thereby considered, at least virtually, equal
to the very nature of the human will, which in its evolution
recognises no barriers, and which realises itself by proving its
infinity.

12. The Role of the State.

The Fascist State, the highest and the most powerful form of
personality is a force, but a spiritual one. It reassumes all the
forms of the moral and intellectual life of man. It cannot, therefore,
be limited to a simple function of order and of safeguarding, as was
contended by Liberalism. It is not a simple mechanism which limits the
sphere of the presumed individual liberties. It is an internal form
and rule, a discipline of the entire person: it penetrates the will as
well as the intelligence. Its principle, a central inspiration of the
living human personality in the civil community, descends into the
depths and settles in the heart of the man of action as well as the
thinker, of the artist as well as of the scientist; the soul of our
soul.

13. Discipline and Authority.

Fascism, in short, is not only a lawgiver and the founder of
institutions, but an educator and a promoter of the spiritual life. It
aims to rebuild not the forms of human life, but its content, the man,
the character, the faith. And for this end it exacts discipline and an
authority which descend into and dominates the interior of the spirit
without opposition. Its emblem, the