directed.

The true idea of a nation implies the consciousness of a common _aim_,
and the fraternal association and concentration of all the vital forces
of the country towards the realization of that aim.

The national aim is indicated by the past tradition, and confirmed by
the present conscience, of the country.

The national aim once ascertained, it becomes the basis of the sovereign
power, and the criterion of judgment with regard to the acts of the
citizens.

Every act tending to promote the national aim is good; every act tending
to a departure from that aim is evil.

The moral law is supreme. The religion of duty forms the link between
the nation and humanity; the source of its _right_, and the sign of its
place and value in humanity.

* * * * *

Such are the essential characteristics of what we term a nation at the
present day. Where these are wanting, there exists but an aggregate of
families, temporarily united for the purpose of diminishing the ills of
life, and loosely bound together by past habits or interests, which are
destined, sooner or later, to clash. All intellectual or economic
development among them,--unregulated by a great conception supreme over
every selfish interest,--instead of being equally diffused over the
various members of the national family, leads to the gradual formation
of educated or financial _castes_, but obtains for the nation itself
neither recognized function, position, dignity, nor glory among foreign
peoples.

These things, which are true of all peoples, are still more markedly so
of a people emerging from a prolonged and deathlike stupor into new
life. Other nations earnestly watch its every step. If its advance is
illumined by the signs of a high mission, and its first manifestations
sanctified by the baptism of a great _principle_, other nations will
surround the new collective being with affection and hope, and be ready
to follow it upon the path assigned to it by God. If they discover in it
no signs of any noble inspiration, ruling moral conception, or potent
future, they will learn to despise it, and to regard its territory as a
new field for a predatory policy, and direct or indirect domination.

Tradition has marked out and defined the characteristics of a high
mission more distinctly in Italy than elsewhere. We alone, among the
nations that have expired in the past, have twice arisen in resurrection
and given new life to Eur