Nationalism, in fact, founds the State on the concept of nation, the
nation being an entity which transcends the will and the life of the
individual because it is conceived as objectively existing apart from
the consciousness of individuals, existing even if the individual does
nothing to bring it into being. For the nationalist, the nation exists
not by virtue of the citizen's will, but as datum, a fact, of nature.

For Fascism, on the contrary, the State is a wholly spiritual
creation. It is a national State, because, from the Fascist point of
view, the nation itself is a creation of the mind and is not a
material presupposition, is not a datum of nature. The nation, says
the Fascist, is never really made; neither, therefore, can the State
attain an absolute form, since it is merely the nation in the latter's
concrete, political manifestation. For the Fascist, the State is
always _in fieri_. It is in our hands, wholly; whence our very serious
responsibility towards it.

But this State of the Fascists which is created by the consciousness
and the will of the citizen, and is not a force descending on the
citizen from above or from without, cannot have toward the mass of the
population the relationship which was presumed by nationalism.

Nationalism identified State with Nation, and made of the nation an
entity preëxisting, which needed not to be created but merely to be
recognized or known. The nationalists, therefore, required a ruling
class of an intellectual character, which was conscious of the nation
and could understand, appreciate and exalt it. The authority of the
State, furthermore, was not a product but a presupposition. It could
not depend on the people--rather the people depended on the State and
on the State's authority as the source of the life which they lived