Citizenship becomes, finally, with the whole of political reality, a moral, spiritual and Christian reality, and the only real equality of men can be attained in a State in which each man is rated according to actual value. For citizenship, taken as a birthright of man, is a remains of Pagan times, when it was the lot of some to be born slaves and of some to be born citizens. CHAPTER II LIBERALISM IN ITALY For the foreigner interested in the political affairs of Italy a study of the pedigree of the two elements of Fascism is essential in order to distinguish what is exclusively Italian from what is to become universal. It is therefore necessary to trace, or at least attempt to trace, this pedigree in spite of the difficulty of the task. Fascism presents itself at first as being essentially the expression of the national consciousness of Italy. So it is; but it must be stated at once that it is the national consciousness recently acquired by the people of Italy, which, like an uncontrollable force, has worked itself out, taking Fascism as its expression. Without this distinction the student is induced by its nationalist character to see in the present movement the last act of the long drama of wars and agitations that led to the independence and unification of the country. The truth is, that though it is practically the epilogue of that drama, Fascism cannot be identified with the Risorgimento. The spirit which animated the men of the days of Cavour and Garibaldi is totally and essentially different from that which impels the followers of Mussolini to act as they do. The wars of independence were due to the initiative of an aristocratic minority; whose aristocratic and intellectual qualities distinguished them and perhaps ensured their success. The leaders of the Risorgimento were not hampered by anything like a popular following; and their eventual agreement as to what was best for their cause was always made certain by this intellectual selectness. All were able, like Garibaldi and Mazzini, to see things as they were and to act accordingly, not only to the extent of sacrificing their lives but of sacrificing their dearest ideals as well. Republicans, they accepted monarchy; ministers, of their own free will they relinquished power to place it in hands they thought more fit than their own to realise their dream; staunch Catholics, during their life they fought the Church in its temporal politics, in an age when the best educated priests would not admit and could not even see the possibility of distinction between temporal and spiritual power. Only religious and idealistic men can realise by how much such sacrifices surpassed for them the gift of money, liberty, or even life. There is one English word that sums up what these Italian liberators were, whether noblemen, solicitors, writers, professors, officers, doctors: they were _gentlemen_ of good classical education and wide reading who had assimilated what was best in Europe.