Like every concrete political conception, Fascism is thought and
action. It is action with an inherent doctrine which, arising out of a
given system of historic forces, is inserted in it and works on it
from within. It has therefore a form co-related to the contingencies
of time and place; but it has at the same time an ideal content which
elevates it into a formula of truth in the higher region of the
history of thought.
There is no way of exercising a spiritual influence on the things of
the world by means of a human will-power commanding the wills of
others, without first having a clear conception of the particular and
transient reality on which the will-power must act, and without also
having a clear conception of the universal and permanent reality in
which the particular and transient reality has its life and being. To
know men we must have a knowledge of man; and to have a knowledge of
man we must know the reality of things and their laws.
There can be no conception of a State which is not fundamentally a
conception of Life. It is a philosophy or intuition, a system of ideas
which evolves itself into a system of logical contraction, or which
concentrates itself in a vision or in a faith, but which is always,
at least virtually, an organic conception of the world.