by which human nature can soar to reach the truth' ;
'truth is to be found wherever tradition, the life of those
who have gone before us, and the call of our own con-
science are in agreement; wherever they are found in
opposition to one another, lies error'. ¹

In this way Mazzini sought to reconcile traditional-
ism, which found truth in what had been believed
semper, ubique ab omnibus, with romanticism, which
held truth to be something revealed to the individual
spirit in moments of exaltation, without any guidance
from logical laws. But from Mazzini's thought in all
its aspects it is clear that, for him, intuition is the
primary and indeed the greatest source of truth; the
study of tradition is only of secondary importance, to be
regarded rather as a means of investigation than of
conquest.

As soon as he is forced to set out the basic principles
of his system, Mazzini always ends by relegating the
universal assent of mankind into the second place, and
makes his appeal only to 'the intuition of the loving
soul in all the dignity of life', to the 'all but inexplicable
moments of inspiration' : and speaks of 'a kind of com-
pulsion, inexplicable to myself, that directs all my
actions, and that -- being in the nature of religious
stimulus, to which, when I feel it, it seems a crime not
to give way -- will always remain a secret from every-