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because of the terror inspired by its prowess in war,
From those early days down to modern times war has
been the chief engine in enlarging the size of com-
munities, and fear has increasingly replaced tribal
solidarity as a source of social cohesion. This change
was not confined to large communities; it occurred,
for example, in Sparta, where the free citizens were
a small minority, while the Helots were unmercifully
suppressed. Sparta was praised throughout antiquity
for its admirable social cohesion, but it was a cohesion
which never attempted to embrace the whole popu-
lation, except in so far as terror compelled outward
At a later stage in the development of civilization,
a new kind of loyalty began to be developed: a loyalty
based not on territorial affinity or similarity of race,
but on identity of creed. So far as the West is con-
cerned this seems to have originated with the Orphic
communities, which admitted slaves on equal terms.
Apart from them religion in antiquity was so closely
associated with government that groups of co-
religionists were broadly identical with the groups
that had grown up on the old biological basis. But
identity of creed has gradually become a stronger and
stronger force. Its military strength was first dis-
played by Islam in the conquests of the seventh and
eighth centuries. It supplied the moving force in the
Crusades and in the wars of religion. In the sixteenth
century theological loyalties very often outweighed
those of nationality: English Catholics often sided
17                                 B