Page:Footfalls of Indian History.djvu/20

Rh is obviously easy to gain by the conquest of the sea, where captain, first mate, and second mate will be a father, with his eldest son and second son, and where the slightest dereliction from military discipline on the part of one may involve instant peril of death to all. Thus the family gives place, in the imagination, to the crew, as the organised unit of the human fabric, and the love of hearthside and brood becomes exalted into that civic passion which can offer up its seven sons and yet say with firm voice, "Sweet and seemly is it to die for one's country."

The second type of imperial organisation, seen within the last two thousand years, is the pastoral empire of Central Asia and Arabia. Islam was the religious form taken by the national unification of a number of pastoral tribes in Arabia. Mohammed, the Prophet of God, was in truth the greatest nation-maker who has ever appeared. The earliest associations of the Arabs are inwoven with the conception of the tribe as a civic unity, transcending the family unity; and the necessity of frontier-tribal relationships and courtesies at once suggests the idea of national inclusiveness, and creates a basis for national life. On these elements were laid the foundation of the thrones of Baghdad, Constantinople, and Cordova. The Hunnish, Scythic, and Mohammedan empires of India have, each in its turn, been offshoots from the nomadic organisations of Central Asia. The very name of the Moghul dynasty perpetuates its Tartar origin.