ABSTRACT
Religious and racial differences have been selected for two reasons. On the one hand, they have appeared historically to be among the most serious sources of conflict, to serve as bases of the kind of solidarity which particularly thrives on antagonism to other groups. On the other hand, the relation between the two types of group solidarity is particularly illuminating in throwing light on the general character of group antagonisms. A racial group acquires the kind of solidarity which can make it an important factor in group antagonism only in so far as it develops many of the characteristics of religious groups. A racial group is necessarily a descent group; hence, any given sector of it which functions as a unit of social solidarity readily takes on all the characteristics of an ethnic group by acquiring a distinctive sociocultural pattern.
