Our brief look at the historical record has revealed that democracy has been quite rare over the course of human history. Indeed, by modern definitions of democracy it only came into existence at the start of the twentieth century. We do not adopt such a narrow definition of democracy and thus regard Ancient Athens, the Republics of Venice and the Netherlands, and the United States from the time of the country's founding as all democracies of one form or another but with limited voting franchises.

These early manifestations of democracy all had certain elements in common. Most importantly, perhaps, they might all be called secular. The Greeks had their myths and gods, of course; the Venetians were Catholics, the Dutch a mixture of Catholics and Protestants; the Americans mostly Puritans and other Protestant sects. Yet, in each case, religion does not appear to have had an important influence on the polity's collective decision making. The Greeks trusted their own powers of reasoning when making collective decisions, not their gods; the Venetians held “nothing sacred, nothing holy” save for the state; the Dutch Republic was one of the most liberal and tolerant of all European states; and the Americans created a secular state by constitutional design. All of the democracies can in this respect also be termed modern as opposed to traditional.