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PREJUDICES AGAINST CASTE
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is pretty much the same all
the world over, it is subject to so many differentiations
caused by soil, climate, food, religion, education, and other
circumstances peculiar to different countries, that the
system of civilization adopted by one people would plunge
another into a state of barbarism and cause its complete
downfall.
I have heard some persons, sensible enough in other
respects, but imbued with all the prejudices that they have
Now, although man's nature
brought with them from Europe, pronounce what appears
to me an altogether erroneous judgement in the matter of
In their opinion,
caste divisions amongst the Hindus.
caste is not only useless to the body politic, it is also ridi-
culous, and even calculated to bring trouble and disorder
on the people. For my part, having lived many years on
friendly terms with the Hindus, I have been able to study
their national life and character closely, and I have arrived
I
at a quite opposite decision on this subject of caste.
believe caste division to be in many respects the chef-
I am
d'oeuvre, the happiest effort, of Hindu legislation.
persuaded that it is simply and solely due to the distribu-
tion of the people into castes that India did not lapse into
a state of barbarism, and that she preserved and perfected
the arts and sciences of civilization whilst most other
nations of the earth remained in a state of barbarism.
I do not consider caste to be free from many great draw-
backs but I believe that the resulting advantages, in the
case of a nation constituted like the Hindus, more than
outweigh the resulting evils.
To establish the justice of this contention we have only
to glance at the condition of the various races of men who
live in the same latitude as the Hindus, and to consider
the past and present status of those among them whose
natural disposition and character have not been influenced
for good by the purifying doctrines of Revealed Religion.
can judge what the Hindus would have been like, had
they not been held within the pale of social duty by caste
regulations, if we glance at neighbouring nations west of
the Peninsula and east of it beyond the Ganges as far as
China. In China itself a temperate climate and a form
of government peculiarly adapted to a people unlike any
;
We