34 PURITY OF HINDI ' DESCENT
Another advantage resulting from the caste system is the hereditary continuation of families and that purity of descent which is a peculiarity of the Hindus, and which
consists in never mixing the blood of one family or caste with that of another. Marriages are confined to parties belonging to the same family, or at any rate the same caste. In India, at any rate, there can be no room for the reproach, so often deserved in European countries, that
families have deteriorated by alliances with persons of low or unknown extraction. A Hindu of high caste can,
without citing his title or producing his genealogical tree, trace his descent back for more than two thousand years without fear of contradiction. He can also, without any other passport than that of his high caste, and in spite of his poverty, present himself anywhere; and he would be more courted for a marriage alliance than any richer man of less pure descent. Nevertheless, it is not to be denied that there are some districts where the people are not quite so particular about their marriages, though such
laxity is blamed and held up to shame as an outrage on propriety, while those guilty of it take very good care to
conceal it as much as possible from the public. Further, one would be justified in asserting that it is to
caste distinctions that India owes the preservation of her arts and industries. For the same reason she would have
reached a high standard of perfection in them had not the avarice of her rulers prevented it.
It was chiefly to attain this object that the Egyptians were divided into castes, and that their laws assigned the particular place which each individual should occupy in the commonwealth.
Their lawgivers no doubt considered that by this means all arts and industries would continue to improve from
generation to generation, for men must needs do well that which they have always been in the habit of seeing done and which they have been constantly practising from their youth.
This perfection in arts and manufactures would undoubtedly have been attained by so industrious a people as the Hindus, if, as I have before remarked, the cupidity of
their rulers had not acted as a check. As a matter of fact, no sooner has an artisan gained the reputation of excelling