The only remaining inquiry with respect to the institution of castes, which seems appropriate to this article, is that of its utility or inutility as a part of the social establishment. And a few words will, we think, suffice to convey clear and determinate ideas upon this subject.

It is the distinction of man's nature, that he is a progressive being. It is by this grand characteristic that he view of the separated so widely from the inferior animals. When effects found in circumstances and situations in which the benefits of progression seem not to have been reaped, he is raised but a slight degree above the condition of some of the more perfect of the inferior animals. His peculiarity is, that he is susceptible of progression, and, unless when he is placed in circumstances which impose extraordinary restraints upon the principles of his nature, does invariably and incessantly make progress. Even when he originates in a state little above that of the inferior animals, he rises, and gradually ascends from one stage to another, till his elevation above all the other inhabitants of this globe is immense; nor is there any limit which our knowledge permits us to set to his final attainments and facility. In whatever state the other animals originate; in that state they remain throughout all ages, and seem altogether incapable of improvement.

In regard to man, therefore, considered as a class of beings or an order of existence, every thing is to be considered as beneficially important in proportion as it favours his progression; every thing is to be considered as mischievously important in proportion as it obstructs and impedes that progression. And it is by this grand test of all that is good and evil in human institutions that we shall endeavour to estimate the effects of the establishment of castes.

We shall not here adduce the elevation of one set of the classes, and the correspondent degradation of another, obviously the cause of infinite evil; because it may be with justice maintained, that this horrid elevation, and equally horrid depression, are not essential parts of the institution of caste, but arise from other causes, and may, in fact, be separated from that institution.

First of all, it is evident, that at the time when the number of castes and professions is established, unless it could be foreseen what are all the species of operations or arts by which the desires of man, in all their possible varieties, are capable of being gratified; and what are all the possible divisions of labour from which any good can arise, the appointment of fixed, unalterable castes and professions must oppose an insuperable barrier to human advancement in these two grand instruments of progression, the division of labour and the practice of new arts, as invention may suggest them, or the multiplying desires of an improving society may create the demand. Since it is obviously impossible that all these things can be foreseen, it is abundantly certain that the institution of any fixed number of arts and trades is exactly an institution for preventing the progression of mankind. This deduction appears to be conclusive, and, if there were no other argument, affords a complete answer to the question respecting the utility of castes.

Even in the trades and arts which are known and provided for at the time of the institution, it is by no means certain that this fixed order of the persons who are to practise them is a contrivance well adapted for carrying these arts themselves, whether large in number or small, to their highest state of perfection. It by no means follows that a man will do anything better than any other man, because his father did it before him. To establish a caste for any particular art or profession, is giving a sort of monopoly to that particular description of men. It is a wide monopoly, to be sure; but, as far as the

Caste.

fords, or is capable of affording, to mankind. As the desirers of mankind, however, speedily extend beyond such narrow limits, a struggle must have early ensued between the first principles of human nature and those of the political establishment.

And this was not the only evil to which, under this primary institution, society was exposed. The different castes were strictly commanded to marry with those exclusively of their own class and profession; and the mixture of the classes by the union of the sexes was guarded against by the most sanguinary laws. This, however, was a result which laws were not sufficiently powerful to prevent. Irregularities occurred, and children were born who belonged to no caste, and for whom there was no occupation. A more calamitous event could not fall upon human society. Unholy and infamous, on account of that violation of the sacred law to which they owed their unwelcome birth, these wretched outcasts had no resource for subsistence except two; either the bounty of the regular classes, to whom they were objects of contempt and abhorrence, not of sympathy; or the plunder of those classes by whom they were oppressed—a resource to which they would naturally betake themselves with all the ingenuity of necessitous, and all the ferocity of injured men.

When a class of this description became numerous, they must have filled society with the greatest disorders. The nature of the case would have drawn the philosophical mind to this conclusion had no testimony existed. It so happens, however, that this is one of the few facts in the ancient history of the Hindus which can be ascertained from their record. In the preface to that compilation of the Hindu Laws which was translated by Mr Halhed, it is stated that, after a succession of good kings, who secured obedience to the laws, and under whom the people enjoyed felicity, came a monarch, evil and corrupt, under whom the laws were violated, the mixture of the classes was perpetrated, and a new and impious race were produced. The Brahmans put this wicked king to death, and, by an effect of miraculous power, created a successor, endowed with the most excellent qualities. Nevertheless the kingdom did not prosper, by reason of the Burren Sunker (so were the impure and irregular brood denominated); and it required all the wisdom of this sage and virtuous king to devise a remedy. He resolved to form a classification of the mixed race, and to assign them occupations. This accordingly was the commencement of arts and manufactures. The Burren Sunker became all manner of artizans and handicrafts. Of the classes into which they were distributed, one was appointed to the weaving of cloth, another to works in iron, and so in all other cases, till the subdivisions of the race were exhausted, and the wants of the community were provided for. Among the Hindus thirty-six castes of the impure race are enumerated, all inferior in rank and privileges even to the Sudra. To proceed farther in the detail would be inconvenient and useless. By this supplement to the institution of the four primary castes, two great evils were remedied at once; the increasing wants of an improving society were supplied, and a class of men, who had been the pest of the community, were converted to its service.

How nearly the actual state of things among the Hindus did ever correspond with the written accounts of the institution of castes, we do not know. But even at the time when Europeans first became acquainted with them, many points of the separation were disregarded; and this has been in constant progress; so that at present the principal interruptions to the business of life, occasioned by the niceties of caste, are removed; and the distinctions are felt on certain limited occasions only. appropriation of the art to one class is calculated to have any effects, they must so far be such as it is of the nature of a monopoly to produce, and hence unfavourable to the progress of the art. The way which presents itself to the reasoning mind, as that which is best calculated for improving every branch of human industry or skill, is to open, as widely as possible, the doors to competition; not to exclude any man, of whatever origin, who may appear to have an extraordinary genius for any particular thing, but to allow him, through competition, to reap the reward of his superiority, and hence to feel all the motives that can prompt him to excel. The acquirements of one generation are not transmitted to another more surely when they are transmitted from father to son, than when they are transmitted in the way of promiscuous instruction. Nor does it necessarily, or even commonly, happen, that the learner gets more careful instruction from his father, than he would from a man who is not his father; or that he himself is more intent in his application, and careful to learn, because it is his father who instructs him.

In the sciences and the fine arts, the power of excelling in which depends upon rare combinations of circumstances, to limit the number of competitors, and shut up the field from all but the members of a particular tribe, is obviously a powerful expedient for diminishing the chance of progression. In regard to literature and knowledge the case is clear and decisive. To confine the prosecution of it to a particular tribe, is to insure a perpetuity of ignorance and misery to the human race. It will be decidedly the interest of the knowing class to maintain as much ignorance as possible among the rest of the community, that they may be able the more easily to turn and wind them conformably to their own purposes; and, for that end, to study, not real knowledge, nor the means of making mankind wiser and happier, but the means of deluding and imposing upon them the arts of imposture. With this clear and incontrovertible inference, how exactly does the historical fact correspond? How truly and faithfully have the Brahmins acted up to that rule? They have made it a law revealed from heaven to keep the great bulk of the community in ignorance. And what branch of knowledge have they ever studied but the science of delusion? There is first their theology; a mass of absurd fictions, to chain the imagination of ignorant and foolish men. And then there is astrology, which concludes the circle of all their studies, and may be justly styled the second part of the act of imposture; even their mathematics, in which they made some little progress, being studied in no other shape than as a part of the business of astrology.

Another circumstance appears to merit no slight regard. The institution of castes is calculated to multiply the evils, so dreadful in magnitude, which are apt to arise from the principles of population, and is opposed to the measures which are calculated to lessen or prevent them. The evils which are apt to be produced by an occasional superabundance of people in any one of the departments of industry and subsistence, are exceedingly diminished when the greatest possible facility is given to the supernumerary individuals, of distributing themselves through all the other departments of industry and subsistence. And these evils, it is obvious, are all raised to the greatest height when the possibility of that distribution is taken away; and individuals, in whatsoever degree superabundant, are still confined to their own department. As this is a topic, the elucidation of which it is easy to carry on, we shall content ourselves with the bare hint which has thus been given, and leave the development to the reflections of the reader.

It may be added, as a supplement to what was said about the obstruction which, by the institution of castes, is given to progression, not only in the division of labour and the multiplication of arts, but even in perfecting the arts which are known and practised, that the strict confinement of one tribe of men to one tribe of operations must have a strong tendency to create a habit of routine, and hence an aversion to all innovation; a disposition to acquiesce in what has constantly been done, and hence to deaden that activity of mind which is on the alert to catch at every chance of improvement,—that admirable temper, on which the greatest rapidity in the march of human amelioration essentially depends.

It was intended, after thus presenting the reasons on which we conclude that the institution of castes is an arrangement altogether opposite to the interests of human nature, to have stated and answered the reasons which have been advanced by Dr Robertson, in the appendix to his Historical Disquisition concerning India, and more recently by the Abbé Dubois in his Description of the Character, &c. of the People of India, to prove that the institution of castes is really beneficial. But after looking over these reasonings with a view to that answer, they have appeared to us to be so weak and insignificant as to be altogether unworthy the trouble of transcription. A sufficient answer to every point which they adduce will be found in the considerations which we have already urged upon the subject; and we doubt not that we may safely intrust the decision to the judgment of the reader.