Page:Life in India or Madras, the Neilgherries, and Calcutta.djvu/336

292 marry, nor will they eat, drink, or associate with each other. Thus, physicians form a separate caste, the druggists another, the shepherds another, and so on with herdsmen, barbers, writers, farmers, carpenters, goldsmiths, masons, blacksmiths, and many other trades. The blacksmith will not marry into the family of the weaver, nor will he eat or drink with him; nor will the carpenter with the shepherd, nor the accountant with the mason. Each profession is handed down from father to son. Before his birth, the calling of the man is decided and his associations fixed. Society is thus made up, not of men, but of castes; and man sympathizes not with his fellow-man, but with his caste. Each caste, wrapped up within the narrow limits of its own little circle, knows no hospitality or duty beyond this well-defined boundary. No success, no genius, no virtue can lift him out of the caste in which he was born; and no crime, except a breach of caste, can degrade him from it. This the Hindu believes to be the ordinance and will of God. His place in society was fixed at the creation.

What, it will be asked, are the practical workings of this system. To this two answers have