Page:Life in India or Madras, the Neilgherries, and Calcutta.djvu/337

293 been given. The Abbé Dubois, a French Roman Catholic missionary, says—“I consider the institution of castes among the Hindu nations as the happiest effort of their legislation; and I am well convinced that if the people of India never sank into a state of barbarism, and if when almost all Europe was plunged in that dreary gulf, India kept up her head, preserved and extended the sciences, the arts, and civilization, it is wholly to the distinction of castes that she is indebted for that high celebrity.” He argues that by the continuation of the same profession in certain castes from father to son, a knowledge of the useful arts is maintained; that by caste-rules, habits of decency are preserved; and by caste-discipline, immorality is restrained. While we may admit that caste is not utterly useless in these respects, we wonder that the Abbé should forget that all improvement in the arts is repressed, the cravings of genius for higher and nobler callings are crushed, and natural tastes disregarded. If some castes keep up certain rules of decency, at the same time indecent and degrading practices are perpetuated in others. Thus, for instance, while