Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 22.pdf/562

 The Green Bag

534

of the “social mind," but the term may be

sometimes convenient to apply, rather im pressionistically, to the important group of complex phenomena which supply the subject-matter of social psychology. A review of sociological theory with appended criticisms is what is here attempted, rather than an independent exposition of the author's own views. Consequently Dr. Davis reaches his own doctrines by a roundabout path, and does not devote so much space to them as to those of other writers. His treatise yields a number of broad generaliza tions with regard to the inter-action of social forces. Because of their breadth and gener ality these principles are not very striking, nor are they likely to prove of much practical use except as a starting-point for supple mentary investigation. A partial application of some of these principles to problems of personal and social life is attempted, but within too restricted a space to yield note worthy results. The treatise is of considerable literary merit. CASTE IN INDIA The History of Caste in India. With an appendix 0n Radical Defects of Ethnology. By Shirdhar V. Ketkar, A. M. (Cornell). V. 1. Taylor 8: Carpenter. Ithaca, N. Y. Pp. xv, 170+index

22.

($1.50.) HIS is a book which should help to bridge

the gulf between the East and the West. Hardly ever before has a Hindu written so intelligently in the English language of the institutions of his own land. Caste in India is very diﬂicult for an American to understand, and he can grasp something of its raison d’etre in these pages and thank the author for being sufficiently heterodox, from the Brahminical point of view, to be in a position to interpret Indian civilization in terms which we can understand. He points out that caste may become a world problem, for wherever the Hindu emigrates he carries with him his own institu tions. He aims at teaching at least a partial solution of this problem. The absurdities of ‘the caste system frequently arouse him to

vigorous denunciation.

He does not pro

pound a complete answer to the problem, and seems to consider that it is not feasible nor wise to destroy the caste system root and branch. In one place he intimates that this system might have better results if the privileges of the higher castes received fuller recognition under British rule, so that their

strength would be enlisted on the side of social order and progress. Three purposes predominate throughout the work, and they are commingled in such a way as to interfere with an orderly arrange ment of material. The historical purpose is by no means paramount. The writer ﬁnds

the beginnings of Indian institutions vague and obscure, and he takes up the reader's time to study and appraise a mass of evidence derived from the legendary and religious lore of the race. The historical purpose thus becomes subordinated to a critical purpose. Furthermore, the author's rambling observa

tions on the philosophy of caste are inter spersed in such a manner as to introduce some irregularity into his treatment. But his pages are by no means free from penetrating analysis of Hindu customs. Mr. Ketkar rejects the ethnological theory of caste because he believes that ethnological evidence is of value only when races are classiﬁed with reference to the degree of permanence of their physical characteristics. He thinks that our present knowledge does not warrant deductions from racial character istics observed in India at the present time regarding the ancestry of the people of today. The racial diﬁerences between Aryans and Dravidians are not so great, he declares, as ethnologists have tried to make out. He does think that a conquering race will tend to form a new caste cleavage, but he does

not believe that the caste cleavage directly follows the line of race cleavage. On the contrary, he is of the opinion that other factors enter very largely into the formation of castes. Among these he attributes im portance to economic factors, and he also strongly emphasizes the inﬂuence of religion. Brahminism has closely connected the senti ment of purity of blood with that of moral sanctity. Marriage to a woman of lower caste is not only retrogression but sacrilege. The Hindu believes that the Brahmin who marries a Shi'idra will suffer everlasting tor ments after death. The doctrine of karma makes all the castes shrink from marriages for which they would have to pay the penalty of reincarnation on a lower plane. Thus Brah minism tends to perpetuate and strengthen the endogamous spirit of caste, just as Christianity, by laying emphasis upon the brotherhood of man, promotes the opposite tendency. The author intimates that if the Southerners of our own country had not taught the negro Christianity there might