Page:The history of caste in India.pdf/185



In my discussion regarding castes and varnas I have attached very little importance to race. To make my own position regarding the relations of caste and race clear, and to explain my opinion regarding the value of ethnology for the study of caste, it is necessary for me to make at first a few remarks on ethnology itself.

Radical defects of ethnology.—I do not by any means depreciate the value of ethnology. To a student of entire humanity, living and dead, the study of races is of very great importance. But unfortunately the ethnologists have not made the meaning of the word "race" as yet clear to themselves. Does that word mean the people of to-day who resemble each other in one or more physical peculiarities whatever their parentage may be, or does it mean people who are born of the same stock whatever their present similarities or dissimilarities may be? Passages can be cited from the writings of almost every eminent ethnologist which would serve to show that he has confused these two ideas. There should be no middle course. Adopting such, one would simply multiply blunders and create confusion in the science. If ethnologists are to take into account de facto similarities and dissimilarities, studies in linguistics and philology are needless for their