cogently remarked by Mr. Clinton (F. H., vol. i., p. 54),
that this institution of castes has been very inconsistently
attributed to the Greek Ion,--not (as, if Egyptian, it would have
been) to the Egyptian Cecrops. 2dly, If rightly referred to Ion, who
did not long precede the heroic age, how comes it that in that age a
spirit the most opposite to that of castes universally prevailed--as
all the best authenticated enactments of Theseus abundantly prove?
Could institutions calculated to be the most permanent that
legislation ever effected, and which in India have resisted every
innovation of time, every revolution of war, have vanished from Attica
in the course of a few generations? 3dly, It is to be observed, that
previous to the divisions referred to Ion, we find the same number of
four tribes under wholly different names;--under Cecrops, under
Cranaus, under Ericthonius or Erectheus, they received successive
changes of appellations, none of which denoted professions, but were
moulded either from the distinctions of the land they inhabited, or
the names of deities they adored. If remodelled by Ion to correspond
with distinct professions and occupations (and where is that social
state which does not form different classes--a formation widely
opposite to that of different castes?) cultivated by the majority of
the members of each tribe, the name given to each tribe might be but a
general title by no means applicable to every individual, and
certainly not implying hereditary and indelible distinctions. 4thly,
In corroboration of this latter argument, there is not a single
evidence--a single tradition, that such divisions ever were
hereditary. 5thly, In the time of Solon and the Pisistratida we find
the four Ionic tribes unchanged, but without any features analogous to
those of the Oriental castes.--(Clinton, F. H., vol. i., p. 55.)
6thly, I shall add what I have before intimated (see note [33]), that
I do not think it the character of a people accustomed to castes to
establish castes mock and spurious in any country which a few of them
might visit or colonize. Nay, it is clearly and essentially contrary
to such a character to imagine that a handful of wandering Egyptians,
even supposing (which is absurd) that their party contained members of
each different caste observed by their countrymen, would have
incorporated with such scanty specimens of each caste any of the
barbarous natives--they would leave all the nativ