been applied to sacred corporations. A family or a
tribe is consecrated to the service of a particular altar, or all the
altars of a particular god. Or a semi-sacred class, such as the Brehons
or the Bards, is formed, and these, and perhaps some specially dignified
professions, become hereditary, the others remaining free. Thus in Peru,
the priests of the Sun at Cuzco transmitted their office to their sons;
so did the Quipu-camayoc, or public registrars, and the _amantas_ and
_haravecs_, the learned men and singers.[5] In many countries political
considerations, or distinctions of race, have prevented intermarriage
between classes. Take, for example, the patricians and the plebeians at
Rome, or the [Greek: Spartiatai, Lakones] or [Greek: perioikoi], and the
[Greek: Heilotes] at Sparta. In Guatemala it was the law that if any
noble married a plebeian woman he should be degraded to the caste of
_mazequal_, or plebeian, and be subject to the duties and services
imposed on that class, and that the bulk of his estate should be
sequestered to the king.[6] In Madagascar marriage is strictly forbidden
between the four classes of Nobles, Hovas, Zarahovas and Andevos,--the
lowest of whom, however, are apparently mere slaves. In a sense slavery
might be called the lowest of castes, because in most of its forms it
does permit some small customary rights to the slave. In a sense, too,
the survival in European royalty of the idea of "equality of birth"
(_Ebenburtigkeit_) is that of a caste conception, and the marriage of
one of the members of a European royal family with a person not of royal
blood might be described as an infraction of caste rule.

Caste in India is a question of more than historical interest. It is the
great obstacle to government in accordance with modern ideas, and to
the work of native religious reformers as well as of Christian
missionaries. By some writers caste has been regarded as the great
safeguard of social tranquillity, and therefore as the indispensable
condition of the progress in certain arts and industries which the
Hindus have made. Others, such as James Mill, have denounced it as fatal
to the principle of free competition and opposed to individual
happiness. The latter view assumes a state of facts which was denied by
Colebrooke, one of the highest authorities on Indian matters. Writing in
1798 he says,[7] after pointing out that any person unable to earn a
subsistence by the exercise of his profes