han cities. In the latter, as we shall see,
caste observance is much relaxed, and life is more on modern lines.

V

The results of the caste system in India are many and manifest. It has
sown its seed for many centuries and to-day reaps a rich harvest in
life and conduct. It should not be assumed, and it cannot be asserted,
that this great system has always been an unmixed evil to the people
of this land.

No organization which has bound by its fetters for eighty generations
nearly a sixth of the population of the globe, and which continues to
grip them to-day with tyrannical power, can be devoid of any redeeming
feature. The very perpetuity and prosperity of the scheme argues for
its possession of some rational features, originally connected with
it, which gave it sanction to the myriads who have submitted to its
reign over them. But it is exceedingly difficult to discover that
excellence which originally commended it to the people of this land.
Nor do the writings of those who have striven to defend the system
assist us in making this discovery. A modern Brahman defence by
Jogendra Nath Bhattacharya (see "Hindu Castes and Sects," pp. 1-10)
gives only one ray of light upon the subject when he observes that
"the legislation of the Rishis was calculated not only to bring about
union between the isolated clans that lived in primitive India, but to
render it possible to assimilate within each group the foreign hordes
that were expected to pour into the country from time to time." In
those remote days when weakness through isolation threatened their
very existence, and when there was no possibility of a general union
of all the people for defence, thorough organization of clans into
castes brought strength and confidence and was a conspicuous blessing.
It was in those days a convenient and effective way of enforcing
religious obligations upon the heterogeneous clans. It also was then
probably useful in preserving purity of blood among the higher races,
and in conserving the nobility of the Aryan who was destined to rule
the mixed races of India for many centuries.

Nor is the system without possibilities of good in modern times, as
was illustrated recently by the action of a prominent North India
caste in prohibiting large expenses in marriage and in raising, by
legislation, the limit of the marriageable age of its girls.

But, alas, any good that may possibly inhere in the system has largely
remained _in posse_ rat