72 Fellow-feeling as 



members for a common end or with a common 

 purpose. As long as men are separated by their 

 caste lines, each body having its own amusements, 

 interests, and occupations, they are certain to regard 

 one another with that instinctive distrust which 

 they feel for foreigners. There are exceptions to 

 the rule, but it is a rule. The average man, when 

 he has no means of being brought into contact with 

 another, or of gaining any insight into that other's 

 ideas and aspirations, either ignores these ideas and 

 aspirations completely, or else feels toward them a 

 more or less tepid dislike. The result is a complete 

 and perhaps fatal misunderstanding, due primarily 

 to the fact that the capacity for fellow-feeling is 

 given no opportunity to flourish. On the other hand, 

 if the men can be mixed together in some way that 

 will loosen the class or caste bonds and put each on 

 his merits as an individual man, there is certain to 

 be a regrouping independent of caste lines. A tie 

 may remain between the members of a caste, based 

 merely upon the similarity of their habits of life; 

 but this will be much less strong than the ties based 

 on identity of passion, of principle, or of ways of 

 looking at life. Any man who has ever, for his 

 good fortune, been obliged to work with men in 

 masses, in some place or under some condition or 

 in some association where the dislocation of caste 

 was complete, must recognize the truth of this as 



