44 Human Physiology. 



that will present itself to many persons is the difficulty of caste. 

 Everywhere in England we find first, second, and third class. 

 They stand wide apart farther in England than in any country 

 in the world. Nowhere is there such pride of rank and riches, 

 such exclusivism, such inhumanity. The noble and the wealthy 

 those we call the gentry may be kind, gracious, affable, 

 condescending.; but affability and condescension are in them- 

 selves the assertion of a rigid caste distinction. The members 

 of the different social ranks cannot sit together, eat together, 

 be educated together, nor even confess themselves miserable 

 sinners together. The children of the three social grades seldom 

 intermingle. A boarding school for the daughters of the nobi- 

 lity and gentry cannot receive the most beautiful, the most 

 talented, the most lovely and accomplished daughters of a 

 wealthy and respectable tradesman ; and no more can the 

 daughter of an artisan hope to be educated with the young 

 ladies of the grade above her. The lady who marries even a 

 man of genius born in a lower rank than her own seldom 

 recovers her social position. And if people mingled together 

 in such societies as philosophers and philanthropists have 

 imagined, such mesalliances might be of constant occurrence. 



What is to be done ? So far as caste is artificial, unjust, and 

 inhuman, and stands in the way of human progress and happi- 

 ness, it ought to be abandoned. So far as it is natural, right, 

 and in accordance with the best interests and feelings of our 

 nature, it ought to be retained. Intimate personal associations 

 should be governed by fitness and attraction, and by no other 

 rule. In an association there can be no poverty, as we see it 

 now, with its wants and vices. The minimum will suffice for 

 every want ; and rank, where people become truly known to 

 each other, will depend far more upon personal qualities than 

 the advantage of birth, or the accident of position. Even now 

 genius and moral worth go far to make men noble. Dickens, 

 once a poor boy in a blacking factory, was buried in Westmin- 



