;66 Heredity. 



principal classes. But, as Prosper Lucas observes, ' these non- 

 race classes all alike excluded from the sacrifices, and destined to 

 exercise the vilest functions have no more value in the eyes of 

 Hindus than horses, cattle or dogs without pedigree would have 

 in the eyes of an Arab, a farmer, or a huntsman.' 



In all these subdivisions the only point which interests us is the 

 part assigned to psychological heredity. It is very considerable 

 indeed. According to Hindu belief, the father's influence pre- 

 ponderates in the procreation of the children ; hence a marriage 

 beyond caste on the part of the mothers is looked on as far more 

 criminal than that of the fathers. When a Brahman woman 

 marries a Sudr, the chandal (or, cross-breed) born of their 

 union ' is the most infamous of men.' 



It is curious to observe that the law rests on heredity in assign- 

 ing appropriate occupations to the impure castes. While admit- 

 ting the preponderance of the father over the mother, it looks on 

 the cross-breed as deriving from both. Thus, a child born of a 

 Brahman and a Vaishya woman will practise medicine, a profession 

 the practice of which is in one respect a liberal pursuit, while in 

 another respect it approaches the manual arts. The son of a 

 Kshatriya and a Brahman woman, will be at the same time a 

 horseman, in reference to the warrior habits of his father, and 

 a bard or singer like the Brahmans. The sons of a Kshatriya 

 and a Sudr woman, will be hunters like their fathers, but their 

 game will be serpents and animals that dwell in caves. 



It is plain that this legislation has been skilfully elaborated and 

 deduced from a single principle heredity. Nowhere else is the 

 institution of caste so firmly grounded or so complete.- It is, how- 

 ever, found in a less perfect form under all primitive civilizations 

 among the Assyrians, the Persians, and the Egyptians, who 

 reckoned seven classes according to Herodotus, five according to 

 Diodorus Siculus. It was found by the Spaniards in Peru ; in 

 grades above the commonalty were the Curucas and the Incas. 

 The latter, whose skulls, according to Morton (Crania Americana), 

 'give evidence of a decided intellectual pre-eminence over the 

 other races of the country/ constituted the high nobility. 



We may even say that universally, in all nations who have risen 

 above barbarism, we find, if not castes, at least classes, which con- 



