We know, as a certain fact, that peoples to whom we have given the names of Dravidians and Aryans entered India from the north and north-west; that they increased and multiplied, overspread the whole of India, and reduced the aborigines to serfdom.  We also know that these tribes from the north, who were, comparatively speaking, fair, very naturally regarded the black, ugly, carrion-eating aborigines with disgust.  Hence, naturally, must have arisen the opinions as regards Pariahs which all the superior castes hold to this day.  Even to have food touched by people of such abominable habits must have been repulsive, and therefore the separation into men of caste and men of no caste, or, in other words, into browns and blacks (for the word for caste means colour), followed as a matter of course.  Caste, then, seems naturally to have arisen from the idea that to associate in any way with people of bad habits and grovelling ideas is an intolerable degradation.  The superior races, therefore must have considered it a matter of importance to retreat as far as possible from the habits of the aborigines; and when we take into consideration the influence of religion, the natural ambition of the priestly classes, the splitting up into sects, and the fondness of the Hindoo mind for subtle distinctions, the rest easily follows.  But, though numerous castes arose amongst the invaders, the main line of demarcation, is still the original one of race—­between the races of the north and the aborigines whom they found in possession of India.  The base, then, of caste, we may rest assured, was simply the result of a people, or rather of peoples, wishing to keep themselves uncontaminated when coming in contact with a debased population.

This was exactly the case with the Jews.  They were simply a very strongly guarded caste, with a number of regulations as to what they were and were not to eat, and with rules which prohibited them intermarrying or associating with peoples with whom they came in contact.  Many of those rules may seem to us ridiculous and fanciful, but they were calculated to prevent the Jews from any chance of adopting the manners and customs of the peoples around them; and the Indians, having had similar views, naturally adopted similar means.  Such then is a brief generalization of the causes which led to caste laws, which were, no doubt, carried in some instances to a ridiculous length, but which were founded in common sense, and were admirably adapted to carry into effect the opinions of the superior races.

We have now, in the second place, to consider caste with reference to the approach of native converts to the Lord’s table, the sitting apart of the various castes in church, and the effects of caste as regards what is called social intercourse.