Society And its Purpose
Book 3 - Determining the End of Civil Societies
CHAPTER 4
A special case: a civil society passes immediately from the stage of existence to that of wealth without passing through the stage of power
337. The ideal history of our four stages is verified in the real history of the most illustrious nations of western antiquity, but is subject to an exception when applied to the continental nations of the East. It is only natural that a people dwelling in an extremely fertile region capable of producing everything required for the needs and pleasures of life should soon become soft and take pleasure in wealth, luxury and all kinds of delight. If the same race, already assisted by the climate, is per se gentle and sensitive, and marked by an agile, ready mind, it will be drawn to the arts proper to peace rather than to the hard labour associated with war. On the other hand, there is no impelling need to seek in other regions what they find in their own. Consequently, the mass of people inhabiting such rich lands are of a peaceful nature, and their practical reason leads them, almost immediately after the foundation of their civil society, to determine its proximate end in wealth and pleasure rather than in power.
338. Nations of this kind normally pass immediately from the first to the third stage of society (wealth). They then move rapidly to the stage of luxury and pleasure without showing any historical sign of experiencing a separate stage in which they seek national power, or at least without remaining long at this stage.
The great monarchies to the east of Persia, are not a proof of a warlike spirit in their peoples. Indeed they are a clear proof of the peaceful nature of which we are speaking. They were easily overcome by valiant spirits with an ambition to reign. A single battle, in which terror, not the sword, was sometimes the most effective weapon, decided the lot of hundreds of provinces. War was not undertaken by the masses, who docilely accepted the fortunate conqueror as their ruler; it was always the outcome of immoderate ambition, first on the part of two rivals, and then of two families. What I note here is especially applicable to India which, according to Diodorus Siculus(108) and Strabo,(109) never undertook military expeditions outside the country, did no colonising and was never conquered by other nations (this has to be understood of the remotest interior of that great country).
339. These rich, intelligent populations, having founded their civil society, were naturally prompted to develop classes devoted to agriculture, manufacture and business, that is, to peaceful crafts in every kind of industry, rather than military institutions. And this is precisely what we find in India. The caste-divisions of its inhabitants, already present when the first families came together in civil society, must have provided many great advantages, especially that of keeping the families united in their common association. By means of castes, families became mutually dependent, and were forced to maintain continual communication for the sake of functions and benefits.
We are not dealing with societies held together by some national spirit tending to glory and domination, but by societies cut off in great part from the dangers causing people to unite for common defence. Well-tried modes of domestic living were sufficient for these societies, which did not need laws [App., no. 8]. In these circumstances, it would be difficult to find an institution more suitable than that of the caste system for holding together families which of their nature were separate and selfish. Moreover, Robertson is completely right when he affirms (whatever others say) that the division of the population into castes destined for different duties and trades had great economic advantages:
| It is true that respect for ancestors blocks the spirit of invention. Its advantage, however, is such an ability and refinement in manufacture that Europe, with all its advantages of superior knowledge and assistance derived from better instruments, has never been able to rival the precision of the output. |
He goes on:
| The division of professions in India and the ancient distribution of people in classes, each destined to a particular type of work, provided such an abundance of the most normal, common wares that internal consumption was satisfied, together with that of all the neighbouring regions.(110) |
340. Besides these economic benefits there were undoubtedly political advantages. Castes accustomed people to work by stimulating competition amongst the different classes; castes provided a type of order and regularity that had great influence on the intelligence, which extracted from this typical order and regularity the principles proper to a certain kind of practical logic; castes made government easy through the division and classification of popular power, and removed causes of intestinal wars by accustoming all the families to fixed habits(111) and peaceful crafts, and by making war abhorrent to the utility and will of people occupied in preserving and increasing wealth.
341. However, we cannot accept that these practical advantages produced the caste system, although they certainly contributed greatly first to stabilising caste-distinction and then to strengthening it until it was sanctioned even by religious interdict.(112) The origin of the castes must be found in a state anterior to that of civil society but later than the foundation and development of families which formed societies to which each family brought its own jealously maintained way of life, its own abilities and its own traditions.
We find traces of hereditary crafts in families in Genesis, the oldest book of all. We read that Jabel, even before the flood, `was the father of those who dwell in tents and have cattle.’(113) This is one example of an entire clan maintaining a craft as it had been received from the patriarch. Jabal’s brother Jubal, as he was called, `was the father of all those who play the lyre and pipe’(114) — an example of descendants who carefully retained their founder’s musical ability and profession. Finally, we have Tubal-cain, the brother of Jubal and Jabal but by another mother, who `was the forger of all instruments of bronze and iron’(115) or, according to the original text, `taught every smith who worked in bronze and iron.’
342. There are many reasons explaining the continuation of paternal crafts and professions in children. Amongst them is the spirit of imitation, the principal if not the only guide of human beings before they mentally form directing principles which allow them to be their own masters. We must also consider, however, the immense value of a new craft in very ancient times. Such a craft would have been looked upon as a domestic treasure and jealously maintained for the sake of the power it gave one family over others. We must also remember that the craft could at the time have been kept easily within family walls. Outside, no one knew how to exercise it. The domestic ambient contained both the craft and those capable of teaching it.
This is an obvious explanation of the distinction between castes or families exercising paternal craft. We consistently find such a state of affairs in all primitive, eastern societies: in Arabia Felix,(116) Egypt, Persia, and so on. It is also clear that the same institution was found in Peru under the empire of the Incas.(117) Amongst the ancient Greeks there are clear traces of traditional crafts and professions. For example, all the descendants of Esculapius were doctors. The degree of nobility inherent to families was dependent on the capacities and professions handed down from generation to generation; the great deeds of the individual members were attributed to the families rather than to the individuals themselves.
343. All these considerations are especially applicable to India where traces of the originally different families clearly remain after their union in civil societies. In fact, the weakness of social bonds has prevented the complete fusion of those families.(118) Wherever the stage of domination and glory is lacking in a nation, the bonds uniting the masses remain weak. There is no great, single, public aim capable of arousing enthusiasm which concentrates the thoughts, interests and will of all. In other words, there is no single, common will, as it were, to absorb all the citizens and enable them to forget and sacrifice their family affection and customs for the country.
In India, therefore, families still retain their patriarchal greatness.(119) More interest is shown in local, rather than national government, and local government itself is run on family lines.(120) Indian languages themselves have never become a single national language; they have remained multiple and distinct.(121) Great force was given to domestic customs considered as honorific for the house and practically useful. As I see it, these customs were the origin of the political and religious establishment of the castes. The stability of the private life of the Indian people(122) — a stability which tempers the absolute power of their rulers and renders them less harmful(123) — has also been rightly attributed to these customs. The rights and privileges granted by custom to castes are intangible; no force or imperial will could abolish them.
344. A very important consequence flows from this. The third of the four Indian castes is called `Vaisyas’, that is, the land-worker and business caste. Agriculture and commerce are, therefore, necessarily protected by the constitution of the State. This is not a written constitution but one rooted in the customs, opinions and spirit of all the people.
| The advantages of these restrictions imposed on the authority of the ruler were not limited to the two highest orders of the State, but were extended, up to a certain point, even to the third class dedicated to agriculture.(124) — In every part of India where Indian princes have maintained their dominion, the ryot, a modern name for tenants, hold their goods in what can be considered perpetual tenancy. The rent is regulated according to the initial measurement and estimate of the land. This method is so ancient and so in keeping with Indian ideas about the distinctions between castes and their respective duties that it is invariably maintained in provinces conquered by Muslims and Europeans, and is considered as the basis of the whole financial system of these two powers. In remotest times, before the primitive institutions of India were overthrown by the conquerors’ violence, the work of the tenant, on which depended the subsistence of every member of the municipality, was as secure as the tenant’s title to the land. Even war did not interrupt his labours, or endanger his property. As far as we know, it was quite common to see two enemy armies fighting one another while the peasants continued to work and harvest quietly in a nearby field.(125) |
The merchants, who also belonged to the agricultural caste, were treated with equal respect. As a result, the government never put any obstacle to commerce.
| Consequently, commerce with India has remained the same throughout the ages. Gold and silver have always been brought in by others to buy the same goods which India still provides to all nations. From Pliny’s time down to our own days, India has always been regarded and detested as a whirlpool that swallows the wealth of all other regions. Riches flow into India, but never come out.(126) |
Notes
(108) `India, an immense country, was inhabited by many different nations, all of whom are thought to be indigenous. As far as we know, they were neither colonised themselves nor colonised others.' He goes on, speaking about the accounts given by the most learned Indians: `His descendants (the descendants of the Indian Hercules) governed the country for many ages, and accomplished great undertakings. They sent no troops abroad, however, nor colonised other regions' (bk. 2, c. 11).
(109) Bk. 15.
(110) Ricerche storiche sull'India antica, appendix 2.
(111) War disconcerts and breaks up domestic ways of life. Families greatly attached to their customs are therefore naturally enemies of war.
(112) It seems probable that the religious prohibition forbidding the passage from one caste to another was established by the Brahmins in more modern times. Nevertheless, it had its roots in the religious veneration of ancestors who founded the families. Divine honours were accorded to these ancestors. Indeed, all Indian castes claim their origin from the gods.
(113) Gen 4: [20].
(114) Gen 4: [21].
(115) Gen 4: [22].
(116) `According to another division, the whole of Arabia Felix is divided into five orders. The first contains combatants, who defend the others; the second, peasants, who provide the grain; the third, the technicians and craftsmen; the fourth, traders in myrrh; the fifth, traders in incense, who also transport cassia, cinnamon and nard. These professions are not interchangeable; each person remains in the profession he has received from his ancestors' (Strabo, bk. 15).
(117) There are several indications making it probable that America was peopled from Asia, as we can see in Malte Brun. Similarities have been found in the physical characteristics, the speech and customs of the peoples of North America and the Tungus, the Manchus, the Mongols, the Tartars and other nomad tribes of Asia who live near the Bering Straits (v. Fischer, Conjecture sur l'origine des Américains; Adair, History of the American Indians, and the works of A. Humboldt). Humboldt notes (Essai politique sur la Nouvelle Espagne, vol. 1, p. 502) that even now the Tchuktchis cross the Bering Straits every year to fight against the Americans. Rask, professor of literary history in the university of Copenhagen claims in his Dell'Antichità della lingua Zend e dell'autenticità del Zendavasta (1826) that the languages of the Telugus and of the inhabitants of Kanara and Malabar, and of others living now on the eastern coast of India and the lands south of the tropics, have close similarities to the Tartar and Finnish languages spoken in northern and central Asia. — Traces of Asiatic Sabaism have been found in America. The Egyptian Pharaohs called themselves Children of the Sun, as Champollion junior discovered. The ancient rulers in India were also proud to be children of the Sun (Diod. Sic. bk. 2, c. 11). Even now the second class of Hindus, the Kshattryas or warriors, is divided into two orders, one of which descends from the Sun, the other from the Moon. Garcilasso della Vega notes in his memoirs that the same double origin is claimed for the most noble families of Peru.
(118) `Everywhere, the three superior castes, although possessing their own separate dignity, are distinguished en bloc from the inferior castes not only by their religious and political privileges, but also by their colour (white) and their facial characteristics.'
(119) `Hindu houses are necessarily large. If a man has twenty children, they remain with him even after they marry. Uncles, brothers, children, grandchildren live together until their number forces them to separate' (Mrs. Graham, in the diary of her sojourn in India, 1809–1811). The ancient Manu codex prescribes that if a family wishes to remain together, the eldest male takes the place of the dead father and administers the common property, providing for the needs of the family as his father did.
(120) The following is a description of the immediate, family government in which alone Indians are interested: `The Patel (the name given to the head of this kind of local government) governs his village, which forms a small republic, with his twelve Ayangandi. India is simply a mass of these small republics, the inhabitants of which are concerned solely with their own Patel. They have no interest in the destruction or dismemberment of the State. Provided the integrity of their own little municipality is respected, it does not matter to them who governs the principality, because their own internal administration is not affected. The Patel, or mayor as we might call him, is at the same time tax collector, magistrate and principal doctor in the village, as well as overseer of the transactions of those to whom he administers' (Langlés, Monumenti dell'Indostan, t. 1, p. 213). The secret of the eastern empires, which enables them to rule over innumerable provinces, was their non-interference with the particular interests of families, tribes and municipalities. They left the various peoples to live according to their own customs or family or tribal law. Imperial rulers were content with certain gifts, acts of deference and a general military command which above all provided an an air of pomp to internal proceedings. Consequently, they were not a burden to the peoples over whom they ruled. On the contrary, they provided a fine show which simultaneously induced wonder and reverential fear.
(121) These surviving, distinct languages do not allow us to conclude that there were never any great kingdoms in India. Indications of their presence are indeed provided by ancient historians (v. Diod. Sic., bk. 2, c. 11). We can, however, conclude that the influence of these kingdoms was not sufficient to intermingle races in such a way that their languages would grow closer and identify.
(122) Cf. Robertson, Ricerche storiche sull'India antica, Appendix 2 and 3.
(123) Ibid.
(124) Ibid.
(125) Strab., bk. 15.
(126) Robertson, Ricerche storiche sull'India antica, Appendix 3.