Caste in India: The Facts and the System c7.s2.56

c7.s2.56

the causes which produce it have been at work for many centuries. The early situation which corresponds to the editing of the law-books and the Epic may therefore have diverged more or less in matters of detail from the present state of affairs, but it was wholly similar in its broad outlines. It is merely necessary, in the organization of castes as elsewhere, to reserve the possibility and probability of modifications such as time never fails to introduce into human institutions,¹ even after that first and decisive evolution which has determined their individuality.