THE HEREDITARY OR CASTE PRINCIPLE
NATURE AND USE OF CLASSES—INHERITANCE AND COMPETITION THE TWO
PRINCIPLES UPON WHICH CLASSES ARE BASED—CONDITIONS IN HUMAN NATURE
MAKING FOR HEREDITARY CLASSES—CASTE SPIRIT.
Speaking roughly, we may call any persistent social group, other than
the family, existing within a larger group, a class. And every society,
except possibly the most primitive, is more or less distinctly composed
of classes. Even in savage tribes there are, besides families and
clans, almost always other associations: of warriors, of magicians and
so on; and these continue throughout all phases of development until
we reach the intricate group structure of our own time. Individuals
never achieve their life in separation, but always in coöperation with
a group of other minds, and in proportion as these coöperating groups
stand out from one another with some distinctness they constitute
social classes.
We may say of this differentiation, speaking generally, that it is
useful. The various functions of life require special influences
and organization, and without some class spirit, some speciality
in traditions and standards, nothing is well performed. Thus, if
our physicians were not, as regards their professional activities,
something of a psychological unit, building up knowledge and sentiment
by communication, desiring the approval and dreading the censure of
their colleagues, it would be worse not only for them but for the rest
of us. There are no doubt class divisions that are useless or harmful,
but something of this nature there should be, and I have already tried
to show that our own society suffers considerably from a lack of
adequate group differentiation in its higher mental activities.
Fundamental to all study of classes are the two principles, of
inheritance and of competition, according to which their membership
is determined. The rule of descent, as in the hereditary nobility of
England or Germany, gives a fixed system, the alternative to which is
some kind of selection—by election or appointment as in our politics;
by purchase, as formerly in the British army and navy; or by the
informal action of preference, opportunity and endeavor, as in the case
of most trades and professions at the present day.
Evidently these two principles are very much intermingled in their
working. The hereditary distinctions must have a beginning in some sort
of selective struggle, such as the military and commercial competition
from which privileged families have emerged in the past, and never
become so rigid as not to be modified by similar processes. On the
other hand, inherited advantages, even in the freest society, enter
powerfully into every kind of competition.
Another consideration of much interest is that the strict rule of
descent is a biological principle, making the social organization
subordinate to physical continuity of life, while selection or
competition brings in psychical elements, of the most various qualities
to be sure, but capable at the best of forming society on a truly
rational method.
Finally it is well to recognize that there is a vast sum of influences
governed by no ascertainable principle at all, which go to assign
the individual his place in the class system. After allowing for
inheritance and for everything which can fairly be called selection
(that is, for all definite and orderly interaction between the man and
the system), there remains a large part which can be assigned only to
chance. This is particularly true in the somewhat tumultuous changes of
modern life.
When a class is somewhat strictly hereditary, we may call it a caste—a
name originally applied to the hereditary classes of India, but to
which it is common, and certainly convenient, to give a wider meaning.
Perhaps the best way to understand caste is to open our eyes and note
those forces at work among ourselves which might conceivably give rise
to it.
On every side we may see that differences arise, and that these tend
to be perpetuated through inherited associations, opportunities and
culture. The endeavor to secure for one’s children whatever desirable
thing one has gained for oneself is a perennial source of caste, and
this endeavor flows from human nature and the moral unity of the
family. If a man has been able to save money, he anxiously invests it
to yield an income after his death; if he has built up a business,
it is his hope that his children may succeed him in it; if he has a
good handicraft, he wishes his boys to learn it. And so with less
tangible goods—education, culture, religious and moral ideas—there is
no good parent but desires his children to have more than the common
inheritance of what is best in these things. It is, perhaps, safe to
say that if the good of his children could be set on one side and the
good of all the rest of the world over against it on the other, the
average parent would desire that evil might befall the latter rather
than the former. And much of the wider social spirit of recent times
comes from the belief that we cannot make this separation, and that
to secure the real good of our children we must work for the common
advancement.
That this endeavor to secure a succession in desirable function is
not confined to the rich we may see, for instance, in the fact that
labor unions often have regulations tending to secure to the children
of members a complete or partial monopoly of the opportunities of
apprenticeship. In Chicago, not long since, only the son of a plumber
could learn the plumber’s trade.
As being the actual possessor of the advantages in question, the
parent is usually in a position either to hand them over directly to
his children, or to make their acquisition comparatively easy. Wealth,
the most obvious and tangible source of caste, is transmissible,
even in the freest societies, under the sanction and protection of
law. And wealth is convertible not only into material goods but,
if the holder has a little tact and sense, into other and finer
advantages—educational opportunities, business and professional
openings, travel and intercourse with people of refinement and
culture. Against this we must, of course, offset the diminished motive
to exertion, the lack of rough-and-tumble experience, and other
disadvantages which inherited wealth, especially if large, is apt
to bring with it; but that it does, as a rule, perpetuate the more
conventional sorts of superiority is undeniable.
And such intangible advantages as culture, manners, good associations
and the like, whether associated with wealth or not, are practically
heritable, since they are chiefly derived by children from a social
environment determined by the personality and standing of their parents.
Indeed, irrespective of any intention toward or from inheritance, there
is a strong drift toward it due to mere familiarity. It is commonly the
line of least resistance. The father knows much about his own trade and
those closely related to it, little about others; and the son shares
his point of view. So when the latter comes to fix upon a career he
is likely, in the absence of any decided individuality of preference,
to take the way that lies most open to him. Of course he may lack the
ability to carry the paternal function; but this, though common enough,
does not affect the majority of cases. The functions that require
a peculiar type of natural ability, while of the first importance,
since they include all marked originality, are not very numerous,
sound character and training, with fair intelligence, being ordinarily
sufficient. Even in the learned professions, such as law, medicine,
teaching and the ministry, the great majority of practitioners hold
their own by common sense and assiduity rather than by special
aptitude. To the best of my observation, there are many men serving
as foremen in various sorts of handicraft, or as farmers, who have
natural capacity adequate for success in law, commerce or politics. A
man of good, all-round ability will succeed in that line of work which
he finds ready to his hand, but only a few will break away from their
antecedents and seek a wholly different line. And if their work affords
them health, thought and mastery, why should they wish to change it if
they could?
I would not have it supposed, however (because I dwell thus upon
opportunity), that I agree with those whose zeal for education and
training leads them to depreciate natural differences. I do not know
how to talk with men who believe in native equality: it seems to me
that they lack common sense and observation. How can they fail to
see that children in the same family, even twins, as Mr. Galton has
shown,[106] are often widely divergent in ability, one destined to
leadership and another to obscurity?
The two variables of personality, “nature and nurture,” are without
doubt of equal diversity and importance, and they must work together
to bring about any notable achievement. Natural ability is essential;
but, no matter how great, it cannot know or develop its power without
opportunity. Indeed, great natural faculty is often more dependent
on circumstance than is mediocrity—because of some trait, like
extreme sensitiveness, that unfits it for miscellaneous competition.
Opportunity, moreover, means different things in different cases, and
is not to be identified with wealth or facile circumstances of any
sort. Some degrees and kinds of difficulty are helpful, others not.
And yet, leaving out, on the one hand, unusual talent or energy,
and, on the other, decided weakness or dulness, the mass of men are
guided chiefly by early surroundings and training, which determine
for them, in a general way, what sort of life they will take up, and
contribute much to their success or failure in it. Society, even in a
comparatively free country, is thus vaguely divided into hereditary
strata or sections, from which the majority do not depart.
If the transmission of function from father to son has become
established, a caste spirit, a sentiment in favor of such transmission
and opposed to the passage from one class into another, may arise
and be shared even by the unprivileged classes. The individual then
thinks of himself and his family as identified with his caste, and
sympathizes with others who have the same feeling. The caste thus
becomes a psychical organism, consolidated by community of sentiment
and tradition. In some measure the ruling class in England, for
example, has hung together in this way, and the same is partly true
of the lower orders. No doubt there is generally some protest against
a hereditary system on the part of restless members of the lower
castes—certainly this was always the case in Europe—but it may be
practically insignificant.
And out of caste sentiment arise institutions, social, political and
economic—like the mediæval system in Europe, much of which still
survives—whose tendency is to define and perpetuate hereditary
distinctions.
I have, perhaps, said enough to make it clear that an impulse toward
caste is found in human nature itself. Whether it spreads through and
dominates the system of life, as in India, or remains subordinate, as
with us, depends upon the strength or weakness of other impulses which
limit its operation. As certain types of vegetation, like the ferns,
which at one time were dominant in the forests, are now overshadowed by
plants of higher organization, so caste, which we must, on the whole,
reckon to be an inferior principle, tends to be supplanted by something
freer and more rational.
FOOTNOTES:
[106] See the memoir on the subject in his Inquiries into Human Faculty.