d_
association. After having chosen a profession--let it be priest,
soldier, magistrate--a man belongs necessarily to a caste. A person, on
the contrary, does not necessarily belong to a sect. And when one
belongs to a caste--be he the most independent man in the world--he is
more or less under the influence of that which is called _esprit de
corps_.

The caste represents the highest degree of organization to which the
homogeneous crowd is susceptible. It is composed of individuals who by
their tastes, their education, birth, and social status, resemble each
other in the fundamental types of conduct and mores. There are even
certain castes, the military and sacerdotal, for example, in which the
members at last so resemble one another in appearance and bearing that
no disguise can conceal the nature of their profession.

The caste offers to its members ideas already molded, rules of conduct
already approved; it relieves them, in short, of the fatigue of thinking
with their own brains. When the caste to which an individual belongs is
known, all that is necessary is to press a button of his mental
mechanism to release a series of opinions and of phrases already made
which are identical in every individual of the same caste.

This harmonious collectivity, powerful and eminently conservative, is
the most salient analogy which the nations of the Occident present to
that of India. In India the caste is determined by birth, and it is
distinguished by a characteristic trait: the persons of one caste can
live with, eat with, and marry only individuals of the same caste.

In Europe it is not only birth, but circumstances and education which
determine the entrance of an individual into a caste; to marry, to
frequent, to invite to the same table only people of the same caste,
exists practically in Europe as in India. In Europe the above-mentioned
prescriptions are founded on convention, but they are none the less
observed. We all live in a confined circle, where we find our friends,
our guests, our sons- and daughters-in-law.

Misalliances are assuredly possible in Europe; they are impossible in
India. But if there religion prohibits them, with us public opinion and
convention render them very rare. And at bottom the analogy is complete.

The class is superior to the caste in extent. If the psychological bond
of the sect is community of faith, and that of the caste community of
profession, the psychological bond of the class i