iety there are three physiological types, gravitating toward
differentiation but mutually conditioning one another, and each of these
has its own hygiene, its own sphere of work, its own special mastery and
feeling of perfection. It is _not_ Manu but nature that sets off in one
class those who are chiefly intellectual, in another those who are
marked by muscular strength and temperament, and in a third those who
are distinguished in neither one way or the other, but show only
mediocrity--the last-named represents the great majority, and the first
two the select. The superior caste--I call it the _fewest_--has, as the
most perfect, the privileges of the few: it stands for happiness, for
beauty, for everything good upon earth. Only the most intellectual of
men have any right to beauty, to the beautiful; only in them can
goodness escape being weakness. _Pulchrum est paucorum hominum_:[30]
goodness is a privilege. Nothing could be more unbecoming to them than
uncouth manners or a pessimistic look, or an eye that sees
_ugliness_--or indignation against the general aspect of things.
Indignation is the privilege of the Chandala; so is pessimism. "_The
world is perfect_"--so prompts the instinct of the intellectual, the
instinct of the man who says yes to life. "Imperfection, whatever is
_inferior_ to us, distance, the pathos of distance, even the Chandala
themselves are parts of this perfection." The most intelligent men, like
the _strongest_, find their happiness where others would find only
disaster: in the labyrinth, in being hard with themselves and with
others, in effort; their delight is in self-mastery; in them asceticism
becomes second nature, a necessity, an instinct. They regard a difficult
task as a privilege; it is to them a _recreation_ to play with burdens
that would crush all others.... Knowledge--a form of asceticism.--They
are the most honourable kind of men: but that does not prevent them
being the most cheerful and most amiable. They rule, not because they
want to, but because they _are_; they are not at liberty to play
second.--The _second caste_: to this belong the guardians of the law,
the keepers of order and security, the more noble warriors, above all,
the king as the highest form of warrior, judge and preserver of the law.
The second in rank constitute the executive arm of the intellectuals,
the next to them in rank, taking from them all that is _rough_ in the
business of ruling--their followers, their