Abstract

This is partly a verbal question, depending on the meaning of the word ‘caste’. I propose to assume that if we say that a State is a caste State we imply at least two things: that its members are divided into mutually exclusive endogamous classes, and that no one may be transferred from one class to another—unless possibly to a lower class. The State which Plato describes in the Republic satisfies the first of these conditions. Dr. Popper, who believes that it is a caste State, maintains that it also satisfies the second. In addition he contends that the original basis of the class division is racial. My object in the notes which follow is to argue that both these contentions are false