Though the word was unknown in earlier times, the hereditary discrimination it describes entered into the political system of modern Europe, where people were distributed into classes, and the son succeeded to the condition of his father, whether of privilege or disability,--the son of a noble being a noble with great privileges, the son of a mechanic being a mechanic with great disabilities. And this inherited condition was applicable even to the special labor of the father; nor was there any business beyond its tyrannical control. According to Macaulay, “the tinkers formed an hereditary caste.”[119] The father of John Bunyan was a tinker, and the son inherited the position. The French Revolution did much to shake this irrational system; yet in many parts of Europe, down to this day, the son emancipates himself with difficulty from the class in which he is born. But just in proportion to the triumph of Equality does Caste disappear. This institution is essentially barbarous, and therefore appears in barbarous ages, or in countries not yet relieved from the early incubus. It flourished side by side with the sculptured bulls and cuneïform characters of Assyria, side by side with the pyramids and hieroglyphics of Egypt. It showed itself under the ambitious sway of Persia, and even in the much-praised Cecropian era of Attica. In all these countries Caste was organized, differing somewhat in divisions, but hereditary in character. And the same phenomenon arrested the attention of the conquering Spaniards in Peru. The system had two distinct elements: first, separation, with rank and privilege, or their opposite, with degradation and disability; secondly, descent from father to son, so that it was perpetual separation from generation to generation.[120] * * * * * In Hindustan, this dreadful system, which, under the name of Order, is the organization of disorder, has prolonged itself to our day, so as to be a living admonition to mankind. That we may shun the evil it entails, in whatever shape, I now endeavor to expose its true character.