Envy, malice, greed, selfishness, conceit having gained predominance in all, have split society into units. This chaotic state of modern human "society" in most parts of the world, the truth of which will be generally acknowledged, ought to convince all thoughtful people as to the wisdom and vital necessity of the caste system. Even now where the four-caste system still exists, it does serve to keep the communities within its rule as one compact body to a great extent, through the influence of its laws of interdependence and mutual harmonious relations. Thanks to Caste, even the degenerating Hindoos of to-day have not yet been split into units. This remnant race, a race which has still retained some of the instincts of the original human family of the Silver Age, is being more and more divided and subdivided, no doubt, at the present day. But these divisions and subdivisions are large coherent parts, linked together into one great whole. The entire race is divided into four castes; the castes are divided into sub-castes, the sub-castes again into communities, the communities into rural societies, the rural societies into large patriarchal joint-families. The members of families are ruled by the patriarchs, the patriarchs by the headmen of caste communities, the caste communities by the spiritual (Brāhman) guides, through the enforcement of the salutary Scriptural injunctions, the infringement of which is punished, in minor cases, by expiations involving physical hardships and spiritual austerities and purifying ceremonies, and, in serious cases, by expulsion from caste, which, in India, is a greater disaster than natural or material calamities. And all these rulers and ruled are related to one another by more or less natural love and affection or respect and sense of duty born in their blood through thousands of generations of hereditary habits of thought and life; all are inspired to command and obey by the spirit of the Veda which their mind absorbs through the performance of their respective spiritual, social, physical duties as enjoined by the later Scriptures—the Shāstras, which are modified embodiments of the revealed laws of the Basic Spirit of All Life, the all-cementing Spirit of Nature—Love. SECTION VIII. THE FOUR STAGES OF LIFE.