But, according to the plan we have proposed to ourselves, in the history of all ancient, and especially of the primitive Asiatic nations, the matter of greatest moment must be to trace their intellectual progress, their scientific labours, and predominant opinions; all those views of divine and human things, that have a mighty influence on life; and finally the peculiar religious feelings and principles of each of those ancient nations. In the second part of this work, when we shall have to speak of the progress of mankind in modern times, we may perhaps change our point of view, and find it of more importance to trace the mutual relations between the external state of society and the internal development of intellect. But in that remote antiquity, which is contiguous to the primitive ages, the points of greatest moment, as we have already observed, are the intellectual character, the modes of thinking, and the religion of those nations. On the other hand, their civil legislation, and even their political constitutions, however important, interesting and instructive the closer investigation of those subjects may be in other respects, can occupy in this history but a secondary place; and it will suffice for our purpose to point out some leading points of legislation that serve as the foundation and principle of the moral and intellectual character of those nations. In India this leading point is the institution of castes, the most remarkable feature in all Indian life, and which in its essential traits existed in Egypt. This singular phenomenon of Indian life has even some points of connexion with a capital article of their creed, the doctrine of the transmigration of souls--a doctrine which will be later the subject of our enquiries, and which we shall endeavour to place in a nearer and clearer light. In shewing the influence of the institution of castes on the state of manners in India, I may observe, in the first place, that in this division of the social ranks there is no distinct class of _slaves_ (as was indeed long ago remarked by the _Greeks_); that is to say, no such class of bought slaves--no men, the property and merchandise of their fellow-men--as existed in ancient Greece and Rome, as exist even at this day among Mahometan nations; and, as in the case of the Negroes, are still to be found in the colonial possessions of the Christian and European states. The labouring class of the _Sudras_ is undoubtedly not admitted to the high privileges of the first classes, and is in a state of great dependance upon these; but this very caste of Sudras has its hereditary and clearly defined rights. It is only by a crime that a man in India can lose his caste, and the rights annexed to it. These rights are acquired by birth; except in the instance of the offspring of unlawful marriages between persons of different castes. The fate of these hapless wretches is indeed hard,--harder, almost, than that of real slaves among other nations.