Then property alone will confer rank; wealth will be the only source of devotion; passion will be the sole bond of union between the sexes; falsehood will be the only means of success in litigation; and women will be objects merely of sensual gratification. Earth will be venerated but for its mineral treasures; the Brahmânical thread will constitute a Brâhman; external types (as the staff and red garb) will be the only distinctions of the several orders of life; dishonesty will be the (universal) means of subsistence; weakness will be the cause of dependence; menace and presumption will be substituted for learning; liberality will be devotion; simple ablution will be purification; mutual assent will be marriage; fine clothes will be dignity.... Amidst all castes, he who is the strongest will reign over a principality thus vitiated by many faults.--iv, ch. xxiv. (From H. H. Wilson's translation, vol. iv, pp. 226-228.) Some of these details may be thought to apply more to the East, some to the West; we can surely recognize many of the characteristics of our own civilization. What is particularly striking is the way in which things which we regard as inevitable qualities of human nature are here spoken of with horror and classed among the iniquities. And there are signs in our contemporary literature that some of the standard human frailties are now being exalted into virtues. One of the signs of decadence mentioned is the fact that passion will be regarded as the sole bond of union between the sexes. And we have philosophers who would persuade us that passion is and always has been and always will be the bond of union! For some writers, passion, even in its most material form, is the origin and supreme fact of all union. Here, then, is the danger--that having allowed our ideals to drag down our practices, we afterwards suffer our practices to drag down our ideals, thus descending by a continuous and periodical process of leveling down. It seems as if the saying that "property alone will confer rank" has some meaning for us today, as also the phrase "wealth will be the only source of devotion." What is said about falsehood in litigation reflects no discredit on our jurisprudence, but surely it describes much of what occurs in practice. That about the mineral treasures of earth is very true; for we consider people simpletons when they fail to tear out the bowels of their homeland in order to coin them into "the only source of devotion." When the ancient scribe says that dishonesty will be the means of subsistence, he may seem to be going too far; but what does he mean by dishonesty? If it includes every form of insincerity and injustice, the statement may not be too extreme after all. The question, "Shall I do as the others do or let my family starve?" becomes every day more difficult to answer.