In the first place, it has been cogently remarked by Mr.Clinton (F.H., vol.i., p.

54), that this institution of castes has been very inconsistently attributed to the Greek Ion,--not (as, if Egyptian, it would have been) to the Egyptian Cecrops.

2dly, If rightly referred to Ion, who did not long precede the heroic age, how comes it that in that age a spirit the most opposite to that of castes universally prevailed--as all the best authenticated enactments of Theseus abundantly prove?
Could institutions calculated to be the most permanent that legislation ever effected, and which in India have resisted every innovation of time, every revolution of war, have vanished from Attica in the course of a few generations?
3dly, It is to be observed, that previous to the divisions referred to Ion, we find the same number of four tribes under wholly different names;--under Cecrops, under Cranaus, under Ericthonius or Erectheus, they received successive changes of appellations, none of which denoted professions, but were moulded either from the distinctions of the land they inhabited, or the names of deities they adored.

If remodelled by Ion to correspond with distinct professions and occupations (and where is that social state which does not form different classes--a formation widely opposite to that of different castes ?) cultivated by the majority of the members of each tribe, the name given to each tribe might be but a general title by no means applicable to every individual, and certainly not implying hereditary and indelible distinctions.

4thly, In corroboration of this latter argument, there is not a single evidence--a single tradition, that such divisions ever were hereditary.