ut they all possess a more or less definite grasp of
Western ideas. In their reactions to Westernism they are sharply
differentiated. Some, while retaining the fundamentals of their
ancestral philosophy of life, attempt a genuine assimilation of Western
ideals and envisage a higher synthesis of the spirits of East and West.
Others break with their traditional pasts, steep themselves in
Westernism, and become more or less genuinely Westernized. Still others
conceal behind their Western veneer disillusionment and detestation.[75]

Of course it is in externals that Westernization is most pronounced. The
Indian or Turkish "intellectual," holding Western university degrees and
speaking fluently several European languages, and the wealthy prince or
pasha, with his motor-cars, his racing-stables, and his annual "cure" at
European watering-places, appear very Occidental to the casual eye. Such
men wear European clothes, eat European food, and live in houses partly
or wholly furnished in European style. Behind this facade exists every
possible variation of inner life, from earnest enthusiasm for Western
ideals to inveterate reaction.

These varied attitudes toward Westernism are not parked off by groups or
localities, they co-exist among the individuals of every class and every
land in the East. The entire Orient is, in fact, undergoing a prodigious
transformation, far more sudden and intense than anything the West has
ever known. Our civilization is mainly self-evolved; a natural growth
developing by normal, logical, and relatively gradual stages. The East,
on the contrary, is undergoing a concentrated process of adaptation
which, with us, was spread over centuries, and the result is not so much
evolution as revolution--political, economic, social, idealistic,
religious, and much more besides. The upshot is confusion, uncertainty,
grotesque anachronism, and glaring contradiction. Single generations
are sundered by unbridgeable mental and spiritual gulfs. Fathers do not
understand sons; sons despise their fathers. Everywhere the old and the
new struggle fiercely, often within the brain or spirit of the same
individual. The infinite complexity of this struggle as it appears in
India is well summarized by Sir Valentine Chirol when he speaks of the
many "currents and cross-currents of the confused movement which is
stirring the stagnant waters of Indian life--the steady impact of alien
ideas on an ancient and obsolescent civilizati