on; the more or less
imperfect assimilation of those ideas by the few; the dread and
resentment of them by those whose traditional ascendancy they threaten;
the disintegration of old beliefs, and then again their aggressive
revival; the careless diffusion of an artificial system of education,
based none too firmly on mere intellectualism, and bereft of all moral
or religious sanction; the application of Western theories of
administration and of jurisprudence to a social formation stratified on
lines of singular rigidity; the play of modern economic forces upon
primitive conditions of industry and trade; the constant and unconscious
but inevitable friction between subject races and their alien rulers;
the reverberation of distant wars and distant racial conflicts; the
exaltation of an Oriental people in the Far East."[76] These lines,
though written about India, apply with fair exactitude to every other
portion of the Near and Middle East to-day. As a French writer remarks
with special reference to the Levant: "The truth is that the Orient is
in transformation, and the Mohammedan mentality as well--though not
perhaps exactly as we might wish. It is undergoing a period of crisis,
wherein the past struggles everywhere against the present; where ancient
customs, impaired by modern innovations, present a hybrid and
disconcerting spectacle."[77]

To this is largely due the unlovely traits displayed by most of the
so-called "Westernized" Orientals; the "stucco civilization"[78] of the
Indian Babu, and the boulevardier "culture" of the Turkish
"Effendi"--syphilized rather than civilized. Any profound transformation
must engender many worthless by-products, and the contemporary
Westernization of the Orient has its dark as well as its bright side.
The very process of reform, however necessary and inevitable, lends
fresh virulence to old ills and imports new evils previously unknown. As
Lord Cromer says: "It is doubtful whether the price which is being paid
for introducing European civilization into these backward Eastern
societies is always recognized as fully as it should be. The material
benefits derived from European civilization are unquestionably great,
but as regards the ultimate effect on public and private morality the
future is altogether uncertain."[79]

The good and the evil of Westernization are alike mostly clearly evident
among the ranks of the educated elites. Some of these men show the
happiest effects of the We