nd in subsequent chapters we shall see how far-reaching is its
scope. But the factors just considered will indicate the possibilities
of reaction and will roughly assign the limits to which Westernization
may ultimately extend.

One thing is certain: Western political control in the Orient, however
prolonged and however imposing in appearance, must ever rest on
essentially fragile foundations. The Western rulers will always remain
an alien caste; tolerated, even respected, perhaps, but never loved and
never regarded as anything but foreigners. Furthermore, Western rule
must necessarily become more precarious with the increasing
enlightenment of the subject peoples, so that the acquiescence of one
generation may be followed by the hostile protest of the next. It is
indeed an unstable equilibrium, hard to maintain and easily upset.

The latent instability of European political control over the Near and
Middle East was dramatically shown by the moral effect of the
Russo-Japanese War. Down to that time the Orient had been so helpless in
face of European aggression that most Orientals had come to regard
Western supremacy with fatalistic resignation. But the defeat of a
first-class European Power by an Asiatic people instantly broke the
spell, and all Asia and Africa thrilled with a wild intoxication which
we can scarcely conceive. A Scotch missionary thus describes the effect
of the Japanese victories on northern India, where he was stationed at
the time: "A stir of excitement passed over the north of India. Even the
remote villagers talked over the victories of Japan as they sat in
their circles and passed round the huqqa at night. One of the older men
said to me, 'There has been nothing like it since the mutiny'. A Turkish
consul of long experience in Western Asia told me that in the interior
you could see everywhere the most ignorant peasants 'tingling' with the
news. Asia was moved from end to end, and the sleep of the centuries was
finally broken. It was a time when it was 'good to be alive,' for a new
chapter was being written in the book of the world's history."[108]

Of course the Russo-Japanese War did not create this new spirit, whose
roots lay in the previous epoch of subtle changes that had been going
on. The Russo-Japanese War was thus rather the occasion than the cause
of the wave of exultant self-confidence which swept over Asia and Africa
in the year 1904. But it did dramatize and clarify ideas that had been