he West, in such varied matters as furniture,
table-manners, sex-relations, and so forth. This is of the very greatest
significance. For a people may, to be sure, assimilate foreign
influences in the intellectual field, if it be persuaded of their
utility and advantage; but it gives up with more difficulty customs and
habits which are in the blood. One cannot over-estimate the numerous
sacrifices which, despite everything, the Turks have made in this line.
I find all Turkish society, even the Mollahs,[241] penetrated with the
necessity of a union with Western civilization. Opinions may differ as
to the method of assimilation: some wish to impress on the foreign
civilization a national character; others, on the contrary, are
partisans of our intellectual culture, such as it is, and reprobate any
kind of modification."[242]

Most significant of all, Vambery found even the secluded women of the
harems, "those bulwarks of obscurantism," notably changed. "Yes, I
repeat, the life of women in Turkey seems to me to have been radically
transformed in the last forty years, and it cannot be denied that this
transformation has been produced by internal conviction as much as by
external pressure." Noting the spread of female education, and the
increasing share of women in reform movements, Vambery remarks: "This is
of vital importance, for when women shall begin to act in the family as
a factor of modern progress, real reforms, in society as well as in the
state, cannot fail to appear."[243]

In India a similar permeation of social life by Westernism is depicted
by the Moslem liberal, S. Khuda Bukhsh, albeit Mr. Bukhsh, being an
insider, lays greater emphasis upon the painful aspects of the
inevitable transition process from old to new. He is not unduly
pessimistic, for he recognizes that "the age of transition is
necessarily to a certain extent an age of laxity of morals, indifference
to religion, superficial culture, and gossiping levity. These are
passing ills which time itself will cure." Nevertheless, he does not
minimize the critical aspects of the present situation, which implies
nothing less than the breakdown of the old social system. "The clearest
result of this breakdown of our old system of domestic life and social
customs under the assault of European ideas," he says, "is to be found
in two directions--in our religious beliefs and in our social life. The
old system, with all its faults, had many redeeming virtues." To-