The mind of the true Eastern is at once lethargic¹ and suspicious; he does not want to be reformed, and he is convinced that, if the European wishes to reform him, the desire springs from sentiments which bode² him no good. Moreover, his conservatism is due to an instinct of self-preservation, and to a dim perception that, if he allows himself to be even slightly reformed, all the things to which he attaches importance will be not merely changed in this or that particular, but will rather be swept off the face of the earth. Perhaps he is not far wrong. Although there are many highly educated gentlemen who profess³ the Moslem⁴ religion, it has yet to be proved that Islam can assimilate civilization without succumbing⁵ in the process. It is, indeed, not improbable that, in its passage through the European crucible⁶, many of the distinctive⁷ features of Islam, the good alike with the bad, will be volatilized, and that it will eventually issue forth⁸ in a form scarcely capable of recognition. “The Egyptians,” Moses said, “whom ye have seen to-day, ye shall see them again no more for ever.” The prophecy may be approaching fulfilment in a sense different from that in which it was addressed to the Israelites.

Look, moreover, not only to the spirit of the lawgivers, but to the general principles on which the laws are based. The tendency in all civilized⁹ European States is to separate religious from civil laws. In Moslem States, on the other hand, religious and civil laws are inextricably interwoven.

Look to the consequences which result from the degradation

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