Japan has already produced an Occidento-Oriental civilization. Time will serve progressively to Occidentalize it. But there is no reason for thinking that it will ever become wholly Occidentalized. A Westerner visiting Japan will always be impressed with its Oriental features, while an Asiatic will be impressed with its Occidental features. This progressive Occidentalization of Japan will take place according to the laws of social evolution, of which we must speak somewhat more fully in a later chapter. An important question bearing on this problem is the precise nature of the characteristics differentiating the Occident and the Orient. What exactly do we mean when we say that the Japanese are Oriental and will always bear the marks of the Orient in their civilization, however much they may absorb from the West? The importance and difficulty of this question have led the writer to defer its consideration till toward the close of this work. If one would gain adequate conception of the process now going on, the illustration already used of the mingling of two rivers needs to be supplemented by another, corresponding to a separate class of facts. Instead of the mingling of rivers, let us watch the confluence of two glaciers. What pressures! What grindings! What upheavals! What rendings! Such is the mingling of two civilizations. It is not smooth and Noiseless, but attended with pressure and pain. It is a collision in more ways than one. The unfortunates on whom the pressures of both currents are directed are often quite destroyed.