As the years passed, the cry for liberty grew steadily in strength. A young Turkish poet wrote at this time: "All that we admire in European culture as the fruit of science and art is simply the outcome of liberty. Everything derives its light from the bright star of liberty. Without liberty a nation has no power, no prosperity; without liberty there is no happiness; and without happiness, existence, true life, eternal life, is impossible. Everlasting praise and glory to the shining light of freedom!"[116] By the close of the nineteenth century keen-sighted European observers noted the working of the liberal ferment under the surface calm of absolutist repression. Thus, Arminius Vambéry, revisiting Constantinople in 1896, was astounded by the liberal evolution that had taken place since his first sojourn in Turkey forty years before. Although Constantinople was subjected to the severest phase of Hamidian despotism, Vambéry wrote, "The old attachment of Turkey for the absolute régime is done for. We hear much in Europe of the 'Young-Turk' Party; we hear even of a constitutional movement, political emigrés, revolutionary pamphlets. But what we do not realize is the ferment which exists in the different social classes, and which gives us the conviction that the Turk is in progress and is no longer clay in the hands of his despotic potter. In Turkey, therefore, it is not a question of a Young-Turk Party, because every civilized Ottoman belongs to this party."[117]
In this connection we should note the stirrings of unrest that were now rapidly developing in the Eastern lands subject to European political control. By the close of the nineteenth century only four considerable Moslem states--Turkey, Persia, Morocco, and Afghanistan--retained anything like independence from European domination. Since Afghanistan and Morocco were so backward that they could hardly be reckoned as civilized countries, it was only in Turkey and Persia that genuine liberal movements against native despotism could arise. But in European-ruled countries like India, Egypt, and Algeria, the cultural level of the inhabitants was high enough to engender liberal political aspirations as well as that mere dislike of foreign rule which may be felt by savages as well as by civilized peoples.