The Reign of Quantity and The Signs of the Times Read online

  The Reign of Quantity and The Signs of the Times

  René Guénon

  The Reign of Quantity and The Signs of the Times

  Rene Guénon (1886—1951) is undoubtedly one of the luminaries of the twentieth century, whose critique of the modern world has stood fast against the shifting sands of recent philosophies. His oeuvre of 26 volumes is providential for the modern seeker: pointing ceaselessly to the perennial wisdom found in past cultures ranging from the Shamanistic to the Indian and Chinese, the Hellenic and Judaic, the Christian and Islamic, and including also Alchemy, Hermeticism, and other esoteric currents, at the same time it directs the reader to the deepest level of religious praxis, emphasizing the need for affiliation with a revealed tradition even while acknowledging the final identity of all spiritual paths as they approach the summit of spiritual realization.

  Editorial Note

  The past century has witnessed an erosion of earlier cultural values as well as a blurring of the distinctive characteristics of the world’s traditional civilizations, giving rise to philosophic and moral relativism, multiculturalism, and dangerous fundamentalist reactions. As early as the 1920s, the French metaphysician René Guénon (1886—1951) had diagnosed these tendencies and presented what he believed to be the only possible reconciliation of the legitimate, although apparently conflicting, demands of outward religious forms, ‘exoterisms’, with their essential core, ‘esoterism’. His works are characterized by a foundational critique of the modern world coupled with a call for intellectual reform; a renewed examination of metaphysics, the traditional sciences, and symbolism, with special reference to the ultimate unanimity of all spiritual traditions; and finally, a call to the work of spiritual realization. Despite their wide influence, translation of Guénon’s works into English has so far been piecemeal. The Sophia Perennis edition is intended to fill the urgent need to present them in a more authoritative and systematic form. A complete list of Guénon’s works, given in the order of their original publication in French, follows this note.

  Guénon frequently uses words or expressions set off in ‘scare quotes’. To avoid clutter, single quotation marks have been used throughout. As for transliterations, Guénon was more concerned with phonetic fidelity than academic usage. The system adopted here reflects the views of scholars familiar both with the languages and Guénon’s writings. Brackets indicate editorial insertions, or, within citations, Guénon’s additions. Wherever possible, references have been updated, and current English editions substituted.

  The publisher would like to thank Christopher James Northbourne, the translator’s son, for his encouragement and his permission to use a revision of his father’s translation.

  The Works of René Guénon

  Introduction to the Study of the Hindu Doctrines (1921)

  Theosophy: History of a Pseudo-Religion (1921)

  The Spiritist Fallacy (1923)

  East and West (1924)

  Man and His Becoming according to the Vedanta (1925)

  The Esoterism of Dante (1925)

  The Crisis of the Modern World (1927)

  The King of the World (1927)

  Spiritual Authority and Temporal Power (1929)

  The Symbolism of the Cross (1931)

  The Multiple States of the Being (1932)

  The Reign of Quantity and the Signs of the Times (1945)

  Perspectives on Initiation (1946)

  The Great Triad (1946)

  The Metaphysical Principles of the Infinitesimal Calculus (1946)

  Initiation and Spiritual Realization (1952)

  Insights into Christian Esoterism (1954)

  Symbols of Sacred Science (1962)

  Studies in Freemasonry and the Compagnonnage (1964)

  Studies in Hinduism (1966)

  Traditional Forms and Cosmic Cycles (1970)

  Insights into Islamic Esoterism and Taoism (1973)

  Reviews (1973)

  Miscellanea (1976)

  Introduction

  Since the time when The Crisis of the Modern World was written, the march of events has only served to confirm, all too completely and all too quickly, the validity of the outlook on the present situation that was adopted in that book, although the subject matter was then dealt with independently of all preoccupation with immediate ‘actuality’ as well as of any intention toward a vain and barren ‘critique’. Indeed, it goes without saying that considerations of that order are worth nothing except insofar as they represent an application of principles to certain particular circumstances; and it may also be noted in passing that if those who have formed the truest judgment of the errors and insufficiencies of the mentality of our times have generally maintained toward them a purely negative attitude, or have only departed from that attitude to propose virtually insignificant remedies quite inadequate to cope with the growing disorder in all domains, it is because a knowledge of true principles has been just as lacking in their case as it has been in the case of those who have persisted in admiring a so-called ‘progress’ and in deluding themselves as to its fatal outcome.

  Besides, even from a purely disinterested and ‘theoretical’ point of view, it is not enough to denounce errors and to show them up for what they really are; useful though that may be, it is still more interesting and instructive to explain them, that is to say to investigate how and why they have come about; for everything that has any kind of existence, even error, has necessarily its reason for existence, and disorder itself must in the end find its place among the elements of universal order. Thus, whereas the modern world considered in itself is an anomaly and even a sort of monstrosity, it is no less true that, when viewed in relation to the whole historical cycle of which it is a part, it corresponds exactly to the conditions pertaining to a certain phase of that cycle, the phase that the Hindu tradition specifies as the final period of the Kali-Yuga. It is these conditions, arising as a consequence of the development of the cycle’s manifestation, that have determined its peculiar characteristics, and from this point of view it is clear that the present times could not be otherwise than they actually are. Nonetheless, it is evident that if disorder is to be seen as an element of order, or if error is to be reduced to a partial and distorted aspect of some truth, it is necessary to place oneself above the level of the contingencies of the domain to which that disorder and those errors as such belong; similarly, in order to grasp the true significance of the modern world in the light of the cyclical laws governing the development of the present terrestrial humanity, it is necessary to be entirely detached from the mentality that is its special characteristic and to avoid being affected by it in the least degree. This is the more evident in that the said mentality implies of necessity, and as it were by definition, a complete ignorance of the laws in question, as well as of all other truths which, being more or less directly derived from transcendent principles, are essentially part of traditional knowledge; all characteristically modern conceptions are, consciously or unconsciously, a direct and unqualified denial of that knowledge.

  For some time past the author has had it in mind to follow up the Crisis of the Modem World with a work of a more strictly ‘doctrinal’ character, in order to set out with more precision certain aspects of the explanation of the present period given in the earlier book, in conformity with the strictly traditional point of view, which will always be adhered to; in the present case it is, for the very reasons already given, not merely the only valid point of view, but it might even be said to be the only point of view possible, since no such explanation could be imagined apart from it. Various circumstances have delayed the realization of that project up till now,
but this is beside the point for anyone who is sure that everything that must happen necessarily happens in its due time, and often in ways both unforeseen and completely independent of our will. The feverish haste with which our contemporaries approach everything they do is powerless against this law and can produce only agitation and disorder, that is to say effects which are wholly negative; but would these people still be ‘moderns’ if they were capable of understanding the advantages of following the indications given by circumstances that, far from being ‘fortuitous’ — as their ignorance leads them to suppose — are basically nothing but more or less particularized expressions of the general order, an order at the same time both human and cosmic, with which we are compelled to integrate ourselves either voluntarily or involuntarily?

  Among the features characteristic of the modern mentality, the tendency to bring everything down to an exclusively quantitative point of view will be taken from now on as the central theme of this study. This tendency is most marked in the ‘scientific’ conceptions of recent centuries; but it is almost as conspicuous in other domains, notably in that of social organization — so much so that, with one reservation the nature and necessity of which will appear hereafter, our period could almost be defined as being essentially and primarily the ‘reign of quantity’. This characteristic is chosen in preference to any other, not solely nor even principally because it is one of the most evident and least contestable, but above all because of its truly fundamental nature, for reduction to the quantitative is strictly in conformity with the conditions of the cyclic phase at which humanity has now arrived; and also because it is the particular tendency in question that leads logically to the lowest point of the ‘descent’ that proceeds continuously and with ever-increasing speed from the beginning to the end of a Manvantara, that is to say throughout the whole course of the manifestation of a humanity such as ours. This ‘descent’, as has often been pointed out on previous occasions, is but a gradual movement away from the principle, which is necessarily inherent in any process of manifestation; in our world, by reason of the special conditions of existence to which it is subject, the lowest point takes on the aspect of pure quantity, deprived of every qualitative distinction; it goes without saying that this point represents strictly speaking a limit, and that is why it is not legitimate to speak otherwise than of a ‘tendency’, for, during the actual course of the cycle, the limit can never be reached since it is as it were outside and beneath any existence, either realized or even realizable.

  We come now to a matter of particular importance which must be established from the outset, both in order to avoid possible misconceptions and in order to dispose in advance of a possible source of delusion, namely the fact that, by virtue of the law of analogy, the lowest point is as it were the obscure reflection or the inverted image of the highest point, from which follows the consequence, paradoxical only in appearance, that the most complete absence of all principle implies a sort of ‘counterfeit’ of the principle itself, something that has been expressed in a ‘theological’ form in the words ‘satan is the ape of God.’ A proper appreciation of this fact can help greatly toward the understanding of some of the darkest enigmas of the modern world, enigmas which that world itself denies because though it carries them in itself it is incapable of perceiving them, and because this denial is an indispensable condition for the maintenance of the special mentality whereby it exists. If our contemporaries as a whole could see what it is that is guiding them and where they are really going, the modern world would at once cease to exist as such, for the ‘rectification’ that has often been alluded to in the author’s other works could not fail to come about through that very circumstance; on the other hand, since this ‘rectification’ presupposes arrival at the point at which the ‘descent’ is completely accomplished, where ‘the wheel stops turning’ — at least for the instant marking the passage from one cycle to another — it is necessary to conclude that, until this point is actually attained, it is impossible that these things should be understood by men in general, but only by the small number of those who are destined to prepare, in one way or in another, the germs of the future cycle. It is scarcely necessary to say that everything that the author has set out in this book and elsewhere is intended to be addressed exclusively to these few, without any concern for the inevitable incomprehension of the others; it is true that these others are, and still must be for a certain time to come, an immense majority, but then it is precisely in the ‘reign of quantity’, and only then, that the opinion of the majority can claim to be taken into consideration at all.

  However that may be, it is particularly desirable before going any further to apply the principle outlined above to a more limited sphere than that to which it has just been applied. It must serve to dispel any confusion between the point of view of traditional science and that of profane science, especially as certain outward similarities may appear to lend themselves to such confusion. These similarities often arise only from inverted correspondences; for whereas traditional science envisages essentially the higher of the corresponding terms and allows no more than a relative value to the lower term, and then only by virtue of its correspondence with the higher term, profane science on the other hand only takes account of the lower term, and being incapable of passing beyond the domain to which it is related, claims to reduce all reality to it. Thus, to take an example directly connected with the subject of this book, the Pythagorean numbers, envisaged as the principles of things, are by no means numbers as understood by the moderns, whether mathematicians or physicists, just as principial immutability is by no means the immobility of a stone, nor true unity the uniformity of beings denuded of all their qualities; nonetheless, because numbers are in question in both cases, the partisans of an exclusively quantitative science have not failed to reckon the Pythagoreans as among their ‘precursors’. So as not unduly to anticipate developments to follow, only this much need be said here, namely that this is but one more instance of the fact that the profane sciences of which the modern world is so proud are really and truly only the degenerate ‘residues’ of the ancient traditional sciences, just as quantity itself, to which they strive to reduce everything, is, when considered from their special point of view, no more than the ‘residue’ of an existence emptied of everything that constituted its essence; thus these pretended sciences, by leaving aside or even intentionally eliminating all that is truly essential, clearly prove themselves incapable of furnishing the explanation of anything whatsoever.

  Just as the traditional science of numbers is quite a different thing from the profane arithmetic of the moderns, including all the algebraic or other extensions of which the latter is capable, so there is also a ‘sacred geometry’ no less profoundly different from the ‘academic’ science nowadays designated by the same name. There is no need to insist at length on this point, for those who have read the author’s earlier works, in particular The Symbolism of the Cross, will call to mind many references to the symbolical geometry in question, and they will have been able to see for themselves how far it lends itself to the representation of realities of a higher order, at least to the extent that those realities are capable of being represented in a form accessible to the senses; and besides, are not geometrical forms fundamentally and necessarily the very basis of all figured or ‘graphic’ symbolism, from that of the alphabetical and numerical characters of all languages to that of the most complex and apparently strange initiatic yantras? It is easy to understand that this kind of symbolism can give rise to an indefinite multiplicity of applications; and it should be equally clear that such a geometry, very far from being related only to pure quantity, is on the contrary essentially qualitative. The same can be said of the true science of numbers, for the principial numbers, though they must be referred to as numbers by analogy, are situated relatively to our world at the pole opposite to that at which are situated the numbers of common arithmetic; the latter are the only numbers the moderns know, and on them they
turn all their attention, thus taking the shadow for the reality, like the prisoners in Plato’s cave.

  The present study is designed to provide a further and more complete demonstration of what, in a very general sense, is the true nature of these traditional sciences, thus bringing into prominence the abyss separating them from the profane sciences, which are something like a caricature or parody of them. This in turn will make it possible to measure the extent of the decadence undergone by the modern mentality in passing from one to the other; it will also indicate, by correctly situating the objects taken into account by each science, how this decadence follows strictly the downward movement of the cycle now being passed through by our humanity. Let it be clear however that these are questions nobody can ever claim to treat completely, for they are by their very nature inexhaustible; but an attempt will be made to say enough to enable anyone to draw the necessary conclusions so far as the determination of the ‘cosmic moment’ corresponding to the present period is concerned. If, however, a proportion of the matters to be dealt with nevertheless continues to appear obscure to some people, that will only be because the point of view adopted fails to conform to their mental habits, and is too foreign to everything that has been inculcated into them by the education they have received and by the environment in which they live; nothing can be done about this, for there are things for which a symbolical mode of expression properly so called is the only one possible, and which will consequently never be understood by those for whom symbolism is a dead letter. It must also be remembered that a symbolical mode of expression is the indispensable vehicle of all teaching of an initiatic character; but, without even considering the profane world and its evident and in a sense natural lack of comprehension, it is enough to glance at the vestiges of initiation that still persist in the West in order to see what some people, for lack of intellectual ‘qualification’, make of the symbols proffered for their meditation. One may be quite sure that these people, with whatever titles they may be endowed and whatever initiatic degrees they may have received ‘virtually’, will never get so far as to penetrate to the real meaning of the smallest fragment of the mysterious geometry of ‘the Great Architects of the Orient and of the Occident’.