The Reign of Quantity and The Signs of the Times

by René Guénon

  On the other hand, although the principial unity is absolutely indivisible, it can nevertheless be said to be of an extreme complexity, since it contains ‘eminently’ all that constitutes the essence or qualitative side of manifested beings, when considered from the point of view of a ‘descent’ into lower degrees. It is enough to go back to the explanation given above of the way in which the ‘extinction of the ego’ ought to be understood in order to see that unity is that wherein all quality subsists, ‘transformed’ and in its fullness, and that distinction, freed from all ‘separative’ limitation, is indeed carried therein to its highest level. As soon as the domain of manifested existence is entered, limitation appears in the form of the particular conditions that determine each state or each mode of manifestation; in the course of a descent to ever lower levels of existence limitation becomes ever narrower, and the possibilities inherent in the nature of beings become more restricted in range, which amounts to saying that the essence of these beings is correspondingly simplified; this simplification continues progressively toward a lower level than that of existence itself, that is to say toward the domain of pure quantity, where it is finally brought to its maximum through the complete suppression of every qualitative determination.

  Thus it can be seen that simplification follows strictly the descending course which, in current terms as inspired by Cartesian dualism, would be described as leading from ‘spirit’ toward ‘matter’: inadequate as these terms may be as substitutes for ‘essence’ and ‘substance’, they can perhaps usefully be employed here for the sake of better understanding. It is therefore all the more extraordinary that anyone should attempt to apply this kind of simplification to things that belong to the ‘spiritual’ domain itself, or at least to as much of it as people are still able to conceive, for they go so far as to extend it to religious conceptions as well as to philosophical or scientific conceptions. The most typical example is that of Protestantism, in which simplification takes the form both of an almost complete suppression of rites, together with an attribution of predominance to morality over doctrine; and the doctrine itself becomes more and more simplified and diminished so that it is reduced to almost nothing, or at most to a few rudimentary formulas that anyone can interpret in any way that suits him. Moreover, Protestantism in its many forms is the only religious production of the modern spirit, and it arose at a time when that spirit had not yet come to the point of rejecting all religion, but was on the way toward doing so by virtue of the anti-traditional tendencies which are inherent in it and which really make it what it is. At the end-point of this ‘evolution’ (as it would be called today), religion is replaced by ‘religiosity’, that is to say by a vague sentimentality having no real significance; it is this that is acclaimed as ‘progress’, and it shows clearly how all normal relations are reversed in the modern mentality, for people try to see in it a ‘spiritualization’ of religion, as if the ‘spirit’ were a mere empty frame or an ‘ideal’ as nebulous as it is insignificant. This is what some of our contemporaries call a ‘purified religion’, but it is so only insofar as it is emptied of all positive content and has no longer any connection with any reality whatsoever.

  Another thing worth noting is that all the self-styled ‘reformers’ constantly advertise their claim to be returning to a ‘primitive simplicity’, which has certainly never existed except in their imaginations. This may sometimes only be a convenient way of hiding the true character of their innovations, but it may also very often be a delusion of which they themselves are the victims, for it is frequently very difficult to determine to what extent the apparent promoters of the anti-traditional spirit are really conscious of the part they are playing, for they could not play it at all unless they themselves had a twisted mentality. Furthermore, it is difficult to see how the claim to primitive simplicity can be reconciled with the idea of ‘progress’, of which they simultaneously claim to be agents; the contradiction is enough by itself to indicate that there is something really abnormal in all this. However that may be, and confining attention to the idea of ‘primitive simplicity’, there seems to be no reason whatever why things should always begin by being simple and continue to get more complex: on the contrary, considering that the germ of any being must necessarily contain the virtuality of all that the being will be in the future, so that all the possibilities to be developed in the course of its existence must be included in the germ from the start, the conclusion that the origin of all things must really be exceedingly complex is inevitable. This gives an exact picture of the qualitative complexity of essence; the germ is small only in relation to quantity or substance, and by symbolically transposing the idea of ‘size’ it can be deduced through inverse analogy that what is least in quantity must be greatest in quality.[41] In a similar way every tradition at its origin contains the entire doctrine, comprehending in principle the totality of the developments and adaptations that may legitimately proceed from it, together with the totality of the applications to which they may give rise in all domains; human interventions can do nothing but restrict and diminish it, if they do not denature it altogether, and the work of all ‘reformers’ really consists in nothing more than that.

  Another peculiar thing is that modernists of all sorts (taking into account not those of the West alone, but also those of the East, for the latter are in any case merely ‘Westernized’), while they boast of doctrinal simplicity as representing ‘progress’ in the field of religion, often speak as if religion ought to have been made for idiots, or at least as if they supposed that the people they are speaking to must inevitably be idiots; do they really think that by asserting, rightly or wrongly, that a doctrine is simple they are suggesting to a man of the most moderate intelligence a valid reason for adopting it? This is in the end no more than a manifestation of the ‘democratic’ idea, in the light of which, as was said earlier, it is desired that science too shall be ‘within the reach of all’. It is scarcely necessary to remark that these same ‘modernists’ are always, as a necessary consequence of their attitude, the declared enemies of all esoterism, for it goes without saying that esoterism, which is by definition only the concern of an elect, cannot be simple, so that its negation appears as an obligatory first stage in all attempts at simplification. As for religion properly so called, or more generally the exterior part of any tradition, it must admittedly be such that everyone can understand something of it, according to the range of his capacity, and in that sense it is addressed to all; but this does not mean that it must therefore be reduced to such a minimum that the most ignorant (this word not being used with reference to profane instruction, which has no importance here) or the least intelligent can grasp it: quite to the contrary, there must be in it something that is so to speak at the level of the possibilities of every individual, however exalted they may be, for thus alone can it furnish an appropriate ‘support’ to the interior aspect which, in any unmutilated tradition, is its necessary complement and belongs wholly to the initiatic order. But the modernists, in specifically rejecting esoterism and initiation, thereby deny that religious doctrines contain in themselves any profound significance; thus it is that, in their pretension to ‘spiritualize’ religion, they fall into its opposite, the narrowest and crudest ‘literalism’, in which the spirit is most completely lacking, thus affording a striking example of the fact that what Pascal said is often all too true — ‘He who tries to play the angel plays the beast.’

  But that is not quite all that need be said about ‘primitive simplicity’, for there is at any rate one sense in which that expression can find a realistic application, and that is when the indistinction of ‘chaos’ is in question, for ‘chaos’ is in a way ‘primitive’ since it is ‘in the beginning’; but it is not there by itself, since all manifestation necessarily presupposes simultaneously and correlatively both essence and substance, and ‘chaos’ only represents its substantial base. If that were what the partisans of ‘primitive simplicity’ meant there would be no need to
disagree with them, for the tendency to simplification would reach its end-point in precisely that indistinction, if it could be realized up to the limit of its ultimate consequences; but it is necessary to point out that this ultimate simplicity, being beneath manifestation and not in it, would in no way correspond to a true ‘return to origins’. In this connection and in order to resolve an apparent antinomy, a clear distinction must be made between the two points of view, which are respectively related to the two poles of existence: when it is said that the formation of the world started from ‘chaos’, then the point of view is solely the substantial, and the beginning must then be regarded as timeless, for obviously time does not exist in ‘chaos’ but only in the ‘cosmos’, so that if the order of development of manifestation is being taken into account (that order being reflected in the domain of corporeal existence, by virtue of the conditions which define that existence, as an order of temporal succession), the starting-point must not be the substantial pole, but the essential pole, the manifestation of which, in conformity with cyclic laws, takes the form of a continuous recession, or of a descent toward the substantial pole. The ‘creation’, inasmuch as it is a resolution of ‘chaos’, is in a sense ‘instantaneous’ and is properly the biblical Fiat Lux; but it is the primordial Light itself that is really the origination of the ‘cosmos’, and this Light is the ‘pure spirit’ in which are the essences of all things; such being its beginning, the manifested world cannot possibly do otherwise than move in a downward direction, getting ever nearer and nearer to ‘materiality’.

  12

  The Hatred of Secrecy

  A point that has only been touched on incidentally in earlier chapters must now be elaborated. It is what may be called the tendency to ‘popularization’ (this word being another of those that are particularly significant as pointers to the nature of the modern mentality), in other words, the pretension to put everything ‘within the reach of all’, to which attention has already been drawn as being a consequence of ‘democratic’ conceptions, and that amounts in the end to a desire to bring all knowledge down to the level of the lowest intelligences. It would be only too easy to point out the multiple ineptitudes that result, generally speaking, from the ill-considered diffusion of an instruction that is claimed to be equally distributed to all, in identical form and by identical methods; this can only end, as has already been said, in a sort of leveling down to the lowest — here as elsewhere quality being sacrificed to quantity. It is no less true to say that the profane instruction in question has nothing to do with any kind of knowledge in the true sense of the word, and that it contains nothing that is in the least degree profound; but, apart from its insignificance and its ineffectuality, what makes it really pernicious is above all the fact that it contrives to be taken for what it is not, that it tends to deny everything that surpasses it, and so smothers all possibilities belonging to a higher domain; it even seems probable that it is contrived specially for that purpose, for modern ‘uniformization’ necessarily implies a hatred of all superiority.

  A still more surprising thing is that some people these days think that they can expound traditional doctrines by adopting profane instruction itself as a sort of model, without taking the least account of the nature of traditional doctrines and of the essential differences that exist between them and everything that is today called by the names of ‘science’ and ‘philosophy’, from which they are separated by a real abyss; in so doing they must of necessity distort these doctrines completely by over-simplification and by only allowing the most superficial meaning to appear, for otherwise their pretensions must remain completely unjustified. In any case, by such means the modern spirit penetrates right into what is most opposed to it, radically and by definition; and it is not difficult to appreciate the dissolving effect of the results, though those who make themselves the instruments of this kind of penetration may not grasp their nature, and often act in good faith and with no clear intention. The decadence of religious doctrine in the West and the corresponding total loss of esoterism show well enough what may happen in the end if that way of looking at things were one day to become general even in the East as well; the danger is so serious that it must be clearly pointed out while there is yet time.

  Most incredible of all is the main argument put forward in justification of their attitude by this new variety of ‘propagandist’. One of them recently wrote to the effect that, while it is true that restrictions were formerly applied to the diffusion of certain sorts of knowledge, there is no longer any reason to observe them nowadays, because (the phrase that follows must be quoted word for word so that no suspicion of exaggeration can arise) ‘the general level of culture has been raised, and the spirit of man has been made ready to receive the integral teaching.’ Here may be seen as clearly as possible the confusion between traditional teaching and profane instruction, the latter being described by the word ‘culture’, which has become one of its most frequent designations in our day; but ‘culture’ is something that has not the remotest connection with traditional teaching or with the aptitude for receiving it, and what is more, since the so-called raising of the ‘general level’ has as its inevitable counterpart the disappearance of the intellectual elect, it can be said that ‘culture’ represents the exact opposite of a preparation for traditional teaching. There is good reason to wonder how a Hindu (for it is a Hindu who was quoted above) can be completely ignorant of our present position in the Kali-Yuga, and can go so far as to say that ‘the time has come when the whole system of the Vedānta can be set forth to the public,’ for the most elementary knowledge of cyclic laws compels the conclusion that the time is less favorable than it ever was. It has never been possible to place the Vedānta ‘within the reach of the common man’, for whom incidentally it was never intended, and it is all the more certainly not possible today, for it is obvious enough that the ‘common man’ has never been more totally uncomprehending. And finally, the truth is that everything that represents traditional knowledge of a really profound order, and therefore corresponds to what must be meant by ‘integral teaching’ (for if those words have really any meaning, initiatic teaching properly so called must be comprised in it), becomes more and more difficult of access, and becomes so everywhere; in face of the invasion of the modern and profane spirit it is clear that things could not be otherwise; how then can anyone be so far unaware of reality as to assert the very opposite, and as calmly as if he were enunciating the least contestable of truths?

  In the case quoted as an example for the purpose of ‘illustrating’ a particular mentality, the reasons given to justify the special interest that the propagation of the Vedantic teaching might have nowadays are no less extraordinary. ‘The development of social ideas and of political institutions’ is first put forward in this connection; but even if it really is a ‘development’ (and it would in any case be desirable to specify in what direction), this too has no more connection with the understanding of metaphysical doctrine than has the diffusion of profane instruction; it is enough to look at the extent to which political preoccupations, wherever they have been introduced into any Eastern country, are prejudicial to the knowledge of traditional truths, in order to conclude that it would be more justifiable to speak of an incompatibility, at least in practice, than of a possible concordance between these two ‘developments’. It is not easy to see what link ‘social life’, in the purely profane sense in which it is conceived today, could possibly have with spirituality, to which, on the other hand, it brings nothing but obstacles: such links obviously existed when social life was integrated into a traditional civilization, but it is precisely the modern spirit that has destroyed them, or that tries to destroy them wherever they still persist; what then can be expected of a ‘development’ of which the most characteristic feature is that it works in direct opposition to all spirituality?

  The same author puts forward yet another reason: ‘Besides,’ says he, ‘it is the same for the Vedānta as for the other truths o
f science; there are no longer today any scientific secrets; science does not hesitate to publish the most recent discoveries.’ True enough, profane science is only made for ‘the public at large’, and since it came into being such has been the only justification for its existence; all too obviously it is really nothing more than it appears to be, for it keeps itself entirely on the surface of things, and it can be said to do so, not on principle, but rather through a lack of principle; certainly there is nothing in it worth the trouble of keeping secret, or more accurately, worth reserving to the use of an elite, and anyhow an elite would have no use for anything of that sort. In any case, what kind of assimilation can anyone hope to establish between the so-called ‘truths’ and ‘most recent discoveries’ of profane science and the teachings of a doctrine such as the Vedānta or any other traditional doctrine, even one that is more or less exterior? It is a case of the same confusion all the time, and it is permissible to ask to what extent anyone who perpetrates it with such insistence can have any understanding of the doctrine he wants to teach; there can really be no accommodation between the traditional spirit and the modern spirit, any concession made to the latter being necessarily at the expense of the former, since the modern spirit consists fundamentally in the direct negation of everything that constitutes the traditional spirit.

  The truth is that the modern spirit implies in all who are affected by it in any degree a real hatred of what is secret, and of whatever seems to come more or less near to being secret, in any and every domain; and this affords an opportunity for a more precise explanation of the point. Strictly speaking it cannot even be said that ‘popularization’ of the doctrines is dangerous, at least so long as it is only a question of their theoretical side; for it would be merely useless, even if it were possible. But in fact truths of a certain order by their very nature resist all ‘popularization’: however clearly they are set out (it being understood that they are set out such as they are in their true significance and without subjecting them to any distortion) only those who are qualified to understand them will understand them, and for all others they will be as if they did not exist. This has nothing to do with ‘realization’ and the means appropriate to it, for in that field there is absolutely nothing that can have any effective value otherwise than from within a regular initiatic organization; from a theoretical point of view reserve can only be justified by considerations of mere opportunity, and so by purely contingent reasons, which does not mean that such reasons need be negligible. In the end, the real secret, the only secret than can never be betrayed in any way, resides uniquely in the inexpressible, which is by the same token incommunicable, every truth of a transcendent order necessarily partaking of the inexpressible; and it is essentially in this fact that the profound significance of the initiatic secret really lies, for no kind of exterior secret can ever have any value except as an image or symbol of the initiatic secret, though it may occasionally also be not unprofitable as a ‘discipline’. But it must be understood that these are things of which the meaning and the range are completely lost to the modern mentality, and incomprehension of them quite naturally engenders hostility; besides, the ordinary man always has an instinctive fear of what he does not understand, and fear engenders hatred only too easily, even when a mere direct denial of the uncomprehended truth is adopted as a means of escape from fear; indeed, some such denials are more like real screams of rage, for instance those of the self-styled ‘free-thinkers’ with regard to everything connected with religion.