The Reign of Quantity and The Signs of the Times

by René Guénon

  Leibnitz, in opposition to Descartes and his disciples, was very successful in demonstrating the insufficiency of a mechanistic physics, which cannot, owing to its very nature, take account of anything but the outward appearance of things and is incapable of affording the smallest explanation of their true essence; thus mechanism can be said to have a value that is purely ‘representative’ and in no way explanatory; and is not the whole of modern science really in exactly the same position? This is seen to be the case even when an example as simple as that of movement is taken, though movement is ordinarily thought of as being more completely explicable than anything else in purely mechanical terms; but any such explanation, says Leibnitz, is only valid so long as movement is not regarded as involving anything other than a change of situation. From this limited point of view it is a matter of indifference, when the relative positions of two bodies change, whether the first is regarded as moving in relation to the second, or the second in relation to the first, for there is a complete reciprocity between the two; but it is quite another matter when the reason for the movement is taken into account, for if the reason is found to be in one of the two bodies, that one alone must be regarded as moving, while the other plays a purely passive part in the change that has taken place; but any idea of this kind completely eludes conceptions of a mechanistic or quantitative order. Mechanism is limited to giving a simple description of movement, such as it is in its outward appearance, but is powerless to grasp the reason for it and so to express its essential or qualitative aspect, which alone can afford a real explanation. These considerations apply with even greater force in the case of things that may be more complex in character than movement, and where quality may be more predominant over quantity, and that is why a science constituted mechanistically cannot actually be of any value in terms of effective knowledge, even within the confines of the relative and limited domain that encloses it.

  The conception which Descartes tried to apply to all the phenomena of the corporeal world is however no less conspicuously insufficient, in that he reduced the whole nature of bodies to extension, and in addition he considered extension only from a purely quantitative point of view; and even at that time, just like the most recent mechanists and the materialists, he made no difference in this connection between so-called ‘inorganic’ bodies and living beings. Living beings are specified, and not organized bodies only, because the being itself is in effect reduced by him to the body alone, in accordance with the all too famous Cartesian theory of ‘animal-machines’, and this is really one of the most astonishing absurdities ever engendered by the systematic spirit. Not until he comes to consider human beings does Descartes feel obliged to point out in his physics that what he has in view is only ‘man’s body’; but what is this concession really worth, seeing that everything that takes place in this body would, by hypothesis, be exactly the same if the ‘spirit’ were absent? And so, as an inescapable result of dualism, the human being is as it were cut into two parts that do not become reunited and cannot form a real composite whole, since they cannot enter into mutual communication by any means, being supposed to be absolutely heterogeneous, so much so that any effective action by one on the other would be rendered impossible. To complete the picture, an attempt was made to explain mechanically all the phenomena that take place in animals, including those manifestations that are most obviously psychic in character; it is reasonable to ask why the same explanations should not apply to man, and whether it may not be permissible to ignore the other side of dualism as contributing nothing to the explanation of things. From this stage to the stage of looking at that other side as a useless complication and in practice treating it as non-existent, and thence to the point of denying it purely and simply, is no long step, especially for men whose attention is constantly turned toward the domain of perception, as is the case with modern Westerners: thus it is that Descartes’ mechanistic physics could not but pave the way for materialism.

  The reduction to the quantitative had already taken place theoretically in Descartes’ time as far as everything that properly belongs to the corporeal order was concerned, in the sense that the actual constitution of Cartesian physics implied the possibility of such a reduction; it remained to extend the same conception to cover the whole of reality as it was then conceived, but reality had by that time become restricted to the domain of individual existence alone, in accordance with the postulates of rationalism. Taking dualism as point of departure, the reduction in question could not fail to appear as a reduction from ‘spirit’ to ‘matter’, taking the form of a relegation into the latter category alone of everything that Descartes had included in either, so as to be able to bring all things indifferently down to quantity. And so, after having previously relegated the essential aspect of things to a position ‘above the clouds’ as it were, this last step served to suppress it completely, so that thereafter nothing needed to be taken into account but the substantial aspect of things, for ‘spirit’ and ‘matter’ respectively correspond to these two aspects, though they only suggest a much diminished and distorted picture of them. Descartes had brought half the world as he conceived it into the quantitative domain, and it was doubtless in his eyes the more important half, for in his secret thoughts, whatever may appear on the surface, he wanted above all to be a physicist; materialism in its turn claimed to bring the whole world into its own domain; there was then nothing more to do but to strive to bring the reduction to quantity into effect by means of theories progressively better adapted to that end, and that was the task to which modern science was destined to apply itself, even when it made no open declaration of materialism.

  Besides avowed and formal materialism, there is also what may be called a factual materialism, the influence of which extends much further afield, for many people who regard themselves as being by no means materialists nonetheless behave as such in practice in all circumstances. There is in fact a relationship between these two materialisms rather like that referred to earlier between philosophical rationalism and popular rationalism, except that the merely factual materialist does not generally parade that quality and would often protest if it were attributed to him, whereas the popular rationalist, even when he is philosophically the most ignorant of men, is all the more anxious to proclaim himself a rationalist, while at the same time he proudly adorns himself with the title of ‘free-thinker’, all unconscious of irony, for all the time he is but the slave of all the current prejudices of his period. However that may be, just as popular rationalism is a product of the diffusion of philosophic rationalism among the ‘public at large’, with all the inevitable consequences of its being put ‘within the reach of all’, so materialism properly so called is the starting-point of factual materialism, in the sense that the former has made a diffusion of its characteristic state of mind generally possible and has effectively contributed to its formation; but it must not be forgotten that all these separate happenings can always be fully explained by the development of the same tendencies, the tendencies that constitute the very foundation of the modern spirit. It is obvious that a scientist, in the modern sense of the word, even if he does not profess materialism, will be influenced by it to the extent that all his special training is oriented in that direction; and even if, as sometimes happens, this scientist believes himself to be not without the ‘religious spirit’, he will find the means to separate his religion from his scientific activity so completely that his work will in no way be distinguishable from that of the most overt materialist, and so he will play just as important a part as the latter in the ‘progressive’ building up of a science as exclusively quantitative and as grossly materialistic as it is possible to imagine. In this sort of way does anti-traditional action succeed in using to its own profit even those who ought to be its adversaries, and who might be so if the deviation of the modern mentality had not so shaped beings that they are full of contradictions yet incapable even of becoming aware of the fact. Here again the tendency to uniformity finds its
realization, since in practice all men end by thinking and acting in the same way, and the things in respect of which they nevertheless still differ have no more than a minimum of influence, and are not translated into any reality in the outer world. Thus, in such a world, and with the rarest exceptions, a man who professes himself a Christian does not fail to behave in practice as if there were no reality whatever outside corporeal existence alone, and a priest who does ‘a little science’ does not differ perceptibly from a university materialist; when things have reached this stage, have they much further to go before the lowest point of the ‘descent’ is reached at last?

  15

  The Illusion of ‘Ordinary Life’

  The materialistic attitude, whether it be a question of explicit and formal materialism or of a simple ‘practical’ materialism, necessarily imposes on the whole ‘psycho-physiological’ constitution of the human being a real and very important modification. This is easily understood, and in fact it is only necessary to look round in order to conclude that modern man has become quite impermeable to any influences other than such as impinge on his senses; not only have his faculties of comprehension become more and more limited, but also the field of his perception has become correspondingly restricted. The result is a sort of reinforcement of the profane point of view, for this point of view was first born of a defect of comprehension, and thus of a limitation, and this limitation as it becomes accentuated and extends to all domains, itself seems to justify the point of view, at least in the eyes of those who are affected by it. Indeed, what reason can they have thereafter for admitting the existence of something that they can neither perceive nor conceive, that is to say of everything that could show them the insufficiency and the falsity of the profane point of view itself?

  Thus arises the idea of what is commonly called ‘ordinary life’ or ‘everyday life’; this is in fact understood to mean above all a life in which nothing that is not purely human can intervene in any way, owing to the elimination from it of any sacred, ritual, or symbolical character (it matters little whether this character be thought of as specifically religious or as conforming to some other traditional modality, because the relevant point in all cases is the effective action of ‘spiritual influences’), the very words ‘ordinary’ or ‘everyday’ moreover implying that everything that surpasses conceptions of that order is, even when it has not yet been expressly denied, at least relegated to an ‘extra-ordinary’ domain, regarded as exceptional, strange, and unaccustomed. This is strictly speaking a reversal of the normal order as represented by integrally traditional civilizations, in which the profane point of view does not exist in any way, and the reversal can only logically end in an ignorance or a complete denial of the ‘supra-human’. Moreover some people go so far as to make a similar use, with the same meaning, of the expression ‘real life’, and this usage has a profoundly and singularly ironical character, for the truth is that the thing so named is on the contrary nothing but the worst of illusions; this does not mean that everything it contains is actually devoid of all reality, although such reality as it has, which is broadly speaking that of the sensible order, is at the lowest level of all, there being below it only such things as are definitely beneath the level of all manifested existence. It is however the way in which things are conceived that is so wholly false, because it separates them from every superior principle, and so denies them precisely that which makes all their reality; that is why, in all strictness, no such thing as a profane domain really exists, but only a profane point of view, which becomes more and more invasive until in the end it comprehends human existence in its entirety.

  This makes it understandable how, in the conception of ‘ordinary life’, one stage succeeds another almost insensibly, degeneration becoming progressively more marked all the time. At first it is allowed that some things are not accessible to any traditional influence, then those things themselves come to be looked on as normal; from that point it is all too easy to arrive at considering them as the only ‘real’ things, which amounts to setting aside as ‘unreal’ all that is ‘supra-human’; and later on, when the human domain comes to be conceived in a more and more narrowly limited way, until it is finally reduced to the corporeal modality alone, everything that belongs to the supra-sensible order is set aside as unreal. It is enough to notice how our contemporaries constantly make use of the word ‘real’ as a synonym of ‘sensible’ without even thinking about it, in order at once to become aware that they have indeed fully reached the final stage, and that this way of looking at things has become so completely incorporated into their very nature as to have become so to speak almost instinctive with them. Modern philosophy, which is more than anything else merely a ‘systematized’ expression of the common mentality, subsequently reacts on the latter to a certain extent, and the two have pursued parallel courses; that of philosophy began with the Cartesian eulogy of ‘good sense’ alluded to earlier, and which is very revealing in this connection, for ‘ordinary life’ surely is first and foremost the domain of this so-called ‘good sense’, also called ‘common sense’, and is no less limited than it and in the same way; next, through rationalism, which is fundamentally only a more specially philosophical aspect of ‘humanism’, that is to say, of the reduction of everything to an exclusively human point of view, materialism or positivism are gradually attained: whether one chooses, as in materialism, expressly to deny everything that is beyond the sensible world, or whether one is content, as in positivism (which for that reason likes also to call itself ‘agnosticism’, making an honourable title for itself out of what is really only the avowal of an incurable ignorance), to refuse to be concerned with anything of the kind and to declare it ‘inaccessible’ or ‘unknowable’, the result is exactly the same in either case, and it is precisely the result of which a description has just been given.

  It may be repeated here that in most cases there is naturally in question only something that can be called a ‘practical’ materialism or positivism, not dependent on any philosophical theory, for philosophical theory is now and always will be quite foreign to the majority; but this makes matters all the more serious, not only because the materialistic state of mind thereby obtains an incomparably wider diffusion, but also because it is all the more irremediable the less it is deliberate and clearly conscious, for when it becomes so it has then really penetrated and as it were impregnated the whole nature of the individual. This is sufficiently shown by what has already been said about factual materialism and about the way in which people who nevertheless fancy themselves ‘religious’ accommodate themselves thereto; the same example also shows that philosophy properly so called has not the conclusive importance that some people would like to assign to it, or at least that its chief importance is as ‘representative’ of a certain mentality rather than as acting effectively and directly upon it: in any case, how could a particular philosophical conception meet with the smallest success if it did not fit in with some of the predominant tendencies of the period in which it is formulated? This does not mean that philosophers do not play their part just like anyone else in the modern deviation, for that would certainly be an overstatement; it only means that their part is in fact more restricted than one would be tempted to suppose at first sight, and is rather different from what it may seem to be outwardly. In quite a general way moreover whatever is most apparent is always, in accordance with the laws which control all manifestation, a consequence rather than a cause, an end-point rather than a starting-point,[46] and in any case it is no use searching in the apparent for whatever may be the really effective agent in an order more profound, whether the action in question be exercised in a normal and legitimate direction, or in a directly contrary direction, as in the case now under consideration.

  Mechanism and materialism themselves have only been able to acquire a widespread influence by extending from the philosophical into the scientific domain: anything related to the latter, or anything that gives the impression, rightly or wro
ngly, of being endowed with a ‘scientific’ character, doubtless exercises, for various reasons, much more influence than do philosophical theories on the common mentality, in which there is always at least an implicit belief in the truth of science, for the hypothetical character of science passes quite unperceived, whereas everything classed as ‘philosophy’ leaves. it more or less indifferent; the existence of practical and utilitarian applications in the one case and their absence in the other is no doubt not entirely unconnected with this. This recalls once more the idea of ‘ordinary life’, in which an effective part is played by a fairly strong dose of ‘pragmatism’; and that statement is of course made quite independently of the fact that some of our contemporaries have tried to build up ‘pragmatism’ into a philosophical system: this only became possible by reason of the utilitarian twist that is inherent in the modern and profane mentality in general, and because, at the present stage of intellectual decadence, the very notion of truth has come to be completely lost to sight, so much so that the notion of utility or of convenience has ended by replacing it entirely. However that may be, as soon as it is agreed that ‘reality’ consists exclusively in what presents itself to the senses, it is quite natural that the value attributed to any particular thing should to some extent be measured by its capacity to produce effects in the sensible order; it is evident moreover that ‘science’, considered in the modern fashion as being essentially grouped with industry, if not more or less completely one with it, must for that reason occupy the first rank, science thus finding itself mingled as closely as possible with ordinary life, in which it becomes one of the principal factors; and in return, the hypotheses on which it claims to be founded, however gratuitous and unjustified they may be, must themselves benefit by this privileged situation in the eyes of the people. It goes without saying that the practical applications really depend in no way on the truth of the hypotheses, and it may be wondered what would become of a science of this sort — seeing that as knowledge in the true sense it is nothing — if it were divorced from the applications to which it gives rise; but it is a fact that science such as it is ‘succeeds’, and for the instinctively utilitarian spirit of the modern public ‘results’ or ‘success’ become a sort of ‘criterion of truth’, if indeed the word ‘truth’ can be used in this connection and still retain some sort of meaning.