HAVING established that ‘intellectual intuition’ must lie at the root of all Traditionalist strategy, Guénon is eager to point out that all social institutions must be centred on the metaphysical:

Thus a true hierarchy is always and everywhere preserved: the relative is not treated as non-existent, which would be absurd; it is duly taken into consideration, but is put in its rightful place, which cannot but be a secondary and subordinate one; and even within this relative domain there are different degrees of reality, according to whether the subject lies nearer to or further from the sphere of principles. (p.42)

One institution in particular, that of science, may have been used in the service of modernity but we cannot overlook the more ‘traditional sciences’ that have manifested themselves among specific peoples. Guénon speaks of ‘adaptations’ and ‘re-adaptations,’ instances whereby Trad-ition either appears in slightly different ways for the first time or is somewhat revived or re-implemented in the face of decline. In the case of adaptation, scientific forms may appear to different races and cultures in accordance with their own peculiar sensibilities. Furthermore, the

difference is even more marked if instead of comparing the different traditional sciences — which at least all have the same fundamental character — one tries to compare the sciences in general with the sciences of the modern world; it may sometimes seem at first sight that the object under study is the same in both cases, and yet the knowledge of it that the two kinds of science provide is so different that on closer examination one hesitates to say that they are the same in any respect. (p.43)

These differences can be seen in relation to the use of terms like ‘physics,’ for example, which originally referred to the ‘science of nature’ and was never intended to be subdivided to the extent that it became a rigid category in its own right. For Guénon, this form of ‘specialisation’ infers that the human mind is incapable of accumulating too much information and must operate within specific parameters that ensure that the ultimate reality of a unifying meta-physics is barely – if ever – glimpsed at all. Indeed, if we

were to compare ancient physics, not with what the moderns call by this name, but with the totality of all the natural sciences as at present constituted — for this is its real equivalent — the first difference to be noticed would be the division it has undergone into multiple ‘specialities’ that are, so to speak, foreign to one another. This however is only the most outward side of the question, and it is not to be supposed that by joining together all these particular sciences one would arrive at an equivalent of ancient physics. The truth is that the point of view is quite different, and therein lies the essential difference between the two conceptions referred to above: the traditional conception, as we have said, attaches all the sciences to the principles of which they are the particular applications, and it is this attachment that the modern conception refuses to admit. (pp.44-45)

‘Physics’ itself, therefore, has become divorced from the metaphysical principle in the way that a boat might come away from its moorings and drift aimlessly through an open sea. In other words, the tendency to ignore that which gives science a fundamental sense of direction has made it easy for the denizens of modern scientism to limit the focus of its activities. By rejecting the alleged ‘superstition’ of the past, be it Aristotle’s own metaphysics or that of Medieval alchemy, the great questions of the universe are left unanswered and dissipate in the face of stifling new tendencies such as ‘positivism’ and ‘agnosticism’. Consequently, the

development achieved in this realm is not a deepening of knowledge, as is commonly supposed, but on the contrary remains completely superficial, consisting only of the dispersion in detail already referred to and an analysis as barren as it is laborious; this development can be pursued indefinitely without coming one step closer to true know-ledge. (pp.45-46)

Now that science has been severed from metaphysics, therefore, it has exposed itself to a process of constant change. That which Guénon describes as ‘experimental science’ has grown out of all proportion on account of confining its activities to the realm of the material, something that would have seemed preposterous to those former civilisations which put science at the service of the metaphysical. The author is not suggesting that there is no value whatsoever in experimental science, only that the preoccupation with inferior methods of investigation have outweighed all other forms.

It is worth taking a brief step back from Guénon’s own work and considering how this empirical trend first began. By the 1840s, German philosophy had reached a period that has been described by Herbert Schnädelbach (b. 1936) as an ‘identity crisis’. In the wake of Kant, Fichte, Schelling and Hegel, the denizens of the natural sciences decreed that they no longer required the traditional foundationalism of philosophy to back up their own observations and began to rely far more on the emerging science of psychology. Previously, the philosophical domain had always served as the mother of the sciences but a combination of hostility towards speculative idealism and a lack of academic funding led to the natural sciences becoming a law unto themselves and, in many ways, this period marked the beginning of a gradual domination by a scientific establishment that now wished to do the thinking on behalf of others.

One German philosopher who reacted to this ‘identity crisis’ was Adolf Trendelenburg (1802-1872), a devotee of the philosophia perennis and a man who was convinced that there is but one timeless school of philosophy. Inspired by Plato and Aristotle and advancing what he described as an ‘organic worldview,’ Trendelenburg insisted that the entire universe is a single, living organism and launched an attack on Ludwig Feuerbach’s (1804-1872) audacious claim that ‘True philosophy is the negation of philosophy; it is really no philosophy at all.’ In his 1840 work, Logische Unter-suchungen (Logical Investigations), this leading philosopher and philologist set out to vigorously defend the philosophia perennis against the hostile forces of scientism and achieved this in a very unusual way. Rather than attempt to present a rebuttal to those who claimed to have overthrown foundationalism and speculative idealism, Trendelenburg agreed that the likes of Fichte, Schelling and Hegel were no longer capable of withstanding the onslaught of modernity and even concurred with his detractors that philosophy should not position itself at the root of the natural sciences at all.

Thus far, it would appear that a perennialist like Trendelenburg was simply making a rod for his own back, but he went on to explain that philosophy should become ‘a theory of science’ (Wissenschaftstheorie) on the basis that science itself must inevitably be recognised by all true thinkers. He had arrived at the conclusion that philosophical thought was empty if it simply existed in a void and that it must draw its content from experience. This, of course, is how he managed to occupy the middle ground between the increasingly discredited speculative approach of the last few decades and the scientific arrogance that now rose on the mid-nineteenth century horizon like a Behemoth.

The natural sciences, according to Trendelenburg, must retain their independence, but also appreciate that whilst scientists merely sought to apply their theories it was the task of the philosopher to investigate them in the capacity of a logician. As a result of Trendelenburg’s efforts to create a working synthesis between philosophy and the natural sciences, thus overcoming the idea that science cannot function without philosophy as its foundational guide, German universities decided to increase their financial support. Whilst a cynic might argue that this motive is what really lay at the root of Trendelenburg’s philosophy, it remains a fact that he was delivering lectures along these same lines as early as 1833. Similarly, regarding the notion that a perennialist such as Trendelenburg was somehow compromising with the enemy, it must be understood that he continued to retain his belief that metaphysics is crucial to our perception of the universe and what he had described as ‘the science of the idea’ was really a Platonic concept whereby the ‘idea’ itself is defined by the particularity of its actual parts. Trendelenburg thus viewed the natural sciences themselves as just one part of a greater Whole. His ‘organic world-view’ was a way for the philosophia perennis to be endlessly vindicated by the latest findings in physics and biology. One thing Trendelenburg had on his side, was the prevailing teleological-holistic methodology that science had inherited from the previous century. As time wore on, however, Trendelenburg’s perennialist approach came under increasing fire from a scientific establishment that was determined to replace the principles of organicism with a decidedly mechanistic worldview. Nonetheless, Trendelen-burg’s response to the ‘identity crisis’ of German philosophy represented one of German Idealism’s last-gasp efforts to stem the encroaching tide of modernity.

Returning now to The Crisis of the Modern World, Guénon continues his discussion by demonstrating that modern science is commonly perceived to be the rightful heir of the more Traditional sciences of the past:

Thus, for example, it is wrong to maintain, as is generally done, that astrology and alchemy have respectively become modern astronomy and modern chemistry, even though this may contain an element of truth from a historical point of view; it contains, in fact, the very element of truth to which we have just alluded, for, if the latter sciences do in a certain sense come from the former, it is not by ‘evolution’ or ‘progress’ — as is claimed — but on the contrary by degeneration. (p.48)

Not only were the terms ‘astrology’ and ‘astronomy’ used synonymously by the Ancient Greeks, he contends, but they have been subdivided as a means of isolating the spiritual from the profane. In addition, modern ‘chemistry’ – unlike alchemy – has dispensed with the Hermetic principle that once connected the macrocosm to the microcosm to ensure that human life is inextricably linked with the cosmos. However, despite the fact that the gradual modernisation of science transformed the alchemical process into a quest for material gain Guénon sees little value in trying to revive it and

the so-called restorers of alchemy, of whom there are a certain number among our contemporaries, are merely continuing this same deviation, and that their research is as far from traditional alchemy as that of the astrologers to whom we have just referred is from ancient astrology; and that is why we have a right to say that the traditional sciences of the West are really lost for the moderns. (p.49)

This may seem rather pessimistic, but Guénon cites the case of psychology as an example of the modern tendency to create scientific categories out of topics which, in the past, were given very little attention. Similarly, Western mathematics – having been divorced from its Pythagorean origins – is a purely ‘exoteric’ science that offers no real insight into the more sacral character of numeracy.

Guénon notes that the healthier subdivision of sciences which took place in Ancient India did not lose sight of the connection with metaphysics. Those sciences considered to be secondary were known as upaveda, whilst those pertaining to higher knowledge were termed Veda. The idea that upaveda could exist independently was un-thinkable, but this is exactly what has taken place in the West. By retaining a hierarchy of knowledge, the ancient system encouraged the individual to ascend to higher levels of pure intellectuality. By contrast, however, this process was also complemented by the descent of metaphysical wisdom into the secondary category. The seeker rises towards a higher knowledge, and that same bastion of knowledge gravitates towards the seeker in a more contingent regard:

The question does not have to be asked, therefore, whether the sciences should proceed from below upward or from above downward, or whether, to make their existence possible, they should be based on knowledge of principles or on knowledge of the sensible world; this question can arise from the point of view of ‘profane’ philosophy and seems, indeed, to have arisen more or less explicitly in this domain in ancient Greece, but it cannot exist for ‘sacred science’, which can be based only on universal principles; the reason why this is pointless in the latter case is that the prime factor here is intellectual intuition, which is the most direct of all forms of knowledge, as well as the highest, and which is absolutely independent of the exercise of any faculty of the sensible or even the rational order. (pp.51-52)

This hierarchical arrangement reflects the differing capabilities of the human brain, meaning that people with a firmer grasp of metaphysics may ascend to the more superior category whilst those more attuned to a secondary understanding of knowledge may find a more appropriate level of their own. An individual who is more predisposed towards contemplation and intellectual intuition may have no use for the lower category, but once the secondary level has been passed all minds come together in unity. Guénon conveys this through symbolism:

The whole question may also be illustrated by means of the traditional image of the ‘cosmic wheel’: the circumference in reality exists only in virtue of the centre, but the beings that stand upon the circumference must necessarily start from there or, more precisely, from the point thereon at which they actually find themselves, and follow the radius that leads to the centre. Moreover, because of the correspondence that exists between all the orders of reality, the truths of a lower order can be taken as symbols of those of higher orders, and can therefore serve as ‘supports’ by which one may arrive at an understanding of these; and this fact makes it possible for any science to become a sacred science, giving it a higher or ‘anagogical’ meaning deeper than that which it possesses in itself. (pp.52-53)

Needless to say, one cannot expect ‘chemistry’ to provide an insight into the whys and wherefores of alchemy and this is precisely why modern categories of this kind must not be regarded as a ‘sacred science’. The dislocated subdivisions of contemporary scientism, therefore, are like a wheel without an axle and this means the centre has become completely inaccessible. There is no opportunity to gravitate inwards, towards the hub, and no way for the latter to have an effect on the outer section of Guénon’s illustrative wheel. The two-way process has been nullified.

To conclude this section of the work, the Frenchman reiterates his opinion that contemporary

science, arising from an arbitrary limitation of knowledge to a particular order — the lowest of all orders, that of material or sensible reality — has lost, through this limitation and the consequences it immediately entails, all intellectual value; as long, that is, as one gives to the word ‘intellectuality’ the fullness of its real meaning, and refuses to share the ‘rationalist’ error of assimilating pure intelligence to reason, or, what amount to the same thing, of completely denying intellectual intuition. (p.54)

Whilst the likes of Elon Musk and Richard Dawkins – two of the worst agents of modern science – are celebrated as men of great intellectual bearing, their wanton separation from the realm of Tradition confines them to their respective bubbles of specialised ‘knowledge’ and they inevitably drift through the air on the ever-changing winds of ‘relativism’ and ‘progress’.