¶15 This exposition will make it possible to understand all that the modern world lacks with respect to science, and how this same science of which it is so proud represents only a simple deviation and, as it were, a waste product of true science, which, for us, identifies entirely with what we have called ‘sacred science’ or ‘traditional science’.1 Modern science, proceeding from an arbitrary limitation of knowledge to a certain particular order, and the most inferior of all, that of material or sensible reality, has lost, by reason of this limitation and of the consequences that it immediately entails, all intellectual value, at least if one gives to intellectuality the fullness of its true meaning, if one refuses to share the ‘rationalist’ error, that is to say to assimilate pure intelligence to reason, or, what amounts to the same thing, to deny intellectual intuition.2 What lies at the bottom of this error, as of a great part of other modern errors, what lies at the very root of all the deviation of science such as we have just explained it, is what one may call ‘individualism’, which is one with the anti‑traditional spirit itself, and whose multiple manifestations, in all domains, constitute one of the most important factors of the disorder of our epoch; it is this ‘individualism’ that we must now examine more closely.3
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Summary

Guénon explains that the modern world lacks true science, which he identifies with ‘sacred’ or ‘traditional science’, while modern science is merely a deviation and waste product of it. He argues that modern science, by arbitrarily limiting itself to the most inferior order of material or sensible reality, has lost all intellectual value, unless one shares the rationalist error of assimilating pure intelligence to reason and denying intellectual intuition. Guénon states that at the root of this error, as of many other modern errors, lies ‘individualism’, which is identical with the anti-traditional spirit itself, and whose multiple manifestations are a major factor in the disorder of the present epoch. He announces that he will now examine this individualism more closely.

General notes

  1. déchet de la science véritable — Rendered as ‘waste product of true science’. The image is strong: modern science is not a progress or a perfection, but a ‘waste product’ (residue, scoria, the lowest and coarsest part) of traditional science. Guénon compares the relation between sacred science and modern science to that of a pure ore and its slag, or of a living organism and its excrement. Modernity has taken the waste product for the essential and has thrown away the essential as waste product. This is the complete inversion of values. ↩︎
  2. intellectualité / rationalisme — Rendered as ‘intellectuality / rationalism’. Guénon strictly distinguishes ‘intellectuality’ (faculty of the pure intellect, capable of directly grasping transcendent principles) from ‘reason’ (discursive faculty, which reasons on sensible or logical data). ‘Rationalism’ is the error of reducing intelligence to reason, and thereby denying all supra‑rational knowledge. This is the fundamental error of modern philosophy since Descartes. Guénon maintains that modern science, in limiting itself to the rational and the sensible, has lost all ‘intellectual value’ in the full sense of the term. ↩︎
  3. individualisme / esprit antitraditionnel — Rendered as ‘individualism / anti‑traditional spirit’. ‘Individualism’ is for Guénon the metaphysical root of modernity. It consists of taking the separate individual (the empirical ego, the isolated person) as the measure of all things, thereby denying the reality of every supra‑individual principle (God, the universal Intellect, Tradition). The ‘anti‑traditional spirit’ is the attitude that deliberately opposes Tradition in the sense of the sophia perennis. Individualism and the anti‑traditional spirit are ‘one’: the former is the theoretical consequence, the latter the practical manifestation. Guénon announces that he will now examine this individualism in detail, as the key to understanding modern decadence. ↩︎