¶4 If one wishes to compare ancient physics, not with what the moderns designate by the same word, but with the totality of the sciences of nature as they are currently constituted, for that is what ought to correspond to it in reality, then there is reason to note, as a first difference, the division into multiple ‘specialities’ that are, as it were, foreign to one another.1 However, this is only the most exterior side of the question, and one should not think that, by reuniting all these special sciences, one would obtain an equivalent of ancient physics. The truth is that the point of view is altogether different, and it is here that we see appear the essential difference between the two conceptions of which we spoke earlier: the traditional conception, we said, attaches all the sciences to principles as so many particular applications, and it is this attachment that the modern conception does not admit.2 For Aristotle, physics was only ‘second’ in relation to metaphysics, that is to say that it was dependent on it, that it was at bottom only an application, to the domain of nature, of principles superior to nature and which are reflected in its laws; and one can say the same of medieval ‘cosmology’.3 The modern conception, on the contrary, pretends to render the sciences independent, by denying everything that surpasses them, or at least by declaring it ‘unknowable’ and refusing to take account of it, which still amounts to denying it practically; this negation existed in fact long before one had thought to erect it into a systematic theory under names such as ‘positivism’ and ‘agnosticism’, for one can say that it is truly at the starting point of all modern science.4 Only, it was not until the 19th century that one saw men glorying in their ignorance, for to proclaim oneself ‘agnostic’ is nothing other than that, and to pretend to forbid knowledge to all of what they themselves were ignorant of; and this marked one more stage in the intellectual debasement of the Occident.5
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Summary

Guénon compares ancient physics not with modern physics but with the whole of the natural sciences as currently constituted, noting as a first difference their division into multiple specialities foreign to one another. He argues, however, that the essential difference lies in the relationship to principles: for Aristotle and medieval cosmology, physics was ‘second’ relative to metaphysics, meaning it depended on principles superior to nature. Guénon contrasts this with the modern conception, which makes the sciences independent by denying or declaring ‘unknowable’ everything that surpasses them, a negation present from the very start of modern science. He observes that it was only in the 19th century that men began to glory in their ignorance by proclaiming themselves ‘agnostic’, marking a further stage in the intellectual debasement of the Occident.

General notes

  1. spécialités étrangères — Rendered as ‘specialities foreign to one another’. Guénon insists on the hermetic character of modern disciplines. Not only has modern physics fragmented into sub-disciplines (mechanics, thermodynamics, optics, etc.), but each of these ‘specialities’ develops in ignorance of the others. A specialist in optics may know nothing of thermodynamics, and no unifying principle comes to link these domains. In ancient physics, on the contrary, all the parts are ordered among themselves and attached to common principles, so that knowledge is organically unified, not fragmented. ↩︎
  2. rattachement aux principes — Rendered as ‘attachment to principles’. Guénon states the decisive criterion. A science is traditional if it explicitly recognises its dependence on metaphysics (the knowledge of universal principles). Modern science, on the contrary, claims to be ‘autonomous’, that is to say, it pretends to construct its own foundations without reference to any transcendent principle. This autonomy is illusory: in reality, it means that modern science rests on implicit and unjustified postulates (for example, the uniformity of nature, the validity of induction, the reality of linear time). But these postulates are themselves metaphysical in order, though denied. ↩︎
  3. physique seconde — Rendered as ‘second physics’. Guénon refers to the Aristotelian hierarchy of sciences. Metaphysics (or ‘first philosophy’, prōtē philosophia) treats of being as being and of first causes. Physics (or ‘second philosophy’, deuterā philosophia) treats of beings in motion, but receives its principles from metaphysics. This dependence is not a weakness, but the condition of its scientificity: a science cannot found its own principles without circular reasoning. Medieval ‘cosmology’ (Thomas Aquinas, Albertus Magnus) perpetuates this conception. ↩︎
  4. positivisme / agnosticisme — Rendered as ‘positivism / agnosticism’. Guénon here targets two philosophical doctrines of the 19th century. Positivism (Auguste Comte) maintains that the only valid knowledge is that of observable facts and their laws, excluding all research into first causes or essences. Agnosticism (Thomas Henry Huxley) affirms that one can know nothing of what surpasses sensible experience (God, the soul, metaphysical principles). Guénon notes that these theories are only the retrospective justification of an attitude already in act among modern scientists since Galileo and Descartes. To proclaim oneself ‘agnostic’ is to erect one’s ignorance into a universal principle. ↩︎
  5. déchéance intellectuelle — Rendered as ‘intellectual debasement’. Guénon describes the history of the Occident as a progressive fall: decadence of the ancient world, then the Middle Ages (where tradition subsists), then the Renaissance (rupture), then the Enlightenment (rationalism), then the 19th century (materialism and agnosticism). Each stage is a ‘debasement’ (loss of a level of knowledge). To glory in one’s ignorance is the final stage of this fall, for it is not only not to know, but to take this non‑knowledge as a virtue. Guénon opposes to this attitude the sophia perennis for which knowledge of the transcendent is the supreme good. ↩︎