¶5 In wishing to separate the sciences radically from every superior principle on the pretext of assuring their independence, the modern conception takes away from them all profound signification and even all true interest from the point of view of knowledge, and it can only end in a blind alley, since it encloses them in an irremediably limited domain.1 The development that takes place within this domain is moreover not a deepening, as some imagine it to be; on the contrary, it remains wholly superficial, and consists only in that dispersion into detail that we have already pointed out, in an analysis as sterile as it is laborious, which can continue indefinitely without advancing a single step along the path of true knowledge.2 Thus it is not for its own sake, it must be said, that Occidentals in general cultivate science thus understood: what they have especially in view is not a knowledge, even an inferior one; it is practical applications, and, to convince oneself that this is so, one has only to see with what facility most of our contemporaries confuse science and industry, and how numerous are those for whom the engineer represents the very type of the man of science; but this relates to another question, which we shall have to treat more fully in what follows.3
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Summary

Guénon argues that by radically separating the sciences from every superior principle under the pretext of assuring their independence, the modern conception strips them of all profound meaning and genuine interest from the perspective of knowledge, enclosing them in an irremediably limited domain. He clarifies that development within this domain is not a deepening but remains superficial, consisting only of dispersion into detail and sterile analysis that can continue indefinitely without advancing true knowledge. Guénon adds that Occidentals cultivate this science not for its own sake but for its practical applications, as shown by how easily contemporaries confuse science with industry and see the engineer as the typical man of science, though he notes this question will be treated more fully later.

General notes

  1. domaine irrémédiablement borné — Rendered as ‘irremediably limited domain’. Guénon affirms that modern science, by cutting itself off from metaphysics, condemns itself to treat only of sensible and quantifiable phenomena. This domain, vast as it may appear, remains ‘limited’ (bounded, finite) because it excludes by principle all access to the pure intelligible, to first causes, to transcendent principles. The ‘blind alley’ is logical: modern science cannot get outside itself to question its own foundations; it goes round in circles within the circle of phenomena. ↩︎
  2. dispersion dans le détail — Rendered as ‘dispersion into detail’. Guénon here opposes two types of ‘progress’. Modern progress (accumulation of facts, refinement of measurements, multiplication of publications) is a quantitative growth that deepens nothing. True knowledge is qualitative: it consists of rising towards principles, not accumulating details without connection. The analyst who spends his life dissecting facts without ever relating them to a superior unity does not advance; he stays in place, like a squirrel in its wheel. This is what Guénon calls the ‘sterility’ of modern science. ↩︎
  3. science et industrie confondues — Rendered as ‘science and industry confused’. Guénon makes a sociological observation: in the modern mind, the value of a science is measured by its technical applications. A ‘purely speculative’ research (for example, mathematics without obvious application) is judged useless, even contemptible. The engineer, who applies science to industrial production, becomes the model of the ‘scientist’. This is a sign that science is no longer cultivated for knowledge, but for material power. Guénon refers to a later discussion (probably on ‘pragmatism’ and the practical materialism of modernity). ↩︎

Guénon’s footnotes

  • since it encloses them in an irremediably limited domain — One may notice that something analogous has occurred in the social order, where the moderns have claimed to separate the temporal from the spiritual; it is not a question of denying that there are two distinct things here, since they indeed pertain to different domains, as in the case of metaphysics and the sciences; but, by an error inherent in the analytical mind, it is forgotten that distinction does not mean separation; thereby, temporal power loses its legitimacy, and the same thing, in the intellectual order, could be said with regard to the sciences.