¶10 But let us go deeper into the question: what exactly is this law of the greatest number that modern governments invoke and from which they claim to derive their sole justification? It is quite simply the law of matter and brute force, the very law by virtue of which a mass driven by its weight crushes everything that meets it on its path;1 this is precisely the point of junction between the ‘democratic’ conception and ‘materialism’,2 and this is also what makes this same conception so closely linked to the present mentality. It is the complete reversal of the normal order, since it is the proclamation of the supremacy of multiplicity as such,3 a supremacy that, in fact, exists only in the material world; on the contrary, in the spiritual world, and more simply still in the universal order, it is unity that is at the summit of the hierarchy, for it is unity that is the principle from which all multiplicity proceeds;4 but, when the principle is denied or lost from view, there remains only pure multiplicity, which identifies itself with matter itself. On the other hand, the allusion that we have just made to weight implies more than a simple comparison, for weight effectively represents, in the domain of physical forces in the most ordinary sense of the word, the descending and compressive tendency, which brings about for the being an increasingly narrow limitation, and which goes at the same time in the direction of multiplicity, figured here by an increasingly great density;5 and this tendency is the very one that marks the direction in which human activity has developed since the beginning of the modern epoch. Moreover, it is worth noting that matter, by its power of division and limitation at the same time, is what scholastic doctrine calls the ‘principle of individuation’,6 and this links the considerations that we are now setting forth to what we said earlier concerning individualism:7 this same tendency just mentioned is also, one might say, the ‘individualising’ tendency, that according to which what the Judaeo-Christian tradition designates as the ‘fall’ of beings who have separated themselves from original unity is effected.8 Multiplicity considered outside its principle, and which thus can no longer be reduced to unity, is, in the social order, the collectivity conceived as simply the arithmetical sum of the individuals who compose it, and which is indeed only that from the moment when it is attached to no principle superior to individuals;9 and the law of the collectivity, in this respect, is indeed this law of the greatest number on which the ‘democratic’ idea is founded.
←
→

Summary

Guénon asks what exactly the law of the greatest number is, which modern governments invoke as their sole justification, and answers that it is simply the law of matter and brute force, where a mass crushes everything in its path. This marks the junction between the democratic conception and materialism, and explains why democracy is so closely linked to the modern mentality. He argues that this represents a complete reversal of the normal order, proclaiming the supremacy of multiplicity as such, which exists only in the material world, whereas in the universal order unity is supreme as the principle from which all multiplicity proceeds. He links this to weight as a descending, compressive tendency that goes in the direction of increasing density and multiplicity, marking the direction of human activity since the modern epoch. Finally, he connects matter as the ‘principle of individuation’ to individualism, and identifies the law of the greatest number as the law of a collectivity conceived as a mere arithmetical sum of individuals attached to no superior principle.

General notes

  1. loi de la matière et de la force brutale — Rendered as ‘law of matter and brute force’. Guénon here identifies the majority rule not with a legitimate political principle, but with a purely physical and mechanical law: that of gravity and the inertia of masses. Numerical democracy is nothing but the transposition into the social order of the domination of quantity over quality, characteristic of the material world. ↩︎
  2. point de jonction entre la conception « démocratique » et le « matérialisme » — Rendered as ‘point of junction between the “democratic” conception and “materialism”’. Guénon here establishes a deep connection between two apparently distinct modern errors. Democracy and materialism proceed from the same misunderstanding: both place quantity (number, mass, extension) above quality (value, hierarchy, principle). The majority is the social equivalent of matter in physics. ↩︎
  3. suprématie de la multiplicité comme telle — Rendered as ‘supremacy of multiplicity as such’. Guénon here opposes the traditional hierarchy (where unity is superior to multiplicity) to the modern inversion (where multiplicity, that is to say pure number, claims to reign). Democracy is the political apotheosis of the multiple without a unitive principle. ↩︎
  4. l’unité est au sommet de la hiérarchie — Rendered as ‘unity is at the summit of the hierarchy’. Fundamental principle of traditional metaphysics: the One (the hen of the Neoplatonists, the ekaṃ of the Śvetāśvatara Upaniṣad, non-dual Brahman) is the source of all multiple reality. Multiplicity is only a derivation and a limitation of the first unity. The democratic inversion consists in making multiplicity the source of authority. ↩︎
  5. pesanteur — tendance descendante et compressive — Rendered as ‘weight — descending and compressive tendency’. Guénon gives weight a metaphysical, not merely physical, sense. Weight symbolises the fall out of spiritual unity into material multiplicity: the more a being sinks into the material, the more it divides and limits itself. The analogy between gravity and democracy is not a poetic metaphor but an ontological correspondence. ↩︎
  6. « principe d’individuation » — Rendered as ‘principle of individuation’. A term from medieval scholasticism (derived from Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas) designating that by which an individual is distinct from any other. For the tradition, matter is the principle of individuation: it fragments generic unity into a multiplicity of separate exemplars. Guénon links this concept to his analysis of modern individualism. ↩︎
  7. individualisme — Rendered as ‘individualism’. Guénon criticises individualism as the doctrine that absolutises the separate individual and denies any superior principle (tradition, spiritual authority, hierarchy). Individualism is the social corollary of materialism and democracy: if matter is the principle of individuation, then the isolated individual becomes the supreme value. ↩︎
  8. « chute » des êtres — Rendered as ‘“fall” of beings’. Guénon interprets the biblical narrative of the Fall (Genesis 3) as a symbol of the metaphysical descent from unity into multiplicity. Primordial Adam represents the state of undifferentiated unity; the Fall is the entry into the individual condition, marked by separation, sin (in the etymological sense of hamartia: ‘missing the mark’, deviating from unity) and death. Democracy would be the political expression of this ‘fallen’ state. ↩︎
  9. collectivité comme somme arithmétique des individus — Rendered as ‘collectivity as the arithmetical sum of individuals’. Guénon radically distinguishes the traditional community (organic, hierarchised, attached to a transcendent spiritual principle) from the modern collectivity (mechanical aggregate of individual atoms). The former is a qualitative unity; the latter is only a quantity. The law of number reigns over the latter, not over the former. ↩︎

Guénon’s footnotes

  • a supremacy that, in fact, exists only in the material world — It suffices to read Thomas Aquinas to see that “numerus stat ex parte materiae”.
  • for it is unity that is the principle from which all multiplicity proceeds — From one order of reality to another, analogy, here as in all similar cases, applies strictly in reverse.
  • figured here by an increasingly great density — This tendency is what Hindu doctrine calls tamas, and which it assimilates to ignorance and obscurity: it will be noted that, according to what we said earlier about the application of analogy, the compression or condensation in question is the opposite of concentration as considered in the spiritual or intellectual order, so that, however strange this may seem at first, it is in reality correlative with division and dispersion in multiplicity. Moreover, it is the same with uniformity achieved from below, at the lowest level, according to the “egalitarian” conception, which is at the extreme opposite of superior and principial unity.
  • the ‘fall’ of beings who have separated themselves from original unity is effected — This is why Dante places the symbolic abode of Lucifer at the center of the earth, that is to say at the point where the forces of gravity converge from all sides; from this point of view, it is the inverse of the center of spiritual or “celestial” attraction, which is symbolized by the sun in most traditional doctrines.