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It will doubtless be asked why cyclic development must proceed in this manner, in a downward direction, from higher to lower, a course that will at once be perceived to be a complete antithesis to the idea of progress as the moderns understand it. The reason is that the development of any manifestation necessarily implies a gradually increasing distance from the principle from which it proceeds; starting from the highest point, it tends necessarily downward, and, as with heavy bodies, the speed of its motion increases continuously until finally it reaches a point at which it is stopped. This
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but this reply in itself is an admission of ignorance and of a lack of comprehension that can be explained only by their contempt for tradition; the specifically modern outlook is in fact, as we shall explain further on, identical with the anti-traditional outlook.
The tendencies that found expression among the Greeks had to be pushed to the extreme, the undue importance given to rational thought had to grow even greater, before men could arrive at ‘rationalism’, a specifically modern attitude that consists in not merely ignoring, but expressly denying, everything of a supra-rational order.
After the troubled period of the barbarian invasions, necessary to complete the destruction of the old order of things, a normal order was re-established for a period of some centuries; this period was that of the Middle Ages, of which the moderns—unable to understand its intellectuality—have so false an idea that it certainly appears to them far more alien and distant than classical antiquity.
the Renaissance and Reformation were primarily results, made possible only by the preceding decadence; but, far from being a readjustment, they marked an even deeper falling off, consummating, as they did, the definitive rupture with the traditional spirit, the former in the domain of the arts and sciences, and the latter in that of religion itself, although this was the domain in which it might have seemed the most difficult to conceive of such a rupture.
How to elaborate on this...
Henceforth there was only ‘profane’ philosophy and ‘profane’ science, in other words, the negation of true intellectuality, the limitation of knowledge to its lowest order, namely, the empirical and analytical study of facts divorced from principles, a dispersion in an indefinite multitude of insignificant details, and the accumulation of unfounded and mutually destructive hypotheses and of fragmentary views leading to nothing other than those practical applications that constitute the sole real superiority of modern civilization—a scarcely enviable superiority, moreover, which, by stifling
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A word that rose to honor at the time of the Renaissance, and that summarized in advance the whole program of modern civilization is ‘humanism’. Men were indeed concerned to reduce everything to purely human proportions, to eliminate every principle of a higher order, and, one might say, symbolically to turn away from the heavens under pretext of conquering the earth;
Humanism was the first form of what has subsequently become contemporary secularism; and, owing to its desire to reduce everything to the measure of man as an end in himself, modern civilization has sunk stage by stage until it has reached the level of the lowest elements in man and aims at little more than satisfying the needs inherent in the material side of his nature, an aim that is in any case quite illusory since it constantly creates more artificial needs than it can satisfy.
The more they have sought to exploit matter, the more they have become its slaves, thus dooming themselves to ever increasing agitation without rule or objective, to a dispersion in pure multiplicity leading to final dissolution.
On the other hand, a civilization that recognizes no higher principle, but is in reality based only on a negation of principles, is by this very fact ruled out from all mutual understanding with other civilizations, for if such understanding is to be profound and effective it can only come from above, that is to say from the very factor that this abnormal and perverted civilization lacks.
Implying the West is in reality based on a negation of principles... Elaborate. What are the negation of principles it's based on?
To give a more definite idea of these civilizations, we will repeat here the general division between them that we have already laid down elsewhere, and which, though possibly somewhat simplified for someone wishing to enter into detail, is nevertheless correct in its main outlines: the Far East is represented essentially by the Chinese civilization, the Middle East (that is, India) by the Hindu, and the Near East by the Islamic.
During recent centuries there has occurred a great change that is far more serious than any of the deviations that may have occurred previously in periods of decadence, for it has proceeded to the point of an absolute reversal of the trend of human activity; and this change had its origin only in the West.
"Absolute reversal of the trend of human activity" means what exactly?
It is only by establishing contact with still living traditions that what is capable of being revived can be made to live again; and this, as we have so often pointed out, is one of the greatest services that the East can render the West.
Safe to say the west has quelled "spirit" of any kind? Only remnant of it is in something superficial such as at a high school where people exhibit a 'spirit' representing the school and its values? A sports player represents the school and is expected to embody a particular value set forth by the school... in winning and losing... ? Maybe?
ago; if all Westerners are no longer unanimous in contenting themselves with the exclusively material development of modern civilization, this may be a sign that for them not all hope of salvation has yet vanished.
It should be added that knowledge of principles is essential knowledge, or metaphysical knowledge, in the true sense of the word, and is as universal as are the principles themselves;
it is therefore ‘reform’ of the West that is called for, and if this reform were what it should be—that is to say, a restoration of tradition—it would entail as a natural consequence an understanding with the East.
The present antithesis between East and West may be said to consist in the fact that the East upholds the superiority of contemplation over action, whereas the modern West on the contrary maintains the superiority of action over contemplation.
Would it be fair to say "contemplation" refers in some sense to the spiritual or metaphysical while "action" has some relation to the material world and exploitation of it?
