“The traditional sciences … constitute … a preparation for a higher knowledge and a way of approach to it, and by virtue of their hierarchical arrangement according to the levels of existence to which they refer, they form, as it were, so many rungs by which it is possible to climb to the level of pure intellectuality. It is only too clear that modern sciences cannot in any way serve either of these purposes; this is why they can be no more than “profane science,” whereas the traditional sciences … are effectively incorporated in “sacred science.””

Source: The Crisis of the Modern World (1927), pp. 65-66

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René Guénon 28
French metaphysician 1886–1951

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