Reign of Quantity and the Signs of the Times

The Reign of Quantity and the Signs of the Times is René Guénon's most prophetic work. Having seen his telling analysis of Western culture, The Crisis of the Modern World, swiftly overtaken by events, he based this his final and most profound critique squarely on changeless metaphysical principles. He exposes with his fabled clarity the precise nature of the modern deviation, devoting special attention to the part played by modern philosophy and science (with their accompanying notions of progress and evolution) in the formation of the industrial and democratic society that we now regard as "normal." He sees history as a descent from Form (or Quality) toward Matter (or Quantity). But following after the Reign of Quantity (modern materialism and the "rise of the masses"), Guénon predicts a reign of "inverted quality" just before the end of the age: the triumph of the "counter-initiation" the kingdom of Antichrist. Although Guénon bases his critique on "abstract" principles, his examples are satisfyingly concrete: his remarks on "the degeneration of coinage" could easily be updated to include the transformation of money into electronically-stored digital information; his treatment of "the significance of metallurgy" as regards its occult dangers points directly to our own well-founded fear of such man-made elements as plutonium; and his chapter on the "cracks in the Great Wall" gives solid metaphysical grounding to our twenty-first century demonology, including the UFO phenomenon. This text is considered the magnum opus among Guénon's works of civilizational criticism, as is Symbols of Sacred Science among his studies on symbols and cosmology, and Man and His Becoming according to the Vedanta among his more purely metaphysical works.

The Reign of Quantity gives a concise but comprehensive view of the present state of affairs in the world, as it appears from the point of view of the 'ancient wisdom', formerly common both to the East and to the West, but now almost entirely lost sight of. The author indicates with his fabled clarity and directness the precise nature of the modern deviation, and devotes special attention to the development of modern philosophy and science, and to the part played by them, with their accompanying notions of progress and evolution, in the formation of the industrial and democratic society which we now regard as 'normal'. Guénon sees history as a descent from Form (or Quality) toward Matter (or Quantity); but after the Reign of Quantity-modern materialism and the 'rise of the masses'-Guénon predicts a reign of 'inverted quality' just before the end of the age: the triumph of the 'counter-initiation', the kingdom of Antichrist. This text is considered the magnum opus among Guénon's texts of civilizational criticism, as is Symbols of Sacred Science among his studies on symbols and cosmology, and Man and His Becoming according to the Vedanta among his more purely metaphysical works.

"The works of René Guénon (1886-1951), all but unknown to the English-reading public, are nevertheless regarded by many significant thinkers as among this century's most powerful and effective remedies for the anti-traditional spirit and virulent relativism of modernism. As for `post-modernism', we confess ignorance of its exact meaning (if it has one), but do know that, without the rigor of metaphysical principles as reconstituted for the West especially by Guénon, it will soon decay into yet another academic specialty.

Titus Burckhardt, Ananda K. Coomaraswamy, Marco Pallis, S.H. Nasr, Martin Lings, Huston Smith, William Chittick, and Joseph Epes Brown are among the better known writers who have been inspired by Guénon; less well-known, or influenced less directly, are Philip Sherrard, Gai Eaton, Whitall Perry, William Stoddart, E.F. Schumacher, Mircea Eliade, Elemire Zolla, Julius Évola, and Jacob Needleman. Without doubt, however, the best-known and most profound author whose works stand in direct relation to Guénon's is Frithjof Schuon, whose many books, spanning more than half a century, are considered by many to represent the most complete exposition of the `transcendent unity' of religions--both from a doctrinal and methodological point of view--ever presented.

Guénon's many works have remained uninterruptedly in print in French since their initial publication, but the case has been quite otherwise in English: only a few have been translated, and these few have never been in print for long, and been very scarce on the used-book market. No doubt this can be explained in part by the nature of Guénon's writing, for he places extraordinary demands on his readers, and makes no concession to popularism. And yet, at no time has such a critique of civilization and exposition of traditional metaphysical principles as he provides been more necessary than now. Guénon's works are an indispensable corrective that will be recognized--`on impact' one might almost say--by those who have begun to recognize the pernicious influences at large in the contemporary world, but who lack the formation to draw all the necessary conclusions unaided. In an ecumenic age, Guénon formulates the only possible reconciliation of the legitimate--but apparently conflicting--demands of external religious forms (exoterism) with the essential core of these forms (esoterism), a reconciliation that has no truck with the sentimental and `politically-correct' ecumenicism that has come to typify our age, offering a table of random traditional dishes to be sampled at one's pleasure, with no spiritual committment, to say the least.

Sophia Perennis et Universalis has undertaken to make Guénon's works available again, as well as new translations and works by related authors. Guénon never doubted that his books would eventually reach those few for whom they were intended, despite the difficulties entailed in publishing them; and this is the position we also adopt, trusting that support will be forthcoming for further editions as more and more readers recognize their significance. We hope that this simple limited edition reprint of The Reign of Quantity and the Signs of the Times, one of Guénon's masterpieces, will be a first step toward a larger-scale publishing program in the future, and take this opportunity to thank Guénon's heirs and their agent, Mr. Gouverneur, as well as the original French publishers, for their cooperation in making this edition possible. To the many individuals who have supported this effort over the past few years we express our gratitude, and invite you, new reader, to join us as well." --James Wetmore