/lit/ - Literature

>The progressive materialization of reality is due to a distancing from first principles.
>The limitation of knowledge to its lowest order, namely the empirical and analytical study of facts divorced from principles...has given the present civilization the purely material character that makes of it a veritable monstrosity.
>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 independent of all individual contingencies, which one must on the contrary intervene as soon as one descends to applications.
>A true understanding can come only from above and not below. The work must begin from what is highest, from principles, and descend gradually to the various orders of application, always keeping rigorously to the hierarchical dependence that exists between them.
>The deeper one sinks into matter, the more the elements of division and opposition gain force and scope; and, contrariwise, the more one rises toward pure spirituality, the nearer one approaches that unity which can only be fully realized by consciousness of universal principles.
-It is easy to find more or less valid arguments on both sides of a question when there is no appeal to any higher principle

What principles are Guenon talking about? He never states what they are, like the reader should already know. This is my first go at this. My intuition tells me it's more than "principles" in the sense of ethics. When he talks about "metaphysical principles", what does he mean? Books for this?

Anyone else notice the train wheel on this book by Guenon? Coincidence or message from ٱللَّٰه?