Granted that nothing that is of a purely human order can for that very reason legitimately be called " traditional ", there cannot possibly be, for instance, a " philosophical tradition " or a " scientific tradition " in the modern and profane sense of the words, any more, of course, than there can be a " political tradition ", at least where all traditional social organization is lacking, as is the case in the modern Western world. Nevertheless such expressions are in common use to-day, each in its way denaturing the idea of tradition; and it is obvious that if the " traditionalists " referred to above can be persuaded to allow their activity to be turned aside towards one or other of these domains and to confine their activity to it, their aspirations will be " neutralized " and rendered perfectly harmless, and may even sometimes be used without their knowledge for a purpose exactly contrary to what they intend. Indeed it sometimes happens that people go so far as to apply the word " tradition " to things which by their very nature are as directly anti-traditional as possible : thus they talk about a "humanist tradition ", and a " national tradition " despite the fact that humanism is nothing if not an explicit denial of the super-human, and the formation of " nationalities " has been the means employed for the destruction of the traditional civilization of the Middle Ages. In the circumstances it would not be surprising if people began one day to talk about a " Protestant tradition " or even a " lay tradition " or " a revolutionary tradition " or if the materialists themselves ended by proclaiming themselves the defenders of a " tradition ", if only in their capacity as the representatives of something already belonging in a great measure to the past ! Most of our contemporaries have reached such a state of mental confusion that associations of the most manifestly contradictory words bring about no reaction on their part and do not even provide them with food for thought. The Reign of Quantity and Signs of the Times TRADITION AND TRADITIONALISM