As between all the more or less incoherent things that are to-day in constant agitation and mutual collision, as between all external " movements of whatever kind they may be, there is no occasion to take sides ", to use the common expression, whether from a traditional or from a merely " traditionalist " point of view, for to do so is to become a dupe. Since the same influences are really operating behind all these things, it is really playing their game to join in the struggles promoted and directed by them ; therefore the mere fact of " taking sides " under such conditions is necessarily to adopt, .however unwittingly, a truly anti-traditional attitude. No particular applications need be specified here, but it must at least be made clear in a general way that in all this agitation principles are always and everywhere lacking, despite the fact that " principles " have surely never been so much talked about as they are to-day on all sides, the word being commonly applied more or less regardlessly to things that are least worthy of it, and sometimes even to things that imply the negation of all true principle. This particular misuse of a word is again highly significant of the real trend of the falsification of language already well exemplified by the perversion of the word "tradition" ; that example has been specially stressed because it is most closely connected with the subject of this treatise, in so far as the latter is intended to give a picture of the last phases of the cyclical " descent ". It is not in fact possible to stop short at the point which represents most nearly the apogee of the " reign of quantity ", for what follows that point is too closely connected with what precedes it to allow of any separation being made otherwise than quite artificially ; no "abstractions" are therefore admitted here, for they only represent a particular form of the " simplification " so dear to the modern mentality ; on the contrary, the object is as far as possible to present reality as it is, without omitting anything that is essential for the understanding of the conditions of the present period. The Reign of Quantity and Signs of the Times TRADITION AND TRADITIONALISM