glossary of terms used by frithjof schuon - Sophia Perennis

Human Nature: When we speak of man, what we have in mind first of all is human
nature as such, that is, inasmuch as it is distinguished from animal nature. Specifically
human nature is made of centrality and totality, and hence of objectivity; objectivity
being the capacity to step outside oneself, while centrality and totality are the capacity to
conceive the Absolute. First, objectivity of intelligence: the capacity to see things as they
are in themselves; next, objectivity of will, hence free will; and finally, objectivity of
sentiment, or of soul if one prefers: the capacity for charity, disinterested love,
compassion. “Noblesse oblige”: the “human miracle” must have a reason for being that is
proportionate to its nature, and it is this that predestines – or “condemns” – man to
surpass himself; man is totally himself only by transcending himself. Quite paradoxically,
it is only in transcending himself that man reaches his proper level; and no less
paradoxically, by refusing to transcend himself he sinks below the animals which – by
their form and mode of passive contemplativity – participate adequately and innocently in
a celestial archetype; in a certain respect, a noble animal is superior to a vile man. [THC,
Survey of Integral Anthropology]
Humanism: The word “humanism” constitutes a curious abuse of language in view of
the fact that it expresses a notion that is contrary to the integrally human, hence to the
human properly so called: indeed, nothing is more fundamentally inhuman than the
“purely human,” the illusion of constructing a perfect man starting from the individual
and terrestrial; whereas the human in the ideal sense draws its reason for existence and its
entire content from that which transcends the individual and the earthly.
[FDH, Consequences Flowing from the Mystery of Subjectivity]
Whoever says humanism, says individualism, and whoever says individualism, says
narcissism, and consequently: breaching of that protective wall which is the human norm;
thus rupture of equilibrium between the subjective and the objective, or between
vagabond sensibility and pure intelligence . . .
What we wish to suggest in most of our considerations on modern genius is that
humanistic culture, insofar as it functions as an ideology and therefore as a religion,
consists essentially in being unaware of three things: firstly, of what God is, because it
does not grant primacy to Him; secondly, of what man is, because it puts him in the place
of God; thirdly, of what the meaning of life is, because this culture limits itself to playing
with evanescent things and to plunging into them with criminal unconscious. In a word,
there is nothing more inhuman than humanism, by the fact that it, so to speak, decapitates
man: wishing to make of him an animal which is perfect, it succeeds in turning him into a
perfect animal; not all at once – because it has the fragmentary merit of abolishing certain
barbaric traits – but in the long run, since it inevitably ends by “re-barbarizing” society,
while “dehumanizing” it ipso facto in depth. A fragmentary merit, we say, because
softening of manners is good only on condition that it not corrupt man: that it not unleash
criminality, and not open the door to all possible perversions. In the 19 th century it was
still possible to believe in an indefinite moral progress; in the 20 th century came the brutal
awakening; it was necessary to recognize that one cannot improve man by being content
with the surface while destroying the foundations. [THC, To Have a Center]
Humanism is the reign of horizontality, either naïve or perfidious; and since it is also –
and by that very fact – the negation of the Absolute, it is a door open to a multitude of
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