INTRODUCTION

There remain the theological studies, the seminaries, and the advanced secular studies of the Sorbonne and the Collège de France The Sorbonne and Collège de France are the premier institutions of higher learning in Paris, representing the peak of secular academic thought.. The students of Saint Thomas Referring to Thomas Aquinas, representing traditional Catholic scholasticism. and those of Renan Ernest Renan (1823–1892), a scholar famous for his historical, non-supernatural account of the life of Jesus..

It is between them and the physiologists In this context, "physiologists" refers to materialist scientists who explain all human phenomena through physical and biological processes. that the battle of contemporary thought is waged. For our part, we do not have to take a side with one more than the other.

Contrary to many creators of philosophical systems, who begin their treatises with the systematic demolition of their predecessors' systems and with the assertion that they are finally bringing the complete truth—until they suffer the same fate as said predecessors—we come to declare first of all that we have created nothing original and that our role consists of summarizing, while adapting it to our era, a very ancient philosophy.

If our weak pen sometimes betrays the Wisdom it is charged with translating, we pray that researchers will return to the originals and attribute any errors only to our ignorance and our lack of eloquence. It is this guarantee alone which gives us the courage to carry to completion a task that seems to us beyond our strength.

If the few following pages push certain minds to read more closely the masters of whom we are but an obscure disciple; if serious researchers realize that occultism Occultism: here used not as "magic," but as the study of "hidden" or esoteric universal laws is better than that collection of vague and obscure ideas under which its adversaries seek to overwhelm it; if, finally, one glimpses the unity that this philosophy—the inspiration, through initiatory centers, of Spinoza, Goethe, Leibniz, and so many others—brings to the quarrel between Science and Belief, then our modest essay will have more than achieved its goal.