3: The Law of Gradation

May 14, 2015

The Last Judgment by Fra Angelico

Divine Providence wanted to create all things in a hierarchy. In making minerals, plants, animals, men, and the angels, Divine Providence established an immense gamut of intermediary degrees within each of these categories.

At one and the same time, this hierarchy is full of diversity and entirely harmonic. There is an infinity of “nuances” between the diverse degrees in order that between one and the other no abrupt leap is perceived.

Crystals of benitoite, which is a rare blue barium titanium silicate mineral, found in hydrothermally altered serpentinite. Benitoite fluoresces under short wave ultraviolet light, appearing bright blue to bluish white in color.

Crystals of benitoite, which is a rare blue barium titanium silicate mineral, found in hydrothermally altered serpentinite. Benitoite fluoresces under short wave ultraviolet light, appearing bright blue to bluish white in color.

Without these intermediary degrees, the world would be crude and inhospitable.

Imagine if man lived in a world comprised solely of minerals and that Providence obliged man to extract the food necessary for his sustenance from these minerals. Man would feel sick, for there exists an abyss between man and the minerals. However, when he has plants and animals in addition to himself, a natural scale is established that produces a sensation of well-being in him.

Flower Market In A French Town by Alfred Glendening.

Flower Market In A French Town by Alfred Glendening.

Organic hierarchy, filled with gradations, is pleasing to the counter-revolutionary spirit because it constitutes a unity full of variety. Transposed to the socio-political field, this law of gradation produces a medieval society in which the social classes form a suave hierarchy, with an infinity of intermediary “statuses” between the villager and the king.

"You should hope that this game will be over soon." Caricature of the Third Estate carrying the First Estate (clergy) and the Second Estate (nobility) on its back.

“You should hope that this game will be over soon.” Caricature of the Third Estate carrying the First Estate (clergy) and the Second Estate (nobility) on its back.

On the contrary, the Revolution hates the existence of societies that possess these junctions full of organic degrees and articulated among themselves. At the most, it tolerates that the nouveau riche present themselves as the lords of the universe, regarding all others, especially the traditional elites, as pariahs.

The Revolution wants to destroy the intermediary degrees of the social pyramid.

 

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O Universo é uma Catedral: Excertos do pensamento de Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira recolhidos por Leo Daniele, Edições Brasil de Amanhã, São Paulo, 1997

[Nobility.org Translation]

 

1: The Laws Of Variety

2: The Law of Contrast

 

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