138 AN INTRODUCTION TO SUFI DOCTRINE

seeks to know it. The true movement of thought is
the circular movement followed by meditation, and all
philosophy which disregards this is mistaken in its
procedure. The truth which philosophy seems to find
by dint of arguments is already implicit in its point of
departure unless at the end of a long maze of thought
the philosopher merely ““ rediscovers >’ the mental refrac-
tion of some old prejudice born of passion or individual
or collective preoccupation.

Individualist thought always includes a blind spot
because it is unaware of its own intellectual €ssence. As
for meditation, although it fails to grasp the Essence
directly, it does at least presuppose it. Meditation is a
“ wise ignorance,” whereas the philosophical ratiocina-
tion which arises from mental individualism is an “igno-
rant learnedness.”” When philosophy scrutinizes the
nature of knowledge it is inevitably in a dilemma.
When it separates the subject from the objective domain
and attributes to it a wholly relative reality in the sense
of individual “subjectivity,”” it forgets that its own
judgements depend on the reality of the subject and its
capability of affirming the truth; when, on the other
hand, it declares that all perceptions or intellections are
merely “ subjective,”” and therefore relative and uncer-
tain, it forgets that by this very assertion it is in fact
laying claim to objectivity. For thought there is no
way out of this dilemma. The mind, which is only a
particle of the universe, only one of the modalities of
existence, can neither embrace the universe nor yet
define its own position in relation to the whole. If it