mind._--In the one the premisses are palpable, but removed from
ordinary use, so that from want of habit it is difficult to look in
that direction, but if we take the trouble to look, the premisses are
fully visible, and we must have a totally incorrect mind if we draw
wrong inferences from premisses so plain that it is scarce possible
they should escape our notice.
But in the practical mind the premisses are taken from use and wont,
and are before the eyes of every body. We have only to look that way,
there is no difficulty in seeing them; it is only a question of good
eyesight, but it must be good, for the premisses are so numerous and
so subtle, that it is scarce possible but that some escape us. Now
the omission of one premiss leads to error, thus we must have very
clear sight to see all the premisses, and then an accurate mind not
to draw false conclusions from known premisses.
All mathematicians would then be practical if they were
clear-sighted, for they do not reason incorrectly on premisses known
to them. And practical men would be mathematicians if they could
turn their eyes to the premisses of mathematics to which they are
unaccustomed.
The reason therefore that some practical men are not mathematical
is that they cannot at all turn their attention to mathematical
premisses. But the reason that mathematicians are not practical is
that they do not see what is before them, and that, accustomed to
the precise and distinct statements of mathematics and not reasoning
till they have well examined and arranged their premisses, they are
lost in practical life wherein the premisses do not admit of such
arrangement, being scarcely seen, indeed they are felt rather than
seen, and there is great difficulty in causing them to be felt by
those who do not of themselves perceive them. They are so nice and
so numerous, that a very delicate and very clear sense is needed
to apprehend them, and to judge rightly and justly when they are
apprehended, without as a rule being able to demonstrate them in an
orderly way as in mathematics; because the premisses are not before
us in the same way, and because it would be an infinite matter to
undertake. We must see them at once, at one glance, and not by
process of reasoning, at least up to a certain degree. And thus it
is rare that mathematicians are practical, or that practical men
are mathematicians, because mathematicians wish to treat practical
life mathematically; and they make themselves ridiculous, wishing to
begin by definitions and premisses, a proceeding which this way of
reasoning will not bear. The mind does indeed the same thing, but
tacitly, naturally and without art, in a way which none can express,
and only a few can feel.
Practical minds on the contrary, being thus accustomed to judge at a
glance, are amazed when propositions are presented to them of which
they understand nothing and the way to which is through sterile
definitions and premisses, which they are not accustomed to see thus
in detail, and therefore are repelled and disheartened.
But inaccurate minds are never either practical or mathematical.
Mathematicians who are only mathematicians have exact minds, provided
all things are clearly set before them in definitions and premisses,
otherwise they are inaccurate and intolerable, for they are only
accurate when the premisses are perfectly clear.
And practical men, who are only practical, cannot have the patience
to condescend to first principles of things speculative and abstract,
which they have never seen in the world, and to which they are wholly
unaccustomed.
There are various kinds of good sense, there are some who judge
correctly in a certain order of things, and are lost in others.
Some are able to draw conclusions well from a few premisses, and this
shows a penetrative intellect.
Others draw conclusions well where there are many premisses.
For instance, the first easily understand the laws of hydrostatics,
where the premisses are few, but the conclusions so nice, that only
the greatest penetration can reach them. And these persons would
perhaps not necessarily be great mathematicians, because mathematics
embrace a great number of premisses, and perhaps a mind may be so
formed that it searches with ease a few premisses to the bottom,
yet cannot at all comprehend those matters in which there are many
premisses.
There are then two kinds of mind, the one able to penetrate
vigorously and deeply into the conclusions of certain premisses,
and these are minds true and just. The other able to comprehend a
great number of premisses without confusion, and these are the minds
for mathematics. The one kind has force and exactness, the other
capacity. Now the one quality can exist without the other, a mind may
be vigorous and narrow, or it may have great range and no strength.
When we do not know the truth of a thing, it is not amiss that there
should be a common error to fix the mind of men, as for instance the
moon, to which is attributed the change of seasons, the progress
of diseases, etc. For the principal malady of man is that restless
curiosity about matters which he can not understand, and it is not so
bad for him to be mistaken, as to be so idly curious.
The way in which Epictetus, Montaigne, and Salomon de Tultie wrote,
is the most usual, the most insinuating, the most easily remembered,
and the most often quoted; because it is wholly composed of thoughts
which arise out of the ordinary conversations of life. As when a man
speaks of the vulgar error that the moon is the cause of all, we
never fail to say that Salomon de Tultie says, that when we know not
the truth of a matter, it is well there should be a common error,
etc; which is the thought above.
To write against those who plunged too deep into science. Descartes.
Descartes.
We must say in general: "This is made by figure and motion for it is
true." But to say what these are, and to compose the machine, is
ridiculous, for it is useless, uncertain, and painful. And if it were
true we do not think that all philosophy is worth one hour of pain.
I cannot forgive Descartes.
If an animal did by mind what it does by instinct, and if it spoke
by mind what it speaks by instinct, in hunting, and warning its
companions that the quarry is found or lost, it would certainly also
speak in regard to those things which affect it more strongly, as
for instance, "Gnaw me this cord which hurts me, and which I cannot
reach."
The story of the pike and frog of Liancourt. They do it always and
never otherwise, nor any other thing of mind.
The calculating machine works results which approach nearer to
thought than any thing done by animals, but it does nothing which
enables us to say it has any will, as animals have.
When it is said that heat is only the motion of certain molecules,
and light the _conatus recedendi_ which we feel, we are surprised.
And shall we think that pleasure is but the buoyancy of our spirits?
We have conceived so different an idea of it, and these sensations
seem so removed from those others which we say are the same as those
with which we compare them. The feeling of fire, the warmth which
affects us in a manner wholly different from touch, the reception of
sound and light, all this seems to us mysterious, and yet it is as
material as the blow of a stone. It is true that the minuteness of
the spirits which enter into the pores touch different nerves, yet
nerves are always touched.
What is more absurd than to say that inanimate bodies have passion,
fear, horror, that insensible bodies, without life, and even
incapable of life, have passions, which presuppose at least a
sensitive soul to feel them, nay more, that the object of their
terror is a vacuum? What is there in a vacuum which should make them
afraid? What can be more base and more ridiculous? Nor is this all;
it is said they have in themselves a principle of motion to avoid a
vacuum. Have they arms, legs, muscles, nerves?
How foolish is painting, which draws admiration by the resemblance of
things of which we do not admire the originals.
In the same way that we injure the understanding we injure the
feelings also.
The feelings and the understanding are formed by society, and are
perverted by society. Thus good or bad society forms or perverts
them. It is then of the first importance to know how to choose in
order to form and not to pervert them, and we cannot make this choice
if they be not already formed and not perverted. Thus a circle is
formed, and happy are those who escape it.
Have you never seen persons, who, in order to complain of the little
you make of them, bring before you the example of people in high
position who esteem them? To such I answer, "Show me the merit by
which you have charmed these persons, and I will esteem you too."
The world is full of good maxims. All that is needed is their right
application. For instance, no one doubts that we ought to risk our
lives for the common weal, and many do so. But for Religion, none.
Nature diversifies and imitates, art imitates and diversifies.
The more intellect we have ourselves, the more originality do we
discover in others. Ordinary people find no difference between men.
Since we cannot be universal, and know all that is to be known of
everything, we should know a little of everything. For it is far
better to know something of all than to know the whole of one thing,
this universality is the best. If we can have both, still better,
but if we must choose, let us choose the first. The world feels and
acts on this, and the world is often a good judge.
Certain authors speaking of their works, say: "My book, my
commentary, my history, etc." They are like the middle-class people
who have a small house of their own, and have "my house" always on
the tongue. They would do better to say: "Our book, our commentary,
our history, etc."; because there is in them generally more of other
people's than their own.
A true friend is so great an advantage, even for the greatest lords,
in order that he may speak well of them, and uphold them in their
absence, that they ought to do all that is possible to have one. But
they should choose well, for spite of all they may do for fools,
whatever good these say of them would be useless, and they would not
even speak well of them if they found themselves in the minority, for
they are without authority. And thus they would abuse them in company.
"You are ungraceful, excuse me, I beg." Without that excuse I had not
known there was aught amiss. "With reverence be it spoke...." The
only evil is the excuse.
I always dislike such compliments as these: _I have given you a great
deal of trouble._ _I fear I am tiring you._ _I fear this is too
long._ For we either have our audience with us, or we provoke them.
Rivers are roads which move and carry us whither we wish to go.
In every action we must look beyond the action at our past, present
and future state, and at others whom it affects, and see the
relations of all these things. And then we shall be very careful.
In every dialogue and discourse we ought to be able to say to those
who are offended, "Of what do you complain?"
There are many people who listen to the sermon as they listen to
vespers.
When a strong man armed keepeth his palace, his goods are in peace.
_NOTES._
_NOTES._
P. 2. _Pascal's Profession of Faith._ A few days after Pascal's
death, a servant discovered this profession sewed into a fold of his
master's waistcoat, _pourpoint_. It was written on parchment, with a
copy on paper. His family believed that he had carefully placed this
in each new garment, desiring to have always about him the memorial
of the great spiritual crisis.
P. 3, l. 32. _Dereliquerunt me._ Jer. li. 13.
P. 3. _General Introduction._ In this are apparently two drafts of
the same preface, the second beginning with the paragraph "Before
entering," p. 9, l. 6. M. Faugère was the first to recognize the true
character of this sketch, which has borne various titles. The Port
Royal edition called it: "Against the Indifference of Atheists;"
Condorcet headed it: "On the Need of Concern for the Proofs of a
Future Life;" Bossut: "On the Need of a Study of Religion." See note
on p. 61.
P. 3, l. 8. _Deus absconditus._ Is. xlv. 15. _Vere tu es Deus
absconditus, Deus Israel salvator._
P. 11. _Notes for the General Introduction._ The fragments following
are thus arranged by Molinier as having been in his judgment intended
for and many of them expanded in the preceding Preface.
P. 12, l. 23. _Miton_ was a man of fashion at Paris, a friend of
Pascal's friend, the Chevalier de Méré.
P. 17. _Preface to the First Part._ This is Pascal's own title to the
section.
P. 17, l. 2. _Charron_, Pierre, was born at Paris in 1541. He was a
friend of Montaigne, whose philosophy he adopted. His _Traité de la
Sagesse_, Bordeaux, 1601, is the work of whose elaborate divisions
Pascal complains.
P. 17, l. 12. _Montaigne's defects._ Mademoiselle de Gournay,
Montaigne's adopted daughter, defends the Essayist in regard to this
matter, in the preface to her edition of the Essays, Paris, 1595.
P. 17, l. 14. _people without eyes._ Montaigne, _Essais_, l. ii. ch.
xii.
P. 17, l. 15. _squaring the circle_. _Ib._, l. ii. ch. xiv.
P. 17, l. 15. _a greater world._ Montaigne, _Essais_, l. ii. ch. xii.
P. 17, l. 16. _on suicide and on death._ _Ib._, l. i. ch. iii.
P. 17, l. 17. _without fear and without repentance._ _Ib._, l. iii.
ch. ii.
P. 19. _Man's Disproportion._ Pascal's own title.
P. 19, l. 34. _the centre of which is every where, the circumference
no where._ Voltaire attributed this famous saying to the
pseudo-Timæus of Locris, an abridgement of Plato's _Timæus_, but in
neither work is the whole sentence to be found. The saying, however,
is not originally Pascal's. It is probably borrowed from Mlle. de
Gournay's preface to her edition of Montaigne, Paris, 1635, and was
taken by her from Rabelais, bk. iii. ch. 13, where it is attributed
to Hermes Trismegistus. M. Havet, who gives these, and many more
details, finally traces it, on the authority of Vincent de Beauvais,
1200-1264, to Empedocles.
P. 21, l. 36. _I will discourse of the all._ This saying of
Democritus is taken by Pascal from Montaigne, _Essais_, l. ii. ch.
xii.
P. 22, l. 4. _De omni scibili._ The title given to nine hundred
propositions, put forth at Rome by Pico della Mirandola, then aged
twenty-three, in 1486.
P. 22, l. 8. _The Principles of Philosophy._ Descartes wrote a work
with this title, _Principia Philosophiæ_.
P. 22, l. 38. _Beneficia eo usque lata sunt._ Tacitus, _Ann._ lib.
iv. c. xviii. Taken by Pascal from Montaigne, _Essais_, l. iii. ch.
viii.
P. 24, l. 27. _And what completes our inability._ Compare for the
whole of the passage on matter and spirit, Descartes, _Discours de la
Méthode_.
P. 25, l. 34. _Modus quo corporibus adhæret spiritus._ S. Aug. _De
Civitate Dei_, xxi. 10. Taken by Pascal from Montaigne, _Essais_, l.
ii. ch. xii.
P. 26, l. 31. _Lustravit lampade terras._ The full couplet is
_Tales sunt hominum mentes, quali pater ipse
Jupiter auctiferas lustravit lampade terras_.
S. Aug. _De Civitate Dei_, v. 8, a translation by Cicero of two
lines in the _Odyssey_, xviii. 136. The quotation is borrowed from
Montaigne, _Essais_, l. ii. ch. xii.
P. 27, l. 20. _a fly is buzzing._ Borrowed from Montaigne, _Essais_,
l. iii. ch. xiii.
P. 27, l. 26. _flies which win battles._ Montaigne relates that the
Portuguese besieging the town of Tamly were obliged to raise the
siege on account of the clouds of flies. _Essais_, l. ii. ch. xii.
P. 28, l. 12. _Memoria hospitis unius diei prætereuntis._ Lib. Sap.
v. 14.
P. 30, l. 4. _Plerumque gratæ_, altered from Hor. _Carm._ iii. 29, v.
13. _plerumque gratæ_ divitibus _vices_.
P. 30, l. 13. _Epaminondas._ The example is taken from Montaigne,
_Essais_, l. ii. ch. xxxvi.
P. 31, l. 22. _Sneezing absorbs all the faculties._ A paraphrase of a
passage in Montaigne, _Essais_, l. iii. ch. v.
P. 31, l. 28. _Scaramouch_. One of the traditional parts in Italian
Comedy, at that time played by the well-known actor Tiberio Fiorelli,
whom Pascal had probably seen.
P. 31, l. 29. _The doctor_, also a common character in Italian
forces. Molière has borrowed from the Italian stage his doctor,
so often a pedant and a fool, of whom le docteur Pancrace, in _Le
Marriage Forcé_, is perhaps the most notable example, though that
comedy was produced after the death of Pascal.
P. 32, l. 11. _the Condrieu, the Desargues._ Gerard Desargues was
a mathematician at Condrieu on the Rhone, who had been Pascal's
teacher. Among the Muscat grapes grown at Condrieu, Pascal
distinguishes a special variety of Desargues, and among these a
particular vine.
P. 32, l. 28. _the Passion of Cleobuline._ In _Artamène, on le
Grand Cyrus_, the celebrated romance of Mademoiselle de Scudery,
Cleobuline, princess, afterwards queen of Corinth, is one of the
principal characters. She is represented as in love with Myrinthe,
one of her subjects, but "she loved him without thinking of love; and
remained so long in her error, that when she became aware of it, her
affection was no longer in a condition to be overcome."
P. 33. _Diversion._ Under this heading Pascal comprises not only
trivial occupations, and the distractions of idle society, but all
which, save truth alone, can form the study or the research of man.
The main idea of the chapter is borrowed from Montaigne, _Essais_, l.
iii. chap. x.
P. 35. l. 17. _The counsel given to Pyrrhus._ _Ib._, l. i. ch. xliii.
P. 36, l. 11. _as children are frightened at a face._ Borrowed from
Montaigne, _Essais_, l. ii. ch. iii., and Montaigne in his turn
borrowed it from Seneca, _Ep._ 24.
P. 36, l. 28. _superintendent._ Of finances. The last who held this
office was Fouquet, still in office when this was written. He was
dismissed in disgrace in 1661.
P. 36, l. 29. _first president._ Of the Parliament of Paris.
P. 36, l. 32. _dismissed to their country houses._ At that date, and
for a long time afterwards, a Minister of State rarely fell from
Office without receiving a _Lettre de cachet_ which banished him to
the seclusion of his country estate.
P. 39, l. 17. _In omnibus requiem quæsivi._ Eccles. xxiv. 7.
P. 40, l. 9. _will arise weariness._ Compare Montaigne, _Essais_, l.
iii.
P. 41, l. 7. _Cæsar was too old._ See Montaigne, _Essais_, l. ii. ch.
xxxiv.
P. 43. _The Greatness and Littleness of Man._ The title suggested by
Pascal, in many passages of the autograph MS.
P. 43, l. 11. _for Port Royal._ The letters A. P. R. occur in several
places in Pascal's MS. It is generally thought that they mean _à
Port-Royal_, and are intended to indicate subjects to be developed
later in _conférences_ or lectures at that house.
P. 45, l. 1. _Man is neither angel nor brute._ This is closely
borrowed from Montaigne, _Essais_, l. iii. ch. xiii.
P. 46, l. 15. _Corrumpunt mores bonos colloquia prava._ 1 ad Cor. xv.
33, but the Vulgate reading has _mala_.
P. 47, l. 18. _Paulus Emilius._ The example is taken from Montaigne,
_Essais_, l. i. ch. xix. See also Cic. _Tuscul._ v. 40.
P. 47, l. 31. _Ego vir videns_, Lament, iii. 1. _Ego vir videns
paupertatem meam in virga indignationis ejus._
P. 51. _Of the deceptive powers_, etc. This is Pascal's own title for
this section.
P. 51, l. 14. _Imagination._ Pascal uses this word in an extended
sense already given to it by Montaigne, and means that faculty by
which we attribute a value to those things which in fact have none.
P. 53, l. 11. _furred cats._ Rabelais, bk. v. ch. 11.
P. 54, l. 2. _Della Opinione._ No work is known under this name.
Pascal possibly means a work of Carlo Flosi, _L'Opinione tiranna,
moralmente considerata ne gli affari del mondo_, Mondovi, 1690. But
it is not certain that this edition is the reprint of a work extant
before Pascal wrote.
P. 54, l. 27. _Diseases are another source of error._ Taken from
Montaigne, _Essais_, l. ii. ch. xii.
P. 56, l. 20. _in Switzerland that of the burgesses._ This may be
compared with p. 66, l. 6. In the majority of Swiss towns every
candidate for municipal office must needs possess the freedom of the
town, but the intention was not to set aside those of noble birth, as
Pascal supposes, but foreigners, and those of other towns, each of
which was considered as a separate state.
P. 57, l. 27. _would care nothing for Provence._ Compare Montaigne,
_Essais_, l. i. ch. xxii. "_C'est par l'entremise de la coustume que
chascun est contant du lieu où nature l'a planté: et les sauvages
d'Escosse n'ont que faire de la Touraine, ny les Scythes de la
Thessalie._"
P. 57, l. 28. _Ferox gens._ Livy, l. xxxiv. c. 17.
P. 58. l. 20. _Brave deeds._ Borrowed from Montaigne, _Essais_, l. i.
ch. xl.
P. 61. _Of Justice_, etc. These fragments, now among the best known
of Pascal's Thoughts, but for the most part brought to notice in the
Edition of Bossut, 1779, have their present arrangement and title
from Molinier.
P. 61, l. 30. _Nihil amplius._ These sentences, borrowed from
Montaigne, are quoted, the first of them wrongly, from Cicero, _De
Finibus_, v. 21; the second from Seneca, _Ad Lucilium_, _Ep._ 95;
the third from Tacitus, _Annales_, iii. 25. Compare with the whole
passage Montaigne, _Essais_, l. ii. ch. xii. and l. iii. ch. xiii.
P. 62, l. 29. _Quum veritatem._ S. Aug., _De Civit. Dei_, iv. 31.
From Montaigne, _Essais_, l. ii. ch. iii.
P. 62, l. 27. _the wisest of law givers._ Socrates, in the _Republic_
of Plato.
P. 63, l. 9. _Archesilas._ Born at Pitane in Æolis of a Scythian
father, about 300 B.C. He was founder of the School known as the
Second Academy. See Montaigne, _Essais_, l. ii. ch. iii.
P. 64, l. 19. For all that is here said on Custom, see Montaigne,
_Essais_, l. i. ch. xxii.
P. 65, l. 7. _Pasce oves meas._ Joh. xxi. 17. The words are those
taken as the foundation of papal authority. You owe me pasturage,
_i.e._ you owe me justice.
P. 65, l. 30. _the soldiers of Mahomet, thieves, heretics._ Pascal
boldly joins heretics and thieves, for those who did not hold his
creed appeared to him as men _sans foi ni loi_, faithless and
lawless. In his eyes a Turk was scarce a man. See the _Provincial
Letters_, let. xiv. "_Sont-ce des religieux et des prêtres qui
parlent de cette sorte? Sont-ce des Chrétiens? Sont-ce des Tures?
Sont-ce des demons?_" And _Thoughts_, p. 211, l. 30. "Do we not see
beasts live and die like men, and Turks like Christians."
P. 66, l. 6. _The Swiss._ See note on p. 56, l. 20.
P. 66, l. 10. _condemning so many Spaniards to death._ Possibly an
allusion to the battle of the Dunes, 1659, which led to the Peace
of the Pyrenees, so long desired by all but Spain, then obliged to
consent.
P. 67, l. 13. _Summum jus, summa injuria._ Charron, _Traité de la
Sagesse_, etc. ch. xxvii. art. 8.
P. 67, l. 26. _The end of the Twelfth Provincial._ The following is
the passage to which Pascal alludes. "_C'est une etrange et longue
guerre que celle où la violence essaye d'opprimer la vérité. Tons
les efforts de la violence ne peuvent affaiblir la vérité, et ne
servent qu'à la relever davantage. Toutes les lumières de la vérité
ne peuvent rien pour arrêter la violence et ne font que l'irriter
encore plus ... la violence et la vérité ne peuvent rien l'une sur
l'autre._"
P. 67, l. 27. _The Fronde._ This was the name given to the party
which rose against Mazarin and the Court during the minority of Louis
XIV., and plunged France into civil war.
P. 69, l. 10. _give me the strap._ This is no exaggeration, since
fifty years after Pascal wrote, Voltaire was beaten by the servants
of the Duc de Rohan.
P. 69, l. 12. _It is odd that Montaigne._ _Essais_, l. i. ch. xlii.
P. 69, l. 16. _When power attacks craft._ _Satyre Menippée_, Harangue
du Sire de Rieux: "_il n'y a ny bonnet quarré, ny bourlet, que je ne
face voler_."
P. 69, l. 30. _figmentum malum._ Ps. ciii. 13. _Quomodo miseretur
pater filiorum, misertus est Dominus timentibus se: Quoniam ipse
cognovit figmentum nostrum._
P. 70, l. 14. _Savages laugh at an infant king._ Pascal is alluding
to the story in Montaigne, _Essais_, l. i. ch. xxx., of the savages
presented to Charles IX. at Rouen, who were astonished to see bearded
men obey a child.
P. 72, l. 16. _Epictetus._ See p. 45, l. 30, in order to understand
this somewhat enigmatic fragment. In the next paragraph is an
allusion to the passage in which Epictetus says, l. iv. ch. 7, that
the philosopher may well be constant and detached from life by
wisdom, as were the Galilæans by their fanaticism.
P. 73. _Weakness, unrest, and defects of man._ The arrangements of
these fragments under this title is Molinier's.