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PASCAL'S PENSEES
INTRODUCTION BY
T. S. ELIOT
_A Dutton Paperback_
New York
E. P. DUTTON & CO., INC.
_This paperback edition of "Pascal's Pensees" Published 1958 by E. P.
Dutton & Co., Inc. All rights reserved. Printed in the U.S.A._
SBN 0-525-47018-2
INTRODUCTION
It might seem that about Blaise Pascal, and about the two works on which
his fame is founded, everything that there is to say had been said. The
details of his life are as fully known as we can expect to know them;
his mathematical and physical discoveries have been treated many times;
his religious sentiment and his theological views have been discussed
again and again; and his prose style has been analysed by French critics
down to the finest particular. But Pascal is one of those writers who
will be and who must be studied afresh by men in every generation. It is
not he who changes, but we who change. It is not our knowledge of him
that increases, but our world that alters and our attitudes towards it.
The history of human opinions of Pascal and of men of his stature is a
part of the history of humanity. That indicates his permanent
importance.
The facts of Pascal's life, so far as they are necessary for this brief
introduction to the _Pensees_, are as follows. He was born at Clermont,
in Auvergne, in 1623. His family were people of substance of the upper
middle class. His father was a government official, who was able to
leave, when he died, a sufficient patrimony to his one son and his two
daughters. In 1631 the father moved to Paris, and a few years later took
up another government post at Rouen. Wherever he lived, the elder Pascal
seems to have mingled with some of the best society, and with men of
eminence in science and the arts. Blaise was educated entirely by his
father at home. He was exceedingly precocious, indeed excessively
precocious, for his application to studies in childhood and adolescence
impaired his health, and is held responsible for his death at
thirty-nine. Prodigious, though not incredible stories are preserved,
especially of his precocity in mathematics. His mind was active rather
than accumulative; he showed from his earliest years that disposition to
find things out for himself, which has characterised the infancy of
Clerk-Maxwell and other scientists. Of his later discoveries in physics
there is no need for mention here; it must only be remembered that he
counts as one of the greatest physicists and mathematicians of all time;
and that his discoveries were made during the years when most scientists
are still apprentices.
The elder Pascal, Etienne, was a sincere Christian. About 1646 he fell
in with some representatives of the religious revival within the Church
which has become known as Jansenism--after Jansenius, Bishop of Ypres,
whose theological work is taken as the origin of the movement. This
period is usually spoken of as the moment of Pascal's "first
conversion." The word "conversion," however, is too forcible to be
applied at this point to Blaise Pascal himself. The family had always
been devout, and the younger Pascal, though absorbed in his scientific
work, never seems to have been afflicted with infidelity. His attention
was then directed, certainly, to religious and theological matters; but
the term "conversion" can only be applied to his sisters--the elder,
already Madame Perier, and particularly the younger, Jacqueline, who at
that time conceived a vocation for the religious life. Pascal himself
was by no means disposed to renounce the world. After the death of the
father in 1650 Jacqueline, a young woman of remarkable strength and
beauty of character, wished to take her vows as a sister of Port-Royal,
and for some time her wish remained unfulfilled owing to the opposition
of her brother. His objection was on the purely worldly ground that she
wished to make over her patrimony to the Order; whereas while she lived
with him, their combined resources made it possible for him to live more
nearly on a scale of expense congenial to his tastes. He liked, in fact,
not only to mix with the best society, but to keep a coach and
horses--six horses is the number at one time attributed to his carriage.
Though he had no legal power to prevent his sister from disposing of her
property as she elected, the amiable Jacqueline shrank from doing so
without her brother's willing approval. The Mother Superior, Mere
Angelique--herself an eminent personage in the history of this religious
movement--finally persuaded the young novice to enter the order without
the satisfaction of bringing her patrimony with her; but Jacqueline
remained so distressed by this situation that her brother finally
relented.
So far as is known, the worldly life enjoyed by Pascal during this
period can hardly be qualified as "dissipation," and certainly not as
"debauchery." Even gambling may have appealed to him chiefly as
affording a study of mathematical probabilities. He appears to have led
such a life as any cultivated intellectual man of good position and
independent means might lead and consider himself a model of probity and
virtue. Not even a love-affair is laid at his door, though he is said to
have contemplated marriage. But Jansenism, as represented by the
religious society of Port-Royal, was morally a Puritan movement within
the Church, and its standards of conduct were at least as severe as
those of any Puritanism in England or America. The period of fashionable
society, in Pascal's life, is however, of great importance in his
development. It enlarged his knowledge of men and refined his tastes; he
became a man of the world and never lost what he had learnt; and when he
turned his thoughts wholly towards religion, his worldly knowledge was a
part of his composition which is essential to the value of his work.
Pascal's interest in society did not distract him from scientific
research; nor did this period occupy much space in what is a very short
and crowded life. Partly his natural dissatisfaction with such a life,
once he had learned all it had to teach him, partly the influence of his
saintly sister Jacqueline, partly increasing suffering as his health
declined, directed him more and more out of the world and to thoughts of
eternity. And in 1654 occurs what is called his "second conversion," but
which might be called his conversion simply.
He made a note of his mystical experience, which he kept always about
him, and which was found, after his death, sewn into the coat which he
was wearing. The experience occurred on 23 November, 1654, and there is
no reason to doubt its genuineness unless we choose to deny all mystical
experience. Now, Pascal was not a mystic, and his works are not to be
classified amongst mystical writings; but what can only be called
mystical experience happens to many men who do not become mystics. The
work which he undertook soon after, the _Lettres ecrites a un
provincial_, is a masterpiece of religious controversy at the opposite
pole from mysticism. We know quite well that he was at the time when he
received his illumination from God in extremely poor health; but it is a
commonplace that some forms of illness are extremely favourable, not
only to religious illumination, but to artistic and literary
composition. A piece of writing meditated, apparently without progress,
for months or years, may suddenly take shape and word; and in this state
long passages may be produced which require little or no retouch. I have
no good word to say for the cultivation of automatic writing as the
model of literary composition; I doubt whether these moments _can_ be
cultivated by the writer; but he to whom this happens assuredly has the
sensation of being a vehicle rather than a maker. No masterpiece can be
produced whole by such means; but neither does even the higher form of
religious inspiration suffice for the religious life; even the most
exalted mystic must return to the world, and use his reason to employ
the results of his experience in daily life. You may call it communion
with the Divine, or you may call it a temporary crystallisation of the
mind. Until science can teach us to reproduce such phenomena at will,
science cannot claim to have explained them; and they can be judged only
by their fruits.
From that time until his death, Pascal was closely associated with the
society of Port-Royal which his sister Jacqueline, who predeceased him,
had joined as a _religieuse_; the society was then fighting for its life
against the Jesuits. Five propositions, judged by a committee of
cardinals and theologians at Rome to be heretical, were found to be put
forward in the work of Jansenius; and the society of Port-Royal, the
representative of Jansenism among devotional communities, suffered a
blow from which it never revived. It is not the place here to review the
bitter controversy and conflict; the best account, from the point of
view of a critic of genius who took no side, who was neither Jansenist
nor Jesuit, Christian nor infidel, is that in the great book of
Sainte-Beuve, _Port-Royal_. And in this book the parts devoted to Pascal
himself are among the most brilliant pages of criticism that
Sainte-Beuve ever wrote. It is sufficient to notice that the next
occupation of Pascal, after his conversion, was to write these eighteen
"Letters," which as prose are of capital importance in the foundation of
French classical style, and which as polemic are surpassed by none, not
by Demosthenes, or Cicero, or Swift. They have the limitation of all
polemic and forensic: they persuade, they seduce, they are unfair. But
it is also unfair to assert that, in these _Letters to a Provincial_,
Pascal was attacking the Society of Jesus in itself. He was attacking
rather a particular school of casuistry which relaxed the requirements
of the Confessional; a school which certainly flourished amongst the
Society of Jesus at that time, and of which the Spaniards Escobar and
Molina are the most eminent authorities. He undoubtedly abused the art
of quotation, as a polemical writer can hardly help but do; but there
were abuses for him to abuse; and he did the job thoroughly. His
_Letters_ must not be called theology. Academic theology was not a
department in which Pascal was versed; when necessary, the fathers of
Port-Royal came to his aid. The _Letters_ are the work of one of the
finest mathematical minds of any time, and of a man of the world who
addressed, not theologians, but the world in general--all of the
cultivated and many of the less cultivated of the French laity; and with
this public they made an astonishing success.
During this time Pascal never wholly abandoned his scientific interests.
Though in his religious writings he composed slowly and painfully, and
revised often, in matters of mathematics his mind seemed to move with
consummate natural ease and grace. Discoveries and inventions sprang
from his brain without effort; among the minor devices of this later
period, the first omnibus service in Paris is said to owe its origin to
his inventiveness. But rapidly failing health, and absorption in the
great work he had in mind, left him little time and energy during the
last two years of his life.
The plan of what we call the _Pensees_ formed itself about 1660. The
completed book was to have been a carefully constructed defence of
Christianity, a true Apology and a kind of Grammar of Assent, setting
forth the reasons which will convince the intellect. As I have indicated
before, Pascal was not a theologian, and on dogmatic theology had
recourse to his spiritual advisers. Nor was he indeed a systematic
philosopher. He was a man with an immense genius for science, and at the
same time a natural psychologist and moralist. As he was a great
literary artist, his book would have been also his own spiritual
autobiography; his style, free from all diminishing idiosyncrasies, was
yet very personal. Above all, he was a man of strong passions; and his
intellectual passion for truth was reinforced by his passionate
dissatisfaction with human life unless a spiritual explanation could be
found.
We must regard the _Pensees_ as merely the first notes for a work which
he left far from completion; we have, in Sainte-Beuve's words, a tower
of which the stones have been laid on each other, but not cemented, and
the structure unfinished. In early years his memory had been amazingly
retentive of anything that he wished to remember; and had it not been
impaired by increasing illness and pain, he probably would not have been
obliged to set down these notes at all. But taking the book as it is
left to us, we still find that it occupies a unique place in the history
of French literature and in the history of religious meditation.
To understand the method which Pascal employs, the reader must be
prepared to follow the process of the mind of the intelligent believer.
The Christian thinker--and I mean the man who is trying consciously and
conscientiously to explain to himself the sequence which culminated in
faith, rather than the public apologist--proceeds by rejection and
elimination. He finds the world to be so and so; he finds its character
inexplicable by any non-religious theory; among religions he finds
Christianity, and Catholic Christianity, to account most satisfactorily
for the world and especially for the moral world within; and thus, by
what Newman calls "powerful and concurrent" reasons, he finds himself
inexorably committed to the dogma of the Incarnation. To the unbeliever,
this method seems disingenuous and perverse; for the unbeliever is, as a
rule, not so greatly troubled to explain the world to himself, nor so
greatly distressed by its disorder; nor is he generally concerned (in
modern terms) to "preserve values." He does not consider that if certain
emotional states, certain developments of character, and what in the
highest sense can be called "saintliness" are inherently and by
inspection known to be good, then the satisfactory explanation of the
world must be an explanation which will admit the "reality" of these
values. Nor does he consider such reasoning admissible; he would, so to
speak, trim his values according to his cloth, because to him such
values are of no great value. The unbeliever starts from the other end,
and as likely as not with the question: Is a case of human
parthenogenesis credible? and this he would call going straight to the
heart of the matter. Now Pascal's method is, on the whole, the method
natural and right for the Christian; and the opposite method is that
taken by Voltaire. It is worth while to remember that Voltaire, in his
attempt to refute Pascal, has given once and for all the type of such
refutation; and that later opponents of Pascal's Apology for the
Christian Faith have contributed little beyond psychological
irrelevancies. For Voltaire has presented, better than any one since,
what is the unbelieving point of view; and in the end we must all choose
for ourselves between one point of view and another.
I have said above that Pascal's method is "on the whole" that of the
typical Christian apologist; and this reservation was directed at
Pascal's belief in miracles, which plays a larger part in his
construction than it would in that, at least, of the modern liberal
Catholic. It would seem fantastic to accept Christianity because we
first believe the Gospel miracles to be true, and it would seem impious
to accept it primarily because we believe more recent miracles to be
true; we accept the miracles, or some miracles, to be true because we
believe the Gospel of Jesus Christ: we found our belief in the miracles
on the Gospel, not our belief in the Gospel on the miracles. But it must
be remembered that Pascal had been deeply impressed by a contemporary
miracle, known as the miracle of the Holy Thorn: a thorn reputed to have
been preserved from the Crown of Our Lord was pressed upon an ulcer
which quickly healed. Sainte-Beuve, who as a medical man felt himself on
solid ground, discusses fully the possible explanation of this apparent
miracle. It is true that the miracle happened at Port-Royal, and that it
arrived opportunely to revive the depressed spirits of the community in
its political afflictions; and it is likely that Pascal was the more
inclined to believe a miracle which was performed upon his beloved
sister. In any case, it probably led him to assign a place to miracles,
in his study of faith, which is not quite that which we should give to
them ourselves.
Now the great adversary against whom Pascal set himself, from the time
of his first conversations with M. de Saci at Port-Royal, was Montaigne.
One cannot destroy Pascal, certainly; but of all authors Montaigne is
one of the least destructible. You could as well dissipate a fog by
flinging hand-grenades into it. For Montaigne is a fog, a gas, a fluid,
insidious element. He does not reason, he insinuates, charms, and
influences; or if he reasons, you must be prepared for his having some
other design upon you than to convince you by his argument. It is
hardly too much to say that Montaigne is the most essential author to
know, if we would understand the course of French thought during the
last three hundred years. In every way, the influence of Montaigne was
repugnant to the men of Port-Royal. Pascal studied him with the
intention of demolishing him. Yet, in the _Pensees_, at the very end of
his life, we find passage after passage, and the slighter they are the
more significant, almost "lifted" out of Montaigne, down to a figure of
speech or a word. The parallels[A] are most often with the long essay of
Montaigne called _Apologie de Raymond Sebond_--an astonishing piece of
writing upon which Shakespeare also probably drew in _Hamlet_. Indeed,
by the time a man knew Montaigne well enough to attack him, he would
already be thoroughly infected by him.
[A] Cf. the use of the simile of the _couvreur_. For comparing
parallel passages, the edition of the _Pensees_ by Henri Massis (_A
la cite des livres_) is better than the two-volume edition of
Jacques Chevalier (Gabalda). It seems just possible that in the
latter edition, and also in his biographical study (_Pascal_; by
Jacques Chevalier, English translation, published by Sheed & Ward),
M. Chevalier is a little over-zealous to demonstrate the perfect
orthodoxy of Pascal.
It would, however, be grossly unfair to Pascal, to Montaigne, and indeed
to French literature, to leave the matter at that. It is no diminution
of Pascal, but only an aggrandisement of Montaigne. Had Montaigne been
an ordinary life-sized sceptic, a small man like Anatole France, or even
a greater man like Renan, or even like the greatest sceptic of all,
Voltaire, this "influence" would be to the discredit of Pascal; but if
Montaigne had been no more than Voltaire, he could not have affected
Pascal at all. The picture of Montaigne which offers itself first to our
eyes, that of the original and independent solitary "personality,"
absorbed in amused analysis of himself, is deceptive. Montaigne's is no
_limited_ Pyrrhonism, like that of Voltaire, Renan, or France. He
exists, so to speak, on a plan of numerous concentric circles, the most
apparent of which is the small inmost circle, a personal puckish
scepticism which can be easily aped if not imitated. But what makes
Montaigne a very great figure is that he succeeded, God knows how--for
Montaigne very likely did not know that he had done it--it is not the
sort of thing that men _can_ observe about themselves, for it is
essentially bigger than the individual's consciousness--he succeeded in
giving expression to the scepticism of _every_ human being. For every
man who thinks and lives by thought must have his own scepticism, that
which stops at the question, that which ends in denial, or that which
leads to faith and which is somehow integrated into the faith which
transcends it. And Pascal, as the type of one kind of religious
believer, which is highly passionate and ardent, but passionate only
through a powerful and regulated intellect, is in the first sections of
his unfinished Apology for Christianity facing unflinchingly the demon
of doubt which is inseparable from the spirit of belief.
There is accordingly something quite different from an influence which
would prove Pascal's weakness; there is a real affinity between his
doubt and that of Montaigne; and through the common kinship with
Montaigne Pascal is related to the noble and distinguished line of
French moralists, from La Rochefoucauld down. In the honesty with which
they face the _donnees_ of the actual world this French tradition has a
unique quality in European literature, and in the seventeenth century
Hobbes is crude and uncivilised in comparison.
Pascal is a man of the world among ascetics, and an ascetic among men of
the world; he had the knowledge of worldliness and the passion of
asceticism, and in him the two are fused into an individual whole. The
majority of mankind is lazy-minded, incurious, absorbed in vanities, and
tepid in emotion, and is therefore incapable of either much doubt or
much faith; and when the ordinary man calls himself a sceptic or an
unbeliever, that is ordinarily a simple pose, cloaking a disinclination
to think anything out to a conclusion. Pascal's disillusioned analysis
of human bondage is sometimes interpreted to mean that Pascal was really
and finally an unbeliever, who, in his despair, was incapable of
enduring reality and enjoying the heroic satisfaction of the free man's
worship of nothing. His despair, his disillusion, are, however, no
illustration of personal weakness; they are perfectly objective, because
they are essential moments in the progress of the intellectual soul; and
for the type of Pascal they are the analogue of the drought, the dark
night, which is an essential stage in the progress of the Christian
mystic. A similar despair, when it is arrived at by a diseased character
or an impure soul, may issue in the most disastrous consequences though
with the most superb manifestations; and thus we get _Gulliver's
Travels_; but in Pascal we find no such distortion; his despair is in
itself more terrible than Swift's, because our heart tells us that it
corresponds exactly to the facts and cannot be dismissed as mental
disease; but it was also a despair which was a necessary prelude to, and
element in, the joy of faith.
I do not wish to enter any further than necessary upon the question of
the heterodoxy of Jansenism; and it is no concern of this essay, whether
the Five Propositions condemned at Rome were really maintained by
Jansenius in his book _Augustinus_; or whether we should deplore or
approve the consequent decay (indeed with some persecution) of
Port-Royal. It is impossible to discuss the matter without becoming
involved as a controversialist either for or against Rome. But in a man
of the type of Pascal--and the type always exists--there is, I think, an
ingredient of what may be called Jansenism of temperament, without
identifying it with the Jansenism of Jansenius and of other devout and
sincere, but not immensely gifted doctors.[B] It is accordingly needful
to state in brief what the dangerous doctrine of Jansenius was, without
advancing too far into theological refinements. It is recognised in
Christian theology--and indeed on a lower plane it is recognised by all
men in affairs of daily life--that freewill or the natural effort and
ability of the individual man, and also supernatural _grace_, a gift
accorded we know not quite how, are both required, in co-operation, for
salvation. Though numerous theologians have set their wits at the
problem, it ends in a mystery which we can perceive but not finally
decipher. At least, it is obvious that, like any doctrine, a slight
excess or deviation to one side or the other will precipitate a heresy.
The Pelagians, who were refuted by St. Augustine, emphasised the
efficacy of human effort and belittled the importance of supernatural
grace. The Calvinists emphasised the degradation of man through Original
Sin, and considered mankind so corrupt that the will was of no avail;
and thus fell into the doctrine of predestination. It was upon the
doctrine of grace according to St. Augustine that the Jansenists relied;
and the _Augustinus_ of Jansenius was presented as a sound exposition of
the Augustinian views.
[B] The great man of Port-Royal was of course Saint-Cyran, but any
one who is interested will certainly consult, first of all, the book
of Sainte-Beuve mentioned.
Such heresies are never antiquated, because they forever assume new
forms. For instance, the insistence upon good works and "service" which
is preached from many quarters, or the simple faith that any one who
lives a good and useful life need have no "morbid" anxieties about
salvation, is a form of Pelagianism. On the other hand, one sometimes
hears enounced the view that it will make no real difference if all the
traditional religious sanctions for moral behaviour break down, because
those who are born and bred to be nice people will always prefer to
behave nicely, and those who are not will behave otherwise in any case:
and this is surely a form of predestination--for the hazard of being
born a nice person or not is as uncertain as the gift of grace.
It is likely that Pascal was attracted as much by the fruits of
Jansenism in the life of Port-Royal as by the doctrine itself. This
devout, ascetic, thoroughgoing society, striving heroically in the midst
of a relaxed and easy-going Christianity, was formed to attract a nature
so concentrated, so passionate, and so thoroughgoing as Pascal's. But
the insistence upon the degraded and helpless state of man, in
Jansenism, is something also to which we must be grateful, for to it we
owe the magnificent analysis of human motives and occupations which was
to have constituted the early part of his book. And apart from the
Jansenism which is the work of a not very eminent bishop who wrote a
Latin treatise which is now unread, there is also, so to speak, a
Jansenism of the individual biography. A moment of Jansenism may
naturally take place, and take place rightly, in the individual;
particularly in the life of a man of great and intense intellectual
powers, who cannot avoid seeing through human beings and observing the
vanity of their thoughts and of their avocations, their dishonesty and
self-deceptions, the insincerity of their emotions, their cowardice, the
pettiness of their real ambitions. Actually, considering that Pascal
died at the age of thirty-nine, one must be amazed at the balance and
justice of his observations; much greater maturity is required for these
qualities, than for any mathematical or scientific greatness. How easily
his brooding on _the misery of man without God_ might have encouraged in
him the sin of spiritual pride, the _concupiscence de l'esprit_, and how
fast a hold he has of humility!
And although Pascal brings to his work the same powers which he exerted
in science, it is not as a scientist that he presents himself. He does
not seem to say to the reader: I am one of the most distinguished
scientists of the day; I understand many matters which will always be
mysteries to you, and through science I have come to the Faith; you
therefore who are not initiated into science ought to have faith if I
have it. He is fully aware of the difference of subject-matter; and his
famous distinction between the _esprit de geometrie_ and the _esprit de
finesse_ is one to ponder over. It is the just combination of the
scientist, the _honnete homme_, and the religious nature with a
passionate craving for God, that makes Pascal unique. He succeeds where
Descartes fails; for in Descartes the element of _esprit de geometrie_
is excessive.[C] And in a few phrases about Descartes, in the present
book, Pascal laid his finger on the place of weakness.
[C] For a brilliant criticism of the errors of Descartes from a
theological point of view the reader is referred to _Three
Reformers_ by Jacques Maritain (translation published by Sheed &
Ward).
He who reads this book will observe at once its fragmentary nature; but
only after some study will perceive that the fragmentariness lies in the
expression more than in the thought. The "thoughts" cannot be detached
from each other and quoted as if each were complete in itself. _Le coeur
a ses raisons que la raison ne connait point_: how often one has heard
that quoted, and quoted often to the wrong purpose! For this is by no
means an exaltation of the "heart" over the "head," a defence of
unreason. The heart, in Pascal's terminology, is itself truly rational
if it is truly the heart. For him, in theological matters, which seemed
to him much larger, more difficult, and more important than scientific
matters, the whole personality is involved.
We cannot quite understand any of the parts, fragmentary as they are,
without some understanding of the whole. Capital, for instance, is his
analysis of the _three orders_: the order of nature, the order of mind,
and the order of charity. These three are _discontinuous_; the higher is
not implicit in the lower as in an evolutionary doctrine it would be.[D]
In this distinction Pascal offers much about which the modern world
would do well to think. And indeed, because of his unique combination
and balance of qualities, I know of no religious writer more pertinent
to our time. The great mystics like St. John of the Cross, are
primarily for readers with a special determination of purpose; the
devotional writers, such as St. Francois de Sales, are primarily for
those who already feel consciously desirous of the love of God; the
great theologians are for those interested in theology. But I can think
of no Christian writer, not Newman even, more to be commended than
Pascal to those who doubt, but who have the mind to conceive, and the
sensibility to feel, the disorder, the futility, the meaninglessness,
the mystery of life and suffering, and who can only find peace through a
satisfaction of the whole being.
[D] An important modern theory of discontinuity, suggested partly by
Pascal, is sketched in the collected fragments of _Speculations_ by
T. E. Hulme (Kegan Paul).
T. S. ELIOT.
CONTENTS
Page
INTRODUCTION By T. S. Eliot vii
SECTION
I. THOUGHTS ON MIND AND ON STYLE 1
II. THE MISERY OF MAN WITHOUT GOD 14
III. OF THE NECESSITY OF THE WAGER 52
IV. OF THE MEANS OF BELIEF 71
V. JUSTICE AND THE REASON OF EFFECTS 83
VI. THE PHILOSOPHERS 96
VII. MORALITY AND DOCTRINE 113
VIII. THE FUNDAMENTALS OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION 152
IX. PERPETUITY 163
X. TYPOLOGY 181
XI. THE PROPHECIES 198
XII. PROOFS OF JESUS CHRIST 222
XIII. THE MIRACLES 238
XIV. APPENDIX: POLEMICAL FRAGMENTS 257
NOTES 273
INDEX 289
* * * * *
NOTE
_Passages_ erased by Pascal are enclosed in square brackets, thus [].
_Words_, added or corrected by the editor of the text, are similarly
denoted, but are in italics.
It has been seen fit to transfer Fragment 514 of the French edition to
the Notes. All subsequent Fragments have accordingly been renumbered.
SECTION I
THOUGHTS ON MIND AND ON STYLE
1
_The difference between the mathematical and the intuitive mind._[1]--In
the one the principles are palpable, but removed from ordinary use; so
that for want of habit it is difficult to turn one's mind in that
direction: but if one turns it thither ever so little, one sees the
principles fully, and one must have a quite inaccurate mind who reasons
wrongly from principles so plain that it is almost impossible they
should escape notice.
But in the intuitive mind the principles are found in common use, and
are before the eyes of everybody. One has only to look, and no effort is
necessary; it is only a question of good eyesight, but it must be good,
for the principles are so subtle and so numerous, that it is almost
impossible but that some escape notice. Now the omission of one
principle leads to error; thus one must have very clear sight to see all
the principles, and in the next place an accurate mind not to draw false
deductions from known principles.
All mathematicians would then be intuitive if they had clear sight, for
they do not reason incorrectly from principles known to them; and
intuitive minds would be mathematical if they could turn their eyes to
the principles of mathematics to which they are unused.
The reason, therefore, that some intuitive minds are not mathematical is
that they cannot at all turn their attention to the principles of
mathematics. But the reason that mathematicians are not intuitive is
that they do not see what is before them, and that, accustomed to the
exact and plain principles of mathematics, and not reasoning till they
have well inspected and arranged their principles, they are lost in
matters of intuition where the principles do not allow of such
arrangement. They are scarcely seen; they are felt rather than seen;
there is the greatest difficulty in making them felt by those who do
not of themselves perceive them. These principles are so fine and so
numerous that a very delicate and very clear sense is needed to perceive
them, and to judge rightly and justly when they are perceived, without
for the most part being able to demonstrate them in order as in
mathematics; because the principles are not known to us in the same way,
and because it would be an endless matter to undertake it. We must see
the matter at once, at one glance, and not by a process of reasoning, at
least to a certain degree. And thus it is rare that mathematicians are
intuitive, and that men of intuition are mathematicians, because
mathematicians wish to treat matters of intuition mathematically, and
make themselves ridiculous, wishing to begin with definitions and then
with axioms, which is not the way to proceed in this kind of reasoning.
Not that the mind does not do so, but it does it tacitly, naturally, and
without technical rules; for the expression of it is beyond all men, and
only a few can feel it.
Intuitive minds, on the contrary, being thus accustomed to judge at a
single glance, are so astonished when they are presented with
propositions of which they understand nothing, and the way to which is
through definitions and axioms so sterile, and which they are not
accustomed to see thus in detail, that they are repelled and
disheartened.
But dull minds are never either intuitive or mathematical.
Mathematicians who are only mathematicians have exact minds, provided
all things are explained to them by means of definitions and axioms;
otherwise they are inaccurate and insufferable, for they are only right
when the principles are quite clear.
And men of intuition who are only intuitive cannot have the patience to
reach to first principles of things speculative and conceptual, which
they have never seen in the world, and which are altogether out of the
common.
2
There are different kinds of right understanding;[2] some have right
understanding in a certain order of things, and not in others, where
they go astray. Some draw conclusions well from a few premises, and this
displays an acute judgment.
Others draw conclusions well where there are many premises.
For example, the former easily learn hydrostatics, where the premises
are few, but the conclusions are so fine that only the greatest
acuteness can reach them.
And in spite of that these persons would perhaps not be great
mathematicians, because mathematics contain a great number of premises,
and there is perhaps a kind of intellect that can search with ease a few
premises to the bottom, and cannot in the least penetrate those matters
in which there are many premises.
There are then two kinds of intellect: the one able to penetrate acutely
and deeply into the conclusions of given premises, and this is the
precise intellect; the other able to comprehend a great number of
premises without confusing them, and this is the mathematical intellect.
The one has force and exactness, the other comprehension. Now the one
quality can exist without the other; the intellect can be strong and
narrow, and can also be comprehensive and weak.
3
Those who are accustomed to judge by feeling do not understand the
process of reasoning, for they would understand at first sight, and are
not used to seek for principles. And others, on the contrary, who are
accustomed to reason from principles, do not at all understand matters
of feeling, seeking principles, and being unable to see at a glance.
4
_Mathematics, intuition._--True eloquence makes light of eloquence, true
morality makes light of morality; that is to say, the morality of the
judgment, which has no rules, makes light of the morality of the
intellect.
For it is to judgment that perception belongs, as science belongs to
intellect. Intuition is the part of judgment, mathematics of intellect.
To make light of philosophy is to be a true philosopher.
5
Those who judge of a work by rule[3] are in regard to others as those
who have a watch are in regard to others. One says, "It is two hours
ago"; the other says, "It is only three-quarters of an hour." I look at
my watch, and say to the one, "You are weary," and to the other, "Time
gallops with you"; for it is only an hour and a half ago, and I laugh
at those who tell me that time goes slowly with me, and that I judge by
imagination. They do not know that I judge by my watch.[4]
6
Just as we harm the understanding, we harm the feelings also.
The understanding and the feelings are moulded by intercourse; the
understanding and feelings are corrupted by intercourse. Thus good or
bad society improves or corrupts them. It is, then, all-important to
know how to choose in order to improve and not to corrupt them; and we
cannot make this choice, if they be not already improved and not
corrupted. Thus a circle is formed, and those are fortunate who escape
it.
7
The greater intellect one has, the more originality one finds in men.
Ordinary persons find no difference between men.
8
There are many people who listen to a sermon in the same way as they
listen to vespers.
9
When we wish to correct with advantage, and to show another that he
errs, we must notice from what side he views the matter, for on that
side it is usually true, and admit that truth to him, but reveal to him
the side on which it is false. He is satisfied with that, for he sees
that he was not mistaken, and that he only failed to see all sides. Now,
no one is offended at not seeing everything; but one does not like to be
mistaken, and that perhaps arises from the fact that man naturally
cannot see everything, and that naturally he cannot err in the side he
looks at, since the perceptions of our senses are always true.
10
People are generally better persuaded by the reasons which they have
themselves discovered than by those which have come into the mind of
others.
11
All great amusements are dangerous to the Christian life; but among all
those which the world has invented there is none more to be feared than
the theatre. It is a representation of the passions so natural and so
delicate that it excites them and gives birth to them in our hearts,
and, above all, to that of love, principally when it is represented as
very chaste and virtuous. For the more innocent it appears to innocent
souls, the more they are likely to be touched by it. Its violence
pleases our self-love, which immediately forms a desire to produce the
same effects which are seen so well represented; and, at the same time,
we make ourselves a conscience founded on the propriety of the feelings
which we see there, by which the fear of pure souls is removed, since
they imagine that it cannot hurt their purity to love with a love which
seems to them so reasonable.
So we depart from the theatre with our heart so filled with all the
beauty and tenderness of love, the soul and the mind so persuaded of its
innocence, that we are quite ready to receive its first impressions, or
rather to seek an opportunity of awakening them in the heart of another,
in order that we may receive the same pleasures and the same sacrifices
which we have seen so well represented in the theatre.
12
Scaramouch,[5] who only thinks of one thing.
The doctor,[6] who speaks for a quarter of an hour after he has said
everything, so full is he of the desire of talking.
13
One likes to see the error, the passion of Cleobuline,[7] because she is
unconscious of it. She would be displeasing, if she were not deceived.
14
When a natural discourse paints a passion or an effect, one feels within
oneself the truth of what one reads, which was there before, although
one did not know it. Hence one is inclined to love him who makes us feel
it, for he has not shown us his own riches, but ours. And thus this
benefit renders him pleasing to us, besides that such community of
intellect as we have with him necessarily inclines the heart to love.
15
Eloquence, which persuades by sweetness, not by authority; as a tyrant,
not as a king.
16
Eloquence is an art of saying things in such a way--(1) that those to
whom we speak may listen to them without pain and with pleasure; (2)
that they feel themselves interested, so that self-love leads them more
willingly to reflection upon it.
It consists, then, in a correspondence which we seek to establish
between the head and the heart of those to whom we speak on the one
hand, and, on the other, between the thoughts and the expressions which
we employ. This assumes that we have studied well the heart of man so as
to know all its powers, and then to find the just proportions of the
discourse which we wish to adapt to them. We must put ourselves in the
place of those who are to hear us, and make trial on our own heart of
the turn which we give to our discourse in order to see whether one is
made for the other, and whether we can assure ourselves that the hearer
will be, as it were, forced to surrender. We ought to restrict
ourselves, so far as possible, to the simple and natural, and not to
magnify that which is little, or belittle that which is great. It is not
enough that a thing be beautiful; it must be suitable to the subject,
and there must be in it nothing of excess or defect.
17
Rivers are roads which move,[8] and which carry us whither we desire to
go.
18
When we do not know the truth of a thing, it is of advantage that there
should exist a common error which determines the mind of man, as, for
example, the moon, to which is attributed the change of seasons, the
progress of diseases, etc. For the chief malady of man is restless
curiosity about things which he cannot understand; and it is not so bad
for him to be in error as to be curious to no purpose.
The manner in which Epictetus, Montaigne, and Salomon de Tultie[9]
wrote, is the most usual, the most suggestive, the most remembered, and
the oftenest quoted; because it is entirely composed of thoughts born
from the common talk of life. As when we speak of the common error which
exists among men that the moon is the cause of everything, we never fail
to say that Salomon de Tultie says that when we do not know the truth
of a thing, it is of advantage that there should exist a common error,
etc.; which is the thought above.
19
The last thing one settles in writing a book is what one should put in
first.
20
_Order._--Why should I undertake to divide my virtues into four rather
than into six? Why should I rather establish virtue in four, in two, in
one? Why into _Abstine et sustine_[10] rather than into "Follow
Nature,"[11] or, "Conduct your private affairs without injustice," as
Plato,[12] or anything else? But there, you will say, everything is
contained in one word. Yes, but it is useless without explanation, and
when we come to explain it, as soon as we unfold this maxim which
contains all the rest, they emerge in that first confusion which you
desired to avoid. So, when they are all included in one, they are hidden
and useless, as in a chest, and never appear save in their natural
confusion. Nature has established them all without including one in the
other.
21
Nature has made all her truths independent of one another. Our art makes
one dependent on the other. But this is not natural. Each keeps its own
place.
22
Let no one say that I have said nothing new; the arrangement of the
subject is new. When we play tennis, we both play with the same ball,
but one of us places it better.
I had as soon it said that I used words employed before. And in the same
way if the same thoughts in a different arrangement do not form a
different discourse, no more do the same words in their different
arrangement form different thoughts!
23
Words differently arranged have a different meaning, and meanings
differently arranged have different effects.
24
_Language._--We should not turn the mind from one thing to another,
except for relaxation, and that when it is necessary and the time
suitable, and not otherwise. For he that relaxes out of season wearies,
and he who wearies us out of season makes us languid, since we turn
quite away. So much does our perverse lust like to do the contrary of
what those wish to obtain from us without giving us pleasure, the coin
for which we will do whatever is wanted.
25
_Eloquence._--It requires the pleasant and the real; but the pleasant
must itself be drawn from the true.
26
Eloquence is a painting of thought; and thus those who, after having
painted it, add something more, make a picture instead of a portrait.
27
_Miscellaneous. Language._--Those who make antitheses by forcing words
are like those who make false windows for symmetry. Their rule is not to
speak accurately, but to make apt figures of speech.
28
Symmetry is what we see at a glance; based on the fact that there is no
reason for any difference, and based also on the face of man; whence it
happens that symmetry is only wanted in breadth, not in height or depth.
29
When we see a natural style, we are astonished and delighted; for we
expected to see an author, and we find a man. Whereas those who have
good taste, and who seeing a book expect to find a man, are quite
surprised to find an author. _Plus poetice quam humane locutus es._
Those honour Nature well, who teach that she can speak on everything,
even on theology.
30
We only consult the ear because the heart is wanting. The rule is
uprightness.
Beauty of omission, of judgment.
31
All the false beauties which we blame in Cicero have their admirers, and
in great number.
32
There is a certain standard of grace and beauty which consists in a
certain relation between our nature, such as it is, weak or strong, and
the thing which pleases us.
Whatever is formed according to this standard pleases us, be it house,
song, discourse, verse, prose, woman, birds, rivers, trees, rooms,
dress, etc. Whatever is not made according to this standard displeases
those who have good taste.
And as there is a perfect relation between a song and a house which are
made after a good model, because they are like this good model, though
each after its kind; even so there is a perfect relation between things
made after a bad model. Not that the bad model is unique, for there are
many; but each bad sonnet, for example, on whatever false model it is
formed, is just like a woman dressed after that model.
Nothing makes us understand better the ridiculousness of a false sonnet
than to consider nature and the standard, and then to imagine a woman or
a house made according to that standard.
33
_Poetical beauty._--As we speak of poetical beauty, so ought we to speak
of mathematical beauty and medical beauty. But we do not do so; and the
reason is that we know well what is the object of mathematics, and that
it consists in proofs, and what is the object of medicine, and that it
consists in healing. But we do not know in what grace consists, which is
the object of poetry. We do not know the natural model which we ought to
imitate; and through lack of this knowledge, we have coined fantastic
terms, "The golden age," "The wonder of our times," "Fatal," etc., and
call this jargon poetical beauty.[13]
But whoever imagines a woman after this model, which consists in saying
little things in big words, will see a pretty girl adorned with mirrors
and chains, at whom he will smile; because we know better wherein
consists the charm of woman than the charm of verse. But those who are
ignorant would admire her in this dress, and there are many villages in
which she would be taken for the queen; hence we call sonnets made after
this model "Village Queens."
34
No one passes in the world as skilled in verse unless he has put up the
sign of a poet, a mathematician, etc. But educated people do not want a
sign, and draw little distinction between the trade of a poet and that
of an embroiderer.
People of education are not called poets or mathematicians, etc.; but
they are all these, and judges of all these. No one guesses what they
are. When they come into society, they talk on matters about which the
rest are talking. We do not observe in them one quality rather than
another, save when they have to make use of it. But then we remember it,
for it is characteristic of such persons that we do not say of them that
they are fine speakers, when it is not a question of oratory, and that
we say of them that they are fine speakers, when it is such a question.
It is therefore false praise to give a man when we say of him, on his
entry, that he is a very clever poet; and it is a bad sign when a man is
not asked to give his judgment on some verses.
35
We should not be able to say of a man, "He is a mathematician," or "a
preacher," or "eloquent"; but that he is "a gentleman." That universal
quality alone pleases me. It is a bad sign when, on seeing a person, you
remember his book. I would prefer you to see no quality till you meet it
and have occasion to use it (_Ne quid nimis_[14]), for fear some one
quality prevail and designate the man. Let none think him a fine
speaker, unless oratory be in question, and then let them think it.
36
Man is full of wants: he loves only those who can satisfy them all.
"This one is a good mathematician," one will say. But I have nothing to
do with mathematics; he would take me for a proposition. "That one is a
good soldier." He would take me for a besieged town. I need, then, an
upright man who can accommodate himself generally to all my wants.
37
[Since we cannot be universal and know all that is to be known of
everything, we ought to know a little about everything. For it is far
better to know something about everything than to know all about one
thing. This universality is the best. If we can have both, still better;
but if we must choose, we ought to choose the former. And the world
feels this and does so; for the world is often a good judge.]
38
A poet and not an honest man.
39
If lightning fell on low places, etc., poets, and those who can only
reason about things of that kind, would lack proofs.
40
If we wished to prove the examples which we take to prove other things,
we should have to take those other things to be examples; for, as we
always believe the difficulty is in what we wish to prove, we find the
examples clearer and a help to demonstration.
Thus when we wish to demonstrate a general theorem, we must give the
rule as applied to a particular case; but if we wish to demonstrate a
particular case, we must begin with the general rule. For we always find
the thing obscure which we wish to prove, and that clear which we use
for the proof; for, when a thing is put forward to be proved, we first
fill ourselves with the imagination that it is therefore obscure, and on
the contrary that what is to prove it is clear, and so we understand it
easily.
41
_Epigrams of Martial._--Man loves malice, but not against one-eyed men
nor the unfortunate, but against the fortunate and proud. People are
mistaken in thinking otherwise.
For lust is the source of all our actions, and humanity, etc. We must
please those who have humane and tender feelings. That epigram about two
one-eyed people is worthless,[15] for it does not console them, and only
gives a point to the author's glory. All that is only for the sake of
the author is worthless. _Ambitiosa recident ornamenta_.[16]
42
To call a king "Prince" is pleasing, because it diminishes his rank.
43
Certain authors, speaking of their works, say, "My book," "My
commentary," "My history," etc. They resemble middle-class people who
have a house of their own, and always have "My house" on their tongue.
They would do better to say, "Our book," "Our commentary," "Our
history," etc., because there is in them usually more of other people's
than their own.
44
Do you wish people to believe good of you? Don't speak.
45
Languages are ciphers, wherein letters are not changed into letters, but
words into words, so that an unknown language is decipherable.
46
A maker of witticisms, a bad character.
47
There are some who speak well and write badly. For the place and the
audience warm them, and draw from their minds more than they think of
without that warmth.
48
When we find words repeated in a discourse, and, in trying to correct
them, discover that they are so appropriate that we would spoil the
discourse, we must leave them alone. This is the test; and our attempt
is the work of envy, which is blind, and does not see that repetition is
not in this place a fault; for there is no general rule.
49
To mask nature and disguise her. No more king, pope, bishop--but _august
monarch_, etc.; not Paris--_the capital of the kingdom_. There are
places in which we ought to call Paris, Paris, and others in which we
ought to call it the capital of the kingdom.
50
The same meaning changes with the words which express it. Meanings
receive their dignity from words instead of giving it to them. Examples
should be sought....
51
Sceptic, for obstinate.
52
No one calls another a Cartesian[17] but he who is one himself, a pedant
but a pedant, a provincial but a provincial; and I would wager it was
the printer who put it on the title of _Letters to a Provincial_.
53
A carriage _upset_ or _overturned_, according to the meaning _To spread
abroad_ or _upset_, according to the meaning. (The argument by force of
M. le Maitre[18] over the friar.)
54
_Miscellaneous._--A form of speech, "I should have liked to apply myself
to that."
55
The _aperitive_ virtue of a key, the _attractive_ virtue of a hook.
56
To guess: "The part that I take in your trouble." The Cardinal[19] did
not want to be guessed.
"My mind is disquieted." _I am disquieted_ is better.
57
I always feel uncomfortable under such compliments as these: "I have
given you a great deal of trouble," "I am afraid I am boring you," "I
fear this is too long." We either carry our audience with us, or
irritate them.
58
You are ungraceful: "Excuse me, pray." Without that excuse I would not
have known there was anything amiss. "With reverence be it spoken...."
The only thing bad is their excuse.
59
"To extinguish the torch of sedition"; too luxuriant. "The restlessness
of his genius"; two superfluous grand words.