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PASCAL
BY
PRINCIPAL TULLOCH
WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS
EDINBURGH AND LONDON
1878.—REPRINT, 1882
_All Rights reserved_
PREFATORY NOTE.
The translations in this volume are chiefly my own; but I have also taken
expressions and sentences freely from others—and especially from Dr
M’Crie, in his translation of the ‘Provincial Letters’—when they seemed
to convey well the sense of the original. It would be impossible to
distinguish in all cases between what is my own and what I have borrowed.
The ‘Provincial Letters’ have been translated at least four times into
English. The translation of Dr M’Crie, published in 1846, is the most
spirited. The ‘Pensées’ were translated by the Rev. Edward Craig, A.M.
Oxon., in 1825, following the French edition of 1819, which again
followed that of Bossut in 1779. A new translation, both of the
‘Letters’ and ‘Pensées,’ by George Pearce, Esq.—the latter after the
restored text of M. Faugère—appeared in 1849 and 1850.
J. T.
CONTENTS.
CHAP. PAGE
INTRODUCTION 1
I. PASCAL’S FAMILY AND YOUTH 5
II. PASCAL’S SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERIES 25
III. PASCAL IN THE WORLD 52
IV. PORT ROYAL AND PASCAL’S LATER YEARS 74
V. THE ‘PROVINCIAL LETTERS’ 103
VI. THE ‘PENSÉES’ 157
INTRODUCTION.
There are few names which have become more classical in modern literature
than that of Blaise Pascal. There is hardly any name more famous at once
in literature, science, and religion. Cut off at the early age of
thirty-nine—the fatal age of genius—he had long before attained
pre-eminent distinction as a geometer and discoverer in physical science;
while the rumour of his genius as the author of the ‘Provincial Letters,’
and as one of the chiefs of a notable school of religious thought, had
spread far and wide. His writings continue to be studied for the
perfection of their style and the vitality of their substance. As a
writer, he belongs to no school, and is admired simply for his greatness
by Encyclopedist and Romanticist, by Catholic and Protestant alike,—by
men like Voltaire and Condorcet and Sainte-Beuve, no less than by men
like Bossuet, Vinet, and Neander. His ‘Pensées’ have been carefully
restored, and re-edited with minute and loving faithfulness in our time
by editors of such opposite tastes and tendencies as M. Prosper Faugère,
M. Havet, and M. Victor Rochet. Cousin considered it one of the glories
of his long intellectual career that he had first led the way to the
remarkable restoration of Pascal’s remains. Of all the illustrious names
which group themselves around Port Royal, it is Pascal alone, and
Racine—who was more its pupil, but less its representative—whose genius
can be said to survive, and to invest it with an undying lustre.
Pascal’s early death, the reserve of his friends under the assaults which
the ‘Provincial Letters’ provoked, and his very fame, as a writer, have
served in some degree to obscure his personality. To many a modern
reader he is little else than a great name. The man is hidden away
behind the author of the ‘Pensées,’ or the defender of Port Royal. Some
might even say that his writings are now more admired than studied. They
have been so long the subject of eulogy that their classical character is
taken for granted, and the reader of the present day is content to look
at them from a respectful distance rather than spontaneously study them
for himself. There may be some truth in this view. Pascal is certainly,
like many other great writers, far more widely known than he is
understood or appreciated. The old, which are still the common, editions
of the ‘Pensées,’ have also given a certain commonplace to his
reputation. It were certainly a worthy task to set him more clearly
before our age both as a man and as a writer.
It is no easy task, however, to do this; and to tell the full story of
Pascal’s life is no longer possible. Its records, numerous as they are,
are incomplete; all fail more or less at an interesting point of his
career. They leave much unexplained; and the most familiar confidences
of his sisters and niece, who have preserved many interesting details
regarding him, have not entirely removed the veil from certain aspects of
his character. The well-known life by Madame Périer, his elder sister,
is of course the chief authentic source of his biography. It was written
shortly after his death, although not published for some time later; and
nothing can be more lively, graphic, and yet dignified, than its
portraiture of his youthful precocity, and, again, of the devotions and
austerities of his later years. But it leaves many gaps unsupplied.
Like other memoirs of the kind, it is written from a somewhat
conventional point of view. No one, as M. Havet says, was nearer to him
in all senses of the expression, or could have given a more true and
complete account of all the incidents in his life; but she was not only
his sister, but his enthusiastic friend and admirer, in whose eyes he was
at once a genius and a saint—a man of God, called to a great mission. It
was from a consciousness of this mission, and the full glory of his
religious fame, that she looked back upon all his life; and the lines in
which she draws it are coloured, in consequence, too gravely and
monotonously. Certain particulars she drops out of sight altogether.
These are to be found scattered here and there, sometimes in his own
letters, more frequently in the letters of his younger sister,
Jacqueline, and in a supplementary memoir, written by his niece,
Marguerite Périer, all of which have been carefully published in our
time, and made accessible to any reader. {3} The researches of M.
Cousin, M. Faugère, and M. Havet, the curious and interesting monograph
of M. Lélut, {4a} have thrown light on various points; while the copious
portraiture of Sainte-Beuve {4b} has given to the whole an animation and
a desultory charm which no English pen need strive to imitate.
My only hope, as my aim, will be in this little volume to set before the
English reader perhaps a more full and connected account of the life and
writings of Pascal than has yet appeared in our language, freely availing
myself of all the sources I have indicated. And if long and loving
familiarity with a subject—an intimacy often renewed both with the
‘Provincial Letters’ and the ‘Pensées’—form any qualification for such a
task, I may be allowed to possess it. It is now nearly thirty years
since the study of Neander first drew me to the study of Pascal; and I
ventured, with the confidence of youth, to draw from the ‘Pensées,’ which
had then recently appeared in the new and admirable edition of M.
Faugère, the outlines of a Christian Philosophy. {4c} I shall venture on
no such ambition within the bounds of this volume; but I trust I may be
able to bring together the story of Pascal’s life, controversy, and
thought in such a manner as to lead others to the study of a writer truly
great in the imperishable grandeur and elevation of his ideas, no less
than in the exquisite finish and graces of his style.
CHAPTER I.
PASCAL’S FAMILY AND YOUTH.
Blaise Pascal was born at Clermont-Ferrand on the 19th June 1623. He
belonged to an old Auvergne family, Louis XI. having ennobled one of its
members for administrative services as early as 1478, although no use was
made of the title, at least in the seventeenth century. The family
cherished with more pride its ancient connection with the legal or
‘Parliamentary’ institutions of their country. {5} Pascal’s grandfather,
Martin Pascal, was treasurer of France; and his father, Étienne, after
completing his legal studies in Paris, acquired the position of Second
President of the Court of Aides at Clermont. In the year 1618 he married
Antoinette Begon, who became the mother of four children, of whom three
survived and became distinguished. Madame Pascal died in 1626 or 1628;
{6a} and two years afterwards (in 1630) Étienne Pascal abandoned his
professional duties, and came to Paris, in order that he might devote
himself to the education of his children.
Soon after the Pascal family settled in Paris, their character and
endowments seem to have attracted a widespread interest. If not superior
to the Arnaulds, they were no less remarkable. They did not escape the
penetrating eye of Richelieu, who, as he looked upon the father with his
son, then fifteen years of age, and his two daughters, was so struck by
their beauty that he exclaimed, without waiting for their formal
introduction to him, that he _would like to make something great of
them_. {6b} Étienne Pascal was a man not only of official capacity, but
of keen intellectual instincts and aspirations. He shared eagerly in the
scientific enthusiasm of his time. A letter by him addressed to the
Jesuit Noël shows that the vein of satire, half pleasant, half severe,
which reached such perfection in the famous ‘Letters’ of his son, was not
unknown to the father. The careful and systematic education which he
gave to his son would alone have stamped him as a man of remarkable
intelligence.
Gilberte, Pascal’s elder sister and biographer, exerted an influence upon
his character only second to that of his father. She married her cousin,
M. Périer, also of a Parliamentary family, and Counsellor of the Court of
Aides at Clermont. She was alike beautiful and accomplished, a student
of mathematics, philosophy, and history. {7} For a time she shared in
the enjoyments of the world, like other persons of her age and condition;
but the same impulses of religious enthusiasm which animated the rest of
her family led to her practical abandonment of the world while still
young. The memoirs which she composed, both of her brother and sister,
and her letters, all indicate a high intelligence and a mingled dignity,
sweetness, and restraint of character, which made her their best
counsellor and friend.
The younger sister, Jacqueline, has been made a special study by M.
Cousin amongst the ‘Illustrious Women of the Seventeenth Century.’ She
was beautiful as her sister, and a child of genius like her brother. She
began to compose verses at the age of eight, and in her eleventh year
assisted in the composition and the acting of a comedy in five acts,
which was a subject of universal talk in Paris. Her powers, both as an
actor and a verse-maker, made a wonderful reputation at the time, which,
as we shall see, was highly serviceable to her after. Her verses, it
must be confessed, are somewhat artificial and hollow; but her letters,
and, more remarkable than either her verses or her letters, her
‘Thoughts’ on the ‘Mystery of the Death of Christ,’ are in some respects
very fine, and might even claim a place beside some of those of her
brother. They are equally elevated in tone, and pervaded by the same
subtle, penetrating, radiant mysticism, the same rapture of
self-sacrificing aspiration, though lacking the glow of inward fire and
exquisite charm of style which marked the author of the ‘Pensées.’
Noble-minded and full of genius, she was yet without his depth and power
of feeling, or his skill and finish as an author. In 1646 she came,
along with her brother, and greatly through his influence, strongly under
the power of religion; and in 1652, after her father’s death, she
renounced the world, and became one of the Sisters of Port Royal. She
died amidst the persecution of the Sisters in 1661, a year before her
brother.
In Paris the elder Pascal became a centre of men of congenial
intellectual tastes with himself, and his house a sort of rendezvous for
the mathematicians and the physicists of the time. Among them were
Descartes, Gassendi, Mersenne, Roberval, Carcavi, and Le Pailleur; and
from the frequent reunion of these men is said to have sprung the Academy
of Sciences founded in 1666. It is interesting to notice that it was
into this same society that Hobbes was introduced on his first and second
visits to France, when he accompanied the future Duke of Devonshire there
as tutor. With Father Mersenne and Gassendi especially he formed a warm
friendship, which sheds an interest over his life. Possibly in some of
these reunions the author of the ‘Leviathan’ may have encountered the
young Pascal, and joined in the half admiration and half incredulity
which his wonderful powers had begun to excite.
There never certainly was a more singular story of youthful precocity
than that which Madame Périer has given of her brother, accustomed as we
have become to such stories in the lives of eminent men. Detecting the
remarkable powers of the boy, his father had formed very definite
resolutions as to his education. His chief maxim, Madame Périer says,
was always “to keep the boy above his work.” And for this reason he did
not wish him to learn Latin till he was twelve years of age, when he
might easily acquire it. In the meantime, he sought to give him a
general idea of grammar—of its rules, and the exceptions to which these
rules are liable—and so to fit him to take up the study of any language
with intelligence and facility. He endeavoured further to direct his
son’s attention to the more marked phenomena of nature, and such
explanations as he could give of them. But here the son’s perception
outstripped the father’s power of explanation. He wished “to know the
reason of everything;” and when his father’s statements did not appear to
him to give the reason, he was far from satisfied.
“For he had always an admirable perspicacity in discerning what was
false; and it may be said that in everything and always truth was the
sole object of his mind. From his childhood he could only yield to
what seemed to him evidently true; and when others spoke of good
reasons, he tried to find them for himself. He never quitted a
subject until he had found some explanation which satisfied him.”
Once, among other occasions, he was so interested in the fact that the
sound emitted by a plate lying on a table when struck, suddenly ceased on
the plate being touched by the hand, that he made an inquiry into sound
in general, and drew so many conclusions that he embodied them in a
“well-reasoned” treatise. At this time he was only twelve years of age.
At the same age he gave still more astonishing evidence of his precocious
scientific capacities. His father, perceiving his strong scientific
bent, and desirous that he should first of all acquaint himself with
languages before the absorption of the severer, but more engrossing,
study seized him, had withdrawn from his sight all mathematical books,
and carefully avoided the subject in the presence of his son when his
friends were present. This, as might be expected, only quickened the
curiosity of the boy, who frequently begged his father to teach him
mathematics, and the father promised to do so as a reward when he knew
Latin and Greek, which he was then learning. Piqued by this resistance,
the boy asked one day, “What mathematical science was, and of what it
treated?” He was told that its aim was to make figures correctly, and to
find their right relations or proportions to one another. He began, says
his sister, to meditate during his play-hours on the information thus
communicated to him.
“And being alone in a room where he was accustomed to amuse himself,
he took a piece of charcoal and drew figures upon the boards, trying,
for example, to make a circle perfectly round, a triangle of which
the sides and angles were equal, and similar figures. He succeeded
in his task, and then endeavoured to determine the proportion of the
figures, although so careful had his father been in hiding from him
all knowledge of the kind, that he did not even know the names of the
figures. He made names for himself, then definitions, then axioms,
and finally demonstrations; and in this way had pushed his researches
as far as the thirty-second proposition of the first book of Euclid.”
{10}
At this point a ‘surprise’ visit of his father arrested him in his task,
although so absorbed was he in it, that he did not at first recognise his
father’s presence. The older Pascal, having satisfied himself of the
astonishing achievement which the youthful mathematician had worked out
for himself in solitude, ran with tears of joy to communicate the fact to
his friend M. le Pailleur. It was agreed betwixt them that such an
aptitude for science should no longer be balked, and the lad was
furnished with the means of pursuing his mathematical studies. Before he
had completed his sixteenth year he had written the famous treatise on
Conic Sections which excited the “mingled incredulity and astonishment”
of Descartes. {11}
The happiness of Pascal’s home was suddenly interrupted by an unforeseen
calamity. On coming to Paris, his father had invested his savings in
bonds upon the Hotel de Ville. The Government, impoverished by wars and
extravagance, reduced the value of these revenues, with the result of
creating discontent and calling forth expostulation from the disappointed
annuitants. Some of them met together, and, among others, Étienne
Pascal, and gave such vent to their feelings as to alarm the Government.
Richelieu took summary means of asserting his authority and silencing the
disturbers. The meeting was denounced as seditious, and a warrant issued
to arrest the offenders and throw them into the Bastille. Étienne
Pascal, having become apprised of the hostile designs of the Cardinal,
contrived to conceal himself at first in Paris, and afterwards took
refuge in the solitude of his native district. His children were left
without his care, and plunged in the greatest sorrow. At intervals,
indeed, he contrived to see them in secret, and is said even to have
nursed Jacqueline through a severe attack of the smallpox, which impaired
her hitherto remarkable beauty. But all the pleasant companionship which
he had enjoyed as their instructor, and the centre of a group of
intellectual friends, was at an end. He could only visit his home by
stealth.
At this crisis (February 1639) Richelieu took a fancy to have Scudéry’s
tragi-comedy of “L’Amour Tyrannique” acted before him by young girls.
The Court lady who undertook the management of the piece appealed to
Jacqueline Pascal, whose accomplishments as a girl-actor were well known,
to assist in its performance. She was then thirteen years of age. The
elder sister, who, in the enforced absence of the father, was acting as
the head of the family, replied, with feeling, that “they did not owe any
favour to M. le Cardinal, who had not acted kindly towards them.” The
request, however, was pressed, in the hope that some good might come out
of the affair to the family, and Jacqueline was allowed to appear. The
result was all that could be anticipated. The Cardinal, charmed by the
grace and accomplishment of her acting, received her cordially when she
ventured to approach him with a petition on behalf of her father, thrown
into a form of verses similar to many which she had already composed.
The verses have been preserved with her other pieces, and have been thus
rendered:—{12}
“O marvel not, Armand, the great, the wise,
If I have failed to please thine ear, thine eyes;
My sorrowing spirit, torn by countless fears,
Each sound forbiddeth save the voice of tears.
With power to please thee wouldst thou me inspire?—
Recall from exile now my hapless sire.”
She has herself described, in an interesting letter to her father, {13}
the whole incident, and the result of her intercession. Having told how
the Cardinal had been previously well prepared, and had the true state of
the case explained in reference to her father, who appears to have been
in no degree to blame in the agitation which called forth the displeasure
of the Government, she says that—
“M. le Cardinal appeared to take great pleasure in the
representation, especially when I spoke. He laughed very much, as
did the whole company. When the comedy was finished, I descended
from the theatre with the design of speaking to Madame d’Aiguillon
[the same lady who had already interested herself in the business].
But as the Cardinal seemed about to leave, I approached him directly,
and recited to him the verses I send you. He received them with
extraordinary affection and caresses more than you can imagine; for
at first, when I approached, he cried, ‘Voilà la petite Pascal!’
Then he embraced me and kissed me, and while I said my verses he
continued to hold me in his arms, and kissed me each moment with
great satisfaction. And then when I was done he said, ‘Yes; I grant
to you all that you ask; write to your father that he may return with
safety.’ Thereupon Madame d’Aiguillon approached, and addressed the
Cardinal. ‘It is truly well, sir, that you do something for this
man. I have heard him spoken of as a thoroughly honest and learned
man, and it is a pity he should remain unemployed. Then he has a son
who is very learned in mathematics, although as yet only fifteen
years of age.’ The Cardinal assured me once more that I might tell
you to return in all safety; and as he seemed in such good humour, I
asked him further that you might be allowed yourself to pay your
thanks and respects to his Eminence. He said you would be welcome;
and then, with other discourse, repeated, ‘Tell your father, when he
returns, to come and see me.’ This he said three or four times.
After this, as Madame d’Aiguillon was going away, my sister went
forward to salute her. She received her with many caresses, and
inquired for our brother, whom she said she wished to see. It was
this that led to his introduction to the Duchess, who paid him many
compliments on his scientific attainments. We were then conducted to
a room, where we had a magnificent collation of dried sweetmeats,
fruits, lemonade, and such things. Here the Duchess renewed her
caresses in a manner you will hardly believe. In short, I cannot
tell how much honour I received, for I am obliged to write as
succinctly as possible. I am greatly obliged to M. de Moudroy for
all the trouble he has taken, and I beg you will be so good as write
to him by the first post to thank him, for he well deserves it. As
for me, I esteem myself extremely happy to have in any way assisted
in a result which must give you satisfaction.”
This letter was written from Paris on the 4th April 1639, when Jacqueline
Pascal was therefore only fourteen years of age. It is in all respects a
remarkable and interesting production, both for the glimpse it gives of
the great Cardinal in his hours of ease, and its revelation of
Jacqueline’s own character,—her dramatic cleverness, her firmness and
wisdom in assailing the Cardinal with her prepared verses at the right
moment, her self-conscious importance as the chief actor of such a scene,
and all the same, her girlish enjoyment of the sweetmeats provided for
her. It is a pleasant enough picture; and it deserves especially to be
noticed how prominently the scientific reputation of her brother, only
two years older than herself, is already recognised.
The sequel was all that could have been desired. The father hastened, at
the summons of his daughter, to pay his respects to Richelieu, who gave
him a welcome reception. “I know all your merit,” he said. “I restore
you to your children, and commend them to you. I desire to do something
considerable for you.” Within two years Étienne Pascal was, in
consequence, appointed Intendant of Rouen, where he settled with his
family in 1641. Disturbances had arisen in Normandy at this time in
connection with the payment of taxes, and the Government, believing that
the Parliament at Rouen had not acted with sufficient vigour, took the
matter into their own hands, and sent their officers to collect the
revenues of the province. {15} Étienne Pascal’s character and previous
labours in this capacity, no less than his restoration to the Cardinal’s
favour, pointed him out as a man specially fitted for this work, which in
the circumstances was not unattended with danger. The work in itself was
also harassing and troublesome; and the youthful Pascal, anxious to
assist his father, had busied himself in the invention of a machine for
performing arithmetical calculations, which made a great sensation at the
time. Ingenious as the machine was, it came to little, as we shall see
in the next chapter, which will be devoted to a brief account of Pascal’s
scientific discoveries. In the meantime it will be better to confine
ourselves to the thread of his personal history up to the important epoch
which is known as his first conversion.
Settled at Rouen, he pursued his studies with unremitting devotion, and
with only too little regard for his health. His elder sister, who might
have won him occasionally to lighter pursuits, was married to her cousin
M. Périer in 1641, and two years afterwards went with him to Clermont,
where her husband was appointed a Counsellor in the Court of Aides.
Jacqueline was absorbed in her own poetical studies, which received a
special impetus from the friendship of Corneille, who had returned at
this time to his native town. The illustrious dramatist speedily sought
out the Pascal family, and became one of their most intimate associates.
A prize being given every year for the best copy of verses on the
“Conception of the Virgin,” it was awarded to certain verses of
Jacqueline’s for the year 1640. When the announcement of the result was
made she was absent, but a friend of the family rose and returned thanks
in verse in the name of the youthful poetess—_Pour une jeune muse
absente_. The friend was Corneille, whose impromptu lines on the
occasion, along with those of Jacqueline, are still preserved. {16}
Neither have much poetic merit, but they recall an interesting incident.
A bright atmosphere of intellectual emulation and cheerful prospects
surrounds the family at this time. But all the while it is evident, from
Madame Périer’s account, that her brother was injuring his health greatly
in his undue assiduity in his scientific pursuits. The attempts to
perfect the construction of his arithmetical machine seem especially to
have worn out his delicate frame, and to have laid the foundation of the
nervous prostration from which he more or less suffered all his life
afterwards. “From the age of eighteen,” she says in a significant
passage that her brother “hardly ever passed a day without pain. In the
intermissions of his sufferings, however, his spirit was such that he was
constantly bent on some new discovery.” {17}
In the beginning of 1646 an accident happened which had important
consequences both to Pascal and his sisters. Étienne Pascal fell upon
the ice and severely sprained his foot. During his confinement he was
attended by two brothers who had acquired repute in the treatment of such
injuries. They were gentlemen of family in the neighbourhood, who had
devoted themselves to medicine and anatomy from benevolent instincts and
the love of these studies. Both were disciples of a clergyman at
Rouville, who was an enthusiastic pietist and friend of St Cyran. Crowds
flocked to hear Pastor Guillebert whenever he preached, and many were
stirred by his eloquence to devote themselves to pious and
philanthropical labours. One of the brothers under this inspiring
guidance built a hospital at the end of his park, and gave his children
to the service of the Church in various capacities. The other brother,
who had no children, provided beds in the hospital and attended the sick
poor.
The character and conversation of these men made a deep impression upon
the Pascal family. Hitherto esteemed pious, they had not yet made
religion an anxious concern in their lives. Madame Périer says expressly
of her brother that he had been “preserved by the special protection of
God from all youthful vices, and, what was still more remarkable in the
case of a mind of such strength and pride, he had never yielded to any
libertinism of thought, but had always limited his curiosity to natural
inquiries.” He attributed, according to her statement, this religious
sobriety of mind to the instructions and example of his father, who had a
great respect for religion, and who had impressed upon him from his
infancy the maxim, “that whatever is the object of faith cannot be the
object of reason, and still less the subject of it.” He had seen, in his
father, the combination of scientific attainment with a strong reasoning
power, and the maxim therefore fell with weight from his lips. And so,
when he listened to the discourses of free-thinkers, young as he was—
“He remained unmoved by them, and simply looked upon them as men who
had adopted the false principle that the human reason is above
everything, and who know nothing of the real nature of faith; so that
this spirit, so great and inquisitive, which searched so carefully
for the reason of everything, was at the same time submissive as a
child to all the truths of religion, and this submissive simplicity
predominated in him through his whole life.” {18}
This is a significant extract in more ways than one. In the meantime we
quote it as indicating the religious atmosphere of Pascal’s home, and the
pious temper which marked him from the first. But as yet religion had
not taken hold of him with an absorbing enthusiasm. It had its place in
his thoughts, and this a deeply respectful place; but now, about his
twenty-third year, in communication with the two friends we have
mentioned, and under the same influence which had moved them so deeply,
it began to lay hold of him more powerfully. He and his father and
sisters read eagerly the books of St Cyran, and of Jansen, the Bishop of
Ypres, whose name became so conspicuous in connection with Port Royal. A
discourse by the latter on “The Reformation of the Inward Man,” and also
Arnauld’s “Manual on Frequent Communion,” are supposed to have specially
impressed him. In the language of his sister—
“Providence led him to the study of such pious writings while he was
not yet twenty-four years of age; and God so enlightened him by this
course of reading, that he came to realise that the Christian
religion obliges us to live only for God, and to have no other object
besides Him. So clear and necessary appeared this truth to him, that
he gave up for a time all his researches, renounced all other
knowledge, and applied himself alone to the ‘one thing needful’
spoken of by our Lord.”
This event is spoken of by Pascal’s biographers as his “first
conversion,” and it appears to have been attended not only with a zealous
consecration of his own powers to the service of religion, but moreover,
as often happens in the case of youthful enthusiasm, with a warm
determination against all who seemed to him to be acting at variance with
the true faith. “Although,” as his sister says, “he had made no special
study of scholastic theology, he was not ignorant of the judgments of the
Church against the heresies invented by human subtlety. All indications
of heretical opinion excited his indignation, and God gave him at this
time an opportunity of testifying his zeal on behalf of religion.” She
then adds in illustration the following story:—
“There was at Rouen at this time a man who taught a new philosophy
which attracted the curious. My brother, pressed by two of his young
friends, accompanied them to hear this man; but they were greatly
surprised when they found, in conversation with him, that he drew
consequences from his philosophy at variance with the decisions of
the Church. He sought to prove by his arguments that the body of
Jesus Christ was not formed of the blood of the Holy Virgin, but of
some other matter specially created, and several other like subjects.
They pointed out to him his error, but he remained firm in his
opinions. Thereupon, taking into consideration how dangerous it was
to leave the instruction of youth in the hands of a man with such
erroneous opinions, they resolved, after previously informing him of
their intention, to denounce him if he continued in his errors. So
it happened; for he despised their advice, and in such a manner, as
to leave them no alternative but to denounce him to M. du Bellay,
{20} who was then discharging episcopal functions in the diocese of
Rouen for the Archbishop. M. du Bellay sent for the man, and having
interrogated him, was deceived by an equivocal confession of faith
which he wrote and subscribed. Otherwise he made little account of
the affair as reported by the three young men. However, when they
saw the confession of faith, they at once recognised its defects, and
entered into communication with the Archbishop himself, who, having
examined into the matter, saw its gravity, and sent in writing a
special order to M. du Bellay to make the man retract all the points
of which he was accused, and to receive nothing from him except by
communication of his accusers. The order was carried out, and the
result was that he appeared in the council of the Archbishop and
renounced all his errors—it may be said sincerely, for he never
showed any anger towards those who had engaged in the affair, so as
to lead one to suppose that he had been himself deceived by the false
conclusions which he had drawn from false principles. It was made
plain that his accusers had no design of injuring him, but only of
undeceiving him, and so preventing him from seducing the young, who
were incapable of distinguishing the true from the false in such
subtle questions.”
This story reflects somewhat doubtfully on Pascal’s fairness and good
sense, even as told by Madame Périer. But it has not been left in the
vagueness in which it stands in her narrative. M. Cousin published for
the first time full details regarding it in the volume by which he may be
said to have initiated the new researches into the life and writings of
Pascal. These details, which fill more than forty pages of appendix to
M. Cousin’s volume, {21} are no longer of any interest in themselves; but
they enable us to understand more clearly the conduct of Pascal and his
two friends. Unhappily they deepen rather than lighten the shade which
the story throws upon Pascal’s intemperate zeal. The name of the accused
teacher was Jacques Forton, a Capucin monk, known as the Père St Ange.
He taught no new philosophy; but he had communicated to Pascal or his
friends, in private conversation specially desired by them, certain
theological opinions which he had espoused. These, as given in the
statement of the case signed by Pascal and his two friends, mainly
concern such abstruse subjects as the relation of reason and faith, and
the possibility of demonstrating the doctrine of the Trinity as the
source of all other knowledge. The curious question as to the
constitution of the body of Jesus occupies only a subordinate place. The
monk, as shown in the whole proceedings, was evidently more of a
speculative dreamer than a heretic—a man fond of disputation about
matters beyond his comprehension. It is mentioned by the three youthful
zealots, in the _récit_ bearing their signature, that as they were about
to part with him, “after the accustomed civilities,” he was careful to
let them know that he advanced the points in dispute, not as dogmas, but
merely as propositions or thoughts for discussion, the fruit of his own
reasonings.
There is no reason to doubt that Pascal’s conduct on this occasion arose
entirely from honest zeal. He thought religion compromised by the
strange reasonings which he had heard. There is as little doubt,
however, that his zeal outran his discretion. He showed a determination
to pursue the matter amounting to persecution. The worthy priest had
evidently no intention of promulgating heresy; for he is glad, when
called upon, of an opportunity of proving his orthodoxy. With this view
he produced, side by side with the articles of accusation, passages from
a former volume of his which had been printed with official sanction.
Pascal still demurred, even with this evidence before him. A second
declaration was obtained from the priest, and the bishop refused to go
further. The sympathies of the community were evidently against the
youthful zealots; and finally Pascal’s father, convinced that enough had
been done to vindicate the truth, successfully interposed as mediator.
{23a}
Pascal’s health about this period appears to have undergone a change for
the worse. He suffered from excessive headache and great internal heat
and pain. A singular characteristic of his malady was his inability to
swallow water unless it was heated, and even then only drop by drop. He
was the subject, also, of a remarkable paralytic seizure thus described
by his niece:—
“He fell,” she says, “into a very extraordinary state, as the result
of his great application to his scientific studies; for the senses
(_les esprits_) having mounted strongly to the brain, he became in a
manner paralysed from the waist downwards. His legs and feet grew
cold as marble; and they were obliged every day to put on socks
soaked in brandy in order to try and restore heat in his feet. At
the same time the physician interdicted him from all study.” {23b}
M. Lélut {23c} explains at length this attack of Pascal’s as a well-known
form of dynamical paralysis, of a similar nature with hypochondria and
hysteria, proceeding from a disordered state of the nervous affections,
the result of overwork acting upon a delicate organisation. The result
is temporary, as distinguished from the paralysis arising from organic
lesion, but indicates a highly susceptible constitution, the ready prey
of melancholy and imaginative exaggeration, to which, in M. Lélut’s
opinion, Pascal was more or less liable during the remaining years of his
life.