Chapter VI: The ‘pensées.’ (1)

From Pascal’s finished work we turn to his unfinished Remains. The one will always be regarded as the chief monument of his literary skill, and of the executive completeness of his mind. But the other is the worthier and nobler tribute to the greatness of his soul, and the depth and power of his moral genius. Few comparatively now read the ‘Provincial Letters’ as a whole; fewer still are interested in the controversy which they commemorate. But there are hardly any of higher culture—none certainly of higher thoughtfulness—to whom the ‘Pensées’ are not still attractive, and who have not sought in them at one time or another some answer to the obstinate questionings which the deeper scrutiny of human life and destiny is ever renewing in the human heart. No answer may have been found in them, but every spiritual mind must have so far met in the author of the ‘Pensées’ a kindred spirit which, if it has seen no farther than others, has yet entered keenly upon the great quest, and traversed with a singular boldness the great lines of higher speculation that “slope through darkness up to God.”

The literary history of the ‘Pensées’ is a very curious one. They first appeared in the end of 1669, in a small duodecimo volume, with the appropriate motto, “Pendent opera interrupta.” Their preparation for the press had been a subject of much anxiety to Pascal’s friends. What is known as the “Peace of the Church”—a period of temporary quiet and prosperity to Port Royal—had begun in 1663; and it was important that nothing should be done by the Port Royalists to disturb this peace. It had been agreed, therefore, that all passages bearing on the controversy with the Jesuits and the Formulary should be omitted; but beyond this Madame Périer desired that the volume should only contain what proceeded from her brother, and in the precise form and style in which it had left his hand. She evidently lacked full confidence in the Committee of Editors, of whom the Duc de Roannez was the chief, notwithstanding their professions of strict adherence to the manuscripts. The volume at last appeared, with a preface by her own son, and no fewer than nine “approbations,” signed amongst others by three bishops, one archdeacon, and three doctors of the Sorbonne.

Unhappily Madame Périer had too much cause for alarm. Editors and Approvers alike had claimed the liberty, not only of arranging but of modifying both the matter and the style of the ‘Pensées,’ and this notwithstanding a statement in the preface that, in giving, as they professed to do, only “the clearest and most finished” of the fragments, they had given them as they found them, _without adding or changing anything_. “These fragments,” says M. Faugère, “which sickness and death had left unfinished, suffered, without ceasing to be immortal, all the mutilation which an exaggerated prudence or a misdirected zeal could suggest, with the view not only of guarding their orthodoxy, but of embellishing their style—the style of the author of the ‘Provincials’!” “There are not,” he adds, “twenty successive lines which do not present some alteration, great or small. As for total omissions and partial suppressions, they are without number.” M. Cousin is equally emphatic. “There are,” he says, “examples of every kind of alteration—alteration of words, alteration of phrases, suppressions, substitutions, additions, arbitrary compositions, and, what is worse, decompositions more arbitrary still.”

It is impossible to defend the first editors of the ‘Pensées.’ But it should be remembered that their task was one not only of theological perplexity, but of great literary difficulty. Pascal’s manuscripts were a mere mass of confused papers, sometimes written on both sides, and in a hand for the most part so obscure and imperfectly formed as to be illegible to all who had not made it a special study. The papers were pasted or bundled together without any natural connection, parts containing the same piece being sometimes intersected and sometimes widely separated from one another. If the editors, therefore, did their work ill, it was partly no doubt from incompetency, but partly from its inherent difficulty, and from the fact that being so near to Pascal they could hardly appreciate the feelings of the modern critic as to the sacredness of his style, and of all that came from his pen.

The edition of 1669 continued to be reprinted with little alteration for a century. Various additional fragments were brought to light, especially the famous conversation between De Saci and Pascal regarding Epictetus and Montaigne; but the form of the fragments remained unchanged. It was not till the edition of Condorcet in 1776 that they can be said to have undergone any new _rédaction_. Unhappily Pascal suffered in the hands of the Encyclopedists, as he had previously suffered in the hands of the Jansenists and the Sorbonne. The first editors had expunged whatever might seem at variance with orthodoxy. Condorcet suppressed or modified whatever partook of a too lofty enthusiasm or a too fervent piety. It became a current idea among the Encyclopedists that the accident at Neuilly had affected Pascal’s brain. We have already seen how Voltaire spoke of this; and he directed an early attack (1734) upon the doctrine of human nature contained in the ‘Pensées.’ Now, in his old age, he hailed Condorcet’s edition, and reissued it two years later, with an Introduction and Notes by himself.

In the following year, 1779, appeared the elaborate and well-known edition of Pascal’s works by the Abbé Bossut, accompanied by an admirable “Discours sur la Vie et les Ouvrages de Pascal.” In this edition the remains are found for the first time in some degree of completeness. All the fragments published by Port Royal, and all those subsequently brought to light by Des Molets and others, are included and arranged in a new order. But meritorious as were Bossut’s editorial labours as a whole, they did not attempt any restoration of the ‘Pensées’ to their original text; and even the new fragments published by him were not left untouched. He embodied, for example, the famous conversation with De Saci, but without giving De Saci’s part of the dialogue. In short, he reproduced, as M. Havet says, all the faults of the first editors, and made others of his own. This is the more remarkable that he is said to have had in his possession a copy of the original manuscripts. Condorcet, however, consulted the original manuscripts themselves, without any thought of doing justice to Pascal’s text.

So matters remained till 1842, when M. Cousin published his famous Report on the subject to the French Academy. The French public then found to their astonishment that, with so many editions of the ‘Pensées,’ they had not the ‘Pensées’ themselves. While philosophers had disputed as to his ideas, and critics admired his style, the veritable Pascal of the ‘Pensées’ had all the time lain concealed in a mass of manuscripts in the National Library. Such a story, it may be imagined, did not lack any force in the manner in which M. Cousin told it; and an eager desire arose for a new and complete edition of the fragments. Cousin had prepared the way, but he did not himself undertake this task, which was reserved for M. Faugère, whose great edition appeared two years later, in 1844. Nothing can deprive M. Faugère of the credit of being the first editor of a _complete_ and _authentic_ text of the ‘Pensées.’

Other editions of distinctive merit have since appeared; and it may be admitted that, in the natural reaction from the laxity of former editions, he gave a too literal transcript of the manuscripts, including some things of little importance, and others more properly belonging to an edition of the ‘Provincial Letters’ than of the ‘Pensées.’ But, whether it be the result of early association or of greater familiarity with M. Faugère’s pages, I own still a preference for this edition, while admitting the admirable perspicuity and intelligence of many of M. Havet’s notes, and the splendour of the edition of M. Victor Rochet, the most recent (1873) that has come under my notice.

The principle observed by M. Faugère is strongly defended in his preface. He allowed himself no discretionary powers of emendation, because “the limits of such a power might,” he says, “be too easily overstepped, and would have left room for belief that greater liberties had been taken than was actually the case.” “The manuscripts,” he adds, “have been read, or rather studied, page by page, line by line, syllable by syllable, to the end; and, with the exception of illegible words (which, however, are carefully indicated), they have passed completely into the present edition.”

So far, this principle has been adhered to by subsequent editors. There has been no further tampering with Pascal’s words, but more or less latitude has been taken in publishing all the manuscript details, and especially in the arrangement of the several fragments. Faugère fancied that he could trace in Pascal’s own notes the indication of an interior arrangement, into which the several parts of his proposed work in defence of religion were intended to fall; and he has grouped the fragments in his second volume according to these supposed indications. M. Havet does not think that it is possible any longer to discover the true order of the fragments. He does not believe that any such order existed in the author’s own mind. He had a general design, and certain great divisions; a preface was sketched here, and a chapter there; but in throwing his thoughts upon paper as they presented themselves to him, he did not stop to assort them, or to bring them into any fitting connection. What Pascal himself did not do, M. Havet does not think it possible any editor can do. Accordingly, he recurs to the old, if somewhat arbitrary, arrangement of Bossut, as the most familiar and useful. M. Rochet follows an elaborate arrangement, professedly founded on the original plan of Pascal, as sketched by himself in the conversation reported by his nephew in the preface to the primary edition of the fragments. He considers that all the Thoughts find their natural place in this plan and in no other. But M. Rochet’s classifications are, partly at least, inspired by his own ecclesiastical tendencies; and he is far from just to the labours of M. Faugère, and the real light and order which these labours introduced into the development of Pascal’s ideas.

It is unnecessary for us to attempt to hold the balance between Pascal’s several editors, or to say which of them has most justice on his side. Of two things there can be no doubt: first, that any special arrangement of the ‘Pensées,’ so as to give the idea of a connected book in defence of religion, is, so far, arbitrary—the work, that is to say, of the editor rather than of the author; and secondly, that there is no difficulty, from the original preface and otherwise, of gathering the general order of Pascal’s ideas, and the method which appeared to him the true one of meeting the irreligion of his day, and vindicating the divine truth of Christianity—points which shall afterwards come before us.

The special question raised by M. Cousin as to Pascal’s scepticism will also be best discussed in its true order, in connection with such passages as have suggested it. Considering Pascal’s traditionary reputation as the defender of religion, there was a character of surprise in this question, that forced a lively debate, as soon as it was raised, in France and Germany, and even England. Vinet and Neander both joined in it; and the two lectures delivered by the latter before the Royal Academy of Sciences in Berlin in 1847, are highly deserving of perusal by all students of philosophy. {164} But the issue is an absurd one, before the combatants are agreed as to the meaning of the word Scepticism, and before the reader has before him the views of Pascal, and the manner in which he defines his own attitude in relation to what he considered the two great lines of thought opposed to Christianity. When we are in possession of his own statements, we may find that much of the indignant rhetoric of M. Cousin is beside the question, and that, although Pascal was certainly no Cartesian, and has used some strong and rash expressions about the weakness of human reason, neither is he a sceptic in any usual sense. He has, in fact, defined his own position with singular clearness and force.

But before turning to his views on these higher subjects, it will be well to present our readers with some of Pascal’s more miscellaneous and general Thoughts. In doing so, it is not necessary, in such a volume as this, that we indicate throughout the edition from which we take our quotations. We shall quote from the editions of Faugère or Havet, as may be most convenient, and take them in such order as suits our own purpose of exhibiting Pascal’s mind as clearly as we can. For the same reason, we shall give such passages as appear to us not always the most just or accurate in thought, but the most characteristic or representative of the veritable Pascal, whose true words were so long concealed from the world. We cannot do better, in the first instance, than note what so great a mathematician has to say of geometry and the “mathematical mind,” compared with the naturally _acute_ mind (“l’esprit de finesse”), betwixt which he draws an interesting parallel. The fragment on the “Mathematical” or “Geometric Mind” was, with the exception of a brief passage given by Des Molets {165} in 1728, originally published, although with numerous suppressions, in Condorcet’s edition of the ‘Pensées.’ It appeared for the first time in its complete form, and under its proper title, in Faugère’s edition, along with its natural pendant, the closely-allied fragment, entitled “L’Art de Persuader.” We give a few passages from the first fragment:—

“We may have three principal objects in the study of truth—one to
discover it when we seek it, another to demonstrate it when we
possess it, and a third and last to discriminate it from the false
when we examine it. . . . Geometry excels in all three, and
especially in the art of discovering unknown truths, which it calls
_analysis_. . . There is a method which excels geometry, but is
impossible to man, _for whatever transcends geometry transcends us_
[in natural science, as he explains elsewhere]. This is the method
of defining everything and proving everything. . . A fine method,
but impossible; since it is evident that the first terms that we wish
to define, suppose precedent terms necessary for their
explanation—and that the first propositions that we wish to prove,
suppose others which precede them; and so it is clear we can never
arrive at absolutely first principles. In pushing our researches to
the utmost, we necessarily reach primitive words that admit of no
further definition, and principles so obvious, that they require no
proof. Man can never, therefore, from natural incompetency, possess
an absolutely complete science. . . . But geometry, while inferior
in its aims, is absolutely certain within its limits. It neither
defines everything, nor attempts to prove everything, and must, so
far, yield its pretension to be an absolute science; but it sets out
from things universally admitted as clear and constant, and is
therefore perfectly true, because in consonance with nature. Its
function is not to define things universally clear and understood,
but to define all others; and not to attempt to prove things
intuitively known to men, but to attempt to prove all others.
Against this, the true order of knowledge, those alike err who
attempt to define and to prove everything, and those who neglect
definition and demonstration where things are not self-evident. This
is what geometry teaches perfectly. It attempts no definition of
such things as _space_, _time_, _motion_, _number_, _equality_, and
the like, because these terms designate so naturally the things which
they signify, that any attempt at making them more clear ends in
making them more obscure. For there is nothing more futile than the
talk of those who would define primitive words. {166}

. . . . . . . .

“In geometry the principles are palpable, but removed from common
use. . . . In the sphere of natural wit or acuteness, the principles
are in common use and before all eyes—it is only a question of having
a good view of them; for they are so subtle and numerous, that some
are almost sure to escape observation. . . . All geometers would be
men of acuteness if they had sufficient insight, for they never
reason falsely on the principles recognised by them. All fine or
acute spirits would be geometers if they could fix their thoughts on
the unwonted principles of geometry. The reason why some finer
spirits are not geometers is, that they cannot turn their attention
at all to the principles of geometry; but geometers fail in finer
perception, because they do not see all that is before them, and
being accustomed to the plain and palpable principles of geometry,
and never reasoning until they have well ascertained and handled
their principles, they lose themselves in matters of intellectual
subtlety, where the principles are not so easily laid hold of. Such
things are seen with difficulty; they are felt rather than seen.
They are so delicate and multitudinous that it requires a very
delicate and neat sense to appreciate them. . . . So it is as rare
for geometers to be men of subtle wit as it is for the latter to be
geometers, because geometers like to treat these nicer matters
geometrically, and so make themselves ridiculous; they like to
commence with definition, and then go on to principles—a mode which
does not at all suit this sort of reasoning. It is not that the mind
does not take this method, but it does so silently, naturally, and
without conscious art. The perception of the process belongs only to
a few minds, and those of the highest order. . . . Geometers, who
are only geometers, are sure to be right, provided the subject come
within their scope, and is capable of explanation by definition and
principles. Otherwise they go wrong altogether, for they only judge
rightly upon principles clearly set forth and established. On the
other hand, subtle men, who are only subtle, lack patience, in
matters of speculation and imagination, to reach first principles
which they have never known in the world, and which are entirely
beyond their beat. . . .

“There are different kinds of sound sense. Some succeed in one order
of things, and not in another, in which they are simply extravagant.
. . . Some minds draw consequences well from a few principles,
others are more at home in drawing conclusions from a great variety
of principles. For example, some understand well the phenomena of
water, with reference to which the principles are few, but the
results extremely delicate, so that only very great accuracy of mind
can trace them. Such men would probably not be great geometers,
because geometry involves a multitude of principles, and because the
mind which may penetrate thoroughly a few principles to their depth
may not be at all able to penetrate things which combine a multitude
of principles. . . . There are two sorts of mind: the one fathoms
rapidly and deeply the consequences of principles—this is the
observant and accurate mind; the other embraces a great multitude of
principles, without confounding them—and this is the mathematical
mind. The one is marked by energy and accuracy, the other by
amplitude. But the one may exist without the other. The mind may be
powerful and narrow, or it may be ample and weak.” {168}

Few of Pascal’s Thoughts are more interesting than those on “Eloquence and Style.” So great a master of the art of expression had naturally something to say on these subjects.

“Continued eloquence wearies. Princes and kings amuse themselves
sometimes; they are not always upon their thrones—they tire of these.
Grandeur must be laid aside in order to be realised.

“Eloquence is a picture of thought; and thus those who, after having
drawn a picture, still go on, make a tableau and not a likeness.

“Eloquence is the art of saying things in such a manner—first, that
those to whom they are addressed can understand them without trouble
and with pleasure; and secondly, that they may be interested in them
in such a way that their _amour propre_ may lead them gladly to
reflect upon them. It consists, therefore, in a correspondence
established between the mind and heart of the hearers on the one
side, and the thoughts and expressions used on the other, and so
implies a close study of the human heart in order to know all its
springs, and to find the due measures of speech to address to it. It
must confine itself, as far as possible, to the simplicity of nature,
and not make great what is small, nor small what is great. It is not
enough that a thing be fine, it must be fitting,—neither in excess
nor defect.”

“Eloquence should prevail by gentle suasion, not by constraint. It
should reign, not tyrannise.

“There are some who speak well, and who do not write well. The
place—the assembly—excites them, and draws forth their mind more than
they ever experience without such excitement.”

“Those who make antitheses by forcing the sense are like men who make
false windows for the sake of symmetry. Their rule is not to speak
correctly, but to make correct figures.”

“There should be in eloquence always what is true and real; but that
which is pleasing should itself be the real.”

“When we meet with the natural style we are surprised and delighted,
for we expected to find an author, and we find a man; whilst those of
good taste who in looking into a book think to find a man, are
altogether surprised to find an author. _Plus poetice quam humane
locutus es_. They honour nature most who teach her that she can
speak best on all subjects—even on theology.”

“There are men who always dress up nature. No mere king with them,
but an august monarch. No Paris, but the capital of the kingdom.
There are places in which it is necessary to call Paris Paris;
others, where we must call it the capital of the kingdom.”

“When in composition we find a word repeated, and on trying to
correct it find it so suitable that a change would spoil the sense,
it is better to let it alone. This stamps it as fitting, and it is a
stupid feeling which does not recognise that repetition in such a
case is not a fault; for there is no universal rule.

“The meaning itself changes with the words which express it. The
meaning derives its dignity from the words, instead of imparting it
to them.”

“The last thing that we discover in writing a book is to know what to
put at the beginning.

“When a discourse paints a passion or effect naturally, we find in
ourselves the truth of what we hear, which was there without our
knowing it, so that we are led to like the man who discovers so much
to us. For he does not show us his own good, but ours; and this good
turn makes him lovable. Besides that, the community of intelligence
we have with him necessarily inclines the heart towards him.

“Let none allege that I have said nothing new. The arrangement of
the matter is new. When we play at tennis, both play with the same
ball; but one plays better than the other. They might as well accuse
me of using old words, as if the same thoughts differently arranged
would not form a different discourse; just as the same words
differently arranged express different thoughts.

“There is a definite standard of taste and beauty, which consists in
a certain relation between our nature—it may be weak or strong, but
such as it is—and the thing that pleases us. All that is formed to
this standard delights us,—house, song, writing, verse, prose, women,
buds, rivers, trees, rooms, dress, etc. All that is not formed by
this standard disgusts men of good taste.

“I never judge of the same thing exactly in the same manner. I
cannot judge of my work in the course of doing it. I must do as
painters do, place myself at a distance from it, but not too far.
How then? You may guess.”

We do not look to Pascal especially for worldly insight, or for that sharp knowledge of men that make the sayings of clever social writers like Rochefoucauld or Horace Walpole memorable, if not always wise or kind. But there are many of the Thoughts which show that the penitent of Port Royal had looked with clear observant eyes below the surface of Paris society, and that he had a deep sense not only of the moral but the social weaknesses of humanity.

“When passion leads us towards anything, we forget duty; as we like a
book we read it, while we ought to be doing something else. In order
to be reminded of our duty, it is necessary to propose to do
something that we dislike; then we excuse ourselves on the ground
that we have something else to do, and so we recollect our duty by
this means.

“How wisely are men distinguished by their exterior rather than by
their interior qualifications! Which of us two shall take the lead?
Which shall yield precedence? The man of less talent? But I am as
clever as he. Then we must fight it out. But he has four lackeys
and I have only one. That is a visible difference. We have only to
count the numbers. It is my place then to give way, and I am a fool
to contest the point. In this way peace is kept, which is the
greatest of blessings.

“There is a great advantage in rank, which gives to a man of eighteen
or twenty a degree of acceptance, publicity, and respect which
another can hardly obtain by merit at fifty. It is a gain of thirty
years without any trouble.

“Respect for others requires you to inconvenience yourself. This
seems foolish, yet it is very proper. It seems to say, I would
gladly inconvenience myself if you really required me to do so,
seeing I am ready to do so without serving you.

“‘This is _my_ dog,’ say children; ‘that sunny seat is mine.’ There
is the beginning and type of the usurpation of the whole earth.

“This _I_ is hateful. You, Miton, {171} merely cover it, you do not
take it away; you are therefore always hateful. Not at all, you say;
for if we act obligingly to all men, they have no reason to hate us.
So far true, if there was nothing hateful in the _I_ itself but the
displeasure which it gives. But if I hate it because it is
essentially unjust, because it makes itself the centre of everything,
I shall hate it always. In short, this _I_ has two qualities: it is
unjust in itself, in that it makes itself the centre of everything;
it is an annoyance to others, in that it would serve itself by them.
Each _I_ is the enemy, and would be the tyrant, of all others.

“He who would thoroughly know the vanity of men has only to consider
the causes and effects of love. The cause is a _je ne sais quoi_, an
indefinable trifle—the effects are monstrous. If the nose of
Cleopatra had been a little shorter, it would have changed the
history of the world.

“You have a bad manner—‘excuse me, if you please.’ Without the
apology I should not have known that there was any harm done.
Begging your pardon, the ‘excuse me,’ is all the mischief.

“Do you wish men to speak well of you? Then never speak well of
yourself.

“The more mind we have, the more do we observe men of original mind.
It is your commonplace people that find no difference betwixt one man
and another.

“It is the contest that delights us, and not the victory. It is the
same in play, and the same in search for truth. We love to watch in
argument the conflicts of opinion; but the plain truth we do not care
to look at. To regard it with pleasure, we must see it gradually
emerging from the contest of debate. It is the same with passions:
the struggle of two contending passions has great interest, but the
dominance of one is mere brutality.

“The example of chastity in Alexander has not availed in the same
degree to make men chaste, as his drunkenness has to make them
intemperate. Men are not ashamed not to be so virtuous as he; and it
seems excusable not to be more vicious. A man thinks he is not
altogether sunk in the mud when he follows the vices of great men.

“I have spent much time in the study of the abstract sciences, but
the paucity of persons with whom you can communicate on such
subjects, gave me a distaste for them. When I began to study man, I
saw that these abstract studies are not suited to him, and that in
diving into them I wandered farther from my real object than those
who were ignorant of them, and I forgave men for not having attended
to these things. But I thought at least I should find many
companions in the study of mankind, which is the true and proper
study of man. I was mistaken. There are yet fewer students of man
than of geometry.

“People in general are called neither poets nor geometers, although
they have all that in them, and are capable of being judges of it.
They are not specifically marked out. When they enter a room, they
speak of the subject on hand. They do not show a greater aptitude
for one subject than another, except as circumstances call out their
talents. . . .

“It is poor praise when a man is pointed out on entering a room as
being a clever poet; a bad mark that he should only be referred to
when the question is as to the merit of some verses. . . .

“Man is full of wants, and likes those who can satisfy them. ‘Such a
one is a good mathematician,’ it may be said. But then I must be
doing mathematics; he would turn me into a proposition. Another is a
good soldier; he would take me for a besieged place. Give me your
true man of general talents, who can adapt himself to all my needs.

“If a man sets himself at a window to see the passers-by, and I
happen to pass, can I say that he set himself there to see me? No;
for he does not think of me in particular. But if a man loves a
woman for her beauty, does he love _her_? No; for the smallpox,
which will destroy her beauty without killing her, will cause him to
love her no more. And if any one loves me for my judgment or my
memory, does he really love _me_? No; for I may lose those qualities
without ceasing to be. Where, then, is this _me_, if it is neither
in soul nor body?

“How is it that a lame man does not anger us, but a blundering mind
does? Is it that the cripple admits that we walk straight, but a
crippled mind accuses us of limping? Epictetus asks also, Why are we
not annoyed if any one tells us that we are unwell in the head, and
yet are angry if they tell us that we reason falsely or choose
unwisely? The reason is, that we know certainly nothing ails our
head, or that we are not crippled in body. But we are not so certain
that we have chosen correctly.

“All men naturally hate one another.

“Desire and force are the source of all our actions—desire of our
voluntary, force of our involuntary actions.

“Men are necessarily such fools, that it would be folly of another
kind not to be a fool.

“To make a man a saint, grace is absolutely necessary; and whoever
doubts this does not know what a saint is, nor what a man is.

“The last act is always tragedy, whatever fine comedy there may have
been in the rest of life—We must all die alone.”

“There can only be two kinds of men: the righteous, who believe
themselves sinners; and sinners, who believe themselves righteous.

“Unbelievers are the most credulous; they believe the miracles of
Vespasian to escape believing the miracles of Moses.

“Atheists should speak only of things perfectly clear, but it is not
perfectly clear that the soul is material.

“Atheism indicates force of mind, but only up to a certain point.”

Some of the foregoing Thoughts {174} may appear to our readers sufficient to warrant the charge of scepticism, already adverted to. Pascal certainly speaks at times both of human life and human reason in a contemptuous manner. Even Rochefoucauld could hardly express himself more bitterly than he does now and then when he fixes his clear gaze upon the folly, the vanity, the weaknesses which make up man’s customary life, and the deceits which he practises upon himself and his fellows. All the world seems to him at such times “in a state of delusion.” If there is truth, it “is not where men suppose it to be.” The majority are to be followed, not “because they have more reason, but because they have more force.”

“The power of kings is founded on the reason and on the folly of the
people, but chiefly on their folly. The greatest and most important
thing in the world has weakness for its basis, and the basis is
wonderfully secure, for there is nothing more certain than that
people will be weak. . . . Our magistrates well understand this
mystery. . . . Save for their crimson robes, ermine, palaces of
justice, fleur-de-lis, they would never have duped the world. Where
would the physician be without his ‘cassock and mule,’ and the
theologian without his ‘square cap and flowing garments’? These vain
adornments impress the imagination, and secure respect. We cannot
look at an advocate in his gown and wig without a favourable
impression of his abilities. The soldier alone needs no disguise,
because he gains his authority by actual force, the others by
grimace.”

In such sentences, as well as in some previously quoted, the cynicism of both Hobbes and Montaigne seems to speak. Man is really a fool, and society rests upon force. The further down we go, we come, not to any natural rights, or essential principles of justice, which reason is capable of judging, but only to a mass of customs built up out of selfish instincts, and controlled by external influence. Pascal repeats Montaigne over and over again, and seems to make many of his cynicisms his own. This is not to be denied. “Montaigne is right. Custom should be followed because it is custom, and because it is found to be established, without inquiry whether it be reasonable or not.” Yet he puts in a caveat, as we shall see more fully afterwards, just when he seems most to have identified himself with the representative of scepticism. In blindly following custom, he reserves “those matters which are not contrary to natural or divine right;” and the root of custom, even in the popular mind, he believes to be a dim sense of justice. Again, in a similar vein, he asks, “Why follow ancient laws and ancient opinions? _Are they wiser_? _No_. But they stand apart from present interests; and _thus take away the root of difference_.” Here, as so often, the moralist supplants the sceptic, and suggests a higher thought, while seeming to approve of a superficial Pyrrhonism.

It is easy, in one sense, to make out a case of scepticism against Pascal. He always writes strongly. There is passion in all his thought. He had a strong and deep sense of human weakness, and incapacity to attain the highest truth. He spoke of the philosophy of Descartes without respect. With most of the Port Royalists, indeed, he seems to have concurred in the Cartesian doctrine of automata, {176} strangely revived in our day by Professor Huxley. But he repudiated the notion of “subtle matter,” and even spoke of it with contempt (_dont il se moquait fort_). “He could not bear,” his niece tells us, in a passage often quoted and emphasised, “the Cartesian manner of explaining the formation of all things.” “I cannot forgive Descartes,” he said. “He would willingly in all his philosophy have done without God, if he could; but he could not get on without letting him give the world a fillip to set it agoing: after that, he has nothing more to do with God.” Whether he had studied Descartes or not, he evidently did not share the enthusiasm of Arnauld and others for his philosophy. He even spoke of it as “useless, uncertain, and troublesome—nay, as ridiculous.” {177} He has added, in that brusque, rapid, forceful style characteristic of many of his Thoughts, that “he did not think the whole of philosophy worth an hour’s trouble.” Again: “To set light by philosophy is the true philosophy.” When we look at such expressions, and many others, it is not to be wondered at that Pascal has been accused of scepticism. As he could not forgive Descartes, so Cousin cannot forgive him for his depreciation of Descartes. One who saw nothing in Cartesianism or philosophy in general beyond what these rash sentences, freshly restored in all their audacity, declare, could be nothing but an “enemy of all philosophy.”

It is impossible not to feel that there is some ground for this accusation, and that, if we were to draw our knowledge of Pascal merely from such passages, Cousin makes out something of a case against him. But many other passages, hardly less emphatic, must make every candid reader pause before he comes to any definite conclusion on the subject, if it is necessary to come to such a conclusion at all. It must never be forgotten that we have nowhere the complete mind of Pascal; that it was of the very nature of thoughts rapidly dashed upon paper—as the very form of many we have quoted clearly indicates they were—to be one-sided and often extravagant. Pascal, of all men, is not to be measured by his strong expressions. His intellectual nature, while profound, was narrow and intense. He put his whole soul into what moved him for the time; and a certain excess of passionate intellectual emotion evidently speaks in some of the most striking of the ‘Pensées.’ We may imagine how in some—perhaps in many—cases they would have been toned down had he lived to revise and refashion them into a harmonious whole. That interior elaboration,—“a kind of second creation of genius,” as M. Faugère says—which no one else may venture upon,—would undoubtedly have come from his own masterly hand, if it had been given him to bring fragment to fragment, and to fit them together into a complete fabric. It would be a hard thing to judge any student, and especially a student like Pascal, by the scattered notes of his library table; and precious as these fragments are, we must remember that this is their character, and nothing else. The fact that we now have them in all their native _hardiesse_ makes this caution not the less but all the more necessary.

In passing on to consider more particularly Pascal’s philosophical and religious attitude, we shall see more fully the bearing of these remarks. Pascal, in point of fact, embraces many points of view; and, if he leans sometimes to scepticism, he sees also the strong side of what he calls dogmatism or rational philosophy. The very exaggerations of his language, now on this side and now on that, show that he himself is more than either, as his own words bear. “It is necessary,” he says, “to have three qualities—those of the Pyrrhonist, of the geometrician (the dogmatist), and of the humble Christian. These unite with and attemper one another, so that we doubt when we should, we aim at certainty when we should, and we submit when we should.” He certainly thought that he had found a surer road to truth than either Dogmatism or Pyrrhonism. Whether he succeeded in doing so will appear as we proceed.

The famous conversation with De Saci, when he entered Port Royal, must be taken as the chief key to Pascal’s own philosophical attitude. There is nowhere in any of the Thoughts so complete an exhibition of his point of view; and all the editors who have most entered into Pascal’s spirit—Sainte-Beuve, Faugère, and Havet alike—have recognised its importance. It is really, as Havet says, of the nature of an introduction to the ‘Pensées.’

In this conversation Pascal signalises what he believes to be the two great opposing systems of human philosophy at all times; the rational, dogmatic, or Stoical, on the one hand—the sceptical, or Epicurean, on the other. He takes Epictetus as the representative of the one; Montaigne as the representative of the other. In depicting dogmatism at other times, he seems to have Descartes especially in view; but in speaking of scepticism and Pyrrhonism (which is his own expression), it is always Montaigne that he has before him. Montaigne is Pyrrhonist _par excellence_; and undoubtedly the famous Essays had greatly fascinated Pascal, like many others in his generation. He was constantly drawn to them as embodying one, and that a deep, phase of his own experience. He felt his own thought expressed in many pages of Montaigne, and had that favour for the Essays that every thoughtful man has for the book that makes his own experience alive, and brings it clearly before him. But he has, at the same time, made plainly intelligible his own differences from Montaigne, and marked with his usual boldness the limitations of his thought. If Pascal is Pyrrhonist, he is certainly not Pyrrhonist after the manner of Montaigne, deeply as he responds to many of the notes of the Essays, and at times seems to make them his own.

The conversation with De Saci took place in 1654, when Pascal first went to Port Royal des Champs, and De Saci became his spiritual director. We owe its preservation to Fontaine, from whose manuscript ‘Memoirs’ it was extracted, and first published in 1728 by Des Molets. After all the labour of Faugère, Havet believes himself to have given for the first time the correct text of the conversation from the original print of Des Molets, based on Fontaine’s manuscripts, rather than from the text of the ‘Memoirs’ as afterwards published. Fontaine describes in his _naïve_ manner the impression made by Pascal upon De Saci, and how the brilliancy of power which had charmed all the world could not be hidden within the shades of Port Royal. Ignorant of the Fathers of the Church, he had found by his own mental and spiritual penetration the very truths to be met with in them; and De Saci seemed to see another St Augustine before him in the wonderful talk of the gifted penitent. It was his practice in dealing with his penitents to adapt his conversation to their peculiar powers. If he spoke with M. Champagne, for example, he talked with him of painting. If he saw M. Hamon, he inquired about the art of medicine. If it was the surgeon of the place, he had something to say of surgery. All was designed to lead the thoughts from all human things up to God. With Pascal, therefore, it was philosophy upon which his conversation fell, to try the depths of his mind, and see what special direction he needed. “Pascal told him that the two books most familiar to him were Epictetus and Montaigne, and he lavished great praise on both. M. de Saci had always wished to read these two authors, and asked M. Pascal to explain them fully.”

“Epictetus,” said Pascal, “is one of the philosophers of the world
who have best known the duties of man. Above all things, he would
have man regard God as his chief object—to be persuaded that He
governs all things with righteousness—to submit to Him cordially, and
to follow Him willingly, as having made all things with perfect
wisdom. Such a disposition would stay all complaints and murmurs,
and prepare the human mind to bear quietly the most troublesome
events. ‘Never say,’ he observes (Enchirid. 11), ‘I have lost that;
say rather, I have restored it. My son is dead; I have surrendered
him. My wife is dead; I have given her up.’ And so of every other
good. . . . While its use is permitted, regard it as a good
belonging to others, as a traveller does in an inn. You should not
wish,’ he adds, ‘that things be as you desire, but you should desire
them to be as they are.’ . . . It is your duty to play well the part
assigned to you, but to choose the part is the act of Another. Have
always death before your eyes, and the evils which are least
supportable, and you would never think meanly of anything, nor desire
anything in excess. He shows in a thousand ways what is the duty of
man. He wishes him to be humble, to conceal his good resolutions,
especially in their beginnings, that he may carry them out in secret.
Nothing is so ruinous to them as publicity. He never ceases to
repeat that the whole duty and desire of man ought to be to
acknowledge the will of God, and to follow it.

“Such were the lights of this great mind, who has so well understood
the duties of man. I venture to say, that he would have deserved to
be adored if he had only known as well human weakness; but in order
to do this, he must have been God Himself. Mere man as he was, after
having so well explained human duty, he loses himself in the
presumption of human capacity. He avers that God has given to every
man the means of acquitting himself of all his obligations; that such
means are always within his own power, that happiness is to be sought
by things within our reach, since God has given us them for this very
end. He points out in what our freedom consists: goods, life, esteem
are not in our power, and therefore do not lead to God; but none can
force the mind to believe what is false, nor the will to love that
which will make it miserable. These two powers are therefore free;
and by these we can render ourselves perfect—know God perfectly, love
Him, obey Him, please Him—vanquish all vices, acquire all virtues,
and so make ourselves holy, and the fellows of God. These
principles, truly diabolic in their pride, lead to other errors—such
as that the soul is a portion of the Divine substance, that grief and
death are not evils, that we may kill ourselves when we are in such
trouble that we may believe God summons us, etc.

“As for Montaigne—of whom you wish me also, my dear sir, to
speak—being born in a Christian country, he makes profession of the
Catholic religion, and so far there is nothing peculiar about him.
But in the search for a system of morals dictated by reason without
the light of faith, he has to lay down his principles on this
supposition, and to consider man apart from revelation. He conceives
things in such a universal uncertainty that doubt itself is seized
with uncertainty, and doubts whether it doubts. His scepticism
returns upon itself in a perpetual circle without repose, opposing
equally those who maintain that all is uncertain, and those who
maintain that nothing is, so utterly indisposed is he to any fixity.
In this doubt which doubts itself, and this ignorance which is
ignorant of itself, is to be found the essence of his thought. He
cannot express it by any positive term; for if he was to say that he
doubts, he betrays himself by making it certain that he doubts; and
this being formally against his intention, he can only explain
himself by an interrogation. Not wishing to say, I do not know, he
can only ask, What do I know? He has made this his device, putting
it under a pair of balances, which, weighted in each scale by a
contradiction, hangs in perfect equilibrium. In other words, he is
pure Pyrrhonist. This is the point round which turn all his
discourses and all his essays. This is the only thing which he
leaves fixed, although he may not always keep it before him. . . .

“It is in this humour, fluctuating and variable as it is, that he
combats with an invincible firmness the heretics of his time, who
assumed to know the exclusive sense of Scripture. From the same
point of view he thunders vigorously against the horrible impiety of
those who dare to be certain that there is no God! He attacks them
especially in the ‘Apology for Raymond de Sebonde.’ Having
voluntarily set aside revelation, and abandoned themselves to their
natural light—all faith set aside—he asks them on what authority
they, who know not the essential reality of anything, dare to judge
of that Sovereign Being who is infinite by His very definition. He
demands upon what principles they rest, and presses them to point
them out. He examines all that they bring forward, and so searches
them by his wonderful penetration as to show the hollowness of what
passes for the most clear and established truths. He inquires if the
soul knows anything whatever—if it knows itself; whether it is
substance or accident, body or spirit; what is each of these things,
and if there is anything belonging to some order different from
either; if the soul knows its own body; if it knows what matter is,
or can distinguish the innumerable varieties of body produced from
matter; how it can reason if it is material, and how it can be united
to a special body, and feel its passions if it be spiritual. When
did it begin to be, with the body or before, and if it ends with it
or not? . . . . The ideas of God and truth are inseparable, and if
the one is or is not, if the one is certain or uncertain, the other
is necessarily the same. Who knows if the common sense (_le sens
commun_) which we take as a judge of the truth is really this,
designed for such a purpose? Who knows what truth is, and how can we
be sure of having it without knowing it? Who knows even what Being
is, since it is impossible to define it; and in trying to do so, it
is necessary to presuppose the very idea itself, and say _it is_? . .
.

“I confess, sir, I might look with joy upon the manner in which the
author invincibly crumples up proud reason with its own arms. I
could love with my whole heart the minister of so mighty a vengeance
if, as a faithful disciple of the Church, he had followed its moral
guidance. But he acts, on the contrary, like a pagan, concluding
that we ought to abandon care for others and dwell in peace, gliding
lightly over such subjects lest we lose ourselves in them, and taking
that to be true and good which at first appears to be so. This is
why he follows everywhere the evidence of the senses and the notions
of the community. . . . In this manner, he says, there is nothing
extravagant in his conduct. He does as others do. Whatever they do
in the foolish thought that they are following the true good, he does
from another principle, that as the probabilities (_vraisemblances_)
are equally on one side and the other, so example and convenience
carry the day with him. He mounts his horse like any one else—not as
a philosopher—because the horse allows him to do so, but without
thinking there is any right in the matter, and not knowing whether
the horse, on the contrary, may not be entitled to make use of him.
He puts constraint to himself in order to shun certain vices; and
even guards marriage faithfully, merely on account of the disorder
which would otherwise follow. . . .

“I cannot dissemble that in reading Montaigne, and comparing him with
Epictetus, I find in them the two greatest defenders of the most
celebrated sects of the world, who profess to follow reason rather
than revelation. We must follow one or other. Either there is a God
and a Sovereign Good, or this is uncertain, and all is
uncertain,—whether there is any true good or not. . . .