Chapter XII: Preface (11)

Not what they do, but what they say.

They cry out against me only. I am content I know whom to blame for it.

Jesus Christ was a stone of stumbling.

Condemnable, condemned.

Jesus Christ never condemned without a bearing. To Judas: _Amice, ad quid venisti_? To him who had not on the wedding garment, the same.

Unless they give up probability their good maxims are as little holy as the bad. For they are founded on human authority, and thus if they are more just they will be more reasonable, but not more holy, they take after the wild stock on which they are graffed.

If what I say serves not to enlighten you, it will aid the people.--If these hold their peace, the stones will cry out.

Silence is the greatest persecution; the saints never held their peace. It is true that a vocation is needed, it is not from the decrees of the Council that we must learn whether we are called, but from the compulsion to speak. Now after Rome has spoken, and we think that she has condemned the truth, and they have written it, and the books which have said the contrary are censured; we must cry so much the louder the more unjustly we are censured, and the more violently they try to stifle speech, until there come a pope who listens to both sides, and who consults antiquity to do justice.

So good popes will find the Church still in an uproar.

The Inquisition and the Society are the two scourges of the truth.

Why do you not accuse them of Arianism? For if they have said that Jesus Christ is God, perhaps it is not with a natural meaning, but as it is said: _Dii estis_.

If my Letters are condemned at Rome, what I condemn in them is condemned in heaven.

_Ad tuum, Domine Jesu, tribunal appello._

You are yourselves corruptible.

I feared that I had written ill when I saw myself condemned, but the example of so many pious writings makes me believe the contrary. Good writing is no longer permitted, so corrupt or ignorant is the Inquisition.

It is better to obey God than men.

I have neither fear nor hope. Not so the bishops. Port Royal fears, and it is a bad policy to dissolve the community, for they will fear no longer and will inspire greater fear.

I fear not even your censures, ... if they be not founded on those of tradition.

Do you censure all? What, even my respect?--No.--Say then, what it is, or you will do nothing, since you do not point out the evil, and why it is evil. And this is what they will have some trouble to do.

Unjust persecutors of those whom God visibly protects.

If they reproach you with your excesses they speak as do the heretics.

If they say that the grace of Jesus Christ separates us, they are heretics.

If miracles are wrought, it is the mark of their heresy.

Ezekiel,

They say, these are the people of God who thus speak.

Hezekiah,

My reverend father, all this was done in figures. Other religions perish, this one perishes not.

Miracles are more important than you think, they have served for the foundation, and will serve for the continuance of the Church till the coming of Antichrist, till the end.

The two witnesses.

In the Old Testament and the New, miracles are wrought in connection with types. Salvation or an useless thing, if not to show that we must submit to the creature.--Figure of the sacraments.

The synagogue was a figure and so it perished not, and it was only the figure and so it has perished. It was a figure which contained the truth, and so it subsisted till it contained the truth no longer.

The exaggerated notion which you have of the importance of your society has made you establish these horrible ways. It is very plain that it has made you follow the way of slander, since you blame in me as horrible the same impostures which you excuse in yourselves, because you regard me as a private person, and yourselves as _imago_.

It plainly appears that your praises are follies, by those which are crazy, as the privilege of the uncondemned.

Is this giving courage to your children to condemn them when they serve the Church?

It is an artifice of the devil to turn in another direction the arms with which these people used to combat heresies.

You are bad politicians.

The history of the man born blind.

What says Saint Paul? Does he constantly speak of the bearing of prophecies? No, but of his miracles.

What says Jesus Christ? Does he expound the bearing of the prophecies? No, his death had not fulfilled them; but he says, si non fecissem: believe the works.

_Si non fecissem quæ alius non fecit._

These wretches who have obliged us to speak of miracles!

Abraham and Gideon confirmed faith by miracles.

There are two supernatural foundations of our wholly supernatural Religion, the one visible, the other invisible.

Miracles with grace, miracles without grace.

The synagogue, which has been treated with love as a figure of the Church, and with hatred because it was only the figure, has been restored, being about to fall when it was well with God, and thus a figure.

The miracles prove the power which God has over hearts by that which he exercises over the body.

The Church has never approved a miracle among heretics.

Miracles are a support of religion. They have been the test of Jews, of Christians, of saints, of innocents, and of true believers.

A miracle among schismatics is not much to be feared, for schism which is more evident than miracle, evidently marks their error; but when there is no schism, and error is in question, miracle is the test.

Judith. God speaks at length in their extreme oppression.

If because charity has grown cold the Church is left almost without true worshippers, miracles will raise them up.

This is one of the last effects of grace.

If only a miracle were wrought among the Jesuits!

When a miracle deceives the expectation of those in whose presence it occurs, and when there is a disproportion between the state of their faith and the instrument of the miracle it must lead them to change; but with you it is the opposite. There would be as much reason in saying that if the Eucharist raised a dead man one ought to turn Calvinist rather than remain a Catholic. But when he crowns the expectation, and those who have hoped that God would bless the remedies see themselves cured without remedies....

_The wicked._--No sign was ever given on the part of the devil without a stronger sign on the part of God, at least unless it were foretold that this would be so.

These nuns, amazed at what is said, that they are in the way of perdition, that their confessors are leading them to Geneva, and teach them Jesus Christ is not in the Eucharist, nor on the right hand of the Father, know all this to be false, and offer then themselves to God in that state. _Vide si via iniquitatis in me est._ What happens thereupon? The place, which is said to be the temple of the devil, God makes his own temple. It is said that the children must be taken away, God heals them there. It is said to be hell's arsenal, God makes of it the sanctuary of his graces. Lastly, they are threatened with all the furies and all the vengeance of heaven, and God loads them with favours. Those must have lost their senses, who therefore believe them in the way of perdition.--_We have, without doubt, the same tokens as Saint Athanasius._--

The five propositions were equivocal; they are so no longer.

With so many other signs of piety they have that of persecution also, which is the best mark of piety.

By showing the truth we gain belief for it, but by showing the injustice of ministers, we do not correct it. Conscience is made secure by a demonstration of falsehood; our purse is not made secure by the demonstration of injustice.

Miracles and truth are both needful, as we have to convince the whole man, body and soul alike.

It is good that their deeds should be unjust, for fear it should not appear that the Molinists have acted justly. Thus there is no need to spare them, they are worthy to commit them.

_The Church, the Pope._--Unity, plurality. Considering the Church as unity, the pope its head, is as the whole; considered as plurality, the pope is only a part of it. The Fathers have considered the Church now in this way, now in that, and thus they have spoken in divers ways of the pope.

Saint Cyprian, _sacerdos Dei_.

But in establishing one of these two truths, they have not excluded the other.

Plurality which cannot be reduced to unity is confusion. Unity which depends not on plurality is tyranny.

There is scarce any where left but France in which it is allowable to say that a council is below the pope.

We may not judge of what the pope is by some words of the Fathers--as the Greeks said in a council, important rules--but by the acts of the Church and the Fathers, and by the canons.

Unity and plurality: _Duo aut tres in unum_. It is an error to exclude one of the two, as the papists do who exclude plurality, or the Huguenots who exclude unity.

The pope is chief, who else is known of all, who else is recognised by all? Having power to insinuate himself into all the body, because he holds the leading shoot, which extends itself everywhere.

How easy to cause this to degenerate into tyranny. This is why Jesus Christ has laid down for them this precept: _Vos autem non sic_.

God works not miracles in the ordinary conduct of his Church. It would be a strange miracle, did infallibility reside in one, but that it should dwell in a multitude appears so natural that the ways of God are concealed under nature, as all his other works.

Men desire certainty, they like the pope to be infallible in faith, grave doctors to be infallible in morals, in order to have certainty.

The pope hates and fears men of science, who are not at once submissive to him.

Kings are masters of their own power, not so the popes.

Whenever the Jesuits take the pope unawares, they will make all Christendom perjured.

It is very easy to take the pope unawares, because of his occupations, and the trust which he has in the Jesuits, and the Jesuits are very capable of taking him unawares by means of calumny.

The five propositions condemned, yet no miracle, for truth was not attacked, but the Sorbonne and the bull.

It is impossible that those who love God with all their heart, should misunderstand the Church, which is so evident.

It is impossible that those who love not God should be convinced of the Church.

Let us look to the discourses on the 2nd, 4th, and 5th of the Jansenist. They are lofty and grave.

We would not make a friend of either.

The ear only is consulted because the heart is wanting.

Beauty of omission, of judgment.

The rule is that of honourable conduct.

Poet and not honourable man.

These men want heart.

We would not make a friend of him.

For this name of honourable man.

_Canonical._--The heretical books in the early age of the Church serve to prove the canonical.

_Heretics._--Ezekiel. All the heathens spake evil of Israel, and the Prophet did the same, yet the Israelites were so far from having a right to say to him, "You speak as the heathen," that he made it his strongest point that the heathens said the same as he.

Those are feeble souls who know the truth, and uphold it only so far as their interest is concerned, but beyond that abandon it.

Annat. He makes the disciple without ignorance, and the master without presumption.

There is such great disproportion between the merit which he thinks he has and his stupidity, that it is hard to believe he mistakes himself so completely.

And will this one scorn the other?

Who should scorn? Yet he scorns not the other, but pities him.

Port Royal is surely as good as Voltigerod.

So far as your proceeding is just according to this bias, so far is it unjust on the side of Christian piety.

_Montalte._--Lax opinions are so pleasing to men, that it is strange that theirs displease. It is because they have exceeded all bounds; and more, there are many persons who see the truth, yet cannot attain to it; but there are few who do not know that the purity of religion is contrary to our corruptions. It is absurd to say that eternal reward is offered to the morals of Escobar.

But is it _probable_ that _probability_ gives certainty?--Difference between rest and security of conscience. Nothing but truth gives certainty. Nothing gives rest but a sincere search after truth.

_Probability._ They have oddly explained certainty, for after having established that all their ways are sure, they no longer call that sure which leads to heaven without danger of not arriving thereby, but that which leads there without danger of going out of the road.

Now probability is necessary for the other maxims, as for that of the friend and the slanderer.

_A fructibus eorum_, judge of their faith by their morals.

Probability is little without corrupt means, and means are nothing without probability.

There is pleasure in being able to do good, and in knowing how to do good, _scire et posse_. Grace and probability give this pleasure, for we can render our account to God in reliance upon their authors.

_Probability._

Everyone can impose it, none can take it away.

_Probable._--If as bad reasons as these are probable, all would be so.

1. Reason. _Dominus actuum conjugalium._ Molina.

2. Reason. _Non potest compensari._ Lessius.

To oppose not with holy, but with abominable maxims.

They reason as those who prove that it is night at midday.

Bauny, the burner of barns.

... The Council of Trent for priests in mortal sin: _quam primum_....

_Probable._--Let us see if we seek God sincerely, by the comparison of things we love.

It is probable that this meat will not poison me.

It is probable that I shall not lose my law suit if I do not bring it.

If it were true that grave authors and reasons would suffice, I say that they are neither grave nor reasonable. What! a husband may make profit of his wife according to Molina. Is the reason he gives reasonable, and the contrary one of Lessius reasonable also?

Would you dare thus to trifle with the edicts of the King, as by saying that to go for a walk in a field and wait for a man is not to fight a duel;

That the Church has indeed forbidden duelling, but not taking a walk?

And usury too, but not....

And simony, but not....

And vengeance, but not....

And unnatural crime, but not....

And _quam primum_, but not....

Take away _probability_, and you can no longer please the world, give _probability_, and you can no longer displease it.

_Universal._--Morals and language are special but universal sciences.

_Probability._--The zeal of the saints to seek the truth, was useless if the probable is certain.

The fear of the saints who have always followed the surest way.

Saint Theresa having always followed her confessor.

_Probability._--They have some true principles, but they abuse them. Now the abuse of truth should be as much punished as the introduction of falsehood.

As if there were two hells, one for sins against charity, the other for sins against justice.

Men who do not keep their word, without faith, without honour, without truth, double hearted, double tongued, like the reproach once flung at that amphibious creature in the fable, who kept itself in a doubtful position between the fish and the birds.

It is of importance to kings and princes to be supposed pious, and therefore they must take you for their confessors.

_State super vias et interrogate de semitis antiquis, et ambulate in eis. Et dixerunt: Non ambulabimus, sed post cogitationem nostram ibimus._ They have said to the nations: Come to us, we will follow the opinions of the new authors, reason shall be our guide, we will be as the other nations who follow each their natural light. Philosophers have....

All religions and sects in the world have had natural reason for a guide. Christians alone have been obliged to take their rules from without themselves, and to acquaint themselves with those which Jesus Christ left to men of old time to be transmitted to the faithful. This constraint is wearisome to these good fathers. They desire like the rest of the world to have liberty to follow their imaginations. In vain we cry to them, as the prophets to the Jews of old: "Enter into the Church, enquire of the ways which men of old have left to her, and follow those paths." They have answered, as did the Jews, "We will not walk in them, but we will follow the thoughts of our hearts;" and they have said, "We will be as the nations round about us."

Can it be any thing but the desire to please the world which makes you find things probable? Will you make us believe that it is truth, and that if duelling were not the fashion, you would find it probable they might fight, looking at the matter in itself?

The whole society of their casuists cannot give assurance to a conscience in error, and therefore it is important to choose safe guides.

Thus they will be doubly guilty, both in having followed ways which they should not follow, and in having hearkened to teachers to whom they should not hearken.

Casuists submit the decision to corrupt reason, and the choice of decisions to corrupt will, so that all that is corrupt in the nature of man may help to rule his conduct.

They allow lust free play, and restrict scruples, whereas they should do the exact contrary.

Must we slay in order that the wicked may cease to be? This is to make two wicked instead of one. _Vince in bono malum._ Saint Augustine.

The servant does not know what the master does, for the master tells him only the act and not the purpose; this is why he is so often slavishly obedient and often sins against the purpose. But Jesus Christ tells us the purpose.

And you destroy this purpose.

Art thou less a slave because thy master loves and caresses thee? Thou art indeed well off, slave. Thy master caresses thee, he will presently beat thee.

Those who wrote thus in Latin speak in French.

The evil having been done of patting these things in French, we ought to do the good of condemning them.

There is one only heresy, which is differently explained in the schools and in the world.

_On confessions and absolutions without signs of regret._ God looks at the heart alone, the Church looks at outward actions; God absolves as soon as he sees penitence in the heart, the Church when she sees it in works. God will make a Church pure within, which puts to confusion by its interior and perfect spiritual holiness the interior impiety of proud philosophers and Pharisees, and the Church will make an assembly of men whose external morals are so pure that they put to confusion heathen morals. If some are hypocrites, but so well disguised that she does not recognise their venom, she bears with them, for though they are not accepted of God, whom they cannot deceive, they are of men, whom they deceive. And thus she is not dishonoured by their conduct which appears holy. But you will have it that the Church should judge neither of the heart, for that belongs to God alone, nor of works, because God looks at the heart alone; and so taking away from her all choice of men, you retain in the Church the most debauched and those who so greatly dishonour her, that the synagogues of the Jews and the sects of the philosophers would have cast them out as unworthy, and have abhorred them as impious.

God has not willed to absolve without the Church. As she has part in the offence he wills that she should have part in the pardon. He associates her with this power as kings their parliaments; but if she binds or looses without God, she is no more the Church, as in the case of parliament. For even if the king have pardoned a man, it is necessary that it should be ratified; but if the parliament ratifies without the king, or refuses to ratify on the order of the king, it is no more the parliament of the king, but a revolutionary body.

The Church teaches and God inspires, both infallibly. The operation of the Church serves only to prepare for grace or for condemnation. What it does suffices for condemnation, not for inspiration.

The Church has in vain established these words, anathema, heresies. They are used against herself.

It is not absolution only which remits sins by the Sacrament of Penance, but contrition, which is not a true contrition if it does not frequent the sacrament.

Thus, again, it is not the nuptial benediction which hinders sin in generation, but the desire of begetting children for God, which is no true desire except in marriage.

And as a contrite man without the sacrament is more disposed for absolution than an impenitent man with the sacrament, so the daughters of Lot, for instance, who had only the desire for children, were more pure without marriage than married persons without desire for children.

_Casuists._--Much almsgiving, reasonable penance; even when we cannot assign what is just, we see plainly what is not. It is strange that casuists believe they can interpret this as they do.

People who accustom themselves to speak ill and to think ill.

Their great number, far from marking their perfection, marks the contrary.

The humility of one makes the pride of many.

They make a rule of the exception. If the ancient fathers gave absolution before penance; do this only as an exception. But of the exception you make a rule without exception, so that you will not even have it that the rule is exceptional.

Priest still who will, as under Jeroboam.

It is a horrible thing that they submit to us the discipline of the Church in our days as so excellent that it is made a crime to wish to change it Formerly it was infallibly good, and it was found it might be changed without sin, and now, such as it is, we ought not to wish it changed!

It has indeed been allowed to change the custom of not making priests save with such great circumspection, that there were scarcely any who were worthy, yet we are not allowed to complain of the custom which makes so many who are unworthy.

Two sorts of people place things on the same level, as feasts and working days, Christians and priests, all sins among themselves, etc. Therefore the one set conclude that what is bad for priests is so for Christians, and the other that what is not bad for Christians is permissible for priests.

The Jansenists are like the heretics in the reformation of their morals, but you are like them in evil.

Superstition to believe propositions, etc.

Faith, etc.

If Saint Augustine came at this day, and was as little authorised as his defenders, he would do nothing. God governs his Church well, in that he sent him before with authority.

Grace is needed to make a man into a saint, and if any man doubt this he knows not what is a saint, nor what is a man.

The motions of grace, hardness of heart, external circumstances.

Grace will ever be in the world, and nature also, so that grace is in some sort natural. Thus there will be always Pelagians, always Catholics, always strife.

Because the first birth constitutes the one, and the grace of regeneration the other.

It will be one of the confusions of the damned to see themselves condemned by their own reason, by which they have thought to condemn the Christian religion.

When it is said that Jesus Christ died not for all, you take advantage of a defect inherent in men who immediately apply this exception to themselves, which is to favour despair instead of turning men from it to favour hope. For so we accustom ourselves to interior virtues by exterior customs.

There is heresy in always explaining omnes by 'all,' and heresy in not explaining it sometimes by 'all.' _Bibite ex hoc omnes_, the Huguenots are heretics in explaining it by 'all.' _In quo omnes peccaverunt_, the Huguenots are heretics in excepting the children of the faithful. We must then follow the Fathers and tradition to know when to do so, since there is heresy to be feared on one side or the other.

_A point of form._--When Saint Peter and the apostles consulted about the abolition of circumcision, when it was a question of acting in contradiction to the law of God, they did not consult the prophets, but considered simply the reception of the Holy Spirit in the persons uncircumcised. They judged it more certain that God approved those whom he filled with his spirit, than it was that the law must be observed.

They knew that the end of the Law was none other than the Holy Spirit, and thus as men certainly had this without circumcision, circumcision was not needful.

But to preserve pre-eminence to himself he gives prayer to whom he pleases.

Why God has established prayer.

1. To communicate to his creatures the dignity of causality.

2. To teach us from whom our virtue comes.

3. To make us deserve other virtues by work.

_Objection._ But we believe that prayer comes from ourselves.

This is absurd, for since before we have faith, we cannot have virtues, how should we have faith? Is there a greater distance between infidelity and faith than between faith and virtue?

_Merit._ This word is ambiguous.

_Meruit habere Redemptorem._

_Meruit tam sacra membra tangere._

_Digna tam sacra membra tangere._

_Non sum dignus, qui manducat indignus._

_Dignus est accipere._

_Dignare me._

God is only bound according to his promises.

He has promised to do justice to prayer, he has never promised prayer only to the children of promise.

_Si_ does not mark indifference. Malachi, Isaiah.

Isaiah. _Si volumus_, etc.

_In quacumque die._

_Ne timeas, pusillus grex. Timore et tretmore.--Quid ergo? Ne timeas, modo timeas._

Fear not, provided you fear, but if you fear not, then fear.

_Qui me recipit, non me recipit, sed eum qui me misit._

_Nemo scit neque Filius._

_Nubes lucida obumbravit._

Saint John was to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and Jesus Christ was to sow division. In this there is no contradiction.

The effects _in communi_ and _in particulari_. The semi-Pelagians err in saying of _in communi_ what is true only _in particulari_, and the Calvinists in saying _in particulari_ what is true _in communi_. So it seems to me.

Saint Augustine has said expressly that power would be taken away from the righteous. But it is by chance that he said it, for it might have been that the chance of saying it did not occur. But his principles make us see that when the occasion for it presented itself, it was impossible he should not say so, or that he should say anything to the contrary. It is then rather that he was forced to say it, when the occasion offered itself, than that he said it, the occasion having offered itself, the one being of necessity, the other of chance. But the two are all that we could ask.

_The end_. Are we certain? Is this principle certain? Let us examine.

The testimony of a man's self is naught Saint Thomas.

The image alone of all these mysteries has been openly showed to the Jews and by Saint John the forerunner, and then the other mysteries, to mark that in each man as in the world at large this order must be observed.

It is, in technical language, _wholly_ the body of Jesus Christ, but it cannot be said to be the _whole_ body of Jesus Christ.

The union of two things without change cannot enable us to say that one becomes the other.

Thus the soul is united to the body, the fire to the fuel, without change.

But change is necessary to make the form of the one become the form of the other.

Thus the union of the Word to man.

Because my body without my soul would not make the body of a man, then my soul united to any matter whatsoever would make my body.

It distinguishes for me the necessary condition with a sufficient condition, the union is necessary, but not sufficient.

The left arm is not the right.

Impenetrability is a property of matter.

Identity of number in regard to the same time requires the identity of matter.

Thus if God united my soul to a body in China, the same body, _idem numero_ would be in China.

The same river which runs there is _idem numero_ as that which runs at the same time in China.

_THOUGHTS ON STYLE._

Eloquence is an art of saying things in such a manner, 1, that those to whom we speak can hear them without pain, and with pleasure; 2, that they feel themselves interested, so that self-love leads them more willingly to reflect upon what is said. It consists therefore in a correspondence which we endeavour to establish between the mind and the heart of those to whom we speak on the one hand, and, on the other, the thoughts and the expressions employed; this supposes that we have thoroughly studied the heart of man so as to know all its springs, and to find at last the true proportions of the discourse we wish to suit to it. We should put ourselves in the place of those who are to listen to us, and make experiment on our own heart of the turn we give to our discourse, to see whether one is made for the other, and whether we can be sure that our auditor will be as it were forced to yield. So far as possible we must confine ourselves to what is natural and simple, not aggrandise that which is little, or belittle that which is great. It is not enough that a phrase be beautiful, it must be fitted to the subject, and not have in it excess or defect.

Eloquence is painted thought, and thus those who, after having painted it, add somewhat more, make a picture, not a portrait.

_Eloquence._--We need both what is pleasing and what is real, but that which pleases must itself be drawn from the true.

Eloquence, which persuades by gentleness, not by empire, as a tyrant, not as a king.

There is a certain pattern of charm and beauty which consists in a certain relation between our nature, such as it is, whether weak or strong, and the thing which pleases us.

Whatever is formed on this pattern delights us, whether house, song, discourse, verse, prose, woman, birds, rivers, trees, rooms, dresses, etc.

Whatever is not made on this pattern displeases those who have good taste.

And as there is a perfect relation between a song and a house which are made on a good pattern, because they are like this unique pattern, though each after its kind, there is also a perfect relation between things made on a bad pattern. Not that the bad is unique, for there are many; but every bad sonnet, for instance, on whatever false pattern it is constructed, is exactly like a woman dressed on that pattern.

Nothing makes us understand better the absurdity of a false sonnet than to consider nature and the pattern, and then to imagine a woman or a house constructed on that pattern.

When a natural discourse paints a passion or an effect, we feel in our mind the truth of what we read, which was there before, though we did not know it, and we are inclined to love him who makes us feel it. For he has not made a display of his own riches, but of ours, and thus this benefit renders him pleasant to us, besides that such a community of intellect necessarily inclines the heart to love.

All the false beauties which we blame in Cicero have their admirers and in great number.

The last thing we decide on in writing a book is what shall be the first we put in it.

_Language._--We ought not to turn the mind from one thing to another save for relaxation, at suitable times, and no other, for he that diverts out of season wearies, and he who wearies us out of season repels us, and we simply turn away. So much it pleases our wayward lust to do the exact contrary of what those seek to obtain from us who give us no pleasure, the coin for which we will do whatever we are asked.

When we meet with a natural style, we are charmed and astonished, for we looked for an author, and we found a man. But those who have good taste, and who seeing a book expect to find a man, are altogether surprised to find an author: _plus poetice quam humane locatus es_. Those pay great honour to nature, who show her that she is able to discourse on all things, even on theology.

Languages are ciphers, where letters are not changed into letters, but words into words, so that an unknown language can be deciphered.

When in a discourse we find words repeated, and in trying to correct them find we cannot change them for others without manifest disadvantage, we must let them stand, for this is the true test; our criticism came of envy which is blind, and does not see that repetition is not in this place a fault, for there is no general rule.

_Miscellaneous. Language._--Those who force words for the sake of antitheses are like those who make false windows for symmetry.

Their rule is not to speak accurately, but in accurate form.

To put a mask on nature and disguise her. No more King, pope, bishop, but _sacred majesty_, no more Paris, but _the capital of the Kingdom_.

There are places in which we should call Paris, Paris, and others in which we ought to call it the capital of the Kingdom.

There are those who speak well and write ill. Because the place and the audience warm them, and draw from their minds more than would have been produced without that warmth.

_Miscellaneous._--A figure of speech, "I should have wished to apply myself to that."

The _aperitive_ virtue of a key, the _attractive_ virtue of a crook.

To guess. _The part that I take in your sorrow._ The Cardinal did not choose to be guessed.

_My mind is disquieted within me._ I am disquieted is better.

_To extinguish the torch of sedition_, too luxuriant.

_The restlessness of his genius._ Two striking words too much.

A coach _upset_ or _overturned_, according to the meaning.

_Spread abroad_, or _upset_, according to the meaning.

The argument by force of M. le M. over the friar.

Symmetry.

Is what we see at one glance.

Founded on the fact that there is no reason for any difference.

And founded also on the face of man.

Whence it comes that symmetry is only wanted in breadth, not in height or depth.

Sceptic, for obstinate.

Descartes useless and uncertain.

No one calls another a courtier but he who is not one himself, a pedant save 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_.

The chief talent, that which rules all others.

If the lightning were to strike low-lying places, etc., poets, and those whose only reasonings are on things of that nature would lack proofs.

_Poetical beauty._--As we talk of poetical beauty, so ought we to talk of mathematical beauty and medical beauty; yet we do not use those terms, because we know perfectly the object of mathematics, that it consists in proofs, and the object of medicine, that it consists in healing, but we do not understand wherein consists charm which is the object of poetry. We do not know what is the natural model to be imitated, and for want of that knowledge we invent a set of extravagant terms, "_the golden age_, _the wonder of our times_, _fatal_," etc., and fall this jargon poetic beauty.

But if we imagine a woman on that pattern, which consists in saying little things in great words, we shall see a pretty girl bedecked with mirrors and chains absurd to our taste, because we know better wherein consists the charm of woman than the charm of verse. But those who do not know, would admire her in such trimmings, and in many villages she would be taken for the queen, wherefore sonnets made on such a pattern have been called _The Village Queens_.

Those who judge of a work without rule are in regard to others as those who possess a watch are in regard to others. One says, "it was two hours ago," another, "it is only three-quarters of an hour." I look at my watch and say to the one, "you are weary of us," and to the other, "time flies fast with you, for it is only an hour and a half." And I laugh at those who say that time goes slowly with me, and that I judge by fancy. They do not know that I judge by my watch.

_VARIOUS THOUGHTS._

_Mathematics, Tact._--True eloquence makes light of eloquence, true morality makes light of morality, that is to say, the morality of the judgment makes light of the morality of the intellect, which has no rules.

For perception belongs to judgment, as science belongs to the intellect. Tact is the part of judgment, mathematics of the intellect.

To make light of philosophy is to be a true philosopher.

The nourishment of the body is little by little, too much nourishment gives little substance.

There is an universal and essential difference between the actions of the will and all others.

The will is one of the principal organs of belief, not that it forms belief, but because things are true or false according to the side from which we regard them. The will, pleased with one rather than the other, turns the mind from the consideration of that which has the qualities it cares not to see, and thus the intellect, moving with the will, stays to regard the side it loves, and thus judges by what it sees.

The heart has its reasons, which reason knows not, as we feel in a thousand instances. I say that the heart loves the universal Being naturally, and itself naturally, according as it gives itself to each, and it hardens itself against one or the other at its own will. You have rejected one and kept the other, does reason cause your love?

It is the heart which is conscious of God, not the reason. This then is faith; God sensible to the heart, not to the reason.

Reason acts slowly and with so many views, on so many principles, which it ought always to keep before it, that it constantly slumbers and goes astray, from not having its principles at hand. The heart does not act thus, it acts in a moment, and is always ready to act. We must then place our faith in the heart, or it will be always vacillating.

Men often mistake their imagination for their heart, and they believe they are converted as soon as they think of being converted.

Those who are accustomed to judge by the heart do not understand the process of reasoning, for they wish to understand at a glance, and are not accustomed to seek for principles. And others on the contrary, who are accustomed to reason by principles, do not at all understand the things of the heart, seeking principles and not being able to see at a glance.

If we wished to prove those examples by which we prove other things, we should have to take those other things to be examples. For as we always believe the difficulty is in the matter we wish to prove, we find the examples clearer and aids to demonstration.

Thus when we wish to demonstrate a general proposition, we must give the rule special to a case, but if we wish to demonstrate a particular case, we must begin with the particular rule. For we always find the thing obscure which we wish to prove, and that clear which we employ as proof; for when a matter is proposed for proof 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 with ease.

Far from believing a thing because you have heard it, you ought to believe nothing without having put yourself in the same position as if you had never heard it.

What should make you believe is your own assent to yourself, and the constant voice of your reason, not that of others.

Belief is so important!

A hundred contradictions might be true.

If antiquity were the rule of faith then the men of old time had no rule. If general consent, if men had perished....

False humility is pride.

Lift the curtain.

You may try as you please. You must either believe, or deny, or doubt.

Have we then no rule?

We judge that animals do well what they do. Is there no rule whereby to judge men?

To deny, to believe, and to doubt well are to a man what paces are to a horse.

Memory is necessary for every operation of the reason.

Memory and joy are feelings, and even mathematical propositions become so, for reason makes what is felt natural, and natural feelings are effaced by reason.

All our reasoning is reduced to yielding to feeling.

But fancy is like yet contrary to feeling, so that we cannot distinguish between these contraries. One man says that my feeling is fancy, another that his fancy is feeling. We must have a rule. Reason offers herself, but she is pliable in all directions, and so there is no rule.

Reason commands us much more imperiously than a master, for in disobeying the one we are unhappy, and in disobeying the other we are fools.

When we are accustomed to use bad reasons for proving natural effects, we do not wish to receive good reasons even when they are discovered. An example may be taken from the circulation of the blood, to give a reason why the vein swells below the ligature.

We are usually better persuaded by reasons which we have ourselves discovered, than by those which have come into the mind of others.

M. de Roannez said: "Reasons come afterwards, but at first a thing pleases or shocks me, without my knowing the reason, and yet it displeased me for the reason which I only discover later." But I believe, not that he was displeased for those reasons which he afterwards discovered, but that those reasons were only discovered because the thing was displeasing.

_The difference between the mathematical mind and the practical mind._--In the one the premisses are palpable, but removed from ordinary use, so that from want of habit it is difficult to look in that direction, but if we take the trouble to look, the premisses are fully visible, and we must have a totally incorrect mind if we draw wrong inferences from premisses so plain that it is scarce possible they should escape our notice.

But in the practical mind the premisses are taken from use and wont, and are before the eyes of every body. We have only to look that way, there is no difficulty in seeing them; it is only a question of good eyesight, but it must be good, for the premisses are so numerous and so subtle, that it is scarce possible but that some escape us. Now the omission of one premiss leads to error, thus we must have very clear sight to see all the premisses, and then an accurate mind not to draw false conclusions from known premisses.

All mathematicians would then be practical if they were clear-sighted, for they do not reason incorrectly on premisses known to them. And practical men would be mathematicians if they could turn their eyes to the premisses of mathematics to which they are unaccustomed.

The reason therefore that some practical men are not mathematical is that they cannot at all turn their attention to mathematical premisses. But the reason that mathematicians are not practical is that they do not see what is before them, and that, accustomed to the precise and distinct statements of mathematics and not reasoning till they have well examined and arranged their premisses, they are lost in practical life wherein the premisses do not admit of such arrangement, being scarcely seen, indeed they are felt rather than seen, and there is great difficulty in causing them to be felt by those who do not of themselves perceive them. They are so nice and so numerous, that a very delicate and very clear sense is needed to apprehend them, and to judge rightly and justly when they are apprehended, without as a rule being able to demonstrate them in an orderly way as in mathematics; because the premisses are not before us in the same way, and because it would be an infinite matter to undertake. We must see them at once, at one glance, and not by process of reasoning, at least up to a certain degree. And thus it is rare that mathematicians are practical, or that practical men are mathematicians, because mathematicians wish to treat practical life mathematically; and they make themselves ridiculous, wishing to begin by definitions and premisses, a proceeding which this way of reasoning will not bear. The mind does indeed the same thing, but tacitly, naturally and without art, in a way which none can express, and only a few can feel.

Practical minds on the contrary, being thus accustomed to judge at a glance, are amazed when propositions are presented to them of which they understand nothing and the way to which is through sterile definitions and premisses, which they are not accustomed to see thus in detail, and therefore are repelled and disheartened.

But inaccurate minds are never either practical or mathematical. Mathematicians who are only mathematicians have exact minds, provided all things are clearly set before them in definitions and premisses, otherwise they are inaccurate and intolerable, for they are only accurate when the premisses are perfectly clear.

And practical men, who are only practical, cannot have the patience to condescend to first principles of things speculative and abstract, which they have never seen in the world, and to which they are wholly unaccustomed.

There are various kinds of good sense, there are some who judge correctly in a certain order of things, and are lost in others.

Some are able to draw conclusions well from a few premisses, and this shows a penetrative intellect.

Others draw conclusions well where there are many premisses.

For instance, the first easily understand the laws of hydrostatics, where the premisses are few, but the conclusions so nice, that only the greatest penetration can reach them. And these persons would perhaps not necessarily be great mathematicians, because mathematics embrace a great number of premisses, and perhaps a mind may be so formed that it searches with ease a few premisses to the bottom, yet cannot at all comprehend those matters in which there are many premisses.

There are then two kinds of mind, the one able to penetrate vigorously and deeply into the conclusions of certain premisses, and these are minds true and just. The other able to comprehend a great number of premisses without confusion, and these are the minds for mathematics. The one kind has force and exactness, the other capacity. Now the one quality can exist without the other, a mind may be vigorous and narrow, or it may have great range and no strength.

When we do not know the truth of a thing, it is not amiss that there should be a common error to fix the mind of men, as for instance the moon, to which is attributed the change of seasons, the progress of diseases, etc. For the principal malady of man is that restless curiosity about matters which he can not understand, and it is not so bad for him to be mistaken, as to be so idly curious.

The way in which Epictetus, Montaigne, and Salomon de Tultie wrote, is the most usual, the most insinuating, the most easily remembered, and the most often quoted; because it is wholly composed of thoughts which arise out of the ordinary conversations of life. As when a man speaks of the vulgar error that the moon is the cause of all, we never fail to say that Salomon de Tultie says, that when we know not the truth of a matter, it is well there should be a common error, etc; which is the thought above.

To write against those who plunged too deep into science. Descartes.

Descartes.

We must say in general: "This is made by figure and motion for it is true." But to say what these are, and to compose the machine, is ridiculous, for it is useless, uncertain, and painful. And if it were true we do not think that all philosophy is worth one hour of pain.

I cannot forgive Descartes.

If an animal did by mind what it does by instinct, and if it spoke by mind what it speaks by instinct, in hunting, and warning its companions that the quarry is found or lost, it would certainly also speak in regard to those things which affect it more strongly, as for instance, "Gnaw me this cord which hurts me, and which I cannot reach."

The story of the pike and frog of Liancourt. They do it always and never otherwise, nor any other thing of mind.

The calculating machine works results which approach nearer to thought than any thing done by animals, but it does nothing which enables us to say it has any will, as animals have.

When it is said that heat is only the motion of certain molecules, and light the _conatus recedendi_ which we feel, we are surprised. And shall we think that pleasure is but the buoyancy of our spirits? We have conceived so different an idea of it, and these sensations seem so removed from those others which we say are the same as those with which we compare them. The feeling of fire, the warmth which affects us in a manner wholly different from touch, the reception of sound and light, all this seems to us mysterious, and yet it is as material as the blow of a stone. It is true that the minuteness of the spirits which enter into the pores touch different nerves, yet nerves are always touched.

What is more absurd than to say that inanimate bodies have passion, fear, horror, that insensible bodies, without life, and even incapable of life, have passions, which presuppose at least a sensitive soul to feel them, nay more, that the object of their terror is a vacuum? What is there in a vacuum which should make them afraid? What can be more base and more ridiculous? Nor is this all; it is said they have in themselves a principle of motion to avoid a vacuum. Have they arms, legs, muscles, nerves?

How foolish is painting, which draws admiration by the resemblance of things of which we do not admire the originals.

In the same way that we injure the understanding we injure the feelings also.

The feelings and the understanding are formed by society, and are perverted by society. Thus good or bad society forms or perverts them. It is then of the first importance to know how to choose in order to form and not to pervert them, and we cannot make this choice if they be not already formed and not perverted. Thus a circle is formed, and happy are those who escape it.

Have you never seen persons, who, in order to complain of the little you make of them, bring before you the example of people in high position who esteem them? To such I answer, "Show me the merit by which you have charmed these persons, and I will esteem you too."

The world is full of good maxims. All that is needed is their right application. For instance, no one doubts that we ought to risk our lives for the common weal, and many do so. But for Religion, none.

Nature diversifies and imitates, art imitates and diversifies.