Pensées

I t might seem that about Blaise Pascal, and about the two

2 works on which his fame is founded, everything that there is

3 to say had been said. The details of his life are as fully known

4 as we can expect to know them; his mathematical and

5 physical discoveries have been treated many times; his

6 religious sentiment and his theological views have been discussed

7 again and again; and his prose style has been analysed

8 by French critics down to the finest particular. But Pascal

9 is one of those writers who will be and who must be studied

10 afresh by men in every generation. It is not he who changes,

11 but we who change. It is not our knowledge of him that

12 increases, but our world that alters and our attitudes towards

13 it. The history of human opinions of Pascal and of men of

14 his stature is a part of the history of humanity. That indicates

15 his permanent importance.

16 The facts of Pascal's life, so far as they are necessary for

17 this brief introduction to the *Pensées*, are as follows. He

18 was born at Clermont, in Auvergne, in 1623. His family

19 were people of substance of the upper middle class. His

20 father was a government official, who was able to leave, when

21 he died, a sufficient patrimony to his one son and his two

22 daughters. In 1631 the father moved to Paris, and a few

23 years later took up another government post at Rouen.

24 Wherever he lived, the elder Pascal seems to have mingled

25 with some of the best society, and with men of eminence in

26 science and the arts. Blaise was educated entirely by his

27 father at home. He was exceedingly precocious, indeed

28 excessively precocious, for his application to studies in childhood

29 and adolescence impaired his health, and is held

30 responsible for his death at thirty-nine. Prodigious, though

31 not incredible stories are preserved, especially of his precocity

32 in mathematics. His mind was active rather than accumulative;

33 he showed from his earliest years that disposition to

34 find things out for himself, which has characterised the infancy

35 of Clerk-Maxwell and other scientists. Of his later discoveries

36 in physics there is no need for mention here; it must only be

37 remembered that he counts as one of the greatest physicists

38 and mathematicians of all time; and that his discoveries were

39 made during the years when most scientists are still apprentices.

40 The elder Pascal, Étienne, was a sincere Christian. About

41 1646 he fell in with some representatives of the religious

42 revival within the Church which has become known as

43 Jansenism—after Jansenius, Bishop of Ypres, whose theological

44 work is taken as the origin of the movement. This period is

45 usually spoken of as the moment of Pascal's "first conversion."

46 The word "conversion," however, is too forcible to be applied

47 at this point to Blaise Pascal himself. The family had always

48 been devout, and the younger Pascal, though absorbed in his

49 scientific work, never seems to have been afflicted with

50 infidelity. His attention was then directed, certainly, to

51 religious and theological matters; but the term "conversion"

52 can only be applied to his sisters—the elder, already Madame

53 Périer, and particularly the younger, Jacqueline, who at that

54 time conceived a vocation for the religious life. Pascal himself

55 was by no means disposed to renounce the world. After the

56 death of the father in 1650 Jacqueline, a young woman of

57 remarkable strength and beauty of character, wished to take

58 her vows as a sister of Port-Royal, and for some time her wish

59 remained unfulfilled owing to the opposition of her brother.

60 His objection was on the purely worldly ground that she

61 wished to make over her patrimony to the Order; whereas

62 while she lived with him, their combined resources made it

63 possible for him to live more nearly on a scale of expense

64 congenial to his tastes. He liked, in fact, not only to mix

65 with the best society, but to keep a coach and horses—six

66 horses is the number at one time attributed to his carriage.

67 Though he had no legal power to prevent his sister from

68 disposing of her property as she elected, the amiable Jacqueline

69 shrank from doing so without her brother's willing approval.

70 The Mother Superior, Mère Angélique—herself an eminent

71 personage in the history of this religious movement—finally

72 persuaded the young novice to enter the order without the

73 satisfaction of bringing her patrimony with her; but Jacqueline

74 remained so distressed by this situation that her brother

75 finally relented.

76 So far as is known, the worldly life enjoyed by Pascal during

77 this period can hardly be qualified as "dissipation," and

78 certainly not as "debauchery." Even gambling may have

79 appealed to him chiefly as affording a study of mathematical

80 probabilities. He appears to have led such a life as any

81 cultivated intellectual man of good position and independent

82 means might lead and consider himself a model of probity

83 and virtue. Not even a love-affair is laid at his door, though

84 he is said to have contemplated marriage. But Jansenism,

85 as represented by the religious society of Port-Royal, was

86 morally a Puritan movement within the Church, and its

87 standards of conduct were at least as severe as those of any

88 Puritanism in England or America. The period of fashionable

89 society, in Pascal's life, is however, of great importance in his

90 development. It enlarged his knowledge of men and refined

91 his tastes; he became a man of the world and never lost what

92 he had learnt; and when he turned his thoughts wholly

93 towards religion, his worldly knowledge was a part of his

94 composition which is essential to the value of his work.

95 Pascal's interest in society did not distract him from

96 scientific research; nor did this period occupy much space in

97 what is a very short and crowded life. Partly his natural

98 dissatisfaction with such a life, once he had learned all it had

99 to teach him, partly the influence of his saintly sister Jacqueline,

100 partly increasing suffering as his health declined, directed

101 him more and more out of the world and to thoughts of eternity.

102 And in 1654 occurs what is called his "second conversion,"

103 but which might be called his conversion simply.

104 He made a note of his mystical experience, which he kept

105 always about him, and which was found, after his death,

106 sewn into the coat which he was wearing. The experience

107 occurred on 23 November, 1654, and there is no reason to

108 doubt its genuineness unless we choose to deny all mystical

109 experience. Now, Pascal was not a mystic, and his works

110 are not to be classified amongst mystical writings; but what

111 can only be called mystical experience happens to many men

112 who do not become mystics. The work which he undertook

113 soon after, the *Lettres écrites à un provincial*, is a masterpiece

114 of religious controversy at the opposite pole from mysticism.

115 We know quite well that he was at the time when he received

116 his illumination from God in extremely poor health; but it

117 is a commonplace that some forms of illness are extremely

118 favourable, not only to religious illumination, but to artistic

119 and literary composition. A piece of writing meditated,

120 apparently without progress, for months or years, may

121 suddenly take shape and word; and in this state long passages

122 may be produced which require little or no retouch. I have

123 no good word to say for the cultivation of automatic writing

124 as the model of literary composition; I doubt whether these

125 moments *can* be cultivated by the writer; but he to whom

126 this happens assuredly has the sensation of being a vehicle

127 rather than a maker. No masterpiece can be produced

128 whole by such means; but neither does even the higher form

129 of religious inspiration suffice for the religious life; even the

130 most exalted mystic must return to the world, and use his

131 reason to employ the results of his experience in daily life.

132 You may call it communion with the Divine, or you may call

133 it a temporary crystallisation of the mind. Until science

134 can teach us to reproduce such phenomena at will, science

135 cannot claim to have explained them; and they can be judged

136 only by their fruits.

137 From that time until his death, Pascal was closely associated

138 with the society of Port-Royal which his sister Jacqueline, who

139 predeceased him, had joined as a *religieuse*; the society was

140 then fighting for its life against the Jesuits. Five propositions,

141 judged by a committee of cardinals and theologians

142 at Rome to be heretical, were found to be put forward in

143 the work of Jansenius; and the society of Port-Royal, the

144 representative of Jansenism among devotional communities,

145 suffered a blow from which it never revived. It is not the

146 place here to review the bitter controversy and conflict; the

147 best account, from the point of view of a critic of genius who

148 took no side, who was neither Jansenist nor Jesuit, Christian

149 nor infidel, is that in the great book of Sainte-Beuve, *Port-Royal*.

150 And in this book the parts devoted to Pascal himself

151 are among the most brilliant pages of criticism that Sainte-Beuve

152 ever wrote. It is sufficient to notice that the next

153 occupation of Pascal, after his conversion, was to write these

154 eighteen "Letters," which as prose are of capital importance

155 in the foundation of French classical style, and which as

156 polemic are surpassed by none, not by Demosthenes, or

157 Cicero, or Swift. They have the limitation of all polemic and

158 forensic: they persuade, they seduce, they are unfair. But it

159 is also unfair to assert that, in these *Letters to a Provincial*,

160 Pascal was attacking the Society of Jesus in itself. He was

161 attacking rather a particular school of casuistry which relaxed

162 the requirements of the Confessional; a school which certainly

163 flourished amongst the Society of Jesus at that time, and of

164 which the Spaniards Escobar and Molina are the most

165 eminent authorities. He undoubtedly abused the art of

166 quotation, as a polemical writer can hardly help but do; but

167 there were abuses for him to abuse; and he did the job

168 thoroughly. His *Letters* must not be called theology.

169 Academic theology was not a department in which Pascal

170 was versed; when necessary, the fathers of Port-Royal came

171 to his aid. The *Letters* are the work of one of the finest

172 mathematical minds of any time, and of a man of the world

173 who addressed, not theologians, but the world in general—all

174 of the cultivated and many of the less cultivated of the

175 French laity; and with this public they made an astonishing

176 success.

177 During this time Pascal never wholly abandoned his

178 scientific interests. Though in his religious writings he

179 composed slowly and painfully, and revised often, in matters

180 of mathematics his mind seemed to move with consummate

181 natural ease and grace. Discoveries and inventions sprang

182 from his brain without effort; among the minor devices of

183 this later period, the first omnibus service in Paris is said to

184 owe its origin to his inventiveness. But rapidly failing health,

185 and absorption in the great work he had in mind, left him

186 little time and energy during the last two years of his life.

187 The plan of what we call the *Pensées* formed itself about

188 1660. The completed book was to have been a carefully

189 constructed defence of Christianity, a true Apology and a

190 kind of Grammar of Assent, setting forth the reasons which

191 will convince the intellect. As I have indicated before,

192 Pascal was not a theologian, and on dogmatic theology had

193 recourse to his spiritual advisers. Nor was he indeed a

194 systematic philosopher. He was a man with an immense

195 genius for science, and at the same time a natural psychologist

196 and moralist. As he was a great literary artist, his book

197 would have been also his own spiritual autobiography; his

198 style, free from all diminishing idiosyncrasies, was yet very

199 personal. Above all, he was a man of strong passions; and

200 his intellectual passion for truth was reinforced by his passionate

201 dissatisfaction with human life unless a spiritual

202 explanation could be found.

203 We must regard the *Pensées* as merely the first notes for

204 a work which he left far from completion; we have, in Sainte-Beuve's

205 words, a tower of which the stones have been laid

206 on each other, but not cemented, and the structure unfinished.

207 In early years his memory had been amazingly retentive of

208 anything that he wished to remember; and had it not been

209 impaired by increasing illness and pain, he probably would

210 not have been obliged to set down these notes at all. But

211 taking the book as it is left to us, we still find that it occupies

212 a unique place in the history of French literature and in the

213 history of religious meditation.

214 To understand the method which Pascal employs, the

215 reader must be prepared to follow the process of the mind of

216 the intelligent believer. The Christian thinker—and I mean

217 the man who is trying consciously and conscientiously to

218 explain to himself the sequence which culminated in faith,

219 rather than the public apologist—proceeds by rejection and

220 elimination. He finds the world to be so and so; he finds its

221 character inexplicable by any non-religious theory; among

222 religions he finds Christianity, and Catholic Christianity, to

223 account most satisfactorily for the world and especially for

224 the moral world within; and thus, by what Newman calls

225 "powerful and concurrent" reasons, he finds himself inexorably

226 committed to the dogma of the Incarnation. To the unbeliever,

227 this method seems disingenuous and perverse; for

228 the unbeliever is, as a rule, not so greatly troubled to explain

229 the world to himself, nor so greatly distressed by its disorder;

230 nor is he generally concerned (in modern terms) to "preserve

231 values." He does not consider that if certain emotional

232 states, certain developments of character, and what in the

233 highest sense can be called "saintliness" are inherently and

234 by inspection known to be good, then the satisfactory explanation

235 of the world must be an explanation which will admit

236 the "reality" of these values. Nor does he consider such

237 reasoning admissible; he would, so to speak, trim his values

238 according to his cloth, because to him such values are of no

239 great value. The unbeliever starts from the other end, and

240 as likely as not with the question: Is a case of human

241 parthenogenesis credible? and this he would call going straight

242 to the heart of the matter. Now Pascal's method is, on the

243 whole, the method natural and right for the Christian; and

244 the opposite method is that taken by Voltaire. It is worth

245 while to remember that Voltaire, in his attempt to refute

246 Pascal, has given once and for all the type of such refutation;

247 and that later opponents of Pascal's Apology for the Christian

248 Faith have contributed little beyond psychological irrelevancies.

249 For Voltaire has presented, better than any one

250 since, what is the unbelieving point of view; and in the end

251 we must all choose for ourselves between one point of view

252 and another.

253 I have said above that Pascal's method is "on the whole"

254 that of the typical Christian apologist; and this reservation

255 was directed at Pascal's belief in miracles, which plays a

256 larger part in his construction than it would in that, at least,

257 of the modern liberal Catholic. It would seem fantastic to

258 accept Christianity because we first believe the Gospel

259 miracles to be true, and it would seem impious to accept it

260 primarily because we believe more recent miracles to be

261 true; we accept the miracles, or some miracles, to be true

262 because we believe the Gospel of Jesus Christ: we found our

263 belief in the miracles on the Gospel, not our belief in the Gospel

264 on the miracles. But it must be remembered that Pascal

265 had been deeply impressed by a contemporary miracle, known

266 as the miracle of the Holy Thorn: a thorn reputed to have

267 been preserved from the Crown of Our Lord was pressed upon

268 an ulcer which quickly healed. Sainte-Beuve, who as a medical

269 man felt himself on solid ground, discusses fully the possible

270 explanation of this apparent miracle. It is true that the

271 miracle happened at Port-Royal, and that it arrived opportunely

272 to revive the depressed spirits of the community in

273 its political afflictions; and it is likely that Pascal was the

274 more inclined to believe a miracle which was performed upon

275 his beloved sister. In any case, it probably led him to assign

276 a place to miracles, in his study of faith, which is not quite

277 that which we should give to them ourselves.

278 Now the great adversary against whom Pascal set himself,

279 from the time of his first conversations with M. de Saci at

280 Port-Royal, was Montaigne. One cannot destroy Pascal,

281 certainly; but of all authors Montaigne is one of the least

282 destructible. You could as well dissipate a fog by flinging

283 hand-grenades into it. For Montaigne is a fog, a gas, a fluid,

284 insidious element. He does not reason, he insinuates, charms,

285 and influences; or if he reasons, you must be prepared for his

286 having some other design upon you than to convince you by

287 his argument. It is hardly too much to say that Montaigne

288 is the most essential author to know, if we would understand

289 the course of French thought during the last three hundred

290 years. In every way, the influence of Montaigne was

291 repugnant to the men of Port-Royal. Pascal studied him

292 with the intention of demolishing him. Yet, in the *Pensées*,

293 at the very end of his life, we find passage after passage, and

294 the slighter they are the more significant, almost "lifted"

295 out of Montaigne, down to a figure of speech or a word. The

296 parallels[A] are most often with the long essay of Montaigne

297 called *Apologie de Raymond Sébond*—an astonishing piece

298 of writing upon which Shakespeare also probably drew in

299 *Hamlet*. Indeed, by the time a man knew Montaigne well

300 enough to attack him, he would already be thoroughly infected

301 by him.

302 It would, however, be grossly unfair to Pascal, to Montaigne,

303 and indeed to French literature, to leave the matter at that.

304 It is no diminution of Pascal, but only an aggrandisement of

305 Montaigne. Had Montaigne been an ordinary life-sized

306 sceptic, a small man like Anatole France, or even a greater

307 man like Renan, or even like the greatest sceptic of all,

308 Voltaire, this "influence" would be to the discredit of Pascal;

309 but if Montaigne had been no more than Voltaire, he could

310 not have affected Pascal at all. The picture of Montaigne

311 which offers itself first to our eyes, that of the original and

312 independent solitary "personality," absorbed in amused

313 analysis of himself, is deceptive. Montaigne's is no *limited*

314 Pyrrhonism, like that of Voltaire, Renan, or France. He

315 exists, so to speak, on a plan of numerous concentric circles,

316 the most apparent of which is the small inmost circle, a personal

317 puckish scepticism which can be easily aped if not imitated.

318 But what makes Montaigne a very great figure is that he

319 succeeded, God knows how—for Montaigne very likely did

320 not know that he had done it—it is not the sort of thing that

321 men *can* observe about themselves, for it is essentially bigger

322 than the individual's consciousness—he succeeded in giving

323 expression to the scepticism of *every* human being. For

324 every man who thinks and lives by thought must have his

325 own scepticism, that which stops at the question, that which

326 ends in denial, or that which leads to faith and which is

327 somehow integrated into the faith which transcends it. And

328 Pascal, as the type of one kind of religious believer, which is

329 highly passionate and ardent, but passionate only through a

330 powerful and regulated intellect, is in the first sections of his

331 unfinished Apology for Christianity facing unflinchingly the

332 demon of doubt which is inseparable from the spirit of belief.

333 There is accordingly something quite different from an

334 influence which would prove Pascal's weakness; there is a

335 real affinity between his doubt and that of Montaigne; and

336 through the common kinship with Montaigne Pascal is related

337 to the noble and distinguished line of French moralists, from

338 La Rochefoucauld down. In the honesty with which they

339 face the *données* of the actual world this French tradition

340 has a unique quality in European literature, and in the

341 seventeenth century Hobbes is crude and uncivilised in

342 comparison.

343 Pascal is a man of the world among ascetics, and an ascetic

344 among men of the world; he had the knowledge of worldliness

345 and the passion of asceticism, and in him the two are fused

346 into an individual whole. The majority of mankind is

347 lazy-minded, incurious, absorbed in vanities, and tepid in

348 emotion, and is therefore incapable of either much doubt

349 or much faith; and when the ordinary man calls himself a

350 sceptic or an unbeliever, that is ordinarily a simple pose,

351 cloaking a disinclination to think anything out to a conclusion.

352 Pascal's disillusioned analysis of human bondage is sometimes

353 interpreted to mean that Pascal was really and finally an

354 unbeliever, who, in his despair, was incapable of enduring

355 reality and enjoying the heroic satisfaction of the free man's

356 worship of nothing. His despair, his disillusion, are, however,

357 no illustration of personal weakness; they are perfectly

358 objective, because they are essential moments in the progress

359 of the intellectual soul; and for the type of Pascal they are

360 the analogue of the drought, the dark night, which is an

361 essential stage in the progress of the Christian mystic. A

362 similar despair, when it is arrived at by a diseased character

363 or an impure soul, may issue in the most disastrous consequences

364 though with the most superb manifestations; and

365 thus we get *Gulliver's Travels*; but in Pascal we find no such

366 distortion; his despair is in itself more terrible than Swift's,

367 because our heart tells us that it corresponds exactly to the

368 facts and cannot be dismissed as mental disease; but it was

369 also a despair which was a necessary prelude to, and element

370 in, the joy of faith.

371 I do not wish to enter any further than necessary upon the

372 question of the heterodoxy of Jansenism; and it is no concern

373 of this essay, whether the Five Propositions condemned at

374 Rome were really maintained by Jansenius in his book

375 *Augustinus*; or whether we should deplore or approve the

376 consequent decay (indeed with some persecution) of Port-Royal.

377 It is impossible to discuss the matter without becoming

378 involved as a controversialist either for or against Rome.

379 But in a man of the type of Pascal—and the type always

380 exists—there is, I think, an ingredient of what may be called

381 Jansenism of temperament, without identifying it with the

382 Jansenism of Jansenius and of other devout and sincere, but

383 not immensely gifted doctors.[B] It is accordingly needful to

384 state in brief what the dangerous doctrine of Jansenius was,

385 without advancing too far into theological refinements. It is

386 recognised in Christian theology—and indeed on a lower plane

387 it is recognised by all men in affairs of daily life—that freewill

388 or the natural effort and ability of the individual man,

389 and also supernatural *grace*, a gift accorded we know not

390 quite how, are both required, in co-operation, for salvation.

391 Though numerous theologians have set their wits at the

392 problem, it ends in a mystery which we can perceive but not

393 finally decipher. At least, it is obvious that, like any doctrine,

394 a slight excess or deviation to one side or the other will precipitate

395 a heresy. The Pelagians, who were refuted by St.

396 Augustine, emphasised the efficacy of human effort and

397 belittled the importance of supernatural grace. The Calvinists

398 emphasised the degradation of man through Original Sin, and

399 considered mankind so corrupt that the will was of no avail;

400 and thus fell into the doctrine of predestination. It was upon

401 the doctrine of grace according to St. Augustine that the

402 Jansenists relied; and the *Augustinus* of Jansenius was

403 presented as a sound exposition of the Augustinian views.

404 Such heresies are never antiquated, because they forever

405 assume new forms. For instance, the insistence upon good

406 works and "service" which is preached from many quarters,

407 or the simple faith that any one who lives a good and useful

408 life need have no "morbid" anxieties about salvation, is a

409 form of Pelagianism. On the other hand, one sometimes

410 hears enounced the view that it will make no real difference

411 if all the traditional religious sanctions for moral behaviour

412 break down, because those who are born and bred to be nice

413 people will always prefer to behave nicely, and those who are

414 not will behave otherwise in any case: and this is surely a form

415 of predestination—for the hazard of being born a nice person

416 or not is as uncertain as the gift of grace.

417 It is likely that Pascal was attracted as much by the fruits

418 of Jansenism in the life of Port-Royal as by the doctrine

419 itself. This devout, ascetic, thoroughgoing society, striving

420 heroically in the midst of a relaxed and easy-going Christianity,

421 was formed to attract a nature so concentrated, so passionate,

422 and so thoroughgoing as Pascal's. But the insistence upon

423 the degraded and helpless state of man, in Jansenism, is

424 something also to which we must be grateful, for to it we owe

425 the magnificent analysis of human motives and occupations

426 which was to have constituted the early part of his book.

427 And apart from the Jansenism which is the work of a not

428 very eminent bishop who wrote a Latin treatise which is now

429 unread, there is also, so to speak, a Jansenism of the individual

430 biography. A moment of Jansenism may naturally take

431 place, and take place rightly, in the individual; particularly

432 in the life of a man of great and intense intellectual powers,

433 who cannot avoid seeing through human beings and observing

434 the vanity of their thoughts and of their avocations, their

435 dishonesty and self-deceptions, the insincerity of their emotions,

436 their cowardice, the pettiness of their real ambitions.

437 Actually, considering that Pascal died at the age of thirty-nine,

438 one must be amazed at the balance and justice of his observations;

439 much greater maturity is required for these qualities,

440 than for any mathematical or scientific greatness. How

441 easily his brooding on *the misery of man without God* might

442 have encouraged in him the sin of spiritual pride, the *concupiscence

443 de l'esprit*, and how fast a hold he has of humility!

444 And although Pascal brings to his work the same powers

445 which he exerted in science, it is not as a scientist that he

446 presents himself. He does not seem to say to the reader:

447 I am one of the most distinguished scientists of the day; I

448 understand many matters which will always be mysteries to

449 you, and through science I have come to the Faith; you therefore

450 who are not initiated into science ought to have faith if I

451 have it. He is fully aware of the difference of subject-matter;

452 and his famous distinction between the *esprit de géométrie*

453 and the *esprit de finesse* is one to ponder over. It is the just

454 combination of the scientist, the *honnête homme*, and the

455 religious nature with a passionate craving for God, that makes

456 Pascal unique. He succeeds where Descartes fails; for in

457 Descartes the element of *esprit de géométrie* is excessive.[C]

458 And in a few phrases about Descartes, in the present book,

459 Pascal laid his finger on the place of weakness.

460 He who reads this book will observe at once its fragmentary

461 nature; but only after some study will perceive that the

462 fragmentariness lies in the expression more than in the thought.

463 The "thoughts" cannot be detached from each other and

464 quoted as if each were complete in itself. *Le cœur a ses

465 raisons que la raison ne connaît point*: how often one has heard

466 that quoted, and quoted often to the wrong purpose! For this

467 is by no means an exaltation of the "heart" over the "head,"

468 a defence of unreason. The heart, in Pascal's terminology,

469 is itself truly rational if it is truly the heart. For him, in

470 theological matters, which seemed to him much larger, more

471 difficult, and more important than scientific matters, the whole

472 personality is involved.

473 We cannot quite understand any of the parts, fragmentary

474 as they are, without some understanding of the whole.

475 Capital, for instance, is his analysis of the *three orders*: the

476 order of nature, the order of mind, and the order of charity.

477 These three are *discontinuous*; the higher is not implicit in the

478 lower as in an evolutionary doctrine it would be.[D] In this

479 distinction Pascal offers much about which the modern world

480 would do well to think. And indeed, because of his unique

481 combination and balance of qualities, I know of no religious

482 writer more pertinent to our time. The great mystics like

483 St. John of the Cross, are primarily for readers with a special

484 determination of purpose; the devotional writers, such as St.

485 François de Sales, are primarily for those who already feel

486 consciously desirous of the love of God; the great theologians

487 are for those interested in theology. But I can think of no

488 Christian writer, not Newman even, more to be commended

489 than Pascal to those who doubt, but who have the mind to

490 conceive, and the sensibility to feel, the disorder, the futility,

491 the meaninglessness, the mystery of life and suffering, and who

492 can only find peace through a satisfaction of the whole being.

493 T. S. Eliot.

Notes

4 [A] Cf. the use of the simile of the *couvreur*. For comparing parallel

5 passages, the edition of the *Pensées* by Henri Massis (*A la cité des livres*)

6 is better than the two-volume edition of Jacques Chevalier (Gabalda). It

7 seems just possible that in the latter edition, and also in his biographical

8 study (*Pascal*; by Jacques Chevalier, English translation, published by

9 Sheed & Ward), M. Chevalier is a little over-zealous to demonstrate the

10 perfect orthodoxy of Pascal.

11 [B] The great man of Port-Royal was of course Saint-Cyran, but any one

12 who is interested will certainly consult, first of all, the book of Sainte-Beuve

13 mentioned.

14 [C] For a brilliant criticism of the errors of Descartes from a theological

15 point of view the reader is referred to *Three Reformers* by Jacques Maritain

16 (translation published by Sheed & Ward).

17 [D] An important modern theory of discontinuity, suggested partly by

18 Pascal, is sketched in the collected fragments of *Speculations* by T. E.

19 Hulme (Kegan Paul).

SECTION I

7 (Texto do capítulo)

THOUGHTS ON MIND AND ON STYLE

10 #### 1

11 *The difference between the mathematical and the intuitive mind.*[1]—In

12 the one the principles are palpable, but removed from ordinary

13 use; so that for want of habit it is difficult to turn one's mind

14 in that direction: but if one turns it thither ever so little, one

15 sees the principles fully, and one must have a quite inaccurate

16 mind who reasons wrongly from principles so plain that it is

17 almost impossible they should escape notice.

18 But in the intuitive mind the principles are found in common

19 use, and are before the eyes of everybody. One has only to

20 look, and no effort is necessary; it is only a question of good

21 eyesight, but it must be good, for the principles are so subtle

22 and so numerous, that it is almost impossible but that some

23 escape notice. Now the omission of one principle leads to

24 error; thus one must have very clear sight to see all the principles,

25 and in the next place an accurate mind not to draw false

26 deductions from known principles.

27 All mathematicians would then be intuitive if they had clear

28 sight, for they do not reason incorrectly from principles known

29 to them; and intuitive minds would be mathematical if they

30 could turn their eyes to the principles of mathematics to which

31 they are unused.

32 The reason, therefore, that some intuitive minds are not

33 mathematical is that they cannot at all turn their attention

34 to the principles of mathematics. But the reason that mathematicians

35 are not intuitive is that they do not see what is

36 before them, and that, accustomed to the exact and plain principles

37 of mathematics, and not reasoning till they have well

38 inspected and arranged their principles, they are lost in matters

39 of intuition where the principles do not allow of such arrangement.

40 They are scarcely seen; they are felt rather than seen;

41 there is the greatest difficulty in making them felt by those

42 who do not of themselves perceive them. These principles are

43 so fine and so numerous that a very delicate and very clear

44 sense is needed to perceive them, and to judge rightly and

45 justly when they are perceived, without for the most part being

46 able to demonstrate them in order as in mathematics; because

47 the principles are not known to us in the same way, and because

48 it would be an endless matter to undertake it. We must see

49 the matter at once, at one glance, and not by a process of

50 reasoning, at least to a certain degree. And thus it is rare that

51 mathematicians are intuitive, and that men of intuition are

52 mathematicians, because mathematicians wish to treat matters

53 of intuition mathematically, and make themselves ridiculous,

54 wishing to begin with definitions and then with axioms, which

55 is not the way to proceed in this kind of reasoning. Not that

56 the mind does not do so, but it does it tacitly, naturally, and

57 without technical rules; for the expression of it is beyond all

58 men, and only a few can feel it.

59 Intuitive minds, on the contrary, being thus accustomed to

60 judge at a single glance, are so astonished when they are presented

61 with propositions of which they understand nothing,

62 and the way to which is through definitions and axioms so

63 sterile, and which they are not accustomed to see thus in detail,

64 that they are repelled and disheartened.

65 But dull minds are never either intuitive or mathematical.

66 Mathematicians who are only mathematicians have exact

67 minds, provided all things are explained to them by means of

68 definitions and axioms; otherwise they are inaccurate and

69 insufferable, for they are only right when the principles are

70 quite clear.

71 And men of intuition who are only intuitive cannot have

72 the patience to reach to first principles of things speculative

73 and conceptual, which they have never seen in the world, and

74 which are altogether out of the common.

75 #### 2

76 There are different kinds of right understanding;[2] some have

77 right understanding in a certain order of things, and not in

78 others, where they go astray. Some draw conclusions well

79 from a few premises, and this displays an acute judgment.

80 Others draw conclusions well where there are many premises.

81 For example, the former easily learn hydrostatics, where the

82 premises are few, but the conclusions are so fine that only

83 the greatest acuteness can reach them.

84 And in spite of that these persons would perhaps not be

85 great mathematicians, because mathematics contain a great

86 number of premises, and there is perhaps a kind of intellect

87 that can search with ease a few premises to the bottom, and

88 cannot in the least penetrate those matters in which there are

89 many premises.

90 There are then two kinds of intellect: the one able to penetrate

91 acutely and deeply into the conclusions of given premises, and

92 this is the precise intellect; the other able to comprehend a

93 great number of premises without confusing them, and this is

94 the mathematical intellect. The one has force and exactness,

95 the other comprehension. Now the one quality can exist without

96 the other; the intellect can be strong and narrow, and can

97 also be comprehensive and weak.

98 #### 3

99 Those who are accustomed to judge by feeling do not understand

100 the process of reasoning, for they would understand at

101 first sight, and are not used to seek for principles. And others,

102 on the contrary, who are accustomed to reason from principles,

103 do not at all understand matters of feeling, seeking principles,

104 and being unable to see at a glance.

105 #### 4

106 *Mathematics, intuition.*—True eloquence makes light of

107 eloquence, true morality makes light of morality; that is to say,

108 the morality of the judgment, which has no rules, makes light

109 of the morality of the intellect.

110 For it is to judgment that perception belongs, as science

111 belongs to intellect. Intuition is the part of judgment,

112 mathematics of intellect.

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

114 #### 5

115 Those who judge of a work by rule[3] are in regard to others

116 as those who have a watch are in regard to others. One says,

117 "It is two hours ago"; the other says, "It is only three-quarters

118 of an hour." I look at my watch, and say to the one, "You

119 are weary," and to the other, "Time gallops with you"; for it

120 is only an hour and a half ago, and I laugh at those who tell me

121 that time goes slowly with me, and that I judge by imagination.

122 They do not know that I judge by my watch.[4]

123 #### 6

124 Just as we harm the understanding, we harm the feelings also.

125 The understanding and the feelings are moulded by intercourse;

126 the understanding and feelings are corrupted by intercourse.

127 Thus good or bad society improves or corrupts them.

128 It is, then, all-important to know how to choose in order to

129 improve and not to corrupt them; and we cannot make this

130 choice, if they be not already improved and not corrupted. Thus

131 a circle is formed, and those are fortunate who escape it.

132 #### 7

133 The greater intellect one has, the more originality one finds in

134 men. Ordinary persons find no difference between men.

135 #### 8

136 There are many people who listen to a sermon in the same

137 way as they listen to vespers.

138 #### 9

139 When we wish to correct with advantage, and to show another

140 that he errs, we must notice from what side he views the matter,

141 for on that side it is usually true, and admit that truth to him,

142 but reveal to him the side on which it is false. He is satisfied

143 with that, for he sees that he was not mistaken, and that he

144 only failed to see all sides. Now, no one is offended at not

145 seeing everything; but one does not like to be mistaken, and

146 that perhaps arises from the fact that man naturally cannot

147 see everything, and that naturally he cannot err in the side he

148 looks at, since the perceptions of our senses are always true.

149 #### 10

150 People are generally better persuaded by the reasons which

151 they have themselves discovered than by those which have

152 come into the mind of others.

153 #### 11

154 All great amusements are dangerous to the Christian life;

155 but among all those which the world has invented there is none

156 more to be feared than the theatre. It is a representation of

157 the passions so natural and so delicate that it excites them and

158 gives birth to them in our hearts, and, above all, to that of love,

159 principally when it is represented as very chaste and virtuous.

160 For the more innocent it appears to innocent souls, the more

161 they are likely to be touched by it. Its violence pleases our

162 self-love, which immediately forms a desire to produce the

163 same effects which are seen so well represented; and, at the

164 same time, we make ourselves a conscience founded on the

165 propriety of the feelings which we see there, by which the

166 fear of pure souls is removed, since they imagine that it cannot

167 hurt their purity to love with a love which seems to them

168 so reasonable.

169 So we depart from the theatre with our heart so filled with

170 all the beauty and tenderness of love, the soul and the mind

171 so persuaded of its innocence, that we are quite ready to receive

172 its first impressions, or rather to seek an opportunity of awakening

173 them in the heart of another, in order that we may receive

174 the same pleasures and the same sacrifices which we have seen

175 so well represented in the theatre.

176 #### 12

177 Scaramouch,[5] who only thinks of one thing.

178 The doctor,[6] who speaks for a quarter of an hour after he has

179 said everything, so full is he of the desire of talking.

180 #### 13

181 One likes to see the error, the passion of Cleobuline,[7] because

182 she is unconscious of it. She would be displeasing, if she were

183 not deceived.

184 #### 14

185 When a natural discourse paints a passion or an effect, one

186 feels within oneself the truth of what one reads, which was there

187 before, although one did not know it. Hence one is inclined

188 to love him who makes us feel it, for he has not shown us his

189 own riches, but ours. And thus this benefit renders him pleasing

190 to us, besides that such community of intellect as we have with

191 him necessarily inclines the heart to love.

192 #### 15

193 Eloquence, which persuades by sweetness, not by authority;

194 as a tyrant, not as a king.

195 #### 16

196 Eloquence is an art of saying things in such a way—(1) that

197 those to whom we speak may listen to them without pain and

198 with pleasure; (2) that they feel themselves interested, so that

199 self-love leads them more willingly to reflection upon it.

200 It consists, then, in a correspondence which we seek to

201 establish between the head and the heart of those to whom we

202 speak on the one hand, and, on the other, between the thoughts

203 and the expressions which we employ. This assumes that we

204 have studied well the heart of man so as to know all its powers,

205 and then to find the just proportions of the discourse which we

206 wish to adapt to them. We must put ourselves in the place

207 of those who are to hear us, and make trial on our own heart

208 of the turn which we give to our discourse in order to see

209 whether one is made for the other, and whether we can assure

210 ourselves that the hearer will be, as it were, forced to surrender.

211 We ought to restrict ourselves, so far as possible, to the simple

212 and natural, and not to magnify that which is little, or belittle

213 that which is great. It is not enough that a thing be beautiful;

214 it must be suitable to the subject, and there must be in it

215 nothing of excess or defect.

216 #### 17

217 Rivers are roads which move,[8] and which carry us whither

218 we desire to go.

219 #### 18

220 When we do not know the truth of a thing, it is of advantage

221 that there should exist a common error which determines the

222 mind of man, as, for example, the moon, to which is attributed

223 the change of seasons, the progress of diseases, etc. For the

224 chief malady of man is restless curiosity about things which he

225 cannot understand; and it is not so bad for him to be in error

226 as to be curious to no purpose.

227 The manner in which Epictetus, Montaigne, and Salomon

228 de Tultie[9] wrote, is the most usual, the most suggestive, the

229 most remembered, and the oftenest quoted; because it is entirely

230 composed of thoughts born from the common talk of life. As

231 when we speak of the common error which exists among men

232 that the moon is the cause of everything, we never fail to say

233 that Salomon de Tultie says that when we do not know the

234 truth of a thing, it is of advantage that there should exist a

235 common error, etc.; which is the thought above.

236 #### 19

237 The last thing one settles in writing a book is what one

238 should put in first.

239 #### 20

240 *Order.*—Why should I undertake to divide my virtues into four

241 rather than into six? Why should I rather establish virtue in

242 four, in two, in one? Why into *Abstine et sustine*[10] rather than

243 into "Follow Nature,"[11] or, "Conduct your private affairs without

244 injustice," as Plato,[12] or anything else? But there, you will

245 say, everything is contained in one word. Yes, but it is useless

246 without explanation, and when we come to explain it, as soon

247 as we unfold this maxim which contains all the rest, they

248 emerge in that first confusion which you desired to avoid. So,

249 when they are all included in one, they are hidden and useless,

250 as in a chest, and never appear save in their natural confusion.

251 Nature has established them all without including one in

252 the other.

253 #### 21

254 Nature has made all her truths independent of one another.

255 Our art makes one dependent on the other. But this is not

256 natural. Each keeps its own place.

257 #### 22

258 Let no one say that I have said nothing new; the arrangement

259 of the subject is new. When we play tennis, we both play with

260 the same ball, but one of us places it better.

261 I had as soon it said that I used words employed before.

262 And in the same way if the same thoughts in a different arrangement

263 do not form a different discourse, no more do the same

264 words in their different arrangement form different thoughts!

265 #### 23

266 Words differently arranged have a different meaning, and

267 meanings differently arranged have different effects.

268 #### 24

269 *Language.*—We should not turn the mind from one thing to

270 another, except for relaxation, and that when it is necessary

271 and the time suitable, and not otherwise. For he that relaxes

272 out of season wearies, and he who wearies us out of season

273 makes us languid, since we turn quite away. So much does our

274 perverse lust like to do the contrary of what those wish to obtain

275 from us without giving us pleasure, the coin for which we will

276 do whatever is wanted.

277 #### 25

278 *Eloquence.*—It requires the pleasant and the real; but the

279 pleasant must itself be drawn from the true.

280 #### 26

281 Eloquence is a painting of thought; and thus those who,

282 after having painted it, add something more, make a picture

283 instead of a portrait.

284 #### 27

285 *Miscellaneous. Language.*—Those who make antitheses by

286 forcing words are like those who make false windows for symmetry.

287 Their rule is not to speak accurately, but to make

288 apt figures of speech.

289 #### 28

290 Symmetry is what we see at a glance; based on the fact that

291 there is no reason for any difference, and based also on the face

292 of man; whence it happens that symmetry is only wanted in

293 breadth, not in height or depth.

294 #### 29

295 When we see a natural style, we are astonished and delighted;

296 for we expected to see an author, and we find a man. Whereas

297 those who have good taste, and who seeing a book expect to

298 find a man, are quite surprised to find an author. *Plus poetice

299 quam humane locutus es.* Those honour Nature well, who teach

300 that she can speak on everything, even on theology.

301 #### 30

302 We only consult the ear because the heart is wanting. The

303 rule is uprightness.

304 Beauty of omission, of judgment.

305 #### 31

306 All the false beauties which we blame in Cicero have their

307 admirers, and in great number.

308 #### 32

309 There is a certain standard of grace and beauty which consists

310 in a certain relation between our nature, such as it is, weak or

311 strong, and the thing which pleases us.

312 Whatever is formed according to this standard pleases us, be

313 it house, song, discourse, verse, prose, woman, birds, rivers,

314 trees, rooms, dress, etc. Whatever is not made according to

315 this standard displeases those who have good taste.

316 And as there is a perfect relation between a song and a house

317 which are made after a good model, because they are like this

318 good model, though each after its kind; even so there is a perfect

319 relation between things made after a bad model. Not that the

320 bad model is unique, for there are many; but each bad sonnet,

321 for example, on whatever false model it is formed, is just like a

322 woman dressed after that model.

323 Nothing makes us understand better the ridiculousness of a

324 false sonnet than to consider nature and the standard, and then

325 to imagine a woman or a house made according to that standard.

326 #### 33

327 *Poetical beauty.*—As we speak of poetical beauty, so ought we

328 to speak of mathematical beauty and medical beauty. But

329 we do not do so; and the reason is that we know well what is the

330 object of mathematics, and that it consists in proofs, and what

331 is the object of medicine, and that it consists in healing. But

332 we do not know in what grace consists, which is the object of

333 poetry. We do not know the natural model which we ought to

334 imitate; and through lack of this knowledge, we have coined

335 fantastic terms, "The golden age," "The wonder of our times,"

336 "Fatal," etc., and call this jargon poetical beauty.[13]

337 But whoever imagines a woman after this model, which

338 consists in saying little things in big words, will see a pretty

339 girl adorned with mirrors and chains, at whom he will smile;

340 because we know better wherein consists the charm of woman

341 than the charm of verse. But those who are ignorant would

342 admire her in this dress, and there are many villages in which

343 she would be taken for the queen; hence we call sonnets made

344 after this model "Village Queens."

345 #### 34

346 No one passes in the world as skilled in verse unless he has

347 put up the sign of a poet, a mathematician, etc. But educated

348 people do not want a sign, and draw little distinction between

349 the trade of a poet and that of an embroiderer.

350 People of education are not called poets or mathematicians,

351 etc.; but they are all these, and judges of all these. No one

352 guesses what they are. When they come into society, they talk

353 on matters about which the rest are talking. We do not observe

354 in them one quality rather than another, save when they have

355 to make use of it. But then we remember it, for it is characteristic

356 of such persons that we do not say of them that they are

357 fine speakers, when it is not a question of oratory, and that we

358 say of them that they are fine speakers, when it is such a

359 question.

360 It is therefore false praise to give a man when we say of him,

361 on his entry, that he is a very clever poet; and it is a bad sign

362 when a man is not asked to give his judgment on some verses.

363 #### 35

364 We should not be able to say of a man, "He is a mathematician,"

365 or "a preacher," or "eloquent"; but that he is "a

366 gentleman." That universal quality alone pleases me. It is

367 a bad sign when, on seeing a person, you remember his book.

368 I would prefer you to see no quality till you meet it and have

369 occasion to use it (*Ne quid nimis*[14]), for fear some one quality

370 prevail and designate the man. Let none think him a fine

371 speaker, unless oratory be in question, and then let them think it.

372 #### 36

373 Man is full of wants: he loves only those who can satisfy

374 them all. "This one is a good mathematician," one will say.

375 But I have nothing to do with mathematics; he would take me

376 for a proposition. "That one is a good soldier." He would

377 take me for a besieged town. I need, then, an upright man

378 who can accommodate himself generally to all my wants.

379 #### 37

380 [Since we cannot be universal and know all that is to be

381 known of everything, we ought to know a little about everything.

382 For it is far better to know something about everything

383 than to know all about one thing. This universality is the

384 best. If we can have both, still better; but if we must choose,

385 we ought to choose the former. And the world feels this and

386 does so; for the world is often a good judge.]

387 #### 38

388 A poet and not an honest man.

389 #### 39

390 If lightning fell on low places, etc., poets, and those who

391 can only reason about things of that kind, would lack proofs.

392 #### 40

393 If we wished to prove the examples which we take to prove

394 other things, we should have to take those other things to be

395 examples; for, as we always believe the difficulty is in what

396 we wish to prove, we find the examples clearer and a help to

397 demonstration.

398 Thus when we wish to demonstrate a general theorem, we

399 must give the rule as applied to a particular case; but if we wish

400 to demonstrate a particular case, we must begin with the general

401 rule. For we always find the thing obscure which we wish to

402 prove, and that clear which we use for the proof; for, when a

403 thing is put forward to be proved, we first fill ourselves with the

404 imagination that it is therefore obscure, and on the contrary

405 that what is to prove it is clear, and so we understand it easily.

406 #### 41

407 *Epigrams of Martial.*—Man loves malice, but not against

408 one-eyed men nor the unfortunate, but against the fortunate

409 and proud. People are mistaken in thinking otherwise.

410 For lust is the source of all our actions, and humanity, etc.

411 We must please those who have humane and tender feelings.

412 That epigram about two one-eyed people is worthless,[15] for it

413 does not console them, and only gives a point to the author's

414 glory. All that is only for the sake of the author is worthless.

415 *Ambitiosa recident ornamenta*.[16]

416 #### 42

417 To call a king "Prince" is pleasing, because it diminishes

418 his rank.

419 #### 43

420 Certain authors, speaking of their works, say, "My book,"

421 "My commentary," "My history," etc. They resemble middle-class

422 people who have a house of their own, and always have

423 "My house" on their tongue. They would do better to say,

424 "Our book," "Our commentary," "Our history," etc., because

425 there is in them usually more of other people's than their own.

426 #### 44

427 Do you wish people to believe good of you? Don't speak.

428 #### 45

429 Languages are ciphers, wherein letters are not changed into

430 letters, but words into words, so that an unknown language

431 is decipherable.

432 #### 46

433 A maker of witticisms, a bad character.

434 #### 47

435 There are some who speak well and write badly. For the

436 place and the audience warm them, and draw from their minds

437 more than they think of without that warmth.

438 #### 48

439 When we find words repeated in a discourse, and, in trying

440 to correct them, discover that they are so appropriate that

441 we would spoil the discourse, we must leave them alone. This

442 is the test; and our attempt is the work of envy, which is blind,

443 and does not see that repetition is not in this place a fault; for

444 there is no general rule.

445 #### 49

446 To mask nature and disguise her. No more king, pope,

447 bishop—but *august monarch*, etc.; not Paris—*the capital of the

448 kingdom*. There are places in which we ought to call Paris,

449 Paris, and others in which we ought to call it the capital of

450 the kingdom.

451 #### 50

452 The same meaning changes with the words which express it.

453 Meanings receive their dignity from words instead of giving it

454 to them. Examples should be sought....

455 #### 51

456 Sceptic, for obstinate.

457 #### 52

458 No one calls another a Cartesian[17] but he who is one himself,

459 a pedant but a pedant, a provincial but a provincial; and I

460 would wager it was the printer who put it on the title of

461 *Letters to a Provincial*.

462 #### 53

463 A carriage *upset* or *overturned*, according to the meaning

464 *To spread abroad* or *upset*, according to the meaning. (The

465 argument by force of M. le Maître[18] over the friar.)

466 #### 54

467 *Miscellaneous.*—A form of speech, "I should have liked to

468 apply myself to that."

469 #### 55

470 The *aperitive* virtue of a key, the *attractive* virtue of a hook.

471 #### 56

472 To guess: "The part that I take in your trouble." The

473 Cardinal[19] did not want to be guessed.

474 "My mind is disquieted." *I am disquieted* is better.

475 #### 57

476 I always feel uncomfortable under such compliments as

477 these: "I have given you a great deal of trouble," "I am afraid

478 I am boring you," "I fear this is too long." We either carry

479 our audience with us, or irritate them.

480 #### 58

481 You are ungraceful: "Excuse me, pray." Without that

482 excuse I would not have known there was anything amiss.

483 "With reverence be it spoken...." The only thing bad is

484 their excuse.

485 #### 59

486 "To extinguish the torch of sedition"; too luxuriant. "The

487 restlessness of his genius"; two superfluous grand words.

SECTION II

13 (Texto do capítulo)

THE MISERY OF MAN WITHOUT GOD

16 #### 60

17 *First part*: Misery of man without God.

18 *Second part*: Happiness of man with God.

19 Or, *First part*: That nature is corrupt. Proved by nature

20 itself.

21 *Second part*: That there is a Redeemer. Proved by

22 Scripture.

23 #### 61

24 *Order.*—I might well have taken this discourse in an order

25 like this: to show the vanity of all conditions of men, to show

26 the vanity of ordinary lives, and then the vanity of philosophic

27 lives, sceptics, stoics; but the order would not have been kept.

28 I know a little what it is, and how few people understand it.

29 No human science can keep it. Saint Thomas[20] did not keep

30 it. Mathematics keep it, but they are useless on account of

31 their depth.

32 #### 62

33 *Preface to the first part.*—To speak of those who have treated

34 of the knowledge of self; of the divisions of Charron,[21] which

35 sadden and weary us; of the confusion of Montaigne;[22] that he

36 was quite aware of his want of method, and shunned it by

37 jumping from subject to subject; that he sought to be fashionable.

38 His foolish project of describing himself! And this not

39 casually and against his maxims, since every one makes mistakes,

40 but by his maxims themselves, and by first and chief design.

41 For to say silly things by chance and weakness is a common

42 misfortune; but to say them intentionally is intolerable, and

43 to say such as that ...

44 #### 63

45 *Montaigne.*—Montaigne's faults are great. Lewd words; this

46 is bad, notwithstanding Mademoiselle de Gournay.[23] Credulous;

47 *people without eyes*.[24] Ignorant; *squaring the circle,[25] a greater

48 world*.[26] His opinions on suicide, on death.[27] He suggests an

49 indifference about salvation, *without fear and without repentance*.[28]

50 As his book was not written with a religious purpose, he was

51 not bound to mention religion; but it is always our duty not to

52 turn men from it. One can excuse his rather free and licentious

53 opinions on some relations of life (730,231)[29]; but one cannot

54 excuse his thoroughly pagan views on death, for a man must

55 renounce piety altogether, if he does not at least wish to die

56 like a Christian. Now, through the whole of his book his only

57 conception of death is a cowardly and effeminate one.

58 #### 64

59 It is not in Montaigne, but in myself, that I find all that

60 I see in him.

61 #### 65

62 What good there is in Montaigne can only have been acquired

63 with difficulty. The evil that is in him, I mean apart from

64 his morality, could have been corrected in a moment, if he had

65 been informed that he made too much of trifles and spoke too

66 much of himself.

67 #### 66

68 One must know oneself. If this does not serve to discover

69 truth, it at least serves as a rule of life, and there is nothing

70 better.

71 #### 67

72 *The vanity of the sciences.*—Physical science will not console

73 me for the ignorance of morality in the time of affliction. But

74 the science of ethics will always console me for the ignorance

75 of the physical sciences.

76 #### 68

77 Men are never taught to be gentlemen, and are taught everything

78 else; and they never plume themselves so much on the

79 rest of their knowledge as on knowing how to be gentlemen.

80 They only plume themselves on knowing the one thing they do

81 not know.

82 #### 69

83 *The infinites, the mean.*—When we read too fast or too slowly,

84 we understand nothing.

85 #### 70

86 *Nature* ...—[Nature has set us so well in the centre, that

87 if we change one side of the balance, we change the other also.

88 *I act.* Τά ζῶα τρέχει This makes me believe that the springs

89 in our brain are so adjusted that he who touches one touches

90 also its contrary.]

91 #### 71

92 Too much and too little wine. Give him none, he cannot

93 find truth; give him too much, the same.

94 #### 72

95 *Man's disproportion.*—[This is where our innate knowledge

96 leads us. If it be not true, there is no truth in man; and if it be

97 true, he finds therein great cause for humiliation, being compelled

98 to abase himself in one way or another. And since he

99 cannot exist without this knowledge, I wish that, before entering

100 on deeper researches into nature, he would consider her both

101 seriously and at leisure, that he would reflect upon himself also,

102 and knowing what proportion there is ...] Let man then

103 contemplate the whole of nature in her full and grand majesty,

104 and turn his vision from the low objects which surround him.

105 Let him gaze on that brilliant light, set like an eternal lamp to

106 illumine the universe; let the earth appear to him a point in

107 comparison with the vast circle described by the sun; and let

108 him wonder at the fact that this vast circle is itself but a very

109 fine point in comparison with that described by the stars in their

110 revolution round the firmament. But if our view be arrested

111 there, let our imagination pass beyond; it will sooner exhaust

112 the power of conception than nature that of supplying material

113 for conception. The whole visible world is only an imperceptible

114 atom in the ample bosom of nature. No idea approaches

115 it. We may enlarge our conceptions beyond all imaginable

116 space; we only produce atoms in comparison with the reality of

117 things. It is an infinite sphere, the centre of which is everywhere,

118 the circumference nowhere.[30] In short it is the greatest

119 sensible mark of the almighty power of God, that imagination

120 loses itself in that thought.

121 Returning to himself, let man consider what he is in comparison

122 with all existence; let him regard himself as lost in this

123 remote corner of nature; and from the little cell in which he

124 finds himself lodged, I mean the universe, let him estimate at

125 their true value the earth, kingdoms, cities, and himself. What

126 is a man in the Infinite?

127 But to show him another prodigy equally astonishing, let

128 him examine the most delicate things he knows. Let a mite

129 be given him, with its minute body and parts incomparably

130 more minute, limbs with their joints, veins in the limbs, blood

131 in the veins, humours in the blood, drops in the humours,

132 vapours in the drops. Dividing these last things again, let

133 him exhaust his powers of conception, and let the last object at

134 which he can arrive be now that of our discourse. Perhaps he

135 will think that here is the smallest point in nature. I will let

136 him see therein a new abyss. I will paint for him not only the

137 visible universe, but all that he can conceive of nature's immensity

138 in the womb of this abridged atom. Let him see

139 therein an infinity of universes, each of which has its firmament,

140 its planets, its earth, in the same proportion as in the visible

141 world; in each earth animals, and in the last mites, in which he

142 will find again all that the first had, finding still in these others

143 the same thing without end and without cessation. Let him

144 lose himself in wonders as amazing in their littleness as the

145 others in their vastness. For who will not be astounded at the

146 fact that our body, which a little while ago was imperceptible in

147 the universe, itself imperceptible in the bosom of the whole, is

148 now a colossus, a world, or rather a whole, in respect of the

149 nothingness which we cannot reach? He who regards himself

150 in this light will be afraid of himself, and observing himself

151 sustained in the body given him by nature between those

152 two abysses of the Infinite and Nothing, will tremble at

153 the sight of these marvels; and I think that, as his

154 curiosity changes into admiration, he will be more disposed

155 to contemplate them in silence than to examine them with

156 presumption.

157 For in fact what is man in nature? A Nothing in comparison

158 with the Infinite, an All in comparison with the Nothing, a

159 mean between nothing and everything. Since he is infinitely

160 removed from comprehending the extremes, the end of things

161 and their beginning are hopelessly hidden from him in an

162 impenetrable secret, he is equally incapable of seeing the

163 Nothing from which he was made, and the Infinite in which he

164 is swallowed up.

165 What will he do then, but perceive the appearance of the

166 middle of things, in an eternal despair of knowing either their

167 beginning or their end. All things proceed from the Nothing,

168 and are borne towards the Infinite. Who will follow these

169 marvellous processes? The Author of these wonders understands

170 them. None other can do so.

171 Through failure to contemplate these Infinites, men have

172 rashly rushed into the examination of nature, as though they

173 bore some proportion to her. It is strange that they have

174 wished to understand the beginnings of things, and thence to

175 arrive at the knowledge of the whole, with a presumption as

176 infinite as their object. For surely this design cannot be

177 formed without presumption or without a capacity infinite

178 like nature.

179 If we are well informed, we understand that, as nature has

180 graven her image and that of her Author on all things, they

181 almost all partake of her double infinity. Thus we see that all

182 the sciences are infinite in the extent of their researches. For

183 who doubts that geometry, for instance, has an infinite infinity

184 of problems to solve? They are also infinite in the multitude

185 and fineness of their premises; for it is clear that those which are

186 put forward as ultimate are not self-supporting, but are based

187 on others which, again having others for their support, do

188 not permit of finality. But we represent some as ultimate for

189 reason, in the same way as in regard to material objects we

190 call that an indivisible point beyond which our senses can no

191 longer perceive anything, although by its nature it is infinitely

192 divisible.

193 Of these two Infinites of science, that of greatness is the most

194 palpable, and hence a few persons have pretended to know all

195 things. "I will speak of the whole,"[31] said Democritus.

196 But the infinitely little is the least obvious. Philosophers

197 have much oftener claimed to have reached it, and it is here

198 they have all stumbled. This has given rise to such common

199 titles as *First Principles*, *Principles of Philosophy*,[32] and the like,

200 as ostentatious in fact, though not in appearance, as that one

201 which blinds us, *De omni scibili*.[33]

202 We naturally believe ourselves far more capable of reaching

203 the centre of things than of embracing their circumference.

204 The visible extent of the world visibly exceeds us; but as we

205 exceed little things, we think ourselves more capable of knowing

206 them. And yet we need no less capacity for attaining the

207 Nothing than the All. Infinite capacity is required for both,

208 and it seems to me that whoever shall have understood the

209 ultimate principles of being might also attain to the knowledge

210 of the Infinite. The one depends on the other, and one leads

211 to the other. These extremes meet and reunite by force of

212 distance, and find each other in God, and in God alone.

213 Let us then take our compass; we are something, and we are

214 not everything. The nature of our existence hides from us

215 the knowledge of first beginnings which are born of the Nothing;

216 and the littleness of our being conceals from us the sight of

217 the Infinite.

218 Our intellect holds the same position in the world of thought

219 as our body occupies in the expanse of nature.

220 Limited as we are in every way, this state which holds the

221 mean between two extremes is present in all our impotence.

222 Our senses perceive no extreme. Too much sound deafens us;

223 too much light dazzles us; too great distance or proximity

224 hinders our view. Too great length and too great brevity of

225 discourse tend to obscurity; too much truth is paralysing (I

226 know some who cannot understand that to take four from

227 nothing leaves nothing). First principles are too self-evident

228 for us; too much pleasure disagrees with us. Too many concords

229 are annoying in music; too many benefits irritate us; we wish

230 to have the wherewithal to over-pay our debts. *Beneficia eo

231 usque læta sunt dum videntur exsolvi posse; ubi multum antevenere,

232 pro gratia odium redditur.*[34] We feel neither extreme heat nor

233 extreme cold. Excessive qualities are prejudicial to us and not

234 perceptible by the senses; we do not feel but suffer them.

235 Extreme youth and extreme age hinder the mind, as also too

236 much and too little education. In short, extremes are for us

237 as though they were not, and we are not within their notice.

238 They escape us, or we them.

239 This is our true state; this is what makes us incapable of

240 certain knowledge and of absolute ignorance. We sail within

241 a vast sphere, ever drifting in uncertainty, driven from end to

242 end. When we think to attach ourselves to any point and to

243 fasten to it, it wavers and leaves us; and if we follow it, it

244 eludes our grasp, slips past us, and vanishes for ever. Nothing

245 stays for us. This is our natural condition, and yet most

246 contrary to our inclination; we burn with desire to find solid

247 ground and an ultimate sure foundation whereon to build a

248 tower reaching to the Infinite. But our whole groundwork

249 cracks, and the earth opens to abysses.

250 Let us therefore not look for certainty and stability. Our

251 reason is always deceived by fickle shadows; nothing can fix

252 the finite between the two Infinites, which both enclose and

253 fly from it.

254 If this be well understood, I think that we shall remain at

255 rest, each in the state wherein nature has placed him. As this

256 sphere which has fallen to us as our lot is always distant from

257 either extreme, what matters it that man should have a little

258 more knowledge of the universe? If he has it, he but gets a

259 little higher. Is he not always infinitely removed from the

260 end, and is not the duration of our life equally removed from

261 eternity, even if it lasts ten years longer?

262 In comparison with these Infinites all finites are equal, and

263 I see no reason for fixing our imagination on one more than

264 on another. The only comparison which we make of ourselves

265 to the finite is painful to us.

266 If man made himself the first object of study, he would see

267 how incapable he is of going further. How can a part know

268 the whole? But he may perhaps aspire to know at least the

269 parts to which he bears some proportion. But the parts of the

270 world are all so related and linked to one another, that I believe it

271 impossible to know one without the other and without the whole.

272 Man, for instance, is related to all he knows. He needs a

273 place wherein to abide, time through which to live, motion in

274 order to live, elements to compose him, warmth and food to

275 nourish him, air to breathe. He sees light; he feels bodies;

276 in short, he is in a dependent alliance with everything. To

277 know man, then, it is necessary to know how it happens that

278 he needs air to live, and, to know the air, we must know how

279 it is thus related to the life of man, etc. Flame cannot exist

280 without air; therefore to understand the one, we must understand

281 the other.

282 Since everything then is cause and effect, dependent and

283 supporting, mediate and immediate, and all is held together by

284 a natural though imperceptible chain, which binds together

285 things most distant and most different, I hold it equally impossible

286 to know the parts without knowing the whole, and to

287 know the whole without knowing the parts in detail.

288 [The eternity of things in itself or in God must also astonish

289 our brief duration. The fixed and constant immobility of

290 nature, in comparison with the continual change which goes on

291 within us, must have the same effect.]

292 And what completes our incapability of knowing things, is

293 the fact that they are simple, and that we are composed of two

294 opposite natures, different in kind, soul and body. For it is

295 impossible that our rational part should be other than spiritual;

296 and if any one maintain that we are simply corporeal, this

297 would far more exclude us from the knowledge of things, there

298 being nothing so inconceivable as to say that matter knows

299 itself. It is impossible to imagine how it should know itself.

300 So if we are simply material, we can know nothing at all;

301 and if we are composed of mind and matter, we cannot know

302 perfectly things which are simple, whether spiritual or corporeal.

303 Hence it comes that almost all philosophers have confused ideas

304 of things, and speak of material things in spiritual terms, and

305 of spiritual things in material terms. For they say boldly that

306 bodies have a tendency to fall, that they seek after their centre,

307 that they fly from destruction, that they fear the void, that they

308 have inclinations, sympathies, antipathies, all of which attributes

309 pertain only to mind. And in speaking of minds, they

310 consider them as in a place, and attribute to them movement

311 from one place to another; and these are qualities which belong

312 only to bodies.

313 Instead of receiving the ideas of these things in their purity,

314 we colour them with our own qualities, and stamp with our composite

315 being all the simple things which we contemplate.

316 Who would not think, seeing us compose all things of mind

317 and body, but that this mixture would be quite intelligible to

318 us? Yet it is the very thing we least understand. Man is

319 to himself the most wonderful object in nature; for he cannot

320 conceive what the body is, still less what the mind is, and

321 least of all how a body should be united to a mind. This is

322 the consummation of his difficulties, and yet it is his very

323 being. *Modus quo corporibus adhærent spiritus comprehendi ab

324 hominibus non potest, et hoc tamen homo est*.[35] Finally, to complete

325 the proof of our weakness, I shall conclude with these

326 two considerations....

327 #### 73

328 [But perhaps this subject goes beyond the capacity of reason.

329 Let us therefore examine her solutions to problems within her

330 powers. If there be anything to which her own interest must

331 have made her apply herself most seriously, it is the inquiry

332 into her own sovereign good. Let us see, then, wherein these

333 strong and clear-sighted souls have placed it, and whether

334 they agree.

335 One says that the sovereign good consists in virtue, another

336 in pleasure, another in the knowledge of nature, another in

337 truth, *Felix qui potuit rerum cognoscere causas*,[36] another in

338 total ignorance, another in indolence, others in disregarding

339 appearances, another in wondering at nothing, *nihil admirari

340 prope res una quæ possit facere et servare beatum*,[37] and the true

341 sceptics in their indifference, doubt, and perpetual suspense,

342 and others, wiser, think to find a better definition. We are

343 well satisfied.

344 *To transpose after the laws to the following title.*

345 We must see if this fine philosophy have gained nothing

346 certain from so long and so intent study; perhaps at least the

347 soul will know itself. Let us hear the rulers of the world on

348 this subject. What have they thought of her substance? 394.[38]

349 Have they been more fortunate in locating her? 395.[39] What have

350 they found out about her origin, duration, and departure? 399.[40]

351 Is then the soul too noble a subject for their feeble lights?

352 Let us then abase her to matter and see if she knows whereof

353 is made the very body which she animates, and those others

354 which she contemplates and moves at her will. What have

355 those great dogmatists, who are ignorant of nothing, known of

356 this matter? *Harum sententiarum*,[41] 393.

357 This would doubtless suffice, if reason were reasonable. She

358 is reasonable enough to admit that she has been unable to

359 find anything durable, but she does not yet despair of reaching

360 it; she is as ardent as ever in this search, and is confident she

361 has within her the necessary powers for this conquest. We

362 must therefore conclude, and, after having examined her powers

363 in their effects, observe them in themselves, and see if she has

364 a nature and a grasp capable of laying hold of the truth.]

365 #### 74

366 A letter *On the Foolishness of Human Knowledge and

367 Philosophy*.

368 This letter before *Diversion*.

369 *Felix qui potuit ... Nihil admirari.*[42]

370 280 kinds of sovereign good in Montaigne.[43]

371 #### 75

372 Part I, 1, 2, c. 1, section 4.[44]

373 [*Probability.*—It will not be difficult to put the case a stage

374 lower, and make it appear ridiculous. To begin at the very

375 beginning.] What is more absurd than to say that lifeless

376 bodies have passions, fears, hatreds—that insensible bodies,

377 lifeless and incapable of life, have passions which presuppose

378 at least a sensitive soul to feel them, nay more, that the object

379 of their dread is the void? What is there in the void that

380 could make them afraid? Nothing is more shallow and ridiculous.

381 This is not all; it is said that they have in themselves

382 a source of movement to shun the void. Have they arms,

383 legs, muscles, nerves?

384 #### 76

385 To write against those who made too profound a study of

386 science: Descartes.

387 #### 77

388 I cannot forgive Descartes. In all his philosophy he would

389 have been quite willing to dispense with God. But he had to

390 make Him give a fillip to set the world in motion; beyond this,

391 he has no further need of God.

392 #### 78

393 Descartes useless and uncertain.

394 #### 79

395 [*Descartes.*—We must say summarily: "This is made by

396 figure and motion," for it is true. But to say what these are,

397 and to compose the machine, is ridiculous. For it is useless,

398 uncertain, and painful. And were it true, we do not think all

399 philosophy is worth one hour of pain.]

400 #### 80

401 How comes it that a cripple does not offend us, but that a

402 fool does?[45] Because a cripple recognises that we walk straight,

403 whereas a fool declares that it is we who are silly; if it were not

404 so, we should feel pity and not anger.

405 Epictetus[46] asks still more strongly: "Why are we not angry

406 if we are told that we have a headache, and why are we angry

407 if we are told that we reason badly, or choose wrongly?" The

408 reason is that we are quite certain that we have not a headache,

409 or are not lame, but we are not so sure that we make a true choice.

410 So having assurance only because we see with our whole sight,

411 it puts us into suspense and surprise when another with his

412 whole sight sees the opposite, and still more so when a thousand

413 others deride our choice. For we must prefer our own lights

414 to those of so many others, and that is bold and difficult. There

415 is never this contradiction in the feelings towards a cripple.

416 #### 81

417 It is natural for the mind to believe, and for the will to love;[47]

418 so that, for want of true objects, they must attach themselves

419 to false.

420 #### 82

421 *Imagination.*[48]—It is that deceitful part in man, that mistress

422 of error and falsity, the more deceptive that she is not always so;

423 for she would be an infallible rule of truth, if she were an infallible

424 rule of falsehood. But being most generally false, she

425 gives no sign of her nature, impressing the same character on

426 the true and the false.

427 I do not speak of fools, I speak of the wisest men; and it is

428 among them that the imagination has the great gift of persuasion.

429 Reason protests in vain; it cannot set a true value on things.

430 This arrogant power, the enemy of reason, who likes to rule

431 and dominate it, has established in man a second nature to show

432 how all-powerful she is. She makes men happy and sad, healthy

433 and sick, rich and poor; she compels reason to believe, doubt,

434 and deny; she blunts the senses, or quickens them; she has her

435 fools and sages; and nothing vexes us more than to see that she

436 fills her devotees with a satisfaction far more full and entire than

437 does reason. Those who have a lively imagination are a great

438 deal more pleased with themselves than the wise can reasonably

439 be. They look down upon men with haughtiness; they argue

440 with boldness and confidence, others with fear and diffidence;

441 and this gaiety of countenance often gives them the advantage

442 in the opinion of the hearers, such favour have the imaginary

443 wise in the eyes of judges of like nature. Imagination cannot

444 make fools wise; but she can make them happy, to the envy of

445 reason which can only make its friends miserable; the one covers

446 them with glory, the other with shame.

447 What but this faculty of imagination dispenses reputation,

448 awards respect and veneration to persons, works, laws, and the

449 great? How insufficient are all the riches of the earth without

450 her consent!

451 Would you not say that this magistrate, whose venerable age

452 commands the respect of a whole people, is governed by pure

453 and lofty reason, and that he judges causes according to their

454 true nature without considering those mere trifles which only

455 affect the imagination of the weak? See him go to sermon, full

456 of devout zeal, strengthening his reason with the ardour of his

457 love. He is ready to listen with exemplary respect. Let the

458 preacher appear, and let nature have given him a hoarse voice

459 or a comical cast of countenance, or let his barber have given

460 him a bad shave, or let by chance his dress be more dirtied than

461 usual, then however great the truths he announces. I wager our

462 senator loses his gravity.

463 If the greatest philosopher in the world find himself upon a

464 plank wider than actually necessary, but hanging over a precipice,

465 his imagination will prevail, though his reason convince

466 him of his safety.[49] Many cannot bear the thought without a

467 cold sweat. I will not state all its effects.

468 Every one knows that the sight of cats or rats, the crushing

469 of a coal, etc. may unhinge the reason. The tone of voice

470 affects the wisest, and changes the force of a discourse or a poem.

471 Love or hate alters the aspect of justice. How much greater

472 confidence has an advocate, retained with a large fee, in the

473 justice of his cause! How much better does his bold manner

474 make his case appear to the judges, deceived as they are by

475 appearances! How ludicrous is reason, blown with a breath in

476 every direction!

477 I should have to enumerate almost every action of men who

478 scarce waver save under her assaults. For reason has been

479 obliged to yield, and the wisest reason takes as her own principles

480 those which the imagination of man has everywhere rashly

481 introduced. [He who would follow reason only would be deemed

482 foolish by the generality of men. We must judge by the

483 opinion of the majority of mankind. Because it has pleased

484 them, we must work all day for pleasures seen to be imaginary;

485 and after sleep has refreshed our tired reason, we must forthwith

486 start up and rush after phantoms, and suffer the impressions

487 of this mistress of the world. This is one of the sources of error,

488 but it is not the only one.]

489 Our magistrates have known well this mystery. Their red

490 robes, the ermine in which they wrap themselves like furry cats,[50]

491 the courts in which they administer justice, the *fleurs-de-lis*, and

492 all such august apparel were necessary; if the physicians had

493 not their cassocks and their mules, if the doctors had not their

494 square caps and their robes four times too wide, they would

495 never have duped the world, which cannot resist so original an

496 appearance. If magistrates had true justice, and if physicians

497 had the true art of healing, they would have no occasion for

498 square caps; the majesty of these sciences would of itself be

499 venerable enough. But having only imaginary knowledge,

500 they must employ those silly tools that strike the imagination

501 with which they have to deal; and thereby in fact they inspire

502 respect. Soldiers alone are not disguised in this manner,

503 because indeed their part is the most essential; they establish

504 themselves by force, the others by show.

505 Therefore our kings seek out no disguises. They do not

506 mask themselves in extraordinary costumes to appear such;

507 but they are accompanied by guards and halberdiers. Those

508 armed and red-faced puppets who have hands and power for

509 them alone, those trumpets and drums which go before them,

510 and those legions round about them, make the stoutest tremble.

511 They have not dress only, they have might. A very refined

512 reason is required to regard as an ordinary man the Grand

513 Turk, in his superb seraglio, surrounded by forty thousand

514 janissaries.

515 We cannot even see an advocate in his robe and with his

516 cap on his head, without a favourable opinion of his ability.

517 The imagination disposes of everything; it makes beauty,

518 justice, and happiness, which is everything in the world. I

519 should much like to see an Italian work, of which I only know

520 the title, which alone is worth many books, *Della opinione

521 regina del mondo*.[51] I approve of the book without knowing it,

522 save the evil in it, if any. These are pretty much the effects of

523 that deceptive faculty, which seems to have been expressly

524 given us to lead us into necessary error. We have, however,

525 many other sources of error.

526 Not only are old impressions capable of misleading us; the

527 charms of novelty have the same power. Hence arise all the

528 disputes of men, who taunt each other either with following

529 the false impressions of childhood or with running rashly after

530 the new. Who keeps the due mean? Let him appear and

531 prove it. There is no principle, however natural to us from

532 infancy, which may not be made to pass for a false impression

533 either of education or of sense.

534 "Because," say some, "you have believed from childhood

535 that a box was empty when you saw nothing in it, you have

536 believed in the possibility of a vacuum. This is an illusion of

537 your senses, strengthened by custom, which science must

538 correct." "Because," say others, "you have been taught at

539 school that there is no vacuum, you have perverted your common

540 sense which clearly comprehended it, and you must correct

541 this by returning to your first state." Which has deceived you,

542 your senses or your education?

543 We have another source of error in diseases.[52] They spoil

544 the judgment and the senses; and if the more serious produce

545 a sensible change, I do not doubt that slighter ills produce a

546 proportionate impression.

547 Our own interest is again a marvellous instrument for nicely

548 putting out our eyes. The justest man in the world is not

549 allowed to be judge in his own cause; I know some who, in order

550 not to fall into this self-love, have been perfectly unjust out of

551 opposition. The sure way of losing a just cause has been to

552 get it recommended to these men by their near relatives.

553 Justice and truth are two such subtle points, that our tools

554 are too blunt to touch them accurately. If they reach the

555 point, they either crush it, or lean all round, more on the

556 false than on the true.

557 [Man is so happily formed that he has no ... good of the

558 true, and several excellent of the false. Let us now see how

559 much ... But the most powerful cause of error is the war

560 existing between the senses and reason.]

561 #### 83

562 *We must thus begin the chapter on the deceptive powers.*

563 Man is only a subject full of error, natural and ineffaceable,

564 without grace. Nothing shows him the truth. Everything

565 deceives him. These two sources of truth, reason and the

566 senses, besides being both wanting in sincerity, deceive each

567 other in turn. The senses mislead the reason with false

568 appearances, and receive from reason in their turn the same

569 trickery which they apply to her; reason has her revenge.

570 The passions of the soul trouble the senses, and make false

571 impressions upon them. They rival each other in falsehood

572 and deception.[53]

573 But besides those errors which arise accidentally and through

574 lack of intelligence, with these heterogeneous faculties ...

575 #### 84

576 The imagination enlarges little objects so as to fill our souls

577 with a fantastic estimate; and, with rash insolence, it belittles

578 the great to its own measure, as when talking of God.

579 #### 85

580 Things which have most hold on us, as the concealment

581 of our few possessions, are often a mere nothing. It is a nothing

582 which our imagination magnifies into a mountain. Another

583 turn of the imagination would make us discover this without

584 difficulty.

585 #### 86

586 [My fancy makes me hate a croaker, and one who pants

587 when eating. Fancy has great weight. Shall we profit by it?

588 Shall we yield to this weight because it is natural? No, but by

589 resisting it ...]

590 #### 87

591 *Næ iste magno conatu magnas nugas dixerit.*[54]

592 *Quasi quidquam infelicius sit homini cui sua figmenta

593 dominantur.*[55] (Plin.)

594 #### 88

595 Children who are frightened at the face they have blackened

596 are but children. But how shall one who is so weak in his

597 childhood become really strong when he grows older? We

598 only change our fancies. All that is made perfect by progress

599 perishes also by progress. All that has been weak can never

600 become absolutely strong. We say in vain, "He has grown,

601 he has changed"; he is also the same.

602 #### 89

603 Custom is our nature. He who is accustomed to the faith

604 believes in it, can no longer fear hell, and believes in nothing

605 else. He who is accustomed to believe that the king is terrible

606 ... etc. Who doubts then that our soul, being accustomed to

607 see number, space, motion, believes that and nothing else?

608 #### 90

609 *Quod crebro videt non miratur, etiamsi cur fiat nescit; quod

610 ante non viderit, id si evenerit, ostentum esse censet.*[56] (Cic. 583.)

611 #### 91

612 *Spongia solis.*[57]—When we see the same effect always recur,

613 we infer a natural necessity in it, as that there will be a to-morrow,

614 etc. But nature often deceives us, and does not

615 subject herself to her own rules.

616 #### 92

617 What are our natural principles but principles of custom?

618 In children they are those which they have received from the

619 habits of their fathers, as hunting in animals. A different

620 custom will cause different natural principles. This is seen in

621 experience; and if there are some natural principles ineradicable

622 by custom, there are also some customs opposed to nature,

623 ineradicable by nature, or by a second custom. This depends

624 on disposition.

625 #### 93

626 Parents fear lest the natural love of their children may fade

627 away. What kind of nature is that which is subject to decay?

628 Custom is a second nature which destroys the former.[58] But

629 what is nature? For is custom not natural? I am much afraid

630 that nature is itself only a first custom, as custom is a second

631 nature.

632 #### 94

633 The nature of man is wholly natural, *omne animal*.[59]

634 There is nothing he may not make natural; there is nothing

635 natural he may not lose.

636 #### 95

637 Memory, joy, are intuitions; and even mathematical propositions

638 become intuitions, for education produces natural

639 intuitions, and natural intuitions are erased by education.

640 #### 96

641 When we are accustomed to use bad reasons for proving

642 natural effects, we are not willing to receive good reasons when

643 they are discovered. An example may be given from the

644 circulation of the blood as a reason why the vein swells below

645 the ligature.

646 #### 97

647 The most important affair in life is the choice of a calling;

648 chance decides it. Custom makes men masons, soldiers,

649 slaters. "He is a good slater," says one, and, speaking of

650 soldiers, remarks, "They are perfect fools." But others affirm,

651 "There is nothing great but war, the rest of men are good for

652 nothing." We choose our callings according as we hear this

653 or that praised or despised in our childhood, for we naturally

654 love truth and hate folly. These words move us; the only

655 error is in their application. So great is the force of custom

656 that out of those whom nature has only made men, are created

657 all conditions of men. For some districts are full of masons,

658 others of soldiers, etc. Certainly nature is not so uniform.

659 It is custom then which does this, for it constrains nature.

660 But sometimes nature gains the ascendancy, and preserves

661 man's instinct, in spite of all custom, good or bad.

662 #### 98

663 *Bias leading to error.*—It is a deplorable thing to see all men

664 deliberating on means alone, and not on the end. Each thinks

665 how he will acquit himself in his condition; but as for the choice

666 of condition, or of country, chance gives them to us.

667 It is a pitiable thing to see so many Turks, heretics, and infidels

668 follow the way of their fathers for the sole reason that each has

669 been imbued with the prejudice that it is the best. And that

670 fixes for each man his conditions of locksmith, soldier, etc.

671 Hence savages care nothing for Providence.[60]

672 #### 99

673 There is an universal and essential difference between the

674 actions of the will and all other actions.

675 The will is one of the chief factors in belief, not that it creates

676 belief, but because things are true or false according to the

677 aspect in which we look at them. The will, which prefers one

678 aspect to another, turns away the mind from considering the

679 qualities of all that it does not like to see; and thus the mind,

680 moving in accord with the will, stops to consider the aspect

681 which it likes, and so judges by what it sees.

682 #### 100

683 *Self-love.*—The nature of self-love and of this human Ego is

684 to love self only and consider self only. But what will man do?

685 He cannot prevent this object that he loves from being full of

686 faults and wants. He wants to be great, and he sees himself

687 small. He wants to be happy, and he sees himself miserable.

688 He wants to be perfect, and he sees himself full of imperfections.

689 He wants to be the object of love and esteem among men, and

690 he sees that his faults merit only their hatred and contempt.

691 This embarrassment in which he finds himself produces in him

692 the most unrighteous and criminal passion that can be imagined;

693 for he conceives a mortal enmity against that truth which

694 reproves him, and which convinces him of his faults. He

695 would annihilate it, but, unable to destroy it in its essence, he

696 destroys it as far as possible in his own knowledge and in that

697 of others; that is to say, he devotes all his attention to hiding

698 his faults both from others and from himself, and he cannot

699 endure either that others should point them out to him, or that

700 they should see them.

701 Truly it is an evil to be full of faults; but it is a still greater

702 evil to be full of them, and to be unwilling to recognise

703 them, since that is to add the further fault of a voluntary

704 illusion. We do not like others to deceive us; we do not think

705 it fair that they should be held in higher esteem by us than they

706 deserve; it is not then fair that we should deceive them, and

707 should wish them to esteem us more highly than we deserve.

708 Thus, when they discover only the imperfections and vices

709 which we really have, it is plain they do us no wrong, since it is

710 not they who cause them; they rather do us good, since they

711 help us to free ourselves from an evil, namely, the ignorance of

712 these imperfections. We ought not to be angry at their knowing

713 our faults and despising us; it is but right that they should

714 know us for what we are, and should despise us, if we are

715 contemptible.

716 Such are the feelings that would arise in a heart full of equity

717 and justice. What must we say then of our own heart, when

718 we see in it a wholly different disposition? For is it not true

719 that we hate truth and those who tell it us, and that we like

720 them to be deceived in our favour, and prefer to be esteemed by

721 them as being other than what we are in fact? One proof of

722 this makes me shudder. The Catholic religion does not bind

723 us to confess our sins indiscriminately to everybody; it allows

724 them to remain hidden from all other men save one, to whom

725 she bids us reveal the innermost recesses of our heart, and show

726 ourselves as we are. There is only this one man in the world

727 whom she orders us to undeceive, and she binds him to an

728 inviolable secrecy, which makes this knowledge to him as if

729 it were not. Can we imagine anything more charitable and

730 pleasant? And yet the corruption of man is such that he finds

731 even this law harsh; and it is one of the main reasons which

732 has caused a great part of Europe to rebel against the Church.[61]

733 How unjust and unreasonable is the heart of man, which

734 feels it disagreeable to be obliged to do in regard to one man

735 what in some measure it were right to do to all men! For is

736 it right that we should deceive men?

737 There are different degrees in this aversion to truth; but all

738 may perhaps be said to have it in some degree, because it is

739 inseparable from self-love. It is this false delicacy which makes

740 those who are under the necessity of reproving others choose so

741 many windings and middle courses to avoid offence. They

742 must lessen our faults, appear to excuse them, intersperse

743 praises and evidence of love and esteem. Despite all this, the

744 medicine does not cease to be bitter to self-love. It takes as

745 little as it can, always with disgust, and often with a secret

746 spite against those who administer it.

747 Hence it happens that if any have some interest in being

748 loved by us, they are averse to render us a service which they

749 know to be disagreeable. They treat us as we wish to be treated.

750 We hate the truth, and they hide it from us. We desire flattery,

751 and they flatter us. We like to be deceived, and they deceive us.

752 So each degree of good fortune which raises us in the world

753 removes us farther from truth, because we are most afraid of

754 wounding those whose affection is most useful and whose dislike

755 is most dangerous. A prince may be the byword of all Europe,

756 and he alone will know nothing of it. I am not astonished.

757 To tell the truth is useful to those to whom it is spoken, but

758 disadvantageous to those who tell it, because it makes them

759 disliked. Now those who live with princes love their own

760 interests more than that of the prince whom they serve; and so

761 they take care not to confer on him a benefit so as to injure

762 themselves.

763 This evil is no doubt greater and more common among the

764 higher classes; but the lower are not exempt from it, since there

765 is always some advantage in making men love us. Human life

766 is thus only a perpetual illusion; men deceive and flatter each

767 other. No one speaks of us in our presence as he does of us in

768 our absence. Human society is founded on mutual deceit;

769 few friendships would endure if each knew what his friend said

770 of him in his absence, although he then spoke in sincerity and

771 without passion.

772 Man is then only disguise, falsehood, and hypocrisy, both in

773 himself and in regard to others. He does not wish any one to

774 tell him the truth; he avoids telling it to others, and all these

775 dispositions, so removed from justice and reason, have a natural

776 root in his heart.

777 #### 101

778 I set it down as a fact that if all men knew what each said of

779 the other, there would not be four friends in the world. This

780 is apparent from the quarrels which arise from the indiscreet

781 tales told from time to time. [I say, further, all men would

782 be ...]

783 #### 102

784 Some vices only lay hold of us by means of others, and these,

785 like branches, fall on removal of the trunk.

786 #### 103

787 The example of Alexander's chastity[62] has not made so many

788 continent as that of his drunkenness has made intemperate.

789 It is not shameful not to be as virtuous as he, and it seems

790 excusable to be no more vicious. We do not believe ourselves

791 to be exactly sharing in the vices of the vulgar, when we see

792 that we are sharing in those of great men; and yet we do not

793 observe that in these matters they are ordinary men. We hold

794 on to them by the same end by which they hold on to the rabble;

795 for, however exalted they are, they are still united at some point

796 to the lowest of men. They are not suspended in the air, quite

797 removed from our society. No, no; if they are greater than we,

798 it is because their heads are higher; but their feet are as low as

799 ours. They are all on the same level, and rest on the same

800 earth; and by that extremity they are as low as we are, as the

801 meanest folk, as infants, and as the beasts.

802 #### 104

803 When our passion leads us to do something, we forget our

804 duty; for example, we like a book and read it, when we ought

805 to be doing something else. Now, to remind ourselves of our

806 duty, we must set ourselves a task we dislike; we then plead that

807 we have something else to do, and by this means remember

808 our duty.

809 #### 105

810 How difficult it is to submit anything to the judgment of

811 another, without prejudicing his judgment by the manner in

812 which we submit it! If we say, "I think it beautiful," "I think

813 it obscure," or the like, we either entice the imagination into that

814 view, or irritate it to the contrary. It is better to say nothing;

815 and then the other judges according to what really is, that is to

816 say, according as it then is, and according as the other circumstances,

817 not of our making, have placed it. But we at least

818 shall have added nothing, unless it be that silence also produces

819 an effect, according to the turn and the interpretation which

820 the other will be disposed to give it, or as he will guess it from

821 gestures or countenance, or from the tone of the voice, if he is a

822 physiognomist. So difficult is it not to upset a judgment

823 from its natural place, or, rather, so rarely is it firm and stable!

824 #### 106

825 By knowing each man's ruling passion, we are sure of pleasing

826 him; and yet each has his fancies, opposed to his true good, in

827 the very idea which he has of the good. It is a singularly

828 puzzling fact.

829 #### 107

830 *Lustravit lampade terras.*[63]—The weather and my mood have

831 little connection. I have my foggy and my fine days within

832 me; my prosperity or misfortune has little to do with the matter.

833 I sometimes struggle against luck, the glory of mastering it

834 makes me master it gaily; whereas I am sometimes surfeited in

835 the midst of good fortune.

836 #### 108

837 Although people may have no interest in what they are saying,

838 we must not absolutely conclude from this that they are not

839 lying; for there are some people who lie for the mere sake of

840 lying.

841 #### 109

842 When we are well we wonder what we would do if we were ill,

843 but when we are ill we take medicine cheerfully; the illness

844 persuades us to do so. We have no longer the passions and

845 desires for amusements and promenades which health gave to

846 us, but which are incompatible with the necessities of illness.

847 Nature gives us, then, passions and desires suitable to our

848 present state.[64] We are only troubled by the fears which we,

849 and not nature, give ourselves, for they add to the state in which

850 we are the passions of the state in which we are not.

851 As nature makes us always unhappy in every state, our

852 desires picture to us a happy state; because they add to the

853 state in which we are the pleasures of the state in which we are

854 not. And if we attained to these pleasures, we should not be

855 happy after all; because we should have other desires natural

856 to this new state.

857 We must particularise this general proposition....

858 #### 110

859 The consciousness of the falsity of present pleasures, and the

860 ignorance of the vanity of absent pleasures, cause inconstancy.

861 #### 111

862 *Inconstancy.*—We think we are playing on ordinary organs

863 when playing upon man. Men are organs, it is true, but, odd,

864 changeable, variable [with pipes not arranged in proper order.

865 Those who only know how to play on ordinary organs] will not

866 produce harmonies on these. We must know where [*the keys*]

867 are.

868 #### 112

869 *Inconstancy.*—Things have different qualities, and the soul

870 different inclinations; for nothing is simple which is presented

871 to the soul, and the soul never presents itself simply to any

872 object. Hence it comes that we weep and laugh at the same

873 thing.

874 #### 113

875 *Inconstancy and oddity.*—To live only by work, and to rule

876 over the most powerful State in the world, are very opposite

877 things. They are united in the person of the great Sultan of

878 the Turks.

879 #### 114

880 Variety is as abundant as all tones of the voice, all ways of

881 walking, coughing, blowing the nose, sneezing. We distinguish

882 vines by their fruit, and call them the Condrien, the Desargues,

883 and such and such a stock. Is this all? Has a vine ever produced

884 two bunches exactly the same, and has a bunch two

885 grapes alike? etc.

886 I can never judge of the same thing exactly in the same way.

887 I cannot judge of my work, while doing it. I must do as the

888 artists, stand at a distance, but not too far. How far, then?

889 Guess.

890 #### 115

891 *Variety.*—Theology is a science, but at the same time how

892 many sciences? A man is a whole; but if we dissect him, will

893 he be the head, the heart, the stomach, the veins, each vein,

894 each portion of a vein, the blood, each humour in the blood?

895 A town, a country-place, is from afar a town and a country-place.

896 But, as we draw near, there are houses, trees, tiles,

897 leaves, grass, ants, limbs of ants, in infinity. All this is contained

898 under the name of country-place.

899 #### 116

900 *Thoughts.*—All is one, all is different. How many natures

901 exist in man? How many vocations? And by what chance

902 does each man ordinarily choose what he has heard praised?

903 A well-turned heel.

904 #### 117

905 *The heel of a slipper.*—"Ah! How well this is turned! Here

906 is a clever workman! How brave is this soldier!" This is the

907 source of our inclinations, and of the choice of conditions.

908 "How much this man drinks! How little that one!" This

909 makes people sober or drunk, soldiers, cowards, etc.

910 #### 118

911 Chief talent, that which rules the rest.

912 #### 119

913 Nature imitates herself. A seed sown in good ground brings

914 forth fruit. A principle, instilled into a good mind, brings forth

915 fruit. Numbers imitate space, which is of a different nature.

916 All is made and led by the same master, root, branches, and

917 fruits; principles and consequences.

918 #### 120

919 [Nature diversifies and imitates; art imitates and diversifies.]

920 #### 121

921 Nature always begins the same things again, the years, the

922 days, the hours; in like manner spaces and numbers follow each

923 other from beginning to end. Thus is made a kind of infinity

924 and eternity. Not that anything in all this is infinite and

925 eternal, but these finite realities are infinitely multiplied. Thus

926 it seems to me to be only the number which multiplies them

927 that is infinite.

928 #### 122

929 Time heals griefs and quarrels, for we change and are no

930 longer the same persons. Neither the offender nor the offended

931 are any more themselves. It is like a nation which we have

932 provoked, but meet again after two generations. They are

933 still Frenchmen, but not the same.

934 #### 123

935 He no longer loves the person whom he loved ten years ago.

936 I quite believe it. She is no longer the same, nor is he. He

937 was young, and she also; she is quite different. He would

938 perhaps love her yet, if she were what she was then.

939 #### 124

940 We view things not only from different sides, but with

941 different eyes; we have no wish to find them alike.

942 #### 125

943 *Contraries.*—Man is naturally credulous and incredulous,

944 timid and rash.

945 #### 126

946 Description of man: dependency, desire of independence, need.

947 #### 127

948 Condition of man: inconstancy, weariness, unrest.

949 #### 128

950 The weariness which is felt by us in leaving pursuits to which

951 we are attached. A man dwells at home with pleasure; but if

952 he sees a woman who charms him, or if he enjoys himself in

953 play for five or six days, he is miserable if he returns to his

954 former way of living. Nothing is more common than that.

955 #### 129

956 Our nature consists in motion; complete rest is death.[65]

957 #### 130

958 *Restlessness.*—If a soldier, or labourer, complain of the hardship

959 of his lot, set him to do nothing.

960 #### 131

961 *Weariness.*[66]—Nothing is so insufferable to man as to be

962 completely at rest, without passions, without business, without

963 diversion, without study. He then feels his nothingness, his

964 forlornness, his insufficiency, his dependence, his weakness, his

965 emptiness. There will immediately arise from the depth of

966 his heart weariness, gloom, sadness, fretfulness, vexation,

967 despair.

968 #### 132

969 Methinks Cæsar was too old to set about amusing himself

970 with conquering the world.[67] Such sport was good for Augustus

971 or Alexander. They were still young men, and thus difficult

972 to restrain. But Cæsar should have been more mature.

973 #### 133

974 Two faces which resemble each other, make us laugh, when

975 together, by their resemblance, though neither of them by itself

976 makes us laugh.

977 #### 134

978 How useless is painting, which attracts admiration by the

979 resemblance of things, the originals of which we do not admire!

980 #### 135

981 The struggle alone pleases us, not the victory. We love

982 to see animals fighting, not the victor infuriated over the

983 vanquished. We would only see the victorious end; and, as

984 soon as it comes, we are satiated. It is the same in play, and

985 the same in the search for truth. In disputes we like to see the

986 clash of opinions, but not at all to contemplate truth when

987 found. To observe it with pleasure, we have to see it emerge

988 out of strife. So in the passions, there is pleasure in seeing the

989 collision of two contraries; but when one acquires the mastery,

990 it becomes only brutality. We never seek things for themselves,

991 but for the search. Likewise in plays, scenes which do not

992 rouse the emotion of fear are worthless, so are extreme and

993 hopeless misery, brutal lust, and extreme cruelty.

994 #### 136

995 A mere trifle consoles us, for a mere trifle distresses us.[68]

996 #### 137

997 Without examining every particular pursuit, it is enough to

998 comprehend them under diversion.

999 #### 138

1000 Men naturally slaters and of all callings, save in their own

1001 rooms.

1002 #### 139

1003 *Diversion.*—When I have occasionally set myself to consider

1004 the different distractions of men, the pains and perils to which

1005 they expose themselves at court or in war, whence arise so many

1006 quarrels, passions, bold and often bad ventures, etc., I have

1007 discovered that all the unhappiness of men arises from one

1008 single fact, that they cannot stay quietly in their own chamber.

1009 A man who has enough to live on, if he knew how to stay with

1010 pleasure at home, would not leave it to go to sea or to besiege

1011 a town. A commission in the army would not be bought so

1012 dearly, but that it is found insufferable not to budge from the

1013 town; and men only seek conversation and entering games,

1014 because they cannot remain with pleasure at home.

1015 But on further consideration, when, after finding the cause

1016 of all our ills, I have sought to discover the reason of it, I have

1017 found that there is one very real reason, namely, the natural

1018 poverty of our feeble and mortal condition, so miserable that

1019 nothing can comfort us when we think of it closely.

1020 Whatever condition we picture to ourselves, if we muster all

1021 the good things which it is possible to possess, royalty is the

1022 finest position in the world. Yet, when we imagine a king

1023 attended with every pleasure he can feel, if he be without

1024 diversion, and be left to consider and reflect on what he is, this

1025 feeble happiness will not sustain him; he will necessarily fall

1026 into forebodings of dangers, of revolutions which may happen,

1027 and, finally, of death and inevitable disease; so that if he be

1028 without what is called diversion, he is unhappy, and more

1029 unhappy than the least of his subjects who plays and diverts

1030 himself.

1031 Hence it comes that play and the society of women, war, and

1032 high posts, are so sought after. Not that there is in fact any

1033 happiness in them, or that men imagine true bliss to consist in

1034 money won at play, or in the hare which they hunt; we would

1035 not take these as a gift. We do not seek that easy and peaceful

1036 lot which permits us to think of our unhappy condition, nor

1037 the dangers of war, nor the labour of office, but the bustle which

1038 averts these thoughts of ours, and amuses us.

1039 Reasons why we like the chase better than the quarry.

1040 Hence it comes that men so much love noise and stir; hence

1041 it comes that the prison is so horrible a punishment; hence it

1042 comes that the pleasure of solitude is a thing incomprehensible.

1043 And it is in fact the greatest source of happiness in the condition

1044 of kings, that men try incessantly to divert them, and to procure

1045 for them all kinds of pleasures.

1046 The king is surrounded by persons whose only thought is to

1047 divert the king, and to prevent his thinking of self. For he is

1048 unhappy, king though he be, if he think of himself.

1049 This is all that men have been able to discover to make

1050 themselves happy. And those who philosophise on the matter,

1051 and who think men unreasonable for spending a whole day in

1052 chasing a hare which they would not have bought, scarce know

1053 our nature. The hare in itself would not screen us from the sight

1054 of death and calamities; but the chase which turns away our

1055 attention from these, does screen us.

1056 The advice given to Pyrrhus to take the rest which he was

1057 about to seek with so much labour, was full of difficulties.[69]

1058 [To bid a man live quietly is to bid him live happily. It is

1059 to advise him to be in a state perfectly happy, in which he can

1060 think at leisure without finding therein a cause of distress. This

1061 is to misunderstand nature.

1062 As men who naturally understand their own condition avoid

1063 nothing so much as rest, so there is nothing they leave undone

1064 in seeking turmoil. Not that they have an instinctive knowledge

1065 of true happiness ...

1066 So we are wrong in blaming them. Their error does not lie

1067 in seeking excitement, if they seek it only as a diversion; the

1068 evil is that they seek it as if the possession of the objects of their

1069 quest would make them really happy. In this respect it is right

1070 to call their quest a vain one. Hence in all this both the

1071 censurers and the censured do not understand man's true nature.]

1072 And thus, when we take the exception against them, that

1073 what they seek with such fervour cannot satisfy them, if they

1074 replied—as they should do if they considered the matter

1075 thoroughly—that they sought in it only a violent and impetuous

1076 occupation which turned their thoughts from self, and that they

1077 therefore chose an attractive object to charm and ardently

1078 attract them, they would leave their opponents without a reply.

1079 But they do not make this reply, because they do not know

1080 themselves.[70] They do not know that it is the chase, and not the

1081 quarry, which they seek.

1082 Dancing: we must consider rightly where to place our feet.—A

1083 gentleman sincerely believes that hunting is great and royal

1084 sport; but a beater is not of this opinion.

1085 They imagine that if they obtained such a post, they would

1086 then rest with pleasure, and are insensible of the insatiable

1087 nature of their desire. They think they are truly seeking quiet,

1088 and they are only seeking excitement.

1089 They have a secret instinct which impels them to seek amusement

1090 and occupation abroad, and which arises from the sense of

1091 their constant unhappiness. They have another secret instinct,

1092 a remnant of the greatness of our original nature, which teaches

1093 them that happiness in reality consists only in rest, and not in

1094 stir. And of these two contrary instincts they form within

1095 themselves a confused idea, which hides itself from their view

1096 in the depths of their soul, inciting them to aim at rest through

1097 excitement, and always to fancy that the satisfaction which they

1098 have not will come to them, if, by surmounting whatever

1099 difficulties confront them, they can thereby open the door to rest.

1100 Thus passes away all man's life. Men seek rest in a struggle

1101 against difficulties; and when they have conquered these, rest

1102 becomes insufferable. For we think either of the misfortunes

1103 we have or of those which threaten us. And even if we should

1104 see ourselves sufficiently sheltered on all sides, weariness of its

1105 own accord would not fail to arise from the depths of the heart

1106 wherein it has its natural roots, and to fill the mind with its

1107 poison.

1108 Thus so wretched is man that he would weary even without

1109 any cause for weariness from the peculiar state of his disposition;

1110 and so frivolous is he, that, though full of a thousand reasons for

1111 weariness, the least thing, such as playing billiards or hitting a

1112 ball, is sufficient to amuse him.

1113 But will you say what object has he in all this? The pleasure

1114 of bragging to-morrow among his friends that he has played

1115 better than another. So others sweat in their own rooms to

1116 show to the learned that they have solved a problem in algebra,

1117 which no one had hitherto been able to solve. Many more

1118 expose themselves to extreme perils, in my opinion as foolishly,

1119 in order to boast afterwards that they have captured a town.

1120 Lastly, others wear themselves out in studying all these things,

1121 not in order to become wiser, but only in order to prove that

1122 they know them; and these are the most senseless of the band,

1123 since they are so knowingly, whereas one may suppose of the

1124 others, that if they knew it, they would no longer be foolish.

1125 This man spends his life without weariness in playing every

1126 day for a small stake. Give him each morning the money he

1127 can win each day, on condition he does not play; you make him

1128 miserable. It will perhaps be said that he seeks the amusement

1129 of play and not the winnings. Make him then play for

1130 nothing; he will not become excited over it, and will feel bored.

1131 It is then not the amusement alone that he seeks; a languid and

1132 passionless amusement will weary him. He must get excited

1133 over it, and deceive himself by the fancy that he will be happy to

1134 win what he would not have as a gift on condition of not playing;

1135 and he must make for himself an object of passion, and excite

1136 over it his desire, his anger, his fear, to obtain his imagined end,

1137 as children are frightened at the face they have blackened.

1138 Whence comes it that this man, who lost his only son a few

1139 months ago, or who this morning was in such trouble through

1140 being distressed by lawsuits and quarrels, now no longer thinks

1141 of them? Do not wonder; he is quite taken up in looking out

1142 for the boar which his dogs have been hunting so hotly for the

1143 last six hours. He requires nothing more. However full of

1144 sadness a man may be, he is happy for the time, if you can

1145 prevail upon him to enter into some amusement; and however

1146 happy a man may be, he will soon be discontented and wretched,

1147 if he be not diverted and occupied by some passion or pursuit

1148 which prevents weariness from overcoming him. Without

1149 amusement there is no joy; with amusement there is no sadness.

1150 And this also constitutes the happiness of persons in high

1151 position, that they have a number of people to amuse them, and

1152 have the power to keep themselves in this state.

1153 Consider this. What is it to be superintendent, chancellor,

1154 first president, but to be in a condition wherein from early

1155 morning a large number of people come from all quarters to see

1156 them, so as not to leave them an hour in the day in which they

1157 can think of themselves? And when they are in disgrace and

1158 sent back to their country houses, where they lack neither

1159 wealth nor servants to help them on occasion, they do not fail

1160 to be wretched and desolate, because no one prevents them from

1161 thinking of themselves.

1162 #### 140

1163 [How does it happen that this man, so distressed at the death

1164 of his wife and his only son, or who has some great lawsuit

1165 which annoys him, is not at this moment sad, and that he seems

1166 so free from all painful and disquieting thoughts? We need not

1167 wonder; for a ball has been served him, and he must return it

1168 to his companion. He is occupied in catching it in its fall from

1169 the roof, to win a game. How can he think of his own affairs,

1170 pray, when he has this other matter in hand? Here is a care

1171 worthy of occupying this great soul, and taking away from him

1172 every other thought of the mind. This man, born to know the

1173 universe, to judge all causes, to govern a whole state, is altogether

1174 occupied and taken up with the business of catching a

1175 hare. And if he does not lower himself to this, and wants

1176 always to be on the strain, he will be more foolish still, because

1177 he would raise himself above humanity; and after all he is only

1178 a man, that is to say capable of little and of much, of all and of

1179 nothing; he is neither angel nor brute, but man.]

1180 #### 141

1181 Men spend their time in following a ball or a hare; it is the

1182 pleasure even of kings.

1183 #### 142

1184 *Diversion.*—Is not the royal dignity sufficiently great in

1185 itself to make its possessor happy by the mere contemplation

1186 of what he is? Must he be diverted from this thought like

1187 ordinary folk? I see well that a man is made happy by diverting

1188 him from the view of his domestic sorrows so as to occupy all

1189 his thoughts with the care of dancing well. But will it be the

1190 same with a king, and will he be happier in the pursuit of these

1191 idle amusements than in the contemplation of his greatness?

1192 And what more satisfactory object could be presented to his

1193 mind? Would it not be a deprivation of his delight for him to

1194 occupy his soul with the thought of how to adjust his steps to

1195 the cadence of an air, or of how to throw a [ball] skilfully,

1196 instead of leaving it to enjoy quietly the contemplation of the

1197 majestic glory which encompasses him? Let us make the trial;

1198 let us leave a king all alone to reflect on himself quite at leisure,

1199 without any gratification of the senses, without any care in his

1200 mind, without society; and we will see that a king without

1201 diversion is a man full of wretchedness. So this is carefully

1202 avoided, and near the persons of kings there never fail to be a

1203 great number of people who see to it that amusement follows

1204 business, and who watch all the time of their leisure to supply

1205 them with delights and games, so that there is no blank in it.

1206 In fact, kings are surrounded with persons who are wonderfully

1207 attentive in taking care that the king be not alone and in a state

1208 to think of himself, knowing well that he will be miserable, king

1209 though he be, if he meditate on self.

1210 In all this I am not talking of Christian kings as Christians,

1211 but only as kings.

1212 #### 143

1213 *Diversion.*—Men are entrusted from infancy with the care of

1214 their honour, their property, their friends, and even with the

1215 property and the honour of their friends. They are overwhelmed

1216 with business, with the study of languages, and with

1217 physical exercise;[71] and they are made to understand that they

1218 cannot be happy unless their health, their honour, their fortune

1219 and that of their friends be in good condition, and that a single

1220 thing wanting will make them unhappy. Thus they are given

1221 cares and business which make them bustle about from break of

1222 day.—It is, you will exclaim, a strange way to make them happy!

1223 What more could be done to make them miserable?—Indeed!

1224 what could be done? We should only have to relieve them from

1225 all these cares; for then they would see themselves: they would

1226 reflect on what they are, whence they came, whither they go,

1227 and thus we cannot employ and divert them too much. And

1228 this is why, after having given them so much business, we

1229 advise them, if they have some time for relaxation, to employ

1230 it in amusement, in play, and to be always fully occupied.

1231 How hollow and full of ribaldry is the heart of man!

1232 #### 144

1233 I spent a long time in the study of the abstract sciences, and

1234 was disheartened by the small number of fellow-students in

1235 them. When I commenced the study of man, I saw that these

1236 abstract sciences are not suited to man, and that I was wandering

1237 farther from my own state in examining them, than others in

1238 not knowing them. I pardoned their little knowledge; but I

1239 thought at least to find many companions in the study of man,

1240 and that it was the true study which is suited to him. I have

1241 been deceived; still fewer study it than geometry. It is only

1242 from the want of knowing how to study this that we seek the

1243 other studies. But is it not that even here is not the knowledge

1244 which man should have, and that for the purpose of happiness

1245 it is better for him not to know himself?

1246 #### 145

1247 [One thought alone occupies us; we cannot think of two

1248 things at the same time. This is lucky for us according to the

1249 world, not according to God.]

1250 #### 146

1251 Man is obviously made to think. It is his whole dignity and

1252 his whole merit; and his whole duty is to think as he ought.

1253 Now, the order of thought is to begin with self, and with its

1254 Author and its end.

1255 Now, of what does the world think? Never of this, but of

1256 dancing, playing the lute, singing, making verses, running at

1257 the ring, etc., fighting, making oneself king, without thinking

1258 what it is to be a king and what to be a man.

1259 #### 147

1260 We do not content ourselves with the life we have in ourselves

1261 and in our own being; we desire to live an imaginary life in the

1262 mind of others, and for this purpose we endeavour to shine. We

1263 labour unceasingly to adorn and preserve this imaginary

1264 existence, and neglect the real. And if we possess calmness,

1265 or generosity, or truthfulness, we are eager to make it known,

1266 so as to attach these virtues to that imaginary existence. We

1267 would rather separate them from ourselves to join them to it;

1268 and we would willingly be cowards in order to acquire the

1269 reputation of being brave. A great proof of the nothingness

1270 of our being, not to be satisfied with the one without the other,

1271 and to renounce the one for the other! For he would be infamous

1272 who would not die to preserve his honour.

1273 #### 148

1274 We are so presumptuous that we would wish to be known by

1275 all the world, even by people who shall come after, when we

1276 shall be no more; and we are so vain that the esteem of five or

1277 six neighbours delights and contents us.

1278 #### 149

1279 We do not trouble ourselves about being esteemed in the

1280 towns through which we pass. But if we are to remain a little

1281 while there, we are so concerned. How long is necessary? A

1282 time commensurate with our vain and paltry life.

1283 #### 150

1284 Vanity is so anchored in the heart of man that a soldier, a

1285 soldier's servant, a cook, a porter brags, and wishes to have

1286 his admirers. Even philosophers wish for them. Those who

1287 write against it want to have the glory of having written well;[72]

1288 and those who read it desire the glory of having read it. I who

1289 write this have perhaps this desire, and perhaps those who will

1290 read it ...

1291 #### 151

1292 *Glory.*—Admiration spoils all from infancy. Ah! How well

1293 said! Ah! How well done! How well-behaved he is! etc.

1294 The children of Port-Royal, who do not receive this stimulus

1295 of envy and glory, fall into carelessness.

1296 #### 152

1297 *Pride.*—Curiosity is only vanity. Most frequently we wish

1298 to know but to talk. Otherwise we would not take a sea

1299 voyage in order never to talk of it, and for the sole pleasure of

1300 seeing without hope of ever communicating it.

1301 #### 153

1302 *Of the desire of being esteemed by those with whom we are.*—Pride

1303 takes such natural possession of us in the midst of our

1304 woes, errors, etc. We even lose our life with joy, provided

1305 people talk of it.

1306 Vanity: play, hunting, visiting, false shame, a lasting name.

1307 #### 154

1308 [I have no friends] to your advantage].

1309 #### 155

1310 A true friend is so great an advantage, even for the greatest

1311 lords, in order that he may speak well of them, and back them

1312 in their absence, that they should do all to have one. But they

1313 should choose well; for, if they spend all their efforts in the

1314 interests of fools, it will be of no use, however well these may

1315 speak of them; and these will not even speak well of them if

1316 they find themselves on the weakest side, for they have no

1317 influence; and thus they will speak ill of them in company.

1318 #### 156

1319 *Ferox gens, nullam esse vitam sine armis rati.*[73]—They prefer

1320 death to peace; others prefer death to war.

1321 Every opinion may be held preferable to life, the love of which

1322 is so strong and so natural.[74]

1323 #### 157

1324 Contradiction: contempt for our existence, to die for nothing,

1325 hatred of our existence.

1326 #### 158

1327 *Pursuits.*—The charm of fame is so great, that we like every

1328 object to which it is attached, even death.

1329 #### 159

1330 Noble deeds are most estimable when hidden. When I see

1331 some of these in history (as p. 184)[75], they please me greatly.

1332 But after all they have not been quite hidden, since they have

1333 been known; and though people have done what they could to

1334 hide them, the little publication of them spoils all, for what was

1335 best in them was the wish to hide them.

1336 #### 160

1337 Sneezing absorbs all the functions of the soul, as well as

1338 work does; but we do not draw therefrom the same conclusions

1339 against the greatness of man, because it is against his will. And

1340 although we bring it on ourselves, it is nevertheless against our

1341 will that we sneeze. It is not in view of the act itself; it is for

1342 another end. And thus it is not a proof of the weakness of man,

1343 and of his slavery under that action.

1344 It is not disgraceful for man to yield to pain, and it is disgraceful

1345 to yield to pleasure. This is not because pain comes

1346 to us from without, and we ourselves seek pleasure; for it is

1347 possible to seek pain, and yield to it purposely, without this

1348 kind of baseness. Whence comes it, then, that reason thinks

1349 it honourable to succumb under stress of pain, and disgraceful

1350 to yield to the attack of pleasure? It is because pain does not

1351 tempt and attract us. It is we ourselves who choose it voluntarily,

1352 and will it to prevail over us. So that we are masters of

1353 the situation; and in this man yields to himself. But in pleasure

1354 it is man who yields to pleasure. Now only mastery and

1355 sovereignty bring glory, and only slavery brings shame.

1356 #### 161

1357 *Vanity.*—How wonderful it is that a thing so evident as the

1358 vanity of the world is so little known, that it is a strange and

1359 surprising thing to say that it is foolish to seek greatness!

1360 #### 162

1361 He who will know fully the vanity of man has only to consider

1362 the causes and effects of love. The cause is a *je ne sais

1363 quoi* (Corneille),[76] and the effects are dreadful. This *je ne sais

1364 quoi*, so small an object that we cannot recognise it, agitates a

1365 whole country, princes, armies, the entire world.

1366 Cleopatra's nose: had it been shorter, the whole aspect of the

1367 world would have been altered.

1368 #### 163

1369 *Vanity.*—The cause and the effects of love: Cleopatra.

1370 #### 164

1371 He who does not see the vanity of the world is himself very

1372 vain. Indeed who do not see it but youths who are absorbed

1373 in fame, diversion, and the thought of the future? But take

1374 away diversion, and you will see them dried up with weariness.

1375 They feel then their nothingness without knowing it; for it is

1376 indeed to be unhappy to be in insufferable sadness as soon as

1377 we are reduced to thinking of self, and have no diversion.

1378 #### 165

1379 *Thoughts.*—*In omnibus requiem quæsivi.*[77] If our condition

1380 were truly happy, we would not need diversion from thinking

1381 of it in order to make ourselves happy.

1382 #### 166

1383 *Diversion.*—Death is easier to bear without thinking of it,

1384 than is the thought of death without peril.

1385 #### 167

1386 The miseries of human life have established all this: as men

1387 have seen this, they have taken up diversion.

1388 #### 168

1389 *Diversion.*—As men are not able to fight against death,

1390 misery, ignorance, they have taken it into their heads, in order

1391 to be happy, not to think of them at all.

1392 #### 169

1393 Despite these miseries, man wishes to be happy, and only

1394 wishes to be happy, and cannot wish not to be so. But how

1395 will he set about it? To be happy he would have to make himself

1396 immortal; but, not being able to do so, it has occurred to

1397 him to prevent himself from thinking of death.

1398 #### 170

1399 *Diversion.*—If man were happy, he would be the more so,

1400 the less he was diverted, like the Saints and God.—Yes; but

1401 is it not to be happy to have a faculty of being amused by

1402 diversion?—No; for that comes from elsewhere and from

1403 without, and thus is dependent, and therefore subject to be

1404 disturbed by a thousand accidents, which bring inevitable griefs.

1405 #### 171

1406 *Misery.*—The only thing which consoles us for our miseries

1407 is diversion, and yet this it the greatest of our miseries. For it

1408 is this which principally hinders us from reflecting upon ourselves,

1409 and which makes us insensibly ruin ourselves. Without

1410 this we should be in a state of weariness, and this weariness

1411 would spur us to seek a more solid means of escaping from it.

1412 But diversion amuses us, and leads us unconsciously to death.

1413 #### 172

1414 We do not rest satisfied with the present. We anticipate

1415 the future as too slow in coming, as if in order to hasten its

1416 course; or we recall the past, to stop its too rapid flight. So

1417 imprudent are we that we wander in the times which are not

1418 ours, and do not think of the only one which belongs to us; and

1419 so idle are we that we dream of those times which are no more,

1420 and thoughtlessly overlook that which alone exists. For the

1421 present is generally painful to us. We conceal it from our sight,

1422 because it troubles us; and if it be delightful to us, we regret to

1423 see it pass away. We try to sustain it by the future, and think

1424 of arranging matters which are not in our power, for a time

1425 which we have no certainty of reaching.

1426 Let each one examine his thoughts, and he will find them all

1427 occupied with the past and the future. We scarcely ever think

1428 of the present; and if we think of it, it is only to take light from

1429 it to arrange the future. The present is never our end. The

1430 past and the present are our means; the future alone is our end.[78]

1431 So we never live, but we hope to live; and, as we are always

1432 preparing to be happy, it is inevitable we should never be so.

1433 #### 173

1434 They say that eclipses foretoken misfortune, because misfortunes

1435 are common, so that, as evil happens so often, they

1436 often foretell it; whereas if they said that they predict good

1437 fortune, they would often be wrong. They attribute good

1438 fortune only to rare conjunctions of the heavens; so they seldom

1439 fail in prediction.

1440 #### 174

1441 *Misery.*—Solomon[79] and Job have best known and best spoken

1442 of the misery of man; the former the most fortunate, and the

1443 latter the most unfortunate of men; the former knowing the

1444 vanity of pleasures from experience, the latter the reality of evils.

1445 #### 175

1446 We know ourselves so little, that many think they are about

1447 to die when they are well, and many think they are well when

1448 they are near death, unconscious of approaching fever,[80] or of the

1449 abscess ready to form itself.

1450 #### 176

1451 Cromwell[81] was about to ravage all Christendom; the royal

1452 family was undone, and his own for ever established, save for

1453 a little grain of sand which formed in his ureter. Rome herself

1454 was trembling under him; but this small piece of gravel having

1455 formed there, he is dead, his family cast down, all is peaceful,

1456 and the king is restored.

1457 #### 177

1458 [Three hosts.[82]] Would he who had possessed the friendship

1459 of the King of England, the King of Poland, and the Queen of

1460 Sweden, have believed he would lack a refuge and shelter in

1461 the world?

1462 #### 178

1463 Macrobius:[83] on the innocents slain by Herod.

1464 #### 179

1465 When Augustus learnt that Herod's own son was amongst

1466 the infants under two years of age, whom he had caused to be

1467 slain, he said that it was better to be Herod's pig than his

1468 son.—Macrobius, *Sat.*, book ii, chap. 4.

1469 #### 180

1470 The great and the humble have the same misfortunes, the

1471 same griefs, the same passions;[84] but the one is at the top of the

1472 wheel, and the other near the centre, and so less disturbed by

1473 the same revolutions.

1474 #### 181

1475 We are so unfortunate that we can only take pleasure in a

1476 thing on condition of being annoyed if it turn out ill, as a

1477 thousand things can do, and do every hour. He who should

1478 find the secret of rejoicing in the good, without troubling

1479 himself with its contrary evil, would have hit the mark. It is

1480 perpetual motion.

1481 #### 182

1482 Those who have always good hope in the midst of misfortunes,

1483 and who are delighted with good luck, are suspected of being

1484 very pleased with the ill success of the affair, if they are not

1485 equally distressed by bad luck; and they are overjoyed to find

1486 these pretexts of hope, in order to show that they are concerned

1487 and to conceal by the joy which they feign to feel that which

1488 they have at seeing the failure of the matter.

1489 #### 183

1490 We run carelessly to the precipice, after we have put something

1491 before us to prevent us seeing it.

SECTION III

19 (Texto do capítulo)

OF THE NECESSITY OF THE WAGER

22 #### 184

23 A letter to incite to the search after God.

24 And then to make people seek Him among the philosophers,

25 sceptics, and dogmatists, who disquiet him who inquires of them.

26 #### 185

27 The conduct of God, who disposes all things kindly, is to

28 put religion into the mind by reason, and into the heart by

29 grace. But to will to put it into the mind and heart by force

30 and threats is not to put religion there, but terror, *terorrem

31 potius quam religionem*.

32 #### 186

33 *Nisi terrerentur et non docerentur, improba quasi dominatio

34 videretur* (Aug., Ep. 48 or 49), *Contra Mendacium ad Consentium*.

35 #### 187

36 *Order.*—Men despise religion; they hate it, and fear it is true.

37 To remedy this, we must begin by showing that religion is not

38 contrary to reason; that it is venerable, to inspire respect for

39 it; then we must make it lovable, to make good men hope it is

40 true; finally, we must prove it is true.

41 Venerable, because it has perfect knowledge of man; lovable,

42 because it promises the true good.

43 #### 188

44 In every dialogue and discourse, we must be able to say to

45 those who take offence, "Of what do you complain?"

46 #### 189

47 To begin by pitying unbelievers; they are wretched enough

48 by their condition. We ought only to revile them where it is

49 beneficial; but this does them harm.

50 #### 190

51 To pity atheists who seek, for are they not unhappy enough?

52 To inveigh against those who make a boast of it.

53 #### 191

54 And will this one scoff at the other? Who ought to scoff?

55 And yet, the latter does not scoff at the other, but pities him.

56 #### 192

57 To reproach Miton[85] with not being troubled, since God will

58 reproach him.

59 #### 193

60 *Quid fiet hominibus qui minima contemnunt, majora non

61 credunt?*

62 #### 194

63 ... Let them at least learn what is the religion they attack,

64 before attacking it. If this religion boasted of having a clear

65 view of God, and of possessing it open and unveiled, it would be

66 attacking it to say that we see nothing in the world which shows

67 it with this clearness. But since, on the contrary, it says that

68 men are in darkness and estranged from God, that He has

69 hidden Himself from their knowledge, that this is in fact the

70 name which He gives Himself in the Scriptures, *Deus absconditus*;[86]

71 and finally, if it endeavours equally to establish these two

72 things: that God has set up in the Church visible signs to make

73 Himself known to those who should seek Him sincerely, and

74 that He has nevertheless so disguised them that He will only be

75 perceived by those who seek Him with all their heart; what

76 advantage can they obtain, when, in the negligence with which

77 they make profession of being in search of the truth, they cry

78 out that nothing reveals it to them; and since that darkness in

79 which they are, and with which they upbraid the Church,

80 establishes only one of the things which she affirms, without

81 touching the other, and, very far from destroying, proves her

82 doctrine?

83 In order to attack it, they should have protested that they had

84 made every effort to seek Him everywhere, and even in that

85 which the Church proposes for their instruction, but without

86 satisfaction. If they talked in this manner, they would in

87 truth be attacking one of her pretensions. But I hope here to

88 show that no reasonable person can speak thus, and I venture

89 even to say that no one has ever done so. We know well

90 enough how those who are of this mind behave. They believe

91 they have made great efforts for their instruction, when they

92 have spent a few hours in reading some book of Scripture, and

93 have questioned some priest on the truths of the faith. After

94 that, they boast of having made vain search in books and among

95 men. But, verily, I will tell them what I have often said, that

96 this negligence is insufferable. We are not here concerned

97 with the trifling interests of some stranger, that we should treat

98 it in this fashion; the matter concerns ourselves and our all.

99 The immortality of the soul is a matter which is of so great

100 consequence to us, and which touches us so profoundly, that we

101 must have lost all feeling to be indifferent as to knowing what

102 it is. All our actions and thoughts must take such different

103 courses, according as there are or are not eternal joys to hope

104 for, that it is impossible to take one step with sense and judgment,

105 unless we regulate our course by our view of this point

106 which ought to be our ultimate end.

107 Thus our first interest and our first duty is to enlighten ourselves

108 on this subject, whereon depends all our conduct. Therefore

109 among those who do not believe, I make a vast difference

110 between those who strive with all their power to inform themselves,

111 and those who live without troubling or thinking about it.

112 I can have only compassion for those who sincerely bewail

113 their doubt, who regard it as the greatest of misfortunes, and

114 who, sparing no effort to escape it, make of this inquiry their

115 principal and most serious occupations.

116 But as for those who pass their life without thinking of this

117 ultimate end of life, and who, for this sole reason that they do

118 not find within themselves the lights which convince them of it,

119 neglect to seek them elsewhere, and to examine thoroughly

120 whether this opinion is one of those which people receive with

121 credulous simplicity, or one of those which, although obscure in

122 themselves, have nevertheless a solid and immovable foundation,

123 I look upon them in a manner quite different.

124 This carelessness in a matter which concerns themselves,

125 their eternity, their all, moves me more to anger than pity; it

126 astonishes and shocks me; it is to me monstrous. I do not say

127 this out of the pious zeal of a spiritual devotion. I expect, on

128 the contrary, that we ought to have this feeling from principles

129 of human interest and self-love; for this we need only see what

130 the least enlightened persons see.

131 We do not require great education of the mind to understand

132 that here is no real and lasting satisfaction; that our pleasures

133 are only vanity; that our evils are infinite; and, lastly, that

134 death, which threatens us every moment, must infallibly place

135 us within a few years under the dreadful necessity of being for

136 ever either annihilated or unhappy.

137 There is nothing more real than this, nothing more terrible.

138 Be we as heroic as we like, that is the end which awaits the noblest

139 life in the world. Let us reflect on this, and then say whether

140 it is not beyond doubt that there is no good in this life but in the

141 hope of another; that we are happy only in proportion as we

142 draw near it; and that, as there are no more woes for those who

143 have complete assurance of eternity, so there is no more happiness

144 for those who have no insight into it.

145 Surely then it is a great evil thus to be in doubt, but it is at

146 least an indispensable duty to seek when we are in such doubt;

147 and thus the doubter who does not seek is altogether completely

148 unhappy and completely wrong. And if besides this he is easy

149 and content, professes to be so, and indeed boasts of it; if it is this

150 state itself which is the subject of his joy and vanity, I have no

151 words to describe so silly a creature.

152 How can people hold these opinions? What joy can we find

153 in the expectation of nothing but hopeless misery? What

154 reason for boasting that we are in impenetrable darkness?

155 And how can it happen that the following argument occurs to

156 a reasonable man?

157 "I know not who put me into the world, nor what the world

158 is, nor what I myself am. I am in terrible ignorance of everything.

159 I know not what my body is, nor my senses, nor my

160 soul, not even that part of me which thinks what I say, which

161 reflects on all and on itself, and knows itself no more than the

162 rest. I see those frightful spaces of the universe which surround

163 me, and I find myself tied to one corner of this vast expanse,

164 without knowing why I am put in this place rather than in

165 another, nor why the short time which is given me to live is

166 assigned to me at this point rather than at another of the whole

167 eternity which was before me or which shall come after me. I

168 see nothing but infinites on all sides, which surround me as an

169 atom, and as a shadow which endures only for an instant and

170 returns no more. All I know is that I must soon die, but what

171 I know least is this very death which I cannot escape.

172 "As I know not whence I come, so I know not whither I go.

173 I know only that, in leaving this world, I fall for ever either

174 into annihilation or into the hands of an angry God, without

175 knowing to which of these two states I shall be for ever assigned.

176 Such is my state, full of weakness and uncertainty. And from

177 all this I conclude that I ought to spend all the days of my life

178 without caring to inquire into what must happen to me. Perhaps

179 I might find some solution to my doubts, but I will not

180 take the trouble, nor take a step to seek it; and after treating

181 with scorn those who are concerned with this care, I will go

182 without foresight and without fear to try the great event, and

183 let myself be led carelessly to death, uncertain of the eternity

184 of my future state."

185 Who would desire to have for a friend a man who talks in this

186 fashion? Who would choose him out from others to tell him

187 of his affairs? Who would have recourse to him in affliction?

188 And indeed to what use in life could one put him?

189 In truth, it is the glory of religion to have for enemies men so

190 unreasonable: and their opposition to it is so little dangerous

191 that it serves on the contrary to establish its truths. For the

192 Christian faith goes mainly to establish these two facts, the

193 corruption of nature, and redemption by Jesus Christ. Now I

194 contend that if these men do not serve to prove the truth of the

195 redemption by the holiness of their behaviour, they at least

196 serve admirably to show the corruption of nature by sentiments

197 so unnatural.

198 Nothing is so important to man as his own state, nothing is

199 so formidable to him as eternity; and thus it is not natural that

200 there should be men indifferent to the loss of their existence, and

201 to the perils of everlasting suffering. They are quite different

202 with regard to all other things. They are afraid of mere trifles;

203 they foresee them; they feel them. And this same man who

204 spends so many days and nights in rage and despair for the loss

205 of office, or for some imaginary insult to his honour, is the very

206 one who knows without anxiety and without emotion that he

207 will lose all by death. It is a monstrous thing to see in the

208 same heart and at the same time this sensibility to trifles and

209 this strange insensibility to the greatest objects. It is an

210 incomprehensible enchantment, and a supernatural slumber,

211 which indicates as its cause an all-powerful force.

212 There must be a strange confusion in the nature of man, that

213 he should boast of being in that state in which it seems incredible

214 that a single individual should be. However, experience has

215 shown me so great a number of such persons that the fact would

216 be surprising, if we did not know that the greater part of those

217 who trouble themselves about the matter are disingenuous, and

218 not in fact what they say. They are people who have heard it

219 said that it is the fashion to be thus daring. It is what they

220 call shaking off the yoke, and they try to imitate this. But it

221 would not be difficult to make them understand how greatly

222 they deceive themselves in thus seeking esteem. This is not

223 the way to gain it, even I say among those men of the world

224 who take a healthy view of things, and who know that the only

225 way to succeed in this life is to make ourselves appear honourable,

226 faithful, judicious, and capable of useful service to a friend;

227 because naturally men love only what may be useful to them.

228 Now, what do we gain by hearing it said of a man that he has

229 now thrown off the yoke, that he does not believe there is a God

230 who watches our actions, that he considers himself the sole

231 master of his conduct, and that he thinks he is accountable for

232 it only to himself? Does he think that he has thus brought us

233 to have henceforth complete confidence in him, and to look to

234 him for consolation, advice, and help in every need of life? Do

235 they profess to have delighted us by telling us that they hold

236 our soul to be only a little wind and smoke, especially by telling

237 us this in a haughty and self-satisfied tone of voice? Is this a

238 thing to say gaily? Is it not, on the contrary, a thing to say

239 sadly, as the saddest thing in the world?

240 If they thought of it seriously, they would see that this is so

241 bad a mistake, so contrary to good sense, so opposed to decency

242 and so removed in every respect from that good breeding which

243 they seek, that they would be more likely to correct than to

244 pervert those who had an inclination to follow them. And

245 indeed, make them give an account of their opinions, and of the

246 reasons which they have for doubting religion, and they will

247 say to you things so feeble and so petty, that they will persuade

248 you of the contrary. The following is what a person one day

249 said to such a one very appositely: "If you continue to talk

250 in this manner, you will really make me religious." And he

251 was right, for who would not have a horror of holding opinions in

252 which he would have such contemptible persons as companions!

253 Thus those who only feign these opinions would be very

254 unhappy, if they restrained their natural feelings in order to

255 make themselves the most conceited of men. If, at the bottom

256 of their heart, they are troubled at not having more light, let

257 them not disguise the fact; this avowal will not be shameful.

258 The only shame is to have none. Nothing reveals more an

259 extreme weakness of mind than not to know the misery of a

260 godless man. Nothing is more indicative of a bad disposition of

261 heart than not to desire the truth of eternal promises. Nothing

262 is more dastardly than to act with bravado before God. Let

263 them then leave these impieties to those who are sufficiently ill-bred

264 to be really capable of them. Let them at least be honest

265 men, if they cannot be Christians. Finally, let them recognise

266 that there are two kinds of people one can call reasonable; those

267 who serve God with all their heart because they know Him, and

268 those who seek Him with all their heart because they do not

269 know Him.

270 But as for those who live without knowing Him and without

271 seeking Him, they judge themselves so little worthy of their own

272 care, that they are not worthy of the care of others; and it needs

273 all the charity of the religion which they despise, not to despise

274 them even to the point of leaving them to their folly. But because

275 this religion obliges us always to regard them, so long as

276 they are in this life, as capable of the grace which can enlighten

277 them, and to believe that they may, in a little time, be more

278 replenished with faith than we are, and that, on the other hand,

279 we may fall into the blindness wherein they are, we must do

280 for them what we would they should do for us if we were in

281 their place, and call upon them to have pity upon themselves,

282 and to take at least some steps in the endeavour to find light.

283 Let them give to reading this some of the hours which they

284 otherwise employ so uselessly; whatever aversion they may

285 bring to the task, they will perhaps gain something, and at

286 least will not lose much. But as for those who bring to the task

287 perfect sincerity and a real desire to meet with truth, those I

288 hope will be satisfied and convinced of the proofs of a religion

289 so divine, which I have here collected, and in which I have

290 followed somewhat after this order ...

291 #### 195

292 Before entering into the proofs of the Christian religion, I find

293 it necessary to point out the sinfulness of those men who live in

294 indifference to the search for truth in a matter which is so

295 important to them, and which touches them so nearly.

296 Of all their errors, this doubtless is the one which most

297 convicts them of foolishness and blindness, and in which it is

298 easiest to confound them by the first glimmerings of common

299 sense, and by natural feelings.

300 For it is not to be doubted that the duration of this life is but

301 a moment; that the state of death is eternal, whatever may be

302 its nature; and that thus all our actions and thoughts must

303 take such different directions according to the state of that

304 eternity, that it is impossible to take one step with sense and

305 judgment, unless we regulate our course by the truth of that

306 point which ought to be our ultimate end.

307 There is nothing clearer than this; and thus, according to the

308 principles of reason, the conduct of men is wholly unreasonable,

309 if they do not take another course.

310 On this point, therefore, we condemn those who live without

311 thought of the ultimate end of life, who let themselves be guided

312 by their own inclinations and their own pleasures without

313 reflection and without concern, and, as if they could annihilate

314 eternity by turning away their thought from it, think only of

315 making themselves happy for the moment.

316 Yet this eternity exists, and death, which must open into it,

317 and threatens them every hour, must in a little time infallibly

318 put them under the dreadful necessity of being either annihilated

319 or unhappy for ever, without knowing which of these eternities

320 is for ever prepared for them.

321 This is a doubt of terrible consequence. They are in peril of

322 eternal woe; and thereupon, as if the matter were not worth

323 the trouble, they neglect to inquire whether this is one of those

324 opinions which people receive with too credulous a facility, or

325 one of those which, obscure in themselves, have a very firm,

326 though hidden, foundation. Thus they know not whether

327 there be truth or falsity in the matter, nor whether there be

328 strength or weakness in the proofs. They have them before

329 their eyes; they refuse to look at them; and in that ignorance

330 they choose all that is necessary to fall into this misfortune if

331 it exists, to await death to make trial of it, yet to be very

332 content in this state, to make profession of it, and indeed to

333 boast of it. Can we think seriously on the importance of this

334 subject without being horrified at conduct so extravagant?

335 This resting in ignorance is a monstrous thing, and they who

336 pass their life in it must be made to feel its extravagance and

337 stupidity, by having it shown to them, so that they may be

338 confounded by the sight of their folly. For this is how men

339 reason, when they choose to live in such ignorance of what they

340 are, and without seeking enlightenment. "I know not," they

341 say ...

342 #### 196

343 Men lack heart; they would not make a friend of it.

344 #### 197

345 To be insensible to the extent of despising interesting things,

346 and to become insensible to the point which interests us most.

347 #### 198

348 The sensibility of man to trifles, and his insensibility to great

349 things, indicates a strange inversion.

350 #### 199

351 Let us imagine a number of men in chains, and all condemned

352 to death, where some are killed each day in the sight of the

353 others, and those who remain see their own fate in that of their

354 fellows, and wait their turn, looking at each other sorrowfully

355 and without hope. It is an image of the condition of men.

356 #### 200

357 A man in a dungeon, ignorant whether his sentence be

358 pronounced, and having only one hour to learn it, but this

359 hour enough, if he know that it is pronounced, to obtain its

360 repeal, would act unnaturally in spending that hour, not in

361 ascertaining his sentence, but in playing piquet. So it is against

362 nature that man, etc. It is making heavy the hand of God.

363 Thus not only the zeal of those who seek Him proves God,

364 but also the blindness of those who seek Him not.

365 #### 201

366 All the objections of this one and that one only go against

367 themselves, and not against religion. All that infidels say ...

368 #### 202

369 [From those who are in despair at being without faith, we

370 see that God does not enlighten them; but as to the rest, we

371 see there is a God who makes them blind.]

372 #### 203

373 *Fascinatio nugacitatis.*[87]—That passion may not harm us,

374 let us act as if we had only eight hours to live.

375 #### 204

376 If we ought to devote eight hours of life, we ought to devote

377 a hundred years.

378 #### 205

379 When I consider the short duration of my life, swallowed up

380 in the eternity before and after, the little space which I fill, and

381 even can see, engulfed in the infinite immensity of spaces of

382 which I am ignorant, and which know me not, I am frightened,

383 and am astonished at being here rather than there; for there is

384 no reason why here rather than there, why now rather than

385 then. Who has put me here? By whose order and direction

386 have this place and time been allotted to me? *Memoria hospitis

387 unius diei prætereuntis.*[88]

388 #### 206

389 The eternal silence of these infinite spaces frightens me.

390 #### 207

391 How many kingdoms know us not!

392 #### 208

393 Why is my knowledge limited? Why my stature? Why my

394 life to one hundred years rather than to a thousand? What

395 reason has nature had for giving me such, and for choosing this

396 number rather than another in the infinity of those from which

397 there is no more reason to choose one than another, trying

398 nothing else?

399 #### 209

400 Art thou less a slave by being loved and favoured by thy

401 master? Thou art indeed well off, slave. Thy master favours

402 thee; he will soon beat thee.

403 #### 210

404 The last act is tragic, however happy all the rest of the play

405 is; at the last a little earth is thrown upon our head, and that

406 is the end for ever.

407 #### 211

408 We are fools to depend upon the society of our fellow-men.

409 Wretched as we are, powerless as we are, they will not aid us;

410 we shall die alone. We should therefore act as if we were alone,

411 and in that case should we build fine houses, etc.? We should

412 seek the truth without hesitation; and, if we refuse it, we show

413 that we value the esteem of men more than the search for truth.

414 #### 212

415 *Instability.*[89]—It is a horrible thing to feel all that we possess

416 slipping away.

417 #### 213

418 Between us and heaven or hell there is only life, which is the

419 frailest thing in the world.

420 #### 214

421 *Injustice.*—That presumption should be joined to meanness

422 is extreme injustice.

423 #### 215

424 To fear death without danger, and not in danger, for one

425 must be a man.

426 #### 216

427 Sudden death alone is feared; hence confessors stay with lords.

428 #### 217

429 An heir finds the title-deeds of his house. Will he say,

430 "Perhaps they are forged?" and neglect to examine them?

431 #### 218

432 *Dungeon.*—I approve of not examining the opinion of

433 Copernicus; but this...! It concerns all our life to know

434 whether the soul be mortal or immortal.

435 #### 219

436 It is certain that the mortality or immortality of the soul

437 must make an entire difference to morality. And yet philosophers

438 have constructed their ethics independently of this: they discuss

439 to pass an hour.

440 Plato, to incline to Christianity.

441 #### 220

442 The fallacy of philosophers who have not discussed the

443 immortality of the soul. The fallacy of their dilemma in

444 Montaigne.

445 #### 221

446 Atheists ought to say what is perfectly evident; now it is not

447 perfectly evident that the soul is material.

448 #### 222

449 *Atheists.*—What reason have they for saying that we cannot

450 rise from the dead? What is more difficult, to be born or to

451 rise again; that what has never been should be, or that what

452 has been should be again? Is it more difficult to come into

453 existence than to return to it? Habit makes the one appear

454 easy to us; want of habit makes the other impossible. A

455 popular way of thinking!

456 Why cannot a virgin bear a child? Does a hen not lay eggs

457 without a cock? What distinguishes these outwardly from

458 others? And who has told us that the hen may not form the

459 germ as well as the cock?

460 #### 223

461 What have they to say against the resurrection, and against

462 the child-bearing of the Virgin? Which is the more difficult, to

463 produce a man or an animal, or to reproduce it? And if they

464 had never seen any species of animals, could they have conjectured

465 whether they were produced without connection with

466 each other?

467 #### 224

468 How I hate these follies of not believing in the Eucharist, etc.!

469 If the Gospel be true, if Jesus Christ be God, what difficulty

470 is there?

471 #### 225

472 Atheism shows strength of mind, but only to a certain degree.

473 #### 226

474 Infidels, who profess to follow reason, ought to be exceedingly

475 strong in reason. What say they then? "Do we not see," say

476 they, "that the brutes live and die like men, and Turks like

477 Christians? They have their ceremonies, their prophets, their

478 doctors, their saints, their monks, like us," etc. (Is this contrary

479 to Scripture? Does it not say all this?)

480 If you care but little to know the truth, here is enough of it

481 to leave you in repose. But if you desire with all your heart

482 to know it, it is not enough; look at it in detail. This would be

483 sufficient for a question in philosophy; but not here, where it

484 concerns your all. And yet, after a trifling reflection of this

485 kind, we go to amuse ourselves, etc. Let us inquire of this

486 same religion whether it does not give a reason for this obscurity;

487 perhaps it will teach it to us.

488 #### 227

489 *Order by dialogues.*—What ought I to do? I see only darkness

490 everywhere. Shall I believe I am nothing? Shall I believe I

491 am God?

492 "All things change and succeed each other." You are mistaken;

493 there is ...

494 #### 228

495 Objection of atheists: "But we have no light."

496 #### 229

497 This is what I see and what troubles me. I look on all sides,

498 and I see only darkness everywhere. Nature presents to me

499 nothing which is not matter of doubt and concern. If I saw

500 nothing there which revealed a Divinity, I would come to a

501 negative conclusion; if I saw everywhere the signs of a Creator,

502 I would remain peacefully in faith. But, seeing too much to

503 deny and too little to be sure, I am in a state to be pitied;

504 wherefore I have a hundred time wished that if a God maintains

505 nature, she should testify to Him unequivocally, and

506 that, if the signs she gives are deceptive, she should suppress

507 them altogether; that she should say everything or nothing,

508 that I might see which cause I ought to follow. Whereas in

509 my present state, ignorant of what I am or of what I ought

510 to do, I know neither my condition nor my duty. My heart

511 inclines wholly to know where is the true good, in order to follow

512 it; nothing would be too dear to me for eternity.

513 I envy those whom I see living in the faith with such carelessness,

514 and who make such a bad use of a gift of which it seems to

515 me I would make such a different use.

516 #### 230

517 It is incomprehensible that God should exist, and it is incomprehensible

518 that He should not exist; that the soul should

519 be joined to the body, and that we should have no soul; that the

520 world should be created, and that it should not be created, etc.;

521 that original sin should be, and that it should not be.

522 #### 231

523 Do you believe it to be impossible that God is infinite, without

524 parts?—Yes. I wish therefore to show you an infinite and

525 indivisible thing. It is a point moving everywhere with an

526 infinite velocity; for it is one in all places, and is all totality in

527 every place.

528 Let this effect of nature, which previously seemed to you

529 impossible, make you know that there may be others of which

530 you are still ignorant. Do not draw this conclusion from your

531 experiment, that there remains nothing for you to know; but

532 rather that there remains an infinity for you to know.

533 #### 232

534 Infinite movement, the point which fills everything, the

535 moment of rest; infinite without quantity, indivisible and infinite.

536 #### 233

537 *Infinite*—*nothing.*—Our soul is cast into a body, where it

538 finds number, time, dimension. Thereupon it reasons, and

539 calls this nature, necessity, and can believe nothing else.

540 Unity joined to infinity adds nothing to it, no more than one

541 foot to an infinite measure. The finite is annihilated in the

542 presence of the infinite, and becomes a pure nothing. So our

543 spirit before God, so our justice before divine justice. There is

544 not so great a disproportion between our justice and that of

545 God, as between unity and infinity.

546 The justice of God must be vast like His compassion. Now

547 justice to the outcast is less vast, and ought less to offend our

548 feelings than mercy towards the elect.

549 We know that there is an infinite, and are ignorant of its

550 nature. As we know it to be false that numbers are finite, it

551 is therefore true that there is an infinity in number. But we do

552 not know what it is. It is false that it is even, it is false that it

553 is odd; for the addition of a unit can make no change in its nature.

554 Yet it is a number, and every number is odd or even (this is

555 certainly true of every finite number). So we may well know

556 that there is a God without knowing what He is. Is there not

557 one substantial truth, seeing there are so many things which are

558 not the truth itself?

559 We know then the existence and nature of the finite, because

560 we also are finite and have extension. We know the existence

561 of the infinite, and are ignorant of its nature, because it has

562 extension like us, but not limits like us. But we know neither

563 the existence nor the nature of God, because He has neither

564 extension nor limits.

565 But by faith we know His existence; in glory we shall know

566 His nature. Now, I have already shown that we may well

567 know the existence of a thing, without knowing its nature.

568 Let us now speak according to natural lights.

569 If there is a God, He is infinitely incomprehensible, since,

570 having neither parts nor limits, He has no affinity to us. We

571 are then incapable of knowing either what He is or if He is.

572 This being so, who will dare to undertake the decision of the

573 question? Not we, who have no affinity to Him.

574 Who then will blame Christians for not being able to give a

575 reason for their belief, since they profess a religion for which

576 they cannot give a reason? They declare, in expounding it to

577 the world, that it is a foolishness, *stultitiam*;[90] and then you

578 complain that they do not prove it! If they proved it, they

579 would not keep their word; it is in lacking proofs, that they are

580 not lacking in sense. "Yes, but although this excuses those who

581 offer it as such, and takes away from them the blame of putting

582 it forward without reason, it does not excuse those who receive

583 it." Let us then examine this point, and say, "God is, or He

584 is not." But to which side shall we incline? Reason can decide

585 nothing here. There is an infinite chaos which separated us.

586 A game is being played at the extremity of this infinite distance

587 where heads or tails will turn up. What will you wager?

588 According to reason, you can do neither the one thing nor the

589 other; according to reason, you can defend neither of the

590 propositions.

591 Do not then reprove for error those who have made a choice;

592 for you know nothing about it. "No, but I blame them for

593 having made, not this choice, but a choice; for again both he

594 who chooses heads and he who chooses tails are equally at fault,

595 they are both in the wrong. The true course is not to wager

596 at all."

597 Yes; but you must wager. It is not optional. You are

598 embarked. Which will you choose then? Let us see. Since

599 you must choose, let us see which interests you least. You have

600 two things to lose, the true and the good; and two things to stake,

601 your reason and your will, your knowledge and your happiness;

602 and your nature has two things to shun, error and misery.

603 Your reason is no more shocked in choosing one rather than the

604 other, since you must of necessity choose. This is one point

605 settled. But your happiness? Let us weigh the gain and the

606 loss in wagering that God is. Let us estimate these two chances.

607 If you gain, you gain all; if you lose, you lose nothing. Wager,

608 then, without hesitation that He is.—"That is very fine. Yes,

609 I must wager; but I may perhaps wager too much."—Let us

610 see. Since there is an equal risk of gain and of loss, if you had

611 only to gain two lives, instead of one, you might still wager.

612 But if there were three lives to gain, you would have to play

613 (since you are under the necessity of playing), and you would

614 be imprudent, when you are forced to play, not to chance your

615 life to gain three at a game where there is an equal risk of loss

616 and gain. But there is an eternity of life and happiness. And

617 this being so, if there were an infinity of chances, of which one

618 only would be for you, you would still be right in wagering one

619 to win two, and you would act stupidly, being obliged to play,

620 by refusing to stake one life against three at a game in which out

621 of an infinity of chances there is one for you, if there were an

622 infinity of an infinitely happy life to gain. But there is here an

623 infinity of an infinitely happy life to gain, a chance of gain

624 against a finite number of chances of loss, and what you stake is

625 finite. It is all divided; wherever the infinite is and there is not

626 an infinity of chances of loss against that of gain, there is no

627 time to hesitate, you must give all. And thus, when one is

628 forced to play, he must renounce reason to preserve his life,

629 rather than risk it for infinite gain, as likely to happen as the

630 loss of nothingness.

631 For it is no use to say it is uncertain if we will gain, and it is

632 certain that we risk, and that the infinite distance between the

633 *certainty* of what is staked and the *uncertainty* of what will be

634 gained, equals the finite good which is certainly staked against

635 the uncertain infinite. It is not so, as every player stakes a

636 certainty to gain an uncertainty, and yet he stakes a finite

637 certainty to gain a finite uncertainty, without transgressing

638 against reason. There is not an infinite distance between the

639 certainty staked and the uncertainty of the gain; that is untrue.

640 In truth, there is an infinity between the certainty of gain

641 and the certainty of loss. But the uncertainty of the gain is

642 proportioned to the certainty of the stake according to the

643 proportion of the chances of gain and loss. Hence it comes that,

644 if there are as many risks on one side as on the other, the course

645 is to play even; and then the certainty of the stake is equal to

646 the uncertainty of the gain, so far is it from fact that there is an

647 infinite distance between them. And so our proposition is of

648 infinite force, when there is the finite to stake in a game where

649 there are equal risks of gain and of loss, and the infinite to gain.

650 This is demonstrable; and if men are capable of any truths, this

651 is one.

652 "I confess it, I admit it. But, still, is there no means of

653 seeing the faces of the cards?"—Yes, Scripture and the rest, etc.

654 "Yes, but I have my hands tied and my mouth closed; I am

655 forced to wager, and am not free. I am not released, and am

656 so made that I cannot believe. What, then, would you have

657 me do?"

658 True. But at least learn your inability to believe, since

659 reason brings you to this, and yet you cannot believe. Endeavour

660 then to convince yourself, not by increase of proofs of

661 God, but by the abatement of your passions. You would like

662 to attain faith, and do not know the way; you would like to

663 cure yourself of unbelief, and ask the remedy for it. Learn

664 of those who have been bound like you, and who now stake all

665 their possessions. These are people who know the way which

666 you would follow, and who are cured of an ill of which you would

667 be cured. Follow the way by which they began; by acting as if

668 they believed, taking the holy water, having masses said, etc.

669 Even this will naturally make you believe, and deaden your

670 acuteness.—"But this is what I am afraid of."—And why?

671 What have you to lose?

672 But to show you that this leads you there, it is this which will

673 lessen the passions, which are your stumbling-blocks.

674 *The end of this discourse.*—Now, what harm will befall you in

675 taking this side? You will be faithful, honest, humble, grateful,

676 generous, a sincere friend, truthful. Certainly you will not

677 have those poisonous pleasures, glory and luxury; but will you

678 not have others? I will tell you that you will thereby gain in

679 this life, and that, at each step you take on this road, you will

680 see so great certainty of gain, so much nothingness in what you

681 risk, that you will at last recognise that you have wagered for

682 something certain and infinite, for which you have given nothing.

683 "Ah! This discourse transports me, charms me," etc.

684 If this discourse pleases you and seems impressive, know

685 that it is made by a man who has knelt, both before and after

686 it, in prayer to that Being, infinite and without parts, before

687 whom he lays all he has, for you also to lay before Him all you

688 have for your own good and for His glory, that so strength may

689 be given to lowliness.

690 #### 234

691 If we must not act save on a certainty, we ought not to act

692 on religion, for it is not certain. But how many things we do

693 on an uncertainty, sea voyages, battles! I say then we must do

694 nothing at all, for nothing is certain, and that there is more

695 certainty in religion than there is as to whether we may see

696 to-morrow; for it is not certain that we may see to-morrow, and

697 it is certainly possible that we may not see it. We cannot say

698 as much about religion. It is not certain that it is; but who

699 will venture to say that it is certainly possible that it is not?

700 Now when we work for to-morrow, and so on an uncertainty,

701 we act reasonably; for we ought to work for an uncertainty

702 according to the doctrine of chance which was demonstrated

703 above.

704 Saint Augustine has seen that we work for an uncertainty, on

705 sea, in battle, etc. But he has not seen the doctrine of chance

706 which proves that we should do so. Montaigne has seen that

707 we are shocked at a fool, and that habit is all-powerful; but he

708 has not seen the reason of this effect.

709 All these persons have seen the effects, but they have not

710 seen the causes. They are, in comparison with those who have

711 discovered the causes, as those who have only eyes are in comparison

712 with those who have intellect. For the effects are

713 perceptible by sense, and the causes are visible only to the

714 intellect. And although these effects are seen by the mind,

715 this mind is, in comparison with the mind which sees the causes,

716 as the bodily senses are in comparison with the intellect.

717 #### 235

718 *Rem viderunt, causam non viderunt.*

719 #### 236

720 According to the doctrine of chance, you ought to put yourself

721 to the trouble of searching for the truth; for if you die without

722 worshipping the True Cause, you are lost.—"But," say you,

723 "if He had wished me to worship Him, He would have left me

724 signs of His will."—He has done so; but you neglect them.

725 Seek them, therefore; it is well worth it.

726 #### 237

727 *Chances.*—We must live differently in the world, according to

728 these different assumptions: (1) that we could always remain

729 in it; (2) that it is certain that we shall not remain here long,

730 and uncertain if we shall remain here one hour. This last

731 assumption is our condition.

732 #### 238

733 What do you then promise me, in addition to certain troubles,

734 but ten years of self-love (for ten years is the chance), to try

735 hard to please without success?

736 #### 239

737 *Objection.*—Those who hope for salvation are so far happy;

738 but they have as a counterpoise the fear of hell.

739 *Reply.*—Who has most reason to fear hell: he who is in

740 ignorance whether there is a hell, and who is certain of damnation

741 if there is; or he who certainly believes there is a hell, and hopes

742 to be saved if there is?

743 #### 240

744 "I would soon have renounced pleasure," say they, "had I

745 faith." For my part I tell you, "You would soon have faith, if

746 you renounced pleasure." Now, it is for you to begin. If I

747 could, I would give you faith. I cannot do so, nor therefore

748 test the truth of what you say. But you can well renounce

749 pleasure, and test whether what I say is true.

750 #### 241

751 *Order.*—I would have far more fear of being mistaken, and of

752 finding that the Christian religion was true, than of not being

753 mistaken in believing it true.

SECTION IV

25 (Texto do capítulo)

OF THE MEANS OF BELIEF

28 #### 242

29 *Preface to the second part.*—To speak of those who have

30 treated of this matter.

31 I admire the boldness with which these persons undertake to

32 speak of God. In addressing their argument to infidels, their

33 first chapter is to prove Divinity from the works of nature.[91] I

34 should not be astonished at their enterprise, if they were

35 addressing their argument to the faithful; for it is certain that

36 those who have the living faith in their heart see at once that

37 all existence is none other than the work of the God whom they

38 adore. But for those in whom this light is extinguished, and in

39 whom we purpose to rekindle it, persons destitute of faith and

40 grace, who, seeking with all their light whatever they see in

41 nature that can bring them to this knowledge, find only obscurity

42 and darkness; to tell them that they have only to look at the

43 smallest things which surround them, and they will see God

44 openly, to give them, as a complete proof of this great and

45 important matter, the course of the moon and planets, and to

46 claim to have concluded the proof with such an argument, is to

47 give them ground for believing that the proofs of our religion

48 are very weak. And I see by reason and experience that nothing

49 is more calculated to arouse their contempt.

50 It is not after this manner that Scripture speaks, which has

51 a better knowledge of the things that are of God. It says, on

52 the contrary, that God is a hidden God, and that, since the

53 corruption of nature, He has left men in a darkness from which

54 they can escape only through Jesus Christ, without whom all

55 communion with God is cut off. *Nemo novit Patrem, nisi

56 Filius, et cui voluerit Filius revelare.*[92]

57 This is what Scripture points out to us, when it says in so

58 many places that those who seek God find Him.[93] It is not of

59 that light, "like the noonday sun," that this is said. We do

60 not say that those who seek the noonday sun, or water in the

61 sea, shall find them; and hence the evidence of God must not

62 be of this nature. So it tells us elsewhere: *Vere tu es Deus

63 absconditus*.[94]

64 #### 243

65 It is an astounding fact that no canonical writer has ever

66 made use of nature to prove God. They all strive to make us

67 believe in Him. David, Solomon, etc., have never said, "There

68 is no void, therefore there is a God." They must have had

69 more knowledge than the most learned people who came after

70 them, and who have all made use of this argument. This is

71 worthy of attention.

72 #### 244

73 "Why! Do you not say yourself that the heavens and birds

74 prove God?" No. "And does your religion not say so?" No.

75 For although it is true in a sense for some souls to whom God

76 gives this light, yet it is false with respect to the majority of men.

77 #### 245

78 There are three sources of belief: reason, custom, inspiration.

79 The Christian religion, which alone has reason, does not acknowledge

80 as her true children those who believe without inspiration.

81 It is not that she excludes reason and custom. On the contrary,

82 the mind must be opened to proofs, must be confirmed by custom,

83 and offer itself in humbleness to inspirations, which alone can

84 produce a true and saving effect. *Ne evacuetur crux Christi.*[95]

85 #### 246

86 *Order.*—After the letter *That we ought to seek God*, to write

87 the letter *On removing obstacles*; which is the discourse on

88 "the machine,"[96] on preparing the machine, on seeking by reason.

89 #### 247

90 *Order.*—A letter of exhortation to a friend to induce him to

91 seek. And he will reply, "But what is the use of seeking?

92 Nothing is seen." Then to reply to him, "Do not despair."

93 And he will answer that he would be glad to find some light, but

94 that, according to this very religion, if he believed in it, it will

95 be of no use to him, and that therefore he prefers not to seek.

96 And to answer to that: The machine.

97 #### 248

98 *A letter which indicates the use of proofs by the machine.*—

99 Faith is different from proof; the one is human, the other is a

100 gift of God. *Justus ex fide vivit.*[97] It is this faith that God

101 Himself puts into the heart, of which the proof is often the instrument,

102 *fides ex auditu*;[98] but this faith is in the heart, and makes

103 us not say *scio*, but *credo*.

104 #### 249

105 It is superstition to put one's hope in formalities; but it is

106 pride to be unwilling to submit to them.

107 #### 250

108 The external must be joined to the internal to obtain anything

109 from God, that is to say, we must kneel, pray with the lips, etc.,

110 in order that proud man, who would not submit himself to God,

111 may be now subject to the creature.[99] To expect help from these

112 externals is superstition; to refuse to join them to the internal

113 is pride.

114 #### 251

115 Other religions, as the pagan, are more popular, for they

116 consist in externals. But they are not for educated people. A

117 purely intellectual religion would be more suited to the learned,

118 but it would be of no use to the common people. The Christian

119 religion alone is adapted to all, being composed of externals and

120 internals. It raises the common people to the internal, and

121 humbles the proud to the external; it is not perfect without the

122 two, for the people must understand the spirit of the letter, and

123 the learned must submit their spirit to the letter.

124 #### 252

125 For we must not misunderstand ourselves; we are as much

126 automatic as intellectual; and hence it comes that the instrument

127 by which conviction is attained is not demonstrated alone.

128 How few things are demonstrated? Proofs only convince the

129 mind. Custom is the source of our strongest and most believed

130 proofs. It bends the automaton, which persuades the mind

131 without its thinking about the matter. Who has demonstrated

132 that there will be a to-morrow, and that we shall die? And what is

133 more believed? It is, then, custom which persuades us of it; it is

134 custom that makes so many men Christians; custom that makes

135 them Turks, heathens, artisans, soldiers, etc. (Faith in baptism

136 is more received among Christians than among Turks.) Finally,

137 we must have recourse to it when once the mind has seen where

138 the truth is, in order to quench our thirst, and steep ourselves in

139 that belief, which escapes us at every hour; for always to have

140 proofs ready is too much trouble. We must get an easier belief,

141 which is that of custom, which, without violence, without art,

142 without argument, makes us believe things, and inclines all our

143 powers to this belief, so that out soul falls naturally into it. It

144 is not enough to believe only by force of conviction, when the

145 automaton is inclined to believe the contrary. Both our parts

146 must be made to believe, the mind by reasons which it is sufficient

147 to have seen once in a lifetime, and the automaton by custom,

148 and by not allowing it to incline to the contrary. *Inclina cor

149 meum, Deus.*[100]

150 The reason acts slowly, with so many examinations, and on so

151 many principles, which must be always present, that at every

152 hour it falls asleep, or wanders, through want of having all its

153 principles present. Feeling does not act thus; it acts in a

154 moment, and is always ready to act. We must then put our

155 faith in feeling; otherwise it will be always vacillating.

156 #### 253

157 Two extremes: to exclude reason, to admit reason only.

158 #### 254

159 It is not a rare thing to have to reprove the world for too much

160 docility. It is a natural vice like credulity, and as pernicious.

161 Superstition.

162 #### 255

163 Piety is different from superstition.

164 To carry piety as far as superstition is to destroy it.

165 The heretics reproach us for this superstitious submission.

166 This is to do what they reproach us for ...

167 Infidelity, not to believe in the Eucharist, because it is not seen.

168 Superstition to believe propositions. Faith, etc.

169 #### 256

170 I say there are few true Christians, even as regards faith.

171 There are many who believe but from superstition. There are

172 many who do not believe solely from wickedness. Few are

173 between the two.

174 In this I do not include those who are of truly pious character,

175 nor all those who believe from a feeling in their heart.

176 #### 257

177 There are only three kinds of persons; those who serve God,

178 having found Him; others who are occupied in seeking Him, not

179 having found Him; while the remainder live without seeking

180 Him, and without having found Him. The first are reasonable

181 and happy, the last are foolish and unhappy; those between are

182 unhappy and reasonable.

183 #### 258

184 *Unusquisque sibi Deum fingit.*[101]

185 Disgust.

186 #### 259

187 Ordinary people have the power of not thinking of that about

188 which they do not wish to think. "Do not meditate on the

189 passages about the Messiah," said the Jew to his son. Thus our

190 people often act. Thus are false religions preserved, and even

191 the true one, in regard to many persons.

192 But there are some who have not the power of thus

193 preventing thought, and who think so much the more as they

194 are forbidden. These undo false religions, and even the true

195 one, if they do not find solid arguments.

196 #### 260

197 They hide themselves in the press, and call numbers to their

198 rescue. Tumult.

199 *Authority.*—So far from making it a rule to believe a thing

200 because you have heard it, you ought to believe nothing without

201 putting yourself into the position as if you had never heard it.

202 It is your own assent to yourself, and the constant voice of

203 your own reason, and not of others, that should make you believe.

204 Belief is so important! A hundred contradictions might be

205 true. If antiquity were the rule of belief, men of ancient time

206 would then be without rule. If general consent, if men had

207 perished?

208 False humanity, pride.

209 Lift the curtain. You try in vain; if you must either believe,

210 or deny, or doubt. Shall we then have no rule? We judge that

211 animals do well what they do. Is there no rule whereby to

212 judge men?

213 To deny, to believe, and to doubt well, are to a man what the

214 race is to a horse.

215 Punishment of those who sin, error.

216 #### 261

217 Those who do not love the truth take as a pretext that it is

218 disputed, and that a multitude deny it. And so their error

219 arises only from this, that they do not love either truth or charity.

220 Thus they are without excuse.

221 #### 262

222 Superstition and lust. Scruples, evil desires. Evil fear; fear,

223 not such as comes from a belief in God, but such as comes from

224 a doubt whether He exists or not. True fear comes from faith;

225 false fear comes from doubt. True fear is joined to hope,

226 because it is born of faith, and because men hope in the God in

227 whom they believe. False fear is joined to despair, because

228 men fear the God in whom they have no belief. The former

229 fear to lose Him; the latter fear to find Him.

230 #### 263

231 "A miracle," says one, "would strengthen my faith." He

232 says so when he does not see one. Reasons, seen from afar,

233 appear to limit our view; but when they are reached, we begin

234 to see beyond. Nothing stops the nimbleness of our mind.

235 There is no rule, say we, which has not some exceptions, no

236 truth so general which has not some aspect in which it fails.

237 It is sufficient that it be not absolutely universal to give us a

238 pretext for applying the exceptions to the present subject, and

239 for saying, "This is not always true; there are therefore cases

240 where it is not so." It only remains to show that this is one

241 of them; and that is why we are very awkward or unlucky, if

242 we do not find one some day.

243 #### 264

244 We do not weary of eating and sleeping every day, for hunger

245 and sleepiness recur. Without that we should weary of them.

246 So, without the hunger for spiritual things, we weary of them.

247 Hunger after righteousness, the eighth beatitude.[102]

248 #### 265

249 Faith indeed tells what the senses do not tell, but not the

250 contrary of what they see. It is above them and not contrary

251 to them.

252 #### 266

253 How many stars have telescopes revealed to us which did not

254 exist for our philosophers of old! We freely attack Holy Scripture

255 on the great number of stars, saying, "There are only one

256 thousand and twenty-eight,[103] we know it." There is grass on the

257 earth, we see it—from the moon we would not see it—and on

258 the grass are leaves, and in these leaves are small animals; but

259 after that no more.—O presumptuous man!—The compounds

260 are composed of elements, and the elements not.—O presumptuous

261 man! Here is a fine reflection.—We must not say that

262 there is anything which we do not see.—We must then talk like

263 others, but not think like them.

264 #### 267

265 The last proceeding of reason is to recognise that there is an

266 infinity of things which are beyond it. It is but feeble if it

267 does not see so far as to know this. But if natural things are

268 beyond it, what will be said of supernatural?

269 #### 268

270 *Submission.*—We must know where to doubt, where to feel

271 certain, where to submit. He who does not do so, understands

272 not the force of reason. There are some who offend against

273 these three rules, either by affirming everything as demonstrative,

274 from want of knowing what demonstration is; or by doubting

275 everything, from want of knowing where to submit; or by submitting

276 in everything, from want of knowing where they must

277 judge.

278 #### 269

279 Submission is the use of reason in which consists true

280 Christianity.

281 #### 270

282 *St. Augustine.*[104]—Reason would never submit, if it did not judge

283 that there are some occasions on which it ought to submit. It

284 is then right for it to submit, when it judges that it ought to

285 submit.

286 #### 271

287 Wisdom sends us to childhood. *Nisi efficiamini sicut parvuli.*[105]

288 #### 272

289 There is nothing so conformable to reason as this disavowal

290 of reason.

291 #### 273

292 If we submit everything to reason, our religion will have no

293 mysterious and supernatural element. If we offend the

294 principles of reason, our religion will be absurd and ridiculous.

295 #### 274

296 All our reasoning reduces itself to yielding to feeling.

297 But fancy is like, though contrary to feeling, so that we

298 cannot distinguish between these contraries. One person says

299 that my feeling is fancy, another that his fancy is feeling. We

300 should have a rule. Reason offers itself; but it is pliable in

301 every sense; and thus there is no rule.

302 #### 275

303 Men often take their imagination for their heart; and they

304 believe they are converted as soon as they think of being

305 converted.

306 #### 276

307 M. de Roannez said: "Reasons come to me afterwards, but

308 at first a thing pleases or shocks me without my knowing the

309 reason, and yet it shocks me for that reason which I only discover

310 afterwards." But I believe, not that it shocked him

311 for the reasons which were found afterwards, but that these

312 reasons were only found because it shocks him.

313 #### 277

314 The heart has its reasons, which reason does not know. We

315 feel it in a thousand things. I say that the heart naturally loves

316 the Universal Being, and also itself naturally, according as it

317 gives itself to them; and it hardens itself against one or the other

318 at its will. You have rejected the one, and kept the other. Is

319 it by reason that you love yourself?

320 #### 278

321 It is the heart which experiences God, and not the reason.

322 This, then, is faith: God felt by the heart, not by the reason.

323 #### 279

324 Faith is a gift of God; do not believe that we said it was a

325 gift of reasoning. Other religions do not say this of their faith.

326 They only gave reasoning in order to arrive at it, and yet it

327 does not bring them to it.

328 #### 280

329 The knowledge of God is very far from the love of Him.

330 #### 281

331 Heart, instinct, principles.

332 #### 282

333 We know truth, not only by the reason, but also by the heart,

334 and it is in this last way that we know first principles; and

335 reason, which has no part in it, tries in vain to impugn them. The

336 sceptics, who have only this for their object, labour to no purpose.

337 We know that we do not dream, and however impossible it is for

338 us to prove it by reason, this inability demonstrates only the

339 weakness of our reason, but not, as they affirm, the uncertainty

340 of all our knowledge. For the knowledge of first principles, as

341 space, time, motion, number, is as sure as any of those which

342 we get from reasoning. And reason must trust these intuitions

343 of the heart, and must base them on every argument. (We

344 have intuitive knowledge of the tri-dimensional nature of space,

345 and of the infinity of number, and reason then shows that there

346 are no two square numbers one of which is double of the other.

347 Principles are intuited, propositions are inferred, all with

348 certainty, though in different ways.) And it is as useless and

349 absurd for reason to demand from the heart proofs of her first

350 principles, before admitting them, as it would be for the heart

351 to demand from reason an intuition of all demonstrated propositions

352 before accepting them.

353 This inability ought, then, to serve only to humble reason,

354 which would judge all, but not to impugn our certainty, as if

355 only reason were capable of instructing us. Would to God, on

356 the contrary, that we had never need of it, and that we knew

357 everything by instinct and intuition! But nature has refused us

358 this boon. On the contrary, she has given us but very little

359 knowledge of this kind; and all the rest can be acquired only by

360 reasoning.

361 Therefore, those to whom God has imparted religion by

362 intuition are very fortunate, and justly convinced. But to

363 those who do not have it, we can give it only by reasoning,

364 waiting for God to give them spiritual insight, without which

365 faith is only human, and useless for salvation.

366 #### 283

367 *Order.—Against the objection that Scripture has no order.*

368 The heart has its own order; the intellect has its own, which

369 is by principle and demonstration. The heart has another. We

370 do not prove that we ought to be loved by enumerating in order

371 the causes of love; that would be ridiculous.

372 Jesus Christ and Saint Paul employ the rule of love, not of

373 intellect; for they would warm, not instruct. It is the same

374 with Saint Augustine. This order consists chiefly in digressions

375 on each point to indicate the end, and keep it always in sight.

376 #### 284

377 Do not wonder to see simple people believe without reasoning.

378 God imparts to them love of Him and hatred of self. He inclines

379 their heart to believe. Men will never believe with a saving

380 and real faith, unless God inclines their heart; and they will

381 believe as soon as He inclines it. And this is what David

382 knew well, when he said: *Inclina cor meum, Deus, in ...*[106]

383 #### 285

384 Religion is suited to all kinds of minds. Some pay attention

385 only to its establishment,[107] and this religion is such that its

386 very establishment suffices to prove its truth. Others trace

387 it even to the apostles. The more learned go back to the

388 beginning of the world. The angels see it better still, and from

389 a more distant time.

390 #### 286

391 Those who believe without having read the Testaments, do so

392 because they have an inward disposition entirely holy, and all

393 that they hear of our religion conforms to it. They feel that a

394 God has made them; they desire only to love God; they desire to

395 hate themselves only. They feel that they have no strength in

396 themselves; that they are incapable of coming to God; and that

397 if God does not come to them, they can have no communion

398 with Him. And they hear our religion say that men must love

399 God only, and hate self only; but that all being corrupt and

400 unworthy of God, God made Himself man to unite Himself to

401 us. No more is required to persuade men who have this disposition

402 in their heart, and who have this knowledge of their

403 duty and of their inefficiency.

404 #### 287

405 Those whom we see to be Christians without the knowledge

406 of the prophets and evidences, nevertheless judge of their

407 religion as well as those who have that knowledge. They judge

408 of it by the heart, as others judge of it by the intellect. God

409 Himself inclines them to believe, and thus they are most

410 effectively convinced.

411 I confess indeed that one of those Christians who believe

412 without proofs will not perhaps be capable of convincing an

413 infidel who will say the same of himself. But those who know

414 the proofs of religion will prove without difficulty that such a

415 believer is truly inspired by God, though he cannot prove it

416 himself.

417 For God having said in His prophecies (which are undoubtedly

418 prophecies), that in the reign of Jesus Christ He would spread

419 His spirit abroad among nations, and that the youths and

420 maidens and children of the Church would prophesy;[108] it is

421 certain that the Spirit of God is in these, and not in the others.

422 #### 288

423 Instead of complaining that God had hidden Himself, you will

424 give Him thanks for having revealed so much of Himself; and

425 you will also give Him thanks for not having revealed Himself

426 to haughty sages, unworthy to know so holy a God.

427 Two kinds of persons know Him: those who have a humble

428 heart, and who love lowliness, whatever kind of intellect they

429 may have, high or low; and those who have sufficient understanding

430 to see the truth, whatever opposition they may have

431 to it.

432 #### 289

433 *Proof.*—1. The Christian religion, by its establishment, having

434 established itself so strongly, so gently, whilst contrary to

435 nature.—2. The sanctity, the dignity, and the humility of a

436 Christian soul.—3. The miracles of Holy Scripture.—4. Jesus

437 Christ in particular.—5. The apostles in particular.—6. Moses

438 and the prophets in particular.—7. The Jewish people.—8.

439 The prophecies.—9. Perpetuity; no religion has perpetuity.—

440 10. The doctrine which gives a reason for everything.—11.

441 The sanctity of this law.—12. By the course of the world.

442 Surely, after considering what is life and what is religion, we

443 should not refuse to obey the inclination to follow it, if it comes

444 into our heart; and it is certain that there is no ground for

445 laughing at those who follow it.

446 #### 290

447 *Proofs of religion.*—Morality, Doctrine, Miracles, Prophecies,

448 Types.

SECTION V

31 (Texto do capítulo)

JUSTICE AND THE REASON OF EFFECTS

34 #### 291

35 In the letter *On Injustice* can come the ridiculousness of the

36 law that the elder gets all. "My friend, you were born on this

37 side of the mountain, it is therefore just that your elder brother

38 gets everything."

39 "Why do you kill me?"

40 #### 292

41 He lives on the other side of the water.

42 #### 293

43 "Why do you kill me? What! do you not live on the other

44 side of the water? If you lived on this side, my friend, I should

45 be an assassin, and it would be unjust to slay you in this manner.

46 But since you live on the other side, I am a hero, and it is just."

47 #### 294

48 On what shall man found the order of the world which he

49 would govern?[109] Shall it be on the caprice of each individual?

50 What confusion! Shall it be on justice? Man is ignorant of it.

51 Certainly had he known it, he would not have established this

52 maxim, the most general of all that obtain among men, that

53 each should follow the custom of his own country. The glory

54 of true equity would have brought all nations under subjection,

55 and legislators would not have taken as their model the fancies

56 and caprice of Persians and Germans instead of this unchanging

57 justice. We should have seen it set up in all the States on earth

58 and in all times; whereas we see neither justice nor injustice

59 which does not change its nature with change in climate. Three

60 degrees of latitude reverse all jurisprudence; a meridian decides

61 the truth. Fundamental laws change after a few years of

62 possession; right has its epochs; the entry of Saturn into the Lion

63 marks to us the origin of such and such a crime. A strange

64 justice that is bounded by a river! Truth on this side of the

65 Pyrenees, error on the other side.

66 Men admit that justice does not consist in these customs, but

67 that it resides in natural laws, common to every country. They

68 would certainly maintain it obstinately, if reckless chance which

69 has distributed human laws had encountered even one which

70 was universal; but the farce is that the caprice of men has so

71 many vagaries that there is no such law.

72 Theft, incest, infanticide, parricide, have all had a place among

73 virtuous actions. Can anything be more ridiculous than that

74 a man should have the right to kill me because he lives on the

75 other side of the water, and because his ruler has a quarrel with

76 mine, though I have none with him?

77 Doubtless there are natural laws; but good reason once

78 corrupted has corrupted all. *Nihil amplius nostrum est;[110] quod

79 nostrum dicimus, artis est. Ex senatus—consultis et plebiscitis

80 crimina exercentur.[111] Ut olim vitiis, sic nunc legibus laboramus.*[112]

81 The result of this confusion is that one affirms the essence of

82 justice to be the authority of the legislator; another, the interest

83 of the sovereign;[113] another, present custom,[114] and this is the most

84 sure. Nothing, according to reason alone, is just in itself; all

85 changes with time. Custom creates the whole of equity, for

86 the simple reason that it is accepted. It is the mystical foundation

87 of its authority;[115] whoever carries it back to first principles

88 destroys it. Nothing is so faulty as those laws which correct

89 faults. He who obeys them because they are just, obeys a

90 justice which is imaginary, and not the essence of law; it is quite

91 self-contained, it is law and nothing more. He who will examine

92 its motive will find it so feeble and so trifling that if he be not

93 accustomed to contemplate the wonders of human imagination,

94 he will marvel that one century has gained for it so much pomp

95 and reverence. The art of opposition and of revolution is to

96 unsettle established customs, sounding them even to their

97 source, to point out their want of authority and justice. We

98 must, it is said, get back to the natural and fundamental laws of

99 the State, which an unjust custom has abolished. It is a game

100 certain to result in the loss of all; nothing will be just on the

101 balance. Yet people readily lend their ear to such arguments.

102 They shake off the yoke as soon as they recognise it; and the

103 great profit by their ruin, and by that of these curious investigators

104 of accepted customs. But from a contrary mistake

105 men sometimes think they can justly do everything which is

106 not without an example. That is why the wisest of legislators[116]

107 said that it was necessary to deceive men for their own good;

108 and another, a good politician, *Cum veritatem qua liberetur

109 ignoret, expedit quod fallatur.*[117] We must not see the fact of

110 usurpation; law was once introduced without reason, and has

111 become reasonable. We must make it regarded as authoritative,

112 eternal, and conceal its origin, if we do not wish that it should

113 soon come to an end.

114 #### 295

115 *Mine, thine.*—"This dog is mine," said those poor children;

116 "that is my place in the sun." Here is the beginning and the

117 image of the usurpation of all the earth.

118 #### 296

119 When the question for consideration is whether we ought to

120 make war, and kill so many men—condemn so many Spaniards

121 to death—only one man is judge, and he is an interested party.

122 There should be a third, who is disinterested.

123 #### 297

124 *Veri juris.*[118]—We have it no more; if we had it, we should take

125 conformity to the customs of a country as the rule of justice.

126 It is here that, not finding justice, we have found force, etc.

127 #### 298

128 *Justice, might.*—It is right that what is just should be obeyed;

129 it is necessary that what is strongest should be obeyed. Justice

130 without might is helpless; might without justice is tyrannical.

131 Justice without might is gainsaid, because there are always

132 offenders; might without justice is condemned. We must then

133 combine justice and might, and for this end make what is just

134 strong, or what is strong just.

135 Justice is subject to dispute; might is easily recognised and

136 is not disputed. So we cannot give might to justice, because

137 might has gainsaid justice, and has declared that it is she herself

138 who is just. And thus being unable to make what is just strong,

139 we have made what is strong just.

140 #### 299

141 The only universal rules are the laws of the country in ordinary

142 affairs, and of the majority in others. Whence comes this?

143 From the might which is in them. Hence it comes that kings,

144 who have power of a different kind, do not follow the majority

145 of their ministers.

146 No doubt equality of goods is just; but, being unable to cause

147 might to obey justice, men have made it just to obey might.

148 Unable to strengthen justice, they have justified might; so that

149 the just and the strong should unite, and there should be peace,

150 which is the sovereign good.

151 #### 300

152 "When a strong man armed keepeth his goods, his goods are

153 in peace."[119]

154 #### 301

155 Why do we follow the majority? It is because they have more

156 reason? No, because they have more power.

157 Why do we follow the ancient laws and opinions? Is it

158 because they are more sound? No, but because they are unique,

159 and remove from us the root of difference.

160 #### 302

161 ... It is the effect of might, not of custom. For those who

162 are capable of originality are few; the greater number will only

163 follow, and refuse glory to those inventors who seek it by their

164 inventions. And if these are obstinate in their wish to obtain

165 glory, and despise those who do not invent, the latter will call

166 them ridiculous names, and would beat them with a stick. Let

167 no one then boast of his subtlety, or let him keep his complacency

168 to himself.

169 #### 303

170 Might is the sovereign of the world, and not opinion.—But

171 opinion makes use of might.—It is might that makes opinion.

172 Gentleness is beautiful in our opinion. Why? Because he who

173 will dance on a rope will be alone,[120] and I will gather a stronger

174 mob of people who will say that it is unbecoming.

175 #### 304

176 The cords which bind the respect of men to each other are in

177 general cords of necessity; for there must be different degrees, all

178 men wishing to rule, and not all being able to do so, but some

179 being able.

180 Let us then imagine we see society in the process of formation.

181 Men will doubtless fight till the stronger party overcomes the

182 weaker, and a dominant party is established. But when this is

183 once determined, the masters, who do not desire the continuation

184 of strife, then decree that the power which is in their hands shall

185 be transmitted as they please. Some place it in election by the

186 people, others in hereditary succession, etc.

187 And this is the point where imagination begins to play its

188 part. Till now power makes fact; now power is sustained by

189 imagination in a certain party, in France in the nobility, in

190 Switzerland in the burgesses, etc.

191 These cords which bind the respect of men to such and such

192 an individual are therefore the cords of imagination.

193 #### 305

194 The Swiss are offended by being called gentlemen, and prove

195 themselves true plebeians in order to be thought worthy of

196 great office.

197 #### 306

198 As duchies, kingships, and magistracies are real and necessary,

199 because might rules all, they exist everywhere and always. But

200 since only caprice makes such and such a one a ruler, the principle

201 is not constant, but subject to variation, etc.

202 #### 307

203 The chancellor is grave, and clothed with ornaments, for his

204 position is unreal. Not so the king, he has power, and has

205 nothing to do with the imagination. Judges, physicians, etc.

206 appeal only to the imagination.

207 #### 308

208 The habit of seeing kings accompanied by guards, drums,

209 officers, and all the paraphernalia which mechanically inspire

210 respect and awe, makes their countenance, when sometimes seen

211 alone without these accompaniments, impress respect and awe

212 on their subjects; because we cannot separate in thought their

213 persons from the surroundings with which we see them usually

214 joined. And the world, which knows not that this effect is the

215 result of habit, believes that it arises by a natural force, whence

216 come these words, "The character of Divinity is stamped on his

217 countenance," etc.

218 #### 309

219 *Justice.*—As custom determines what is agreeable, so also does

220 it determine justice.

221 #### 310

222 *King and tyrant.*—I, too, will keep my thoughts secret.

223 I will take care on every journey.

224 Greatness of establishment, respect for establishment.

225 The pleasure of the great is the power to make people happy.

226 The property of riches is to be given liberally.

227 The property of each thing must be sought. The property

228 of power is to protect.

229 When force attacks humbug, when a private soldier takes the

230 square cap off a first president, and throws it out of the window.

231 #### 311

232 The government founded on opinion and imagination reigns

233 for some time, and this government is pleasant and voluntary;

234 that founded on might lasts for ever. Thus opinion is the

235 queen of the world, but might is its tyrant.

236 #### 312

237 Justice is what is established; and thus all our established

238 laws will necessarily be regarded as just without examination,

239 since they are established.

240 #### 313

241 *Sound opinions of the people.*—Civil wars are the greatest of

242 evils.[121] They are inevitable, if we wish to reward desert; for all

243 will say they are deserving. The evil we have to fear from a

244 fool who succeeds by right of birth, is neither so great nor so sure.

245 #### 314

246 God has created all for Himself. He has bestowed upon

247 Himself the power of pain and pleasure.

248 You can apply it to God, or to yourself. If to God, the

249 Gospel is the rule. If to yourself, you will take the place of God.

250 As God is surrounded by persons full of charity, who ask of Him

251 the blessings of charity that are in His power, so ... Recognise

252 then and learn that you are only a king of lust, and take the

253 ways of lust.

254 #### 315

255 *The reason of effects.*—It is wonderful that men would not have

256 me honour a man clothed in brocade, and followed by seven or

257 eight lackeys! Why! He will have me thrashed, if I do not

258 salute him. This custom is a force. It is the same with a horse

259 in fine trappings in comparison with another! Montaigne[122] is a

260 fool not to see what difference there is, to wonder at our finding

261 any, and to ask the reason. "Indeed," says he, "how comes

262 it," etc....

263 #### 316

264 *Sound opinions of the people.*—To be spruce is not altogether

265 foolish, for it proves that a great number of people work for one.

266 It shows by one's hair, that one has a valet, a perfumer, etc.,

267 by one's band, thread, lace, ... etc. Now it is not merely

268 superficial nor merely outward show to have many arms at

269 command. The more arms one has, the more powerful one is.

270 To be spruce is to show one's power.

271 #### 317

272 Deference means, "Put yourself to inconvenience." This is

273 apparently silly, but is quite right. For it is to say, "I would

274 indeed put myself to inconvenience if you required it, since

275 indeed I do so when it is of no service to you." Deference

276 further serves to distinguish the great. Now if deference was

277 displayed by sitting in an arm-chair, we should show deference

278 to everybody, and so no distinction would be made; but, being

279 put to inconvenience, we distinguish very well.

280 #### 318

281 He has four lackeys.

282 #### 319

283 How rightly do we distinguish men by external appearances

284 rather than by internal qualities! Which of us two shall have

285 precedence? Who will give place to the other? The least clever.

286 But I am as clever as he. We should have to fight over this.

287 He has four lackeys, and I have only one. This can be seen;

288 we have only to count. It falls to me to yield, and I am a fool

289 if I contest the matter. By this means we are at peace, which

290 is the greatest of boons.

291 #### 320

292 The most unreasonable things in the world become most

293 reasonable, because of the unruliness of men. What is less

294 reasonable than to choose the eldest son of a queen to rule a

295 State? We do not choose as captain of a ship the passenger who

296 is of the best family.

297 This law would be absurd and unjust; but because men are so

298 themselves, and always will be so, it becomes reasonable and

299 just. For whom will men choose, as the most virtuous and able?

300 We at once come to blows, as each claims to be the most virtuous

301 and able. Let us then attach this quality to something indisputable.

302 This is the king's eldest son. That is clear, and there

303 is no dispute. Reason can do no better, for civil war is the

304 greatest of evils.

305 #### 321

306 Children are astonished to see their comrades respected.

307 #### 322

308 To be of noble birth is a great advantage. In eighteen years

309 it places a man within the select circle, known and respected,

310 as another would have merited in fifty years. It is a gain of

311 thirty years without trouble.

312 #### 323

313 What is the Ego?

314 Suppose a man puts himself at a window to see those who

315 pass by. If I pass by, can I say that he placed himself there to

316 see me? No; for he does not think of me in particular. But

317 does he who loves someone on account of beauty really love

318 that person? No; for the small-pox, which will kill beauty without

319 killing the person, will cause him to love her no more.

320 And if one loves me for my judgment, memory, he does not

321 love *me*, for I can lose these qualities without losing myself.

322 Where, then, is this Ego, if it be neither in the body nor in the

323 soul? And how love the body or the soul, except for these

324 qualities which do not constitute *me*, since they are perishable?

325 For it is impossible and would be unjust to love the soul of a

326 person in the abstract, and whatever qualities might be therein.

327 We never, then, love a person, but only qualities.

328 Let us, then, jeer no more at those who are honoured on

329 account of rank and office; for we love a person only on

330 account of borrowed qualities.

331 #### 324

332 The people have very sound opinions, for example:

333 1. In having preferred diversion and hunting to poetry. The

334 half-learned laugh at it, and glory in being above the folly of the

335 world; but the people are right for a reason which these do not

336 fathom.

337 2. In having distinguished men by external marks, as birth or

338 wealth. The world again exults in showing how unreasonable

339 this is; but it is very reasonable. Savages laugh at an infant

340 king.[123]

341 3. In being offended at a blow, on in desiring glory so much.

342 But it is very desirable on account of the other essential goods

343 which are joined to it; and a man who has received a blow,

344 without resenting it, is overwhelmed with taunts and indignities.

345 4. In working for the uncertain; in sailing on the sea; in walking

346 over a plank.

347 #### 325

348 Montaigne is wrong. Custom should be followed only because

349 it is custom, and not because it is reasonable or just. But

350 people follow it for this sole reason, that they think it just.

351 Otherwise they would follow it no longer, although it were the

352 custom; for they will only submit to reason or justice. Custom

353 without this would pass for tyranny; but the sovereignty of

354 reason and justice is no more tyrannical than that of desire.

355 They are principles natural to man.

356 It would therefore be right to obey laws and customs, because

357 they are laws; but we should know that there is neither truth nor

358 justice to introduce into them, that we know nothing of these,

359 and so must follow what is accepted. By this means we would

360 never depart from them. But people cannot accept this

361 doctrine; and, as they believe that truth can be found, and that

362 it exists in law and custom, they believe them, and take their

363 antiquity as a proof of their truth, and not simply of their

364 authority apart from truth. Thus they obey laws, but they are

365 liable to revolt when these are proved to be valueless; and this

366 can be shown of all, looked at from a certain aspect.

367 #### 326

368 *Injustice.*—It is dangerous to tell the people that the laws are

369 unjust; for they obey them only because they think them just.

370 Therefore it is necessary to tell them at the same time that they

371 must obey them because they are laws, just as they must obey

372 superiors, not because they are just, but because they are

373 superiors. In this way all sedition is prevented, if this can be

374 made intelligible, and it be understood what is the proper

375 definition of justice.

376 #### 327

377 The world is a good judge of things, for it is in natural

378 ignorance, which is man's true state.[124] The sciences have two

379 extremes which meet. The first is the pure natural ignorance in

380 which all men find themselves at birth. The other extreme is

381 that reached by great intellects, who, having run through

382 all that men can know, find they know nothing, and come

383 back again to that same ignorance from which they set out;

384 but this is a learned ignorance which is conscious of itself.

385 Those between the two, who have departed from natural

386 ignorance and not been able to reach the other, have some

387 smattering of this vain knowledge, and pretend to be wise.

388 These trouble the world, and are bad judges of everything.

389 The people and the wise constitute the world; these despise it,

390 and are despised. They judge badly of everything, and the

391 world judges rightly of them.

392 #### 328

393 *The reason of effects.*—Continual alternation of pro and con.

394 We have then shown that man is foolish, by the estimation