Pascal's Pensées
since they are perishable? For it is impossible and would be unjust to
love the soul of a person in the abstract, and whatever qualities might
be therein. We never, then, love a person, but only qualities.
Let us, then, jeer no more at those who are honoured on account of rank
and office; for we love a person only on account of borrowed qualities.
324
The people have very sound opinions, for example:
1. In having preferred diversion and hunting to poetry. The half-learned
laugh at it, and glory in being above the folly of the world; but the
people are right for a reason which these do not fathom.
2. In having distinguished men by external marks, as birth or wealth.
The world again exults in showing how unreasonable this is; but it is
very reasonable. Savages laugh at an infant king.[123]
3. In being offended at a blow, on in desiring glory so much. But it is
very desirable on account of the other essential goods which are joined
to it; and a man who has received a blow, without resenting it, is
overwhelmed with taunts and indignities.
4. In working for the uncertain; in sailing on the sea; in walking over
a plank.
325
Montaigne is wrong. Custom should be followed only because it is custom,
and not because it is reasonable or just. But people follow it for this
sole reason, that they think it just. Otherwise they would follow it no
longer, although it were the custom; for they will only submit to reason
or justice. Custom without this would pass for tyranny; but the
sovereignty of reason and justice is no more tyrannical than that of
desire. They are principles natural to man.
It would therefore be right to obey laws and customs, because they are
laws; but we should know that there is neither truth nor justice to
introduce into them, that we know nothing of these, and so must follow
what is accepted. By this means we would never depart from them. But
people cannot accept this doctrine; and, as they believe that truth can
be found, and that it exists in law and custom, they believe them, and
take their antiquity as a proof of their truth, and not simply of their
authority apart from truth. Thus they obey laws, but they are liable to
revolt when these are proved to be valueless; and this can be shown of
all, looked at from a certain aspect.
326
_Injustice._--It is dangerous to tell the people that the laws are
unjust; for they obey them only because they think them just. Therefore
it is necessary to tell them at the same time that they must obey them
because they are laws, just as they must obey superiors, not because
they are just, but because they are superiors. In this way all sedition
is prevented, if this can be made intelligible, and it be understood
what is the proper definition of justice.
327
The world is a good judge of things, for it is in natural ignorance,
which is man's true state.[124] The sciences have two extremes which
meet. The first is the pure natural ignorance in which all men find
themselves at birth. The other extreme is that reached by great
intellects, who, having run through all that men can know, find they
know nothing, and come back again to that same ignorance from which they
set out; but this is a learned ignorance which is conscious of itself.
Those between the two, who have departed from natural ignorance and not
been able to reach the other, have some smattering of this vain
knowledge, and pretend to be wise. These trouble the world, and are bad
judges of everything. The people and the wise constitute the world;
these despise it, and are despised. They judge badly of everything, and
the world judges rightly of them.
328
_The reason of effects._--Continual alternation of pro and con.
We have then shown that man is foolish, by the estimation he makes of
things which are not essential; and all these opinions are destroyed. We
have next shown that all these opinions are very sound, and that thus,
since all these vanities are well founded, the people are not so foolish
as is said. And so we have destroyed the opinion which destroyed that of
the people.
But we must now destroy this last proposition, and show that it remains
always true that the people are foolish, though their opinions are
sound; because they do not perceive the truth where it is, and, as they
place it where it is not, their opinions are always very false and very
unsound.
329
_The reason of effects._--The weakness of man is the reason why so many
things are considered fine, as to be good at playing the lute. It is
only an evil because of our weakness.
330
The power of kings is founded on the reason and on the folly of the
people, and specially on their folly. The greatest and most important
thing in the world has weakness for its foundation, and this foundation
is wonderfully sure; for there is nothing more sure than this, that the
people will be weak. What is based on sound reason is very ill founded,
as the estimate of wisdom.
331
We can only think of Plato and Aristotle in grand academic robes. They
were honest men, like others, laughing with their friends, and when they
diverted themselves with writing their _Laws_ and the _Politics_, they
did it as an amusement. That part of their life was the least
philosophic and the least serious; the most philosophic was to live
simply and quietly. If they wrote on politics, it was as if laying down
rules for a lunatic asylum; and if they presented the appearance of
speaking of a great matter, it was because they knew that the madmen, to
whom they spoke, thought they were kings and emperors. They entered into
their principles in order to make their madness as little harmful as
possible.
332
Tyranny consists in the desire of universal power beyond its scope.
There are different assemblies of the strong, the fair, the sensible,
the pious, in which each man rules at home, not elsewhere. And sometimes
they meet, and the strong and the fair foolishly fight as to who shall
be master, for their mastery is of different kinds. They do not
understand one another, and their fault is the desire to rule
everywhere. Nothing can effect this, not even might, which is of no use
in the kingdom of the wise, and is only mistress of external actions.
_Tyranny_--... So these expressions are false and tyrannical: "I am
fair, therefore I must be feared. I am strong, therefore I must be
loved. I am ..."
Tyranny is the wish to have in one way what can only be had in another.
We render different duties to different merits; the duty of love to the
pleasant; the duty of fear to the strong; the duty of belief to the
learned.
We must render these duties; it is unjust to refuse them, and unjust to
ask others. And so it is false and tyrannical to say, "He is not strong,
therefore I will not esteem him; he is not able, therefore I will not
fear him."
333
Have you never seen people who, in order to complain of the little fuss
you make about them, parade before you the example of great men who
esteem them? In answer I reply to them, "Show me the merit whereby you
have charmed these persons, and I also will esteem you."
334
_The reason of effects._--Lust and force are the source of all our
actions; lust causes voluntary actions, force involuntary ones.
335
_The reason of effects._--It is then true to say that all the world is
under a delusion; for, although the opinions of the people are sound,
they are not so as conceived by them, since they think the truth to be
where it is not. Truth is indeed in their opinions, but not at the point
where they imagine it. [Thus] it is true that we must honour noblemen,
but not because noble birth is real superiority, etc.
336
_The reason of effects._--We must keep our thought secret, and judge
everything by it, while talking like the people.
337
_The reason of effects._--Degrees. The people honour persons of high
birth. The semi-learned despise them, saying that birth is not a
personal, but a chance superiority. The learned honour them, not for
popular reasons, but for secret reasons. Devout persons, who have more
zeal than knowledge, despise them, in spite of that consideration which
makes them honoured by the learned, because they judge them by a new
light which piety gives them. But perfect Christians honour them by
another and higher light. So arise a succession of opinions for and
against, according to the light one has.
338
True Christians nevertheless comply with folly, not because they respect
folly, but the command of God, who for the punishment of men has made
them subject to these follies. _Omnis creatura subjecta est
vanitati.[125] Liberabitur._[126] Thus Saint Thomas[127] explains the
passage in Saint James on giving place to the rich, that if they do it
not in the sight of God, they depart from the command of religion.
SECTION VI
THE PHILOSOPHERS
339
I can well conceive a man without hands, feet, head (for it is only
experience which teaches us that the head is more necessary than feet).
But I cannot conceive man without thought; he would be a stone or a
brute.
340
The arithmetical machine produces effects which approach nearer to
thought than all the actions of animals. But it does nothing which would
enable us to attribute will to it, as to the animals.
341
The account of the pike and frog of Liancourt.[128] They do it always,
and never otherwise, nor any other thing showing mind.
342
If an animal did by mind what it does by instinct, and if it spoke by
mind what it speaks by instinct, in hunting, and in warning its mates
that the prey is found or lost; it would indeed also speak in regard to
those things which affect it closer, as example, "Gnaw me this cord
which is wounding me, and which I cannot reach."
343
The beak of the parrot, which it wipes, although it is clean.
344
Instinct and reason, marks of two natures.
345
Reason commands us far more imperiously than a master; for in disobeying
the one we are unfortunate, and in disobeying the other we are fools.
346
Thought constitutes the greatness of man.
347
Man is but a reed, the most feeble thing in nature; but he is a thinking
reed. The entire universe need not arm itself to crush him. A vapour, a
drop of water suffices to kill him. But, if the universe were to crush
him, man would still be more noble than that which killed him, because
he knows that he dies and the advantage which the universe has over him;
the universe knows nothing of this.
All our dignity consists, then, in thought. By it we must elevate
ourselves, and not by space and time which we cannot fill. Let us
endeavour, then, to think well; this is the principle of morality.
348
_A thinking reed._--It is not from space that I must seek my dignity,
but from the government of my thought. I shall have no more if I possess
worlds. By space the universe encompasses and swallows me up like an
atom; by thought I comprehend the world.
349
_Immateriality of the soul._--Philosophers[129] who have mastered their
passions. What matter could do that?
350
_The Stoics._--They conclude that what has been done once can be done
always, and that since the desire of glory imparts some power to those
whom it possesses, others can do likewise. There are feverish movements
which health cannot imitate.
Epictetus[130] concludes that since there are consistent Christians,
every man can easily be so.
351
Those great spiritual efforts, which the soul sometimes assays, are
things on which it does not lay hold.[131] It only leaps to them, not as
upon a throne, for ever, but merely for an instant.
352
The strength of a man's virtue must not be measured by his efforts, but
by his ordinary life.
353