Pascal's Pensées
soul united to any matter whatsoever will make my body. It does not
distinguish the necessary condition from the sufficient condition; the
union is necessary, but not sufficient. The left arm is not the right.
Impenetrability is a property of matter.
Identity _de numers_ in regard to the same time requires the identity of
matter.
Thus if God united my soul to a body in China, the same body, _idem
numero_, would be in China.
The same river which runs there is _idem numero_ as that which runs at
the same time in China.
513
Why God has established prayer.
1. To communicate to His creatures the dignity of causality.
2. To teach us from whom our virtue comes.
3. To make us deserve other virtues by work.
(But to keep His own pre-eminence, He grants prayer to whom He pleases.)
Objection: But we believe that we hold prayer of ourselves.
This is absurd; for since, though having faith, we cannot have virtues,
how should we have faith? Is there a greater distance between infidelity
and faith than between faith and virtue?
_Merit._ This word is ambiguous.
_Meruit habere Redemptorem.
Meruit tam sacra membra tangere.
Digno tam sacra membra tangere.
Non sum dignus.[192]
Qui manducat indignus[193]
Dignus est accipere.[194]
Dignare me._
God is only bound according to His promises. He has promised to grant
justice to prayers; He has never promised prayer only to the children of
promise.
Saint Augustine has distinctly said that strength would be taken away
from the righteous. But it is by chance that he said it; for it might
have happened that the occasion of saying it did not present itself. But
his principles make us see that when the occasion for it presented
itself, it was impossible that he should not say it, or that he should
say anything to the contrary. It is then rather that he was forced to
say it, when the occasion presented itself, than that he said it, when
the occasion presented itself, the one being of necessity, the other of
chance. But the two are all that we can ask.
514
The elect will be ignorant of their virtues, and the outcast of the
greatness of their sins: "Lord, when saw we Thee an hungered, thirsty?"
etc.[195][196]
515
Romans iii, 27. Boasting is excluded. By what law? Of works? nay, but by
faith. Then faith is not within our power like the deeds of the law, and
it is given to us in another way.
516
Comfort yourselves. It is not from yourselves that you should expect
grace; but, on the contrary, it is in expecting nothing from yourselves,
that you must hope for it.
517
Every condition, and even the martyrs, have to fear, according to
Scripture.
The greatest pain of purgatory is the uncertainty of the judgment. _Deus
absconditus._
518
John viii. _Multi crediderunt in eum. Dicebat ergo Jesus: "Si
manseritis_ ... VERE _mei discipuli eritis, et_ VERITAS LIBERABIT VOS."
_Responderunt: "Semen Abrahæ sumus, et nemini servimus unquam."_
There is a great difference between disciples and true disciples. We
recognise them by telling them that the truth will make them free; for
if they answer that they are free, and that it is in their power to come
out of slavery to the devil, they are indeed disciples, but not true
disciples.
519
The law has not destroyed nature, but has instructed it; grace has not
destroyed the law, but has made it act. Faith received at baptism is the
source of the whole life of Christians and of the converted.
520
Grace will always be in the world, and nature also; so that the former
is in some sort natural. And thus there will always be Pelagians, and
always Catholics, and always strife; because the first birth makes the
one, and the grace of the second birth the other.
521
The law imposed what it did not give. Grace gives what is imposes.
522
All faith consists in Jesus Christ and in Adam, and all morality in lust
and in grace.
523
There is no doctrine more appropriate to man than this, which teaches
him his double capacity of receiving and of losing grace, because of the
double peril to which he is exposed, of despair or of pride.
524
The philosophers did not prescribe feelings suitable to the two states.
They inspired feelings of pure greatness, and that is not man's state.
They inspired feelings of pure littleness, and that is not man's state.
There must be feelings of humility, not from nature, but from penitence,
not to rest in them, but to go on to greatness. There must be feelings
of greatness, not from merit, but from grace, and after having passed
through humiliation.
525
Misery induces despair, pride induces presumption. The Incarnation shows
man the greatness of his misery by the greatness of the remedy which he
required.
526
The knowledge of God without that of man's misery causes pride. The
knowledge of man's misery without that of God causes despair. The
knowledge of Jesus Christ constitutes the middle course, because in Him
we find both God and our misery.
527
Jesus Christ is a God whom we approach without pride, and before whom we
humble ourselves without despair.
528
... Not a degradation which renders us incapable of good, nor a holiness
exempt from evil.
529
A person told me one day that on coming from confession he felt great
joy and confidence. Another told me that he remained in fear. Whereupon
I thought that these two together would make one good man, and that each
was wanting in that he had not the feeling of the other. The same often
happens in other things.
530
He who knows the will of his master will be beaten with more blows,
because of the power he has by his knowledge. _Qui justus est,
justificetur adhuc_,[197] because of the power he has by justice. From
him who has received most, will the greatest reckoning be demanded,
because of the power he has by this help.
531
Scripture has provided passages of consolation and of warning for all
conditions.
Nature seems to have done the same thing by her two infinities, natural
and moral; for we shall always have the higher and the lower, the more
clever and the less clever, the most exalted and the meanest, in order
to humble our pride, and exalt our humility.
532
_Comminutum cor_ (Saint Paul). This is the Christian character. _Alba
has named you, I know you no more_ (Corneille).[198] That is the inhuman
character. The human character is the opposite.
533
There are only two kinds of men: the righteous who believe themselves
sinners; the rest, sinners, who believe themselves righteous.
534
We owe a great debt to those who point out faults. For they mortify us.
They teach us that we have been despised. They do not prevent our being
so in the future; for we have many other faults for which we may be
despised. They prepare for us the exercise of correction and freedom
from fault.
535
Man is so made that by continually telling him he is a fool he believes
it, and by continually telling it to himself he makes himself believe
it. For man holds an inward talk with his self alone, which it behoves
him to regulate well: _Corrumpunt bonos mores colloquia prava_.[199] We
must keep silent as much as possible and talk with ourselves only of
God, whom we know to be true; and thus we convince ourselves of the
truth.
536
Christianity is strange. It bids man recognise that he is vile, even
abominable, and bids him desire to be like God. Without such a
counterpoise, this dignity would make him horribly vain, or this
humiliation would make him terribly abject.
537
With how little pride does a Christian believe himself united to God!
With how little humiliation does he place himself on a level with the
worms of earth!
A glorious manner to welcome life and death, good and evil!
538
What difference in point of obedience is there between a soldier and a
Carthusian monk? For both are equally under obedience and dependent,
both engaged in equally painful exercises. But the soldier always hopes
to command, and never attains this, for even captains and princes are
ever slaves and dependants; still he ever hopes and ever works to attain
this. Whereas the Carthusian monk makes a vow to be always dependent. So
they do not differ in their perpetual thraldom, in which both of them
always exist, but in the hope, which one always has, and the other
never.
539
The hope which Christians have of possessing an infinite good is mingled
with real enjoyment as well as with fear; for it is not as with those
who should hope for a kingdom, of which they, being subjects, would have
nothing; but they hope for holiness, for freedom from injustice, and
they have something of this.
540
None is so happy as a true Christian, nor so reasonable, virtuous, or
amiable.
541
The Christian religion alone makes man altogether _lovable and happy_.
In honesty, we cannot perhaps be altogether lovable and happy.
542
_Preface._--The metaphysical proofs of God are so remote from the
reasoning of men, and so complicated, that they make little impression;
and if they should be of service to some, it would be only during the
moment that they see such demonstration; but an hour afterwards they
fear they have been mistaken.
_Quod curiositate cognoverunt superbia amiserunt._[200]
This is the result of the knowledge of God obtained without Jesus
Christ; it is communion without a mediator with the God whom they have
known without a mediator. Whereas those who have known God by a mediator
know their own wretchedness.
543
The God of the Christians is a God who makes the soul feel that He is
her only good, that her only rest is in Him, that her only delight is
in loving Him; and who makes her at the same time abhor the obstacles
which keep her back, and prevent her from loving God with all her
strength. Self-love and lust, which hinder us, are unbearable to her.
Thus God makes her feel that she has this root of self-love which
destroys her, and which He alone can cure.
544
Jesus Christ did nothing but teach men that they loved themselves, that
they were slaves, blind, sick, wretched, and sinners; that He must
deliver them, enlighten, bless, and heal them; that this would be
effected by hating self, and by following Him through suffering and the
death on the cross.
545
Without Jesus Christ man must be in vice and misery; with Jesus Christ
man is free from vice and misery; in Him is all our virtue and all our
happiness. Apart from Him there is but vice, misery, darkness, death,
despair.
546
We know God only by Jesus Christ. Without this mediator all communion
with God is taken away; through Jesus Christ we know God. All those who
have claimed to know God, and to prove Him without Jesus Christ, have
had only weak proofs. But in proof of Jesus Christ we have the
prophecies, which are solid and palpable proofs. And these prophecies,
being accomplished and proved true by the event, mark the certainty of
these truths, and therefore the divinity of Christ. In Him then, and
through Him, we know God. Apart from Him, and without the Scripture,
without original sin, without a necessary Mediator promised and come, we
cannot absolutely prove God, nor teach right doctrine and right
morality. But through Jesus Christ, and in Jesus Christ, we prove God,
and teach morality and doctrine. Jesus Christ is then the true God of
men.
But we know at the same time our wretchedness; for this God is none
other than the Saviour of our wretchedness. So we can only know God well
by knowing our iniquities. Therefore those who have known God, without
knowing their wretchedness, have not glorified Him, but have glorified
themselves. _Quia ... non cognovit per sapientiam ... placuit Deo per