Pascal's Pensées
accorded we know not quite how, are both required, in co-operation, for
salvation. Though numerous theologians have set their wits at the
problem, it ends in a mystery which we can perceive but not finally
decipher. At least, it is obvious that, like any doctrine, a slight
excess or deviation to one side or the other will precipitate a heresy.
The Pelagians, who were refuted by St. Augustine, emphasised the
efficacy of human effort and belittled the importance of supernatural
grace. The Calvinists emphasised the degradation of man through Original
Sin, and considered mankind so corrupt that the will was of no avail;
and thus fell into the doctrine of predestination. It was upon the
doctrine of grace according to St. Augustine that the Jansenists relied;
and the _Augustinus_ of Jansenius was presented as a sound exposition of
the Augustinian views.
[B] The great man of Port-Royal was of course Saint-Cyran, but any
one who is interested will certainly consult, first of all, the book
of Sainte-Beuve mentioned.
Such heresies are never antiquated, because they forever assume new
forms. For instance, the insistence upon good works and "service" which
is preached from many quarters, or the simple faith that any one who
lives a good and useful life need have no "morbid" anxieties about
salvation, is a form of Pelagianism. On the other hand, one sometimes
hears enounced the view that it will make no real difference if all the
traditional religious sanctions for moral behaviour break down, because
those who are born and bred to be nice people will always prefer to
behave nicely, and those who are not will behave otherwise in any case:
and this is surely a form of predestination--for the hazard of being
born a nice person or not is as uncertain as the gift of grace.
It is likely that Pascal was attracted as much by the fruits of
Jansenism in the life of Port-Royal as by the doctrine itself. This
devout, ascetic, thoroughgoing society, striving heroically in the midst
of a relaxed and easy-going Christianity, was formed to attract a nature
so concentrated, so passionate, and so thoroughgoing as Pascal's. But
the insistence upon the degraded and helpless state of man, in
Jansenism, is something also to which we must be grateful, for to it we
owe the magnificent analysis of human motives and occupations which was
to have constituted the early part of his book. And apart from the
Jansenism which is the work of a not very eminent bishop who wrote a
Latin treatise which is now unread, there is also, so to speak, a
Jansenism of the individual biography. A moment of Jansenism may
naturally take place, and take place rightly, in the individual;
particularly in the life of a man of great and intense intellectual
powers, who cannot avoid seeing through human beings and observing the
vanity of their thoughts and of their avocations, their dishonesty and
self-deceptions, the insincerity of their emotions, their cowardice, the
pettiness of their real ambitions. Actually, considering that Pascal
died at the age of thirty-nine, one must be amazed at the balance and
justice of his observations; much greater maturity is required for these
qualities, than for any mathematical or scientific greatness. How easily
his brooding on _the misery of man without God_ might have encouraged in
him the sin of spiritual pride, the _concupiscence de l'esprit_, and how
fast a hold he has of humility!
And although Pascal brings to his work the same powers which he exerted
in science, it is not as a scientist that he presents himself. He does
not seem to say to the reader: I am one of the most distinguished
scientists of the day; I understand many matters which will always be
mysteries to you, and through science I have come to the Faith; you
therefore who are not initiated into science ought to have faith if I
have it. He is fully aware of the difference of subject-matter; and his
famous distinction between the _esprit de géométrie_ and the _esprit de
finesse_ is one to ponder over. It is the just combination of the
scientist, the _honnête homme_, and the religious nature with a
passionate craving for God, that makes Pascal unique. He succeeds where
Descartes fails; for in Descartes the element of _esprit de géométrie_
is excessive.[C] And in a few phrases about Descartes, in the present
book, Pascal laid his finger on the place of weakness.
[C] For a brilliant criticism of the errors of Descartes from a
theological point of view the reader is referred to _Three
Reformers_ by Jacques Maritain (translation published by Sheed &
Ward).
He who reads this book will observe at once its fragmentary nature; but
only after some study will perceive that the fragmentariness lies in the
expression more than in the thought. The "thoughts" cannot be detached
from each other and quoted as if each were complete in itself. _Le coeur
a ses raisons que la raison ne connaît point_: how often one has heard
that quoted, and quoted often to the wrong purpose! For this is by no
means an exaltation of the "heart" over the "head," a defence of
unreason. The heart, in Pascal's terminology, is itself truly rational
if it is truly the heart. For him, in theological matters, which seemed
to him much larger, more difficult, and more important than scientific
matters, the whole personality is involved.
We cannot quite understand any of the parts, fragmentary as they are,
without some understanding of the whole. Capital, for instance, is his
analysis of the _three orders_: the order of nature, the order of mind,
and the order of charity. These three are _discontinuous_; the higher is
not implicit in the lower as in an evolutionary doctrine it would be.[D]
In this distinction Pascal offers much about which the modern world
would do well to think. And indeed, because of his unique combination
and balance of qualities, I know of no religious writer more pertinent
to our time. The great mystics like St. John of the Cross, are
primarily for readers with a special determination of purpose; the
devotional writers, such as St. François de Sales, are primarily for
those who already feel consciously desirous of the love of God; the
great theologians are for those interested in theology. But I can think
of no Christian writer, not Newman even, more to be commended than
Pascal to those who doubt, but who have the mind to conceive, and the
sensibility to feel, the disorder, the futility, the meaninglessness,
the mystery of life and suffering, and who can only find peace through a
satisfaction of the whole being.
[D] An important modern theory of discontinuity, suggested partly by
Pascal, is sketched in the collected fragments of _Speculations_ by
T. E. Hulme (Kegan Paul).
T. S. ELIOT.
CONTENTS
Page
INTRODUCTION By T. S. Eliot vii
SECTION
I. THOUGHTS ON MIND AND ON STYLE 1
II. THE MISERY OF MAN WITHOUT GOD 14
III. OF THE NECESSITY OF THE WAGER 52
IV. OF THE MEANS OF BELIEF 71
V. JUSTICE AND THE REASON OF EFFECTS 83
VI. THE PHILOSOPHERS 96
VII. MORALITY AND DOCTRINE 113
VIII. THE FUNDAMENTALS OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION 152
IX. PERPETUITY 163
X. TYPOLOGY 181
XI. THE PROPHECIES 198
XII. PROOFS OF JESUS CHRIST 222
XIII. THE MIRACLES 238
XIV. APPENDIX: POLEMICAL FRAGMENTS 257
NOTES 273
INDEX 289
* * * * *
NOTE
_Passages_ erased by Pascal are enclosed in square brackets, thus [].
_Words_, added or corrected by the editor of the text, are similarly
denoted, but are in italics.
It has been seen fit to transfer Fragment 514 of the French edition to
the Notes. All subsequent Fragments have accordingly been renumbered.
SECTION I
THOUGHTS ON MIND AND ON STYLE
1
_The difference between the mathematical and the intuitive mind._[1]--In
the one the principles are palpable, but removed from ordinary use; so
that for want of habit it is difficult to turn one's mind in that
direction: but if one turns it thither ever so little, one sees the
principles fully, and one must have a quite inaccurate mind who reasons
wrongly from principles so plain that it is almost impossible they
should escape notice.
But in the intuitive mind the principles are found in common use, and
are before the eyes of everybody. One has only to look, and no effort is
necessary; it is only a question of good eyesight, but it must be good,
for the principles are so subtle and so numerous, that it is almost
impossible but that some escape notice. Now the omission of one
principle leads to error; thus one must have very clear sight to see all
the principles, and in the next place an accurate mind not to draw false
deductions from known principles.
All mathematicians would then be intuitive if they had clear sight, for
they do not reason incorrectly from principles known to them; and
intuitive minds would be mathematical if they could turn their eyes to
the principles of mathematics to which they are unused.
The reason, therefore, that some intuitive minds are not mathematical is
that they cannot at all turn their attention to the principles of
mathematics. But the reason that mathematicians are not intuitive is
that they do not see what is before them, and that, accustomed to the
exact and plain principles of mathematics, and not reasoning till they
have well inspected and arranged their principles, they are lost in
matters of intuition where the principles do not allow of such
arrangement. They are scarcely seen; they are felt rather than seen;
there is the greatest difficulty in making them felt by those who do
not of themselves perceive them. These principles are so fine and so
numerous that a very delicate and very clear sense is needed to perceive
them, and to judge rightly and justly when they are perceived, without
for the most part being able to demonstrate them in order as in
mathematics; because the principles are not known to us in the same way,
and because it would be an endless matter to undertake it. We must see
the matter at once, at one glance, and not by a process of reasoning, at
least to a certain degree. And thus it is rare that mathematicians are
intuitive, and that men of intuition are mathematicians, because
mathematicians wish to treat matters of intuition mathematically, and
make themselves ridiculous, wishing to begin with definitions and then
with axioms, which is not the way to proceed in this kind of reasoning.
Not that the mind does not do so, but it does it tacitly, naturally, and
without technical rules; for the expression of it is beyond all men, and
only a few can feel it.
Intuitive minds, on the contrary, being thus accustomed to judge at a
single glance, are so astonished when they are presented with
propositions of which they understand nothing, and the way to which is
through definitions and axioms so sterile, and which they are not
accustomed to see thus in detail, that they are repelled and
disheartened.
But dull minds are never either intuitive or mathematical.
Mathematicians who are only mathematicians have exact minds, provided
all things are explained to them by means of definitions and axioms;
otherwise they are inaccurate and insufferable, for they are only right
when the principles are quite clear.