Pascal's Pensées
which they administer justice, the _fleurs-de-lis_, and all such august
apparel were necessary; if the physicians had not their cassocks and
their mules, if the doctors had not their square caps and their robes
four times too wide, they would never have duped the world, which cannot
resist so original an appearance. If magistrates had true justice, and
if physicians had the true art of healing, they would have no occasion
for square caps; the majesty of these sciences would of itself be
venerable enough. But having only imaginary knowledge, they must employ
those silly tools that strike the imagination with which they have to
deal; and thereby in fact they inspire respect. Soldiers alone are not
disguised in this manner, because indeed their part is the most
essential; they establish themselves by force, the others by show.
Therefore our kings seek out no disguises. They do not mask themselves
in extraordinary costumes to appear such; but they are accompanied by
guards and halberdiers. Those armed and red-faced puppets who have hands
and power for them alone, those trumpets and drums which go before them,
and those legions round about them, make the stoutest tremble. They have
not dress only, they have might. A very refined reason is required to
regard as an ordinary man the Grand Turk, in his superb seraglio,
surrounded by forty thousand janissaries.
We cannot even see an advocate in his robe and with his cap on his head,
without a favourable opinion of his ability. The imagination disposes of
everything; it makes beauty, justice, and happiness, which is everything
in the world. I should much like to see an Italian work, of which I only
know the title, which alone is worth many books, _Della opinione regina
del mondo_.[51] I approve of the book without knowing it, save the evil
in it, if any. These are pretty much the effects of that deceptive
faculty, which seems to have been expressly given us to lead us into
necessary error. We have, however, many other sources of error.
Not only are old impressions capable of misleading us; the charms of
novelty have the same power. Hence arise all the disputes of men, who
taunt each other either with following the false impressions of
childhood or with running rashly after the new. Who keeps the due mean?
Let him appear and prove it. There is no principle, however natural to
us from infancy, which may not be made to pass for a false impression
either of education or of sense.
"Because," say some, "you have believed from childhood that a box was
empty when you saw nothing in it, you have believed in the possibility
of a vacuum. This is an illusion of your senses, strengthened by custom,
which science must correct." "Because," say others, "you have been
taught at school that there is no vacuum, you have perverted your common
sense which clearly comprehended it, and you must correct this by
returning to your first state." Which has deceived you, your senses or
your education?
We have another source of error in diseases.[52] They spoil the judgment
and the senses; and if the more serious produce a sensible change, I do
not doubt that slighter ills produce a proportionate impression.
Our own interest is again a marvellous instrument for nicely putting out
our eyes. The justest man in the world is not allowed to be judge in his
own cause; I know some who, in order not to fall into this self-love,
have been perfectly unjust out of opposition. The sure way of losing a
just cause has been to get it recommended to these men by their near
relatives.
Justice and truth are two such subtle points, that our tools are too
blunt to touch them accurately. If they reach the point, they either
crush it, or lean all round, more on the false than on the true.
[Man is so happily formed that he has no ... good of the true, and
several excellent of the false. Let us now see how much.... But the most
powerful cause of error is the war existing between the senses and
reason.]
83
_We must thus begin the chapter on the deceptive powers._ Man is only a
subject full of error, natural and ineffaceable, without grace. Nothing
shows him the truth. Everything deceives him. These two sources of
truth, reason and the senses, besides being both wanting in sincerity,
deceive each other in turn. The senses mislead the reason with false
appearances, and receive from reason in their turn the same trickery
which they apply to her; reason has her revenge. The passions of the
soul trouble the senses, and make false impressions upon them. They
rival each other in falsehood and deception.[53]
But besides those errors which arise accidentally and through lack of
intelligence, with these heterogeneous faculties ...
84
The imagination enlarges little objects so as to fill our souls with a
fantastic estimate; and, with rash insolence, it belittles the great to
its own measure, as when talking of God.
85
Things which have most hold on us, as the concealment of our few
possessions, are often a mere nothing. It is a nothing which our
imagination magnifies into a mountain. Another turn of the imagination
would make us discover this without difficulty.
86
[My fancy makes me hate a croaker, and one who pants when eating. Fancy
has great weight. Shall we profit by it? Shall we yield to this weight
because it is natural? No, but by resisting it ...]
87
_Næ iste magno conatu magnas nugas dixerit.[54]
Quasi quidquam infelicius sit homini cui sua figmenta dominantur._[55]
(Plin.)
88
Children who are frightened at the face they have blackened are but
children. But how shall one who is so weak in his childhood become
really strong when he grows older? We only change our fancies. All that
is made perfect by progress perishes also by progress. All that has been
weak can never become absolutely strong. We say in vain, "He has grown,
he has changed"; he is also the same.
89
Custom is our nature. He who is accustomed to the faith believes in it,
can no longer fear hell, and believes in nothing else. He who is
accustomed to believe that the king is terrible ... etc. Who doubts then
that our soul, being accustomed to see number, space, motion, believes
that and nothing else?
90
_Quod crebro videt non miratur, etiamsi cur fiat nescit; quod ante non
viderit, id si evenerit, ostentum esse censet._[56] (Cic. 583.)
91
_Spongia solis._[57]--When we see the same effect always recur, we infer
a natural necessity in it, as that there will be a to-morrow, etc. But
nature often deceives us, and does not subject herself to her own rules.
92
What are our natural principles but principles of custom? In children
they are those which they have received from the habits of their
fathers, as hunting in animals. A different custom will cause different
natural principles. This is seen in experience; and if there are some
natural principles ineradicable by custom, there are also some customs
opposed to nature, ineradicable by nature, or by a second custom. This
depends on disposition.
93
Parents fear lest the natural love of their children may fade away. What
kind of nature is that which is subject to decay? Custom is a second
nature which destroys the former.[58] But what is nature? For is custom
not natural? I am much afraid that nature is itself only a first custom,
as custom is a second nature.
94
The nature of man is wholly natural, _omne animal_.[59]
There is nothing he may not make natural; there is nothing natural he
may not lose.
95
Memory, joy, are intuitions; and even mathematical propositions become
intuitions, for education produces natural intuitions, and natural
intuitions are erased by education.
96
When we are accustomed to use bad reasons for proving natural effects,
we are not willing to receive good reasons when they are discovered. An
example may be given from the circulation of the blood as a reason why
the vein swells below the ligature.
97
The most important affair in life is the choice of a calling; chance
decides it. Custom makes men masons, soldiers, slaters. "He is a good
slater," says one, and, speaking of soldiers, remarks, "They are perfect
fools." But others affirm, "There is nothing great but war, the rest of
men are good for nothing." We choose our callings according as we hear
this or that praised or despised in our childhood, for we naturally love
truth and hate folly. These words move us; the only error is in their
application. So great is the force of custom that out of those whom
nature has only made men, are created all conditions of men. For some
districts are full of masons, others of soldiers, etc. Certainly nature
is not so uniform. It is custom then which does this, for it constrains
nature. But sometimes nature gains the ascendancy, and preserves man's
instinct, in spite of all custom, good or bad.
98
_Bias leading to error._--It is a deplorable thing to see all men
deliberating on means alone, and not on the end. Each thinks how he will
acquit himself in his condition; but as for the choice of condition, or
of country, chance gives them to us.
It is a pitiable thing to see so many Turks, heretics, and infidels
follow the way of their fathers for the sole reason that each has been
imbued with the prejudice that it is the best. And that fixes for each
man his conditions of locksmith, soldier, etc.
Hence savages care nothing for Providence.[60]
99
There is an universal and essential difference between the actions of
the will and all other actions.
The will is one of the chief factors in belief, not that it creates
belief, but because things are true or false according to the aspect in
which we look at them. The will, which prefers one aspect to another,
turns away the mind from considering the qualities of all that it does
not like to see; and thus the mind, moving in accord with the will,
stops to consider the aspect which it likes, and so judges by what it
sees.
100
_Self-love._--The nature of self-love and of this human Ego is to love
self only and consider self only. But what will man do? He cannot
prevent this object that he loves from being full of faults and wants.
He wants to be great, and he sees himself small. He wants to be happy,
and he sees himself miserable. He wants to be perfect, and he sees
himself full of imperfections. He wants to be the object of love and
esteem among men, and he sees that his faults merit only their hatred
and contempt. This embarrassment in which he finds himself produces in
him the most unrighteous and criminal passion that can be imagined; for
he conceives a mortal enmity against that truth which reproves him, and
which convinces him of his faults. He would annihilate it, but, unable
to destroy it in its essence, he destroys it as far as possible in his
own knowledge and in that of others; that is to say, he devotes all his
attention to hiding his faults both from others and from himself, and he
cannot endure either that others should point them out to him, or that
they should see them.
Truly it is an evil to be full of faults; but it is a still greater evil
to be full of them, and to be unwilling to recognise them, since that is
to add the further fault of a voluntary illusion. We do not like others
to deceive us; we do not think it fair that they should be held in
higher esteem by us than they deserve; it is not then fair that we
should deceive them, and should wish them to esteem us more highly than
we deserve.
Thus, when they discover only the imperfections and vices which we
really have, it is plain they do us no wrong, since it is not they who
cause them; they rather do us good, since they help us to free ourselves
from an evil, namely, the ignorance of these imperfections. We ought not