INTRODUCTION BY T. S. ELIOT A Dutton Paperback New York E. P. DUTTON & CO., INC. This paperback edition of "Pascal's Pensées" Published 1958 by E. P. Dutton & Co., Inc. All rights reserved. Printed in the U. S. A. SBN 0-525-47018-2...

It might seem that about Blaise Pascal, and about the two works on which his fame is founded, everything that there is to say had been said. The details of his life are as fully known as we can expect to know them; his mathematical and physical discoveries have been treated many times; his religious sentiment and his theological views have been discussed again and again; and his prose style has been analysed by French critics down to the finest particular. But Pascal is one of those writers who

[A] Cf. the use of the simile of the couvreur . For comparing parallel passages, the edition of the Pensées by Henri Massis ( A la cité des livres ) is better than the two-volume edition of Jacques Chevalier (Gabalda). It seems just possible that in the latter edition, and also in his biographical study ( Pascal ; by Jacques Chevalier, English translation, published by Sheed & Ward), M. Chevalier is a little over-zealous to demonstrate the perfect orthodoxy of Pascal. [B] The great man o

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 u

First part : Misery of man without God. Second part : Happiness of man with God. Or, First part : That nature is corrupt. Proved by nature itself. Second part : That there is a Redeemer. Proved by Scripture. Order. —I might well have taken this discourse in an order like this: to show the vanity of all conditions of men, to show the vanity of ordinary lives, and then the vanity of philosophic lives, sceptics, stoics; but the order would not have been kept. I know a little what it is, and how few

A letter to incite to the search after God. And then to make people seek Him among the philosophers, sceptics, and dogmatists, who disquiet him who inquires of them. The conduct of God, who disposes all things kindly, is to put religion into the mind by reason, and into the heart by grace. But to will to put it into the mind and heart by force and threats is not to put religion there, but terror, terorrem potius quam religionem . Nisi terrerentur et non docerentur, improba quasi dominatio videre

Preface to the second part. —To speak of those who have treated of this matter. I admire the boldness with which these persons undertake to speak of God. In addressing their argument to infidels, their first chapter is to prove Divinity from the works of nature. [91] I should not be astonished at their enterprise, if they were addressing their argument to the faithful; for it is certain that those who have the living faith in their heart see at once that all existence is none other than the work

In the letter On Injustice can come the ridiculousness of the law that the elder gets all. "My friend, you were born on this side of the mountain, it is therefore just that your elder brother gets everything." "Why do you kill me?" He lives on the other side of the water. "Why do you kill me? What! do you not live on the other side of the water? If you lived on this side, my friend, I should be an assassin, and it would be unjust to slay you in this manner. But since you live on the other side,

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. 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. The account of the pike and frog of Liancourt. [128] They do it always, and never otherwise

Second part.—That man without faith cannot know the true good, nor justice. All men seek happiness. This is without exception. Whatever different means they employ, they all tend to this end. [159] The cause of some going to war, and of others avoiding it, is the same desire in both, attended with different views. The will never takes the least step but to this object. This is the motive of every action of every man, even of those who hang themselves. And yet after such a great number of years,

... Men blaspheme what they do not know. The Christian religion consists in two points. It is of equal concern to men to know them, and it is equally dangerous to be ignorant to them. And it is equally of God's mercy that He has given indications of both. And yet they take occasion to conclude that one of these points does not exist, from that which should have caused them to infer the other. The sages who have said there is only one God have been persecuted, the Jews were hated, and still more

On the fact that the Christian religion is not the only religion. —So far is this from being a reason for believing that it is not the true one, that, on the contrary, it makes us see that it is so. Men must be sincere in all religions; true heathens, true Jews, true Christians. The falseness of other religions. —They have no witnesses. Jews have. God defies other religions to produce such signs: Isaiah xliii, 9; xliv, 8. History of China. [213] -I believe only the histories, whose witnesses got

Proof of the two Testaments at once. —To prove the two at one stroke, we need only see if the prophecies in one are fulfilled in the other. To examine the prophecies, we must understand them. For if we believe they have only one meaning, it is certain that the Messiah has not come; but if they have two meanings, it is certain that He has come in Jesus Christ. The whole problem then is to know if they have two meanings. That the Scripture has two meanings, which Jesus Christ and the Apostles have

When I see the blindness and the wretchedness of man, when I regard the whole silent universe, and man without light, left to himself, and, as it were, lost in this corner of the universe, without knowing who has put him there, what he has come to do, what will become of him at death, and incapable of all knowledge, I become terrified, like a man who should be carried in his sleep to a dreadful desert island, and should awake without knowing where he is, and without means of escape. And thereupo

... Therefore I reject all other religions. In that way I find an answer to all objections. It is right that a God so pure should only reveal Himself to those whose hearts are purified. Hence this religion is lovable to me, and I find it now sufficiently justified by so divine a morality. But I find more in it. I find it convincing that, since the memory of man has lasted, it was constantly announced to men that they were universally corrupt, but that a Redeemer should come; that it was not one

The beginning. —Miracles enable us to judge of doctrine, and doctrine enables us to judge of miracles. There are false miracles and true. There must be a distinction, in order to know them; otherwise they would be useless. Now they are not useless; on the contrary, they are fundamental. Now the rule which is given to us must be such, that it does not destroy the proof which the true miracles give of the truth, which is the chief end of the miracles. Moses has given two rules: that the prediction

Clearness, obscurity. —There would be too great darkness, if truth had not visible signs. This is a wonderful one, that it has always been preserved in one Church and one visible assembly [of men]. There would be too great clearness, if there were only one opinion in this Church. But in order to recognise what is true, one has only to look at what has always existed; for it is certain that truth has always existed, and that nothing false has always existed. The history of the Church ought proper

The following brief notes are mainly based on those of M. Brunschvicg. But those of MM. Faugère, Molinier, and Havet have also been consulted. The biblical references are to the Authorised English Version. Those in the text are to the Vulgate, except where it has seemed advisable to alter the reference to the English Version. [1] P. 1, l. 1. The difference between the mathematical and the intuitive mind. —Pascal is here distinguishing the logical or discursive type of mind, a good example of whi