Pascal Part 7

JESUIT LAXITY AND CHRISTIAN INDIGNATION.

"Such is the way in which our teachers have discharged men from the 'painful' obligation of actually loving G.o.d. And so advantageous a doctrine is this, that our Fathers Annat, Pintereau, Le Moine, and A.

Sirmond even, have defended it vigorously when a.s.sailed by any one.

You have only to consult their answers in the 'Moral Theology;' that of Father Pintereau, in particular (second part), will enable you to judge of the value of this dispensation by the price which it has cost, even the blood of Jesus. This is the crown of such a doctrine." (A quotation is then given from Father Pintereau to the effect that it is a characteristic of the new Evangelical law, in contrast to the Judaical, that "G.o.d has lightened the troublesome and arduous obligation of exercising an act of perfect contrition in order to be justified.") "'O father,' said I, 'no patience can stand this any longer. One cannot hear without horror such sentiments as I have been listening to.' 'They are not my sentiments,' said the monk. 'I know that well; but you have expressed no aversion to them; and far from detesting the authors of such maxims, you cherish esteem for them. Do you not fear that your consent will make you a partic.i.p.ator in their guilt? Was it not sufficient to allow men so many forbidden things under cover of your palliations? Was it necessary to afford them the occasion of committing crimes that even you cannot excuse by the facility and a.s.surance of absolution which you offer them? . . . The licence which your teachers have a.s.sumed of tampering with the most holy rules of Christian conduct amounts to a total subversion of the Divine law. They violate the great commandment which embraces the law and the prophets; they strike at the very heart of piety; they take away the spirit which giveth life.

They say that the love of G.o.d is not necessary to salvation; they even go the length of professing that this dispensation from loving G.o.d is the special privilege which Jesus Christ has brought into the world. This is the very climax of impiety. The price of the blood of Jesus, the purchase for us of a dispensation from loving Him!

Before the incarnation we were under the necessity of loving G.o.d.

But since G.o.d has so loved the world as to give His only Son for it, the world, thus redeemed by Him, is discharged from loving Him!

Strange theology of our time!-to take away the anathema p.r.o.nounced by St Paul against those "who love not the Lord Jesus Christ;" to blot out the saying of St John, that "he that loveth not abideth in death;" and the words of Jesus Christ Himself, "He that loveth me not keepeth not my commandments!" In this manner those who have never loved G.o.d in life are rendered worthy of enjoying Him throughout eternity. Behold the mystery of iniquity accomplished! Open your eyes, my father; and if you have remained untouched by the other distortions of your Casuists, let this last by its excess compel you to abandon them.'" {150a}

DEFENCE OF RIDICULE AS A WEAPON IN CONTROVERSY.

"What, my fathers! must the imaginations of your doctors pa.s.s for faithful verities? Must we not expose the sayings of Escobar, {150b} and the fantastic and unchristian statements of others, without being accused of laughing at religion? Is it possible you have dared to repeat anything so unreasonable? and have you no fear that in blaming me for ridiculing your absurdities, you were merely furnis.h.i.+ng me with a fresh subject of arousing attack, and of pointing out more clearly that I have not found in your books any subject of laughter which is not in itself intensely ridiculous; and that in making a jest of your moral maxims, I am as far from making a jest of holy things as the doctrine of your Casuists distant from the holy doctrine of the Gospel? In truth, sirs, there is a vast difference between laughing at religion and laughing at those who profane it by their extravagant opinions. It were an impiety to fail in respect for the great truths which the Divine Spirit has revealed; but it would be no less impiety of another kind to fail in contempt for falsehoods which the spirit of man has opposed to them. . . . Just as Christian truths are worthy of love and respect, the errors which oppose them are worthy of contempt and hatred: for as there are two things in the truths of our religion-a divine beauty which renders them lovable, and a holy majesty which renders them venerable; so there are two things in such errors-an impiety which makes them horrible, and an impertinence which renders them ridiculous." {151a}

Many examples from the Scriptures and the Fathers are then quoted in defence of the practice of directing ridicule against error; and he closes with a singularly appropriate pa.s.sage from Tertullian: "Nothing is more due to vanity than laughter; it is the Truth properly that has a right to laugh, because she is cheerful-and to make sport of her enemies, because she is sure of victory."

"Do you not think, my fathers, that this pa.s.sage is singularly applicable to our subject? The letters which I have hitherto written are 'only a little sport before the real combat.' As yet I have been only playing with the foils, and 'rather indicating the wounds that might be given you than inflicting any.' I have merely exposed your sayings to the light, without commenting on them. 'If they have excited laughter, it is only because they are so laughable in themselves.' These sayings come upon us with such surprise, it is impossible to help laughing at them; for nothing produces laughter more than surprising disproportion between what one hears and what one expects. In what other way could the most of these matters be treated? for, as Tertullian says, 'To treat them seriously would be to sanction them.'" {151b}

APPEAL AGAINST THE JESUITS.

"Too long have you deceived the world, and abused the confidence which men have put in your impostures. It is high time to vindicate the reputation of so many people whom you have calumniated; for what innocence can be so generally acknowledged as not to suffer contamination from the daring aspersion of a society of men scattered throughout the world, who, under religious habits, cover irreligious minds; who perpetrate crimes as they concoct slanders-not against, but in conformity with, their own maxims? No one can blame me, surely, for having destroyed the confidence which you might otherwise have inspired, since it is far more just to vindicate for so many good people whom you have decried, the reputation for piety they deserved, than to leave you a reputation for sincerity which you have never merited. And as the one could not be done without the other, how important was it to make the world understand what you really are. This is what I have begun to do; but it will require time to complete the work. The world, however, shall hear of you, my fathers, and all your policy will not avail to shelter you. The very efforts you make to ward off the blow will only serve to convince the least enlightened that you are afraid, and that, smitten in your own consciences by my charges, you have had recourse to every expedient to prevent exposure." {152}

The effect of the 'Provincial Letters' was not only to alarm the Jesuits, but the Church. The scandal of their exposure was so deeply felt, that the _cures_ of Paris and Rouen appointed committees to investigate the accuracy of Pascal's quotations, and the result of their investigation was entirely in Pascal's favour. This led ultimately to the matter being carried before a General a.s.sembly of the clergy of Paris, which, however, declined to give any formal decision. In the meantime, an 'Apology for the Casuists' was published by a Jesuit of the name of Pirot, of such a character as to increase rather than abate the scandal, and a new controversy gathered around this publication. The Sorbonne took up the question, and, after examination, condemned Pirot's Apology (July 1658) as they had formerly done Arnauld's propositions, and ultimately it was included by Rome in the 'Index Expurgatorius,' along with the 'Provincial Letters,' to which it was designed as a reply. While the question was before the Sorbonne, the _cures_ of Paris published various writings, under the name of 'Facta,' in support of the conclusions to which they had come. These writings were prepared in concert with Pascal and his friends, and the second and fifth are ascribed entirely to his pen. It is even said that he looked upon the latter, in which he drew a parallel betwixt the Jesuits and Calvinists (to the disadvantage of the Protestants), as the _best thing he ever did_. {153} Long after Pascal's death (in 1694) an elaborate answer appeared, by Father Daniel, to the 'Provincial Letters,' under the t.i.tle of 'Entretiens de Cleandre et d'Eudoxe sur les Lettres au Provincial;' but notwithstanding a certain amount of learning and apparent candour, the reply made no impression upon the public. Even the Jesuits themselves felt it to be a failure.

"Father Daniel," it was said, "professed to have reason and truth on his side; but his adversary had in his favour what goes much farther with men,-the arms of ridicule and pleasantry." As late as 1851 an edition of the 'Letters' appeared by the Abbe Maynard, accompanied by a professed refutation of their misstatements. But the truth is, Pascal's work is one of those which admit of no adequate refutation. Even if it be granted that he has occasionally made the most of a quotation, and brought points together which, taken separately in their connection, have not the offensive meaning attributed to them, this touches but little the reader who has enjoyed their exquisite raillery or has been moved by their indignant denunciation. The real force of the Letters lies in their wit and eloquence-their mingled comedy and invective. They may be parried or resented-they can never be refuted.

We have already quoted Voltaire's saying, "The best comedies of Moliere have not more wit than the first Provincial Letters." "Bossuet," he added, "has nothing more sublime than the concluding ones." They were regarded by him as "models of eloquence and pleasantry," as the "first work of genius" that appeared in French prose. When Bossuet himself was asked of what work he would most wish to have been the author, he answered, "The 'Provincial Letters.'" Madame de Sevigne writes of them (Dec. 21, 1689): "How charming they are! . . . Is it possible to have a more perfect style, an irony finer, more delicate, more natural, more worthy of the Dialogues of Plato? . . . And what seriousness of tone, what solidity, what eloquence in the last eight Letters!" Our Gibbon attributed to the frequent perusal of them his own mastery of "grave and temperate irony." Boileau p.r.o.nounced them "unsurpa.s.sed" in ancient or modern prose. Encomiums could hardly go higher, and yet the language of Perrault is in a still higher strain: "There is more wit in these eighteen Letters than in Plato's Dialogues; more delicate and artful raillery than in those of Lucian; and more strength and ingenuity of reasoning than in the orations of Cicero." Their style especially is beyond all praise. It has "never been surpa.s.sed, nor perhaps equalled."

There may be, as there is apt to be in all such concurrent verdicts, a strain of excess. The duller English sense may not catch all the finer edges of a style which it may yet feel to be exquisite in its general clearness, harmony, and point; the absurdities of verbal argument and of Jesuit sophistry may sometimes pall upon the attention, and hardly raise a smile at this time of day. It is the fate of even the finest polemical literature to grow dead as it grows old; yet none can doubt the immortality of the genius which has so long given life to such a controversy, and charmed so many of the highest judges of literary form.

It is not for any Englishman to challenge the verdict of a Frenchman in a matter of style.

Pascal himself evidently thought highly of his success. He liked the controversy, its excitement, and the applausive echo which followed each Letter. Like every true artist, he felt the joy and yet the gravity of his work. He took up his pen with a pleasurable sense of mastery, and yet he wrote some of the Letters six or seven times over. He spared no pains, yet he never wearied. All his intellectual life for the time was thrown into the controversy, and his most finely-tempered strokes made music in his own mind, while they carried confusion to his adversaries and triumph to his friends. The sensation made by the Letters was, of course, mainly confined to France; but the nervous Latinity of Nicole soon communicated something of the same sensation to a wider circle.

{156} Pascal has himself told us that he never repented having written them, nor "the amusing, agreeable, ironical style" in which they were written. Even the condemnation of the Papal See, abject in some respects as was his devotion to his Church, did not move him on this point. He left on record, amongst his Thoughts, the following solemn declaration: "IF MY LETTERS ARE CONDEMNED IN ROME, WHAT I CONDEMN IN THEM IS CONDEMNED IN HEAVEN. AD TUUM, DOMINE JESU, TRIBUNAL APPELLO."

CHAPTER VI.

THE 'PENSeES.'

From Pascal's finished work we turn to his unfinished Remains. The one will always be regarded as the chief monument of his literary skill, and of the executive completeness of his mind. But the other is the worthier and n.o.bler tribute to the greatness of his soul, and the depth and power of his moral genius. Few comparatively now read the 'Provincial Letters'

as a whole; fewer still are interested in the controversy which they commemorate. But there are hardly any of higher culture-none certainly of higher thoughtfulness-to whom the 'Pensees' are not still attractive, and who have not sought in them at one time or another some answer to the obstinate questionings which the deeper scrutiny of human life and destiny is ever renewing in the human heart. No answer may have been found in them, but every spiritual mind must have so far met in the author of the 'Pensees' a kindred spirit which, if it has seen no farther than others, has yet entered keenly upon the great quest, and traversed with a singular boldness the great lines of higher speculation that "slope through darkness up to G.o.d."

The literary history of the 'Pensees' is a very curious one. They first appeared in the end of 1669, in a small duodecimo volume, with the appropriate motto, "Pendent opera interrupta." Their preparation for the press had been a subject of much anxiety to Pascal's friends. What is known as the "Peace of the Church"-a period of temporary quiet and prosperity to Port Royal-had begun in 1663; and it was important that nothing should be done by the Port Royalists to disturb this peace. It had been agreed, therefore, that all pa.s.sages bearing on the controversy with the Jesuits and the Formulary should be omitted; but beyond this Madame Perier desired that the volume should only contain what proceeded from her brother, and in the precise form and style in which it had left his hand. She evidently lacked full confidence in the Committee of Editors, of whom the Duc de Roannez was the chief, notwithstanding their professions of strict adherence to the ma.n.u.scripts. The volume at last appeared, with a preface by her own son, and no fewer than nine "approbations," signed amongst others by three bishops, one archdeacon, and three doctors of the Sorbonne.

Unhappily Madame Perier had too much cause for alarm. Editors and Approvers alike had claimed the liberty, not only of arranging but of modifying both the matter and the style of the 'Pensees,' and this notwithstanding a statement in the preface that, in giving, as they professed to do, only "the clearest and most finished" of the fragments, they had given them as they found them, _without adding or changing anything_. "These fragments," says M. Faugere, "which sickness and death had left unfinished, suffered, without ceasing to be immortal, all the mutilation which an exaggerated prudence or a misdirected zeal could suggest, with the view not only of guarding their orthodoxy, but of embellis.h.i.+ng their style-the style of the author of the 'Provincials'!"

"There are not," he adds, "twenty successive lines which do not present some alteration, great or small. As for total omissions and partial suppressions, they are without number." M. Cousin is equally emphatic.

"There are," he says, "examples of every kind of alteration-alteration of words, alteration of phrases, suppressions, subst.i.tutions, additions, arbitrary compositions, and, what is worse, decompositions more arbitrary still."

It is impossible to defend the first editors of the 'Pensees.' But it should be remembered that their task was one not only of theological perplexity, but of great literary difficulty. Pascal's ma.n.u.scripts were a mere ma.s.s of confused papers, sometimes written on both sides, and in a hand for the most part so obscure and imperfectly formed as to be illegible to all who had not made it a special study. The papers were pasted or bundled together without any natural connection, parts containing the same piece being sometimes intersected and sometimes widely separated from one another. If the editors, therefore, did their work ill, it was partly no doubt from incompetency, but partly from its inherent difficulty, and from the fact that being so near to Pascal they could hardly appreciate the feelings of the modern critic as to the sacredness of his style, and of all that came from his pen.

The edition of 1669 continued to be reprinted with little alteration for a century. Various additional fragments were brought to light, especially the famous conversation between De Saci and Pascal regarding Epictetus and Montaigne; but the form of the fragments remained unchanged. It was not till the edition of Condorcet in 1776 that they can be said to have undergone any new _redaction_. Unhappily Pascal suffered in the hands of the Encyclopedists, as he had previously suffered in the hands of the Jansenists and the Sorbonne. The first editors had expunged whatever might seem at variance with orthodoxy.

Condorcet suppressed or modified whatever partook of a too lofty enthusiasm or a too fervent piety. It became a current idea among the Encyclopedists that the accident at Neuilly had affected Pascal's brain.

We have already seen how Voltaire spoke of this; and he directed an early attack (1734) upon the doctrine of human nature contained in the 'Pensees.' Now, in his old age, he hailed Condorcet's edition, and reissued it two years later, with an Introduction and Notes by himself.

In the following year, 1779, appeared the elaborate and well-known edition of Pascal's works by the Abbe Bossut, accompanied by an admirable "Discours sur la Vie et les Ouvrages de Pascal." In this edition the remains are found for the first time in some degree of completeness. All the fragments published by Port Royal, and all those subsequently brought to light by Des Molets and others, are included and arranged in a new order. But meritorious as were Bossut's editorial labours as a whole, they did not attempt any restoration of the 'Pensees' to their original text; and even the new fragments published by him were not left untouched. He embodied, for example, the famous conversation with De Saci, but without giving De Saci's part of the dialogue. In short, he reproduced, as M. Havet says, all the faults of the first editors, and made others of his own. This is the more remarkable that he is said to have had in his possession a copy of the original ma.n.u.scripts.

Condorcet, however, consulted the original ma.n.u.scripts themselves, without any thought of doing justice to Pascal's text.

So matters remained till 1842, when M. Cousin published his famous Report on the subject to the French Academy. The French public then found to their astonishment that, with so many editions of the 'Pensees,' they had not the 'Pensees' themselves. While philosophers had disputed as to his ideas, and critics admired his style, the veritable Pascal of the 'Pensees' had all the time lain concealed in a ma.s.s of ma.n.u.scripts in the National Library. Such a story, it may be imagined, did not lack any force in the manner in which M. Cousin told it; and an eager desire arose for a new and complete edition of the fragments. Cousin had prepared the way, but he did not himself undertake this task, which was reserved for M. Faugere, whose great edition appeared two years later, in 1844.

Nothing can deprive M. Faugere of the credit of being the first editor of a _complete_ and _authentic_ text of the 'Pensees.'

Other editions of distinctive merit have since appeared; and it may be admitted that, in the natural reaction from the laxity of former editions, he gave a too literal transcript of the ma.n.u.scripts, including some things of little importance, and others more properly belonging to an edition of the 'Provincial Letters' than of the 'Pensees.' But, whether it be the result of early a.s.sociation or of greater familiarity with M. Faugere's pages, I own still a preference for this edition, while admitting the admirable perspicuity and intelligence of many of M.

Havet's notes, and the splendour of the edition of M. Victor Rochet, the most recent (1873) that has come under my notice.

The principle observed by M. Faugere is strongly defended in his preface.

He allowed himself no discretionary powers of emendation, because "the limits of such a power might," he says, "be too easily overstepped, and would have left room for belief that greater liberties had been taken than was actually the case." "The ma.n.u.scripts," he adds, "have been read, or rather studied, page by page, line by line, syllable by syllable, to the end; and, with the exception of illegible words (which, however, are carefully indicated), they have pa.s.sed completely into the present edition."

So far, this principle has been adhered to by subsequent editors. There has been no further tampering with Pascal's words, but more or less lat.i.tude has been taken in publis.h.i.+ng all the ma.n.u.script details, and especially in the arrangement of the several fragments. Faugere fancied that he could trace in Pascal's own notes the indication of an interior arrangement, into which the several parts of his proposed work in defence of religion were intended to fall; and he has grouped the fragments in his second volume according to these supposed indications. M. Havet does not think that it is possible any longer to discover the true order of the fragments. He does not believe that any such order existed in the author's own mind. He had a general design, and certain great divisions; a preface was sketched here, and a chapter there; but in throwing his thoughts upon paper as they presented themselves to him, he did not stop to a.s.sort them, or to bring them into any fitting connection. What Pascal himself did not do, M. Havet does not think it possible any editor can do. Accordingly, he recurs to the old, if somewhat arbitrary, arrangement of Bossut, as the most familiar and useful. M. Rochet follows an elaborate arrangement, professedly founded on the original plan of Pascal, as sketched by himself in the conversation reported by his nephew in the preface to the primary edition of the fragments. He considers that all the Thoughts find their natural place in this plan and in no other. But M. Rochet's cla.s.sifications are, partly at least, inspired by his own ecclesiastical tendencies; and he is far from just to the labours of M. Faugere, and the real light and order which these labours introduced into the development of Pascal's ideas.

It is unnecessary for us to attempt to hold the balance between Pascal's several editors, or to say which of them has most justice on his side.

Of two things there can be no doubt: first, that any special arrangement of the 'Pensees,' so as to give the idea of a connected book in defence of religion, is, so far, arbitrary-the work, that is to say, of the editor rather than of the author; and secondly, that there is no difficulty, from the original preface and otherwise, of gathering the general order of Pascal's ideas, and the method which appeared to him the true one of meeting the irreligion of his day, and vindicating the divine truth of Christianity-points which shall afterwards come before us.

The special question raised by M. Cousin as to Pascal's scepticism will also be best discussed in its true order, in connection with such pa.s.sages as have suggested it. Considering Pascal's traditionary reputation as the defender of religion, there was a character of surprise in this question, that forced a lively debate, as soon as it was raised, in France and Germany, and even England. Vinet and Neander both joined in it; and the two lectures delivered by the latter before the Royal Academy of Sciences in Berlin in 1847, are highly deserving of perusal by all students of philosophy. {164} But the issue is an absurd one, before the combatants are agreed as to the meaning of the word Scepticism, and before the reader has before him the views of Pascal, and the manner in which he defines his own att.i.tude in relation to what he considered the two great lines of thought opposed to Christianity. When we are in possession of his own statements, we may find that much of the indignant rhetoric of M. Cousin is beside the question, and that, although Pascal was certainly no Cartesian, and has used some strong and rash expressions about the weakness of human reason, neither is he a sceptic in any usual sense. He has, in fact, defined his own position with singular clearness and force.

But before turning to his views on these higher subjects, it will be well to present our readers with some of Pascal's more miscellaneous and general Thoughts. In doing so, it is not necessary, in such a volume as this, that we indicate throughout the edition from which we take our quotations. We shall quote from the editions of Faugere or Havet, as may be most convenient, and take them in such order as suits our own purpose of exhibiting Pascal's mind as clearly as we can. For the same reason, we shall give such pa.s.sages as appear to us not always the most just or accurate in thought, but the most characteristic or representative of the veritable Pascal, whose true words were so long concealed from the world.

We cannot do better, in the first instance, than note what so great a mathematician has to say of geometry and the "mathematical mind,"

compared with the naturally _acute_ mind ("l'esprit de finesse"), betwixt which he draws an interesting parallel. The fragment on the "Mathematical" or "Geometric Mind" was, with the exception of a brief pa.s.sage given by Des Molets {165} in 1728, originally published, although with numerous suppressions, in Condorcet's edition of the 'Pensees.' It appeared for the first time in its complete form, and under its proper t.i.tle, in Faugere's edition, along with its natural pendant, the closely-allied fragment, ent.i.tled "L'Art de Persuader." We give a few pa.s.sages from the first fragment:-

"We may have three princ.i.p.al objects in the study of truth-one to discover it when we seek it, another to demonstrate it when we possess it, and a third and last to discriminate it from the false when we examine it. . . . Geometry excels in all three, and especially in the art of discovering unknown truths, which it calls _a.n.a.lysis_. . . There is a method which excels geometry, but is impossible to man, _for whatever transcends geometry transcends us_ [in natural science, as he explains elsewhere]. This is the method of defining everything and proving everything. . . A fine method, but impossible; since it is evident that the first terms that we wish to define, suppose precedent terms necessary for their explanation-and that the first propositions that we wish to prove, suppose others which precede them; and so it is clear we can never arrive at absolutely first principles. In pus.h.i.+ng our researches to the utmost, we necessarily reach primitive words that admit of no further definition, and principles so obvious, that they require no proof. Man can never, therefore, from natural incompetency, possess an absolutely complete science. . . . But geometry, while inferior in its aims, is absolutely certain within its limits. It neither defines everything, nor attempts to prove everything, and must, so far, yield its pretension to be an absolute science; but it sets out from things universally admitted as clear and constant, and is therefore perfectly true, because in consonance with nature. Its function is not to define things universally clear and understood, but to define all others; and not to attempt to prove things intuitively known to men, but to attempt to prove all others.

Against this, the true order of knowledge, those alike err who attempt to define and to prove everything, and those who neglect definition and demonstration where things are not self-evident. This is what geometry teaches perfectly. It attempts no definition of such things as _s.p.a.ce_, _time_, _motion_, _number_, _equality_, and the like, because these terms designate so naturally the things which they signify, that any attempt at making them more clear ends in making them more obscure. For there is nothing more futile than the talk of those who would define primitive words. {166}

"In geometry the principles are palpable, but removed from common use. . . . In the sphere of natural wit or acuteness, the principles are in common use and before all eyes-it is only a question of having a good view of them; for they are so subtle and numerous, that some are almost sure to escape observation. . . . All geometers would be men of acuteness if they had sufficient insight, for they never reason falsely on the principles recognised by them. All fine or acute spirits would be geometers if they could fix their thoughts on the unwonted principles of geometry. The reason why some finer spirits are not geometers is, that they cannot turn their attention at all to the principles of geometry; but geometers fail in finer perception, because they do not see all that is before them, and being accustomed to the plain and palpable principles of geometry, and never reasoning until they have well ascertained and handled their principles, they lose themselves in matters of intellectual subtlety, where the principles are not so easily laid hold of. Such things are seen with difficulty; they are felt rather than seen.

They are so delicate and mult.i.tudinous that it requires a very delicate and neat sense to appreciate them. . . . So it is as rare for geometers to be men of subtle wit as it is for the latter to be geometers, because geometers like to treat these nicer matters geometrically, and so make themselves ridiculous; they like to commence with definition, and then go on to principles-a mode which does not at all suit this sort of reasoning. It is not that the mind does not take this method, but it does so silently, naturally, and without conscious art. The perception of the process belongs only to a few minds, and those of the highest order. . . . Geometers, who are only geometers, are sure to be right, provided the subject come within their scope, and is capable of explanation by definition and principles. Otherwise they go wrong altogether, for they only judge rightly upon principles clearly set forth and established. On the other hand, subtle men, who are only subtle, lack patience, in matters of speculation and imagination, to reach first principles which they have never known in the world, and which are entirely beyond their beat. . . .

"There are different kinds of sound sense. Some succeed in one order of things, and not in another, in which they are simply extravagant.

. . . Some minds draw consequences well from a few principles, others are more at home in drawing conclusions from a great variety of principles. For example, some understand well the phenomena of water, with reference to which the principles are few, but the results extremely delicate, so that only very great accuracy of mind can trace them. Such men would probably not be great geometers, because geometry involves a mult.i.tude of principles, and because the mind which may penetrate thoroughly a few principles to their depth may not be at all able to penetrate things which combine a mult.i.tude of principles. . . . There are two sorts of mind: the one fathoms rapidly and deeply the consequences of principles-this is the observant and accurate mind; the other embraces a great mult.i.tude of principles, without confounding them-and this is the mathematical mind. The one is marked by energy and accuracy, the other by amplitude. But the one may exist without the other. The mind may be powerful and narrow, or it may be ample and weak." {168}

Few of Pascal's Thoughts are more interesting than those on "Eloquence and Style." So great a master of the art of expression had naturally something to say on these subjects.

"Continued eloquence wearies. Princes and kings amuse themselves sometimes; they are not always upon their thrones-they tire of these.

Grandeur must be laid aside in order to be realised.