P2.6 
 Si3 
 
 CORNELL 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 THE PASCAL COLLECTION 
 
 OF 
 
 GEORGE L. HAMILTON 
 
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 NO. 23233 
 
 Cornell University Library 
 BX4735.P26 SI 3 
 
 Pascal, by Viscount St- Cyres. 
 
 olin 
 
 3 1924 029 433 582 
 
The original of tiiis book is in 
 the Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/cletails/cu31924029433582 
 
PASCAL 
 
 This Book is supplied by MESSRS. Smith, 
 Elder & Co. to Booksellers on terms which will 
 not admit of their allowing a discount from the 
 advertised price. 
 
PASCAL 
 
ZTixytn aboj-bnit tn the UDilrlic-thtanf: ^JVa.bionale.hJa^ 
 
PASCAL 
 
 BY 
 
 VISCOUNT ST. CYEBS 
 
 FOBIEEELY SENIOE STUDENT OF CHRIST CnUBOH 
 AOTHOn OF ' FRA2I9OIB DE F^NELON ' 
 
 WITH A PORTRAIT 
 
 LONDON 
 SMITH, ELDBE, & CO., 16 WATEELOO PLACE, S.W. 
 
 1909 
 
 [All rigTit3 reserved] 
 

 
 i^' 
 
 3 7 
 
 
 -J 
 
PEEFACE 
 
 A FEW years ago I had the good fortune to be introduced 
 to a lady, who told me she heard that I was very clever, 
 and wrote books. I pleaded guilty to the second half of her 
 indictment. She asked what kind of books I wrote. I 
 answered that I was thinking of writing something on 
 Pascal. She inquired what that was. I explained that it 
 was a man. She asked if he was alive now. I told her 
 that he was an eminent Frenchman, who had been dead 
 about two hundred and fifty years. A look of sudden 
 interest came into her face, and she begged me to tell her 
 how on earth 1 ever came to hear of him. This book is an 
 attempt to answer her question. I have tried to bring 
 together all such facts in Pascal's life as are likely to be 
 of interest to an English reader. I have, indeed, skated 
 lightly over his geometrical performances, for reasons of 
 which my own mathematical incompetence is only one ; and 
 I have cut as short as possible the technical detail of his 
 quarrels with the Church of Eome. On the other hand, I 
 have described at some length the more dramatic sides of 
 his scientific career ; and I have given a good deal of space 
 to the so-called 'worldly period,' when he consorted with 
 
vi PREFACE 
 
 frideuses and free-thinkers in the drawing-rooms of Paris. 
 Neither the ' Great Experiment of the Puy-de-D6me ' nor 
 the friendship with the Chevalier de Mere were mere episodes 
 in his career ; the ' Provincial Letters ' and the ' Pensees ' 
 could only have been written by a scientific man who had also 
 had considerable experience of the world of fashion. Lastly, 
 I have done my best to profit by the wisdom of Professors 
 William James and Leuba, and to deal with Pascal's 
 conversion and its consequences as a ' variety of religious 
 experience.' Some small portion of my debt to earlier 
 writers I have endeavoured to discharge by giving a 
 classified list of the books I have found most useful ; and I 
 have added a short chronological table of the chief events 
 of Pascal's life, viewed in relation to the general history of 
 his time. 
 
 ST. GYRES. 
 
 October 1909. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 OnAf. PAGE 
 
 Pbefacb V 
 
 Comparative Table ... ... viii 
 
 I. Eakly Life . . 1 
 
 n. Rouen .13 
 
 III. The Dead Hand . . . . 32 
 
 IV. Untveesal Mechanism . . 48 
 V. President Du Vaie 68 
 
 VI. The First Conversion 80 
 
 VIL The Great Experiment of the Piry-DE-DoMB . 100 
 
 VIII. A Backslider 123 
 
 IX. The Chevalier de Mere . . . 136 
 
 X. The Heirs of Montaigne . . 159 
 
 XI. The Second Conversion . . . 181 
 
 XII. Poet Royal .... . . 198 
 
 Xin. The Convert ... . . .215 
 
 XIV. The New Life .... ... 230 
 
 XV. The Beginnings of the Storm . . 245 
 
 XVI. Escobar 265 
 
 XVII. The Provincial Letters : I. — The Sorbonne . 285 
 
 XVIII. The Provincial Letters : II. — The Casuists . 299 
 
 XIX. Chaelotte db Eoannez 322 
 
 XX. The Formulary and the Cycloid .... 339 
 
 XXI. The Apology foe Christianity . . . 359 
 
 XXII. After the Apology 390 
 
 XXIIL The End . . 407 
 
 Bibliography 431 
 
 Index 439 
 
COMPARATIVE TABLE OP THE CHIEF EVENTS IN 
 PASCAL'S LIFE, VIEWED IN RELATION TO THE 
 GENERAL HISTORY OF FRANCE 
 
 Pascal's Life 
 
 Political 
 History 
 
 Church 
 History 
 
 Science 
 
 Literature 
 
 1623-1631. Pascal 1618-1648. The Age of St. Tin- 1626. Francis 1621, La Fon 
 livp<twifh hicfamilu Thirty Years' cent de Paul. He Bacon diea. Huy- taine bom; 1622 
 t,frir^™VJ,<. War. 1624, Riche- founds the Lazar- gens bom (1629). Molifire bora. Be- 
 
 an.iermont. -^^^^ becomes ists (1624). the winnings of Cor 
 
 Prime Minister to Sisters of Charity neille. 
 
 Louis XIII. He (1634). 
 
 crushes the Hu- 1627. Bossuet 
 
 guenots at La born. 
 
 Itochelle (1628). 
 
 Abroad he con- 
 sistently supports 
 
 all enemies of the 
 
 House of Haps- 
 
 burg, whether in 
 
 the Empire or 
 
 Spain. 
 
 X631-1640. The 
 Pascals settled in 
 Paris. In 1638 Stephen 
 is forced to fly to Cler- 
 mont, but Jacqueline 
 acts before Richelieu, 
 and obtains lier 
 father'spardon. Mean- 
 while her brother is at 
 work on Conic Sections. 
 
 1638. Richelieu's 
 foreign policy in- 
 volves a lieavy 
 drain on the finan- 
 cial resources of 
 France. Many 
 complaints 
 against the taxes ; 
 revolt of the Va- 
 nus-pieds in Nor- 
 mandy. Richelieu 
 makes an example 
 of Rouen. 
 
 1636. Saint Oy- 
 ran becomes chief 
 confessor of Port 
 Royal. 
 
 1638. Death of 
 Jansen. Saint 
 Cyran Imprisoned 
 as a religious in- 
 novator. 
 
 1633. The In- 
 quisition con- 
 demns Galileo. 
 
 1637. Descartes 
 writes the Dis- 
 course on Method. 
 Rise of Fermat 
 and Roberval. 
 
 1632, Spinoza 
 born; 1636, Boileau 
 born; 1638, Male- 
 branche bom ; 
 1639, Racine born. 
 
 1636, Corneille's 
 'Cid'; 1640, 'Ho- 
 race,' ' Cinna.' 
 
 X640-X647. The 
 Pascals at Rouen. 
 
 Pascal sets to work 
 on his Arithmetical 
 Machine, and dedicates 
 it to the Lord Chancel- 
 lor (1645). In 1646 
 Stephen dislocates his 
 thigh ; La Boutellerie 
 and Des Landes con- 
 vert the whole family 
 to Jansenism. In the 
 autumn Pierre Petit 
 arrives with news of 
 the vacuum. In the 
 spring of 1647 Pascal 
 denounces Saint Ange ; 
 in the summer his 
 health breaks down, 
 and he is ordered to 
 Paris. 
 
 1642. Richelieu 
 dies. He is fol- 
 lowed by Mazarin. 
 1643, Louis XIII 
 dies. Anne of 
 Austria becomes 
 Regent for Louis 
 XIV, a child of 
 five. Mazarin con- 
 tinues the anti- 
 Hapsburg policy 
 of Richelieu. Rise 
 of Cond6 and 
 Turenne ; battles 
 of Rocroi (1643) 
 and Noi-dlingen 
 (1645). Peace of 
 "Westphalia (1648). 
 
 16-13. Release 
 and death of 
 Saint Cyran. An- 
 toine Arnauld 
 writes on Fre- 
 quent Com- 
 munion. 
 
 1642, Galileo 
 dies ; 1643, Isaac 
 Newton bom ; 
 
 1646, Leibniz born; 
 rise of Torricelli, 
 who dies young in 
 
 1647, Mersenne 
 dies (1648). 
 
 1644, Mme. de 
 S6vign6 starts 
 writing letters ; 
 1646, Moli^re 
 forms a touring 
 company. La 
 Bruyfii-e horn. 
 
 1647-1649. Pascal 
 in Paris. He meets 
 Descartes, and does 
 battle with Father 
 Noel. In November he 
 commissions P^rier to 
 make the Oreat Ex- 
 periment. This is car- 
 ried out in September 
 1648. Meanwhile 
 Stephen has resigned 
 his position at Rouen, 
 and Joined his children 
 in Paris. He refuses 
 to let Jacqueline he- 
 come a nun at Port 
 Royal. 
 
 1646-1653. The 
 Fronde. Princes. 
 Judges, and Paris 
 mob unite to de- 
 mand the aban- 
 donment of Riche- 
 lieu's centralised 
 system of govern- 
 ment. Mazarin 
 bows to the storm ; 
 the Princes then 
 demand the ban- 
 ishment of Maza- 
 rin himself. He 
 twice loft tlie 
 country, and was 
 twice recalled, the 
 second time in 
 triumph (1653). 
 
COMPARATIVE TABhE—continued. 
 
 Pascal's Life 
 
 1649-16S0. Pascal 
 goes with his family 
 to Clermont. 
 
 POLITICAIj 
 
 History 
 
 Church 
 History 
 
 1649. The Soi-- 
 bonne condemns 
 Are proposiUons 
 from the Augus- 
 tinua. 
 
 Science 
 
 Lite RAT UBE 
 
 i6go. Pascal 
 comes back to 
 Paris. He makes 
 acquaintance with 
 Roannez, and goes out 
 into society, but works 
 intermittently at the 
 equilibrium of liquids. 
 In 1651 Stephen dies ; 
 early in 1652 Jacqueline 
 enters Port Eoyal. 
 
 1650. Descartes 
 dies. Age of Gue- 
 rioke, Huygens, 
 and Robert Boyle. 
 
 1651. FfJnelon 
 born ; 1652, Bos- 
 suet begins 
 preach'ing at 
 Metz. 
 
 1652-1634. Pas- 
 cal's worldly 
 period. He makes 
 acquaintance with 
 Merd andMiton, raises 
 difficulties about Jac^ 
 queline's 'dowry,' and 
 wiites on the Pasaion 
 of Love. Latterly, 
 however, he busies 
 hims'^lf much with 
 mathematical proba- 
 bility and the theory 
 of numbers. 
 
 1653. InnocentX 
 conflrma the cen- 
 sure on Jansen. 
 
 1654-1656. The 
 Second Conver- 
 sion. Pascal re- 
 nounces science, and 
 spends much of his 
 time at Port Royal. 
 
 1656-1657- The 
 Provincial Letters. 
 Just after the Fifth 
 Letter comea the 
 miracle of the Holy 
 Thorn ; in the autumn 
 Pascal corresponds 
 with Charlotte dc 
 Roannez. In 1657 he 
 writes the last two 
 Letters, and the Letter 
 of a Barrister on the 
 Inquisition. 
 
 1658-1659. A short 
 return to science. 
 After denouncing 
 Pirot'a ' Apology for 
 the Casuists,' Pascal 
 starta the competition 
 on the Cycloid. 
 
 1659-1663. ' The 
 
 Apolofiry for Christ- 
 ianity. " Final break- 
 down of his health. 
 Death of Jacqueline 
 (1661) ; his own death 
 (1662). 
 
 1654-1659. Maza- 
 rin carries on the 
 war against 
 Spain. Turwiine 
 campaigns in the 
 Low Countriea. 
 Peace of the Pyre- 
 nees (1659). 
 
 1655. Arnauld 
 impeached before 
 the Sorbonne. 
 
 1656. Arnauld 
 condemned by the 
 Sorbonne : Alex- 
 ander VII con- 
 firms the con- 
 demnation of Jan- 
 sen. The Rectors 
 of Paris denounce 
 the Casuists. 
 
 1657. Pirot pub- 
 lishes his ' Apology 
 for tbe Casuists.' 
 
 1658. Pirot gene- 
 rally reprobated. 
 
 1660. Louis XIV 
 marries Maria 
 Teresa of Spain; 
 Mazarin dies 
 (1661), leaving 
 Louis to be hia own 
 prime minister. 
 
 1660. Louis XIV 
 urges the As- 
 sembly of the 
 Clergy to take 
 strong measures 
 for the extei'mlna- 
 tion of Jansenism. 
 The Formulai-y ia 
 imposed on the 
 nuns of Port Royal 
 (1661). 
 
 1659. MolitJre's 
 ' Prdcieuses Ridi- 
 cules ' ; La Roche- 
 foucauld at work 
 on his ' Maxims,' 
 and Boileau on his 
 * Satires.' Bossuet 
 begins preaching 
 in Paria. 
 
 IX 
 
PASCAL 
 
 CHAPTEE I 
 
 EAELY LIFE 
 
 Blaise Pascal was born on June 17, 1623, at Clermont 
 Perrand in Auvergne. Like so many of his great con- 
 temporaries — Descartes, Corneille, Bossuet, Malebranche, 
 Eacine — ^he sprang from the well-to-do professional class ; 
 for generations one Pascal after another had audited the 
 accounts of his province, or laid down the law from the 
 Clermont Bench. His father, Stephen Pascal, chose the 
 latter walk in Ufe ; he was vice-president of the Clermont 
 Cow des Com'ptes, or Court of Exchequer. But Stephen 
 was not the man to let his energies be bounded by the four 
 walls of his court-house. He was a considerable mathe- 
 matician and a character singularly upright, worthy in 
 every way to be the father of his son. Of his wife, Antoinette 
 Begon, little is known beyond a family tradition that she 
 was very pious and clever, and anything but superstitious. 
 She died when her only son was three years old, also leaving 
 behind her two little daughters, Gilberte, born in 1620, and 
 Jacqueline, bom in 1625. 
 
 From his mother Blaise inherited a feeble constitution. 
 Most of his short life was passed in the clutches of a wasting 
 disease, to which contemporaries could give no name, 
 though it would nowadays be diagnosed as neurasthenia. 
 
2 PASCAL 
 
 A little memoir of his life, written by his sister Gilberte, 
 abounds in distressing details showing how much her 
 brother's illness kept him apart from other men. Even 
 in his infancy it gave rise to an incident that assuredly left 
 its mark on so great an enthusiast for the supernatural. 
 When about twelve months old, he sank into a mysterious 
 decline beyond the skill of Clermont doctors to cure. Popular 
 imagination— excited by the same epidemic of belief in 
 witchcraft that had just swept through the England of 
 James I — promptly set him down as ' overlooked,' and 
 fixed on an old pensioner of his mother as the culprit. At 
 first his parents laughed at the story ; but, as the child went 
 from bad to worse, they became readier to catch at straws. 
 Eventually Stephen summoned the old woman before him, 
 and put her through a searching cross-examination. She 
 ended by admitting that she had cast a spell on the child, 
 adding that the charm could only be broken, if life were 
 given for life. Stephen, now thoroughly unmanned, asked 
 what kind of Hfe was necessary. The witch answered that 
 a cat would do. A cat was accordingly procured, and 
 thrown out of the window. The witch then made a plaster 
 of herbs, and laid it on the child. He sank immediately 
 into a trance, from which he awoke at midnight perfectly 
 recovered. 
 
 French critics cannot forgive the judge his share in this 
 strange business. We Englishmen can be more merciful, 
 remembering Sir Matthew Hale. Anyhow, Stephen made 
 amends by giving up his hfe to his offspring. On his wife's 
 death he sold his judgeship, and took his children to Paris ; 
 for this widower of forty meant to bring them up on a system 
 of his own, and would not risk the interference of grand- 
 mothers and aunts at Clermont. The exact date of his 
 departure was fixed by an engagement curiously prophetic. 
 Stephen was to join a deputation from Clermont in petition- 
 ing the Crown not to allow a Jesuit school to be opened in 
 
EARLY LIFE 3 
 
 that loyal city. For the Jesuits had made themselves 
 obnoxious to good Frenchmen by ostentatiously maintain- 
 ing the thesis that kings might be deposed by the Pope, 
 which was only a theological way of saying that the interests 
 of Rome ought to take precedence, whenever they clashed 
 with the interests of France. 
 
 The end of 1631 found the whole party settled in Paris, 
 and Stephen free to take the whole education of his son into 
 his own hands. Whether he did wisely has often been 
 doubted. Certainly experience at large is against educa- 
 tion by a father ; what between the rival attractions of 
 parental indulgence and parental ambition, it is felt that 
 the natural equilibrium of things has small chance of coming 
 into play. Montaigne's vagiie, shiftless upbringing is a 
 witness to one side of the danger, as the familiar case of 
 John Stuart Mill most glaringly exemplifies the other. 
 Blaise was more fortunate than either of these. For in- 
 dolence there was no place in the stirring neighbourhood of 
 his father ; while again, that father was much too human to 
 think that starving every natural affection was the best way 
 of forcing on the intellect. Where James Mill only saw a 
 mind, Stephen saw a son of flesh and blood. He was in no 
 danger of pushing on too fast. His first thought was to 
 save his delicate boy all he had suffered in his own youth 
 from stupid and unreasonable masters — Pharaohs who 
 expected many bricks, and dealt out but little straw. Per- 
 haps he forgot that even the worst schools have their com- 
 pensations, in that nothing can take the place of an education 
 of the young by the young themselves. Blaise suffered all 
 his life from various failings that beset the home-bred boy 
 — a certain thin-skinned nervous petulance, a want of self- 
 reliance and self-control. There is more than a grain of 
 truth in Moritz Cantor's saying that Gilberte was the only 
 one of Stephen's three children who really deserved to be 
 called a man. But Stephen's contemporaries gave small 
 
4 PASCAL 
 
 thought to the moral training of their children. Another 
 sixty years must go by before Fenelon will point out that 
 games have an important place in Christian education. 
 And even Fenelon was thinking only of the physical effects 
 of exercise, not of winning battles of Waterloo on the playing- 
 fields of Eton. 
 
 Nor is it easy to discipline a mind already in the grip of 
 neurasthenia. Blaise gave early proof of possessing what 
 his sister Jacqueline calls an humeur bouillante — the nervous 
 impulsiveness that will soon fling him headlong into science, 
 and then carry him away from science to the world of 
 salons and society, and from the salons to rehgion. Slow 
 and steady progress seemed to Stephen the one means of 
 bringing balance into such a mind. As Gilberte says in her 
 memoir, he made it a rule to keep the boy's powers ahead 
 of his work. Latin, for instance, was not begun till Blaise 
 was twelve years old. The intervening time was spent in 
 giving him some general notions of the art of learning. He 
 was taught to pick out for himself what was important in a 
 lesson, and shown enough of the uses of grammar to see in 
 it a friend ; for his father made clear that the grim paradigms 
 and syntax, which look so alarming at first sight, really 
 bring order into a chaos, which would be far more alarming 
 without them. And when the time for Latin eventually 
 arrived, Stephen put the Propria quae maribus and kindred 
 horrors aside, in favour of more sensible rules drawn up on 
 a system of his own. 
 
 Really, however, the classics played but a small part in 
 his system, though Blaise mastered Latin enough to read 
 the Vulgate or a scientific treatise with ease. Greek he only 
 carried so far as enabled him to moralise over the not very 
 recondite point that neuter plurals in that language take 
 the verb in the singular, when they are the subject of a 
 sentence. His father was far too good a mathematician to 
 have great faith in books. He thought them much too apt 
 
EAELY LIFE 5 
 
 to suggest that knowledge is a thing of times and seasons 
 locaUsed in a study ; whereas he wished his boy to see that 
 it is always capable of being acquired wherever reasoning 
 and observation can be set to work. Accordingly he made 
 his lessons as varied and unconventional as possible, and 
 submitted to an endless catechism on the how and why of 
 everything. He was not afraid of inquisitiveness, as a 
 schoolmaster must be, when surrounded by a mob of merci- 
 less young critics, any of whom would be glad to annoy 
 him by putting questions that he cannot answer. Stephen's 
 fatherly pride could afford to rejoice, if the budding reasoner 
 now and then managed to drive him into a corner. Ready 
 objections were a sign that Blaise had begun to think for 
 himself, and was not going to turn his back on difficulties, 
 or rest content with half an answer. 
 
 But the boy's best teacher was himself. Very soon he 
 began to notice the little everyday oddities of Nature, and 
 puzzle over their explanation. Thus Gilberte records that he 
 was struck one day at dinner by the fact that a plate rings 
 when rapped with a knife, but leaves off ringing at a touch. 
 This led him to make other experiments with sounds, and 
 even to write a little essay on the subject, which was thought 
 excellent by good judges. Whatever the intrinsic merit of 
 these youthful researches, of their moral value there can be 
 no doubt. At an age when most boys are still gulping down 
 masses of undigested statements on trust, Blaise felt himself 
 a serious and responsible student bound in conscience to 
 account for every step in his proofs. At an age when most 
 boys think it no shame to run to a master or a text-book for 
 absolution from their doubts, this future assailant of the 
 Jesuits had learnt that certainty is one of the few things 
 no man can give another ; inasmuch as true and certain 
 knowledge can only be won by each inquirer for himself. 
 And not till he has faced and overcome many difficulties 
 alone does such inquirer begin to see what true and certain 
 
6 PASCAL 
 
 knowledge is. ' The reasons that really convince a man,' 
 Blaise afterwards wrote in the ' Pensees,' ' are those he has 
 found out for himself.' 
 
 Hence the veracity, of which his sister speaks as his 
 leading characteristic. ' Always and everywhere,' she says, 
 ' truth was the one object of his Ufe, and nothing would 
 satisfy him but its possession. He had an extraordinary 
 talent in detecting fallacies ; whenever bad reasons were 
 given him for anything, he would set about discovering 
 better reasons of his own, for he could not bear to leave a 
 subject until he understood it through and through.' Such 
 a mind turns naturally to mathematics, as the one branch of 
 knowledge whose certainty is all that the most scrupulous 
 can ask ; and before he was twelve Blaise had set his heart 
 on learning geometry, the side of mathematics then chiefly 
 in view. But here his father interposed. Stephen knew 
 too well the charm of his own favourite science to expose 
 his boy to its fascinations until he had done with Latin and 
 Greek ; EucHd and Archimedes were put off till Blaise 
 should be fifteen. And when the boy persisted in his 
 questions, Stephen only locked up his books, and refused 
 to hear another word on the subject. All he would say was 
 that geometry was the art of making figures perfectly 
 exact, and measuring their proportions. With this scanty 
 equipment — eked out, no doubt, by a surreptitious peep 
 at a text-book, or a few hints from one of his father's friends 
 — the reasoner of twelve set out to build up a geometrical 
 system of his own. Great was Stephen's surprise, on 
 paying an unexpected visit to the play-room, to find his son 
 busy with a lump of chalk drawing diagrams on the wall. 
 He asked him what he was about. Blaise answered that 
 he was trying to prove that the three angles of a triangle 
 are together equal to two right angles. Stephen, still more 
 amazed, put him through a catechism. He soon found that 
 — if it is too much to say, with Gilberte, that her brother 
 
EAELY LIFE 7 
 
 had ' reinvented mathematics afresh ' — ^he could, at any 
 rate, satisfactorily account for every step in his proofs. 
 Thereupon the father felt it was useless to fight against 
 Nature any longer. He unlocked his cupboard, and pro- 
 duced a Euclid, which Blaise soon mastered in his play-time. 
 
 Startling as this performance may seem, it is by no 
 means unexampled. Much the same story is told of Galileo, 
 though on very shadowy authority ; but the eighteenth- 
 century mathematician, Clairault, was certainly no older 
 than Blaise, when he sent his first contribution to the 
 Academy of Science. Mathematics, like music, take little 
 account of age ; and in Pascal's youth mathematics were 
 in the air as they have never been before or since. More 
 especially were they in favour with grave lawyers of the 
 type of Stephen Pascal. For the rough amusements of the 
 nobles they had neither taste nor means. In the salons 
 of fine ladies they could not be received, except upon the 
 dubious footing of professional wits ; and that their dignity 
 forbade. On the other hand, they could engage in geome- 
 trical research as much as they pleased, without being 
 suspected of frivohty or neglect of their professional duties. 
 Amongst themselves, however, these lawyers threw dignity 
 to the winds. Nothing can be less formal than the tone of 
 Judge Fermat's letters, yet Fermat was one of the greatest 
 mathematicians his country has ever produced. And in 
 Stephen's own immediate circle a sufficient guarantee 
 against exuberance of ponderosity was furnished by the 
 presence of Le Pailleur, a practical jester whose best exploits 
 almost foreshadow Theodore Hook. Indeed, the famous 
 picture in the ' Pensees,' of Plato and Aristotle casting off 
 their pedagogic robes, and talking and laughing at their 
 ease, may well have been inspired by some childish re- 
 miniscence of Stephen among his friends. 
 
 Certainly the father was genial enough at home. Every 
 day, during and after diimer, he used to discuss with his 
 
8 PASCAL 
 
 son what Gilberte calls ' philosophy ' — ^no doubt, the kind 
 of general questions nowadays engrossed by a debating-club. 
 This discipline was all the more needful, since Blaise was 
 changeable and impulsive in no ordinary degree, as well as 
 given to clothing his ideas in startling, paradoxical language. 
 But here it behoved him to be careful, for his father was 
 no tender critic of too ambitious metaphors or epigrams 
 merely smart. He early impressed upon his son that to say 
 clever things just because they were clever was to follow 
 the practice of the bad architects, who think that blind 
 windows improve a house. And when the young reasoner 
 grew too self-assertive, Stephen handed him over to his 
 daughters ; for Gilberte, the typical elder sister, was strong 
 in common sense, and Jacqueline had a lively gift of wit — 
 two qualities that make the most dogmatic brother think 
 twice before he speaks. Their lettres de raillerie of later years 
 were only the continuation of a schoolroom dialectic, 
 wherein Blaise was not always master. 
 
 Both sisters played a large part in his hfe. Gilberte even 
 shared some of his lessons — ' history, philosophy, mathe- 
 matics,' says her daughter, obviously speaking rather at 
 random. But her energies ran chiefly in more domestic 
 channels — first as mistress of her father's household, after- 
 wards as her brother's sick-nurse and general protectress, 
 finally as his first biographer. Jacqueline was a more 
 original character. While still in the nursery, she was 
 writing verses — verses at least of average merit. At ten 
 years old she produced a play ; it was ' a comedy in five 
 acts, each divided into scenes, and with all the rules properly 
 observed.' A few years later she was exchanging valentines 
 with Mile, de Scudery, the great leader of the p^-icieuses ; 
 indeed, she herself was near becoming a fr&cieuse in short 
 frocks. Her verses abound with cruel nymphs and sighing 
 swains ; and she bids the traitor. Love, adieu with all the 
 energy to be expected from a poetess of fifteen. But these 
 
EARLY LIFE 9 
 
 affectations could not long survive in a clever and critical 
 home like hers, whose various members by no means stood 
 on formal terms with one another. Certainly Blaise was 
 never backward in ridiculing Scudery's whole movement, 
 with its tyrannical conventions and mincing elegance of 
 language. Still, there was more in 'priciosM than its con- 
 ceits. It represented the first faint stirring of the revolt of 
 woman ; Scudery was the lineal ancestress" of Mary Woll- 
 stonecraft. The great reproach contemporaries brought 
 against her was that she made her followers too intellectual 
 and too independent ; as disapproving Penelon said, they did 
 not ' shrink from learning as from vice,' but had an opinion 
 on every subject, and joined in every dispute. Even their 
 artificialities were a round-about plea for deference and 
 refinement — a reminder to the dominant sex that the 
 language of the tavern or the guard-room was inadmissible 
 in the salons. 
 
 Jacqueline absorbed both the refinement and the 
 independence. Like her brother, she cared exceedingly 
 little for the small conventions of society ; it is characteristic 
 that on her first entry at Port Eoyal she scandalised the 
 nuns by sitting with one knee crossed over the other. Like 
 her brother, she was fastidious, not only in the matter of 
 language. Blaise, as his elder sister records, was ridden 
 by a craving to find perfection everywhere. He must 
 always have the best that money could buy, whether it 
 was the best workmen to carry out his inventions, or the 
 best sauces to his dinner. His books and papers were 
 arranged with truly mathematical neatness ; there must 
 be a place for everything, and everything in its place. With 
 Jacqueline these tastes were equally strong, and more 
 enduring. When Blaise was presently converted to Port 
 Eoyal, and swung round from scrupulous tidiness to the 
 opposite extreme, she rallied him on the love of ' holy dirt,' 
 which made him rank brooms among the articles with which 
 
10 PASCAL 
 
 a true Christian could dispense. Better than anyone she 
 understood the restless excitability that swung him to and 
 fro between science and society, society and religion. Along 
 a part of this same road Jacqueline herself had travelled ; 
 though her vagrant susceptibilities were earlier captured, 
 and brought under the stern control of Faith. There they 
 developed into a sanctity unsurpassed at Port Royal itself 
 — ' a piety that knew no interruption,' says her Jansenist 
 Director, ' a devotion v/ith more of substance than parade 
 a penitence none the less austere, because half hidden 
 under the cloak of daily habit.' 
 
 As yet, however, there were few traces of a future saint 
 in the bright little girl — ' endowed,' says her sister, ' with 
 all the great qualities of every age ' — who scribbled her 
 verses in the morning, and spent the afternoon among 
 her dolls. Before long she blossomed into something of 
 a personage, became known to several families of influence 
 at Court, and even dropped a youthful curtsey to Queen 
 Anne of Austria. These acquaintances had their use. In 
 the spring of 1638, Richelieu — always in want of money 
 — arbitrarily reduced the rate of interest on Government 
 stock. Forthwith great indignation among the share- 
 holders, amongst whom was Stephen Pascal ; a deputation, 
 several himdred strong, waited on Lord Chancellor Seguier. 
 Some angry speeches were delivered, and several of the 
 speakers arrested ; in trying to get a friend released Stephen 
 himself fell under suspicion. To avoid the Bastille he fled 
 to Clermont, and remained there over a year, only venturing 
 back to Paris by stealth in order to nurse Jacqueline through 
 a sharp attack of smallpox. On her recovery she repaid 
 him well. Richelieu, whose dramatic tastes were pecuHar, 
 was suddenly struck with the idea of having one of his 
 favourite plays — it was ' The Tyranny of Love,' by Scudery, 
 a brother of the pricieuse — acted by a party of children. 
 Influential friends recommended Jacqueline to the Duchess 
 
EARLY LIFE 11 
 
 of Aiguillon, niece of the all-powerful Minister. She gave 
 the child a leading part, and promised to find her an oppor- 
 tunity of interceding for her father. In these good offices 
 she was abetted by the celebrated actor, Mondory, himself 
 a native of Clermont. The performance took place on 
 April 3, 1639 ; and on the following day Jacqueline sent 
 an account of it to her father. 
 
 ' As soon as the piece was over,' she says, ' I came down 
 from the stage, meaning to speak to Mme. d' Aiguillon. 
 But, as the Lord Cardinal was leaving, M. de Mondory pressed 
 me to go straight up to him. So I stepped forward, and 
 began my petition, which he received more kindly and 
 caressingly than words can say. As soon as he saw me, 
 he cried out : " Why, there 's the Uttle Pascal ! " As I 
 went on with my verses, he took me on his knee and kissed 
 me many times over. When I had finished, he said : 
 " Yes, I grant all you ask. Write and tell your father that 
 he may come back in perfect safety." Thereupon Mme. 
 d'Aiguillon came up, and said : " Really, my Ijord, you 
 should do something for the father ; I have often heard 
 him spoken of as a most excellent man. It is a pity that 
 his talents are wasted. Besides, he has a son, who is 
 already very learned in mathematics, although he is only 
 fifteen." As the Cardinal was so kind, I asked if you 
 might come and thank him on your return. He answered : 
 " Yes, tell your father to come and see me." Then, as Mme. 
 d'Aiguillon seemed to be going, my sister came up to bid 
 her good-bye. She spoke to her in the friendliest way, 
 and asked where my brother was. My sister fetched him, 
 and to him also she was very civil, and paid him great 
 compliments on his learning. Then she took us into 
 another room, where a splendid supper was laid out of 
 jeiHes, fruit and lemonade. All the time she kept on 
 petting me ; I cannot tell you how kindly I was treated 
 by them all.' 
 
12 PASCAL 
 
 This letter brought Stephen back post-haste to Paris. 
 With his whole family he waited on the Cardinal, and 
 was most graciously received. EicheUeu congratulated 
 himself on having restored their father to such amiable 
 children, and promised that he would one day make them 
 into something great. A few months later he appointed 
 Stephen assistant to the Intendant of Normandy, a position 
 of very considerable importance. And before Christmas, 
 1639, the whole family had taken up their abode in Eouen. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 ROUEN 
 
 Madame d'Aiguillon said no more than the truth when 
 she told Eichelieu that Blaise Pascal was ' very clever at 
 mathematics.' His powers had grown apace since the 
 day when his father found him drawing diagrams on the 
 wall ; and before he left Paris for Eouen, they had already 
 attracted the notice of Stephen's learned friends. Following 
 a usual practice of their country — for Frenchmen must 
 be sociable, even in their mathematics — these ardent 
 geometers had organised themselves into a club, which 
 met every Thursday night at the house of one or other of 
 its members. ' Celeberrima Academia Matheseos Pari- 
 siensis ' Blaise will presently call it ; and a few years after 
 his death it grew into the official Academie des Sciences 
 or Royal Society of France. At present, however, it was 
 simply a heterogeneous assemblage of men devoted to a 
 science altogether free from what they hated and despised 
 as ,' pedantry.' The academic learning of the time was 
 still in bondage to Aristotle and the past — still toiled 
 wearily along behind a convoy of worm-eaten folios. As 
 Galileo said contemptuously, it strove to interpret the 
 face of Nature by comparison of texts, as though she were 
 the ^neid or the Odyssey. Everywhere reigned the 
 Dryasdust of Boileau's satire : 
 
 Un p6dant, 6mvre de sa vaine science. 
 Tout heriss6 de grec, tout bouffi d'arrogance, 
 Croit qu'un livre fait tout, et que sans Aristote 
 La raison ne voit goutte, et le bon sens radote. 
 13 
 
14 PASCAL 
 
 But geometry took little heed of Greek philosophers — 
 ' Dead heathen blinking owl-like in the sun of Christian 
 fact,' cried one enthusiast of the Paris Club. Its boast was 
 that science meant solving problems for oneself, not knowing 
 what other men had thought about them : that was the 
 domain of history. To all who would listen it offered three 
 things unobtainable elsewhere : definite problems to work 
 at, a clear method to work by, and absolutely sure results. 
 Starting from premises so simple and famihar that the 
 feeblest brain could grasp them, it professed to guide the 
 inquirer along a path unerringly exact from what was 
 simple to what was complex, and so indefinitely on, so far 
 as he had strength to follow. 
 
 Accordingly many sorts of men foregathered at the club. 
 The world of fashion was represented by Stephen's jovial 
 friend Le Pailleur ; he worked at geometry in moments 
 stolen from gossiping with fine ladies, whose amusement 
 was his business in life. A correspondent was Jean Louis 
 Guez de Balzac, nicknamed the Grand Epistolier de France, 
 or Lord High Letter-writer. Officially he ranks as one of 
 the founders of French prose, but in private hfe he was 
 a vainglorious chatterer ; the joke ran that he suffered 
 from a chronic cold caught while promenading his Ego about 
 in insufficient attire. For hearers of this class, papers 
 were read on popular subjects, such as flying machines, or 
 phonetic spelling.^ At the opposite intellectual pole stood 
 another intimate friend of the Pascals, Gilles Personne de 
 Eoberval, an eminent but very cross-grained professor 
 from the College de France. Original enough, but far 
 from lucid, and very secretive in his habits, he loved, as he 
 said, to gloat over his discoveries nimium juveniliter at 
 home, instead of giving them to the world ; he had always 
 
 ' A good idea of the miscellaneous nature of the subjects discussed may 
 be gathered from Father Mersenne's Questions Inouies, ou Ricriaiion des 
 Savants, Paris, 1634. 
 
EOUBN 15 
 
 some great feud on hand with other savants who had failed 
 to grasp his meaning, or forestalled him in the pubhcation 
 of some new idea. He is the original, also, of a story told 
 of many Senior Wranglers. Being taken to hear a play of 
 Corneille, he came back bursting with the question : ' What 
 does all that poetry prove ? ' 
 
 Between the professor and the wits came a crowd of 
 lawyers — Stephen himself, Carcavi, and Judge Mydorge. 
 The judge's mission was to uphold Cartesian principles 
 at the club. He was one of the few whom Descartes ranked 
 among his ' true and faithful friends,' and he repaid the 
 comphment by spending a large part of his fortune on costly 
 optical instruments for the philosopher's use. Yet a new 
 element appeared in Pierre Petit, a young specialist in 
 military engineering, and in Girard Desargues, ahke mathe- 
 matician, engineer and architect. Desargues has a special 
 interest as the first master of Blaise Pascal, and as the 
 practical philanthropist of the club. Full of pity for the 
 poor mechanics of Paris and his native Lyons, he devoted 
 himself to the invention of labour-saving appliances ; he 
 gave lectures on popular science to working men, in the 
 hope of bringing trained intelligence into the shops to replace 
 traditional rule of thumb. It is to be feared that these efforts 
 met with small success, and Desargues' genius had to wait 
 two hundred years for recognition. But his example was 
 not lost on the future inventor of the Arithmetical Machine ; 
 and Pascal certainly laid to heart one of his favourite 
 maxims — namely, that literary elegance has its place even 
 in a scientific treatise. For Desargues duly passed on 
 to others the advice that Descartes once gave him — to 
 write down to the level of such readers as yawned each time 
 they turned a page, and expected mathematics to be made 
 as thrilling as the enchanted castle in a tale. 
 
 But the soul of the club was Father Mersenne, a Friar 
 Minim of St. Francis de Paul. He was one of the most 
 
16 PASCAL 
 
 attractive figures of his time ; even the surliest, says Baillet, 
 could not hold out against him long. Like many men of 
 peace, however, Merseime loved nothing better than to see 
 his friends at war. The whole scientific movement of the 
 age appeared to him like a vast tournament between the 
 Ancients and the Moderns, and the great object of his hfe 
 was to spur on his own side into making a brave show in 
 the hsts. His own share lay in organisation and corre- 
 spondence. For years he kept the club in touch with 
 half the learned men in Europe, and especially with its own 
 non-resident members. First among these stood Descartes, 
 whose moody, cross-grained genius proved unequal to 
 suffering the fools of Paris. In 1629 he had left France 
 for Holland, where there were no importunate visitors, 
 and he could practise his favourite maxim : Bene vixit, 
 qui bene latuit. Then there was the Abbe Gassendi, who 
 set out to restore the Epicurean philosophy from the vantage- 
 ground of a rustic cathedral close. Lastly came the great 
 mathematician, Pierre Fermat, a judge of the Farlement 
 of Toulouse. 
 
 Still, Mersenne was much more than ' Descartes' letter- 
 box,' as he has sometimes been profanely styled. Pascal 
 bears witness that he had an extraordinary talent for 
 raising difficult and important questions ; thereafter he 
 gave his friends no peace, till some one cleverer than himself 
 had found the answer. If they were lazy, he pricked them 
 on by appealing to very human motives ; indeed, he seems 
 to have thought that scientific tempers were only made to 
 be lost. Many a quarrel was of his brewing, notably the 
 great dispute about infinitesimals between Descartes and 
 Judge Fermat. ' Your Mr. Justice Be Minimis,' the 
 contemptuous philosopher wrote, in allusion to the title 
 of his adversary's treatise. Into this feud Stephen Pascal 
 was dragged on Fermat's side ; while as to Eoberval, his 
 professorial gown was always skimming, like a black- winged 
 
BOUEN 17 
 
 stormy petrel, over some scene of combat. For him 
 Descartes had a special dislike — based, it would seem, on 
 jealousy of what he thought was an ill-deserved reputation ; 
 and Eoberval was not the man to let ill-will go unrequited. 
 But Mersenne cared not a jot for his choler. Science, he 
 said, would never advance, unless savants could be got 
 to criticise each other freely ; posterity would care no 
 more about their incidental broils than one cares about 
 a few scratches upon one's flint, after it has struck a light. 
 
 Such were the leading men of a club whose youngest 
 member Blaise became. And although fate removed him 
 from Paris before he could take much part in its discussions, 
 he ever after looked back to them with a lively sense of 
 gratitude. ' I was brought up amongst you from my 
 tenderest years,' he once informed the members in a formal 
 Latin letter, ' and all my labours have been fostered by 
 the kindly patronage of your erudite Lyceum.' There 
 was more truth in the stilted phrase than perhaps Blaise 
 himself suspected ; the changes and chances of his career 
 owe not a little to the fact that he first saw the light of 
 reason in a scientific club. In the first place, it was his 
 school of manners. Surprise has sometimes been shown 
 at the variations in his behaviour. One day he would 
 boldly defy men much above him in age and position, and 
 the next day sit humbly at the feet of persons almost 
 incredibly beneath him — as, for instance, the Chevalier de 
 Mere, his mentor in polite society. And Catholic critics 
 cannot forgive him for always refusing to acknowledge 
 that men with tonsured heads — for example, his Jesuit 
 opponent. Father Noel — ought to be treated with more 
 respect than men who let their hair grow naturally. The 
 truth is that he behaved to all his neighbours as though 
 they were members of the club. There the right to speak 
 depended simply on degree of information ; seniors who 
 knew little of a subject must be content to sit and listen 
 
18 PASCAL 
 
 to juniors who knew much. Blaise was high-handed with 
 Father Noel, because concerning atmospheric pressure 
 the Jesuit was less learned than he ; equally he deferred 
 to Mere, because in matters of etiquette the ChevaUer was 
 the wiser of the two. In other words, he measured his 
 neighbours by purely intellectual standards ; and, no 
 doubt, it showed sad ignorance of the world to suppose them 
 capable of being so judged. Afterwards experience taught 
 him better. ' Birth,' he wrote in the ' Pensees,' ' is a great 
 advantage. It makes a boy of eighteen as much known 
 and respected as hard-working commoners can hope to 
 be at fifty. That means thirty years to the good.' i 
 
 As yet, however, such reflections had not suggested an 
 inquiry into the nature of original sin. Blaise simply 
 appUed to the world at large the maxim of the club, that 
 no one who attended its meetings must think himself 
 beyond the reach of criticism. Often, no doubt, the 
 criticism was crude and ill- directed enough. Leibniz 
 draws a lively picture of the sufferings of Descartes under 
 the hands of Koberval. ' Roberval,' he says, ' was a proud, 
 excitable and disputatious man. M. Descartes saw much 
 deeper into things, and was more capable of making dis- 
 coveries. But, Hke all meditative characters, he was so 
 lost in the contemplation of vast horizons as to have little 
 leisure to spare for the petty details under his feet. M. 
 Roberval, on the other hand, had only his mathematics 
 to think of, and was a teacher by profession ; every scrap 
 of knowledge he possessed, was, so to speak, on the tip of 
 his tongue. Hence he often seemed to have the best of it, 
 at any rate to superficial judges.' ^ Leibniz sides with his 
 brother-philosopher ; but most of Pascal's friends and 
 masters thought that Descartes would have done better had 
 he listened a little more to men like Roberval. No theory, 
 
 1 Pens. 322. 
 
 2 NouvdUs Lettres de Leibniz, ed. Fouoher de Careil (Paris, 1857), p. 35. 
 
EOUEN 19 
 
 howeyer magnificent in outline, was worth much ia their 
 eyes, unless it could face the nibbhng accuracy of small- 
 minded pedants, or the rough iconoclasm of common sense. 
 Besides, an academic society is always critical rather 
 than constructive. It has seen too many theories come 
 and go to be much dazzled by their brilliancy. It knows 
 how much their success depends on accidental advantages 
 — on their propounder's force of character, on his skUl in 
 logical fence, or even on his strength of lung ; whereas 
 a solid fact stands, so to speak, on legs of its own, and can 
 dispense with dialectic. Facts, moreover, can be tested ; 
 whereas the theorists are most successful on foggy, un- 
 explored domains, where no one can be brought to book. 
 There they can tear each other to pieces without any risk 
 of ruiming their heads against a stone wall of realities. 
 ' Each of them,' Pascal will presently write, ' makes 
 enemies of all the rest ; and as they all combine against him, 
 his defeat is certain. Thus they are all successful, but only 
 over one another ; and no one can get much good from a 
 victory only made possible by his own want of accurate 
 knowledge. For truth does not make her home among 
 this noisy, puzzled crowd. She reveals herself only to 
 those who make it their rule to assent to none but certain 
 propositions, and refuse either to afiirm or to deny whenever 
 the evidence is doubtful. This is the perfect equihbrium ; 
 this is the golden mean. Herein, by a stroke of good fortune, 
 I can never prize enough, I was brought up with singular 
 exactitude and more than fatherly care.' i 
 
 The seed that Stephen had so anxiously sown soon 
 ripened into fruit. About the time of his departure for 
 Eouen Blaise sent his first printed performance to the 
 press ; it was the advertisement of a forthcoming work on 
 conic sections, following the lines of an already published 
 treatise by Desargues. This enterprise was the more 
 
 ' Letire a M. Le Pailkur, Works, iii. p. 61. 
 
 2 
 
20 PASCAL 
 
 remarkable, since Desargues' book was a new departure — 
 so new that many grown-up mathematicians failed to 
 understand it. The innovation lay in treating all conic 
 sections as varieties of a single curve, as opposed to the 
 old-fashioned practice of considering each one by itself. 
 Blaise not only fell in with this new method, but carried 
 it much farther than its inventor had done ; this Desargues 
 was the first to acknowledge, when he gave the name of 
 la Pascale to the ' mystic hexagram ' which formed the 
 pivot of his pupil's demonstration. No wonder that a 
 chorus of praise uprose from the Paris Club, led by the 
 ever-kindly and ever-hyperbolical Mersenne. At once he 
 wrote off word to Descartes that a new mathematical 
 prodigy had arisen in the person of President Pascal's son, 
 who had climbed over the shoulders of all his contem- 
 poraries on to an even higher pedestal than ApoUonius. 
 This comparison was scarcely judicious, since Descartes 
 thought exceedingly little of the geometers of antiquity, 
 and indeed was more than chary of admiring anyone ; he 
 answered that beating the tedious old Greek was no great 
 matter to boast of, even for a boy of sixteen. And when 
 Mersenne sent him the pamphlet, he only drew attention 
 to a sentence in which Blaise acknowledged his debt to 
 Desargues. No doubt this discourtesy was chiefly intended 
 for Mersenne, who had made no mention of Desargues, 
 although in that ill-recognised genius Descartes took a special 
 interest. But graciousness was not to be expected from 
 a philosopher whose correspondence is a kind of scien- 
 tific Dunciad ; Descartes was fond of telling his critics 
 that he took no more notice of their objections than he did 
 of a pack of little curs idly yapping round his heels. Besides, 
 he may well have been nettled at finding his own book on 
 geometry passed over in silence, although it had been two 
 years in print, and was about to revolutionise the science. 
 Nor was this neglect accidental. Blaise differed from 
 
ROUEN 21 
 
 Descartes on every point over which mathematicians could 
 disagree — as to the value of their common science, its 
 methods, and its scope. 
 
 At Rouen, however, these theoretical differences slept for 
 a while. There Blaise was at once impressed into the 
 business of his father's office. The work of an Intendant 
 was at all times burdensome enough ; for on these newly- 
 created officials — lineal ancestors of the modern frifet — 
 Richelieu's centralising poKcy had piled every sort and kind 
 of function, administrative and judicial. Hitherto the 
 provinces had been governed by a number of local bodies 
 independent of each other and largely independent 
 of the Crown. The rise of the Intendants meant 
 the triumph of centrahsation. Their first duty was 
 to force the local bodies into touch with the executive 
 in Paris ; their second was to wring as much money as 
 possible out of their departments. For seventeen years 
 of war with the Empire had brought the national exchequer 
 very low, and Richelieu — always a hand-to-mouth financier 
 — could only get supplies by reckless increase of the taxes, 
 and still more reckless creation of new monopolies and dues 
 farmed out to French analogues of Mompesson and Giles. 
 Naturally his methods called forth much opposition, con- 
 stitutional and otherwise. In the summer of 1639, the 
 great industrial town of Rouen was goaded into open 
 insurrection by the creation of a number of ' hereditary 
 inspectors of dyeing,' with full power to enter any warehouse, 
 factory or shop, and examine all the goods contained therein. 
 One of the new inspectors was murdered, while trying 
 to exercise his functions ; and the city police did not look 
 very carefuUy for the guilty parties. Nor did they bestir 
 themselves during the rioting which followed, when other 
 monopohsts were maltreated and their registers destroyed. 
 So Richelieu resolved to teach the town a lesson. Most 
 of the magistrates were suspended, and replaced by officials 
 
22 PASCAL 
 
 from the capital. Over the new finance department 
 Stephen Pascal was set to preside. 
 
 His work was as irksome as it was unpopular. He 
 had to decide on all claims to exemption made by the nobles 
 or clergy ; he must assess to a kind of arbitrary income-tax 
 all plebeians whom the law thought to be ' in easy circum- 
 stances ' ; and he must apportion the incidence of general 
 imposts as equitably as possible among the eighteen hundred 
 townships in his district. Nor were his duties hghtened by 
 the unrestful state of the country. Half the local officials 
 had been dismissed ; the other half could not be trusted. 
 The new Intendant must fight his way through a chaos of 
 lost account-books and inaccurate returns. WeU might 
 Stephen write to his daughter : ' I am ten times busier than 
 ever I was before. Very little more would break me down 
 completely. For four months I have never got to bed 
 before two o'clock in the morning.' 
 
 At this point Blaise came to his father's assistance. 
 Vast columns of figures had to be gone through, and naturally 
 every kind of ready-reckoner was pressed into the service. 
 But none of these could quite be trusted. One, known as 
 ' the counters,' was too cumbrous ; another, known as * the 
 pen,' left too much to the intelUgence of the clerk who used 
 it. So Blaise was struck with the idea of inventing a 
 machine that should perform the four rules of arithmetic 
 ' by necessary movements independent of the operator's 
 will, and as simply as was possible to Nature.' The scheme 
 was not absolutely new. At the close of the previous 
 century the Scotch mathematician, Napier of Merchiston, 
 had produced a set of calculating rods, which obtained a 
 European celebrity under the name of Napier's Bones. 
 A few years later the Dutch Jesuit, Ciermans, constructed 
 a real calculating machine. But Napier's Bones were 
 almost incredibly clumsy, and Ciermans' invention never 
 came before the public ; Gilberte Pascal is justified in her 
 
ROUEN 23 
 
 boast that her brother ' introduced a novelty into nature, 
 and reduced to mechanism a science whose seat is wholly 
 in the human mind.' 
 
 The machine was begun in 1640, but before an even 
 provisional success was reached, nearly five years had been 
 spent, and more than fifty models constructed. Some 
 were made with ' straight pins, some with curved, some 
 with chains ; some with concentric, others with eccentric 
 wheels ; some with upright, some with circular, or else 
 conical or cylindrical action. Others were entirely different 
 again, either in material or shape or working.' i Nor were 
 these Pascal's only troubles. He soon found that beating 
 metals with a hammer was a very different thing from 
 drawing diagrams in a study ; and still harder was it to 
 make himself intelligible to his workmen, ignorant of the 
 very alphabet of science. Moreover, he was haunted by 
 the fear that his invention would not get a hearing. It 
 was ambitious and out of the common ; he himself was still 
 obscure, although quite old enough to realise that the world 
 has an ' unjust prejudice ' against the discoveries of unknown 
 young men. Nor was it much comfort to remember that in 
 one quarter he was sure of attention ; for that quarter was 
 the hypercritical assemblage presided over by Mersenne. 
 His imagination heard specialists in geometry calling his 
 machine unduly complex, and speciahsts in mechanics 
 scoffing at its clumsiness— as though mathematical nicety 
 was the only thing to be considered, when an instrument 
 is intended for hard, practical work. 
 
 Worst of all, came the news that a rival inventor had 
 taken the field. At this Blaise lost his self-control. ' With 
 my own eyes I have seen a travesty of my machine made by 
 a watchmaker at Eouen. Guided merely by what he had 
 heard of my first model, he had the effrontery to construct 
 
 1 PriviUge du Eoi four la Machine, arithmetique, in Worlca, iii. p. 194- 
 
24 PASCAL 
 
 another of his own — and what is worse, with a different 
 kind of action. It is true he is a worthy fellow, very clever 
 with his tools, and not without some aptitude for matters 
 only indirectly touching on his trade. But he scarcely so 
 much as knows that such sciences as geometry or mechanics 
 exist ; and although his machine looks neat and pretty 
 enough on the outside, the interior is so radically defective 
 that it never can be of any use. Still, its novelty has gained 
 it a warm welcome from those who understand nothing of the 
 subject ; and it has even found a place on the shelves of 
 a gentleman of the same town, who collects rare and curious 
 objects. The sight of this little monster filled me with 
 disgust ; I sent away my workmen, and resolved never to give 
 the matter another thought. For I was naturally afraid 
 lest other such caricaturists might arise, and cover my 
 machine with ridicule, before the public had a chance of 
 deciding on its merits. But soon afterwards the Lord 
 Chancellor deigned to inspect my first model ; and thinking 
 well of it, he enjoined on me to proceed. And when he 
 saw that it was fear that held me back, he was pleased to cut 
 down the evil at the root, to prevent it doing further harm 
 to my good name or the public advantage. For he issued 
 an extraordinary patent in my favour, the effect of which 
 is to strangle before their birth any other such monstrosities 
 as may be begotten otherwise than in the lawful wedlock of 
 theory and art.' i 
 
 The childish petulance of this outburst has been a 
 stumbling-block to many critics. But there was much more 
 than a young man's wounded vanity at stake. At first sight 
 it seems strange to think of Pascal in connexion with the 
 higgling of the market ; yet his Machine, begun purely 
 in the interests of his father's office, was certainly continued 
 as a commercial speculation. On its final completion some 
 
 ' Avis nieessaire a tout ceux qui auront curiositi de voir la Machine 
 arithmitigue, Works, iii. p. 187. 
 
EOUEN 25 
 
 years later models were exhibited in Paris, and no less of 
 a personage than Professor Roberval undertook to explain 
 their workings to intending purchasers. Hence the watch- 
 maker was detestable as a possible rival in trade. But he 
 was also still more detestable for another reason. A member 
 of the Paris Club — more especially its youngest member — 
 was bound to stand very much on his dignity, whenever 
 questions arose concerning the ' lawful wedlock of theory 
 and art.' He was one of the elect of science condescending — 
 as Desargues had before him — to turn his sacred deposit of 
 learning to practical account ; whereas the poor watch- 
 maker was no better than a quack, who laid his bungling 
 hands on the ark of the scientific covenant. And to the 
 odiousness of quackery Pascal's generation was peculiarly 
 aUve. To the mass of Frenchmen science was still an un- 
 known land ; another half-century must go by, before Fon- 
 tenelle would bring it within reach of every drawing-room. 
 Hence the world did not trouble to distinguish between one 
 man of science and another ; it included under a common 
 ban the followers of Galileo and the recruits of Paracelsus. 
 Thrilled to the marrow by lurid tales of Cardan and Vanini, 
 respectability suspected all alike ; a strong smell of brim- 
 stone still clung round every telescope or test-tube. Mer- 
 senne was driven into public protest against the popular 
 impression that mathematicians and medical men were 
 necessarily atheists. Descartes was set down as an atheist, 
 a Jesuit, a Rosicrucian, or an Anabaptist, according to 
 individual taste ; while as to Blaise Pascal, the Memoirs 
 of a prominent contemporary dismiss him as an adept at 
 Black Magic. 
 
 Not but what the cloud of prejudice was slowly lifting. 
 Among Paris wits a man of science was not so much an object 
 of horror as an object of good-natured contempt. Mathe- 
 matics were a harmless amusement, when not too openly 
 paraded ; and Saint fivremond put the applied sciences in 
 
26 PASCAL 
 
 their place, when he said that a gentleman should show 
 them every encouragement short of soiling his fingers by 
 studying them himself. Centres of provincial enlightenment 
 followed in the wake of Paris. At Eouen, Pascal found it 
 easy enough to collect an audience to witness his early 
 experiments in the vacuum. Nor were serious critics 
 altogether wanting. There was Dr. Pierius from the 
 Archiepiscopal College, who brought to the maintenance of 
 ultra-conservative opim'ons considerable learning and a 
 resourcefulness of criticism that caused the young innovator 
 many anxious hours. There was Dr. Guiffart, a physician 
 and specialist in ordnance questions, and an amiable, liberal- 
 minded man, who vahantly defended Blaise against the 
 onslaughts of Pierius. Lastly, there was young Adrien 
 Auzout, who grew up to leave a permanent mark on the 
 history of astronomy. 
 
 However, the greatest man in Eouen was not an astro- 
 nomer, but a poet. When the Pascals settled there, CorneiUe 
 was still dividing his time between the local Admiralty 
 Court and the creation of a national drama in France. His 
 ' Cid ' had taken Paris by storm at Christmas, 1636 ; Jacque- 
 line's actor-friend, Mondory, could write in triumph that the 
 seats in the gallery, usually given over to pages, were 
 thronged with noblemen in blue ribbons. With Corneille 
 himself Jacqueline was not long in making friends, and at his 
 instance she competed successfully for a prize-poem of some 
 local note. On her brother, however, the poet made but 
 small impression. In conversation he was anything but 
 lucid ; he himself admitted an incurable propensity to put 
 the wrong word in the wrong place. And Blaise was far too 
 much engrossed by his science to waste more time on poetry 
 than was required to write it down as the very essence of 
 affectation and unreahty. The aim of science was to reach 
 the Uteral truth of things ; the aim of poetry was to ' mask 
 and disguise ' it under a coat of literary paint. In vain the 
 
ROUEN 27 
 
 poets urged that facts meant nothing, unless caught up 
 and transfigured by the imagination of the writer. Blaise 
 answered that here precisely lay the error. Any faithful 
 copy of nature had a certain value — though art bore daily 
 witness to its own futility by imitating worthless models — 
 but a copy garbled by human fancy had no value at all. 
 It is the principle of Napoleon, when he said that the worst 
 of all faults in a general was carving ' pictures ' out of a 
 battle-field. 
 
 For this gross misconception of their art the poets them- 
 selves were largely to blame. Frenchmen have always been 
 slow to admit that poetry is something other than a logical 
 demonstration in holiday costume ; and in the rational 
 seventeenth century such a confession was doubly un- 
 grateful. Corneille himself had no sure hold on the 
 distinction between a truth of sentiment and a truth 
 of fact ; and many of the smaller writers talked as 
 though a lyric poem were a kind of rhyming afiidavit. 
 Desmarets de Saint Sorlin, for instance, was just now 
 preaching a return from classical to Christian themes, 
 on the ground that the actions of the true God — ^just because 
 the God was true — could be told with greater literary charm 
 than the exploits of the false. A generation later uprose 
 Corneille's own nephew, Fontenelle, to defend verse as a 
 useful means of putting difficult ideas into clear and simple 
 language — much as the Covenanters defended their metrical 
 version of the Psalms as being ' handy cantle to mind.' 
 On such principles Blaise judged poetry, and condemned it. 
 For exposition it was useless, because it lacked the necessary 
 freedom. A sonnet cannot afford to wait, while conscien- 
 tiousness develops its whole case ; ballads have no room for 
 qualifying clauses, or exceptions to the rule. Let a writer 
 begin to follow truth wherever it leads him, and Giants Order, 
 Lucidity and Picturesqueness promptly block the way ; 
 ever and anon they force him to say either more or less than 
 
28 PASCAL 
 
 he meant. The same gangrene of untruthfukiess creeps 
 into the wording of his very phrases ; long before his con- 
 version to Port Eoyal Blaise had adopted the dictum of its 
 leaders that the exigencies of rhyme have turned many a poet 
 into a liar. For argument poetry was worse than useless. 
 The most cogent demonstration it admitted was a slip-shod 
 metaphor ill-applied. So whenever Jacqueline read out some 
 grandiloquent passage Hkening the stormy fortunes of the 
 great to lightning that attracts the thunderbolt, Blaise inter- 
 rupted her with the tart rejoinder that, if the lightning were 
 to change its habits, and take to striking low-lying ground, 
 the poets and people who thought that sort of thing was 
 argument would be sadly at a loss for ' proofs.' i 
 
 Besides, he was not a httle nettled at the quasi-scientific 
 airs affected by the critics of the time. The great heroes 
 of the sixteenth century had been over-baUasted by mis- 
 cellaneous erudition ; by dint of reading everything there 
 was to read, Rabelais and Montaigne had read themselves 
 out of the power of steering any definite course. But now 
 a reaction had set in towards uniformity and order. Success 
 was everywhere proclaimed impossible, unless a writer 
 knew exactly whence he started, whither he was bound, and 
 what means he intended to employ. Not only a great poet 
 like Corneille, but every httle rhymester Jacqueline read 
 could spin elaborate theories about his ' art ' ; while for the 
 benefit of inexperience authoritative canons were drawn up, 
 and soon acquired a superstitious sanctity. The rules of 
 poetry were codified, so were the rules of eloquence, and 
 even the rules of conversation — all with a show of compre- 
 hensiveness and trenchancy that would have been in better 
 place had poetry been mathematics. To Blaise the whole 
 proceeding seemed an impudent caricature, aping the 
 methods of the most exact of sciences on a field neither 
 scientific nor exact. It would be time enough to determine 
 
 > Pens. 39. 
 
ROUEN 29 
 
 the rules, when these wiseacres had settled between them 
 wherein the essence of poetry lay. ' People talk of poetical 
 beauty,' he said, ' but never of geometrical or medical 
 beauty. The reason is that everyone knows that the object 
 of geometry is proof, and the object of medicine is cure ; 
 but no one knows what pleasure is, which is the object of 
 poetry. And as they cannot furnish us with a natural 
 model to imitate, they fall back on a string of fantastic 
 expressions — "golden age," "marvel of our time," and the 
 Hke — and caU this stuff poetical beauty. But anyone who 
 wiU imagine a woman built on this pattern (which consists 
 in giving big names to little things) wiU have before him 
 a pretty girl bedizened all over with looking-glasses and 
 chains ; and these will make him laugh, for he knows much 
 better what is charming in a woman than what is charming 
 in a poem. But a man without taste will admire her the 
 more because of her finery, and there are villages where she 
 would be taken as queen. That is why we call sonnets 
 composed on this model village-queens.' i 
 
 This passage belongs to a later date ; it was not at Rouen 
 that Blaise learned to criticise feminine attractions. But 
 the idea is old enough. All his life long Pascal made relent- 
 less war on ' village- queens ' — that is, on showy codes and 
 systems drawn up without regard to the ' natural model ' 
 of common-sense experience. It mattered not whether 
 they took shape as 'precieux poetry, or Cartesian science, or 
 Jesuit morality. Priests, philosophers and poets seemed to 
 Pascal all alike. Impelled by the same desire for a ready- 
 made standard of guidance, they had thrown themselves 
 into the arms of system ; and system rewarded their sub- 
 missiveness by inspiring a most delusive confidence in itself. 
 One and all took it lightly for granted that a question must 
 be rightly answered, once the orthodox methods had been 
 applied ; to a mind trained never to look beyond them these 
 
 iPe««. 33. 
 
30 PASCAL 
 
 seemed so full, so sensible, so sure, that what was reached 
 by their aid could never be wrong. Here and there, no 
 doubt, some stubborn fact arose that would not fit in with 
 their requirements ; but the world was large, and hundreds 
 of other facts were forthcoming as to which no difficulty- 
 arose. But Pascal was one of those scrupulous spirits who 
 cannot tie bUnkers over their eyes ; unhke the traditional 
 geologist, he would never roll an inconvenient boulder two 
 hundred feet downhill ' into conformity with my system.' 
 To him it mattered little whether a theory was sensible, or 
 practical, or logically self-consistent ; the one and only 
 question was whether the theory was true. And truth 
 required some more objective guarantee than any amount 
 of logic could supply. 
 
 This guarantee it was the task of Nature to provide. 
 But what did Pascal understand by this Protean word ? 
 The answer will vary much at different stages of his career. 
 At Eouen ' Nature ' was simply the subject of science — a 
 bare expanse of cold, dead matter stretched out to infinity — 
 the boundless spaces, whose eternal silence will fill the 
 Christian Pascal with a&ight. Kinship between them there 
 was none ; and to speak as though there were, was to com- 
 promise the fundamental dualism of things, and ' speak of 
 the material in terms of spirit.' For no fault had Pascal 
 less indulgence ; his own chief physical exploit lay in proving 
 that Nature had not ' spirituality ' enough to feel even a 
 metaphorical horror of a vacuum. On the other hand, just 
 because she was without any bias of her own, she made 
 the best of witnesses ; once put a question fairly to her, 
 and she could not choose but answer truly. Before he left 
 Rouen, Pascal had begun to pass from mathematics to 
 experimental physics. After all, geometry was a merely 
 ideal science dealing with notions, not with things ; whereas 
 in physics the decision lay with experiment, that is, with 
 Nature herself. 
 
ROUEN 81 
 
 Apart from the scientific interest, Pascal could take no 
 sort of pleasure in Nature. Most writers of the time admitted 
 her to their presence, after the gardener and the architect 
 had worked their will upon her. She was useful in pro- 
 viding decorative backgrounds for a picture — ' horizons 
 formes a souhait pour le plaisir des yeux,' as one of their 
 own poets has said. Boileau admitted the value of a forest 
 as an occasional refuge for jaded literary men ; and even 
 Descartes felt ' a certain lightsomeness, when the weather 
 was fairer than ordinary.' But neither forests nor trim 
 lawns had any charm for Blaise. ' The weather and my 
 humours,' he said, ' have httle to do with one another. I 
 have fogs and sunshine of my own within me ' i — perhaps 
 the most * uimatural ' declaration ever made by mortal 
 man. Still, there is a grey magnificence in this entire 
 detachment from the physical world around him. Here 
 Pascal, the experimentalist man of science, joins hands with 
 Pascal, the Jansenist ascetic. To both Nature is the 
 enemy ; though one strives to conquer her by thought, the 
 other by prayer and fasting. Their methods may be 
 different, but their aim is one and the same. Each must 
 subdue the flesh — must stamp upon corruptible matter 
 the impress of incorruptible mind. * Man is a reed — the 
 feeblest in nature ; but he is a thinking reed. The universe 
 need not arm for his defeat ; a fume, a drop of water will 
 dispatch him. Yet crush him, and he stUl remains nobler 
 than his destroyer, because he knows that he is dying ; 
 whereas the universe knows nothing of its victory. All 
 our dignity is born of thought. The universe may en- 
 compass me, and swallow up my body hke an atom ; my 
 mind still casts a girdle round it. Let us, then, strive hard 
 to think well : there lies the secret of a moral Ufe.' ^ 
 
 1 Pens. 107. ^ Pens. 347. 
 
CHAPTEK III 
 
 THE DEAD HAND 
 
 Balzac, the Lord High Letter-writer, once congratulated 
 Descartes on introducing a new ' sovereignty ' into the 
 world. And herein Balzac was right. During Pascal's 
 youth natural science was slowly overflowing the narrow 
 bounds of the Paris Club, and rising to be a great power in 
 the realm of thought. Blaise grew up in the midst of a 
 never-ending discussion of the principles involved by its 
 rise. Was it a mere intellectual amusement, or did it reveal 
 the ■universe in a new light ? What should be its attitude 
 towards philosophy, towards the Church, towards its own 
 traditions ? Must it remain content to develop principles 
 already established, or might it strike out new lines of its 
 own ? If so, should mathematics be its tool, or practical 
 experiment ? At first the club had studied geometry 
 simply for its own sake, without much thought of its practical 
 application ; and some of its most distinguished members 
 remained true all their lives to this earlier tradition. Judge 
 Fermat, for instance, never deserved the reproach a whim- 
 sical critic once brought against Sir Isaac Newton, of 
 ' prostituting mathematics to the service of astronomy.' 
 To other contemporaries of Galileo and Kepler such self- 
 restraint was impossible. Why should new planets swim 
 only into a German or Italian ken, when Frenchmen had at 
 hand in their geometry an unfailing instrument of limitless 
 
 32 
 
THE DEAD HAND 83 
 
 discovery ? ' To arithmetic it is given,' cried Mersenne, 
 ' to number the several parts of the universe, but geometry- 
 investigates its magnitude. Like a second Atlas, it labours 
 until its head has touched the stars ; nor may the farthest 
 reaches of the Firmament defy the visits of its measuring- 
 rod.' 
 
 Accordingly, the good priest bestirred himself to translate 
 Galileo's books, in the hope of inducing his feUow-members 
 to take the great Florentine as their model, and turn their 
 favourite study to serious account. Not that either master 
 or disciple made astronomical discovery the one goal of their 
 researches. Galileo was much more than a great explorer 
 of the heavens ; his best services to science were rendered 
 in the department of mechanics, investigating their first 
 principles — ^laws of motion, virtual velocities, and the like. 
 ' To discover spots in the sun, or satelHtes round Jupiter,' 
 said Lagrange, ' needed only patience and a telescope ; 
 but it required a very great man to formulate the laws of 
 things that are everywhere happening before our eyes.' 
 It required also more than usual courage. Seventeenth 
 century orthodoxy held that all these matters had been 
 settled long ago by Aristotle — not, of course, the real 
 Greek, but a Latinised, or ' Germanic ' Aristotle, wrought 
 into conformity with mediaeval dogma by the schoolmen, 
 and thenceforward covered by the mantle of the Church. 
 Hence the superstitious reverence attaching to his name. 
 Galileo's colleague, Libri, would not put his eye to a telescope, 
 lest he should see what Aristotle had not seen ; Gassendi 
 knew another professor, who thought he did God acceptable 
 service by offering to shed his blood in defence of every 
 syllable Aristotle ever wrote. ' Respect for the Ancients,' 
 cries Blaise Pascal, ' has nowadays reached such a pitch that 
 men make oracles of all they said, and sacred mysteries of 
 what they did not understand. It is treasonable to con- 
 tradict them, and misprision of treason to call them in 
 
34 PASCAL 
 
 question.' Nor was this ' Stagyrolatry ' — for Aristotle was 
 the Ancient of Ancients — pecuUar to the Catholic world. 
 If Giordano Bruno may be beUeved, the proctors of 
 Elizabethan Oxford exacted their customary fine of five 
 shillings for every breach of the laws of logic laid down 
 in Aristotle's ' Organon.' Hence the shattering of the idol 
 was of capital importance ; and with this GaUleo began his 
 career. Aristotle having laid down that heavy bodies fall 
 faster than light ones in proportion to their weight, Galileo 
 marched up the Leaning Tower of Pisa ; and thence, in the 
 presence of several scholastic professors, let fall a ten-pound 
 and a one-pound weight. Both reached the ground at the 
 same moment, and with them fell beUef in Aristotle's 
 infallibility. 
 
 But reverence for Aristotle's personal authority was not 
 the only obstacle Gahleo had to fight. Behind that rever- 
 ence, and supporting it, was the scholastic theory itself, 
 fortified by centuries of unquestioning acceptance, as well as 
 by an intimate conviction of the grandiosity of its own aim. 
 It had undertaken to prove that the universe only gains a 
 meaning when read in the light of the Christian Church ; 
 for the Church's service they had been created, and by the 
 Church's dogmas they must be explained. Not man 
 alone, but animals and trees and brute inanimate matter 
 had their purpose ; and the task the schoolman set before 
 him was to show how all these tiny brooks united in the 
 broad river of the Catholic scheme. Before the Prseparatio 
 Evangelica of human, must come the Prseparatio of natural 
 history : the reason why fishes swim, why kettles boil, 
 why sugar is sweet, must be found to be ultimately deducible 
 from some attribute of God. 
 
 Such a theory was Uttle likely to welcome new truths 
 from the outside ; its business was not to discover, but to 
 interpret, what already was. Again and again it rearranged 
 the settled store of physical facts left behind by Aristotle, 
 
THE DEAD HAND 85 
 
 until the manner of arrangement began to appear of more 
 importance than the facts themselves. Logic, -which at 
 first had been the servant, rose to be head of the house. 
 Unchecked by rivalry with other sciences, it moulded all the 
 thought of its disciples ; they soon came to believe that the 
 laws which governed the inner world of their ideas must be 
 equally obeyed by the external world of things. What was 
 Nature for, except to work in syllogisms ? What were 
 mere phenomena to do, but bow before a science that had 
 its roots in the Divine ? Logic had built the schoolmen a 
 continuing city well-garrisoned, four-square ; and they were 
 in no mind to see its symmetry destroyed by new barbarian 
 discoveries. Hence they made short work enough of any 
 physical fact that did not fit in with their preconceptions. 
 As Galileo said, they tried to tear his new planets out of the 
 heavens by logical arts, as though by a kind of magical 
 incantation. Nor did the most honest schoolman feel any 
 shame at his own performance. On his principles God had 
 first created Nature, and then human reason to explain 
 her. Far from him, then, the Baconian precept to conquer 
 Nature by obeying her — that is, by suiting our theories to 
 her facts. What was this but exalting the interpreted above 
 the interpreter — dead matter over living mind ? 
 
 This blind confidence in logic gave birth to the scholastic 
 ' pedantry.' All argument, unless kept in continual check 
 by experience, necessarily falls into the hands of a few men 
 of genius ; the modest inquirer becomes less anxious to see 
 things for himself than to know what his intellectual heroes 
 had to say about them. Dehberately he refuses to grapple 
 with questions at first hand ; as Galileo said contemptuously, 
 he feels that his reason must remain unfruitful, unless it is 
 mated with some greater mind. Nor was this cowardice 
 peculiar to the clerical world. Whatever their official 
 faculty, all scholastic professors were by instinct theologians ; 
 even into an anatomical lecture-room they carried the 
 
 D 2 
 
36 PASCAL 
 
 methods of the divinity school. Their principles were not 
 the principles of science, vast working hypotheses hable 
 to ceaseless alteration ; they were inelastic dogmas fixed 
 unalterably for all time. As there was an ecclesiastical 
 ' deposit of faith ' depending on Scripture and the Fathers, 
 so also there was a deposit of scientific faith implicitly con- 
 tained in Aristotle or Hippocrates. This it was the student's 
 business to elucidate and develop in the light thrown on it 
 by later accredited masters, Galen, Averrhoes, Pemel. But 
 woe betide him if he dare advance original theories of his 
 own ; the famous theological maxim, that a heretic is a man 
 who has an opinion, applied quite as much to mechanics or 
 medicine as to the doctrine of grace. 
 
 t.i' No doubt, thought is difficult to kill, and every inquisition 
 has its limits. Artful reasoners of the type of Gassendi or 
 Mersenne found it easy to throw dust in the eyes of their 
 censors, and pretend that their most startUng innovations 
 had been forestalled by some uninteUigible passage in one 
 of Aristotle's less known works. But on less experienced 
 shoulders tradition rested with a crushing weight. The 
 least gleam of independent thought was cried down as no 
 good sign in a young man's character — subversive of 
 established institutions — tending to intellectual pride. 
 Ignatius Loyola sternly denounced it as the very tap-root of 
 disobedience ; whereas, to give up forming opinions of one's 
 own on disputed points of scholarship was in his view a 
 sacrifice peculiarly acceptable to the God of Wisdom. 
 
 Prom the tyranny of the expert was but one step to the 
 tyranny of the official. Systems soon hardened into schools, 
 and schools into powerful corporations, each with its own 
 vested interests in darkness. ' Quid de medicina nostra fiet ? ' 
 asked many a college of physicians, on hearing of Robert 
 Harvey's discoveries about the blood. Members answered 
 that they would rather err with Galen than circulate with 
 Harvey — all the more readily, since circulator is low-Latin for 
 
THE DEAD HAND 37 
 
 a tramp. To interpret truth thus became the monopoly of 
 certain privileged bodies, whether they called themselves 
 college of cardinals or faculty of medicine. They might be 
 composed of capable men, or they might not ; that mattered 
 little, since their authority flowed not from their competence, 
 but from their official position. Common sense quite 
 approved the arrangement. Why were the colleges there, 
 unless they understood their business ? If they went 
 wrong, who was left to put them right ? In short, authority 
 was worshipped just because it was authority — tradition, 
 because it was tradition. ' What pleases me most about 
 my Son,' says Dr. Diafoirus in the ' Malade Imaginaire,' 
 ' is that he is blindly attached to the opinions of the Ancients, 
 and that he would never comprehend nor hear the Reasons 
 and Experiments of our age concerning the circulation of the 
 Blood, or other opinions of the same stamp.' 
 
 Thus Galileo and his followers were driven into violent 
 protest — ^much as Luther had protested a hundred years 
 before — against the ' vile habit of believing ' begotten of 
 scholastic methods. They felt the foundations of authorita- 
 tive science giving way under their feet. Why should they 
 bow down to Aristotle ? He was a man like other men. 
 What proof was there that the schoolmen understood him ? 
 They differed violently about his meaning. But, even 
 when he spoke quite clearly, was it certain he was right ? 
 In the matter of falling bodies Galileo had proved him 
 wrong, and he might be wrong again. Was, then, certainty 
 an ideal beyond our reach ? Many writers thought it was, 
 and echoed the mournful conclusion of Francis Sanchez 
 that man was certainly born for knowledge, but that, in his 
 present state, the gates of knowledge were inexorably barred 
 against him. But bolder spirits refused to submit so 
 tamely to defeat. They were not bloodless metaphysicians 
 anxiously probing the inmost recesses of the human mind ; 
 they were lusty adventurers born into an age of limitless 
 
38 PASCAL 
 
 discovery. Columbus had called into being one new world. 
 Galileo had opened up another ; the development of the 
 microscope was laying bare a third. They were resolved 
 to live and learn all there was to know. 
 
 What, then, should be their test of truth ? For lack of 
 more impressive criteria, they saw themselves thrown back 
 on their individual judgment. Timidly enough at first, 
 but soon with an increasing note of defiance, they preached 
 that an honest man must brace up his courage to decide 
 for himself, and hold such opinions as he thought true for 
 no other reason than because he thought them true, reason 
 being his sole law. Soon appeared Descartes and his 
 Cogito, as a rationalistic counterpart to Lutheran justification 
 by faith. Both deny that certitude can be gained by con- 
 forming one's beliefs to a standard fixed by others ; if a 
 man's faith is really to be living, he must create it for himself 
 afresh — whether it be faith in the saving power of Christianity 
 or in the truth of mathematics. Both insist that the only 
 convictions really worth having are those a man has won 
 for himself by the hard sweat of his brow. ' So far from 
 making hearsay the rule of your beUefs,' writes Pascal, 
 ' you ought to approach a question as though you had never 
 heard of it before. It is the consent of yourself to yourself 
 and the unchanging voice of your own reason that ought 
 to make you beHeve, — not the voices of other men.' To 
 listen to their voices was no merit, but a crime. Not a few 
 of his French contemporaries might have said with John 
 Milton : ' A man may be a heretic in the truth ; and if he 
 believes things because his pastor says so, or the assembly 
 so determines, without knowing other reason, though his 
 behef be true, yet the very truth he holds becomes his 
 heresy.' 
 
 If a man's first duty is to exercise his judgment, it is 
 manifest that he may suspend it on occasion. Doubt ceased 
 to be a crime. To churchmen the doubting habit of mind 
 
THE DEAD HAND 39 
 
 had been even more intolerable than independent thought 
 itself. Accustomed to look everywhere for an immediate 
 rule of practical guidance, they could not away with the slow 
 march of science, its stuttering hesitations and provisional 
 replies. They said that life was meant for action, not for 
 speculation ; a man must make haste to choose his side, 
 knowing that on that choice depended an eternity of weal 
 or woe. Nor did it trouble them if his decision was reached 
 after hasty, superficial inquiry. Unconsciously they let 
 themselves be biassed by a false ethical analogy. As it is 
 unquestionably meritorious to effect much with insufi&cient 
 tools, so they thought it must be right to believe much on 
 scanty proof. Then, too, they were led astray by the moral 
 beauty of belief. To the acrid, critical, scientific spirit, 
 always haggling over technicalities of evidence, they opposed 
 the impulsive, trustful temper of mind, that squanders its 
 credos and its alms with equal generosity. To Galileo and 
 his friends, however, such arguments were no arguments at 
 all. Once and for all, they refused to subordinate their 
 science to any moral end outside itself. An honest search 
 for truth was its own full, perfect and sufi&cient justification ; 
 and truth, as Pascal said, only reveals herself to those who 
 make it their rule to assent to none but certain propositions, 
 and refuse either to afiirm or to deny whenever the evidence 
 is doubtful. 
 
 This stern sense of the value of facts kept scepticism at a 
 distance. Pascal will one day have deahngs with ' Pyrrhon- 
 ists ' too indolent to make up their minds ; but Pyrrhonism 
 would be sought in vain among the strenuous members of 
 the Paris Club. Their doubts were a stimulant, not an 
 opiate — a means of rousing themselves and their fellows out 
 of the dogmatic slumber where everything is taken for 
 granted. They were only continuing the work that Giordano 
 Bruno had begun, when he cried to the scholastic professors : 
 ' Inasmuch as the very pinnacle of ignorance is taking 
 
40 PASCAL 
 
 doubtful things for certain, I beseech you, let us for one 
 moment think, suppose, pretend, that we are thorough 
 ignoramuses. Perhaps we shall gain in wisdom and insight, 
 if we find that hitherto we have been taking darkness — 
 or, at any rate, faint twilight glimmerings — for noonday. 
 Then we shall either go back to our first opinion, and hold 
 it much more firmly than before ; or else we shall recognise 
 that we were blind, and exchange it for a better.' Herein 
 earnest Christians like Mersenne were at one with the 
 martyr of free thought. The good priest thoroughly agreed 
 that nothing was more absurd than the ' foolish and pedantic 
 affectation ' of taking everything for certain ; the doubts 
 of the sceptics were a thousand times to be preferred to the 
 dogmatism of the other philosophical schools. In other 
 words, he recognised that science knows no prescriptive 
 rights. It holds that traditions — so far from acquiring 
 credibility by growing older — are apt to lose whatever element 
 of truth they once possessed under the reckless guardianship 
 of successive generations. Hence Mersenne and his brethren 
 of the club were always ready for an inquiry into anything. 
 But they were none of them iconoclasts. Blaise Pascal 
 speaks for them all when he says : ' I hold that we ought 
 not lightly to depart from accepted beliefs, unless obHged 
 by clear and cogent proof. In that case it seems to me the 
 height of cowardice to have the least scruple about it ; for 
 to defend established opinions merely because they are 
 estabhshed is a sign of obstinacy rather than reverence for 
 truth.' 
 
 The dogmatists might talk as they pleased about their 
 one unchanging, supernatural dispensation, and contrast it 
 with the variableness and uncertainty that clouds a merely 
 human wisdom. Science, again speaking through the 
 mouth of Blaise Pascal, answered that to enchain man 
 within the iron circle of his present knowledge was not to 
 make him little lower than the angels, but to degrade him to 
 
THE DEAD HAND 41 
 
 the level of the brutes. * It is the peculiar privilege of 
 human reason to be ever on the increase ; whereas the 
 instinct of the beasts moves unendingly along one plane. 
 A thousand years ago bees built their hives no worse than 
 now ; their hexagon of comb was just as neatly formed 
 the first time as the last. Nature so contrives her hints as 
 just to keep pace with their necessities ; and with the 
 satisfaction of their needs that fragile knowledge dies 
 away. Such is not the case with man, who was created 
 only for infinity. He begins life in a state of boundless 
 ignorance, but throughout his career he learns incessantly ; 
 for he draws not only on his own experience, but on the 
 experience of those who went before him. We of the 
 present day stand where the ancient philosophers would have 
 stood, had they lived until our time, busy from age to age 
 in adding to their original stock of wisdom. Nay, our 
 whole race, in the long course of its history, may be likened 
 to a single man, continually alive and continually learning. 
 How unjust, then, is the reverence we pay to the sages of 
 old time. They lived during the childhood of the world, 
 and were novices in everything. We ourselves, who have 
 added the experience of many centuries to theirs, have by 
 far the better title to that name of ancient, which we give 
 to them.' 
 
 Still, Blaise and his masters only aspired to free a limited 
 field from the control of the dead hand. Discoverers rather 
 than philosophers, their interest did not go beyond the 
 constructive sciences ; critical domains, Hke philology or 
 history, they wilHngly left to the professors. ' If one wants 
 to know who was the first king of France, or where geo- 
 graphers place the first meridian, or what words were in use 
 in a dead language, whither should one go, except to books ? ' 
 Blaise Pascal asks — not without the implication that on 
 matters so supremely unattractive one book was as good as 
 another, and the methods of ScaUger neither better nor 
 
42 PASCAL 
 
 worse than the methods of Salmasius. Besides, all these 
 inquiries started from some musty, old tradition ; and 
 Blaise was a servant of geometry — a science, as he had 
 already told the Lord Chancellor, whose pecuhar privilege 
 it was to advance nothing that it could not prove. History 
 began with an act of faith in the veracity of some ancient 
 chronicler ; whereas geometry involved no acts of faith 
 at all. Its demonstrations lay absolutely open to the eye 
 of reason, from the first enunciation of the problem to the 
 final Q.E.D. Hence it could afford to bid tradition a lasting 
 farewell. ' In physics,' Pascal told his Jesuit antagonist, 
 Father Noel, ' we pay no attention to authorities. If we refer 
 to earlier writers at all, we quote their demonstrations, not 
 their names.' 
 
 In other words, science must be free from aU authority 
 except its own ; and the great quarrel with the Aristotehans 
 arose because they would not recognise this independence. 
 For theology, as such, the club had an unfeigned respect, 
 and nothing was farther from its thoughts than rehgious 
 innovation ; every member took to heart the advice a 
 Eoman prelate once gave Galileo — to philosophise as much 
 as he pleased, so long as he kept outside the sacristy. A 
 rough dividing-line was drawn between such facts as could 
 be proved by reason, and such as could not. The former 
 the club kept within its own jurisdiction ; the latter were 
 sacred mysteries belonging to the Church. Here authority 
 was needful, because the facts passed aU human under- 
 standing ; whereas authority was useless, whenever reason 
 could be set to work. ' We must deplore,' wrote Pascal, 
 after his first Jansenist conversion, ' the blindness of those 
 who settle physical questions by authority, instead of 
 reasoning or experiment ; and we must reprobate the malice 
 that brings argument to bear on theology, in place of Scrip- 
 ture and the Fathers.' What he and his colleagues could 
 not tolerate was the scholastic tendency to confuse the two 
 
THE DEAD HAND 43 
 
 domains, and illegitimately deduce — as Descartes said — 
 wrong opinions in physics from the words of Scripture. 
 Clerical encroachments on its sphere were welcomed with 
 ironical deference by the elder members of the club. When 
 the cardinals condemned Galileo, Descartes said that their 
 judgment would have as much influence on his public 
 declarations as reason had upon his private thoughts. 
 Mersenne explained that, of course, the Church must be 
 right — though, to be sure, the arguments of the heliocentric 
 party were hard to answer, and nobody would be damned 
 for inability to refute them. The younger generation was 
 much more outspoken. Blaise, who was ten years old 
 when the condemnation was pronounced, grew up to place 
 it almost on the same lines as the condemnation of Jansen 
 — a fact all the more significant, since he thought, on scientific 
 grounds, that Galileo had not fully proved his case. ' De- 
 crees from Rome,' he told the Jesuits in the Provincial 
 Letters, ' will not keep the earth stationary on its axis. 
 If scientific observation proves that it moves, all the men on 
 it will not stop it from moving, or themselves from moving 
 with it.' 
 
 Following on this breach with the past came a new mode 
 of scientific inquiry. The scholastic logic had been a highly 
 elaborated technique accessible only to a few ; and those 
 few were generally so much encumbered by the complexity 
 of their own procedure as to have little leisure to spare for 
 getting at the facts beneath. But now a belief in ' Nature ' 
 was springing up — that is, in lay intelligence. It was thought 
 that honest, reasonable laymen could solve important 
 questions for themselves without professional assistance. 
 Descartes wrote in French, instead of Latin, because he did 
 not wish to have book-worms for his critics, but readers of 
 average understanding. His great complaint against the 
 professors was that they had always preferred the complex 
 to the simple, the difficult to the easy. In the wish to seem 
 
44 PASCAL 
 
 subtle and profound, they had passed by, as unworthy of 
 notice, the truths immediately under their feet. And it 
 was precisely among these simple, commonplace truths that 
 Descartes hoped to find the key of knowledge. To grasp 
 them nothing was needed but good sense ; and of all human 
 quahties good sense was the most evenly distributed. 
 It was, as Descartes said himself, the one thing that people 
 generally difficult to satisfy never desired a larger share of 
 than they already had. Philosophers only differed from 
 the rest of mankind in that their good sense moved iu a 
 more orderly, systematic fashion. Descartes himself, who 
 was not a modest man, attributed his own discoveries to 
 the excellence of his methods much more than to anything 
 extraordinary in his brain. 
 
 Thus simpUcity became the note of the new logic. ' I 
 doubt not,' cried Blaise Pascal, ' that its rules must be 
 unsophisticated, clear and natural. Barbara and barali-pton 
 will not teach us reasoning. We must not screw our miad 
 too high. Straining ambition ends in laughable pretentious- 
 ness, and a bombast foreign to our nature. The mind 
 prefers a swollen, windy diet to solid, wholesome food.' 
 StiQ, even a ' natural ' system of logic does not spring fully 
 armed from any man's brain. Its first principles must be 
 taken over from some already existing science, and in the 
 early seventeenth century that science could only be 
 geometry. Its two characteristics were its clearness and its 
 certainty, and both were guaranteed by its method. First 
 it analysed every conception down into its simplest elements 
 — notions of space, body, and the like — all of them so axio- 
 matically clear that it seemed useless to dissect them further. 
 ' Nature herself,' as Pascal said, ' has given us a surer 
 insight into their meaning than philosophers could furnish 
 by the most artistic definition.' This foundation once laid, 
 mathematics proceeded to build upon it, admitting only so 
 much as immediately followed from the original truth. 
 
THE DEAD HAND 45 
 
 Thus the reasoner held certainty within the hollow of his 
 hand. He need only let his mind run up and down the 
 chain of arguments to feel sure that neither the chain itself, 
 nor any single link thereof, could possibly be otherwise 
 than they were. Indeed, the more enthusiastic geometers 
 maintained that mathematical reasoning was a kind of 
 spontaneous generation. Of their own free motion, as 
 it were, and without the interference of the mind, these 
 primary truths gave birth to others, as certain as them- 
 selves ; and the whole work of science lay in watching these 
 first simple axioms unfold into truths increasingly complex, 
 just as naturally as a single seed breaks into stems and 
 buds and roots. Thus mathematical reasoning became as 
 certain as the course of nature herself ; one demonstration 
 succeeded another, as summer follows spring. 
 
 Here, then, was the model dialectic our inquirers sought. 
 Cast any argument into a mathematical mould, and its 
 certainty and clearness were alike assured ; the spirit 
 the reasoner must imbibe was the geometrical spirit. ' All 
 the world,' will one day cry Blaise Pascal, ' seeks a safe- 
 guard against mistakes. Logicians profess to offer it ; 
 geometers alone succeed. Outside their science, and such 
 others as follow it, there are no real demonstrations. The 
 whole art of reasoning is contained in its precepts. They 
 alone suffice ; they alone can prove ; all other rules are 
 mischievous or useless. This I know from a long experience 
 both of books and men.' Hence the geometrical enthusiasm 
 of the century — an enthusiasm that took the strangest 
 forms. It ranges from Spinoza's attempt to work out 
 the mathematics of the Love of God down to the exploits 
 of Sir Hudibras, who, 
 
 by geometric scale 
 Could take the size oi pots of ale. 
 
 The great Jansenist, Antoine Arnauld, applied geometry 
 to morals in his ' Dissertation selon la methode des geometres 
 
46 PASCAL 
 
 pour la justification de ceux qui emploient, en ecrivanfc, 
 des termes que le monde estime durs ' ; where he proves 
 by A+ B that it is sometimes right to say hard things of the 
 Society of Jesus. Mersenne, still more greatly daring, 
 proposed to introduce geometry into theology itself, and 
 pressed on the superiors of religious houses a consideration 
 of the question whether the saintly could not multiply their 
 merits in geometrical progression. 
 
 Behind Mersenne's froth, however, lay a serious purpose. 
 The geometrical spirit was not always lovely, when embodied 
 in concrete flesh and blood. It fostered a temper of mind 
 masculine to the point of aggressiveness, prone to criticise 
 and cross-examine, exceedingly full of belief in itself, and 
 exceedingly intolerant of all it did not understand. And it 
 was quite as merciless in self-defence as in attack. It 
 never brought forward a thesis without proving at inordinate 
 length that every word it said had been correctly reasoned 
 out from unexceptionable first principles. When Pascal 
 presently forsakes the Paris Club for the world of salons 
 and society, his fashionable friends will groan beneath his 
 ' long demonstrations drawn out line by line.' Yet the 
 demonstrations had their use. Men of science had many 
 new truths to teach the world ; but, before they could expect 
 the world to listen, they must inspire public confidence in 
 their methods. They must show that they were not thro wing 
 over traditional opinions out of mere caprice, that Galileo's 
 conclusions rested on quite as sound a chain of argument 
 as Aristotle's own. Hence the need of making clear that 
 they took never a word on trust, left nothing unexplained. 
 But if the new philosophy was long-winded, it had one 
 enormous advantage over the old. To follow the scholastic 
 reasonings required a long and tedious apprenticeship, 
 whereas the methods of the geometrical spirit could be 
 understood by anyone. The whole secret lay in building 
 up elaborate theories by slow and stately deduction from 
 
THE DEAD HAND 47 
 
 some self-evident commonplace. And in practised hands 
 the commonplaces proved anything but barren. Give 
 Descartes matter and motion, and he will construct the 
 world. Grant to Jean Jacques Rousseau that all men are 
 born free and equal, and he will draw out with infallible 
 precision the only possible form that a civilised society 
 can assume. No wonder if the geometrical spirit seemed 
 capable of moving mountains. ' It is the last word in 
 philosophy,' cries Condorcet. ' It is enough of itself to 
 raise an eternal barrier between the human race and the 
 hoary errors of its childhood.' 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 UNIVERSAL MECHANISM 
 
 ' I HAVE often wondered,' wrote Father Mersenne about the 
 time of Pascal's birth, ' whether it would be possible to put 
 morals on the same footing as physics and mathematics, and 
 proceed by a friori reasoning and efficient causes, instead 
 of doing like Aristotle and his disciples, and always looking 
 to the final end.' i As regards morals, Mersenne's hope 
 was doomed to disappointment ; but he Uved long enough 
 to help much in driving final causes from the domain of 
 natural science. The first achievement of the geometrical 
 spirit was to sweep away the old scholastic doctrine of 
 the purpose. According to that doctrine the universe 
 was created for the sake of Christian man, and all things 
 in it must be explained with reference to this final end. 
 Indeed, scholastic thought was primitive enough to credit 
 the stocks and stones themselves with dim, half-human 
 consciousness of their mission ; the old adage that nature 
 abhors a vacuum was treated as a literal truth. And what 
 was meant by this ' abhorrence,' Dr. Guiffart, the Rouen 
 friend of the Pascals, shaU explain. ' Belief in the impos- 
 sibility of a vacuum is so generally held, and so obstinately 
 defended, by all who follow the most famous of philosophers, 
 that they would rather see the world return to primeval chaos 
 than take one step towards admitting it. From centre to 
 
 ' Impiiti des Diistes, Paris, 1624, i. p. 39. 
 48 
 
UNIVEESAL MECHANISM 49 
 
 circumference, they hold that nature is one vast expanse of 
 bodies, all joined together so exactly as to leave no room for 
 any empty space between them. If such space were possible 
 it would certainly be large, terms like more or less having no 
 meaning for a vacuum, which is pure nothingness and 
 negativity. And as it finds no place in nature, so also it 
 can offer no support to other bodies. Thus its introduction 
 would disturb the nice adjustment whereby they aU balance 
 and sustain each other ; the whole universe would fall 
 together like a house of cards. To prevent this, nature 
 has given each and every body a particular inclination, in 
 satisfying which it incidentally subserves her purpose. 
 But she has further given the bodies a second inclination 
 — common to all alike, and often at variance with the first — 
 to support her in the resolution never to endure a vacuum. 
 Thus heavy bodies have an inclination to descend, light 
 bodies to mount up ; while the two fluids, air and water, act 
 as the prompt and eager couriers of nature in filling up 
 spaces that would otherwise be empty. Hence if violence be 
 offered, and attempts be made to force a vacuum upon her, 
 aU these bodies are equipped in her defence. Sacrificing 
 their private interests to the common good, they abandon 
 their natural inclination — nay, if need be, they assume 
 its opposite ; for they would rather die than fail to defend 
 the Mistress of the Universe against the onslaughts of their 
 deadly enemy.' i 
 
 However picturesque this theory, it was a serious obstacle 
 to science. In the first place it explained obscure things by 
 obscurer. How could a stone have ' inclinations ' ; and if 
 it had, how could it set about their gratification ? Had it, 
 as Blaise Pascal asked, arms or legs or nerves ? Further, 
 scholastic utterances were dangerously final. Horror of 
 a vacuum amply accounted for the wish of heavy bodies to 
 fall. Accordingly it was assumed as an ultimate fact that 
 1 Guiffart, Discours du Vide (Kouen, 1648), pp. 15-26. 
 
50 PASCAL 
 
 such bodies have a natural propensity for falling ; but what 
 exactly ' heaviness ' implied, and why it should be connected 
 with falling, were questions scholasticism left unanswered. 
 Its work was done, once it had determined the inclination — 
 that is, the purpose — of an object, and referred this to its 
 place in the general economy of creation. Thus the doctors in 
 the ' Malade Imaginaire ' ask why opium sends their patients 
 to sleep, and think they have exhausted the subject when 
 they answer : ' Because it has dormitive virtue.' For it 
 never occurred to the Paris faculty that a single object could 
 be intended for more purposes than one, or that opium might 
 have properties which were not sedative. Antimony — 
 discovered about the beginning of the seventeenth century — 
 was a poison, and could not be anything but poisonous. 
 The idea that it might be beneficial, when administered in 
 moderate quantities, was only slowly making its way in the 
 very teeth of scholastic medicine. 
 
 Geometry soon convinced Diafoirus and his brethren of 
 screwing whatever minds they had too high, ia that they 
 asked the difficult question, Why, before they had satisfied 
 themselves as to the simpler matter of How. Besides, 
 not only the ' virtues ' and the ' inclinations ' but the whole 
 scholastic fabric crumbled at a touch, once its foundations 
 were laid bare. It was buUt up on nothing more sohd than a 
 huge conjecture as to the supposed intentions of the Deity in 
 creating the world ; and to mathematicians conjectural know- 
 ledge is no knowledge at all. How did we know, asked 
 Descartes, why the universe was created? Had God called 
 the schoolmen to his council-board ? How dare they 
 assume that the firmament was created only for our use ? 
 Was God so greedy of human praise, that He designed 
 the sun and moon merely to get our thanks ? What, 
 then, could be known for certain about material bodies ? 
 Geometry was not slow in answering : their mathematical 
 relations. Science might not be able to explain why 
 
UNIVEESAL MECHANISM 51 
 
 keys had ' aperitive virtue ' ; it might fairly hope to 
 calculate the exact amount of force involved in the 
 principle of the lever. Hence the enthusiasm of the 
 new school for weights and measures ; Galileo, its 
 patriarch, cannot be thought of without his compasses 
 and scales. In his eyes all the activities of nature were 
 movements in space and time, and therefore fell under the 
 jurisdiction of the man of science ; his only business was to 
 measure them, and thence infer their formula, or ' law.' 
 Some definite formula there must be ; for Nature was herself 
 a mathematician, who kept to one invariable rhythm. 
 To discover its mathematical equivalents, and thus ' bind 
 together in one faggot ' whole masses of isolated facts, seemed 
 to Galileo not only a useful, but a pious task. Mathema- 
 tical language, in its crystal clearness and rigidity, symbol- 
 ised the one unchanging Law of God, and enabled man to see 
 the universe as He sees it, free from the shifting clouds of 
 sense. 
 
 If mathematics held the place of honour in Galileo's 
 heart — because the cord, that binds the faggots, is more 
 important than the individual sticks — they did not stand 
 alone. Calculation must everywhere be controlled by obser- 
 vation of concrete facts ; otherwise it would be like the 
 spiders which Francis Bacon denounced — for ever spinning 
 systems sound enough in logic, but utterly out of touch with 
 the realities of things. Galileo accordingly turned to experi- 
 ment — that is, to disciplined observation ; and he showed 
 a marvellous power of divining exactly what experiment 
 would best determine the crucial point. In all this he was 
 a pioneer. The very idea of appealing to experiment, 
 as a serious test of truth, is no older than the seventeenth 
 century, and stiU had many prejudices to overcome. Good 
 Aristotelians pointed out how undignified it was for a learned 
 man to leave his study, and fumble with weighing machines 
 and blow-pipes, just like any common mechanic. They 
 
 E 2 
 
52 PASCAL 
 
 never descended to such meannesses. On the few occasions 
 when a practical demonstration could not be avoided — 
 as, for instance, in anatomical lectures — the professor thun- 
 dered from his desk above, while a servant stood below, and 
 plied the scalpel under his orders. Herein some of Aris- 
 totle's worst enemies agreed for once with the Peripatetics. 
 Experiment holds a very humble place in Descartes' system 
 of investigation ; and his great disciple, Malebranche, could 
 seldom forego an eerie shudder, as he saw dead matter slowly 
 conforming to laws already marked out by thought. 
 
 Not that Descartes was the visionary dreamer it pleases 
 popular fancy to imagine : his objects were as practical as 
 Francis Bacon's own. If he studied Nature, it was in order 
 to reform the natural sciences, more especially medicine and 
 mechanics, and such others as touch closely on human life. 
 But whereas Galileo had held the balance between mathema- 
 tics and experiment, Descartes was wholly mathematical — 
 resolute, as he said himself, to force on physics the language 
 of geometry. For this there were several reasons. He was 
 a Frenchman, with all his country's love of broad, decisive 
 generalities. He wished, as he said, to deduce effects 
 from causes, not causes from effects — that is, to deal only 
 with the general principle, and let the detaUs take care of 
 themselves. Galileo's teasing experiments were not for him. 
 They were fragmentary ; they were inconclusive ; they left 
 their work half-done. They were excellent in determining 
 when and how a thing happened ; but why it happened they 
 could not tell. And Descartes was just as impatient as any 
 schoolman to get on from how to why. He was a public 
 character, bound to speak out with no uncertain voice. 
 Scholasticism was the enemy ; friends like Mersenne were 
 always telling him that the time had come to make an end 
 of it ; and that he was the man to strike the final blow on 
 behalf of truth and wisdom.^ Officially, Descartes declined 
 
 ' Baillet, ij. p. 86. 
 
UNIVERSAL MECHANISM 53 
 
 the invitation. He said that the best way to refute the school- 
 men was to appear pohtely ignorant of their existence. 
 EeaUy, however, he so drew out his own philosophy (not 
 without a hope of seeing it adopted by more enlightened 
 universities and rehgious orders) as to meet and turn 
 ' Stagyrolatry ' at every point. He posed, in fact, as a kind 
 of anti-Aristotle, much as Loyola thought himself the anti- 
 Luther, or Metternich the anti-Buonaparte. Hence he 
 easily descended to fight scholasticism with its own weapons. 
 It was dogmatic : he must be equally dogmatic. It pro- 
 fessed to explain the universe in general, and all that was 
 therein ; he must leave no single point without an explana- 
 tion. And in this article he had his reward. His bitterest 
 critics cannot deny that scholasticism soon crumbled away 
 wherever Cartesian principles made their entrance. 
 
 For Cartesianism professed to build up a complete 
 philosophy of the universe on absolutely sure foundations. 
 What could be known for certain about an external world ? 
 Following his usual practice, Descartes began by putting 
 aside all information of dubious pedigree. The evidence of 
 the senses was immediately ruled out of court. These are 
 subjective — in us, and not in the things that cause them. 
 They do not tell us whence they come, nor why they vary, 
 nor even whether they represent their originals correctly. 
 Hence, if reality is to be reached, things must be stripped 
 of every quality lent them by the senses. Take Descartes' 
 own instance of a honeycomb. Its colour goes, for that is 
 an affection of our retina. Its weight and malleability go, 
 for they are relative to our muscles. Its present shape goes; 
 for that would change — sense does not tell us how or why — 
 if the wax was brought too close to a fire. Does, then, all 
 our knowledge melt with it ? No. Quite apart from the 
 evidence of our senses, we have certain ' clear ideas ' — intui- 
 tions common to every rational being, and so luminous and 
 self-evident as to be beyond the reach of doubt. One of 
 
54 PASCAL 
 
 these tells us the bare fact that an external world exists. 
 But if material bodies exist at all, they must be extended in 
 space. Being extended, they must have some sort of figure, 
 however often that figure may vary. And as, in order to 
 be, they must be somewhere, they can always be thought 
 of as moved to somewhere else. Accordingly in these three 
 things — extension, figure, motion — abides the ultimate 
 reality of the whole material universe. Hence the Cartesian 
 doctrine of universal mechanism. However diversified its 
 play may seem to sense, the world of bodies knows but one 
 activity : upon a background of extended matter motion is 
 for ever determining new figures. This is the meaning of 
 Descartes' famous boast — one of the most tremendous ever 
 made by mortal man. ' Give me matter and motion,' he 
 said, ' and I will construct the world.' 
 
 Hence a final disappearance of the whole scholastic 
 apparatus of ' purposes ' and ' virtues.' Galileo had left 
 them on one side ; Descartes destroyed them by explaining 
 them away. All material activities of every sort were caused 
 by matter and motion ; and inasmuch as both of these 
 were absolutely homogeneous and simple, there could be 
 none but differences of quality between one object and 
 another. Trees did not grow, nor pebbles fall, because they 
 had an ' inclination ' to do so. Being simply bundles of 
 matter, they could have no propensities at all. The reason 
 why the tree mounts, and the pebble descends, is simply 
 that the quantity of motion which impels the one upwards, 
 and the other down, is greater than the quantity of motion 
 acting in the opposite direction. But quantities can always 
 be expressed in numbers ; and once science knows the way 
 the numbers combine, it can calculate exactly the rate at 
 which the tree wUl grow, or the pebble fall. Hence the 
 practical advantage of introducing numbers everywhere, 
 since power of forecast is power of control ; and this was 
 the object of Cartesian physics. Light and beat were 
 
UNIVERSAL MECHANISM 65 
 
 resolved into mechaiiism|of|molecular vibration — ' a move- 
 ment of globules,' says Blaise Pascal, ' and the pleasure they 
 give a mere ballet des es-prits,' or dance of nervous currents.^ 
 Animals were automata — machines — and so was the human 
 body itself. ' All its movements,' says Descartes, ' follow 
 naturally from the sole disposition of its organs, just as the 
 movements of a clock follow naturally from the arrangement 
 of its weights and wheels. So that there is no reason to 
 suppose any principle of movement in the body, other than 
 the blood and its animal spirits, agitated by the heat of the 
 fire which burns continually in the heart, and which does not 
 differ in nature from any of the other fires met with in 
 inanimate bodies.' 2 In short, the whole universe was 
 mechanism, and the laws of nature were the same as those 
 of mathematics. 
 
 Manifestly so vast a thesis could not be proved experi- 
 mentally, in the way Galileo would have demanded ; but 
 for that Descartes did not care. Experiment was a mere 
 affair of the senses, whereas universal mechanism rested on 
 the surer basis of a metaphysical necessity of thought. 
 Fully satisfied, Descartes proceeded to derive from his 
 fundamental principle various corollaries as certain as itself. 
 One was that the world is infinite, since nothing authorises 
 our mind to set limits to extension. Another was the im- 
 possibility of a vacuum — not, of course, because nature 
 ' abhors ' it in the scholastic sense — but simply because a 
 space empty of extended matter would be outside the uni- 
 verse. The intervening spaces in his theory Descartes 
 fiUed up with hypotheses — all of them brilliantly ingenious, 
 though seldom able to boast of experimental verification. 
 Hence they are often wide of the mark ; and their aberra- 
 tions would be greater still, had not Descartes' practice 
 
 1 Pens. 368. 
 
 2 Quoted by Mioliael Foster, Lectures on the History of Physiology (Cam- 
 bridge, 1901), p. 267. 
 
56 PASCAL 
 
 paid much more attention to experience than his principles 
 demanded. Wherever it was there to guide him, his 
 hypotheses steered a deUcate middle course between the 
 rights of universal mechanism on the one hand, and of 
 observation on the other ; physical processes were described 
 in the most mechanical manner that the facts would bear. 
 Where facts were wanting, Descartes gave his mechanical 
 propensities free rein. ' In order to make his expositions 
 of the human machine clear and convincing,' says Michael 
 Foster, ' he does not hesitate to attribute to its various parts 
 features which he describes as though they belonged to the 
 common knowledge of the time, although neither he nor 
 anyone else had actually seen them.' i What degree of 
 faith he expected such theories to gain it is not easy to 
 determine. They began life as avowed conjectures. As 
 they grew in number, they became mutually self-supporting. 
 At last, in the hands of Descartes' disciples — -naturally more 
 Cartesian than their master — all trace of their hypothetical 
 origin was lost. 
 
 The danger of this method was its greatest recommen- 
 dation. On the imaginative and poetical side — as distinct 
 from the side of prosaic achievement — no man ever did more 
 than Descartes to further the advance of science. By 
 preaching universal mechanism from the house-tops, 
 by applying it recklessly on every side, he showed 
 that a purely mechanical explanation of the universe 
 was logically possible, however whimsical and mistaken 
 some of his own theories might be. Even before the 
 close of his own century men learnt to separate the 
 shadow from the substance, and applaud his general 
 design, without taking all the hypotheses quite seriously. 
 ' Descartes was too clever,' wrote the greatest physi- 
 ologist of the succeeding generation, the Dane, Nicholas 
 Stensen, ' to explain the real nature of man. He is content 
 
 ' Op. cit. p. 261. 
 
UNIVEESAL MECHANISM 57 
 
 to describe a machine capable of performing all the functions 
 of which man is capable. He was the first who dared explain 
 all the functions of man, and especially of the brain, in a 
 mechanical manner. By means of this he opened up for 
 us a way to investigate the other parts of the body, though 
 it may be difficult to do so with the same clearness and 
 fidelity.' i 
 
 Stensen, belonging to a later period, could afford to praise ; 
 but the contemporaries of the Paris Club saw matters in a 
 different light. While Descartes was working out his ab- 
 stract theories, they had been developing in an exactly 
 opposite direction, and had embraced the experimental side 
 of Galileo's teaching with all the zeal of neophytes. Even 
 their interest in geometry relaxed, as they grew more and 
 more wedded to their laboratory and its message of concrete, 
 tangible fact. Mersenne himself was swept away by the 
 current, and admitted that geometry had no advantage over 
 physics or morals other than its greater certitude. He 
 longed for the day when these latter sciences should be 
 established on a basis as immovable ' both because they deal 
 with matters more excellent than quantity, and because 
 their principles are the real causes of their effects ; whereas 
 the principles of geometry are only causes of the conclusions 
 we draw.' ^ In their interest he became the crusader of 
 experimental science, and was for ever discovering outrages 
 on his liege lady in the most unlikely quarters — as for instance 
 ia the devotional works of St. Francis of Sales. That great 
 master of fanciful comparisons — drawing, as was his habit, 
 on some scrap of legendary folk-lore — once said that 
 covetousness kept souls back from God, as a diamond hinders 
 the attraction of iron to the magnet. To which Mersenne 
 indignantly replied that diamonds had no effect on attrac- 
 tion, as a very simple experiment would prove ; it was 
 
 ^ Quoted : Michael Foster, op. cit. p. 62. 
 ^ Questions Inouies, c. xix. 
 
58 PASCAL 
 
 inexcusable in Monsieur de Sales to make such utterly base- 
 less assertions on matters so easily put to the test.i And 
 certainly, in stronger hands than his, experiment was a 
 deadlier weapon than Cartesianism itself. Scholasticism 
 never received a more resounding blow than Galileo's 
 demonstrations on the Leaning Tower of Pisa — unless it was 
 the investigations into atmospheric pressure, afterwards 
 carried out by Blaise Pascal at the Puy-de-D6me. ' You 
 may call my son's experiments foolish and dishonest,' 
 Stephen Pascal was one day to write to Father Noel ; ' but 
 permit me to tell you, Eeverend Sir, that they have at any 
 rate disarmed you, and forced you out of the school-philo- 
 sophy you teach at Clermont College.' ^ 
 
 Aristotle was not the only victim. The younger members 
 of the club soon began to turn their favourite weapon on 
 the great contemner of experiment. At first they had 
 welcomed Descartes as a prophet of deliverance out of the 
 Egypt of scholasticism ; and with his universal mechanism 
 they had no quarrel, when regarded simply as the assumption 
 from which all physical inquiry must start. Blaise Pascal 
 was quite willing to agree en gros — in a general way — that 
 figure and movement were the universal causes. And he 
 even found Scriptural warrant for his thesis in the Book of 
 Wisdom : ' Thou hast ordered all things in measure, and 
 number, and weight.' 3 But with Descartes universal 
 mechanism was much more than a mere assumption ; it 
 was a metaphysical certainty guaranteed by supposed neces- 
 sities of thought. The club had no love for such necessities, 
 nor, indeed, for metaphysics at all ; science had not escaped 
 from its long bondage to the theologians only to enter on 
 a new servitude to professors of philosophy. For, as time 
 
 ' Questions Inouies, o. xvi. The reference is to St. Francis, Traiti de 
 V Amour de Dieu, vii. o. 14. 
 
 2 Leitre au Fere Noel, Worlcs, iii. p. 71. 
 
 ^ Wisdom, xi. 21, quoted by Pascal, in Esprit QiomHrique, Worlcs, ii. 
 p. 168. See also Pens. 79. 
 
UNIVERSAL MECHANISM 59 
 
 went on, new Cartesian mechanism showed more and more 
 tendency to resemble old scholastic purpose writ large. 
 Already Gassendi was angrUy complaining that Monsieur 
 Descartes only made war on Aristotle, in the hope of seating 
 his own theories in Aristotle's vacant chair. Gassendi's 
 caustic pupil, Sorbiere, declared that Aristotle himself 
 did not ask for greater submissiveness from his disciples 
 than did Monsieur Descartes. They must keep on absorbing 
 his philosophy, until it had soaked through every winding 
 of their brain. Often they ended by understanding it better 
 than he did himself.^ 
 
 And Pascal mocked at his ' universality,' just as Sorbiere 
 mocked at his dogmatism. Science was growing sick of 
 grandiose systems — ' fanciful endeavours to satisfy man's 
 curiosity about the unknown, which, so far from increasing 
 our knowledge, only serve to cloak the ignorance of their 
 propounder, and to increase the ignorance of his disciples.' ^ 
 With obvious reference to Descartes' ' Principia,' Pascal 
 went on to urge that there was just as much idle parade in 
 writing flashy treatises on the principles of philosophy 
 as in the most flagrantly absurd scholastic thesis de omni 
 scihili. But Descartes had done worse than make pontifical 
 pronouncements on matters beyond our ken. He had laid 
 down the law on matters where experiment could check 
 him, and experiment had proved him wrong. Thus, his 
 metaphysics requiring that the universe should be full, he 
 had promptly invented a ' subtle matter ' to fill it, and pro- 
 nounced a vacuum impossible. Whereupon Pascal set to 
 work to prove that a vacuum is not only possible, but actual 
 matter of fact. As to the subtle matter, he simply laughed ; 
 and took the confusion between physical matter and 
 geometrical space, which brought that imaginary substance 
 into being, as his favourite example of the lengths to which 
 
 1 Baillet, ii. pp. 169, 264. 
 
 2 Bk.it de I'Expirience du Puy-de-Dome, Works, iii. p. 146. 
 
60 PASCAL 
 
 a hardened theorist could go. On many isolated points, 
 it is true, he agreed with the Cartesians ; but his final 
 judgment on their master is recorded in the ' Pensees.' There 
 the Christian pronounces Descartes ' useless ' for salvation ; 
 but the experimentalist does not forget to add that he is 
 also ' uncertain.' i 
 
 No doubt, such a verdict is more than a Uttle unfair to 
 Descartes ; but men who spend their lives in a laboratory, 
 slowly and painfully piecing together minute particles of 
 truth, are never likely to be very respectful towards the 
 cheap gains of a 'priori speculation. They know that in 
 proportion as our knowledge advances — as universal mechan- 
 ism itself is rightly understood — the more a final explanation 
 of the world becomes a hopeless dream. ' All things being 
 caused and causes, acted on and agents, mediate and 
 immediate, and all being held together by a natural and 
 invisible chain that links the farthest and the most unlike, 
 I hold it impossible to understand the parts without a know- 
 ledge of the whole, or to know the whole without a thorough 
 comprehension of the parts.' And that was beyond the 
 power of man ; that was where ' all the philosophers come 
 to grief.' 2 Hence the strenuous efforts of the Paris Club to 
 keep science out of their clutches. In a curious lecture, 
 obviously aimed at the Cartesians, Roberval discusses the 
 various branches of learning. Metaphysics he dismisses as 
 a mere congeries of irresponsible fancies. Logic is full of 
 traps, designed and undesigned. Morals leave far too large 
 a place to accident and subjective caprice. Far above these 
 stand mathematics. They are true, unchangeable and in- 
 vincible within their own domain ; but then, that domain 
 only extends to abstractions, and stops short of the com- 
 plexity of material things. Physics, on the other hand, 
 deal with the contingent, and yet keep altogether free from 
 the vagaries of individual taste. ' Dixi,' writes Roberval, 
 
 1 Pens. 78. ^ p^^_ 72. 
 
UNIVERSAL MECHANISM 61 
 
 ' in rebus Physicis, quod verum fit aut falsum, non ab 
 hominum voluntate, sed ab intrinseca rerum ipsorum natura 
 pendere, quam mutare nobis non liceat, sed tantum 
 quomodo ilia se habent, investigare.' i 
 
 Here at last, then, men could feel that they were face to 
 face with nature. Here at last they had shaken off that 
 intrusive subjective element, which a theological Pascal 
 will presently call the tyranny of the Moi. No wonder that 
 physics seemed to them the queen of sciences. ' In vain 
 men band together against her,' cries Eoberval. ' She 
 changes not for all the dreams of their hollow metaphysic. 
 Morality may appeal to authority, to weight of numbers, 
 to self-deception ; she will ensure herself a certain fall, if 
 she tries a bout with Physics. Although she is as ancient as 
 the world, she never grows old, for time is but her vassal ; 
 she is as hoary in her methods as she is new in her results.' ^ 
 And plainly she must be pursued in the most objective 
 possible manner ; weighing-machines and test-tubes must 
 take the place of human theories and guesses. Pascal fitly 
 ushers in the age of Otto Guericke and Eobert Boyle, when 
 he lays down that in physics experiment is our* true master. 
 Nay, the whole history of science during the latter half of 
 the seventeenth century is one long commentary on the 
 motto that introduces the Experimenta Nova Magdeburgica 
 into the world. ' All philosophy, except it be supported 
 by experiments, is empty, fallacious and useless. What 
 monstrosities philosophers, in other respects of the highest 
 and subtlest genius, may produce by neglecting experiment. 
 Experience alone is the dissolver of doubts, the reconciler 
 of difficulties, the sole mistress of truth, who holds a torch 
 before us in obscurity, unties our knots, teaches us the true 
 cause of things.' ^ 
 
 1 Seconde Narration sur le Vide, printed in Brunsohvicg's edition of Pascal, 
 vol. ii. p. 332. 
 
 2 Fragment InMit, printed in Brunsehvicg, ii. pp. 49, 50. 
 ^ Quoted : Whewell, Philosophy of Discovery, p. 169. 
 
62 PASCAL 
 
 Still, the experimental zeal of Blaise Pascal was some- 
 thing more than a mere concession to the spirit of his time. 
 It seems paradoxical to say of a great mathematician that 
 his ruhng passion was devotion to the concrete ; yet it was 
 only the certainty of mathematics that induced Blaise to 
 tolerate their abstractions. All his Hfe long he preached 
 that reasoning was Hke the giant Antseus — only strong 
 while he kept close to the solid earth. To desert the positive 
 facts of experiment for vague a friori generahsations seemed 
 to Pascal far worse than useless ; it was a deliberate for- 
 saking of the road appointed for our mind to travel. ' Nature,' 
 he wrote, ' meant all her truths to be independent ; our art 
 subordinates one to another. That is not natural ; each one 
 ought to keep its place. " What ! A whole system com- 
 prised in a word ! " you say. Perhaps ; but what is the good 
 of that without an explanation ? And once you begin 
 explaining you have to drop the general principle, and fall 
 back on the individual facts. There you are, landed in the 
 original confusion you were so anxious to avoid. The 
 truth is you might just as well lock facts up in a box as hide 
 them away behind the principle ; it is only in their primitive 
 heterogeneous state that they can have any meaning for 
 us.'i 
 
 This devotion to the concrete pursued him on to the 
 mathematical field itself. Hence his hfe-long opposition to 
 the methods of Descartes — first shown when he preferred 
 Desargues as a guide in the matter of conic sections. 
 Descartes' mathematical innovations were a direct conse- 
 quence of his universal mechanism Inasmuch as all move- 
 ments of every kind were products of a single cause, Des- 
 cartes not only wished to measure them, but to compare the 
 measurements themselves. ' I was not long in finding out,' 
 he said, ' that all the so-called physical sciences agree in 
 this, that they consider nothing but the relations or 
 
 > Pens. 20, 21. 
 
UNIVERSAL MECHANISM 63 
 
 proportions of their objects, whatever those objects may 
 happen to be. Hence I thought it well to devote myself 
 entirely to these proportions at large.' Behind the various 
 sciences that treat of special kinds of magnitudes — space, 
 or sound, or force — he had caught the outlines of an all- 
 embracing science of magnitudes as such. From a combina- 
 tion of the data furnished by geometry, acoustics, and the 
 rest, it would draw generaUsations applicable to aU these 
 sciences, though wider than any of them could make on their 
 more limited domain. In other words, it was to do the work 
 nowadays performed by algebra. Algebra of a kind already 
 existed, though in a very raw, imperfect state. Mathe- 
 maticians had not yet learnt how to express the various 
 sorts of magnitudes in a uniform language. Geometry, in 
 particular, defied them. It was composed of figures and 
 dimensions ; the dimensions could be expressed numerically, 
 but the figures could not. Descartes met the challenge by 
 inventing analytical geometry. Instead of waiting till the 
 figure was drawn, he drew two fixed intersecting straight 
 lines, called co-ordinate axes, and determined the position 
 of any point in their plane by measuring its distance from 
 the axes. Variations in its position were shown by changes 
 in their distances, much as a rise or fall in the pressure gauge 
 of an engine reflects the movements of the machinerJ^ 
 Thenceforward there is no more need to think of the figure 
 as a concrete image ; an algebraical equation, connecting 
 the co-ordinate of the moving point in all its positions take 
 the place of the actual square or circle, and it becomes 
 possible to compare different figures together by referring 
 them to the same co-ordinate axes. 
 
 Fruitful as this invention was afterwards to prove, it met 
 with little favour at the time. Old-fashioned mathematicians 
 denied it as a device too clever to be honest. Many of them 
 would not use algebra at all, holding it little better than a 
 trick. Blaise Pascal stood by no means alone in preferring 
 
64 PASCAL 
 
 the longest geometrical routes to the short and easy way 
 
 pointed out by so dubious a guide. ' The close and grasping 
 
 character of the ancient reasoning,' says Augustus de 
 
 Morgan, ' did not accompany the new method. Algebra 
 
 was rather a half-understood art than a science ; and all 
 
 who valued strictness of demonstration adhered as close 
 
 as possible to the ancient geometry.' For the most part, 
 
 however, a mathematician of the ancient, or ' synthetic ' 
 
 school steered altogether clear of the questions that had 
 
 brought analytical geometry into being ; his business lay 
 
 not with relative values, but with individual figures. These 
 
 he studied in their whole length and breadth until they had 
 
 yielded up all their secrets. It became a triumph to discover 
 
 fresh unsuspected consequences lurking in a definition — 
 
 much as commentators in another field pride themselves on 
 
 seeing : 
 
 Two points in Hamlet's soul 
 Unseized by the Germans yet — 
 
 or to crystallise roimd some mystic hexagram a whole series 
 of new truths. Blaise Pascal was a faithful mouthpiece 
 of this spirit, when he deduces more than four hundred 
 corollaries from one proposition in conic sections ; and 
 the same influence runs through his speculations on number 
 — for example, when he introduced his arithmetical triangle 
 to the world with the declaration : ' I explain a few of its 
 properties, but leave many more unnoticed. It is marvellous 
 how rich this triangle is in properties ! There is room for 
 everyone to discover fresh.' i 
 
 Thus the same causes kept Pascal attached to the ancient 
 methods in geometry as made him an experimentalist in 
 science and a Jansenist in religion. His interests were 
 precisely opposed to the interests of Descartes. That 
 philosopher was first and foremost a man of business. He 
 had invented analytical geometry in the service of universal 
 ' Divers Usages du Triangle ArithmUique, Works, iii. p; 251. 
 
UNIVERSAL MECHANISM 65 
 
 mechanism : he had formulated universal mechanism itself 
 in the interests of practical scientific reform. Hence, he 
 dealt largely in the general formulas, that bring a new 
 discovery within the reach of commonplace intelligence. 
 Analytical methods were developed and generalised, until 
 they acted hke a mill. Stripped of all but its essentials, the 
 problem was put in at one end, and taken out again at the 
 other, after undergoing an almost mechanical solution. But 
 the geometers of the older school were anything but utili- 
 tarian. They collected quaint problems — ' curiosities,' the 
 scornful Descartes called them — much as other men might 
 collect bric-a-brac or engravings ; and they were proud of 
 the limitation of their sciences, which obliged them to find 
 a separate procedure for every question attacked. Blaise 
 Pascal, in particular, was the sworn enemy of all machine- 
 made solutions, whether given in answer to problems of 
 Cartesian science or problems of Jesuit morality. This 
 intellectual sportsman despised a mere result in comparison 
 with the pleasure and healthy excitement of the chase; 
 Then, too, he was attracted by the paradox of allying the 
 most rigorous demonstration with freakish tours de force. 
 From one inaccessible height to another he climbed, always 
 by perfectly legitimate, but most unlikely routes, and he 
 took a malicious pleasure in giving as few hints as possible 
 to future mountaineers. But even this most individualistic of 
 thinkers made one large contribution to the public good. 
 Employment of Eoberval's method of exhaustions led him to 
 the threshold of the integral calculus ; in technical language, 
 he compared, transformed, and finally evaluated a large 
 number of integrals. Yet he did so merely by the way, and 
 without any thought of the general principle on which the 
 calculus depends. To reach after such general principles 
 would have meant desertion to the analytical camp ; and 
 though Pascal was willing enough to attack the favourite 
 problems of the rival school, he did so in a spirit rigorously 
 
66 PASCAL 
 
 synthetic. By what law bodies in general diminish infinitely 
 he neither knew nor cared ; his one concern was for the 
 concrete bodies immediately under his hand. Thus it was 
 almost against his will that he smoothed the path for Isaac 
 Newton and Ijeibniz, and hence is reckoned among the 
 founders of modern higher mathematics. ' The period 
 between 1615 and 1668,' says the historian of that science, 
 ' was dominated by the discovery of the calculus, and in 
 this Frenchmen played the leading part. Two of them stand 
 out pre-eminent — Fermat, in leading up to the differential 
 calculus, and Pascal in leading to the integral.' i 
 
 Still such a mind is not easily bound down to any definite 
 plan of research. Pascal much preferred to pose as the 
 knight-errant of geometry, wandering hither and thither 
 in search of questions hard enough to be worthy of his steel. 
 Most of all, it pleased him to swoop down on questions that 
 had already bafiSed others. As he began his mathematical 
 career by improving on Desargues so he ended it by smoothing 
 out Koberval'a tangled speculations over the cycloid. 
 Between these two came his disputes with Fermat — ' nos 
 coups fourres,' his adversary called them — over mathe- 
 matical probability and the theory of number. On this 
 field alone he met with his match, as he himself most 
 willingly acknowledged. ' I have dared to cross swords 
 with you over probabilities,' he wrote to the judge, ' but 
 for your speculations on number you must find another 
 antagonist. They are far above my head. I can do 
 nothing but admire, and beg you most earnestly to go on 
 with them.' 
 
 Blaise, however, did not take these contests very 
 seriously ; to him they were in a literal sense ' fights with 
 the gloves.' It was only during the early Desargues period 
 that mathematics could offer him the two things he most 
 needed — difficult problems and sure results. Before he 
 
 ' Moritz Cantor, Oeschichte derMathematik (Leipzio, 1900), ii. p. 843. 
 
UNIVERSAL MECHANISM 67 
 
 left Rouen, he had come to see that there are more important 
 
 things in the world than difficult mathematical problems ; 
 
 and his approaching first conversion is only the formal 
 
 acknowledgment of this fact. ' In time of affliction,' he 
 
 said (and affliction was soon in coming, in the shape of a 
 
 long and wearisome illness), ' understanding of the natural 
 
 world could not console me for ignorance of the moral ; 
 
 whereas understanding of the moral world would always 
 
 console me for ignorance of the natural.' For Blaise was 
 
 no laborious professor, content to sit for ever in his study, 
 
 placidly inquiring information ; every scrap of knowledge 
 
 he possesses must immediately be translated into character, 
 
 into Ufe. And since mathematics are but a feeble guide to 
 
 action, Blaise presently came to look upon them as having 
 
 no more than an educational value as the envelope of the 
 
 geometrical spirit. ' To tell you the truth,' he wrote to 
 
 Fermat, ' I think geometry the finest training the human 
 
 mind can have ; but at the same time it seems to me so 
 
 useless, that I scarcely trouble to distinguish between a 
 
 geometer who is simply a geometer, and a clever artisan. 
 
 It is the finest trade in the world, and nothing more than a 
 
 trade — excellent, as I have often said, for us to try our 
 
 wings on, but not fit to be the object of our flight. For my 
 
 own part, I would not walk two steps for geometry, and I 
 
 fancy you are very much of my opinion.' ^ 
 
 1 Letter of 10th August, 1660, Works, iii. p. 237. 
 
 V 2 
 
CHAPTEE V 
 
 PRESIDENT DU VAIR 
 
 Until the close of their stay at Eouen, theological questions 
 entered but little into the family life of the Pascals. Under 
 the rule of Richelieu, most secular of cardinals, the Church 
 by no means held the position it afterwards gained under 
 Louis XIV. Middle-aged memories still went back to the 
 Wars of Eeligion in the previous century, when France had 
 been torn in two by dogmatic discord ; and now that order 
 was restored, most good Frenchmen had made up their 
 minds that never again should dogma endanger the public 
 peace. Catholicism, left outwardly on its throne, was 
 brought under strict surveillance by the civil power ; its 
 profession was not so much a duty to God as a duty to the 
 State. Not that any self-respecting man wished to call its 
 doctrines in question. The age of passionate negation had 
 not yet dawned ; and scepticism of the lighter sort, though 
 already common enough, was associated neither with sound 
 learning nor with a reputable life. But the Church's hold 
 on lay imaginations had seriously weakened, more especially 
 in the cultivated bureaucratic class from which the Pascals 
 sprang. Official guardians of the King's prerogative, these 
 lawyers were always on the watch against the machinations 
 of Eome ; official guardians of the common law, they were 
 for ever suspecting some new encroachment of the spiritual 
 courts. Of this general mistrust of the clergy Gui Patin's 
 
 68 
 
PEESIDENT DU VAIR 69 
 
 letters are only a half-humorous exaggeration — with their 
 explosive diatribes against priests, monks, and especially 
 ' that black Loyolitic scum from Spain,' which called itself 
 the Society of Jesus. France would never have peace, he 
 said, till she sent friars and friaresses packing off to the Isles 
 of America, there to cultivate purgatory at their leisure. 
 And his private confession of faith may claim, at least, the 
 merit of brevity : ' Credo in Deum, Christum crucifixum, 
 &c. ... Do minimis non curat praetor.' 
 
 Patin went farther than most of his class, but Patin was 
 no sceptic. Jesters who made game of the kernel of religion, 
 came quite as much under the lash of his tongue as bigots 
 who dared defend its husks. He had a firm, though uncon- 
 ventional, belief in Providence. ' Non est currentis, neque 
 volentis, sed Dei miserantis,' this incorrigible dealer in 
 quotations was wont to say of human fate. So also with 
 regard to immortality. ' One Ancient,' he writes with airy 
 reference to Lucretius and Horace, ' says he would rather 
 not die ; although, once he was dead, he would know 
 nothing about it. Another thinks that death is a gain, 
 because there must be something beyond it. As for me, I 
 say the same as my parish priest.' Not that he was in any 
 hurry to discover whether the priest was right. ' Si post 
 fata venit gloria, non propero,' was another favourite tag. 
 Meanwhile he looked in hours of trouble to ' the three great 
 judges mentioned by ApoUonius : the Gods, Time and 
 Philosophy.' And above his innumerable grumblings 
 pierces a note of healthy Stoicism. ' Never wiU I repeat the 
 craven lines : 
 
 Quum rapiunt mala fata bonos, ignoscite fasao, 
 SoUioitor nullos esse putare deos. 
 
 I am much more tempted to cry : " bone Eomule, ista 
 videbis et feres." ' 
 
 Much more conventional minds than his sat very loose 
 
70 PASCAL 
 
 to Church observances. Listlessness naturally followed 
 on the popular belief — already impressed by Stephen Pascal 
 on his children — that faith and reason had nothing to do with 
 each other. No doubt, Stephen's son wUl one day give this 
 maxim a new and tremendous spiritual significance ; but 
 on the father's lips it meant no more than that Catholicism 
 need not be suffered to invade the sphere of daily life. Its 
 place was on Sundays and State-occasions, such as the crisis 
 of domestic history commemorated in Jacqueline's verse. 
 Quite a large proportion of her poems deal with sacred 
 subjects. On the death of a Huguenot friend she consoled 
 herself with the reflection that there might, perhaps, be 
 paths to Heaven uncharted on the Eoman maps ; and in 
 thanking God for her recovery from the smallpox, she 
 assured Him that the resulting scars would be guardians of 
 her innocence. But this last phrase is not due so much to 
 morbid piety as to a frecieux habit of using language 
 vaguely felt to be fine without much inquiry into its meaning. 
 At this time she certainly had small wish to emulate the 
 Lives of the Saints. Although by no means anxious to 
 marry, she was quite determined not to take the veil ; 
 because she thought conventual practices unsuited to a 
 reasonable mind. And so little did Church matters attract 
 her that she was over twenty before she offered herself 
 for Confirmation. The truth is that in families like hers a 
 new lay religion was springing up — the rehgion of Gui 
 Patin's letters — quite independent of Catholicism, although 
 not yet its conscious rival. In the future its prophet will 
 be Descartes ; at present its leaders were men like Guillaume 
 du Vair, successively a chief justice, lord keeper, and 
 bishop, and one of the foremost men in France during her 
 father's youth. 
 
 A papal legate once described Du Vair as an ancient 
 Stoic in judicial ermine, whose only god was the temporal 
 glory of France. In other words, he was a patriotic moralist. 
 
PRESIDENT DU VAIE 71 
 
 who had known the horrors of the Wars of Religion, and was 
 burning to rally all good men to the service of their country. 
 Dogma had divided, but sense of duty should unite them 
 on a basis of purely rational morality. In general sentiment 
 this would be Christian, but it must carefully avoid all 
 points at issue between Huguenots and Leaguers. For 
 these Du Vair cared little enough. ' The wise man,' he 
 wrote, ' is the only true sacrificer of the great God, whose 
 spirit is His temple, whose soul His image, whose affections 
 His offering, whose greatest and most solemn sacrifice 
 is His imitation. Not that you are not to perform the 
 ancient ceremonies of your country with a decent moderation 
 void of excess or avarice ; but you are to perform them with 
 this opinion that God will be observed of the spirit.' The 
 corner-stone of Du Vair's religion is harmony — that is, love 
 of order, sense of duty. And, lest any man should escape 
 him in an age when everything was called in question, Du 
 Vair forswore scholastic generalities, and dealt experi- 
 mentally with human nature. In his own words, he 
 founded on man the greatness of man. 
 
 Nor did he hesitate to start with an analysis of our grosser 
 pleasures. What is there in them that attracts us ? What 
 but a certain harmony between our desires and their 
 realisation ? But how pitiful appear such harmonies beside 
 the mighty order of Nature. And yet greater than that 
 order itself is the intellect that perceives it ; from a study of 
 external things the mind rises to a study of itself. ' More 
 magnificent than them all, it embraces heaven and earth, 
 puts a girdle round the world, knows all that may be known, 
 and is so beautiful that, were its first loveliness but kept 
 untarnished, all the fine things of this vile earth would seem 
 ugly and misshapen beside it.' Still the quest is not yet 
 over. ' Having contemplated itself and been exercised in 
 the search for origins and causes, our soul finds nothing to 
 assuage its thirst for knowledge, and is constrained to rjsQ 
 
72 PASCAL 
 
 above the world — above itself — and let the works conduct 
 it to the Workman. Then we shall enter into the workhouse 
 where so many rare objects have been fashioned. We shall 
 gaze at the models, we shall handle the tools, we shall hold 
 famUiar converse with the Artificer Himself. He wUl 
 do more than show us His labours, more than unravel His 
 designs. He will teach us His art and His science, and 
 make us perfect and divine.' 
 
 Knowledge of the harmonies is only vouchsafed us that 
 we may embody them in our Uves. The real strength of 
 Du Vair lay in his ethical enthusiasm. In days when 
 Philip II and Henry III were showing that it was possible 
 to combine the minutest reverence for every ritual precept 
 of the Church with utter indifference to the law of God, 
 Du Vair came forward to proclaim that rehgion without 
 morality was nothing worth. Nay, it could not so much 
 as exist ; for this devotee of Epictetus everywhere inclined 
 to follow the practice of his Stoic masters, and made faith 
 a means to virtue rather than virtue a means to faith. 
 On his principles Christianity teaches nothing new ; its 
 whole work is to consecrate and continue what Nature has 
 begun. As on the domain of faith it ' fans our first in- 
 stinctive sparks of hope in immortality into a clear and 
 lambent flame,' so on the domain of conduct it warms 
 chill, Stoical precepts of benevolence into ' a charity that 
 exacts the love of our fellow-men.' But although rehgion 
 is the chief good, there are other goods beside it ; virtue 
 can offer prizes of her own not wholly incommensurable 
 with the rewards of faith. ' Those who rightly play their 
 part are like singers in a chorus. Beside the contentment 
 they receive from letting their voice ring sweetly forth, 
 they feel a great and incredible delight, when their music 
 accords with the music of others, and sinks into a cadence 
 full of melody and sweetness. Truly it is pleasant to do 
 well, and there is no rapture to compare with the inward 
 
PRESIDENT DU VAIR 78 
 
 peace we feel after performing some good and laudable 
 action.' 
 
 Thus courageous self-dependence was the watchword 
 of Du Vair. ' Let us gaily follow our wise Captain, Who 
 loves us so well. If He leads us into the fight, He also 
 leads us to victory. We shall stand up the stouter for the 
 blows that are dealt us ; by our endurance we shall weary 
 evil, and thus snatch victory out of defeat.' For all this 
 Providence has furnished us with amply sufficient powers. 
 It is true that our reason is sometimes perplexed, and then 
 recourse may be had to prayer — that, ' as the corporal sun 
 shines daily on our bodies, so may the Sun of Wisdom 
 shine upon our minds.' But help from Above we do not 
 need. ' If there is any truth more necessary than another, 
 it is that our will is free ; ' while another ' holy and inviolable 
 maxim, established since the first begirmings of the world, 
 declares that, if we would possess any good, we must acquire 
 it for ourselves.' On these central axioms — as Pascal 
 will presently explain to the Jansenist priest, De Saci — rest 
 the whole of Du Vair's theology. Life, fortune, honour 
 are beyond our control ; therefore they do not lead to 
 God. Will and reason, on the other hand, must lead to 
 Him, because they are free ; our reason cannot be forced 
 to believe what it knows to be untrue, nor can our will 
 be made to love what it knows will prove to its hurt. Through 
 them, therefore, we can make ourselves holy and friends 
 of God. 
 
 That Du Vair should leave the individual soul whoUy 
 master of its fate was quite in keeping with the spirit of 
 the time. The Middle Ages had thought and lived and 
 moved in groups, but now an almost aggressive independence 
 was everywhere in fashion. At all costs, men must be 
 original, and strike out new lines of their own. For the 
 great families still set the fashion in matters of moral and 
 social taste : and most of the nobles were rough soldiers 
 
74 PASCAL 
 
 brought up amid memories of the Wars of Religion. Their 
 abiding representative is the finest outcome of those wars, 
 King Henry of Navarre. Henry — or rather Henry's ghost, 
 sanctified by the murderer's dagger — became the idol of 
 his people to a degree hard for us EngHshmen to understand ; 
 for more than a generation after his death the virtues of 
 her Re Galantuomo remained the darling virtues of France. 
 These were capacity to take a side, and fight for it, dash, 
 resourcefuhiess and energy, willingness to undertake 
 responsibihty — all qualities that go towards what philo- 
 sophers call self-realisation, and common sense simply call 
 making a man. Corneille was the high priest of this worship : 
 what are his plays but a panegyric on the freedom of the 
 will ? No less than his heroes, his great ladies all rise above 
 the tyranny of circumstance. 
 
 Fortune, quelques maux que ta rigeur m'envoie, 
 J'ai trouv6 les moyens d'en tirer de la joie, 
 
 cries Sabine in ' Horace ' ; while Dirce in ' (Edipus ' replies : 
 
 Je suis fort peu de chose, 
 Mais enfin de mon coeur moi-meme je dispose. 
 
 Not that these two were driven on by violence of passion. 
 In that iron-nerved generation sentiment was no quality 
 to boast of, but rather matter for reproach. Du Vair 
 and the Stoical moralists condemned it altogether. ' The 
 flowers of Egypt, being contiaually charged and watered 
 by the vapours of Nilus, which are gross and earthly, yield 
 not such pleasant smells as they would do without these 
 obstacles : even so souls troubled with passions cannot 
 produce the virtuous actions, which they would do without 
 these agitations.' And men of action quite agreed with 
 the Stoics. To fritter time and energy away on fancies 
 or emotions was simply to proclaim oneself unfit for the 
 serious work of life. When Charmion reproaches Cleopatra 
 
PEESIDENT DU VAIR 75 
 
 with the feeble hold that love has on her, the sister of Ptolemy 
 makes reply : 
 
 Les princes ont cela de leui haute naissanoe, 
 Leur ame dans lem: sang prend des impressions 
 Qui dessous leurs vertu range leurs passions ; 
 Leur g6n6rosit6 soumet tout k leur gloire. 
 
 For souls less generous than hers the only path to ' glory ' 
 lay through rigorous self-mastery, complete devotion to 
 some definite end. It mattered little whether the aim was 
 high or low, virtuous or vicious ; the need of discipline is 
 equally preached by austere Du Vair and by such resolute 
 scoundrels as Cardinal de Eetz. ' It requires much greater 
 quahties,' wrote this strange priest, ' to become the successful 
 head of a party than to rule the universe. Amongst these 
 resolution ranks with judgment — I mean the heroic judg- 
 ment, whose province it is to distinguish between what is 
 merely extraordinary and what is impossible.' To these 
 all other quahties must bow. Some place, it is true, was 
 found for love and ambition, on the ground that they 
 strengthened the will ; but pity and the tenderer feelings, 
 which only paralysed and warped it, must be torn out root 
 and branch. He was the best off, who could plume himself 
 — as La Kochefoucauld did plume himself in fact — on 
 finding no trace of them in his heart. 
 
 Certain small reservations being made, this view of 
 human nature was countersigned by Descartes. With 
 passion the prophet of universal mechanism could have no 
 deahngs, for the same reasons as made him brush aside the 
 evidence of the senses. Passion was desultory and obscure. 
 It dragged the soul no man knew whither ; it came, no man 
 knew whence. Whereas, the weapons of the will were 
 ' firm and determinate judgments concerning the knowledge 
 of good and evil, according to which she has resolved to 
 steer the actions of her life.' Between the passions and the 
 will raged a deadly feud, and on the issue of the fight hung 
 
76 PASCAL 
 
 a man's position in the moral scale. ' Those who can most 
 easily conquer their passions have, without doubt, the 
 strongest souls. And the weakest soul of all is such a one 
 whose will has not at all determined to follow certain 
 judgments, but suffers itself to be swayed by its passions, 
 which, being often contrary one to the other, draw it 
 backwards and forwards from side to side, and put the soul 
 in the most miserable state it can be.' Yet even for these 
 wretches there is hope. ' Those who have the weakest 
 souls can acquire a most absolute empire over their passions, 
 if art and industry be used to manage and govern them. 
 Wherein this art and industry consisted may easily be 
 guessed. Half the secret lay in forming steady virtuous 
 habits, half in adroitly playing off one emotion against 
 another. In Descartes' ideal world thought is on the throne 
 supreme over its own feelings and fancies, and governing 
 a world of matter, whose mechanical constitution only 
 brought it the more surely under the control of mind. 
 
 Thus to the worship of will for its own sake succeeds the 
 worship of will controlled by pure intelligence. Such was 
 the natural aspiration of the geometrical spirit. Clearness, 
 rationality and order became the backbone of right conduct. 
 Whatever he said, and whatever he did, a man should be 
 able to give his reasons ; since the one sin without forgive- 
 ness was acting on the spur of the moment, without any 
 reasons at all. Nothing was more intolerable to members 
 of the Paris Club than shiftless hanging on the skirts of 
 chance. The physical world, as they well knew, did not 
 live from hand to mouth. There nothing was isolated, 
 nothing unimportant ; no energy was ever lost. ' The 
 least movement,' cries Blaise Pascal, ' is felt throughout 
 all nature ; the whole sea changes for a stone.' And herein 
 the law of gravitation only symboUsed the law of life. A 
 man was not free to choose between a purposeful and a 
 purposeless existence. If he did not take the helm in his 
 
PEESIDENT DU VAIR 77 
 
 hands, and steer his actions to some definite end, the actions 
 themselves would take command, and sail off on some 
 course of their own with small regard to his wishes. Hence, 
 as Blaise Pascal said, it behoved men to walk warily. 
 
 But were they capable of walking warily ? Descartes 
 saw no obstacle to his dream of a theocracy of reason ; but 
 then Descartes lived the life of a learned recluse in a strange 
 land. Pascal, on the other hand, was brought into daily 
 contact with his fellows. He was his father's assistant in 
 an important public o£Bce ; his sisters were great personages 
 in 'pricieux society ; he was always in and out of the work- 
 shops, superintending the progress of his arithmetical 
 machine. Practical experience soon taught him that 
 human nature, when embodied in actual flesh and blood, 
 is very unlike the grandiose abstraction that figured under 
 that name in the ' Sainte Philosophie.' Official society at 
 Eouen read Du Vair ; but it did not love his harmonies. 
 Its sense of duty was but lukewarm ; its powers of self- 
 mastery were held in check by a hundred temptations to 
 self-indulgence. Before long Pascal had convicted the 
 bishop of a pious fraud dear to many practical moralists. 
 Because it often does men good to think them better than 
 they are, he had systematically overrated their powers and 
 aspirations, in the hope of spurring on a few to do what he 
 declared possible to all. Pascal thought morality strong 
 enough to stand on its own legs, without the help of pious 
 frauds. Here and there, no doubt, were men capable of 
 heroic impulse ; but it was sinning the philosophic sin to 
 turn these exceptions into the rule, and argue to the whole 
 of human nature from ' a few feverish movements, which 
 health cannot imitate.' For even these chosen athletes of 
 virtue could not rest on their high plane. ' They leap up 
 thither for a moment — not, as on to a throne, for ever.' 
 
 With Du Vair fell Descartes and Corneille. Later on, 
 when his view of poetry had somewhat softened, Pascal 
 
78 PASCAL 
 
 paid Oorneille the indirect compliment of classing his plays 
 among the dangers a true Christian should avoid ; in only 
 too seductive language they presented a view of human 
 nature radically false. Rouen audiences came away from 
 the theatre, fancying that, with ' a Mttle art and industry,' 
 they too might develop into an Emperor Augustus : 
 
 Je suis maitre de moi, oomme de I'univers, 
 Je sviis, je veux I'etre, 
 
 Thereupon came the grim comment from Pascal : ' Man is 
 neither a beast nor an angel, and the worst of it is that he 
 who tries to be an angel ends as a beast.' i But, in fact, few 
 Rouen audiences did so try. They might applaud the 
 poet's declamation, and even feel a sneaking kindness for 
 strong-willed scamps like Cardinal de Retz ; but all their 
 own ideas and interests were bound up with the immediate 
 satisfactions of the moment. Jacqueline's frdcieux friends 
 might talk at large about the necessity of steering a definite 
 course in literature ; but neither they, nor the Phihstines 
 who made game of them, knew what was meant by steering 
 a definite course in life. Looked at suh specie aeternitatis — 
 and Pascal would apply no other standard to a race ' created 
 only for infinity ' — their career resolved itself into a congeries 
 of trivial, disconnected events. Each was stitched on to 
 the next with infinite care, and yet the whole was as void of 
 inward symmetry or meaning as the patchwork of a child. 
 Their absorption in a question varied inversely with its real 
 importance. Let the issues only concern to-day, and 
 nothing could exceed their anxious care ; let it concern also 
 yesterday and to-morrow, and they left to-morrow to solve 
 the problem for itself. ' It is pitiful,' Pascal cried, ' to see 
 men take so much thought for the means, and so little for 
 the end. Everyone works hard to make the best of his 
 calling ; but what the calling itself shall be, accident decides. 
 " That 's a fine upholsterer," cry the man's friends. Or 
 
 • Pens. 358. 
 
PEESIDENT DU VAIR 79 
 
 perhaps they fall to talking of soldiers. " They are all 
 mad," says one ; while another declares that there is nothing 
 fine but war : the rest of mankind are scullions. By dint 
 of hearing one trade praised, and another cried down, a 
 lad is led to fix on his own. That is the way our tastes are 
 fashioned, and our choice of callings made.' i 
 
 Thus the end of the matter was a sickening contradiction 
 between what should be and what was. As to the first, Du 
 Vair was right ; science only confirmed his teaching on the 
 infinite perfectibility of mind. As to the second point, he 
 was worse than useless. By aU means tell the Rouen house- 
 holder that he ought to have ideals ; but, for pity's sake, go 
 on and show him how to frame them, and give him strength 
 to carry them out. He could do nothing for himself. ' Man 
 is certainly born for thought ; therein hes all his dignity and 
 all his merit, and his whole duty is to think aright. But 
 what does the world think about in fact ? Never of this ; 
 but about singing and dancing and duels and scribbling 
 verses and making oneself king — without ever pausing to 
 reflect on what is meant by being a king, or by being a 
 man.' ^ 
 
 ' Pens. 97, 98. « Pens. 146. 
 
CHAPTEE VI 
 
 THE MRST CONVBESION 
 
 Pascal had not l&ng to wait for an answer to his riddle. 
 One frosty morning in January 1646, his father went out in 
 a hurry, sHpped on the ice, and dislocated his thigh. Ortho- 
 dox surgery failing to cure him, he put himself into the hands 
 of amateurs. These were two brothers, small landowners 
 near Eouen, and known from their respective estates as MM. 
 De la BouteiUerie and Des Landes. They are interesting as 
 an early example of the lay philanthropist, religious motives 
 having led them to place their unusual skiU in bone-setting 
 at the service of their neighbours. Their work lay ordinarily 
 among the poor ; but Stephen Pascal was a personage, and 
 his case a hard one. For three months they devoted them- 
 selves entirely to him, taking up their quarters in his house. 
 Here, while curing the father, they had an opportunity of 
 talking religion to his children ; for the two brothers were 
 zealous followers of the Abbe GuiUebert, a country clergy- 
 man near Rouen, and one of the first recruits to a party 
 about to make much noise in the world. He had come 
 deeply under the influence of a most remarkable man no 
 longer alive, Jean Du Vergier de Hauranne, titular Abbot 
 of Saint Cyran, a Benedictine monastery in central France. 
 And Saint Cyran had interpreted to his countrymen the 
 theories of a Dutch divine, Cornelius Jansen, Bishop of 
 Ypres in the Low Countries, and author of a bulky treatise 
 
 80 
 
THE FIB8T CONVERSION 81 
 
 on the theology of St. Augustine pubUshed posthumously 
 in 1640. 
 
 The bishop was a theologian, who had spent three- 
 quarters of his hfe within the walls of Louvain University ; 
 but the movement he headed aimed very much less at 
 dogmatic innovation than at a revival of personal religion. 
 To men like La Bouteillerie and Des Landes Jansenism 
 meant no more than this — a much chastened conscience, 
 unusual inwardness of life, and an unusually strict per- 
 formance of Catholic reHgious duties. Nevertheless, behind 
 the piety lay a formal doctrine ; and it was this doctrine 
 that first interested Blaise Pascal at once by its likeness 
 and unlikeness to the theories of Du Vair. Both prelates 
 beheved that the only hope for their fellow-creatures lay 
 in setting before them sternly practical ideals of conduct ; 
 and, in order to discover what those ideals should be, both 
 forswore scholastic generalities, and ' founded on man the 
 greatness of man.' Here the resemblance ends. Du Vair, 
 a busy man of action, had studied humanity where and when 
 he would — sometimes in the market-place or law-court, 
 more often in the ' Manual ' of Epictetus — dwelling on what- 
 ever suited his moralistic prepossessions, and contentedly 
 blind to the rest. Jansen's method was less captious. A 
 divine and nothing else, he drew his views of human nature 
 from the Bible ; and the Bible forced upon his notice, along 
 with the proud destinies of man, his misery and his de- 
 pendence — dependence not only on a higher power, but 
 also on the ignoble forces of the physical nature round him. 
 These Du Vair had overlooked — at best, had handled in 
 the spirit of a Stoical Pangloss. To the strong soul, at any 
 rate, all was for the best in this best of possible worlds. 
 Next Descartes had taken up the tale to prove that, with 
 a little ' art and industry,' the feeblest wretches might 
 become strong souls. 
 
 Every syllable of the ' Augustinus ' is a disproof of this 
 
82 PASCAL 
 
 thesis. Blaise Pascal has already discovered that average 
 man by no means fulfils the expectations Of the ' Sainte 
 Philosophie ' ; Jansen is now at hand to explain that he 
 could not do so, if he tried. In their present state men are 
 weak and helpless creatures ; yet this very weakness is a 
 blessing in disguise, because it peremptorily throws them 
 back on their Creator. So long as they have confidence in 
 their own strength, they will build up systems of morahty, 
 wherein religion is but one ingredient. Once crush that 
 confidence, and religion is reinstated in its sovereign rights. 
 Powerless to do anything alone, their soul must recognise 
 that the one and only path to righteousness lies through 
 the grace of God. 
 
 Accordingly, the first position of the ' Augustinus ' is 
 the helplessness of man. Much is said of the way our soul is 
 linked with a body, of the horrible reality of physical pain, 
 and its influence on the will. Jansen's Church-Latin takes 
 on a grim relish, as he dwells on the more repulsive forms 
 of illness — plague, smallpox, hydrophobia — then, as now, 
 the curse of a country where dogs are used as beasts of 
 burden. Against these what can human science do ? 
 ' Surgical instruments,' Jansen cries, ' are themselves in- 
 struments of torture. Their cruel aid may avail to save 
 man for other and worse pains in the future ; but, at best, 
 they can only stave off for a moment the approach of death, 
 most terrible of terrors.' Let pinchbeck optimists deny 
 that such things were serious evils. Let them hope to stifle 
 the voice of Nature groaning in her travail, when they had 
 stilled the roaring of the sea by shouting louder than its 
 waves. 
 
 From the miseries of the body Jansen passes to the 
 miseries of the mind. ' Who does not know with what 
 ignorance, with what store of vain cupidity, man comes into 
 this world ? Were he but suffered to live as he pleased, he 
 would fall into a multitude of vices beyond my power to 
 
THE PIEST CONVEESION 88 
 
 name. But inasmucli as Divine guidance does not wholly 
 forsake the damned, there arises within the human breast — 
 though not without great pain and labour — a check on its 
 natural incUnations. Why should children be driven with 
 threats and rods, unless war must be waged against their 
 ignorance, and limits set to their cupidity ? Why should 
 it be hard to remember and easy to forget — hard to be 
 industrious, and easy to be idle — unless some cruel blight 
 had warped our nature through and through ? ' 
 
 And that our nature is thus blighted is the second thesis 
 of the ' Augustinus.' Scripture and experience aUke bear 
 witness that our present is not our rightful state. Behind 
 his present feebleness and misery may be described faint 
 traces of a time when man was all, and more than all, the 
 ' Sainte Philosophie ' conceived him. ' Naturally the human 
 soul, being rational and the image of God, is of such immense 
 capacity that it can find neither rest nor satisfaction, save 
 in His infinitude.' But from this high state man has fallen, 
 because he preferred himself to God. ' This evil choice fell, 
 as it were, from a most high place on to the self-glorifying 
 soul with such force that its traces remain deeply imprinted 
 therein. What the will has once embraced in the plenitude 
 of its judgment can never again become displeasing to it. 
 This is the very essence of concupiscence that the will 
 should be caught in itself, and held fast as though by bird- 
 lime ; so that it cannot shake off this unnatural passion 
 otherwise than by the help of God.' For once the evil is 
 let in, it eats into the very marrow of man's being. He 
 transmits it to his descendants, just as the Ethiopian passes 
 on his black skin to his children, ' not simply hke a garment, 
 but as the very quality of his body.' And one manifesta- 
 tion of concupiscence gathers others round it. It becomes 
 the ' mother and the child of sin,' being at once itself a 
 transgression and the heaven-sent punishment of past 
 offences. Jansen has often on his lips the words of an 
 
 G 2 
 
84 PASCAL 
 
 ancient Christian poet : ' In vulnera vulnere surgit.' By 
 a wound man rises to fresh wounds. 
 
 So desperate is his state that only a heaven-sent remedy 
 can avail to save him. The third thesis of the ' Augustinus ' 
 is the redeeming power of grace, Gratia medicinalis Christi 
 Salvatoris. And by grace Jansen simply meant the birth 
 of a rehgious sense. This may be strong, or it may be weak ; 
 but even its humblest forms are enough to distinguish him 
 who has it from those who have it not — to draw all his 
 actions into a new perspective, and put a different colouring 
 on all his thoughts. In other words, it involves a radical 
 change of character ; and, as such a change is beyond man's 
 power to effect, grace must descend upon him like a whirl- 
 wind — as once it descended on Jansen's two spiritual heroes, 
 St. Augustine and St. Paul — and draw his will ' irresistibly, 
 unfailingly, victoriously,' out of darkness into light. Thereby 
 he undergoes what Protestants call conversion. This need 
 not be violent or instantaneous : it was left for the de- 
 generate Jansenists of the eighteenth century to develop 
 ' convulsions ' quite as morbid as ever disgraced a revivalist 
 camp-meeting in New England. Yet the seeds of re- 
 vivalism are already in the ' Augustinus ' ; and Jansen never 
 put his case so clearly as did President Jonathan Edwards, 
 author of many a Great Awakening in Massachusetts. 
 ' There are many in these days,' he writes of the professed 
 defenders of free-wiU, ' who say that the manner of the 
 Spirit of God is to co-operate in a silent, secret and undis- 
 cernible way with the use of means and of our own en- 
 deavours ; so that there is no distinguishing by sense between 
 the influences of the Spirit of God and the natmral operations 
 of our own minds. But Scripture abundantly teaches that 
 grace in the soul is so the effect of God's power that it is 
 fitly compared to those effects which are farthest from being 
 owing to any strength in the subject, such as a being be- 
 gotten, or being raised from the dead. So it was with the 
 
THE FIEST CONVERSION 85 
 
 oases of particular persons recorded in the New Testament. 
 They were not effected in that silent, secret, gradual and 
 insensible manner, which is now insisted upon ; but with 
 those manifest evidences of a supernatural power wonder- 
 fully and suddenly causing a great change, which in these 
 days are looked upon as certain signs of delusion and 
 enthusiasm.' 
 
 Delusion and enthusiasm were freely enough set down 
 to the count of the Jansenists, but their founder oared little 
 for such charges. To worldlings conversion might seem 
 weird and unaccountable enough ; to the theologian nothing 
 was more natural. Grave as they looked, the soul's disorders 
 were functional rather than organic. Break the bonds of 
 self-love, and the soul sprang back to its rightful place ia 
 the universe. Then, and then only, was it free. ' When 
 a man lives in the land where he was born,' says Jansen, ' we 
 call it his country ; when he obeys his lawful sovereign, we 
 speak of him as free. Whereas, if he is carried thence by 
 force, he endures slavery and exile. Such is also the case 
 of the soul. Its fatherland is truth, which is none other than 
 God. Truth is its country, God is its Father ; whereas the 
 dominion of the creature means servitude in a strange land.' 
 
 Freedom, however, could only be reached through the 
 portals of conversion ; the rest of mankind were slaves. 
 Not that Jansen dealt much in total depravity, as inter- 
 preted by Calvinist divines ; had he done so, he would 
 never have made a convert of Blaise Pascal, wont to regard 
 his fellow-creatures as neither angels nor beasts. Jonathan 
 Edwards must denounce — though not without a protest 
 from the more practical side of his nature — the common 
 run of men as ' vipers spitting poison at God ' : Jansen 
 dwelt rather on their hopeless mediocrity — their ' concupis- 
 cence, blindness, desertion of God' — three qualities more 
 easily discoverable among the average citizens of Rouen. 
 Then, too, he was readier than Edwards to find signs of 
 
86 PASCAL 
 
 good in the natural man — intuitions of Divinity in Plato, 
 a certain honourable respect for virtue and fear of the 
 reproach of conscience among the mass of unconverted men. 
 This tribute to fact once paid, however, Jansen's logic 
 sweeps him away. The good deeds of the unregenerate 
 have their value, but they are ' not so much seeds of virtue 
 as ruins left over from the integrity of man's first state.' 
 Plato or Fabricius will be punished less than Catihne, but 
 all three will be delivered over to the body of one death. 
 For it matters httle whether the sinner be a degenerate 
 Christian lacking love, or a heathen philosopher lacking 
 knowledge of God. The one real good is the good wUl, and 
 only in its Christian form is the good will worthy of its 
 name. In other words, the only actions pleasing to God 
 are those done from religious motives. Why should I 
 claim to be more in His sight than my drunken neighbour, 
 when only thrift or self-respect or worldly prudence keep 
 me from the public-house ? And how can a heathen, who 
 does not know God, act from religious motives at all ? 
 
 Thus the doctrine of conversion melts into predestination. 
 God made certain races Christian ; from these He chose out 
 whom He would, and left the rest to perish in their sins. 
 Surprise has sometimes been expressed that Pascal should 
 have lightly accepted so terrible a doctrine. Even in his 
 own day Deists had arisen to protest against its arbitrary 
 narrowness, and denounce the God of superstition whose 
 ' justice ' human ills exalted, whose ' essence ' human misery 
 enriched. But then, the Deists were dissolute folk quite out- 
 side the circle of decorous lawyers frequented by the Pascals. 
 Judges have never been specially humane in their ideas 
 of moral accountabihty, as any history of the criminal 
 law, or any leading case in criminal insanity will show. In 
 every country they are quick to punish undoubted breaches 
 of the law, without much stopping to consider whether or 
 not they were the prisoner's fault. Then, too, a professional 
 
THE FIRST CONVERSION 87 
 
 instinct led Stephen Pascal and his colleagues to carry to 
 the farthest point a common habit of the age, and conceive 
 of their Maker as a hypostatised absolute sovereign : like 
 the Louis XIV of Saint Simon, He ' commanded, and gave 
 His reasons to none.' Why, indeed, should He not do 
 so ? What did absolute sovereignty mean, but doing what 
 one liked with one's own ? Of all the Churchmen of the age 
 Fenelon stood nearest to the modern world — was most free 
 from the theological perversity of clinging to obnoxious 
 opinions just because lay humanity disliked them. Yet 
 Fenelon applied the favourite Calvinistic figure of the 
 potter and his wheel with a ruthlessness worthy of Jonathan 
 Edwards. Malebranche, again, was no friend to autocratic 
 whimsicality either in God or man, and explains at length 
 how He is bound by rigid laws of His own. But amongst 
 these justice to His creatures finds no place. Malebranche 
 maintains predestination in its most repulsive, because most 
 arbitrary, form. It is necessary to God's purposes to save 
 a certain number of souls, but which particular souls these 
 are He does not greatly care. Nor may He save too many, 
 ' lest His mystical temple grow unshapely through being 
 spacious in excess.' 
 
 Besides, it was hard for a keen young mind to go through 
 life without seeing that some men are naturally religious, 
 while others are not, excellent as they may be in other 
 ways. Nowadays this difference would be set down to 
 variety of temperament ; but Pascal's century dug a deep 
 gulf between the natural and the supernatural worlds, and 
 would not refer a theological result to any but theological 
 causes. If some men were more religious than others, it 
 could only be because God had called the first, and hardened 
 the hearts of the second. And that their hearts were 
 really hardened the age found no difficulty in beheving. 
 It was vaguely supposed that the Ten Commandments — or, 
 at any rate, the latter five — were imprinted on the conscience 
 
68 PASCAL 
 
 of every man born into the world ; so that a Samoyede or 
 Hottentot knew that murder and adultery were wrong quite 
 as well as any educated Christian. If the Hottentot forgot 
 this, his guilt was all the greater. The famous Huguenot 
 controversialist, Pierre Jurieu, lays down as the united 
 utterance of sound theology and common sense that a 
 man who sins through ignorance of his duty is morally 
 below a man who sins with his eyes open. And the reason 
 he gives is that in the first case will and reason are aHke 
 corrupted ; whereas in the second the intellect, at any rate, 
 is clear. Such Catholic enemies of Jansenism as Fenelon 
 only escaped from this conclusion by a quibble. Huguenot 
 children were not damned for sucking in heresy with their 
 mother's milk. Their spiritual blindness was the pimishment 
 of their nursery peccadilloes ; and of this richly merited 
 blindness reprobation was the natural result. The Jansenist 
 controversy did not turn on whether God was just or 
 unjust — only on whether His injustice was a little greater 
 or a little less. 
 
 Moreover, Jansen's doctrine only bore intolerably hardly 
 on those in whom he felt no practical interest. Protestants 
 and Greek philosophers and babies dying unbaptised might 
 be abandoned without scruple to the tender mercies of a 
 syllogism ; but with living, unregenerate Catholics the 
 case was very different. Here there was no room for 
 despair ; who could say but what God would one day please 
 to convert them ? Jansen's thoughts went back each 
 moment to an Apostle, once ' the chief of sinners.' Then, 
 too, the language of the ' Augustinus ' is often more repellent 
 than its meaning. Jansen was torn asunder between his 
 instincts as a practical reformer and his training as a pro- 
 fessional divine, brought up to use a highly cumbrous and 
 inelastic language framed much more in the interests of 
 consistent logic than of spiritual truth. His tongue runs 
 into universals, when his heart means only relativities ; and 
 
THE PIEST CONVBESION 89 
 
 confusion is the result. Take, for example, the fundamental 
 position of the ' Augustinus,' that man cannot do, or wish to 
 do, good -without the help of grace. This, in itself, is a 
 sufficiently awkward way of saying that only in proportion 
 as his character is righteous can a man do righteous actions ; 
 but the difficulty becomes still greater, when the ' Augus- 
 tinus ' goes on to declare that we must co-operate with 
 grace. How, if co-operation is essential, can it be said that 
 grace does all ? 
 
 And yet Jansen's meaning is perfectly clear. He falls 
 alternately under the spell of two opposing tendencies. On 
 the one hand he must minimise the value of men's efforts, in 
 order to humiliate them, and teach them to trust not at all 
 in themselves, but only in their Maker. On the other hand 
 he must screw out of their conscience the greatest possible 
 activity, since ' God does not build His temple out of lifeless 
 stones, nor suffer His elect to lie supine like sick men, while 
 grace rains on them from Above.' The obvious conclusion 
 to draw is that neither principle is absolute ; both are simply 
 relative to certain states of mind. Indispensability of grace 
 bars out presumptuous self-dependence ; need of co-opera- 
 tion is a spur to indolence and despondency. And perhaps 
 Jansen's followers would have put this interpretation on his 
 teaching, had they been free to do so. But they were not 
 free. The ' Augustinus ' had become the subject of a bitter 
 controversy before it left the printer's hands ; and a contro- 
 versialist cannot pick and choose. The world's charity 
 writes him down a renegade, unless he is prepared to fight 
 for every thread in the surplice, and every comma in the 
 rubric. The Jansenists felt — and felt quite rightly — that 
 they could not tamper with a single line in their master's 
 book without abandoning to the Jesuits his whole doctrine 
 of conversion. And so they stoutly defended the ' Augus- 
 tinus ' ; though all they meant thereby was that something 
 more than human effort was necessary to regeneration. 
 
90 PASCAL 
 
 Sooner or later there must come the touch of a Spirit that 
 waits not at our beck and call ; though at the same time they 
 told the natural man that the merest wish to reform was a 
 sign that grace was already stirring within him. 
 
 Naturally, such a doctrine made a vast appeal to the will. 
 To the will grace came, through the will grace triumphed, 
 by our will we should be judged. Of this most excellent 
 proof is afforded by the two great Jansenist abbesses, 
 Angelique and Agnes Arnauld. In the first place they held 
 before the will the most tremendous motives for exertion. 
 ' Time is short,' wrote Angelique, ' but eternity is very 
 long. Those who have been slaves in time will be freemen of 
 eternity ; but those who have been free in time will be 
 slaves eternally.' Secondly, they refused to allow that 
 any action could be morally indifferent ; whatever was not 
 good was bad. ' The world,' wrote Agnes, ' calls certain 
 pleasures innocent, and it is true that they are not actually 
 destructive of grace. But the weak and sensual souls that 
 indulge in them soon become stagnant, like water cut off 
 from its source.' Thus all a man's thoughts and all his acts 
 were drawn into a single focus. Port Eoyal felt itself 
 caught up into the very purposes of God. ' We are em- 
 barked,' cried Agnes, ' on the sea of His predestination, 
 which will carry us whither it will. Our whole duty is to 
 pray, to gain His favom: by our trustfulness and honesty, 
 and not to rely on our own efforts.' Men need no longer 
 pick and choose between several religious ideals : all objects 
 but one were swept from their path. They were not even 
 tempted to make too much of success. ' God did not ask you 
 to gain victories, only to do your best,' Agnes wrote to a 
 dispirited friend. ' You must not make success your end, 
 but leave that to His Providence ; indeed, success would 
 not matter at aU, did it not often bring advantage to our 
 neighbour.' Lastly, when inspiration failed for the moment, 
 they could afford to wait without indolent repining. ' Let 
 
THE PIEST CONVERSION 91 
 
 us rather go before the Bridegroom, like the Virgins in the 
 parable, doing what we can.' 
 
 Such utterances do not make up the most original side of 
 Jansenism, but they might well prove attractive to a young 
 man in the position of Blaise Pascal. He had already learnt 
 from Du Vair that the most important thing in life was 
 conscious direction of the will towards some definite end. 
 But experience had gone on to teach him that there were 
 two fatal objections to the ideals of the ' Sainte Philosophie.' 
 They ignored the seamy side of nature's dealings with 
 mankind ; and they expected from man himself efforts 
 wholly beyond his power to make. Jansen made demands 
 on the will as strenuous as those of Du Vair ; but, in doing 
 so, he overlooked neither the cruelty of nature nor the 
 helplessness of man. Unlike more commonplace theologians, 
 he was quite prepared to face the worst aspect of the worst, 
 and welcome both cruelty and helplessness as a sharp 
 reminder of the omnipotence of grace. Souls were adrift 
 no longer, knowing neither what they could, nor what they 
 should perform ; for grace brought them alike the power 
 to form high resolves, and the power to carry them out. 
 Here, then, Pascal found an answer to the contradiction 
 between man's actual faculties and his ideal end ; and 
 hereon his so-called first conversion followed as a logical 
 necessity. It was no emotional transport — no Methodist 
 ' sense of sin ' — that drove him, but simply a conviction that 
 the human race is powerless to fulfil its destinies without the 
 help of God. ' I should not have the boldness to direct my 
 cries to Thee, were there any other that could hear and could 
 relieve them,' he wTites in one of the ' Prayers in Sickness ' 
 composed about this time. God must be loved, because 
 without love there is no grace, and without grace no full 
 development of the moral self. Hence emotion would do 
 weU to follow, where logic shows the way. ' the happiness 
 of those who, with an absolute choice and preference and an 
 
92 PASCAL 
 
 invincible bent of inclination, can love perfectly and freely 
 what they are engaged to love out of duty and necessity.' 
 
 Exactly when the change took place there is no evidence 
 to determine. GUberte was no longer at home to chronicle 
 her brother's movements ; in 1641 she had married her 
 cousin, Florin Perier, a judge of Stephen's old court at 
 Clermont. According to a family tradition, Blaise was the 
 first convert. He brought over Jacqueline in the late 
 autunm of 1646 ; and their united efforts were successful 
 with Stephen. Lastly the Periers followed, during a long 
 visit paid to Eouen in the spring of 1647. Evidently the 
 process was no short one. Blaise was interested and 
 impressed by La Bouteillerie and Des Landes — all the more 
 so since his father's long Ulness cast a gloom over the house- 
 hold, and his own health had been failing ever since GUberte's 
 marriage. He began by talking over the new ideas with 
 Jacqueline, as a subject more worthy of discussion than her 
 favourite -pricieux poets. For a while, however, she turned 
 a deaf ear to his arguments. Respectably pious she was 
 aheady ; but she also ' loved the world,' and saw no reason 
 for changing her way of life. But Blaise was not the man 
 to stomach opposition, least of all from his own younger 
 sister. Her objections only intensified his zeal ; as she 
 afterwards reminded him, he plied her with more and more 
 urgent exhortations against the folly of allying two things 
 so utterly incompatible as the spirit of religion and the spirit 
 of this world. When she at last took genuine fire, its warmth 
 reacted on his emotional nature ; Jacqueline's conversion 
 unmistakably set the coping-stone on his own. 
 
 Nor was she the only sufferer from his intemperate zeal. 
 Appetite for theological controversy grows with its practice ; 
 and in the first flush of his conversion Blaise rushed headlong 
 into the ugliest chapter of his life. In February, 1647, there 
 drifted to Rouen a derelict ex-Capuchin friar, known as 
 Frere Saint Ange. He belonged to a class of eccentrics 
 
THE FIRST CONVERSION 93 
 
 common to every age and country. In the lay world they 
 square the circle, or solve the problem of perpetual motion ; 
 if clergymen, they reconcile faith and reason on lines as 
 unacceptable by reason as they are distasteful to faith. Not 
 that Saint Ange's theories were altogether lacking in interest. 
 A humble Raymond of Sabunda, he carried on to the theo- 
 logical field the revolt against scholastic technicality already 
 so much in evidence with Descartes and the Paris Club. 
 His ideal was to make philosophy talk the language of 
 common sense. Men were to rack their brains no longer 
 over ponderous treatises ; sm-er guides were offered them in 
 ' the truths of faith, whereof every Christian may possess 
 himself through the liberality of his Redeemer, and in those 
 first truths of nature and morals, which appear indubitable to 
 all men, so soon as they consult their reason.' Indeed, his 
 enthusiasm for common sense pushed him on to dangerous 
 ground. Only by a hair's breadth did he escape the heresy 
 of maintaining that in a ' powerful and vigorous mind ' 
 reason can take the place of faith, and discover the truths of 
 Revelation for itself. 
 
 Lodged in the house of his patron, the Attorney- General 
 of Normandy, Saint Ange developed his theories to anyone 
 who would listen. One day he called on two young friends 
 of Pascal, Du Mesnil, son of a Rouen judge, and Adrien 
 Auzout, the future eminent astronomer, now a boy of 
 eighteen. He was launching forth on his favourite subject, 
 when Blaise himself appeared on the scene, and conversation 
 took a different turn. Saint Ange began to explain how it 
 was possible to calculate the total numbers of the human 
 race. All things came from God, and to God all must return. 
 Mind, being incorporeal, could return of itself ; but matter 
 must be conveyed by mind. That was why God had coupled 
 souls and bodies together. The end of the world could only 
 come, when every particle of matter in the universe had 
 served to form a human being, whose soul could duly claim 
 
94 PASCAL 
 
 it at the Resurrection. Hence it was only necessary to 
 know the cubic dimensions of the universe, in order to 
 calculate exactly how many inhabitants it must have. The 
 three young men received this theory ' with as much laughter 
 as civility would allow,' and began to make objections. 
 What proof had Saint Ange that there was any connexion 
 between the substance of the sun and that of this planet ? 
 The Capuchin answered that they did not understand the 
 real meaning of substance ; it was the unity, of which the 
 things we see were only ' accidents and appearances.' He was 
 going on to illustrate his meaning by an odd comparison — 
 substance was the sea, and perceptible objects were bottles 
 of water bobbing about on its surface — when he was inter- 
 rupted by a genera] burst of laughter. He wound up 
 promptly with a vague compliment to young M. Pascal, 
 whose researches into the vacuum in nature were already 
 attracting great attention in Paris. 
 
 Young M. Pascal was not mollified. Quite apart from 
 natural disgust at all this frivolous ingenuity, his new 
 Jansenist instincts rose in revolt against a divine who made 
 belief independent of grace ; and he undertook the part of 
 an amateur Holy Office. A few days later, he and his two 
 friends called on Saint Ange at the Attorney- General's 
 house ; with them they took the Abbe Le Cornier, son of 
 another Rouen judge, and lately come back with high 
 honours from the Sorboime. Pascal opened the battle 
 with some mathematical calculations to prove that, if 
 Saint Ange was right, the world must last at least four 
 thousand million years. But conversation soon drifted 
 off on to the question of grace, and the unsuspecting 
 Capuchin began to expound a system of his own for re- 
 conciling Jesuits and Jansenists. Before he had finished, 
 however, he reahsed that he was speaking to inquisitors. 
 He broke off discussion and showed his visitors out, stopping 
 them at the hall-door to emphasise that what he had said 
 
THE FIRST CONVERSION 95 
 
 must not be treated as dogmas, but simply as casual 
 suggestions. 
 
 The three young men paid no heed to his caution, and 
 began to denounce his heresies about the town. Public 
 opinion soon grew excited. The lawyers and the parish 
 priests were for Saint Ange ; the monasteries naturally 
 sided against a renegade from his order ; the cathedral 
 clergy hated his patron, the Attorney- General, whose 
 healthy Erastianism had tried to interfere with their plu- 
 ralities and general indecorum. Matters came finally to 
 a head, when Richelieu's brother, the sinecure Abbot of 
 Saint Ouen, presented Saint Ange to a living. There now 
 appeared on the scene a personage almost as strange as 
 Saint Ange himself. This was Jean Pierre Camus, formerly 
 Bishop of Belley, now suffragan to the invalid Archbishop 
 of Rouen. Camus was famous for his jocular, often tactless, 
 but extremely downright sermons, and still more famous 
 with his pen. He was one of the first in any country to 
 indite what would nowadays be called improving literature 
 for the young ; a contemptuous Jansenist lady describes his 
 books as a ' mixture of tales and pious discourses. They 
 always ended with a martyrdom or a vocation to the cloister, 
 and yet were as full of human passions as any secular 
 romance.' Such a man was well fitted to understand 
 Saint Ange, and raised no objection to his institution. The 
 three young men, annoyed to find that their denunciations 
 had such small effect, complained to the Archbishop direct. 
 He ordered an of&cial inquiry, which Camus made as easy as 
 possible for Saint Ange. 
 
 However, the three young men were resolved not to let 
 their prey escape. On their first genuine rehgious excite- 
 ment followed the thrill of delicious self-importance felt 
 when youth for the first time sets the criminal law in motion. 
 Disregarding the advice of their own elder friend, Le Cornier, 
 who begged them to leave the matter alone, they went off 
 
96 PASCAL 
 
 to the Archbishop's country-house, and denounced Saint 
 Ange again. Pran5ois de Harlai was the best scholar on the 
 Bench — ^he had been known to preach in Greek — but his 
 judgment was by no means equal to his learning ; the wits 
 compared his mind to a library turned topsy-turvy. Besides, 
 he was on exceedingly bad terms with the Government 
 officials in Rouen. He suddenly descried behind Saint 
 Ange the malign hand of the Attorney-General, plotting 
 against the independence of the Church. In a sharp letter 
 he reminded Camus that the theology of lawyers was not 
 always that of the Apostles, and elaborately contrasted the 
 godly zeal of these young laymen with the supineness of the 
 clergy. Camus decided that the matter was now shppiug 
 beyond the region of his common sense, and called in Stephen 
 Pascal. A treaty of peace was eventually patched up, 
 Saint Ange being inducted to his Uving. 
 
 A few months later Blaise bore more acceptable witness 
 to his new beliefs. His various scientific labours had 
 undermined his health, and in the summer of 1647 he suffered 
 a complete collapse. Gilberte Perier gives many distressing 
 details — violent and prolonged neuralgia, partial paralysis 
 of the lower limbs, inabihty to swallow — all pointing to 
 a grave attack of neurasthenia. It was now that Jansenism 
 appeared to him as something more than a clever answer to 
 the ethical riddles thrown out by Du Vair — as much more 
 than an orthodox stick to beat misbelievers like Saint Ange. 
 For the first time he felt himself useless ; and, as he well 
 knew, neither science nor Du Vair cared much for the service 
 of loiterers able only to stand and wait. Jansen dealt with 
 illness in another fashion. ' For comfort,' wrote Pascal a 
 little while later, ' we must never look to ourselves, or 
 mankind, or the rest of creation : we must look to God alone. 
 Creatures are never the first cause of the accidents we call 
 ills ; God's Providence is their one and only cause, their 
 arbiter and their sovereign. Therefore, if we wish for 
 
THE FIRST CONVERSION 97 
 
 relief, we must follow the evil to its source. We must 
 cease from regarding it as a stroke of ill-fortune, as a fatal 
 necessity of our nature arising from the composition of our 
 organs ; for God has not abandoned His elect to hazard 
 or caprice. We must conceive of it as a decree of His 
 Providence, willed from all eternity to take place in a certain 
 year, on a certain day, at a certain hour, in a certain place, 
 in a certain manner ; we must beUeve that all that happens 
 is foreknown and foreordained of God. Then we shall 
 venerate His holy judgments ; we shall bless the guidance 
 of His Providence ; we shall unite our will with His, and 
 will in Him, with Him, for Him, whatever He has willed 
 for us from all eternity.' 
 
 Resignation to the Will of God Pascal might have learnt 
 from Du Vair, but the ' Sainte Philosophie ' could not teach 
 him the chastening effects of illness. ' I know, Lord, 
 that at the instant of my death I shall find myself entirely 
 separated from the world, stripped naked of all things, 
 standing alone before Thee to answer to Thy justice con- 
 cerning all the movements of my heart and spirit. Grant 
 that I may look upon myself as dead already, separated 
 from the world, stripped of all the objects of my passions, 
 placed alone in Thy presence to implore Thy mercy for the 
 conversion of my heart. Grant that I may find exceeding 
 comfort in the thought that Thou art pleased to send this 
 image and appearance of death as the subject of Thy mercy, 
 before Thou sendest a real dissolution to exercise Thy justice. 
 I pray not to be exempted from pain, for that is the glorious 
 recompense of saints ; but I pray that I may not be aban- 
 doned to the pains of nature without the comforts of Thy 
 Spirit, for that is the curse of Jews and pagans. I pray that 
 I may feel at once the pains of nature for my sins, and the 
 consolation of grace by Thy Spirit ; for that is the true 
 state of Christianity.' 
 
 Still, it was not enough to consider the moral lessons 
 
98 PASCAL 
 
 of illness. Blaise— impelled by a sick man's sick fancies — 
 passes on to consider his ill-health as an actual merit in the 
 eyes of Heaven. ' God, Who so lovest bodies exercised 
 by suffering, be pleased to accept my body — not for its own 
 sake, nor for what it contains, for all deserves Thy wrath — 
 but for the evils it endures, which alone deserve Thy love.' 
 In other words, he was in danger of idealising asceticism ; 
 and asceticism, when practised for its own sake, is more 
 purely moralistic than Du Vair himself. In fact, the first 
 conversion left Pascal very much nearer the ' Sainte PMlo- 
 sophie ' than ever he imagined. Its civic virtues are, indeed, 
 replaced by Cathohc monastic ideals. Pascal will pray for 
 ' a divorce from the sweetness of health and the pleasures of 
 the world.' He will lament ' the entire loss of that time 
 which Thou hast given me for no other purpose than wor- 
 shipping Thee, and becoming penitent for my daily tres- 
 passes.' As yet, however, he had not passed beyond the 
 stage of Luther in his cell at Erfurt, before he learned to 
 ' send away Moses and his Law.' He had not penetrated 
 far enough into the inner meaning of religion to see that 
 evil does not He in the mere things round us ; it Ues in the 
 use we make of them — that is, in ourselves. And unless a 
 man manages to rise above them, things will remain his 
 masters. By them he will be tempted to measure his own 
 position in the moral scale, the amount of love he bears his 
 Maker being conceived to vary inversely with the amount 
 of interest he takes in that Maker's works. If he caimot 
 continue to regard ' all that is perishable as perishing — ^nay, 
 as already perished,' sooner or later he will grow disheartened, 
 give up the effort, and drift back again to the world. 
 
 Such was the case with Pascal himself. Zeal and 
 intelligence he had in plenty ; but that did not save him 
 from reading through the ' Augustinus ' without the least eye 
 to its principal lesson. For the great work of Jansenism 
 was to insist that religion does not mean believing a particular 
 
THE FIRST CONVERSION 99 
 
 opinion, or adopting a particular mode of life ; it means 
 conversion, becoming a new creature. That is precisely 
 where it differs from the Stoicism of Du Vair. Morality is 
 an end outside myself ; I can hold it up at arm's length, as it 
 were, examine, and gradually approach it. But in religion 
 this is impossible. There, as a maturer Pascal will lay down, 
 God cannot be the end, unless He is also the beginning. I 
 cannot commence to do religious actions, until I have 
 become religious. In a certain sense, I must have reached 
 the goal, before I start to run the race. I must live as 
 though my higher were my only — as it is already my true — 
 seU. That is what the Apostle meant, when he said : ' I 
 live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me ; and the life, which I 
 now Uve in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God.' 
 
 b2 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 THE GBBAT EXPERIMENT OF THE PUY-DE-DOME 
 
 Conversion to Jansenism by no means necessarily entailed 
 a breach with science. No doubt, the Port Royal preachers 
 thundered against the pride that went with useless know- 
 ledge ; and Blaise will presently convince himself that pride 
 and the pursuit of knowledge always went hand in hand. 
 As yet, however, he was satisfied to follow his official 
 leaders ; and they were by no means hostile to sound learn- 
 ing. Promond, Jansen's favourite pupU, and editor of the 
 posthumous 'Augustinus,' was an astronomer of mark ; 
 Antoine Arnauld, the rising hope of Port Royal, was no 
 mean geometer. No one beheved more fervently than he 
 in the moral value of mathematics. In themselves, he 
 quite agreed that the sciences were nothing worth. Those 
 who had not studied them were better off than those who 
 had ; for they escaped alike a very laborious exercise and 
 the risk of tliinking themselves wiser than their neighbours. 
 On the other hand, he argued that conscience was Ul-equipped 
 for its functions, unless the judgment had been trained. 
 And that training science gave, when studied simply as a 
 mental gymnastic, instead of as an end in itself.i 
 
 Besides, old habits of thought are not put off in a day ; 
 and in the autumn of 1646 the Paris Club suddenly put an 
 overpowering temptation in Pascal's path. The engineer, 
 Pierre Petit, arrived at Rouen with news of a most remarkable 
 
 ' First Preface to the Logic of Port Royal, Works, xli. p. 105. 
 100 
 
GREAT EXPERIMENT OP PUY-DE-DOME 101 
 
 experiment made some years before in Italy by Galileo's 
 illustrious pupil, Torricelli. Petit had heard about it from 
 Mersenne, who had tried unsuccessfully to repeat it. There 
 were difficulties about getting the right kind of tubes in 
 Paris, whereas at Rouen was one of the best glass-factories 
 in France. Petit came to see Stephen Pascal in a state of 
 great excitement. The experiment promised to determine 
 whether nature really could endure a vacuum, one of the 
 most burning questions between the old science and the 
 new ; and it was weU known at the club to which side 
 Stephen's sympathies inclined. Tubes were soon ordered 
 and blown, and the experiment was performed in the 
 presence of Stephen and Blaise, ' a worthy son of his illustri- 
 ous father,' says Petit in his report.^ They filled a tube 
 with quicksilver, and plunged it, mouth downwards, into a 
 basin containing the same liquid. To their surprise, instead 
 of emptying itself entirely, a column of quicksilver re- 
 mained suspended above the mouth of the tube. Petit 
 triumphantly pointed out the vacuum in the upper part of 
 the tube. Blaise, whose scientific enthusiasm always went 
 hand in hand with caution, replied that the Aristotelians 
 would certainly say that air had come in through the pores 
 of the glass, in order to prevent a vacuum. Petit objected 
 that there was still quicksilver in the tube. If air could 
 make its way through the glass, why did it not fill the tube 
 entirely, and let the quicksilver run out ? Next they 
 moved the tube up and down, but found that, whatever 
 they did, the column remained at its original level. Clearly, 
 the vacuum could be lessened or increased at pleasure. 
 Then they poured water into the basin, and raised the tube, 
 till its mouth was in the water. The quicksilver then sank 
 out of the tube ; water rushed in, and filled it to the top. 
 This effectually repUed to Blaise's objection. If there was 
 air in the tube, Petit asked, why did water drive it out ? 
 1 The report is printed in Brunschviog and Boutroux, i. pp. 329 ff. 
 
102 PASCAL 
 
 How could it do violence to its own nature, and rise above 
 air ? 
 
 The Aristotelians, however, were not so easily beaten. 
 Their leader, Dr. Pierius from the Archiepiscopal College, 
 was entirely unimpressed by Petit's elaborate precautions to 
 keep the air out of his tubes. Somehow it must have got in, 
 he said ; and once inside, it could rarefy or condense at will, 
 and thus prevent a vacuum. But, if such rarefication really 
 took place, its effects would presumably be more marked in 
 the case of a large vessel than a small. Pascal accordingly 
 set to work with tubes of all shapes and sizes, to show that 
 the height of the quicksilver always remains exactly the 
 same, whatever the size of the vessel. Pierius now changed 
 his ground, and said that the apparently empty space at the 
 top of the tube was filled by volatile spirits given off from 
 the quicksilver. Pascal invited him to meet Dr. Guiffart 
 and other persons interested in science in the court-yard 
 of the glass-factory. Here he got the Aristotelian to 
 admit that wine was more spirituous than water ; hence, if 
 the Torricellian experiment was tried with these two liquids, 
 the column suspended in the tube would be higher in the case 
 of water than in that of wine. Pascal promptly took him 
 at his word. Two gigantic tubes, each forty feet long, were 
 brought forward; in one the experiment was performed 
 with water, in the other with wine. Careful measurement 
 revealed Pierius as a false prophet ; for the column of 
 water only just exceeded the height of thirty-one feet, 
 whereas the wine stood fully half a foot higher. Finally, so 
 as to clinch the matter, Pascal performed the experiment 
 over again, only making the two tubes change places, and 
 that which had held water now hold wine.i 
 
 These results altogether cut away the ground from under 
 the feet of the Aristotelians. ' Occlusum est os misellis 
 
 ' See Roberval'a account of the matter in his Premiere Narration aur le 
 Vide (September, 1647), reprinted in Brunschvicg and Boutroux, ii. pp. 28 S. 
 
GREAT EXPEEIMENT OP PUY-DE-DOME 103 
 
 illis sciolis,' said grim Professor Roberval. Pierius, indeed, 
 tried his hand at a reply, but his special pleading was 
 dismissed by Guiffart as a string of ' metaphorical, not 
 categorical discourses ; M. Pierius was too good a philosopher 
 to take them quite seriously himself.' For Pascal's experi- 
 ments had won the honest physician's heart ; they delighted 
 all those who were already philosophers, and made philo- 
 sophers of those who were not yet so. And to their inventor 
 he paid a delicate personal compliment. Whether or not 
 there were a vacuum in nature, he said, there was certainly 
 none in the brains of young M. Pascal. For Guiffart, like 
 most moderate men, was only half convinced. Pascal had 
 certainly proved that Pierius was wrong in maintaining that 
 nature could not endure a vacuum ; but it was still possible 
 to strike a judicious balance between old opinions and new, 
 and hold that nature abhorred a vacuum, although without 
 always being able to prevent it. Nor did Pascal feel that, 
 as yet, he had any right to challenge this position. A long 
 series of experiments, performed during the first half of 
 1647, simply went to show that a vacuum was possible, 
 whether nature liked it or no ; that she had no greater 
 repugnance to a large vacuum than a small ; and that, in 
 the case of water, her abhorrence never exceeded the height 
 of thirty-two feet.i 
 
 These triumphs of the Rouen laboratory soon became 
 known in Paris. Saint-Ange had already heard of them 
 in February, 1647 ; and in the following July an eccentric 
 Capuchin friar, one Father Valerio Magni, ApostoHc Mis- 
 sionary in Poland, printed an account of the original 
 experiment, in which he claimed priority over both Torricelli 
 and Pascal. The assertion was preposterous ; but seven- 
 teenth century etiquette required that a charge of priority, 
 which generally included a charge of plagiarism, should 
 
 ^ It will be remenibered that the JYench foot was slightly longer thai} 
 the English, 
 
104 PASCAL 
 
 be rebutted with a vigour wholly out of keeping with the 
 flimsiaess of its foundations. As Pascal was too ill to reply 
 himself, Roberval wrote a detailed rejoinder, which effectually 
 disposed of Magni. This intervention, however, had a 
 curious consequence. The professor was a man of many 
 quarrels, and had had a pecuharly vitriolic dispute with 
 Torrioelli a few years before over the question of the cycloid. 
 So, when Blaise printed an account of his performances in 
 the autumn of 1647, he suppressed Torricelli's name, out of 
 regard for Roberval's feeliags, and spoke of the original 
 experiment as simply ' coming from Italy.' This was quite 
 enough foundation for a charge of plagiarism. Some four 
 years later, a Jesuit of Montferrand, a suburb of Clermont, 
 seized the opportunity of a public prize-giving to indulge in 
 veiled invectives against persons from Rouen, who claimed 
 the credit of inventions made in Italy, and repeated in 
 Poland. The introduction of Magni's name shows that 
 the Jesuit was simply throwing mud at random ; but in 
 any case the accusation was silly enough. Blaise himself 
 said that his assailant might as well have charged him with 
 palming off Galileo's invention of the telescope as his own. 
 Still, to be insulted in one's birthplace is no agreeable 
 sensation ; and Blaise wrote off a furious letter to an old 
 friend of his family, Judge Ribeyre of Clermont. Ribeyre 
 sensibly advised him to take no more notice of the matter. 
 ' I think,' he said, ' that the good Father only behaved in 
 the way he did, because he was itching to show off some 
 experiments of his own, which he thought would answer 
 yours. In this he was quite mistaken. After the formal 
 proceedings were over, he brought out a diagram of his 
 inventions, and challenged the company to refute them. 
 As nobody offered to do so, he was obhged to put his pistol 
 back in his pocket, and wait for another chance to discharge 
 it. Still, I am quite sure that he meant no ill, and that it 
 would be better to leave no opening for a contest, in which 
 
GREAT EXPERIMENT OF PUY-DE-DOME 105 
 
 he could at any rate say " quod quum victus erit, tecum 
 certasse feretur." ' i 
 
 However, this ridiculous business must not be suffered 
 to obscure Pascal's real debt to Torricelli. As well as the 
 original experiment, he owed to the Italian savant an 
 explanation of its cause, although this letter did not reach him 
 till some months after Pierre Petit's visit to Rouen. At the 
 end of his life Galileo had been perplexed by the question 
 why a pump cannot raise water more than thirty-two feet ; 
 but in 1642 he died, leaving Torricelli to find the answer. 
 Pipes thirty-two feet long being inconvenient to handle, 
 Torricelli resolved to see what would happen with a liquid 
 heavier than water, and directed his pupil, Viviani, to 
 take some quicksilver, and perform the experiment repeated 
 at Rouen. Torricelli then took the matter in hand himself, 
 and at once guessed that the reason why some of the liquid 
 remained in the tube was the pressure of the air on the 
 surrounding quicksilver in the basin. Further, he noticed 
 that the column in the tube did not always remain at the 
 same level, and this he set down to variations in the pressure 
 of the atmosphere. He even had hopes of using the quick- 
 silver to measure atmospheric pressure, but these were 
 cut short by his untimely death in the summer of 1647. 
 Some time in the previous spring Pascal heard his explana- 
 tion of the mystery, and at once seized on it as a deadly 
 weapon for use against the Aristotelians. Hitherto he had 
 only been able to argue that nature cannot endure a vacuum ; 
 men like Guiffart could still say that she disliked it, though 
 her feelings were shared by different objects in very different 
 degrees, being much greater in the case of quicksilver than 
 in that of water. But if Torricelli was right, and the 
 quicksUver really changed its level from hour to hour, the 
 ground was wholly cut away from under the Peripatetic feet. 
 The boldest scholastic could hardly maintain that nature's 
 
 I Pascal, Works, iii. pp. 80, 81. 
 
106 PASCAL 
 
 feelings changed as often as those of a capricious young 
 lady. 
 
 Still, TorriceUi's explanation was no more than a briUiant 
 hypothesis, and Pascal belonged to a school which prided 
 itself on never overstepping the boundaries of proven fact. 
 But where lay one's hand on proven facts ? When Pascal 
 left Eouen for Paris in September 1647, he found that 
 everyone was ready to explain why the quicksilver stayed 
 in the tube, and whether its top was really empty. Some 
 clung to Aristotle, and rejected both atmospheric pressure 
 and the vacuum. Some followed TorriceUi in admitting 
 both. Others took up the negative line of Eoberval, who 
 strenuously denied both atmospheric pressure and horror 
 of the vacuum. Yet a fourth party fell foul of the vacuum, 
 without exactly denying atmospheric pressure. This last 
 was the position of Descartes. In his eyes geometry was 
 the queen of sciences ; all others were its tributaries, and 
 must speak its language. Accordingly he refused to 
 distinguish between space, as a mathematical abstraction, 
 and matter, as a physical fact. Whatever was spatially 
 extended could be measured ; whatever could be measured 
 actually existed. And, as the vacuum in Pascal's tube 
 was imdoubtedly capable of measurement, Descartes 
 denied that it could be really empty. Of what, then, was 
 it full ? Descartes answered with his vast hypothesis of 
 Tourhillons, or Vortices — a conception that played as large 
 a part in seventeenth century science as has Darwinian 
 Evolution at a later date. It was an attempt to group 
 together, under one magnificent generalisation, all the 
 phenomena of the inorganic world, from the formation of 
 the solar system downwards ; and amongst other things 
 it involved the existence of two sorts of matter — one 
 perceptible to human sense, and the other not so. In many 
 respects, however, this second ' subtle ' matter was the 
 more important of the two ; to its agency Descartes attri- 
 
GREAT EXPERIMENT OP PUY-DE-DOME 107 
 
 buted many of the most important facts in physics, such 
 as transmission of light and heat, and gravitation. But, 
 in order to do this, subtle matter must fill all places seemingly 
 void. Hence, ahke for physical and for metaphysical 
 reasons, a vacuum was impossible, either in Pascal's tube 
 or elsewhere. 
 
 On the other hand, he fully admitted that the air had 
 weight. But he denied that atmospheric pressure was 
 enough of itself to keep the quicksilver up in the tube. 
 Inasmuch as the universe was full, nothing therein could 
 move, unless it changed places with something else. Wher- 
 ever there was free circulation of air, this might happen 
 easily enough, for things were kept in constant movement. 
 But once try Pascal's experiment in a room from which 
 the outer air had been carefully shut out, and Descartes 
 declared that not one drop of the quicksilver would run 
 out of its tube.i And this — he told Mersenne — was not 
 because the liquid had grown lighter, or the resistance of 
 the atmosphere had lessened, but simply because there 
 was nowhere for the quicksilver to go, the room being 
 already full of air. Pascal took the philosopher at his 
 word. Possibly inspired, and certainly helped by Roberval 
 and his old Rouen friend, Adrien Auzout, he hit on the 
 experiment known as a vacuum within a vacuum. He 
 took a tube three feet long, filled it with quicksilver, and 
 stoppered it at both ends with a membrane. To its lower 
 end he attached a basin, also containing quicksilver. This 
 whole apparatus he then fixed inside the upper end of 
 another tube six feet long. This larger tube he also filled 
 with quicksilver, and stoppered at both ends with a 
 membrane. This was plunged into a tub of quicksilver 
 in the usual way, and the stopper removed from the lower 
 end. The quicksilver, following ' its ordinary course, 
 sank into the lower half of the tube, leaving the smaller 
 
 1 Letter to Mersenne, of Slst January, 1648, Correspondence, v. p. 116, 
 
108 PASCAL 
 
 apparatus visible above. The stopper was now removed 
 from the lower end of the smaller tube ; but now the 
 unexpected happened. Instead of remaining in its tube, 
 as Descartes thought it ought to do, since the outside air 
 was certainly excluded, all the quicksilver sank at once 
 into the basin beneath. 
 
 Before this experiment was performed, however, took 
 place Pascal's first and only meeting with the great opponent 
 of the vacuum. In September, 1647, Descartes was on one 
 of his rare visits to France, when Blaise arrived in Paris 
 under Jacqueline's charge, to recruit after his late serious 
 illness. On Wednesday, 25th September, the sister wrote 
 to Gilberte Perier : ' Last Sunday evening M. Habert 
 brought a friend of his from Brittany, M. de Montigny, to see 
 me, as my brother was at church. He came to say that 
 M. Descartes, his compatriot and great friend, was very 
 anxious to see my brother, having always heard so much 
 about my father and him. But, as he knew that he was ill, 
 he had sent to ask beforehand whether there was any 
 objection to his calhng at nine o'clock in the morning. I 
 was rather taken aback ; for my brother finds it very hard 
 to pull himself together and talk, especially in the morning. 
 Still, I did not hke to refuse, and we eventually settled that 
 they should come at half-past ten. On Monday morning 
 arrived M. Descartes, with M. de Montigny and several 
 others. M. de Koberval, to whom my brother had sent 
 word, was also there. After a few poHte speeches, they 
 began talking about the instrument. M de Eoberval 
 showed it off, and it was much admired. Then they got on 
 to the experiments about the vacuum, and some one asked 
 M. Descartes what was in the tube. He replied with great 
 solemnity that it was his " subtle matter." To that my 
 brother made the best answer he could, and M. de Eoberval, 
 thinking that it hurt him to talk, took up the running with 
 just a little warmth, but stUl quite civilly enough. M. 
 
GEEAT EXPEEIMENT OP PUY-DE-DOME 109 
 
 Descartes replied rather sharply that he did not mind how 
 long he went on talking to my brother, for he spoke good 
 sense ; but that there was no good in disputing with a 
 prejudiced man hke M. de Roberval. Thereupon he 
 looked at his watch, found it was twelve o'clock, and rose ; 
 for he was engaged to dine in the Faubourg Saint Germain, 
 as was M. de Eoberval also. So M. Descartes took him 
 in his carriage ; and when they were alone together, they 
 went at one another hammer and tongs — rather too much so, 
 said M. de Eoberval, when he came back in the afternoon. I 
 forgot to add that M. Descartes said he was sorry to have 
 been here so little, and promised to come again the next 
 morning at eight o'clock. M. D'Alibray promised to be 
 there, and as my brother wished it, he did his best to bring 
 M. Le Pailleur, but he was too lazy to come. One of the 
 reasons of this second visit was to talk over my brother's 
 illness, though really M. Descartes had very Utile advice to 
 give. He only told him to stay in bed till he was tired of 
 being there, and to take a lot of broth. But as M. Descartes 
 stayed till eleven o'clock, they must have talked over a 
 great many things besides ; though I was not there to hear, 
 and could not find out afterwards, as the rest of the day 
 was taken up in giving my brother his first bath. He 
 thought it made his head bad, but that was because the 
 water was too hot. But he was all the better for being 
 bled in the foot on Sunday night ; for on Monday he was 
 talking all day long — to M. Descartes in the morning and 
 to M. de Eoberval in the afternoon, on questions that touch 
 on theology quite as much as physics. But, except that 
 he slept very badly that night, he was none the worse, and 
 altogether escaped the headache I expected after such a 
 tiring day.' i 
 
 Some six weeks later Blaise wrote to his brother-in-law, 
 Perier, at Clermont, begging him to put the vacuum question 
 
 1 Letter of 25th September, 1647, L. 0. M. p. 309. 
 
no PASCAL 
 
 to a crucial test. ' I want you,' he said, ' to make the 
 ordinary experiment of the vacuum on the same day, 
 with the same quicksilver, in the same tube, first at the 
 bottom and then at the top of a mountain ; so as to see 
 if the quicksilver varies in the two places. If it does — 
 and I have more than one reason to believe it will — we 
 shall have positive proof that it is the weight and pressure 
 of the air that keeps the quicksilver up in the tube, and 
 not horror of the vacuum. For it is very certain that the 
 air weighs more at the bottom than at the top of a mountain ; 
 whereas no one could think that nature abhors a vacuum in 
 one place more than in another.' i This letter has given rise 
 to a bitter controversy by no means yet extinct. Admirers 
 of Descartes maintain that the philosopher put the idea of 
 this mountain-experiment into Blaise's head. Admirers of 
 Pascal reply that Blaise was quite clever enough to think 
 of it for himself. Though indeed modern research is incUned 
 to withhold the palm of priority from both the rivals, and 
 bestow it on Father Mersenne, despite the fact that his 
 romantic suggestion of trying the experiment on the Peak 
 of Teneriffe was not fated to bear fruit.2 
 
 How unhkely Pascal was to act on suggestions coming 
 from a Cartesian quarter may be seen from a curious con- 
 troversy about the vacuum begun a few weeks after the 
 meeting with Descartes. Here his adversary was a certain 
 Father Noel, a Jesuit of sixty-five, and a personage of 
 some importance in his Society. Having been a master 
 at La Fleche at the time that Descartes was at school there, 
 he had since kept up an interest in his old pupils' theories, 
 and amused himself by trying to translate them into scholastic 
 language ; for he prided himself on his power of reconciling 
 old and new ideas. Pascal was evidently flattered at 
 
 ' Ricit de la Grande Expirience, Works, iii. p. 140. 
 ^ See Duhem's article on Le Pere Marin Mersenne in the Revue Oinirale 
 des Sciences for 30th September, 1906. 
 
GREAT EXPERIMENT OF PUY-DE-DOME 111 
 
 receiving his criticisms, and replied to them in his most 
 dignified manner ; though into the question of atmospheric 
 pressure he would not be dragged, holding that that must 
 wait till Perier's experiment had been tried. Noel sent 
 a polite rejoinder by the hand of another Jesuit, together 
 with a message begging Pascal not to show his letter to 
 anyone, and not to answer till he felt better. Pascal 
 naturally took this as a flag of truce, equally binding on 
 both parties. In the meantime, however, Noel himself 
 feU ill. Just before he took to his bed, he had finished a 
 pamphlet, on which he had been at work for some months ; 
 it was called ' Le Plein Du Vide ' — the Vacuum Full — and 
 was prefaced by a dedication to the Prince de Conti. 
 ' To-day Nature is accused of a vacuum, and I stand forward 
 to defend her in presence of your Highness. Heretofore 
 she has often been suspected, but none have dared to pass 
 beyond suspicion, and confront her with actual experiments 
 and facts. I prove her innocent of the charge. I show 
 how worthless is the evidence against her, how fraudulent 
 the witnesses. If all men knew her as your Highness knows 
 her, none would ever have indicted her on trumped-up 
 depositions, or ill-described and worse authenticated ex- 
 periments. She looks to your Highness to do justice on 
 these calumnies. And if — ^to clear her altogether — it be 
 necessary to descend to facts, and rebut evidence with 
 evidence, she points to the intelligence of your Highness 
 as a proof that she contains no vacuum.' i 
 
 This strange production Noel's friends, thiaking to 
 give him a pleasant surprise, sent to the printers, while he 
 was still too iU to correct the proofs. On his recovery he 
 compiled a lengthy budget of errata, in which he retreated 
 from many of the positions advanced in the body of the 
 work. This he sent to Pascal, together with the explanation 
 that the offensive passages in his book were intended only 
 
 ' ie Plein du Vide, reprinted in Pascal, Works,\m. p. 28. 
 
112 PASCAL 
 
 for the Polish Capuchin, Valerian Magni, ■ a notorious 
 eneray of his Society. This was simply a Jesuitical way 
 of saying that he would not have written so insultingly of 
 Pascal, had he made Pascal's acquaintance a few months 
 earher. But the apology was private ; the pamphlet was 
 before the world. Blaise fired off a furious letter to the 
 family friend, Le Pailleur ; from his father came a still 
 more incisive rejoinder. Angry as Stephen was, he made 
 effective play with the Jesuit's foolish and fantastic language. 
 ' God grant, Eeverend Sir, that you never become clear- 
 headed enough to ask yourself what all this fine language 
 means.' But he was especially nettled by Noel's incursions 
 into the terminology of his own profession. ' You patter 
 away about indictments like a clerk of arraigns, to show 
 that you know a little of everything.' And his letter ends 
 with a threat strikingly fulfilled some eight years later. 
 ' You have stooped to cheap invectives against a young 
 man without any provocation whatsoever. It may well 
 be that he will one day revenge himself in a way likely 
 to cause you an eternal repentance.' i 
 
 Nor is the ' Letter to Le Pailleur ' altogether unworthy 
 of the assailant of Escobar. Pascal was not at war with 
 Noel the man, so much as with Noel the eclectic mixture 
 of scholastic and Cartesian errors. Not that his attacks 
 were always happy ; his command of metaphysical terms, 
 for instance, was scarcely greater than Noel's own. The 
 Jesuit had begun by maintaining that the space in the 
 tube could not be empty, because its cubic contents could 
 be ascertained ; and, on the Cartesian principle, all that 
 could be measured existed. Pascal was driven back 
 on the lame answer that an empty space stood half-way 
 between nothingness and matter, being distinguished from 
 nothingness by its dimensions, and from matter by its 
 immobility. Noel retorted that such a space was really 
 
 ' Letlre de M. Pascal h Pere au Pere Noel, Pascal, Works, iii. pp. 64, 6ff. 
 
GREAT EXPERIMENT OP PUY-DE-DOME 113 
 
 a body. Pascal answered that he might call it a body as 
 much as he pleased, provided he went on to explain that 
 he used the word in a non-natural, unscientific sense, that 
 did not imply objective existence. Noel said he had 
 just as much right to call the space full as Blaise had to 
 call it empty. Blaise denied having ever insisted that it 
 must be empty ; all he said was that he should continue to 
 call it so, till some one had proved it full of something 
 perceptible to human sense. Noel, on his side, denied that 
 he had ever asserted dogmatically the existence of the 
 imperceptible substance : he had only presupposed it. 
 Blaise answered that presupposing was a dangerous game. 
 ' These imperceptible substances are as difficult to beheve in 
 as they are easy to invent. Writers have before now filled 
 the whole universe with matter of this kind. That is the 
 great advantage of the imagination, that it calls great things 
 into being with as little time and trouble as small, and dis- 
 poses of the elements as though they were its handiwork.' i 
 This was a direct assault on ' subtle matter,' without 
 which Descartes had declared it impossible to explain the 
 mechanism of the universe ; and his faithful disciple goes 
 on to explain that, unless it was taken for granted, there 
 would be no accounting for the transmission of hght. 
 Whereupon Blaise asked him : ' Inasmuch as the nature of 
 light is unknown to you and me, and perhaps never will 
 be known, how can we possibly be sure that it is incom- 
 patible with a vacuum ? ' ^ Nor were matters much mended 
 when Noel tried his hand at a definition, and declared that 
 light was ' a luminous movement of lucid bodies ' — accom- 
 panjdng this with the explanation that luminous meant 
 what was visible to the eye, and lucid what was not so 
 visible. Blaise regretted that this definition left him none 
 the wiser, unless Noel would go on to explain what he 
 
 ' Eeponse de Pascal au P&re Noel, Works, iii. p. 15. 
 2 Ibid. p. 13. 
 
114 PASCAL 
 
 meant by luminous, and what might be the inner significance 
 of lucidity. 
 
 Even less fortunate were the Jesuit's attempts to account 
 for • subtle matter ' itself. Here he is alternately a Cartesian, 
 a scholastic, and an eclectic mixture of the two — each by 
 turns, and nothing long. As Blaise said, he was very much 
 quicker to change his positions than any critic could possibly 
 be to attack them. ' In a very short time, Eeverend Sir,' 
 said Stephen, ' you have called to your assistance the fiery 
 sphere of Aristotle, the subtle matter of M. Descartes, 
 igneous matter, ether, solar spirits, and moving lightness. 
 These are a great number of aUies, who have come a long 
 way to help you ; and yet, if you were put on your oath, I 
 doubt whether you could swear to knowing a single one. 
 . . . You have begun very artistically — I say artistically 
 because I suppose you meant to show your independence of 
 Aristotle, M. Descartes and everybody else— by mixing up 
 the fiery sphere with subtle and with igneous matter. Next, 
 you went to work still more industriously, and mixed into 
 the mixture a composite of your own, made up of solar 
 spirits and ether. Lastly, you threw into the compound a 
 mysterious something called "moving lightness " — I believe 
 it is of your own invention — and on it you bestow the power 
 of raising the heaviest bodies by its own force. Thus you 
 have only managed to escape the consequences of my son's 
 puerile experiments by entangling yourself in a series of 
 miracles with substances whose very nature was unknown 
 to you.' 1 Blaise himself, in a printed letter to the famUy 
 friend, Le Pailleur, drew a more impassioned contrast 
 between the friends and enemies of the vacuum. The first 
 lived at peace and unity among themselves ; the second 
 waged as bitter a war on one another as on the common foe. 
 Some held to ether, some to spirits of mercury, some to air ; 
 others, like Noel, flitted to and fro between one mythical 
 
 ' Works, iii. p. 71. 
 
GREAT EXPERIMENT OP PUY-DE-DOME 115 
 
 substance and another, in the vam hope of seeing Nature 
 change her laws as often as they changed their minds, and 
 accommodate her effects to their fickle resolutions. 
 
 However, the day of triumph was approaching. In 
 November, 1647, Florin Perier had received his brother-in- 
 law's commission, and fixed on the Puy-de-D6me, a high 
 mountain at the back of Clermont, as the place for the 
 decisive experiment. Snow and fog, however, made this 
 impossible during the winter, and in the spring he was called 
 away on Government service to another part of France. 
 It was not till September, 1648, that he could write to 
 Blaise : ' Last Saturday morning, the 19th of this month, 
 the weather was changeable enough ; but as it seemed to 
 settle about five o'clock in the morning, and the summit of 
 the Puy-de-D6me could be seen, I resolved to proceed with 
 the experiment. I immediately sent word to several 
 gentlemen of note in this city — Father Bannier, a Friar 
 Minim, and several times " corrector," or superior of his 
 society, and M. Mosnier, a canon of the cathedral. Also to 
 MM. de la Vnie and Begon, judges of the Court of Exchequer, 
 and Dr. La Porte, a physician in practice here. All of 
 these are men of standing in their several professions, 
 as well as fully equipped in aU branches of polite learning. 
 At eight o'clock we were all assembled in the garden of the 
 Fathers Minim, which is almost the lowest spot in the city. I 
 had with me two tubes of about four feet ia length, and at once 
 proceeded to make the ordinary experiment of the vacuum 
 nine separate times, in each with quicksilver I had rectified 
 during the three days beforehand. In every case the column 
 of quicksilver reached the height of 26 inches, 3| lines. I 
 then marked the level on the glass of one of the tubes and 
 left it in charge of Father Chastier (one of the monks of the 
 house, a man as pious as he is capable, and very skilful in 
 these matters) begging him to keep it under observation, 
 and note any changes that might take place. We then set 
 
116 PASCAL 
 
 out for the summit of the Puy-de-D6me — which is some three 
 thousand feet above the level of the garden — taking with us 
 the second tube, and some of the quicksilver already used. 
 On arriving there I again performed the experiment, and 
 found that the quicksilver only reached the height of 23 
 inches, 2 lines — being no less than 3 inches, 1^ lines 
 lower than the column in the garden. This so surprised 
 and delighted us that we repeated the experiment five times, 
 always with the same result, in the little chapel under cover, 
 in the wind, in rain and in fine weather. On our return 
 we again repeated it at a place called Lafon de 1' Arbre, more 
 than half-way down the mountain. This time the column 
 reached the height of precisely 25 inches. M. Mosnier 
 had the curiosity to try the experiment a second time, 
 with the same result ; and our satisfaction was not a little 
 increased at seeing the height of the column diminish in 
 exact proportion to the altitude of the spot. Finally we 
 returned to the garden, where we found the other tube still 
 at its original height, and Father Chastier reported that it 
 had not varied throughout the day, although the weather 
 had been very changeable. I then performed the experi- 
 ment again with both tubes, using the same quicksilver and 
 basin as I had had on the mountain, and found that both 
 gave a like result — 26 inches, 3| lines. This afforded us a 
 final proof of the certainty of our experiment.' i 
 
 By this time Blaise had got worked up to a state of 
 almost religious fervour. His letter to Perier pictures the 
 excitement ' not only among our curious friends in Paris,' 
 but also among the foreign correspondents of Mersenne 
 ' in Italy, Poland, Sweden, Holland.' Now he was able to 
 write : ' Inasmuch as my experiment, by a singular stroke 
 of fortune, was famous before ever it was made, I feel con- 
 fident that it will not become less illustrious now that it is 
 performed, and that the satisfaction it gives will more than 
 
 ' Ricit de la Orande Expirience, Works, iii. pp. 141-143. 
 
GREAT EXPERIMENT OF PUY-DE-DOME 117 
 
 equal the impatience caused by its delay.' At once he issued 
 an account under the imposing title : The Great Experiment 
 of the Puy-de-D6me ; and therewith threw a final challenge 
 into the scholastic camp. ' Let the disciples of Aristotle 
 collect together all the strongest passages of their master 
 and his commentators, and justify horror of the vacuum, if 
 they can. If not, let them acknowledge that in Physics 
 experiment is our true master ; and that these researches on 
 the mountain-top have killed a universal superstition — and 
 established an imperishable truth — namely, that Nature 
 has no horror of a vacuum, that she does nothing to avoid 
 it, and that all the efforts hitherto set down to this imaginary 
 cause may be fully accounted for by the pressure of the 
 air.'i 
 
 The Great Experiment was its author's most dramatic 
 contribution to physics. If the original impulse came from 
 Torricelli, the honour of turning his conjecture into a cer- 
 tainty, and of converting the world thereto, belongs to 
 Pascal alone. Nor did its publication exhaust his interest 
 in the matter. New problems forced themselves upon him. 
 If the quicksilver varied inversely to the altitude of the 
 place of observation, could it not be used for measuring the 
 height of mountains ? Investigation, however, proved that 
 the question was not as simple as it seemed ; and Pascal 
 began a series of researches — brought to a victorious close 
 some thirty years later by our countryman, Edmund Halley 
 — into the true proportion between atmospheric density and 
 height above the sea. Still more urgent was another prob- 
 lem, already noticed by Torricelli. Not content with 
 altering its level at different altitudes, the height of the 
 quicksilver often varied from hour to hour in the same 
 place. Much poring over weather-charts brought Pascal 
 to the conclusion that the variations depended on changes 
 of temperature and in the force of the wind. Here again 
 
 ' Works, iii. p. 128. 
 
118 PASCAL 
 
 Pascal's researches were continued by an Englishman. 
 As an appendix to his two little posthumous treatises — 
 dealing respectively with the equiUbrium of liquids and the 
 weight of the atmosphere — his brother-in-law printed a 
 long account of certain ' nouvelles experiences faites en 
 Angleterre par im gentilhomme anglois, nomme M. Boyle.' 
 This gentleman, it need scarcely be said, was the illustrious 
 Robert, father of chemistry and uncle of the Earl of Cork. 
 
 The two little treatises aforesaid, composed at some date 
 unknown, between 1650 and 1654, show their author in a 
 new Ught. The Pascal of the Puy-de-D6me had been a pure 
 experimentahst ; the Pascal of the Treatises, although stiU 
 wedded as firmly as ever to his test-tubes, foreshadows 
 the Pascal of later days, everywhere resolute to bring out the 
 underlying unity of things. ' Nature imitates herself,' 
 he will write in the ' Pensees.' ' A seed lodges in good soil, 
 and sprouts. An idea lodges in a good brain, and also 
 sprouts. Numbers imitate space, although their natures 
 are so different. All is made and ordered by one Master — 
 roots, branches, fruits, premises and conclusions.' ^ In 
 other words, nature works everywhere by analogy. What 
 is true of the realm of matter is also true of the realm of 
 mind. A tree, as Hegel said, grows like a syllogism ; and 
 the ideal concepts of the mathematician spontaneously obey 
 the same laws as the movements of material space. The 
 germs of this conception have already struck root in the 
 Treatises. There Pascal starts from the position that air 
 and quicksilver, gases and liquids, are not separate ' Elements * 
 after the scholastic pattern. They are simply different 
 modes of a single substance, and their fundamental proper- 
 ties correspond in every way with those of sohd bodies. 
 It is not due to an irresponsible caprice of nature that 
 atmospheric pressure keeps the quicksilver up in a tube. 
 Hard as the saying may seem to common sense, air is just 
 
 1 Pens. 119. 
 
GEEAT EXPEEIMENT OF PUY-DE-DOME 119 
 
 as much a ponderable mass as water, water as stone or iron. 
 Here, however, Pascal was affronting an authority more 
 venerable than common sense. Aristotelianism had grown 
 old in the belief that the elements exercised no pressure in 
 themselves ; water did not weigh in water, nor did air 
 in air. This was proved by elaborate deduction from the 
 commonplace fact that a full bucket is much easier to move 
 when floating on the water, than when it is on dry land. 
 ' As though,' cried Pascal, ' water could gain weight by being 
 drawn, and lose it again when poured back into the well. 
 Strange indeed are the devices whereby men try to hide their 
 ignorance. As they cannot tell how the water makes its 
 pressure felt, they sacrifice truth to vanity, and deny the 
 existence of the pressure.' i 
 
 So Pascal determined to make this sacrifice of truth to 
 vanity impossible for the future, by showing exactly how the 
 water made its pressure felt. At the outset he was largely 
 guided by the Flemish mathematician, Simon Stevin of 
 Bruges, father of hydrostatics. Stevin made clear to him 
 that the amount of pressure exercised by a liquid may be out 
 of all proportion to its intrinsic weight. In particular, 
 he showed that, if two tubes of water be taken of equal 
 height, but very different diameters, the amount of force 
 required to dislodge a stopper from their base will be pre- 
 cisely equal in both cases. But was this pressure peculiar 
 to the base of the tube ? Profiting largely by the researches 
 of the ItaHan savant, Gianbattista Benedetti, Pascal tried 
 a new experiment. He took a closed vessel, having two 
 openings at the top, one large and the other small. Into the 
 small opening he fitted a tube, and filled it with water. Into 
 the large opening he put a tube furnished with a piston, or 
 sliding plug. He found that, in order to counterbalance the 
 weight of the water in the small tube, it was necessary to 
 load the plug with weights enormously heavier than the 
 
 1 Works, iii. p. 126. 
 
120 PASCAL 
 
 weight of the water. So soon as these weights were lessened, 
 the water in the small tube began to sink, and the piston 
 was forced upwards. Evidently, therefore, ' a few drops of 
 water can hold heavy weights in equilibrium.' And the 
 same thing happens, if the small tube was fitted with a 
 piston. The more it was pressed down, the heavier must be 
 the weights on the piston in the large tube. ' Hence it 
 follows that if one piston be a hundred times as large as the 
 other, the force of one man acting at the first wiU balance 
 that of a hundred men acting at the other. Thus a vessel 
 full of water is a new mechanical principle, capable of 
 multiplying forces to any degree we choose.' i 
 
 Thus did Pascal arrive at the principle of the hydrauhc 
 press. He also arrived at an astounding paradox. How 
 was it possible that one man, working at the smaller piston, 
 should balance the force of a hundred men working at the 
 larger ? An experiment of GaHleo's put Pascal on the way 
 to an answer. The philosopher took the case of two tubes 
 of very different heights and diameters, communicating by 
 a channel at their base. How was it possible to keep water 
 at the same level in both ? Why did not the large body of 
 Hquid in the wider tube sink, and force the water in the 
 smaller tube upwards ? Galileo answered that it was 
 because the amount of momentum required to send a small 
 quantity of water quickly up a narrow tube was equal to 
 the amount involved in the much slower descent of a larger 
 body of water. He himself compared the principle to that 
 of the Roman scales. There a weight of 21b counter- 
 balanced a weight of 200, because the smaller weight 
 had to travel a hundred times as far as the larger in the 
 same space of time. These views of Galileo were much 
 discussed between Descartes and Merserme. Descartes 
 maintained that Galileo was wrong in laying his whole 
 stress on the time spent in moving from one point to 
 ' Works, p. 85. 
 
GEEAT EXPERIMENT OF PUY-DE-DOME 121 
 
 another ; the vital question was not the time, but the 
 amount of distance covered. This led him to the general 
 principle, apphcable to all machines, that exactly the 
 same degree of force is necessary to raise 200ib one foot 
 or to raise lib two hundred. Pascal, seizing on this principle, 
 at once applied it to his hydraulic press. ' One must rejoice 
 to find,' he says, ' that this new machine obeys the same 
 rule as is always found in old ones, such as the lever or the 
 endless screw ; and that the distance should be increased in 
 the same proportion as the force. For it is clear that, if 
 one of the openings be a hundred times as large as the other, 
 the man at the small piston will, by pushing it forward an 
 inch, only drive back the other a hundredth part of an inch ; 
 and thus distance is to distance as is force to force.' i That 
 being so, Pascal could pride himself on having discovered 
 one more instance of ' Nature imitating herself ' ; the work- 
 ings of his new machine conformed entirely to the general 
 principles of statics. Now, however, stepped forward 
 Torricelli to strengthen his thesis with a ' proof perhaps only 
 intelligible to geometers, that may be passed over by the rest 
 of the world.' Its gist was that, if two bodies were connected 
 together by a lever, pulley or other mechanism, they would 
 remain in equilibrium, unless their common centre of gravity 
 descended. Pascal had small trouble in showing that his 
 two pistons were so connected. ' Let us, therefore, rest 
 assured that, if proportionate forces be applied to the open- 
 ings in a vessel of water, they will balance each other ; 
 and that this is the true reason and the foundation of the 
 equilibrium of liquids.' ^ 
 
 Thus Pascal's little treatises were far from being prolem 
 sine matre creatam ; every step forwards had been fore- 
 shadowed by some earlier inquirer. But 'none of these had 
 ever thought of treating the Great Experiment as a mere 
 ' particular case of the equilibrium of hquids,' or of conceiving 
 
 > Works, iii. pp. 85, 86. ^ Page 87. 
 
122 PASCAL 
 
 that equilibrium itself as a twin phenomenon with the lever 
 or the endless screw. Here lay the great originality of Pascal. 
 ' The truths that make up hydrostatics have already been 
 discovered,' writes Duhem.i 'But the scattered materials 
 lie pell-mell in a disorderly heap, waiting for the man who 
 will combine them into a harmonious and coherent whole. 
 That man was Pascal. He did not wish to bring forward 
 novelties so much as to arrange and organise what others 
 had said before him. Nor did he think this task unworthy 
 of his genius, for no mean endowments were required to 
 bring it to an issue. Nor is his example altogether unin- 
 structive in our own time. The physicists of to-day do not 
 stint their admiration for a new fact or a hitherto undetected 
 law ; but they have few words of praise for those who strive 
 to classify the facts discovered by others, or to seize the 
 underlying principle in the laws formulated by inventors. 
 Are they not afraid of falling under Pascal's condemnation ? 
 " All these people have seen the effects, but they do not see 
 the causes. They stand to those who have discovered the 
 causes much as men who only have eyes stand to those 
 who also have a brain ; for the effects are visible to the senses, 
 but the causes are only visible to the mind. And, although 
 these particular effects are in a certain sense seen by the 
 mind, the mind that sees them stands to the mind that also 
 sees the causes, much as our bodilj^ senses stand to pure 
 
 ' ie Principe de Pascal, in Eevue Qentrale des Sciences for July 16, 
 1905. My last four paragraphs are a mere summary of this remarkable 
 article. 
 
 2 Pascal, Pens. 234. 
 
OHAPTEE VIII 
 
 A BACKSLIDER 
 
 ' Scientific abstractions long held me captive,' wrote 
 Pascal in his ' Pensees,' ' but I lost all taste for them, when I 
 found how much they cut me off from my neighbours.' 
 The Pascal of the Great Experiment was far from making 
 this discovery ; Archimedes at the sack of Syracuse did not 
 show a greater detachment from the storm and stress around 
 him. Yet the air was thick enough with clouds, when he 
 and Jacqueline came to Paris in September, 1647. Just a 
 twelvemonth after their arrival were put up the first barri- 
 cades of the Fronde, the last organised protest of French 
 independence against the new system set on foot by Riche- 
 lieu, and now controlled by Mazarin. Not that the protest 
 was either dignified or effective. The Fronde was so called 
 from its likeness to the slinging-matches then popular 
 among the street-boys of Paris. And the nickname well 
 expresses the childish petulance of the whole movement. 
 It was not so much a blow for liberty as a spasmodic coali- 
 tion of heterogeneous interests, whose one bond of union 
 was that aU alike saw their existence threatened by the rising 
 tide of autocracy. Princes and great lords were in it, 
 because they wanted to preserve their feudal independence. 
 Judges were in it, because they wanted a stricter observance 
 of their constitutional forms. Burgesses were in it, because 
 they wanted an abatement of their taxes. Mobs were in it, 
 
 123 
 
124 PASCAL 
 
 because they wanted disorder for its own sake. Yet this 
 mighty coalition proved an ignominious faihire. The 
 Frondeurs rose against the Government ; they turned the 
 boy-King out of Paris, and his Cardinal Minister out of 
 Pra.nce ; they plunged the whole country into civil war. But 
 when power came to them, they did not know what to make 
 of it . Each group in their alliance was at daggers drawn with 
 all the rest, and each individual with his group. So soon as 
 fortune began to waver, everyone rushed off to make the best 
 terms for himself he could with the Court at the expense 
 of everyone else. Gaily the Frondeur took the field with his 
 mouth full of fine phrases about liberty, justice and the con- 
 stitution. He rode home shamefacedly, all the fine phrases 
 gone, profoundly thankful to have saved his precious skin. 
 "With such an example before his eyes, well might Pascal 
 declare that the trend towards self was the beginning of all 
 evil in war, in civil government, in households, even in the 
 body of man. 
 
 These reflections, however, belong to a later date. In 
 1648 Pascal's mind was divided between atmospheric pres- 
 sure and the ' Augustinus ' ; he had little time to waste on poli- 
 tics. What did it matter to him whether Cardinal Mazarin 
 kept the State-patronage, or was forced to hand it over to 
 the Duke of Orleans or the Prince of Conde ? He was far 
 more keen on finding a final answer to Father Noel. Besides, 
 the son of an Intendant could have little sympathy with the 
 Fronde ; for the suppression of Intendants was one of its 
 principal demands. They were Richelieu's tax-gatherers, 
 the most outward and visible sign of his system ; and on 
 them fell the thunders of the outraged Parlement de Paris, 
 so soon as that venerable body plucked up courage to speak 
 out. 
 
 Dfes la premiere ouverture 
 II revoqua les Intendants, 
 Dans la campagne brigandants. 
 
A BACKSLIDER 125 
 
 Maudits tyranneaux, demy-princes, 
 Malheurs attaches aux provinces, 
 Facteurs du defunct Richelieu, 
 Fleaux quatriSmes de Dieu, 
 
 sings a political rhymester of the time. Stephen Pascal 
 only escaped dismissal by resigning his post in May, 1648. 
 He was made a Privy Councillor, and presently joined his 
 son and daughter in Paris. 
 
 He found them both embarked on the full tide of Jansen- 
 ism. Very soon after their arrival they paid their first visit 
 to the great citadel of the party, Port Royal de Paris ; for 
 the original convent in the country. Port Royal des Champs, 
 had been temporarily abandoned as unhealthy. Here they 
 were received by Rebours, one of the chaplains. ' He wel- 
 comed me in the friendliest way,' Blaise wrote to Gilberte 
 Perier, ' though of course all the civility was on my father's 
 account. I asked leave to come again from time to time, 
 and this he granted ; so I shall treat this first visit simply 
 as a breaking of the ice. Soon afterwards I went back there, 
 and told him that we had seen their books and those of their 
 opponents, which was as good as saying that we were on their 
 side. This seemed to please him ; and I went on to say that 
 I thought several of their positions could be defended on 
 common-sense principles of reasoning, although, of course, 
 we ought to believe them without the help of reason. 
 These were my very words ; and I don't think there was 
 anything in them to offend the strictest. However, as you 
 know, all our actions may have two sources ; and I might 
 have been led to speak as I did by vanity and confidence in 
 reason. This he evidently suspected — all the more so 
 since he knew that I had made a special study of geometry. 
 His answer was so full of humility that it would certainly 
 have disarmed the pride he wished to rebuke. However, 
 as I was not in the state he supposed, I tried to make my 
 motives clear. But the more I tried, the more he persisted. 
 
126 PASCAL 
 
 because he mistook my explanations for hardness of heart. 
 So that we started on a false footing, which I have never been 
 able to set right.' 
 
 This letter shows a generous independence of bearing 
 towards the clergymen of his own party, a quality never 
 wanting in Blaise. But perhaps it also shows that Rebours' 
 instincts led him right, and that the brilliant young geometer 
 before him had never undergone a real conversion. No 
 doubt, Blaise was willing enough to subscribe all the formu- 
 las of the ' Augustinus,' and cast in his lot with the party — 
 that is, he had made up his mind to think about religion 
 in a Jansenist manner, in so far as he thought about it at all. 
 But he certainly was not prepared to give up everything for 
 his Maker. No true convert could have written, as he 
 wrote in one of his ' Prayers in Sickness ' : ' my God, how 
 happy is the soul that can love so ravishing an object as 
 Thyself ; where the attraction does it no dishonour, the alli- 
 ance is so full of benefit.' Love of God, as understood at 
 Port Koyal, did not busy itself with these questions of 
 'honour.' Then, too, the Great Experiment stood in the 
 way of conversion. It is true that Port Royal was the home 
 of more than one man of science ; Saint Cyran, first and 
 greatest of its directors, had allowed not only metaphysics, 
 but ' cosmography, cosmology, mathematics and meteors ' 
 as well, to such students as could draw from them fresh 
 knowledge of the ways of God. But was Pascal seriously 
 willing always to bear this condition in mind ? Could he 
 go on weighing the air simply as a means of holiness ? Did 
 he care nothing for the celebrity of his Great Experiment ? 
 If he did care, Port Royal found him guilty of pride. For 
 pride, as any Jansenist director was willing to explain, did 
 not he so much in the silly vanity of claiming qualities 
 one had not got as in the far more dangerous vice of pluming 
 oneself on one's real achievements. Whoever did so was 
 a thief, in that he robbed God of a glory appertaining to 
 
A BACKSLIDEE 127 
 
 Him alone. It was here, and not in commonplace austeri- 
 ties of prayer and fasting, that Blaise felt the pinch of 
 Jansenist asceticism. 
 
 Nor was this the only line of cleavage between Pascal 
 and his Jansenist friends. As the interview with Eebomrs 
 shows, he still believed in ' reason ' — that is, in the geo- 
 metrical spirit, which stood for reason in its most militant, 
 though not altogether most impressive or sympathetic, dress. 
 And the geometrical spirit must needs stamp its own char- 
 acteristics on the religion of its adherents. They were all 
 for clearness and order. Every behef and every obligation 
 must be set out in definite black and white ; their Chris- 
 tianity — as the Cambridge tutor said of Paley's ' Evidences ' 
 — must be put into a form capable of being written out at 
 examinations. But Jansen and Archdeacon Paley stood 
 at opposite poles of thought. At Eouen, where he only 
 knew the Jansenism of books, Pascal might mistake the 
 ' Augustinus ' for a work informed by the geometrical spirit ; 
 but the Jansenism of actual practice soon showed him his 
 mistake. He found that Port Eoyal was not fighting for 
 a dogmatic system ; it was entering an energetic protest 
 against the erection of such systems. Its great work was to 
 insist that religion is an obscure, incalculable force, about 
 whose movements men know little ; hence all attempts to 
 fit it into a logical strait-jacket are necessarily failures. 
 ' Indignum et vix tolerandum est,' cried Saint Cyran, 
 ' doctrinam fidei ad puerUia principia logicae, vel omnino ad 
 humanae mentis captiunculas revocari. Hoc puerile et 
 logicum, non virile, non theologicum est.' On many a 
 page of vigorous invective he held up to scorn the Jesuit 
 ludi-magistri — chief upholders of the geometrical spirit in 
 its Catholic dress — who spent their best years teaching 
 elementary logic to little boys ; late in life, they took 
 to theology, and at once proceeded to expoimd the inmost 
 secrets of the universe in the light of barhara and haralifton. 
 
128 PASCAL 
 
 But barhara and haralipton proved blind guides in matters 
 of religion. Pascal wiU speak for his whole school, when he 
 presently classes the ' logicians ' with heretics, thieves and 
 Mahometan soldiers, as criminals who have broken through 
 every law of God and man, the more exactly to obey some 
 mad code of their own devising. 
 
 In short, the Jansenist God was a Deus ahsconditus, who 
 revealed His will in sudden, unexpected flashes. Agnes 
 Arnauld was always bidding her nuns observe how un- 
 reasonable his reason was ; and Pascal only gave mathe- 
 matical colouring to the same idea, when he said that there 
 was more proportion between a unit and infinity than 
 between man's justice and the justice of God. Rehgion 
 was essentially a mystery ; a thing given, to be received by 
 man in humble silence. His purblind faculties could make 
 nothing of it ; and therefore any attempt on his part to 
 outrun the Teacher, and begin interpreting on his own 
 account, must end in sure disaster. Nor had Port Royal 
 far to look for instances of such disaster. The ludi-magistri 
 were the first and most obvious danger ; but, before many 
 years were out, Pascal wiU discover that there were ' logicians ' 
 abroad more formidable than any Jesuit. Press him, and 
 even a theologian would admit that there were mysteries in 
 religion beyond his power to solve ; whereas the adepts of 
 Cartesianism admitted no mysteries at all. Their ' geo 
 metrical God ' must keep no secrets from the eye of human 
 reason ; He must be transparent through and through. 
 And on the heels of Descartes would soon come Spinoza — 
 still more rigorously scientific — to prove by theorem and 
 lemma that God's nature could not possibly be otherwise 
 than what his diagrams made it. Nor would Spinoza be 
 the last term in the series. Nobody knew better than Pascal 
 that all these philosophers were obeying a perfectly natural 
 human impulse. Jansen had shown how quick our mind 
 is to drag all things down to its level ; and at the Paris 
 
A BACKSLIDER 129 
 
 Club Pascal had opportunities enough of seeing that its 
 readiness to lay down the law commonly varies in inverse 
 proportion to its knowledge of the facts. Witness the 
 great Cartesian dogma of universal mechanism. But that 
 dogma had not withstood the onslaughts of the experimental 
 school. Pascal himself had a large share in proving that 
 all we really know of nature is what nature deigns to tell 
 us, when interrogated through a test-tube. Why not, 
 then, apply the same method to religion ? Why not say 
 frankly that all we know of God is what He pleases to 
 reveal ? ' We know the existence and nature of the finite, 
 because we also are finite and extended. We know the 
 existence of the infinite, because it is extended, like us ; 
 we do not know its nature, because, unlike us, it has no 
 bounds. But about the existence and nature of God we 
 can tell nothing whatever, because He has neither bounds 
 nor extension. He is infinitely incomprehensible ; we cannot 
 say what He is, or even that He is. But by faith we know 
 His existence ; in glory we shall know His nature.' 
 
 The natural corollary of this position was Jansen's 
 doctrine of conversion. And conversion implied a miracu- 
 lous Power suddenly shooting down into men's lives ; as the 
 phrase went, they were ' touched by God ' at some definite 
 moment and in an unmistakable manner. Thenceforward 
 they were beings apart. It was not simply that they aimed 
 at higher standards than their neighbours ; they brought 
 a quite other logic into play, and appealed to different 
 sanctions of right conduct. ' The just live by faith, sensible 
 men of the world by reason, while fools live by their fancy ' 
 was a favourite saying at Port Eoyal. And the life of 
 faith meant life in accordance with a new supernatural 
 instinct only awakened at conversion, and altogether 
 beyond the purview of unregenerate man. This was the 
 famous Inner Light of Puritan theology. ' Here is,' says 
 Jonathan Edwards, ' a new spiritual faculty, which in its 
 
130 PASCAL 
 
 whole nature differs from all former kinds of sensations of 
 the mind, as tasting is diverse from any of the other senses. 
 It consists primarily in a cordial sense, or sense of heart, of 
 God's spiritual beauty. I say "sense of heart," for it is not 
 speculation merely that is concerned ; nor can there be any 
 clear distinction between the two faculties of understanding 
 and will, as acting distinctly and separately in the matter. 
 This holy taste or relish distinguishes between good and evil 
 without being at the trouble of a train of reasoning ; just 
 as the nature and tendency of a heavy body, let fall from 
 a height, shows the way to the centre of the earth more 
 exactly in a moment than the ablest mathematician could 
 determine by his most accurate observations in a whole 
 day.' 
 
 At first sight this ' spiritual sense ' seems a peaceful 
 quality enough, and a lineal forerunner of the moral faculty 
 of Shaftesbury and Francis Hutcheson. But in its primitive 
 theological forms spiritual sense was anything but peaceful ; 
 when coupled with a strong doctrine of conversion, it easily 
 encouraged belief in miracles and portents, in ' thunder- 
 claps and visible upsets of grace.' No doubt, the outward 
 badge of Port Royal was a grave sobriety, like that tradition- 
 ally associated with our English Quakers ; but scratch a 
 little deeper, and there will be found ' enthusiasm ' in plenty 
 among the penitents of Saint Cyran. Not a few of them 
 put some very lurid glosses on his maxim that, in a true 
 conversion, God must speak once to the soul as directly as 
 on the road to Damascus He spoke to St. Paul, model of 
 all penitents. And Jesuit gossips vied with each other in 
 collecting good stories of Saint Cyran's own inspirational 
 eccentricities. In Father Rapin's ' Memoirs ' may be read 
 at length how Cardinal de BeruUe said that he was eaten up 
 with desire to think differently from everyone else ; how 
 Cardinal Richelieu said that, being a Basque, his entrails 
 were all on fire, and he naturally mistook his vapours for 
 
A BACKSLIDEE 131 
 
 celestial truths. More dispassionate observers came to the 
 same conclusion. Chapelain, the great literary critic, came 
 to admire, but went away bewildered by this strange Abbe, 
 who never argued a subject out, but leapt from one point 
 to another in broken, incoherent phrases. But the faithful 
 disciple and biographer, Claude Lancelot, lets the world 
 into his master's secret. ' Often have I known his discourse 
 sweep upwards like an eagle, and then suddenly stop short. 
 For fear lest that might alarm us, he would say : " It is not 
 because I have nothing to tell you, but because so many 
 ideas are crowding into my mind that I am looking to God 
 to see whether or not I ought to continue." ' 
 
 What seemed so admirable to Lancelot must needs appear 
 in a very different light to a young enthusiast for the geo- 
 metrical spirit, even were his intellectual conscience less 
 tender than that of Blaise Pascal — about to fret himself 
 over the question whether mathematics were quite as 
 certain as they professed to be, having regard to their 
 admitted incapacity to prove their own first principles. If 
 Euclid's axioms were not safe, truly the intuitions of Saint 
 Cyran were in evil case. Pascal had been attracted to the 
 ' Augustinus ' and its sober logic ; but now that sobriety 
 dissolved away into an audacious supernaturalism, and 
 every rational check on action was swept aside in favour of 
 a miraculous grace, unverified and unverifiable. Besides, 
 he was no longer at Eouen, among scientific men no more 
 formidable than Guiffart or Pierius ; he was back in Paris 
 among the old friends of the Club. There old habits of 
 thought returned iu full force, and made the mysticism of 
 Saint Cyran seem all the more fantastic and unreal. No 
 wonder, then, that he drew back ; although at first the 
 change was slow. For some months after their arrival in 
 Paris perfect harmony reigned between him and Jacqueline. 
 In the winter of 1647 she confided to him her wish to become 
 a nun at Port Boyal, Blaise entered warmly into the 
 
 E 2 
 
132 PASCAL 
 
 project, and escorted her to the convent, where they were 
 kindly received by Angelique Arnaiild, and passed on to 
 Singlin, the chief confessor of the convent. After one 
 interview he told Blaise that he had never seen in anyone 
 clearer signs of a vocation. But Stephen's children knew 
 that their father would be of a different opinion, and neither 
 dared to write to Eouen. However, in May, 1648, Stephen 
 came to Paris, and Singlin insisted on his being told at 
 once. Blaise undertook the ungrateful task ; whereupon 
 his father flew into a passion, accused hina of unfiHal con- 
 duct, and put Jacqueline under the surveillance e* Ijer old 
 nurse. Thenceforward she could only visit Port-Eoyal by 
 stealth ; though she managed to keep up a correspondence 
 with the nuns, and lived as far as was possible hke a nun 
 herself. Her only outside occupation was to collaborate 
 with Blaise in occasional letters to Mme. Perier. The last 
 of these was written in November, 1648, a few weeks after 
 the carrying out of the Great Experiment. 
 
 Some time in the ensuing winter, her brother's estrange- 
 ment from Port Royal began. In March, 1649, she wrote to 
 Mme. Perier, bidding her pray God to enlighten the hearts 
 of certain persons rather than their intellects, and manifest 
 in them an occult force, whose potency was wondrous. 
 These veiled phrases refer to Blaise, escaping from the power 
 of grace. Her prayer was not granted. Her brother's 
 return to science was just at that moment being hastened 
 by a series of scientific successes. On the heels of the Great 
 Experiment followed the perfecting of the arithmetical 
 machine, for which a new patent was granted in May, in 
 terms most flattering to the inventor. About the same 
 time came his breach with Professor Eoberval, the great 
 enemy of Descartes ; good Cartesians had long seen in him 
 the enemy who kept the whole Pascal family from acknow- 
 ledging their master. However, the bellicose professor was 
 suddenly moved to fulminate against ' Libertines and 
 
A BACKSLIDER 133 
 
 Deists ' ; and Blaise, who rated his orthodoxy higher than 
 his metaphysical powers, vainly tried to make him hold his 
 tongue. Whether the resulting quarrel was cause or effect, 
 there is no evidence to determine ; but from this time 
 Pascal's religious ideas began to drift in a Cartesian direction. 
 The mysticism of Port Eoyal he had not yet inwardly 
 digested. Is it, then, a great wonder if he dropped it for a 
 moment, in favour of a theology more in accord with the 
 geometrical spirit? 
 
 At this point Stephen intervened. In May, 1649, he 
 hurried both of his children off to Clermont, to save them 
 from two opposite dangers — one from becoming a nun at 
 Port Royal, the other from forsaking Port Royal altogether. 
 Just a twelvemonth later, Blaise escaped from the eye of 
 his family, and came back to Paris. There, at some mathe- 
 matical gathering, he fell in with the young Duke of Roannez, 
 an aristocrat of scientific tastes and fond of the society of 
 learned men. A close alliance was struck up between 
 them. Pascal gave the Duke informal lessons in geometry ; 
 Roannez repaid his tutor by taking him into the world of 
 fashion. This introduction to the salons had momentous 
 effects. Pascal had broken away from Port Royal in the 
 name of the geometrical spirit ; now he stood on the thresh- 
 old of a realm where that spirit was scarcely more held in 
 honour than at Port Eoyal itself. And the history of the 
 next few years will be a history of how his belief in argument, 
 as a sovereign guide through all the practical complexities 
 of life, gradually declined and fell. 
 
 However, this new page in his life was hardly turned, 
 when there came a sudden check. In September, 1651, 
 Stephen Pascal died, after a very short illness. The shock 
 brought back some half-effaced memories to the mind of 
 his son ; and in a stately letter to Mme. Perier Blaise 
 showed that he still could speak the dialect of Port Eoyal. 
 But his return was only for the moment. The ink on his 
 
134 PASCAL 
 
 pen was scarcely dry, before he burst out into bitter re- 
 proaches against Jacqueline for wishing to leave him, and 
 take the veil. She answered that she had promised to wait 
 during her father's lifetime ; now he was gone, she felt 
 herself free. During a few weeks she remained at home, 
 while the lawyers were at work on Stephen's will, for certain 
 complicated financial transactions were made necessary 
 on her brother's account. Although he had a handsome 
 salary at Rouen, Stephen's private fortune was not large, 
 and a third share in it was little enough for one who lived in 
 daily intercourse with dukes. But Jacqueline was willing 
 to do anything for her brother, except remain away from 
 the cloister. During the autumn she made over to him her 
 whole share in her father's personal property, conditionally 
 on her taking the veil. All was now ready for her flight, 
 and January 4, 1652, was fixed on as the date. ' The 
 day beforehand,' says Mme. Perier, ' my sister asked me 
 to give my brother some hint of her intention, so that he 
 should not be too much taken by surprise. I was as careful 
 as I could, and made out that she was only going by way of 
 an experiment, to see what that sort of life was like. But 
 he was very much distressed, and went off to his room with- 
 out going in to see my sister, who was in the Uttle side-room 
 she had turned into an oratory. There she stayed till he had 
 gone, as she thought that seeing her would only increase 
 his pain. I gave her the messages he had left with me, 
 and then we, too, went to bed. But although I fully approved 
 of what she was doing, and thought it the greatest blessing 
 that could happen to her, I was so much overcome that I 
 did not close my eyes all night. About seven o'clock, as 
 she showed no signs of stirring, I thought that perhaps she 
 had not slept, and went over to her bed, but found her fast 
 asleep. The noise I made awoke her, and she asked what 
 time it was. I told her, and she said that she felt very 
 well, and had had an excellent night. Then she got up 
 
A BACKSLIDER 135 
 
 and dressed with perfect calmness and self-control. We 
 did not bid each other good-bye, for fear of breaking down ; 
 indeed, I hurried out of the way when I saw that she was 
 ready to start. Thus did my sister leave the world, in the 
 seven-and-twentieth year of her age.' 
 
CHAPTEE IX 
 
 THE CHEVALIEE DE MERE 
 
 Once established at Port Royal, Jacqueline passed almost 
 out of her brother's life. Every now and then he went to 
 see her ; and in the summer of 1652 he made a desperate 
 attempt to get her to delay a few months before she ' re- 
 ceived her habit ' — that is, formally put on monastic dress. 
 But Jacqueline refused to wait ; on Trinity Sunday, 1652, 
 she was enrolled as a novice. A year later, her novitiate was 
 over, and she was anxious to take the vows. On doing so, 
 it was usual for a nun to pay over a ' dowry ' to the funds 
 of her convent. But all Jacqueline's personal property 
 was now in the hands of her brother, and her share in her 
 father's real estate was equally unavailable ; Stephen's 
 three heirs had bound themselves not to dispose of their 
 respective portions without each other's consent. This 
 arrangement the Periers refused to disturb. Excellent 
 Jansenists as they were, they had a large and increasing 
 family ; and, as Jacqueline said, they took the matter in an 
 altogether worldly spirit. Remained only Blaise, but he 
 had been living beyond his means since he took to the com- 
 pany of dukes. However, the great Abbess Angelique 
 made light of the dowry, and offered to admit Jacqueline 
 for nothing. She strictly forbade her to put any pressure 
 on her relatives. ' They may not be rich in this world's 
 goods,' she said, ' but they are very rich in affection, and 
 
 136 
 
THE CHEVALIER DE MIER^ 187 
 
 that must be kept alive at all costs.' But Jacqueline's 
 heart was sore at the thought of being taken in out of 
 charity. Besides, the old confessor, Singlin, came forward 
 with a characteristic scruple. Unless Jacqueline gave her 
 brother a chance of doing his duty, she would become a 
 partaker in his sin. So it was settled that she should write 
 to Blaise. But when her letter brought him to the convent, 
 a fresh point of conscience uprose. Angelique was afraid lest 
 he should give the money merely to please his sister, and that, 
 on Jansenist principles, would be sacrilege — doing God service 
 for the sake of man. So she insisted on seeing him herself. 
 ' Sir,' she said, ' either give us this money as a charity, or 
 do not give it at all. For, mark you, we have learnt from 
 M. de Saint Cyran to take only what comes from God for 
 the service of His House.' Blaise was overcome with 
 surprise, and admitted that Angelique had spoken with 
 marvellous force. As for the lawyer in attendance, his 
 amazement knew no bounds ; for the corporate avarice of 
 nuns was proverbial throughout Prance. However, in the 
 end the deed of gift was signed, and on June 5, 1653, 
 Jacqueline was professed a nun. 
 
 The business of the dowry once settled, Blaise returned 
 to the world. Ever since his friendship with Roannez 
 began, he had been studying the world, as exemplified in 
 Paris drawing-rooms ; nor could he well have chosen a 
 more auspicious moment. Henri Quatre and Richelieu 
 had worked a social revolution when they turned the old 
 French feudal monarchy into an administrative despotism. 
 The civil servant grew to be a power in the land ; and with 
 him rose the financial underwriters of the ministry, bankers, 
 tax-farmers, and big Government contractors. Even 
 authors gained something by this elevation of the middle 
 class, though a strong taint of Grub Street still clung about 
 their profession. All these various groups of men were 
 now drawn together to a common focus ; for on the 
 
138 PASCAL 
 
 centralisation of the executive followed the exaltation of 
 the capital. Paris had at all times taken more than its 
 due share in national affairs ; Fenelon in ' Telemaque ' com- 
 pares it to a huge, misshapen head set on a feeble and ill- 
 nourished trunk. Under Henry IV and his successors the 
 head had grown more huge than ever before. Everyone 
 who was anyone must come to Paris, and there must rub 
 shoulders with everyone who was anyone on other fields 
 of enterprise. And the great problem was to reduce the 
 resulting friction to a minimum. 
 
 The friction was all the greater, since France had only 
 lately emerged from her mediaeval barbarism. Thackeray 
 has declared that the conversation of a fine lady of Queen 
 Anne's time would send Victorian matrons flying from the 
 room ; ten minutes among the heroines of Tallemant dea 
 Eeaux would have turned Lady Mary Wortley Montagu 
 into a prude. How much elemental grossness the French 
 had still to slough off may be judged by the foUowiBg 
 catalogue of social sins, drawn up by an acknowledged 
 master of his subject. ' There are certain things never 
 seen in a well-bred man, but always found where breeding 
 is not. Such are injustice, vanity, avarice, bad taste ; a 
 coarseness smelling of the Bar, the counting-house, the 
 provinces, the middle-class. Such, also, are slavery to custom, 
 indulgence in commonplaces, quips and puns ; thinking more 
 of fortune than desert, more of appearances than truth; 
 trying to push oneself forwards by dishonest means ; being 
 a Har or a cheat. Such, again, are letting oneself be easily 
 duped ; inability to read character, or know how and when 
 to seize one's chance ; being drawn into low horse-play 
 by fashionable boon-companions ; enduring affronts without 
 resenting them ; siding with the strong, and neglecting the 
 weak ; above all, lack of that indescribable quahty, which 
 ranks one well-bred man above another.' 
 
 The author of this curious catalogue was Antoine 
 
THE CHEVALIER DB UtBt 139 
 
 Gombauld, Chevalier de Mere, a Poitevin gentleman of 
 good family and moderate estate.^! Born about 1610, he 
 saw some service in the field, but presently threw up his 
 commission for a bachelor existence in Paris. Here he 
 managed to combine the usual pleasures of his class with 
 an apostolic zeal for good breeding. He was one of the 
 first representatives of a new calling — the professional 
 diners-out and specialists in good manners. These men 
 made social intercourse the one aim of their existence ; they 
 studied the ways of a drawing-room much as mystical 
 writers studied the laws of the Interior Life. In their eyes 
 good breeding was the summum honum. ' Un honnete 
 homme,' cries Mere, ' n'a rien k desirer pour sa gloire que 
 d'etre toujours honnete homme.' All values, human and 
 divine, he translated into terms of etiquette. Truth was 
 true, and virtue moral, precisely in so far as they ministered 
 to the well-being of society. Religion itself he chiefly 
 valued because ' true devoutness and Christian humility ' 
 always lent a character new grace. He represents, in fact, 
 a complete reaction from the ideals of the Prondeurs. They 
 had been individualistic, self-assertive ; Mer6 believed in 
 sohdarity. Real enjoyment could only be purchased by 
 associating oneself with others in common amusements, 
 common pursuits. No doubt this meant a sacrifice. Mere 
 always impressed upon his pupils that, in setting foot within 
 a drawing-room, they were entering a world much larger 
 than themselves — a world they did not make, over whose 
 movements they had no control, and wherein they were an 
 indistinguishable atom. But he held that the game was 
 more than worth the candle. Society alone could hold the 
 balance between the conflicting claims of public and private 
 good ; it alone could make a man ' both happy and amiable 
 at the same time,' by allowing him just so much freedom 
 of self-assertion as accorded with the well-being of his 
 neighbours. 
 
140 PASCAL 
 
 To preach this doctrine both on paper and by word of 
 mouth became the great object of Mere's hfe. His fame as 
 an arbiter elegantiarum spread throughout the length and 
 breadth of the land ; and his occasional essays were at once 
 translated into English, as ' treatises of great esteem among 
 the principal wits of France.' But his chief work lay in 
 forming pupils for the world. A Mr. Great-heart buttoned 
 up in the surtout of Major Pendermis, he acted as director 
 of conscience to countless neophytes of fashion. At least 
 two of his charges did their master credit. One was Blaise 
 Pascal ; the other was the young and very inexperienced 
 wife of his old friend Scarron, an elderly, crippled minor 
 poet. At first she gave her tutor much trouble. More 
 than once he must scold her severely for giving her sick 
 husband's whims precedence over the sacred duties of 
 society. But he hved to see her become Madame la Marquise 
 de Maintenon, second wife of Louis XIV. 
 
 Pascal proved a more tractable pupU. The two met in 
 the summer of 1652, during a trip to Poitou, of which 
 province Eoannez had become Lord Lieutenant. ' I once 
 made an expedition with the Duke of Roaimez,' writes 
 Mere in one of his curious lay sermons. ' He talks both 
 wisely and well, and is excellent company. With us came 
 M. Miton, whom you know, and whom all at Court find 
 so entertaining. As it was simply a party of pleasure, we 
 thought of nothing but our amusement, and left few subjects 
 untouched. The Duke is interested in mathematics, and 
 had brought with him a man between his age and ours, 
 who was very little known at the time, though since he has 
 made great noise in the world. He was a great mathema- 
 tician, and nothing else. But science does not teach polite 
 behaviour, and the man had neither taste nor feeling. How- 
 ever, that did not prevent him from joining in everything 
 we said and did. It seems he had a great opinion of the 
 style of M. Du Vair, and he told us long stories of the jokes 
 
THE CHEVALIEE DE M^EE 141 
 
 of Mr. Eecorder d'O. The last thing we wanted was to 
 undeceive him ; however, we repUed straightforwardly and 
 in our usual tone. After a day or so he noticed that there 
 was something wrong, and interrupted no more, except 
 for an occasional question. Every now and then he pulled 
 out a note-book, and scribbled something down. But the 
 odd thing was that, before we got to Poitiers, he had begun 
 to talk quite sensibly ; we could hardly have put the things 
 better ourselves. I give you my word, the change was 
 great indeed.' 
 
 In the end the mysterious stranger forswore mathematics 
 in a long and eloquent speech interlarded with poetical 
 quotations, altogether much more in the style of Mere 
 than in that of Pascal. But the Chevalier was writing 
 long after the event, and mainly with the object of showing 
 how much good company could make out of the least 
 promising materials. To literal accuracy he can lay no 
 claim. So far from ' forswearing mathematics,' Pascal 
 often discussed them with the Chevalier himself. For 
 Mere, who dabbled in everything, thought not a little of his 
 own scientific aptitudes. ' I have discovered truths so 
 deep,' he once modestly wrote to his pupil, ' that the wisest 
 ancients never reached them, and our best modern mathema- 
 ticians stood amazed.' The truth is that at the gaming- 
 table he had noticed certain points in mathematical proba- 
 bility, and duly passed them on for solution to Pascal or 
 Judge Fermat. For here he soon got out of his depth. The 
 geometers of the time were disputing whether an atom was 
 divisible to infinity ; and Mere, who made his imagination 
 his guide, airily decided that it was not, and read Pascal 
 many a lecture for dealing in the calculus. ' Bring one 
 touch of the infinite into a question, and you weary and 
 confuse the mind. Unsophisticated good sense leads much 
 straighter than your demonstrations. Bear in mind that 
 it is never deceived, and that — apart, of course, from 
 
142 PASCAL 
 
 religious matters — ^whatever is opposed to it is false.' What 
 could Pascal do, but write to Fermat that M. de Mere would 
 be perfect, if he only had a smattering of geometry ? 
 
 Such an adjective, applied to such a man, suggests that 
 the new Telemachus found a streak of comedy in his Mentor. 
 Still, a finished man of the world always has a certain 
 charm for inexperienced students. Intellectually they 
 may think him beneath contempt, but he knows aU the 
 mystic pass-words of a realm from which they cannot 
 but feel their own remoteness. Pascal will presently 
 describe how surely abstractions buUd up a wall between 
 the scholar and his fellows ; in proportion as his knowledge 
 grows, his humanity departs. Besides, the Chevalier's 
 polish threw a certain fascination over one brought up 
 among the learned squabbles of the Paris Club. There 
 the prevailing influence had been men like Eoberval and 
 Descartes ; trumpeting forth one's own discoveries, and 
 picking holes in those of others had seemed the two main 
 businesses of life. How deeply Pascal himself had drunk 
 of this spirit his pamphlets on the vacuum have shown, 
 though still more piquant proof is afforded by a curious 
 letter written to Queen Christine of Sweden a few months 
 before the meeting with Mere. To the arithmetical machine 
 was due this correspondence with the daughter of Gustavus 
 Adolphus. Finally patented in 1651, it had brought its 
 inventor renown abroad as well as at home ; and his fellow- 
 countryman. Dr. Bourdelot, physician to the Swedish Court, 
 encouraged him to send a model to Christine. At this time 
 the wildest rumours were afloat about the patroness of 
 Descartes. It was thought that she was about to carry 
 through in Stockholm what Plato had failed to do at Syra- 
 cuse, and establish a philosophic State among the fogs of 
 the barbaric North. How much distance had to do with 
 this enchantment was seen when Christine came to Paris 
 some years later. But at present every learned eye in 
 
THE CHEVALIEE DE M^Elfe 143 
 
 France was turned towards her ; and new inventions were 
 not considered to be launched upon their course until her 
 royal pleasure had been taken on them. Accordingly to 
 Stockholm went a model of the arithmetical machine, 
 together with the following dedication. 
 
 ' Were my health equal to my zeal,' Pascal wrote, ' no 
 hands but mine should lay this offering at the feet of the 
 first Princess in Christendom. The pains it has cost me 
 need no telling ; but they will be more than repaid, if this 
 fruit of years of labour yields Your Majesty some few 
 moments of satisfaction. Some will tax me with presump- 
 tion for daring to present it ; but I was led on by the union 
 in Your Sacred Person of two things I deeply revere, 
 sovereign authority and sound learning. For I hold in 
 the prof oundest veneration those raised to the highest places, 
 whether of power or knowledge. If I mistake not, these last 
 may also claim the title of sovereign. Genius has its tables 
 of precedency, no less than royal Courts ; and the authority 
 of sovereigns over their subjects is only a parable of the 
 authority of greater over lesser minds. Nay, this second 
 empire is the higher, inasmuch as merit alone apportions 
 it ; whereas the other lies at the mercy of birth or fortune. 
 But, great as is each sovereignty, either alone is incomplete. 
 Genius is weighed down through being the subject of another ; 
 and I know not whether history can furnish the names of 
 even moderately learned kings. Perfection waited for the 
 age wherein Your Majesty was born. And that the marvel 
 might be greater, the part strong men could not undertake is 
 played by a young Queen, in whom the wisdom of experience 
 unites with the tenderness of youth, leisure for study with 
 the business of a Throne, and profundity of learning with 
 the weakness of her sex.' 
 
 One may hear the groans of Mere, as he read this strange 
 dedication. Not that he paid much heed to the points 
 that strike posterity the most. The adulation did not 
 
144 PASCAL 
 
 shock him, and the lofty, intellectual pride behind was far 
 above his head. But what should he say to its stilted 
 epigrams — Mere, who desired to banish these affectations 
 altogether, as being ' more fit for the Delphic Oracle than 
 for civilised intercourse.' Still worse was it when the 
 young inventor went on to allude complacently to his 
 own labours ; for one of the very first signs of good breeding 
 was avoidance of any show of effort. All a gentleman did 
 must seem as though done by a mere turn of his wrist. 
 There was nothing for it but a thorough course of discipline 
 in writing, talking and behaviour. Pascal was remorselessly 
 driven to routs, to theatres, to tennis-courts ; it even seems 
 likely that he faced the terrors of the dancing class. 
 
 Not that the Chevalier would have agreed with Hippolyte 
 Taine in calling Turveydrop the pivot of the Old Regime. 
 In his own way he was a philosopher, and it was on the 
 philosophical side of his teaching that he set the greatest 
 store. Why was it wrong to indulge in epigram, or make 
 much of one's own achievements ? Mere answered that the 
 first duty of a gentleman was to ' cover his Moi,' to keep 
 his Ego in the background. Second-rateness came away 
 from a party wondering whether it had taken every oppor- 
 tunity to shine, whereas a gentleman wasted no thought on 
 his own performances ; all he asked was whether the party, 
 in general, had been a success. That was why Mere was 
 so severe on all who tried to draw too much attention 
 to themselves — epigrammatists ; pr4cieuses eager to show 
 off their emotional intensity ; professional jesters, who 
 needs must drag their fire-works into everything. But 
 he was equally stern towards another class of offenders. 
 These were the scholars and professional men, who talked 
 too much on their own subject, because they had nothing 
 else to talk about. ' What ? So-and-so is a fine mathe- 
 matician, you say ? Well, I don't care about mathematics ; 
 he would take me for a proposition. And the next man's 
 
THE CHEVALIER DE MEE6 145 
 
 a good soldier ? Then he would treat me like a beleaguered 
 town.' 1 Soldier and mathematician both wore their pro- 
 fessions chalked up on their forehead, and the very constitu- 
 tion of the salons cried out against such an uncovering of 
 the Moi. These brought together a medley of distinguished 
 persons drawn from all classes of society. But class- 
 prejudice dies hard, more especially among feminine 
 surroundings ; and the only hope of sending it to sleep 
 was by keeping social distinctions in the background. 
 Hence, Mere lays down the fundamental axiom that a 
 gentleman has no trade. He may be unfortunate enough 
 to have to earn his bread at a calling, but neither his words 
 nor his manners betray what that calling is. As Pascal 
 said, he ' hangs out no signboard ' ; nobody can guess 
 whether he is noble, writer, banker or official. His distin- 
 guishing mark is his ' universality ' ; there is something 
 about him of every class, and everything of none. 
 
 Besides, the salon itself must be universal. It was a 
 social assemblage, where everyone must take his part ; and 
 the chief business of a hostess lay in keeping conversation 
 down to the level of her dullest guests. Many slaked their 
 intellectual thirst on small, grammatical questions of the 
 kind made fashionable by Vaugelas — as to the precise 
 significance of car, and whether it was better to say je puis 
 or je feux. But higher flights were often attempted. One 
 of the company read a short paper on wit, or taste, or 
 some such general subject, and the rest went through it 
 clause by clause. Or else the paper was not read out, but 
 passed round from hand to hand. Mere's own essays, and 
 much of La Rochefoucauld and Saint Evremond, were 
 intended for this private circulation. Indeed, it was 
 anything but well-bred to be in a hurry to print. Hacks 
 might write for the general public : a gentleman only 
 wrote for his friends. Literature, in fact, became little 
 1 Pascal, Pens. 36. 
 
146 PASCAL 
 
 more than extended conversation. An author's business 
 •was to set discussion going, or sum it up in some pregnant 
 phrase ; he triumphed, when he could express everybody's 
 thoughts in a style beyond everybody's command. Novelty 
 was not much welcomed. Original thinkers were apt to 
 be too full of themselves and their own ideas ; Pascal 
 compares them to those worthy citizens, who are always 
 advertising the fact that they own the freehold of their 
 house. Besides, it was one thing to put down brilhant 
 novelties on paper, and quite another to declaim them to a 
 very critical circle well endowed with sense of humour. 
 Most of the audience, too, were fellow-craftsmen in manu- 
 script, if not in print ; and they were much less interested 
 to hear what the evening's entertainer had to say, than 
 how he said it. ' What is the good of telling me that I say 
 nothing new ? ' Pascal asks a captious critic. ' At tennis 
 both players use the same ball, but one of them pitches 
 it better than the other.' 
 
 This minute attention to language was a direct fruit 
 of the Chevalier's teaching. In his youthful scientific 
 pamphlets Pascal had argued away in vigorous, if somewhat 
 pedestrian style ; though, if some resonant phrase occurred 
 to him, he put it down without stopping to consider whether 
 it was too ' luxuriant ' for its homely context. Mere now 
 opened a campaign against these purple patches. Pascal 
 learnt — to take only his own examples — that it was wrong 
 to talk about ' quenching the torch of sedition,' and safer 
 to call a king a king than to style him an august monarch. 
 For the Chevaher made clear to him that to shoot scraps 
 of sudden bombast into the middle of a tranquil argument 
 was an outrage on society. ' The secret of good breeding,' 
 he said, ' is to do what is natural to us in a becoming way.' 
 But it is not natural in me to talk of august monarchs, nor 
 is it natural to my hearers to hear kings thus described. 
 Such verbiage only ruffles them, and distracts their attention 
 
THE CHBVALIEE DE MER:^ 147 
 
 from the point. Worse still, it breaks the bond of sympathy 
 I ought to have established with them. They feel I am 
 not one of themselves, speaking the plain, straightforward 
 tongue of common sense ; I have wrapped my meaning up in 
 an unreal, professional jargon worthy of one who is ' more 
 of an author than a man.' Some may think my fine language 
 impressive, and it certainly gives me a chance of showing 
 off my cleverness ; but the plain man does not feel in reading 
 me what Pascal came to feel in reading Montaigne — that 
 he only saw set down in print what had long been vaguely 
 in his mind. 
 
 However, the bond of sympathy required much more 
 than careful picking of one's phrases. In habits of thought, 
 as well as in language, a writer must be universal. He must 
 fall into step with the minds of his readers, and keep well 
 within the boundaries of common sense ; for common sense 
 was the natural standard for a mixed group of amateurs to 
 apply. Was a moral sentiment true ? Was a situation 
 lifelike, or a character well drawn ? Only common sense 
 could say. Very soon its utterances became infallible. 
 Already Mere has condemned the infinitesimal calculus 
 in its name ; and many of his wiser moments were spent in 
 contrasting it with the methods of scholasticism, greatly 
 to their disadvantage. ' Instead of seeking for enlighten- 
 ment, the one object of the Doctors is to catch each other 
 out by means of forced, unreal distinctions, and terms 
 they do not understand themselves. Really, the only rule 
 is to follow breeding and common sense. These false 
 subtleties are never approved by persons of good taste ; 
 they make reason their one law.' What, then, did that 
 law enjoin ? That a man should always think and speak 
 as unaffectedly and simply as an average audience could 
 bear. So, at least, Pascal understood his master. ' Good 
 things,' he cries, ' are the commonest of all. They are 
 natural, within our grasp, and before the eyes of all the world. 
 
 L 2 
 
148 PASCAL 
 
 The only difficulty is how to get to know them. Nowhere 
 is excellence attained by being stilted or eccentric. We 
 reach upwards to grasp it ; we should often do better to 
 stoop down. The best books are those that make the reader 
 think he could have written quite as well himself. Nature, 
 who alone is good, is quite familiar and common.' 
 
 If the philosophy of this passage is dubious, its Uterary 
 moral was excellent. In the hands of Moliere and Boileau 
 common sense became a deadly weapon against frecieuses, 
 epigrammatists, and the whole tribe of posturers, all of 
 them ' stilted and eccentric' Common sense was not good 
 enough for them ; as Pascal said, they must ' mask and 
 disguise ' reality under the subtle vagaries of their fancy or 
 bursts of high-flown rhetoric. Thus common sense did for 
 Uterature what the geometrical spirit had already done for 
 science. Between the two there were great hkenesses. 
 Both threw over specialism, and strove hard to bring their 
 secrets within reach of the multitude ; both would willingly 
 have undertaken — as Malebranche actually undertook — 
 to make an intelUgent Chinaman accept all their ideas, 
 if only he could be induced to lend them his attention. 
 Nay, there were ties of blood between them ; for the 
 geometrical spirit only claimed to be common sense applied 
 in orderly, systematic fashion. It prided itself on its power 
 of advancing from easy things to difficult, without ever 
 turning its back on a difficulty, or taking one step in its 
 proof for granted. Unfortunately, order and system are ill at 
 ease in a drawing-room. Casual auditors will not sit by, 
 while they probe every possible doubt to the bottom, or 
 elaborately guard against every unlikely objection. The 
 dread reproach of ' pedantry ' soon fastens on their efforts, 
 and Mere appears with a definition of that ugly vice ready 
 in his hand. ' The pedants dehght in laying down rules, 
 most of which are false. They roll up what is not worth 
 saying into mysterious definitions, harder to grasp than 
 
THE CHEVALIEE DE m6e6 149 
 
 the things themselves. It costs them infinite pains to tell 
 one something about a subject without going into its whole 
 length and breadth ; for all their knowledge is so joined 
 together that every part depends on all the rest. Their 
 mind is wound up like a watch. The hands cannot pause 
 at ten o'clock, if the works go on till twelve ; and yet 
 there is no surer sign of ill breeding than not knowing when 
 to stop. Of a thousand things in one's mind it is often 
 proper only to allude to one, and quite casually to that.' 
 
 This truth the ChevaHer impressed on Pascal very early 
 in his social career. About the time he was writing his 
 letter to Queen Christine, his arithmetical machine had 
 commended itself to another lady of rank. This was the 
 Duchess of Aiguillon, Eichelieu's niece, who had proved 
 such a good friend to the Pascal family some dozen years 
 before. In the summer of 1652 she arranged for him to 
 give some popular lectures on his machine tc a fashionable 
 audience at her house. This invitation brought the lecturer 
 face to face with a problem new to his scientific mind. 
 Hitherto he had lived in a circle where grace and piquancy 
 went for little in comparison with rigorous exactitude. Now 
 he suddenly found himself in a world which cared exceedingly 
 little for accuracy, but very much for whatever excited 
 its interest. No doubt, in a vague way the Duchess's friends 
 believed that they were led by reason ; but in practice they 
 followed the ' low, unworthy and unnatural course ' of caring 
 for things because they liked them, without much inquiry 
 into their truth. What, then, was the use of talking logic 
 to such people ? And, if he once threw over logic, what 
 was a lecturer to do ? In this dilemma Pascal appealed to 
 Mere, and the Chevalier promptly decided in favour of 
 the Duchess. The methods of the Paris Club were quite 
 unsuited to a drawing-room. There few hearers had the 
 power to keep up with long, straight marches from point 
 to point ; what they liked was to be carried along a ' natural, 
 
150 PASCAL 
 
 hidden train of argument, in no way suggestive of art 
 or study.' But how was a lecturer to hit on this hidden 
 train ? Mere answered that he must ' sacrifice to the 
 Goddess of Grace,' and gauge the temper of his audience 
 by ' Uttle signs ' beneath the notice of a pedant. ' You 
 have never shaken off,' he told his pupil, ' the geometrical 
 habit of trusting to long demonstrations drawn out line 
 by line. Thereby you let slip a golden opportunity. A 
 man of keen perceptions and quick wits often gleans in- 
 valuable hints from the looks and carriage of his neighbours. 
 If you ask him — as you are sure to do — on what principle he 
 goes, he will probably answer that he cannot tell, and 
 that the signs are only evidence for him. You think you 
 do much better with your mathematical methods. I 
 assure you, on my honour, you are wrong ; for the proofs 
 you think so much of are only good for prigs and fools.' 
 And when the pupil characteristically asked for a definition 
 of these signs, his despairing Mentor could only bid him 
 fall in love with a woman of the world. 
 
 Whether Pascal took this advice is still matter for dis- 
 pute. Many writers think he did, and identify him with 
 the Blaise Pascal whom Bishop Mechier describes as carrying 
 on a heavy flirtation with a young Clermont fredeuse, 
 ' the Sappho of the town.' But Flechier was only retailing 
 stale gossip at second hand ; it is possible that he confused 
 the great Blaise with a cousin of the same name, a judge 
 in one of the Clermont courts. All that is certain is that 
 Pascal began to pay a new attention to the Chevalier's 
 ' little signs.' On his first entry into the salons he had 
 simply been bewildered by their unfamiliar bustle. Now 
 he was coming to realise the force of Mere's dictum that 
 society is like a foreign language ; at first one hardly under- 
 stands a word, but by and bye the meaning of things begins 
 to dawn. As his experience broadened, he felt increasing 
 confidence in his own capacity to read the fashionable 
 
THE CHEVALIEE DE M^EE 151 
 
 zodiac ; and his final conclusions on the matter are recorded 
 in that curious passage in his ' Pensees,' where he discusses 
 why men of action care so little for mathematics, and why- 
 mathematicians are so seldom men of action. ' Geometers 
 never see what is before their eyes. They are brought up 
 among the principles of science, clear and tangible every 
 one ; and all the arguments they employ have been carefully 
 tested beforehand. Hence they are puzzled when they 
 have to deal with evidence of a different kind. Here 
 the points are almost imperceptible ; they are not so much 
 seen as felt ; a man will hardly be got to notice them at 
 all, if he does not do so naturally. They are so numerous 
 and delicate that the very nicest judgment is needed to seize 
 them and draw the right conclusions ; for they cannot be 
 set down in order, like the propositions of mathematics. 
 The mind must take them in at a glance, rather than by 
 any conscious process ; geometers only make themselves 
 ridiculous when they insist on applying their axioms and 
 definitions to matters incapable of such handling. Not 
 but what the mind does reason about them after a silent, 
 instinctive fashion of its own, beyond the power of most 
 to grasp, and of any man to explain.' i 
 
 Silent, instinctive modes of reasoning play a great part 
 in Mere's books. In those days society was a new institu- 
 tion. Men felt raw and uncomfortable in a salon ; they 
 had no inherited fund of tact to tell them how to entertain 
 a lady, or enter a room with ease. In their perplexities 
 they caught at argument, much as drowning sailors catch 
 at a hen-coop ; they solemnly proved to themselves and 
 their neighbours that whatever they did, or omitted to do, 
 was justified by all the laws of logic. Mere made a gallant 
 effort to persuade them that life was too short for this 
 perpetual dialectic. The man who was always explaining 
 the how and why of his conduct was an ill-bred bore ; every 
 
 ' Pens. 1, 
 
152 PASCAL 
 
 flush on his self-conscious face was an additional proof that 
 he had never learnt that the first duty of a gentleman is to 
 keep his Moi ' covered ' in society. Besides, experience 
 showed that the instincts of an average man led quite 
 as straight as his syllogisms. Mere would certainly have 
 endorsed the famous counsel Lord Mansfield gave to an 
 inexperienced colleague on the Bench, never to explain the 
 grounds of his decisions ; for the judgments themselves 
 would often be right, but the reasons were certain to be 
 wrong. Mere had not learning enough to discourse upon 
 the desirability of avoiding ' interstitial thought,' in the 
 style of Professor William James ; but in a dim way he 
 felt that tact and taste were ' based on very solid founda- 
 tions, although they were chary of giving their reasons.' 
 But social success by no means depended on ability to 
 ' give one's reasons.' The Duchess of Lesdiguieres, for 
 instance, looked, dressed, talked better than any other 
 woman of her time ; but neither she nor anyone else — and 
 Mere more than once put her through a searching cross- 
 examination — could explain how she reached these desirable 
 results. ' Vos graces sont si libertines,' the Chevalier 
 told her, ' qu'elles renvoient bien loin I'art et I'etude.' 
 
 Did, then, the whole secret lie in "sending away art and 
 study in the way Luther besought the Protestant world 
 to ' send away Moses and his Law ' ? Clearly not : society 
 knew no analogue to conversion and its awakening of 
 ' spiritual sense.' Good taste came naturally to no one, except 
 a few ladies extremiment nies. Could it, then, be acquired ? 
 The Chevalier felt very doubtful. ' Neither rules, nor 
 maxims, nor even science, turn out good labourers or great 
 men. What we need is judgment, tact and quickness, the 
 power of seeing in a moment what is the right thing to do, 
 and drawing all the help we can from times and circumstances. 
 These things no generalities can teach.' Not only rules, 
 but masters were a failure. ' At first sight,' the ChevaHer 
 
THE CHEVALIEE DE Ml&EB 153 
 
 said to his old friend, Marshal Clerambauld, ' one would 
 think that, if a tutor were as well-bred as Pignatelli is 
 said to have been a good riding-master, he would turn out 
 first-class gentlemen as easily as Pignatelli turned out good 
 horsemen. Why is it that this is not the case ? ' All the 
 Marshal could suggest was that we knew much more about 
 the movements of the body than about those of the mind. 
 That being so, the Chevalier decided that the best thing 
 was to trust the mind itself ; as good breeding could not 
 be pumped into a pupil from without, it must be left to grow 
 up from M'ithin. Of course, he would serve his social 
 apprenticeship under the eye of a watchful master ; but, as he 
 grew older and more experienced, this surveillance would 
 gradually be withdrawn. He would then be able to judge 
 for himself along the lines of ' an indefinable something, that 
 goes quicker, and sometimes straighter, than reflection. 
 Judgment points out the means of perfection, and the heart 
 comes in to put them in practice. For breeding is no barren 
 theory ; it must act, and it must rule.' 
 
 The heart must come in, for Mere was a devout believer 
 in the virtue of enthusiasm. Du Vair and the Stoical school 
 had made war on the passions : Mere was their ardent 
 apologist. ' So far from getting rid of them, we ought 
 to increase their number, if we could. A man who is touched 
 at nothing, whose feelings are never roused, is a weariness 
 to himself, and a nuisance to his neighbours. Whereas, to 
 be touched by everything that attracts reasonable people 
 is a sure road to their hearts.' Hence he was cai-eful to 
 develop the emotional side of a pupil's character. Under 
 his guidance Pascal entered on a serious study of the feelings, 
 alike in Uterature and life. He yawned over Mile, de 
 Scudery's interminable romances ; he made acquaintance 
 with Mme. de Sable, a widowed Marchioness some fifty 
 years old, famous alike for her intellectual salon, her excellent 
 cook, and her excessive terror of infectious complaints. Often 
 
154 PASCAL 
 
 he went to see his sister's old friend, Mondory, act in the 
 pieces of Corneille — with what result may be judged from a 
 declaration made after his Jansenist asceticism had set in 
 with full severity. ' Every kind of amusement is fraught 
 with danger to a Christian, but of all the diversions the 
 world has invented, there is none worse than the play. 
 There real emotions are portrayed so truthfully that they 
 wake again in ourselves. Love, in particular, wears a mask 
 of innocence and nobility ; it seems so pure that it 
 deceives the purest. Its transports appeal to our self-love ; 
 we long to be the means of kindling such a flame our- 
 selves. Its noble language sends to sleep the scruples 
 of chaste souls ; they think that chastity carmot be harmed 
 by loving so wise a love.' i 
 
 Love naturally engaged the chief of Pascal's attention. 
 It was a subject much studied in the salons, and many and 
 various were the theories in vogue. Some swore by the 
 views laid down in Descartes' ' Treatise on the Passions.' 
 There emotion is declared an excellent servant, but a wretched 
 master. It is good in so far as it strengthens and supports 
 the will ; it is bad in so far as it tries to take the lead itself. 
 But a well-trained will has its passions under perfect control, 
 and can switch them on or off at pleasure. Suppose, for 
 instance, reason tells Belisandre that Elmire would make 
 him an excellent wife, his will might very properly call 
 up the passion of love ; but, if he reversed the process, and 
 let his passion dictate to his will, he would be unworthy 
 of the name of rational man. ' Sir,' the philosopher would 
 say to him, as Seneca actually says to Scarron in Fontenelle's 
 ' Dialogues of the Dead,' ' you follow your temperament 
 more than your reason.' And that was the most freezing 
 term of contempt in the whole Cartesian dictionary. For 
 ' temperament ' included imagination, appetites, feelings — 
 in short, our whole nature, apart from will and reason. And 
 
 1 Pens. 11. 
 
THE CHEVALIEE DE MER6 155 
 
 the great originality of Descartes lay in insisting that all 
 of these had their roots in physiology. Will and intellect 
 went their own way, hut passion was conditioned by the 
 body. That being so, it fell under the sway of universal 
 mechanism. On the corporal side men were mere machines 
 — ' and very disagreeable machines at that,' Pascal adds, 
 with characteristic emphasis. But he was much more 
 taken by the Cartesian metaphor than by its underlying 
 conclusions ; and the chief effect of the treatise was to 
 fill him with unbounded contempt for clockwork regularity 
 of life. He became fond of contrasting — not, perhaps, 
 without a sigh — ' tumultuous ' young gallants of the Court 
 with their tame rivals of the town. ' The first are all on fire ; 
 the second lead a slow, monotonous existence. But it is head- 
 strong dash that strikes and dazzles, and carries the day.' 
 
 At the opposite pole from Descartes stood Pascal's new 
 friend, Mme. de Sable. She was a zealous patroness of 
 certain romantic ideas of chivalry and disinterested love — 
 ideas already ridiculed by Cervantes, and soon to be 
 pilloried again by Moliere. But Mme. de Sable did not 
 read ' Don Quixote ' : and the ' Femmes Savantes ' were 
 still to come. In her drawing-room languishing ladies could 
 analyse their souls in peace ; while even Pascal bent an 
 awkward, scholarly knee in this House of Rimmon, and 
 indulged in banal commonplaces about ' happy the life 
 that begins with love, and ends with ambition.' Under 
 all this froth, however, Mme. de Sable and her friends were 
 pursuing a very definite aim. In maintaining that ' love 
 is not given to the soul, except as joined to the body,' 
 they declared that Descartes had degraded it to the level 
 of an appetite ; whereas they were resolved to make it 
 into a purely intellectual passion, free from all earthly taint. 
 Herein they joined hands with the frecieuses, ofi&cial 
 champions of feminine intelhgence. They were revolted 
 at the thought of being wooed simply for their good looks. 
 
156 PASCAL 
 
 ' L'approbation des yeux,' says Somaize, ' est d'un ordre 
 
 inferieur au merite de ces belles. EUes s'elevent par la 
 
 raison et I'esprit, et tachent de fonder en droit les passions 
 
 qu'elles peuvent faire naitre.' Moliere does not exaggerate 
 
 when he makes Armande tell her lover : 
 
 Eh bien, monsieur, eh bien, puisque, sans m'eoouter 
 Vos sentiments brutaux veulent se contenter ; 
 Puisque, pour vous reduire k des ardeurs fldeles, 
 II faut des noeuds de chair, des chaines corporelles. 
 Si ma mere le veut, je r6sous mon esprit 
 A consentir. 
 
 Such was the state of the case when Pascal sat down to 
 write his ' Treatise on the Passions of Love ' — if indeed the 
 treatise be really his ; for the authorship has never been 
 fully proved, although no modern editor doubts it. Nor 
 is it a ' treatise ' so much as a series of scattered reflec- 
 tions, brought together, by some hand unknown, from 
 stray contributions to salon-debate or the autograph 
 albums of friends. However, some bold spirits have made 
 it throw light on Pascal's personal history. From certain 
 expressions they infer that he was at one time deeply in 
 love with a young lady above him in rank, to whom he 
 never dared declare his passion. And certainly he enlarges 
 on some of the commoner signs of love — as, for instance, 
 how the gallant's eyes brighten and pale at the same moment 
 — and discusses the effects that love of a patrician maiden 
 has on suitors of humbler birth. But there is nothing 
 in his descriptions beyond what a novel, or an evening at 
 the play, might have taught spectators less impressionable 
 than he ; while, as to the difference of rank, the salons 
 went through all possible ' cases of love ' as carefully as a 
 Jesuit casuist went through all possible cases of conscience. 
 Escobar himself was not more at home among the various 
 aspects of a homicide than was Mile, de Scudery examining 
 each phase of King Cophetua's passion for the beggar maid, 
 or that of her own Queen Cleobuline for Myrrhinus. 
 
THE OHEVALIEE DE UMt 157 
 
 Besides, Pascal had more important work on hand than 
 revealing imaginary secrets of the heart. His real business 
 was to hold the balance between Mme. de Sable and Descartes. 
 Each seemed to him to have pushed an initial half-truth to 
 lengths altogether absurd. Descartes did perfectly right to 
 insist that love is rooted in a very primitive instinct ; he 
 did wrong to box it up in ' temperament,' as though in a 
 kind of water-tight compartment. Mme. de Sable had 
 good cause for objecting that there is an intellectual element 
 in love ; but she went astray when she resolved the whole 
 of love into that one element alone. If it were simply 
 an abstraction of the reason — ' an ideal of pure beauty, 
 limited and circumscribed by the difference of sex ' — it 
 would be like the truths of mathematics, which are one 
 and the same all over the world ; and it would certainly 
 stand in some fixed relation to beauty. But experience 
 knows nothing of such a relation, or of any fixed standard 
 of beauty. Masculine appreciation varies from age to age, 
 from country to country, even from man to man. Custom 
 and fashion have much to say. ' There is a time for blondes, 
 and a time for brunettes.' Even contemporaries differ. 
 ' That is why each gallant thinks his own mistress the 
 prettiest, and makes her his standard of beauty.' But, at 
 least, if two men love the same girl, both wUl give the same 
 reasons for falling at her feet ? Even this last plank in 
 Mme. de Sable's platform is torn away by experience. 
 One girl may certainly enslave a mathematician and a man 
 of action, but they will be drawn to her by quite different 
 charms. 
 
 Was, then, Descartes right in maintaining that love was 
 a mere irrational caprice ? By no means. It begins, no 
 doubt, as a dumb yearning ; but that yearning, is speedily 
 seized upon, moulded, coloured, transformed by every 
 faculty in our nature. And in this transforming process no 
 agent has a larger share than intellect. To call an absent 
 
158 PASCAL 
 
 passion into being is, indeed, beyond its powers ; but it 
 can do much to hasten the growth of a seed already sown. 
 It directs the whole strategy of courtship — ^in Pascal's day 
 a long and highly complicated art. ' Love quickens the 
 wits ; it lives by the wits ; for there is no small craft in 
 loving. Every day a man exhausts the means of giving 
 pleasure. But he must still go on doing so, and on he goes.' 
 At every step, also, he discovers a new charm in his mistress. 
 He begins to gain an insight into the how and the why of his 
 passion ; motives for preference, which at first he hardly 
 understood himself, now became explicit. Why, then, deny 
 the intellectual element in love ? ' It is an act of thought, 
 even though our choice be made in haste, without weighing 
 the arguments on either side. The poets did wrong to say 
 that Love is blind. Let us tear off the bandage, and 
 henceforward grant him the use of his eyes.' That done, 
 reason need not fear to follow where passion shows the way. 
 Nor need the timorous suitor hesitate because he cannot call 
 in the geometrical spirit, and prove the unique fascinations 
 of his mistress by an argument in form. If he feels them, it 
 is enough ; he does not need to make the wisdom of his 
 choice equally convincing to all beings of equal rationality. 
 ' I agree with him who said that a lover forgets fortune, 
 family and friends. His heart is so full of love that it has 
 no room for other cares. Passion needs must be extravagant, 
 and a suitor recks little of what the world says. He knows 
 that it cannot be too hard upon him, for reason quite 
 approves his conduct.' 
 
 Such, in brief outline, were Pascal's views on love. 
 Critics have sometimes been at pains to ask why the only 
 known copy of his essay should have been preserved in a 
 bundle of Jansenist sermons. They might have spared them- 
 selves the trouble. Love, as here depicted, is what Pascal 
 would have called a ' figure ' of Irresistible Grace ; and his 
 essay contains in germ the main argument of the ' Pensees.' 
 
CHAPTEE X 
 
 THE HEIRS OP MONTAIGNE 
 
 ' One would think that your old friends keep but a small 
 place in your remembrance,' wrote Mere to Mme. de Main- 
 tenon, when his former pupU was already standing on the 
 steps of Louis XIV's throne. Whether Pascal was more 
 grateful history does not say. Certain it is that the Chevalier 
 soon dropped into the background, for the author of the 
 ' Essay on Love ' had learnt all he could teach. Nor was 
 he always an accessible Mentor. Like another great 
 moralist of later date, Pascal loved to cross his legs, and have 
 his talk out. But Mere was a man of the world, and suffered 
 heavily from the toll the world levies on its devotees. 
 Ennui descended on him like a cloud, if he was forced to 
 spend too much time on one subject. Then, too, he measured 
 discussion by a test worthy of Caliph Omar himself. Either 
 it threw fresh light on problems of etiquette, or it did not ; 
 in the latter case it was useless. But Pascal had begun to 
 wonder whether this entire devotion to good breeding was 
 not defeating its own ends. Indeed, Mere himself was dimly 
 stumbling towards the paradox of manners — namely, that 
 the best way to acquire them is to think about them as 
 little as one can. Every now and then he dropped mysterious 
 hints about an ' extraordinary merit,' that could afford to 
 dispense with conventions, because its mind was set on 
 higher things. This extraordinary merit was embodied in 
 
 159 
 
160 PASCAL 
 
 his friend Miton, the fourth member of the famous 
 expedition to Poitou. 
 
 Miton was a middle-aged man, who had risen from small 
 begiimings by the peculiar charm of his manners. Amongst 
 other things this had brought him a comfortable sinecure ; 
 he was Clerk of the Cheque to the Scots Guards of Louis XIV. 
 Unlike Mere, he did not fight shy of wedlock. But his first 
 wife had died early ; and it was only quite at the end of his 
 days that he contracted a characteristic second marriage 
 with his cook. When Pascal met him, he was living much 
 the same bachelor existence as Mere, and was equally 
 immersed in the study of honneteU. In their very cere- 
 monious correspondence each is fond of styling the other 
 an ' excellent workman of good breeding.' But although 
 Miton paid many compliments to Mere, they just lack the 
 tone of reverence pervading Mere's compliments to Miton ; 
 and it is significant that in the ' Pensees, ' where the Chevalier's 
 name is never mentioned, Pascal takes Miton as his type of 
 the well-bred man. Constant preoccupation with behaviour 
 made Mere fussy and self-conscious ; whereas Miton had a 
 peculiar knack of putting everyone at ease. So far from 
 wishing to shine, his indolent good nature actually preferred 
 the background ; as Pascal says, his chief fault was that 
 he never roused himself, and was always dissuading his 
 friends from any kind of effort. One day Mere wrote to 
 announce that he had a big book in contemplation. ' You 
 think of adding an imperishable monument to literature,' 
 answered Miton, certainly without a thought of sarcasm. ' I 
 am sure that no one is better qualified to do so than yourself. 
 But is it worth the while ? Deep meditation is dangerous 
 to health, and the reward is small. Never to let one's 
 mind stray beyond trifles is the safest rule.' And he 
 remained staunch to this principle, even when his own 
 interests were concerned. To M6re's horror, he would take 
 no steps when a piratical bookseller printed one of his 
 
THE HEIRS OP MONTAIGNE 161 
 
 essays as a supposed work of Saint ^vremond. ' Such 
 modesty,' wrote the ChevaHer, ' only exasperates those of 
 your friends, who take an interest in your reputation.' 
 Nor was this the only time when Mere had much ado to 
 justify his friend's nonchalance, even on the score of ' extra- 
 ordinary merit.' There was an agitated correspondence, 
 when Miton — always something of an invalid — went off 
 to nurse a bad stiff neck at the baths of Bourbon, and 
 there so far forgot himself as to call on a young lady in his 
 bedroom-slippers. To confound confusion, Mile. B. was 
 so much enraptured by his conversation as entirely to over- 
 look the deficiencies of his foot-gear. Mere could only 
 shake his head, and feel that the whole proceeding had 
 passed beyond his ken. 
 
 But if Miton was less conventional than Mere, his mind 
 was more evenly balanced. At odd moments— chiefly 
 when he was pressed for money, and went off to the country 
 to retrench — the Chevalier's pen ran off into rhapsodies 
 almost worthy of the age of Eousseau. He was fond of 
 contrasting artificial Paris, ' whose fine days are not made 
 by the sun,' with the simple joys of nature — feathered 
 songsters, rustling streamlets, lowing kine. But Miton 
 cut him very short. ' I am glad your vines and fruit-trees 
 are doing so well,' wrote back the cynical epicure. ' But 
 I should think you still better off in St. Thomas-by-the- 
 Louvre Street, although there are neither gardens nor vines.' 
 This brusqueness was much appreciated by Blaise Pascal, 
 whose teeth a gushing enthusiasm always set on edge. And 
 he sat by approvingly, when Miton wrote to Mere : ' I expect 
 that cards and ladies have more than consoled you for my 
 absence ; but of that I cannot complain. When dreamers 
 like ourselves run up against a pleasure, no one ought to 
 grudge it them. For my own part, I find little to attract 
 me ; and were it not for certain ideas that amuse me — 
 though half of them are full of folly, and the other half of 
 
162 PASCAL 
 
 vanity — I would let everything go cheap.' Later on 
 Pascal began to ask himself whether Miton's ' Weltschmerz ' 
 was worth much more than Mere's sentimentality. At 
 present he pronounced the Clerk of the Cheque a greater 
 philosopher than either Plato or Descartes. 
 
 Miton's philosophy consisted in being what the age 
 called a ' Libertine ' — that is, one aequo liberior, justo licentior, 
 as the dictionary-makers said. The Libertines represented, 
 in fact, the spirit of independence already seen at Port 
 Royal and at the Paris Club ; though their revolt was not 
 limited to particular questions, but spread to each and every 
 point of religion, morality, and custom. Not that the 
 Libertines had any definite programme, or indeed any very 
 strictly defined common characteristics. There were men 
 of fashion among them, like Miton and Saint Evremond ; 
 there were book-worms of encyclopaedic knowledge, like 
 Gabriel Naude and La Mothe Le Vayer ; while behind 
 these came a Bacchanalian phalanx drawn from Grub Street 
 or the taverns, and led by wild poets like Cyrano de Bergerac 
 or Theophile de Viau. Some of them were libertines in 
 the English sense ; others bore characters without a stain. 
 Many were undoubtedly free-thinkers. On others Bossuet 
 had his eye, when he denounced the kind of men who wished 
 there were no God. Others owed their place in the band 
 to an incurable propensity for making wicked jokes about 
 the clergy. To this last class belonged Gui Patin. Neither 
 an unbeliever nor a rake, he incarnates Libertinism in its 
 purest form ; for his hand was against every venerable 
 institution — whether ecclesiastical or civil — ^just because 
 it was venerable, and an institution. To be in a minority 
 of one was his purest joy. Very characteristic is his saying 
 that, if he had been in Eome on certain Ides of March, 
 JuHus Csesar's body would have had a round two dozen 
 wounds. 
 
 What was mere perverseness in Gui Patin became a more 
 
THE HEIRS OP MONTAIGNE 163 
 
 formidable quality in the wild young poets who hung about 
 Des Barreaux. His was a reputation of a very lurid type. 
 Even Patin, no very rigid censor, denounces him as a blas- 
 phemous profligate ; and Pascal had good reason to choose 
 him as the type of those who deliberately drown their 
 intellect in their passions. Indeed, he survives in literature 
 by the choice couplet : 
 
 Par ma raison je butte 
 A devenir bete brute. 
 
 Still, his ' impieties ' were of a trivial sort enough. They 
 come to little more than saying that he bore no grudge 
 against his Maker ; he had only forgotten Him, as he hoped 
 himself to be forgotten on the Last Day. To shock anyone 
 who could be shocked was his main object ; and naturally 
 he and his followers turned their chief attention to the 
 clergy. To annoy them it was not even necessary to be 
 learned ; nothing, in fact, annoyed their victims more 
 than a bland admission of ignorance. Mersenne himself lost 
 his temper, and called them a gang of know-nothings, who 
 chattered away like parrots in a cage, without the least 
 notion of what they meant. They thought it rather fine 
 to know no Greek or Latin, so long as they could prove 
 their wit by laughing at religion. This judgment was more 
 than endorsed by the Jesuit preacher Garasse, famous for 
 the vigour with which he called a spade a spade. ' All our 
 young Libertines know is the right way to tipple. None 
 the less, their mouths are full of what they call "my doctrine " 
 — " the doctrine of all thinking men " — as though it were 
 a new philosophy only just discovered. At any rate, their 
 way of studying it is new. Their school is a tavern, their 
 rostrum a dinner-table, their professors are good cooks, and 
 their academical exercises are banquets at half-a-crown a 
 head. Their genius takes its highest flight in an ode, a sonnet, 
 a satire, a neat paragraph, or a paradox. Thank goodness, 
 it only takes them six months to turn off a sonnet to a 
 
 M 2 
 
164 PASCAL 
 
 street-girl, or an ode to the dinner-bell, with an average of 
 six glasses to the verse ; for their inspiration soon runs dry, 
 unless it is moistened from a pint-pot. They say that deep 
 learning is not for them, and think it exquisitely funny to 
 explain that they are neither philosophers nor divines ; 
 indeed, the only thing they understand is how to rhyme 
 themselves into a dinner for nothing.' 
 
 These attacks the Libertines placidly put down to 
 jealousy. They flattered themselves — ^not entirely without 
 justice — that they were supplanting the confessors in the 
 favour of the great. For in large houses it was still the 
 fashion to keep a learned man as a kind of paid guide, 
 philosopher and friend ; and many of the more frivolous 
 nobles cared httle who did their thinking for them, so long 
 as it was done amusingly. And certainly the Libertines 
 got much amusement out of Garasse himself. To make 
 up a party to go and bait him was one of their favourite 
 sports. He describes how they used to descend on a convent, 
 in order to ask the monks on the quiet whether they really 
 beheved in God ; and they generally timed their visit so as 
 to arrive just before the dinner-bell rang. This was the 
 occasion of fresh witticisms on the absurdity of tying one's 
 appetite down to fixed hours ; whereas a sensible man would 
 suit his meal-times to his appetite. Still, they were capable 
 of higher flights. The better to torment Garasse, they laid 
 in a stock of theological knowledge. ' They hunt through the 
 Holy Scriptures,' groaned the pestered Jesuit, ' much as 
 donkeys hunt for thistles. They say the Bible is a pretty 
 book, and full of excellent things ; but it is going rather 
 far to expect a sensible man to swallow it all, down to the 
 tail of Tobit's dog. Another of their favourite points is to 
 charge God with injustice. They will admit the existence of 
 angels, since we seem so set upon it ; they will even accept 
 our accounts of the Garden of Eden, as a piece of tavern 
 civility. But to say that the angels fell, because they did 
 
THE HEIRS OP MONTAIGNE 165 
 
 not know how to make a curtsey, or that such noble creatures 
 as ourselves will be damned for eating one cursed apple — that 
 is a little too much.' 
 
 In much the same spirit they discussed the problem of a 
 future life. 
 
 J'ai vescu sans souoi, et je meurs sans regret. 
 
 Personne ne me plaint, et je ne plains personne. 
 Pour le lieu ou je vais o'est un trop grand segret 
 
 Je le laisse a vuider h, Messieurs de Sorbonne. 
 
 quotes Garasse from one of their own poets ; and adds the 
 commentary : ' They say that immortality is doubtful ; so 
 we had much better keep a tight hold on present pleasures 
 than howl for imaginary moons in the future. Thus do 
 they put the glories of Paradise up to auction. They let the 
 joys of the Blessed, and the whole furniture of the Empy- 
 rsean, go for a song ; as though the Almighty had gone 
 bankrupt, and were forced to compound with His creditors 
 by a forced sale. They say that only a malignant lunatic 
 could have invented hell, and that the best cure for such 
 silly fancies is a thorough souse.' All the same, there was 
 more in Libertinism than liquor, as Garasse himself knew 
 perfectly well. The Jesuit put his finger on the spot 
 when he said that the very quintessence of atheism was the 
 doctrine that anyone might believe whatever he thought fit. 
 Libertinism put on many different shapes and forms — there 
 is little superficial likeness between Des Barreaux and 
 Saint Evremond— but at bottom both were members of the 
 famous abbey established by King Gargantua. ' All the life 
 of the Thelemites was spent not in laws, statutes or rules, 
 but according to their own free will and pleasure. In all 
 their rule and strictest tie of their Order there was this one 
 clause to be observed : Do as thou wouldst. Because men 
 that are free, well-born, well-bred, and conversant in 
 honest companies, have naturally an instinct and spur that 
 prompteth them unto virtuous actions, and withdraws them 
 
166 PASCAL 
 
 from vice, which is called honour ; those same men, when 
 by base subjection and constraint they are brought under 
 and kept down, turn aside from that noble disposition which 
 is called virtue, to shake off and break that band of servitude 
 wherein they are so tyrannously enslaved. For it is agree- 
 able with the nature of man to long after things forbidden, 
 and to desire what is denied us.' 
 
 This profession of faith all Libertines would have sub 
 scribed, provided that each was allowed to interpret the 
 ' natural instinct and spur ' after his own fashion. Garasse's 
 tormentors had no doubts about its meaning. ' Their 
 first and fundamental maxim is that God is Nature, and 
 Nature God. This natural God, or divinised Nature 
 loves all her works, according as it is written in 
 Genesis : " God saw everything that he had made, and 
 behold, it was very good." The soul is good, the body 
 good, the senses and their organs good ; pleasure is good, 
 fruits and meats and creatures are all good. For our kind 
 Mother could never have called us to a life of troubles, 
 thorns and disappointments. Even the beasts she has 
 only created to browse peacefully along, enjoying the 
 fruits of her bounty as they go. For all and sundry Nature 
 keeps open house. Her world is like the treasury of Croesus, 
 where all his friends are welcome, provided that they take 
 away as much as they can carry. But man, beyond all 
 doubt, is the chief effort of Nature. He is the soul of the 
 world according to Plato, its microcosm in the eyes of 
 Aristotle, its temple and its altar in the opinion of Trisme- 
 gistus. That being so, we men cannot be lower than the 
 beasts. They may enjoy their pleasures without shame — 
 may eat and drink and sleep, may increase and multiply. 
 Why, then, may we not do the same ? Must we, the 
 masters, fall so low as to be jealous of our servants ? ' The 
 answer was clear enough : men must follow the promptings 
 of Nature. ' That is what they say,' continues Garasse, 
 
THE HEIRS OP MONTAIGNE 167 
 
 ' when anyone remonstrates with them. " Multi multa, 
 varii varia," they make answer; and this particular thing 
 happens to be my taste. Nature makes one man bigoted, 
 and another superstitious — one hypochondriacal, and an- 
 other sweat with fear. All these are afraid of their own 
 shadow. As for me, I fear neither God nor devil : that is 
 my destiny.' 
 
 To pick the grain of truth out of this heap of chaff became 
 the object of more serious Libertines. All of them felt that 
 the dead weight of custom must, at all costs, be shifted. 
 
 Es erben sich Gesetz' und Reohte 
 Wie eine ewige Krankheit fort — 
 
 and to make war on every sort and kind of established usage 
 became the mission of Gabriel Naude and La Mothe Le Vayer. 
 Unlike the tormentors of Garasse, both of them were great 
 scholars, and had all the angry contempt for their neighbours 
 which scholarship not uncommonly engenders ; for a man 
 who spends his life in a study cannot help being more or 
 less at odds with the petty conventions of society. It costs 
 him great effort to conform to them — gossips noticed, for 
 instance, that Le Vayer never managed to wear the same 
 kind of boots as anyone else — and it is always irksome to 
 fail in observing customs which one feels to be ridiculous. 
 Montaigne would simply have shrugged his shoulders, but 
 Le Vayer was not Montaigne. All his erudite pride rose in 
 disgust at being expected to share the beUefs and habits of 
 the common herd — ^wretched creatures, who knew no Greek. 
 ' Pessimum argumentum turba,' he said, ' whether it wears 
 silk or fustian, a cassock or a porter's apron.' But he was 
 much too timid and too indifferent to pose as a reformer ; 
 though Naude did good practical service in exposing the 
 credulity of witches, and the still worse credulity of their 
 judges. His was an instinctive antipathy to the super- 
 natural as such. ' There were four things,' says Patin, 
 ' which the late M. Naude could not stand. And they were 
 
168 "' PASCAL 
 
 visions and revelations, miracles and ghosts.' Having 
 spent much of his Hfe in Italy, he was always discoursing 
 of that charmed country beyond the Alps, full of men who 
 dug down into the secrets of nature so far as they could go, 
 and refused to believe one syllable of anything else. 
 
 Le Vayer went less openly to work. Custom was his 
 enemy — the custom he daily outraged in his boots — and on 
 the authority of custom he waged an endless subterranean 
 war. All the batteries of his learning were brought into play 
 to show that on every conceivable point of religion, morality 
 and usage, different peoples had followed precisely different 
 rules. ' We kneel to pray ; the Canadian Indians do not 
 know what kneeling is. We admire a clean face more than a 
 dirty ; the Canadians think that nothing improves a face 
 so much as smearing it with mud. We only make war in 
 the day-time ; the Massylians of Libya always fought at 
 night, and made a truce in the day. The Cymbrians 
 rejoiced to die on the battle-field, and thought it disgraceful 
 to breathe their last in bed. The Greeks preferred to die 
 at home, talking philosophy to the last.' Every now and 
 then, however, the dreary catalogue is lightened by an al- 
 most Voltairean touch. ' Some writers say that hell simply 
 means absence from God. Others— and these are right — 
 say it means a blazing fire. The Chinese, in their heathen 
 blindness, think that the fire is only smoky.' 
 
 Antitheses of this sort were the one weapon of his 
 dialectic, and he applied them indiscriminately everywhere. 
 His huge memory could always be trusted to turn a cold 
 douche of facts on to the neatest argument. Even metaphors 
 were not safe, as a ludicrous example from his ' Hexameron 
 Eustique ' shows. One of the company quoted from 
 Balzac the remark that keeping up friendships by correspond- 
 ence was like growing melons in Muscovy. Le Vayer 
 frigidly replied that M. Balzac's efforts at alliteration were 
 singularly ill chosen. Olearius' recent book of travels quite 
 
THE HEIRS OF MONTAIGNE 169 
 
 agreed with Captain Margeret that the Russian cHmate was 
 peculiarly suited to the growth of melons. Pascal may well 
 have had some such scene in his mind when he wrote : 
 ' There is no rule without an exception — no truth so certain, 
 but it somewhere fails to apply. All we have got to do is 
 to iind the exception, and we shall either be very stupid or 
 very unlucky if we do not manage to do so sooner or later.' 
 Constant practice in this art turned Le Vayer into a ' Pyr- 
 rhonist,' or practical sceptic. A philosophical sceptic he 
 cannot be called, if only because he refused to grapple with 
 one serious philosophical problem in his life. His Pyr- 
 rhonism was not so much a doctrine as a state of mind ; 
 he himself defines it as S'poque — suspension of judgment. 
 ' precious i-poque,' he was always crying. ' sweet and 
 sure retreat of reason. inestimable antidote to the false 
 certainty of pedants. How great are thy uses in all affairs 
 of life, and among all companies of men — commonly so much 
 enamoured of their own opinion that they deny the name of 
 common sense to any view that differs from theirs.' 
 
 Such an outburst characterises its author as a man of 
 anaemic mental constitution over-ballasted by miscellaneous 
 learning, and ill at ease in an age of dogmatists, all frenziedly 
 anxious to draw conclusions. Conclusions were the last 
 thing Le Vayer wished to have on his hands. He thought 
 only in quotations ; and, once an issue had been settled, 
 what room would there be for more quotations ? Besides, 
 an unorthodox writer still ran considerable risks. Though 
 the church-zealots could hardly burn his body, they were 
 both willing and able to get the public executioner to burn 
 his books. Still, in its own way Le Vayer's ipoque was an 
 excellent discipline. There are few tasks at once more 
 useful and more thankless than teaching caution to a dog- 
 matist. Le Vayer's century might indeed have learnt a 
 lesson from the Eastern sage he was so fond of quoting, 
 who always explained^at the^end of a lecture : ' All I have 
 
170 PASCAL 
 
 said is probably wrong.' But Le Vayer's own practice 
 fell far below that of his Mahommedan model. Instead of 
 trying, as Montaigne tried, to screw his countrymen down 
 from the dogmatic level, he proposed a rival dogmatism of 
 his own limited to one single article. Efoque for its own 
 sake became the one goal of human endeavour ; the wisest 
 man was he who had most completely lost the power of 
 making up his mind. 
 
 It would have gone ill with the Libertines had Le Vayer 
 been their only leader. But behind him stood a far more 
 remarkable writer : Pierre Charron, the priestly disciple of 
 Montaigne. During the first half of the seventeenth century 
 his ' Traite de la Sagesse ' became the Koran of Libertinism, 
 even throwing Montaigne's own Essays into the shade. 
 The reason is not far to seek. Montaigne was the most 
 discursive of writers ; Charron's ' Traite ' is nothing if 
 not exhaustively systematic. Pascal might find its endless 
 divisions wearisome and depressing ; but most of his 
 contemporaries were enraptured by a book which told them 
 exactly what wisdom was, and how it could be reached. 
 What, then, was Charron's recipe ? It was suggested by the 
 circumstances of his time. Born in 1541, he was old 
 enough to remember the omnivorous scholarship of the 
 Eenaissance, when men, by dint of reading everything there 
 was to read, had read themselves out of the power of steering 
 any definite course in life. Charron accordingly put small 
 faith in books. ' Learning is a most excellent weapon, but 
 not fit to be trusted in every hand. It makes sick minds 
 giddy and conceited ; it perfects and polishes fools. A 
 weak and injudicious man is oppressed by it, like a stomach 
 over-charged with food.' Living through the Wars of 
 EeHgion, Charron conceived undying hatred for the dispu- 
 tatious partisan. Le Vayer himself was not more bitter 
 against ' men of presumptuous and pedantic temper, who 
 prefer a hot-headed, peremptory opponent, with whom they 
 
THE HEIRS OF MONTAIGNE 171 
 
 can argue, to a peaceable, sedate and modest man, who 
 contents himself with doubting.' He doubts, because he 
 will not put on the chains of a shibboleth. ' Instead of 
 tying himself up to any opinion, he remains free, and at his 
 own disposal. He examines and weighs all matters that 
 come before him, putting the arguments into a balance, to 
 see which scale preponderates.' Very soon he altogether 
 forgets the trumpery squabbles of his neighbours. ' He 
 casts his eyes, expands and stretches out his thoughts, 
 over the vast universe. "With Socrates, he becomes a 
 citizen of the world ; like the sun, he looks down with an 
 equal, steady and indifferent eye upon the changes and 
 vicissitudes here below. He keeps his wiU and affections 
 disengaged, laying them out on very few objects, and those 
 few such as justify his choice.' 
 
 But how does he learn to choose ? May he follow 
 wherever humour leads the way ? By no means. ' Above 
 aU passions that of self-love, and inordinate fondness for 
 our own imaginations and opinions, requires a watchful eye. 
 We can never be in worse hands than our own. That 
 prayer of the Spaniards is very significant : " God, 
 preserve me from myself." ' How does God preserve us ? 
 Charron answers that He gives us a Law. ' The spring and 
 source of wisdom is the Law of Nature, by which I mean 
 imiversal equity and reason, the candle of our Maker lighted 
 in every breast. This Law is born with, and bred in us ; 
 it is a piece of our frame and original constitution. Why, 
 then, vain man, dost thou trouble to look abroad for a rule ? 
 To what purpose is all this tumbling over codes and in- 
 stitutes ? The Two Tables of Moses, the Twelve Tables of 
 Rome, the Law written in the hearts of those who have no 
 law, all the good rules of equity that have anywhere been 
 enacted, are but copies of that original which thou keepest 
 close within thee.' Charron accordingly goes on to sing 
 the praises of natural, as contrasted with positive law. It 
 
172 PASCAL 
 
 is richer in content ; ' latius officium quam juris patet 
 regula.' It is always and everywhere one and the same, 
 whereas systems of positive law vary from time to time, 
 from place to place. ' Three degrees of longitude nullify a 
 whole system of jurisprudence. A meridian decides on truth . 
 A few years of prescription are enough to upset fundamental 
 principles. Laws have their day, and the entry of Saturn 
 into Leo marks the addition of a new crime to the statute- 
 book. Quaint is the justice that a river bounds : what is 
 true on one side of the Pyrenees spells error on the other.' i 
 Pascal was still more deeply pierced by another shaft 
 from Charron's quiver. That positive laws habitually 
 contradicted each other only laid at their door the sin of 
 logical contradiction ; that they were necessarily weaker 
 and less effective than positive law was a far graver blot on 
 their scutcheon. Charron goes on to explain that forcing 
 wisdom down men's throats by means of laws and regulations 
 is to ' graft in a fresh fruit on the crab-stock, to introduce 
 a new, foreign and artificial virtue, such as will be at best 
 but occasional and accidental only. It is beyond all doubt 
 that natural excellences are more desirable than those that 
 are studied and acquired. It is much more brave and great 
 to act by the spontaneous motions of nature than with the 
 most exquisite dexterity and nicest improvements of art ; 
 it is more divine to go forward in an easy, free, equal and 
 uniform manner than with laborious efforts and uncertainty, 
 with doubt, danger and perplexity of thought.' Nor did 
 Charron scruple to apply this reasoning to rehgion. Churches 
 were well enough for those who had it not in them to be wise. 
 
 Wer Wissensohaft und Kunst besitzt 
 
 Hat auch Religion. 
 Wer diese beiden nicht besitzt, 
 
 Der habe Religion. 
 
 Christianity was simply the alphabet of Wissenschaft 
 
 ' Pascal, Pens. 294. 
 
THE HEIES OP MONTAIGNE 173 
 
 parcelled out into formal rules for the use of the unlearned ; 
 and Charron preaches reverence for its Pounder along the 
 Unes of Coleridge's saying that St. Paul was the finest 
 gentleman that ever lived. But of what use was a positive 
 creed to the wise man ? Dogmas and precepts, imposed 
 from outside, could never compare with an inward Law 
 that was bone of his'bone and flesh of his flesh. 
 
 To Gabriel Naude and Gui Patin such teaching seemed 
 ' divine.' But Libertines of laxer fibre were in great danger 
 of fastening only on Gharron's theological heterodoxy, and 
 throwing his moral teaching to the winds. How make the 
 Law of Nature attractive to average easy-going men ? An 
 answer was suggested by Gassendi, the philosophic Dean 
 of Digne and apologist of Epicurus. Nowadays he is chiefly 
 remembered for his scientific achievements, as the chief 
 connecting-link between the atomism of ancient and modern 
 times. Quite different services, however, endeared him to 
 his Libertine contemporaries ; it was thought that his 
 ethical theories held a delicate balance between the con- 
 flicting claims of virtue and self-interest. The age had a 
 strong belief in virtue for its own sake. So far from allow- 
 ing that aims might be sought because they were pleasant, 
 most moralists were inclined to argue that an action was 
 right, just because it was hard or disagreeable. But this 
 practical Stoicism only revolted the flippant type of Liber- 
 tine youth ; he answered that the presence of canting prigs 
 like Seneca was quite enough of itself to account for all 
 the wickedness of Imperial Eome. Now, however, stepped 
 forward Gassendi to maintain that what was pleasant was 
 not necessarily immoral. Happily for man. Nature had so 
 appointed matters that what is good is generally agreeable, 
 and what is agreeable is generally good. Hence the wise 
 man does not separate morality from pleasure. Virtue is 
 no more the sole object of his mental life than corn is of 
 his bodily. But because he cannot live by bread alone, it 
 
174 PASCAL 
 
 by no means follows that he can live without it. Virtue is 
 as necessary to his happiness as vice is incompatible with 
 it ; that was what Epicurus meant, when he said that 
 pleasure was health in the body and peace in the soul. 
 Why, then, deny that pleasure is the end of life ? It stands 
 for a state of tranquil serenity, when soul and body have 
 arrived at a thorough understanding of each other, when 
 every passion has died down, and all inquietude is at rest. 
 We shall best reach it if we ' follow Nature ' — that is, if 
 we obey our instinctive bent of character ; we shall certainly 
 miss it if we insist on struggling — ' instar Sisyphi nixandi ' 
 — to turn ourselves into something other than Nature would 
 have us be. 
 
 This doctrine many clever young men translated into 
 their own language with full acknowledgments to the master. 
 Still, it is easy to misunderstand the nature of their allegi- 
 ance. They were not students, but men of the world ; they 
 did not go to Gassendi for a theory, so much as for the 
 weight of his name. They wanted to be able to boast that 
 he — ^whose speculative eminence neither schoolmen nor 
 Cartesians could deny — was quite at one with themselves 
 in throwing metaphysics aside as so much useless lumber. 
 Whether they understood his real position may be doubted ; 
 for Gassendi was no sceptic, although it is true to say that 
 he had read so much about the opinions of other philo- 
 sophers that he found it exceedingly hard to reach coherent 
 opinions of his own. Hence the point of the old saying 
 that he much preferred an esse videtur to a sufjicit ut 
 affirmem. But this was quite enough for his disciples ; 
 all of them felt towards him as did Saint J^vremond after 
 a first youthful interview. Gassendi told him that to 
 discover what great men had thought about a subject was 
 feasible enough, but to decide which of them was right 
 was a hard task indeed. Nature had put such jealous 
 limits to our knowledge, at the same time as she endowed 
 
THE HEIE8 OP MONTAIGNE 175 
 
 us with a boundless curiosity. Saint ^^vremond came away 
 convinced that Gassendi was at once the most enhghtened 
 and the least presumptuous of philosophers ; but this one 
 interview was enough to cure him of all attachment to 
 philosophy itself. ' I was already very doubtful of its value. 
 Now I finally made up my mind against it, and began to 
 wonder how a sensible man could waste his time over such 
 futilities.' 
 
 Even without Gassendi, however, abstractions and Saint 
 ;fivremond would soon have parted company. Patin, Le 
 Vayer and their friends still remained within the logical 
 orbit, even when their chief occupation was making war 
 on logic. All of them came of the professional class — the 
 class that had invented the geometrical spirit, and lived 
 behind a barricade of arguments and quotations. Even the 
 tormentors of Garasse paraded their tags from Plato and 
 Aristotle, not to speak of Hermes Trismegistus. But Saint 
 Evremond belonged to a world where intellectual problems 
 were disposed of much more lightly. There argument was 
 little short of a breach of good manners ; while as to quota- 
 tions, he would as soon have cited Trismegistus as have 
 gone to make unseemly noises during Garasse's sermons. 
 He was a fine gentleman with a ready pen and a very 
 independent mind — an ideahsed Mere — in fact, all the 
 Chevalier wished to be, and much more besides. He owes 
 his place among the Libertines to his worldly wisdom. 
 Owning no standard but good taste, he applied it resolutely 
 everywhere, to literature, to morals, even to religion. 
 Little of his time was wasted over points of etiquette. 
 Mere might pride himself on being an excellent workman 
 of good breeding ; Saint ^fivremond had no need to work. 
 A special friend of Conde and La Eochefoueauld, he knew 
 that he aheady possessed whatever birth and breeding could 
 give. Had anyone challenged his right to speak on any 
 subject he chose, he might have answered by adapting a 
 
176 PASCAL 
 
 famous phrase of St. Augustine : Habeo urbanitatem, et 
 facio quod volo. 
 
 Nor was this mere aristocratic impertinence. Brought 
 up outside the pedantry of courts and schools, Saint Evre- 
 mond had a masculine contempt for rules grounded simply 
 on tradition. ' What right,' he asks, ' has any art or science 
 to set itself up above common sense ? ' A great traveller, 
 he suspected that mental insularity went for much in. the 
 upkeep of these sacred rules. He was always denouncing 
 the peculiar incapacity of his nation to approach things 
 from any but a French point of view. ' When in another 
 country,' he said, ' we even call the natives foreigners, 
 because their habits are not just the same as ours.' At 
 home in several literatures he saw much more clearly 
 than the erudite Boileau how surely the soundest rules 
 obey a universal law of change and decay. ' The genius 
 of our time,' he says, speaking of the gods of Homer, ' is 
 quite against these fables and false mysteries. We are all 
 for positive truths. Common sense keeps fancy in check, 
 and nothing short of solid reason passes muster to-day. 
 Neither taste nor knowledge are what they were. Once 
 the sky was tenanted by deities innumerable; now it is 
 simply a huge, watery space. The same sun continues to 
 shine, but he no longer sinks to rest in the sea ; he goes 
 on to Ulumine another world. All has changed — God and 
 Nature, governments and customs, tastes and morals.' 
 
 Already Le Vayer had said the same thing, but said it 
 the wrong way. He had only made war on the particular 
 opinions ; whereas the enemy of Saint Evremond was the 
 temper of mind that called them forth. A great student 
 of Montaigne — ' one of the few books one goes back to 
 more and more, as one grows older and more natural ' — he 
 had caught the Essayist's feeling that the less pretence a 
 doctrine made, the more likely was it to be true ; since 
 none but dubious propositions would take the trouble to palm 
 
TEE HBinS Ol' MONTAIGNE 17? 
 
 themselves off as certain. Not that he openly applied this 
 reasoning to reUgion. So far from wishing to attack it, 
 he posed as an amateur ecclesiastical reformer, sincerely 
 anxious to reform CathoUcism in the direction of sweetness 
 and hght. Eeligious women of the world came in for his 
 highest praise ; whereas he was never tired of gibing at 
 theologians and devotees — ^wretched creatures, whose con- 
 vulsive antics parodied the creed they meant to serve. 
 For the theologians were intolerant, and a genuine hatred 
 of intolerance is among Saint Evremond's highest traits. 
 Why should I persecute a man, he is fond of asking, because 
 I disapprove of his opinions ? Everyone would pity him 
 if he were blind. Why, then, iU-treat him because the 
 blindness is in his mind ? Besides, what is the good of 
 persecution ? Faith does not wait on our beck and call. 
 Even orthodox Catholics do not always possess it. ' With 
 most of them the wish to believe takes the place of actual 
 belief. Their will assents to what their intellect denies. 
 I have even known pious people, whose heart loved God as 
 sincerely as their reason disbeheved in Him.' 
 
 Intolerance, however, was not the only sin of dogmatism 
 in Saint Evremond's eyes. StUl more pronouncedly than 
 Mere, he held that social intercourse was the chief end of 
 life ; all our ideas and interests should lead up to the 
 supreme art of conversation. But in society a man of 
 strong opinions is apt to be both offensive and absurd. 
 Even if he is too well-bred to inflict his shibboleths on his 
 neighbours, they bulk too largely in his mind. He becomes 
 unduly self-absorbed ; and Saint ]&vremond held that 
 it is ridiculous to ' talk too much about oneself, even to 
 oneself.' All sense of proportion disappears. A man 
 grows increasingly satisfied with himself and his own ideas ; 
 or else he sets out on the opposite tack, becomes morbidly 
 despondent, and is for ever discovering blemishes in his 
 own character. Dissatisfied with what he is, he strains 
 
178 PASCAL 
 
 feverishly to turn himself into something else. Nature 
 
 meant the critic Chapelain to write honest, wholesome 
 
 prose. Instead, he must needs set up as a bombastic poet. 
 
 ' La prose est trop facile,' Saint ifivremond makes him say, 
 
 et son bas naturel 
 N'a rien qui puisse rendre un auteur immortel ; 
 Mais d'un sens figur6 la noble allegorie 
 Des sublimes esprits sera toujours ch^rie. 
 Je quitte done la prose et la simple nature 
 Pour composer des vers, ou r^gne la figure. 
 
 What Chapelain did with epic poetry, that Mme. de 
 Sable did with love. She also must improve on nature, 
 and freeze one of the simplest of emotions into a complex 
 intellectual process. No doubt, all she was aiming at 
 was to free love from sensuality, and for that Saint Evremond 
 gave her due credit. Unfortunately she did not see that she 
 erred as much in one direction as Des Barreaux did in 
 another. True love had as little to do with pure reason as 
 with the grosser appetites ; to bind it to obey aU the vagaries 
 of Madeleine de Scudery and her Carte du Tendre was 
 simply flying in the face of Nature. Still, there were worse 
 offenders than the fricieuses. Much as Saint ;&vremond 
 respected rehgious women of the world, he was remorseless 
 towards devotes. For their edification he sketched his 
 portrait of the ideal woman, ' la femme qui ne se trouve 
 point, et ne se trouvera jamais.' She is pious, butiieither 
 melancholy nor superstitious, and quite free fijpm the 
 supernatural silliness of seeing the Hand of God in trivial 
 everyday events. She does not believe that the best place 
 to find Him is a gloomy sohtude. She thinks that to break 
 away from human intercourse — from all our dearest and 
 most natural ties — is the mark of a selfish and disordered 
 fancy. She seeks Him in the world of men, where His 
 Bounty is most openly displayed, and His Providence finds 
 its worthiest employment. 
 
 Li short, Chapelain, Mme. de Sable, and the divotes 
 
THE HEIES OP MONTAIGNE 179 
 
 all sinned the same sin. All three insisted on picking 
 out for themselves a path other than Nature had intended 
 for them. All three fell under the condemnation of Pierre 
 Charron : ' AUer contre son naturel, c'est tenter Dieu.' 
 But why is it tempting God ? Saint Evremond answers 
 that, whether we like it or no, happiness must be our end 
 in life ; and happiness means a gradual adjustment of 
 our appetites to our affections, of our affections to our 
 reason. Until equiUbrium is estabhshed, life will be a 
 struggle ; once perfect harmony reigns, man has reached 
 his goal. But to set up ' unnatural ' ideals is to prolong 
 the conflict for ever, and put happiness altogether beyond 
 our reach. That is why Saint Evremond was always 
 exalting the ' wisdom ' of Epicurus above the ' virtue ' 
 of the Stoics. ' A virtuous life is seldom free from pain, 
 owing to the endless war waged between duty and iuclina- 
 tion. Now we put up with what we dislike, now we deny 
 ourselves what we should have liked. We must use force 
 with ourselves to carry out nearly everything we do, and 
 to refrain from doing nearly all we leave undone. But 
 the life of wisdom is moderate and peaceful. Where 
 virtue is fighting enemies, wisdom is gently guiding subjects.' 
 Whether Pascal ever met in the flesh the writer of 
 these lines is a question neither answerable nor important ; 
 for Saint !&vremond only set down in print ideas that had 
 long been flitting through the mind of Miton, and many 
 another worldhng of the age. How important Pascal 
 thought them may be judged from the degree of energy 
 that he brought to their refutation. But, in refuting 
 them, he borrowed more than one page from the Libertine 
 book. ' AUer contre son naturel, c'est tenter Dieu ' might 
 serve as the motto of the ' Pensees,' quite as well as the 
 ' Essays ' of Montaigne. Pascal did not quarrel with the 
 Libertines because they followed Nature too closely, but 
 because they did not follow her closely enough. They 
 
 H 2 
 
180 PASCAL 
 
 went as much too far in one direction as the ' Sainte Philo- 
 sophie ' had gone in the other. Du Vair professed to ' found 
 on man the greatness of man ' hy dweUing only on his 
 nobler qualities ; Montaigne founded the science of his 
 littleness by paying an exclusive attention to his weaknesses 
 and vices. Pascal answers that real human nature is 
 neither purely great, nor purely small ; she is ' a Sphinx, 
 a monstrous contradiction, alike the glory and the scandal 
 of the Universe.' And he will go on to claim that this 
 contradiction can only be reconciled by religion. Alone 
 among teachers, the Bible has dared to look the Sphinx full 
 in the face, and deal with her as she really is. 
 
CHAPTEE XI 
 
 THE SECOND CONVERSION 
 
 Ever since he first turned his attention to the vacuum, 
 zealous Cartesians had seen in Pascal a brilliant future 
 recruit to their ranks. And for a while there seemed good 
 Hkelihood that their expectation would be fulfilled. The 
 salons and the Libertines had by no means banished hydrosta- 
 tics from his head. All through 1653 he was intermittently 
 busy over questions connected with the vacuum ; and in 
 the begiiming of 1654 he laid before the Paris Club a whole 
 crop of mathematical pamphlets, together with a programme 
 of yet more elaborate researches into the Arithmetical 
 Triangle and the Theory of Number. For he still remained 
 a member of the Club, although its character had greatly 
 changed since the death of Mersenne — murdered by a clumsy 
 phlebotomist in the autumn of 1648. Although Descartes 
 followed him to the grave within two years, the Club had 
 become Uttle more than a forcing-house of Cartesian ideas. 
 With the scientific side of this new departure Pascal felt 
 little sympathy ; his 1654 programme was meant to recall 
 it to earUer and better ways. But for the moment he was 
 bitten by its metaphysical speculations ; indeed, his indiscreet 
 readiness to allude to these in general company brought 
 down on his head some very plain speaking from Mere 
 about ' that Descartes, of whom you think so much.' 
 What really attracted him, however, was the reUgious 
 side of the matter. He had broken away from Port Royal, 
 because the geometrical spirit within him could not away 
 
 181 
 
182 PASCAL 
 
 with its cloudy intuitions ; and Cartesianism had come 
 forward to offer a feather-bed for a falling Jansenist. For 
 Descartes had undertaken to reconcile theology and common 
 sense. He offered the world what the world had never 
 seen before — proofs of God, freedom, and immortality, 
 put into language strictly reasoned, but not too hard for 
 average minds to foUow. And average minds responded 
 to his call. Down to quite modern times, Descartes set 
 the standard of many a French layman's faith ; and 
 perhaps even Bossuet and Bourdaloue would not have 
 shown such masculine confidence in reason, had they not 
 felt that the greatest intellectual force of the age was on 
 their side. The charm of this assurance even Pascal felt. 
 From the Jansenist God, who admittedly could not be 
 proved by argument, it was pleasant to turn to the Cartesian 
 God, who admittedly could. Come what might. He could 
 not escape one, since His existence was guaranteed by 
 chains of irrefragable logic. 
 
 Still, there was another side to the picture, as Pascal 
 presently found out. Descartes liked to be thought — and 
 in his own way, sincerely was — an upholder of reUgion ; 
 but he was careful to avoid all dealings with theology, as 
 such. He kept strictly within his own domain — the reason 
 of ' men who were simply men.' From this benevolent 
 neutrality he only emerged in order to defend such truths as 
 happened to be necessary aUke to metaphysics and religion. 
 Thus his whole system crumbled to pieces, imless he could 
 prove the existence of God. Without Him, the truths of 
 science had no warrant, and motion no First Cause. Freedom 
 resulted from the fact that reason can always master passion, 
 ' if art and industry be used.' Immortahty followed on 
 his demonstration that mind is immaterial ; why should a 
 bodiless thing be subject to laws of change and decay ? 
 These three things once proved, however, Descartes made 
 his bow and departed, leaving the field clear for theology. 
 
THE SECOND CONVERSION 183 
 
 What God was like he did not pretend to say, nor how 
 eternal happiness could be compassed, or human happiness 
 be used. Such things were matters of faith, not reason ; 
 and he only dealt with the domain where faith and reason 
 overlapped. Clearly this division of labour must soon 
 break down in practice. Men may follow reason, or they 
 may follow faith, but very few minds are capable of following 
 both at once. Most Cartesian imaginations fastened on 
 the God of reason, and troubled the God of faith but little. 
 What were truths confessedly above proof, in comparison 
 with other truths which their own efforts had successfully 
 proved ? Besides, there was another rock ahead. What 
 was to be made of regions wherein both faith and reason 
 claimed an interest ? To which did morality belong ? 
 Descartes began by handing it over altogether to the Church. 
 But as his knowledge grew, he saw himself forced — much, 
 it would seem, to his own disgust — to sketch out the lines 
 of a purely rational morality based on psychology and 
 medicine. How it could be harmonised with the rival code 
 of Christian ethics the timid philosopher did not explain. 
 He was only too glad to leave his two Camarinas side by 
 side — never opposed, but never combined. On this only 
 one result could follow. As science grew increasingly sure 
 of itself, the boundaries of the supernatural world retreated 
 backwards, until the eighteenth century suppressed it 
 altogether as dangerous and useless. 
 
 Such a theory was not likely to keep Pascal captive 
 long. He might play with Cartesianism for the moment ; 
 but in due time his grim humour was sure to be excited at 
 the sight of his Maker literally made into a God from the 
 machine — brought on to the stage simply to be the cause 
 of motion, in order that one kick from Him might send the 
 world spinning on its axis. Descartes' abstruser proofs 
 of God Pascal handled with a little more respect. They 
 might be useful to some people ; though he doubted whether 
 
184 PASCAL 
 
 many could understand them, or whether they made a 
 lasting impression on those few. ' A man may believe the 
 proportions of numbers to be eternal and immaterial truths, 
 all dependent on a First Truth called God. But for all that, 
 he need not be advanced one step along the high-road of 
 salvation.' i Nor was their spiritual ineffectiveness the 
 only blemish in the Cartesian proofs. The more he turned 
 them over in his mind, the more sceptical did Pascal grow 
 of their logical validity. Early in his friendship with 
 Miton, he was set down to a study of Montaigne ; and 
 although he did not grasp at once the full import of the 
 ' Essays,' he soon found that they threw a Ught uncom- 
 fortably new on the limits of man's reasoning powers. He 
 has himself described their first effect upon him in an inter- 
 view with the Jansenist priest, Lemaistre de Saci, some 
 little while after his second conversion. 
 
 ' Montaigne's plan is to treat everything as doubtful 
 — so much so, that he even doubts if he doubts. Of 
 this also he is doubtful ; and so his indecision rolls on 
 in a circle without end. He is quite as much against 
 those who say there is no certainty as those who say 
 there is ; for what he calls his master-principle is to be 
 sure of nothing, and remain in an ignorance that ignores 
 itself. It cannot be put into positive language ; for 
 owning that he doubted would betray him into a positive 
 statement, and that is just what he will not make. So, 
 instead of saying I do not know, he takes as his motto 
 the interrogation : What do I know ? Over this he puts 
 a pair of scales, to show that the arguments on either 
 side of a question exactly balance each other. In short, 
 he is a thorough Pyrrhonist. This is the whole burden 
 of his " Essays," and the one thing he tries to establish, 
 although he does not always show his hand. But 
 imperceptibly he pulls down all that men hold for 
 
 ' Pens. 556. 
 
THE SECOND CONVEKSION 186 
 
 best-assured. Not that he wants to prove the con- 
 trary — for certitude is his one enemy — so much as 
 to show that the objections to any opinion are just 
 as strong as the arguments in its favour. Hence a 
 man cannot afford to make up his mind.' 
 
 ' From this standpoint he makes game of all received 
 opinions. He laughs at those who try to stem the tide 
 of law-suits in France by multiplying laws — as though 
 statutes could root out the doubts out of which law- 
 suits grow, or could raise a dyke against uncertainty, 
 and keep conjecture under lock and key. He says he 
 would rather have his case tried by the first bystander 
 than by judges armed with all these ordinances. Not 
 that he really wishes to tamper with our institutions. 
 He is not so ambitious ; besides, in a world where all 
 opinions are wrong, his own is no better than that of any- 
 one else. What he wants to show is the fallacy of the 
 belief that increasing laws diminishes law-suits. On the 
 contrary, it increases their number. Difficulties grow, 
 the more we explain them ; and the chief use of commen- 
 taries is to darken texts. That is why we should trust to 
 our first impression of a book ; the moment we look into 
 it a Httle more closely, all its clearness disappears.' i 
 Paradoxical as all this seemed — more especially to the 
 son of a much-respected judge — Pascal could not but 
 recognise its connexion with all he had learnt from Miton 
 and Mere. Ever since their friendship began, he had seen 
 the geometrical spirit ignominiously driven from one field 
 after another ; and now he was scarcely surprised to find 
 Montaigne calmly taking for granted that it was always 
 and everywhere a broken reed. But how did all this react 
 on Descartes ? What were his principles but the fine 
 flower of the geometrical spirit ? With it they stood or fell. 
 Most clearly was this the case with the side of Cartesianism 
 
 ^ Entretien avec M. de Sad, Works, ii. pp. 7, 8. 
 
186 PASCAL 
 
 that chiefly interested Pascal. Descartes had undertaken 
 to prove the existence of God by reason alone, without the 
 least help from faith ; Montaigne devoted the longest chapter 
 of his hook to making merry over those who discussed their 
 Maker in the light of unassisted argument. 
 
 ' He asks them how they manage to judge One who 
 is necessarily infinite. He asks them if they under- 
 stand what their soul is, and whether it can know 
 itself or anything else. He asks them for a definition 
 of time, space, motion, unity — all things quite close to 
 us, and yet entirely beyond our grasp. He prays them 
 to tell him what they mean by health, sickness, life, 
 death, good, evil, justice, sin — words we have every 
 moment on our lips. He asks them if the notions we 
 call first principles or axioms are agreed upon by all 
 men, and in harmony with ultimate truth. And since 
 we only know by faith that they were implanted in our 
 minds by a Being supremely good, he asks how men 
 who put aside the help of faith can possibly be sure that 
 they did not spring up by chance. They make common 
 sense their standard of truth, but how do they know 
 that it speaks truly ? How can they talk about standards 
 at all, when they do not know what truth is ? Thus does 
 he show that God and truth are inseparable ideas, and 
 that the one stands or falls with the other.' 
 
 ' Next he goes through the sciences one by one. 
 He shows how doubtful are the axioms of geometry, 
 and the terms it cannot define — space, motion, and 
 the like. Physics fare still worse at his hands, and 
 medicine worst of all. Then comes the turn of history, 
 ethics, politics, jurisprudence and the rest. Altogether 
 he proves that we come no nearer truth than we should 
 do if our life were one long dream, from which we 
 only woke at death. Thus cruelly does he flout and 
 jeer at reason unprotected by faith. It has climbed 
 
THE SECOND CONVEESION 187 
 
 up high ; he pulls it down, makes it doubt whether it is 
 reasonable, and thinks himself merciful when he leaves 
 it on a level with the beasts. If it grumbles, he 
 threatens to degrade it lower stiU. There he keeps it 
 prisoner, until it has learnt from God Himself what 
 its true station is.' i 
 
 This sudden attack on reason has startled many critics. 
 How could a heaven-born mathematician agree with the 
 wholly ungeometrical Montaigne in calling mathematics 
 doubtful ? But Pascal was genuinely staggered by the 
 aspersions cast on Euclid in the ' Essays ' ; and his humeur 
 houillante could not allow him to stop and look too closely 
 into their value. He was a man of impulses — of one impulse 
 at one moment — and he seldom changed his mind without 
 making a veritable holocaust of all he had previously 
 adored. Besides, mathematics altogether held a very small 
 place in his mind, as compared with the metaphysics of 
 Descartes. The wrong-doers he could never forgive were 
 those who had made a fool of him, if only for a moment ; 
 and that the Cartesians had certainly done, when they 
 induced him to believe in their ' geometrical God.' How, 
 then, could he better turn the tables on them than by 
 showing that their methods made both God and geometry 
 appear uncertain ? Nor was this simply a grim jest. 
 Montaigne had thrown some very startling light on the 
 validity of axioms. He had proved that reason caimot attain 
 to God, and that men would be much worse off if it could. 
 For what reason gives, it can also take away. If my faith 
 in God depends on argument, there is always danger that 
 I may change my mind, or fall in with an unbeliever who 
 happens to be a better debater than myself. Very soon the 
 God of Reason appeared to Pascal no better than an idol, fit 
 only to be torn in pieces by Montaigne, the ' minister of a 
 great vengeance,' who had hoisted reason with its own petard. 
 ' Entretien, Works, ii. pp. 9, 10. 
 
188 PASCAL 
 
 Thus did the ' Essays ' lead their critic from Descartes 
 back to Jansen. Reason had once made him prefer the 
 metaphysical to the mystical God ; now, on the collapse 
 of reason, he returned to the mysticism of Port Eoyal. 
 Towards the third alternative he felt apparently no temp- 
 tation. Many and bitter are the reproaches addressed to 
 himself at the second conversion, but that of ' infidelity ' 
 is not among them. What he laments is having adopted 
 the geometrical Deity of the philosophers ; and even Pascal 
 would scarcely have said that to beheve in the Cartesian 
 God was worse than believing in no God at all. Not but 
 what he always drew a marked distinction between the 
 two kinds of misbelievers. For his former fellow-culprits, 
 the Cartesian rationaUsts, nothing is too bad ; whereas 
 the anger dies out of his voice so soon as he turns to the 
 sceptics. Libertine indifference to the great problems of 
 religion might be ' fantastic,' ' brutal,' even ' sottish ' ; 
 but Pascal always treats it with a sympathy which he is 
 far from showing towards the ' demi-savants,' or Cartesian 
 prigs. He could not forget that Libertine hands had 
 delivered him from this same priggishness. From Mere 
 and Miton he had learnt that the geometrical spirit goes 
 for little in a drawing-room ; now came Montaigne to teach 
 him that it goes for no more in religion. 
 
 As with religion, so with ethics. No amount of ingraiaed 
 Puritan severity could keep Pascal from highly rehshing 
 the gibes Montaigne flung at the austere figure of natural 
 morality. 
 
 ' His plan is to treat everything but Faith as doubt- 
 ful ; the more men seek for truth and goodness, the 
 less is their peace of mind. They had much better 
 give up the search, and skate lightly over problems ; 
 the ice is sure to break if they bear too hardly on it. 
 They pick up a lump ; it melts, and runs away through 
 their fingers, leaving emptiness behind. That is why 
 
THE SECOND CONVERSION 189 
 
 Montaigne accepts the evidence of his senses. It would 
 cost him something not to do so ; and why should he 
 make the effort when he has not the least notion where 
 truth lies ? In the same way he flies from pain and 
 death, although he is far from sure that they are 
 genuine evils. Nature tells him that they are ; but 
 how can he afford to trust her, when so many of her 
 pleasantest instincts turn out to be crimes ? Thus 
 there is nothing odd about him ; he behaves like every- 
 one else. Only he does not think, hke the simpletons, 
 that what he does is just and right ; what he says is 
 that, reason being dumb, custom has a right to be 
 heard. He gets up on horseback, like the least 
 philosophical of mortals, because the horse allows him 
 to do so ; although, for anything he can tell, the 
 animal may have a better right to make use of him. 
 He avoids certain vices, and even keeps his marriage- 
 vow, because indulgence is followed by trouble. Per- 
 haps this means more loss than gain, but that is no 
 affair of his, who only seeks tranquillity. He flies 
 from the lone rook where sits the nymph of Stoic 
 virtue in a cramped, uneasy posture, with beaded brow 
 and hair on end and glaring eye, in a gloomy silence 
 far from men. His own nymph is an easy, cheerful, 
 unassuming madcap. Hither and thither she strays 
 just as the fancy takes her, drawing food for merri- 
 ment alike from pleasure and from pain. From the 
 lap of her luxurious ease she indolently beckons to 
 man to show him that here alone is rest — ^here are 
 ignorance and indifference, the two downiest of 
 pillows for a well-formed head.' i 
 Much as he enjoyed discoursing about these theories of 
 
 Montaigne, Pascal felt small inclination to adopt them. 
 
 No doubt, much of what the Essayist said was true, and 
 
 ' Entretien, Works, ii. pp. 11, 12, 
 
190 PASCAL 
 
 he certainly provided a drastic antidote to the geometrical 
 spirit ; but to take him literally would mean despair of 
 human nature, and a lapse into the ' lowest cowardice.' 
 But the ' Essays ' only despaired of man because they misin- 
 terpreted him. Prom the undoubted fact that most of our 
 speculations are futile, and most of our moral efforts ill- 
 directed, Montaigne had calmly gone on to conclude that 
 both these activities were ' unnatural ' ; the less we thought, 
 and the less we strove, the better and happier should we be. 
 Pascal answered that both activities are forced upon us 
 by the conditions of our state. We must keep on struggling. 
 ' Despite all the miseries that surround us, and take us 
 by the throat, we cannot get rid of an instinct that still 
 buoys us up.' - We must keep on asking questions, how- 
 ever unUkely we may think it that those questions will 
 be answered. ' I am struck with awe, when I call to mind 
 the short space of my life, hemmed in between two portions 
 of eternity. The little room I fill and see is lost in an 
 infinity of space I cannot fathom, and that knows me not. 
 Why should I be here instead of there — alive to-day, and 
 not to-morrow ? Who put me here ? Who allotted this 
 particular time and space to me ? ' ^ 
 
 One speculative question, however, overtopped aU the 
 rest. Was there, or was there not, a life beyond the grave ? 
 On no point did Pascal find it harder to wring a definite 
 opinion from the disciples of Montaigne. Miton is said to 
 have written an essay in defence of immortahty, which he 
 passed round with the private explanation that he was 
 really on the other side. And not a few heroes of the Fronde 
 went into battle with the lines of Cyrano on their lips : 
 
 Une heure aprfes notre mort notre ame 6vanouie 
 Sera ce qu'elle a 6te une heure avant notre vie. 
 
 Not that these Libertines were militant free-thinkers of the 
 
 1 Pens. 411. 2 Pens. 205, 208. 
 
THE SECOND CONVEESION 191 
 
 modern type. They were willing enough to believe in God 
 sous hinifice d'inventaire — as a spiteful critic once said of 
 Miton — so long as they found it paid. Most of them thought 
 it likely enough that a realm of faith existed, though they 
 were frankly uninterested in its contents. Appeals to it 
 they regarded much as the Courts regard a suitor who sets 
 up the Gaming Act ; they do not think the better of him, 
 but they fully recognise that he is within his legal rights. 
 In short. Libertinism held it ill-bred to attack religion, 
 weak-minded to think much about it. ' The death-bed of 
 Petronius,' wrote Saint Evremond, characteristically, ' was 
 the finest of antiquity. Oato showed resentment, even 
 rage. Socrates died like a wise man, except that he was 
 too anxious to know what fate awaited him in the next 
 world, and had endless discussions on the subject with his 
 friends in the prison. Altogether, death bulked large in 
 his eyes. Petronius alone took leave of life with an exquisite 
 indifference. No philosophic treatises were read to him, 
 only the lightest verse. Not a syllable, not a gesture, 
 betrayed the agony of a dying man. He simply ceased 
 to be, and the Vixit of the Romans applied most properly 
 to him.' 
 
 These were brave words ; but a short experience of 
 Libertines showed Pascal that they found the Homo liher 
 de nulla re minus quam de morte cogitat easier to formulate 
 than to practise. Death was one of the few subjects that 
 startled Saint Evremond out of his self-possession. He 
 thought all reference to the subject indelicate ia the last 
 degree ; indeed, he could not bear to see a widow on the 
 stage, because her black dress called up memories of funerals 
 and their ' lugubrious rites.' Pascal struck a tender chord 
 in the hearts of his Libertine friends when he wrote : ' It 
 is quaint of us to find comfort in the society of our fellows. 
 They are as miserable as we : what is their help worth ? 
 We shall die alone. . , . The last act is tragic, however 
 
192 PASCAL 
 
 fine the rest of the comedy may be. They rattle down the 
 earth on our head, and there is an end of us for ever.' ^ 
 
 Once these thoughts began crowding into Pascal's mind, 
 a definite breach with the Libertines was only a question 
 of time. Montaigne had converted him from the geometrical 
 spirit to ' Nature ' ; but the nature that appealed to him 
 was very far from being the cheerful, unassuming madcap 
 of the ' Essays.' At first, when everything was new, he 
 had been deUghted by the drawing-rooms ; but now he had 
 learnt all they could teach the enjoyment quickly palled. 
 As he afterwards confessed to his sister, ever since the 
 autumn of 1653 he had felt an unconquerable loathing for 
 the world and its inhabitants. From fashion he fled back 
 to science. The greater part of 1654 was taken up by a 
 feverish mathematical activity ; indeed, he was corres- 
 ponding with Fermat almost up to the moment of conversion. 
 But Mere and Montaigne had done their work too well ; 
 science could no longer content him. Besides, a ' continual 
 scruple ' was gnawing at his conscience : what were mathe- 
 matics in comparison with eternity ? ' When God deigns 
 to speak to sinners,' Pascal wrote in a little tract on con- 
 version, avowedly based on his own experience, ' His first step 
 is to raise their soul on to a higher plane whence their nature 
 and surroundings appear in a wholly new perspective. They 
 see that perishable things are perishing, nay, already perished. 
 Every moment snatches some enjoyment from their hand. 
 All they held dearest slips away, as they hasten on towards 
 a day when they will be stripped for ever of the vain and 
 fleeting treasures wherein they put their trust. Alone and 
 forsaken stands their soul, because it would not turn to 
 the one Good that endures unchanged through this life 
 and the next.' 2 
 
 Followed an effort to seek that Good, but the chains of 
 habit were not lightly broken. To detest and denounce 
 
 > Pens. 210, 211. 
 
 ^ Sur la Conversion du Picheur, Works, ii. pp. 37-8. 
 
THE SECOND CONVERSION 193 
 
 one's surroundings is one thing ; actually to break loose 
 from them is quite another. ' Eeligious exercises,' continues 
 the tract, ' seem even more distasteful than the vanities of 
 the world, since visible things have greater purchase on us 
 than the mere hope of invisible ; although the reality of 
 invisible things is more attractive than the vanity of visible. 
 Thus our heart is torn in half between what is real but 
 absent, and what is present but vain ; and thereon follows 
 confusion and disorder.' i From this confusion there seemed 
 no escape, until, one September day in 1654, Pascal 
 bethought himself of his sister Jacqueline, and set off post- 
 haste for Port Royal. It was not his first visit, though his 
 previous errands had chiefly been on the disagreeable 
 subject of Jacqueline's ' dowry.' Now, however, he ap- 
 peared in a very different spirit. ' It grieved me much to 
 see how wretched he was,' wrote Jacqueline to Gilberte 
 Perier. ' He told me how he longed to be free of all his 
 occupations, and to cut adrift from the world. Between 
 his detestation of its follies and the reproaches of his 
 conscience, he feels very much more detached from it than 
 ever he was before. On the other hand, he feels himself 
 wholly forsaken by the grace of God. He has striven hard 
 to regaiQ it, although all the while he felt that the impulse 
 to do so came from his own heart and conscience, and not 
 from Above. This confession was a great surprise to me, 
 and an even greater pleasure ; I was filled with hopes I 
 never dared have before. But it would take pages to 
 describe all that passed between us. After that day he 
 came so often as scarcely to leave me a moment for myself, 
 though all I did was to listen, without trying to put any 
 kind of pressure on him.' ^ 
 
 Pressure, however, was not needed ; for Pascal stood on 
 the threshold of conversion, if by conversion be understood 
 the restoration of equihbrium to a mind hitherto unbalanced. 
 
 ' Sur la Conversion du Picheur, Works, ii. pp. 37-8. 
 
 2 Letter of 25th January, 1655 (L. 0. M. p. 356). o 
 
194 PASCAL 
 
 There is nothing mysterious about it. It may be expressed 
 in terms of physiology, and Pascal himself would not have 
 objected to have it so explained, so long as physiology added 
 that the last term in the series was the grace of God, adapting 
 itself to the natural workings of the human machine. Pascal's 
 mind was powerless to decide between ' things visible, but 
 vain, and things invisible, but real ' ; but, fortunately for 
 such natures as his, the whole of our mental life is not 
 summed up in conscious thought. Beneath lie dim sub- 
 liminal activities, whose existence it is as hard to deny as 
 it is to explain their nature ; though anyone, who has known 
 a problem work itself out in his mind by a process seemingly 
 spontaneous, has had experience of their operations. Conver- 
 sion is this spontaneous process on an extended scale. The 
 conscious Pascal could not decide between things visible and 
 things invisible ; the unconscious forces in his brain took the 
 matter into their own hands, and deftly and silently worked 
 him out an answer. Nor was that answer necessarily hys- 
 terical or mad, because it entered Pascal's consciousness 
 full-grown in the flash of a single moment. After his death 
 a slip of parchment was discovered sewn up in the hning of 
 his coat, and bearing the following inscription : — 
 
 In the year of Grace, 1654. 
 On Monday, 23rd of November, Feast of St. Clement, Pope and 
 
 Martyr, and of other Saints in the Martyrology. 
 Vigil of St. Chrysogonus, Martyr, and others. 
 Between about half-past ten in the evening until half-past 
 
 twelve. 
 
 Fire. 
 God of Abraham, God of Isaac, God of Jacob. 
 Not the God of the philosophers and the wise. 
 Certainty, certainty. 
 God of Jesus Christ. 
 ' My God and thy God.' 
 ' Thy God shall be my God.' 
 Forgetfulness of the world, and all but God. 
 He is found only in the ways shown by the Gospel. 
 Greatness of the soul of man. 
 ' righteous Father, the world hath not known Thee, 
 
 but I have known Thee.' 
 
THE SECOND CONVERSION 195 
 
 Joy, joy, joy, tears of joy. 
 
 I have fallen away from Him. 
 
 ' They have forsaken Me, the fountain of living waters.' 
 
 ' My God, foisakest Thou me ? ' 
 
 May I not fall from Him for ever. 
 
 ' This is life eternal, that they might know Thee, the only God, 
 
 and Jesus Christ, Whom Thou hast sent.' 
 Jesus Christ. 
 Jesus Christ. 
 I have fallen away ; I have fled from Him, denied Him, 
 
 crucified Him. 
 May I not fall from Him for ever. 
 
 We keep hold of Him only in the way shown by the Gospel. 
 How sweet is utter renunciation. 
 
 Absolute submission to Jesus Christ and my Redeemer. 
 ' I will not forget thy word.' Amen. 
 
 Such a text requires no commentary ; and a biographer 
 had best imitate the reticence of Pascal, who never breathed 
 a word of his experience, not even to his sister. Nor did 
 JacqueUne notice any striking change. Although the battle 
 was really decided on that November night, it was not till 
 some two months later that she dared to write to Gilberte 
 Perier, to announce the conversion as an accomplished fact. 
 ' He has grown in grace, till you would scarcely know 
 him. He is become humble and submissive ; he despises 
 and distrusts himself, and would fain know that his name 
 was blotted out from the memory of man.' 
 
 One sentence in his manuscript — ' Absolute submission to 
 Jesus Christ and to my Director ' — certainly sticks in a 
 Protestant gorge. But a man who has only regained his 
 equilibrium at the price of a violent spiritual crisis must 
 feel the need of an external prop — at any rate, for a while ; 
 and it was chiefly during the first few weeks that the 
 Jansenist director's hand weighed heavily. A sinner of to- 
 day, said Saint Cyran, must not look for milder treatment 
 than St. Paul — ' directed,' immediately after his conversion, 
 by Ananias at Damascus. Besides, the promise did not 
 uproot certain ' relics of independence ' in Pascal's mind. 
 
 o 2 
 
196 PASCAL 
 
 He could not fall in with Jacqueline's proposal that he 
 should take Singhn — the old confessor-in-chief at Port 
 Royal— as his guide ; and indeed Singlin himself, who was 
 neither learned nor experienced in the world, shrank from 
 undertaking so redoubtable a penitent. Eventually the 
 matter was compromised, and Pascal passed into the hands 
 of a younger priest, Isaac de Saci, with whom he presently 
 had the discussion on Epictetus and Montaigne. Jacqueline 
 was more distressed about another relic of independence. 
 ' He is strangely anxious that nobody should know he 
 comes here to see anyone but me,' wrote the sister to Gilberte 
 Perier. ' But he says he could easily make the excuse of 
 having business in the country. He would leave his carriage 
 and servants at some village near Port Royal, and go the 
 rest of the way on foot. Then, if he gave a false name at 
 the door, no one but M. Singlin need know who he really 
 was.' 1 But Pascal was not afraid of the world in the crude 
 way his sister imagined ; she herself noticed how little 
 he cared for the romances that gossip promptly invented 
 about him. But to face his old friends was a different 
 matter, for it was only too easy to guess what they would 
 think about his conduct. Dare he seriously tell Miton and 
 Mere that they were wrong, and worthy old clergymen hke 
 Singlin right ? He knew that, so far from converting them 
 to his thesis, he would only awaken their disgust. Again, 
 why should he set up to have higher standards than his 
 neighbours ? Was he so much better than they ? But 
 presently he came to see that the reason which made a 
 Christian aim higher than his fellows was ' a holy humility, 
 which God raises far above pride.' 
 
 These, and other like perplexities made it desirable that 
 
 he should retire into solitude for a while, until his mind was 
 
 grown better accustomed to his new way of life. On the 
 
 morrow of the Three Kings (January 7, 1655) Jacqueline 
 
 ' L, 0. M. p.|360. 
 
THE SECOND CONVERSION 197 
 
 records his arrival at Vaumurier, a country-house belonging 
 to the Duke of Luynes, the great patron of Port Royal, and 
 ■within a stone's throw of the abbey. After a few days he 
 passed on to Port Royal itself. Thenceforward, although 
 he was never officially enrolled in their community, a great 
 part of his time was spent among the Port Royal ' hermits ' 
 — a group of laymen, who led an austere, semi-monastic 
 existence at the abbey-gates. ' Here,' wrote Jacqueline, ' he 
 says that he is treated like a prince — a prince in St. Bernard's 
 sense of the word — for he can be alone as much as he likes, 
 and practise poverty so far as discretion allows. He manages 
 to be at all the Offices, from Prime down to Compline, nor 
 does it hurt him to get up at five o'clock in the morning.' i 
 Indeed, his cheerfulness surprised Jacqueline herself, and she 
 was curious to know what M. de Saci thought of a penitent 
 in such high spirits — spirits all the more startling, since 
 he was threatened with a new attack of his neurasthenic 
 disorder soon after his conversion. But the illness came to 
 nothing ; Jacqueline was able to boast that, even for the 
 body, Jesus Christ was a better phj^sician than Hippocrates.^ 
 This sentence sums up the moral effects of the second 
 conversion. It is a waste of time to speculate, as was 
 formerly the custom, on whether it would have been better 
 for Pascal, if he had not been converted at all, but remained 
 true to the science of his youth. All the evidence goes to 
 prove that science would not have contented him for ever. 
 ' In times of affliction,' he afterwards wrote, ' knowledge 
 of the natural world would never console me for ignorance 
 of the moral, whereas knowledge of the moral would always 
 console me for ignorance of the natural.' But knowledge of 
 the moral world only comes to such natures as his at the 
 price of a spiritual convulsion. That over, he could settle 
 down to his real business in life. 
 
 1 L. 0. M. p. 361. 
 
 ' Letter of Jacqueline to her brother, January 19, 1655 (L. 0. M. p. 355). 
 
CHAPTEE XII 
 
 POET BOYAL 
 
 Port Royal des Champs was a convent of Cistercian nuns 
 standing in what that unromantic age called a ' horrible 
 desert ' — that is, a thickly wooded, swampy valley about 
 fifteen miles south-west of Paris. There AngeUque Arnauld 
 began her reign as abbess ; though in 1626 malaria drove 
 her and her nuns to the capital, and Port Royal de Paris 
 became their abode. Twenty years later, however, some of 
 the nuns returned to the forsaken abbey ; in the meantime 
 its grounds had been occupied by Pascal's new associates, 
 the ' solitaries,' or hermits. These were a number of 
 ceUbate laymen, who lived like monks of the strictest 
 observance, although they took no vow. The first settler 
 was a nephew of Angelique, Antoine Lemaistre, a briUiant 
 young barrister of thirty, on whom the attorneys were 
 already showering briefs. But the Arnauld blood ran hot 
 in his veins ; he could not remain for ever content with 
 merely legal triumphs. In 1637 he told the Lord Chancellor 
 that he meant to retire from the world. His withdrawal 
 was very variously judged. The Jesuit Rapin frankly 
 admits that nothing brought more credit to Port Royal than 
 the hfelong adherence of this ' most distinguished young 
 man.' But the Chancellor was much annoyed, for he had 
 got Lemaistre's name down on his list for speedy promotion 
 to the Bench. And a Protestant chronicler feels drawn 
 towards that unnamed ' good monk from the country,' 
 
 198 
 
PORT ROYAL 199 
 
 who wrote to point out that conversion by no means neces- 
 sarily entails a breach of ties already knit ; since temporal 
 business, rightly regarded, is only the reverse side of spiritual. 
 Lemaistre, however, had his answer ready. The world 
 might be well enough for those who had kept their robe 
 without a stain : for a sinner like himself it was no place. 
 
 Accordingly he settled down in a little hermitage near 
 Port Royal. There he was presently joined by his brother, 
 Isaac Lemaistre de Saci, who afterwards took holy orders, 
 and became confessor to the hermits ; in that capacity he 
 held with Pascal the celebrated discussion on Bpictetus and 
 Montaigne. Next came their cousin, young Arnauld de 
 Luzanci, son of Angelique's eldest brother, Robert Arnauld 
 d'Andilly. Before long, the father followed his son ; and 
 by the time of Pascal's appearance the number of hermits had 
 risen to some twenty-five. Several were old soldiers, others 
 were priests, who had taken holy orders with insufficient 
 signs of a vocation, and now found themselves unworthy of 
 the altar. Behind these came a crowd of young men drawn 
 from various strata of the legal class — Thomas du Posse, 
 Claude Lancelot, the secretary and biographer of Saint 
 Cyran, Tillemont, the ecclesiastical historian, and Pierre 
 Fontaine, the Boswell of Port Royal. With these ranks 
 Mme. de Sevigne's favourite writer, Pierre Nicole ; a lay- 
 man profoundly read in theology, and the most human of 
 all Jansenists, he formed an invaluable link between Port 
 Royal and the world. Then there was Hamon the physician, 
 and Moreau the surgeon. Two or three Catholic recusants 
 from our own country swell the list — ^notably one Monsieur 
 Jenkins, whose British stolidity and eccentric French were 
 a constant marvel. 
 
 All these lived permanently at Port Royal ; but there 
 were other hermits, who came and went. Some only 
 appeared for a few days at Easter or Christmas in search of 
 a renouvellement ; others, of whom Pascal was one, had 
 
200 PASCAL 
 
 their permanent lodging within the precincts, and stayed 
 as long as they chose. The least ascetic went to the neigh- 
 bouring castle of Vaumurier, where the Duke of Luynes 
 kept open house for friends of the abbey. Pascal himself 
 began his retreat by accepting the Duke's hospitality, but 
 he soon passed on to the greater quiet of the actual hermitage. 
 Last on the list of inmates come the ' faithful domestics,' 
 always a characteristic feature at Port Royal. Typical of 
 them was Innocent Fai, the holy carter, whom no amount of 
 pious strategy could keep from sharing his wages, his 
 clothes, and even his dinner, with those poorer than himself. 
 Well might Fontaine ' gaze with ever-increasing wonder 
 at the sight of all these men assembling at Port Eoyal. 
 From many different provinces, nay, from different kingdoms 
 they came, led by the star of grace. All unknown to each 
 other they set forth, waiting for no human sign, for God 
 Himself accomplished the whole work alone.' 
 
 Once in the hands of Lemaistre, their plan of life was 
 soon sketched out. All rose at three in the morning for 
 matins, and most attended the canonical hours throughout 
 the day. Hair-shirts and plank-beds played an important 
 part in their discipline ; the soldier-penitents especially 
 were what Lemaistre once called them — old stagers of the 
 desert, who grew fat on vigils, and fasted with fire and 
 sword. Many almost lived on air. Saci often dined off an 
 apple ; Hamon never touched anything but bread, and only 
 ate that when he could not get the crusts thrown aside for 
 the dogs. Most monasteries had their hours of recreation, 
 but none such appeared on the time-table at Port Eoyal. 
 They were permitted — that was all ; and the hermits thought 
 highly of those who used them well, but higher still of those 
 who did not need them. How sombre their whole surround- 
 ings were may be judged from young Du Fosse's account 
 of the time he spent alone with Saci shut up in a hiding- 
 place during the days of persecution. ' There was Uttle to 
 
POET ROYAL 201 
 
 please the senses in my way of life. My whole time was 
 spent in solitary study, and I never opened my lips except 
 to talk with M. de Saci for a little while after dinner. But 
 our conversations were more like a sermon or spiritual 
 discourse ; for that great man always kept a guard on his 
 lips, lest he should be betrayed into a word that did not 
 edify his neighbour. StUl, I had joined him of my own 
 free will, to escape a still more dreary solitude in the country 
 — which goes to show how hard it is to find rest in this 
 world. And yet it is well that we should realise its fickle- 
 ness, because that makes us long to quit it, and hasten 
 onwards to another world, where all is changeless and 
 eternal.' 
 
 Manual labour provided the hermits with the chief break 
 in their solitude. There was a floating rule at Port Eoyal — 
 instituted in symbolical memory of Adam after the Fall — 
 that every inmate should work with his hands for four hours 
 a day. Each had his own department. Lemaistre, with 
 some assistance from the Duke of Luynes, looked after the 
 convent estates ; under them was one ex-priest as bailiff, 
 and another as head-gardener. Riviere, a half-pay officer, 
 took charge of the woods ; another old soldier undertook 
 the humble functions of cobbler. Well might Angelique 
 Arnauld boast that they had a Peer of France for their 
 clerk of the works, and an old guardsman to mend their 
 shoes. Hamon doctored the sick poor for miles around. 
 Lancelot, Nicole, and Fontaine set up a school for the sons 
 of friends of the abbey ; a few months after Pascal's appear- 
 ance there entered their most illustrious pupil, young Jean 
 Racine, the future poet. Over all presided the confessors, 
 Singlin, Saci, and Antoine Arnauld, younger brother of the 
 abbess. 
 
 Arnauld's special business was to supervise the literary 
 output of the hermits. Books played a large part in the 
 lives of all, though many read simply for distraction, on the 
 
202 PASCAL 
 
 principle that Satan waits on idle brains quite as much as 
 on idle hands. Thus Eiviere, the forester, made himself 
 master of six languages, just to keep his mind employed 
 during his lonely rounds in the woods. Andilly turned 
 Josephus, St. Augustine's ' Confessions,' and other reUgious 
 classics into singularly delicate French ; at the time of 
 Pascal's arrival Saci was just laying plans for a translation 
 of the Bible. But every word a hermit wrote was passed 
 through the co-operative sieve. A committee, headed by 
 Antoine Arnauld, decided what his task should be. Fellow- 
 labourers on the same field did what they could to help him. 
 The finished draft went on to Nicole, most judicious of 
 correctors. Next Fontaine, who wrote a clerkly hand, 
 copied out the manuscript for the printers. Lastly Bascle, 
 ' surveyor-general of accents and commas,' saw the proof- 
 sheets through the press. The success of this combination 
 was enormous. Saci was justified in his boast that Jan- 
 senist books of devotion sold by the score, while Jesuit 
 manuals languished on the back-shelves of the book-shops 
 with no customers but rats and moths. 
 
 Pascal was soon given a place at the editorial board. 
 But, before his advice could be of much value, he must 
 spend some time in anxiously pondering the how and why 
 of his creed. At his first conversion he had got by heart 
 the dry formulas of the ' Augustinus ' ; now he must learn 
 to clothe the skeleton with flesh. The task was not easy, 
 even in the bosom of Port Eoyal ; for the pioneers of a 
 rehgious movement are commonly the last to realise what 
 their own revival means. Of necessity practical men, they 
 are engrossed by the practical evils immediately around 
 them ; and their first principles are struck out in the heat 
 of battle rather than carefully elaborated beforehand. All 
 of them might say with James Sterling : ' What we are going 
 to is abundantly obscure, but what we are going from is 
 very plain.' With the three founders of Jansenism this 
 
POET EOYAL 203 
 
 was particularly the case, since their energies were displayed 
 on three entirely different fields. Jansen professed divinity 
 at a foreign university. Saint Cyran ' directed ' distin- 
 guished consciences in Paris. Angelique Arnauld was abbess 
 of a country convent. Their contributions to the cause 
 were as diverse as their callings. From Saint Cyran came 
 most of the wisdom and insight. Jansen translated these 
 into technical theological terms, then the indispensable 
 raiment of a new religious idea. Angelique Arnauld offered 
 the movement a local habitation and a name, when she 
 opened the doors of Port Koyal to Saint Cyran. 
 
 The life of this celebrated lady has been told once for all 
 by Sainte Beuve. One of the many daughters of an eminent 
 lawyer, she was scarcely more than a child when her father's 
 uncanonical astuteness smuggled her into the abbess's chair 
 at Port Royal. For a while the uncongenial charge preyed 
 on her spirits ; but at last she made up her mind that, since 
 she must be a nun, she would be one in good earnest. She 
 began to reform her convent in the direction of its original 
 Rule — and certainly reform was needed, for most French 
 cloisters had sunk quite as low as the ' monks of Oxford ' 
 in the days of Edward Gibbon. But the technicalities of 
 monastic observance did not long content her, and she 
 took refuge in a rigorous asceticism — all the more rigorous, 
 because she avoided the picturesque self-torture of mediaeval 
 saints, and deliberately chose practices that would seem 
 small-minded or repulsive. It is to be feared, for instance, 
 that she seldom troubled the laundress, though in this matter 
 Jacqueline Pascal and the younger nuns refused to follow 
 her example. But mortification for its own sake soon proved 
 an arm of flesh, and Port Royal entered on a stage of mystical 
 experiments and ecstasies. Angelique described to her 
 niece — in due time a second abbess Angelique — how a deaf 
 and dumb sister was once made to kneel all night before the 
 altar, while the other nuns prayed over her, stopping every 
 
204 PASCAL 
 
 now and then to ask if she had yet been granted the power 
 of speech. ' But they were no more fortunate than Gehazi,' 
 says Angehque the younger. ' Ehsha himself could not have 
 breathed hfe into an undertaking so httle inspired by the 
 Spirit of God.'. 
 
 These vagaries ceased, when Saint Cyran took control of 
 the convent ; for his teaching brought Angelique exactly 
 what her character needed. A born leader of women, her 
 will had developed out of all proportion to her other faculties ; 
 she felt an irresistible impulse to engage in ' grand under- 
 takings and plans entered upon at the call of a fancy, without 
 the least thought of the Will of God.' Her masterfulness 
 was her enemy ; and her one hope lay in subduing it to a 
 course of hfe she had not chosen, that should offer alike a 
 cogent discipline and an illimitable range. Then, too, Uke 
 many strong natures, she suffered from terrible fits of 
 depression. ' Listen, my children,' she said to her nuns a 
 few hours before her death, ' listen well to what I say. Most 
 people do not know what death is, and never give the mattet 
 a thought. As for me, I have feared it all my life, and never 
 let it out of my mind. But my worst forebodings were as 
 nothing, compared with the terrors now upon me.' What 
 were the best-laid schemes with this awful phantom in the 
 back-ground ? What were instinct of leadership, when she 
 felt all the while like a criminal at the foot of the gallows, 
 with the rope already round her neck ? How could such as 
 she answer for their own soul ? ' The mockery of telling a 
 man who does not know himself to go out and find God. 
 The greater mockery of repeating this to one who does not 
 know himself.' i 
 
 With neither of these alternating phases could popular 
 Catholicism cope. The active side of Angehque's character 
 could not live for ever on its broken meats, snatching one 
 grace from a dogma, another from a sacrament, a third from 
 
 ' Pascal, Pens. 509. 
 
POET ROYAL 205 
 
 a monastic vow. For, if the Church was near enough, God 
 was far away, hidden behind an infinitude of screens and 
 veils ; only at the end of his pilgrimage could the behever 
 hope to come face to face with Him. Jansenism thought 
 it was ill trusting to this distant God : how would He be the 
 end, unless He was also the beginning ? ' Inasmuch as our 
 soul longs for Him,' said Pascal, ' we long also to approach 
 Him only by means He has Himself ordained. We pray 
 Him to become alike the Way, the Object, and the End.' 
 Such maxims made still stronger appeal to Angelique in 
 moments of depression. She could not rise up and go to 
 God ; if she were to be saved at all, He must come to her. 
 She must feel — and feel at once — the Presence Pascal found 
 on that November night. ' This is the God of Abraham, of 
 Isaac, and of Jacob. He is the God of Christians, a God of 
 love and consolation. He it is Who fills the hearts whereto 
 He enters in. He makes them feel their wretchedness and 
 the abundance of His mercy. He draws the depth of their 
 soul into fellowship with Himself. He replenishes it with 
 humility, with rejoicing, trust, and love. He makes them 
 powerless to desire any end other than Himself.' 
 
 Angelique's spiritual history is typical of her age. 
 During the first half of the seventeenth century French 
 rehgion passed through a chaotic stage. It had been slowly 
 drifting away from the moorings of official theology, ever 
 since the schoolmen tried to turn it into a branch of meta- 
 physics. Unsophisticated human sense was revolted by 
 their technicalities ; as the Flemish Huguenots told King 
 Philip II, they had hrouilU la sapience humaine farmi la 
 salience divine. In Pascal's phrase, men longed for a prophet 
 who would have done with these external proofs, and speak 
 to them of God by direct, inward intuition. But for a while 
 the voice of prophecy was dumb. Left to their undisciplined 
 fancy, men were straying on every side. Some were experi- 
 menting with Du Vair, others with the ' geometrical God ' 
 
206 PASCAL 
 
 of Descartes ; the weaker souls had taken up with new 
 religious fashions from Italy or Spain — ' bad little books,' 
 says Gui Patin, ' full of miracles and monkish revelations, 
 cords of St. Francis and girdles of St. Margaret.' Most 
 true were the words Pierre Charron wrote just as the century 
 dawned : ' Eeligion means knowing and serving God, but 
 the second depends altogether on the first. How much 
 happier should we all be, if we tried as hard to know Him as 
 we do to serve Him ill ! Some fancy Him a weak, effeminate 
 creature, whom caresses and endearments will cajole. 
 Others spend days and nights in self-torture, in order to 
 soften His heart of steel. Others prefer to drive a hard 
 bargain, and think they can get the better of Him. All 
 are ready to lay down the law about His nature and His 
 works with the calmest self-assurance. His name is every 
 moment on their lips ; they judge Him according to a passing 
 whim. They talk to Him, and ask Him for things which 
 they would be ashamed to mention to a man of honour. 
 Instead of cleansing their soul from earthly images and 
 thoughts, they array Him in their passions, and bedizen Him 
 in their appetites. Instead of mounting up to Him, they 
 drag Him down to their level. Each man works away to 
 his liking at his notion of a divinity. He swells it out, he 
 gives it a body, he makes it such a one as himself.' 
 
 However, dehverance was to come from an unexpected 
 quarter. For years the Flemish university of Louvain had 
 been the battle-ground of two contending factions. On one 
 side were the orthodox schoolmen, the ' theologasters ' 
 scoffed at by Erasmus for teaching nothing that was worth 
 the knowing, and everything that were better left unlearnt. 
 On the other side were those who took to heart the satirist's 
 advice, and thought it better to be ' weak in Duns Scotus, 
 but strong in St. Paul, than to be crammed with all the 
 learning of Durandus and ignorant of the Law of Christ.' 
 The first party swore by Aristotle and logic ; the second was 
 
POET ROYAL 207 
 
 all for religious experience and mystical interpretations of 
 Scripture. Naturally enough it fought under the banner of 
 St. Augustine, secular representative of ardent Christian 
 feeling, as opposed to the cool, critical spirit radiating from 
 Stagyra. The founder of this party, Michael de Bay (1513- 
 89), had long been in his grave, but his school survived him, 
 and his mantle had eventually fallen on the shoulders of 
 Cornelius Jansen. Officially Jansen ranks first among the 
 leaders of the party to which he gave his name ; personally 
 he was uninteresting. A Dutchman by birth and a Fleming 
 by education, he was the typical professor, endlessly learned 
 on his own subject, but with small eye for the outside world. 
 Pupils reported him very unsociable, of the opinion that a 
 dinner-party and a college meeting were equal hindrances 
 to work ; while that his jokes were of a dry order — ' erat in 
 leporibus siccus ' — may be readily imagined. In the class- 
 room he was hard ; backward pupils he drove forward with 
 ' cuffs and cruel blows, nor did he even spare such as were 
 already priests.' In his opinions he was harder still ; he 
 was not one to sugar down unpleasant truths with a forte or 
 a fortassis. But the full extent of his divergence from the 
 beaten track only appeared on the publication of his post- 
 humous ' Augustinus,' the work of his lifetime. Pascal 
 had already made acquaintance with this book at Rouen, 
 although without gauging its real ' importance ; for the 
 ' Augustinus ' is much more than a treatise on Predestina- 
 tion. Although couched in technical scholastic language, it 
 is an organised attack on the first principles of scholasticism. 
 Had Jansen's power of persuasion been equal to his zeal, he 
 would have been the last professional divine ; and his book 
 would now lie buried under the ruins of the superstition it 
 destroyed. 
 
 But why did Carthage need destruction ? Scholasticism 
 had grievously decayed since the days of Dante and Aquinas. 
 Setting forth to embody the credo, ut intelligam in action, and 
 
208 PASCAL 
 
 translate the mysteries of faith into human language, it had 
 fallen a victim to the excellence of its own methods ; 
 language proved too strong for mystery. From an indis- 
 pensable tool it had grown into an all- exacting master ; 
 provided that they could settle accounts with language, the 
 theologians cared for httle else. Spending their whole lives 
 in argument, they naturally took for granted that logic 
 could get to the bottom of any and every problem, specula- 
 tive and practical alike. Breathing a purely academic air, it 
 cost them no effort to abstract away from the many sides of 
 existence that refuse to fit neatly into a syllogism ; small 
 interest had a fact for them, until it had been attenuated 
 into an aspect, or relegated to its place in a classification. 
 Having thus complacently swept aside most of the real 
 complexities of life, their course was triumphantly easy. 
 Like the Cartesians, they could boast that they alone 
 were clear and simple. They knew exactly what they 
 said, and said exactly what they meant ; they had an 
 answer for every opponent. In their hands theology 
 became a kind of tilting-match — the dialectical fisticuffs 
 described in the opening chapters of the ' Augustinus.' 
 The great thing was to be original. ' Boldness brings 
 victory, victory belief.' But dullards who could not 
 invent a new opinion might, at any rate, demolish old ; for 
 under the stress of argument nothing was assured. ' What 
 is held probable to-day will be considered false to-morrow, 
 and the certainty of yesterday becomes the paradox of 
 to-day.' Thus did theology become ' a Tower of Babel for 
 confusion, and a Cimmerian region for obscurity.' 
 
 Perhaps Jansen was too much inclined to put down to 
 malice aforethought what was really the fruit of misdirected 
 energy. The theologians did not fling their fury into theses 
 — to borrow a phrase from Bossuet — because they enjoyed 
 the exercise, so much as because they felt afraid to trust 
 the commonest facts of religious experience, unless they could 
 
POET ROYAL 209 
 
 turn them into a proposition. They talk of sin,' wrote 
 Michael de Bay, ' as though it were a clever puzzle invented 
 by some visionary dreamer, which must be pondered over 
 and believed, although nobody could feel or grasp it.' How 
 could they do otherwise ? They were disciples of Aristotle, 
 the great master of scientific detachment ; and detachment 
 means leaving the arguments to speak for themselves, with 
 a minimum of interference from the private prejudices of the 
 thinker. Experience of sin is a personal matter. I may 
 feel it in one way, my neighbour in another ; or perhaps it 
 does not visit him at all. How, then, can it become the 
 basis of a demonstration ? If I wish to be understood in a 
 lecture-room, I must carefully abstract away from all that is 
 pecuhar to myself, and deal only with points that can be 
 made ' equally convincing to all beings of equal rationality.' 
 Not, indeed, that I am bound to follow the Stoic practice of 
 crushing my emotions altogether. They have their place 
 at the Lady-altar, or round the statue of the patron saint ; 
 but in the schools reason must reign alone. 
 
 Jansen's first object was to forbid this unnatural divorce 
 between reason and the feelings — to couple argument with 
 reverence, and sound sense with piety. So had Augustine 
 proceeded, ' not by faith only, but by intelligence of faith,' 
 'per fidei intellectum. ' Just as from a tree spring seeds, and 
 from a seed new trees, so knowledge of the Christian Faith 
 engenders charity, and charity fresh knowledge. Light 
 kindles fire, and fire gives light ; and by their alternating aid 
 the Christian reaches a fulness of charity and wisdom.' So 
 did not proceed the schoolmen. Their two ideals were 
 lucidity and logical completeness ; and Jansen thought 
 lucidity, at best, a thin-blooded virtue. What was really 
 worth saying said itself, or was not said at all. Nor was it 
 possible to squeeze every drop of meaning out of an idea, 
 without squeezing away its savour as well. In the interests 
 of clearness the schoolmen threw over Augustine for 
 
210 iPASCAL 
 
 Aristotle. For their intellectualism took lightly for granted 
 that logic is always and everywhere one and the same ; so 
 that, in exchanging the African for the Greek, they were 
 only exchanging the cloudier for the clearer brain. Jansen 
 thought otherwise. Alike in instincts, principles, methods, 
 Augustine and Aristotle were as the poles asunder. One 
 was wholly intent on the spiritual world ; the other never 
 lifted his eyes from off the ground. Jansen was never tired 
 of revUing this most materialistic of heathen sages, whose 
 quibbling pedantries were ever turned to matters of this 
 earth. ' Minutiloquio suo sola terrena perscrutatus est.' 
 It was madness to dream of translating what was above 
 humanity into terms of his pura, futa 'philoso'phia. How 
 could a theologian ' speak of divine things divinely,' when 
 his voice must issue through the Aristotelian Categories ? 
 
 These were designed for the study of external Nature, 
 and they took for granted that all her secrets could be 
 brought within the grasp of human reason. Set them to 
 work on the idea of God, and perforce they went along the 
 same assumption. The veil of mystery was dragged away 
 from the truths of faith, in proportion as the Categories 
 reduced them to the level of a mere physical process. God 
 appeared by no means so holy — sin did not seem so heinous, 
 nor grace and love so necessary — once scholasticism had 
 passed these ideas through the Aristotelian sieve. Theo- 
 logians felt themselves increasingly exact to span all God's 
 c'ircumference ; and the more they conned the measure- 
 ments, the narrower looked the gulf between their Maker 
 and themselves. Du gleichst dem Geist den Du begreifst held 
 a joyful truth for them. But, if human intelligence could 
 reach up to the inmost secrets of God's Essence, it seemed 
 somewhat ludicrous to pretend that human powers of action 
 were altogether dependent on His help. The more ex- 
 perience faded away under the glare of logic, the louder grew 
 the theologians in their assertion of free will, the more steadily 
 
POET ROYAL 211 
 
 they whittled away at the necessity of grace. ' Go and get 
 yourself predestined, if you are not so aheady,' was the 
 characteristic utterance of one eminent sixteenth-century 
 divine. To this the first answer was Luther and the Refor- 
 mation ; the second was the Louvain Movement led by 
 Jansen and de Bay. Greatly as the two revolts differ in 
 importance, they agree in this that both insisted fiercely on 
 the servitude of the will. 
 
 The elements of the case for Necessity Pascal had already 
 studied at Rouen. At his first conversion he had acknow- 
 ledged that, without grace, he could not develop his ethical 
 self ; but he was still too much under the influence of Du 
 Vair not to take for granted that the development of that 
 self was the first duty of religion. Jansen quickly undeceived 
 him. Religion meant the love and service of God. The 
 holier a man became, the more did these absorb him, and 
 blot out all thought of self. But Libertarians could never 
 be wholly lost in God, never go forward in His service with a 
 single heart. Being endowed with the ' dignity of causality,' 
 their chief attention must be riveted on their own states of 
 mind. Pascal soon noticed an ugly likeness between this 
 dignity of causality and the development of the ethical self. 
 Both kept the lime-light fixed on the Moi, the fussy, chatter- 
 ing, surface self ; both thrust its Maker back into the second 
 place. ' So long as a man seeketh his own highest good be- 
 cause it is his,' wrote a German forerunner of Port Royal, 
 ' he wUl never find it. For in that he doeth this, he seeketh 
 himself, and deemeth himself his own highest good.' 
 
 Besides, the Libertarians were doubly hampered in God's 
 service. On their theory their will was an independent agent ; 
 and their best efforts must accordingly be spent not in 
 doing what God asked, but in bringing their rebellious Moi 
 into readiness to do so. Nor could they even know before- 
 hand what He would have of them. They must wait tUl a 
 spontaneous impulse sprang up in their mind. Then they 
 
 p 2 
 
212 PASCAL 
 
 referred it to their conscience ; and if conscience approved 
 they carried it out, hoping that God also would approve it, 
 when he afterwards came to review their conduct. Trust in 
 such ex fost facto sanctions seemed cold comfort to Jansen. 
 On his principles, God ' predetermined ' the will — that is, 
 He created the good desire itself ; although, psychologically 
 speaking, it arose in the same way as any natural inclination. 
 Indeed, it was sometimes hard to determine whether an 
 impulse came from God, or not. But such moments of 
 doubting were the exception, sent as a lesson in humility. 
 For the most part the believer felt invincibly persuaded that 
 — in the glowing phrase of Luther — God's will and his were 
 met in one, just as fire and iron fuse in a red-hot bar. Liber- 
 tarians might talk as they pleased about the harshness of 
 denying man his liberty. Jansen answered that the only 
 freedom really worth having was freedom to be good and 
 wise. Even professed defenders of free will admitted that 
 the need of effort showed a blemish. Divines put the state 
 of non fosse feccare far above mere posse non peccare ; and 
 their great lay ally, Descartes, was always insisting that a 
 well- trained will follows reason automatically, without the 
 least hint of a struggle. Why, then, should not God adopt 
 the same method with His servants, and make their will 
 answer ' automatically ' to the touch of grace ? 
 
 Libertarians might have spoken in less self-confident 
 tones, had they ever paused to reflect that God's ways might 
 be very different from theirs. ' Having had no practice in 
 creating merit, but only in rewarding deserts already 
 before them,' says Pascal, 'they judge of God by themselves.' i 
 On their principles, the great test of merit was difficulty 
 of attainment ; the harder my lesson was, the more 
 credit do I get for having learnt it. Jansenism would have 
 none of a standard so heavy with the smell of the Moi. 
 Ideals ceased to be true or false in themselves ; the only 
 
 ' Pens. 490. 
 
POET ROYAL 213 
 
 measure of their value was the trouble a Moi might have 
 in reaching them. This doctrine many Libertarians were 
 applying to the truth of Christianity itself. It was generally 
 admitted that intense meditation, coupled with intense 
 purity of life, had brought certain ' heathen ' philosophers 
 to a faint, twilight knowledge of God. Thereupon arose the 
 question whether Marcus Aurelius was not really a better 
 man than many commonplace Christians, who had made 
 infinitely less use of immeasurably greater opportunities. 
 To Jansen the very raising of this problem seemed utterly 
 preposterous. Christianity was God's sovereign goodness, 
 sovereign truth. Those who received it had seen the light ; 
 those who received it not were in outer darkness. To say 
 that the second were sometimes better than the first was 
 like arguing that cold is sometimes warmer than heat. 
 Such a question would never have been asked by men 
 who had real knowledge of God's nature. But free will 
 did not let its votaries wait until He chose to tell them 
 about Himself. Nursed in the dignity of their causality, 
 they must be up and doing, while their imagination hurriedly 
 put together makeshift divinities of its own. In other 
 words, they would be religious in the way that pleased them 
 best. They asked the Moi to lead them to God, and the 
 Moi replied by giving them an easy, broad criterion of truth 
 suited to their respective tastes. It bade the logicians test 
 their beliefs by harbara and iaralvpton. It had a smile 
 for the narrow formalist supremely anxious to be orthodox ; 
 it had a kind word for the ecclesiastical politician resolute 
 to shape his creed along the lines most likely to farther 
 the temporal interests of the Church. It even befriended 
 pious virtuosi of the type of Father Le Moyne and Father 
 Barry, so deft in hiding the grosser features of the Gospel 
 under the musk and pachouli of priciosiU. No doubt, 
 all these men meant excellently well ; but good intentions 
 cannot manufacture a religion. ' Men look up to Heaven, 
 
214 PASCAL 
 
 but they build on the sand. Then comes an earthquake, 
 and down they fall with their eyes still fixed on the sky.' i 
 The ' Augustinus ' was a heroic attempt to build on the 
 solid rock. Why had the Aristotelians gone wrong ? 
 Because, Uke the Sophists of old, they made the Moi the 
 intellectual measure of all things. "Why did Du Vair go 
 wrong ? Because he made the Moi the most interesting 
 of all things. Why was the religion of the age chaotic ? 
 Because its ideas of God depended on the vagaries of the 
 Moi. Hence Jansen's aim was to preach a doctrine altogether 
 objective, altogether independent of the Moi. Divine 
 truth should no longer run aground among the tortuous 
 channels of a human understanding : it must shine directly 
 into the heart. Divine grace should no longer wait on 
 the good pleasure of a human conscience : ' irresistibly, 
 unfailingly, victoriously,' the will of God must work out its 
 purposes in man. Free will had encouraged him to set 
 up false gods of his own ; necessity should teach him to 
 wait until the true God came to him. Free will had made 
 men slow in His service, even uncertain how to serve ; 
 necessity should rob the laggard of every hesitation, every 
 excuse. Free will left souls to choose how and when they 
 would be pious ; necessity proclaimed that they had 
 no choice to make. ' The moment you lose sight of God,' 
 cried Agnes Arnauld to her nuns, ' begin to seek for Him 
 again. For this you do not need to be clever, only to come 
 to Him. He is alike the Way on which we find Him, the 
 Guide who helps us in the search, and the Eeason why we 
 seek. All things are of Him, in Him, by Him ; only the 
 human mind is always eager to do something, and decide 
 on its own path to Heaven.' 
 
 ' Pens. 488. 
 
CHAPTEE XIII 
 
 THE CONVERT 
 
 To establish principles is one thing : to set them in practice 
 is quite another. The ' Augustinus ' laid the foundation- 
 stone of Jansenism when it insisted that truth and happiness 
 can only be reached by sacrificing the Moi to God. But 
 Jansen could do Httle himself for the spread of his ideas. 
 He came seldom to Prance ; even Angelique Arnauld had 
 never seen him ; he died before his chief manifesto left 
 the printer's hands. Nor were matters much bettered when 
 the ' Augustinus ' was launched upon the world. In the 
 ' Provincial Letters ' Pascal was bold enough to declare 
 that it was ' not very long ' ; really it comprises three 
 folio volumes in Latin, each made up of many hundred 
 pages. Hence the necessity of translating its ideas into 
 everyday language ; and that was the work of Saint Cyran 
 and the second generation at Port Eoyal. Of this Antoine 
 Arnauld was the official leader, Pierre Nicole the most 
 immediately popular writer, Pascal the abiding representative. 
 Each of these three followed a line of his own. Arnauld 
 commanded the heavy artillery of argument and quotation. 
 Nicole, a many-sided personage, who stood half-way between 
 the priesthood and the laity — ^he was a ' clerk in minor orders ' 
 — skimmed off as much of Arnauld's cream as suited 
 Mme. de Sevigne's taste. Pascal left dogma to his colleagues, 
 and contented himself with supporting their conclusions 
 by arguments drawn from the facts of human nature, 
 
 ?15 
 
216 PASCAL 
 
 How, then, persuade the world that it could only attain 
 to truth by sacrificing its Moi to God ? The intellectualists. 
 Catholic and Cartesian, were still in the ascendant ; and 
 they felt quite sure that truth could be reached through 
 scientific detachment from all interests but those of logic. 
 How persuade them of their mistake ? Plainly by showing 
 that scientific detachment was an empty dream, and that 
 their conclusions were really dictated by their Moi — that 
 is, by their tastes and inclinations. ' The functions of 
 the will are altogether unique. It does not actually form 
 our judgments ; but, if it takes a fancy to one side, it keeps 
 reason's attention fixed on the arguments that make in 
 favour of that side, and dissuades it from dwelling on such 
 points as make in the opposite direction. And reason, 
 acting in concert with will, decides the issue on the facts 
 before it.' i The intellectualists chose to think themselves 
 dispensed from the common lot of humanity : Pascal 
 set himself to show that their opinions were just as much 
 determined by their Moi as the veriest unthinking prejudice 
 of the vulgar herd. The Aristotelian divines, for instance, 
 were always boasting that their theology was the rigorous 
 outcome of pure logic. But Jansen had shown that it 
 punched, clipped, teased the facts of Revelation into con- 
 formity with their arbitrary Categories ; just as at the 
 Paris Club Pascal had seen intellectualists of another 
 colour punch, clip, tease the facts of Nature into conformity 
 with universal mechanism. 
 
 Nor were they the only offenders. On all sides men 
 insisted on ' judging Nature by our standards, not by 
 hers.' They saw things as they wished to see them, instead 
 of as they really were. They were ready with their verdict, 
 before a case was half-way through ; if they listened to the 
 evidence at all, it was only to grasp at points that made 
 in favour of their preconceived opinion. Scholastic science 
 
 ' Pens. 99, 
 
THE CONVEET 217 
 
 bowed to the Moi, when it picked out, as the essential 
 ' purpose ' of an object, whichever of its characteristics 
 happened to be most interesting or most important to man. 
 The Prdcieuses curtsied to the Moi, when they ' masked 
 and disguised the face of Nature,' so as to improve on 
 her vulgarity. Descartes did homage to the Moi, when 
 he masked and disguised Nature in another fashion, by 
 endowing her physical processes with a fancied regularity 
 which they were far from possessing in fact. Lastly, 
 Escobar and the casuists put on the chains of the Moi, 
 when they masked and disguised the Law of God in order 
 to make it more acceptable to a fashionable flock. Thus 
 the Moi was equally dangerous — equally ' hateful ' — 
 on the religious and on the scientific field. Tillemont — the 
 one really eminent historian Jansenism produced — abjured 
 it both as a scholar and as Christian, when he said that he 
 wished to put into his books nothing but what his authorities 
 told him, without adding one syllable of his own. 
 
 Tillemont's wish has often been echoed by brethren of 
 his craft ; but can it be carried out in fact ? Can we 
 escape from self altogether to the calm regions of the Ding 
 an sich ? Pascal answers that we cannot. No doubt 
 education will deliver us from the grosser forms of anthro- 
 pomorphism — from believing, for instance, that stocks 
 and stones felt literal horror at a vacuum. And geometry 
 so far fulfilled the ideal of research that its problems worked 
 themselves out in comparative indifference to the wishes of 
 the student. But then, mathematics only owe their freedom 
 from the Moi to the fact that they deal with abstractions. 
 The nearer we come to the solid earth, the more does objec- 
 tivity forsake us — the more we ' besmear things with our 
 qualities, and cast the shadow of our composite being over 
 their simplicity.' In other words, we cannot come directly 
 face to face with facts external to our mind. If we are to 
 understand them at all, we must unconsciously arrange 
 
218 PASCAL 
 
 them in a certain perspective ; otherwise they would be 
 as meaningless as the vague blur reflected by a photographic 
 plate, before the right focus has been found. And what is 
 true of our judgments of fact is still more true of our judg- 
 ments of value. All depends on the bias with which we 
 start, on the focus of our mental photographic plate. In 
 other words, all depends on the will ; and Pascal's great 
 complaint against it is that it never manages to hit on the 
 right focus, or even to keep steadily to any one focus at 
 all. Its standpoint is always shifting about, sometimes 
 for assignable causes, more often for reasons beyond our 
 ken. ' When we are too young, our judgment is faulty ; so 
 it is, when we are too old. If we know too much about a 
 subject, or if we know too httle, it monopolises us, and 
 we get it on the brain. If we look through our books too 
 soon after writing them, we are not critical enough ; if we 
 put off too long we cannot get back into touch with them. 
 A picture can only be properly seen from one particular 
 coign of vantage ; any other place is too high or too low, 
 too near or too far. In matters of art the rules of per- 
 spective determine what that place shall be ; but in matters 
 of truth and morals who will point it out ? ' i 
 
 The more important the question at stake, the greater 
 the perplexity of the will. Clearly all a man desires must 
 centre round his conception of the end of life ; yet it would 
 puzzle most men to explain coherently at what goal they 
 were aiming, or by what means they expected to attain it. 
 Everywhere there was a deplorable lack of ' rules of per- 
 spective.' Go down into the market-place and ask what 
 is the sovereign good. ' The people will answer that it 
 is wealth or success ; at the lowest, they will say amusement. 
 The philosophers have seen the folly of all that, and placed 
 the sovereign good where they best could.' 2 Turn to these 
 ' clear-sighted schoolmasters of mankind,' and see what 
 
 1 Pens. 381, 2 pg^,^^ 462, 
 
THE CONVERT 219 
 
 light they throw on the matter. At any rate they offer 
 the world a bewildering variety of choice ; Montaigne 
 reckons that they put forward no less than two hundred 
 and eighty different kinds of summum bonum. ' One says 
 it is virtue ; another says pleasure ; a third is for truth, 
 a fourth for understanding of Nature. " Felix qui potuit 
 rerumcognoscere causas." A fifth believes in total ignorance ; 
 the next in refusing to be hoodwinked by appearances ; 
 a seventh holds with admiring nothing. " Nihil mirari 
 prope res una, quae possit facere et servare beatum." True 
 sceptics point to their ataraxia, doubt and suspension of 
 judgment ; other and wiser heads imagine that they can do 
 a little better than that. A fine dance do they all lead us. It 
 would be enough for anyone, if only reason was reasonable.' i 
 
 Still, the philosophers go for little. They are academic 
 recluses living in small touch with realities, and wrangling 
 away among themselves just to pass the time. Ijawyers, 
 on the other hand, are equally at home with speculation 
 and practice ; their profession forces them to deal much 
 in general principles, but to apply these in the light of 
 common sense. No class of men could be better fitted 
 to show us how to see things in a right perspective, and 
 to the lawyers Pascal accordingly goes. Unfortunately, he 
 goes in vain. They are as little able to tell him what 
 they mean by justice as were the philosophers to expound 
 the nature of the sovereign good. ' Had they known 
 what it was they would not have laid down — as they have 
 done all over the world — that a man ought to follow the 
 customs of his country. True equity would be on the 
 throne in every land and age ; and law-givers would not 
 have fallen back on Persian idiosyncrasies or German 
 whims. As it is, all our ideas of justice and injustice 
 change places as often as they change their chmate. Three 
 degrees of longitude nullify a whole system of jurisprudence. 
 
 1 Pens. 73. 
 
220 PASCAL 
 
 A meridian decides on truth. A few years of prescription 
 are enough to upset fundamental principles. Laws have 
 their day, and the entry of Saturn into Leo marks the 
 addition of a new crime to the statute-book. Quaint is 
 the justice that a river bounds. What is true on one side of 
 the Pyrenees spells error on the other.' i 
 
 At this point, however, Pascal bethinks himself that 
 he may have been following a false track. He has been 
 asking for an abstract definition ; and a pupil of Mere 
 could not forget that intuition often succeeds where geo- 
 metrical methods fail. It may well be that men possess 
 the power of judging rightly, although they cannot explain 
 how they come by their decisions. Let us, therefore, 
 take a subject altogether free from metaphysical obscurities. 
 Everyone knows what happiness is, and everyone wishes 
 to be happy. ' That is the one rule without an exception. 
 The will never takes a step towards another object. It is 
 the motive of all the actions of everyone, down to those 
 who take a rope and hang themselves.' But does the will 
 succeed in its aim ? ' Without the help of faith none 
 has ever yet reached the goal, towards which all have 
 been struggling for many a hundred years. All grieve 
 alike : princes and subjects, gentle and simple, wise and 
 foolish, young and old, strong and feeble, sick and whole, 
 men of all ranks, all ages, all countries, and all times. They 
 might have learnt from the long unbroken failure of all 
 their efforts that to make ourselves happy is beyond our 
 power ; but experience can teach us little. There is always 
 a hair's breadth of difference between one case and another. 
 To this we cling in the desperate hope that this time our 
 expectations will not be disappointed, as they have always 
 been before. Thus does experience delude us ; from evil 
 to evil it leads us on, till death fills up our cup of misery 
 for ever.' ^ 
 
 ' Pens. 294. ^ p^^_ 425. 
 
THE CONVEET 221 
 
 What was the use, then, of looking for definite rules of 
 perspective, when men so utterly failed to reach the thing 
 they all desired — the one thing that none of them could 
 help desiring ? But why did they fail ? Why were all of 
 them unhappy ? Pascal ansAvers that it was because their 
 Moi lived in a state of chronic discontent with itself and its 
 surroimdings, was always trying to ' mask and disguise ' 
 them into something they were not. ' Man would hke to be 
 great : he knows he is small. He would like to be happy : 
 he knows he is wretched. He would hke the love and 
 esteem of his fellows : he knows that his weaknesses only 
 deserve their indignation and contempt. In his trouble 
 he gives way to the wickedest passion there could be ; for 
 he harbours a violent hatred of the truth that brings his 
 faults to light. He would blot it out altogether if he could. 
 As that is impossible, he does his best to stifle it by hiding 
 his defects from his own and other eyes. Our neighbours 
 treat us as we wish to be treated. We hate the truth : they 
 keep it from us. We wish to be befooled, and they befool 
 us. We wish to be flattered, and they flatter us. Thus 
 our whole life is one elaborate pretence, spent in alternately 
 duping and adulating each other. All human intercourse 
 rests on a mutual deception ; there would be few friendships 
 left if men knew what their comrades said about them, 
 so soon as their back was turned.' i 
 
 This cool attempt to burke the truth — or what Pascal 
 took to be such — must needs seem altogether intolerable 
 to a member of the Paris Club. Unlike philosophers and 
 poets, a man of science cannot bid realities good-bye, and 
 sail off to some moonlit dreamland of his own ; to some 
 extent, at least, he must judge Nature by her standards, 
 not by his. No doubt his conclusions will not altogether 
 escape the evil influence of the Moi. He may be over-hasty 
 in generalisation ; he may overlook, or even deliberately 
 1 Pens. 100. 
 
222 PASCAL 
 
 suppress whole masses of inconvenient detail. But he can- 
 not altogether forget that he lives under a reign of law, 
 where everything has its place, and the place of everything 
 depends on the place of everything else. Does not Pascal 
 himself lay down that all the phenomena of nature are ' alike 
 caused and causing, acted on and agents, and all are held 
 together by an invisible chain that links the farthest and 
 the most unhke ? ' But man himself is part of this chain. 
 May he, then, hope to escape its pressure by trying to 
 ignore its existence, or pretending that it does not gall him ? 
 Does not wisdom bid him look facts manfully in the face, 
 and make the best of the universe as it is ? 
 
 After all, is its bondage so hard to bear ? Does not a 
 man lose more than he gains, if he hves what Plato calls the 
 hfe of a shell-fish, shut up altogether in his Moi ? Mere and 
 Mi ton thought so when they urged their pupils to be 
 ' universal ' — that is, to come out of themselves and share 
 in the life of a larger whole. No doubt their ' whole ' was 
 only a Paris drawing-room, but Pascal was quick to see that 
 the lesson applied to more important organisms. In a 
 moral, no less than a physical sense, we hve in a world we 
 did not make ; we did not invent our country, our calling, 
 our family, or even our bodily frame. We think of these 
 things as mere appendages to our Moi ; really we are much 
 more part of them than they are part of us. If they, and 
 all they represent, were suddenly blotted out of our lives, 
 how much would be left behind ? Look closely, and the 
 Moi itself dissolves into a fugitive congeries of disconnected 
 properties. ' What is the Moi ? If a man loves a girl for 
 her looks, does he love her for herself ? No ; if the small- 
 pox spoilt her beauty, his passion would soon be over. If 
 people esteem my judgment and good sense, are they 
 esteeming me ? No ; for I might lose both, and still 
 continue to be. Where, then, is this precious Moi, if it is 
 neither in the body nor the mind ? And how respect either, 
 
trHE CONVERT 223 
 
 except for their qualities — which, being perishable, are not 
 integral parts of the self ? Are we to love the abstract 
 essence of our neighbour's soul ? That would be both 
 impossible and unfair.' i And Pascal soon reaches the 
 conclusion that we only begin to be, when our individuality 
 is merged in something greater than ourselves. ' To be a 
 member is to have neither life, nor being, nor power of motion, 
 except in the body and for the body. A severed limb can 
 only lead a perishing and dying life. Inasmuch, however, 
 as it does not know that it belongs to a body, it aspires to 
 be its own centre and its own all. But because it lacks 
 the springs of life, it cannot fail to go astray, and marvel at 
 the incertitude of its state ; for it feels that it is not a body, 
 and yet it does not know that it forms part of a larger whole. 
 But at last it begins to know itself, and returns, as it were, 
 to its true home. Now it loves itself only for the sake of 
 the body, and laments its bygone errors.' ^ 
 
 As an abstract proposition, all this might be impressive 
 enough ; but nobody knew better than Pascal that 
 abstract propositions have a knack of looking exceedingly 
 foolish when they are translated into the tongue of common 
 sense. Why should the plain man love himself only for 
 the sake of the body ? How induce the Moi to make the 
 many sacrifices incidental to becoming part of a larger 
 whole ? Mere and Miton answered that society alone 
 could make a man ' both happy and amiable at the same 
 time ? ' But did not this involve a contradiction ? While 
 under the Chevalier's tutelage, Pascal had done his best to 
 be universal, and join in all that happened to interest his 
 neighbours ; but ' happiness,' for one of his temper, meant 
 doing things a great deal better than they could. And that 
 was just what ' amiability ' forbade. How, then, reconcile 
 the two ? Miton simply shrugged his shoulders, and 
 lounged past the dilemma ; but Pascal had no love for 
 
 1 Pens. 323. ^ Pens, 483. 
 
224 PASCAL 
 
 a solvitur ambulando. Opposing principles must be har- 
 monised beforehand, not left in a vague hope that they 
 would somehow shake down together on the road. In 
 Miton's own case they had not done so. As a Libertine, 
 he was bound to be ' natural ' — that is, always to act 
 spontaneously, without any show of effort. That was just 
 what he did not do. As Pascal says, he ' covered his Moi,' 
 but he did not ' remove ' it ; i the selfish impulse was still 
 alive, although it never left the background. Still, to 
 keep it there implied a certain strain, even on the part of a 
 man whose trained inertia reduced all tension to the lowest 
 point ; and Pascal could argue that society failed in the 
 problem of making a man both happy and amiable at the 
 same time. 
 
 Where Miton failed, Jansen succeeded, when once his 
 ' Augustinus ' was read in the light of certain mystical 
 experiences that came to Pascal on a November night in 
 1654. And to explain why he succeeded, it is only necessary 
 to recall some of the chief characteristics of religious con- 
 version. Of what did Pascal stand in need ? He wished 
 to be happy. To be happy, he must possess the art of 
 seeing things in their true perspective ; and he had con- 
 vinced himself that this art could only be learnt by one 
 who gave up considering things simply as they touched 
 himself, and viewed them from the standpoint of a larger, 
 more impersonal whole. But Pascal still remembered 
 enough of the teaching of his Libertine masters to insist 
 that this change must be ' natural ' and spontaneous. 
 Whatever the obligations imphed in membership of the 
 larger whole, they must not come before him like an external 
 law. They must not be thought of as duties at all ; they 
 must seem the obvious thing to do, a simple matter of 
 course. Hence not only his acts, but the inclinations 
 behind them, must undergo a radical transformation ; the 
 
 ' Pens. 465. 
 
THE CONVERT 225 
 
 new self must no more be tempted to sigh for the freedom of 
 the old than an invalid — to use Pascal's own comparison — 
 is tempted to sigh for the pleasures of rude health. ' When 
 we are well we wonder how we could ever put up with a 
 sick-room. When we are ill we take our medicine gaily, 
 and lose all taste for walks and excursions.' i 
 
 All these things Pascal gained at conversion. ' To be 
 converted, to receive grace, to experience rehgion,' says 
 William James, ' are so many phrases which denote the 
 process, gradual or sudden, by which a self, hitherto divided 
 and consciously wrong, inferior, and unhappy, becomes 
 unified and consciously right, superior, and happy.' How 
 is this result attained ? Perhaps the best answer will be 
 found in modern theories of subliminal consciousness. 
 Much of our thinking is done without our knowledge. Ideas 
 lodge, strike root, and ripen in the mind without attracting 
 more than our most casual attention, until they suddenly 
 spring on us full-grown, as did Minerva from the brain of 
 Jove. Nay, in certain exceptional persons whole net-works 
 of ideas and desires — a second character, in fact — may form 
 beneath the usual self, much as the new skin of a snake 
 grows up beneath the old. In due time the old skin cracks, 
 rends, is sloughed off, and the animal emerges fresh and 
 glossy in his summer dress. So is it with the convert. 
 During the period of ' incubation ' he may not know that 
 any change is coming. But presently his old skin cracks, 
 and there comes a speU of hesitation and unrest. Like 
 Pascal, he is torn in two between ' things visible but vain, 
 and things invisible but real.' One moment he is blindly 
 groping towards a dimly realised ideal ; the next moment 
 old habits and associations draw him sharply back. 
 
 To us common men such a condition may seem bearable 
 enough. We feel no overpowering need to unify our 
 character. We are quite content to be one thing at home. 
 
 Pens, 109. 
 
226 PASCAL 
 
 and another in our office ; we keep this moral code for 
 Sunday, that one for the rest of the week. But the souls 
 that crowd the mourners' bench at a revival meeting are 
 made of very different stuff. To jog aimlessly along is 
 the one thing they cannot do. As Professor Murisier says, 
 their personality is ill cemented. Unlike us, they cannot 
 frankly be one thing at one time. Night and day they are 
 the prey of two opposing inclinations. Desire of ' things 
 invisible ' poisons all their pleasures ; the memory of ' things 
 visible ' intrudes on all their prayers. Hence, their passionate 
 longing for the unity that, for them, spells rest and peace. 
 But that unity they cannot purchase for themselves. The 
 outstanding fact in conversion is its apparent independence 
 of the subject's will. He is — or seems to himself to be — a 
 passive agent in the matter, a mere bystander on the field 
 where the forces of unity give battle to the forces of chaos and 
 division ; and he often follows the phases of the fight with 
 the same hvely, but impersonal, interest that hospital 
 patients show in noting the inroads of their disease. But 
 conscious effort serves his turn as little as it would serve 
 the patient who took to physicking himself. He could only 
 bring effective help to the forces of unity, if he knew exactly 
 whither they were tending ; and how can he possibly tell 
 what the travail of subconscious forces may bring forth ? 
 AU he knows is that he is very wretched, that a great 
 upheaval is impending within him, and that it wiU some- 
 how do him good. Why not, then, put into practice the 
 revivalist doctrine of self-surrender ? Why not fold his 
 hands, and let the mysterious stirrings within him take 
 their way ? 
 
 Unchecked by meddlesome interference on the part of 
 conscious will, the forces of organic ripening move swiftly 
 on to their appointed end. There comes a moment of 
 sudden crisis. The convert's spiritual centre of gravity 
 sways, totters, finally crashes over from the old character to 
 
THE CONVEET 227 
 
 the new. Henceforward it alone is the self ; it fixes the 
 focus of all the soul's judgments, determines what Pascal 
 would call all its lines of perspective. The old unregenerate 
 character disappears ; at most, it hangs for a while about 
 the outer fringes of consciousness, a tattered, disreputable 
 Moi. Unity is attained. Hitherto the convert's stream of 
 nervous energy has been divided. Even if the main current 
 flowed towards ' things invisible,' there was a wasteful 
 drainage towards the channel of ' things visible.' Now 
 that channel is silting up ; the whole body of his mental 
 power runs along one bed. Hence the stream is wider and 
 deeper than ever before ; the soul's grasp of ' things in- 
 visible ' is strengthened and increased, till it amounts to a 
 revelation. ' The first effect of conversion,' says Pascal, 
 ' is that we see the world and ourselves from a standpoint 
 altogether new.' New also are the feelings of relief after 
 struggle, of peace and harmony, of strength suddenly 
 acquired, that the triumph of unity brings in its train. The 
 convert is caught up into a world of grandeurs hitherto 
 unknown. While shackled to the Moi he was a prisoner 
 in a strange land, cooped up in narrow bounds of space and 
 time. Its chains once broken, he feels heir to immensities 
 beyond all telling. 
 
 Few men can long keep their feelings locked up within 
 their breast. Sooner or later comes the need of an Affektent- 
 ladung ; the convert must give utterance to his emotions, 
 must hang them round some definite object, refer them to 
 some person as their cause. And who should that person 
 be but God ? Every feature in his conversion — its sudden- 
 ness, the greatness of the change effected, its independence 
 of his conscious wUl — seems to him convincing proof 
 that he has been visited by irresistible grace. And what 
 is that but God Himself ? Converts are seldom theologians ; 
 they do not trouble to distinguish between the thing given 
 and the Giver. The peace, the strength, the buoyancy, 
 
 <j 2 
 
228 PASCAL 
 
 that since conversion have been theirs, are not simply gifts of 
 God ; they are His very Essence. ' A God,' says Luther 
 characteristically, ' is that to which thou must ascribe all 
 good, and fly for help in times of trouble ; so that to have 
 a God is nothing other than to trust and believe in Him 
 with all thy heart. As I have often said, faith and trust 
 will make thee either God or an idol. If thy trust is true, 
 then is also thy God true ; but, if thy trust be false, the true 
 God is not with thee.' Hence comes the peculiar inwardness 
 of the convert's religion. The God of most men is external. 
 As Penelon said they behave in His Presence as though they 
 were in the company of one whom they saw seldom, and then 
 only on the most ceremonial occasions ; they are weary, 
 they are Ul at ease, they long to make their escape. But 
 converts never long to escape from their Maker. How 
 should they, when all that makes them worthy to be — 
 strength, wisdom, insight, peace of mind — is bound up in 
 fellowship with Him ? ' In Thy light shall we see light ' 
 is no empty phrase to them. 
 
 Wo ich Ihn nuc habe 
 
 1st mein Vaterland, 
 Und es f allt mir jede Gabe 
 Wie ein Erbteil in die Hand. 
 
 Thus the last word of Port Royal was the Love of God. 
 Jansen had obscured the real issue by following Augustine 
 too closely, and the Augustinian theology is marred by 
 what the Germans call a touch of thingliness. God was 
 Love, no doubt, and Love was Grace ; but Jansen was 
 inclined to treat both as gifts of God rather than as aspects 
 of God Himself. Besides, his uncouth terminology cast a 
 needlessly mechanical colouring over his book. Irresistible 
 grace at once called up the idea of an armed external force 
 ruthlessly trampling down men's natural inclinations. 
 Nothing could be farther from the real meaning of the 
 ' Augustinus.' As Saint Cyran said, men did wrong to 
 
THE CONVERT 229 
 
 treat grace and free will as absolute contradictories. Each 
 term implied the other ; charity carried freedom with it, 
 just as freedom carried charity. In other words, irresistible 
 grace was only a technical academic name for irresistible 
 love ; and a Christian's love for God was just as ' natural,' 
 just as much a part of himself as Borneo's for Juliet. And 
 it was ' irresistible ' in precisely the same sense as the love 
 that drove Antigone to disobey the orders of her king was 
 resistless in the fight, dviKaroi /idxav. But how or why 
 the love arose — why it called one, and not another — ^neither 
 Sophocles, nor Shakespeare, nor Saint Cyran could explain. 
 All the Jansenist convert knew was that the love was there. 
 All in a moment he was ' touched by God.' He was caught 
 up into the grip of a mysterious Power ; some strange, 
 spiritual chemistry blotted out his former tastes and inclina- 
 tions, and left him a new being. What could he do but 
 render grateful thanks to God ? ' I love poverty,' says 
 Pascal, ' because He loved it. I love goods, because they 
 enable me to succour the needy. I keep faith with all the 
 world, I do not return evil for evil ; and I would that those 
 who wish me harm had reached a state like mine beyond 
 the power of men to make or mar. I try to be true and 
 just to all, and I feel peculiar tenderness for those to whom 
 God has more closely bound me. In all my actions, public 
 and private, I keep in view Him Who will one day judge 
 them, and to Whom they are all offered up beforehand. 
 Such are my feelings. Every day of my life I bless my 
 Redeemer, Who has implanted them within me. Out of a 
 mass of weakness and misery, pride, ambition, and Ul will 
 He has made a man freed from all these evils by the power 
 of Grace.' i 
 
 ' Pens. 550. 
 
CHAPTEB XIV 
 
 THE NEW LIFE 
 
 ' " Were I to see a miracle," they say, " I should be 
 converted on the spot." How can they be so sure about 
 a matter that they understand so little ? They suppose 
 that conversion means holding with God the sort of drawing- 
 room conversation that they can picture to themselves 
 beforehand. True conversion means abasing ourselves 
 before Him whom we have so often provoked that He may 
 at any moment justly destroy us. It means that we can do 
 nothing without His help, and deserve nothing but His 
 wrath. It means that there is a great gulf fixed between us 
 and Him ; and that, if there were no Mediator, the chasm 
 would never be bridged.' i In short, men's own efforts 
 could not lead them to God. As Saint Gyran said : they 
 must wait till He spoke once to their soul as directly as 
 He spoke to St. Paul on the road to Damascus. But even 
 after the most striking conversion much still remained to be 
 done. God's thunder-claps might remove the Moi from 
 the centre of the mind : they seldom expelled it from the 
 circumference. Hence Saint Cyran was always dwelling 
 on the difference between bodily and spiritual medicine. 
 A broken leg might heal completely, or a fever be successfully 
 fought ; and then, as he says with a stray touch of humour, 
 the doctor would be much annoyed if his former patients 
 took to haunting his consulting-room. But in spiritual 
 medicine the patient never got free of his Physician, nor 
 
 ' Pens. 470. 
 230 
 
THE NEW LIFE 231 
 
 was it fitting that he should. When Saint Cyran uttered 
 the scholastic tag, Gratia ad singulos actus datur, he meant 
 the words in the most literal sense that they can bear ; he 
 meant all that scandalised Blaise Pascal at his early visits 
 to Port Eoyal. Every single action of a Christian required 
 immediate prompting from on High. ' None of your 
 thoughts, and none of your deeds can avail you, unless at 
 the very moment you receive them of God. He forms good 
 works within you, just as rain-drops form while falling, 
 and fall as they form.' 
 
 Plainly such a doctrine drew an absolute line of cleavage 
 between the realms of Nature and Grace. One was the 
 sphere of ' things visible, though vain ' ; the other was the 
 home of things real, and invisible no longer. Necessarily 
 Port Eoyal turned from the first with loathing. ' The 
 whole world lieth in wickedness,' Saint Cyran was fond of 
 quoting from St. John. He added that therein the Apostle 
 included aU the perceptions of our senses, all the concepts 
 of our reason, all the inclinations of the unregenerate heart. 
 There was nothing free from sin, save the thoughts of 
 Himself and His creatures that His Spirit wakened in our 
 soul. From this standpoint Natiure soon became one vast, 
 unholy chaos, one shaking quagmire of corruption, in the 
 midst of which rose, stark and lonely, the storm-swept 
 citadel of Grace. ' All that is in the world,' cries Pascal, 
 ' is lust of the eyes, or lust of the flesh, or the pride of Hfe. 
 Woe to the accursed land burnt up, rather than watered 
 by these three rivers of fire. Happy they who find a sure 
 anchorage in the stream, without being overwhelmed or 
 swept away. They do not stand erect ; they sit on a safe 
 and humble seat, whence they do not rise before the time of 
 light. Then they stretch out their hands to Him Who will 
 deliver them, and cause them to stand upright in the gates 
 of the heavenly Jerusalem, where pride can no longer cast 
 them down. And yet they weep — ^not at the sight of the 
 
232 PASCAL 
 
 torrent washing away all transitory things, but at the 
 thought of their dear country, Jerusalem Above, whose 
 remembrance is ever with them through the long days of 
 their exile. The waters of Babylon flow on, and fall, and 
 carry away. holy Sion ! where all stands fast, and nothing 
 faUs.' 1 
 
 At Port Royal such feelings reached a pitch of peculiar 
 intensity. There, to the Puritan's horror of the lust of the 
 eye and the lust of the flesh was added the Catholic ascetic's 
 dread of the ' world.' Jansenists were in an especial degree 
 ' disciples of St. Augustine ' ; and he had done more than 
 anyone else to materialise the contrast between the mystical 
 Kingdom of God and the kingdom of this earth. Under 
 his hands the Civitas Dei took visible shape in the organi- 
 sation of the Cathohc Church. Withia the Church alone 
 could righteousness be found ; the world was its devUish 
 counterpart, given over to all uncleanness, a habitation 
 of bats and owls. Hence to cut off his flock from all sources 
 of secular contagion became the first object of the Catholic 
 reformer — Hildebrand with his clerical cehbacy, St. Francis 
 with his holy poverty, Savonarola with his bon-fire of 
 Ghirlandaio's ' vanities,' St. Teresa with her mysticism. 
 And in their steps walked Port Royal. There Saint Cyran 
 laboured hard ' happUy to depeople Earth, and give new 
 citizens to Heaven ' by driving his hearers into a convent. 
 There, as Pascal said. Christians did not ask whether they 
 felt a call to leave the world, but whether they had a vocation 
 to stay in it. For the world was eaten up with the virus of 
 Original Sin. ' With our first father fell we and all our 
 race — nay, the whole world, and all that therein is. Thence- 
 forward creatures are become the subjects, objects, 
 instruments of sin. Over the souls of men it has swept 
 like a flood, whereof the Flood in Holy Writ is no more than 
 an image. . . . Although God made the world before the 
 
 1 Pens. 458. 
 
THE NEW LIFE 283 
 
 Pall, He made it knowing that sin would come ; and there- 
 fore He so appointed matters that our chief duty should 
 consist in flying from it, in hating and destroying it, so far 
 as in us lies.' 
 
 Tolerant moralists rub their eyes, and ask where Saint 
 Cyran found the traces of this exceeding wickedness. But 
 Saint Cyran denied the moralist's competence to pass 
 judgment on such matters. Only those whose eyes had 
 been opened by conversion could understand what was 
 really meant by sin. No doubt, as Jonathan Edwards says, 
 natural men were capable of loving good, and hating evil 
 after a fashion of their own. But their hatred of sin was 
 as their hatred of a serpent or a tiger ; righteousness they 
 loved ' no otherwise than as the blackness of the soil is 
 beautiful in the eyes of the farmer.' In short, their feelings 
 towards virtue and vice depended altogether on self-interest, 
 on the advantages accruing to their Moi. And the great 
 lesson of the ' Augustinus ' was that the Moi ought to have 
 no voice whatever in spiritual concerns. This lesson Jansen's 
 disciples took all the more to heart, since the age of Richelieu 
 had seen a great outburst of cultivated self-indulgence. 
 French powers of industrial production went up by leaps 
 and bounds. Luxuries, for which the greatest nobles had 
 hitherto asked in vain, were brought well within the reach 
 of a middle-class purse. Comfort became the order of the 
 day ; and the gossiping Tallemant will detail its progress 
 in domestic architecture, in travelUng facilities, in the 
 kitchen and the wardrobe. Men and women threw them- 
 selves with zest into the art of making the best of the 
 good things of life. Many who were not Libertines uncon- 
 sciously subscribed that article of the Libertine creed which 
 ordered everybody to enjoy everything that could be enjoyed. 
 ' We must open our hearts not only to fine gentlemen and 
 fair ladies, but to all good things,' cries Theophile de Viau. 
 ' I love a cloudless day, clear water, the sight of a mountain, 
 
234 PASCAL 
 
 the sweep of a great plain. I love the sea, its calm, its 
 ripples, and its shores. Also I love whatever makes a 
 strong appeal to the senses : flowers and music, horses and 
 hunting, rich clothing and good cheer. But, much as all 
 these things dehght me, I do not set my heart on one. Let 
 a single passion take entire possession of our soul, and from 
 pleasant dalhance it changes to fury and brutaUty.' 
 
 Here spoke the ethics of self-indulgence naked and 
 
 unashamed. Theophile's closing caution was echoed by 
 
 aU the more responsible Libertines, for the most elementary 
 
 prudence taught a certain economy of desire. Saint 
 
 Evremond even insisted on a rigorous self-mastery. One 
 
 of the first things a young man must learn was to keep his 
 
 appetites well in hand, for fear lest to-day's debauch should 
 
 spoil the enjoyment of to-morrow. Beyond this, his moral 
 
 code did not go. "Virtue resolved itself into the art of 
 
 knowing which inclinations could be safely indulged, and 
 
 to what degree. Pascal answered him in a sentence, ' Let 
 
 those, who think that man's highest good lies in a carnal 
 
 appetite, drink their fill, and die.' But very soon Pascal 
 
 began to ask himself whether Saint Evremond's doctrine 
 
 was pecuHar to the Libertines. Did not many roads 
 
 lead to the sty of Epicurus ? What object had mankind 
 
 at large, except to get from the world the best the world 
 
 could give ? Were even professed reformers always slaves 
 
 of an ideal ? When Mere reorganised the salons, when 
 
 Richelieu reorganised the State, had they any object in view 
 
 higher than securing the largest possible balance of pleasure 
 
 over pain ? ' Men have drawn from concupiscence excellent 
 
 rules of justice, government, and morals. But, for all that, 
 
 the evil root in man, the figmentum malum, is only covered ; 
 
 it is not purged away.' Soon all human society appeared 
 
 to Pascal one vast conspiracy of selfishness, one huge, unholy 
 
 mechanism for keeping the scales of happiness even by 
 
 playing off one vice against another. And Newman, walking 
 
THE NEW LIFE 235 
 
 in Pascal's footsteps, has described the uses made of one 
 such yice by an irreUgious modern culture. ' Pride is 
 turned to account ; it is given a new name ; it is called 
 self-respect, and ceases to be the disagreeable, uncom- 
 panionable quality which it is in itself. It is no longer a 
 restless agent without definite aims ; it has a large field of 
 exertion assigned to it, and it subserves the social interests 
 which it would otherwise trouble. It becomes the safeguard 
 of chastity, the guarantee of veracity in high and low. It 
 is the very household god of society, inspiring neatness 
 and decency in the servant girl, propriety of carriage and 
 refined manners in her mistress, manliness and generosity 
 in the head of the family. It diffuses a light over town 
 and country ; it covers the soil with handsome edifices and 
 smiling gardens ; it tills the field ; it stocks and embellishes 
 the shop. It is the stimulating principle of providence on 
 the one hand, and of free expenditure on the other. It 
 breathes upon the face of the community, and the hollow 
 sepulchre is forthwith beautiful to look upon.' 
 
 Some such feehng lay at the root of many a savage 
 Jansenist attack on the ' splendid vices ' of unregenerate 
 man — notably of the Abbe Esprit's once famous ' Faussete 
 des Vertus Humaines,' where the ' chastity of Lucretia, the 
 magnanimity of Alexander, the clemency of Titus, and the 
 wisdom of Socrates,' are all traced back to vanity, diplo- 
 matic astuteness, or the happy accident of a generous heart. 
 How could religion grow up out of such feelings ? How 
 could it live in an air so thick with the fumes of stale self- 
 interest and self-indulgence ? To breathe freely it must 
 break away altogether from the past ; it must be a creation 
 out of nothingness, fitly ushered in by the miraculous birth- 
 pangs of conversion. Grace brought the neophyte into a 
 new world — a world so utterly unhke the old that it was 
 difficult to convey an adequate idea of the difference between 
 them. Pascal himself was driven back on a Cartesian 
 
236 PASCAL 
 
 analogy. Descartes maintamed that matter and mind, 
 though juxtaposed, were wholly independent of each other. 
 Matter was bound hand and foot by mechanical laws ; 
 mind went freely on its own way. Pascal answered that 
 mind was just as much enthralled by the Moi as was matter 
 by the laws of motion. Real freedom could only be won in 
 a realm as independent of mind, as mind was independent 
 of matter. And that was the mystical kingdom of charity, 
 where were gathered together all those who loved God. 
 ' The infinite gulf that lies between bodies and minds is but 
 an image of the gulf, infinitely more infinite, that separates 
 minds from charity. All the bodies in the Universe cannot 
 produce one little thought : that is impossible, and belongs 
 to another order. All the bodies and minds together cannot 
 kindle one spark of charity : that is impossible, and belongs 
 to another and supernatural order.' ^ 
 
 In other words, religious feelings differ entirely from 
 all other feelings, both in origin and character. But how 
 distinguish a truly religious feehng from its naturalistic 
 counterfeits ? Jonathan Edwards wrote a big book in answer 
 to this question ; it ends with a frank confession that there 
 is no sure means of telling whether an affection is ' gracious ' 
 or not. Being raised very high is no sign. Fervour and 
 fluency are no sign. Even great confidence is no certain 
 sign. On the other hand, one thing is clear : affections 
 plainly rooted in the Moi cannot possibly be gracious. A 
 strong conviction of this truth lay at the bottom of Pascal's 
 fight with the Jesuit casuists. These divines came into 
 being at a time when almost all Europe had broken away 
 from the Roman Church, and their first object was to tempt 
 every sort and kind of person back within its fold. In 
 the ardour of the chase they were far from squeamish about 
 the means employed ; when appeals to high motives were 
 not successful, they were perfectly ready to make shift with 
 
 ' Pens. 793. 
 
THE NEW LIFE 237 
 
 low ones. Primus in orbe deos fecit timor might not be a 
 lofty conception, but it was sound psychology enough ; 
 and indeed it is not only among Catholics that fear of hell 
 fire has often made a Christian. Once get a sinner to realise 
 that punishment always follows crime, and dread of the 
 lash would stay his hand from wicked acts. Once dread 
 of the lash had taken strong hold, reflexion would soon 
 persuade him that his interests, both temporal and eternal, 
 were best served by giving up the wish to offend. That done, 
 the battle was over ; the sinner was ' attrite,' and a fit 
 subject for absolution. The miraculous power of the keys 
 would then convert his decidedly self-seeking repentance 
 into whole-hearted contrition. 
 
 To Pascal such a ladder of salvation seemed almost 
 worthy of Mahomet's ' ridiculous Paradise of the senses.' 
 But to the Jesuits its very grossness was its greatest recom- 
 mendation. It was altogether free from the high-flying 
 notions that puzzle and vex the average man. There was 
 nothing in it th^t he could not understand, nothing that he 
 felt to be beyond his powers. And the Jesuits were well 
 aware that the best way of getting him to do things was only 
 to ask him for so much as he knew himself to be capable of 
 performing. Hence their energetic preaching of free will — 
 that is, the doctrine that God was satisfied with whatever 
 common sense thought it fair and reasonable that He should 
 expect. Hence also came Pascal's repudiation of that 
 doctriue. He denied that religion was in any way bound 
 to take into account man's common-sense estimates of his 
 own strength. Christianity demanded far more than his Moi 
 could ever give ; but it only did so, because irresistible 
 grace furnished him with the needful powers. That being so, 
 great things might fairly be required of those who, in the 
 natural order, were weak and helpless indeed. Da quod 
 jubes, et jube quod vis was as much the motto of true 
 Christians as it was abhorrent to the Jesuits. ' Talk to 
 
238 PASCAL 
 
 the good Fathers, and you will soon discover that their lax 
 moral standards are at the root of their opinions on grace. 
 You will find that, knowing nothing of what Christian virtue 
 means, they divorce it from the love of God, which should be 
 its life and soul. You will see so many crimes glozed over, 
 so much licentiousness excused, that it will not surprise you 
 if they maintain the power of every man to lead what they 
 fancy is a moral life. Their ideals being altogether heathen, 
 the force of Nature amply avails to reach them. When we 
 preach the need of efficacious grace we set its face towards 
 a different goal. Grace is not content to cure one vice by 
 another, or to make men practise the outward duties of 
 religion ; it aspires to virtues beyond the ken of heathen 
 sage or Pharisee. Law and reason are sufficient graces 
 for all that they require. But to wean our soul from the 
 love of the world ; to tear it from its dearest delights ; to 
 bind us wholly, only, and for ever to God can only be the 
 work of an All-powerful Hand. It would be as idle to main- 
 tain that we can do this for ourselves as it would be idle to 
 deny that we can reach the godless level which these good 
 Fathers imagine to be Christian virtue.' i 
 
 But how persuade the world that holiness could only be 
 reached by going through a conversion and entering the 
 mystical kingdom of charity ? Most men found great 
 difficulty in understanding what Jansenism meant when it 
 talked of the necessity of continually loving God. They 
 argued that this was expecting the impossible ; no one could 
 keep his feelings always on the stretch or indulge in pious 
 rhapsodies for ever. In vain Antoine Arnauld answered that 
 loving God did not mean indulging in a series of ' passionate 
 outbursts and ecstatic transports that come and go, which 
 one remembers or forgets according as the fancy takes one.' 
 The world only fell back on a second line of defence, and took 
 refuge with Escobar and the casuists. These divines quite 
 
 ' Fifth' Provincial Letter, Works, i. p. 52. 
 
THE NEW LIFE 289 
 
 agreed with Arnauld that passion, or amour affectif, was only 
 an unimportant side of love ; what really mattered was the 
 amour effectif that bore fruit in good works. But they were 
 perfectly ready to give this term a constructive interpreta- 
 tion. On the principle of ' If a man love Me, he shall keep 
 My words,' they argued that a man loved God if he fulfilled 
 the ordinary requirements of the Church, even if he did so 
 without any express reference to his Maker. Was it, then, 
 necessary ever to turn directly to Him ? One intrepid 
 casuist maintained that it was not ; ' keeping the words ' 
 was enough, without any explicit affection at all. But this 
 thesis was felt to be a too terribly logical reductio ad absur- 
 dum. Most casuists, as Pascal will presently explain, held 
 that certain definite ' acts of love ' were necessary ; though 
 they differed much amongst themselves as to the number of 
 such acts required, and the best time for making them. 
 
 Arnauld made a gallant attempt to uproot this amazing 
 legalism. The love of God, he said, in no way differed from 
 any other kind of love. ' Let a man consult his heart ; and, 
 if he finds there a somewhat violent affection for his wife, 
 his children or his friends, let him pay some attention to its 
 movements, and he will soon discover what is meant by 
 loving God.' But masters of households seldom relieve their 
 feelings by periodical statutory declarations of affection for 
 their wives and children ; nor would their families be much 
 gratified if they did. Why, then, suppose that ' formal acts 
 of love ' brought such great pleasure to the heavenly Father ? 
 ' How absurd it is to suppose that an evil-doer becomes in a 
 moment a child of God, and worthy of a crown of right- 
 eousness because he goes through the form of telling his 
 Maker that he is sorry for his sins. Eepentance and love of 
 God are not mere concepts of the reason : they are acts of 
 wiU, inclinations of the heart towards its Object. Simply to 
 tell God that we love Him, and to turn our thoughts towards 
 Him, is no more than an intellectual exercise ; nor wiU any 
 
240 PASCAL 
 
 amount of honesty on our part avail to turn it into an act of 
 love. The most it can claim to be is a token of our love to God, 
 just as bowing to a man in the street is evidence of our 
 friendship for him, but is not the friendship itself.' The 
 casuists, accustomed to the legalism of the confessional, 
 might rank the love of God as only one among the myriad 
 duties of the Christian, standing scarcely higher than the 
 obligation to go to church on Sunday, or to refrain from evil- 
 speaking and strong drink ; Arnauld never wearied in assert- 
 ing that it was the first and great commandment, on which 
 hung aU the Law and the Prophets, ' It is in God, and 
 through Him that truth is true and justice just. Whatever 
 we know of these two things springs from Him — as light 
 springs from the sun, or branches from the trunk of a tree. 
 Thus, when we say that men must love God perpetually, 
 we mean that they must never slacken in the wish to follow 
 the eternal laws of truth and justice. There is no moment 
 in our lives when those laws do not demand from us one thing 
 rather than another ; thus they enter into aU our actions, 
 even those which at first sight seem the most indifferent. 
 To love those laws, and keep them faithfully, is what is 
 meant by loving God.' 
 
 To Pascal this principle made an especial appeal. In old 
 days at the Paris Club he had learnt to believe in the reign of 
 universal law. But the Club held, as an article of faith, 
 that Nature's ways were always simple. Bewilderingly 
 complex as her effects might often be, research would show 
 that the underlying cause could be expressed in a word. 
 Pascal's own first performance was a striking act of homage 
 to this doctrine. The originahty of his youthful essay on 
 conic sections lay in treating the most complicated ellipses 
 as modifications of a perfectly simple figure. And later 
 reflection only confirmed him in the belief that Nature 
 manages everywhere to produce astonishingly variegated 
 results by the use of exceedingly simple and unvarying 
 
THE NEW LIFE 241 
 
 recipes. ' She diversifies and imitates : whereas artifice 
 imitates and diversifies,' he wrote at the time when he was 
 accusing the Pr6cieuses of masking and disguising her face. 
 Further, Pascal noticed a remarkable analogy between the 
 mental and material spheres. ' Nature imitates herself,' 
 he wrote. ' A seed falls on good ground, and bears ; an 
 idea falls on good ground, and also bears. All is the work 
 of, and all is guided by, one Master — ^roots, branches, fruits, 
 premises, conclusions.' But, if imitation was so universal 
 a characteristic of the kingdom of Nature, was it likely to be 
 altogether absent from the kingdom of charity ? What if 
 the whole Christian scheme of things was a mere ' imitation ' 
 of one central principle — if the Atonement, the Resurrection, 
 the Church, the Sacraments, the Mass, were simply fruits and 
 branches of the love of God ? ' One thing alone is needful, 
 but we love diversity. So God diversifies His one precept 
 of charity, and contents our curious minds by a diversity, 
 which always brings us back to the one thing needful.' i 
 
 That being so, the love of God must plainly be the one 
 and only mainspring of all our thoughts and all our acts. 
 ' Whether ye eat, or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all for 
 the glory of God.' But how bring the whole Hfe under the 
 shadow of the Cross ? How transform Antoine Arnauld's 
 * inclinations of the heart ' into an over-mastering passion ? 
 What is an over-mastering passion ? The professors answer 
 that it is ' un drainage energique, qui desseche tout le reste 
 de la vie au profit d'une seule tendance.' Asceticism is 
 this draining-process applied with scientific rigour and com- 
 pleteness. Why cannot an average dweller in the world let 
 himself be carried away by the current of a single emotion ? 
 Because his heart is torn asunder by a hundred conflicting 
 interests. Asceticism, therefore, must come in to weed out 
 all inclinations but one, and make him artificially callous 
 to every other tie. ' Charity,' wrote Saint Cyran, ' is directly 
 
 1 Fens. 670. 
 
242 PASCAL 
 
 opposed to the nature of sin, and sin is rooted in the affection 
 we bear to things of this earth. How, then, can we better 
 serve God than by ruining one love by the other ? Let 
 us offer up to Him whatever we hold dear. Let us 
 start at once to love Him as much as we love ourselves, and 
 thenceforward trample down aU we used to prize.' All we 
 used to prize must go, because the love of God is jealous 
 and can bear no rival near its throne. It has no mercy on 
 the family ties — the social and professional interests — that 
 to the non-mystical mind would seem the most natural of 
 relationships ; each of them is a certainly disturbing influence; 
 a possibly dangerous counter-attraction. As well expect a 
 soul aflame with the love of God to endure one or two relics 
 of worldly affection, as ask a healthy body to endure one or 
 two splinters in its flesh. 
 
 Thus asceticism became the natural complement to 
 conversion. As Antoine Arnauld said : the new man is not 
 born in a moment, any more than is the old ; often the regen- 
 erate self must wage a long guerilla warfare with the reUcs 
 of the Moi. Here came in ascetic practices, to check all 
 return to former habits of thought. Fastings and hair- 
 shirts did much more than ' keep the body in subjection ' 
 in a literal, physiological sense ; by acting as a constantly 
 recurring tax on the mind's store of nervous energy they 
 prevented it from straying far from the ' one thing needful.' 
 Towards the same end worked the ruthless Jansenist cam- 
 paign against art and beauty. Puritanism can never be 
 tender towards aesthetic sensibiHties. Restlessness and 
 change is the very law of their hfe"; they carmot bear to 
 keep their eyes for ever fixed on one monotonous reality : 
 without an endless round of new excitements, theirf freshness 
 and susceptibility grow stale. Hence at Port Royal they 
 fell all and severally under the ban. Ang^lique Arnauld 
 refused to have an organ in her convent-chapel, on the ground 
 that only what is highest in us is fit to do God's service ; 
 
THE NEW LIFE 243 
 
 He asks for the homage of our will and reason, not for the 
 cloying adulteration of our senses. Fontaine is careful to 
 record that in the abbey-grounds at Port Eoyal no flowers 
 were allowed to grow, ' except the virtues of the gardeners.' 
 And Pascal was not speaking simply as a man of science 
 when he poured scorn on the Argument from Design, and on 
 apologists who ' proved God ' by the course of the moon or 
 the flight of birds. Such considerations might lead up to a 
 shallow, sentimental Deism, not to the God of Christianityj 
 What had birds and flowers to do with Him ? 
 
 It were a vain endeavour 
 
 Though I should gaze for ever 
 On that green hght that lingers in the West ; 
 I may not hope from outward forms to win 
 The passion and the life, whose fountains are within. 
 
 But asceticism was much more than a mere measure of 
 precaution. All Port Royal was fond of repeating the 
 Augustinian dictum that love, alone of the passions, could 
 never be idle ; to manifest itself ia action was a condition of 
 its being. But how could the Jansenist show his love ? 
 How better than by self-imposed austerities ? The Gospel 
 came before the world as a religion of suffering ; Saint 
 Cyran was never tired of repeating that the martyr was the 
 Christian writ large. All his torments bore witness to the 
 triumph of the immortal spirit over the flesh, of its contempt 
 for pain and death, for worldly pleasures and successes. 
 But of all this asceticism was a vivid symbol, and something 
 more besides. Fellow-suffering calls forth fellow-feeling 
 with marvellous efficiency ; thanks to his austerities, the 
 humblest Jansenist could feel himself enrolled in the noble 
 army of the saints. The death of Leonidas and his Spartan 
 heroes left Pascal quite unmoved ; but his heart went out 
 towards ' our members,' the victims of Nero and Diocletian. 
 Most of all was this true of the Prince of martyrs. ' Your 
 sufferings,' wrote Angelique Arnauld to one of her nuns, 
 
 B 2 
 
244 PASCAL 
 
 ' are the most precious thing in your life, and the most 
 important. Indeed, St. Paul seems to think that they alone 
 are needful ; since he says that those who suffer with Christ 
 will also reign with Him.' Trivial and half-hearted though 
 the nun's penances might be, was she not doing her best to 
 ' fill up that which is behind of the sufferings of Christ ? ' 
 Small wonder, then, if at Port Royal austerities became 
 inseparably bound up with irresistible grace. ' There 
 are three ways of believing,' says Pascal, ' reason, custom, 
 and inspiration. The Christian Church, which alone has 
 reason on her side, only counts among her true children 
 those who believe by inspiration. Not that she by any 
 means disdains the help of the other two. Reason must open 
 our minds to the truths of religion, and custom brings them 
 home to us ; but by humiliations we must invite the inspir- 
 ations, which alone can bring about a firm and lasting result. 
 " Lest the Cross of Christ be made of none effect." ' ^ 
 
 1 Pens. 245. 
 
CHAPTER XV 
 
 THE BEGINNINGS OF THE STORM 
 
 Saint Evremond, the Libertine, was once asked what he 
 thought about the Jansenists. He answered that they were 
 an ecclesiastical analogue to the Precieuses. Both groups 
 were made up of excellent persons born without the least 
 sense of proportion. One frittered away over fine-drawn 
 theological technicalities all the time the other wasted on 
 equally small minutiae of language. Nor was curiosity 
 about Port Royal confined to Saint Evremond's friends. 
 Long before Pascal's second conversion the Jansenists had 
 begun to make a certain stir in the world ; and public 
 opinion wanted to know exactly who they were and what 
 they were about. Gossip was half inclined to write them 
 down as no better than Protestants in disguise. In 1646 
 Angelique Arnauld reports that she and her nuns were 
 thought to have given up Transubstantiation and the 
 Invocation of Saints. A year later they had got as far as 
 worshipping the sun ; because, in rebuilding their convent- 
 chapel, they followed the obsolete custom of making it face 
 eastwards. By 1664 they were entering into a league 
 with ' that horrible monster, Oliver Cromwell, the parricide 
 of his king.' Gossip, however, was out of its reckoning. So 
 far from making treaties with Cromwell, the one object of 
 Port Royal was to cut away the ground under the feet 
 of Protestantism by forcing reform on the Church of Rome. 
 Such had always been the dream of Jansen and Saint Cyran, 
 
 245 
 
246 PASCAL 
 
 both of whom began their careers as controversialists on 
 the Catholic side. Jansen was a professor at Louvain, the 
 frontier-citadel of Eome over against Presbyterian Holland. 
 Saint Cyran had crossed many a sword with the Calvinists 
 of Tourauie, while chaplain to the Bishop of Poitiers, whose 
 diocese included the famous Huguenot citadel of La Rochelle. 
 Their polemical zeal they handed on to the younger genera- 
 tion at Port Royal. Antoine Arnauld denounced the 
 Reformers as enemies of the human race. Pascal went out 
 of his way to explain that even a Jesuit casuist was better 
 than a Protestant. 
 
 Pascal's outburst rests on more than blind inherited 
 prejudice. Between Port Royal and the Reformation ran a 
 bridgeless gulf, for it expressly rejected justification by 
 faith, the key-stone of the Protestant arch. Why was 
 it the key-stone ? Because the great controversies of the 
 seventeenth century all turned on this question of justi- 
 fication. What made a sinner acceptable to God ? Both 
 parties agreed that it was grace. But how did grace reach 
 him ? Luther maintained that it came to him once and 
 for all through faith ; the Catholics held that it was instilled 
 into him drop by drop through the sacraments. But 
 sacraments imply a priesthood to administer them ; and a 
 priesthood presupposes a hierarchical organisation of the 
 Church. Thus the Jansenists were as much conunitted to 
 belief in these things as were the Jesuits themselves. Their 
 strong conviction that the Church was honeycombed with 
 abuses never shook their confidence in it as the fountain of 
 sacramental grace. Hence to remain within its fold was 
 of the last importance. In the thick of his Provincial 
 Letters Pascal found time to write to Mile, de Eoannez 
 that there were no greater zealots for Catholic unity under 
 the Pope than ' those whom you call our party.' None the 
 less, the Jansenists came much closer to Luther than they 
 themselves suspected. What the Reformation attacked 
 
THE BEGINNINGS OP THE STORM 247 
 
 was the view that sacramental grace was an opus oferatum, 
 a mysterious force workiag independently of the subject's 
 knowledge. He might feel that it was stirring within him, 
 or he might not ; there was no necessity that he should. 
 Hence he could never tell for certain where he stood ; he 
 could only trust blindly to the sacrament, and hope that 
 all would be weU in the end. Luther, on the other hand, 
 started from the necessity of a ' comfortable assurance.' 
 Unconscious justification was not enough ; a man must 
 know whether he was being saved. And this assurance 
 grace brought him, when it awakened his heart to faith ; 
 for anyone could tell whether he had faith or not. Nor 
 was it long before a man began to understand the how 
 and the why of his faith ; for its movements, unlike those 
 of the opus operatum, were open to the eye. He could 
 watch its ebb and flow, and discover what most increased its 
 fervour. He no longer assumed a priori that any single rite 
 must be the exclusive channel of salvation ; the sacraments 
 took their place beside other means of edification, prayer, 
 sermons, Bible-reading. Each and every one of these was 
 a blessing or a curse according as it helped or hindered 
 faith. And whether it did the one thing or the other, who 
 but the individual man could say ? 
 
 Port Royal's real position was a modification of this 
 stand-point. The Jansenists denied that a man could 
 receive assurance once for all ; hence they repudiated 
 justification by faith. Equally they denied that he 
 could live by the opus operatum alone ; hence they insisted 
 on the necessity of conversion. As Saint Cyran said, 
 God must speak once to the soul as directly as He spoke 
 to St. Paul on the road to Damascus. And, although 
 they maintained both the Real Presence in the Eucharist and 
 the validity of priestly absolution, they insisted that both 
 sacraments should give some tangible assurance of their 
 workings in the heart of the receiver, Thereby they came 
 
248 PASCAL 
 
 into violent conflict with the prevailing spirit in their 
 Church. Orthodox Catholicism denied the need of an 
 assurance. It held that Christianity was essentially a Law 
 — a code of doctrines to be believed, of duties to be done. 
 This Law every reasonable being must feel that he had full 
 power to perform. The Jansenists denied that men had 
 any ground for this self-confidence. So far from feeling 
 able to perform all the commandments of the Church they 
 insisted that the characteristic mood of the Christian was 
 a profound conviction of his inability to fulfil any precept at 
 all. Hence the first duty of religion was not to lay down 
 rules, but to cure the diseases of mankind. Thus, when 
 Port Royal and its opponents spoke of faith, they had in 
 view two very different things. To the Ultramontane 
 Catholic faith meant essentially the acceptance of a Law ; 
 to the Jansenist it meant the conviction that grace was 
 making him whole. 
 
 Here lies the key to all Port Eoyal's quarrels with the 
 Church of Rome. Jansen's great complaint against the 
 theologians was their exaggerated intellectualism, their 
 love of forcing spiritual truths into a logical strait- 
 jacket. But the theologians were lineal descendants of 
 the medieval schoolmen, and the schoolmen could not 
 help themselves. As interpreters of the Law, their first 
 duty was to be accurate ; and accuracy requires a man 
 to be logical and precise, and deal in utterances as clear-cut 
 as a proposition of Euclid. On the other hand, so long 
 as he confined himself to legitimate deductions from the 
 Law, a man was free to roam as he pleased over the whole 
 field of knowledge ; and many schoolmen took full 
 advantage of this licence to rove. Like clever children, 
 they asked questions on every conceivable subject ; and, 
 again like clever children, they insisted on having an 
 answer, quite regardless of whether a serious answer was 
 possible or not. But fixed convictions seldom thrive ia 
 
THE BEGINNINGS OP THE STORM 249 
 
 the purely interrogative mood ; and the more questions the 
 schoolmen asked the clearer it became that many things 
 theologically true were philosophically false. On what 
 grounds, then, could they be defended ? Infallibility 
 undertook to do what was beyond the power of reason ; 
 for many of the later schoolmen the authority of the 
 Pope Was the only plank between faith and scepticism. 
 Naturally the papal prerogatives were no losers by this 
 result. But they gained immeasurably more when the 
 Reformation diverted the stream of Catholic energy from 
 speculative into controversial channels. Minute accuracy 
 of dogmatic belief became even more important than before. 
 Every doctrine must be defined with rigorous exactitude, 
 and every moot point at once submitted to the Pope for 
 judgment ; for in face of the Protestant enemy the Church 
 must speak in no uncertain tones. Thus the Pope became 
 a Court of Cassation, dealing with final appeals in prompt 
 and businesslike fashion. Old-fashioned theologians had 
 preferred a general council. But councils were slow, 
 uncertain, hard to gather together ; whereas the Pope 
 was always on the spot. Besides, he was generally a 
 finished man of the world, and issues involving much 
 more than theological scholarship were often on the carpet. 
 In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries a religious opinion 
 was a political event. To some extent, at least, the tastes 
 of temporal sovereigns must be humoured ; it was not only 
 at the Council of Trent that the Holy Ghost, as Father 
 Sarpi said, had a way of arriving in the Spanish ambassador's 
 mail-bag. Hence the desirability of leaving final decisions to 
 Rome ; there the uncompromising logic of the theologians 
 was sure of being tempered by tactful Dogmeri'politik. 
 
 From the imaginative standpoint, also, this concen- 
 tration of all authority on a single pair of shoulders was a 
 great step forward. Luther's revolt forced the Church of 
 Rome to lay exaggerated emphasis on every point he 
 
250 PASCAL 
 
 challenged ; zealous Catholics were determined to be 
 nothing that Protestantism was, and everything that it was 
 not. The Reformers had taught — or been popularly sup- 
 posed to teach — a ' right of private judgment ' based on 
 belief in individual inspiration. Ultramontanism retorted 
 by hymning the praises of obedience, of submitting to 
 authority, and never thinking for oneself. But how give 
 these ideas a vivid, personal embodiment ? The infalli- 
 bility of the Church was too abstract to impress the generality 
 of mankind ; whereas the infallibility of the Pope had all 
 the warmth and colour of a living fact. The Pope was 
 accordingly exalted as the middle term between God and 
 man. Truth streamed down from heaven on his head, 
 and his head alone. From him it filtered through to the 
 bishops, from the bishops to the priests ; from the priests 
 a thin jet trickled into the souls of the laity. Hence to set 
 any limit whatever to the authority of the Pope was simply 
 to bar up man's only channel of communication with 
 his Maker. Theologians might distinguish between realms 
 where he was actually infallible and realms where he was 
 not ; but common sense brushed aside their technicalities. 
 On any question the mind could frame the Pope was a 
 thousand times more likely to be right than anyone 
 else. 
 
 Thus the great effort of Ultramontanism was to bring 
 the whole of life under control of his authority, and thereby 
 save men from the risk of thinking for themselves. Theology 
 would tell them what to believe on every conceivable point. 
 Casuistry would regulate every detail of their conduct with 
 equal minuteness. No corner of existence must remain 
 unswept, for the microbe of private judgment developed 
 quicker than the plague. Let it germinate in a council- 
 chamber or a study, and in a trice it had infected the 
 well-springs of character. Hence Rome kept a jealous eye 
 on the professors ; as Pascal says, the Pope hates and 
 
THE BEGINNINGS OF THE STORM 251 
 
 fears the learned men who are not bound to him by vow. 
 Hence still greater jealousy of the statesmen ; if individuals 
 might not think for themselves, why should governments 
 or nations be allowed that privilege ? During Pascal's 
 youth France was thrown into a tempest of excitement by 
 the publication of the ' De Schismate ' of the Jesuit publicist 
 Santarelli. This most logical of Ultramontanes gave 
 the Pope an absolute right of interference in the concerns of 
 temporal sovereigns, whenever he thought that the interests 
 of religion were in any way concerned. He could dictate 
 their policy at home and abroad, revise their statute-book, 
 upset the decisions of their law-courts. If they refused 
 to listen, he could punish them in any manner he saw fit ; 
 in the last resort he could depose them, release their subjects 
 from their allegiance, and head a crusade of Catholic Powers 
 against them. On the other hand, Santarelli and his 
 colleagues by no means left the faithful layman without his 
 quid fro quo. In return for his submissiveness, the Church 
 undertook to deal with all his difficulties and doubts. 
 It could always be trusted to tell him what to do, and 
 what to believe ; and his whole responsibility, intellectual 
 and moral, was limited to carrying out its orders. The 
 fewer questions he asked, the safer he would be. Like all 
 authoritative religions, Ultramontanism soon developed 
 into a jungle of precedents and leading cases inaccessible to 
 aU but experts. Soon modest laymen shuddered at the 
 very thought of drawing the simplest conclusion on their 
 own account ; one step beyond their Catechism might 
 plunge them into some recondite heresy. 
 
 There 's a great text in Galatians, 
 
 If you trip on it, entails 
 Twenty-nine distinct damnations, 
 
 One sure, if another fails. 
 
 It was SO much easier and safer to make a general act of 
 bhnd submission — to give, as Pastor Sabatier says, a blank 
 
252 PASCAL 
 
 cheque to the hierarchy, and leave the priests to fill in the 
 figures as they chose. 
 
 However orthodox this state of mind, it easily sank into 
 the torpid vacuitj'- of that traditional charcoal-burner, who 
 told Luther that he believed whatever the Church believed. 
 When Luther asked him what the Church believed, he 
 answered that he had not the slightest idea. Hence fides 
 rniflicita found small favour at Port Eoyal. The Jansenists 
 might hold Luther's name in pious CathoUc horror, but 
 they believed as firmly as he did in the necessity of a living 
 faith. And living faith could not be content with passive 
 acceptance of propositions ; it demanded an explicit, active 
 self-appropriation of spiritual truths. ' It is not enough,' 
 said Luther, ' that a man beheve that God is, that Christ 
 has suffered, and such-like. He must steadfastly believe 
 that God is his God for His blessedness, that Christ died 
 and rose again for him.' But how bring this personal 
 faith within reach of all the world ? Plainly by showing 
 that religion was a simpler thing than the Ultramontanes 
 pretended. The worthy Cistercian monk, Dom Jouand, 
 was horrified to hear Saint Cyran declare scholasticism 
 worse than useless as a training for divines. ' Give me,' he 
 said, ' a dozen of your novices young enough for their minds 
 to be virgin soil, and quite untainted by the logical fever. 
 I warrant I will turn them out excellent theologians in six 
 months.' Genuine religious knowledge only came to those 
 who bore in mind the warning of St. Paul against ' perverse 
 disputings of corrupt men doting about questions and strifes 
 of tongues.' Thus everyone could read, mark, learn, and 
 inwardly digest the truths of faith. No one could escape by 
 pleading that he was ignorant and a layman. ' They do 
 great honour to Nature,' said Pascal, ' who teach her that 
 she can talk about everything, even about theology.' i 
 
 But how ensure that Nature would * talk ' both in- 
 dependently and rightly ? Jansenists answered with their 
 
 1 Pens. 29. 
 
THE BEGINNINGS OF THE STOEM 253 
 
 doctrine of irresistible grace. They maintained that con- 
 version awakened in the heart an infalHble touch-stone of 
 truth ; this was the ' spiritual sense ' of Jonathan Edwards, 
 the faculty that showed the way to the centre of the earth 
 more exactly in a moment than the ablest mathematician 
 could determine in a whole day. Thus the young Duke of 
 Roannez once naively explained that he could generally 
 tell in a minute whether a thing was wrong, though the 
 reason why it was so often took him a long while to dis- 
 cover. Pascal answered that this was putting the cart 
 before the horse ; men would never cast about for reasons, 
 unless some feeling of wrongfulness were already in their 
 mind.i And this feeling was the voice of spiritual sense, 
 speaking directly into the heart, instead of mediately 
 through a casuist. ' They shall teach no more every man 
 his neighbour, saying Know the Lord,' quotes Pascal from 
 the Hebrew Prophet, " for they shall all know Me, from the 
 least of them unto the greatest of them, saith the Lord. I 
 will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their 
 heart.' Hence Christians need not be afraid of trusting 
 to a blind and formless intuition. ' Reason moves slowly 
 under the weight of so many principles and so many points 
 of view — none of which may be left out of sight for a moment 
 — that it is for ever falling asleep or going astray. Such is 
 not the case with feeling. It acts in a flash, and is always 
 ready to act. Let us, then, put our trust in feeling ; other- 
 wise we shall never know our own minds.' ^ 
 
 To his Catholic critics Pascal's trust in intuition seemed 
 worthy of a mad-house. ' The Jansenists,' wrote the scoff- 
 ing Jesuit Pirot, ' promise to bring men to a state where 
 the Holy Ghost will tell them every moment what their 
 duty is, and give them a victorious grace to do it. For 
 their vanity must needs aspire to extraordinary paths far 
 above reason, which is the element of casuists and school- 
 men. This is one of the illusions by which the devil leads 
 
 1 Pens. 276. 2 Pens. 252. 
 
254 PASCAL 
 
 fanatics astray. So did Calvin before them ; and it is to 
 this fatal experience that we owe the loss of so many of our 
 brethren.' Father Pirot's controversial zeal, however, led 
 him to exaggerations. Had the Jansenists really gone as 
 far as he supposed in the direction of ' enthusiasm,' they 
 must have thrown in their lot with Quietism, already in 
 Pascal's time a growing form of faith, although Mme. Guyon 
 and Molinos were still to come. For the Quietists really 
 believed that they had reached a state where the Holy Ghost 
 would tell them every moment what their duty was. They 
 thought that they had sHpped away from finite Umitations 
 altogether to the broad bosom of infinity ; there they could 
 fold their hands in dreamy meditation, and wait till in- 
 spiration came. But Quietism found httle favour at Port 
 Koyal. Jansenism was too robust a creed to feel the 
 charm of its ' soft and savoury sleep of nothingness ' ; and 
 Saint Cyran condemned its attempts to escape from the 
 finite as at once craven, illusory, and selfish. They were 
 craven because God called on man to stay and fight with 
 Nature a battle fiercer than ever Greek or Eoman hero 
 waged. They were illusory because the white radiance of 
 Eternity was not for our purblind sight. Between God and 
 us must hang Creation, as a kind of nebulous envelope 
 veiling the sunshine from our eyes. ' By a strange marvel 
 God is mingled with His creatures and yet separable from 
 them, just as in the day-time light mingles with the air, but 
 withdraws again at the setting of the sun.' Lastly, the 
 Quietist escape was selfish, because it meant neglect of our 
 neighbour. Quietism thought little of philanthropy, and 
 indeed inclined to the opinion that one moment's mystic 
 contemplation was worth a thousand years' good works. 
 Saint Cyran answered that God had again and again de- 
 clared it enough, if men loved each other for His sake. ' It 
 is as though He would leave all the outward benefits of 
 charity to them, and keep nothing for Himself beyond the 
 
THE BEGINNINGS OF THE STORM 255 
 
 bare acknowledgment of the reason and the intention of 
 the heart. . . . Perfect holiness is not reached till He 
 becomes the End of all the actions of His servants, more 
 especially in those business and money matters which so 
 many find such good excuses for neglecting. Unless you pay 
 your debts — and that punctually, as the Scripture bids — 
 you can expect no favours from Jesus Christ. For God is 
 readier to pardon sins against Himself than sins against out 
 neighbour.' 
 
 But how conciliate a strong attachment to the virtues 
 of the active life with an equally strong belief in individual 
 inspiration ? How keep a man always on the watch for 
 thunder-claps of grace, and at the same time make him 
 imremitting in the discharge of daily duty ? How embolden 
 him to go forward, when spiritual sense was silent for the 
 moment ? Jansenism answered that God had two methods 
 of operation. Sometimes the voice of spiritual sense was 
 unmistakable, decisive ; at other times ' Grace hid itself 
 under Nature,' and left the Christian to fight his way 
 through doubts and difficulties to a conclusion, just as un- 
 regenerate men must do. No doubt, as Pierre Nicole will 
 explain, God would have let us know His will directly, had 
 He not thought it better for our character to buy that know- 
 ledge at the price of a struggle. We must carefully prepare 
 ourselves ; we must wrestle with our conscience ; we must 
 often be attacked by scruples. At least, we seem to do 
 these things ; but Nicole goes on to explain that, seen sub 
 specie aeternitatis, they appear in a very different light than 
 when viewed through spectacles of space and time. We 
 think we prepare ourselves ; really God prepares us. We 
 think we struggle, really He inspires us. Only the scruples 
 are our own, because it is part of His plan to leave us 
 sometimes to ourselves, the better to make us realise our 
 weakness and the strength of grace. Thus spiritual sense was 
 sometimes a directly informing, sometimes a merely bracing 
 
256 PASCAL 
 
 force. Saint Cyran and Pascal laid most stress on its first 
 characteristic ; its second was most in favour with Nicole 
 and the men of caution. For it was, perhaps, to cautious 
 minds that spiritual sense made the strongest appeal. 
 Thanks to it, the most circumspect might take courage to 
 act up to what he knew was best in himself, to take what- 
 ever road he found would bring him most refreshment and 
 strength from God, without caring whether his conduct 
 squared with an external rule of logical or theological 
 correctness. 
 
 Thus spiritual sense lay at the root of Jansenist manly 
 independence. The early struggles of the Paris Club have 
 shown how desperately hard men found it to stand up for 
 their own opinion against authority, even when they felt 
 quite certain that authority was wrong. And if this was 
 hard in science, how much harder was it in a rehgion officered 
 by Ultramontanes. On the other hand, the behef that 
 ' Nature is able to talk about everything, even about 
 theology,' soon developed into the doctrine that she ought 
 to talk about theology, and was failing in her duty if she 
 did not. It might be easier and safer to give in to the 
 authoritative principle, and keep step with the crowd ; 
 but Port Eoyal held that the difficulties and dangers, which 
 beset an individual search for truth, were meant by God to 
 play a most valuable part in the building up of a Christian 
 character. Hence its great anger with the Jesuits ; for 
 these offered to relieve men's consciences of all responsibihty 
 whatever, beyond applying to set cases a ready-made 
 casuistical code warranted to meet all needs. And what 
 the Jesuits did with morality, that the French Bishops did 
 with dogma. In place of hard personal strivings after truth, 
 they offered cheap, rdechanical substitutes from Eome. 
 ' Only self-indulgence,' wrote Nicole, ' could think that 
 there is no sin in prompt obedience to authority. Men 
 naturally love certainty, and like to see their path marked 
 
THE BEGINNINGS OP THE STOEM 257 
 
 out beyond all possibility of mistake. But the light of 
 faith teaches that God pays no regard to this human in- 
 clination. He thinks it better that we should travel along 
 a precisely opposite path — a path of darkness, doubt, and 
 fear — whereby we are kept ever trembling and humiliated 
 in His Presence, and dependent on His light and help.' 
 
 Perhaps these endeavours to prove the spiritual virtues 
 of conflict somewhat overshot the mark. Port Royal's God 
 was a Deus absconditus, Who revealed His will in sudden, 
 unexpected flashes. The Christian was like a traveller 
 slowly groping his way forwards through banks of fog and 
 mist. No doubt spiritual sense was always there to guide 
 him ; but the brighter shone the pillar of fire immediately 
 above his head, the more the surrounding landscape was 
 wrapped in sullen darkness. No wonder that the Jansenist's 
 heart often sank within him. ' During this life,' wrote 
 Martin de Barcos, nephew of Saint Cyran and long a 
 confessor at Port Royal, ' we are indeed in evil case. We 
 do not know exactly where we stand, nor can we ever be 
 quite sure of our own thoughts or actions ; often we must 
 look suspiciously on those that seem the best. I think that 
 is why this life is called the shadow of death, for we walk 
 enveloped in a cloud big with threatenings of destruction. 
 Here our only rule can be exultare cum timore, to rejoice, but 
 not without a shudder. Pear without trust, and trust 
 without fear, are alike unworthy of a Christian.' Thus 
 most Jansenists spent their lives in a regular ebb and flow of 
 moods. One moment they took Pascal's advice, and ' put 
 their trust in feeling.' The next moment they called to 
 mind his warning that men often mistake their fancy for 
 their heart, and began feverishly to search for some external 
 guarantee of truth. Yet a minute later, they remembered 
 that this was giving way to self-indulgence, and fell back 
 again on spiritual sense. 
 
 Some relief from these scruples was found in the practice 
 
258 PASCAL 
 
 of direction of conscience. The seventeenth century was 
 an age of directors, aHke in Protestant countries and in 
 CathoHc. Pious men and women felt that something more 
 than routine rehgious duties was expected from them, but 
 they mistrusted their power to lead an ' interior life ' with- 
 out assistance from an expert. Hence the use of a director. 
 He kept flightiness from trying dangerous experiments, 
 and broke up the bread of doctrine into morsels suited to a 
 feeble appetite. Soon his authority became immense ; and 
 it was seldom the fault of his flock if he failed to magnify 
 his office. Obedience to his commands was proclaimed 
 itself a means of holiness, quite apart from the opportunity 
 it gave of profiting by his wisdom. More than one writer 
 of the age hints that a narrow-minded, unreasonable director 
 was better than a good one, as giving his penitents more 
 chance of showing their praiseworthy submissiveness. 
 Jansenism was too virile a creed to fall into an error so 
 typically Libertarian, so characteristic of the softer sex. 
 In Saint Cyran's hands direction became a wholly ' maieutic ' 
 art. The confessor's business was to help men to draw out 
 what was best in themselves, and thus ultimately fit them to 
 become their own directors. ' Our rule in direction,' wrote 
 Saint Cjnran to a lay correspondent, ' is not our own spirit, 
 but the Spirit of God moving in the souls under our charge. 
 He is far more our Director than we are yours. Our one 
 wish is to go forward with Him, under Him, and in His 
 strength, paying particular attention to such inspirations of 
 Grace as it may please Him to reveal to us in you. For our 
 task is not to build up with our own hands a tower reaching 
 from earth to heaven, but to build up by the Hand of God 
 a tower reaching from heaven to earth.' 
 
 Thus the director was no autocrat, and timorous 
 Jansenists, who dared not stand altogether alone, must look 
 elsewhere for their external oracle. For a while they 
 thought they had found it in an almost slavish adherence 
 
THE BEGINNINGS OP THE STOEM 259 
 
 to the letter of Revelation. They clung to what they knew 
 to he certain, and refused to take a single step forward 
 without direct warrant from on high. ' In case we hearken 
 to Port Royal,' writes the Jesuit Nouet, ' we shall have 
 nothing hut articles of faith in speculative divinity, canons 
 and indubitable rules in morals, infallible aphorisms in 
 physic, demonstrations in philosophy.' Applied to practical 
 questions of conduct this tendency spelt rigorism. World- 
 lings might interpret the Law of God on the analogy of a 
 human statute, and argue that what was not expressly for- 
 bidden was implicitly allowed. Pascal answered that the 
 only difference between what the casuists called a ' per- 
 mitted pleasure ' and an open sin was that God certainly 
 misliked the second, and only probably misliked the first. 
 But still more fiercely did he turn on the casuists them- 
 selves. ' All other sects and religions take natural reason 
 for their guide. Christians stand alone in this : that they 
 are bound by the traditions which Jesus Christ left with 
 their fathers to be handed on to them. But such bondage 
 irks these reverend gentlemen. They must be free to follow 
 their fancy, like the rest of the world.' ^ Thus antiquity 
 became the watchword of Port Royal. Even with irre- 
 sistible grace at his back the boldest reformer dare not 
 stand altogether alone : least of all when he is reforming 
 a historical religion. But the ' traditions of his fathers ' 
 enable him to speak with authority. Thus Fontaine draws a 
 graphic picture of the spiritual unrest of his time. On 
 every side Jesuit charlatans were swarming in with ' new 
 lights of devotion, new patent devices for saving mankind, 
 without the trouble of obeying the Gospel or following the 
 commandments of their Saviour. With the same per- 
 tinacity dabblers in mysticism put forward magnificent 
 theories of perfection evolved from their own subtle fancy. 
 But M. de Saint Cyran had no such super-eminent way to 
 
 I Pens. 903. 
 
 s 2 
 
260 PASCAL 
 
 propose. AH he did was to follow the Gospel and the 
 Fathers, and hand on to others what these divine masters 
 had taught him.' It would be idle to inquire whether his 
 debt to the Fathers was quite as great as he imagined, 
 whether he did not bring to them more than he carried 
 away. At Port Eoyal the primitive Church was more 
 than a mere historical fact ; it was a golden vision in the 
 clouds, standing scarcely closer to realities than does 
 Pietro Laurati's great fresco in the Campo Santo at Pisa to 
 the daily life of the Thebaid. Then men were altogether 
 unlike the subjects of Louis XIV. Then, as Pascal says, 
 they considered world and Church as two deadly foes. 
 ' Then they left one side when they joined the other. They 
 forsook the principles of the one when they adopted those 
 of the other. They quitted, they renounced, they forswore 
 the world into which they were born, and gave themselves 
 wholly to the Church where they received their second birth.' 
 This constant preoccupation with antiquity was fraught 
 with no small danger. A small band of earnest reformers is 
 always prone to exaggerate its own points of difference from 
 the world at large ; nor is this tendency diminished by 
 assiduous study of the ' Acts of the MartjTS ' or the Lives 
 of the Fathers of the Desert. Antiquity for antiquity's 
 sake became the motto of the weaker brethren at Port 
 Eoyal. Primitive customs were revived just because they 
 were picturesquely mildewed and forgotten. To the great 
 entertainment of the unregenerate, Duhamel, the hare- 
 brained rector of St. Maurice's in Paris, revived the ancient 
 discipline of public penance, with its attendant ritual of 
 candles and white sheets. And what was mere affectation 
 in Duhamel became a serious vice in the tremulous Martin 
 de Barcos. What attracted him in the Early Church was 
 its minute regulation of the whole life of its members ; and 
 in a restoration of its elaborate discipline his troubled soul 
 hoped to find security at last. Having succeeded to his 
 
THE BEGINNINGS OP THE STOEM 261 
 
 uncle's preferment he left Port Royal, and settled down 
 at Saint Cyran. There he revived the Eule of St. Benedict 
 in all its pristine severity down to the smallest details. 
 He made each of his monks cook his own dinner, and tore 
 down the partition-waUs between their cells. When young 
 Du Fosse from Port Royal went to see him, Barcos took his 
 visitor round the place, stopping every now and then to 
 point out how much better things were managed at Saint 
 Cyran than at Port Royal. There everyone lived exactly 
 as he pleased ; here every word, every action, almost every 
 thought was minutely prescribed beforehand. These con- 
 tinual aspersions roused the loyal young hermit into 
 something like a fit of temper. He admitted that there 
 was nothing at Port Royal to hinder a man from giving free 
 rein to his whims. But he urged that those who did so broke 
 through the great principle of M. de Saci, which was that each 
 hermit should keep strictly to the rule of life he had drawn up 
 for himself in the sight of God, since nothing but free obedience 
 to a self-imposed law could bear him satisfactory witness 
 that he was following God, and not his own imagination. 
 
 This ' great principle of M. de Saci ' proved amply suffi- 
 cient, until Jansenism began to make a noise in the world. 
 A new religious departure soon becomes the rallying-point of 
 spiritual eccentrics and cranks, all of whom are exceedingly 
 apt to ' mistake their imagination for their heart.' Thus 
 Fontaine declares that ' guiding himself by his own vain 
 fancies, under pretext that they came to him m prayer,' 
 was the root-error of Jean Labadie, the great apostate from 
 Port Royal, who left the Jesuits for the Jansenists, the 
 Jansenists for Presbytery, and ended his restless career by 
 founding an independent Pietist sect in Holland. His fall 
 was a perpetual reminder to Port Royal that spiritual sense 
 was not enough of itself ; its deliverances must be endorsed by 
 an authority altogether independent of the ebb and flow 
 of feeling. And for that authority they looked to the Church. 
 
262 PASCAL 
 
 As Pascal says, it must teach, and God inspire, both of 
 them infallibly. The two must work in harmony, for neither 
 suf&ced alone. The Church must be there to guard the 
 dry bones of dogmatic fact ; the Monitor within must clothe 
 the skeleton with flesh. ' Besides the outward revelation 
 of God's will to men,' wrote an EngHsh contemporary of 
 Pascal, ' there is an inward impression of it on their minds 
 and spirits, which is in a more special manner 
 attributed to God. He alone can so shine upon our 
 glassy understandings as to beget in them a picture of 
 Himself. Thus it is He alone that acquaints us with the 
 truths of Eevelation. Men may teach the grammar and 
 rhetoric, but God teaches the divinity.' i 
 
 Such a position was tenable enough so long as the two 
 authorities worked in concert. But what was to happen if 
 they differed — if grammar and rhetoric said one thing, and 
 divinity another ? The Jansenists were soon brought 
 face to face with this dilemma. In 1649 — three years after 
 Pascal's first conversion — the Sorbonne, or Faculty of 
 Divinity of Paris University, condemned five propositions 
 from the ' Augustinus,' all dealing with irresistible grace. 
 This censure, backed by the signatures of eighty-five 
 bishops, was sent up to Rome for confirmation ; and in 
 1653 — eighteen months before Pascal's second conversion — 
 Innocent X declared all five propositions heretical. All 
 was now lost if the Ultramontanes were right and the 
 reigning Pope was the sole depositary of truth ; as Pascal 
 said, every time the Jesuits caught him unawares they 
 would make Christendom swear to a lie. But if the fortunes 
 of Christendom did not stand or fall with the vagaries of 
 Innocent X ? ' The Church,' answered Antoine Arnauld, 
 ' has often been compared to a river, and a river is one and 
 the same from first to last. But as we learn little of its 
 course from only watching it at one point, so we ought not 
 to judge the Church merely by her present state ; for these 
 
 ' See Campagnao's Cambridge Platonists (Oxford, 1901), p. 182. 
 
THE BEGINNINGS OF THE STOBM 263 
 
 are the days of her old age and decrepitude : according to 
 St. Gregory — of her sunset and decline, in the opinion of St. 
 Bonaventure. We must go hack to the Fountain-head, 
 Jesus Christ, and descend from His times to our own through 
 the Apostles and Prophets, who have been the purest 
 channels of the stream.' 
 
 Thus the Jansenists fell back on the traditional refuge 
 of the Catholic reformer ; from the Church as it was they 
 appealed to the Church as it should be. Such an attitude 
 would be impossible within the modem Church of Rome ; 
 but in the seventeenth century Cathohc discipline had by 
 no means reached its present pitch of perfection. Another 
 two hundred years must go by before Pius IX could 
 declare that he alone was the Church. Great uncertainty 
 then prevailed in France as to the value of a papal judgment. 
 Italy was looked on as a country of great and sudden 
 changes, where black in a moment turned to white, and 
 one Pontificate might undo the work of another. Well 
 might zealous Jansenists imagine that victory might yet 
 be theirs. Innocent X might be hoodwinked by the 
 Jesuits, but a truly Catholic Pope would one day shake 
 off their bondage ; and men must learn to wait in patience, 
 until the present tyranny was overpast. Such was the 
 meaning of Pascal's famous outburst, uttered when his 
 Provincial Letters were condemned at Rome : ' Ad tuum 
 tribunal, Jesu, appello.' He was not following in the steps 
 of Luther ; he was only ' looking to the day when there 
 will come a Pope who will listen to both parties, and 
 consult antiquity to do justice.' Meanwhile to gain time 
 was the first essential. Profiting by the fact that the 
 incriminated propositions were not textual extracts from the 
 ' Augustinus,' Antoine Arnauld denied that Jansen fell under 
 the papal censure. When the authorities replied that he 
 did, Arnauld, who had been bred to the Bar, set up the 
 common legal distinction between law and fact. He 
 admitted that the Church was certainly infallible, so long 
 
264 PASCAL 
 
 as it contented itself with laying down abstract propositions 
 of divinity ; but its infallibility ceased so soon as it began 
 to apply those propositions to particular cases. Why this 
 should be so Pascal win explain in his Provincial Letters. 
 The Church must be infallible in the abstract, because to 
 determine truths of faith passes all human understanding ; 
 it may be fallible in the concrete, because a man only needs 
 the use of his eyes to discover whether certain propositions 
 are contained in a particular book. Nor did Pascal hesitate 
 to point his moral by references to Galileo and other cases 
 where papal decisions on points of fact had come into 
 disastrous conflict with science. ' Pope Zacharias did not 
 put an end to the New World when he excommunicated 
 St. Virgil for believing in the Antipodes. The King of 
 Spain did well to put more trust in Christopher Columbus, 
 who had been there, than in a Pontiff who had not.' 
 
 These ominous words once uttered, Pascal turned to 
 follow his leaders into their temporising policy. That he 
 should have done so is as little surprising as that he should 
 have afterwards changed his mind, and condemned the 
 distinction of law and fact as an unworthy subterfuge. He 
 was a new recruit to the party ; he was no theologian ; 
 he was not even a resident at Port Royal. Small wonder if 
 he failed at once to realise how completely the question of 
 grace dwarfed all other issues. Controversies seldom follow 
 a strictly logical order ; often the consequence is discussed 
 at length before the first principle emerges into light. 
 Such was the case at Port Eoyal. Jn 1643 — only three years 
 after the publication of the ' Augustinus ' — Antoine Arnauld 
 brought out a ' Treatise on Frequent Communion,' which 
 for the moment threw Jansen's book into the shade. For 
 a while discussions on grace were much less to the fore than 
 wrangles over the management of the confessional ; and the 
 Jesuit casuists supplanted the Jesuit theologians as the 
 chief target of Jansenist attack. 
 
CHAPTER XVI 
 
 ESCOBAE 
 
 Just before his death, Saint Cyran declared that he left 
 behind him twelve men stronger than himself. History 
 played his prophecy false, for none of his official lieutenants 
 had a tithe of his religious genius. Only in one respect 
 did they surpass him. He had been anything but lucid, 
 whereas Antoine Arnauld possessed one of the clearest 
 brains in France. A consummate theologian, he was also 
 a geometer of repute, and had philosophy enough to be a 
 correspondent of Descartes. In short, he was one of those 
 men who gain a reputation for knowing everything that can 
 be known. Contemporaries called him le grand Arnauld ; 
 and although his books have been long forgotten, the 
 shadow of his fame still lingers in Boileau's tribute to the 
 memory of ' le plus savant des mortels qui jamais ait ecrit.' 
 And a still more impressive epitaph is furnished by the same 
 satirist's repartee to Malebranche. When the philosopher 
 complained that Arnauld never saw his points, Boileau 
 asked whom he expected to understand him, if M. Arnauld 
 could not do so. A clear head was all the more welcome, 
 since the time had come for ' understanding ' — that is, 
 for Port Eoyal to put its case before the world. Jansen 
 had written only for theologians, Saint Cyran only for 
 recluses : what was the message of their party to humanity 
 at large ? Antoine Arnauld answered the question with 
 his ' Treatise on Frequent Communion.' This was an 
 
 265 
 
266 PASCAL 
 
 elaborate attack on the priests who gave absolution easily, 
 without due inquiry into their penitent's character or the 
 sincerity of his repentance. ' The new man is not born in 
 a moment, any more than is the old. He is engendered 
 little by Httle : often a long while must go by, before he 
 sees the light. Let confessors, then, take anxious heed 
 lest their precipitancy end in a miscarriage ; and God 
 overwhelm them with the reproach that He would bring 
 against a mother who wished to be delivered of the fruit 
 of her womb as soon as she felt herself with child.' 
 
 The ' Treatise ' made its author one of the best-known 
 men in Prance. It dealt with the management of the 
 confessional, a point of interest to everyone. It was 
 admirably written ; the Jesuit Kapin, a critic of weight, 
 had nothing but praise for its style. No wonder that, in 
 days when a taste for reading was general, but novels and 
 newspapers scarcely existed, it had almost as great a vogue 
 in the drawing-rooms as in the studies of the learned. Not 
 that everyone approved it. In 1643 France was in the 
 throes of a great ecclesiastical revival. It was the age of 
 St. Vincent de Paul, patron saint of practical philanthropists. 
 The air was thick with orphanages and hospitals, with 
 Sisterhoods of Charity, with schemes for evangelising the 
 country districts and training the inferior clergy. But 
 practical philanthropists seldom escape a touch of super- 
 ficiality. They may be content with little, with small 
 profits and quick returns ; but a brisk turn-over they 
 must have. Like a certain school of social reformers, 
 they are apt to measure progress by examination-papers 
 and statistics. Outward marks of religious profession 
 bulk unduly large in their eyes, and they are more than a 
 little impatient of those who insist on distinguishing carefully 
 between the kernel and the husk. When the ' Frequent 
 Communion ' appeared, St. Vincent and his followers broke 
 out into loud complaints. Had not the number of com- 
 
ESCOBAB 267 
 
 municants in Paris churches diminished by half since 
 Antoine Arnauld took to denouncing those who ' ate and 
 drank to their own damnation ? ' 
 
 Nor was this feeling in evidence among the philanthro- 
 pists alone. In 1643 Catholicism was still engaged inwirming 
 back its ancient empire in France. The embers of Protes- 
 tantism were not yet altogether quenched ; the disorders 
 born of the Wars of Eeligion were by no means altogether 
 removed. But a struggling Church seldom underrates the 
 virtue even of a purely external acceptance of its ministra- 
 tions. Catholics of the grosser type felt that they were 
 already half-way towards heaven by the mere fact of 
 being Catholics, and therefore sole heirs to means of grace 
 and forms of worship ordained by God Himself. Theirs 
 was, as Pascal said, the spirit of the ' carnal Jews,' who 
 thought that God loved them because they were the seed 
 of Abraham, or because He had given them a Temple and 
 a Law, and suffered them to wash away their sins in the 
 blood of beasts. As though Deuteronomy taught a different 
 lesson from the Gospel of St. John. As though there could 
 be titles to God's Love other than a broken and a contrite 
 heart. But Pascal's views were little in favour with the 
 militant theology brought into favour by the Jesuits. 
 He had every right to treat this famous Order as synonymous 
 •vs^th ' carnal Catholicism ' ; for although many Jesuits 
 were not carnal, and many carnal Catholics were not Jesuits, 
 the Society furnished the high-Catholic party with three- 
 quarters of its zeal, its courage, and intelhgence. Not that 
 it was the patentee of any new invention. The ' mystery 
 of Jesuitism ' is a phantom born of heated Protestant brains. 
 The Jesuits had no secret more abstruse than that of giving 
 up to party what was meant for mankind with a ruthlessly 
 heroic completeness unparalleled in history. They were 
 called into being to save the Church at a dark crisis in its 
 fortunes. They made the saving of the Church the one 
 
268 PASCAL 
 
 object of their lives. In the salvation of the Church they 
 found complete and perfect satisfaction. In return, they 
 cut their own characteristics deeply on the Church at 
 large. Yet the completeness of their triumph proved its 
 own undoing. The ' Divina Commedia ' never forgot to 
 distinguish between the Church, as a mystical ideal, and 
 the Church, as an earthly corporation. The King's daughter 
 though all-glorious within, was often travel-stained enough 
 without. But the whole spirit of the Jesuits cried out 
 against this separation of ideals from actualities. Campaign 
 indomitably they would, but they must know exactly for 
 what they were campaigning. As their battle-standard 
 they much preferred a strip of tangible silk to the most 
 resplendent Constantine's vision in the clouds. Hence 
 their anxiety to find flesh and blood equivalents for mystical 
 ideas. The Bride of Christ must be identified with the 
 reigning hierarchy at Rome ; and men must feel that they 
 were equally fighting God's battles, whether they fought for 
 the Mystical Body of Jesus Christ or the temporal policy 
 of the Pope. 
 
 But how persuade an honourable and intelligent con- 
 science to confound the outward with the inward ? Jesuitism 
 answered by sweeping away the difference between them. 
 It argued that the whole duty of man was to do the will of 
 God. If He laid a certain work upon me, I must perform 
 that action, and no other. In itself, my task might seem 
 ' higher ' or ' lower ' than that assigned to my neighbour ; 
 but this distinction was of no moment. Neither action 
 drew its meritoriousness from any intrinsic quality of its 
 own, but simply from its conformity with the will of God. 
 But how was a man to know for certain what God expected 
 from him ? Let him join the Society, and he would soon 
 find out. There a perpetual ladder of communication ran 
 between earth and heaven. The individual Jesuit obeyed 
 his Superior, who obeyed the Rector, who obeyed the 
 
ESCOBAR 269 
 
 Provincial, who obeyed the General, who obeyed the Pope, 
 who took his orders straight from God Almighty. Thus 
 obedience became the pivot of the Jesuit system, although 
 it was far from being a Jesuit invention. Ever since the 
 days of St. Benedict it had ranked, together with poverty 
 and chastity, as one of the cardinal virtues of monasticism ; 
 and even Loyola's famous simile, ferinde ac cadaver — like a 
 carcase in the hands of the Superior — comes from the 
 Franciscans. But in the Society obedience soon cast its 
 companion virtues into the shade. ' We heard compara- 
 tively little of poverty or chastity,' writes a former novice, 
 ' but every hour of the day we were reminded of obedience. 
 No boundaries were set to this virtue ; it was infinite space 
 for ever enlarging.' 
 
 God and obedience, in fact, became convertible terms. 
 Loyola would call a priest from the altar in the middle of 
 Mass, because obedience was better than sacrifice. He dis- 
 liked hearing a saint praised for his power of prayer ; the 
 test of sanctity was mortification, and mortification meant 
 obedience. But his genius reaches its highest point in the 
 ' Exercitia Spiritualia,' a series of meditations lasting many 
 days. They carry the neophyte through the whole cycle of 
 Christian history, making him realise each scene with the most 
 vivid exactitude. He must be present when the Spirit of 
 God first moved upon the face of the waters ; he must stand 
 by the cross of Jesus ; he must taste the joys of heaven, and 
 be scorched by a blast from the flames of hell. At first 
 sight it seems as though experience were being allowed 
 the fullest play ; really it is being forced to put a rope round 
 its own neck. The novice does not work through the 
 exercises on his own account ; they are administered by an 
 expert, who keeps him under strict surveillance. He must 
 not swerve a hair's breadth from the appointed list of 
 subjects ; he must not vary their order ; nor may he spend 
 on any one more or less than the appointed time. If he is in 
 
270 PASCAL 
 
 the heights of heaven, back he must come to earth ; if he 
 is in the depths of hell, there he must remain until the 
 clock strikes. For the business of the exercises is to teach 
 him to switch his mind on or off sacred subjects at the word 
 of command, and thus bring the mainspring of his piety 
 under the control of obedience. 
 
 Add to this a ceaseless drill in studies and recreations, 
 in carriage of the body, even in diet and dress. Nor was 
 obedience limited to carrying out orders already given. 
 Above mere obedience in deed came the will to obey ; while 
 highest of all was obedience in judgment and insight — 
 ohedientia oculata — which did the Superior's will without 
 waiting for his nod. Thus did Loyola give a new meaning 
 to his favourite psalm : ' Like as the eyes of a maiden wait 
 on the hand of her mistress, so do our eyes wait on the 
 Superior.' Necessarily his authority was absolute. Novices 
 were forbidden to ask whether he was wise or foolish, holy 
 or imperfect ; they were only to consider in him ' the 
 Person of Jesus Christ, Who had put His authority into 
 his hands, and would not suffer His minister to err.' Critics 
 have sometimes asked whether this perinde ac cadaver 
 included obedience to orders felt to be sinful. Loyola 
 himself forestalled the objection. If a Jesuit had scruples 
 about the morality of a command, he was to lay them before 
 the Superior, and do his best to rest content with the 
 Superior's explanations. If his conscience still proved 
 restive, two or three colleagues were to be called in to 
 arbitrate. If he could not be satisfied with their award, he 
 was ' very far from the perfection which the hfe of rehgion 
 demands.' This master-stroke of compromise secured a 
 double triumph. The novice was saved from having to act 
 against his conscience ; he was also saved from having to 
 act on its authority alone. 
 
 This intense mistrust of ' private judgment ' was natural 
 enough in a protagonist of the Counter-Eeformation. But, 
 
ESCOBAE 271 
 
 quite apart from sinister associations with Luther, it could 
 offer small attractions to a converted Spanish officer. It 
 is necessarily tentative ; and a soldier cannot wait while 
 spiritual experiments are being tried. He must have his 
 orders ready-made, and take their truth for granted : ' not 
 his to reason why.' Then too, experience had convinced 
 Loyola that most human weaknesses and errors spring 
 from independent thought. The burden of deciding 
 important questions for himself puffs one man up and 
 casts another down. Often both evils lodge in the same 
 brain. Experience makes its votaries moody and self- 
 conscious, prone to sudden variations. One moment finds 
 them sanguine to extravagance, another casts them into 
 depths of unintelligible despair. Over this point they are 
 more certain than certitude itself ; the next may strike 
 them with an ague of paralysing scruples. Such a temper 
 of mind was not for Loyola, most resolute of utiUtarians. 
 As he said, he meant his Jesuits to be like the good angels, 
 who need think no more about their own souls, but could 
 afford to put out all their powers in the service of their 
 neighbour. Doubts and scruples must accordingly be cut 
 down at the root. The man of experience often found it 
 harder to know what his duty was than to do it. Loyola 
 resolved to spare his children the pain of this responsibility. 
 Whatever troubles fate might have in store for the Jesuit, 
 that of having to rely on his own conscience should never 
 be among them. 
 
 Still, everything could not be foreseen, and there might 
 be moments when no Superior was at hand. How shield 
 the novice at such junctures from having to depend on 
 himself ? How protect him from his own experience ? The 
 answer was simple enough. Experience relies on the heart, 
 on intuition and spiritual sense. To checkmate it, nothing 
 more was needed than to estop all reference to these lords of 
 shiftless misrule. Loyola accordingly called casuistry to 
 
272 PASCAL 
 
 his assistance. Not that this was his own invention, any 
 more than was obedience. Its history stretches through 
 the Middle Ages back to stray germs in the Fathers ; Jesuit 
 wits more than once turned the tables on Port Royal by 
 bringing up lax casuistical dicta from Augustine himself. 
 But the medieval ' Summae de Poenitentia ' were heavy, 
 ill-digested treatises, not unHke the Year-books of old 
 Westminster Hall ; clearness and order only came in with 
 the casuists of the Counter-Eeformation. Of these the great 
 majority were Jesuits ; and most of them came from Italy 
 or Spain — the two countries least alive to the spirit of the 
 Reformation. They made casuistry into a dehberate rival 
 to spiritual sense. It became the art of deciding questions of 
 conscience by logical deduction from a general rule. The 
 Church laid down certain infalHble moral principles ; and 
 a man's business was to apply these to his own case, in the 
 same way as a judge applies the appropriate Act of Parlia- 
 ment to the case before him. In such a process there was 
 no more room for the heart than there is in algebra. This 
 elimination of the feeUngs brought certainty within the 
 reach of everyone. To consult the heart was both risky 
 and laborious, as Jansenists were the first to acknowledge ; 
 whereas about the judgments of reason there could be no 
 mistake. Only put an undivided trust in logic, and the 
 whole problem of conduct became as clear and simple as the 
 noon-day sun. 
 
 Nor was certainty the only gain. Experience is neces- 
 sarily coloured by every kind of personal peculiarity ; but 
 reason is nothing, if not universal. It speaks in the same 
 tones to every man ; what is true for one, is true for all. 
 Hence it can promise uniformity ; and to Loyola's mihtary 
 mind uniformity appeared no trivial blessing. The very 
 first ofiicial pubhcation of his Society was the ' Directorium,' 
 a manual for its confessors, showing how all of them could 
 use the same methods with penitents of every class and 
 
ESCOBAR 273 
 
 country. Nor was this so hard a feat. Once get morality 
 to abstract away from differences of individual character, 
 and it can easily be worked up into a system as comprehensive 
 and precise as any code of law. Once train up young zealots 
 in a system, and it soon possesses them entirely ; they no 
 more wish to look beyond it than Jacqueline Pascal's 
 •precieux friends at Rouen wished to look beyond their 
 theories of the poetic art. Nor is average humanity in- 
 sensible to the charms of system — least of all, when system 
 condescends to give its reasons. A clever layman was 
 perfectly free to go through a casuistical argument, and 
 pick holes in it if he could. But saying that he might 
 go through the argument was by no means saying that he 
 must. The truths of casuistry, being universal, could be 
 settled once for all ; once the experts had pronounced, it 
 was generally sheer waste of time to insist on re-opening a 
 matter. Besides, few laymen had the requisite skill. In 
 the hands of the casuists morality became a technique 
 only less abstruse than theology itself. As well grapple 
 with a case of conscience by the light of natural reason as 
 physic oneself through a dangerous illness, or draw up deeds 
 without a lawyer. Port Royal might declaim against the 
 enervating self-indulgence implied on thus shuffling off the 
 most personal of responsibilities on to the back of a system 
 administered by another man ; but the Jesuits had their 
 answer pat. What pleased God was obedience, and obedience 
 meant clinging to the priest with a ' blind and unexpressed 
 faith.' 
 
 This principle — dignified as a ' submission of the intel- 
 lect ' — made a strong appeal to all who found thinking for 
 themselves both difficult and dull. As Malebranche said, 
 it was equally consoling to the vanity of the shepherd and 
 the brainless torpor of his flock. How completely it 
 divorced morality from personal conviction may be seen 
 from a curious passage in the Memoirs of Mme. de Motteville, 
 
274 PASCAL 
 
 the very orthodox lady-in-waiting to Queen Anne of Austria. 
 Like most Spaniards, Anne was fond of the play. But in 
 the summer of 1646, the cure of St. Germain, a pious and 
 austere divine, wrote to point out that she endangered her 
 soul every time she set foot within a theatre. His letter 
 rather troubled her conscience, and she consulted several 
 bishops, who thought that listening to Corneille was not 
 necessarily a sin. But the cure persisted all the more, and 
 sent her a written opinion against the lawfulness of the 
 play counter-signed by seven doctors of divinity. There- 
 upon she consulted the young King's tutor, the Abbe 
 Beaumont de Perefixe. Off posted Perefixe to the Sorbonne, 
 and soon came back with at least ten signatures on the other 
 side. Seven from ten left a majority of three in favour of 
 the play, and the Queen's scruples were at once appeased ; 
 though her lady-in-waiting indulges in a mild lament over 
 the degenerate laxity of modern times. But neither Anne, 
 nor Mme. de Motteville, nor the cure, nor the tutor saw 
 anything odd in deciding an important case of conscience 
 by votes casually lobbied in the Sorbonne. 
 
 What these seventeen doctors did for Anne of Austria 
 in one particular instance, that the casuists did on system 
 for mankind at large. Good Catholics made a point of 
 taking their whole morality from the priest. They wanted 
 to be told exactly how much the Church expected from her 
 decent, unpretentious children. How near sin could they 
 go without running any risk ? Were they, for instance, 
 always bound to tell the truth ? Most lay moraUsts would 
 answer that they were not ; there are moments when a 
 falsehood is an act of the highest virtue. But this crude 
 doctrine scandalised the cautious Jesuit professor ; splendide 
 mendax was far too like the pecca fortiter of Luther. What- 
 ever Protestants might do he meant to keep to windward 
 of the moral law. To tell a lie was always wrong ; but I 
 might sometimes put the truth in a way certain to deceive 
 
ESCOBAR 275 
 
 my neighbour. And Sanchez or Filutiug were there to 
 show me how to secure the maximum of false impression 
 for a minimum expenditure of deceit. Witness their 
 doctrine of equivocation. No one can object to a deception 
 based on a mere play on words. As Filutius points out, 
 cafo may either mean a chicken or the fresh-water fish 
 called chub. Hence I am perfectly within my rights, if 
 I say that I never eat caponem on a Friday, although I know 
 that my hearers are thinking of the bird, whereas I really 
 have the fish in mind. On the same principle an unfaithful 
 wife may tell her husband that she has not committed 
 adultery ; because in the Old Testament that word habitu- 
 ally means the worship of false gods. It is the husband's 
 business to inquire whether she is using it in the literal or 
 the figurative sense. But at a pinch I may go still farther, 
 and put the truth in a way certain to deceive. Part of 
 my answer I make out loud ; the rest I murmur imder my 
 breath. Suppose, for instance, that I want to go from 
 Perugia to Florence ; but that at the Tuscan frontier ; I am 
 stopped by officers of quarantine under the mistaken'i^belief 
 that Umbria is raging with some deadly epidemic. As the 
 suspicion is unfounded, I may deny that I come from 
 Perugia ; inasmuch as I do not come from the plague- 
 stricken city of their fancy, but from a Perugia altogether 
 sound and well. And even if the belief is true, some casuists 
 would still allow me to deny that I spent last, night there ; 
 though in this case I must secretly add to my answer that 
 I do not come in such a way as to bring poisonous microbes 
 with me — ' subintelligendo me non venire ex eo loco ita 
 ut pestis me attigerit.' 
 
 Sanchez and Filutius were legislating for the average 
 practice of the average man ; to speak the language of the 
 examination-room, they were trying to determine the ' full 
 satis ' standard, which passed respectability with decent 
 credit. But the chief business of the casuists was to fix 
 
 T 2 
 
276 PASCAL 
 
 the limits of ' satis double minus,' the minimum that just 
 got the sinner through by the skin of his teeth. This must 
 be laid down with the most rigorous exactitude ; for 
 nervous confessors shrank from acting on their own respon- 
 sibility, and liked to have their instructions set out in 
 definite black and white. Under what circumstances, for 
 instance, must a priest force me to ' give alms ' — that is, 
 render any kind of charitable assistance to my neighbour ? 
 Vasquez answers the question at length in his ' Tractatus 
 de Eleesmosyna.' The obligation chiefly depends on his 
 necessities. These may be either common, grave, or extreme. 
 Extreme necessities are cases of Ufe and death. These I 
 am always bound to relieve at any cost to myself ; and 
 Vasquez rather prides himself on his severity for adding 
 thereto certain cases of ' valde gravis et arcta necessitas,' 
 where Hfe and death hang indirectly in the balance. Com- 
 mon necessities, on the other hand, make no demand on 
 me. They are so numerous that the fortunes of Midas 
 would be unequal to relieving all ; and logic pales before 
 the task of diving down among the multitude, and picking 
 out with scientific precision which particular cases have 
 the first claim on my purse. Remains the intermediate 
 class of grave necessities. These I ought to relieve from 
 such portion of my income as is not employed in keeping 
 up my position. But what exactly is a ' necessarium 
 statui ' ? Circumstances will decide. But suppose that 
 I am ambitious and wish to rise in the world : what is a 
 luxury to-day will then become a necessity of my position. 
 May I save up against the contingency ? Certainly, says 
 Vasquez. Can anything, then, be ear-marked as a luxury 
 subject to charitable claims ? Vasquez is very doubtful. 
 ' Vix in saecularibus invenies superfluum statui, etiam in 
 regibus.' As if this was not enough to save my pocket, 
 further distinctions are introduced between cases where 
 Lazarus is already in the grip of his grave necessities and 
 
ESCOBAE 277 
 
 cases where the blow is still to fall ; as again, my duty- 
 varies according to whether his misfortunes are due to 
 accident or injustice. Nor is a layman bound to seek out 
 the poor ; even when they force themselves upon his 
 notice, he can generally hang back on the chance of some 
 more generous philanthropist coming forward. Altogether 
 Vasquez can hardly complain, if Diana, a very lax casuist, 
 tickets his decisions divitihus multum flausihilia, very 
 acceptable to the rich. 
 
 Still, it is fair to add that the ' Tractatus de Eleesmosyna ' 
 did not reach the laity directly ; between Vasquez and the 
 penitent came two middlemen. The eminent professor dis- 
 coursed at large on moral theology. Escobar, who spent 
 his life compiling analogues to the modern shilling manual, 
 boiled down his folios into a handy book. This was studied 
 by the fashionable confessor, who gave Mme. de Montberon 
 the benefit of his advice. And, no doubt, this filtering 
 process often gave common sense a chance of making its 
 voice heard. But it was often attended also by less desir- 
 able results. What had Escobar to do when his authorities 
 differed — when Vasquez and Sanchez took one view, and 
 Filutius another ? So far as his personal practice went, 
 a conscientious priest would do as Anne of Austria did, 
 and side with the majority. But must he force his penitents 
 to do the same ? No, reverence for the great Italian Jesuit 
 forbade him to say that those who followed Filutius were 
 altogether wrong. Whatever a grave doctor said must 
 have solid reasons behind it — ' aliqua niti probabilitate ' 
 — and humble lay-folk could act upon it without a twinge 
 of conscience. Thus arose the great casuistical doctrine 
 of probabilism. This forced a priest to give absolution 
 whenever a good authority thought that the penitent ought 
 to have it ; even though still better authorities thought 
 that he ought not. Its original object was to protect the 
 laity from an over-zealous confessor, as also to save nervous 
 
278 PASCAL 
 
 priests from the responsibility of deciding which of the two 
 conflicting opinions had the greater weight. But proba- 
 bihsm soon became the great weapon of the lax casuist. 
 Thanks to it, all authorities stood on the same footing — 
 the newest and the most erratic no lower than the oldest 
 and the most assured. Some might be more probable than 
 others ; but then, as Father Pirot will explain, all probable 
 opinions were equally safe. For safety did not admit of 
 degrees ; it was one and indivisible. Thus the laxest 
 utterance of the laxest casuist set the pace in every proba- 
 bilist manual ; and the whole business of Escobar and 
 his Hke was to hunt through Vasquez and Filutius in search 
 of ' benign ' decisions. 
 
 Not but what laxity would have come of itself without 
 any help from the casuists ; the most that Escobar did was 
 to cover its appearance with a veil of apparent respectability. 
 The Catholicism of the Counter-Reformation was caught 
 between two fires. At all costs it must cling to traditional 
 beliefs and customs, since to begin reforming on a large 
 scale would be a tacit admission that Luther had some 
 show of reason on his side. On the other hand, it would lose 
 all hold on the laity unless sweeping changes were made ; 
 for many of its precepts had grown obsolete, and others were 
 far too severe to impose on an adult world. Anne of 
 Austria's scruples about the play were a case in point. The 
 theatre undoubtedly lay under the special ban of the Church ; 
 but no amount of ecclesiastical censures would have kept 
 the contemporaries of Corneille from going to see the ' Cid.' 
 And more important issues were at stake than Anne of 
 Austria's gala-box. French intelligence was sincerely 
 anxious not to break with the Church ; but there were limits 
 to its tolerance. Much that had been taken for granted 
 by the subjects of St. Louis appeared by no means so self- 
 evident to the subjects of Louis XIV. But the Church's 
 teaching had not varied. ' Better,' it still maintained, ' for 
 
ESCOBAE 279 
 
 sun and moon to drop from heaven, for the earth to fail, 
 and for the many milhons on it to die in extremest agony, 
 than that one soul should tell a wilful untruth, or steal one 
 poor farthing without excuse.' Such language might 
 seem real enough to Pascal and a few recluses at Port 
 Eoyal ; but once let confessors dare to translate it into 
 terms of practical everyday duty, and common sense would 
 have everywhere risen in wUd revolt. Hence the need of 
 lax casuists to point out the darker shades in the Church's 
 conception of sin, and thereby save it from the fearful 
 conclusions of its own logic. 
 
 Besides, a more immediate problem was pressing for 
 solution. The mass of Frenchmen were neither saints nor 
 potential rebels, but amiable worldlings ready to do any- 
 thing, except take religion too much in earnest. The Jesuit 
 Eapin, although an accomplished man of the world, paints his 
 contemporaries in the darkest colours. Priests without 
 virtue, confessors without firmness, devotees without 
 sincerity, were a characteristic of the age. ' Men pride 
 themselves on being Christians without showing the least 
 trace of Christianity. Such faith as they have is a worldly 
 faith on excellent terms with the times they live in, the 
 company they keep, the fleeting interests they pursue. This 
 is true alike of open sinners and of the sensible well- 
 conducted many who believe in virtue and self-respect. 
 Do their souls contain a single spark of religion ? One 
 moment they are for God, against Him the next. They 
 allow themselves half-hours of vice on the day that they 
 approach the altar. Everywhere are confessions without 
 amendance, repentances without amendment, conversions 
 without a change of life, flickering, faint-hearted resolutions 
 that vanish into smoke.' What was to be done with such 
 people ? Antoine Arnauld wrote a big book to urge that 
 their confessor ought to refuse them absolution until he 
 saw unmistakable signs of a change of heart. But could 
 
280 PASCAL 
 
 real repentance be expected from beings obviously incapable 
 of five minutes serious thought ? To refuse them absolution 
 was to deliver their souls to Satan ; and many shrank from 
 coupling the thought of these poor social butterflies with 
 the horrors of hell-fire. If there was not stuff in them to 
 be really good it must also be beyond their power to be 
 altogether bad. Kindheartedness could cherish a pious 
 hope that the Church would somehow manage to slip them 
 into a humble place in Paradise. No doubt, in order to do 
 so, it must abate some of its demands ; but, with such an 
 end in view, a few sacrifices were well worth the making. 
 
 Now came in Escobar and his brethren, to show con- 
 fessors how to eviscerate the substance of a law, while 
 leaving its shadow reverentially intact. A noiseless coach- 
 and-four was driven through every inconvenient enactment ; 
 one social misdemeanour after another was weighed, 
 measured, and found to be excusable. To the lay moralist 
 most of these will seem harmless peccadilloes enough ; no 
 great harm was done if Escobar proved that the white 
 lies of the lady of fashion, or the ' trade-customs ' of the 
 shop-keeper, were not grievous sins. The vice of lax 
 casuistry lay much more in its methods than in its con- 
 clusions, in its ignoble tendency to press the quibbles of 
 Old Bailey law into the service of morality. But in these 
 matters Escobar's century was not sqeamish ; and as 
 to his good intentions there could be no doubt. Pascal 
 himself bears witness to them in the ironical apology he 
 puts into the mouth of the Jesuit in the Provincial Letters. 
 ' Our main object should have been to establish no rules 
 but those of the Gospel in all their severity ; and our own 
 pure morals testify that if we allow some licence in others 
 this is more from accident than design. The truth is that 
 we are forced to do so. Men are nowadays grown so 
 corrupt that we must go to them since we caimot make them 
 come to us ; otherwise they would leave us altogether, and 
 
E8C0BAB 281 
 
 become utter castaways. So our casuists have gone through 
 the vices commonly met with in the different orders of 
 society ; and, without ever departing from the truth, they 
 have laid down rules so easy that he must indeed be hard 
 to please who does not find them to his liking. For the 
 true interests of religion forbid our Society to refuse any 
 man, be he who he may, so as not to drive the world to 
 despair.' i 
 
 Still, even Escobar did not forget that ' the rules of the 
 Gospel in all their severity ' were God's conditions of 
 salvation. Casuistry could only dispense men from those 
 rules if it managed somehow to make good the balance of 
 righteousness which their lax performances left owing 
 to their Maker. This liquidation of their account became 
 the duty of sacramental grace received through the 
 confessional. Escobar conceived of it as working along 
 thoroughly business-like lines not a little suggestive of a 
 useful institution common in country villages. Lady 
 Bountiful starts a clothing-club for the wives of her depen- 
 dents ; to every sixpence saved she adds a bonus of a penny. 
 If Escobar may be believed, God deals in the same way with 
 His creatures, except that His terms are still more generous ; 
 to every penny of human effort He adds a six-fold bonus 
 of sacramental grace. In principle, for instance. He 
 demands that a sinner should be contrite, perfectly repentent. 
 In practice He realises that this is asking too much ; and 
 all He actually requires is that the sinner should be attrite, 
 imperfectly repentent, and go to confession. Absolution 
 will then make up the difference between contrition and 
 attrition. The principle is clearly stated by Father Nouet 
 in his reply to Pascal. ' I put the case that a man have 
 committed sins, and that some time after he should begin 
 to detest his sins, but with so little fervour that the detesta- 
 tion were not meritorious, even in the least degree ; though 
 
 ' Sixth Provincial Letter, Works, vi. p. 62. 
 
282 PASCAL 
 
 he should have a regret, though but a weak one, for having 
 so offended. I ask whether in that case his sins be forgiven 
 him. And I answer. No, they are not ; because it is not 
 with that degree of intention which God hath ordained for 
 that effect. After this, suppose he go to confession. Then 
 we must not say his sins are not forgiven him, because that 
 would be too hard in faith. And therefore, I say his sins 
 are pardoned, because the grace of the sacrament and of 
 the keys do supply what is wanting in that interior 
 moving.' 
 
 Once embarked on this current, the casuists went 
 swiftly forward. The more fervidly they trusted to ' the 
 grace of the sacrament and of the keys,' the less they cared 
 about morality ; it was not his own righteousness, but the 
 magical formula of absolution, that really saved a man. 
 Soon they threw systematic cold water on the value of all 
 human effort. How closely behef in the opus operatum 
 allied itself with cynicism may be judged from the pam- 
 phlets of Father Faure, a Jesuit wit of the eighteenth 
 century. ' Take,' he says, ' the case of two licentious young 
 men. James has made an effort, and lived cleanly for a 
 fortnight before coming to confession ; John has continued 
 in his evil courses up to the last moment. Many priests 
 would give James absolution, and tell John to come back 
 again when he was in a better frame of mind. This is 
 altogether wrong. A fortnight's abstinence from a single 
 vice is no proof of a radical change of heart; for anything 
 the priest can tell, John may be the better Christian of the 
 two. Anyhow, to refuse him absolution is not the way to 
 cure him ; it is far more likely to drive him away from the 
 confessional altogether. Even if the refusal touches his 
 conscience, and he tries to fight his faults, this will do him 
 little good ; since, as he is not in a state of grace, his 
 efforts do not count as merit. The right course is to give 
 him absolution after every fall. Then he will be strengthened 
 
ESCOBAE 283 
 
 by the Sacrament ; and, being in a state of grace between his 
 various lapses, he will have an opportunity of laying up 
 treasure in heaven.' 
 
 Father Faure, at any rate, leaves no doubt about his 
 sympathies. He definitely prefers a more immoral life 
 with many absolutions to a less immoral life with fewer 
 absolutions. No wonder that Escobar looked on the battle 
 of repentance as won when a sinner had been got by hook 
 or crook to the confessional ; or that he and his brethren 
 started a campaign to force priests to be lax. They must 
 give absolution automatically — ' hke footmen, rather than 
 judges,' said scornful Antoine Arnauld — to all who chose 
 to ask for it. They must not cast about for general informa- 
 tion about their penitent's weaknesses, as would a physician ; 
 for that would run the risk of covering him with shame, 
 ruhore afficiat foenitentem. They must try each offence 
 strictly on its merits, as would a magistrate. They must 
 be satisfied with the merest show of repentance ; for, in his 
 ' Methodus Expeditae conf essionis,' a work altogether worthy 
 of its title, Tamburini lays down that ' in quolibet gradu, 
 etiam remissimo, satis est dolor.' Nor might they pause 
 because they knew, and knew that the penitent knew him- 
 self, that his promises of amendment were so much wasted 
 breath. There was good authority for absolving him, 
 even if he admitted that the knowledge that he was sure of 
 pardon had made him sin with a lighter heart, ' peccasse 
 spe veniae obtinendae liberius quam fecisset, si ea caruisset.' 
 No wonder that priests who put these principles into practice 
 could boast that they were positively overwhelmed by the 
 number of their penitents. ' Sins,' cried a Jesuit orator, 
 ' are nowadays expiated with more zeal and alacrity than 
 they were formerly committed ; and men are washed free 
 of their stains almost before they have contracted them.' 
 
 Necessarily such methods led to an intolerable super- 
 ficiality in days when the confessional set the pitch of 
 
284 PASCAL 
 
 thought and practice for average mankind. No doubt, 
 a conscientious priest would explain that he only professed 
 to demand the minimum of a minimum, and urge on his 
 penitents for their soul's sake to do a little more. But 
 human nature seldom resists the charms of a fixed standard, 
 least of all when it is administered by a live judge in a 
 visible court. If he must be satisfied with little, why be 
 at the expense of offering more ? He could not protest, for 
 severity might drive them away from the confessional 
 altogether, and thus rob them of the priceless benefits of 
 sacramental grace. Even apart from this, however, he was 
 under small temptation to be strict. A believer in free will, 
 he could not fairly ask them for more than he thought them 
 capable of performing ; and constant experience of their 
 frailties inclined him to a very low estimate of their powers. 
 Even if they did their best, it was a poor thing indeed. 
 Why not, then, fold his hands, and trust bKndly to the 
 opus operatum ? It was not his fault if it led to the 
 scandal of ' sinners cleansed without repentance, souls made 
 regenerate without charity, Christians without the grace of 
 Jesus Christ, a God without power over the will of man, 
 a predestination without mystery, a redemption without 
 certitude.' i 
 
 ' Pascal, Pens. 884. 
 
CHAPTER XVII 
 
 THE PKOVINCIAL LETTERS 
 
 I. — The Sorbonne 
 
 ' Silence,' says Pascal, ' is the worst of persecutions ; 
 the saints never held their peace.' Under Antoine Arnauld's 
 vigorous leadership Jansenism developed a school of 
 militant pamphleteers, who flooded Paris with defences of 
 the ' Frequent Communion,' and attacks on Jesuit laxity. 
 In workmanship these far surpassed any production of the 
 enemy. Literary Jesuits of the type of Fathers Bouhours, 
 Rapin, Daniel, were only learning their trade. The older 
 men were scholastic theologians, more at home in Latin than 
 in French, and quite unable to put their case intelligibly 
 before the public. Father Annat, the King's confessor, 
 was dry and inconclusive ; Father Petau, a profound 
 patriotic scholar, was waterlogged by his erudition ; Father 
 Pinthereau's dreary catalogues of Jansenist errors roused 
 no man to enthusiasm. Nor was the Society well served by 
 its popular declaimers. Father Garasse was no longer 
 alive ; and Father Brisacier, though heir to all his vulgarity, 
 had little of his wit. It was thought that he made too free 
 a play with the stock weapon of the angry celibate, as he told 
 how Port Royal made its doctrinal excesses the cloak for 
 excesses of another kind : had not St. Jerome declared 
 that heresy and sexual vice always went hand in hand ? 
 Bawling blackguards of this class were, of course, 
 
 285 
 
286 PASCAL 
 
 impossible at Port Royal. The worst that can be said of 
 the Jansenist pamphlets is that many of them exude an air of 
 irritating moral priggishness. ' They take us to task on 
 every subject,' complains Father Caussin, ' and ruthlessly 
 expose our ignorance of all. They show that we can neither 
 speak nor write. No smattering of polite Uterature has ever 
 come our way. Philosophy is far above our heads. Our 
 theology is a mass of errors. The pulpit is no place for us ; 
 and our occupation of the confessionals is a pubUc danger.' 
 Later on, Father Bouhours will take up the tale, and twit 
 the Jansenists with an inordinate tendency to mutual 
 admiration. ' These gentlemen adore their own ideas. 
 To be friends with them is to be the friend of truth, a good 
 Christian and an honest man. If you will only say hard 
 things about the Archbishop of Paris — if you will rail at his 
 brother of Embrun, and hate Father Aimat with all j'^our 
 heart — ^your predestination is beyond all doubt, and your 
 eternal happiness secure.' Antoine Amauld's personal 
 failings were of another kind. The son and grandson of 
 eminent lawyers, and himself bred to the Bar, he never 
 threw off the influence of his early training. A great 
 reasoner,he had unbounded faith in his own peculiar weapon; 
 few men ever tried so hard to make argument supply the 
 place of genius, tact, and common sense. His writings offer 
 the uncomfortable paradox of a highly mystical, intuitive 
 religion defended by rows of serried formulae marching past 
 in battle array. Even on seventeenth-century appetites 
 his syllogisms palled at last. As Eacine said, the world had 
 other things to do than to read Arnauld's eternal disser- 
 tations, disquisitions, observations, reflections, considera- 
 tions on each minute sub-section of his case. Of this 
 Arnauld himself was ruefully aware. ' Do what I ' may,' 
 he said, ' my books are seldom very short.' 
 
 Ever since the publication of his ' Treatise ^on Frequent 
 Communion ' (1643) he had been the chief target of attack. 
 
PEOVINCIAL LETTEES: THE SOEBONNE 287 
 
 Only the firmness of Matthieu M0I6, the very Gallican Lord 
 Chief Justice, had stopped Anne of Austria from handing 
 him over to the tender mercies of Eome ; for more than 
 twenty years he never dared show his face in pubHc. But 
 to ruin his book was a different matter. Most moderate 
 men thought that it went too far, but they also thought that 
 the Jesuits sinned in the opposite direction. ' The Church 
 of our time,' said Bossuet in 1663, ' lies in the grip of two 
 dangerous errors. Some divines have given way to a 
 murderous and hard-hearted indulgence. Pull of deadly 
 tenderness, they push cushions under the elbows of sinners, 
 and make coverlets for their passions. Others kill the spirit 
 of piety by an opposite excess. They spy out new sins on 
 every side, and break the weak back of human nature 
 under a load God never meant it to bear. They make 
 virtue appear too hard ; they make the Gospel seem extra- 
 vagant, and Christianity beyond our reach.' Hence, so far 
 as practice was concerned, moderate men were little inclined 
 to forsake their golden mediocrity in order to help one 
 group of extremists to make war on another. But on the 
 dogmatic side matters promised very differently. Jansenist 
 irresistible grace undoubtedly ran counter to received 
 Catholic notions of free will. Not that the Jesuits and the 
 moderate party saw eye to eye on this question. The 
 Sorboime still rang with memories of the great battles 
 fought at Eome some fifty years before, when the Jesuits 
 pitted the authority of their great professor, Louis de 
 Molina, against the Dominican Thomists, champions of 
 St. Thomas Aquinas. Molinism upheld free will ; Thomism 
 emphasised the necessity of grace. The aim of the Jesuits 
 was clear enough. Grant that a man is wholly responsible 
 for his actions, and he can always be called to account 
 in the confessional for everything he does ; he has no excuse 
 whatever for disobeying the Church. His mind can be 
 treated as a tabula rasa, on which the casuists can print any 
 
288 PASCAL 
 
 pattern that they please. Thomism, on the other hand, 
 could not forego a certain sympathy for the ' irresistible ' 
 element in rehgion. In a general way, no doubt, men were 
 responsible for their actions ; but to certain souls at certain 
 times God unquestionably spoke in thunderclaps and visible 
 upsets of grace. Hence, the Thomists sometimes used 
 language that might almost pass for Jansen's own ; and 
 Antoine Arnauld was continually haunted by the hope of 
 patching up an agreement with them. He had much too 
 blind a faith in logical abstractions to see that two men may 
 honestly use exactly the same formula, although they mean 
 by it two very different things. 
 
 Such was the case with the Jansenists and Thomists. 
 In a certain sense both admitted a creative element in grace ; 
 no one was more wUling than Bossuet to grant that men were 
 sometimes visited by inspirations that could not be traced 
 back to free will. And there undoubtedly was a connexion 
 between Thomist opinions and moral austerity, whereas the 
 lax casuists were Molinists to a man. Still, Thomism did 
 not rest, like Jansenism, on an actual experience of conver- 
 sion ; if it were more than an academic theory, it was also 
 less than a spiritual fact. Hence, the Thomists lacked 
 Port Royal's courage in carrying out its principles to their 
 uttermost conclusion. Jansen argued that grace and the 
 religious instinct were one and the same thing. Experience 
 proved that this instinct was given to different men in 
 very varying degrees. Clearly, then, God must have pre- 
 destinated some to eternal life, others to eternal death. 
 But Thomist moderation shrank back from this remorseless 
 logic. What was the use of the Church's sacramental 
 system — what was the use of the Church itself, if it could 
 do nothing to save a large proportion of its children from 
 the flames of hell ? In the interests of common humanity, 
 Bossuet and his colleagues felt that the iron chain must 
 somewhere be broken. To modern observers it will seem 
 
PEOVINCIAL LETTERS : THE SORBONNE 289 
 
 that they broke it at the wrong point. Jansen was perfectly 
 right in saying that the reUgious instinct varies much in 
 different men, and that it was ' absurd to promise Esco- 
 barine morals an eternal reward ' ; i where he went wrong 
 was in taking for granted that the penitents of Escobar 
 were doomed to a lake of fire. But the Thomists preferred 
 to swallow the absurdity of admitting them to an eternal 
 reward. In 1649 they united with the Mohnists to con- 
 demn Jansen in the Sorbonne ; in the autumn of 1655 
 the University solemnly summoned Antoine Arnauld before 
 its bar. There were two counts in the indictment. Was 
 he ' temerarious ' in maintaining that Jansen had not been 
 condemned ? Were his own writings tarred by Jansen's 
 brush ? The first question occupied the assembled doctors 
 for six disputatious weeks. On January 14, 1656, Arnauld 
 was condemned by a hundred and twenty-four votes to 
 seventy-one. On January 16 the Sorbonne began on the 
 second and more important charge. 
 
 Many causes combined to make this trial a turning-point 
 in the history of Port Eoyal. In the seventeenth century a 
 religious opinion was a political event. It was known that 
 the Queen was heart and soul on the side of the Jesuits ; and 
 that Mazaria, to whose Italian mind a theological debate 
 spelt weariness unspeakable, would leave no stone unturned 
 to bring the nuisance to a finish. ' All the women at Court 
 are chattering about it, although they no more understand 
 it than I do myself,' said this unclerical Cardinal. Day after 
 day he sent the Lord Chancellor, a strong Jesuit partisan, 
 down in state to the Sorbonne, avowedly in order to ' help 
 the well-disposed to defend religion freely, and to keep a 
 check on brawlers.' It was clear to everyone that some 
 tremendous issue was perpending, but what exactly was at 
 stake no average man could say. Charles Perrault records 
 that at his father's table conversation turned one day on 
 
 1 Pascal, Pens. 915. 
 
290 PASCAL 
 
 Arnauld ; whereupon his brother, the Abbe, at once launched 
 forth into long explanations. These soon convinced the lay- 
 members of the family that the whole business began and 
 ended in a clerical squabble ; and they began to wonder 
 why none of Arnauld's friends made this clear to the public. 
 Much the same advice came in from other quarters, and 
 Arnauld resolved to try his hand at an appeal to the laity. 
 But here he soon felt out of his depth. Argue at any length 
 he could, but what was the use of argument to people who 
 only yawned at syllogisms ? The new need suggested a new 
 pen, and Arnauld's thoughts soon fell on Pascal. Ever since 
 his conversion he had been admitted to the inner councils 
 of his party ; and during the Sorbonne debates he had 
 been in daily touch with his chiefs. Besides, he was young ; 
 he knew much more about the outside world than did most 
 of the Port Eoyal hermits ; as yet, he had done little for 
 the cause. Pascal modestly promised to draft a short 
 pamphlet, and leave his leaders to decide whether it should 
 be printed. Within twenty-four hours they had in their 
 hands the manuscript of the First Provincial Letter. It 
 professes to describe the adventures of one Louis de Montalte, 
 an amiably inquisitive layman, searching for truth among 
 the theologians, and detailing his impressions day by day 
 to a friend in the provinces. 
 
 ' My dear , We have been finely taken in ; my eyes 
 
 were only opened yesterday. Until then, I thought that the 
 Sorbonne was engaged on matters of the last importance, 
 deeply affecting the interests of religion. You will be 
 amazed to hear the real object of all these grand proceedings, 
 which I can tell you in a very few words. There are two 
 points at stake. The first is called the question of fact. Is 
 M. Arnauld guilty of presumption, because he doubts whether 
 the condemned propositions are in Jansen, after My Lords 
 the Bishops have decided that they are ? This point inter- 
 ests me little ; for whether M. Arnauld is presumptuous or 
 
' PEOVINOIAL LETTERS : THE SORBONNE 291 
 
 not does not affect my conscience. And, if I felt curious, 
 Jansen's book is neither very rare nor very large ; I could 
 read it through from cover to cover, and judge for myself 
 without consulting the Sorbonne. But I must say that, if 
 I were not afraid of seeming presumptuous myself, I should 
 agree with most of the people I meet. They began by taking 
 for granted that the propositions were in Jansen. But their 
 faith has been a good deal shaken by the quaint refusal of 
 the authorities to point them out — indeed, I have not come 
 across a soul who claims actually to have seen them. So I 
 am afraid the censure may do more harm than good ; for the 
 world is growing suspicious, and only believes the evidence 
 of its eyes. Still, the whole point is a very small one. 
 
 ' The second question sounds much more important, 
 inasmuch as it touches on doctrine : but you will be relieved 
 to hear that it is really as trivial as the first. All turns 
 on M. Arnauld's assertion that the Grace, without which 
 we can do nothing, was wanting to St. Peter at his fall. 
 People like ourselves supposed that such a discussion 
 would involve the general principles of Grace — whether 
 it is given to all men, whether it is efficacious — but there 
 we made a great mistake. In next to no time I have 
 grown into a great theologian, as you are going to see. 
 
 ' To make sure of my facts, I called on my neighbour, 
 M. N., a doctor of Navarre College. As you know, he is 
 one of the strongest opponents of Jansenism ; and, since 
 my curiosity made me almost as ardent as himself, I burst 
 out with the question why they did not settle the matter 
 at one blow, by declaring that Grace was given to all. There- 
 upon he bridled up, and said that that was not the point. 
 Some of his party held that Grace was not given to all ; 
 M. Arnauld's judges themselves admitted that the point 
 was problematical, and he was quite of their opinion. To 
 crown all, he quoted a passage of St. Augustine, which he 
 said was well known : " We know that Grace is not given to 
 
 XT 2 
 
292 PASCAL 
 
 all." After that, I dared lay no more of my doubts before 
 him — indeed, I felt more than ever at sea about the whole 
 question. So I asked him to tell me exactly why M. Arnauld 
 was heretical. " Because," said the Molinist, " he denies 
 that the righteous can fulfil the Law in the way we think 
 they can." 
 
 ' Delighted to see dayUght at last, I took my leave, 
 and called on M. N., who gets better every day, and was 
 well enough to take me to his brother-in-law — a Jansenist 
 to the tips of his fingers, and yet an excellent man. To 
 ensure myself a better reception, I pretended to be strongly 
 on his side, and began by asking whether the Sorbonne 
 was actually bringing in the error that the righteous can 
 always obey the commandments, " "What ? " exclaimed 
 he, " do you give the name of error to a Cathohc truth, 
 which only Protestants deny?" "Why?" replied I in 
 amazement, " is not that what you believe." " No, indeed," 
 he said, " we think it impious and heretical." For the 
 second time I reaUsed that I had gone too far, and was 
 overdoing the Jansenist just as I had overdone the MoUnist. 
 So I asked him to tell me confidentially whether the righteous 
 can always keep the Law. At that he fired up (but it 
 was with a holy zeal), and answered that he would never 
 disguise his convictions, come what might : that was 
 his beUef, and he and his friends would defend it to the 
 death as being the true doctrine of St. Thomas and of 
 St. Augustine, their master. 
 
 ' He spoke so earnestly that I felt quite impressed, and 
 went back to my Mohnist doctor with the joyful news that 
 peace would soon reign again in the Sorbonne, since the 
 Jansenists quite admitted that the righteous could always 
 fulfil the commandments. " That's all very fine," said 
 he ; " only a theologian could really see the point. The 
 difference between us is so subtle that we can hardly 
 grasp it ourselves ; no good whatever could possibly come 
 
PROVINCIAL LETTERS : THE 80RB0NNE 293 
 
 of trying to explain it to you. The Jansenists will tell 
 you fast enough that the righteous have this power, but 
 what they will not admit is that the power is 'proximate.'" 
 This word was quite new to me. Hitherto, I had managed 
 fairly well, but now I was altogether at a loss. I asked for 
 explanations ; but my divine only wrapped himself round 
 in mystery, and sent me back to the Jansenists to ask 
 what they made of proximate power. I carefully stored 
 the word up in my memory— for it conveyed nothing 
 to my intelligence — and hurried back to my Jansenist 
 to ask whether he accepted proximate power. At my 
 question he burst out laughing, and asked in what sense 
 I understood the word. This was more than I had bargained 
 for, and I felt rather nonplussed ; however, I drew a bow 
 at a venture, and answered that I understood it in the 
 sense of the Molinists. " Which Molinists ? " queried he. 
 I had spoken as though they were a solid phalanx animated 
 by one spirit. " You know very httle about the matter," 
 he went on. " The only bond of union between them is 
 enmity to M. Arnauld. But, since they must speak a 
 common language, they have hit on this word proximate, 
 which all of them can use, although they understand it 
 in very different senses. Thereby they have made them- 
 selves into a strong party, and can count on a majority 
 over M. Arnauld's friends." ' 
 
 Published while the great issue was still pending, the 
 First Letter had a success as overwhelming as immediate. 
 Mazarin openly chuckled over the propositions nobody had 
 seen, and the proximate power nobody dared define. As 
 for the Lord Chancellor, he was only saved from an apoplectic 
 seizure by being bled seven times. But Pascal had done 
 much more than discount beforehand the effects of the 
 censure ; he had struck professional theology a heavier 
 blow than ever did Jansen or Saint Cyran. And he had 
 done so by exposing its entire incompetence to put a clear, 
 
294 PASCAL 
 
 straightforward idea into clear, straightforward language. 
 In themselves, his Jansenist and his Molinist divine are 
 two honourable men with very definite opinions. But 
 once let them begin arguing in the Sorbonne, and their 
 clear ideas at once dissolve into self-contradictory nonsense. 
 The Molinist gives up free will ; the Jansenist, fired by 
 ' holy zeal,' forswears the obvious meaning of irresistible 
 Grace. But what was an incidental failing in these two 
 became an ingrained vice in the Thomists. No doubt 
 Pascal misconceived their real position. He thought them 
 Necessitarians at heart, and only Libertarians in tongue ; 
 whereas really they went a very short way with Jansen, and 
 a long mile with Molina. But their cumbrous attempts 
 to keep their balance gave them the appearance of trimmers 
 desperately tacking between the Scylla of Aye and the 
 Charybdis of No through the channel of No-Meaning. 
 
 Such is the burden of Pascal's Second Letter. It begins 
 with a further interview between Montalte and his Molinist. 
 The divine explains that, next to proximate power, sufficient 
 Grace is the chief subject in dispute. The Jesuits hold that 
 an adequate stock of Grace is always given to everyone : 
 whether a man makes good use of it, or not, depends entirely 
 on his will. This the Jansenists deny ; they say that 
 Grace must be efficacious, and actually determine the will. 
 Being clear on this point, Montalte asks about the Thomists. 
 ' Their position,' answers the Molinist, ' is rather odd. 
 They agree with the Jesuits that sufficient Grace is given 
 to all ; but they say that, in order to determine the will, 
 a further efficacious Grace is necessary, which God does 
 not give to all.' ' In short,' said I, ' their Grace is sufficient 
 without sufficing ? ' ' Quite so,' said he. ' Well then,' I 
 asked, ' where do they differ from the Jansenists ? ' ' The 
 Thomists have this to the good,' he rephed, ' that they admit 
 that all men have sufficient Grace.' ' Yes,' I objected, 
 ' but they say so without believing it ; they agree with the 
 
PEOVINCIAL LETTERS : THE SORBONNE 295 
 
 Jesuits over a meaningless technicality, and with the 
 Jansenists in substance.' ' That is so,' said he. ' Why 
 then,' I asked, ' do not the Jesuits turn upon them, as 
 they do on the Jansenists ? ' ' That would never answer,' 
 he replied. ' One must deal tenderly with those who 
 have great influence in the Church. The Jesuits took 
 a long step forward when they got the Dominicans to 
 admit the word sufficient at all. If you knew anything of 
 history you would be surprised to find the Jesuit doctrine 
 as flourishing as it is, considering all the difficulties with 
 which it has had to cope. If you knew how hard the 
 Dominicans worked against it under Clement VIII and 
 Paul V, you would not ask why the Jesuits want to keep 
 on good terms with them. Besides, they can always turn 
 the Dominican opinion into ridicule, when they choose. 
 If sufficient Grace suffices, what need is there for efficacious ? 
 Common sense will decide the question, and history will 
 show that it was not the Jesuits who got the worst of that 
 alliance.' 
 
 ' I agreed with him that they had long heads, and went 
 straight off to the Dominicans. At the door I ran across 
 an old Jansenist crony — for I have friends in every camp — 
 and persuaded him to come in with me. My Thomist was 
 delighted to see me. " Well, H'ather," I said, " so it is not 
 enough to have a proximate power to do nothing : one 
 must also have sufficient Graces, which are just about 
 equally useful ? Is not that the doctrine of your school ? " 
 " Indeed it is," he replied, " and I put it pretty strongly 
 this morning in the Sorbonne. I used up my full half-hour ; 
 but for the sand-glass, I should have given the lie to the silly 
 Paris proverb : ' He says ditto to the rest, like a monk in the 
 Sorbonne.' " " What do you mean by your half-hours and 
 your sand-glass," queried I; "is there a time-limit to your 
 speeches ? " " Yes," he said, " one has lately been brought 
 in." " And must you speak your full half-hour ? " " Oh 
 
296 PASCAL 
 
 no, one can be as short as one likes." "But not as long as one 
 likes ? " I concluded. " What an excellent rule for the 
 ignorant ! What a splendid excuse for those who have 
 nothing to say ! But to come to business, Father — this 
 Grace given to all men is sufficient ? " " Certainly," said 
 he. " And yet it has no effect without efficacious Grace ? " 
 " None whatever," he rephed. " Then," returned I, " all 
 have enough Grace, and aU do not have enough — the Grace 
 is sufficient in name, and insufficient in reality. On my 
 word. Father, that is a very subtle doctrine." 
 
 ' " It is easy for you to talk," he replied. " You are a 
 layman and independent ; I am a monk living in community. 
 Don't you see where the difference comes in ? " We took 
 the hint at once. StiU, I could not help asking why his 
 community ever admitted sufficient Grace at all. " That 
 is another story," he answered. " All I need say is, that our 
 Order did its very best to uphold the doctrine of St. Thomas, 
 and strangle Molinism in the cradle. But the Jesuits 
 spread their doctrine with such amazing rapidity and 
 success that they soon had public opinion at their feet. We 
 should have been denounced as Calvinists, and treated as 
 the Jansenists are treated to-day. if we had not qualified the 
 truth of efficacious Grace by the nominal admission of 
 sufficient. What else could we do — ^in the interests alike 
 of truth and of our own reputation — but accept sufficient 
 Grace in words, and deny it in reaUty ? " To this my 
 Jansenist friend (who takes these matters more to heart than 
 I do) made reply : " Shame on you. Father. Your Order 
 has ill borne the honour it received. It has forsaken the 
 Grace entrusted to its hands — a Grace never forsaken since 
 the beginning of the world. This victorious Grace was 
 looked for by the Patriarchs, foretold by the Prophets, 
 brought by Jesus Christ, preached by St. Paul, expounded 
 by St. Augustine, chief of the Fathers, maintained by St. 
 Bernard, last of the Fathers, upheld by St. Thomas, Angel 
 
PEOVINCIAL LETTERS : THE SORBONNB 297 
 
 of the Schools, by him handed on to your Order, and gloriously 
 defended by its members under Popes Clement and Paul. 
 This efficacious Grace — given into your safe-keeping that, 
 in a holy and undying Order it might never want for preachers 
 to the end of time — is by you abandoned for a paltry 
 interest. It is high time that other hands should arm in its 
 defence — ^hands that will keep aloof from the world and its 
 entanglements, and serve God for God's sake. Grace may 
 not have the Dominicans among its champions, but 
 champions it will never lack, for Grace itself creates them by 
 its own almighty power. Put your house in order, Father, 
 and take heed lest God remove the candlestick from its 
 place, leaving you in darkness and without a crown." ' 
 
 This solemn warning fell on deaf ears. On the day 
 Pascal's First Letter appeared, the seventy Doctors favour- 
 able to Arnauld left the Sorboime in a body, declaring that 
 free speech was denied them ; before the Second Letter 
 could be printed, the blow had fallen. On January 29, 
 Arnauld was convicted on the charge of heresy. Followed a 
 moment of blank despair at Port Royal. Louis de Montalte 
 was inclined to make light of the censure, but his Jansenist 
 friend knew better. ' If you knew the ways of the world,' 
 he said, ' you would not talk as you do. The censure, all 
 censurable as it is itself, will have effect enough for the time. 
 What the Jesuits want is to have the street-hawkers bawling : 
 ' ' Censure on M. Arnauld ! Condemnation of the Jansenists ! ' ' 
 How many people, do you think, will read it ? How many 
 of those that read will understand a word ? The Jesuits 
 are sure of their triumph — as usual, a vain triumph, but good 
 for several months ; and that is much for men who live from 
 hand to mouth. Shifts alone keep them going. One day 
 it is a catechism or an almanac ; the next day it is a pro- 
 cession, where sufficient Grace leads efficacious in triumph. 
 Or else it will be a comedy, where the devil appears to carry 
 off Jansen. This time it is a censure.' 
 
298 PASCAL 
 
 Pascal underrated his own powers. ' Although the 
 censure on M. Arnauld was supported by the presence of the 
 Lord Chancellor, and by the votes of the most learned 
 Bishops and Divines in France,' says Father Rapin, ' its 
 success by no means answered to expectations. The 
 Jansenists had been solemnly condemned by the Pope ; 
 they were anathematised by the clergy of France, censured 
 by the University, in evil odour with every ecclesiastical 
 authority in the world. Yet — strangely enough — they more 
 than weathered all these buffets, and actually gathered 
 strength from their reverses. The reason was that they 
 threw over their traditional policy and set to work along 
 new lines as clever as unscrupulous.' And the new departure 
 that so vexed the soul of Father Eapin was Pascal's attack 
 on Escobar and the casuists. 
 
CHAPTER XVIII 
 THE PROVINCIAL LETTERS — Continued 
 
 II. — The Casuists 
 
 Father Eapin would have his readers believe that Pascal 
 only attacked the casuists in the hope of creating a diversion 
 much as an opposition leader might turn to the misdeeds of 
 the War Office after he had made sufficient capital out of 
 the Government's Irish policy. Really the attack on 
 Escobar is a natural pendant to the attack on the Sorbonne. 
 After the Thomists came the turn of Molinism. In the 
 Fourth Letter Louis de Montalte calls on a Jesuit in order 
 to discuss free will. He soon finds that it destroys the 
 Christian doctrines of Grace and sin — at least, as those 
 doctrines were understood at Port Royal — and thereby lays 
 the axe to the root of Christian morality. What was more 
 natural than to follow up its effects in detail ? Besides, the 
 theme was anything but new. Ever since the days of 
 Saint Cyran, Port Royal had been busy denouncing the 
 ' filthiness of the casuists.' In 1644 Antoine Arnauld had 
 brought out his ' Theologie Morale des Jesuites,' an elaborate 
 catalogue of their enormities. The book made a certain 
 stir in the clerical world, and led to a brisk exchange of 
 pamphlets ; but general readers found it terribly dry. 
 Arnauld was at no pains to explain the how and why of 
 casuistry ; all he did was to arrange his extracts under their 
 appropriate headings — errors concerning morality, the 
 
 299 
 
300 PASCAL 
 
 sacraments, the Churcli and ministry. What did the laity- 
 care about ' errors concerning the Qliurcli ^^^^ ministry ? ' 
 If the Jesuits were really to stand m the pillory of pubhc 
 ridicule it must be vices of a more intelligible sort. 
 
 To the pUlory they must go, for Port Eoyal was ia 
 desperate straits. The censure on Arnauld was only an 
 earnest of what was to come. On the day Pascal's Fifth 
 Letter appeared, the hermits were expelled by the police ; 
 a week later came the closing of the Jansenist schools. 
 Worst of aU, the Bishops were at work on a Formulary, 
 or declaration against Jansenism, to be signed by all priests, 
 monks, and nuns. The one hope of safety lay in rousing 
 a burst of popular indignation against the arch-persecutors ; 
 and Pascal was clearly the man for the work. Already he 
 had the ear of the public ; as Qui Patin says, everyone was 
 longing for more of those admirable letters, quae jugulum 
 fetunt. Besides, Pascal could be trusted not to be too 
 abstruse, and not to load his pages with heavy quotations 
 from the Fathers. As he said, if he had written in a 
 ' dogmatic tone,' he would have had none but learned readers ; 
 and them he did not propose to address, because they 
 already knew as much about casuistry as he did himself. 
 Not that he wrote without due care. The first four letters 
 he had dashed off in a month (January 23 — February 25) ; 
 but, when the attack on the casuists began, his pace became 
 much slower. The Fifth Letter, which opens the campaign, 
 appeared on March 20 ; it was followed at irregular intervals 
 between April and November by eleven more letters, all 
 dealing with the casuists. The two last of the series, which 
 return to the question of Jansenism, came out in the spring of 
 1657. Part of this delay was caused by increasing pre- 
 occupation with style. Several letters cost Pascal three 
 weeks of continuous work ; all were rewritten at least 
 half a dozen times. The Sixteenth alone was produced 
 in a hurry, because the police were close on the tracks of 
 
PROVINCIAL LETTERS: THE CASUISTS 301 
 
 the printer ; Pascal apologised in the postscript for not 
 having had time to make it shorter. 
 
 Nor could the materials be brought together in a moment. 
 Pascal was once asked whether he had read all the authorities 
 he quoted. He answered that, if he had done so, he would 
 have spent the greater part of his life in the company of 
 very unwholesome books. Escobar's ' Compendium ' — a 
 stout, but well arranged octavo — ^he had read through 
 twice ; for the other quotations he depended on Pierre 
 Nicole and other friends. But he always took care to com- 
 pare their extracts with the original, ' so as not to run the 
 risk of taking an objection for a reply.' Critics have tried 
 hard to convict him of inaccuracy. They have shown that 
 his letters contain a small percentage of mistakes, and that 
 some of his deductions are unreasonable, if not occa- 
 sionally unfair ; as Harnack courteously observes, even 
 Pascal was a Frenchman and a Roman CathoUc. But 
 his ' falsifications ' are neither many nor important. They 
 come to little more than occasionally confusing one casuist 
 with another, or passing lightly over restrictions which in 
 his eyes were meaningless. Thus, for instance, he did not 
 trouble to make clear that Pilutius set certain limits to the 
 occasions when a mental restriction might be used. What 
 did his limits matter to a man who held that all untruths 
 were wrong ? The crying scandal was that Pilutius allowed 
 them at all. Pascal's letters would lose in piquancy and 
 literary grace, but his argument would not suffer if his 
 short extracts were everywhere replaced by his victims' 
 full original text. 
 
 However, two grave reproaches must be made him. In 
 the interests of the general reader he was forced to be 
 sensational, and keep the lime-light fixed on the most 
 outrageous passages of his least reputable authors. But 
 the most startling symptoms of a disease are seldom its 
 worst, or its most characteristic ; and the posthumous 
 
302 PASCAL 
 
 reputation of the letters has certainly suffered from the 
 fact that Pascal, instead of exposing the radical evils of 
 the Jesuit system, dealt only with its wildest aberrations. 
 And in one important respect he was glaringly unjust. 
 Like all Port Royal, he persisted in believing that every 
 kind of Catholic abuse had been invented by the Jesuits. 
 Casuistry, for instance, would never have been heard of 
 had not their malignant cunning foisted it on the Roman 
 Church. His critics had little trouble in showing that 
 casuistry was a natural outgrowth from medieval habits 
 of thought. The Jesuits might have done much to develop 
 its practice, but its principles were many centuries older 
 than their Society. 
 
 Pascal's history might be weak, but as a tactician he 
 had few rivals. What the world wanted was to be told 
 exactly where Escobar went wrong ; and Louis de 
 Montalte starts by putting this question to his Jansenist 
 friend. ' Do not run away with the impression that the 
 Jesuits want to deprave the world,' answers the friend ; 
 ' their great fault is that they do not straia every nerve to 
 reform it. That would be bad policy. They have so high 
 an opinion of themselves that they think that religion could 
 not prosper, unless their influence was felt on all sides, and 
 everyone's conscience was in their keeping. As the severity 
 of the Gospel suits a few, they apply it strictly to those few ; 
 as it does not suit the many, they leave it out of account in 
 dealing with the mass of mankind. Thanks to what 
 Father Petau calls this easy and obhging conduct, they 
 can hold out a helping hand to all. If a man comes to 
 them firmly determined to restore ill-gotten goods, do not 
 think that they will dissuade him ; on the contrary, they 
 will encourage so pious a resolve. But if another man wants 
 to be absolved without making restitution his case must be 
 hard indeed if they cannot find some loop-hole. Thus they 
 keep all their friends and have an answer for their enemies. 
 
PROVINCIAL LETTERS : THE CASUISTS 303 
 
 If one throws their extreme indulgence in their teeth, they 
 at once produce their austere Directors and some books 
 they have written on the severity of the Law of Christ ; 
 and simple souls, who only look at the outside of things, 
 ask for no further proof.' 
 
 Montalte asks how the Jesuits manage to conciliate 
 their laxity with observance of the precepts of the Church. 
 The Jansenist advises him to call at one of their colleges, and 
 see. ' Off I accordingly went to an old acquaintance, who 
 is a good casuist of the Society. He gave me a most 
 effusive welcome (for he has always loved me) ; and, as I 
 had studied up the way to treat him, I found it easy enough 
 to set him going. After a little casual talk, I took advantage 
 of the fact that it was Lent to bring up the subject of fasting, 
 so as to get imperceptibly to business. I told him that 
 fasting disagreed with me. He urged me to make an effort. 
 But, as I only went on grumbling, his heart soon melted, 
 and he began to cast about for a reason for dispensing me. 
 He had suggested several which did not meet my case, 
 when it suddenly occurred to him to ask if I found any 
 difficulty in sleeping, when I went supperless to bed. " Why 
 yes. Father," I replied, " I am often obliged to take a light 
 meal in the middle of the day, and put off my dinner till 
 evening." " Then I am delighted to be able to relieve 
 you without sin," he said. " Set your mind at rest : you 
 are not bound to fast. However, I do not expect you to 
 trust to my bare word : come into the library." When we 
 got there, he picked up a book. " Here is your authority," 
 he said, " and what an authority too : why, it is Escobar." 
 " And who is Escobar, Father ? " I asked. " What ? Not 
 know Escobar of our Society ? Why, he has compiled his 
 ' Moral Theology ' from the writings of twenty - four of 
 our Fathers, which leads him to draw a comparison in the 
 preface between his book and the Book of the Apocalypse 
 which was sealed with seven seals. And he goes on to say 
 
304 PASCAL 
 
 that Jesus offers it thus sealed to the Four Beasts — Suarez, 
 Vasquez, Valentia, Molina — in the presence of four-and- 
 twenty Jesuits, who represent the four-and-twenty Elders." 
 He read out the whole allegory, which he found singularly 
 appropriate ; it certainly gave me a high idea of the value 
 of the hook. In due time he hunted out the passage on 
 fastiag. " Here it is," he cried, " Part I, Section 13, 
 Paragraph 68 : Is a man bound to fast, if he cannot sleep 
 witJwut suffer ? Certainly not. Well, is not that enough 
 for you ? " " Not quite," I answered, "for I can get 
 through the day if I take a Ught meal at midday, and a 
 heavy one in the evening." " Yes, but read on," he said ; 
 " they have thought of everything : What is to he said 
 of the man who can make shift with a light refection in the 
 day-time, if he has a full meal in the evening? " " Exactly 
 my case," interjected I. He is not ohliged to fast, for no man 
 need change the order of his repasts. " What an excellent 
 reason ! " I rejoined. " But, tell me," went on the Jesuit, 
 " are you very fond of wine ? " " Not at all. Father, I 
 cannot abide it." " I only asked," he explained, " in order 
 to tell you that you can take a glass in the morning, or 
 whenever you choose, without breaking your fast : that 
 is a great sop to nature. Here is the decision — Paragraph 
 75 : May a man drink wine, even in large quantities, at 
 any hour he pleases ivithout breaking his fast ? Yes, he may, 
 and even hippocras. " I never thought of that hippocras," 
 said I ; "I must certainly put it down in my note-book. 
 He is a fine man, this Escobar of yours." " Everyone loves 
 him," answered the Jesuit ; " he puts such pretty questions. 
 One cannot tear oneself away from his book. I spend days 
 and nights in reading it ; in fact, I do nothing else." ' 
 
 Prom fasting was a short step to gluttony. The Jesuit 
 brings up another quotation from Escobar : Is it sinful 
 to eat or drink to repletion for the mere pleasure of the eating ? 
 Following Sanchez, I answer in the negative ; for the natural 
 
PROVINCIAL LETTERS: THE CASUISTS 305 
 
 appetite may lawfully enjoy the exercise of its functions. 
 ' Well, Father,' cries Montalte, ' there is your whole moral 
 system in a nut-shell.' Accordingly, he leads the unsus- 
 pecting Jesuit through the whole gamut of social mis- 
 demeanours, and finds that his authorities have carefully 
 consulted the ' natural appetite ' of every class — clergy, 
 nobles, and Third Estate. Bauny allows a priest to say 
 Mass just after breaking the Commandment most peculiarly 
 disgraceful for a priest to break. Vasquez nullifies the 
 precept: ' Gives alms of thine abundance,' by showing that 
 the largest fortunes are not technically ' abundant.' Sanchez 
 and Filutius give a wide latitude to the untruthful. Escobar 
 explains how Leporello may carry ladders for Don Juan, 
 and otherwise blamelessly co-operate in his nocturnal 
 adventures. Bauny holds that a servant insufficiently 
 paid may recoup himself by ' occult compensation ' at the 
 expense of his master. Escobar generalises this precept, 
 and allows the victims of a ' grave necessity ' to help 
 themselves to the property of their richer neighbours. 
 Castro Palao lays down the still more remarkable doctrine 
 that, if I cannot get a pickpocket to renounce his evil ways, 
 I may at least persuade him to steal from the rich rather 
 than the poor. Indeed, some casuists would allow me 
 to go farther, and suggest to him the names of wealthy 
 subjects peculiarly suited to the exercise of his craft. 
 
 Montalte complains that these decisions strike him as 
 fantastic ; the Jesuit has little trouble in showing that 
 they are strictly reasoned deductions from the purest 
 principles of logic. So are the judgments of the casuists on 
 the still more delicate subject of restoring ill-gotten goods. 
 All start with a truly legal sense of the sanctity of contract : 
 a bargain is a bargain, whether made for virtuous purposes 
 or vicious. Of course, if a man offers me money to commit 
 a crime in the future, the casuists teach that I ought to 
 return it ; but, if the misdeed is past and over, I have a 
 
306 tASCAL 
 
 right to recover my fee. In that case the payment is not 
 made because either I or my employer find iniquity deUght- 
 ful : all it does is to recoup me for the trouble and expense 
 to which I have been put, for the risks that I have run. 
 And all that, as Lessius explains, is perfectly compatible 
 with a whole-hearted detestation of the crime and a firm 
 resolve never to repeat it. This principle led to some 
 strange results. Suppose that I have bribed a judge 
 to give a decision in my favour : ought he to be made to 
 refund ? All depends on whether he has obeyed or dis- 
 obeyed his conscience. If he would have pronounced against 
 me, had it not been for my timely present, he is entitled to 
 keep the money ; I have got my quid fro quo. If he would 
 naturally have given judgment in my favour, he ought to 
 send back the bribe. The State pays him to do justice, and 
 he cannot fairly expect a double reward for doing his duty. 
 On the same principle Sanchez allows a repentant sorcerer 
 to keep the profits reahsed by his infernal arts in every 
 case where he has really succeeded in raising the devil ; 
 whereas he ought to be made to disgorge the fee for imsuo- 
 cessful incantations. Almost as bizarre are the speculations 
 of Lessius about the wages of sin. If a street-girl, whose 
 usual price is one ducat, has managed to get fifty out of 
 a caUow stripling, she ought to return him forty-nine ; 
 whereas a lady of fashion, who has sold her honour for a 
 hundred, would be justified in keeping the whole, because 
 she commands a far higher price in the market. 
 
 Principles quite as legal determined the soul's relation 
 to its Maker. A Catholic was bound to go to church on 
 Sundays ; he was also bound to worship God. But the 
 two duties were quite distinct ; he could satisfactorily 
 perform the one, and leave the other undone. ' Our 
 great theologians,' says the Jesuit to Montalte, ' have laid 
 down that you have satisfied the Church's precept if you 
 are present at Mass in body, although you are far away in 
 
PEOVINCIAL LETTERS: THE CASUISTS 307 
 
 mind.' ' Really,' says Montalte, ' if another man had told 
 me that, I should not have believed it.' ' Well, yes,' replies 
 the Jesuit, ' the point does need some bolstering up by the 
 authority of great men. So does Escobar's proposition that 
 a man can count his attendance at church, if he goes there 
 with the double purpose of devoutly hearing Mass and of 
 casting lewd glances at the ladies. But you would glean 
 some useful hints from our learned Turrianus. He lays 
 down that you can hear half one Mass and half another ; 
 and that it does not matter which half comes first. And 
 many of our Doctors would allow you to hear both halves 
 at the same time if you chance to find one priest beginning 
 when another is midway through ; for it is possible to attend 
 to both at once, and two half-Masses make a whole. Nay, 
 Escobar — at least, in one edition of his book — allows you 
 to hear Mass in a very short space of time, if you can so 
 arrange matters that, when one priest is beginning, a second 
 has reached the Gospel, a third the Consecration, and a 
 fourth the Communion.' 
 
 Prom the Mass was a short step to the confessional. 
 The Jesuit complacently laments that he and his brethren are 
 overwhelmed by the number of their penitents. Montalte 
 suggests that the best way of relieving themselves from 
 this pressure would be to force their penitents to avoid 
 temptation. ' We have no wish for such a relief,' answers 
 the Jesuit. ' The great aim of our Society is to foster 
 virtue, to make war on vice, and to help a great number 
 of souls. Now, as very few are willing to quit the proximate 
 occasions of sin we have been obliged to define what such 
 occasions are. " That cannot be called a proximate 
 occasion," says Escobar, "when a man sins — say, on a sudden 
 impulse with his housekeeper — three or four times a year " : 
 Father Bauny prefers to say once or twice a month. And 
 he allows those involved in such temptations to remain where 
 they are, if making a change would give rise to gossip, or 
 
 X 2 
 
308 PASCAL 
 
 cause them any inconvenience. He would even allow 
 a landlady to keep a lodger, with whom she often sins, if she 
 cannot decently give him notice or has some other reason 
 for wishing him to stay.' ' I was so horrified by these 
 passages,' relates Montalte, ' as to be on the point of breaking 
 out. However, I thought it better to let him go on ; and 
 only asked how this doctrine tallied with the Scriptural 
 precept about plucking out the right eye if it offends. 
 " Do you think that a man would thus court temptation," 
 I asked, "if he really hated sin? Is it not clear that his 
 heart is still hardened, and that he has not learned to love 
 God as much as once he loved the world ? " ' 
 
 ' " What ! " cried the Jesuit, " why, that would be an act 
 of full contrition. Do you not know that Father Pinthereau 
 lays down, as the unanimous doctrine of our Society, that 
 to demand contrition is erroneous and almost heretical ? 
 Attrition justifies with the Sacrament, provided always 
 that it includes a firm resolve to sin no more. And that 
 is so, even if it is grounded only on the fear of hell." " It 
 seems to me. Father," I replied, " that that opinion is 
 pecuUar to your Society ; for the other theologians who 
 are satisfied with attrition insist, at any rate, that it must 
 include a rudimentary love of God. And even some of your 
 own older writers were not so sure about the point. Suarez 
 calls it neither very old nor very common. Sanchez lays 
 down that, if a sick man and his confessor trust to attrition, 
 both commit a mortal sin ; because the invalid would run 
 a great risk of damnation if the opinion that attrition 
 suffices did not happen to be true." " Oh ho ! " repHed 
 the good Father, " so you have taken to studying our 
 authors ? You do well ; but you would have done still 
 better if you had read them with one of us. You have 
 managed to get the impression that these passages tell 
 against our doctrine ; whereas we could have easily shown 
 you that the exact opposite is the case. Only think what 
 
PEOVINCIAL LETTEES: THE CASUISTS 309 
 
 a triumph it is for our Fathers to have spread their opinion 
 so widely in so short a time ; apart from a few theologians, 
 there is scarcely a soul but believes that our modern theories 
 represent the traditional teaching of the Church. But our 
 good friend, Diana, has paid us the pretty comphment of 
 tracing the gradual steps of our progress. He shows that 
 the ancient schoolmen held contrition necessary after every 
 mortal sin. Afterwards it was only thought to be binding on 
 festivals or at times of national calamity. But our Father 
 Hurtado refuted all this, and showed that it was only needful 
 at the hour of death or when one cannot get a priest. And 
 Fathers Fagundez and Escobar have decided that it can be 
 dispensed with, even on a death-bed ; for if attrition does 
 not then suffice it can never suffice at all." ' 
 
 ' " You amaze me. Father," I rephed. " Please wait 
 a moment, while I show to what lengths your doctrine leads. 
 If attrition is enough, even when grounded only on the fear 
 of hell, cannot a sinner repent of all his transgressions in 
 this fashion and get to heaven without having loved God 
 once in his life ? " " From what you say," he rephed, " I 
 see that you need to be told more exactly what our Fathers 
 hold about the love of God. It is the last point in their 
 moral system, and the most important. Hear how Escobar 
 answers the question : How often is a man obliged to 
 make formal acts of love to God ? Suarez thinks that one 
 ought to have made it before the hour of death, though he does 
 not specify any time. Vasquez holds that one can wait till 
 one's death-bed. Others put forward festivals, or the time for 
 receiving ba'ptism. But our Father Castro Palao disproves 
 all that, and with good reason. Hurtado de Mendoza declares 
 that we ought to love God once a year, and that we may think 
 ourselves very lucky for not having to do so oftener. Conink 
 opines that every three or four years is enough ; Henriquez 
 says every five ; Filutius thinks that, strictly speaking, we 
 are not bound so often as that. Thus have our Fathers 
 
310 PASCAL 
 
 dispensed men from the painful duty of having to make 
 acts of love to God. And Father Pinthereau will give you 
 some idea of the value of this dispensation when he says 
 that the price it cost was no less than the Blood of Jesus 
 Christ. As he shows, this is the great advantage of the 
 Christian Dispensation over the Jewish : It is only reasonable 
 that God should relieve men from the troublesome duty of having 
 to make acts of full contrition in order to be justified — as 
 had been the case under the law of bondage — and that He should 
 institute sacraments, in order to meet their efforts half-way. 
 Othervnse Christians, who are the children, would find it no 
 easier to gain the good graces of their heavenly Father than 
 the Jews, who were the slaves." ' 
 
 ' " Oh Father ! " I burst forth, patience herself could 
 listen no longer, " was it not enough to allow men for- 
 bidden pleasures, without number, under cover of your 
 special pleading ? Must you go farther, and hold them 
 out a bribe to commit crimes, which even you caimot excuse, 
 by promising them an easy absolution, without change of 
 life or sign of repentance beyond promises a hundred times 
 broken ? But even here your Fathers have not stayed their 
 hand. From tampering with the hoUest rules of Christian 
 practice they have gone on to an entire subversion of the Law 
 of Christ. They set at nought the Great Commandment 
 on which hang all the Law and the Prophets. They say 
 that it is not necessary to love God — ^nay, that release from 
 this irksome duty was the boon which Jesus Christ brought 
 into the world. Before the Incarnation it was necesssry 
 to love Him ; but since He ' so loved the world that He 
 gave His only-begotten Son,' the world has been dispensed 
 from loving Him in return. Open your eyes, my dear 
 Father, and, if the other aberrations of your casuists have 
 failed to move you, take warning from these last. May God, 
 in His mercy, teach your Fathers how false were the lights 
 that led them on to these rocks. May He fill their hearts 
 
PKOVINCIAL LETTERS: THE CASUISTS 311 
 
 with that love of Himself, from which they have ventured 
 to dispense mankind." ' 
 
 Ask a contemporary of Pascal what struck him most 
 in the Provincial Letters, and he would certainly have 
 answered that it was their ' marvellous dissection ' of the 
 Jesuit system. ' They lay bare its bones, its muscles, 
 and its nerves,' cries the good Jansenist, Hermant. ' They 
 show it up for a wretched carcass, whose stench the world 
 will no longer endure.' In one respect Hermant says too 
 much, for the obvious moral of the letters was a moral 
 which their author dared not draw. The real root of the 
 evil was neither the Jesuits nor casuistry, but beUef in 
 the opus operatum. Once assimilate sacramental grace 
 to a magical charm, and the Father Pinthereaus of this 
 world are irresistibly tempted to make it " meet our efforts 
 half-way ' by acting as a kind of unearned increment 
 on a minimum expenditure of labour. Once make the 
 confessional the sole channel of that grace, and Escobar 
 will at once resolve repentance and love of God into the 
 ' formal acts,' of which alone such a tribunal can take 
 cognizance. But Pascal was a Jansenist ; and, although 
 Port Royal spiritualised away their grosser aspects, officially 
 it accepted both confessional and opus operatum. Hence 
 Pascal was driven to look elsewhere for the villain of his 
 piece. 
 
 He found it in probabilism. How do the Jesuits manage 
 to be lax ? Because they put the decisions of experts in 
 place of the individual conscience. Yes, but experts differ ; 
 indeed, Montalte's Jesuit admits that they hardly ever 
 agree. That does not matter, however, just because they 
 are experts their opinions are always safe to follow. May 
 one, then, choose whichever opinion suits one best ? 
 Certainly one may. ' Ah, now I see,' exclaims Montalte, 
 ' the use of having so many different opinions. One will 
 always serve your turn, and the rest can do you no harm. 
 
312 PASCAL 
 
 If you do not find what you want on this side you can fall 
 back on that — always in full security of conscience.' ' Quite 
 so,' says the Jesuit ; ' one can say with Diana, when he found 
 that Father Bauny was on his side, after Father Lugo had 
 declared against him : Sacpe, fremente deo, fert deus alter 
 opem.' But how do probabiUsts set to work ? How does 
 a new opinion come into being ? ' First of all,' says the 
 Jesuit, ' its grave inventor brings it before the world. 
 For some time it is very feeble ; but gradually it gathers 
 strength. At last it is generally received — in virtue of Father 
 Bauny's great principle that, if an opinion is not impugned 
 by the Church, she may fairly be taken to approve it. And 
 therefore the learned Caramuel, in dedicating his ' First 
 Principles of Theology ' to Diana, observes that that great 
 writer has made probable many opinions which were not 
 probable before ; hence those who follow them do not sin 
 now, although formerly they would have done so — jam 
 non 'peccant, licet antea peccaverint.' Montalte can only 
 reply by quoting the old Sorbonne joke about the casuists 
 being the Fathers who take away the sins of the world. 
 ' Ecce patres, qui tollunt peccata mundi.' 
 
 One casuistical device, however, overtopped all others 
 in importance. This was the famous distinction between 
 speculation and practice. Speculation considered whether 
 an action, viewed simply in itself, was right or wrong. 
 Practice also took into account the attendant circumstances. 
 Due regard being paid to these, was the action wise or 
 unwise ? ' Divines,' says Father Nouet, ' do commonly 
 ground this distinction on that of St. Paul, who grants that 
 to eat of the flesh of victims is lawful in itself. This they call 
 in the Schools lawful in speculation. Yet that in the 
 circumstances of the time, when the scandal of the faithful 
 was so dangerous, he could not have practised it. This they 
 call forbidden in practice.' To the eminent professor 
 this distinction was a safeguard. It left him free to decide 
 
PEOVINCIAL LETTEES: THE CASUISTS 313 
 
 a point purely on its logical merits ; if his conclusion 
 seemed dangerous, he could always ticket it : speculative 
 'probdbilis, sed in praxi non sequenda. Thus Lessius considers 
 whether, under certain circumstances, a man may kill for 
 a box on the ear ; he decides that this is speculatively 
 probable, but not hghtly to be allowed in practice. To the 
 lax casuists this judgment was a golden opportunity. 
 As Montalte says, there is a bridgeless gulf between ' Thou 
 shalt do no murder ' and a speculative licence to kill ; 
 whereas from a merely speculative to a practical permission 
 the distance is short enough. Thus Escobar asks whether, 
 if one has received a blow — post impadam alapam — one 
 may follow up the aggressor, and kill him. ' Some divines 
 answer in the negative. Lessius says that this is specula- 
 tively probable, but not recommendable in practice — in 
 praxi non consulendum — on account of the homicides, the 
 brawls and feelings of revenge, to which such a proceeding 
 would give rise. But others consider that, when these 
 dangers are avoided — seclusis his periculis — it is both 
 probable and safe in practice.' 
 
 This passage touched Port Eoyal on the raw. Like 
 most Puritans, the Jansenists had an overpowering sense of 
 the value of human life. ' The Church,' cries Pascal, 
 ' views murder with altogether singular abhorrence. To her 
 men are not simply men, but images of Him Whom she 
 adores. She feels a holy reverence for each member of the 
 race as having been ransomed at an infinite price in order to 
 be made a temple of the living God. And therefore she 
 holds that the death of a man, slain without the authority 
 of his Maker, is not only a murder, but a sacrilege, which 
 deprives her of one of her members. For even if he is not 
 actually her child she regards him as always capable of 
 becoming so.' The casuists were not so squeamish. Mon- 
 talte's Jesuit cheerfully explains that I may kill the pick- 
 pocket who is making off with my purse, if I cannot get him 
 
314 PASCAL 
 
 to throw it down and if its contents are of great value in 
 the eyes of a prudent man. ' That tells one nothing, 
 Father,' interposed Montalte. ' Where find a prudent man 
 at such a juncture ? He is not so easily met with, even at 
 the best of times. Why do your casuists not fix the sum 
 in defence of which one may kill ? ' ' What ! do you think 
 it so easy to set a price on the life of a Christian ? Why, 
 this is just one of the crucial cases that show how indispens- 
 able our casuists are. Would the primitive Fathers tell you 
 for how much money you may kill a man ? ' 
 
 On the same principle other casuists maintain that a 
 gentleman — though not a plebeian, who has no honour to 
 lose — may kill for a box on the ear. It is true that honour 
 cannot be literally stolen, like a chattel ; but then, as 
 Escobar urges, it may be recovered in the same way — 
 namely, by giving propfs of valour and gaining the respect 
 of men. Whereas, is not a man who has been struck deemed 
 to have lost his honour until he runs his assailant through 
 the body ? This very Christian utterance leads up to a 
 further point. If one may kiU for a blow, why not for a 
 verbal insult ? And, if a layman may kill iu defence of his 
 honour, why should not a monk in defence of his Order? 
 Caramuel, who always goes straight to the point, raises the 
 very pertinent question whether a Jesuit may kill a Jan- 
 senist. ' That is a startling theological riddle. Father,' says 
 Montalte. ' I take it that the Jansenists are already in 
 their coffins.' ' You are quite wrong,' answers the Jesuit ; 
 ' Caramuel decides the question in the negative. And the 
 reason he gives is that the Jansenists no more dim the 
 glories of our Society than a blinking owl obscures the bright- 
 ness of the sun.' ' All the same,' replies Montalte, ' the life 
 of the Jansenists depends on whether they damage your 
 reputation ; let them cast the slightest shadow on your fair 
 fame, and they become kUlable at once. On my word. Father, 
 one would feel more comfortable among the umegenerate. 
 
PROVINCIAL LETTERS: THE CASUISTS 315 
 
 For my own part, I would just as soon be brutally cut 
 down by a bravo in a passion as be conscientiously stabbed 
 in the back by one of your devotees.' 
 
 Hitherto the casuists have supposed that the killing was 
 done on the spur of the moment under a smarting sense of loss. 
 What was to be said when the homicide was deliberate? 
 This at once brought up the vexed question of the duel. 
 Here the casuists found themselves in a quandary. During 
 the early seventeenth century most European countries 
 were swept by a mania for these combats ; on the other hand, 
 they undoubtedly lay under the special ban of the Church. 
 Nor was the State more tolerant. Under Richelieu some 
 of the noblest heads in France had fallen on the scaffold for 
 this crime ; and on the very day he came of age (September 
 6, 1651) Louis XIV signed a strong edict annoimcing that 
 duellists need look for no mercy from him. How, then, 
 conciliate the standpoints of fashion and the law ? Sanchez 
 suggests that, if a man's life, fortune, or honour really 
 depend on his sending or accepting a challenge, his best 
 course will be to remove his enemy by secret assassination. 
 Thereby he will escape alike the bodily danger of fighting 
 and the spiritual danger of disobeying the Church. But 
 Montalte's Jesuit prefers a less heroic remedy. ' You know 
 that the Gospel forbids us to return evil for evil, and that 
 the world forbids us to endure affronts without resenting 
 them. Could two standards be more opposed ? And yet 
 our Fathers have brought them into harmony by their 
 marvellous device of directing the intention — a device which 
 plays so large a part in our system that I might almost 
 compare it to probabilism. Let me begin by saying that 
 we never allow sin for sinning's sake. If a man deliberately 
 desires an evil thing, we call his conduct diabolical, and 
 break with him at once. This holds good without exception 
 of age, quality, or sex. But we show penitents of better 
 disposition how to direct their intention — that is, how to set 
 
316 PASCAL 
 
 before their minds some allowable object. Not but what 
 we do our best to turn them away from forbidden things 
 altogether ; but when we cannot stop the action, we make 
 up by purifying the intention, and thus correct the vice 
 of the means by the goodness of the end. In this way our 
 Fathers manage to excuse the acts of violence, by which 
 men defend their honour ; for they make their penitent turn 
 his thoughts away from the desire of vengeance, which is 
 criminal, to the idea of self-defence, which is perfectly 
 lawful. Thus they do their duty both to God and man ; 
 for they please the world by allowing the actions, and obey 
 the Gospel by purifying the heart.' 
 
 To leave no doubt about his meaning, the casuist brings 
 up a long quotation from Diana. ' The learned Hurtado 
 de Mendoza suggests a case that might well happen in real 
 life. Suppose a gentleman is challenged to a duel. He 
 cannot refuse for religious reasons because he is known 
 to be otherwise than pious ; if he does not fight he will be 
 branded as a coward. May he, then, go to the meeting- 
 place — not for the express purpose of fighting, but with 
 the conditional intention of defending himself if he is set 
 upon unjustly ? His direct object is to show himself a man 
 of valour, which is a perfectly honourable wish. Indeed, 
 a man in his position cannot but entertain it, more especially 
 if he is a soldier ; otherwise he would be known throughout 
 the army as a chicken-livered craven — gallina, et non vir. 
 But the means he takes to escape this opprobrium are 
 morally indifferent ; they come to no more than taking a 
 walk in the fields, with a resolution of defending himself 
 should he chance to be attacked. In all this there is not 
 a shadow of sin. Nor does he contribute to his adversary's 
 undoing. It is true that there could be no duel, unless he 
 appeared on the scene. But he can always reply that he 
 does not wish to fight ; all he wants is to take a country 
 walk and to show that he is no coward. It is the challenger's 
 
PEOVINCIAL LETTEES: THE CASUISTS 317 
 
 fault if he take advantage of these harmless tastes to force 
 a duel on him.' 
 
 Catholic apologists try to weaken the force of this 
 remarkable passage by pointing out that Hurtado labels 
 his conclusion ' very difficult in practice.' But he has 
 first done his best to prove — mordicus prohare conatur, says 
 Diana — its practical applicability ; and the fact that he 
 did so goes far to show not only that the casuists had a 
 tenderness for the field of honour, but that Pascal's descrip- 
 tion of their methods of directing the intention was no 
 caricature. To the modern reader this last will seem by 
 far the more objectionable trait ; but Pascal's own mind 
 was now engrossed by the wickedness of the duel. ' Under 
 your new law,' he says to the Jesuits, ' there is but one 
 judge, and he the injured party — ^nay, he is alike prosecutor, 
 judge, and executioner. He demands from himself the 
 death of his enemy ; he condemns him, and immediately 
 carries his own sentence into effect. Without a pang he 
 kills the body, and damns the soul of a brother for whom 
 Christ died — all for the sake of a blow, a slander, an idle 
 word. " Is not a man dishonoured," asks Escobar, " if he lets 
 live the foe who struck him ? " Are those that speak this 
 language priests ? Are they Christians or are they Turks ? 
 Are they men or are they demons ? Are these " mysteries 
 revealed to your Society by the Lamb ? " Or are they 
 abominations whispered by the Dragon to those who hold 
 with him ? For what would you be taken, Eeverend 
 Fathers — for children of the Gospel or its foes ? Here 
 there is no middle course : you must choose between 
 the one side and the other. " He that is not with Jesus 
 Christ is against Him." Jesus Christ made suffering an 
 honour ; the devil makes it a dishonour. Jesus Christ told 
 those who were smitten on the one cheek to turn the other 
 also ; the devil tells those threatened with a buffet to 
 kill the man who would affront them. Jesus Christ says : 
 
318 PASCAL 
 
 " Woe unto you when the world shall speak well of you " ; 
 the devil says : " Woe unto those of whom the world does 
 not speak with esteem." Yes, Eeverend Fathers, that 
 esteem is inherited by his stiff-necked children from the 
 Father of Pride. Honour has always been the idol of the 
 children of this world. For its sake they sacrifice their 
 lives to the fury of a duel — their good name to the risk of 
 perishing on the scaffold — their souls to the peril of eternal 
 death. But God, in His mercy, has vouchsafed to open 
 the heart of our King to a doctriae purer than any in your 
 theology. Fear of his justice holds in check those who do 
 not fear the justice of God. Already your inhuman 
 principles are everywhere discredited ; and you would be 
 well-advised to change them, were it only for motives of 
 policy. But, I pray you, Eeverend Fathers, renounce 
 them of your own free will, and thus avert consequences 
 that will assuredly be laid at your door. For remember 
 that the first sin of fallen man was the murder of Abel, the 
 first saint ; that his worst sin was the murder of the King 
 of saints ; and that murder, alone among crimes, destroys 
 at one blow Church, Commonwealth, Nature, and Rehgion.' 
 With the Tenth Letter Louis de Montalte's conversations 
 with his casuist come to an end ; thereafter Pascal addresses 
 himself directly to the Jesuits. In the Eleventh he defends 
 him from the PecksnifiBan charge of pouring ridicule on 
 sacred things. With the Twelfth Letter he begins his 
 answer to his critics. Most of their attacks display the 
 usual arts of the controversiaHst : either they disavow 
 Escobar or else they elaborately prove him guiltless of 
 crimes not laid to his charge. ' Your great aim,' says 
 Pascal to the Jesuits, ' is to enhance the influence of your 
 Society. So long as your accommodating theology passes 
 for judicious indulgence you have nothing but praise for 
 Bauny and Escobar ; but once let it be cried down as 
 pernicious laxity, and you immediately throw over what 
 
PEOVINCIAL LETTERS: THE CASUISTS 319 
 
 might injure you with the public ; for you do not take 
 your stand on truth, which changes never, but on the 
 shifting interests of the moment, agreeably to the ancient 
 saying : " Omnia pro tempore, nihil pro veritate." . . . 
 Did I ever say that all your Fathers were partners in the like 
 iniquities ? Have I not shown that you prefer to have 
 men of different minds so as to be ready to cope with every 
 emergency ? Does your penitent wish to kill his man ? 
 Lessius speaks up for him. Is he inchned to be merciful ? 
 Out at once with Vasquez. Lessius speaks of homicide like 
 a pagan and, perhaps, like a Christian of charity. Vasquez 
 takes a heathenish view of charity, and has a Christian 
 horror of murder. What conclusion can we draw, except 
 that at the Last Day Vasquez will condemn Lessius on one 
 point, and Lessius Vasquez on another, and that all your 
 Fathers will rise up in judgment on each other for their 
 shameful perversions of the Law of Christ ? ' 
 
 Father Annat, the King's confessor, was a past-master in 
 the art of astute irrelevance. Him Pascal addresses by 
 name in his two final letters. ' I accuse you of sapping the 
 roots of morality by divorcing it from the love of God ; 
 your answer that a Belgian monk, on whom I never set 
 eyes in my life, has committed suicide. I accuse your 
 Fathers of teaching that a man may kill to save a trifle ; 
 you answer that the alms-box at St. Merry has been broken 
 open. Every day you cast in my teeth a book on celibacy, 
 which I never read, written by an Oratorian whom I never 
 saw. Your Fathers have a wonderful knack of treating all 
 who are opposed to them as though they were one person. 
 Your hatred welds them all together into a single mass of 
 reprobates, each one of whom must answer for the rest. 
 But Jesuits and their opponents are not in the same position. 
 You really form one body under the orders of a siagle 
 head ; with me the case is otherwise. I never gave my 
 name to the book on celibacy. I should be none the less 
 
320 PASCAL 
 
 a Catholic though every poor-box in Paris were burst 
 open. Once for all let me tell you in the plainest terms 
 that no one is responsible for my letters but myself, and 
 that I am responsible for nothing but my letters. . . . You 
 will not fail to say that I come from Port Eoyal ; for that 
 is the first charge you bring against everyone who takes the 
 field against you : as though Port Eoyal alone could 
 furnish Christian morality with champions to repel your 
 attacks : as though God could not raise up other voices to cry 
 out against your corruptions. With His help I hope to make 
 you feel this ; and, if He grants me the grace of employing 
 in His service the powers I have received from Him, I may 
 yet speak to you in such a fashion as wiU make you sorry 
 that you have not to deal with a man from Port Eoyal.' 
 
 More than one biographer has been scandahsed by 
 Pascal's flat denial of any intimate connexion with Port 
 Eoyal. Strictly speaking, however, he was quite within 
 his rights. Although he was a frequent visitor on the best 
 of terms with its hermits, he had never been officially 
 enrolled among their number. Besides, he had a sister 
 among the nuns ; it was no time for niceties when any 
 stinging phrase of his might be visited on Jacqueline's 
 head by the rough hands of the police. Lastly, the letters 
 more than once hint what their author's later history makes 
 abundantly clear — that he thought his leaders pusil- 
 lanimous : the fortunes of Jansenism might have been 
 very different had the Church authorities not had to 
 deal with ' men from Port Eoyal.' Pascal might go to 
 Arnauld or Nicole for his facts, but in the conduct of his 
 campaign he meant to keep his hands entirely free. He 
 meant to say whatever he thought true without being 
 obliged to pause and consider whether half a dozen clergy- 
 men considered this remark judicious or that quotation 
 likely to forward the interests of their party. ' You are 
 smitten by an unseen hand,' he says to Father Annat, ' and 
 
PEOVINCIAL LETTERS: THE CASUISTS 821 
 
 you try in vain to strike back at those to whom you behave 
 me to be closely bound. I fear you neither for myself 
 nor others, for I am not tied to any community or any 
 person whatsoever. I doubt if you ever had to deal with 
 an assailant so utterly beyond your reach. I am free ; 
 I have no calling, no interests or relationships of any kind. 
 I have a tolerable acquaintance with your errors, and 
 am steadfastly determined to expose them, so long as God 
 shall lay this duty on me. . . . You think that force 
 is on your side ; I think that truth and justice are on 
 mine. Strange and tedious is the war between these two : 
 not that victory hangs in the balance. Violence has only 
 a certain course to run, marked out by Providential ordering. 
 Truth will endure for ever, sure of its triumph at the last ; 
 for it is eternal and almighty, like God.' 
 
CHAPTER XIX 
 
 CHARLOTTE DB EOANNBZ 
 
 'You think it enough reply to my fifteen letters,' says 
 Pascal in the Sixteenth, ' to cry fifteen times that I am 
 a heretic' Fifteen times fifteen would, perhaps, be nearer 
 the mark of the Jesuits. Nor did they Hmit their attacks 
 to the technical issue of irresistible Grace. Debates on 
 such a subject must needs seem dry and unintelligible 
 to the laity ; whereas accuse the Jansenists , of denying 
 Transubstantiation, and the meanest CathoUc intelHgence 
 reahsed at once what criminals they were. Nor was the 
 campaign conducted with any undue regard to scruples ; 
 though it is fair to add that, in an age of Popish plots and 
 Mary of Modena's warming-pan, public opinion allowed 
 a controversialist considerable latitude. Of this the Jesuits 
 took full advantage. ' You flood Paris with forged docu- 
 ments, like that imaginary " Letter of a Minister to M. 
 Arnauld," ' says Pascal, in the hope of making men believe 
 that the ' Frequent Communion ' was concocted with the 
 help of Huguenots from Charenton. 'You quote from 
 books, that never were written, passages likely to raise the 
 hair on the head of simple souls who do not know to what 
 brazen lengths you carry the art of disseminating 
 falsehoods.' 
 
 But all other controversial devices pale before the 
 legend of Bourg Fontaine. It was given to the world 
 
 322 
 
OHAELOTTE DE EOANNEZ 823 
 
 in 1654 by one Eilleau, Crown advocate at Poitiers and a 
 strong supporter of the Jesuits. He professed to draw 
 his information from a distinguished ecclesiastic, who 
 preferred to remain anonymous. In 1621 — thirty-three 
 years before the story appeared in print — this shadowy 
 cleric met six notorious enemies of the Jesuits at Bourg 
 Fontaine, a Carthusian monastery near Paris. Under 
 the thin disguise of initials the six are easily recognisable. 
 First came the three great Jansenists — Saint Cyran, Antoine 
 Arnauld, and Jansen himself. Of the others, one was 
 Bishop Camus of Belley — the protector of Saint Ange against 
 the youthful zeal of Pascal — an outspoken critic of popular 
 abuses he was always denouncing the greed of the religious 
 orders. Next came Simon Vigor, a distinguished lawyer 
 of extreme GalUcan opinions. Last on the list was an 
 eminent pulpit orator, Bishop Cospeau of Lisieux, who 
 had strongly supported the Oratorians in their quarrels 
 with the Jesuits. Saint Cyran opened proceedings by 
 announcing that the time had come to destroy Christianity 
 and instal a kind of f ataUstic Deism in its place. Thereupon 
 Cospeau, whose sins against the Society were less black 
 than those of his colleagues, left the room, saying that 
 the project was ridiculous. The rest agreed that it was 
 quite feasible, if the conspirators went stealthily to work 
 and sapped doctrines ; one by one. Each accordingly 
 undertook to ruin one particular belief : Saint Cyran 
 was to destroy trust in God by preaching Predestination ; 
 Jansen supported him by garbling St. Augustine ; Arnauld 
 made access to the sacraments impossible ; Camus sowed 
 mistrust of the confessors ; Vigor put the finishing touch 
 by discrediting the authority of the Pope. 
 
 Such a story was easy enough to refute. Antoine 
 Arnauld, the only one of the conspirators left aUve, had only 
 to point out that in 1621 he had reached the mature age of 
 nine years. But writers of the type of Filleau — or the 
 
 Y 2 
 
324 PASCAL 
 
 anonymous ecclesiastic in the background who was practising 
 on Filleau's credulity — care no more for sHght discrepancies 
 than did Doctor Titus Gates. What they are playing on is 
 the inveterate tendency of the puhUc to believe that there 
 is no smoke without, at all events, a Httle fire. Hence the 
 baser sort of Jesuits swooped down on the story like one 
 man. ' It would have been unworthy of so notorious a 
 falsehood,' says Pascal, ' to leave it in the hands of your 
 friend Filleau, through whom you ushered it into the world. 
 Your Society has openly adopted it ; and your Father 
 Meynier declares, as a matter of certain knowledge, that 
 for the last five-and-thirty years Port Eoyal has been 
 hatching a plot to make the Gospel pass for a fairy-tale, to 
 exterminate the Christian religion, and to put Deism in 
 its place. Whom do you expect to believe such a story ? 
 Do you believe it yourselves, ours that you are ? Cruel, 
 persecuting cowards, even a cloister is not safe from your 
 calumnies ! While the consecrated virgins at Port Eoyal 
 spend night and day adoring Jesus, present in the Blessed 
 Sacrament, you spend day and night assuring the world 
 that they do not even beUeve Him present at the right 
 hand of His Father. You bespatter with your libels those 
 who have neither ears to hear nor lips to answer. But 
 Jesus hears, and answers for them. Even now there 
 resounds a Voice that sets at naught the laws of Nature 
 and brings comfort to the Church. And I fear that those 
 who harden their hearts, and refuse to hearken when He 
 speaks as God, will one day quake with terror when He 
 speaks to them as Judge.' 
 
 Some few months before these lines were written the 
 Voice had spoken in no uncertain tones. On March 24, 
 1656 — four days after Pascal began his attack on the 
 casuists — occurred the miracle of the Holy Thorn. Pascal's 
 niece and godchild, Margaret Perier, a little scholar at Port 
 Royal, who had long been suffering from an ulcerated eye, 
 
CHAELOTTE DE EOANNEZ 325 
 
 was suddenly cured by touching a relic believed to come 
 from the crown of thorns worn by Jesus at the Crucifixion. 
 ' Last Friday,' wrote Jacqueline on March 31 to the child's 
 mother, ' M. de La Potherie lent us a fine reliquary, inside 
 which was a little sUver-gilt monstrance containing a frag- 
 ment of a thorn from the Holy Crown. It was set on a small 
 altar in the choir ; and the Sisters kissed it on their knees 
 after they had sung an anthem in honour of the Holy Crown. 
 Then the children filed past one by one. When Margot 
 came up. Sister Flavia, who was standing by, signed to her 
 to touch the relic with her eye ; then, acting on a sudden 
 impulse, she herself picked it up, and laid it against her 
 cheek. But she had quite forgotten what she had done when 
 she heard the child tell her little sister in the evening that her 
 eye was better and no longer hurt. She examined her at 
 once, and found that the eye, which had been such a piteous 
 sight before, now looked as healthy as the other. You may 
 judge of her amazement. Still, she did not set her hopes too 
 high, and decided to leave time to show whether the cure 
 was as real as it seemed to be. All this happened a week 
 ago, and now there is no trace of the disease. Also the 
 attendant symptoms — the sleeplessness, tenderness of the 
 skin of the head, and the rest — ^have completely vanished. 
 But, as we do not wish to lay claim too lightly to so extra- 
 ordinary a Grace, we thought it better to send for M. 
 Dalancay. When he first saw her, about two months ago, 
 he thought very badly of the case, and said that the cautery 
 must be applied this spring. Indeed, he had fixed Tuesday 
 next for the operation, although he was far from certain 
 whether the case was not already beyond human aid.' 
 
 Later in the same day appeared the doctor, and Jacque- 
 line again took up her pen. ' This morning M. Dalancay 
 paid his visit. Not a word was said, either on his side or on 
 ours, as he carefully examined the child. But at last we 
 asked him whether he remembered how ill he had thought 
 
326 PASCAL 
 
 her. " Yes, " he said quite simply, " but I find no trace of the 
 illness now." I asked him to look into her mouth. He did 
 so, and began to laugh. " There is nothing whatever the 
 matter with her,' ' he said. Thereupon Sister Plavia told him 
 the whole story, which he made her more than once repeat. 
 He then asked whether the cure had come about aU ia a 
 moment. The child herself repUed that it had. Thereupon 
 he said that he was willing to attest that it could not have 
 happened without a miracle. He refused, however, to 
 guarantee that the evil would not return — that God alone 
 can tell — but he is sure that at the present moment the child 
 is perfectly well. Still, he begged us to keep very quiet for 
 a while, and not to let our gratitude overflow beyond our 
 own walls. He did not say more than this, but we under- 
 stood that he meant that our hour was not yet come.' 
 
 The secret leaked out through La Potherie, the owner of 
 the relic. Agnes Arnauld, who was his cousin, begged him 
 to be cautious ; since, at a time when suspicion was so rife 
 against Port Royal, the story of a miracle might do iofinite 
 harm. He answered that it was far more likely to turn 
 public opinion in Port Royal's favour. For his own part, 
 he should do his best to make the matter discreetly known, 
 agreeably to the precept in Tohit — that it is good to keep close 
 the secret of the king, but glorious to reveal the works of 
 God. His industry was more than rewarded. Six weeks 
 later, AngeUque Arnauld wrote that things had changed 
 very much for the better since news of the miracle had got 
 abroad ; there was no longer any talk of closing the convent- 
 school or of interdicting the confessors. During the summer 
 Port Royal became a popular place of pilgrimage, and cure 
 after cure was reported — some worked directly by the rehc 
 itself, others by cloths that had been laid upon it. Strangely 
 enough, however, it was only at Port Royal that the relic 
 displayed its powers ; neither in La Potherie's private chapel, 
 nor in many other convents to which he lent it, did it work 
 
CHARLOTTE DE ROANNEZ 327 
 
 any miracle whatever. Jansenism drew the natural con- 
 clusion. ' These nuns,' said Pascal, ' are told that their 
 confessors are leading them to perdition. Knowing that to 
 be false, they put themselves into the hands of God. What 
 happens ? He builds His Temple in a spot supposed to be 
 the temple of the devil. The nuns are threatened with the 
 loss of their children ; He immediately heals one of their 
 number. AU the vengeance of offended Heaven is called 
 down on their heads; He showers His blessings upon them.' i 
 Pascal did not exaggerate. As a Jansenist writer 
 quaintly declares, the Thorn long kept up diplomatic rela- 
 tions between earth and heaven for the protection of a holy 
 place, which the Jesuits wished to destroy. The Jesuits, 
 on their side, tried hard to laugh the matter down. They 
 said that Margaret had not been cured at all ; the supposed 
 miracuUe was her elder sister, who had been adroitly foisted 
 into her place. When Margaret's identity had been placed 
 beyond all doubt, the Jesuits fell back on a second line of 
 defence. They said that the cure was only apparent : the 
 disease had retreated inwards, and the child lay at the point 
 of death. Followed a long series of medical inspections. 
 On April 14 — exactly three weeks after the miracle — 
 Dalancay and six other doctors certified that Margaret had 
 been cured of an ' aegUops,' a form of lachrymal fistula. Too 
 abundant faith, however, must not be placed in their 
 diagnosis. Lachrymal fistulae still belong to one of the 
 obscurest branches of pathology ; for aught seventeenth- 
 century science could tell, Margaret might well have been 
 suffering from any one of half a dozen diseases of very 
 different degrees of virulence. Nor is sufficient evidence 
 forthcomiug on the really decisive point. All Jacqueline's 
 efforts went towards proving that the central abcess burst on 
 March 24 ; she pays little heed to what Dalancay calls its 
 ' inseparable accidents ' — inflammation of the surrounding 
 
 1 Pens. 841. 
 
328 PASCAL 
 
 tissues and the like. Did these vanish with the abscess? 
 If so, the cure was certainly miraculous. Or did they 
 gradually subside between March 24 and April 14? 
 No one troubled to ask the question, although the ecclesias- 
 tical authorities held an elaborate inquiry. It ended 
 (October 22) in an official recognition of the miracle. 
 
 This recognition was a great triumph for Port Eoyal. 
 Hitherto, as Pascal says, the whole dispute had been an 
 affair of words. The Jansenists said one thing, the Jesuits 
 said another ; and average men had not the least notion 
 which was right. Now, however, stepped in the Thorn to 
 show that the Jansenists could appeal to something more 
 than words. The Jesuits naturally retorted by denying that 
 the cure of Margaret Perier in any way proved the soundness 
 of Jansenist theology. Truth was not made for miracles, 
 they said, but miracles for truth : their only office was to 
 confirm the teaching of the Church. Pascal answered by 
 opening his New Testament. He found that Jesus con- 
 stantly appealed to the evidence of miracles. ' If I had not 
 done among them the works which no other man did, they 
 had not had sin ; but now they have both seen and hated 
 both Me and My Father.' Nay, Jesus deliberately brought 
 His miracles into collision with the Jewish law. When He 
 healed the blind man on the Sabbath, the Pharisees promptly 
 pointed out that He could not be of God because He broke 
 the Fourth Commandment. ' We know that God spake 
 unto Moses ; but as for this Fellow, we know not from whence 
 He is.' But if Jesus turned miracles against the old Phari- 
 sees, why might not Port Eoyal turn them against Pharisees 
 of later date, who knew that God spake unto Innocent X ? 
 No doubt they represented a departure from His usual 
 dealings with His creatures, but only an exceptional remedy 
 could cope with an exceptional evil. ' When men set aside 
 tradition in favour of the Pope, when they take the Pope 
 himself unawares, truth has no opportunity of making her 
 
CHARLOTTE DE ROANNEZ 329 
 
 voice heard. She must needs speak herself to men since 
 they no longer speak in her name.' i 
 
 Nor did it seem to Pascal in any way surprising that truth 
 should speak by heaUng a Uttle girl's ulcerated eye. Jan- 
 senism was essentially a religion of conversion, dealing much 
 in ' thunder-claps and visible upsets of Grace.' Of these 
 miracles were the physical translation ; for in Pascal's eyes 
 the visible world was simply a sensuous reflexion of the 
 invisible. For that reason miracles had a certain value of 
 their own. Had men been merely spiritual beings truth 
 alone would have been enough for them. As things were, 
 their reason was often enslaved by their imagination and 
 their f eehngs ; and these could only be reached by sensational 
 appeals. Signs and portents often succeeded in awakening 
 enthusiasm, when all other methods failed. ' When charity 
 grows cold, and the Church has scarcely a true worshipper 
 left, miracles rekindle the flame. They are the final effort 
 of Grace.' ^ Intellectualists might cry out against this 
 contemptuous flouting of the claims of pure reason. Pascal 
 answered that the only object of both Grace and miracles 
 was the conversion of the sinner ; and conversion implied 
 a radical transformation of his feelings and imagination no 
 less than of his intellect. Whether the change took place 
 in his higher faculties and spread down to the lower — or 
 whether it began in the lower and worked up to the higher — 
 was a matter of small moment. The one essential was that 
 the whole man should be renewed, heart and brain ahke. 
 
 To the world at large miracles might be the final effort of 
 Grace ; to the elect they were a token of Divine approval, 
 and an earnest of further blessings in the future. To Pascal 
 the miracle of the Thorn was much more than a controversial 
 asset for use against the Jesuits, more than a sign from Above 
 to continue his campaign against Escobar. The healing of 
 his niece and godchild was the mystical counterpart of that 
 
 1 Pens. 832. ^ pg^. gSl. 
 
330 PASCAL 
 
 greater miracle — ^his own conversion. ' " Where is now thy 
 God ? " they ask. Miracles show Him in a flash of hghtning.' 
 For one brief moment they lit up the path of darkness, doubt, 
 and fear that Jansenist feet must tread. Now that this 
 priceless favour had been twice vouchsafed him, the behef 
 that he had been specially chosen grew continually in Pascal's 
 mind. ' God makes Himself known to so few by these 
 amazing strokes of His Power, that those few are indeed 
 obliged to turn them to good use,' he wrote in the autumn of 
 1656. ' He has only torn aside for a moment the veil of Nature 
 that enshrouds Him, in order to spur them on to serve Him 
 with a zeal worthy of their more certain knowledge. Were 
 He prodigal of revelations, faith would cease to be a virtue ; 
 did He never disclose Himself at all, faith would almost 
 cease to be. And so, for the most part. He dwells in secret, 
 only revealing Himself to those whom He would bind more 
 closely to His service. Let us, then, yield Him infinite 
 thanks that He, who remains altogether hidden from so 
 many of our fellows, vouchsafes to show Himself so openly 
 to us.' 
 
 These Unes Pascal wrote to a young lady, whose call had 
 come almost as suddenly as his own. This was Mile. Char- 
 lotte de Roannez, sister of his chief patron in the world and 
 fervid disciple in the spirit. Her story is simple enough. 
 At the time of her conversion she was twenty-three years old, 
 and living quietly in Paris with her brother and widowed 
 mother. Her surroundings were far from cheerful. The 
 Duke — a grave, methodical young man— shut himself up in 
 his study with his mathematicians and his priests ; Charlotte 
 does not even seem to have known that, thanks to Pascal, 
 he had been for some time in touch with Port Royal. As for 
 the mother, she is described as a good, simple soul, with 
 little notion how to do her duty to her children. Besides, 
 the family estates were heavily embarrassed. The Duchess 
 had already dispatched her two younger daughters to a 
 
CHARLOTTE DE EOANNEZ 331 
 
 convent — the usual refuge of the portionless ; and although 
 Charlotte, as the eldest girl, had a right to a dowry, it was 
 not large enough to attract very eligible suitors. Nor was 
 she much attracted by the Marquis d'AUuye, the only pre- 
 tender who came forward. Naturally enough, the thought 
 of joining her sisters in a convent often flitted through her 
 mind, although without leaving any permanent impression. 
 In the summer of 1656, however, she was attacked by a sUght 
 affection of the eyes ; and, the reputation of the holy Thorn 
 being then at its height, was taken by her mother to Port 
 Royal. Their first visit was unsuccessful ; but six weeks 
 later (August 4) they paid a second. On the way Charlotte 
 was seized by a sudden impulse. ' my God,' she murmured 
 to herself, ' how happy should I be, if Thou wouldst force 
 me to become a nun and serve Thee all my life. But send 
 me a Grace I cannot resist. That I must have, or else the 
 world will never let me go.' 
 
 The Grace was not long in coming. Charlotte returned 
 home fully determined to take the veil, and to take it at Port 
 Royal. This resolution, however, was easier to make than 
 to accompUsh. Even the Duke was by no means sym- 
 pathetic. His movements were as slow as Charlotte's were 
 impulsive, and he foresaw some terrible scenes when the 
 family got wind of her project. So he made her promise to 
 do nothing for six months ; meanwhile he consulted Pascal 
 and other Jansenist friends. Pascal already exercised a 
 decisive influence on his patron's life. Before his conver- 
 sion, the Duke had cast his eyes on Mile, de Mesmes, the 
 richest heiress in the kingdom. Pascal persuaded him that 
 marriage was a snare, and that he ought to give up his 
 property, and retire from the world. He was slowly pon- 
 dering this advice when the friends of Mile, de Mesmes 
 suddenly made advances to his uncle, the Comte d'Harcourt. 
 Round came the old gentleman in high feather — only to be 
 met by the frigid reply that the Duke would think over the 
 
332 PASCAL 
 
 proposal. ' Are you mad, my dear nephew ? ' burst out the 
 uncle. ' You would be very lucky if you had got her after 
 working long and hard. As it is, they throw her at your 
 head, and all you say is that you will think about it.' 
 Roannez persisted in asking for time, and finally announced 
 his resolution not to marry. Thereupon the uncle exploded 
 into a volume of curses, chiefly aimed at Pascal. The story 
 quickly made its way into the servants' quarters, and house- 
 hold feeling ran high. It is said that a faithful gate-keeper 
 made her way into Pascal's room with a dagger in her hand, 
 ready to take vengeance on the wrecker of her master's 
 worldly prospects. Contrary to his custom, however, Pascal 
 had gone out early that morning, and so escaped the 
 dagger. 
 
 When consulted about Charlotte, he took up an equally 
 rigid line. The Duke, who knew her well, fully reaUsed the 
 unstable side of her character ; but Pascal only knew her 
 as a learned man knows his host's unlearned sister. Every 
 kind of circumstance combined to put him off his guard. 
 He was in the thick of his Provincial Letters. She was a 
 young lady of twenty-three, very much above him in rank, 
 who deigned to treat him as an oracle. It is hard to be 
 critical in such cases, more especially when the young lady 
 appears draped in the mystic halo surrounding a miracuUe 
 of the Thorn. Nor was her behaviour unworthy of her 
 dignity. In the face of much family opposition, she stead- 
 fastly maintained the divine origin of her call. ' Dearest 
 mamma,' she wrote to the Duchess, ' no human being whatso- 
 ever suggested, or in any way forwarded, my project. Nor 
 did a sermon or a book. I was called by the pure mercy of 
 God — called so directly that perhaps He never before made 
 so clear that He can, when He pleases, take possession of 
 our hearts without the help of earthly intermediaries.' 
 Such language made a great impression on judges more 
 experienced than Pascal. Singlin, the great director 
 
CHARLOTTE DE ROANNEZ 833 
 
 of Port Royal, declared that he read her letters with equal 
 pleasure and amazement. Being a very cautious man, 
 however, he urged her to take time ; so Roannez hurried 
 her off at once for a long stay at his country house in Poitou. 
 Thither Pascal wrote the brother and sister a series of letters 
 — ^letters necessarily full of pseudonyms and ambiguities ; 
 for the mother was violently hostile. And one, at least, 
 of the retainers had shown herself capable of worse things 
 than tampering with the post-bag. 
 
 Pascal's first object was to urge on Charlotte that she 
 — a miraculee of the Thorn — was called to extraordinary 
 destinies. ' Truly consoHng are the words of Jesus Christ : 
 " Whosoever hath, to him shall be given." In virtue of this 
 promise those who have received much may look for more ; 
 and those who have received above all measure should 
 pitch their hopes above all measure.' But performance 
 must keep pace with hopes. ' Unto whomsoever much 
 is given, from him shall be much required.' Charlotte was 
 in some danger of externalising her mission — of thinking that 
 the Spirit called her simply to be a nun at Port Royal. 
 Pascal was at great pains to explain that the real miracle 
 was her conversion, not her mere vocation to the cloister. 
 Fly from the world she must, a world contaminated by 
 the ' accursed maxims ' of Escobar. But taking the veil 
 was only the first step towards becoming a child of God. 
 In what, then, did sanctification consist ? ' Before writing 
 to you, I read through the thirteenth chapter of St. Mark, 
 and now I will put down what I found there. Jesus Christ 
 is speaking of His Last Coming. But whatever takes place 
 in the Church at large takes place also in the soul of each 
 individual Christian. This chapter therefore does more 
 than foretell how our present universe will make way for a 
 new heaven and a new earth ; it describes the state of all 
 who are converted, and destroy the old Adam in their 
 souls. The prophecy of the ruin of the outcast Temple 
 
334 PASCAL 
 
 reads to me like a prophecy of the ruin of the castaway in 
 all of us : as of the Temple there shall not be left one stone 
 upon another, so there shall not be left one passion of our 
 unregenerate self. And those terrible " wars and rumours 
 of wars " describe the sufferings of those who have given 
 themselves to God. . . . These we must resign ourselves 
 to endure our whole hfe long : on earth there is no truce for 
 us. " I came not to send peace, but a sword." Still, just as 
 Scripture declares that the wisdom of men is folly before 
 God, we may say that the wars, which seem so cruel to us, 
 are a peace before God ; for they are the peace brought by 
 Jesus Christ. That peace cannot be perfect, so long as we are 
 in the body ; and therefore we should long for death, bearing 
 gallantly with life, meanwhile, for the sake of Him Who 
 bore with both hfe and death for us.' 
 
 For a while it seemed that Charlotte was taking these 
 tremendous lessons to heart. ' I cannot help wishing that 
 my judgments were infallible,' presently wrote Pascal. 
 ' You would be none the worse off if they were ; for I am 
 very pleased with you. I am accustomed to the zeal 
 of M. N. (the Duke), but yours is altogether a novelty : it 
 is the new tongue of a new heart. . . . AU I have to say 
 about the two persons (Charlotte and her brother) is that 
 their ardour shows no signs of slackening, and this surprises 
 me much : in rehgion it is so much easier to begin than 
 to continue. I bear them both continually in mind, but 
 chiefly the person of the miracle ; for that case is the more 
 extraordinary, although the other is also remarkable and 
 almost without a parallel. It is certain that the graces 
 God bestows in this hfe are an earnest of the glory He is 
 laying up for the next. When from the first steps of the 
 righteous I can foretell what the crowning and fulfilment 
 of His work will be, I fall into a transport of veneration 
 for those who bear about them the marks of His elect. It is 
 as though I already saw them sitting on the thrones, where 
 
CHARLOTTE DE ROANNEZ 835 
 
 those who have forsaken all will judge the world with 
 Jesus Christ. But when I remember that they too may 
 stumble — nay, that many of them will fall, and forfeit to 
 another the crown God held within their reach, terror over- 
 masters me. I put aside the horrid thought, and come back 
 to God, beseeching Him never to abandon the weak creatures 
 He has saved. And for the two persons I repeat the prayer 
 of St. Paul — that He which hath begun a good work in them 
 will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ.' 
 
 Icarus himself had not a harder task than Charlotte. In 
 the attempt to foUow Pascal her feeble powers soon gave 
 way ; and on the first outburst of ecstatic fervour followed 
 a periodfof depression. Yet even this Pascal managed to 
 idealise. '* To her lamentations he repHed by quoting the 
 sayiag of St. Paul, that we must, through much tribulation, 
 enter into the Kingdom of God. ' That should bring great 
 comfort to a troubled mind, since it shows that our afflictions 
 are so many marks that our feet are set on the right path. 
 But those pains are not devoid of pleasures, and are only 
 overcome by pleasure. Men would never return from God to 
 the world were they not swept away by its victorious charm, 
 till they repented of their first choice, and became, in 
 Tertullian's phrase, penitents of the devil. Nor would 
 they forsake the world for the Cross of Jesus Christ, did not 
 poverty, nakedness, and abasement seem sweeter to them 
 than the delights of sra. And therefore we should never 
 think that the life of Christians is a life of sorrow. " Rejoice 
 evermore," says St. Paul, " pray without ceasing, in every- 
 thing give thanks." It is the joy of having found God 
 that makes us sorry for our sins. Saints feel this joy 
 without any sorrow. Worldlings feel sorrow without any 
 joy. The joy of a Christian is mingled with sorrow at having 
 followed other pleasures in the past and fear of temptation 
 in the future. We should labour hard to keep alike this 
 joy which moderates our fear, and the fear which moderates 
 
336 PASCAL 
 
 our joy ; and always lean towards the one, when we feel too 
 strongly borne towards the other. But let us never be cast 
 down or fancy that true piety consists in an unchequered 
 gloom. Eehgion is so rich in consolations that they re- 
 plenish our beginnings, our progress, and our end. That 
 glorious light streams forth over our whole horizon ; if at first 
 there be shadows here and there the fault Ues with our- 
 selves. They are not thrown by dawning piety, but by the 
 survivals of a past impiety. Take away the evil, and our joy 
 wiU be full.' 
 
 This letter brought little comfort to Charlotte. Spiritual 
 lassitude went hand in hand with anxieties about her future. 
 Would she, or would she not, be allowed to become a mm 
 at Port Royal ? Pascal cut these worries very short, 
 although a delicate humility caused him to make his lecture 
 wear the form of apparent self-reproach. ' The past is no 
 affair of ours after we have repented of our sins. Still 
 less does the future concern us. Over it we have no control 
 — indeed, we may never reach it at all. Only the present 
 belongs to us, and for it alone must we render an account. 
 But the world is so restless that it seldom thinks of the 
 present ; instead of living it much prefers to settle how it 
 will live some day. Yet Our Lord would have us take no 
 thought for the morrow ; and that rule we ought to keep, 
 alike in the interests of our salvation and of our peace 
 of mind. . . . But all this I say for my own sake, not for 
 the sake of a person, whose piety and insight is far greater 
 than my own. Still, this account of my defects may serve as 
 a useful warning : one often learns more from bad examples 
 than from good.' 
 
 Pascal's last letter was written on Christmas Eve, 1656. 
 Early in the following spring Charlotte came back to Paris. 
 Among Jansenist friends her spirits revived ; after some 
 months of further battling with her family, she plucked 
 up her courage and made a highly dramatic escape to Port 
 
CHARLOTTE DE ROANNEZ 337 
 
 Royal (July, 1657). But the Jesuits were not going to see 
 a Duke's sister snapped up by the enemy. Under pretence 
 that she had been kidnapped, they got the Court to order 
 her to be restored to her mother. Charlotte was beside 
 herself with grief and terror. The night before her un- 
 welcome release (November, 1657), she took a frenzied 
 vow of chastity. Back at home, she shut herself up in 
 her rooms, and lived as much like a nun as possible. This 
 state of things continued during the rest of Pascal's life- 
 time. After his death (1662), her resolution gradually 
 weakened. A family stratagem brought her old admirer, 
 the Marquis d'AUuye, back upon the scene ; she was touched 
 by his constancy, and began once more to go out into 
 society. But nature was not allowed to take her course ; 
 Charlotte only escaped from the Scylla of the cloister to 
 be wrecked on the Charybdis of family pride. On his 
 mother's death the Duke put into execution his project 
 of retiring from the world, and made over all his property 
 to his sister. The old Comte d'Harcourt now interfered 
 once more — to insist that such an heiress could only marry 
 a duke. The only available candidate was La FeuiHade, 
 a courtier notorious for carrying adulation of Louis XIV to 
 lengths that put Byzantium to shame. A less sympathetic 
 husband could hardly have been chosen, but for that the 
 family cared little : Duchess of La Feuillade Charlotte 
 in due course became. Her married life was one continued 
 nightmare. The higher side of Pascal's teaching had 
 always been beyond her ; to its more material aspects she 
 clung with ever-increasing vehemence, and the memory of 
 her broken vows haunted her day and night. She, a spouse 
 of Jesus Christ, had deliberately descended to incestuous 
 union with a man. Misfortune after misfortune rained 
 upon her. Of her four children, three were cripples, and 
 the last a scamp. Her health broke down soon after her 
 marriage ; in 1683 she died under the surgeon's knife. 
 
338 PASCAL 
 
 Jansenist writers drew the moral that a tender piety like 
 hers is a sickly plant, unless invigorated by continual 
 contact with those more advanced in piety. History only 
 adds her name to the tragic list of commonplace girls who 
 have had the ill-fortune to arouse pressing interest in a 
 man of genius. 
 
CHAPTER XX 
 
 THE FOEMULARY AND THE CYCLOID 
 
 While Charlotte de Koannez was going through her spiritual 
 trials the enemies of Jansenism had by no means rested 
 on their oars. ' I send particulars of the condemnation 
 that so much distressed you,' wrote Pascal to her in 
 November, 1656. ' Thank God, it comes to nothing. It is 
 a miracle that nothing worse was done at a time when the 
 enemies of truth lack neither will nor opportunity to 
 persecute.' Pascal presumably refers to the Bull, ' Ad 
 Sacram,' issued by Alexander VII in the previous month. 
 It was meant to cut away the ground from under the feet 
 of Port Royal. Antoine Arnauld had hitherto argued that 
 Jansen was untouched by the censure of Innocent X ; 
 because the propositions condenmed were neither textual 
 extracts from the ' Augustinus,' nor a faithful abstract of 
 its teaching. Alexander now replied that his predecessor 
 had condenmed them in the precise sense intended by 
 Jansen. His Bull was welcomed with delight by the 
 Assembly of the French clergy, a body roughly answering 
 to the Anglican Convocation. It had already drafted a 
 Formulary, or Declaration of Faith. This was now amended 
 to suit the new papal Constitution ; and in March, 1657, 
 the Assembly voted that every priest, monk, and nun 
 in France should be required to declare that he ' condemned 
 with heart and mouth the doctrine of the five proposi- 
 tions of Cornelius Jansen, contained in his book entitled 
 
 339 z 2 
 
340 PASCAL 
 
 ' Augustinus ' ; the said doctrine not being that of St. 
 Augustine, but a misinterpretation of it by Jansen, contrary 
 to the spirit of that great Doctor.' 
 
 For the Bull Port Eoyal cared little, but the Formulary 
 was a heavy blow. The Jansenists had long known that 
 they were a small and unpopular minority, and they were 
 willing enough to bear with the consequences of that un- 
 popularity ; but they were far too much absorbed in 
 questions of the moment to give much thought to the 
 future. To very few had it ever occurred that fate might have 
 worse things in store than general disapproval — that, sooner 
 or later, they must come to a definite parting of the ways. 
 Were they to obey conscience or the Church ? The Formu- 
 lary for the first time brought them face to face with this 
 dilemma. To use Dreydorff' s graphic metaphor, they were 
 like children wakened from a happy dream, and bidden 
 choose between their father and their mother. ' Be of good 
 cheer, Eeverend Father,' wrote Pascal to the King's con- 
 fessor, ' those you hate are sorely smitten ; and if the 
 Bishops take your advice their misery will be complete. 
 I have seen them, and rejoiced to find them equally free 
 from philosophic magnanimity of soul, from the sullen 
 conscientiousness that never knew a hesitation, and from 
 the fluttering cowardice that dares not look truth in the 
 face. Their piety is both firm and gentle ; they are full 
 of self- distrust ; they revere the authorities of the Church ; 
 they love peace ; they are consumed with zeal for truth ; 
 they long to know and to defend it. Mindful of their 
 infirmities, they grieve that these troubles should have 
 come upon them. But they hope that God will be their 
 Helper ; and that the grace of Jesus Christ, for which 
 they suffer, will be their light and stay.' i 
 
 For a while divided counsels reigned at Port Royal. 
 Some were for immediate submission, others for open 
 
 ' Fragment d'nne dix-neuviime Lettre Provinciak^ Wprfe, V 214, 
 
THE FOEMULARY AND THE CYCLOID B41 
 
 resistance. Most were feverishly anxious to avoid the neces- 
 sity of making an irrevocable choice. Very soon they spied 
 a loop-hole. Before papal Bulls had force of law they must 
 be registered by the Parlement ; and the Parlement prided 
 itself on opposing all that savoured of clerical domination. 
 What if the Judges could be induced to refuse registration 
 to the Bull ? Once more Pascal set to work. On June 1, 
 1657, appeared his ' Letter of a Barrister to a friend, touching 
 the recent attempt to introduce the Inquisition into Prance.' 
 The barrister begins by explaining that the Pope and Bishops 
 are trying to impose a test of orthodoxy on every cleric in the 
 kingdom. ' The more I think about these things the less 
 I like them. Unless I am very much mistaken, there is 
 more policy than religion about the whole business. They 
 pretend that they are only trying to root out Jansenism ; 
 but their real object is to bring us step by step nearer the 
 Inquisition. France will one day wake to find herself 
 bitted and bridled as closely as her neighbours. I daresay 
 it is an excellent thing to make people believe that the pro- 
 positions are in Jansen's book ; but their way of doing it 
 seems to me detestable. Don't think that you or I can afford 
 to be indifferent because we happen to be laymen. You 
 have a son studying at the Sorbonne : don't you mean him 
 to step into his uncle's preferment ? And what about my 
 boy the Prior ? You will say that all they have to do is to 
 sign the Formulary. Quite so ; but suppose that they get 
 into their heads that the propositions are not ia Jansen ? 
 I am very much afraid that my son has done so already ; 
 for he is always talking to his cousin, the D.D., who says that 
 he has never managed to light upon them. Once that bee 
 begins buzzing in the lad's bonnet, good-bye to all the fat 
 Uvings I have had such trouble to get him. Must the 
 theologians turn the whole kingdom topsy-turvy, in order 
 to discover where these precious propositions are ? Why 
 cannot they settle their disputes at home, without disturbing 
 
842 PASCAL 
 
 the peace of families which care not a fig for their disputes ? 
 They will end by thrusting the Inquisition on France ; and 
 then Heaven knows where things may end. We shall none 
 of us be safe. Any moment an enemy may accuse us of 
 Jansenism because we have some of their books on our 
 shelves or because we have spoken our mind about the new 
 Bulls with a freedom not uncommon in our profession. The 
 less servitude the better, say I. Sensible men will never put 
 the rope round their own necks. The theologians must find 
 some other way of proving that the propositions are in Jan- 
 sen's book. By all means let them go on writing, if they 
 cannot hold their tongues. All I ask them to do is to leave 
 us and our livings alone.' i 
 
 Pascal's letter was more than successful. The Bull was 
 only forced down the throats of the Judges in December, 
 1657, after a long and bitter struggle. But the essential 
 point was gained ; for the present, the Formulary remained 
 a dead letter. And in other ways the cloud seemed lifting. 
 The miracles of the Thorn continued, and touched the heart 
 of Anne of Austria. The hermits, expelled in the spring of 
 1656, were soon allowed to reassemble. Under stress of the 
 Provincial Letters pubUc opinion was turning strongly 
 against the Jesuits. The rectors of Paris, Rouen, and other 
 large towns even took official action. In November, 1656, 
 they denounced the casuists to the Assembly of the clergy, 
 which at once appointed a committee to examine into the 
 matter. Here, however, Jansenist hopes were doomed to 
 disappointment. The Jesuits were all-powerful at Court ; 
 the Court had great influence with the Bishops. To acquit 
 the casuists was impossible ; but nothing was easier than to 
 avoid condemning them. In February, 1657, a non-com- 
 mittal report was adopted, regretting that time did not allow 
 of probing this most important question to the bottom. 
 
 ^ Lettre d'un Avocat au Farlement touchant V Inquisition, Works, i. 
 pp. 222-31. 
 
THE POEMULARY AND THE CYCLOID 343 
 
 As an earnest of its zeal, however, the Assembly ordered 
 St. Charles Borromeo's ' Instructions to Confessors ' to be 
 printed, and circulated throughout France. And it severely- 
 discouraged the idea of translating Escobar into French. 
 
 Escobar's more spirited brethren were by no means 
 satisfied with this dubious verdict of acquittal. But they 
 could not hope to set themselves right with the world so 
 long as the Provincial Letters held the field. Why not, 
 then, cut down the evil at its root by showing up Pascal for 
 an ignorant and scurrilous impostor ? And who was better 
 fitted for this task than Father George Pirot, one of the most 
 learned canonists in France ? Towards the close of 1657 
 appeared his ' Apology for the Casuists.' Fathers Annat 
 and Nouet had already answered Pascal's letters one by one ; 
 but they had spoilt their case by condescending to argue with 
 the enemy. Pirot took a much higher line. The casuists 
 were absolutely right : their assailant absolutely wrong. 
 He never stooped to explain away their most amazing decis- 
 ions. ' Even if Vasquez has said all you put down to him, 
 you would have no reason to cry out ; for what you object to 
 has been maintained by other theologians, whom you would 
 have some trouble in refuting,' i is a typical reply to Pascal. 
 Sometimes, it is true, Pirot pulls his antagonist up short. 
 ' You are quite wrong in saying that the great advantage 
 theologians see in the New Law over the Old is that a 
 Christian can save his soul by producing fewer acts of love 
 than were required of the Jews. What theologians really 
 say is that this is one of the advantages of the Gospel.' ' All 
 Jesuits hold that we ought to love God, though none are 
 quite sure how often we ought to do so. If the Jansenists 
 have any light to throw on the matter, by all means let them 
 do so ; for the Church is gravely hampered by her uncer- 
 tainty on this subject.' 2 
 
 ' Apologie des Casuistes, edition of 1659, p. 54. 
 2 Ibid. pp. 164, 165. 
 
844 PASCAL 
 
 In the same spirit of lofty contempt Pirot deals with 
 attempts at moral reformation. He accused the strict 
 Bishops, who were trying to raise the standard of candidates 
 for ordination, of a conspiracy to abolish public worship 
 by lessening the numbers of the clergyJ And when Pascal 
 talked about the wickedness of leading one's neighbour 
 into temptation Pirot fairly lost his temper. ' If the Jansen- 
 ists had their way, great numbers of servants and mechanics 
 would be thrown out of work. Ticket-porters, who so often 
 carry letters of illicit love, would have to change their 
 calling ; fencing-masters, makers of playing cards and 
 dice, could no longer ply their trade ; innkeepers, who 
 supply more wine than temperance allows ; cooks and con- 
 fectioners, who minister to tables groaning with as many 
 sins as there are made-dishes ; milliners, iiddlers, and 
 ballet-dancers must all look out for new employment.' ^ 
 Nor did Pirot shrink from calming any scruples the cooks 
 and ballet-dancers might have. Undoubtedly they put 
 temptation in their neighbour's way ; but so did Jesus in 
 allowing Judas to keep the bag.^ Nor was this the only 
 instance of lax casuistry in the Gospels. Being asked when 
 the end of the world would come, Jesus answered : ' Of 
 that day and hour knoweth no man but My Father only.' 
 What was that but a mental restriction ? ^' 
 
 Father Rapki admits that this strange Apology played 
 straight into Pascal's hands. Bishop Godeau of Vence 
 declared that it would scandalise an upright pagan, and caU 
 blushes to the cheek of a reputable Turk. And many who 
 were quite prepared to tolerate Escobar in his place, shrank 
 from seeing his methods applied thus brazenly to the New 
 Testament. The rectors of Paris again took the field. 
 During the first half of 1658 they kept Pascal, Nicole, and 
 other Jansenists busy composing factums, short pamphlets 
 
 • Apologie des CasuisUs, p. 73. ^ Ibid. p. 51. 
 
 ' Ibid. p. 49. * Ibid. p. 137. 
 
THE FORMULAEY AND THE CYCLOID 345 
 
 of denunciation. Soon a rain of condemnations began to 
 fall on the Apology. First came the Bishops, then the 
 Sorbonne, lastly the Court of Rome. The astuter Jesuits 
 had foreseen some such result, and their Provincial in Paris 
 did his best to stop the publication of the book. But Pirot 
 was a man of standing, and the General in Eome overruled 
 the decision of his subordinate. When the storm burst, 
 the Society took the characteristic course of washing its 
 hands of all responsibility whatever ; it would neither defend 
 nor attack opinions personal to Pirot. This non-com- 
 mittal attitude brought down a new philippic from Pascal. 
 ' The whole Church is in an uproar. On one side is the 
 Gospel, supported by Bishops, theologians, and the people ; 
 on the other side is the " Apology for the Casuists." Pressed 
 to declare themselves, the Jesuits explain that they take 
 no part in the war ; they maintain a strict neutrality 
 between truth and error. If the rest of the world had done 
 the hke the Church would have gained as little as the 
 Jesuits would have lost ; for they have never demanded the 
 suppression of the Gospel ; that would be against their 
 interests. There are honest men among their penitents ; 
 and the Gospel sometimes serves their turn quite as much 
 as do the casuists. But it would also be against their 
 interests to be deprived of the Apology ; for their whole 
 object is to keep on good terms with both books. Taken 
 separately, neither fully represents their creed. The whole 
 point of our accusation is that they combine the two, and 
 thus blasphemously couple Jesus Christ with Belial.' i 
 
 Pascal did not write altogether in vain. The censures 
 on Pirot cleared the air, and led to a certain revulsion of 
 feeling among the Jesuits themselves. In 1661, Marshal 
 Fabert wrote that their Superiors at Eome had determined 
 on a thorough expurgation of their books, and would be 
 much more careful in the future. ' All this they owe to the 
 
 1 iSixiime Factum pour les Cutis de Paris, Works, ii. p. 169. 
 
346 PASCAL 
 
 Jansenists. I could wisli that they were a little more grate- 
 ful, and behave with greater moderation. And I know that 
 some of my friends ia the Society are quite of my opinion.' i 
 For a while lax casuistry went quite out of fashion ; during 
 the second half of the seventeenth century probabilism dis- 
 appeared from the French divinity schools. Yet the 
 change was much more superficial than Marshal Fabert 
 supposed ; the spirit of Escobar had been rather scotched 
 than killed. Very soon it reappeared under slightly 
 different forms ; in 1682, and again in 1700, Bossuet felt 
 bound to take the field against it. And perhaps the most 
 tangible result of these short-lived reforms was further 
 to mislead the Jansenists as to the real relations between 
 Eome and the Jesuits. Alexander VII's censure on Pirot, 
 followed as it was by an elaborate condemnation of various 
 casuistical errors in 1665, seemed to Port Royal proof 
 positive that Rome had at last awakened from its slumbers, 
 and was shaking off the influence of the Society. Alone of 
 his party, Pascal had some insight into the truth ; but 
 Pascal's attention was now distracted from polemical 
 theology. During the autumn of 1658 his health began 
 rapidly to fail ; and all the energy illness left him was 
 absorbed by his project of an Apology for Christianity 
 against Libertines and Deists. 
 
 Before he could put pen to paper, however, he was 
 momentarily tempted off on to a very different domain. 
 ' While M. Pascal was at work on his refutation of the 
 atheists,' says Margaret Perier, 'he was suddenly seized with 
 great pains in the head. In the hope of forgetting his agony, 
 he turned his thoughts to the problem of the cycloid, 
 which had long been the despair of geometers, and pondered 
 over it to such good purpose that, before morning, he had 
 hit upon the answer. Intense concentration took away his 
 headache ; and when M. de Roannez called in the forenoon 
 
 ' Bourelly, Le Marichal de Fabert (Paris, 1885), vol. ii. p. 281. 
 
THE FOEMULAEY AND THE CYCLOID 347 
 
 to make inquiries, he found him perfectly well. He asked 
 what had cured him. M. Pascal answered that it was the 
 problem of the cycloid. M. de Eoannez asked what use 
 he meant to make of his discovery. My uncle said that he 
 had only thought of it as a remedy against the headache. 
 M. de Eoannez suggested that it might be turned to other 
 uses. M. Pascal wished to convince the atheists ; why not 
 begin by showing that he knew more than they did about 
 geometry and the sciences that depend on proof ? Then 
 everyone would see that he knew full well what he was 
 about when he threw over proof in matters of religion. 
 M. de Eoannez accordingly advised hun to offer a prize of 
 sixty pistoles, and challenge the mathematicians of the 
 world.' 1 
 
 Margaret Perier was no scientific expert, and her story 
 halts between history and legend. Ever since the time of 
 Galileo the cycloid — the curve described by a point in the 
 circumference of a rolling wheel — ^had come in for much 
 attention ; TorriceUi and Eoberval had squared and cubed 
 it long before Pascal's sleepless night. But Pascal greatly 
 improved on their procedure. Later inquirers had only to 
 generalise his method — itself a development of the mystic 
 hexagram of his youthful conic sections — and the integral 
 calculus stood ready to their hand. But Pascal never 
 generalised. His only interest was to throw light on 
 the more recondite properties of the cycloid — the centres 
 of gravity of its square and cube, the surface and volume 
 generated by its revolution about the tangent at its vortex. 
 These problems formed the subject of his challenge. In 
 June, 1658, Amos Dettonville — an anagram of Louis de 
 Montalte — threw down his glove to the geometers of the 
 world. He also offered two prizes, ' not to remunerate 
 their labours — far from us be the thought — but as a mark of 
 our deference and a pubUc homage to their talent.' The 
 1 L. 0. M. p. 457. 
 
348 PASCAL 
 
 exercises were to reach Pascal's friend, Carcavi, before 
 October 1. During the summer Huygens and other eminent 
 mathematicians sent in dissertations, though without com- 
 peting for the prize. Pascal was specially impressed by 
 ' the fine work of M. Wren.' This was the future architect 
 of St. Paul's, then a junior fellow of All Souls College, Oxford. 
 From Oxford also came one of the two competitors for the 
 prize. This was John Wallis, the famous BavUian Professor 
 of Geometry. On this field, however, his performances 
 were scarcely worthy of his reputation. He began by bitterly 
 complaining about the short time allowed. Pascal answered 
 with equal tartness that, as he gave the prize, he had a right 
 to make any conditions he pleased. Besides, it was neces- 
 sary to keep strictly to the specified date; otherwise the 
 judges' award might be at any time disturbed by exercises 
 arriving from ' unknown towns in Cochin China or Japan.' 
 Wallis accordingly sent in his paper, expressing a hope that 
 the examiners would be satisfied with approximate solutions. 
 Pascal drily answered that in geometry approximate 
 solutions were of small account. And when the time for 
 judging arrived, it was found that Wallis's paper contained 
 many bad mistakes of method as well as detail. He was 
 accordingly refused the prize. 
 
 Wallis's only rival was a mathematician of a very different 
 stamp. Father Lalouvere, a Jesuit of Toulouse, was a fine 
 specimen of the unscientific savant once so common in 
 country colleges. In matters of detail he was both 
 ingenious and untiring, but method and coherence were 
 unknown methods to him. Like many of his race, he lent 
 an only too attentive ear to the call of the impossible ; the 
 squaring of the circle was his fixed idea. Not that the 
 secret ever came actually within his grasp. It was his 
 custom to wade through maze after maze of calculations, 
 and end with a frank admission that the goal seemed as far 
 off as ever ; though he would assure his readers that they 
 
THE FOEMULAEY AND THE CYCLOID 349 
 
 had picked up much valuable treasure on the way. And 
 sometimes a note, scrambled at the last moment on to the 
 margin of his page, explained that the great secret had 
 dawned upon him, though too late to allow of its incor- 
 poration in the text. Nor was he averse to mixing up 
 geometry with his personal affairs. The scholium of one 
 proposition is taken up with a discussion as to whether he 
 talked boastfully — gloriabunde — about his discoveries. For 
 his own part, he had always supposed that he wrote with 
 remarkable timidity — stilo admodum tituhante — due to a 
 fear of trespassing beyond the lines marked out by his 
 masters, the great geometers of antiquity. 
 
 On hearing of Pascal's challenge, he sent to Paris a 
 pamphlet containing solutions of the two first and easiest 
 of Pascal's five problems. With these Amos Dettonville 
 was Httle impressed ; nor did it please him to find a Jesuit 
 taking part in a competition designed in the interests of 
 Port Eoyal. On September 4 he wrote a contemptuous 
 letter to Toulouse. ' In order to keep me down in the lowest 
 class of inventors,' wrote poor Lalouvere, ' he declared that 
 what I had done, in comparison with what still lay before 
 me, was as Euclid's Elements to Lucas Valerius or Archi- 
 medes.' Before Pascal's letter arrived, however, he had 
 sent off an answer to the third problem, though without 
 entering formally for the prize. On looking through it, 
 Pascal felt that he had misjudged the Jesuit's powers. He 
 sent off a handsome apology, at the same time begging him 
 to send a full account of his method. He might as well have 
 asked the muddy-minded thinker to send him the sun and 
 moon ; Lalouvere could only reply with incoherent references 
 to the balance of Archimedes. In the middle of September, 
 however, he sent in an answer to the fourth problem of&cially 
 to the judges. A few days later, he wrote again to withdraw 
 from the competition, as he feared that his calculations were 
 full of mistakes. This fear the judges more than confirmed ; 
 
350 PASCAL 
 
 they declared his answer altogether worthless. Thereupon 
 two curious questions uprose in Pascal's mind. How had 
 Lalouvere dealt so successfully with one problem and failed 
 so signally with another ? And why did he persistently 
 decline to explain his method? In that suspicious age 
 an obvious answer was forthcoming. It was because he had 
 plagiarised in the first case from a better man, and trusted 
 in the second to his own inadequate resources. From 
 whom, then, had he stolen? Clearly from Professor 
 Roberval, the great French authority on cycloids. 
 
 Once bring Eoberval on to the scene, and the Jesuit's 
 guilt was a foregone conclusion. The Professor was the 
 most suspicious of men, suffering from a chronic tendency 
 to spy geometrical pirates in every bush. Pascal and he 
 spent the autumn in cross-examining Lalouvere. He 
 bitterly resented their suspicions, and declared that he had 
 solved aU Pascal's problems, including three new questions 
 propounded in October, avowedly as tests of his capacity. 
 But he did not make his answers public. He was not sure 
 enough of himself to risk laying possible mistakes before 
 obviously hostile critics ; he dared not call in a friend 
 for fear of being plagiarised himself. At last Pascal lost 
 patience. On January 1, 1659, he brought out his own 
 solutions, and promptly forwarded a copy to Toulouse. 
 One hasty glance convinced the Jesuit that Pascal's methods 
 were the same as his own. FuUy reassured, he bundled off 
 his manuscripts to the printer. Pascal thought it enough to 
 point out that his calculations contained two serious errors, 
 and the whole wretched business came to an end. 
 
 Pascal's detective vehemence has sometimes been put 
 down to the fact that his victim was a Jesuit ; and certainly 
 Lalouvere's cloth gave a certain zest to the chase. But 
 Lalouvere was not the only sufferer. Once in the hands of 
 Eoberval all the old passions of the Paris Club awoke in 
 Pascal's breast. He threw himself head foremost into 
 
; THE FORMULARY AND THE CYCLOID 851 
 
 Roberval's great grievance against Torricelli, whom the 
 Professor accused of stealing his method of measuring the 
 revolutions of the cycloid. Pascal swallowed the whole 
 story on Roberval's bare word, and publicly brought gross 
 charges of plagiarism against a very eminent man who had 
 been in his grave ten years. But seventeenth-century 
 scholars were seldom squeamish when claiming for them- 
 selves or their friends the glory of a new discovery ; and 
 Eoberval undoubtedly was a victim of untoward fate. He 
 was first in the field with the cycloid ; but Torricelli, hitting 
 soon afterwards on the same method, was beforehand with 
 him in print. Thus robbed of his laurels, Roberval naturally 
 relieved his feelings by a charge of plagiarism. Nor is it 
 surprising that Pascal should have made himself the mouth- 
 piece of his accusations. The professor was a most dis- 
 tinguished personage, twenty years older than himself. He 
 had been an intimate friend of Stephen Pascal ; in old days 
 the two had stood shoulder to shoulder in mathematical 
 battles against Descartes. And he had been the zealous 
 patron of the Great Experiment and the arithmetical 
 machine. 
 
 Besides, Pascal himself was much less indifferent to 
 academic successes than he would fain suppose. No doubt 
 he no longer worshipped mathematics for their own sake, 
 in the crude fashion of Roberval ; Miton and Mere had done 
 their work too well. ' Although I believe you to be the 
 greatest geometer in Europe, I am much more drawn to visit 
 you by the wit and charm of your conversation,' he wrote to 
 Fermat in 1660. But for geometry, in so far as it minis- 
 tered to the general purposes of human thought, Pascal's 
 respect was as great as ever. At the very time of his letter 
 to Fermat he was at work on his Apology, where the place 
 of Archimedes in the realm of mind is compared to the place 
 of Jesus in the realm of charity. And certainly there is no 
 lack of intellectual pride in the account, written down from 
 
852 PASCAL 
 
 memory by Pierre Nicole, of some talks Pascal had about this 
 time with ' a boy of a very high rank.' The boy in question 
 was probably the eldest son of the Duke of Luynes, a great 
 patron of Port Eoyal ; he grew up to be Duke of Chevreuse, 
 and to gain a modest place in history as one of the intimate 
 friends of Fenelon. 
 
 Pascal begins by drawing a distinction between real and 
 conventional titles to respect. To the first class belong 
 virtue, intelligence, bodUy strength ; to the second such 
 adventitious advantages as being the son of a duke. In 
 language quite as plain as Thurlow used to the Duke of 
 Wharton, Pascal teUs Chevreuse that he is the accident of an 
 accident. ' Your birth depended on a marriage — or rather, 
 on a series of marriages. But on what did those marriages 
 depend ? On a chance visit, a casual word, a hundred 
 unforeseen contingencies.' i But, at least, his sixteen 
 quarterings brought Chevreuse some kind of hereditary 
 distinction ? They brought him nothing at all. ' Your 
 body and soul are quite as well fitted to belong to a waterman 
 as a Duke.' But does not the world belie this by paying 
 special honour to dukes ? Not at all. Dukes are ' kings 
 of concupiscence ' on a small scale, just as are monarchs on a 
 large. The world honours them because they have many 
 good things to give away ; but for that, it would not think 
 them worth a stare. Are, then, conventional distinctions 
 altogether a fraud ? By no means ; the world could not get 
 on without them. Hence it is perfectly right to show them 
 deference. ' Only a fool or a cad would refuse to kneel to 
 the King or to stand up in presence of a Prince.' 
 
 Purely external homage, however, is all that kings and 
 princes can claim. It is equally foolish and equally caddish 
 to pay them inward respect : that we keep for the real 
 distinctions of virtue or intelligence. ' I am bound to 
 take off my hat to you, as you are a Duke ; but I am not 
 
 ' Premier Discours sur la Condition de* Orands, Works, ii. p. 15. 
 
THE FORMULARY AND THE CYCLOID 353 
 
 bound to esteem you.' On the other hand, it is quite as 
 silly to insist on paying outward deference to inward 
 distinctions. ' M. N. is a better geometer than I am ; but 
 if he thinks that a reason for walking into dinner before 
 me, I say that he is wrong. Geometry is a real distinction, 
 and calls for inward respect ; but it is not recognised on the 
 table of precedence. I ought therefore to go first.'i Thus 
 forcibly is Chevreuse made to see that deference is no clue 
 whatever to the real feelings of his neighbours, nor does 
 his rank in any way dispense him from the duty of trying 
 to win their good opinion. ' Your power over them is 
 based on their concupiscence, not on your own strength. 
 Do not, therefore, use them harshly. Grant them whatever 
 they can fairly ask ; help them in time of need ; take a 
 pleasure in doing good, and you will be a true king of 
 concupiscence.' And Pascal ends by telling the young 
 duke that all this does not go for much. ' If you do no 
 more, you will certainly lose your soul. But, at least, you 
 will lose it like a gentleman.' ^ 
 
 These last words may seem surprising in the mouth of a 
 Jansenist ascetic ; but Pascal's conversion did not mean an 
 absolute breach with the friends of former days. In March, 
 1657 — just as the Provincial Letters were coming to an end 
 — the mathematician Mylon reported to Huygens that M. 
 Pascal was very hard to see now that he had given himself 
 up entirely to devotional practices. But his interest in 
 mathematics was by no means dead ; and he would still find 
 the answer to a problem if M. Carcavi laid it before him. 
 After the affair of the cycloid, however, he became a little 
 more ready to leave his retirement. He was sometimes 
 to be seen in Mme. de Sable's drawing-room ; and one of 
 the very few samples of his general correspondence that 
 fate has respected is a letter thanking her for having intro- 
 duced him to the learned Protestant physician— Menjot. 
 
 • Second Discours, p. 18. ^ Troisihne Discours, p. 19, 
 
854 PASCAL 
 
 Pascal was especially struck with his book on malignant 
 fevers ; ' in a very few words he makes clear why the power 
 of matter to impair our bodily functions and bring on 
 delirium is no argument against the immateriality of the 
 soul.' Such subjects had for Pascal more than a purely 
 theological interest. His labours over the cycloid had 
 dealt a shattering blow at his health. In the summer of 
 1659 Carcavi told Huygens that, ever since his book came 
 out, he had been in a state of complete lassitude and 
 exhaustion. In the following spring he decided to try the 
 effects of his native air. But his nerves were stiU in such 
 a state that it was thought better to send him from Paris 
 to Clermont by canal, a journey that took three weeks. 
 Under their charge, supplemented by a liberal diet of asses' 
 milk, he recovered, and returned home in the autunm. 
 
 Here a new responsibility awaited him. His eldest 
 nephew, Stephen Perier, had reached the age of eighteen, 
 and was anxious to matriculate at the University of Paris. 
 So it was settled that he should live with his uncle, and 
 go to lectures at the College d'Harcourt, whose head, M. 
 Fortin, was a devoted Jansenist ; indeed, report said that 
 more than one of the Provincial Letters had issued from 
 the college press. But Stephen's two younger brothers, 
 Louis and Blaise — aged respectively nine and seven — 
 were also in Paris, having been left there by their parents to 
 wait for a vacancy in the ' Kttle schools ' of Port Royal. 
 The schools, however, had been closed by the Government 
 in the spring of 1660 ; and the boys had been leading an 
 unsettled existence under charge of a Jansenist ecclesiastic, 
 M. Rebergues. Now their aunt Jacqueline intervened, 
 and dispatched them to join Stephen at their uncle's house. 
 To excuse herself for this hberty, she wrote him a cha- 
 racteristic letter, dated November 10, 1660. ' Good day, and 
 a happy new year, my dear brother. You will not doubt 
 that these good wishes were in my heart at the beginning of 
 
THE POEMULARY AND THE CYCLOID 855 
 
 the year, although I am only able to give them utterance at 
 its end. But it is only fair to tell you that this year, which 
 I have offered up to God with all my heart, has made no 
 difference in the feelings that I ought to have for you in Him. 
 When I think how quickly the year has gone by, and how 
 little pain came of a separation from which it would seem 
 that nature must have shrunk, I cannot help yearning for 
 eternity ; for certainly time is of small account. But I 
 must not stray longer down a path that would lead us far. 
 I entered on it unawares ; for my only object in writing was 
 to congratulate you on having become the father of a family, 
 in the sense that God is our Father. And I must beg pardon 
 for the trouble I have caused you. It is all my doing ; 
 though I only acted under the belief that you would enjoy 
 it, and that the inconvenience would not last long. M. 
 Rebergues will soon be able to take the children back ; 
 indeed, I think he could take them off your hands at any 
 time, if you would only send him word.' i 
 
 In more than one sense the boys proved a serious drain 
 on their uncle's resources. Stephen was a studious youth, 
 with a turn for mathematics ; but Louis is described by 
 his sister as an irresponsible madcap, more fond of jokes 
 than lessons. Besides, Pascal had undertaken to be finan- 
 cially responsible for his education ; and most of Pascal's 
 small income now went on medicines and doctors' bills. 
 Then, too, an endless list of charities stUl further lightened 
 his purse ; no one ever took more to heart Saint Cyran's 
 maxim that fasting and almsgiving were the two wings 
 of prayer. Not that he felt tempted to launch out into 
 ostentatious munificence ; for he held that the cheerful 
 giver, whom God loved, was he who ' served the poor 
 poorly ' by daily, unpretentious efforts. Still, even these 
 cost money, and money was scarce to find. So Pascal 
 decided to embark on a commercial enterprise. The idea 
 1 L. 0. M. p. 396. 
 
 AA 2 
 
356 PASCAL 
 
 was not absolutely new ; ten years before he had certainly 
 tried to put his arithmetical machine on the market. Now, 
 however, he came forward with a much more popular scheme. 
 Of late years great efforts had been made to improve the 
 streets of Paris, and an enormous increase of wheeled traffic 
 was the result. In 1652, Pierre Petit — Pascal's old friend 
 of the Paris Club — noticed that most rich people kept 
 two or three coaches, while even lawyers and professional 
 men were setting up their carriage ; it was becoming quite 
 undignified to go about on foot, or even to ride. But what 
 was to happen to the many who could not afford to keep 
 a carriage ? Pascal came forward with a scheme that 
 was nothing less than the invention of the omnibus. Pubhc 
 conveyances were to perambulate Paris, and convey 
 passengers at the fixed price of five sous — twopence half- 
 penny a head. Through the kind offices of Roannez and 
 others, the necessary capital was raised. The Lord Steward, 
 the Marquis de Sourches, was interested in the matter, and 
 a gracious permission was obtained from the King. On 
 March 21, 1662, Gilberte Perier was able to write to her 
 cousin, Arnauld de Pomponne, nephew of Antoine and 
 Angelique, and a future Foreign Secretary to Louis XIV : 
 
 ' As everyone else has had a share in this business of the 
 coaches, I have schemed hard for the duty of writing to tell 
 you of its success. We opened in tremendous state last 
 Saturday morning at seven o'clock. Of the seven coaches 
 put on the road three were sent to the Porte St. Antoine, 
 and four stationed in front of the Luxembourg. Here they 
 were met by two commissaries of the Provost-Court in full 
 dress, four sergeants of the Marshalsea, about a dozen 
 City-Archers, and as many men on horse-back. When all 
 was ready, the commissaries made a speech, setting forth 
 the usefulness of the enterprise, and warning the people 
 in the King's name that any disorderliness would be followed 
 by exemplary punishment. Then they handed the drivers 
 
THE FOEMULARY AND THE CYCLOID 357 
 
 their livery-coats ; these were blue, with the Royal and 
 the City Arms worked on the breast. Then the order was 
 given to start. Off went the first coach with a sergeant 
 of the Marshalsea inside, who remained in it the whole of the 
 day. The other coaches, each with its sergeant, were 
 dispatched at intervals of half an hour ; while the Archers 
 and the mounted men kept order along the route. Not that 
 there was the least disturbance, although the New Bridge 
 and the adjoining streets were crowded with spectators. It 
 was amusing to see the workmen leave their benches to stare ; 
 all along the line of way little more work was done on 
 Saturday than if it had been a festival. On the first 
 morning several of the coaches were full, and there were 
 even women passengers ; but in the afternoon the crowd 
 was so great that it was impossible to get up to them. 
 Indeed, the only drawback to the scheme is exactly the one 
 you foretold. People wait a long time in the street for 
 a coach ; and when it comes, they find it full. They 
 comfort themselves with the thought that there will be 
 another in ten minutes ; but that also proves to be full, 
 and they end by having to go on foot. I speak the more 
 feelingly, since that has happened to myself. I was anxious 
 to come back by coach from St. Merry's, Glass-House Street, 
 because it is rather a long way from my brother's ; but I had 
 the annoyance of having to see no less than five coaches go 
 by because they were all full. As I waited, I listened to 
 the blessings the passers-by called down upon the promoters 
 of so excellent an enterprise, though some of them went 
 on to say that there ought to have been at least twenty 
 coaches on the road instead of only seven. Indeed, so 
 useful have the coaches proved, that everyone wants a 
 line of them in his own quarter of the city. The shop- 
 keepers of St. Denis Street have even been talking of a 
 formal petition, and it was almost decided to let them have 
 a line next week. But yesterday morning, when M. de 
 
858 PASCAL 
 
 Eoannez, M. de Crenan, and the Lord Steward were all 
 at the Louvre, the King began to talk most graciously about 
 their undertaking, ending up by asking them when they 
 proposed to establish our line. These words of the King 
 set them thinking of a line in St. Honore Street ; the 
 shop-keepers must wait for a whUe. Such, then, is the 
 position of affairs. You will be as much surprised as we 
 are at our success ; it has surpassed our fondest expectations. 
 And I will not fail to act as my brother's deputy, and send 
 you any further good news there may be. He would have 
 been delighted to do so himself, were he ia a fit state to 
 write.' 1 
 
 ' L. 0. M. p. 80. 
 
CHAPTER XXI 
 
 THE APOLOGY FOR CHRISTIANITY 
 
 ' God has never made a family more happy,' wrote the 
 uncle of Margaret Perier soon after the miracle of the 
 holy Thorn ; 'may He send that none will be more grateful.' i 
 As a thank-offering he proposed to devote the rest of his 
 life to an Apology for Christianity agaiast Libertines and 
 Deists. The outcome of his labours is the book of Pensees 
 — ' Thoughts on Religion and Certain Other Subjects ' — 
 pubhshed by a Jansenist committee some eight years after 
 his death. Much ingenuity has been spent in determining 
 the form the book would have taken had Pascal lived to 
 finish it. In the spring of 1659 he certainly had a definite 
 scheme in his mind, and expounded it in a long lecture to 
 some friends at Port Royal. And the more finished frag- 
 ments read as though he would have cast his Apology in the 
 same mould as the Provincial Letters, with the free-thinkers 
 in place of Escobar. But he had reckoned without the 
 progress of his illness. Very soon after the Port Royal 
 lecture his nephew noticed the first signs of the final break- 
 down. Not that any great change was apparent on the 
 surface. It was only during the last few months of his 
 life that Pascal was kept a prisoner to his room. But month 
 by month he came more completely into the doctors' 
 hands. His books were cut off ; his family had strict orders 
 to keep his mind off serious subjects. His memory began 
 
 1 Pens. 856. 
 359 
 
360 PASCAL 
 
 to go. He, who once had boasted that he did not know what 
 it was to forget, now found great difficulty in remembering 
 an idea long enough to commit it to paper. Hence it is idle 
 to look for absolute coherence in his book. ' I shall put 
 down my ideas without order,' writes Pascal himself, ' though 
 perhaps their confusion is not altogether unintentional. 
 To treat my subject systematically would be doing it too 
 much honour ; I mean to show that it is incapable of such 
 handling.' i 
 
 In other words, an adequate defence of Christianity could 
 not be written. ' Faith is a gift of God ; do not think we 
 say it is a gift of reasoning.' ^ Men might conceivably be 
 argued into accepting the geometrical God of Descartes ; 
 but no one could argue them into having a new heart. Only 
 the miracle of conversion could make clear to them what 
 rehgion really meant. ' Let us talk by the Ught of nature,' 
 says Pascal to his free-thinkers. ' If there is a God, He 
 is injBnitely incomprehensible. We cannot tell what He is, 
 or even that He is. Why, then, blame Christians for not 
 being ready with the evidences of their religion ? They 
 themselves teU you that it is stultitiam, a folly. If they 
 began to prove it, they would be eating their own words. 
 Their lack of proofs betokens anything but a lack of 
 sense.' ^ The most an Apology could hope to do was to 
 clear away the stumbling-blocks from the doubter's path, 
 and thereby lead him to the threshold of religion. There 
 he must wait till Grace unbarred the door. But what 
 were the usual stumbling-blocks ? ' Men hate and 
 despise religion,' answers Pascal ; ' but they are afraid it 
 may be true. The remedy is to begin by showing them 
 that it is not irrational. Then make them see that it is 
 worthy of respect, because it understands our nature ; and 
 that it is desirable, because it does us good. Lastly, when 
 
 > Pens. 373. = pg^_ 279. ' Pens. 233. 
 
THE APOLOGY FOE CHEISTIANITY 861 
 
 they have begun to wish it to be true, we can prove that 
 it really is so.' i 
 
 Accordingly Pascal at once attacks the first part of 
 his thesis. Eehgion is not irrational, because it rests on 
 just as sure foundations as any other branch of knowledge. 
 Which of the sciences passes for the most exact ? Clearly 
 geometry. But geometry is not made up simply of demon- 
 strations ; it starts from certain elementary assumptions of 
 space, motion, and the like. In his youth Pascal had 
 doubted whether it was right to take even these ideas for 
 granted ; but, as he grew older, he changed his mind, and 
 decided that their very simplicity dispensed them from 
 the need of proof. Common sense instinctively saw what 
 they meant ; so Pascal transferred them out of the domain 
 of reason, and classed them as ' sentiments of the heart.' 
 But, if geometers did not scruple to base all their reasoning 
 on a sentiment, why should Christians fear to do the like ? 
 ' Truth does not reach us only through the reason ; it 
 comes to us also from the heart. It is in this way that 
 we grasp first principles : time, motion, number, space. 
 Eeason has no say in the matter, and its objections go wide 
 of the mark. Our inability to prove these things only 
 shows the limits of our reasoning powers ; the sceptics 
 are quite wrong in pretending that it throws discredit 
 on our knowledge. We feel a sentiment, we draw a con- 
 clusion — both with equal certitude, although in different 
 ways. This should serve as a lesson to reason, which would 
 like to lay down the law about everything, and thinks that 
 we need no other teacher. Far from it. Would to God 
 that we had no need of reason at all, and that all our know- 
 ledge came through instinct and feeling. But Nature 
 has not vouchsafed us this boon. Only a small part of our 
 knowledge comes through this channel ; for all else we 
 must depend on reasoning. Very happy and very lawfully 
 
 1 Pens. 187. 
 
362 PASCAL 
 
 persuaded are those into whose hearts God has been pleased to 
 put an intuitive reUgion. With the rest we can only argue, 
 waiting till God awakens in their heart the instinct without 
 which all faith is but human and insufficient for salvation.' i 
 Now, however, arose a fresh difficulty. The geometers 
 pointed out that their axioms were universally accepted ; 
 whereas, on Pascal's own showing, an intuitive reUgion 
 was only given to few. Was not that enough to throw 
 grave doubts on its credibility ? Pascal answered that all 
 axioms stood or fell together. At that very moment a hot 
 debate over their vaUdity was raging between the sceptics 
 and the dogmatists — a pohte periphrasis for the followers 
 of Descartes. Cartesianism maintained the entire trust- 
 worthiness of its ' clear ideas ' : had not the Master directly 
 connected them with his geometrical God ? Scepticism 
 answered that the clearness of an idea was no guarantee of 
 its truth. For aught Cartesianism could teU, it might have 
 sprung up by chance. ' Our mind is flung into a body, 
 and there finds number, space, dimension. It reasons 
 about them ; it calls them Nature or Necessity, and cannot 
 do otherwise.' Besides, what assurance was there that 
 everyone's intuitions were ahke ? No doubt, when two men 
 talk of motion, both appear to mean the same thing ; and 
 Pascal allows that we should run small risk in betting that 
 they really do so. Still, the point is not ' certain with the 
 last degree of certitude. That is enough to cast a shade over 
 the whole question. Our natural clearness is darkened with- 
 out being altogether extinguished ; and the dogmatists are 
 hard pressed by the sceptical crew, which lives in a realm 
 of ambiguous ambiguities, whence doubt cannot banish 
 all the certitude, nor Nature put all the doubts to flight.'^ 
 Are, then, the sceptics in the right ? The dogmatists cannot 
 answer them, although they have been trying to do so ever 
 since the world began. But neither can the school of 
 
 ' Pens. 282. 2 Pens. 392. 
 
THE APOLOGY FOR CHRISTIANITY 363 
 
 Pyrrho rout the dogmatists. These are impregnable when 
 they declare that secretly the sceptic himself believes in his 
 intuitions. What else can he do ? ' Is he to question 
 everything ? Can he doubt if he is awake — if he is pinched 
 or burnt — if he is doubting — if he is ? He cannot go so 
 far as that ; I wager that a perfect sceptic never yet existed. 
 Nature comes to the aid of tottering reason, and checks 
 its ravings in mid course.' i Thus metaphysics teach the 
 geometer a salutary lesson in humility. He emerges full 
 of self-distrust, stiU clinging to his intuitions, although he 
 knows he cannot defend them ' with the sword of certitude 
 in his hand.' No longer, therefore, will he mock at the 
 ' trembhng faith ' of Port Royal. 
 
 But why should our most certain knowledge be so 
 tentative and inexact, so full of ' ambiguous ambiguities ? ' 
 Pascal bids the inquirer consider his position in the universe. 
 He is reminded that the earth is no more than a point in the 
 vast course described by the sun ; whUe that course itself 
 is but a speck on the broad bosom of Nature. ' She is a 
 sphere, whose centre is everywhere, and whose circumference 
 is nowhere to be seen. Let man, then, consider what he is 
 in comparison with the whole expanse of being. Let him 
 picture himself as lost in a blind alley of Nature ; and from 
 what he knows of his little dungeon let him learn to put its 
 proper price on the earth, on kingdoms, cities, and himself.' 
 Before the inquirer has time to draw breath, Pascal whirls 
 him off to the opposite extreme. ' A mite shall show him 
 the infinite smalhiess of its hmbs. Yet in those Hmbs are 
 joints and veins, blood in the veins, humours in the blood, 
 drops in the humours, vapours in the drops. Who wUl not 
 be amazed to find that he, whose body was just now seen to 
 be an imperceptible atom in an insignificant planet, should 
 loom Uke a colossus, a world, a universe, beside such impene- 
 trable smallness? What, then, is man's real place in 
 
 1 Pem. 434. 
 
364 PASCAL 
 
 Nature ? To infinity we are naught ; to zero we are 
 everything. We are a mean between two extremes, 
 infinitely far removed from both — aUke from the nothingness 
 whence we were taken and from the whole that swallows 
 us up. We are something, we are not everything ; and 
 the hmitations of our middle state run through all our 
 faculties ahke. Our intelUgence holds in the world of mind 
 the same rank as our body in the world of matter. Our 
 senses cannot perceive extremes. Too much noise deafens 
 us, too much hght dazzles ; too great nearness and too 
 great distance hinder our sight. Our utterances are 
 unintelligible if they are too long-winded or too concise. 
 Too much truth bewilders us. First principles are too clear 
 for us ; too much pleasure is a weariness, too much musical 
 harmony an annoyance. Too many kindnesses exasperate 
 us ; we hke to be able to keep a balance of gratitude in 
 hand. To extremes of heat and cold we are insensible. 
 Excess of anything is our enemy ; we do not feel, we suffer 
 it. Youth and old age hamper the mind ; so does too 
 much or too little knowledge. In short, all extremes 
 escape us ; they were not made for us, nor we for them. 
 That is our real state ; that is why we are equally incapable 
 of absolute ignorance and full understanding. Afloat in 
 mid-ocean, we wash to and fro between two opposite 
 infinities. We snatch at an object ; it slips through our 
 fingers, and glides away into an endless distance. Nothing 
 stays for us. We burn with desire to reach the solid rock, 
 and build thereon a tower reaching to the heavens. But 
 our Httle building cracks and falls ; the earth opens her 
 mouth, disclosing a fathomless abyss. Let us, then, give 
 over the search for certitude and assurance, and stay quietly 
 in the place that Nature has appointed for us.' i 
 
 Perhaps in this passage Pascal's rhetoric runs somewhat 
 ahead of his meaning. He has no quarrel with the rough- 
 
 • Pens. 72. 
 
THE APOLOGY FOR CHRISTIANITY 365 
 
 and-ready approximations that satisfy an average man ; 
 what he denies is that we can reach the quintessential 
 reaUty beloved by philosophers, more especially philo- 
 sophers in the service of a geometrical God. ' Here below 
 things are partly true and partly false. Such is not the 
 case with pure truth ; it would be tarnished and destroyed 
 by an alloy of falsehood. Hence, if by truth be meant 
 pure truth, we do not possess it at all.'i Why do we not 
 possess it ? Because all our knowledge is ' afloat in mid- 
 ocean ' ; it is for ever oscillating between two opposite 
 errors. Things are neither black nor white ; they are a 
 mixture of the two. But this inconclusiveness revolts us ; 
 we insist on seeing them only in one Hght. Either we over- 
 look the brighter shades and pronounce the universe 
 black, or else we pass over its darker qualities and boldly 
 call it white. Philosophers are the worst offenders, because 
 they are in the grip of their logic, and logic forces them to 
 be absolutely self-consistent. Each of them holds, as an 
 article of faith, that his characteristic method is the one 
 and only key to all the riddles of the Sphinx. Is he a 
 sceptic ? He must do his best to doubt his own existence. 
 Is he a dogmatist ? He must believe that argument alone 
 can bring him to a haven of universal certitude. But 
 experience knows nothing of these royal roads to truth ; to 
 pia one's faith to a single principle means flying straight 
 in the face of reality. ' Nature confounds the sceptic, and 
 reason the dogmatist. . . . Pyrrhonists, Stoics, Atheists — 
 all their premises are true. But all their conclusions are 
 false, because the opposite premises are also true.' 2 The 
 wise man is he who dares to be resolutely inconsistent — 
 to be sometimes one thing, sometimes another. Now he 
 will boldly demonstrate, now temper certitude with doubt, 
 doubt with blind faith. Thus he will be at once ' a Pyrrhonist, 
 a geometer, and a Christian.' 
 
 1 Pens. 385. ^ Pens. 394. 
 
366 PASCAL 
 
 Nor is this rule confined to the realm of abstract specula- 
 tion. One of the aims of Descartes was to bring metaphysics 
 out of the class-rooms into the world at large. Every 
 drawing-room had its priggish demi-savant burning to re- 
 organise the manners and customs of his neighbours on a 
 basis of pure reason. He was for ever pointing out the 
 logical absurdity of all their arrangements. Nothing, for 
 instance, vexed him more than to see an otherwise rational 
 being spend a whole day pursuing a hare, for which he would 
 not give sixpence at the poulterer's. But the demi-savant 
 had small knowledge of human nature. ' Do you see that 
 man ? ' asks Pascal. ' A few months ago he lost his only 
 son, and this morning he seemed quite broken down by his 
 quarrels and his law-suits. How has he managed to forget 
 them ? Don't be surprised. He is watching to see on which 
 side that wild boar will break out, which the hounds have 
 been after for the last six hours. That is enough for him. 
 If he can only force himself to enter thoroughly into the 
 sport, he will be happy for a while.' i But the demi-savant 
 only sighed, and went on to lament the stiU more irrational 
 habit of ranking people by their birth and fortune, instead 
 of by their brains. ' Splendid,' cries Pascal. ' He doesn't 
 want me to show respect to a man dressed in brocade, and 
 followed by seven or eight footmen. Why, he would tell 
 them to give me a thrashing, if I did not take off my hat. 
 "Wtat an excellent plan it is to distinguish people by their 
 outsides. Which of us is to give way to the other ? The 
 stupider ? I am quite as clever as he ; we should come to 
 blows on the point. He has four footmen, and I have only 
 one. That is obvious ; one has only to count them. That 
 being so, I should be a fool, if I did not let him pass. There 
 we are at peace, which is the greatest of blessings. 't^ 
 
 Disgust at the follies of the demi-savant induced Mon- 
 taigne and the Libertines to broach a doctrine which Jean 
 
 1 Pens. 139. 2 Pens. 315. 
 
THE APOLOGY FOR CHRISTIANITY 867 
 
 Jacques Rousseau will one day preach from the house-tops. 
 They said that pure reason was the plaything of ingenious 
 asses ; men were happy and prosperous in proportion as 
 they left it in the lurch, and let themselves be guided by the 
 natural instincts of the unsophisticated human heart. 
 Hence their idolatry of custom, the customs of the ' rustic 
 rout of unpoUshed men.' And no one was readier to admit 
 than Pascal that it is generally wiser to do as the Romans 
 do, when one is in Rome. But why is it wise to do so ? 
 Ought one to see in custom a revelation of the voice of our 
 great Mother — Nature ? Pascal answered that no one did 
 so. The man in the street deferred to the man in brocade, 
 because he thought it reasonable to do so ; when Rousseau 
 explains to him that it is not, he will bring the brocade to 
 the guillotine. The philosopher took off his hat, because he 
 lived in a world of fools ; and he thought that a little 
 humoiu-ing of their follies was a small price to pay for peace. 
 And with the philosopher sided the Christian, because he 
 knew that subjection to these follies was God's punishment 
 of man's transgressions. Thus everyone, except the 
 demi-savant, took Montaigne's advice ; but no one did so 
 for the reason given in the 'Essays.' Why should men? 
 "What proof had Montaigne that custom was anything more 
 than a bundle of haphazard usages consecrated by tradi- 
 tion ? ' I 'm very much afraid that Nature is only a first 
 habit, just as habit is a second nature.' i 
 
 Besides, even a Libertine would hardly maintain that 
 custom ought always and everywhere to be followed. How, 
 then, distinguish between such instincts as were undoubted 
 revelations of the voice of Nature and such as were not ? 
 How guard against the spells of the great goddess Imagina- 
 tion ? ' She is the lying spirit in man, a mistress of error 
 and deception, all the more treacherous because she is not so 
 always ; for she would be an infallible rule of truth,swere she 
 
 1 Pens. 93. 
 
368 PASCAL 
 
 an unvarying liar. This proud enemy of reason delights 
 to lord it over her foe, just to show how absolute is her power. 
 She makes the intelligence doubt, affirm, deny. The senses 
 wake or sleep at her bidding. She has her favourites and her 
 wastrels, her rich and poor, her learned and unlearned ; 
 for, although she cannot give wisdom to a fool, she can make 
 him happy. Men wise in their own conceit look down 
 upon their fellows. They argue with boldness and assur- 
 ance, whereas the truly prudent man is full of self-distrust. 
 And their cheerfulness seldom fails to gain the approval of 
 their hearers, so close is the bond between all self-opinionated 
 men. Who but this capricious faculty decrees respect to 
 persons, laws, achievements ! How little can mere riches 
 do without her consent ! She is the mainspring of nearly 
 all the actions of everyone ; for reason is routed, and the 
 wisest must fain take the caprices of his neighbours as his 
 rule.' 1 Thus the fight between reason and custom has the 
 same ending as the more abstract war between dogmatists 
 and sceptics. Live by pure reason, and we become no better 
 than demi-savants. Live by pure custom, and we put on 
 the chains of the imagination — unless, indeed, we smuggle 
 in reason to tell us when we obey custom and when to 
 disobey it. 
 
 But is reason equal to this task ? Can it make any 
 headway at all against its ' proud enemy ? ' Pascal brings 
 instance after instance to show how the imagination warps 
 and discolours all our judgments. Ideas do not attract us 
 because our intellect thinks them true, but because our 
 imagination finds them piquantly new or picturesquely old. 
 With most men reason goes to the wall, whenever their own 
 interests are at stake ; though a few scrupulous beings go 
 to the opposite extreme, and cannot be persuaded to decide 
 a point in their own favour. Set the greatest of philosophers 
 on a plank above a precipice ; his reason may tell him that 
 
 1 Pens. 82. 
 
THE APOLOGY FOB CHEISTIANITY S69 
 
 he is safe, but his imagination will not believe it. We can 
 scarcely see a barrister got up in gown and bands without 
 feeling that he is the man to win our case. If doctors gave 
 up riding about on mules, if professors threw aside their 
 mortar-boards and robes, they would soon lose all hold on 
 the world. Soldiers alone can dispense with these trappings, 
 for they have force at their back. ' Think of the Sultan 
 in his superb seraglio surrounded by forty thousand Janis- 
 saries. Pure indeed must be the reason that sees in him 
 a mortal man.' i Nay, reason cannot even protect itself 
 against external accidents. ' The mind of this sovereign 
 judge of the Universe is not so free and independent but that 
 it may be thrown off its balance by the slightest noise. 
 You need not trouble to let off a cannon ; a creaking weather- 
 cock or a pulley would do quite as well. Don't wonder if he 
 is a Uttle incoherent. A fly is buzzing round his ears. If 
 you want truth to dawn upon him, you must drive away the 
 insect that holds the master-spirit of a realm at bay.' 2 
 
 Still less can reason keep in check what Descartes would 
 call the automatic side of our mind. The demi-savants 
 talked as though all human nature was built on the pattern 
 of Fontenelle, of whom Mme. de Tencin said that he had a 
 second supplementary brain in the place where most people 
 kept their heart. Most men are not Fontenelles. As well 
 as a brain they have bones and muscles, blood and nerves ; 
 and these seldom answer at once to the rudder of pure reason. 
 Yet reason cannot get on without them ; Malebranche hit 
 the nail on the head when he said that a pure idea had not 
 strength of its own to pick a straw off the ground. If reason 
 wishes to move the world it must not disdain the help of 
 these humbler but more vigorous aUies. But how is it to 
 gain control of them ? Pascal points to custom. Custom 
 may not be as ' natural ' as Montaigne supposed, but what 
 is customary has an undoubted knack of becoming second 
 
 1 Pens. 82. ' Pens. 366. 
 
§70 1>AS0AL 
 
 nature. ' We must not misunderstand ourselves. We have 
 a body as well as a mind ; and therefore we are not swayed 
 by proof alone. It merely appeals to the reason ; whereas 
 custom appeals to the senses, and these drag the under- 
 standing after them without giving it time to reflect. Hence 
 we must look to custom for our deepest, strongest proofs. 
 It has made many a Christian ; it makes Turks and pagans ; 
 it determines walks in life. Intellectual convictions are- 
 worth little if the mechanical side of our nature is set in the 
 opposite direction : we must gain over our whole self. So 
 soon as we know where truth lies we must ask custom to soak 
 and steep us in that belief. For we cannot always be carry- 
 ing proofs about in our mind ; it is much easier to believe 
 by force of habit. This uses neither violence, nor artifice, 
 nor argument ; but all unconsciously it brings a certain 
 bias into play, and into that our mind falls naturally.' i 
 
 On this principle Pascal wiU advise his free-thinker, 
 at a certain stage in his conversion, to live as though he 
 aheady were a Catholic. ' Have Masses said, and take holy 
 water ; naturally that will stupefy you, and make you 
 believe.' This famous passage does not mean that a man 
 may lawfully hocus himself into accepting a creed which 
 he knows to be untrue ; all Pascal maintains is that our 
 ' machine ' — our instincts, habits, associations— will never 
 keep pace with our brain unless we call in custom to get them 
 out of an old groove into a new one. For the same purpose 
 we shall do well to make use of emotion. The demi-savants 
 sneered at the passions ; Pascal pronounced them a most 
 valuable spur. Even love of applause was a tonic, so long 
 as a man was not tempted to make it an end in itself. 
 'Abraham took nothing for himself, but only for his 
 servants. So from the world and its plaudits the wise 
 man takes nothing for himself, but only for his passions. 
 Over them he is master. He says to them Come and Go ; 
 
 ' Pen*. 252. 
 
THE APOLOGY FOE CHRISTIANITY 371 
 
 under thee shall be thy desire. Thus disciplined, they become 
 virtues. God attributes to Himself avarice, jealousy, and 
 wrath ; these are just as much virtues as steadfastness, 
 mercy, or long-suffering, which are also passions. We must 
 treat them as slaves ; we must leave them their rations, 
 taking good care that these never reach the soul ; for, if it 
 eats of them it is poisoned.' i 
 
 If the passions must be slaves, who would be their task- 
 master ? Clearly the will — that is, the character acting as a 
 whole, as distinct from the sporadic desires. How it was to 
 bring them into subjection is explained at length by Pascal's 
 contemporary, the Oratorian Senault. But Senault, 
 foUowiug the usual practice of his time, drew an absolute 
 distinction between the provinces of will and understanding. 
 To form right judgments belonged to reason alone ; will 
 alone was answerable for putting them into execution. 
 Reason, in short, was the Judge of Assize, will the High 
 Sheriff. To Pascal this hard-and-fast division of function 
 seemed utterly untrue to fact. Jansen had long ago taught 
 him that the Moi and its inclinations lie at the root of our 
 seemingly most dispassionate judgments : not that it 
 actually dictates them, but it makes one argument appeal 
 to us and another leave us cold. And we are powerless to 
 protect ourselves, for we caimot put our finger on the spot 
 where the influence of the will begins to tell. We do not even 
 know that it is telling ; we think that we are just as much 
 guided by pure logic as does the suitor in Pascal's own 
 ' Essay on Love.' Why is Cleonte so devoted to Lucile ? 
 Because he thinks her the most adorable of her sex. But, 
 for all his friends can see, she is no better than twenty other 
 girls. How has he managed to discover in her graces 
 invisible to everyone else ? He cannot say ; all he knows is 
 that the evidence of her charms is quite unmistakable to 
 him. That being so, Pascal pronounces all the blessings of 
 
 > Pem. 502. 
 
 BB 2 
 
372 PASCAL 
 
 reason on his suit. He need not be discouraged if his 
 friends fail to enter into his feehngs. He himself would not 
 have noticed half her attractions had not affection sharpened 
 his eye-sight. On the other hand, these are none the less 
 real, none the less valid proof at the bar of reason, because 
 they are discovered to him by love instead of by objective 
 scientific inquiry. 
 
 This principle once established, Pascal claims to have 
 fulfilled the first part of his engagement. He has shown 
 that religion is not irrational ; it is no more superstitious 
 to believe in God than to believe in Euclid. He has shown 
 that the two great rivals of Christianity — the geometrical 
 God of Descartes and the No-God of Montaigne — involve 
 metaphysical difficulties at least as great as belief in the 
 Gospel. He has shown that it is no argument against the 
 truth of reHgion to say that many competent critics reject it. 
 Pascal is perfectly willing to assume, so long as he is ' talking 
 by the light of Nature,' that the arguments for and against 
 the truth of Christianity evenly balance each other. Speak- 
 ing from the purely intellectual standpoint, there are good 
 reasons for believing in God, good reasons for rejecting Him ; 
 and neither side has a right to fling reproaches at its rival. 
 Christians, indeed, will have a far deeper assurance of the 
 truth of their religion than any Libertine can have of its 
 falsity ; but that assurance does not rest on logic, but on the 
 miracle of conversion. Grace opens their eyes to the truths 
 of faith, just as love— a carnal symbol of grace — opened the 
 eyes of Cleonte to the charms of Lucile. UntU God speaks 
 decisively, however, these truths wUl remain as tentative 
 and uncertain, as full of ' ambiguous ambiguities,' as any 
 other branch of knowledge. Libertines asked why this should 
 be so. Why did not God declare Himself plainly ? Why 
 did He not write His message to man across the face 
 of the sun ? A disciple of Saint Cyran was at no loss for an 
 answer. ' God wishes to strengthen our will more than our 
 
THE APOLOGY FOR CHEISTIANITY 873 
 
 reason. Too great clearness would be agreeable enough to 
 reason, but would slacken the fibres of our will. . . . 
 Eeligion is so great a thing that it is only fair that those 
 who will not take the trouble to seek should be forced to 
 go without it.' 1 
 
 How, then, persuade the free-thinker to seek ? Plainly 
 by persuading him that religion is ' worthy of respect, 
 because it understands our nature, and desirable, because 
 it does us good.' Why is it desirable, and how does it 
 do us good ? Pascal throws his answer into a form 
 congenial to the gay young Libertines who hung round 
 Miton and Mere. ' You must bet,' he says to them, ' for or 
 against the existence of God ! ' The Libertine draws back ; 
 his reason tells him that there is much to be said on both 
 sides of the question. Pascal answers that, if reason blows 
 hot and cold, its utterances may be disregarded ; but no one 
 can afford to disregard his happiness. But our happiness 
 depends on our conduct. We shall certainly live in one way 
 if we believe that there is a God : we shall as certainly live 
 in another if we doubt or deny his existence. The free- 
 thinker declares it unreasonable to sacrifice the certain 
 pleasures of this life to the bare chance of finding an 
 avenging Deity in the next. ' But what do you lose by 
 taking the risk ? ' asks Pascal. ' You will be faithful, honest, 
 humble, grateful, generous — a staunch friend. It is true that 
 you must give up various poisoned luxuries and pleasures : 
 but will you not have others ? I tell you, you will be a 
 gainer, even in this life. At every step you take you will 
 see that the gain is so certain, the sacrifice so small, that 
 you will end by recognising that you have bought in a sure 
 and infinite reversion for no price at all.' ^ 
 
 With this argument of the bet begins the second part of 
 Pascal's Apology. Laplace and others have found fault 
 with his calculations, and argued that the free-thinker's 
 
 1 Pens. 574, 581. = Pens. 233. 
 
374 PASCAL 
 
 chances of gain are by no means so great as Pascal would 
 have him suppose. But Pascal is not asking him to gamble 
 on the chance of one day securing a place in some ' ridiculous 
 Paradise of the senses.' What he has undertaken to prove 
 is that, even in this life, the shortest road to happiness lies 
 through the gates of the Church. That this should be so is 
 the strongest argument in favour of rehgion ; for the desire 
 of happiness is the fundamental fact in human nature. 
 ' Despite all their miseries men wish to be happy. They 
 cannot help wishing to be happy, and they wish for nothing 
 else. But how are they to set about it ? To succeed 
 they must make themselves immortal ; and that they cannot 
 do. So they have made up their minds not to think about 
 their mortality at all.' i Pascal now sets himself to show 
 that this resolve is easier to make than to accomphsh. Men 
 cannot help ' thinking about their mortality ' however much 
 Montaigne and Saint Evremond may try to prevent them. 
 The death's-head has a way of forcing its grisly presence 
 into every feast. 'It is a horrible thing to feel all we have 
 slipping from us bit by bit.' ' Between us and an eternity 
 of weal or woe there is only hfe, the frailest plank in the 
 world.' Think of a number of men in chains, all lying under 
 sentence of death. Every day a few are slaughtered within 
 sight of the rest. These look at each other in utter despair, 
 as they stand waiting their turn. That is a picture of the 
 condition of man.' ^ 
 
 Bitter as these reflections may be to the individual palate, 
 they taste still more bitterly to mankind at large. ' Man 
 was created only for infinity,' wrote Pascal in a youthful 
 scientific pamphlet : but where look for infinity in a race 
 poised for a moment on the crust of a ball of fire ? To doubt 
 immortaHty was far more than an ecclesiastical heresy ; it 
 impUcitly denied that life could offer any value, meaning, 
 purpose. Hence, Pascal has many a hard word for the 
 1 Pens. 169. 2 Pens. 199, 212, 213. 
 
THE APOLOGY FOE CHEISTIANITY 875 
 
 philosophers who pretend to make morahty independent 
 of the problem whether there is a future life. How can any 
 man leave that an open question ? ' It needs no very noble 
 heart to see that here below there is no sure resting-place for 
 us. Our pleasures are vain, our miseries infinite ; while 
 death, which threatens us every moment, brings with it the 
 horrible alternative of eternal nothingness or eternal woe. 
 Play the hero as much as we like, that is the end which awaits 
 the most brilliant career. Ponder the matter, and who will 
 deny that the one real good this life can offer is the hope of 
 a hereafter ? There is no sorrow for those who have a firm 
 faith in immortality ; there is no happiness for those who 
 have not this assurance.' i 
 
 Men only manage to forget the truth by living a life of 
 long-drawn self-deception. ' We head straight for the rocks 
 after we have put something in front of them to keep them 
 out of sight.' 2 Even age and experience seldom tear the 
 blinkers from our eyes. ' It strikes me that Csesar was too 
 old to start conquering the world. That amusement was 
 all very well for lads like Alexander or Augustus, but at 
 Csesar's age he should have known better.' ^ He had lived 
 long enough to see what Dead Sea apples such conquests are. 
 Even if we lay hold of them for a moment the most trumpery 
 accident is enough to dash them from our hand. ' Cromwell 
 had Christendom at his mercy. The Royal Family would 
 have been for ever lost, and his own seated firmly on the 
 throne, had not a little grain of sand settled in his passages.' * 
 Ridiculous as was his end, other masters of the world fared 
 even worse than he. His fall, at any rate, was due to 
 accident, not to his own folly ; whereas Mark Antony 
 deliberately threw himself away for a trifle hardly less 
 contemptible than a grain of sand. ' To plumb the very 
 depths of man's futility it is only necessary to consider the 
 
 1 Pens. 194. ^ PeM.'JSS. 
 
 3 Ptne. 132, ■* Pens\n&, 
 
376 PASCAL 
 
 causes and effects of love. Corneille calls its cause a " je ne 
 sais quoi" ; yet this little insignificant " je ne sais quoi " is 
 enough to plunge kingdoms into war. The world would wear 
 a different face if Cleopatra's nose had been a Uttle shorter.' i 
 Yet schemes of conquest continue to haunt great minds 
 and small. Life is one long meaningless scurry hither and 
 thither. ' We never keep a tight hold on the present. We 
 seize the future by the fore-lock as though to hasten its 
 approach ; or else we recall the past to check the swiftness 
 of its flight. Our thoughtless folly rambles through ages 
 that do not belong to us and neglects the only one with 
 which we have any concern. We never make the present 
 our aim. Past and present are our means : our end is the 
 future. We do not hve : we only hope one day to do so. 
 And, inasmuch as all our time is spent in getting ready to be 
 happy, it follows that we never are so.' ^ So blind are we 
 that we do not see that success would prove our ruin. We 
 do not care for things once they are ours ; what we enjoy 
 is running after them. The excitement of the chase is worth 
 far more to us than the kill. Why is this ? ' Musing over 
 the different ways men spend their time, and the pains and 
 perils they affront, I hit on the discovery that all their 
 miseries spring from the fact that they cannot stay quietly 
 in a room. A man of good fortune would never cross the 
 sea could he but be happy at home ; commissions in the 
 army would fetch a lower price, routs and gaming-tables be 
 less thronged, did men find their own fire-side more tolerable. 
 But when I looked closely into the matter, I found that they 
 had some show of reason on their side ; for we should sink 
 beneath the wretchedness of our frail mortal state were it 
 always present to our mind. That is why men crave so 
 madly for bustle and amusement ; that is why prison is so 
 terrible a punishment, and the pleasures of solitude beyond 
 our understanding. Hence, when we reproach them for 
 
 ' ' Pens. 162. = Pens 172. 
 
THE APOLOGY FOR CHRISTIANITY 877 
 
 their futility, our censures are apt to go wide of the mark. 
 Their fault does not lie in seeking distraction for its own 
 sake : it lies in supposing that they would be happy if only 
 they could reach the shadows they pursue. They seek 
 repose by overcoming obstacles — only to find that, when the 
 obstacles are overcome, repose is unendurable. But, even 
 if their path were altogether clear of stumbling-blocks, 
 ennui would still assert its indefeasible right of entry. Out 
 of its lair in the heart it would creep, and scatter venom 
 over the whole face of things. Such is man's misery, that the 
 very law of his being forces tedium upon him, even when no 
 obvious cause of tedium is at hand. Such is his frivolity, 
 that the veriest trifle — as for iastance, pushing a billiard-ball 
 with a cue — ^is enough to distract his thoughts.' i 
 
 So notorious is our discontent that the Libertines often 
 take it as their text, when they inveigh against the dignity 
 of human nature, and degrade it below the level of the 
 beasts. These stand in no need of distraction ; as Father 
 Garasse's tormentors said — they browse peacefully along, 
 enjoying the fruits of Nature's bounty as they go. Pascal 
 answers that the Libertine argument proves too much. 
 The beasts are not wretched, because they are dumb 
 unreasoning brutes. Man is wretched because he is 
 something more than a brute. The beasts do not seek 
 distraction, because they are in the state that Nature 
 appointed for them. Man seeks distraction because he 
 is not in his rightful state ; but he seeks in vain because 
 he does not know what his true state is. Looked at in one 
 light his craving for amusement is contemptibly absurd ; 
 looked at in another, it bears witness to the strength of an 
 ideal stirring half-consciously within him. Even his vices 
 tell the same tale. At first sight what could seem more 
 ignobly infra-human than his vanity ? ' Horses,' says the 
 Libertine, ' do not admire themselves or their stable- 
 
 1 Pens. 139. 
 
878 PASCAL 
 
 companions. They may feel a little jealousy on the race- 
 track, but that soon passes off. The slower and heavier 
 animal never gives up its oats to the faster, as men expect 
 their fellows to do. At the manger virtue is its own 
 reward.' i Now cast a glance at the horse's rider. ' We are 
 never satisfied with appearing to be what we really are : we 
 want to live a fictitious existence in the minds of our neigh- 
 bours — that is why we pose. We spend endless pains on 
 embellishing our imaginary self, and we let the real one go 
 to the wall. Indeed, we would do ourselves any violence 
 rather than that it should suffer. There is no act of cowardice 
 we would not commit if we could thereby gain a reputation 
 for valour.' ' Vanity has struck such deep roots in our 
 heart that a common soldier, a hodman, a scullion, a ticket- 
 porter rates himself highly, and must have his admirers. 
 So also must philosophers. And those who write tracts 
 against vaia-glory must have the glory of having written 
 well. And those who read the tracts must have the glory 
 of having read well. And perhaps I, who write this, have 
 
 the same desire. And perhaps my readers ? ' ' We are 
 
 so presumptuous that we wish our name known all over 
 the world, even by generations still to come. At the same 
 time we are so petty that we are satisfied with the applause 
 of half a dozen cronies.' ^ 
 
 All this Pascal fully admitted. But he went on to urge 
 that even vanity could show a redeeming touch. ' The 
 worst trait in man is his thirst for glory, but it is also the 
 chief mark of his excellence. Whatever degree of health, 
 comfort, riches he enjoys, he is not happy, unless he stands 
 well with his fellows. So great is his respect for human 
 reason, that its approval seems to him the greatest honour 
 there can be. Nothing can stop him from desiring it ; 
 this is the most ineradicable of our instincts. And even 
 those who feel the most contempt for man, and liken him 
 ' Pens. 401. ^ p^^s. 147, 148, 150. 
 
THE APOLOGY FOR CHEISTIANITY 379 
 
 to the brutes, look eagerly for his applause, and thus give the 
 lie to their own sneers; for their nature, which always 
 has the last word, speaks up more strongly for his grandeur 
 than does their reason for his littleness.' i Nor was it only 
 on this point that the Libertines betrayed the interests of 
 their cause ; on all sides their practice was the best answer 
 to their preaching. They passed their lives in pouring 
 scorn on reason and moral austerity ; yet into this crusade 
 against ideals they threw an energy and devotion worthy of 
 Du Vair himself. Pascal was the first to admit that ' extra- 
 ordinary greatness of soul ' was needed to make a Montaigne. 
 ' A certain kind of evil is almost as difficult as good, and 
 for that reason is often mistaken for it.' ^ What was all this 
 but saying that there is an inexpugnable element of inborn 
 dignity in man ? Perverse ingenuity may force it to find 
 unnatural outlets, but no amount of ingeunity can stop it 
 from rising to the surface. 
 
 StiQ, saying that Montaigne went wrong was by no means 
 saying that his Stoic adversaries were right. They took for 
 granted that the grandeur of man more than outweighed 
 his littleness. Come what might he could always master 
 his passions and ignore the buffetings of fate, since nothing 
 could force his reason to believe what it knew to be untrue 
 or his wiU to love what it knew would be to its hurt. But 
 the ' Augustinus 'had made an end of this ' devUish arrogance ' 
 once for all ; and Pascal will claim that all human experience 
 bears out the truth of Jansen's theology. ' What I would, 
 that do I not ; but what I hate, that do I,' is the last 
 word on human nature. In this world men cannot be good 
 or happy ; they cannot help wishing to be both. They 
 will still go on forming ideals, however much Montaigne 
 may try to prevent them ; they will still turn back from 
 the plough, whatever Epictetus and Du Vair may say 
 to urge them forward. Following the usual practice of 
 
 1 Pens. 404. ^ Pens. 408. 
 
880 PASCAL 
 
 their kind, each school of philosophers has seen one half of 
 the truth, and shut its eyes to the other. ' Finding that our 
 soul is the seat of an endless war between reason and the 
 passions, lovers of peace have split up into two rival factions. 
 Some have tried to crush their passions, and become as 
 gods ; others have wished to stifle their reason, and live 
 like brute beasts. But they have none of them succeeded. 
 Reason remains as an accusing spirit, to harass the peace 
 of those who give way to their passions ; and the passions 
 still remain alive in those most anxious to renounce them.' i 
 Thus does philosophy forfeit all claim to be ' worthy of 
 respect because it understands our nature.' Neither 
 Stoics nor Epicureans can explain the paradox of man — 
 why he is alike ' the judge of all things and a worm of earth, 
 the treasury of truth and a sink of errors, the pride and 
 refuse of the Universe.' 
 
 So from the philosophers Pascal turned suddenly away 
 to religion. Original Sin can alone account for the endless 
 contradictions of our nature. Had we not fallen from a 
 higher estate we should not know that we were wretched. 
 Pain and death would not appear as ' miseries of a great lord, 
 miseries of an exiled king ' : they would seem as natural 
 to us as they do to the beasts. That we might ourselves 
 be beasts engaged in slowly and painfully ravelling off our 
 bestiality was an hypothesis that Pascal did not deign to 
 consider. Ideas of evolution and development had not 
 yet spread beyond the strictly scientific field ; nor will 
 they ever find much favour with the conscience of Port 
 Royal. To speak of progress is to call up the idea of a 
 strong man battling with external obstacles. But to the 
 Puritan sin is far too awful a reality to be dismissed as a 
 mere external obstacle. The evil does not lie in things : 
 its seat is within his own heart. Not for him is the ' Justum 
 at tenacem propositi ' of Epictetus and Du Vair. He does 
 
 ' Pens. 413. 
 
THE APOLOGY FOR CHRISTIANITY 381 
 
 not stand erect amid the ruins of a falling world. He is a 
 house arrayed against itself. If one side of his nature is 
 the strong man struggling, another side is the traitor in 
 the camp. Necessarily, therefore, he looks on himself as 
 depraved rather than as simply imperfect ; and the legend 
 of Adam's Pall supplies him with an explanation of this 
 depravity. ' Strange as it may seem,' says Pascal, ' the 
 one thiag that throws light on the riddle of our nature is 
 the unfathomable mystery of the transmission of guUt. 
 Certainly it shocks our reason. Nothing runs more counter 
 to the priQciples of our miserable justice than eternally to 
 damn a child incapable of reason for a crime committed 
 six thousand years before its birth. Yet without this 
 most incomprehensible of mysteries we are incomprehensible 
 to ourselves. The whole warp and woof of our nature 
 twists and twines round this abyss ; so that man is more 
 inconceivable without this mystery than the mystery is 
 inconceivable to him.' i 
 
 But religion is much more than ' worthy of respect 
 because it understands our nature ' : it is also ' desirable 
 because it does us good.' Thereby it scores a final triumph 
 over the philosophers. Blinded by their respective half- 
 truths, these refuse to recognise the double element in man. 
 The Stoics, on principle, ignore his dignity, and they are 
 eaten up by pride. The Epicureans overlook his weakness, 
 and they sink into an ignoble Ustlessness and sloth. ' The 
 Christian rehgion alone can cope with these two opposite 
 vices. It does not need to play off one against the other, as 
 would the wisdom of the world : the simplicity of the 
 Gospel drives out both alike. For, although it brings the 
 righteous into the Presence of God Himself, it teaches that 
 they are still subject to corruption, to error and misery, sin 
 and death ; while to the worst of sinners it declares that 
 they are still capable of receivuig the Grace of their Redeemer. 
 
 1 Pens. 434. 
 
382 PASCAL 
 
 Thus nicely does it temper hope and fear. It gives cause 
 for trembling to all whom it justifies, and cause for comfort 
 to all whom it condemns. It exalts man far higher than does 
 the pride of Nature, yet does not puff him up ; it abases him 
 far lower than does reason, yet bids him not despair.' i 
 
 Thereby Christianity distinguishes itself not only from 
 philosophy, but also from other religions. Pascal's glance 
 wanders for a moment over its chief rivals : the Stoical 
 God of Epictetus and Du Vair, the geometrical God of 
 Descartes, the Providence of Israel — ' supreme Disposer 
 of the lives and fortunes of men Who crowns His worshippers 
 with length of days.' What do such Divinities care about 
 the miseries of man ? To Epictetus, to Descartes, to the 
 Rabbis these are mere despicable accidents, not an integral 
 part of his nature. But Christianity is expressly founded 
 on a recognition of his wretchedness. ' The Incarnation 
 is a measure of the greatness of our need by the greatness of 
 the remedy for which it called.' 2 So far from overlooking 
 our miseries its one object is to cure them. ' Jesus Christ 
 did little but tell men that they loved themselves, that they 
 were slaves and sinners, blind and sick. Therefore He must 
 heal and deliver them, must enlighten and restore ; and 
 to this end they must hate themselves and follow Him 
 through affliction to the death of the Cross. '^ Thereby 
 our miseries are more than recognised, more than cured. 
 By the Incarnation of the Man of Sorrows pain is actually 
 taken up into the Godhead. So far from being an obstacle 
 to fellowship it becomes the strongest link between man 
 and his Maker. ' God, Who so lovest bodies exercised 
 by suffering,' wrote Pascal in his youthful ' Prayers in 
 Sickness,' ' be pleased to accept my body — not for its own 
 sake, nor for anything it contains, for all deserves Thy 
 wrath — but for the evils it endures, which alone deserve 
 Thy Love.' 
 
 1 Pens. 435. s Pens. 526. " Pens. 545. 
 
THE APOLOGY FOE CHRISTIANITY 883 
 
 Thenceforward Pascal's -whole argument centres in the 
 Person of the Redeemer. God the Father is a bare idea, an 
 abstract Essence of Divinity endlessly remote from us ; 
 as the German philosophers say, He is ' keine dramatische 
 Person.' But in the Son the Divinity is humanised without 
 ceasing to be God. ' We only know God through Jesus 
 Christ. Without this Mediator all intercourse with God 
 is broken off. All those who have tried to prove God 
 independently of Jesus Christ have been grievously hampered 
 in their task. Without Scripture, without Original Sin, 
 without the promise of a Mediator and its fulfilment, 
 we can have no convincing proof of God, no sound doctrine 
 or moraUty. But by Jesus Christ and through Jesus Christ 
 we can prove God ; we have a doctrine and a moral law. 
 Therefore Jesus Christ is the true God of men.' i Nay, He 
 is the only God of men. To Him the Father has made 
 over aU authority and power : whatever is accepted by 
 the One becomes acceptable to the Other. ' God only 
 regards mankind in Jesus Christ. . . . Our prayers and 
 virtues are abominable before God, unless they are the 
 prayers of Jesus Christ.' Through Him alone the Universe 
 gians a meaning. ' After all, the sceptics are right. Before 
 Jesus Christ came men did not know where they stood nor 
 whether they were great or small. . . . Not only do we only 
 know God through Jesus Christ : we only know ourselves 
 through Jesus Christ. Apart from Jesus Christ, we can 
 put no meaning on life or death or God or ourselves.' ^ 
 
 Pascal is now ready to approach the third part of his 
 undertaking. Hitherto he has only proved that religion is 
 ' desirable because it does us good.' It was still possible 
 for a Libertine to turn round and say that what seemed 
 desirable was not necessarily true. How, then, prove the 
 truth of religion ? Or rather, since religion centred in the 
 Divinity of Christ, how prove that Jesus Christ was God ? 
 
 1 Pens. 5i7. = Pens. 432, 548. 
 
384 PASCAL 
 
 Clearly the simplest way of doing this was to show that the 
 Redeemer's appearance on earth set aside the laws of Nature 
 in some strikingly miraculous way. For this reason many 
 divines have insisted on the Virgin Birth of Jesus ; and 
 Pascal turned aside for a moment to bring some startling 
 physiological arguments in its support. i But these only 
 made the miracle a httle more easy of behef to those already 
 inclined to accept it ; they had small weight with a free- 
 thinker. Will, then, Pascal anticipate Bossuet by writing a 
 ' Discourse on Universal History ' to show that ' Jesus 
 Christ is the goal of all things and the centre to which all 
 tend ? ' Some such idea, perhaps, flitted through his 
 mind. ' Grand it is for the eye of faith to see Darius and 
 Cyrus, Alexander, the Romans, Pompey and Herod, working 
 without their knowledge for the glory of the Gospel.' ^ But 
 there is little room for the miraculous in a urdversal history ; 
 there the ' thunder-bolts and visible upsets of Grace ' 
 soon fade away in the glare of natural origins and causes. 
 Even Bossuet ended by admitting that it was the will of God 
 that every great event should have its roots in the ages that 
 went before it. Hence, if Pascal wished to have convincing 
 proofs of a miracle, he must look elsewhere. 
 
 He found what he wanted in the history of the Jews. 
 Thanks to Israel, and Israel alone, the true God had always 
 been worshipped since the beginning of time. And, since 
 the Old Law was only a foreshadowing of the New, it follows 
 that, in a certain sense, Christianity is ' as old as the Creation.' 
 Prom this premise Matthew Tindal and the Deists will 
 presently infer that it is not miraculous ; Pascal draws 
 a precisely opposite conclusion. That rehgion should always 
 have existed is due to nothing less than one continual 
 miracle. And the miracle is fitly enshrined in the history 
 of the Jews. In all respects they are unique. They are at 
 once the oldest and the most indestructible of races. ' The 
 
 1 Pens. 222. » Pens. 701. 
 
THE APOLOGY FOR CHRISTIANITY 385 
 
 peoples of Greece and Italy, of Sparta, Athens, Rome, came 
 
 into being long after them, and have long been gone. But 
 
 the Jews remain, although great kings have a hundred 
 
 times compassed their destruction.' i Under Louis XIV 
 
 they still continue, always a tribe apart and always in 
 
 misery. ' They continue because their survival is necessary 
 
 to the proof of Jesus Christ ; they are in misery because 
 
 they crucified Him.' ^ Wherever they go they carry with 
 
 them a Book utterly unlike the work of any other writer. 
 
 ' Homer avowedly wrote a romance, and everybody took 
 
 it to be such. How very different is this book, written 
 
 to amuse a people, from a Book that makes a people ! ' ^ 
 
 For the Book of the Jews contains their Law ; and that Law 
 
 is at once the oldest, the best, and the most lasting that 
 
 the world has ever seen. ' Josephus against Afion, and 
 
 Philo the Jew, in various places show that it is so ancient that 
 
 the very word law did not come into use for a thousand years 
 
 after its institution. It is so perfect that the greatest 
 
 Greek and Roman law-givers borrowed from it, as is shown 
 
 by what they call the Twelve Tables, and other cases 
 
 quoted by Josephus. But the strange thing is that it is also 
 
 the hardest and sternest of all laws, imposing on its votaries 
 
 all manner of irksome and peculiar observances under 
 
 pain of death. All the more wonder that so headstrong and 
 
 rebellious a people should have kept it so strictly for hundreds 
 
 of years. Other States have much milder laws, and yet 
 
 are always changing them.' * Pascal is quick to point the 
 
 moral. ' The one rehgion that has always been before the 
 
 world is also the only one that runs directly counter to the 
 
 common sense and the natural inclinations of man.' ^ And 
 
 what is that but one continual miracle ? 
 
 Still, Israel did much more than bear witness to the 
 
 vitality of the religious instinct in general ; its special 
 
 1 Pens. 620. ^ Pens. 640. ^ Perw. 628. 
 
 < Pejw. 620. ^ Pens. 605. 
 
386 IPASCAL 
 
 mission was to prove Jesus Christ. Judaism was saturated 
 through and through with the two doctrines that Pascal 
 declares to constitute ' almost the whole of Christianity ' — 
 the fall of man in Adam, and his deliverance by a Redeemer. 
 Passages from the Old Testament affirming the first point 
 were easy enough to find ; and a French divine having 
 lately edited the ' Pugio Pidei ' — a defence of Christianity 
 against the Jews and Arabs written by Raymond Martin, 
 a medieval Spanish friar learned in Cabbalistic lore — 
 Pascal scoured it for proofs that the doctrine of Original Sin 
 never died out among the Rabbis. Naturally, however, the 
 Messianic tradition took up the chief part of his attention. 
 That the Jews had always expected a Deliverer was a highly 
 significant fact. But they had done more than expect ; 
 a long chain of their prophets had foretold the time and 
 manner of his coming. What if it could be shown that 
 their prophecies were fulfilled in Jesus Christ ? That 
 would be enough of a miracle to impress the most inveterate 
 free-thinker. ' Suppose a single man had left behind him 
 a book predicting when and how Jesus Christ would come : 
 that, in itself, would be an argument of infinite force. But 
 there is much more here. For four thousand years a whole 
 succession of prophets follow each other in foretelling His 
 advent. For four thousand years a whole people is His 
 harbinger, and bears corporate witness to a hope and 
 expectation beyond the power of any threats or persecutions 
 to shake.' i 
 
 Now, however, arose a difficulty. The prophecies 
 announced the coming of a great temporal Prince. Pascal 
 accordingly spent much time in showing that they were 
 unintelligible, unless understood in a purely figurative sense ; 
 and that Jansen was right in saying that the whole Old 
 Testament, magna quaedam quasi comoedia, was simply 
 an allegorical foreshadowing of the New. The Ark, the 
 ' Pens. 710. 
 
THE APOLOGY FOR CHRISTIANITY 387 
 
 passage through the Red Sea, the fat land of Canaan were 
 not intended as Divine favours to the Jews ; their only 
 aim and object was to be a parable of Redemption. Why, 
 then, did the Jews understand them in a literal sense ? 
 Because their mind was set on carnal things. They were 
 as little able to enter into the spirit of true religion as were 
 Escobar and the carnal Catholics, who thought that 
 their Messiah had brought them sacraments that made 
 them holy without any effort of their own. ' One and the 
 same veil hangs over Scripture for Jews, bad Christians, and 
 all who do not hate themselves. But how easy it is for 
 those who do hate themselves to understand Scripture, 
 and know Jesus Christ ! ' i Thus to be rejected of the Jews 
 was only an added proof in favour of the true Messiah. 
 ' Thereby they put the crowning stroke on His glory. Their 
 only reason for refusing Him — the only reason given by the 
 Talmud and the Rabbis — was that He did not subdue the 
 nations by force of arms. Is that all they have to say ? 
 " He failed and died," they answer ; "He did not vanquish 
 the heathen, and enrich us with their spoil." Is that all 
 they have to say ? That is the very reason why I love Him. 
 I would not have the Messiah of their fancy.' ^ 
 
 Thus the history of Israel was fraught with a terrible 
 warning to Escobar and his like. Well might they ask them- 
 selves whether they also had not mistaken the figurative 
 for the literal sense of things, and performed all the external 
 duties of Catholicism without possessing one spark of 
 Christianity. But why should either Jews or Christians 
 be exposed to such a risk ? Why did not God speak out 
 more plainly ? Because the business of religion was to try 
 the heart and reins, and thereby separate spiritual from 
 carnal minds. Hence the great stumbling-blocks in the 
 way of belief were not intellectual, but moral. ' The 
 prophecies, miracles, and other proofs of our religion cannot 
 
 ' Perns. 676. 2 Pens. 760. 
 
 CO 2 
 
388 PASCAL 
 
 be called absolutely convincing. On the other hand, it 
 is impossible to say that there is no reason for believing 
 them. The evidence in their favour is stronger — or, at any 
 rate, as strong — as the evidence against them. Hence, if 
 we refuse to accept them, the fault does not lie with our 
 reason, but with the selfish Ul-will of our heart. Thus 
 there is proof enough to condemn, but not enough to con- 
 vince ; and therefore there can be no denying that belief 
 is determined by Grace, not reason, and unbelief by wicked- 
 ness.' 1 Nor were matters bettered when the bare evidence 
 was beyond aU doubt. Eeason might grapple successfully 
 with the purely intellectual aspects of a spiritual truth, 
 but no amount of reason could save a man from mistaking 
 its figurative for its literal sense. ' God caused the Messiah 
 to be foretold in such a way that the righteous would certainly 
 recognise Him, and the ungodly would not. Had the 
 manner of His coming been clearly predicted there would 
 not have been darkness enough to mislead the wicked. Had 
 the time been predicted obscurely there would not have 
 been clearness enough, even for the righteous. Hence the 
 time was expressly foretold, but the manner wrapped in 
 figures. Thus the wicked are deceived, for they were on 
 the watch for carnal blessings ; but the good are not 
 deceived. For to discriminate the kind of blessings 
 promised is the work of the heart ; but the interpretation of 
 the time announced does not depend on the heart.' ^ 
 
 If this principle was a sentence of condemnation to many, 
 it was also the culminating proof of the truth of Christianity. 
 Would a false creed dare to admit that its evidences were 
 only intelligible to holy and humble men of heart ? ' Here,' 
 cries Pascal's Libertine, ' I find an answer to every objec- 
 tion. It is right that so pure a God should only reveal 
 Himself to those whose hearts are purified. Henceforward 
 this religion wiU be loveable to me ; so divine an ethic is 
 
 1 Pens. 564. 2 Pens. 758. 
 
THE APOLOGY FOR CHRISTIANITY 889 
 
 enough of itself to guarantee its truth. But I find much 
 more than this. Ever since the dawn of history men have 
 been constantly told that they were altogether sunk ia sin, 
 but that a Redeemer would one day come to them. This 
 was not the tale of a single dreamer ; it was vouched for 
 by a whole people, created expressly to testify to this 
 truth for four thousand years. The more I study its 
 prophecies the more truth I find in them. Their inter- 
 lacing chains of proof — this religion with its authority, its 
 continuance, its changelessness, its moral law, its doctrines, 
 its history, its effects — seem to me divine. And so I stretch 
 out my arms to my Redeemer, "Who, having been foretold 
 for four thousand years, has come to suffer on earth for me 
 at the time and in the manner appointed. By His grace I 
 wait peacefully for death, in the hope of being for ever united 
 to Him. Meanwhile I live cheerfully among the good things 
 He has been pleased to give me, or else among the evil things 
 He has sent me for my soul's sake, having first taught me by 
 His own example how to bear with them.' ^ 
 
 1 Pens. 737. 
 
CHAPTEE XXII 
 
 AFTER THE APOLOGY 
 
 ' If what I have said strikes you as impressive,' says Pascal 
 to his Libertine, ' bear in mind that it comes from one who 
 knelt beforehand and afterwards in prayer to the Infinite 
 Being to whom he commits all his ways. It was to ask that 
 He would take you also into His keeping, and that His 
 strength might come to the rescue of your weakness.' The 
 peculiar note of Pascal's Apology is that it is an incomparable 
 sermon on the duty of pursuing religion for its own sake ; 
 all his opponents were men who insisted on adulterating it 
 with noxiously foreign ingredients, either metaphysical, 
 utiUtarian, or aesthetic. In the seventeenth century such 
 adulteration was widespread enough. Ask an average 
 intelligent Frenchman why he believed in God, and he would 
 probably answer that it was because Descartes or Bossuet 
 or Antoine Arnauld had placed His existence beyond all 
 shadow of doubt. In other words, he pinned his faith to a 
 logical demonstration ; and the eminent divines aforesaid 
 were quite content that he should do so. Arnauld was 
 always singing the praises of logic as a useful mental disci- 
 pline : by promoting intellectual seriousness it served to 
 Christianise the understanding. And he thought that solid 
 disquisitions on the attributes of God did much to check 
 the common belief that intellectual feebleness and piety 
 always went hand in hand. Pascal preached a very different 
 gospel. Loyalty to his official leader might put a certain 
 
 390 
 
APTEE THE APOLOGY 391 
 
 guard on his lips, but the real drift of his Apology was to 
 argue that metaphysical theology was as ' useless and uncer- 
 tain ' as universal mechanism itself. It was uncertain, 
 because the best it could offer was a string of pure ideas 
 of very pinchbeck metal ; in the divinity schools, as 
 elsewhere. Reason had a terrible knack of confounding the 
 dogmatist, and Nature the sceptic. It was useless, because 
 matters would have been little bettered if all its ideas had 
 been of the finest gold ; Pascal was quite of Malebranche's 
 opinion — that pure reason had not strength enough of its 
 own to pick a straw off the ground. Academic triflers might 
 pretend to make it the basis of their faith ; but a man 
 really in earnest about his soul knew that it was not. 
 
 What, then, was the real driving-wheel of belief ? ' Eelig- 
 ious experience,' answers a modern psychologist, ' lies not in 
 seeking to understand God, but in feeding upon Him, in 
 finding refreshment and strength in Him, in rejoicing in Him. 
 God is not understood by the religious consciousness : He 
 is used. So long as he proves Himself useful His right to 
 remain in the service of man is unchallenged ; the religious 
 consciousness asks for no more. Does God reaUy exist ? 
 How does He exist ? What is He ? are so many irrelevant 
 questions.' To Pascal such questions seemed much worse 
 than merely irrelevant. He argued that a man's rehgion 
 depended on his conception of God, on seeing Him in a 
 right perspective ; and practical piety fixed that per- 
 spective when it gave him a God who could be used. But 
 philosophy brought into play a wholly different standard 
 of values : its business was to settle what was logically 
 consistent, not what was spiritually uplifting. Its votaries 
 were more than chary of an appeal to the heart. Set it to work 
 on the idea of God, and the heavenly Father froze at once 
 into a" metaphysical abstraction 'Author of geometrical 
 truths and the Order of the Elements.' No doubt even 
 this Divinity might rouse feelings of devotion, but they were 
 
392 PASCAL 
 
 not the feelings in fashion at Port Eoyal. Nor was it pos- 
 sible to combine the two conceptions of God : as well unite 
 in a single picture the effect of snow-laden November clouds 
 and a warm August sun. Worldlings, who seldom thought 
 of God, might pass without effort to and fro from one con- 
 ception of Him to the other ; but the hermits of Port Eoyal, 
 who had Him ever before their eyes, must see Him ever in 
 one light. At all times He must be to them the Father 
 Who heard prayer, to whom all flesh must come. 
 
 Hence arose Pascal's intense dislike not only to metaphy- 
 sical proofs of God, but to scientific theology of every kind. 
 ' Truth without Charity,' he cried, ' is not God. It is His 
 graven image ; it is an idol, that must not be loved or 
 adored.' How, then, wean men from this idolatry ? 
 Plainly by showing that metaphysical theology was following 
 a will-o'-the-wisp. Its enthusiasts supposed that logic held 
 the key to all the great riddles of life. They supposed that 
 it could tell them whether there were a God, or whether Eacine 
 were a greater poet than Corneille, just as surely as it told 
 them that the three angles of a triangle were together 
 equal to two right angles. Pascal answered that logic could 
 do nothing of the kind. It might help a man to explain why 
 he liked ' Phedre ' better than the ' Cid ' ; it could not teU 
 him which of the two was the better play. His judgment on 
 that point would depend on an intuitive preference already 
 in his mind ; and the most logic could hope to do was to 
 translate that intuitive perference into words. But where 
 did the preference itself originate ? Clearly in the myste- 
 rious region which Pascal called the heart. But could the 
 heart's likes and dislikes be reduced to law ? Pascal felt 
 very doubtful : all he could say was that the heart had 
 reasons of its own, of which Eeason had no knowledge. But, 
 if Eeason could not understand the heart, the heart knew very 
 well how to make a blind tool of Eeason. Has not Pascal 
 explained at length how everyone's judgments are in the 
 
APTEE THE APOLOGY 393 
 
 last resort dictated by his Moi ? Upholders of truth without 
 Charity sought to evade this consequence by establishing 
 a common measure of minds, where propositions might be 
 made equally convincing to all beings of equal rationality. 
 In mathematics they succeeded, on other fields they failed. 
 How set up, for instance, a common measure of minds 
 between Cleonte and his friends over the question of Lucile ? 
 They did not disagree, because he was more — or less — logical 
 than they ; they differed, because his love discovered in her 
 a thousand graces, to which their dispassionate eyes were 
 blind. Apply this reasoning to religion, and ' truth without 
 Charity ' at once became a grotesque absurdity. 
 
 But if a man were born without Charity, could he call 
 it into being ? Clearly that was quite impossible, and Pascal 
 fell back on a doctrine of absolute Predestination. ' Men 
 understand nothing of the ways of God unless they grasp 
 the principle that He has been pleased to enhghten some 
 and darken the eyes of others.' Penelon and the free- 
 will divines might cry out against this as a blasphemous 
 parody of God's justice ; Pascal answered that all human 
 experience bore out the lessons of the ' Augustinus.' Men 
 unquestionably varied much in their capacity for receiving 
 rehgion. Some souls were naturally Christian : as Dr. 
 Chalmers told Carlyle — the preacher's message was already 
 written on their heart in sympathetic ink, and needed but 
 the heat of his words to be brought out in letters of flame. 
 Others answered slowly and with difficulty to the touch 
 of Grace ; others again, of whom Miton was one, remained 
 amiably indifferent to the most strenuous appeals. "What 
 was the cause of this divergence ? Plainly a fundamental 
 difference of character. But could characters be changed ? 
 Miton's certainly could not ; irreligious he had lived, and 
 irreligious he would die. Hence, in Jansen's language, it 
 was true to say that Christ had not died for him. But when 
 the temperament was fluid — when the spiritual instinct. 
 
394 PASCAL 
 
 though weak, was undouhtedly ahve — ^was it always wise 
 to tell men that Christ had not died for them ? ' If you 
 tell them that He did not die for all,' says Pascal to his 
 leaders, ' you play on one of their vices ; for they at once 
 apply the exception to themselves, and fall into despair. 
 It would be much better to turn their eyes in the opposite 
 direction and encourage hope.' i But was it not a mockery 
 to talk of hope in connexion with Predestination ? Not 
 at all. Christians could not, indeed, convert themselves. 
 ' Grace alone can turn a man into a saint ; and those who 
 doubt this do not know what is meant either by a saint or 
 a man.' ^ But could not men in a measure forestall the 
 thunder-claps of Grace ? Certainly they could. Conversion 
 meant a change of character, a new orientation of desires ; 
 it meant a capacity for preferring ' things invisible, but real ' ; 
 to ' things visible, but vain.' But this capacity was largely 
 a fruit of habit : ' exterior practices accustom us to interior 
 virtues.' That was why men should take holy water, and 
 live as though a God existed. ' You say that if you had 
 faith you would soon give up your pleasures. I answer 
 that, if you gave up your pleasures, you would soon have 
 faith.' 3 
 
 Critics have sometimes seen in this attitude an approxi- 
 mation to orthodox doctrines of free will ; and Pascal 
 certainly departed a httle from the strict standards of his 
 party when he maintained that conversion could be invited 
 by a man's own efforts. But the real question at issue 
 between Jansen and Molina was not whether conversion 
 might be, in a certain measure, self-caused : it was whether 
 conversion did, or did not, imply a violent break with the 
 past. Libertarians maintained that grace grew up out of 
 Nature by imperceptible gradations. As Penelon said, 
 it was a hidden germ, implanted in the soul at birth, and 
 only distinguishable from Reason when it began to put 
 
 ' Pens. 781. 2 pe„^. 503. 3 p^^. 240, 
 
AFTER THE APOLOGY 395 
 
 forth buds and roots. Necessitarians, on the other hand, 
 denied that conversion was effected in this ' silent, secret, 
 gradual, and insensible manner ' ; it was ' always accom- 
 panied by manifest evidences of supernatural power, 
 wonderfully and suddenly causing a great change.' So 
 Grace had come to St. Paul, ' model of all penitents ' ; so it 
 had come to St. Augustine ; so it had come to Pascal 
 himself. And the whole manner of its coming set human 
 conventions at defiance. So far from being continuous — 
 as Fenelon would have the world believe — spiritual progress 
 was a series of violent contrasts, a renversement continuel 
 du four au contre. ' God has set up His supernatural Order 
 in violent contrast to the Order that should be natural 
 among men. He wills that Divine Truth should reach the 
 brain through the heart, and not the heart through the 
 brain; for He wishes to crush the arrogance of Eeason, 
 which claims to determine what the will should believe, and 
 to cure the infirmities of a will corrupted by its unclean 
 appetites. Thus it is that, in speaking of earthly things, 
 we say that they must be known in order to be loved ; 
 but, when the saints speak of heavenly things, they say 
 that they must be loved in order to be known, and that we 
 only reach truth through Charity.' i 
 
 Hence the necessity of approaching religion in a spirit 
 of unquestioning docility. ' Wisdom sends us back to 
 infancy: "Be ye as little children."' Fenelon and his 
 friends supposed that religion meant the culmination of 
 a ripening progress begun in the natural order ; Pascal 
 answered that it stood for the bursting into our lives of 
 a factor altogether new. Conversion brought the Christian 
 into an Order of Charity ' infinitely farther removed from 
 mind than was mind from matter': hence the absurdity 
 of measuring it by charts and compasses borrowed from 
 the realms of mind. They could no more grasp its secrets 
 
 ' Esprit Oeometrique, Works, iii. p. 176. 
 
396 PASCAL 
 
 than our common-sense impressions — as Pascal had long 
 ago learnt at the Paris Club — can grasp the actual physical 
 processes of Nature. ' In the world of sensory experience 
 new-sprung grass is green, wood hard, ice cold, and toothache 
 painful. In the world of reasoning science there is no green, 
 no colour at all, only certain lengths of vibration ; no hard- 
 ness, but a certain reaction of molecules ; no cold or pain, 
 but certain molecular consequences that reach the mis- 
 interpreting mind.' But the natural order could not realise 
 how far it carried this process of misinterpretation. It 
 persisted in imagining that it stood to the supernatural 
 order much as the pupils of Van Dyck stood to their master. 
 Mind evolved the general outlines of an answer to the 
 riddle of existence ; then came in Charity, to give a few 
 deft touches to mind's laborious spade-work and transform 
 it into a speaking picture of the Universe. 
 
 Pascal, on the other hand, denied that the lucubrations 
 of mind possessed any value whatsoever unless they were 
 informed by religion. ' Apart from Jesus Christ, we can 
 put no meaning on hfe or death, or God, or ourselves.' 
 Both mind and matter were mere shadows of reality ; 
 they were magna qucedam comosdia, as Jansen said of 
 the Old Testament. The convert's first step was to recognise 
 that their only aim and object was to mirror the movements 
 of the Order of Charity. Hitherto he had valued the world's 
 conquerors for their exploits ; now he saw that they were 
 only of interest, in so far as they ' strove without their 
 knowledge for the glory of the Gospel.' And what was 
 true of Darius and Cyrus was still more true of Plato and 
 Archimedes, Galileo, and Montaigne. Without their know- 
 ledge they adumbrated many a truth of Christianity ; 
 but they no more grasped its full reaUty than our common- 
 sense impressions can grasp the real significance of new- 
 sprung grass or toothache. Thus entrance into the Order 
 of Charity brought with it an Umwertung alter Werte. The 
 
AFTEE THE APOLOGY 397 
 
 convert was cut loose from all his intellectual moorings ; 
 overboard must go received ideas of truth, of beauty, 
 grandeur, right, and wrong. But so radical a mental up- 
 heaval was only made possible by the thunderclaps of 
 Grace. ' We must look on ourselves Uke criminals in a 
 prison hung round with images of our Redeemer, and with 
 instructions how to break our bonds,' wrote Pascal in a 
 youthful letter to his sister Gilberte. ' But we cannot 
 read those holy characters aright without assistance from 
 Above ; for just as all things speak of God to those who 
 know Him, and discover Him to those who love, so also 
 do they veil Him from those who know him not.' 
 Thus, in the last resort, the search for rehgion meant 
 a plunge into an unknown sea; and Pascal's famous metaphor 
 of the bet turns out to be no more than his doctrine of 
 conversion adapted to the understanding of the gay young 
 Libertines who hung round Miton and Mere. 
 
 Du musst glauben, Du musst wagen, 
 
 Denn die Gotter leihn kein Pfand. 
 Nut ein Wunder kann Dioh tragen 
 
 In das schone Wunderland. 
 
 Still, all could not be left to miracle. The Jansenist 
 craving for ' assurance ' demanded that the Christian 
 Columbus should have some tangible guarantee that his 
 helm was set straight for the New World. Hence Pascal 
 set himself to correct the great error of commonplace 
 Catholic apologists. They spoke as though faith meant 
 a ' submission of the intellect,' a gulping down of proposi- 
 tions in the teeth of proof ; whereas really it did not imply 
 a breach with Eeason, so much as a transcending of Reason. 
 ' Faith certainly tells us many thmgs which the senses do 
 not perceive ; it never tells us the contrary of what they 
 see. It is above, and not against them.' i But was a man 
 justified in going beyond them ? Yes ; for Reason itself 
 
 ' Pens. 265. 
 
398 PASCAL 
 
 made exceedingly clear that the answer to the problem 
 of existence must be sought beyond its borders. ' We 
 yearn for truth, and find nothing but uncertainty. We seek 
 happiness, and light only on misery and death. We cannot 
 help craving for truth and happiness ; we cannot attain 
 to either. This desire was left in us partly as a punishment 
 and partly as a spur to goad us out of the state into which 
 we have fallen.' i Eeason could recognise that religion offered 
 not only a plausible explanation of this fall, but also a means 
 of recovery. ' Live as though a God existed, and you will 
 be a gainer, even in this life,' said Pascal to his Libertine. 
 ' You will be faithful, honest, humble, grateful, generous — 
 a staunch friend.' The manner of the soul's awakening 
 would, indeed, remain a mystery ; for all experience proved 
 that it was violent, cataclysmic, rich in thunder-claps and 
 visible upsets. But, if Reason could not follow their 
 workings it was fully capable of gauging their practical 
 effect. ' Two points alone make up almost the whole of 
 Christianity : the fall of man in Adam, and his redemption 
 through Jesus Christ.' All those who had been torn in 
 two between ' things visible, but vain, and things invisible, 
 but real ' had had experience of the first ; all those, ia 
 whom the things invisible had gained the final victory, 
 had been vouchsafed the second. As ia Adam they had 
 died, even so in Christ they were now made alive. 
 
 Thus Pascal's Apology ended much nearer the realities 
 of life than his miraculous beginnings would seem to allow. 
 As has been well said, their correspondence with the facts of 
 human nature seemed to him to constitute the value of 
 the supernatural element in Christianity rather than simply 
 to prove its truth. And on one important point — the doctrine 
 that Christ did not die for all men — he had openly tried 
 to wrest Jansen's theological formaUsm into conformity 
 with the lessons of experience. But would he have gone 
 1 Pens. 437. 
 
AFTEB THE APOLOGY 899 
 
 farther along this path, and reduced the rest of the miraculous 
 side of Christianity into a symbolical representation of states 
 of human consciousness ? There is no telling ; for time 
 and opportunity played him false. While he was at work 
 on his Apology, the forces of Catholicism had been gathering 
 round Port Royal ; and the beleaguered garrison was forced 
 to forego all thought of farther progress in a desperate 
 effort to retain what had been already won. Under 
 Mazarin the Jansenists had been safe from serious molesta- 
 tion, for the Cardinal was no fanatic. As Mme. de Motte- 
 ville said— he loved no virtue and he hated no vice ; to 
 him theological rights and wrongs were no more than 
 counters in the diplomatic game. But Mazarin was near 
 his end ; after Louis XIV's marriage in 1660 he left the 
 Sovereign of twenty-two to be his own Prime Minister. 
 Louis had strong personal reasons for detesting the Jansenists. 
 He never forgot how, as a boy of ten, he had been forced 
 to fly before the Frondeurs ; and Port Eoyal had always been 
 on friendly terms with the head and front of Prondist 
 offending. 
 
 This was the famous Cardinal de Retz, a prince of the 
 Church still stranger than Mazarin himself. The Arch- 
 bishopric of Paris being almost hereditary in his family, 
 he had long ago been made coadjutor to his uncle, the 
 reigning prelate ; and had seized on the opportunity to 
 ingratiate himself with the Jansenists. Not that he cared 
 a fig for their doctrines ; he said that all tradition was on 
 the side of Port Boyal, and all common sense on that of 
 Escobar. But anything in the shape of a party appealed 
 to his intriguing soul ; and it tickled his cynical humour, 
 that he, the most dissolute of men, should stand well with 
 the austerest Christians in France. This curious alliance 
 continued after the Fronde's collapse drove the coadjutor 
 into exile, and the richer Jansenists contributed largely 
 to the fugitive's support. Not that their charity was 
 
400 PASCAL 
 
 altogether disinterested. On his uncle's death, in 1654, 
 Eetz had succeeded to the Archbishopric, although Mazarin 
 would not let him set foot within his see, and tried hard to 
 make him resign. But resign he would not ; so long as 
 he remained canonical Archbishop he could always irritate 
 the Court, and reward his supporters by appointing vicars- 
 general friendly to their interests. Hence to strike at 
 Port Eoyal was to strike at him, and Louis did not long stay 
 his hand. In December, 1660, he urged the Assembly of 
 the clergy to take immediate steps for putting an end 
 to Jansenism ; and in February, 1661, the Assembly 
 decided to revive the Formulary, from which the resistance 
 of the judges had delivered France four years before. 
 Every priest, monk, and nun in the kingdom was to declare 
 that he ' condemned with heart and mouth the doctrine of 
 Cornelius Jansen.' 
 
 The news threw not only consternation, but division, 
 into the Jansenist camp. The most moderate were for 
 immediate submission, the stalwarts for open resistance. 
 Their case was well argued by the Abbe Perrault, a brother 
 of the adversary of Boileau. He maintained that the 
 imposition of the Formulary was a greater scandal than 
 the condemnation of Jansen ; to sign it was implicitly to 
 admit that the ecclesiastical authorities had a right to lay 
 on conscience any burden that they chose. The moderate 
 men objected that the Pope and Bishops were iofaUible. 
 Perrault replied that they were not ; the Church's true 
 infallibility resided in the mass of Christian men who had 
 often victoriously withstood their chief pastors to the face. 
 Such was the natural consequence of a doctrine of indi- 
 dividual inspiration. What could infallibility be but the 
 united utterance of spiritual sense ? ' God does not ordinarily 
 work miracles in the conduct of His Church,' wrote Pascal. 
 ' It would be a surpassing miracle if infaUibihty were in 
 the hands of a single man ; whereas nothing could be 
 
AFTER THE APOLOGY 401 
 
 more in order than that it should rest with the multitude. 
 God hides His providence under nature here, as in His other 
 works.' 1 The moderate men answered that such reasoning 
 led straight to schism ; and the ' disciples of St. Augustine ' 
 had always been foremost ia preserving the unity of the 
 Church. Perrault retorted that there were two kinds of 
 unity. One was an inward bond of charity ; the other 
 was an external legal chain. The early Christians had 
 only known the first ; but during the last twelve centuries 
 it had been slowly ousted by the second. St. Paul always 
 compared the Church to a human body ; but the liviag 
 organism had stiffened into a pallid, mathematical figure. 
 Christians were become mere radii of a circle, and the only 
 bond of unity left them was that of meeting in a common 
 centre at Rome. 
 
 Such was precisely the character that Ultramontanism, 
 acting in concert with history, had foisted on the Roman 
 Church. But even Perrault could not draw the moral of 
 his own conclusions. For the ecclesiasticism that produced 
 the Formulary he cared no more than Pascal himself. 
 ' When St. Peter and the Apostles were considering whether 
 they should abolish circumcision, which was commanded 
 by the Law, they did not ask what was written in the 
 Prophets, but only whether the Gentile converts had 
 received the Holy Ghost. For they thought that God 
 cared more for those whom He had filled with His Spirit than 
 about a strict observance of the Law.' ^ Could anyone 
 pretend that the papal patrons of Escobar were filled with 
 the Spirit of God ? Clearly not, and the Jansenists accord- 
 ingly made Hght of their authority. But, although they 
 completely threw over the idea of the Church as the supreme 
 legislative authority, they could not throw over the Church 
 considered as the palpable representative on earth of the 
 Redeemer. Augustine had stamped far too deeply on their 
 
 1 Pens. 876. ^ Pens. 672. 
 
402 PASCAL 
 
 minds his conception of the Mystical Body, wherein Jesus 
 Christ became perpetually re-incarnate, generation after 
 generation. And Augustine's theology seemed borne out 
 by experience. Port Eoyal might admit that, in the matter 
 of conversion, the wind bloweth where it listeth ; but it 
 also held that ' exterior practices accustom us to interior 
 virtues.' Grace flowed in most abundantly through certain 
 definite channels, the mass, the sacraments, ascetic exercises, 
 common prayer ; and aU these channels were under the 
 control of the Church. ' I am present to thee by my word 
 in the Scriptures, by my spirit in the Church and inspirations, 
 by my power in the priesthood, by my prayer in the faithful.' 
 Here lies the secret of Port Eoyal's quibbling incertitude. 
 Pascal and his friends might be willing enough to face the 
 prospect of excommunication ; they dared not take the 
 first step themselves, and openly break loose from Rome. 
 ' Perhaps they will cut us off from the Church,' wrote 
 Jacqueline, but they cannot cut us off from Jesus Christ so 
 long as our Charity remains alive. If we only grieve in 
 silence, without setting up altar against altar. Charity 
 wUl keep us inviolably bound to the Church.' That being 
 so, Jansenism was doomed. The world recks little of 
 reformers who are content to grieve in silence. Its ear 
 is only caught by those who dare not only to set up altar 
 against altar, but to defend their sanctuary by force of 
 arms, with ' weapons forged in the shop of war by armed 
 justice in defence of beleaguered truth.' For aU its purity 
 the blood of Port Eoyal altogether lacked the iron that 
 goes to make a Luther or a John Knox. ' Truth does not 
 ask men to receive her, only to endure her,' was the heart- 
 broken war-cry with which Isaac de Saci strengthened 
 the knees of his flock. So far from rousing thoughts of 
 resistance, the approach of persecution was welcomed as 
 ' the surest mark of piety,' the crowning favour from on High. 
 At last the Jansenists were worthy to be tried in the Refiner's 
 
APTEE THE APOLOGY 403 
 
 fire. God stood ready with His fan to wiimow tJie wheat 
 from the chaff. Then, too, it was fitting, as Fontaine said, 
 that Grace should be defended in the same way as it came 
 into the world. The feebler its upholders, the more desperate 
 their present straits, the more clearly their eventual triumph 
 would be due to God alone. 
 
 This line of argument was the more natural, since the 
 brunt of persecution fell on the nuns of Port Royal. The 
 leading Jansenist clerics were already in hiding, and laymen 
 were not compelled to subscribe the Formulary at all. 
 But what would the nuns do ? Drilled in Antoine Arnauld's 
 distinction of law and fact — that the Church was infaUible 
 on an abstract point of doctrine, but fallible on deciding 
 on the merits of any individual author — most of them were 
 willing to sign, provided that this distinction was expressly 
 recognised ; but they refused to swear, on the strength of 
 an admittedly fallible utterance of the Church, that certain 
 propositions were contained in a book written in a language 
 which they could not read. However, the Vicars-General 
 of the fugitive Archbishop made things easy for them. In 
 June, 1661, they put forward the Formulary prefaced by a 
 Pastoral Letter, which distinctly required no more than a 
 ' respectful silence ' for the point of fact. Arnauld and the 
 party-leaders accordingly begged the nuns to sign, and 
 most of them obeyed. But Jacqueline Pascal and a few 
 of the more scrupulous held out ; a sister of the assailant of 
 the casuists could not lightly fall in with methods which 
 ' consented to a lie, although without exactly denying the 
 truth.' And they found some outside supporters. Perrault 
 declared that the restricted signature took back in one 
 breath all that it gave in another ; it was like making a 
 deed of gift of the whole of one's property, except one's real 
 and personal estate. These things weighed heavily on 
 Jacqueline's mind. ' She dreaded the very shadow of evil,' 
 says her biographer ; ' and in a very outspoken letter to 
 
 DD 2 
 
404 PASCAL 
 
 M. Arnauld she explained how much she feared lest the 
 iniquity of the Formulary should betray her into courses ill 
 befitting Christian frankness, and how ready she was to 
 suffer anything, rather than fail in bearing witness to the 
 truth. But her scruples were presently overcome ; she 
 signed, although with great reluctance. For she was torn 
 in two between the wish to submit, and the feeling that 
 here submission was out of place. These anxieties under- 
 mined her health, and she fell grievously ill. On October 4, 
 1661, she died, thus being the first victim of the signature.' 
 Jacqueline's sacrifice was all to no purpose. The ink 
 on her pen was scarcely dry, before the French Council of 
 State censured the Pastoral, and the Pope condemned it. 
 At the end of October, the Vicars-General put forward 
 a new Pastoral, demanding unconditional acceptance of 
 the Formulary. Thereupon arose new dissensions within 
 the Jansenist camp, into which Jacqueline's brother was 
 presently dragged. Pascal had spent most of 1660 at 
 Clermont with the Periers. There he was brought much 
 into the company of his fellow-Jansenist and fellow-towns- 
 man, Jean Domat, the Blackstone — and something more 
 than the Blackstone — of France. The commentator of the 
 laws of England only taught jurisprudence to speak the 
 language of the scholar and the gentleman ; but Domat 
 also excelled in the power of disentangling legal first principles 
 from their haphazard embodiment in a statute. Such a 
 man was well fitted to help Pascal in steering a way through 
 the tortuous mazes of Jansenist polemic. What exactly 
 was at stake ? Antoine Arnauld narrowed the whole issue 
 down to the question of the ' Augustinus.' He told his 
 followers to accept whatever the authorities put before them, 
 so long as they did not expressly repudiate Jansen. He 
 even urged the nuns to sign the Formulary, though with a 
 rider to the effect that they did not profess to judge of 
 matters beyond the competence of their sex. 
 
AFTER THE APOLOGY 405 
 
 Arnauld's rider obliquely suggested the distinction of law 
 and fact ; and to Pascal and Domat it seemed a subterfuge 
 equally useless and unworthy. They argued that the real 
 question was not whether the Pope had been unjust to 
 Jansen : it was whether he had condemned the true doctrine 
 of Grace. The Jesuits were not at war with the ' Augustinus ' 
 for its own sake ; they attacked it because it was the 
 accepted symbol of a conception of religion — a religion of 
 conversion and spiritual sense, of thunder-claps and visible 
 upsets of Grace — ^which they were anxious to destroy. For 
 this purpose they had engineered the Formulary ; and 
 therefore anyone who signed it, without excepting Jansen's 
 name from censure of any kind, was acting in a way ' abomin- 
 able before God, craven in the sight of man, and of no service 
 whatever to those already marked out for destruction.' 
 Nor did Pascal scruple to withstand his leaders to the face. 
 Thus Margaret Perier records how Arnauld, Nicole, and 
 other leaders of th« party met at her uncle's house one day 
 in November, 1661, to discuss the question of the Formulary. 
 Arnauld and Nicole argued that the nuns ought to sign, 
 Pascal that they ought not. ' Each side having had 
 its say, all those present decided in favour of M. Arnauld 
 and Nicole. M. Pascal loved truth above all things ; he 
 was disabled by a headache that never left him ; he had 
 strained every nerve to make his friends feel what he felt 
 himself, and had spoken with great energy in spite of his 
 weakness. At the result he was overcome with pain ; his 
 voice left him, and he sank down in a swoon. The whole 
 company was startled, and hastened to apply restoratives. 
 After a while the others retired, leaving him alone with 
 M. de Roannez and M. Domat, Mme. Perier, and her son.' 
 
 The breach, however, was short in duration. In the 
 spring of 1662, Retz came to terms with the Court. He 
 resigned the Archbishopric ; the commission of his Vicars- 
 General automatically determined, and his successor 
 
406 PASCAL 
 
 insisted on a signature without any restrictions at all. This 
 no Jansenist could approve, and Arnauld and Nicole 
 found themselves once more shoulder to shoulder with 
 Pascal. Indeed, their temporary estrangement would have 
 had no importance whatever, had it not led to an unfortunate 
 misunderstanding after Pascal's death. The priest who 
 attended him in his last hours was a certain Abbe Beurrier, 
 a good Churchman, but no great admirer of the Jesuits, 
 and therefore anxious to make things easy for the author 
 of the Provincial Letters. Having heard that Pascal 
 rejected the distinction of law and fact, he concluded — or 
 perhaps diplomatically chose to assume — that he must 
 have done so on orthodox Catholic grounds, and therefore 
 forebore to question the dying man about his beliefs. Nay, 
 such was his zeal for his penitent's posthumous reputation, 
 that he pubUcly declared that Pascal's death-bed was free 
 from all taint of Jansenism. His assertions were refuted at 
 length by Mme. Perier and other friends, but perhaps their 
 most striking disproof is furnished by her daughter. 
 Margaret relates that her uncle was asked whether he 
 regretted having written the Provincial Letters. He 
 answered that, if he had had the work to do over again, 
 he would have written still more strongly. When he said 
 ' hese words, however, the time for strong language was past. 
 The sands in his hour-glass were almost run, and the few 
 weeks of life still left him would be spent in mystic colloquies 
 with his Redeemer. 
 
CHAPTEE XXIII 
 
 THE END 
 
 ' Without Jesus Christ, man must needs be sunk in 
 malice and wretchedness ; with Jesus Christ he is freed 
 from malice and wretchedness. In Him is aU our happi- 
 ness and virtue. Apart from Him all is vice and 
 misery, error, darkness, death, despair.' i Pascal's whole 
 religion centred in his conversion, in the triumph of ' things 
 invisible, but real ' over ' things visible, but vain.' This 
 triumph he could not ascribe to any strength of his own : 
 to what, then, was it due ? Theology pointed to the Atone- 
 ment wrought by Jesus Christ. But Pascal could not rest 
 content with ' one oblation once offered ' many hundred 
 years ago. If Redemption was to be a living reality it 
 must not be thought of as a bare historical fact. Calvary 
 and the Resurrection must symbolise the spiritual upheaval 
 that took place, whenever a Christian died to his Moi, 
 and awoke to a new life of righteousness. ' A God humbled, 
 even to the death of the Cross ; a Messiah triumphing over 
 death by death. Two natures in Jesus Christ, two Comings, 
 two stages in the nature of man.' ^ But Redemption was 
 not only concerned with the actual crisis of conversion. 
 Did not Jansen teach that God was the Author of all good, 
 and that good only came to man through the medicinal 
 Grace of Christ the Saviour ? ' All Faith is summed up in 
 Jesus Christ and Adam, and all morahty in concupiscence 
 
 ' Pens. 546. ^ Pens. 765, 
 
 407 
 
408 PASCAL 
 
 and Grace.' Christ and Adam typefied the eternal conflict 
 between right and wrong. ' Like Nature, Grace will be 
 always in the world, and thus in a certain sense it is natural. 
 Hence there will be always Pelagians and Catholics, and 
 always a conflict between them ; because their first birth 
 makes the one, and the Grace of a second birth makes the 
 other.' 1 
 
 Such was the natural state of beings afloat in mid-ocean 
 between two opposite inanities. How could they enter 
 into fellowship with the Divine ? Pascal's Protestant 
 contemporaries had already found an answer. ' Lutheran- 
 ism,' writes Principal Fairbairn, ' attempts to establish 
 a kind of equation between the ideas of God and man. The 
 person of Christ is a symbol of humanity ; in it man can so 
 participate as to share its perfections and its dignity. God 
 lives in Christ now openly, now cryptically, but ever really. 
 And His humanity so penetrates the Deity as to make Him 
 with a feeling of our infirmities, and make Him a partaker 
 in our lot.' Impressive as this standpoint is, it is also 
 fraught with no slight danger. Once make Eedemption 
 into the sum-total of all the forces working for good in the 
 world, and the personaUty of Jesus fades automatically out 
 of sight. He is no longer flesh and blood ; He no longer 
 heartens men with the force of a living example ; He 
 vanishes into an abstract, all-embracing pattern of what 
 humanity should be. As Paul Wernle says. He becomes 
 like that appalling phantom of the older psychologists, 
 where the four cardinal characters are melted into one. 
 Time alone is required to resolve Him into some impersonal 
 ' stream of tendency, not ourselves, that makes for righteous- 
 ness.' With such a Deity there can be no thought of unre- 
 strained communion. He can only be approached along 
 a carefully macadamised path ; and Port Royal accordingly 
 set itself to work out an elaborate technique of salvation, 
 
 ' Pens. 521. 
 
THE END 409 
 
 based on the imitation of Christ. ' It is one of the great 
 principles of Christianity,' wrote Pascal in 1651, after a 
 first reading of the ' Augustinus,' ' that all that took place 
 in Jesus Christ must take place again in the body and soul 
 of every Christian. As Jesus Christ suffered and died 
 to this mortal life, rose again, ascended to heaven, and sits 
 at the right hand of God, so our body and soul must suffer 
 and die, rise again, ascend to heaven, and sit at the right 
 hand of God.' i 
 
 Still, Pascal soon passed beyond so schematic a present- 
 ment of the ' Imitatio Christi.' He must enter into personal 
 relations veith his Eedeemer. He must force Jesus Christ to 
 say to him : ' I thought of thee in My agony ; I shed this 
 drop of blood for thee.' Jesus, indeed, would still remain 
 the universal mirror of perfection ; but Pascal thought that 
 its unshaded glare was too much for human eye-sight. The 
 light of the head was most serviceable, when it was broken 
 up into a thousand facets, and refracted through the members. 
 ' I consider Jesus Christ in all persons, and in ourselves. 
 I consider Him as a Father in His Father, as a Brother in 
 His brethren, as poor in the poor, as rich in the rich, as a 
 Doctor and Priest in priests, as a Prince in princes. By 
 His glory He is all that is great ; by His mortal life He is 
 all that is mean and small. That is why He took upon 
 Himself our unhappy condition, that He might live in all 
 men and be the model of every state.' ^ Every day 
 Pascal laid fresh stress on the human quaUties ia Jesus. 
 ' He is a God Whom we approach without pride, and under 
 Whom we humble ourselves without despair.' ^ ' The 
 Jews, while inquiring whether He was God, discovered 
 that He was a man.' * ' Jesus Christ said great things so 
 simply that He hardly seemed to have thought of them, 
 and yet so clearly that it was easy to see what He thought 
 
 ' Letter to his sister Gilberte of October 17, 1651, Works, ii. p. 25. 
 2 Pens. 785. ^ Pen^. 528. ■» Pens. 763. 
 
410 PASCAL 
 
 of them.' 1 ' Who taught the Evangelists to paint a per- 
 fectly heroic soul that they succeed so well with Jesus Christ ? 
 Why do they make Him so weak in His agony ? Cannot they 
 picture constancy in death ? Yes, for St. Luke makes St. 
 Stephen more steadfast than Jesus Christ.' ^ 
 
 This last passage strikes a truly Jansenist note. Was 
 it not fraught with a message of exceeding comfort for 
 the victims of the Formulary ? Might they not feel 
 that they came closer to Jesus in proportion as they 
 ' grieved in silence ' under persecution ? Such is the 
 burden of that wonderful ' Mystery of Jesus,' a little 
 meditation on the Mount of Olives, now incorporated with 
 the ' Pensees.' 
 
 Jesus is in a garden. But it is not the garden of 
 delights, where the first Adam lost himself and the 
 whole human race. It is a garden of pain, where 
 He saved Himself and the whole human race. 
 
 Jesus seeks comfort from His three dearest friends, 
 but they are asleep. He begs them watch awhile with 
 Him, but their compassion for Him is so small that 
 they caimot even keep awake. Thus Jesus is left to 
 bear the wrath of God alone. None feel or share His 
 agony ; none know it, but Heaven and Himself. 
 
 I think this is the only time that Jesus ever com- 
 plained. Now He burst forth, as though He could 
 no longer bear the burden of His grief : ' My soul is 
 sorrowful unto death.' 
 
 Jesus seeks company and consolation from men : 
 that seems to me unique. But He does not find it, 
 for His disciples are asleep. Jesus has prayed to men, 
 and has not been heard. 
 
 Jesus wiU be in an agony until the end of the 
 world ; aU that time we must not sleep. ^ 
 Such was the abiding thought of Pascal's last few months 
 
 ' Pem5.,797. ^ p^.^^, goo. 3 p^ns. 553. 
 
THE END 411 
 
 on earth. ' His disorders continuing upon him without a 
 moment's intermission,' says GUberte Perier,^ ' reduced 
 him to such a state that he was not able to set about any kind 
 of work, or to see hardly anyone. But although his malady 
 prevented his being serviceable to the public or his friends, 
 it was not without use to himself ; and he underwent it 
 with such tranquillity and patience that there is reason to 
 think that God by this means was pleased to render him 
 just such as He would have him appear at the Last Day. For 
 during all this long illness he always bore in mind these two 
 great maxims : a renunciation of all pleasure and of all 
 superfluity. In the very height of his distemper he kept a 
 perpetual watch over his senses, absolutely refusing them 
 whatever gave them pleasure. And when necessity con- 
 strained him to do something that might afford him some 
 sort of satisfaction, he had a wonderful address in disengaging 
 his mind from having a share in it. For example, his 
 continual diseases obliging him to feed upon delicacies, he 
 took the utmost care not to relish what he ate ; and at the 
 very beginning of his retreat he laid down stated rules con- 
 cerning aU his future meals. Let his appetite be what it 
 would, he never went beyond his appointed portion ; and 
 whatever distaste he had for his food, he forced himself to 
 eat what he thought was fit. And when he was asked why 
 he laid such a constraint upon himself, he answered that 
 it was necessary to satisfy the demands of the stomach, 
 but not those of the appetite. 
 
 'He had so great a love for poverty that he kept it always 
 in his thoughts ; so that when he went about any under- 
 taking, or if anybody wanted his advice, the first thought 
 that came into his head was to consider whether there 
 was any room for practising the true spirit of poverty. He 
 could not endure that people should study how to have 
 
 1 This translation is based upon the Life of M. Pascal by the Nonjuror 
 William Andrews (London, 1744). 
 
412 PASCAL 
 
 everything in readiness and convenient about them. He 
 said that nothing was so likely to extinguish the spirit of 
 poverty as that nice attention to our comforts, and that 
 decorum which makes us desire the best of everything from 
 the best maker of it. And he said, in regard to artificers, 
 that we should always choose the poorest and most honest, 
 and not hunt after that excellence which is never necessary, 
 nor ever can be useful. Sometimes he would break out : " Oh 
 that my heart was as poor as my mind. Then indeed I 
 should be happy, for I am thoroughly persuaded that 
 poverty is a long step towards salvation." 
 
 ' His charity towards the poor was always very great, 
 but towards the latter end of his life he redoubled it. He 
 said that it was the universal vocation of all Christians, and 
 that there was no need of any particular mark to know if 
 one had a call to it from Above, because this was incontest- 
 ably the very mark upon which Jesus Christ would judge 
 the world ; and that if we well considered that the omission 
 of this one virtue might be the cause of our damnation, 
 that thought alone would suffice to make us deprive our- 
 selves of all that we had if we could but have a proper 
 notion of faith. Also he told us that frequenting the poor 
 was extremely advantageous, since a continual prospect of 
 their miseries was enough of itself to make the hardest heart 
 deprive itself of all useless luxuries. About three months 
 before his death he gave very palpable proof of his goodness 
 of heart. As he was returning from Mass at the church of 
 Saint Sulpice, a very beautiful young girl about fifteen came 
 up to him to ask an alms. He was troubled to see her 
 exposed to so evident a danger, and asked her who she was, 
 and how she came to be obhged to beg. Having learnt that 
 she came from the country, that her father was dead, and 
 that her sick mother had been that very day taken to the 
 Hotel Dieu Hospital, he thought that God had sent her to 
 him at the very moment she became necessitous. So he 
 
THE END 413 
 
 took her to the Seminary, where he placed her in 
 the hands of a good priest. Next day he sent a woman 
 to buy her clothes and whatever else was necessary to 
 fit her to go into some lady's service. The priest asked 
 the woman the charitable gentleman's name. She answered 
 that she had no commission to tell him, but that she 
 would come from time to time to provide for the girl's 
 necessities. 
 
 ' His purity was equal to his charity. He had so great 
 a regard for this virtue that he was always on his guard to 
 prevent either himself or others from breaking in upon it. 
 It is incredible how exact he was upon this point ; I really 
 stood in awe of him myself. If accidentally I said that I 
 had seen a handsome woman, it made him angry, and he 
 would tell me that such discourses should never be held 
 before servants or young people, because I could not know 
 what strange ideas I might be putting in their heads. He 
 could not bear to see my children caress me, and said 
 that one might show one's tenderness in a thousand other 
 ways. Not but what he had for us an extraordinary 
 affection, though the vivacity of his temperament made him 
 sometimes impatient and difficult to please. But the 
 instant he was told, or himself perceived, that he had put 
 anyone out of humour, he made amends for it by such a 
 courteous behaviour and so many good offices that he never 
 lost anyone's friendship. But his affection never went so 
 far as a complete attachment. Of this he gave lively proof 
 at my sister's death, which happened about ten months 
 before his own. When he first heard the news, he only said : 
 '.' May God grant that we make so good an end." Nor did 
 he afterwards mention the matter, except to reflect on the 
 singular favour God had shown my sister during her lifetime, 
 and especially in choosing that particular moment to call 
 her to Himself. All this often made him say : " Blessed are 
 the dead, who die in the Lord." When he saw how much I 
 
414 PASCAL 
 
 grieved over her loss he chid me severely, and told me that 
 I did Ul to be troubled over the death of the righteous ; 
 rather ought I to praise and bless God for having so im- 
 mensely recompensed the little services she had done Him 
 in her lifetime. This shows that he had no worldly attach- 
 ment to those he loved ; for, had he been capable of having 
 one, it would certainly have been to my sister, since she was 
 undeniably the person he loved most in the world. But he 
 was equally determined to prevent other persons having 
 an attachment to him. I was quite surprised at the checks 
 he would sometimes give me, and I complained to my sister 
 that he was unkind, and that I seemed to put him in pain 
 at the very moment when I was trying hardest to please 
 him. She assured me that I was entirely mistaken, and 
 that she knew he had as great an affection for jne as I could 
 wish. And indeed, when an occasion presented itself 
 to make me want some assistance from my brother, he 
 embraced that opportunity with so much care and tender- 
 ness that he left me no room to doubt his having a great 
 love for me. After his death we found that this principle 
 had entered very deeply into his heart ; for, in order to 
 keep it ever before his eyes, he had written it down on a httle 
 piece of paper, whereon were these words : " It is unjust 
 to let anyone become attached to me. I should be deceiving 
 my neighbour, because I am not the ultimate end of anyone, 
 nor have I wherewithal to give him satisfaction. Am I not 
 bordering on death ? And wUl not the object of his affection 
 perish with me ? Thus I should be as blameworthy, if I 
 made myself beloved, as if I told a falsehood. Nay, I am 
 bound to warn men against having an attachment for me, 
 and to teU them that their one and ordy care should be 
 the search for, and service of God." i 
 
 ' Throughout life a wonderful simplicity appeared in 
 him, and made him most punctual in everything he did, 
 
 ' Pens. 471. 
 
THE END 415 
 
 ■wherever religion was concerned. During the last four 
 years of his hfe, as he could not employ himself about any 
 work, his chief diversion was to go about visiting the churches 
 where relics were exposed, or where any solemnity was being 
 celebrated ; and he had a church-almanac to instruct him 
 at what places any particular devotions were to be performed. 
 About two months before his death he did a very remark- 
 able act of charity. He had in his house a good, honest 
 man, with his wife and family, to whom he gave a room 
 and a supply of firing. All this he did out of charity ; for he 
 drew no other advantage from their presence than that of 
 not being left quite alone in his house. This good man's son 
 faUing ill of the small-pox, my brother, who needed my 
 assistance, feared that I should be under some apprehension 
 of coming to the house. But, as he thought that the sick 
 boy could not be moved without danger, he chose to leave 
 the house himself, although he was so very ill. On 
 June 29, 1662, he came to us, and returned home no 
 more. Within three days he was seized with a violent 
 colic, which entirely deprived him of sleep. During his 
 illness he edified and surprised all those about him by his 
 admirable patience. When he saw that any of them were 
 afflicted at his excruciating pains, he would say : " Do not 
 be so concerned for me. Sickness is the natural state of a 
 Christian ; because it places us where we ought always to be, 
 in a state of suffering deprived of all the pleasures of the 
 senses, exempt from all those passions which work upon us 
 as long as we live, and in a continual expectation of death. 
 Is it not thus that Christians ought to pass their lives ? 
 Is, it not a great happiness to be forced by necessity into 
 the state in which we ought to be, and to have nothing 
 else to do than humbly and peacefully to submit to it ? " 
 
 ' He was extremely anxious to receive the Communion ; 
 but the physicians opposed this, saying that he could not 
 communicate fasting, and that to receive the Sacrament 
 
416 PASCAL 
 
 by way of a Viaticum, one must be in imminent danger of 
 death. But upon the 6th of August he was seized 
 with great giddiness and pains in the head, and besought 
 the physicians with incredible eagerness to let him 
 receive the Communion. When they still refused, he 
 said : ' Since I may not communicate with the Head, 
 I would communicate with Him through His members. 
 For this reason I have thought of having a poor sick 
 man brought in hither, that he should have the same 
 nursing and attendance as I have, and that there should 
 be no difference made between him and me.' I sent 
 immediately to the curate, who answered that he knew of 
 no sick person fit to be moved, but that, as soon as my 
 brother was weU, he would give him an old man to take 
 care of for the rest of his life ; for at that time the curate 
 had not the least doubt of my brother's recovery. When 
 he saw that he could not have a sick man in the house, 
 he begged me to have him carried to the hospital for incur- 
 ables, because he had a great wish to die in the company 
 of the poor. Meanwhile the physicians still assured him 
 that he was in no manner of danger. But on August 16 
 I found him so very ill that I gave private orders for 
 wax-candles and all that was requisite for his receiving 
 the Communion. These preparations were useful sooner 
 than we had imagined. About midnight he was seized with 
 so violent a convulsive fit that we gave him over for dead, 
 and were much concerned to see him die without the 
 Sacrament, after having so long and so earnestly desired it. 
 But God, as a recompense, miraculously suspended his 
 convulsion, when the curate entered the room with the 
 Sacrament, crying out : " Behold, here is He Whom you 
 have so earnestly desired." These words roused him 
 quite ; he summoned all his strength, and raised himself 
 half-way up in the bed. When he had received the Holy 
 Viaticum and Extreme Unction, he said : " May God never 
 
THE END 417 
 
 forsake me." These were his last words ; almost immediately 
 after he was seized with violent convulsions, which continued 
 to the end. Within twenty-four hours he breathed his last, 
 on August 19, 1662, at one o'clock in the morning, being 
 of the age of thirty-nine years and two months.' 
 
 Of late years a great change has come over the popular 
 estimate of Pascal. Old-fashioned critics used to lament 
 that a heaven-born leader of thought should have thrown 
 himself into the arms of a ' Jansenist phrontistery ' — as one 
 of his scientific correspondents called Port Eoyal — and they 
 accounted for his aberrations by fits of recurrent neuras- 
 thenia. Nowadays it is recognised that his mental develop- 
 ment was as clear and unbroken as Spiaoza's own. At 
 the Paris Club he was taught to believe in the reign of 
 universal law. ' All things are caused and causes, acted on 
 and agents, and all are bound together by a natural and 
 invisible chain, that links the farthest and the most unlike.'i 
 But how was man to put his finger on this chain ? Descartes 
 undertook to reach it by a friori deduction from certain 
 metaphysical first principles. But Pascal and the younger 
 members of the Paris Club declared that, in physical matters, 
 experiment should be their only master. The Car- 
 tesian conclusions they decried as at once ' useless and 
 uncertain.' They were uncertain because there was no 
 saying whether they were based on genuine observation, or 
 whether they were mere ' fanciful endeavours to slake 
 man's curiosity as to the Unknown ' thrown out in the interests 
 of a theory. They were useless because even true facts 
 lost their savour once the spirit of abstract systematisation 
 had worked its will upon them. ' One might as well shut 
 them up in a box, as hide them away behind a general 
 principle. It is oidy in their primitive heterogeneous 
 state that they have any meaning for us.' ^ Was, then, the 
 > Pern. 72. " Pens. 20. 
 
418 PASCAL 
 
 ultimate explanation of things altogether beyond our grasp ? 
 As a whole, it was ; Descartes came no nearer the truth 
 than the veriest scholastic wind-bag lecturing de omni 
 scibili. On the other hand, however, ' Nature imitates 
 herself ' ; and Pascal's own researches into the equilibrium 
 of Uquids taught him that her analogies abound in the 
 most divergent quarters. But experience also showed him 
 that the laws of Nature cannot be thought of as distinct 
 from the phenomena of Nature. She hides her secrets in 
 the concrete facts, much as she hides her kernels in a nut. 
 And nothing but long and careful observation of these facts 
 wiU avail to crack her husks. 
 
 If this were true of science, it was stiU more true in 
 the domain of social life. The Chevaher de Mere's business 
 was to turn out excellent workmen of good breeding ; and 
 naturally his first impulse had been to boil down the leading 
 principles of manners into a code capable of being explained 
 in manuals of etiquette. But manners obstinately refused 
 to condense themselves into a code. Mere had sorrowfully 
 to admit that neither rules, nor maxims, nor even science, 
 turned out good labourers or great men. Nay, the Duchess of 
 Lesdiguieres was the best-bred woman of her time, just 
 because she ' sent away art and study,' and handled social 
 problems as they arose, without any settled principle at all. 
 And Mere must needs admit that she was right in thus fore- 
 stalling a celebrated saying of Immanuel Kant. There was 
 no such thing as good breeding, apart from well-bred actions. 
 Easy as it was to pass judgment on this or that piece of 
 conduct, it was impossible to catch the Spirit of Manners 
 unawares, and imprison it in a formula. Now stepped 
 forward Miton and Montaigne to show that the same 
 rule apphed to matters more important than good breeding. 
 Did anyone seriously suppose that the essence of truth or 
 justice could be embodied in an abstract definition ? 
 ' These things,' cries Pascal, ' are so delicate that our clumsy 
 
THE END 419 
 
 instruments never quite manage to reach them. If they 
 blunder on to the point, they mangle it ; or else they 
 scratch about all round it, more often in the wrong place 
 than the right.'i Was, then, the search for truth and justice 
 a delusion ? By no means, provided only that men would 
 give up the hopeless quest of logical order and completeness, 
 and trust to the spontaneous impulse of the moment. 
 Very soon these impulses were hypostatised into a mysteri- 
 ous Law of Nature, which Pierre Charron declared to be the 
 candle of our Maker lighted in every breast. ' Why then, 
 vain man, dost thou trouble to look abroad for a rule ? To 
 what purpose is all this tumbling over codes and institutes ? 
 The Two Tables of Moses, the Twelve Tables of Eome, the 
 Law written iu the hearts of those who have no law, are but 
 copies of that Original, which thou keepest close within 
 thee.' In short, man's best guide was the intuitions of an 
 unsophisticated conscience ; only when he wished to cheat 
 it did he fly to authorities and arguments. That is why 
 Pascal classes the ' logicians ' with heretics, thieves, and 
 Mohammedan soldiers, as criminals who have broken through 
 every law of God and man, the more exactly to obey some 
 mad code of their own devising. 
 
 But what was the content of Charron's Original ? What 
 was meant by ' following Nature ? ' Libertines answered 
 the question according to their several temperaments. 
 Charron, whose eclectic spirit combined a lively reverence 
 for Du Vair with devotion to Montaigne, was anxious to 
 ' found on man the greatness of man ' on lines suggested 
 by the ' Sainte Philosophie.' But most Libertines condemned 
 the methods of Du Vair as alike ' difficult and vain.' They 
 said that following Nature meant keeping to the line of least 
 resistance — always doing what one liked, for no other 
 reason than because one liked it ; and never trying, instar 
 Sisyphi nixandi, to turn oneself into something other than 
 
 1 Pens. 82. 
 
 EE 2 
 
420 PASCAL 
 
 one was by birth. And Montaigne and Saint £lvremond 
 gave this principle a tolerably wide extension. 
 
 There 's nothing new, 
 And there 's nothing true, 
 And it doesn't matter at all, 
 
 was the practical outcome of their philosophy. But were 
 they right ? Did men always feel so much enamoured of the 
 line of least resistance ? Were there not moments, even in 
 a commonplace life, when they were tempted instar Sisyphi 
 nixari — when the ' gloomy nymph of Stoic virtue ' seemed 
 more attractive than the cheerful madcap of Montaigne ? 
 Such, at least, was Pascal's experience. ' Our soul is the 
 theatre of an endless war between reason and the passions. 
 Some have tried to crush their passions, and become as 
 gods ; others have wished to stifle their reason, and live like 
 brute beasts. But they have none of them succeeded. 
 Reason remains as an accusing spirit, to harass the peace 
 of those who give way to their passions ; and the passions 
 stiU keep alive in those most anxious to renounce them.' i 
 
 Still, was it not possible to do as the Jesuits did, and 
 strike a judicious balance between the two ? Did not 
 casuistry contrive to ' leave the passions their sustenance,' 
 and at the same time bring them under the control of 
 reason ? No. The very idea of compromise always stank 
 in Pascal's nostrils ; and here he also had the ' Augustinus ' 
 at hand, to show that compromise on moral questions meant 
 coupling Jesus Christ with Belial.' Far better the open 
 impiety of Montaigne than the trimming of these heirs of 
 Pontius Pilate. ' The false justice of Pilate only made 
 Jesus Christ suffer the more ; for he scourged Him in 
 obedience to his false justice, and afterwards killed Him. It 
 would have been better to have killed Him outright. But 
 that is the way of the false brethren. They do a good work, 
 
 ' Pens. 413. 
 
THE END 421 
 
 and then they do a bad, to show that they are not alto- 
 gether on the side of Jesus Christ, for they are ashamed of 
 Him. Then comes some great temptation, and they kill 
 Him.'i Nor was this the language of a mere intemperate 
 enthusiast. Excellent as Escobar's intentions may have 
 been, there cannot be two opinions about the unsavouriness 
 of his methods. They were the very consecration of the 
 legalism — the ' tumbling over codes and institutes ' — 
 which Pascal's Libertine masters had taught him to abomi- 
 nate. And in the train of legal methods came an unholy 
 crop of legal fictions. As a Catholic, Escobar was bound to 
 believe that ' the rules of the Gospel in all their severity ' 
 were God's conditions of salvation ; as a casuist and a 
 practical man, he knew that there was no chance of getting 
 the mass of his fellows to observe them. How escape from 
 the dilemma ? Clearly by showing that keeping the Law of 
 God in name was a very different thing from keeping it in 
 reality. For the sake of appearances. He might ask for His 
 twenty shillings in the pound ; in practice He was a most 
 accommodating creditor, always willing to take a small 
 dividend in full satisfaction of His claims. And the Church 
 always knew exactly what rebate He was ready to make ; in 
 His Name it denounced, as Pharisees and hypocrites, those 
 who thought that its terms were pitched too low. For was it 
 not inf aUible ? And had it not at hand the limitless resources 
 of the Sacrament and the keys, which, as Father Nouet says, 
 ' make up what is wanting in an interior moving ' ? No 
 wonder if Pascal's Jesuit could boast that his Society never 
 refused any man, be he what he might. But those who 
 cared more for the substance than the shadow of religion 
 might be pardoned if they saw in these Escobarine morals 
 something hke a ' killing of Jesus Christ.' 
 
 All thought of a compromise between reason and the 
 passions thus falling to the ground, it became clear that the 
 1 Pew. 791. 
 
422 PASCAL 
 
 only chance of peace lay in helping one side or the other 
 to a decisive victory. But how could either of the rivals 
 crush the other out of existence ? The passions could not 
 stifle reason ; reason could not master the passions, despite 
 all that Descartes and Du Vair might say about using art 
 and industry to govern them. ' Thus our heart is torn 
 in two between what is real, but absent, and what is present, 
 but vain ; and thereon follows confusion and disorder.' 
 Prom this confusion man's own efforts could not save him ; 
 if deliverance came to him at all, it must come through 
 the grace of God. So much Pascal learnt from Jansen 
 during his first conversion at Eouen. But the first conversion 
 was an affair of theories and books ; it was not until a certain 
 fateful night in November, 1654, that Pascal began to see 
 what conversion really meant. Aided by a thunder-clap 
 of Grace, reason then definitely put the passions to flight ; 
 and the rest of Pascal's life was spent in completing the work 
 begun at conversion, by feverishly stamping out the few 
 remaining rehcs of his Moi. Carcavi and Eoberval might 
 bemoan his disappearance into a ' phrontistery ' ; but, for 
 such a nature as his, there was no choice between Port 
 Royal and a madhouse. At all costs he must set his mind 
 at unity with itself, and the violence of the means employed 
 attests the herculean difficulty of the task. Men of normal 
 temperament do not consider that a sick-bed is the best 
 place for a Christian, or that marriage is the lowest state to 
 which he can descend ; and, if they seriously tried to put 
 these precepts into practice, they would soon realise the 
 truth of Pascal's saying that those who try to live as angels 
 generally end as beasts. But men of abnormal tempera- 
 ment often must needs grasp at remedies undreamed of in 
 our commonplace philosophy. No doubt, it is painful to 
 think of Pascal solemnly proving to his sister that she 
 ought not to be fond of him ; but to follow the lead of his 
 Catholic critics, and put these excesses down to the count of 
 
THE END 423 
 
 the ' Augustinus,' is to confuse the ailment with its cure. 
 Pascal himself told Charlotte de Roannez that her spiritual 
 trials did not spring so much from her present piety as 
 from the relics of a past impiety. In like manner it might 
 be said that his own asceticism was not due to his present 
 religion so much as to the survivals of a former morbidly 
 divided self. Jansenism found him consciously torn in 
 half, inferior, and unhappy ; it left him consciously unified, 
 superior, and happy. 
 
 Thenceforward Pascal dwelt unceasingly on the healing 
 powers of religion ; it was ' desirable, because it does us 
 good.' Herein lay his great originality as an apologist. 
 Most writers were content to argue that religion is not 
 incompatible with human nature ; Pascal took the bolder 
 step of maintaining that it was true, just because it agreed 
 so well with human nature. Most writers spoke as though 
 Revelation were a collection of mysterious dogmas shot 
 into the world, hke a message from Mars, from a sphere 
 utterly unhke our own. Pascal certainly never lost sight 
 of the mysterious element in religion, but he insisted that his 
 contemporaries looked for the mystery in the wrong place. 
 Christianity was not ' supernatural,' because it was unlike 
 our nature : it was so because it made drafts on forces 
 — on ' thunder-claps and visible upsets ' — altogether trans- 
 cending our everyday experience. Of these forces the 
 Gospel was no more than a vividly symbolical presentment. 
 The convert was torn in half between ' things visible, but 
 vain, and things invisible, but real ' ; theology answered 
 that, during his state of conflict, he had died in Adam. 
 ' Things invisible, but real ' gained an eventual victory ; 
 theology answered that in Christ the convert had been 
 made aUve. Here lay the root of Pascal's quarrel with 
 Cathohcism. In an amiable desire to make things easy 
 for everyone, the Church only asked for a bare acceptance 
 of its dogmas. After all, it cost small effort to accept the 
 
424 PASCAL 
 
 main facts of Christian history as what Antoine Arnauld 
 called a merely intellectual exercise ; even Garasse's 
 Libertines were willing to do this as a ' piece of tavern 
 civility.' To such belief add moderate church-going and 
 a regular moral hfe, and anyone could be a tolerable Cathohc. 
 Pascal, on the other hand, refused to take these intellectual 
 exercises as a substitute for faith. In themselves, dogmas 
 were as cold and dead as Israel's stone Tables of the Law ; 
 if a man wished to make the dry bones live, he must actually 
 go through the psychological crisis, of which the dogmas 
 were a very lame translation. Hence it was absurd to 
 speak as though the bare acceptance of Catholicism was 
 enough of itself to make a man religious ; men could only 
 become real Christians, when they already possessed a nature 
 capable of undergoing that crisis. All a creed could do 
 was to give point and unity and purpose to impulses that 
 hitherto had been bhndly stirring within them. It stood, 
 in fact, much as dams and sluices stand to the water that 
 flows through them. And what was true of creeds was true 
 of all reUgious inquiry. Wavering free-thinkers would not 
 wade through the lucubrations of apologists, unless the 
 spirit of Christianity had them already in its grip. ' Console 
 thyself,' says the Eedeemer in the ' Mystery of Jesus,' ' thou 
 wouldst not have sought Me, hadst thou not already 
 found Me.' 
 
 In other words, the religious impulse was inborn, 
 organic. It could not be artificially grafted on to a man's 
 character ; if he came into the world without it, his only 
 chance lay in undergoing the miracle of conversion. Creeds 
 and Churches could no more make him a Christian than they 
 could make him a Shakespeare or an Isaac Newton. For 
 religion was not like a doctrine that could be committed 
 to writing and passed on from one man to another ; it was 
 what Pascal calls a line of perspective, a special attitude 
 towards life. Becoming a Christian did not mean simply 
 
THE END 425 
 
 undertaking a few more duties, moral and ecclesiastical, 
 than one's unregenerate neighbours practised ; it meant 
 organising one's whole experience round one particular 
 centre, seeing the world in one particular light. Hence the 
 need of ' thunder-claps and visible upsets ' ; for conversion 
 called for a thorough readjustment of all our faculties aHke. 
 Aims, that had hitherto seemed supremely important, now 
 seemed supremely unimportant ; modes of reasoning, that 
 had hitherto seemed absolutely sure, now appeared as 
 useless and uncertain as Cartesianism itself. ' The first 
 effect of Grace on our soul,' says Pascal, ' is that it views 
 the world and itself from a standpoint altogether new.' 
 Not, indeed, that the struggle was yet over. ' Grace itself 
 is no more than a figure of glory.' The convert must not 
 hope to climb the Mount of Vision at one bound ; the loftiest 
 earthly Pisgah would but afford him scant glimpses of the 
 Promised Land. Like his unregenerate fellows, he was still 
 a prisoner of space and time, awash between two opposite 
 Infinities ; and life was still an upward struggle. ' God 
 wishes to strengthen our will more than our reason. Perfect 
 clearness would serve the turn of reason, but would slacken 
 the fibres of the will. . . . Man must not be left in utter 
 darkness ; but also he must not see enough to think that 
 he already possesses God. He must see just enough to 
 feel that he has lost Him.' i 
 
 Li this conception of the hidden God centre both the 
 Provincial Letters and the ' Pensees.' ' Eeligion is so great 
 a thing that it is only right that those who will not trouble 
 to seek should be forced to go without it.' But what was 
 the great stumbling-block to an untiring search ? Plainly 
 the mistaken conviction that men had already found Him. 
 That was why He wrapped Himself about in mystery. That 
 was why human intelligence, ' talking by the Hght of Nature,' 
 could not say what He was, or even if He was at all. In 
 
 ' Pens. 556. 
 
426 PASCAL 
 
 particular, that was why He decreed that His creatures 
 should wash to and fro between two opposite Infinities. 
 Thereby a fatal check was put to the self-confidence of 
 philosophers. So long as they believed that they could 
 demonstrate His existence, they would go on evolving 
 fantastic Deities by the score — Gods Stoical, Gods geo- 
 metrical, Gods fit for carnal Jews. But they only contrived 
 to do this by riding some one single principle — such as dog- 
 matism or scepticism — to the death. To disarm them, no 
 more was needed than to show that God had deliberately so 
 laid out the Universe that no one single principle could cover 
 its entirety. Sooner or later, reason would confound all varie- 
 ties of dogmatism, and Nature do justice on every kind of 
 sceptic. It was anything but an accident that the premises of 
 Stoics, Pyrrhonists, and the rest were all true, though all their 
 conclusions were false, because the opposite premises were 
 also true. 
 
 StiU, the hidden God had more ignoble enemies than 
 Descartes and Du Vair. Their errors were at any rate due 
 to hard, if misdirected, thinking ; whereas vast numbers of 
 orthodox Catholics had never given five minutes to serious 
 reflexion in their lives. Good, easy-going souls, they had 
 settled accounts up once for all with an infallible ecclesias- 
 tical system, and thenceforward thought they knew all 
 they need about religion. Pascal soon tore off the veil 
 from this timorous self-indulgence, masquerading as humble 
 submission of the intellect. ' Men like the Pope to be 
 infallible on questions of Faith, and grave Doctors to be so 
 on questions of morals, so as always to have an assurance 
 close at hand.' i Unfortunately, their Maker paid small heed 
 to their inclinations. As Pierre Nicole has explained at 
 length. He thought it better that they should work out 
 their salvation along a path of darkness, doubt, and fear, 
 wherein they were ever dependent on His help. Parch- 
 
 1 Pens. 880. 
 
THE END 427 
 
 ment certainties were for the Ultramontane legalist, not for 
 the child of the Gospel. Sure as he might be of his calling 
 and election, his conviction never reached the strength of 
 an absolute demonstration ; like a fairy-light, it hovered 
 over the outer marches of his mind, vanishing into the mists 
 beyond before reason could overtake it. Hence came the 
 ' trembling faith ' of Port Eoyal. No doubt, as Pascal 
 told Charlotte de Roannez, Christians knew a joy that the 
 world could neither give, nor take away ; but there was 
 ever a drop of hyssop in their cup. ' The saints feel this 
 joy without any sorrow ; worldlings feel the sorrow without 
 any joy. Christians have the joy mingled with regret at 
 having followed other pleasures in the past, and with fear 
 lest these pleasures may yet beguile them in the future. 
 Let us, then, labour without ceasing to keep the joy that 
 moderates our fear, and to keep the fear that moderates 
 our joy.' 1 
 
 Many critics have shrunk back aghast at this austerity. 
 ' Even the mind of Pascal was not large enough for every- 
 thing,' 2 says Eichard William Church. ' His view of religion 
 rises out of solemn and unfathomable depths, the abyss of 
 life and pain and death, the abyss of sin and ignorance and 
 error, the abyss of redemption and God's love. These 
 themes absorb and dominate his imagination and thoughts ; 
 and steadied and controlled as he certainly was by his 
 religion, his book is not one of those which reflect the joy, 
 the quiet order, the peace and exultation of Christian life.' 
 Such golden visions were impossible to one who had under- 
 taken to transpose the great formula of Du Vair, and found 
 on man— not the greatness, but the rehgion of man. ^ And 
 no one has interpreted more poignantly than Church himself 
 the judgment that Pascal passed upon his race. ' Read 
 man in one way, and he seems made for God and truth. 
 
 1 Works, ii. p. 46. 
 
 2 Pascal, and other Serrmms (1896), p. 5. 
 
428 PASCAL 
 
 Read him in another, and nothing can express the unmeaning- 
 ness of his life, his blind stumbling through an existence 
 which has come from chance. To look at his great endow- 
 ments, his wonderful achievements, his never-ceasing 
 progress, he seems indeed the crown and glory of God's 
 creation. But look at the things which he does not know, 
 and his vaunts of knowledge seem chUdish. Look at the 
 things which enchant him, the prejudices which enslave 
 him, the baseness to which he can descend, and is the 
 contempt of the cynic undeserved for so poor a creature ? 
 Look at the inevitable fact of death, the decay which 
 precedes it, and is it possible to exaggerate the idle fruitless- 
 ness of such a lot, except as a link in an eternal and unfailing 
 chain of fate ? So aspiring, so defeated, so undiscouraged ; 
 with the strongest impulses to hope, hut ever haunted by 
 arguments of despair, he reveals by fits and starts his 
 greater and better nature ; but practically, and m. the long 
 run, he leads a life which he might lead without God and 
 conscience, guided by calculation of what is pleasant and 
 prudent, calculating rightly in the main, often miscalculating 
 miserably and fatally. There he is, this marvellously com- 
 pounded creature, crossing and contradicting himself 
 through life ; the slave of habits, yet their creator ; the 
 slave of imaginations, of which yet he knows the illusions ; 
 the slave of opinions, for which he is yet responsible, and 
 which he has contributed to accredit ; balancing between 
 good and evil, sin and repentance, till the wavering is cut 
 short by death.' 
 
 ' The mass of mankind look at all this under the sway of 
 custom and habit ; they take it all as it comes, they feel no 
 surprise. But when men try to look below the surface, 
 then come the perplexities and the enigmas. Our instruments 
 of knowledge fail us, or play us false. We are born with the 
 instinct of certainty, and imply it in every act and argument, 
 yet certainty flies from our analysis and verifying tests. 
 
THE END 429 
 
 Truth is impossible without freedom of thought ; yet no 
 sooner is thought free than it eats away all certainty, till at 
 last it turns upon itself, and surrenders its own conscious- 
 ness of existence and freedom a prey and sacrifice to a 
 theory. We are distracted between rival claims on our 
 allegiance ; between nature and broad common sense and 
 irresistible convictions, and on the other hand the keen, 
 subtle, finished conclusions of the reasoning faculty, 
 apparently so faultless and impregnable in form, often so 
 formidable and ghastly in their consequences. Pascal 
 will explain away nothing, will disguise and ignore nothing. 
 He will put his standard and idea of life as high as Epictetus ; 
 but he sees, as clearly as Montaigne, the tricks that custom 
 and imagination play, the treacheries of self-interest, the 
 inconsistencies of goodness, the strange mixture in real life 
 of the ridiculous and the pathetic, the gaps in our logic, 
 the shortcomings of our proofs. He can see but one 
 explanation to the anomalies of our condition. Man's 
 greatness is greatness fallen ; it is royal greatness, but the 
 greatness of a disinherited king.'i 
 
 All honour, therefore, to the man who saw so much and 
 yet did not despair of the Eepublic. No man knew better 
 than this neurasthenic patient the ghastly reality of 
 physical pain. Yet Pascal continued to declare that man, 
 though a reed, and the feeblest in nature, was a thinking 
 reed. Even when the universe was killing him, his reason 
 still remained its master. But no one knew better than 
 Pascal that this was not the whole of the matter. View 
 reason from one standpoint, and it appeared our tainted 
 nature's sohtary boast ; slightly change the line of per- 
 spective, and— as Pascal roundly says— reason will appear 
 a fool. Yet the mathematician's heart still warmed at the 
 thought of Archimedes. He won no victories ; he wore 
 no crown ; but oh, how' glorious he was to the intellectual 
 
 1 Pascal and other Sermons (1896), pp. 7 and 11. 
 
430 PASCAL 
 
 eye. And commoner souls than his could manage to lift 
 the dead-weight of the Universe. ' Despite all the miseries 
 that surround us, and take us by the throat, we cannot get 
 rid of an instinct that still buoys us up.' Nay, the very 
 miseries themselves were evidence of our royal destiny ; 
 if man were not a disinherited king, he would not know that 
 he was wretched. To the smug Cartesian, secure in his 
 infallible Cogito, doubts and perplexities might seem mere 
 foolishness ; to the orthodox Catholic they appeared the 
 terrible consequence of refusing to listen to the Church ; to 
 the practical man of the world they were no better than a 
 morbid grubbing in rat-holes. But in Pascal's eyes these 
 troubles were the birth-pangs of conversion, heralding the 
 death of the Moi and the dawn of a new, higher life. Men 
 only doubted and stumbled and despaired, because they 
 had lost their hold on ' things visible but vain,' and had 
 not yet found sure footing among ' things invisible, but 
 real.' But they must learn to bear with dimness for a while, 
 for what transcended human consciousness was striving 
 to express itself in terms of human consciousness. Nor need 
 they be discouraged, if their trials awoke no fellow-feeling 
 in the ninety-and-ninejust persons, which needed no repent- 
 ance. What greater blasphemy than to pretend that the 
 touch of the Spirit came to all ? ' Eecognise the truth of 
 religion in the very obscurity of religion, in the little that 
 we know about it, in our lukewarm wishes to know more.' ^ 
 But converts recked little of the obscurity. They felt that 
 they had come out of the prison of self ; they were no longer 
 ' members,' isolated units ; they were parts of a larger 
 whole. And that whole was a universal Realm of the 
 Spirit, present within them, yet stretching beyond them 
 changeless and eternal. For it was the land of Truth ; 
 and she ' is older than any opinion, and by no means began 
 to be, when she began to be known.'^ 
 
 ' Pens. 665. - Fragment d'un Traiti du Vide, Works, III. p. 162. 
 
BIBLIOGRAPHY 
 
 All English hooks on this list were published in London, and all French 
 in Paris, unless otherwise stated. 
 
 Editions of Pascal 
 
 Complete Works, ed. Lahiire. 3 vols. Paris, 1899. 
 
 A sumptuous new edition of the Works, containing mucli 
 additional material, is in course of publication in the series of 
 Grands Ecrivains de la France. Of this the first three volumes 
 (Paris, 1908) have appeared, deahng with Pascal's life up to the 
 second conversion, and edited by MM. Brunschvicg and Pierre 
 Boutroux. The last three volumes, containing the Penskes, edited 
 by Brunschvicg, appeared in 1904. Brunschvicg has also edited 
 the Pensees et Opuscules in one small volume, 1900. 
 
 Editions of the Provincial Letters. De Soyres, John, with English 
 notes. Cambridge, 1880. 
 Havet, Ernest. 2 vols. 1889. 
 Maynard, Abbe Ulysse. 2 vols. 1851. 
 MoUnier, Auguste. 2 vols. 1891. 
 
 There is an excellent volume of extracts from the Letters, 
 made by Brunetiere, 1902. 
 
 Editions of the ' Pensees.^ Brunschvicg's two editions are by far the 
 most satisfactory ; but Havet's edition (2 vols., Paris, 1897) 
 may still be consulted. See also Gustave Michaud's edition, Les 
 Pensees disposees suivant Vordre du cahier autographe, Eribourg, 
 1896 ; and Gazier's reproduction of the original Port Royal 
 edition, 1906. 
 
 B 
 
 BlOGEAPHIBS 
 
 Bertrand, Joseph. Blaise Pascal. 1891. 
 Boutroux, Emile. Pascal. 1900. 
 
 431 
 
432 BIBLIOGEAPHY 
 
 Dreydorff, J. G. Pascal : sein Leben und seine Kampfe. Leipsio, 
 
 1870. 
 Giraud, Victor. Pascal. 1900. 
 Kreiten, W. ' Blasius Pascal ' ■- twenty articles in the Stimmen aus 
 
 Maria Laach, vols. 42-45. 
 Maynard, Ulysse. Pascal. 2 vols. 1850. 
 Michaut, Gustave. Les ipoques de la pensee de Pascal. 1902. 
 Reuchlin, Hermann. Pascal's Leben. Stuttgart, 1840. 
 Sainte Beuve, C. A. In the fifth edition of his Port Royal, vols. 3 and 
 I . 4, 1888. See also his Causeries du Lundi, vols. 5, 6, 8, 9 ; and his 
 
 Portraits Liiieraires, 1, 2, 3. 
 Strowski, Portunat. Pascal et son temps. 3 vols. 1907-8. 
 
 C 
 
 Short Sttjdies 
 
 Bourget, Paul. In Etudes et Portraits, vol. 1, 1889. 
 
 Cantor, Moritz. In Preussische Jahrhiicher, August 1873. 
 
 Church, R. W. Pascal and other Sermons. 1896. 
 
 Janet, Paul. ' Pascal Philosophe,' in Revue Politique et Litteraire 
 
 for September 1880. 
 Lanson, Gustave. Article ' Pascal ' in the Grande Encyclopedic. 
 Pater, Walter. In Miscellaneous Studies, 1895. 
 Scherer, Edmond. In Etudes sur la litterature contemporaine, vol. 9 
 
 1889. 
 Stephen, Leslie. In Studies of a Biographer, vol. 2, 1898. 
 Vinet, Alexandre. Etudes sur Blaise Pascal. New ed. 1904. 
 
 Lettres, Opuscules et Memoires de Madame Perier et de Jacqueline, et de 
 Marguerite Perier. Ed. Feug^re. 1845. The most important of 
 these are reprinted in Brunschvicg and Boutroux, vol. 1. 
 
 Recueil de plusieurs pik.es pour servir a Vhistoire de Port Royal, con- 
 taining a long memoir of Pascal. Utrecht, 1740. 
 
 Cousin, Victor. Jacqueline Pascal. New ed. 1894. 
 
 D 
 
 Pascal's Scientific Yottth 
 
 Adam, Charles. 'L'Education scientifique de Pacal': three articles in 
 
 Revue de V Enseignement Secondaire for 1887. 
 De Beaurepaire, Charles. Blaise Pascal et sa Famille a Rouen 
 
 Rouen, 1902. 
 Binet-Sangle, Dr. ' La Maladie de Pascal,' in Annalea Mkdicopsy- 
 
 chologiques for March 1899. 
 
BIBLIOGEAPRY 433 
 
 (1) The Mathematician 
 
 Cantor, Moritz. Vorlesungen iiber Oeschichte der Mathematik. Vol. 2. 
 
 Leipsio, 1900. 
 Desboves, A. JStude sur Pascal et les giometres contemporains. 1878. 
 Marie. Histoire des Sciences MatUmatiques. Vol. 4. 1884. 
 Perrier. Two chapters on ' Travaux Soientifiques ' incorporated in 
 
 Hatzfeld's Pascal. 1901. 
 
 (2) The Physicist 
 
 Adam, Charles. ' Pascal et Descartes,' in Eevue Philosophique for 
 
 December 1887, January 1888. 
 Baillet, Adrien. Vie de M. Descartes. 2 vols. 1691. 
 Duhem, P. ' Le Principe de Pascal,' in Revue Oenirale des Sciences 
 
 for July 15, 1905 ; ' Le Pere Marin Mersenne,' in same review 
 
 for September 15 and 30, 1906. 
 Pouill^e, Alfred. Descartes. 1893. 
 
 Haldane, Miss E. S. Descartes : His Life and Times. 1905. 
 Liard, Louis. Descartes. 1903. 
 Mathieu, FeUx. ' Pascal et I'experience du Puy-de-D6me,' in Revue 
 
 de Paris for April and May 1906, March and April 1907. For a 
 
 list of the works called forth by this controversy, see Brunschviog 
 
 and Boutroux, Introduction, pp. xxviii and if. 
 Rosenberger. Oeschichte der Physik. Vol. 2. Brunswick, 1884. 
 Smith, Norman. Studies in the Cartesian Philosophy. 1903. 
 Tannery. ' Descartes Physicien,' in the Revue de Metaphysique et de 
 
 Morale for July 1896. 
 
 The Lay Moeaiists 
 
 CoefEeteau, Nicholas. Tableau des Passions Humaines. 1620. Trans- 
 lated by Edward Grimeston, 1621, 
 
 Descartes. Works. Ed. Adam and Tannery, 1897, &c. His Traite 
 des Passions was translated under the title of Passions of the 
 Soul, London, 1650. 
 
 Du Vair, GuUlaume. Works. Rouen, 1622. The Sainte Philosophic 
 was first published in 1588, but apparently has never been trans- 
 lated. Charles Cotton, the translator of Montaigne, translated 
 the Moral of the Stoics in 1660. 
 
 Senault, Jean Frangois. Traiti de Vusage des Passions. Translated 
 by Henry, Earl of Monmouth, 1671. 
 
 Blondel, Maurice. ' Le Christianisme de Descartes,' in Eevue de 
 Metaphysique et de Morale for July 1896. 
 
434 BIBLIOGRAPHY 
 
 Boutroux, Emile. ' Du rapport de la morale a la science dans la 
 
 Philosophie de Descartes,' in same number of same review. 
 BrunetiSre. ' Descartes,' in Etudes Critiques, vol. 3 ; ' Jans6nistes et 
 
 Cart&iens,' in vol. 4. 
 Carrau, Ludovio. Expose critique de la thiorie des passions dans 
 
 Descartes, Malebranche et Spinoza. 1870. 
 Cougny, E. Qnillaume du Voir. 1857. 
 Lanson, Gustave. ' Philosophie Cartesienne et Litt6rature,' in number 
 
 of Revue de Mitaphysique above quoted ; ' Descartes et Gorneille,' 
 
 in Hommes et Livres, 1895 ; Gorneille, 1898. 
 Touchard, G. La Morale de Descartes, 1898. 
 
 F 
 
 Mint AjsD Polite Society 
 
 Antoine de Gombauld. Chevalier de Mere, Works. 2 vols. Amster- 
 dam, 1692. 
 
 Brunetifere. ' La Societe Preoieuse,' in Etudes Critiques, vol. 2. 
 
 Cousin, Victor. Madame de Sable. New ed. 1882. 
 
 Deschamps, Gaston. ' Le Chevalier de Mere,' in Le Temps for July 
 14, 1895. 
 
 Giraud, C. Introduction to his edition of Saint fivremond. 
 
 Livet, C. Precieuz et Precieuses. 1896. 
 
 Nourrisson. Article on Mere in his Pascal Physicien et Philosophe. 
 1888. 
 
 Roederer. Memoires pour servir a Vhistoire de la societe polie en 
 France. 1855. 
 
 Sainte Beuve. ' Le Chevalier de Mere,' in Portraits lAtteraires, vol. 3. 
 
 Taine, Hippolyte. L'Ancien Regime. 2 vols. (23rd ed.). 1900. 
 
 G 
 
 The Libertines 
 
 Charron, Pierre. Les Trois Veritas, Bordeaux, 1593 ; Discours 
 Chritiens, ib. 1600 ; Traite de la Sagesse, ib. 1601. This last was 
 translated by Dr. Stanhope, 1697, 3 vols. 
 
 Garasse, Father. La Doctrine Curieuse des Beaux-Esprits. 1623. 
 
 Mersenne, Marin. Impiitk des Deistes. 2 vols. 1624. 
 
 Saint Evremond, C. de M. de Saint-Denis de. Oeuvres Choisies. Ed. 
 C. Giraud. 3 vols. 1865. 
 
 Brett, G. S. The Philosophy of Oassendi. 1908. 
 Bruneti^re. ' La Philosophie de Molifere,' in Etudes Critiques, vol. 4. 
 Denis, J. Memoires de VAcadtmie de Caen for 1884, 1891, 1896, 1900. 
 Etienne, L. Etude sur La Moihe Le Vayer. Rennes, 1849. 
 
BIBLIOGRAPHY 485 
 
 Perrens. Les Liberiins en France. 1896. 
 Raynaud, M. Les Midecins au temps de Molitre. 1858. 
 Sainte Beuve. Causeries du Lundi, vol. 8 (on Patin), vol. 11 
 (on Charron) ; Nouveaux Lundis, vol. 13 (on Saint ^fivremond). 
 Schirmaoher, Frln. K. TUaphile de Viau. Leipsic, 1897. 
 
 Pascal's Convehsion 
 
 Urbain, Charles. ' Un ]5pisode de la vie de J. P. Camua et de 
 Pascal,' in Revue de I'Histoire Litttraire de la France for January 
 15, 1895. 
 
 Krug. La conversion de Pascal. Montauban, 1902. 
 
 Delacroix, Henri. Etudes sur le Mysticisme. 1908. 
 
 Edwards, Jonathan. Treatise on the Religious Affections. First 
 published in 1746. 
 
 James, William. The Varieties of Religious Experience. 1903. 
 
 Leuba, J. H. 'A Study in the Psychology of Religious Phenomena,' 
 in the American Journal of Psychology for April 1896 ; ' Tendances 
 Fondamentalea des Mystiques Chretiens,' in the Revue PMlo- 
 sophique for July and November 1902 ; ' Religion aa a Factor in 
 the Struggle for Life,' in the American Journal of Religious 
 Psychology and Education for December 1906. 
 
 Murisier. Les Maladies du Sentiment Religieux. 1903. 
 
 Starbuck, E. D. Psychology of Religion. 1901. 
 
 Post Royal 
 
 Its theology : Linsenmann, P. X. Michael Baius, und die Grundlegung 
 
 des Jansenismus. Tiibingen, 1869. 
 Paquier, J. Le Jansenisme. 1909. 
 Its history : Arnauld, Agn^s. Leiires. Ed. Feugdre. 2 vols. 1858. 
 Arnauld, Ang61ique, Lettres, 3 vols., Utrecht, 1742 ; Mimoires 
 
 pour servir a I'histoire de Port Royal, et a la vie de la Revirende 
 
 Mire Marie Angelique de Sainte Magdelaine Arnauld, Re- 
 
 formafriee de ce Monastlre, 3 vols., Utrecht, 1742. 
 Avrigny, H. R. de. Mtmoires Chronologiques pour servir h 
 
 I'histoire eccUsiastique de 1600 & 1716. 4 vols. 1720. 
 Du Fosse, Pierre Thomas, Sieur de. Mimoires. Ed. Bouquet. 
 
 4 vols. Rouen, 1877-9. 
 Fontaine, N. Mimoires pour servir d, I'histoire de Port Royal. 
 
 4 vols. Cologne, 1753. 
 Hermant, Godefroi. Memoires. Ed. Gazier. 1905, &c. 
 
436 BIBLIOGEAPHY 
 
 Its history — continued. 
 
 Lancelot, Claude. Memoires touchant la Vie de M, de Saint Oyran. 
 
 2 vols. Cologne, 1738. 
 Nicrologie de Port Royal, Amsterdam, 1723 ; SuppUmeni, 1735. 
 Raoine, Jean. Ahrkgk de I'Histoire de Port Royal. Ed. Gazier. 
 
 1908. 
 Rapin, Ren6. Histoire du Jansenisme, ed. Domenech, 1873 ; 
 
 M&moires, ed. Aubineau, 3 vols., 1865. 
 Its religion : Arnauld, Antoine. De La Frequente Communion, 1643 ; 
 
 Dissertation de I'amour de Dieu, Wks. xxvi. 1779. 
 Nicole. Les Imaginaires (1664-5), Les Visionnaires (1666), col- 
 lected in one volume. Cologne, 1683. 
 Saint-Cyran. Petrus Aurelius, 3 vols., 1646 ; Lettres Ohritiennes, 
 
 ed. Arnauld d'AndiUy, 2 vols., 1645, 1648 ; another selection 
 
 under same title, 2 vols., Amsterdam, 1744. 
 
 Beard, Charles. Port Royal. 2 vols. 1861. 
 
 A. K. H. Angelique of Port Royal. 1905. 
 
 Reuchlin. Qeschichte von Port Royal. 2 vols. Hamburg, 1839, 
 
 1844. 
 Sainte Beuve. Port Royal. 6 vols, and Index. 1880. 
 
 The Provincial Letters 
 
 (Annat and Nouet.) An answer to the Provinciall Letters, made by 
 
 some Fathers of the Society in France. Paris, 1659. 
 Arnauld, Antoine. La Thiologie Morale desj&suites{1644:). Reprinted 
 
 in his Works, vol. xxix. 
 Daniel, Father. Entretiens de Cliandre et d' Eudoxe sur les lettres au 
 
 Provincial. 10th ed. Cologne, 1697. 
 Escobar. Liber Theologiae Moralis. This famous book went through 
 
 more than thirty editions in Spain, was reprinted at Brussels, 
 
 Munich, Bologna, Venice, as well as several times in France. 
 
 I have used the edition of Lyons, 1659. 
 Jurieu, P. La Religion des Jisuites. The Hague, 1689. 
 Pirot, Father. Apologie des Casuistes. 1659. 
 Rapin, Father. La Foi des demiers siicles, 1679 ; L'Esprit du 
 
 Ohristianisme, 1683. 
 
 Bruneti^re. ' Des Provinciales,' in Etudes Critiques, vol. 3. 
 
 Church, R. W. ' Pascal and Ultramontanism,' in Essays and Re- 
 views, 1854. 
 
 DoUinger und Reusch. Qeschichte der Moralstreitigkeiten im sieb- 
 zehnten Jdhrhundert. Nordlingen, 1889. 
 
BIBLIOGRAPHY 437 
 
 Gothein. Ignatius von Loyola und die Oegenreformation. Halle, 1895. 
 Gourmont, Remy de. ' Le Chemin de Velours,' in Mercure de France 
 
 for April 1901. 
 Jowett, B. ' Essay on Casuistry,' in his edition of St. Paul's Epistle 
 
 to the Romans, vol. 2, 1855. 
 Lanson, Gustave. ' Les Provinciales et le livre de la Th6ologie Morale 
 
 des Jesuites,' in Eevue de VHistoire Littiraire de la France for 
 
 1900 ; ' Apr^ les Provinciales,' in same review for 1901. 
 Mausbach, J. Die Katholische Moral. Cologne, 1902. 
 Reusch. ' Bourg Fontaine,' in Beitrdge zur Geschichte des Jesuiten 
 
 Ordens. Munich, 1894. 
 Traill, H. D. ' Pascal's Provincial Letters,' in Fortnightly Review, 
 
 N.S. vol. 18. ' y y ' 
 
 Whewell, William. Lectures on Moral Philosophy. Cambridge, 1862. 
 
 K 
 
 The Later Pascal 
 
 Perier, Margaret. ' Vie de Mademoiselle de Roannez,' ed. Victor 
 
 Cousin, Bihliotheque de I'icole des Ohartes, vol. 5, 1843. 
 Adam, Charles. ' Pascal et Mile, de Roannez,' in the Revue Bour- 
 
 guignonne de V Enseignement Superieur for July 1891. 
 Gazier, A. ' Le Roman de Pascal,' in the Revue Politique et Lit- 
 
 teraire for November 1877. 
 Tannery, Paul. ' Pascal et Lalouvfere,' in the M&moires de la Societe 
 
 des sciences physiques et naturelles de Bordeaux for 1889 and 1894. 
 
 The ' PBNsiiBs ' 
 
 BrunetiSre. Studes Critiques, 1 and 3. 
 
 Guyau, J. M. Education et Heredite : Appendix. 1889. 
 
 Jetter, K. ' Pascal's Erkeimtnisstheorie,' in Jahrbuch filr deutsche 
 
 Theologie for 1872. 
 Koster, A. Ethik Pascal's. Tiibingen, 1907. 
 Laberthonniere, L. ' L'Apolog6tique et la M^thode de Pascal,' in 
 
 Essais de Philosophie Religieuse, 1903. 
 Lachelier, J. ' Notes sur le Pari de Pascal,' in his Fondement de I'ln- 
 
 duction, 1907. 
 Natorp, P. ' Etwas iiber Pascal's Pensees,' in Preussische Jahrbiicher 
 
 for July 1884. 
 Neander. tjber die geschichtUche Bedeutung von Pascal's Pensees ; 
 
 Pascal's Auffassung des eigentlich Christlichen. Berlin, 1847. 
 Rauh, F. ' La Philosophie de Pascal,' in Annates de la Faculti de 
 
 Lettres de Bordeaux for 1892. 
 
 FF 3 
 
438 BIBLIOGEAPHY 
 
 Eavaisson. 'La Philosophie de Pascal,' in Betme des Deux Mondes 
 
 for March 15, 1887. 
 Sully-Prudhomme, J. La Vraie Bdigion selon Pascal. 1905. 
 WilHams, W. J. Newman, Pascal and the Catholic Church. 1906. 
 
 M 
 Translations 
 
 The Provincial Letters. Thomas McCrie. London, 1846. 
 
 The Pensees. Thoughts on Rehgion and other curious subjects. 
 Translated by Basil Kennet, 1704. This admirable book is 
 reprinted among Lord Avebuiy's Hundred Best Books. The 
 reader will, however, remember that it follows the mutilated text 
 published by Port Royal in 1670. The only modern translation 
 following Brunschvicg's text is by W. P. Trotter, 1904. 
 
 This list by no means pretends to be exhaustive, even of modern 
 books on Pascal. A fuU bibliography will be found in Michaud's 
 edition of the Pensees, Pribourg, 1896. 
 
INDEX 
 
 AiGuiLLON, Ducheas of, 11, 149 
 Annat, Father, 285, 286, 319-321, 
 
 340 
 Anne of Austria, Queen, 10, 274, 289, 
 
 342 
 Amauld, Agn^s, 90, 128, 214, 326 
 Arnauld, Angelique, 90, 132, 136, 
 
 137, 198, 201, 203-205, 215, 
 
 242-245, 326 
 Amauld, Antoine, 45, 100, 201, 215, 
 
 238-242, 246, 262-267, 283, 285- 
 
 300, 322, 333, 339, 390, 403-405, 
 
 426 
 Auzout, Adrien, 26, 93-95, 107 
 
 Balzac, Jean Louia de, 14, 32, 168 
 Barcos, Martin de, 257, 260 
 Bauny, Father, 305, 307, 312, 318 
 Bay, Michael de, 207-209 
 Boileau, Nicholas, 13, 31, 148, 176, 
 
 265 
 Bossuet, Jacques B6nigne, 162, 287, 
 
 288, 346, 384 
 Bouhours, Father, 285, 286 
 Bourdelot, 142 
 Bourg Fontaine, 322-324 
 Boyle, Robert, 118 
 Bruno, Giordano, 34, 39 
 
 Camus, Jean Pierre, 95, 323 
 Caramuel, Bishop, 312, 314 
 Carcavi, 15, 348, 353, 354, 422 
 Chapelain, Jean, 131, 178 
 Charron, Pierre, 170-173, 206, 419 
 Chevreuse, Duke of, 352 
 Christine of Sweden, Queen, 142 
 Comeille, Pierre, 26, 74 and £E., 153, 
 376 
 
 Cyrano de Bergerac, 162, 190 
 
 Dalanoay, 324-328 
 
 Desargues, Girard, 15, 19, 20, 62 
 
 Des Barreaux, 163 
 
 Descartes, Ren6, 15-20, 25, 31, 132, 
 142, 208, 265 ; on science, 32, 38, 
 43, 44, 47, 50-65, 106-1 15, 120, 121, 
 212, 217, 417, 488 ; on religion, 
 43, 128, 129, 181-187, 360-372, 
 380, 390-392; on the emotions 
 and the will, 75-79, 154-158, 217 
 
 Diana, Antonio, 277, 309, 312, 316 
 
 Domat, Jean, 404 
 
 Du Foss6, Pierre Thomas, 199-202, 
 261 
 
 Du Vair, Guillaume, 70 and £f., 96 
 andff., 140, 214,379-382,419,426, 
 427 
 
 Edwaeds, Jonathan, 84, 129, 233, 
 
 236 
 Escobar, Father, 112, 217, 238, 277 
 
 and ff., 289, 302 and ff., 333, 343 
 
 and ff., 399, 401, 421 
 
 Fabebt, Marshal, 345 
 
 Faure, Father, 282 
 
 Ffenelon, Francois de, 4, 9, 87, 88, 
 
 138, 228, 394, 395 
 Fermat, Pierre, 7, 16, 32, 66, 67, 141, 
 
 192, 351 
 F16chier, Esprit, 150 
 Fontaine, Pierre, 199-202, 242, 259, 
 
 402 
 Fontenelle, Bernard de, 25, 27, 154, 
 
 369 
 
 439 
 
440 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Galileo, 7, 13, 33-43, 51 and S., 
 
 101, 105, 120 
 Garasse, Father, 163 and £f. 
 Gasaendi, 16, 33, 36, 173 and ff. 
 Guiffart, 26, 48, 49, 102, 103, 105 
 
 Jansen, Cornelius, 80-91, 96-99, 
 127-131, 206-285, 224, 289, 386 ; 
 and see Port Royal 
 
 Jurieu, 88 
 
 Labadie, Jean, 261 
 
 LalouT^re, Father, 348-350 
 
 La Motte Le Vayer, 162, 167-170, 
 
 176 
 Leibniz, 2, 18 
 
 Lemaistre, Antoine, 198-201 
 Le Pailleur, Stephen, 7, 14, 109, 182 
 Lessius, Father, 306, 313, 319 
 Louis XIV, 124, 315, 356, 358, 399, 
 
 400 
 
 Maqni, Valerian, 103, 112 
 Maintenon, Madame de, 140, 159 
 Malebranche, Nicole, 87, 143, 265, 
 
 273, 369 
 Mazarin, Cardinal, 123, 289, 293, 399 
 M6r6, Chevaher de, 138-162, 175, 
 
 181, 192, 196, 220, 222 and ff., 234, 
 
 351, 373, 397, 418 
 Mersenne, Father Marin, 14-17, 20, 
 
 25, 33, 36, 40, 43, 46, 48, 52, 57, 
 
 101, 107, 110, 116, 120, 163, 181 
 Miton, 140, 160-162, 179, 185, 190- 
 
 192, 196, 222 and ff., 351, 373, 393, 
 
 397, 418 
 Mohdre, 37, 50, 156 
 Molinists, 210 and ff., 237 and ff., 
 
 287-299, 394 
 Mondory, 11, 26 
 Montaigne, 162-180, 184-192, 219, 
 
 366-382, 419, 420, 429 
 Motteville, Madame de, 273, 299 
 
 Naudb, Gabriel, 162, 167, 168, 173 
 Nicole, 199, 201, 202, 215, 255-257, 
 
 301, 344, 352, 426 
 Noel, Father, 17, 42, 58, 110-115 
 Nouet, Father, 259, 281, 312 
 
 Pascal, Gilberte (afterwards Ma- 
 dame P^rier), 1, 3, 8, 92, 133-135, 
 356-358, 411-417 
 
 Pascal, Jacqueline, 1, 8-12, 28, 70, 
 92, 125, 131-137, 193-197, 325- 
 326, 402-404, 413, 414 
 
 Pascal, Stephen, 1-11, 15, 19, 21, 22, 
 70, 92, 101, 112-114, 125, 132-134 
 
 Patin, Gui, 68, 69, 162, 167, 173, 206, 
 300 
 
 Perier, Florin, 92, 109, 115, 116, 136 
 
 P6rier, Margaret, 324-328, 346, 347, 
 359, 405 
 
 Perier, Stephen, 354, 355, 359 
 
 Perrault, Nicholas, 289, 400 and ff. 
 
 Petit, Pierre, 15, 100 and ff., 356 
 
 Pierius, 26, 102 and ff. 
 
 Pinthereau, Father, 285, 310 
 
 Pirot, Father, 253, 278, 343-346 
 
 Port Eoyal, 198-202 ; Pascal's re- 
 lations with, 125, 131-137, 193- 
 197, 289-302, 320-342, 359, 399- 
 406, 422, 426 ; reUgion of, 125- 
 137, 193-205, 215, 230-266, 285- 
 302, 320-328, 391 
 
 Quietism, 254 
 
 Rapin, Father, 198, 266, 279, 285, 
 
 344 
 Retz, Cardinal de, 75, 399 
 Ribeyre, 104 
 Richelieu, Cardinal, 10-12, 21, 68, 
 
 124, 130, 137. 233, 315 
 Roannez, Chariotte de, 246, 330- 
 
 339, 423, 427 
 Roannez, Duke of, 133, 140, 253, 
 
 330-334, 337, 346, 347 
 Roberval, Professor, 14, 15, 18, 25, 
 
 60, 61, 65, 66, 106-108, 132, 347, 
 
 350, 351 
 
 Sable, Madame de, 153-158, 178, 
 
 353, 354 
 Saci, Isaac de, 184, 196-200, 261, 
 
 402 
 Saint Ange, Frere, 92-96, 103 
 Saint Cyran, Abbe de, 80, 126, 127, 
 
 130, 195, 204, 228-233, 241-243, 
 
 254, 255, 258, 259, 372 
 
INDEX 
 
 441 
 
 Saint Evremond, 25, 145, 162-174, 
 
 180, 191, 234, 245 
 Sanchez, Father, 275, 308, 315 
 SantarelU, Father, 251 
 Soud^ry, Mile, de, 8, 9, 153-156 
 Siguier, Lord Chancellor, 10, 24, 42, 
 
 194, 289, 293 
 Senault, 371 
 
 Singlin, 132, 137, 196, 332 
 Somaize, 135 
 SorbiSre, Samuel, 59 
 Stensen, Nicholas, 56, 57 
 Stevin, Simon, 119 
 
 Thomists, 287-297 
 Torrioelli, Evangelista, 101, 104, 
 105, 117, 121, 347, 351 
 
 Vasqttez, Father, 276, 309, 319, 343 
 Vjau, Th6ophile de, 162,233 
 
 Wailis, John, 348 
 Wren, Christopher, 348 
 
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