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Blaise Pascal
Pensées
The translation is that
of W. F. Trotter (William Finlayson) and was published in New York by Harvard
Classics, 1909-1914.
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contents page]
SECTION I
THOUGHTS ON MIND AND ON STYLE
1. The difference between the
mathematical and the intuitive mind.—In the one, the principles are palpable,
but removed from ordinary use; so that for want of habit it is difficult to
turn one’s mind in that direction: but if one turns it thither ever so
little, one sees the principles fully, and one must have a quite inaccurate
mind who reasons wrongly from principles so plain that it is almost
impossible they should escape notice.
But in the intuitive mind the
principles are found in common use and are before the eyes of everybody. One
has only to look, and no effort is necessary; it is only a question of good
eyesight, but it must be good, for the principles are so subtle and so
numerous that it is almost impossible but that some escape notice. Now the
omission of one principle leads to error; thus one must have very clear sight
to see all the principles and, in the next place, an accurate mind not to
draw false deductions from known principles.
All mathematicians would then
be intuitive if they had clear sight, for they do not reason incorrectly from
principles known to them; and intuitive minds would be mathematical if they
could turn their eyes to the principles of mathematics to which they are
unused.
The reason, therefore, that
some intuitive minds are not mathematical is that they cannot at all turn
their attention to the principles of mathematics. But the reason that
mathematicians are not intuitive is that they do not see what is before them,
and that, accustomed to the exact and plain principles of mathematics, and
not reasoning till they have well inspected and arranged their principles,
they are lost in matters of intuition where the principles do not allow of
such arrangement. They are scarcely seen; they are felt rather than seen;
there is the greatest difficulty in making them felt by those who do not of
themselves perceive them. These principles are so fine and so numerous that a
very delicate and very clear sense is needed to perceive them, and to judge
rightly and justly when they are perceived, without for the most part being
able to demonstrate them in order as in mathematics, because the principles
are not known to us in the same way, and because it would be an endless
matter to undertake it. We must see the matter at once, at one glance, and
not by a process of reasoning, at least to a certain degree. And thus it is
rare that mathematicians are intuitive and that men of intuition are
mathematicians, because mathematicians wish to treat matters of intuition
mathematically and make themselves ridiculous, wishing to begin with
definitions and then with axioms, which is not the way to proceed in this
kind of reasoning. Not that the mind does not do so, but it does it tacitly,
naturally, and without technical rules; for the expression of it is beyond
all men, and only a few can feel it.
Intuitive minds, on the
contrary, being thus accustomed to judge at a single glance, are so
astonished when they are presented with propositions of which they understand
nothing, and the way to which is through definitions and axioms so sterile,
and which they are not accustomed to see thus in detail, that they are
repelled and disheartened.
But dull minds are never
either intuitive or mathematical.
Mathematicians who are only
mathematicians have exact minds, provided all things are explained to them by
means of definitions and axioms; otherwise they are inaccurate and
insufferable, for they are only right when the principles are quite clear.
And men of intuition who are
only intuitive cannot have the patience to reach to first principles of
things speculative and conceptual, which they have never seen in the world
and which are altogether out of the common.
2. There are different kinds
of right understanding; some have right understanding in a certain order of
things, and not in others, where they go astray. Some draw conclusions well
from a few premises, and this displays an acute judgment.
Others draw conclusions well
where there are many premises.
For example, the former easily
learn hydrostatics, where the premises are few, but the conclusions are so
fine that only the greatest acuteness can reach them.
And in spite of that these
persons would perhaps not be great mathematicians, because mathematics
contain a great number of premises, and there is perhaps a kind of intellect
that can search with ease a few premises to the bottom and cannot in the
least penetrate those matters in which there are many premises.
There are then two kinds of
intellect: the one able to penetrate acutely and deeply into the conclusions
of given premises, and this is the precise intellect; the other able to comprehend
a great number of premises without confusing them, and this is the
mathematical intellect. The one has force and exactness, the other
comprehension. Now the one quality can exist without the other; the intellect
can be strong and narrow, and can also be comprehensive and weak.
3. Those who are accustomed to
judge by feeling do not understand the process of reasoning, for they would
understand at first sight and are not used to seek for principles. And
others, on the contrary, who are accustomed to reason from principles, do not
at all understand matters of feeling, seeking principles and being unable to
see at a glance.
4. Mathematics,
intuition.—True eloquence makes light of eloquence, true morality makes light
of morality; that is to say, the morality of the judgement, which has no
rules, makes light of the morality of the intellect.
For it is to judgement that
perception belongs, as science belongs to intellect. Intuition is the part of
judgement, mathematics of intellect.
To make light of philosophy is
to be a true philosopher.
5. Those who judge of a work
by rule are in regard to others as those who have a watch are in regard to
others. One says, “It is two hours ago”; the other says, “It is only
three-quarters of an hour.” I look at my watch, and say to the one, “You are
weary,” and to the other, “Time gallops with you”; for it is only an hour and
a half ago, and I laugh at those who tell me that time goes slowly with me
and that I judge by imagination. They do not know that I judge by my watch.
6. Just as we harm the
understanding, we harm the feelings also.
The understanding and the
feelings are moulded by intercourse; the understanding and feelings are
corrupted by intercourse. Thus good or bad society improves or corrupts them.
It is, then, all-important to know how to choose in order to improve and not
to corrupt them; and we cannot make this choice, if they be not already
improved and not corrupted. Thus a circle is formed, and those are fortunate
who escape it.
7. The greater intellect one
has, the more originality one finds in men. Ordinary persons find no
difference between men.
8. There are many people who
listen to a sermon in the same way as they listen to vespers.
9. When we wish to correct
with advantage and to show another that he errs, we must notice from what
side he views the matter, for on that side it is usually true, and admit that
truth to him, but reveal to him the side on which it is false. He is
satisfied with that, for he sees that he was not mistaken and that he only
failed to see all sides. Now, no one is offended at not seeing everything;
but one does not like to be mistaken, and that perhaps arises from the fact
that man naturally cannot see everything, and that naturally he cannot err in
the side he looks at, since the perceptions of our senses are always true.
10. People are generally
better persuaded by the reasons which they have themselves discovered than by
those which have come into the mind of others.
11. All great amusements are
dangerous to the Christian life; but among all those which the world has
invented there is none more to be feared than the theatre. It is a
representation of the passions so natural and so delicate that it excites
them and gives birth to them in our hearts, and, above all, to that of love,
principally when it is represented as very chaste and virtuous. For the more
innocent it appears to innocent souls, the more they are likely to be touched
by it. Its violence pleases our self-love, which immediately forms a desire to
produce the same effects which are seen so well represented; and, at the same
time, we make ourselves a conscience founded on the propriety of the feelings
which we see there, by which the fear of pure souls is removed, since they
imagine that it cannot hurt their purity to love with a love which seems to
them so reasonable.
So we depart from the theatre
with our heart so filled with all the beauty and tenderness of love, the soul
and the mind so persuaded of its innocence, that we are quite ready to receive
its first impressions, or rather to seek an opportunity of awakening them in
the heart of another, in order that we may receive the same pleasures and the
same sacrifices which we have seen so well represented in the theatre.
12. Scaramouch, who only thinks
of one thing.
The doctor, who speaks for a
quarter of an hour after he has said everything, so full is he of the desire
of talking.
13. One likes to see the
error, the passion of Cleobuline, because she is unconscious of it. She would
be displeasing, if she were not deceived.
14. When a natural discourse
paints a passion or an effect, one feels within oneself the truth of what one
reads, which was there before, although one did not know it. Hence one is
inclined to love him who makes us feel it, for he has not shown us his own
riches, but ours. And thus this benefit renders him pleasing to us, besides
that such community of intellect as we have with him necessarily inclines the
heart to love.
15. Eloquence, which persuades
by sweetness, not by authority; as a tyrant, not as a king.
16. Eloquence is an art of
saying things in such a way (1) that those to whom we speak may listen to
them without pain and with pleasure; (2) that they feel themselves
interested, so that self-love leads them more willingly to reflection upon
it.
It consists, then, in a
correspondence which we seek to establish between the head and the heart of
those to whom we speak, on the one hand, and, on the other, between the
thoughts and the expressions which we employ. This assumes that we have
studied well the heart of man so as to know all its powers and, then, to find
the just proportions of the discourse which we wish to adapt to them. We must
put ourselves in the place of those who are to hear us, and make trial on our
own heart of the turn which we give to our discourse in order to see whether
one is made for the other, and whether we can assure ourselves that the
hearer will be, as it were, forced to surrender. We ought to restrict
ourselves, so far as possible, to the simple and natural, and not to magnify
that which is little, or belittle that which is great. It is not enough that
a thing be beautiful; it must be suitable to the subject, and there must be
in it nothing of excess or defect.
17. Rivers are roads which
move, and which carry us whither we desire to go.
18. When we do not know the
truth of a thing, it is of advantage that there should exist a common error
which determines the mind of man, as, for example, the moon, to which is
attributed the change of seasons, the progress of diseases, etc. For the
chief malady of man is restless curiosity about things which he cannot
understand; and it is not so bad for him to be in error as to be curious to
no purpose.
The manner in which Epictetus,
Montaigne, and Salomon de Tultie wrote is the most usual, the most
suggestive, the most remembered, and the oftenest quoted, because it is
entirely composed of thoughts born from the common talk of life. As when we
speak of the common error which exists among men that the moon is the cause of
everything, we never fail to say that Salomon de Tultie says that, when we do
not know the truth of a thing, it is of advantage that there should exist a
common error, etc.; which is the thought above.
19. The last thing one settles
in writing a book is what one should put in first.
20. Order.—Why should I
undertake to divide my virtues into four rather than into six? Why should I
rather establish virtue in four, in two, in one? Why into Abstine et sustine1 rather than into “Follow
Nature,” or, “Conduct your private affairs without injustice,” as Plato, or
anything else? But there, you will say, everything is contained in one word. Yes,
but it is useless without explanation, and when we come to explain it, as
soon as we unfold this maxim which contains all the rest, they emerge in that
first confusion which you desired to avoid. So, when they are all included in
one, they are hidden and useless, as in a chest, and never appear save in
their natural confusion. Nature has established them all without including
one in the other.
1 “Abstain and uphold.” Stoic
maxim.
21. Nature has made all her
truths independent of one another. Our art makes one dependent on the other.
But this is not natural. Each keeps its own place.
22. Let no one say that I have
said nothing new; the arrangement of the subject is new. When we play tennis,
we both play with the same ball, but one of us places it better.
I had as soon it said that I
used words employed before. And in the same way if the same thoughts in a
different arrangement do not form a different discourse, no more do the same
words in their different arrangement form different thoughts!
23. Words differently arranged
have a different meaning, and meanings differently arranged have different
effects.
24. Language.—We should not
turn the mind from one thing to another, except for relaxation, and that when
it is necessary and the time suitable, and not otherwise. For he that relaxes
out of season wearies, and he who wearies us out of season makes us languid,
since we turn quite away. So much does our perverse lust like to do the
contrary of what those wish to obtain from us without giving us pleasure, the
coin for which we will do whatever is wanted.
25. Eloquence.—It requires the
pleasant and the real; but the pleasant must itself be drawn from the true.
26. Eloquence is a painting of
thought; and thus those who, after having painted it, add something more,
make a picture instead of a portrait.
27. Miscellaneous.
Language.—Those who make antitheses by forcing words are like those who make
false windows for symmetry. Their rule is not to speak accurately, but to
make apt figures of speech.
28. Symmetry is what we see at
a glance; based on the fact that there is no reason for any difference, and
based also on the face of man; whence it happens that symmetry is only wanted
in breadth, not in height or depth.
29. When we see a natural
style, we are astonished and delighted; for we expected to see an author, and
we find a man. Whereas those who have good taste, and who, seeing a book,
expect to find a man, are quite surprised to find an author. Plus poetice
quam humane locutus es.2 Those honour Nature well who teach that she can speak on
everything, even on theology.
2 Petronius, 90. “You have
spoken more as a poet than as a man.”
30. We only consult the ear
because the heart is wanting. The rule is uprightness.
Beauty of omission, of
judgement.
31. All the false beauties
which we blame in Cicero have their admirers, and in great number.
32. There is a certain
standard of grace and beauty which consists in a certain relation between our
nature, such as it is, weak or strong, and the thing which pleases us.
Whatever is formed according
to this standard pleases us, be it house, song, discourse, verse, prose,
woman, birds, rivers, trees, rooms, dress, etc. Whatever is not made
according to this standard displeases those who have good taste.
And as there is a perfect
relation between a song and a house which are made after a good model,
because they are like this good model, though each after its kind; even so
there is a perfect relation between things made after a bad model. Not that
the bad model is unique, for there are many; but each bad sonnet, for
example, on whatever false model it is formed, is just like a woman dressed
after that model.
Nothing makes us understand
better the ridiculousness of a false sonnet than to consider nature and the
standard and, then, to imagine a woman or a house made according to that
standard.
33. Poetical beauty.—As we
speak of poetical beauty, so ought we to speak of mathematical beauty and
medical beauty. But we do not do so; and the reason is that we know well what
is the object of mathematics, and that it consists in proofs, and what is the
object of medicine, and that it consists in healing. But we do not know in
what grace consists, which is the object of poetry. We do not know the
natural model which we ought to imitate; and through lack of this knowledge,
we have coined fantastic terms, “The golden age,” “The wonder of our times,”
“Fatal,” etc., and call this jargon poetical beauty.
But whoever imagines a woman
after this model, which consists in saying little things in big words, will
see a pretty girl adorned with mirrors and chains, at whom he will smile;
because we know better wherein consists the charm of woman than the charm of
verse. But those who are ignorant would admire her in this dress, and there
are many villages in which she would be taken for the queen; hence we call
sonnets made after this model “Village Queens.”
34. No one passes in the world
as skilled in verse unless he has put up the sign of a poet, a mathematician,
etc. But educated people do not want a sign and draw little distinction
between the trade of a poet and that of an embroiderer.
People of education are not
called poets or mathematicians, etc.; but they are all these and judges of
all these. No one guesses what they are. When they come into society, they
talk on matters about which the rest are talking. We do not observe in them
one quality rather than another, save when they have to make use of it. But
then we remember it, for it is characteristic of such persons that we do not
say of them that they are fine speakers, when it is not a question of
oratory, and that we say of them that they are fine speakers, when it is such
a question.
It is therefore false praise
to give a man when we say of him, on his entry, that he is a very clever
poet; and it is a bad sign when a man is not asked to give his judgement on
some verses.
35. We should not be able to
say of a man, “He is a mathematician,” or “a preacher,” or “eloquent”; but
that he is “a gentleman.” That universal quality alone pleases me. It is a
bad sign when, on seeing a person, you remember his book. I would prefer you
to see no quality till you meet it and have occasion to use it (Ne quid
minis),3 for
fear some one quality prevail and designate the man. Let none think him a
fine speaker, unless oratory be in question, and then let them think it.
36. Man is full of wants: he
loves only those who can satisfy them all. “This one is a good
mathematician,” one will say. But I have nothing to do with mathematics; he
would take me for a proposition. “That one is a good soldier.” He would take
me for a besieged town. I need, then, an upright man who can accommodate
himself generally to all my wants.
37. Since we cannot be
universal and know all that is to be known of everything, we ought to know a
little about everything. For it is far better to know something about
everything than to know all about one thing. This universality is the best.
If we can have both, still better; but if we must choose, we ought to choose
the former. And the world feels this and does so; for the world is often a good
judge.
38. A poet and not an honest
man.
39. If lightning fell on low
places, etc., poets, and those who can only reason about things of that kind,
would lack proofs.
40. If we wished to prove the
examples which we take to prove other things, we should have to take those
other things to be examples; for, as we always believe the difficulty is in
what we wish to prove, we find the examples clearer and a help to
demonstration.
Thus, when we wish to
demonstrate a general theorem, we must give the rule as applied to a
particular case; but if we wish to demonstrate a particular case, we must
begin with the general rule. For we always find the thing obscure which we
wish to prove and that clear which we use for the proof; for, when a thing is
put forward to be proved, we first fill ourselves with the imagination that
it is, therefore, obscure and, on the contrary, that what is to prove it is
clear, and so we understand it easily.
41. Epigrams of Martial.—Man
loves malice, but not against one-eyed men nor the unfortunate, but against
the fortunate and proud. People are mistaken in thinking otherwise.
For lust is the source of all
our actions, and humanity, etc. We must please those who have humane and
tender feelings. That epigram about two one-eyed people is worthless, for it
does not console them and only gives a point to the author’s glory. All that
is only for the sake of the author is worthless. Ambitiosa recident
ornamenta.4
4 Horace, Epistle to the pisos,
447. “They curtailed pretentious ornaments.”
42. To call a king “Prince” is
pleasing, because it diminishes his rank.
43. Certain authors, speaking
of their works, say: “My book,” “My commentary,” “My history,” etc. They
resemble middle-class people who have a house of their own and always have
“My house” on their tongue. They would do better to say: “Our book,” “Our
commentary,” “Our history,” etc., because there is in them usually more of
other people’s than their own.
44. Do you wish people to
believe good of you? Don’t speak.
45. Languages are ciphers,
wherein letters are not changed into letters, but words into words, so that
an unknown language is decipherable.
46. A maker of witticisms, a
bad character.
47. There are some who speak
well and write badly. For the place and the audience warm them, and draw from
their minds more than they think of without that warmth.
48. When we find words
repeated in a discourse and, in trying to correct them, discover that they
are so appropriate that we would spoil the discourse, we must leave them
alone. This is the test; and our attempt is the work of envy, which is blind,
and does not see that repetition is not in this place a fault; for there is
no general rule.
49. To mask nature and
disguise her. No more king, pope, bishop—but august monarch, etc.; not
Paris—the capital of the kingdom. There are places in which we ought to call
Paris, “Paris,” others in which we ought to call it the capital of the
kingdom.
50. The same meaning changes
with the words which express it. Meanings receive their dignity from words
instead of giving it to them. Examples should be sought....
51. Sceptic, for obstinate.
52. No one calls another a
Cartesian but he who is one himself, a pedant but a pedant, a provincial but
a provincial; and I would wager it was the printer who put it on the title of
Letters to a Provincial.
53. A carriage upset or
overturned, according to the meaning. To spread abroad or upset, according to
the meaning. (The argument by force of M. le Maitre over the friar.)
54. Miscellaneous.—A form of
speech, “I should have liked to apply myself to that.”
55. The aperitive virtue of a
key, the attractive virtue of a hook.
56. To guess: “The part that I
take in your trouble.” The Cardinal did not want to be guessed.
“My mind is disquieted.” I am
disquieted is better.
57. I always feel
uncomfortable under such compliments as these: “I have given you a great deal
of trouble,” “I am afraid I am boring you,” “I fear this is too long.” We
either carry our audience with us, or irritate them.
58. You are ungraceful:
“Excuse me, pray.” Without that excuse I would not have known there was
anything amiss. “With reverence be it spoken...” The only thing bad is their
excuse.
59. “To
extinguish the torch of sedition”; too luxuriant. “The restlessness of his
genius”; two superfluous grand words.
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