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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 VII
MORALITY AND DOCTRINE
425. Second part.—That man
without faith cannot know the true good, nor justice.
All men seek happiness. This
is without exception. Whatever different means they employ, they all tend to
this end. The cause of some going to war, and of others avoiding it, is the
same desire in both, attended with different views. The will never takes the
least step but to this object. This is the motive of every action of every
man, even of those who hang themselves.
And yet, after such a great
number of years, no one without faith has reached the point to which all
continually look. All complain, princes and subjects, noblemen and commoners,
old and young, strong and weak, learned and ignorant, healthy and sick, of
all countries, all times, all ages, and all conditions.
A trial so long, so
continuous, and so uniform, should certainly convince us of our inability to
reach the good by our own efforts. But example teaches us little. No
resemblance is ever so perfect that there is not some slight difference; and
hence we expect that our hope will not be deceived on this occasion as
before. And thus, while the present never satisfies us, experience dupes us
and, from misfortune to misfortune, leads us to death, their eternal crown.
What is it, then, that this
desire and this inability proclaim to us, but that there was once in man a
true happiness of which there now remain to him only the mark and empty
trace, which he in vain tries to fill from all his surroundings, seeking from
things absent the help he does not obtain in things present? But these are
all inadequate, because the infinite abyss can only be filled by an infinite
and immutable object, that is to say, only by God Himself. He only is our
true good, and since we have forsaken him, it is a strange thing that there
is nothing in nature which has not been serviceable in taking His place; the
stars, the heavens, earth, the elements, plants, cabbages, leeks, animals,
insects, calves, serpents, fever, pestilence, war, famine, vices, adultery, incest.
And since man has lost the true good, everything can appear equally good to
him, even his own destruction, though so opposed to God, to reason, and to
the whole course of nature.
Some seek good in authority,
others in scientific research, others in pleasure. Others, who are in fact
nearer the truth, have considered it necessary that the universal good, which
all men desire, should not consist in any of the particular things which can
only be possessed by one man, and which, when shared, afflict their
possessors more by the want of the part he has not than they please him by
the possession of what he has. They have learned that the true good should be
such as all can possess at once, without diminution and without envy, and
which no one can lose against his will. And their reason is that this desire,
being natural to man, since it is necessarily in all, and that it is
impossible not to have it, they infer from it...
426. True nature being lost,
everything becomes its own nature; as the true good being lost, everything
becomes its own true good.
427. Man does not know in what
rank to place himself. He has plainly gone astray and fallen from his true
place without being able to find it again. He seeks it anxiously and
unsuccessfully everywhere in impenetrable darkness.
428. If it is a sign of
weakness to prove God by nature, do not despise Scripture; if it is a sign of
strength to have known these contradictions, esteem Scripture.
429. The vileness of man in
submitting himself to the brutes and in even worshipping them. e 430. For
Port-Royal. The beginning, after having explained the
incomprehensibility.—The greatness and the wretchedness of man are so evident
that the true religion must necessarily teach us both that there is in man
some great source of greatness and a great source of wretchedness. It must
then give us a reason for these astonishing contradictions.
In order to make man happy, it
must prove to him that there is a God; that we ought to love Him; that our
true happiness is to be in Him, and our sole evil to be separated from Him;
it must recognise that we are full of darkness which hinders us from knowing
and loving Him; and that thus, as our duties compel us to love God, and our
lusts turn us away from Him, we are full of unrighteousness. It must give us
an explanation of our opposition to God and to our own good. It must teach us
the remedies for these infirmities and the means of obtaining these remedies.
Let us, therefore, examine all the religions of the world and see if there be
any other than the Christian which is sufficient for this purpose.
Shall it be that of the
philosophers, who put forward, as the chief good, the good which is in
ourselves? Is this the true good? Have they found the remedy for our ills? Is
man’s pride cured by placing him on an equality with God? Have those who have
made us equal to the brutes, or the Mohammedans who have offered us earthly
pleasures as the chief good even in eternity, produced the remedy for our
lusts? What religion, then, will teach us to cure pride and lust? What
religion will, in fact, teach us our good, our duties, the weakness which
turns us from them, the cause of this weakness, the remedies which can cure
it, and the means of obtaining these remedies?
All other religions have not
been able to do so. Let us see what the wisdom of God will do.
“Expect neither truth,” she
says, “nor consolation from men. I am she who formed you, and who alone can
teach you what you are. But you are now no longer in the state in which I
formed you. I created man holy, innocent, perfect. I filled him with light
and intelligence. I communicated to him my glory and my wonders. The eye of
man saw then the majesty of God. He was not then in the darkness which blinds
him, nor subject to mortality and the woes which afflict him. But he has not
been able to sustain so great glory without falling into pride. He wanted to
make himself his own centre and independent of my help. He withdrew himself
from my rule; and, on his making himself equal to me by the desire of finding
his happiness in himself, I abandoned him to himself. And setting in revolt
the creatures that were subject to him, I made them his enemies; so that man
is now become like the brutes and so estranged from me that there scarce
remains to him a dim vision of his Author. So far has all his knowledge been
extinguished or disturbed! The senses, independent of reason, and often the
masters of reason, have led him into pursuit of pleasure. All creatures
either torment or tempt him, and domineer over him, either subduing him by
their strength, or fascinating him by their charms, a tyranny more awful and
more imperious.
“Such is the state in which
men now are. There remains to them some feeble instinct of the happiness of
their former state; and they are plunged in the evils of their blindness and
their lust, which have become their second nature. “From this principle which
I disclose to you, you can recognize the cause of those contradictions which
have astonished all men and have divided them into parties holding so different
views. Observe, now, all the feelings of greatness and glory which the
experience of so many woes cannot stifle, and see if the cause of them must
not be in another nature.
For Port-Royal to-morrow
(Prosopopaea).—“It is in vain, O men, that you seek within yourselves the
remedy for your ills. All your light can only reach the knowledge that not in
yourselves will you find truth or good. The philosophers have promised you
that, and you have been unable to do it. They neither know what is your true good,
nor what is your true state. How could they have given remedies for your
ills, when they did not even know them? Your chief maladies are pride, which
takes you away from God, and lust, which binds you to earth; and they have
done nothing else but cherish one or other of these diseases. If they gave
you God as an end, it was only to administer to your pride; they made you
think that you are by nature like Him and conformed to Him. And those who saw
the absurdity of this claim put you on another precipice, by making you
understand that your nature was like that of the brutes, and led you to seek
your good in the lusts which are shared by the animals. This is not the way
to cure you of your unrighteousness, which these wise men never knew. I alone
can make you understand who you are....”
Adam, Jesus Christ.
If you are united to God, it
is by grace, not by nature. If you are humbled, it is by penitence, not by
nature.
Thus this double capacity...
You are not in the state of
your creation.
As these two states are open,
it is impossible for you not to recognise them. Follow your own feelings,
observe yourselves, and see if you do not find the lively characteristics of
these two natures. Could so many contradictions be found in a simple subject?
Incomprehensible. Not all that
is incomprehensible ceases to exist. Infinite number. An infinite space equal
to a finite.
Incredible that God should
unite Himself to us. This consideration is drawn only from the sight of our
vileness. But if you are quite sincere over it, follow it as far as I have
done and recognise that we are indeed so vile that we are incapable in
ourselves of knowing if His mercy cannot make us capable of Him. For I would
know how this animal, who knows himself to be so weak, has the right to
measure the mercy of God and set limits to it, suggested by his own fancy. He
has so little knowledge of what God is that he does not know what he himself
is, and, completely disturbed at the sight of his own state, dares to say
that God cannot make him capable of communion with Him.
But I would ask him if God
demands anything else from him than the knowledge and love of Him, and why,
since his nature is capable of love and knowledge, he believes that God
cannot make Himself known and loved by him. Doubtless he knows at least that
he exists, and that he loves something. Therefore, if he sees anything in the
darkness wherein he is, and if he finds some object of his love among the
things on earth, why, if God impart to him some ray of His essence, will he
not be capable of knowing and of loving Him in the manner in which it shall
please Him to communicate Himself to us? There must, then, be certainly an
intolerable presumption in arguments of this sort, although they seem founded
on an apparent humility, which is neither sincere nor reasonable, if it does
not make us admit that, not knowing of ourselves what we are, we can only
learn it from God.
“I do not mean that you should
submit your belief to me without reason, and I do not aspire to overcome you by
tyranny. In fact, I do not claim to give you a reason for everything. And to
reconcile these contradictions, I intend to make you see clearly, by
convincing proofs, those divine signs in me, which may convince you of what I
am, and may gain authority for me by wonders and proofs which you cannot
reject; so that you may then believe without... the things which I teach you,
since you will find no other ground for rejecting them, except that you
cannot know of yourselves if they are true or not.
“God has willed to redeem men
and to open salvation to those who seek it. But men render themselves so
unworthy of it that it is right that God should refuse to some, because of
their obduracy, what He grants others from a compassion which is not due to
them. If He had willed to overcome the obstinacy of the most hardened, He
could have done so by revealing Himself so manifestly to them that they could
not have doubted of the truth of His essence; as it will appear at the last
day, with such thunders and such a convulsion of nature that the dead will
rise again, and the blindest will see Him.
“It is not in this manner that
He has willed to appear in His advent of mercy, because, as so many make
themselves unworthy of His mercy, He has willed to leave them in the loss of
the good which they do not want. It was not, then, right that He should
appear in a manner manifestly divine, and completely capable of convincing
all men; but it was also not right that He should come in so hidden a manner
that He could not be known by those who should sincerely seek Him. He has
willed to make himself quite recognisable by those; and thus, willing to
appear openly to those who seek Him with all their heart, and to be hidden
from those who flee from Him with all their heart, He so regulates the
knowledge of Himself that He has given signs of Himself, visible to those who
seek Him, and not to those who seek Him not. There is enough light for those
who only desire to see, and enough obscurity for those who have a contrary
disposition.”
431. No other religion has
recognised that man is the most excellent creature. Some, which have quite
recognised the reality of his excellence, have considered as mean and
ungrateful the low opinions which men naturally have of themselves; and
others, which have thoroughly recognised how real is this vileness, have
treated with proud ridicule those feelings of greatness, which are equally
natural to man.
“Lift your eyes to God,” say
the first; “see Him whom you resemble and who has created you to worship Him.
You can make yourselves like unto Him; wisdom will make you equal to Him, if
you will follow it.” “Raise your heads, free men,” says Epictetus. And others
say, “Bend your eyes to the earth, wretched worm that you are, and consider
the brutes whose companion you are.”
What, then, will man become?
Will he be equal to God or the brutes? What a frightful difference! What,
then, shall we be? Who does not see from all this that man has gone astray,
that he has fallen from his place, that he anxiously seeks it, that he cannot
find it again? And who shall then direct him to it? The greatest men have
failed.
432. Scepticism is true; for,
after all, men before Jesus Christ did not know where they were, nor whether
they were great or small. And those who have said the one or the other knew
nothing about it and guessed without reason and by chance. They also erred
always in excluding the one or the other.
Quod ergo ignorantes,
quaeritis, religio annuntiat vobis.63
63 “What you seek without
knowing, religion will announce to you.” Pascal misquotes Acts 17. 23. “Whom
therefore ye ignorantly worship, him declare I unto you.”
433. After having understood
the whole nature of man.—That a religion may be true, it must have knowledge
of our nature. It ought to know its greatness and littleness, and the reason
of both. What religion but the Christian has known this?
434. The chief arguments of
the sceptics—I pass over the lesser ones—are that we have no certainty of the
truth of these principles apart from faith and revelation, except in so far
as we naturally perceive them in ourselves. Now this natural intuition is not
a convincing proof of their truth; since, having no certainty, apart from faith,
whether man was created by a good God, or by a wicked demon, or by chance, it
is doubtful whether these principles given to us are true, or false, or
uncertain, according to our origin. Again, no person is certain, apart from
faith, whether he is awake or sleeps, seeing that during sleep we believe
that we are awake as firmly as we do when we are awake; we believe that we
see space, figure, and motion; we are aware of the passage of time, we
measure it; and in fact we act as if we were awake. So that half of our life
being passed in sleep, we have on our own admission no idea of truth,
whatever we may imagine. As all our intuitions are, then, illusions, who
knows whether the other half of our life, in which we think we are awake, is
not another sleep a little different from the former, from which we awake
when we suppose ourselves asleep?
And who doubts that, if we
dreamt in company, and the dreams chanced to agree, which is common enough,
and if we were always alone when awake, we should believe that matters were
reversed? In short, as we often dream that we dream, heaping dream upon
dream, may it not be that this half of our life, wherein we think ourselves
awake, is itself only a dream on which the others are grafted, from which we
wake at death, during which we have as few principles of truth and good as
during natural sleep, these different thoughts which disturb us being perhaps
only illusions like the flight of time and the vain fancies of our dreams?
These are the chief arguments
on one side and the other.
I omit minor ones, such as the
sceptical talk against the impressions of custom, education, manners, country
and the like. Though these influence the majority of common folk, who
dogmatise only on shallow foundations, they are upset by the least breath of
the sceptics. We have only to see their books if we are not sufficiently
convinced of this, and we shall very quickly become so, perhaps too much.
I notice the only strong point
of the dogmatists, namely, that, speaking in good faith and sincerely, we
cannot doubt natural principles. Against this the sceptics set up in one word
the uncertainty of our origin, which includes that of our nature. The
dogmatists have been trying to answer this objection ever since the world
began.
So there is open war among
men, in which each must take a part and side either with dogmatism or
scepticism. For he who thinks to remain neutral is above all a sceptic. This
neutrality is the essence of the sect; he who is not against them is
essentially for them. In this appears their advantage. They are not for
themselves; they are neutral, indifferent, in suspense as to all things, even
themselves being no exception.
What, then, shall man do in
this state? Shall he doubt everything? Shall he doubt whether he is awake,
whether he is being pinched, or whether he is being burned? Shall he doubt
whether he doubts? Shall he doubt whether he exists? We cannot go so far as
that; and I lay it down as a fact that there never has been a real complete
sceptic. Nature sustains our feeble reason and prevents it raving to this
extent.
Shall he, then, say, on the
contrary, that he certainly possesses truth—he who, when pressed ever so
little, can show no title to it and is forced to let go his hold?
What a chimera, then, is man!
What a novelty! What a monster, what a chaos, what a contradiction, what a
prodigy! Judge of all things, imbecile worm of the earth; depositary of
truth, a sink of uncertainty and error; the pride and refuse of the universe!
Who will unravel this tangle?
Nature confutes the sceptics, and reason confutes the dogmatists. What, then,
will you become, O men! who try to find out by your natural reason what is
your true condition? You cannot avoid one of these sects, nor adhere to one
of them.
Know then, proud man, what a
paradox you are to yourself. Humble yourself, weak reason; be silent, foolish
nature; learn that man infinitely transcends man, and learn from your Master
your true condition, of which you are ignorant. Hear God.
For in fact, if man had never
been corrupt, he would enjoy in his innocence both truth and happiness with
assurance; and if man had always been corrupt, he would have no idea of truth
or bliss. But, wretched as we are, and more so than if there were no
greatness in our condition, we have an idea of happiness and can not reach
it. We perceive an image of truth and possess only a lie. Incapable of
absolute ignorance and of certain knowledge, we have thus been manifestly in
a degree of perfection from which we have unhappily fallen.
It is, however, an astonishing
thing that the mystery furthest removed from our knowledge, namely, that of
the transmission of sin, should be a fact without which we can have no
knowledge of ourselves. For it is beyond doubt that there is nothing which
more shocks our reason than to say that the sin of the first man has rendered
guilty those who, being so removed from this source, seem incapable of
participation in it. This transmission does not only seem to us impossible,
it seems also very unjust. For what is more contrary to the rules of our
miserable justice than to damn eternally an infant incapable of will, for a
sin wherein he seems to have so little a share that it was committed six
thousand years before he was in existence? Certainly nothing offends us more
rudely than this doctrine; and yet without this mystery, the most
incomprehensible of all, we are incomprehensible to ourselves. The knot of
our condition takes its twists and turns in this abyss, so that man is more
inconceivable without this mystery than this mystery is inconceivable to man.
Whence it seems that God,
willing to render the difficulty of our existence unintelligible to
ourselves, has concealed the knot so high, or, better speaking, so low, that
we are quite incapable of reaching it; so that it is not by the proud
exertions of our reason, but by the simple submissions of reason, that we can
truly know ourselves.
These foundations, solidly
established on the inviolable authority of religion, make us know that there
are two truths of faith equally certain: the one, that man, in the state of
creation, or in that of grace, is raised above all nature, made like unto God
and sharing in His divinity; the other, that in the state of corruption and
sin, he is fallen from this state and made like unto the beasts.
These two propositions are
equally sound and certain. Scripture manifestly declares this to us, when it
says in some places: Deliciae meae esse cum filiis hominum.64 Effundam spiritum meum super
omnem carnem.65(2) Dii estis,66(3) etc.; and in other places, Omnis caro faenum.67(4) Homo assimilatus est
jumentis insipientibus, et similis factus est illis.68(5) Dixi in corde meo de
filiis hominum.69(6)
64 Prov. 8. 31. “And my delights
were with the sons of men.”
65(2) Joel 2. 28. “I will pour
out my spirit upon all flesh.”
66(3) Ps. 82 .6. “Ye are gods.”
67(4) Is. 40. 6. “All flesh is
grass.”
68(5) Ps. 49. 12,13. “He is like
the beasts that perish; this their way is their folly.”
69(6) Eccles. 3. 18. “I said in
mine heart concerning the estate of the sons of men.”
Whence it clearly seems that
man by grace is made like unto God, and a partaker in His divinity, and that
without grace he is like unto the brute beasts.
435. Without this divine
knowledge what could men do but either become elated by the inner feeling of
their past greatness which still remains to them, or become despondent at the
sight of their present weakness? For, not seeing the whole truth, they could
not attain to perfect virtue. Some considering nature as incorrupt, others as
incurable, they could not escape either pride or sloth, the two sources of
all vice; since they cannot but either abandon themselves to it through
cowardice, or escape it by pride. For if they knew the excellence of man,
they were ignorant of his corruption; so that they easily avoided sloth, but
fell into pride. And if they recognized the infirmity of nature, they were
ignorant of its dignity; so that they could easily avoid vanity, but it was
to fall into despair. Thence arise the different schools of the Stoics and
Epicureans, the Dogmatists, Academicians, etc.
The Christian religion alone
has been able to cure these two vices, not by expelling the one through means
of the other according to the wisdom of the world, but by expelling both
according to the simplicity of the Gospel. For it teaches the righteous that
it raises them even to a participation in divinity itself; that in this lofty
state they still carry the source of all corruption, which renders them
during all their life subject to error, misery, death, and sin; and it
proclaims to the most ungodly that they are capable of the grace of their
Redeemer. So making those tremble whom it justifies, and consoling those whom
it condemns, religion so justly tempers fear with hope through that double
capacity of grace and of sin, common to all, that it humbles infinitely more
than reason alone can do, but without despair; and it exalts infinitely more
than natural pride, but without inflating; thus making it evident that alone being
exempt from error and vice, it alone fulfils the duty of instructing and
correcting men.
Who, then, can refuse to
believe and adore this heavenly light? For is it not clearer than day that we
perceive within ourselves ineffaceable marks of excellence? And is it not
equally true that we experience every hour the results of our deplorable
condition? What does this chaos and monstrous confusion proclaim to us but
the truth of these two states, with a voice so powerful that it is impossible
to resist it?
436. Weakness.—Every pursuit
of men is to get wealth; and they cannot have a title to show that they
possess it justly, for they have only that of human caprice; nor have they
strength to hold it securely. It is the same with knowledge, for disease
takes it away. We are incapable both of truth and goodness.
437. We desire truth, and find
within ourselves only uncertainty.
We seek happiness, and find
only misery and death.
We cannot but desire truth and
happiness, and are incapable of certainty or happiness. This desire is left
to us, partly to punish us, partly to make us perceive wherefrom we are
fallen.
438. If man is not made for
God, why is he only happy in God? If man is made for God, why is he so
opposed to God?
439. Nature corrupted.—Man
does not act by reason, which constitutes his being.
440. The corruption of reason
is shown by the existence of so many different and extravagant customs. It
was necessary that truth should come, in order that man should no longer
dwell within himself.
441. For myself, I confess
that, so soon as the Christian religion reveals the principle that human
nature is corrupt and fallen from God, that opens my eyes to see everywhere
the mark of this truth: for nature is such that she testifies everywhere,
both within man and without him, to a lost God and a corrupt nature.
442. Man’s true nature, his
true good, true virtue, and true religion, are things of which the knowledge
is inseparable.
443. Greatness,
wretchedness.—The more light we have, the more greatness and the more baseness
we discover in man. Ordinary men—those who are more educated: philosophers,
they astonish ordinary men—Christians, they astonish philosophers.
Who will then be surprised to
see that religion only makes us know profoundly what we already know in
proportion to our light?
444. This religion taught to
her children what men have only been able to discover by their greatest
knowledge.
445. Original sin is
foolishness to men, but it is admitted to be such. You must not, then,
reproach me for the want of reason in this doctrine, since I admit it to be
without reason. But this foolishness is wiser than all the wisdom of men,
sapientius est hominibus.70 For without this, what can we say that man is? His whole state
depends on this imperceptible point. And how should it be perceived by his
reason, since it is a thing against reason, and since reason, far from
finding it out by her own ways, is averse to it when it is presented to her?
70 I Cor. 1. 25 “The foolishness
of God is wiser than men; and the weakness of God is stronger than men.”
446. Of original sin. Ample
tradition of original sin according to the Jews.
On the saying in Genesis 8.
21: “The imagination of man’s heart is evil from his youth.”
R. Moses Haddarschan: This
evil leaven is placed in man from the time that he is formed.
Massechet Succa: This evil
leaven has seven names in Scripture. It is called evil, the foreskin,
uncleanness, an enemy, a scandal, a heart of stone, the north wind; all this
signifies the malignity which is concealed and impressed in the heart of man.
Midrasch Tillim says the same
thing and that God will deliver the good nature of man from the evil.
This malignity is renewed
every day against man, as it is written, Psalm xxxvii. 32: “The wicked
watcheth the righteous, and seeketh to slay him”; but God will not abandon
him. This malignity tries the heart of man in this life and will accuse him
in the other. All this is found in the Talmud.
Midrasch Tillim on Psalm 4. 4:
“Stand in awe and sin not.” Stand in awe and be afraid of your lust, and it
will not lead you into sin. And on Psalm 36. 1: “The wicked has said within
his own heart: Let not the fear of God be before me.” That is to say that the
malignity natural to man has said that to the wicked.
Midrasch el Kohelet: “Better
is a poor and wise child than an old and foolish king who cannot foresee the
future.” The child is virtue, and the king is the malignity of man. It is
called king because all the members obey it, and old because it is in the
human heart from infancy to old age, and foolish because it leads man in the
way of perdition, which he does not foresee. The same thing is in Midrasch
Tillim.
Bereschist Rabba on Psalm 35.
10: “Lord, all my bones shall bless Thee, which deliverest the poor from the
tyrant.” And is there a greater tyrant than the evil leaven? And on Proverbs
25. 21: “If thine enemy be hungry, give him bread to eat.” That is to say, if
the evil leaven hunger, give him the bread of wisdom of which it is spoken in
Proverbs 9, and if he be thirsty, give him the water of which it is spoken in
Isaiah 55.
Midrasch Tillim says the same
thing, and that Scripture in that passage, speaking of the enemy, means the
evil leaven; and that, in giving him that bread and that water, we heap coals
of fire on his head.
Midrasch el Kohelet on
Ecclesiastes 9. 14: “A great king besieged a little city.” This great king is
the evil leaven; the great bulwarks built against it are temptations; and
there has been found a poor wise man who has delivered it—that is to say,
virtue.
And on Psalm 41. 1: “Blessed
is he that considereth the poor.”
And on Psalm 78. 39: “The
spirit passeth away, and cometh not again”; whence some have erroneously
argued against the immortality of the soul. But the sense is that this spirit
is the evil leaven, which accompanies man till death and will not return at
the resurrection.
And on Psalm 103 the same
thing.
And on Psalm 16.
Principles of Rabbinism: two
Messiahs.
447. Will it be said that, as
men have declared that righteousness has departed the earth, they therefore
knew of original sin?—Nemo ante obitum beatus est71—that is to say, they knew
death to be the beginning of eternal and essential happiness?
71 Ovid, Metamorphoses, iii. “No
one is happy before death.”
448. Milton sees well that
nature is corrupt and that men are averse to virtue; he does not know why
they cannot fly higher.
449. Order.—After Corruption
to say: “It is right that all those who are in that state should know it,
both those who are content with it, and those who are not content with it;
but it is not right that all should see Redemption.”
450. If we do not know
ourselves to be full of pride, ambition, lust, weakness, misery, and
injustice, we are indeed blind. And if, knowing this, we do not desire
deliverance, what can we say of a man...?
What then, can we have but
esteem for a religion which knows so well the defects of man, and desire for
the truth of a religion which promises remedies so desirable?
451. All men naturally hate
one another. They employ lust as far as possible in the service of the public
weal. But this is only a pretnece and a false image of love; for at bottom it
is only hate.
452. To pity the unfortunate
is not contrary to lust. On the contrary, we can quite well give such
evidence of friendship, and acquire the reputation of kindly feeling, without
giving anything.
453. From lust men have found
and extracted excellent rules of policy, morality, and justice; but in
reality this vile root of man, this figmentum malum, is only covered, it is
not taken away.
454. Injustice.—They have not
found any other means of satisfying lust without doing injury to others.
455. Self is hateful. You,
Milton, conceal it; you do not for that reason destroy it; you are, then,
always hateful.
No; for in acting as we do to
oblige everybody, we give no more occasion for hatred of us. That is true, if
we only hated in Self the vexation which comes to us from it. But if I hate
it because it is unjust and because it makes itself the centre of everything,
I shall always hate it.
In a word, the Self has two
qualities: it is unjust in itself since it makes itself the centre of
everything; it is inconvenient to others since it would enslave them; for
each Self is the enemy, and would like to be the tyrant of all others. You
take away its inconvenience, but not its injustice, and so you do not render
it lovable to those who hate injustice; you render it lovable only to the
unjust, who do not any longer find in it an enemy. And thus you remain unjust
and can please only the unjust.
456. It is a perverted
judgement that makes every one place himself above the rest of the world, and
prefer his own good, and the continuance of his own good fortune and life, to
that of the rest of the world!
457. Each one is all in all to
himself; for he being dead, all is dead to him. Hence it comes that each
believes himself to be all in all to everybody. We must not judge of nature
by ourselves, but by it.
458. “All that is in the world
is the lust of the flesh, or the lust of the eyes, or the pride of life;
libido sentiendi, libido sciendi, libido dominandi.”72 Wretched is the cursed land
which these three rivers of fire enflame rather than water! Happy they who,
on these rivers, are not overwhelmed nor carried away, but are immovably
fixed, not standing but seated on a low and secure base, whence they do not
rise before the light, but, having rested in peace, stretch out their hands
to Him, who must lift them up, and make them stand upright and firm in the
porches of the holy Jerusalem! There pride can no longer assail them nor cast
them down; and yet they weep, not to see all those perishable things swept
away by the torrents, but at the remembrance of their loved country, the
heavenly Jerusalem, which they remember without ceasing during their
prolonged exile.
459. The rivers of Babylon
rush and fall and sweep away.
O holy Zion, where all is firm
and nothing falls!
We must sit upon the waters,
not under them or in them, but on them; and not standing but seated; being
seated to be humble, and being above them to be secure. But we shall stand in
the porches of Jerusalem.
Let us see if this pleasure is
stable or transitory; if it pass away, it is a river of Babylon.
460. The lust of the flesh, the
lust of the eyes, pride, etc.—There are three orders of things: the flesh,
the spirit, and the will. The carnal are the rich and kings; they have the
body as their object. Inquirers and scientists; they have the mind as their
object. The wise; they have righteousness as their object.
God must reign over all, and
all men must be brought back to Him. In things of the flesh lust reigns
specially; in intellectual matters, inquiry specially; in wisdom, pride
specially. Not that a man cannot boast of wealth or knowledge, but it is not
the place for pride; for in granting to a man that he is learned, it is easy
to convince him that he is wrong to be proud. The proper place for pride is
in wisdom, for it cannot be granted to a man that he has made himself wise, and
that he is wrong to be proud; for that is right. Now God alone gives wisdom,
and that is why Qui gloriatur, in Domino glorietur.73
73 Cor. 1. 31. “He that
glorieth, let him glory in the Lord.”
461. The three lusts have made
three sects; and the philosophers have done no other thing than follow one of
the three lusts.
462. Search for the true
good.—Ordinary men place the good in fortune and external goods, or at least in
amusement. Philosophers have shown the vanity of all this and have placed it
where they could.
463. Philosophers.—They
believe that God alone is worthy to be loved and admired; and they have
desired to be loved and admired of men and do not know their own corruption.
If they feel full of feelings of love and admiration and find therein their
chief delight, very well, let them think themselves good. But if they find
themselves averse to Him, if they have no inclination but the desire to
establish themselves in the esteem of men, and if their whole perfection
consists only in making men—but without constraint—find their happiness in
loving them, I declare that this perfection is horrible. What! they have
known God and have not desired solely that men should love Him, but that men
should stop short at them! They have wanted to be the object of the voluntary
delight of men.
464. Philosophers.—We are full
of things which take us out of ourselves.
Our instinct makes us feel
that we must seek our happiness outside ourselves. Our passions impel us
outside, even when no objects present themselves to excite them. External
objects tempt us of themselves, and call to us, even when we are not thinking
of them. And thus philosophers have said in vain: “Retire within yourselves,
you will find your good there.” We do not believe them, and those who believe
them are the most empty and the most foolish.
465. The Stoics say, “Retire
within yourselves; it is there you will find your rest.”
And that is not true.
Others say, “Go out of
yourselves; seek happiness in amusement.” And this is not true. Illness
comes.
Happiness is neither without
us nor within us. It is in God, both without us and within us.
466. Had Epictetus seen the
way perfectly, he would have said to men, “You follow a wrong road”; he shows
that there is another, but he does not lead to it. It is the way of willing
what God wills. Jesus Christ alone leads to it: Via, veritas.74 The vices of Zeno himself.
74 John 14. 6. “I am the way,
the truth, and the life.”
467. The reason of
effects.—Epictetus. Those who say, “You have a headache”; this is not the
same thing. We are assured of health, and not of justice; and in fact his own
was nonsense.
And yet he believed it
demonstrable, when he said, “It is either in our power or it is not.” But he
did not perceive that it is not in our power to regulate the heart, and he
was wrong to infer from this the fact that there were some Christians.
468. No other religion has
proposed to men to hate themselves. No other religion, then, can please those
who hate themselves, and who seek a Being truly lovable. And these, if they
had never heard of the religion of a God humiliated, would embrace it at once.
469. I feel that I might not
have been; for the Ego consists in my thoughts. Therefore I, who think, would
not have been, if my mother had been killed before I had life. I am not,
then, a necessary being. In the same way I am not eternal or infinite; but I
see plainly that there exists in nature a necessary Being, eternal and
infinite.
470. “Had I seen a miracle,”
say men, “I should become converted.” How can they be sure they would do a
thing of the nature of which they are ignorant? They imagine that this
conversion consists in a worship of God which is like commerce, and in a
communion such as they picture to themselves. True religion consists in
annihilating self before that Universal Being, whom we have so often
provoked, and who can justly destroy us at any time; in recognising that we
can do nothing without Him, and have deserved nothing from Him but His
displeasure. It consists in knowing that there is an unconquerable opposition
between us and God, and that without a mediator there can be no communion
with Him.
471. It is unjust that men
should attach themselves to me, even though they do it with pleasure and
voluntarily. I should deceive those in whom I had created this desire; for I
am not the end of any, and I have not the wherewithal to satisfy them. Am I
not about to die? And thus the object of their attachment will die.
Therefore, as I would be blamable in causing a falsehood to be believed,
though I should employ gentle persuasion, though it should be believed with
pleasure, and though it should give me pleasure; even so I am blamable in
making myself loved and if I attract persons to attach themselves to me. I
ought to warn those who are ready to consent to a lie that they ought not to
believe it, whatever advantage comes to me from it; and likewise that they
ought not to attach themselves to me; for they ought to spend their life and
their care in pleasing God, or in seeking Him.
472. Self-will will never be
satisfied, though it should have command of all it would; but we are
satisfied from the moment we renounce it. Without it we cannot be
discontented; with it we cannot be content.
473. Let us imagine a body
full of thinking members.
474. Members. To commence with
that.—To regulate the love which we owe to ourselves, we must imagine a body
full of thinking members, for we are members of the whole, and must see how
each member should love itself, etc....
475. If the feet and the hands
had a will of their own, they could only be in their order in submitting this
particular will to the primary will which governs the whole body. Apart from
that, they are in disorder and mischief; but in willing only the good of the
body, they accomplish their own good.
476. We must love God only and
hate self only.
If the foot had always been
ignorant that it belonged to the body, and that there was a body on which it
depended, if it had only had the knowledge and the love of self, and if it
came to know that it belonged to a body on which it depended, what regret,
what shame for its past life, for having been useless to the body which
inspired its life, which would have annihilated it if it had rejected it and
separated it from itself, as it kept itself apart from the body! What prayers
for its preservation in it! And with what submission would it allow itself to
be governed by the will which rules the body, even to consenting, if
necessary, to be cut off, or it would lose its character as member! For every
member must be quite willing to perish for the body, for which alone the
whole is.
477. It is false that we are
worthy of the love of others; it is unfair that we should desire it. If we
were born reasonable and impartial, knowing ourselves and others, we should
not give this bias to our will. However, we are born with it; therefore born
unjust, for all tends to self. This is contrary to all order. We must
consider the general good; and the propensity to self is the beginning of all
disorder, in war, in politics, in economy, and in the particular body of man.
The will is therefore depraved.
If the members of natural and
civil communities tend towards the weal of the body, the communities
themselves ought to look to another more general body of which they are
members. We ought, therefore, to look to the whole. We are, therefore, born
unjust and depraved.
478. When we want to think of
God, is there nothing which turns us away, and tempts us to think of
something else? All this is bad, and is born in us.
479. If there is a God, we
must love Him only and not the creatures of a day. The reasoning of the
ungodly in the Book of Wisdom is only based upon the nonexistence of God. “On
that supposition,” say they, “let us take delight in the creatures.” That is
the worst that can happen. But if there were a God to love, they would not
have come to this conclusion, but to quite the contrary. And this is the
conclusion of the wise: “There is a God; let us therefore not take delight in
the creatures.”
Therefore all that incites us
to attach ourselves to the creatures is bad; since it prevents us from serving
God if we know Him, or from seeking Him if we know Him not. Now we are full
of lust. Therefore we are full of evil; therefore we ought to hate ourselves
and all that excited us to attach ourselves to any other object than God
only.
480. To make the members
happy, they must have one will and submit it to the body.
481. The examples of the noble
deaths of the Lacedaemonians and others scarce touch us. For what good is it
to us? But the example of the death of the martyrs touches us; for they are
“our members.” We have a common tie with them. Their resolution can form
ours, not only by example, but because it has perhaps deserved ours. There is
nothing of this in the examples of the heathen. We have no tie with them; as
we do not become rich by seeing a stranger who is so, but in fact by seeing a
father or a husband who is so.
482. Morality.—God having made
the heavens and the earth, which do not feel the happiness of their being, He
has willed to make beings who should know it, and who should compose a body of
thinking members. For our members do not feel the happiness of their union,
of their wonderful intelligence, of the care which has been taken to infuse
into them minds, and to make them grow and endure. How happy they would be if
they saw and felt it! But for this they would need to have intelligence to
know it, and good-will to consent to that of the universal soul. But if,
having received intelligence, they employed it to retain nourishment for
themselves without allowing it to pass to the other members, they would be
not only unjust, but also miserable, and would hate rather than love
themselves; their blessedness, as well as their duty, consisting in their
consent to the guidance of the whole soul to which they belong, which loves
them better than they love themselves.
483. To be a member is to have
neither life, being, nor movement, except through the spirit of the body, and
for the body.
The separate member, seeing no
longer the body to which it belongs, has only a perishing and dying
existence. Yet it believes it is a whole, and, seeing not the body on which
it depends, it believes it depends only on self and desires to make itself
both centre and body. But not having in itself a principle of life, it only
goes astray and is astonished in the uncertainty of its being; perceiving in
fact that it is not a body, and still not seeing that it is a member of a
body. In short, when it comes to know itself, it has returned, as it were, to
its own home, and loves itself only for the body. It deplores its past wanderings.
It cannot by its nature love
any other thing, except for itself and to subject it to self, because each
thing loves itself more than all. But, in loving the body, it loves itself,
because it only exists in it, by it, and for it. Qui adhaeret Deo unus
spiritus est.75
75 I Cor. 6. 17. “But he that is
joined unto the Lord is one spirit.”
The body loves the hand; and
the hand, if it had a will, should love itself in the same way as it is loved
by the soul. All love which goes beyond this is unfair.
Adhaerens Deo unus spiritus
est. We love ourselves, because we are members of Jesus Christ. We love Jesus
Christ, because He is the body of which we are members. All is one, one is in
the other, like the Three Persons.
484. Two laws suffice to rule
the whole Christian Republic better than all the laws of statecraft.
485. The true and only virtue,
then, is to hate self (for we are hateful on account of lust) and to seek a
truly lovable being to love. But as we cannot love what is outside ourselves,
we must love a being who is in us and is not ourselves; and that is true of
each and all men. Now, only the Universal Being is such. The kingdom of God
is within us; the universal good is within us, is ourselves—and not
ourselves.
486. The dignity of man in his
innocence consisted in using and having dominion over the creatures, but now
in separating himself from them and subjecting himself to them.
487. Every religion is false which,
as to its faith, does not worship one God as the origin of everything and
which, as to its morality, does not love one only God as the object of
everything.
488.... But it is impossible
that God should ever be the end, if He is not the beginning. We lift our eyes
on high, but lean upon the sand; and the earth will dissolve, and we shall
fall whilst looking at the heavens.
489. If there is one sole
source of everything, there is one sole end of everything; everything through
Him, everything for Him. The true religion, then, must teach us to worship
Him only, and to love Him only. But as we find ourselves unable to worship
what we know not, and to love any other object but ourselves, the religion
which instructs us in these duties must instruct us also of this inability,
and teach us also the remedies for it. It teaches us that by one man all was
lost, and the bond broken between God and us, and that by one man the bond is
renewed.
We are born so averse to this
love of God, and it is so necessary, that we must be born guilty, or God
would be unjust.
490. Men, not being accustomed
to form merit, but only to recompense it where they find it formed, judge of
God by themselves.
491. The true religion must
have as a characteristic the obligation to love God. This is very just, and
yet no other religion has commanded this; ours has done so. It must also be
aware of human lust and weakness; ours is so. It must have adduced remedies
for this; one is prayer. No other religion has asked of God to love and
follow Him.
492. He who hates not in
himself his self-love, and that instinct which leads him to make himself God,
is indeed blinded. Who does not see that there is nothing so opposed to
justice and truth? For it is false that we deserve this, and it is unfair and
impossible to attain it, since all demand the same thing. It is, then, a
manifest injustice which is innate in us, of which we cannot get rid, and of
which we must get rid.
Yet no religion has indicated
that this was a sin; or that we were born in it; or that we were obliged to
resist it; or has thought of giving us remedies for it.
493. The true religion teaches
our duties; our weaknesses, pride, and lust; and the remedies, humility and
mortification.
494. The true religion must
teach greatness and misery; must lead to the esteem and contempt of self, to
love and to hate.
495. If it is an extraordinary
blindness to live without investigating what we are, it is a terrible one to
live an evil life, while believing in God.
496. Experience makes us see
an enormous difference between piety and goodness.
497. Against those who,
trusting to the mercy of God, live heedlessly, without doing good works.—As
the two sources of our sins are pride and sloth, God has revealed to us two
of His attributes to cure them, mercy and justice. The property of justice is
to humble pride, however holy may be our works, et non intres injudicium,
etc.; and the property of mercy is to combat sloth by exhorting to good works,
according to that passage: “The goodness of God leadeth to repentance, and
that other of the Ninevites: “Let us do penance to see if peradventure He
will pity us.” And thus mercy is so far from authorising slackness that it is
on the contrary the quality which formally attacks it; so that instead of
saying, “If there were no mercy in God we should have to make every kind of
effort after virtue,” we must say, on the contrary, that it is because there
is mercy in God that we must make every kind of effort.
498. It is true there is
difficulty in entering into godliness. But this difficulty does not arise
from the religion which begins in us, but from the irreligion which is still
there. If our senses were not opposed to penitence, and if our corruption
were not opposed to the purity of God, there would be nothing in this painful
to us. We suffer only in proportion as the vice which is natural to us
resists supernatural grace. Our heart feels torn asunder between these
opposed efforts. But it would be very unfair to impute this violence to God,
who is drawing us on, instead of to the world, which is holding us back. It
is as a child, which a mother tears from the arms of robbers, in the pain it
suffers, should love the loving and legitimate violence of her who procures
its liberty, and detest only the impetuous and tyrannical violence of those
who detain it unjustly. The most cruel war which God can make with men in
this life is to leave them without that war which He came to bring. “I came
to send war,” He says, “and to teach them of this war. I came to bring fire
and the sword.” Before Him the world lived in this false peace.
499. External works.—There
nothing so perilous as what pleases God and man. For those states, which
please God and man, have one property which pleases God, and another which
pleases men; as the greatness of Saint Teresa. What pleased God was her deep
humility in the midst of her revelations; what pleased men was her light. And
so we torment ourselves to imitate her discourses, thinking to imitate her
conditions, and not so much to love what God loves and to put ourselves in
the state which God loves.
It is better not to fast, and
be thereby humbled, than to fast and be self-satisfied therewith. The
Pharisee and the Publican.
What use will memory be to me,
if it can alike hurt and help me, and all depends upon the blessing of God,
who gives only to things done for Him, according to His rules and in His
ways, the manner being thus as important as the thing and perhaps more; since
God can bring forth good out of evil, and without God we bring forth evil out
of good?
500. The meaning of the words,
good and evil.
501. First step: to be blamed
for doing evil, and praised for doing good.
Second step: to be neither
praised nor blamed.
502. Abraham took nothing for
himself, but only for his servants. So the righteous man takes for himself
nothing of the world, nor of the applause of the world, but only for his
passions, which he uses as their master, saying to the one, “Go,” and to
another, “Come.” Sub te erit appetitus tuus.76 The passions thus subdued are
virtues. Even God attributes to Himself avarice, jealousy, anger; and these
are virtues as well as kindness, pity, constancy, which are also passions. We
must employ them as slaves, and, leaving to them their food, prevent the soul
from taking any of it, For, when the passions become masters, they are vices;
and they give their nutriment to the soul, and the soul nourishes itself upon
it and is poisoned.
76 Gen. 4. 7. “Unto thee shall
be his desire.”
503. Philosophers have
consecrated the vices by placing them in God Himself. Christians have
consecrated the virtues.
504. The just man acts by
faith in the least things; when he reproves his servants, he desires their
conversion by the Spirit of God, and prays God to correct them; and he
expects as much from God as from his own reproofs, and prays God to bless his
corrections. And so in all his other actions he proceeds with the Spirit of
God; and his actions deceive us by reason of the... or suspension of the
Spirit of God in him; and he repents in his affliction.
505. All things can be deadly
to us, even the things made to serve us; as in nature walls can kill us, and
stairs can kill us, if we do not walk circumspectly.
The least movement affects all
nature; the entire sea changes because of a rock. Thus, in grace, the least
action affects everything by its consequences; therefore everything is
important.
In each action we must look
beyond the action at our past, present, and future state, and at others whom
it affects, and see the relations of all those things. And then we shall be
very cautious.
506. Let God not impute to us
our sins, that is to say, all the consequences and results of our sins, which
are dreadful, even those of the smallest faults, if we wish to follow them
out mercilessly!
507. The spirit of grace; the
hardness of the heart; external circumstances.
508. Grace is indeed needed to
turn a man into a saint; and he who doubts it does not know what a saint or a
man is.
509. Philosophers.—A fine
thing to cry to a man who does not know himself, that he should come of
himself to God! And a fine thing to say so to a man who does know himself!
510. Man is not worthy of God,
but he is not incapable of being made worthy.
It is unworthy of God to unite
Himself to wretched man; but it is not unworthy of God to pull him out of his
misery.
511. If we would say that man
is too insignificant to deserve communion with God, we must indeed be very
great to judge of it.
512. It is, in peculiar
phraseology, wholly the body of Jesus Christ, but it cannot be said to be the
whole body of Jesus Christ. The union of two things without change does not
enable us to say that one becomes the other; the soul thus being united to
the body, the fire to the timber, without change. But change is necessary to
make the form of the one become the form of the other; thus the union of the
Word to man. Because my body without my soul would not make the body of a
man; therefore my soul united to any matter whatsoever will make my body. It
does not distinguish the necessary condition from the sufficient condition;
the union is necessary, but not sufficient. The left arm is not the right.
Impenetrability is a property
of matter.
Identity de numero in regard
to the same time requires the identity of matter.
Thus if God united my soul to
a body in China, the same body, idem numero would be in China.
The same river which runs
there is idem numero as that which runs at the same time in China.
513. Why God has established
prayer.
1. To communicate to His
creatures the dignity of causality.
2. To teach us from whom our
virtue comes.
3. To make us deserve other
virtues by work.
(But to keep His own
pre-eminence, He grants prayer to whom He pleases.)
Objection: But we believe that
we hold prayer of ourselves.
This is absurd; for since,
though having faith, we cannot have virtues, how should we have faith? Is
there a greater distance between infidelity and faith than between faith and
virtue?
Merit. This word is ambiguous.
Meruit habere Redemptorem.77
Meruit tam sacra membra
tangere.78(2)
Digno tam sacra membra
tangere.79(3)
Non sum dignus.80(4)
Qui manducat indignus.81(5)
Dignus est accipere.82(6)
Dignare me.83(7)
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