"Each portion of matter is not only infinitely divisible, but is also actually subdivided without end.... Whence it appears that in the smallest particle of matter there is a world of creatures, living beings, animals, entelechies, souls. Each portion of matter may be conceived as like a garden full of plants, or like a pond full of fishes.... Thus there is nothing fallow, nothing sterile, nothing dead in the universe...."[11]
Leibniz may indeed be said to have been the first to outline a theory of "panpsychism" (as it is termed), according to which there is nothing that is not, in its degree, alive. As we shall have occasion to observe, Leibniz was here (as elsewhere) a forerunner of much recent philosophy.
The significance of the Spinozist and Leibnizian systems of thought, though regarding existence from such diverse standpoints, was, for practical purposes the same. Both alike led out, though by different paths, beyond the mechanical theory of the universe. They, indeed, represent two types of thought which attempt to reach the same end by different methods. Their counterparts will meet us again as this history proceeds.
Pascal.—But before passing out from the seventeenth century, one thinker ought to detain us; for from more than one point of view he was a notable personality, and of first-rate importance in the history of religious, as distinct from purely philosophical thought. He was indeed one of those figures who are distinguished among distinguished men of all times.
Blaise Pascal was born in 1623, and was a boy of precocious mathematical ability. By the age of twelve he is said to have worked out independently most of the first and second books of Euclid; at sixteen he wrote a treatise on Conics which attracted the attention of Descartes; at nineteen he completed a calculating machine—a device that had never been dreamt of before. At this point it is not surprising to learn that his health broke down.
Pascal is not a systematic philosopher; but his acute intellect was united to an inner restlessness of soul. Neither science nor philosophy could bring him peace, for his needs were far deeper than any merely rational systematisation of ideas could satisfy. Some have said of him that he was fundamentally a sceptic, but one for whom religious faith was essential; certainly in him were united an acute critical faculty and an intense religious experience. Perhaps the two are not so incompatible after all.
The "Pensées."—Pascal is chiefly famous for two works, the Lettres Provinciales and the Pensées. The former is controversial literature, but yet a classic of the French language: in sum, it is an attack on the Jesuits; but it need not here detain us, for with theology, as such, we are not concerned, and still less with ecclesiastical systems. The Pensées is a collection of fragments, the material for an Apology for Christianity which was never written. The autograph MS. preserved in the Bibliothèque Nationale at Paris "is made up of scraps of paper of all shapes and sizes, written often on both sides ... and dealing with all sorts of subjects." One is reminded of the mythical scraps of manuscript from which the genius of Carlyle distilled the philosophy of the sagacious Teufelsdröch.
But it is in these detached fragments that Pascal has expressed his spiritual and intellectual struggles; they contain his philosophy of life. And, however unsystematic in arrangement, they do reveal a fairly definite temper and attitude of mind.
Pascal's Philosophy.—In the first place, the Thoughts voice a reaction against the "Cartesian intellectualism" which was then the prevalent tendency in scientific and philosophical circles. "The last attainment of reason is to recognise that there is an infinity of things beyond it" might perhaps have been published by Pascal's predecessors. "To laugh at philosophy is to be a true philosopher" would have seemed like blasphemy or nonsense to most of his contemporaries, but it was neither of these.
Behind sayings of this description lay the strong conviction that mere logic was incapable of probing the depths of existence. "The heart has its reasons of which reason knows nothing," is sound psychology, and not scepticism or obscurantism. Of course it all depends what one means by "reason." Too many of Pascal's contemporaries applied the word to a more or less shallow rationalism utterly opposed to a spiritual view of things, whereas reason properly understood is "the logic of the whole personality."[12]