balance of parties regarding it, Pascal dismisses it at once, important as it proved in the after-history of Port Royal.
“As to the issue of the question of fact, I own I give myself very little concern. It does not affect my conscience in the least whether M. Arnauld is presumptuous or the reverse; and should I be tempted from curiosity to ascertain whether these propositions are contained in Jansen, his book is neither so very scarce nor so very large but that I can read it all through for my own enlightenment without consulting the Sorbonne at all.”
Only, while himself hitherto inclined to believe with common report that the propositions were in Jansen, he was now almost led to doubt that they were so from the absurd refusal to point them out. In this respect he fears the censure will do more harm than good. “For, in truth, people have become sceptical of late, and will not believe things till they see them.”
But the point being in itself so frivolous, he hastens to take up the question of right, as touching the faith. And here the play of the dialogue begins:—
“You and I supposed that the question here was one involving the deepest principles of grace, as to whether it is given to all men, or whether it is efficacious of itself. But truly we were deceived. You must know I have become a great theologian in a short time, and you will see the proofs of it.”
He describes, then, how he had made a visit to a doctor of the Sorbonne, who was his neighbour, and one of the most zealous opponents of the Jansenists, to inquire into the controversy. He asked him why the question as to grace should not be set at rest by a formal decision
that “grace is really given to all”? But he received a rude rebuff, and was told that this was not the point. “There were those on his side who held that grace is not given to all, and even the examiners themselves had declared, in a full meeting of the Sorbonne, that this opinion was problematical.” This was, in fact, his own view; and he confirmed it by what he said was a celebrated passage of St Augustine, “We know that grace is not given to all men.” He was equally unfortunate in his second inquiry. His neighbour, opposed as he was to Jansenism, would not condemn the doctrine of efficacious grace. The doctrine, on the contrary, was quite orthodox, was held by the Jesuits, and had even been defended by himself in his thesis at the Sorbonne. The inquirer is confounded, and ventures to ask then in what M. Arnauld’s heresy consisted? “In this,” replies his friend, “that he does not acknowledge that the just have the power of obeying the commandments of God in the way in which we understand it.” Having got to what he supposes the “heart of the affair,” he posts off to a Jansenist acquaintance, “a very decent man notwithstanding.” But if he was puzzled before, he is still more puzzled when he hears the worthy Jansenist declare that it is no heresy to hold that “all the just have always the power of obeying the Divine commandments.” Confounded by such a reply, he felt that he had been too plain-spoken with both Jansenist and Molinist. [120] There must be something more in this dispute than he understood; and if not, there was no reason why there
should not now be peace in the Church and the Sorbonne. He returned to the Molinist, whom he had first visited, with this assurance. The Jansenists, he said, were quite at one with the Jesuits as to the power of the righteous always to obey the commandments of God.
“All very well,” said he, “but you must be a theologian to see the gist of the matter. The difference between us is so subtle that we can hardly make it out ourselves. It is quite beyond your understanding. Suffice it for you to know that the Jansenists will indeed say that the just have always the power of obeying the commandments—this is not the point in dispute; but they will not say that this power is proximate. That is the point.”
Mystified more than ever by this new and unknown expression, of which he could get no explanation, the inquirer now returned to his Jansenist friend to demand of him if he admitted it. “Do you admit the proximate power?” was all that he could say to him. He had charged his memory carefully with the expression, all the more that he did not understand it. The Jansenist smiled, and said coldly, “Tell me in what sense you use the expression, and I will tell you what I believe about it.” But this was just what he could not do. So he gave the haphazard answer, that he used it “in the sense of the Molinists.” “Which of the Molinists?” was the rejoinder. “All of them together, as being one body, and having one and the same mind,” was the second answer at random: upon which he is assured he is very ill informed; that the Molinists, instead of being at one, are hopelessly divided, but that being united in the design to ruin M. Arnauld, they have all agreed to use