We do not look to Pascal especially for worldly insight, or for that sharp knowledge of men that make the sayings of clever social writers like Rochefoucauld or Horace Walpole memorable, if not always wise or kind. But there are many of the Thoughts which show that the penitent of Port Royal had looked with clear observant eyes below the surface of Paris society, and that he had
a deep sense not only of the moral but the social weaknesses of humanity.
“When passion leads us towards anything, we forget duty; as we like a book we read it, while we ought to be doing something else. In order to be reminded of our duty, it is necessary to propose to do something that we dislike; then we excuse ourselves on the ground that we have something else to do, and so we recollect our duty by this means.
“How wisely are men distinguished by their exterior rather than by their interior qualifications! Which of us two shall take the lead? Which shall yield precedence? The man of less talent? But I am as clever as he. Then we must fight it out. But he has four lackeys and I have only one. That is a visible difference. We have only to count the numbers. It is my place then to give way, and I am a fool to contest the point. In this way peace is kept, which is the greatest of blessings.
“There is a great advantage in rank, which gives to a man of eighteen or twenty a degree of acceptance, publicity, and respect which another can hardly obtain by merit at fifty. It is a gain of thirty years without any trouble.
“Respect for others requires you to inconvenience yourself. This seems foolish, yet it is very proper. It seems to say, I would gladly inconvenience myself if you really required me to do so, seeing I am ready to do so without serving you.
“‘This is my dog,’ say children; ‘that sunny seat is mine.’ There is the beginning and type of the usurpation of the whole earth.
“This I is hateful. You, Miton, [171] merely cover it, you do not take it away; you are therefore always hateful. Not at all, you say; for if we act obligingly to all men, they have no reason to hate us. So far true, if there was nothing hateful in the I itself but the displeasure which it gives. But if I hate it because it is essentially unjust, because it makes itself the centre of everything, I shall hate it always. In short, this I has two qualities: it is unjust in itself, in that it makes itself the centre of everything; it is an annoyance to others, in that it would serve itself by them. Each I is the enemy, and would be the tyrant, of all others.
“He who would thoroughly know the vanity of men has only to consider the causes and effects of love. The cause is a je ne sais quoi, an indefinable trifle—the effects are monstrous. If the nose of Cleopatra had been a little shorter, it would have changed the history of the world.
“You have a bad manner—‘excuse me, if you please.’ Without the apology I should not have known that there was any harm done. Begging your pardon, the ‘excuse me,’ is all the mischief.
“Do you wish men to speak well of you? Then never speak well of yourself.
“The more mind we have, the more do we observe men of original mind. It is your commonplace people that find no difference betwixt one man and another.
“It is the contest that delights us, and not the victory. It is the same in play, and the same in search for truth. We love to watch in argument the conflicts of opinion; but the plain truth we do not care to look at. To regard it with pleasure, we must see it gradually emerging from the contest of debate. It is the same with passions: the struggle of two contending passions has great interest, but the dominance of one is mere brutality.
“The example of chastity in Alexander has not availed in the same degree to make men chaste, as his drunkenness has to make them intemperate. Men are not ashamed not to be so virtuous as he; and it seems excusable not to be more vicious. A man thinks he is not altogether sunk in the mud when he follows the vices of great men.
“I have spent much time in the study of the abstract sciences, but the paucity of persons with whom you can communicate on such subjects, gave me a distaste for them. When I began to study man, I saw that these abstract studies are not suited to him, and that in diving into them I wandered farther from my real object than those who were ignorant of them, and I forgave men for not having attended to these things. But I thought at least I should find many companions in the study of mankind, which is the true and proper study of man. I was mistaken. There are yet fewer students of man than of geometry.
“People in general are called neither poets nor geometers, although they have all that in them, and are capable of being judges of it. They are not specifically marked out. When they enter a room, they speak of the subject on hand. They do not show a greater aptitude for one subject than another, except as circumstances call out their talents. . . .
“It is poor praise when a man is pointed out on entering a room as being a clever poet; a bad mark that he should only be referred to when the question is as to the merit of some verses. . . .
“Man is full of wants, and likes those who can satisfy them. ‘Such a one is a good mathematician,’ it may be said. But then I must be doing mathematics; he would turn me into a proposition. Another is a good soldier; he would take me for a besieged place. Give me your true man of general talents, who can adapt himself to all my needs.
“If a man sets himself at a window to see the passers-by, and I happen to pass, can I say that he set himself there to see me? No; for he does not think of me in particular. But if a man loves a woman for her beauty, does he love her? No; for the smallpox, which will destroy her beauty without killing her, will cause him to love her no more. And if any one loves me for my judgment or my memory, does he really love me? No; for I may lose those qualities without ceasing to be. Where, then, is this me, if it is neither in soul nor body?
“How is it that a lame man does not anger us, but a blundering mind does? Is it that the cripple admits that we walk straight, but a crippled mind accuses us of limping? Epictetus asks also, Why are we not annoyed if any one tells us that we are unwell in the head, and yet are angry if they tell us that we reason falsely or choose unwisely? The reason is, that we know certainly nothing ails our head, or that we are not crippled in body. But we are not so certain that we have chosen correctly.
“All men naturally hate one another.
“Desire and force are the source of all our actions—desire of our voluntary, force of our involuntary actions.
“Men are necessarily such fools, that it would be folly of another kind not to be a fool.
“To make a man a saint, grace is absolutely necessary; and whoever doubts this does not know what a saint is, nor what a man is.
“The last act is always tragedy, whatever fine comedy there may have been in the rest of life—We must all die alone.”
“There can only be two kinds of men: the righteous, who believe themselves sinners; and sinners, who believe themselves righteous.
“Unbelievers are the most credulous; they believe the miracles of Vespasian to escape believing the miracles of Moses.
“Atheists should speak only of things perfectly clear, but it is not perfectly clear that the soul is material.
“Atheism indicates force of mind, but only up to a certain point.”
Some of the foregoing Thoughts [174] may appear to our readers sufficient to warrant the charge of scepticism, already adverted to. Pascal certainly speaks at times both of human life and human reason in a contemptuous manner. Even Rochefoucauld could hardly express himself more bitterly than he does now and then when he fixes his clear gaze upon the folly, the vanity, the weaknesses which make up man’s customary life, and the deceits which he practises upon himself and his fellows. All the world seems to him at such times “in a state of delusion.” If there is truth, it “is not where men suppose it to be.” The majority are to be followed, not “because they have more reason, but because they have more force.”
“The power of kings is founded on the reason and on the folly of the people, but chiefly on their folly. The greatest and most important thing in the world has weakness for its basis, and the basis is wonderfully secure, for there is nothing more certain than that people will be weak. . . . Our magistrates well understand this mystery. . . . Save for their crimson robes, ermine, palaces of justice, fleur-de-lis, they would never have duped the world. Where would the physician be without his ‘cassock and mule,’ and the theologian without his ‘square cap and flowing garments’? These vain adornments impress the imagination, and secure respect. We cannot look at an advocate in his gown and wig without a favourable impression of his abilities. The soldier alone needs no disguise, because he gains his authority by actual force, the others by grimace.”
In such sentences, as well as in some previously quoted, the cynicism of both Hobbes and Montaigne seems to speak. Man is really a fool, and society rests upon force. The further down we go, we come, not to any natural rights, or essential principles of justice, which reason is capable of judging, but only to a mass of customs built up out of selfish instincts, and controlled by external influence. Pascal repeats Montaigne over and over again, and seems to make many of his cynicisms his own. This is not to be denied. “Montaigne is right. Custom should be followed because it is custom, and because it is found to be established, without inquiry whether it be reasonable or not.” Yet he puts in a caveat, as we shall see more fully afterwards, just when he seems most to have identified himself with the representative of scepticism. In blindly following custom, he reserves “those matters which are not contrary to natural or divine right;” and the root of custom, even in the popular mind, he believes to be a dim sense of justice. Again, in a similar vein,
he asks, “Why follow ancient laws and ancient opinions? Are they wiser? No. But they stand apart from present interests; and thus take away the root of difference.” Here, as so often, the moralist supplants the sceptic, and suggests a higher thought, while seeming to approve of a superficial Pyrrhonism.
It is easy, in one sense, to make out a case of scepticism against Pascal. He always writes strongly. There is passion in all his thought. He had a strong and deep sense of human weakness, and incapacity to attain the highest truth. He spoke of the philosophy of Descartes without respect. With most of the Port Royalists, indeed, he seems to have concurred in the Cartesian doctrine of automata, [176] strangely revived in our day by Professor Huxley. But he repudiated the notion
of “subtle matter,” and even spoke of it with contempt (dont il se moquait fort). “He could not bear,” his niece tells us, in a passage often quoted and emphasised, “the Cartesian manner of explaining the formation of all things.” “I cannot forgive Descartes,” he said. “He would willingly in all his philosophy have done without God, if he could; but he could not get on without letting him give the world a fillip to set it agoing: after that, he has nothing more to do with God.” Whether he had studied Descartes or not, he evidently did not share the enthusiasm of Arnauld and others for his philosophy. He even spoke of it as “useless, uncertain, and troublesome—nay, as ridiculous.” [177] He has added, in that brusque, rapid, forceful style characteristic of many of his Thoughts, that “he did not think the whole of philosophy worth an hour’s trouble.” Again: “To set light by philosophy is the true philosophy.” When we look at such expressions, and many others, it is not to be wondered at that Pascal has been accused of scepticism. As he could not forgive Descartes, so Cousin cannot forgive him for his depreciation of Descartes. One who saw nothing in Cartesianism or philosophy in general beyond what these rash sentences, freshly restored in all their audacity, declare, could be nothing but an “enemy of all philosophy.”
It is impossible not to feel that there is some ground for this accusation, and that, if we were to draw our knowledge of Pascal merely from such passages, Cousin makes out something of a case against him. But many other passages, hardly less emphatic, must make every candid reader pause before he comes to any definite