There may be something to object to in Pascal’s mode of expression in the above passage. Cousin has made the most of his confusion of “reason” and “reasoning”—“la raison” and “le raisonnement.” The expression “le cœur,” by which he designates the higher faculty of intuition, may be inadequate and misleading—complex and disturbing in its association. But withal, his attitude in favour of a ground of certainty in human knowledge is unmistakable. So far he is not only not with Montaigne, but he is clearly against him. The rights of nature, as he says, rise up against the Pyrrhonist. They make themselves good. And however strongly Pascal may
draw the picture of human weakness, and all the contrarieties which our nature encloses, he does not mean by this to strike at the roots of all knowledge, and leave man a prey to helpless doubt. He means merely to shake the throne of rational security, and to show that no conclusions of mere philosophy can reach all the exigencies of man’s condition. His analysis of human nature is the analysis of a moralist, and not of a psychologist or rational philosopher. He looks at man always as a spiritual being. It is his spiritual capacity which alone makes him great, and yet intensifies all the lower contradictions of his nature. It is “thought alone which makes man’s greatness.” A man can be conceived “without hands or feet or head, but not without thought.”
“The possession of the earth would not add to my greatness. As to space, the universe encloses and absorbs me as a mere point, but by thought I embrace it. . . . Man is but a reed, the feeblest of created things—but one possessing thought (un roseau pensant). It needs not that the universe should arm itself to crush him. A breath, a drop of water, suffices for his destruction. But were the whole universe to rise against him, man is yet greater than the universe, since man knows that he dies. He knows the universe prevails against him. The universe knows nothing of its power.” [190]
It is hardly possible to speak more eloquently of the dignity of human nature. And if it is the same voice which speaks in such pathetic or it may be harsh tones of human weakness and misery, and the disproportions of our natural life, it is the very consciousness of greatness that inspires the consciousness of misery. Looking from such a height of human dignity, he sees all the depths of
human baseness. It is this higher spirit which consecrates Pascal as a moralist. Has he rebuked the presumptions of humanity? has he called upon proud reason to humble itself? has he gibed human philosophy, and even gloried for a moment in the contradictions of empiricism? It is never that he may laugh at man, or that he may rest in the mere contemplation of his follies or extravagances, but because he himself profoundly realised the height and the depth of his being—the grandeur to which he could rise, or to which God could raise him, and the baseness and miseries to which he could sink. Doubtless, as with all concentrated and meditative natures, Pascal delights to dwell on the weaker and gloomier side of humanity. This was partly the result of his Jansenist leanings, but mainly it came from his own intense reality of feeling. It was bred of his austere sadness of heart, and is found to run as a note of profound constitutional melancholy through all his letters, and all his life, as well as his Thoughts. In the view of eternity, and of the awful issues involved in religion, the common life and pursuits of man seemed to him not only frivolous, but criminal. He looked forth, therefore, on this common life with eyes not only of tears, but of displeasure. He seemed even at times to derive something of stern satisfaction from its very follies and absurdities. But this is only the temporary mood of the profound moralist touched to his heart by pangs that he cannot resist. His true view of life is never cynical,—but always grave, if bitter—and hopeful, if stern.
Pascal’s supposed philosophical scepticism admits of something of the same explanation. He has not only no wish to disturb the fundamental verities of human
thought, but he endeavours to fix them in an ineradicable instinct or universal “sense,” against which all the assaults of Pyrrhonism must break. But the while he is himself deeply moved by the perplexities of human reason. Although no Pyrrhonist in thought, he knows too well in experience the depths of Pyrrhonism. His mind is one of those to be met with in all ages, which, while it clings to faith, and is even strong in the assertion of faith’s claims, is yet in certain moments utterly distracted by doubt. Constantly searching the foundations of human knowledge,—sifting them as with lighted glance,—they seemed to him at times to crumble away before him. Nothing remained fixed to his piercing look. As few minds have experienced, he felt the awful darkness which encloses all mortal aspiration, and the keenest audacities of human speculation. The incapacities of human reason at such times overwhelmed him, and left him hopeless, or, still worse, in a half-derisive mood. And these moods, as well as his clearer and more elaborate thoughts, hastily transferred to paper, are found amongst his notes. It is quite impossible to vindicate his consistency, and it is not in the least necessary to do this, as already explained; while we feel bound to maintain that his higher mood is his true mood, and that the Pascal of the ‘Pensées’—the veritable Pascal—is to be judged, not by his weakness but by his strength; by his moments of clear mental sanity and insight, and not by his moments of despair or of derisive mockery of all human philosophy.
This seems to us the true light in which to regard the famous wager-essay on the existence of God, which has been a scandal even to some of his greatest admirers. It
is impossible to defend this essay on any principle of sound philosophy. Either there is a God or there is not. Which side of the question shall we take? “Reason,” he says, “cannot decide.” The fact, he means, cannot be demonstrated according to his customary use of the word reason. But if it cannot, there must yet be a balance of reason, and proof on one side or the other. And the only fair and manly issue of such a question must be, On which side lies this balance? A valid theistic conclusion can be found in no other way, and least of all in any calculation of chances, or balance of self-interest. And yet it is this last which Pascal has put forward with such prominence in this famous essay. “Wager,” he says. “If you win, you win everything; if you lose, you lose nothing. Wager, then, without hesitation, that God exists. . . . On one side is an eternity of life, of infinite blessedness to be gained, and what you stake is finite. . . . Our proposition is, that the finite is to be vested in a wager, in which there is an equal chance of gain and loss, and infinitude to gain.” The play was hardly worthy of Pascal, and the ‘mystery of the game’ could certainly never be unravelled in any such way. But not a few minds like Pascal’s—with deep spiritual intuitions and yet a craving for scientific certainty constantly mocking these intuitions—have felt in a similar manner the hazard of the great question, and may have said to themselves, “We must take our stand, and this is the side which weighs in the balance. We can lose nothing; we may gain everything.” The mood is not a lofty one, and it is no higher in Pascal than in any one else; but there are moments of terrible doubt, when the soul is so borne away on the surge of the sceptical
wave that rises from the depth of all human speculation, that it can only cling to the Divine by an effort of will, and with something of the gamester’s thought that this is the winning side! The thought may be shallow and poor in itself, but in such cases it comes not out of the shallows but out of the depths of a mind torn by distracting doubts in the face of the dreadful problems of life.