The account that his sister, madame Périer, gives of the rules of life to which he adhered is most deeply interesting, as appertaining to a man of such transcendent genius; and yet deeply painful, since we cannot see that God could be pleased or served by his cutting himself off from the enjoyment of all the natural and innocent affections, or by a system of self-denial, that undermined his health and shortened his life. To follow up the new rules he had laid down for his conduct, he removed to another part of Paris; and showed so determined a resolve to renounce the world that, at last, the world renounced him. In this retreat he disciplined his life by certain principles, the chief of which was to abstain from all pleasures or superfluity; in accordance with this system, he allowed himself nothing but what was absolutely necessary; he unfurnished his apartment of all carpets and hangings, reserving only a table and chairs, of the coarsest manufacture: he also, as much as possible, denied himself the service of domestics: he made his bed himself; and went to the kitchen to fetch his dinner, and carried it into his own room, and took back the remains when he had finished: in short, his servant merely cooked and went to market for him. His time was otherwise spent in acts of charity, in prayer, and in reading the scriptures. At first the regularity and quiet of a life of retreat recruited somewhat his shattered frame: but this did not last. His mind could not be idle, nor his reasoning powers remain inactive; and he soon found cause to study as deeply matters connected with religion as before he had applied himself to the investigation of mathematical truths.
The abbey of Port Royal had not many years before been reformed, and acquired a high reputation. M. Arnaud (a noble of Auvergne, and a celebrated advocate,) was the father of a numerous family of children, and among them a daughter, who, at eleven years of age, was named abbess of Port Royal. Instead of following the old track of indulgence and indolence, her young heart became inflamed with pious zeal; and, at the age of seventeen, she undertook the arduous task of reforming the habits and lives of the nuns under her jurisdiction. By degrees she imparted a large portion of her piety to them, and succeeded in her undertaking: watching, fasting, humility, and labour, became the inmates of her convent; and its reputation for sanctity and purity increased daily. The abbey of Port Royal aux Champs was situated at the distance of only six leagues from Paris; the situation in itself was desolate, but some private houses appertained to it. Several men of eminent learning and piety were attracted, by the high reputation that the abbey enjoyed, to take up their abode in one of these dwellings. They fled the world to enjoy Christian peace in solitude: but indolence was not a part of their practice. Besides the works of piety of which they were the authors, they received pupils, they compiled books of instruction; and their system of education became celebrated, both for the classical knowledge they imparted, and the sentiments of religion they inspired. Among these reverend and illustrious recluses were numbered two brothers of mother Angelica, the abbess, Arnaud d'Andilli, and Antoine Arnaud, and two of her nephews; in addition may be named Saci, Nicole, and others, well known as French theologians, and controversialists. Pascal's attention being drawn to this retreat by the circumstance of his sister's having taken her vows in the abbey, he was desirous to become acquainted with men so illustrious: without taking up his abode absolutely among them, he cultivated their society, often paid visits of several weeks' duration to their retreat, and was admitted to their intimacy. They soon discovered and appreciated his transcendent genius, while he was led by them to apply his talents to religious subjects. The vigour and justness of his thoughts inspired them with admiration. Saci was, in particular, his friend; and the famous Arnaud regarded him with wonder for his youth, and esteem for his learning and penetration. These became in the end most useful to the recluses; and from the pen of their young friend they derived, not only their best defence against their enemies, but a glory for their cause, founded on the admirable "Lettres Provinciales," which have survived, for the purity of their style, vigour of expression, and closeness of argument; for their wit, and their sublime eloquence, long after the object for which they were written, is remembered only as casting at once ridicule and disgrace upon the cause of religion in France.
It is indeed a melancholy and degrading picture of human nature, to find men of exalted piety and profound learning, waste their powers on controversies, which can now only be regarded with contempt, though the same sentiment cannot follow the virtues which these men displayed—their constancy, their courage, and noble contempt of all selfish considerations.
The foundation of the dispute, which called forth at once these virtues and this vain exertion of intellect, still subsists between different sects of Christianity. The Christian religion is founded on the idea of the free will of man, and the belief that he can forsake sin; and that, according as he does forsake or cling to it, he deserves happiness or reprobation in the other world. But to this is added, with some, the belief that sanctification springs from the especial interference of God; that man cannot even seek salvation without a call; that faith and grace is an immediate and gratuitous gift of God to each individual whom the Holy Ghost inspires with a vocation. How far man was born with the innate power of belief and faith, or how far he needed a particular and immediate gift of grace to seek these from God, divided the Christian world into sects at various times, and was the foundation of the dispute between the molinists and jansenists. The first name was derived from Molina, a jesuit, who endeavoured to establish a sort of accord between the Almighty's prescience and man's free will, which gave the latter power to choose, and sufficing grace to choose well. The jesuits were zealous in supporting the doctrine of one of their order. They discussed the points in question with so much acrimony that they laid themselves open to as violent attacks; they were opposed in particular by the dominicans; the dispute was carried on in Rome, before assemblies instituted to decide upon it, but which took care to decide nothing; and the pope ended, by ordering the two parties to live in peace. Meanwhile Cornelius Jansen, bishop of Ypres, wrote a book on saint Augustin, which was not published till after his death: this book, which supported the notion of election by God, was taken up by the adversaries of the jesuits (hereafter called jansenists, the name of the bishop being latinised into Jansenius), and they called attention to it. The jesuits selected five propositions, which they said they found in it, on the subject of grace and election; and these were condemned as heretical. Antoine Arnaud rose as their advocate. The jesuits detested him for his father's sake, who had pleaded the cause of the university of Paris against them, and gained it. Arnaud declared that he had read the work of Jansenius, and could not find the five condemned propositions in it, but acknowledged that, if they were there, they deserved condemnation. The Sorbonne exclaimed against this declaration as "rash;" for, as the pope had condemned these propositions as being enounced by Jansenius, of course they were contained in his book.[55] It was considered necessary that Arnaud should reply to this attack; but, though a learned man, an eloquent writer, and a great theologian, his defence was addressed to the studious rather than the public, and it gained no partisans. 1656.
Ætat.
33. It was far otherwise when Pascal took up his pen, and, under the name of Louis de Montalte, published his first letter à un Provincial; it was written in a popular, yet clear and conclusive manner, and in a style at once so elegant, perspicuous, and pure, that a child might read and understand, while a scholar would study the pages as a model for imitation. The success of this letter was prodigious: it did not however change the proceedings of the Sorbonne; it assembled—its sittings were crowded with monks and mendicant friars, ignorant men whose opinions were despicable, but whose votes counted. Arnaud's work was condemned, and he himself expelled the Sorbonne. This sentence roused Pascal to continue his labours. He wrote another letter, which met with equal approbation; but the success only served to irritate Arnaud's enemies; they obtained another censure of the five propositions from the pope, and insisted on all suspected persons signing a formula in which they were renounced. The nuns of Port Royal were called on to put their names, and, on their resistance, they were threatened with the destruction of their house, and dispersion.
At this moment, a singular circumstance occurred, which to this day is, by many, considered a miracle. A sacred relic, one of the thorns of our Saviour's crown of thorns, had been lately brought to Paris. To a protestant the pretence of the existence of such a relic is ridiculous, but the catholic church has always upheld a belief in the miraculous preservation of these instruments of our Saviour's passion and death. The holy thorn was carried to many convents, and among others to Port Royal, and all the inhabitants went in procession, and kissed it. Among them was a niece of Pascal, daughter of madame Périer. She had been long ill of a fistula in an eye: she touched the wound with the relic, and it healed at once.[56] The news of this miracle was spread abroad; it was believed, and all Paris flocked to the convent. A religious house, the scene of an actual miracle, was considered too highly favoured by God to be persecuted; the nuns and the jansenists triumphed; the jesuits were, for the time, silent and abashed. To add to their defeat, Pascal continued to write his Letters to a Provincial, attacking the society with the arms of wit and eloquence. The Jesuitical system of morality, full of mental reservation and ambiguity—its truckling to vice, and contradiction to the simple but sublime principles of the gospel, afforded him a wide field for censure. He wrote not a mere controversial work, interesting to theologians only, but a book addressed to all classes. It gained immediate attention; and its eloquence and beauty have secured its immortality.[57]
The success of this book, the activity of his mind, and his sedulous study of theology, naturally led Pascal to conceive the project of other works. The scope of that which principally engaged his attention was, a refutation of atheists. He meditated continually on this subject, and put down all the thoughts that occurred to his mind. Illness prevented him from giving them subsequently a more connected form, but they exist as his "Pensées," and many of them deserve attention and veneration; while others, founded on exaggerated and false views of human duties, are interesting as displaying the nature of his mind. The acuteness and severity of thought which in early life led him to mathematical discoveries, he now applied to the truths of Christianity; and he followed out all the consequences of the doctrine of the church of Rome with an uncompromising and severe spirit. Want of imagination, perhaps, caused his mistakes; for mistakes he certainly made. He is sublime in his charity, in his love and care for the poor, in his gentleness and humility; but when we learn that he, a suffering, dying man, wore a girdle armed with sharp points as a punishment for transient and involuntary emotions of vanity—when we find him reprehending his sister for caressing her children, and denouncing as sinful the most justifiable, and indeed virtuous departure from ascetic discipline, we feel that the mathematical precision with which he treated subjects of morals is totally at war with the system of the Creator, madame Périer relates, that she was often mortified and hurt by his cold manner, and the apparent distaste with which he repulsed her sisterly attentions. She complained to their sister, the nun; but she understood better his motives, and explained how he considered it a virtue to love without attaching himself, and also deemed it sin to excite attachment; and proved that notwithstanding his apparent coldness his heart was warm, by mentioning the earnestness with which he served her on any occasion when she needed his assistance. His most active feeling was charity to the poor; he never refused alms, and would borrow money on interest for the sake of bestowing them; and when cautioned that he might ruin himself, replied, that he never found that any one who had property ever died so poor but he had something to leave. It was a hard life to which he condemned himself; a careful avoidance of all attachment—a continual mortification of his senses, and the labour and sadness of perpetual association with the suffering; added to this, he aimed at such a state of abstraction as not to receive pleasure from food; and aware of an emotion of satisfied vanity when consulted by the learned men of the day, he, as has been said, wore a girdle armed with sharp points, which he struck into himself, so to recall his wandering thoughts. A sense of duty—love of God,—perhaps something of pride, kept him up long; but he sunk under it at last. He spent five years in a rigid adherence to all his rules and duties; then his fragile body gave way, and he fell into a series of sufferings so great, that, though existence was prolonged for four years, they were years of perpetual pain.
1658.
Ætat.
35.
His illness began by violent toothache; he was kept awake night after night: during these painful vigils, his thoughts recurred to the studies of his youth. He revolved in his head problems proposed by the scientific men of the day.
His attention was now chiefly engaged with the solution of various questions in the higher departments of geometry, especially those connected with the properties of cycloids. He succeeded in solving many problems of great difficulty relating to the quadrature and rectification of segments and arcs of cycloids, and the volumes of solids formed by their revolutions round their axes and ordinates. Except so far as they form part of the history of mathematical science, and illustrate the powers of great minds, such as that of the subject of this memoir, these problems have now lost all their interest. The powerful instruments of investigation supplied by the differential and integral calculus, have reduced their solution to the mere elements of transcendental mathematics. At the epoch when they engaged the attention of Pascal, before the invention of the modern methods, they were questions presenting the most formidable difficulties. To Pascal, however, they were mere matters of mental relaxation, resorted to with a view to divert his attention from his acute bodily sufferings. He entertained, himself, no intention of making them public. It was, however, the wish of several of his companions in religious retirement that they should be made public, were it only to afford a proof that the highest mathematical genius is not incompatible with the deepest and most sincere Christian faith. 1658.
Ætat.
35. Pascal yielded, and, according to a custom which was then usual, however puerile it may now appear, he, in the first instance, proposed the several questions which he solved as subjects for a prize to the scientific world. Many competitors presented themselves; and others, who, though not competing for the prize, offered partial solutions. Among these were several who have since attained great celebrity, such as Wallis, Huygens, Fermat, and sir Christopher Wren.