"Yes; but the wager must be made. You have no choice—you are embarked; and not to bet that God does exist, is the same as betting that he does not. Which side will you be on? Weigh the gain and loss of taking that, that there is a God. If you win, you win all: if you lose, you lose nothing. Bet then that he doe's, without hesitation. Yes, you must wager. But perhaps I wager too much. Let us see. Since there is equal risk of gain or loss, even if it were only that you gain two lives for one, it were worth betting; and if you had ten to win, you would be imprudent not to risk your life to gain ten, at a game in which there is so much to be lost or won. But here there is an infinite number of lives to gain, with equal risk of losing or winning, and what you stake is so little and of so short duration that it is folly to fear hazarding it on this occasion."
Pascal reasons better in the following article:—
"We must not deceive ourselves, we are as much body as soul, and thus it is that persuasion does not use demonstration only as its instrument. How few things are proved? Proofs only convince the understanding. Habit renders our proofs strong; that persuades the senses, and gains the understanding without an exertion of its own. Who has demonstrated that there will be a to-morrow, or that we shall die? and yet what is more universally believed. Habit, then, persuades us. Habit makes so many Turks and Pagans: it makes trades, soldiers, &c. We ought not, indeed, to begin finding the truth through habit—but we ought to have recourse to it, when once the understanding has discerned the truth, so to imbibe it, and imbue ourselves with a belief which perpetually escapes from us—for to be for ever calling the proofs to mind would be too burdensome. We must acquire an easy belief—which is that of habit; which, without violence, art, or argument, causes us to believe, and inclines all our faculties to faith, so that our soul naturally falls into it. It is not sufficient to believe by force of conviction, if our senses incline us to believe the contrary. We must cause both parts to agree: the understanding through the reason that it has once acknowledged: and the senses, through habit, by not allowing them to incline the other way.
"Those to whom God has given religion as a feeling of the heart are happy and entirely convinced. We can only desire it for those, who have not this by reason, until God impresses it on the heart."
[MADAME DE SÉVIGNÉ]
1626-1696
It appears ridiculous to include a woman's name in the list of "Literary and Scientific Men." This blunder must be excused; we could not omit a name so highly honourable to her country as that of madame de Sévigné, in a series of biography whose intent is to give an account of the persons whose genius has adorned the world.
The subject of this memoir herself would have been very much surprised to find her name included in the list of French writers. She had no pretensions to authorship; and the delightful letters which have immortalised her wit, her sense, and the warm affections of her heart, were written without the slightest idea intruding that they would ever be read, except by her to whom they were addressed.
Marie de Rabutin-Chantal was born on the 5th February, 1626. The family of Rabutin was a distinguished one of Burgundy, and Chantal was its elder branch. Her paternal grandmother, Jeanne-Françoise Fremiot, now canonized, was a foundress of a religious institution, called the Sisters of Visitation; which was the cause of a sort of hereditary alliance between her grand-daughter and the sisters of St. Mary, whose houses she was in the habit of visiting in Paris, and during her various journeys. Mademoiselle de Rabutin lost her father in her early infancy. When she was only a year and a half old, the English made a descent upon the isle of Rhé, for the purpose of succouring Rochelle. M. de Chantal put himself at the head of a troop of gentlemen volunteers, and went out to oppose them. The artillery of the enemy's fleet was turned upon them, and M. de Chantal, together with the greater part of his followers, were left dead on the field. It has been 1597. said that he fell by the hand of Cromwell himself. 1697.
July
22. The baron de Chantal was a French noble of the old feudal times; when a cavalier regarded his arms and military services as his greatest glory, and as the origin of his rank and privileges. His daughter has preserved a curious specimen of his independence in his mode of treating great men, and of the impressive concision of his letter writing. When Schomberg was made marshal of France, he wrote to him—
"Monseigneur,
"Rank—black beard—intimacy.