Pascal's Pensees Part 4

To mask nature and disguise her. No more king, pope, bishop--but _august monarch_, etc.; not Paris--_the capital of the kingdom_. There are places in which we ought to call Paris, Paris, and others in which we ought to call it the capital of the kingdom.

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The same meaning changes with the words which express it. Meanings receive their dignity from words instead of giving it to them. Examples should be sought....

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Sceptic, for obstinate.

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No one calls another a Cartesian[17] but he who is one himself, a pedant but a pedant, a provincial but a provincial; and I would wager it was the printer who put it on the t.i.tle of _Letters to a Provincial_.

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A carriage _upset_ or _overturned_, according to the meaning _To spread abroad_ or _upset_, according to the meaning. (The argument by force of M. le Maitre[18] over the friar.)

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_Miscellaneous._--A form of speech, "I should have liked to apply myself to that."

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The _aperitive_ virtue of a key, the _attractive_ virtue of a hook.

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To guess: "The part that I take in your trouble." The Cardinal[19] did not want to be guessed.

"My mind is disquieted." _I am disquieted_ is better.

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I always feel uncomfortable under such compliments as these: "I have given you a great deal of trouble," "I am afraid I am boring you," "I fear this is too long." We either carry our audience with us, or irritate them.

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You are ungraceful: "Excuse me, pray." Without that excuse I would not have known there was anything amiss. "With reverence be it spoken ...."

The only thing bad is their excuse.

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"To extinguish the torch of sedition"; too luxuriant. "The restlessness of his genius"; two superfluous grand words.

SECTION II

THE MISERY OF MAN WITHOUT G.o.d

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_First part_: Misery of man without G.o.d.

_Second part_: Happiness of man with G.o.d.

Or, _First part_: That nature is corrupt. Proved by nature itself.

_Second part_: That there is a Redeemer. Proved by Scripture.

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_Order._--I might well have taken this discourse in an order like this: to show the vanity of all conditions of men, to show the vanity of ordinary lives, and then the vanity of philosophic lives, sceptics, stoics; but the order would not have been kept. I know a little what it is, and how few people understand it. No human science can keep it.

Saint Thomas[20] did not keep it. Mathematics keep it, but they are useless on account of their depth.

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_Preface to the first part._--To speak of those who have treated of the knowledge of self; of the divisions of Charron,[21] which sadden and weary us; of the confusion of Montaigne;[22] that he was quite aware of his want of method, and shunned it by jumping from subject to subject; that he sought to be fas.h.i.+onable.

His foolish project of describing himself! And this not casually and against his maxims, since every one makes mistakes, but by his maxims themselves, and by first and chief design. For to say silly things by chance and weakness is a common misfortune; but to say them intentionally is intolerable, and to say such as that ...

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_Montaigne._--Montaigne's faults are great. Lewd words; this is bad, notwithstanding Mademoiselle de Gournay.[23] Credulous; _people without eyes_.[24] Ignorant; _squaring the circle,[25] a greater world_.[26] His opinions on suicide, on death.[27] He suggests an indifference about salvation, _without fear and without repentance_.[28] As his book was not written with a religious purpose, he was not bound to mention religion; but it is always our duty not to turn men from it. One can excuse his rather free and licentious opinions on some relations of life (730,231)[29]; but one cannot excuse his thoroughly pagan views on death, for a man must renounce piety altogether, if he does not at least wish to die like a Christian. Now, through the whole of his book his only conception of death is a cowardly and effeminate one.

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It is not in Montaigne, but in myself, that I find all that I see in him.

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