Pensées and Other Writings

306 Pages·2008·22.56 MB·English

by  Blaise Pascal

OXFORJ WORLD'S ^LA§SICS
Blaise Pascal
Pensees
AND OTHER WRITINGS
AnewtranslationbyHonorLevi
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OXFORD world's CLASSICS
PENSEES
AND OTHER WRITINGS
Blaise Pascal (1623-62), sickly as a youth and in poor health
throughout his life, was precociously gifted as a mathematician
andscientist, but isnowchieflyremembered forhiscommitmentto
the religious group associated with the monastery of Port-Royal,
generallyifinappropriatelyreferredtoas'Jansenist'.Heneverwrote
a book, but did compose a brilliant seriesofsatirical and polemical
flysheets, subsequently known as the Lettres provinctales, against
therelaxationofstrictand immutablemoral norms,andleftaseries
of abandoned texts, of which the most important were post-
humously published after heavyediting by his family and admirers
for purposes of religious edification. They have ever since been
known after their modish seventeenth-century title as the Pensees.
Someofthetextswerenotesproducedinthecontextofpreparinga
religiousapologetic.
Pascal mixed in the upper bourgeois society of his time, was
on friendly terms with important scientists, administrators, legal
officials, and some ofthe higher nobility. In the expression ofhis
religiousviews,PascalbroughtFrenchprosewritingtonewpeaksof
lyrical, satirical, and polemical brilliance. Although he failed to
resolve the religious problems which confronted him, he was the
most brilliantreligiousphilosopherofhiscenturyandtheauthorof
thefinestsatiricalworkwritteninseventeenth-centuryFrance.
Anthony Levi took premature retirementas Buchanan Professor
of French Language and Literature in the University of Saint
Andrews in order to undertake full-time research. His books in-
clude atwo-volume Guide to French Literature, 1992 and 1994, and
anannotatededitionofErasmus'PraiseofFolly.
HonorLevireadFrenchatWarwick,discoveredandpublishedfor
her Edinburgh Ph.D. the legal inventory ofRichelieu's possessions
at death, and reconstituted the original layout ofwhat is now the
Palais-Royal in Paris. Shetaught French, published papers given in
France at historical symposia, wrote on French art history and
literature,and publishedaseriesofencyclopediaarticleson historic
Frenchtowns.
OXFORD WORLD'S CLASSICS
BLAISE PASCAL
Pensees
and Other Writings
Translatedby
HONOR LEVI
Editedwithan IntroductionandNotesby
ANTHONY LEVI
OXPORD
UNIVERSITY PRESS
OXPORD
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Pascal,Blaise,1623-1662.
[Pensees.English]
Penseesandotherwritings/BlaisePascal;translatedbyHonor
Levi;withanintr—oductionandnotesbyAnthonyLevi.
p. cm. (Oxfordworld'sclassics)
Chieflyatranslationof:Pensees.
Includesbibliographicalr—eferencesandindex.
I.Apologetics. 2.CatholicChurch .Apologeticworks. 3.Grace
(Theology). 4.Predestination. I.Levi,Honor. II.Levi,Anthony
III.Pascal,Blaise,1623-1662. Selection. English. IV.Title.
V.Series.
B1901.P4I3 1995 230.2—dc20 94-33572
ISBN0-19-283655-2
3579 10 864
PrintedinGreatBritainby
Cox&WymanLtd.
Reading,Berkshire
CONTENTS
Introduction vii
Note on the Text xxxviii
Select Bibliography xlii
A
Chronology ofBlaise Pascal xliv
PENSEES
I
DISCUSSION WITH MONSIEUR DE SACY 182
THE ART OF PERSUASION I93
WRITINGS ON GRACE 205
Letter on the Possibility ofthe Commandments
Treatise concerning Predestination
Explanatory Notes 227
Thematic Index 249
viii Introduction
genres for a longer work, as well as different orders in which
material could betreated, but he stopped shortbeforeundertak-
ing the process of selecting what material might be used, and
which genre, and either eliminating or incorporating the other
possibilities.
The best known ofthe longer fragments, numbered 680 and
often known as 'the wager', was written on four sides ofa single
folded sheetofpaperand contains paragraphscrammed intothe
text, others written vertically up the margins, and even upside-
downatthetopofthepage. Thereisnocertaintythattheadded
passages were ever intended to belong together, and some of
themareatbesteithertangentialtotheoriginalargument, which
must have been that written in normal horizontal fashion, or
they contradict it, and some are incompatible with others. No
matter how the constitutive pieces are arranged, the four sides
ofmanuscript cannot be made to yield a single coherent linear
text, even ifwe take into account that what they contained was
at least partly a dialogue in which a Christian behever confronts
a doubter fibout im.tnortalir3^ ^rnei Arcni
We are left with a jumble of notes whose envisaged form
clearly changed before the piojected book was abandoned. We
do not know in what order Pascal wrote them, although it has
been speculativelyconjectured thateach oftheliassesorbundles
into which Pascal arranged the fragments was compiled in such
awayasto leavetheearliestfragmentitcontains on thebottom,
so that the last fragment to have been composed was placed on
top and now comes first. Ifthat were thecase, then the order in
which the fragments of any given liasse appear is the reverse
ofthe order ofcomposition. The real fascination ofthe text as
Pascal left it, however, lies not in the impossible intellectual
conundrum ofreconstituting the order in which the fragments
were composed, but in the frequency with which Pascal's ima-
ginationreturnstocertainrecurringcardinalpoints,mostlycon-
cerning the religious difficulties occasioned by his theological
views, and what must have been the progressively deepening
analysis of human motivation and behaviour which supports
them.
If, as has been repeatedly suggested, the text as left by Pascal
does have a structure, no demonstration ofwhat it was among
http://www.archive.org/details/pensesotherwriOOpasc
Introduction ix
thedozenorso whichhavebeen closelyarguedoverthelast fifty
years has yet commanded anything approaching general con-
sent. We know too little about the dates at which many ofthe
various fragments were written to get beyond an educated guess
at the way in which Pascal's mind moved. There are indications
from the biography, but they are uncertain. It now seems clear
that the project to write an apologetic was not abandoned for
reasons of health, as is still often assumed, and even that, on
Pascal'sown premisses, theintendedapologeticcouldhaveserved
no purpose, but we havenoclearindication from his penofwhy
he gave up.
Pascalmakesintenseimaginativeeffortsandachievesdisturb-
ingly perceptive psychological penetration in his attempts to
resolve his dilemmas. He may be thought in the end not to have
succeeded, and even to have been aware that this was the case,
but the interest ofhis text resides in the power which he brings
to defining the dilemmas and in the extraordinary intellectual
insights into the human condition he brings to their resolution.
He was, after all, dealing with what was for him the ultimate
question: how do we explain to which ofthe two alternative but
eternally unalterable fates each rational human soul is destined
after death.-* Pascal believed that without Christian belief and
practice the individual's fate was certainly eternal damnation,
but, ifsalvation was God's gratuitous gift to a minority ofcho-
sen human souls, howcould any moral act, and in particularany
freely chosen commitment of belief or behaviour, affect the
individual's eternal destiny.-" The alternatives were only hell or
heaven, the never-ending and never-altering experience of
either ecstasy or torment.
It is essential not to regard Pascal's fragments as ifthey con-
stituted a sequential text which can meaningfully be read from
beginning to end. Any reader attempting to find a meaning in
the fragments simply by reading through them will almost cer-
tainly be foiled by Pascal's arrangement ofnearly halfthe frag-
ments into the liasses based at best on only the loosest internal
unity ofsubject-matter. Indeed, the reader approaching Pascal
forthe first time may well find it easier to identify the individual
problems to which the fragments explore possible avenues of
resolution by starting with the Dtscusston with Monsieur de Sacy
xii Introduction
relianceon theheartas theorganofaspiritualknowledge which
was also virtuous, so circumventing the firm scholastic distinc-
tionbetweenactsofthewill, directedtowardsthegood,andacts
of the intellect, directed towards the true. The two ways of
knowingtwosortsoftruthinPascal'sArtofPersuasionmustalso
derivefromSaint-Cyran,perhapsthroughthe'Liberprooemalis'
ofthe second volume ofthe Augustinus, based on a text which
Saint-Cyran had sentJansen in 1623.
Saint-Cyran was probably also to be the proximate source
for the interpretation of the term amour-propre as absolutely
opposed to the love of God, and incapable of coexisting with
justifying grace in the soul. Augustine had used the Latin amor
sui in this way, but only rhetorically, in The City ofGod, and
Jansen had followed him, interpreting literally what Augustine
hadsaidmetaphorically. AwholeseriesofFrenchauthors,includ-
ingSenault(1601-72),Nicole(1625-95),^^^LaRochefoucauld
(1613-80), as well as Pascal, was to exploit the theologically
pejorative overtones acquired by the word amour-propre in the
mid-seventeenth century.
In 1647Pascalreturned with hissisterJacquelinetoParis. He
had foraperiod been paralysed from thewaist, was irritableand
impatient, and could take only very warm liquid nourishment,
administered drop by drop. His doctors tried to diminish the
damagingnervous intensity, but he continued with his scientific
experiments, and wascalled onbyDescartes, whoseconclusions
he opposed but whose ideas he used, although he did not ac-
knowledge their provenance. He began to frequent Port-Royal,
rather aggressively taking the monastery's side in the bitter de-
batedevelopingaboutJansen'stheology,asdefendedbyArnauld.
The touch ofarrogance in his partisanship was quickly noticed
by the senior solitaires, the males who lived solitary lives of
prayer and study, first in the enclave ofthe Paris convent, occa-
sionallycoachingchildren offriends ofthemonastery, and from
1638 expelled to Port-Royal-des-Champs, a dependency ofthe
Paris houseabout ten kilometres south-west ofVersailles. Their
activities as teachers grew into the ecoles de Port-Royal, but the
'schools' were what would today be known as classes, not sep-
arate educational establishments.
Pascal'sfathertookJacquelineandPascalhimselftoClermont-
Introduction xiii
Ferrand to escape the 1649 Fronde civil war in which the
parlement opposed the court essentially over taxation, and re-
turned to Paris in 1650, to die less than a year later on 24
September 1651. Jacqueline's desire to become a nun at Port-
Royal had been opposed by her father, and was now opposed by
Pascal himself, who had previously supported her, probably on
account ofthe size ofthe dowry Jacqueline wanted. The elder
sister, Gilberte, had come to Paris in December 1651 to help
settle her father's estate, and arranged for Jacqueline to slip
away to the convent before dawn on 4January 1652. Pascal was
himselflater generous in the matter ofthe dowry and attended
Jacqueline's profession as a nun on 5 June 1653, but seems for
a period to have been short ofmoney.
His religious enthusiasm may also have waned. Biographers
have speculated that he may have been emotionally attached to
the young Mile de Roannez, daughter ofthe devout and intran-
sigent due de Roannez (1627-96), Pascal's intimate friend and
governor ofPoitou. Pascal spent some time in the company of
the chevalier de Mere (1610-84), a self-styled arbiter ofman-
ners and occasional author, and ofDamien Mitton (f.1618—90),
financier, financial administrator, and gambler, both of whom
mayhavestimulatedPascal's interestin probabilitytheory,about
which Pascal corresponded with the mathematician Pierre de
Fermat (1601-65). Mitton, like Pascal, was an occasional guest
of Roannez. Pascal spent the autumn of 1653 in Poitou with
Roannez and Mere, and during the following year his intellec-
tual life was at its most intense, althoughJacqueline tells us that
he was overcome by the shallowness ofhis pursuits. He moved
his lodgings on i October, and on 23 November underwent the
famous spiritual experience noted in the Memorial (p. 178),
which for the rest ofhis life he kept on his person, sewn into his
jacket. It was a not unusual way of treating treasured written
documents.
The experience of23 November no doubt released a spiritual
tension which had been building up over months or years. By
early December Pascal had put himself into the hands of the
most distinguished spiritual director of Port-Royal's solitaires,
Antoine Singlin (1607-64), and in January 1655, after con-
fiding in Roannez, Pascal went to make a fortnight's retreat at
xiv Introduction
Port-Royal-des-Champs, where the community, including
Jacquehne, had been since 15 January 1653. It must have been
during his fortnight's stay, partly with the solitaires on the hill
known as Les Granges overlooking the monastery, thaj the
meetings with Sacy (1613-84) took place which are recorded in
the Discussion with Monsieur de Sacy, drawn up much later by
Sacy's secretaryand firstpublished in 1728 (pp. 182-92). Pascal
visited the Paris house ofthe monasterybefore returninghome.
Jacqueline found Pascal a shade too pleased with himselffor a
true penitent. Later that year Roannez renounced for religious
reasons the marriage his family had hoped he would make.
The bull Cum occasione condemning five Jansenist proposi-
tions had been signed in Rome on 31 May 1653, and it was
followed by the further decree of 23 April 1654 implying that
Jansen had in fact held them. Mazarin, the first minister ofthe
still adolescent Louis XIV (1638-1715), had needed Rome's
acquiescence in what he regarded as the politically necessary
resignation ofRetz from the See ofParis, and was not going to
jeopardizeRome'smoderate goodwillbyopposingthenecessary
formal reception ofthe bull. He had letters patent accepting it
signedon4July 1653, ^^^^decreeormandementwas drawnup,
slipping in the words 'extracted from Jansen's book', which
Rome had carefully avoided putting into the bull. Procedural
delays and Mazarin's policies prevented the imposition of a
revised mandementand attached 'formulary' or declaration from
beingimposed until thepresidingcouncil ofthe assembly ofthe
clergy was called to the Louvre on 13 December 1660, appar-
ently a simple formahty. However, Louis XIV made an an-
nouncement, and Mazarin explained the decision in a discourse
which lasted an hour and a quarter. The assembly agreed on
I February i66i toimposetheformulary,andtheConseild'Etat
ratified the measure on 13 April.
Meanwhile, on i February 1655, one ofPort-Royal's grander
sympathizers, RogerduPlessis, marquis deLiancourt, duedela
Rocheguyon(1599-1674),wasrefusedabsolutionatSaint-Sulpice
ontheinstructionsoftheparishpriest,Jean-JacquesOlier(1608-
57). On 24 February Arnauld published his Lettre d'un Docteur
deSorbonne a unepersonnede condition. A pamphlet war ensued,
during which Arnauld wrote his Seconde lettre a un due etpair.