PENSÉES
by Blaise Pascal
1660
translated by W. F. Trotter
SECTION I: THOUGHTS ON MIND AND ON STYLE
1. The difference between the mathematical and the intuitive mind.--In
the one, the principles are palpable, but removed from ordinary use;
so that for want of habit it is difficult to turn one's mind in that
direction: but if one turns it thither ever so little, one sees the
principles fully, and one must have a quite inaccurate mind who
reasons wrongly from principles so plain that it is almost impossible
they should escape notice.
But in the intuitive mind the principles are found in common use and
are before the eyes of everybody. One has only to look, and no effort
is necessary; it is only a question of good eyesight, but it must be
good, for the principles are so subtle and so numerous that it is
almost impossible but that some escape notice. Now the omission of one
principle leads to error; thus one must have very clear sight to see
all the principles and, in the next place, an accurate mind not to
draw false deductions from known principles.
All mathematicians would then be intuitive if they had clear sight,
for they do not reason incorrectly from principles known to them; and
intuitive minds would be mathematical if they could turn their eyes to
the principles of mathematics to which they are unused.
The reason, therefore, that some intuitive minds are not mathematical
is that they cannot at all turn their attention to the principles of
mathematics. But the reason that mathematicians are not intuitive is
that they do not see what is before them, and that, accustomed to the
exact and plain principles of mathematics, and not reasoning till they
have well inspected and arranged their principles, they are lost in
matters of intuition where the principles do not allow of such
arrangement. They are scarcely seen; they are felt rather than seen;
there is the greatest difficulty in making them felt by those who do
not of themselves perceive them. These principles are so fine and so
numerous that a very delicate and very clear sense is needed to
perceive them, and to judge rightly and justly when they are
perceived, without for the most part being able to demonstrate them in
order as in mathematics, because the principles are not known to us in
the same way, and because it would be an endless matter to undertake
it. We must see the matter at once, at one glance, and not by a
process of reasoning, at least to a certain degree. And thus it is
rare that mathematicians are intuitive and that men of intuition are
mathematicians, because mathematicians wish to treat matters of
intuition mathematically and make themselves ridiculous, wishing to
begin with definitions and then with axioms, which is not the way to
proceed in this kind of reasoning. Not that the mind does not do so,
but it does it tacitly, naturally, and without technical rules; for
the expression of it is beyond all men, and only a few can feel it.
Intuitive minds, on the contrary, being thus accustomed to judge at a
single glance, are so astonished when they are presented with
propositions of which they understand nothing, and the way to which is
through definitions and axioms so sterile, and which they are not
accustomed to see thus in detail, that they are repelled and
disheartened.
But dull minds are never either intuitive or mathematical.
Mathematicians who are only mathematicians have exact minds, provided
all things are explained to them by means of definitions and axioms;
otherwise they are inaccurate and insufferable, for they are only
right when the principles are quite clear.
And men of intuition who are only intuitive cannot have the patience
to reach to first principles of things speculative and conceptual,
which they have never seen in the world and which are altogether out
of the common.
2. There are different kinds of right understanding; some have right
understanding in a certain order of things, and not in others, where
they go astray. Some draw conclusions well from a few premises, and
this displays an acute judgment.
Others draw conclusions well where there are many premises.
For example, the former easily learn hydrostatics, where the premises
are few, but the conclusions are so fine that only the greatest
acuteness can reach them.
And in spite of that these persons would perhaps not be great
mathematicians, because mathematics contain a great number of
premises, and there is perhaps a kind of intellect that can search
with ease a few premises to the bottom and cannot in the least
penetrate those matters in which there are many premises.
There are then two kinds of intellect: the one able to penetrate
acutely and deeply into the conclusions of given premises, and this is
the precise intellect; the other able to comprehend a great number of
premises without confusing them, and this is the mathematical
intellect. The one has force and exactness, the other comprehension.
Now the one quality can exist without the other; the intellect can be
strong and narrow, and can also be comprehensive and weak.
3. Those who are accustomed to judge by feeling do not understand the
process of reasoning, for they would understand at first sight and are
not used to seek for principles. And others, on the contrary, who are
accustomed to reason from principles, do not at all understand matters
of feeling, seeking principles and being unable to see at a glance.
4. Mathematics, intuition.--True eloquence makes light of eloquence,
true morality makes light of morality; that is to say, the morality of
the judgement, which has no rules, makes light of the morality of the
intellect.
For it is to judgement that perception belongs, as science belongs to
intellect. Intuition is the part of judgement, mathematics of
intellect.
To make light of philosophy is to be a true philosopher.
5. Those who judge of a work by rule are in regard to others as those
who have a watch are in regard to others. One says, "It is two hours
ago"; the other says, "It is only three-quarters of an hour." I look
at my watch, and say to the one, "You are weary," and to the other,
"Time gallops with you"; for it is only an hour and a half ago, and I
laugh at those who tell me that time goes slowly with me and that I
judge by imagination. They do not know that I judge by my watch.
6. Just as we harm the understanding, we harm the feelings also.
The understanding and the feelings are moulded by intercourse; the
understanding and feelings are corrupted by intercourse. Thus good or
bad society improves or corrupts them. It is, then, all-important to
know how to choose in order to improve and not to corrupt them; and we
cannot make this choice, if they be not already improved and not
corrupted. Thus a circle is formed, and those are fortunate who escape
it.
7. The greater intellect one has, the more originality one finds in
men. Ordinary persons find no difference between men.
8. There are many people who listen to a sermon in the same way as
they listen to vespers.
9. When we wish to correct with advantage and to show another that he
errs, we must notice from what side he views the matter, for on that
side it is usually true, and admit that truth to him, but reveal to
him the side on which it is false. He is satisfied with that, for he
sees that he was not mistaken and that he only failed to see all
sides. Now, no one is offended at not seeing everything; but one does
not like to be mistaken, and that perhaps arises from the fact that
man naturally cannot see everything, and that naturally he cannot err
in the side he looks at, since the perceptions of our senses are
always true.
10. People are generally better persuaded by the reasons which they
have themselves discovered than by those which have come into the mind
of others.
11. All great amusements are dangerous to the Christian life; but
among all those which the world has invented there is none more to be
feared than the theatre. It is a representation of the passions so
natural and so delicate that it excites them and gives birth to them
in our hearts, and, above all, to that of love, principally when it is
represented as very chaste and virtuous. For the more innocent it
appears to innocent souls, the more they are likely to be touched by
it. Its violence pleases our self-love, which immediately forms a
desire to produce the same effects which are seen so well represented;
and, at the same time, we make ourselves a conscience founded on the
propriety of the feelings which we see there, by which the fear of
pure souls is removed, since they imagine that it cannot hurt their
purity to love with a love which seems to them so reasonable.
So we depart from the theatre with our heart so filled with all the
beauty and tenderness of love, the soul and the mind so persuaded of
its innocence, that we are quite ready to receive its first
impressions, or rather to seek an opportunity of awakening them in the
heart of another, in order that we may receive the same pleasures and
the same sacrifices which we have seen so well represented in the
theatre.
12. Scaramouch, who only thinks of one thing.
The doctor, who speaks for a quarter of an hour after he has said
everything, so full is he of the desire of talking.
13. One likes to see the error, the passion of Cleobuline, because she
is unconscious of it. She would be displeasing, if she were not
deceived.
14. When a natural discourse paints a passion or an effect, one feels
within oneself the truth of what one reads, which was there before,
although one did not know it. Hence one is inclined to love him who
makes us feel it, for he has not shown us his own riches, but ours.
And thus this benefit renders him pleasing to us, besides that such
community of intellect as we have with him necessarily inclines the
heart to love.
15. Eloquence, which persuades by sweetness, not by authority; as a
tyrant, not as a king.
16. Eloquence is an art of saying things in such a way (1) that those
to whom we speak may listen to them without pain and with pleasure;
(2) that they feel themselves interested, so that self-love leads them
more willingly to reflection upon it.
It consists, then, in a correspondence which we seek to establish
between the head and the heart of those to whom we speak, on the one
hand, and, on the other, between the thoughts and the expressions
which we employ. This assumes that we have studied well the heart of
man so as to know all its powers and, then, to find the just
proportions of the discourse which we wish to adapt to them. We must
put ourselves in the place of those who are to hear us, and make trial
on our own heart of the turn which we give to our discourse in order
to see whether one is made for the other, and whether we can assure
ourselves that the hearer will be, as it were, forced to surrender. We
ought to restrict ourselves, so far as possible, to the simple and
natural, and not to magnify that which is little, or belittle that
which is great. It is not enough that a thing be beautiful; it must be
suitable to the subject, and there must be in it nothing of excess or
defect.
17. Rivers are roads which move, and which carry us whither we desire
to go.
18. When we do not know the truth of a thing, it is of advantage that
there should exist a common error which determines the mind of man,
as, for example, the moon, to which is attributed the change of
seasons, the progress of diseases, etc. For the chief malady of man is
restless curiosity about things which he cannot understand; and it is
not so bad for him to be in error as to be curious to no purpose.
The manner in which Epictetus, Montaigne, and Salomon de Tultie wrote
is the most usual, the most suggestive, the most remembered, and the
oftenest quoted, because it is entirely composed of thoughts born from
the common talk of life. As when we speak of the common error which
exists among men that the moon is the cause of everything, we never
fail to say that Salomon de Tultie says that, when we do not know the
truth of a thing, it is of advantage that there should exist a common
error, etc.; which is the thought above.
19. The last thing one settles in writing a book is what one should
put in first.
20. Order.--Why should I undertake to divide my virtues into four
rather than into six? Why should I rather establish virtue in four, in
two, in one? Why into Abstine et sustine [1] rather than into "Follow
Nature," or, "Conduct your private affairs without injustice," as
Plato, or anything else? But there, you will say, everything is
contained in one word. Yes, but it is useless without explanation, and
when we come to explain it, as soon as we unfold this maxim which
contains all the rest, they emerge in that first confusion which you
desired to avoid. So, when they are all included in one, they are
hidden and useless, as in a chest, and never appear save in their
natural confusion. Nature has established them all without including
one in the other.
21. Nature has made all her truths independent of one another. Our art
makes one dependent on the other. But this is not natural. Each keeps
its own place.
22. Let no one say that I have said nothing new; the arrangement of
the subject is new. When we play tennis, we both play with the same
ball, but one of us places it better.
I had as soon it said that I used words employed before. And in the
same way if the same thoughts in a different arrangement do not form a
different discourse, no more do the same words in their different
arrangement form different thoughts!
23. Words differently arranged have a different meaning, and meanings
differently arranged have different effects.
24. Language.--We should not turn the mind from one thing to another,
except for relaxation, and that when it is necessary and the time
suitable, and not otherwise. For he that relaxes out of season
wearies, and he who wearies us out of season makes us languid, since
we turn quite away. So much does our perverse lust like to do the
contrary of what those wish to obtain from us without giving us
pleasure, the coin for which we will do whatever is wanted.
25. Eloquence.--It requires the pleasant and the real; but the
pleasant must itself be drawn from the true.
26. Eloquence is a painting of thought; and thus those who, after
having painted it, add something more, make a picture instead of a
portrait.
27. Miscellaneous. Language.--Those who make antitheses by forcing
words are like those who make false windows for symmetry. Their rule
is not to speak accurately, but to make apt figures of speech.
28. Symmetry is what we see at a glance; based on the fact that there
is no reason for any difference, and based also on the face of man;
whence it happens that symmetry is only wanted in breadth, not in
height or depth.
29. When we see a natural style, we are astonished and delighted; for
we expected to see an author, and we find a man. Whereas those who
have good taste, and who, seeing a book, expect to find a man, are
quite surprised to find an author. Plus poetice quam humane locutus
es. [2] Those honour Nature well who teach that she can speak on
everything, even on theology.
30. We only consult the ear because the heart is wanting. The rule is
uprightness.
Beauty of omission, of judgement.
31. All the false beauties which we blame in Cicero have their
admirers, and in great number.
32. There is a certain standard of grace and beauty which consists in
a certain relation between our nature, such as it is, weak or strong,
and the thing which pleases us.
Whatever is formed according to this standard pleases us, be it house,
song, discourse, verse, prose, woman, birds, rivers, trees, rooms,
dress, etc. Whatever is not made according to this standard displeases
those who have good taste.
And as there is a perfect relation between a song and a house which
are made after a good model, because they are like this good model,
though each after its kind; even so there is a perfect relation
between things made after a bad model. Not that the bad model is
unique, for there are many; but each bad sonnet, for example, on
whatever false model it is formed, is just like a woman dressed after
that model.
Nothing makes us understand better the ridiculousness of a false
sonnet than to consider nature and the standard and, then, to imagine
a woman or a house made according to that standard.
33. Poetical beauty.--As we speak of poetical beauty, so ought we to
speak of mathematical beauty and medical beauty. But we do not do so;
and the reason is that we know well what is the object of mathematics,
and that it consists in proofs, and what is the object of medicine,
and that it consists in healing. But we do not know in what grace
consists, which is the object of poetry. We do not know the natural
model which we ought to imitate; and through lack of this knowledge,
we have coined fantastic terms, "The golden age," "The wonder of our
times," "Fatal," etc., and call this jargon poetical beauty.
But whoever imagines a woman after this model, which consists in
saying little things in big words, will see a pretty girl adorned with
mirrors and chains, at whom he will smile; because we know better
wherein consists the charm of woman than the charm of verse. But those
who are ignorant would admire her in this dress, and there are many
villages in which she would be taken for the queen; hence we call
sonnets made after this model "Village Queens."
34. No one passes in the world as skilled in verse unless he has put
up the sign of a poet, a mathematician, etc. But educated people do
not want a sign and draw little distinction between the trade of a
poet and that of an embroiderer.
People of education are not called poets or mathematicians, etc.; but
they are all these and judges of all these. No one guesses what they
are. When they come into society, they talk on matters about which the
rest are talking. We do not observe in them one quality rather than
another, save when they have to make use of it. But then we remember
it, for it is characteristic of such persons that we do not say of
them that they are fine speakers, when it is not a question of
oratory, and that we say of them that they are fine speakers, when it
is such a question.
It is therefore false praise to give a man when we say of him, on his
entry, that he is a very clever poet; and it is a bad sign when a man
is not asked to give his judgement on some verses.
35. We should not be able to say of a man, "He is a mathematician," or
"a preacher," or "eloquent"; but that he is "a gentleman." That
universal quality alone pleases me. It is a bad sign when, on seeing a
person, you remember his book. I would prefer you to see no quality
till you meet it and have occasion to use it (Ne quid minis), [3] for
fear some one quality prevail and designate the man. Let none think
him a fine speaker, unless oratory be in question, and then let them
think it.
36. Man is full of wants: he loves only those who can satisfy them
all. "This one is a good mathematician," one will say. But I have
nothing to do with mathematics; he would take me for a proposition.
"That one is a good soldier." He would take me for a besieged town. I
need, then, an upright man who can accommodate himself generally to
all my wants.
37. Since we cannot be universal and know all that is to be known of
everything, we ought to know a little about everything. For it is far
better to know something about everything than to know all about one
thing. This universality is the best. If we can have both, still
better; but if we must choose, we ought to choose the former. And the
world feels this and does so; for the world is often a good judge.
38. A poet and not an honest man.
39. If lightning fell on low places, etc., poets, and those who can
only reason about things of that kind, would lack proofs.
40. If we wished to prove the examples which we take to prove other
things, we should have to take those other things to be examples; for,
as we always believe the difficulty is in what we wish to prove, we
find the examples clearer and a help to demonstration.
Thus, when we wish to demonstrate a general theorem, we must give the
rule as applied to a particular case; but if we wish to demonstrate a
particular case, we must begin with the general rule. For we always
find the thing obscure which we wish to prove and that clear which we
use for the proof; for, when a thing is put forward to be proved, we
first fill ourselves with the imagination that it is, therefore,
obscure and, on the contrary, that what is to prove it is clear, and
so we understand it easily.
41. Epigrams of Martial.--Man loves malice, but not against one-eyed
men nor the unfortunate, but against the fortunate and proud. People
are mistaken in thinking otherwise.
For lust is the source of all our actions, and humanity, etc. We must
please those who have humane and tender feelings. That epigram about
two one-eyed people is worthless, for it does not console them and
only gives a point to the author's glory. All that is only for the
sake of the author is worthless. Ambitiosa recident ornamenta. [4]
42. To call a king "Prince" is pleasing, because it diminishes his
rank.
43. Certain authors, speaking of their works, say: "My book," "My
commentary," "My history," etc. They resemble middle-class people who
have a house of their own and always have "My house" on their tongue.
They would do better to say: "Our book," "Our commentary," "Our
history," etc., because there is in them usually more of other
people's than their own.
44. Do you wish people to believe good of you? Don't speak.
45. Languages are ciphers, wherein letters are not changed into
letters, but words into words, so that an unknown language is
decipherable.
46. A maker of witticisms, a bad character.
47. There are some who speak well and write badly. For the place and
the audience warm them, and draw from their minds more than they think
of without that warmth.
48. When we find words repeated in a discourse and, in trying to
correct them, discover that they are so appropriate that we would
spoil the discourse, we must leave them alone. This is the test; and
our attempt is the work of envy, which is blind, and does not see that
repetition is not in this place a fault; for there is no general rule.
49. 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," others in which we
ought to call it the capital of the kingdom.
50. 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....
51. Sceptic, for obstinate.
52. No one calls another a Cartesian 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 title of Letters to a Provincial.
53. 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 over the friar.)
54. Miscellaneous.--A form of speech, "I should have liked to apply
myself to that."
55. The aperitive virtue of a key, the attractive virtue of a hook.
56. To guess: "The part that I take in your trouble." The Cardinal did
not want to be guessed.
"My mind is disquieted." I am disquieted is better.
57. 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.
58. 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.
59. "To extinguish the torch of sedition"; too luxuriant. "The
restlessness of his genius"; two superfluous grand words.
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[1] "Abstain and uphold." Stoic maxim.
[2] Petronius, 90. "You have spoken more as a poet than as a man."
[3] "Nothing in excess."
[4] Horace, Epistle to the pisos, 447. "They curtailed pretentious
ornaments."
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SECTION II: THE MISERY OF MAN WITHOUT GOD
60. First part: Misery of man without God.
Second part: Happiness of man with God.
Or, First part: That nature is corrupt. Proved by nature itself.
Second part: That there is a Redeemer. Proved by Scripture.
61. 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 did not keep it. Mathematics keep it, but they are
useless on account of their depth.
62. Preface to the first part.--To speak of those who have treated of
the knowledge of self; of the divisions of Charron, which sadden and
weary us; of the confusion of Montaigne; that he was quite aware of
his want of method and shunned it by jumping from subject to subject;
that he sought to be fashionable.
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...
63. Montaigne.--Montaigne's faults are great. Lewd words; this is bad,
notwithstanding Mademoiselle de Gournay. Credulous; people without
eyes. Ignorant; squaring the circle, a greater world. His opinions on
suicide, on death. He suggests an indifference about salvation,
without fear and without repentance. 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; 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.
64. It is not in Montaigne, but in myself, that I find all that I see
in him.
65. What good there is in Montaigne can only have been acquired with
difficulty. The evil that is in him, I mean apart from his morality,
could have been corrected in a moment, if he had been informed that he
made too much of trifles and spoke too much of himself.
66. One must know oneself. If this does not serve to discover truth,
it at least serves as a rule of life, and there is nothing better.
67. The vanity of the sciences.--Physical science will not console me
for the ignorance of morality in the time of affliction. But the
science of ethics will always console me for the ignorance of the
physical sciences.
68. Men are never taught to be gentlemen and are taught everything
else; and they never plume themselves so much on the rest of their
knowledge as on knowing how to be gentlemen. They only plume
themselves on knowing the one thing they do not know.
69. The infinites, the mean.--When we read too fast or too slowly, we
understand nothing.
70. Nature... --Nature has set us so well in the centre, that if we
change one side of the balance, we change the other also. This makes
me believe that the springs in our brain are so adjusted that he who
touches one touches also its contrary.
71. Too much and too little wine. Give him none, he cannot find truth;
give him too much, the same.
72. Man's disproportion.--This is where our innate knowledge leads us.
If it be not true, there is no truth in man; and if it be true, he
finds therein great cause for humiliation, being compelled to abase
himself in one way or another. And since he cannot exist without this
knowledge, I wish that, before entering on deeper researches into
nature, he would consider her both seriously and at leisure, that he
would reflect upon himself also, and knowing what proportion there
is... Let man then contemplate the whole of nature in her full and
grand majesty, and turn his vision from the low objects which surround
him. Let him gaze on that brilliant light, set like an eternal lamp to
illumine the universe; let the earth appear to him a point in
comparison with the vast circle described by the sun; and let him
wonder at the fact that this vast circle is itself but a very fine
point in comparison with that described by the stars in their
revolution round the firmament. But if our view be arrested there, let
our imagination pass beyond; it will sooner exhaust the power of
conception than nature that of supplying material for conception. The
whole visible world is only an imperceptible atom in the ample bosom
of nature. No idea approaches it. We may enlarge our conceptions
beyond an imaginable space; we only produce atoms in comparison with
the reality of things. It is an infinite sphere, the centre of which
is everywhere, the circumference nowhere. In short, it is the greatest
sensible mark of the almighty power of God that imagination loses
itself in that thought.
Returning to himself, let man consider what he is in comparison with
all existence; let him regard himself as lost in this remote corner of
nature; and from the little cell in which he finds himself lodged, I
mean the universe, let him estimate at their true value the earth,
kingdoms, cities, and himself. What is a man in the Infinite?
But to show him another prodigy equally astonishing, let him examine
the most delicate things he knows. Let a mite be given him, with its
minute body and parts incomparably more minute, limbs with their
joints, veins in the limbs, blood in the veins, humours in the blood,
drops in the humours, vapours in the drops. Dividing these last things
again, let him exhaust his powers of conception, and let the last
object at which he can arrive be now that of our discourse. Perhaps he
will think that here is the smallest point in nature. I will let him
see therein a new abyss. I will paint for him not only the visible
universe, but all that he can conceive of nature's immensity in the
womb of this abridged atom. Let him see therein an infinity of
universes, each of which has its firmament, its planets, its earth, in
the same proportion as in the visible world; in each earth animals,
and in the last mites, in which he will find again all that the first
had, finding still in these others the same thing without end and
without cessation. Let him lose himself in wonders as amazing in their
littleness as the others in their vastness. For who will not be
astounded at the fact that our body, which a little while ago was
imperceptible in the universe, itself imperceptible in the bosom of
the whole, is now a colossus, a world, or rather a whole, in respect
of the nothingness which we cannot reach? He who regards himself in
this light will be afraid of himself, and observing himself sustained
in the body given him by nature between those two abysses of the
Infinite and Nothing, will tremble at the sight of these marvels; and
I think that, as his curiosity changes into admiration, he will be
more disposed to contemplate them in silence than to examine them with
presumption.
For, in fact, what is man in nature? A Nothing in comparison with the
Infinite, an All in comparison with the Nothing, a mean between
nothing and everything. Since he is infinitely removed from
comprehending the extremes, the end of things and their beginning are
hopelessly hidden from him in an impenetrable secret; he is equally
incapable of seeing the Nothing from which he was made, and the
Infinite in which he is swallowed up.
What will he do then, but perceive the appearance of the middle of
things, in an eternal despair of knowing either their beginning or
their end. All things proceed from the Nothing, and are borne towards
the Infinite. Who will follow these marvellous processes? The Author
of these wonders understands them. None other can do so.
Through failure to contemplate these Infinites, men have rashly rushed
into the examination of nature, as though they bore some proportion to
her. It is strange that they have wished to understand the beginnings
of things, and thence to arrive at the knowledge of the whole, with a
presumption as infinite as their object. For surely this design cannot
be formed without presumption or without a capacity infinite like
nature.
If we are well informed, we understand that, as nature has graven her
image and that of her Author on all things, they almost all partake of
her double infinity. Thus we see that all the sciences are infinite in
the extent of their researches. For who doubts that geometry, for
instance, has an infinite infinity of problems to solve? They are also
infinite in the multitude and fineness of their premises; for it is
clear that those which are put forward as ultimate are not
self-supporting, but are based on others which, again having others
for their support, do not permit of finality. But we represent some as
ultimate for reason, in the same way as in regard to material objects
we call that an indivisible point beyond which our senses can no
longer perceive anything, although by its nature it is infinitely
divisible.
Of these two Infinites of science, that of greatness is the most
palpable, and hence a few persons have pretended to know all things.
"I will speak of the whole," said Democritus.
But the infinitely little is the least obvious. Philosophers have much
oftener claimed to have reached it, and it is here they have all
stumbled. This has given rise to such common titles as First
Principles, Principles of Philosophy, and the like, as ostentatious in
fact, though not in appearance, as that one which blinds us, De omni
scibili. [5]
We naturally believe ourselves far more capable of reaching the centre
of things than of embracing their circumference. The visible extent of
the world visibly exceeds us; but as we exceed little things, we think
ourselves more capable of knowing them. And yet we need no less
capacity for attaining the Nothing than the All. Infinite capacity is
required for both, and it seems to me that whoever shall have
understood the ultimate principles of being might also attain to the
knowledge of the Infinite. The one depends on the other, and one leads
to the other. These extremes meet and reunite by force of distance and
find each other in God, and in God alone.
Let us, then, take our compass; we are something, and we are not
everything. The nature of our existence hides from us the knowledge of
first beginnings which are born of the Nothing; and the littleness of
our being conceals from us the sight of the Infinite.
Our intellect holds the same position in the world of thought as our
body occupies in the expanse of nature.
Limited as we are in every way, this state which holds the mean
between two extremes is present in all our impotence. Our senses
perceive no extreme. Too much sound deafens us; too much light dazzles
us; too great distance or proximity hinders our view. Too great length
and too great brevity of discourse tend to obscurity; too much truth
is paralysing (I know some who cannot understand that to take four
from nothing leaves nothing). First principles are too self-evident
for us; too much pleasure disagrees with us. Too many concords are
annoying in music; too many benefits irritate us; we wish to have the
wherewithal to overpay our debts. Beneficia eo usque laeta sunt dum
videntur exsolvi posse; ubi multum antevenere, pro gratia odium
redditur. [6] We feel neither extreme heat nor extreme cold. Excessive
qualities are prejudicial to us and not perceptible by the senses; we
do not feel but suffer them. Extreme youth and extreme age hinder the
mind, as also too much and too little education. In short, extremes
are for us as though they were not, and we are not within their
notice. They escape us, or we them.
This is our true state; this is what makes us incapable of certain
knowledge and of absolute ignorance. We sail within a vast sphere,
ever drifting in uncertainty, driven from end to end. When we think to
attach ourselves to any point and to fasten to it, it wavers and
leaves us; and if we follow it, it eludes our grasp, slips past us,
and vanishes for ever. Nothing stays for us. This is our natural
condition and yet most contrary to our inclination; we burn with
desire to find solid ground and an ultimate sure foundation whereon to
build a tower reaching to the Infinite. But our whole groundwork
cracks, and the earth opens to abysses.
Let us, therefore, not look for certainty and stability. Our reason is
always deceived by fickle shadows; nothing can fix the finite between
the two Infinites, which both enclose and fly from it.
If this be well understood, I think that we shall remain at rest, each
in the state wherein nature has placed him. As this sphere which has
fallen to us as our lot is always distant from either extreme, what
matters it that man should have a little more knowledge of the
universe? If he has it, he but gets a little higher. Is he not always
infinitely removed from the end, and is not the duration of our life
equally removed from eternity, even if it lasts ten years longer?
In comparison with these Infinites, all finites are equal, and I see
no reason for fixing our imagination on one more than on another. The
only comparison which we make of ourselves to the finite is painful to
us.
If man made himself the first object of study, he would see how
incapable he is of going further. How can a part know the whole? But
he may perhaps aspire to know at least the parts to which he bears
some proportion. But the parts of the world are all so related and
linked to one another that I believe it impossible to know one without
the other and without the whole.
Man, for instance, is related to all he knows. He needs a place
wherein to abide, time through which to live, motion in order to live,
elements to compose him, warmth and food to nourish him, air to
breathe. He sees light; he feels bodies; in short, he is in a
dependent alliance with everything. To know man, then, it is necessary
to know how it happens that he needs air to live, and, to know the
air, we must know how it is thus related to the life of man, etc.
Flame cannot exist without air; therefore, to understand the one, we
must understand the other.
Since everything, then, is cause and effect, dependent and supporting,
mediate and immediate, and all is held together by a natural though
imperceptible chain which binds together things most distant and most
different, I hold it equally impossible to know the parts without
knowing the whole and to know the whole without knowing the parts in
detail.
The eternity of things in itself or in God must also astonish our
brief duration. The fixed and constant immobility of nature, in
comparison with the continual change which goes on within us, must
have the same effect.
And what completes our incapability of knowing things is the fact that
they are simple and that we are composed of two opposite natures,
different in kind, soul and body. For it is impossible that our
rational part should be other than spiritual; and if any one maintain
that we are simply corporeal, this would far more exclude us from the
knowledge of things, there being nothing so inconceivable as to say
that matter knows itself. It is impossible to imagine how it should
know itself.
So, if we are simply material, we can know nothing at all; and if we
are composed of mind and matter, we cannot know perfectly things which
are simple, whether spiritual or corporeal. Hence it comes that almost
all philosophers have confused ideas of things, and speak of material
things in spiritual terms, and of spiritual things in material terms.
For they say boldly that bodies have a tendency to fall, that they
seek after their centre, that they fly from destruction, that they
fear the void, that they have inclinations, sympathies, antipathies,
all of which attributes pertain only to mind. And in speaking of
minds, they consider them as in a place, and attribute to them
movement from one place to another; and these are qualities which
belong only to bodies.
Instead of receiving the ideas of these things in their purity, we
colour them with our own qualities, and stamp with our composite being
all the simple things which we contemplate.
Who would not think, seeing us compose all things of mind and body,
but that this mixture would be quite intelligible to us? Yet it is the
very thing we least understand. Man is to himself the most wonderful
object in nature; for he cannot conceive what the body is, still less
what the mind is, and least of all how a body should be united to a
mind. This is the consummation of his difficulties, and yet it is his
very being. Modus quo corporibus adhaerent spiritus comprehendi ab
hominibus non potest, et hoc tamen homo est. [7] Finally, to complete
the proof of our weakness, I shall conclude with these two
considerations...
73. But perhaps this subject goes beyond the capacity of reason. Let
us therefore examine her solutions to problems within her powers. If
there be anything to which her own interest must have made her apply
herself most seriously, it is the inquiry into her own sovereign good.
Let us see, then, wherein these strong and clear-sighted souls have
placed it and whether they agree.
One says that the sovereign good consists in virtue, another in
pleasure, another in the knowledge of nature, another in truth, Felix
qui potuit rerum cognoscere causas, [8] another in total ignorance,
another in indolence, others in disregarding appearances, another in
wondering at nothing, nihil admirari prope res una quae possit facere
et servare beatum, [9] and the true sceptics in their indifference,
doubt, and perpetual suspense, and others, wiser, think to find a
better definition. We are well satisfied.
We must see if this fine philosophy has gained nothing certain from so
long and so intent study; perhaps at least the soul will know itself.
Let us hear the rulers of the world on this subject. What have they
thought of her substance? 394. [10] Have they been more fortunate in
locating her? 395. What have they found out about her origin,
duration, and departure? Harum sententiarum, 399. [11]
Is, then, the soul too noble a subject for their feeble lights? Let
us, then, abase her to matter and see if she knows whereof is made the
very body which she animates and those others which she contemplates
and moves at her will. What have those great dogmatists, who are
ignorant of nothing, known of this matter? 393. [12]
This would doubtless suffice, if Reason were reasonable. She is
reasonable enough to admit that she has been unable to find anything
durable, but she does not yet despair of reaching it; she is as ardent
as ever in this search, and is confident she has within her the
necessary powers for this conquest. We must therefore conclude, and,
after having examined her powers in their effects, observe them in
themselves, and see if she has a nature and a grasp capable of laying
hold of the truth.
74. A letter On the Foolishness of Human Knowledge and Philosophy.
This letter before Diversion.
Felix qui potuit... Nihil admirari.
280 kinds of sovereign good in Montaigne.
75. Part I, 1, 2, c. 1, section 4. [13]
Probability.--It will not be difficult to put the case a stage lower,
and make it appear ridiculous. To begin at the very beginning. What is
more absurd than to say that lifeless bodies have passions, fears,
hatreds--that insensible bodies, lifeless and incapable of life, have
passions which presuppose at least a sensitive soul to feel them, nay
more, that the object of their dread is the void? What is there in the
void that could make them afraid? Nothing is more shallow and
ridiculous. This is not all; it is said that they have in themselves a
source of movement to shun the void. Have they arms, legs, muscles,
nerves?
76. To write against those who made too profound a study of science:
Descartes.
77. I cannot forgive Descartes. In all his philosophy he would have
been quite willing to dispense with God. But he had to make Him give a
fillip to set the world in motion; beyond this, he has no further need
of God.
78. Descartes useless and uncertain.
79. Descartes.--We must say summarily: "This is made by figure and
motion," for it is true. But to say what these are, and to compose the
machine, is ridiculous. For it is useless, uncertain, and painful. And
were it true, we do not think all Philosophy is worth one hour of
pain.
80. How comes it that a cripple does not offend us, but that a fool
does? Because a cripple recognises that we walk straight, whereas a
fool declares that it is we who are silly; if it were not so, we
should feel pity and not anger.
Epictetus asks still more strongly: "Why are we not angry if we are
told that we have a headache, and why are we angry if we are told that
we reason badly, or choose wrongly"? The reason is that we are quite
certain that we have not a headache, or are not lame, but we are not
so sure that we make a true choice. So, having assurance only because
we see with our whole sight, it puts us into suspense and surprise
when another with his whole sight sees the opposite, and still more so
when a thousand others deride our choice. For we must prefer our own
lights to those of so many others, and that is bold and difficult.
There is never this contradiction in the feelings towards a cripple.
81. It is natural for the mind to believe and for the will to love; so
that, for want of true objects, they must attach themselves to false.
82. Imagination.--It is that deceitful part in man, that mistress of
error and falsity, the more deceptive that she is not always so; for
she would be an infallible rule of truth, if she were an infallible
rule of falsehood. But being most generally false, she gives no sign
of her nature, impressing the same character on the true and the
false.
I do not speak of fools, I speak of the wisest men; and it is among
them that the imagination has the great gift of persuasion. Reason
protests in vain; it cannot set a true value on things.
This arrogant power, the enemy of reason, who likes to rule and
dominate it, has established in man a second nature to show how
all-powerful she is. She makes men happy and sad, healthy and sick,
rich and poor; she compels reason to believe, doubt, and deny; she
blunts the senses, or quickens them; she has her fools and sages; and
nothing vexes us more than to see that she fills her devotees with a
satisfaction far more full and entire than does reason. Those who have
a lively imagination are a great deal more pleased with themselves
than the wise can reasonably be. They look down upon men with
haughtiness; they argue with boldness and confidence, others with fear
and diffidence; and this gaiety of countenance often gives them the
advantage in the opinion of the hearers, such favour have the
imaginary wise in the eyes of judges of like nature. Imagination
cannot make fools wise; but she can make them happy, to the envy of
reason which can only make its friends miserable; the one covers them
with glory, the other with shame.
What but this faculty of imagination dispenses reputation, awards
respect and veneration to persons, works, laws, and the great? How
insufficient are all the riches of the earth without her consent!
Would you not say that this magistrate, whose venerable age commands
the respect of a whole people, is governed by pure and lofty reason,
and that he judges causes according to their true nature without
considering those mere trifles which only affect the imagination of
the weak? See him go to sermon, full of devout zeal, strengthening his
reason with the ardour of his love. He is ready to listen with
exemplary respect. Let the preacher appear, and let nature have given
him a hoarse voice or a comical cast of countenance, or let his barber
have given him a bad shave, or let by chance his dress be more dirtied
than usual, then, however great the truths he announces, I wager our
senator loses his gravity.
If the greatest philosopher in the world find himself upon a plank
wider than actually necessary, but hanging over a precipice, his
imagination will prevail, though his reason convince him of his
safety. Many cannot bear the thought without a cold sweat. I will not
state all its effects.
Every one knows that the sight of cats or rats, the crushing of a
coal, etc., may unhinge the reason. The tone of voice affects the
wisest, and changes the force of a discourse or a poem.
Love or hate alters the aspect of justice. How much greater confidence
has an advocate, retained with a large fee, in the justice of his
cause! How much better does his bold manner make his case appear to
the judges, deceived as they are by appearances! How ludicrous is
reason, blown with a breath in every direction!
I should have to enumerate almost every action of men who scarce waver
save under her assaults. For reason has been obliged to yield, and the
wisest reason takes as her own principles those which the imagination
of man has everywhere rashly introduced. He who would follow reason
only would be deemed foolish by the generality of men. We must judge
by the opinion of the majority of mankind. Because it has pleased
them, we must work all day for pleasures seen to be imaginary; and,
after sleep has refreshed our tired reason, we must forthwith start up
and rush after phantoms, and suffer the impressions of this mistress
of the world. This is one of the sources of error, but it is not the
only one.
Our magistrates have known well this mystery. Their red robes, the
ermine in which they wrap themselves like furry cats, the courts in
which they administer justice, the fleurs-de-lis, and all such august
apparel were necessary; if the physicians had not their cassocks and
their mules, if the doctors had not their square caps and their robes
four times too wide, they would never have duped the world, which
cannot resist so original an appearance. If magistrates had true
justice, and if physicians had the true art of healing, they would
have no occasion for square caps; the majesty of these sciences would
of itself be venerable enough. But having only imaginary knowledge,
they must employ those silly tools that strike the imagination with
which they have to deal; and thereby, in fact, they inspire respect.
Soldiers alone are not disguised in this manner, because indeed their
part is the most essential; they establish themselves by force, the
others by show.
Therefore our kings seek out no disguises. They do not mask themselves
in extraordinary costumes to appear such; but they are accompanied by
guards and halberdiers. Those armed and red-faced puppets who have
hands and power for them alone, those trumpets and drums which go
before them, and those legions round about them, make the stoutest
tremble. They have not dress only, they have might. A very refined
reason is required to regard as an ordinary man the Grand Turk, in his
superb seraglio, surrounded by forty thousand janissaries.
We cannot even see an advocate in his robe and with his cap on his
head, without a favourable opinion of his ability. The imagination
disposes of everything; it makes beauty, justice, and happiness, which
is everything in the world. I should much like to see an Italian work,
of which I only know the title, which alone is worth many books, Della
opinione regina del mondo. I approve of the book without knowing it,
save the evil in it, if any. These are pretty much the effects of that
deceptive faculty, which seems to have been expressly given us to lead
us into necessary error. We have, however, many other sources of
error.
Not only are old impressions capable of misleading us; the charms of
novelty have the same power. Hence arise all the disputes of men, who
taunt each other either with following the false impressions of
childhood or with running rashly after the new. Who keeps the due
mean? Let him appear and prove it. There is no principle, however
natural to us from infancy, which may not be made to pass for a false
impression either of education or of sense.
"Because," say some, "you have believed from childhood that a box was
empty when you saw nothing in it, you have believed in the possibility
of a vacuum. This is an illusion of your senses, strengthened by
custom, which science must correct." "Because," say others, "you have
been taught at school that there is no vacuum, you have perverted your
common sense which clearly comprehended it, and you must correct this
by returning to your first state." Which has deceived you, your senses
or your education?
We have another source of error in diseases. They spoil the judgement
and the senses; and if the more serious produce a sensible change, I
do not doubt that slighter ills produce a proportionate impression.
Our own interest is again a marvellous instrument for nicely putting
out our eyes. The justest man in the world is not allowed to be judge
in his own cause; I know some who, in order not to fall into this
self-love, have been perfectly unjust out of opposition. The sure way
of losing a just cause has been to get it recommended to these men by
their near relatives.
Justice and truth are two such subtle points that our tools are too
blunt to touch them accurately. If they reach the point, they either
crush it, or lean all round, more on the false than on the true.
Man is so happily formed that he has no... good of the true, and
several excellent of the false. Let us now see how much... But the
most powerful cause of error is the war existing between the senses
and reason.
83. We must thus begin the chapter on the deceptive powers. Man is
only a subject full of error, natural and ineffaceable, without grace.
Nothing shows him the truth. Everything deceives him. These two
sources of truth, reason and the senses, besides being both wanting in
sincerity, deceive each other in turn. The senses mislead the Reason
with false appearances, and receive from Reason in their turn the same
trickery which they apply to her; Reason has her revenge. The passions
of the soul trouble the senses, and make false impressions upon them.
They rival each other in falsehood and deception.
But besides those errors which arise accidentally and through lack of
intelligence, with these heterogeneous faculties...
84. The imagination enlarges little objects so as to fill our souls
with a fantastic estimate; and, with rash insolence, it belittles the
great to its own measure, as when talking of God.
85. Things which have most hold on us, as the concealment of our few
possessions, are often a mere nothing. It is a nothing which our
imagination magnifies into a mountain. Another turn of the imagination
would make us discover this without difficulty.
86. My fancy makes me hate a croaker, and one who pants when eating.
Fancy has great weight. Shall we profit by it? Shall we yield to this
weight because it is natural? No, but by resisting it...
87. Nae iste magno conatu magnas nugas dixerit. [14]
583. [15] Quasi quidquam infelicius sit homini cui sua figmenta
dominantur. [16]
88. Children who are frightened at the face they have blackened are
but children. But how shall one who is so weak in his childhood become
really strong when he grows older? We only change our fancies. All
that is made perfect by progress perishes also by progress. All that
has been weak can never become absolutely strong. We say in vain, "He
has grown, he has changed"; he is also the same.
89. Custom is our nature. He who is accustomed to the faith believes
in it, can no longer fear hell, and believes in nothing else. He who
is accustomed to believe that the king is terrible... etc. Who doubts,
then, that our soul, being accustomed to see number, space, motion,
believes that and nothing else?
90. Quod crebro videt non miratur, etiamsi cur fiat nescit; quod ante
non viderit, id si evenerit, ostentum esse censet. [17]
91. Spongia solis.--When we see the same effect always recur, we infer
a natural necessity in it, as that there will be a tomorrow, etc. But
Nature often deceives us, and does not subject herself to her own
rules.
92. What are our natural principles but principles of custom? In
children they are those which they have received from the habits of
their fathers, as hunting in animals. A different custom will cause
different natural principles. This is seen in experience; and if there
are some natural principles ineradicable by custom, there are also
some customs opposed to nature, ineradicable by nature or by a second
custom. This depends on disposition.
93. Parents fear lest the natural love of their children may fade
away. What kind of nature is that which is subject to decay? Custom is
a second nature which destroys the former. But what is nature? For is
custom not natural? I am much afraid that nature is itself only a
first custom, as custom is a second nature.
94. The nature of man is wholly natural, omne animal. [18]
There is nothing he may not make natural; there is nothing natural he
may not lose.
95. Memory, joy, are intuitions; and even mathematical propositions
become intuitions, for education produces natural intuitions, and
natural intuitions are erased by education.
96. When we are accustomed to use bad reasons for proving natural
effects, we are not willing to receive good reasons when they are
discovered. An example may be given from the circulation of the blood
as a reason why the vein swells below the ligature.
97. The most important affair in life is the choice of a calling;
chance decides it. Custom makes men masons, soldiers, slaters. "He is
a good slater," says one, and, speaking of soldiers, remarks, "They
are perfect fools." But others affirm, "There is nothing great but
war; the rest of men are good for nothing." We choose our callings
according as we hear this or that praised or despised in our
childhood, for we naturally love truth and hate folly. These words
move us; the only error is in their application. So great is the force
of custom that, out of those whom nature has only made men, are
created all conditions of men. For some districts are full of masons,
others of soldiers, etc. Certainly nature is not so uniform. It is
custom then which does this, for it constrains nature. But sometimes
nature gains the ascendancy and preserves man's instinct, in spite of
all custom, good or bad.
98. Bias leading to error.--It is a deplorable thing to see all men
deliberating on means alone, and not on the end. Each thinks how he
will acquit himself in his condition; but as for the choice of
condition, or of country, chance gives them to us.
It is a pitiable thing to see so many Turks, heretics, and infidels
follow the way of their fathers for the sole reason that each has been
imbued with the prejudice that it is the best. And that fixes for each
man his condition of locksmith, soldier, etc.
Hence savages care nothing for Providence.
99. There is an universal and essential difference between the actions
of the will and all other actions.
The will is one of the chief factors in belief, not that it creates
belief, but because things are true or false according to the aspect
in which we look at them. The will, which prefers one aspect to
another, turns away the mind from considering the qualities of all
that it does not like to see; and thus the mind, moving in accord with
the will, stops to consider the aspect which it likes and so judges by
what it sees.
100. Self-love. The nature of self-love and of this human Ego is to
love self only and consider self only. But what will man do? He cannot
prevent this object that he loves from being full of faults and wants.
He wants to be great, and he sees himself small. He wants to be happy,
and he sees himself miserable. He wants to be perfect, and he sees
himself full of imperfections. He wants to be the object of love and
esteem among men, and he sees that his faults merit only their hatred
and contempt. This embarrassment in which he finds himself produces in
him the most unrighteous and criminal passion that can be imagined;
for he conceives a mortal enmity against that truth which reproves him
and which convinces him of his faults. He would annihilate it, but,
unable to destroy it in its essence, he destroys it as far as possible
in his own knowledge and in that of others; that is to say, he devotes
all his attention to hiding his faults both from others and from
himself, and he cannot endure either that others should point them out
to him, or that they should see them.
Truly it is an evil to be full of faults; but it is a still greater
evil to be full of them and to be unwilling to recognise them, since
that is to add the further fault of a voluntary illusion. We do not
like others to deceive us; we do not think it fair that they should be
held in higher esteem by us than they deserve; it is not, then, fair
that we should deceive them and should wish them to esteem us more
highly than we deserve.
Thus, when they discover only the imperfections and vices which we
really have, it is plain they do us no wrong, since it is not they who
cause them; they rather do us good, since they help us to free
ourselves from an evil, namely, the ignorance of these imperfections.
We ought not to be angry at their knowing our faults and despising us;
it is but right that they should know us for what we are and should
despise us, if we are contemptible.
Such are the feelings that would arise in a heart full of equity and
justice. What must we say then of our own heart, when we see it in a
wholly different disposition? For is it not true that we hate truth
and those who tell it us, and that we like them to be deceived in our
favour, and prefer to be esteemed by them as being other than what we
are in fact? One proof of this makes me shudder. The Catholic religion
does not bind us to confess our sins indiscriminately to everybody; it
allows them to remain hidden from all other men save one, to whom she
bids us reveal the innermost recesses of our heart and show ourselves
as we are. There is only this one man in the world whom she orders us
to undeceive, and she binds him to an inviolable secrecy, which makes
this knowledge to him as if it were not. Can we imagine anything more
charitable and pleasant? And yet the corruption of man is such that he
finds even this law harsh; and it is one of the main reasons which has
caused a great part of Europe to rebel against the Church.
How unjust and unreasonable is the heart of man, which feels it
disagreeable to be obliged to do in regard to one man what in some
measure it were right to do to all men! For is it right that we should
deceive men?
There are different degrees in this aversion to truth; but all may
perhaps be said to have it in some degree, because it is inseparable
from self-love. It is this false delicacy which makes those who are
under the necessity of reproving others choose so many windings and
middle courses to avoid offence. They must lessen our faults, appear
to excuse them, intersperse praises and evidence of love and esteem.
Despite all this, the medicine does not cease to be bitter to
self-love. It takes as little as it can, always with disgust, and
often with a secret spite against those who administer it.
Hence it happens that, if any have some interest in being loved by us,
they are averse to render us a service which they know to be
disagreeable. They treat us as we wish to be treated. We hate the
truth, and they hide it from us. We desire flattery, and they flatter
us. We like to be deceived, and they deceive us.
So each degree of good fortune which raises us in the world removes us
farther from truth, because we are most afraid of wounding those whose
affection is most useful and whose dislike is most dangerous. A prince
may be the byword of all Europe, and he alone will know nothing of it.
I am not astonished. To tell the truth is useful to those to whom it
is spoken, but disadvantageous to those who tell it, because it makes
them disliked. Now those who live with princes love their own
interests more than that of the prince whom they serve; and so they
take care not to confer on him a benefit so as to injure themselves.
This evil is no doubt greater and more common among the higher
classes; but the lower are not exempt from it, since there is always
some advantage in making men love us. Human life is thus only a
perpetual illusion; men deceive and flatter each other. No one speaks
of us in our presence as he does of us in our absence. Human society
is founded on mutual deceit; few friendships would endure if each knew
what his friend said of him in his absence, although he then spoke in
sincerity and without passion.
Man is, then, only disguise, falsehood, and hypocrisy, both in himself
and in regard to others. He does not wish any one to tell him the
truth; he avoids telling it to others, and all these dispositions, so
removed from justice and reason, have a natural root in his heart.
101. I set it down as a fact that if all men knew what each said of
the other, there would not be four friends in the world. This is
apparent from the quarrels which arise from the indiscreet tales told
from time to time. I say, further, all men would be...
102. Some vices only lay hold of us by means of others, and these,
like branches, fall on removal of the trunk.
103. The example of Alexander's chastity has not made so many
continent as that of his drunkenness has made intemperate. It is not
shameful not to be as virtuous as he, and it seems excusable to be no
more vicious. We do not believe ourselves to be exactly sharing in the
vices of the vulgar when we see that we are sharing in those of great
men; and yet we do not observe that in these matters they are ordinary
men. We hold on to them by the same end by which they hold on to the
rabble; for, however exalted they are, they are still united at some
point to the lowest of men. They are not suspended in the air, quite
removed from our society. No, no; if they are greater than we, it is
because their heads are higher; but their feet are as low as ours.
They are all on the same level, and rest on the same earth; and by
that extremity they are as low as we are, as the meanest folk, as
infants, and as the beasts.
104. When our passion leads us to do something, we forget our duty;
for example, we like a book and read it, when we ought to be doing
something else. Now, to remind ourselves of our duty, we must set
ourselves a task we dislike; we then plead that we have something else
to do and by this means remember our duty.
105. How difficult it is to submit anything to the judgement of
another, without prejudicing his judgement by the manner in which we
submit it! If we say, "I think it beautiful," "I think it obscure," or
the like, we either entice the imagination into that view, or irritate
it to the contrary. It is better to say nothing; and then the other
judges according to what really is, that is to say, according as it
then is and according as the other circumstances, not of our making,
have placed it. But we at least shall have added nothing, unless it be
that silence also produces an effect, according to the turn and the
interpretation which the other will be disposed to give it, or as he
will guess it from gestures or countenance, or from the tone of the
voice, if he is a physiognomist. So difficult is it not to upset a
judgement from its natural place, or, rather, so rarely is it firm and
stable!
106. By knowing each man's ruling passion, we are sure of pleasing
him; and yet each has his fancies, opposed to his true good, in the
very idea which he has of the good. It is a singularly puzzling fact.
107. Lustravit lampade terras. [19] --The weather and my mood have
little connection. I have my foggy and my fine days within me; my
prosperity or misfortune has little to do with the matter. I sometimes
struggle against luck, the glory of mastering it makes me master it
gaily; whereas I am sometimes surfeited in the midst of good fortune.
108. Although people may have no interest in what they are saying, we
must not absolutely conclude from this that they are not lying; for
there are some people who lie for the mere sake of lying.
109. When we are well we wonder what we would do if we were ill, but
when we are ill we take medicine cheerfully; the illness persuades us
to do so. We have no longer the passions and desires for amusements
and promenades which health gave to us, but which are incompatible
with the necessities of illness. Nature gives us, then, passions and
desires suitable to our present state. We are only troubled by the
fears which we, and not nature, give ourselves, for they add to the
state in which we are the passions of the state in which we are not.
As nature makes us always unhappy in every state, our desires picture
to us a happy state; because they add to the state in which we are the
pleasures of the state in which we are not. And if we attained to
these pleasures, we should not be happy after all; because we should
have other desires natural to this new state.
We must particularise this general proposition....
110. The consciousness of the falsity of present pleasures, and the
ignorance of the vanity of absent pleasures, cause inconstancy.
111. Inconstancy.--We think we are playing on ordinary organs when
playing upon man. Men are organs, it is true, but, odd, changeable,
variable with pipes not arranged in proper order. Those who only know
how to play on ordinary organs will not produce barmonies on these. We
must know where are.
112. Inconstancy.--Things have different qualities, and the soul
different inclinations; for nothing is simple which is presented to
the soul, and the soul never presents itself simply to any object.
Hence it comes that we weep and laugh at the same thing.
113. Inconstancy and oddity.--To live only by work, and to rule over
the most powerful State in the world, are very opposite things. They
are united in the person of the great Sultan of the Turks.
114. Variety is as abundant as all tones of the voice, all ways of
walking, coughing, blowing the nose, sneezing. We distinguish vines by
their fruit, and call them the Condrien, the Desargues, and such and
such a stock. Is this all? Has a vine ever produced two bunches
exactly the same, and has a bunch two grapes alike, etc.?
I can never judge of the same thing exactly in the same way. I cannot
judge of my work, while doing it. I must do as the artists, stand at a
distance, but not too far. How far, then? Guess.
115. Variety.--Theology is a science, but at the same time how many
sciences? A man is a whole; but if we dissect him, will he be the
head, the heart, the stomach, the veins, each vein, each portion of a
vein, the blood, each humour in the blood?
A town, a country-place, is from afar a town and a country-place. But,
as we draw near, there are houses, trees, tiles, leaves, grass, ants,
limbs of ants, in infinity. All this is contained under the name of
country-place.
116. Thoughts.--All is one, all is different. How many natures exist
in man? How many vocations? And by what chance does each man
ordinarily choose what he has heard praised? A well-turned heel.
117. The heel of a slipper.--"Ah! How well this is turned! Here is a
clever workman! How brave is this soldier!" This is the source of our
inclinations and of the choice of conditions. "How much this man
drinks! How little that one"! This makes people sober or drunk,
soldiers, cowards, etc.
118. Chief talent, that which rules the rest.
119. Nature imitates herself A seed grown in good ground brings forth
fruit. A principle instilled into a good mind brings forth fruit.
Numbers imitate space, which is of a different nature.
All is made and led by the same master, root, branches, and fruits;
principles and consequences.
120. Nature diversifies and imitates; art imitates and diversifies.
121. Nature always begins the same things again, the years, the days,
the hours; in like manner spaces and numbers follow each other from
beginning to end. Thus is made a kind of infinity and eternity. Not
that anything in all this is infinite and eternal, but these finite
realities are infinitely multiplied. Thus it seems to me to be only
the number which multiplies them that is infinite.
122. Time heals griefs and quarrels, for we change and are no longer
the same persons. Neither the offender nor the offended are any more
themselves. It is like a nation which we have provoked, but meet again
after two generations. They are still Frenchmen, but not the same.
123. He no longer loves the person whom he loved ten years ago. I
quite believe it. She is no longer the same, nor is he. He was young,
and she also; she is quite different. He would perhaps love her yet,
if she were what she was then.
124. We view things not only from different sides, but with different
eyes; we have no wish to find them alike.
125. Contraries.--Man is naturally credulous and incredulous, timid
and rash.
126. Description of man: dependency, desire of independence, need.
127. Condition of man: inconstancy, weariness, unrest.
128. The weariness which is felt by us in leaving pursuits to which we
are attached. A man dwells at home with pleasure; but if he sees a
woman who charms him, or if he enjoys himself in play for five or six
days, he is miserable if he returns to his former way of living.
Nothing is more common than that.
129. Our nature consists in motion; complete rest is death.
130. Restlessness.--If a soldier, or labourer, complain of the
hardship of his lot, set him to do nothing.
131. Weariness.--Nothing is so insufferable to man as to be completely
at rest, without passions, without business, without diversion,
without study. He then feels his nothingness, his forlornness, his
insufficiency, his dependence, his weakness, his emptiness. There will
immediately arise from the depth of his heart weariness, gloom,
sadness, fretfulness, vexation, despair.
132. Methinks Caesar was too old to set about amusing himself with
conquering the world. Such sport was good for Augustus or Alexander.
They were still young men and thus difficult to restrain. But Caesar
should have been more mature.
133. Two faces which resemble each other make us laugh, when together,
by their resemblance, though neither of them by itself makes us laugh.
134. How useless is painting, which attracts admiration by the
resemblance of things, the originals of which we do not admire!
135. The struggle alone pleases us, not the victory. We love to see
animals fighting, not the victor infuriated over the vanquished. We
would only see the victorious end; and, as soon as it comes, we are
satiated. It is the same in play, and the same in the search for
truth. In disputes we like to see the clash of opinions, but not at
all to contemplate truth when found. To observe it with pleasure, we
have to see it emerge out of strife. So in the passions, there is
pleasure in seeing the collision of two contraries; but when one
acquires the mastery, it becomes only brutality. We never seek things
for themselves, but for the search. Likewise in plays, scenes which do
not rouse the emotion of fear are worthless, so are extreme and
hopeless misery, brutal lust, and extreme cruelty.
136. A mere trifle consoles us, for a mere trifle distresses us.
137. Without examining every particular pursuit, it is enough to
comprehend them under diversion.
138. Men naturally slaters and of all callings, save in their own
rooms.
139. Diversion.--When I have occasionally set myself to consider the
different distractions of men, the pains and perils to which they
expose themselves at court or in war, whence arise so many quarrels,
passions, bold and often bad ventures, etc., I have discovered that
all the unhappiness of men arises from one single fact, that they
cannot stay quietly in their own chamber. A man who has enough to live
on, if he knew how to stay with pleasure at home, would not leave it
to go to sea or to besiege a town. A commission in the army would not
be bought so dearly, but that it is found insufferable not to budge
from the town; and men only seek conversation and entering games,
because they cannot remain with pleasure at home.
But, on further consideration, when, after finding the cause of all
our ills, I have sought to discover the reason of it, I have found
that there is one very real reason, namely, the natural poverty of our
feeble and mortal condition, so miserable that nothing can comfort us
when we think of it closely.
Whatever condition we picture to ourselves, if we muster all the good
things which it is possible to possess, royalty is the finest position
in the world. Yet, when we imagine a king attended with every pleasure
he can feel, if he be without diversion and be left to consider and
reflect on what he is, this feeble happiness will not sustain him; he
will necessarily fall into forebodings of dangers, of revolutions
which may happen, and, finally, of death and inevitable disease; so
that, if he be without what is called diversion, he is unhappy and
more unhappy than the least of his subjects who plays and diverts
himself.
Hence it comes that play and the society of women, war and high posts,
are so sought after. Not that there is in fact any happiness in them,
or that men imagine true bliss to consist in money won at play, or in
the hare which they hunt; we would not take these as a gift. We do not
seek that easy and peaceful lot which permits us to think of our
unhappy condition, nor the dangers of war, nor the labour of office,
but the bustle which averts these thoughts of ours and amuses us.
Reasons why we like the chase better than the quarry.
Hence it comes that men so much love noise and stir; hence it comes
that the prison is so horrible a punishment; hence it comes that the
pleasure of solitude is a thing incomprehensible. And it is, in fact,
the greatest source of happiness in the condition of kings that men
try incessantly to divert them and to procure for them all kinds of
pleasures.
The king is surrounded by persons whose only thought is to divert the
king and to prevent his thinking of self. For he is unhappy, king
though he be, if he think of himself.
This is all that men have been able to discover to make themselves
happy. And those who philosophise on the matter, and who think men
unreasonable for spending a whole day in chasing a hare which they
would not have bought, scarce know our nature. The hare in itself
would not screen us from the sight of death and calamities; but the
chase, which turns away our attention from these, does screen us.
The advice given to Pyrrhus, to take the rest which he was about to
seek with so much labour, was full of difficulties.
To bid a man live quietly is to bid him live happily. It is to advise
him to be in a state perfectly happy, in which he can think at leisure
without finding therein a cause of distress. This is to misunderstand
nature.
As men who naturally understand their own condition avoid nothing so
much as rest, so there is nothing they leave undone in seeking
turmoil. Not that they have an instinctive knowledge of true
happiness...
So we are wrong in blaming them. Their error does not lie in seeking
excitement, if they seek it only as a diversion; the evil is that they
seek it as if the possession of the objects of their quest would make
them really happy. In this respect it is right to call their quest a
vain one. Hence in all this both the censurers and the censured do not
understand man's true nature.
And thus, when we take the exception against them, that what they seek
with such fervour cannot satisfy them, if they replied--as they should
do if they considered the matter thoroughly--that they sought in it
only a violent and impetuous occupation which turned their thoughts
from self, and that they therefore chose an attractive object to charm
and ardently attract them, they would leave their opponents without a
reply. But they do not make this reply, because they do not know
themselves. They do not know that it is the chase, and not the quarry,
which they seek.
Dancing: We must consider rightly where to place our feet.--A
gentleman sincerely believes that hunting is great and royal sport;
but a beater is not of this opinion.
They imagine that, if they obtained such a post, they would then rest
with pleasure and are insensible of the insatiable nature of the if
desire. They think they are truly seeking quiet, and they are only
seeking excitement.
They have a secret instinct which impels them to seek amusement and
occupation abroad, and which arises from the sense of their constant
unhappiness. They have another secret instinct, a remnant of the
greatness of our original nature, which teaches them that happiness in
reality consists only in rest and not in stir. And of these two
contrary instincts they form within themselves a confused idea, which
hides itself from their view in the depths of their soul, inciting
them to aim at rest through excitement, and always to fancy that the
satisfaction which they have not will come to them, if, by surmounting
whatever difficulties confront them, they can thereby open the door to
rest.
Thus passes away all man's life. Men seek rest in a struggle against
difficulties; and when they have conquered these, rest becomes
insufferable. For we think either of the misfortunes we have or of
those which threaten us. And even if we should see ourselves
sufficiently sheltered on all sides, weariness of its own accord would
not fail to arise from the depths of the heart wherein it has its
natural roots and to fill the mind with its poison.
Thus so wretched is man that he would weary even without any cause for
weariness from the peculiar state of his disposition; and so frivolous
is he that, though full of a thousand reasons for weariness, the least
thing, such as playing billiards or hitting a ball, is sufficient to
amuse him.
But will you say what object has he in all this? The pleasure of
bragging tomorrow among his friends that he has played better than
another. So others sweat in their own rooms to show to the learned
that they have solved a problem in algebra, which no one had hitherto
been able to solve. Many more expose themselves to extreme perils, in
my opinion as foolishly, in order to boast afterwards that they have
captured a town. Lastly, others wear themselves out in studying all
these things, not in order to become wiser, but only in order to prove
that they know them; and these are the most senseless of the band,
since they are so knowingly, whereas one may suppose of the others
that, if they knew it, they would no longer be foolish.
This man spends his life without weariness in playing every day for a
small stake. Give him each morning the money he can win each day, on
condition he does not play; you make him miserable. It will perhaps be
said that he seeks the amusement of play and not the winnings. Make
him, then, play for nothing; he will not become excited over it and
will feel bored. It is, then, not the amusement alone that he seeks; a
languid and passionless amusement will weary him. He must get excited
over it and deceive himself by the fancy that he will be happy to win
what he would not have as a gift on condition of not playing; and he
must make for himself an object of passion, and excite over it his
desire, his anger, his fear, to obtain his imagined end, as children
are frightened at the face they have blackened.
Whence comes it that this man, who lost his only son a few months ago,
or who this morning was in such trouble through being distressed by
lawsuits and quarrels, now no longer thinks of them? Do not wonder; he
is quite taken up in looking out for the boar which his dogs have been
hunting so hotly for the last six hours. He requires nothing more.
However full of sadness a man may be, he is happy for the time, if you
can prevail upon him to enter into some amusement; and however happy a
man may be, he will soon be discontented and wretched, if he be not
diverted and occupied by some passion or pursuit which prevents
weariness from overcoming him. Without amusement there is no joy; with
amusement there is no sadness. And this also constitutes the happiness
of persons in high position, that they have a number of people to
amuse them and have the power to keep themselves in this state.
Consider this. What is it to be superintendent, chancellor, first
president, but to be in a condition wherein from early morning a large
number of people come from all quarters to see them, so as not to
leave them an hour in the day in which they can think of themselves?
And when they are in disgrace and sent back to their country houses,
where they lack neither wealth nor servants to help them on occasion,
they do not fail to be wretched and desolate, because no one prevents
them from thinking of themselves.
140. How does it happen that this man, so distressed at the death of
his wife and his only son, or who has some great lawsuit which annoys
him, is not at this moment sad, and that he seems so free from all
painful and disquieting thoughts? We need not wonder; for a ball has
been served him, and he must return it to his companion. He is
occupied in catching it in its fall from the roof, to win a game. How
can he think of his own affairs, pray, when he has this other matter
in hand? Here is a care worthy of occupying this great soul and taking
away from him every other thought of the mind. This man, born to know
the universe, to judge all causes, to govern a whole state, is
altogether occupied and taken up with the business of catching a hare.
And if he does not lower himself to this and wants always to be on the
strain, he will be more foolish still, because he would raise himself
above humanity; and after all, he is only a man, that is to say
capable of little and of much, of all and of nothing; he is neither
angel nor brute, but man.
141. Men spend their time in following a ball or a hare; it is the
pleasure even of kings.
142. Diversion--Is not the royal dignity sufficiently great in itself
to make its possessor happy by the mere contemplation of what he is?
Must he be diverted from this thought like ordinary folk? I see well
that a man is made happy by diverting him from the view of his
domestic sorrows so as to occupy all his thoughts with the care of
dancing well. But will it be the same with a king, and will he be
happier in the pursuit of these idle amusements than in the
contemplation of his greatness? And what more satisfactory object
could be presented to his mind? Would it not be a deprivation of his
delight for him to occupy his soul with the thought of how to adjust
his steps to the cadence of an air, or of how to throw a ball
skilfully, instead of leaving it to enjoy quietly the contemplation of
the majestic glory which encompasses him? Let us make the trial; let
us leave a king all alone to reflect on himself quite at leisure,
without any gratification of the senses, without any care in his mind,
without society; and we will see that a king without diversion is a
man full of wretchedness. So this is carefully avoided, and near the
persons of kings there never fail to be a great number of people who
see to it that amusement follows business, and who watch all the time
of their leisure to supply them with delights and games, so that there
is no blank in it. In fact, kings are surrounded with persons who are
wonderfully attentive in taking care that the king be not alone and in
a state to think of himself, knowing well that he will be miserable,
king though he be, if he meditate on self.
In all this I am not talking of Christian kings as Christians, but
only as kings.
143. Diversion.--Men are entrusted from infancy with the care of their
honour, their property, their friends, and even with the property and
the honour of their friends. They are overwhelmed with business, with
the study of languages, and with physical exercise; and they are made
to understand that they cannot be happy unless their health, their
honour, their fortune and that of their friends be in good condition,
and that a single thing wanting will make them unhappy. Thus they are
given cares and business which make them bustle about from break of
day. It is, you will exclaim, a strange way to make them happy! What
more could be done to make them miserable?--Indeed! what could be
done? We should only have to relieve them from all these cares; for
then they would see themselves: they would reflect on what they are,
whence they came, whither they go, and thus we cannot employ and
divert them too much. And this is why, after having given them so much
business, we advise them, if they have some time for relaxation, to
employ it in amusement, in play, and to be always fully occupied.
How hollow and full of ribaldry is the heart of man!
144. I spent a long time in the study of the abstract sciences, and
was disheartened by the small number of fellow-students in them. When
I commenced the study of man, I saw that these abstract sciences are
not suited to man and that I was wandering farther from my own state
in examining them than others in not knowing them. I pardoned their
little knowledge; but I thought at least to find many companions in
the study of man and that it was the true study which is suited to
him. I have been deceived; still fewer study it than geometry. It is
only from the want of knowing how to study this that we seek the other
studies. But is it not that even here is not the knowledge which man
should have and that for the purpose of happiness it is better for him
not to know himself.?
145. One thought alone occupies us; we cannot think of two things at
the same time. This is lucky for us according to the world, not
according to God.
146. Man is obviously made to think. It is his whole dignity and his
whole merit; and his whole duty is to think as he ought. Now, the
order of thought is to begin with self, and with its Author and its
end.
Now, of what does the world think? Never of this, but of dancing,
playing the lute, singing, making verses, running at the ring, etc.,
fighting, making oneself king, without thinking what it is to be a
king and what to be a man.
147. We do not content ourselves with the life we have in ourselves
and in our own being; we desire to live an imaginary life in the mind
of others, and for this purpose we endeavour to shine. We labour
unceasingly to adorn and preserve this imaginary existence and neglect
the real. And if we possess calmness, or generosity, or truthfulness,
we are eager to make it known, so as to attach these virtues to that
imaginary existence. We would rather separate them from ourselves to
join them to it; and we would willingly be cowards in order to acquire
the reputation of being brave. A great proof of the nothingness of our
being, not to be satisfied with the one without the other, and to
renounce the one for the other! For he would be infamous who would not
die to preserve his honour.
148. We are so presumptuous that we would wish to be known by all the
world, even by people who shall come after, when we shall be no more;
and we are so vain that the esteem of five or six neighbours delights
and contents us.
149. We do not trouble ourselves about being esteemed in the towns
through which we pass. But if we are to remain a little while there,
we are so concerned. How long is necessary? A time commensurate with
our vain and paltry life.
150. Vanity is so anchored in the heart of man that a soldier, a
soldier's servant, a cook, a porter brags and wishes to have his
admirers. Even philosophers wish for them. Those who write against it
want to have the glory of having written well; and those who read it
desire the glory of having read it. I who write this have perhaps this
desire, and perhaps those who will read it...
151. Glory.--Admiration spoils all from infancy. Ah! How well said!
Ah! How well done! How well-behaved he is! etc.
The children of Port-Royal, who do not receive this stimulus of envy
and glory, fall into carelessness.
152. Pride.--Curiosity is only vanity. Most frequently we wish to know
but to talk. Otherwise we would not take a sea voyage in order never
to talk of it, and for the sole pleasure of seeing without hope of
ever communicating it.
153. Of the desire of being esteemed by those with whom we are.--Pride
takes such natural possession of us in the midst of our woes, errors,
etc. We even lose our life with joy, provided people talk of it.
Vanity: play, hunting, visiting, false shame, a lasting name.
154. I have no friends to your advantage.
155. A true friend is so great an advantage, even for the greatest
lords, in order that he may speak well of them and back them in their
absence, that they should do all to have one. But they should choose
well; for, if they spend all their efforts in the interests of fools,
it will be of no use, however well these may speak of them; and these
will not even speak well of them if they find themselves on the
weakest side, for they have no influence; and thus they will speak ill
of them in company.
156. Ferox gens, nullam esse vitam sine armis rati. [20] --They prefer
death to peace; others prefer death to war.
Every opinion may be held preferable to life, the love of which is so
strong and so natural.
157. Contradiction: contempt for our existence, to die for nothing,
hatred of our existence.
158. Pursuits.--The charm of fame is so great that we like every
object to which it is attached, even death.
159. Noble deeds are most estimable when hidden. When I see some of
these in history, they please me greatly. But after all they have not
been quite hidden, since they have been known; and though people have
done what they could to hide them, the little publication of them
spoils all, for what was best in them was the wish to hide them.
160. Sneezing absorbs all the functions of the soul, as well as work
does; but we do not draw therefrom the same conclusions against the
greatness of man, because it is against his will. And although we
bring it on ourselves, it is nevertheless against our will that we
sneeze. It is not in view of the act itself; it is for another end.
And thus it is not a proof of the weakness of man and of his slavery
under that action.
It is not disgraceful for man to yield to pain, and it is disgraceful
to yield to pleasure. This is not because pain comes to us from
without, and we ourselves seek pleasure; for it is possible to seek
pain, and yield to it purposely, without this kind of baseness. Whence
comes it, then, that reason thinks it honourable to succumb under
stress of pain, and disgraceful to yield to the attack of pleasure? It
is because pain does not tempt and attract us. It is we ourselves who
choose it voluntarily, and will it to prevail over us. So that we are
masters of the situation; and in this man yields to himself. But in
pleasure it is man who yields to pleasure. Now only mastery and
sovereignty bring glory, and only slavery brings shame.
161. Vanity.--How wonderful it is that a thing so evident as the
vanity of the world is so little known, that it is a strange and
surprising thing to say that it is foolish to seek greatness?
162. He who will know fully the vanity of man has only to consider the
causes and effects of love. The cause is a je ne sais quoi
(Corneille), and the effects are dreadful. This je ne sais quoi, so
small an object that we cannot recognise it, agitates a whole country,
princes, armies, the entire world.
Cleopatra's nose: had it been shorter, the whole aspect of the world
would have been altered.
163. Vanity.--The cause and the effects of love: Cleopatra.
164. He who does not see the vanity of the world is himself very vain.
Indeed who do not see it but youths who are absorbed in fame,
diversion, and the thought of the future? But take away diversion, and
you will see them dried up with weariness. They feel then their
nothingness without knowing it; for it is indeed to be unhappy to be
in insufferable sadness as soon as we are reduced to thinking of self
and have no diversion.
165. Thoughts.--In omnibus requiem quaesivi. [21] If our condition
were truly happy, we not need diversion from thinking of it in order
to make ourselves happy.
166. Diversion.--Death is easier to bear without thinking of it than
is the thought of death without peril.
167. The miseries of human life has established all this: as men have
seen this, they have taken up diversion.
168. Diversion.--As men are not able to fight against death, misery,
ignorance, they have taken it into their heads, in order to be happy,
not to think of them at all.
169. Despite these miseries, man wishes to be happy, and only wishes
to be happy, and cannot wish not to be so. But how will he set about
it? To be happy he would have to make himself immortal; but, not being
able to do so, it has occurred to him to prevent himself from thinking
of death.
170. Diversion.--If man were happy, he would be the more so, the less
he was diverted, like the Saints and God. Yes; but is it not to be
happy to have a faculty of being amused by diversion? No; for that
comes from elsewhere and from without, and thus is dependent, and
therefore subject to be disturbed by a thousand accidents, which bring
inevitable griefs.
171. Misery.--The only thing which consoles us for our miseries is
diversion, and yet this is the greatest of our miseries. For it is
this which principally hinders us from reflecting upon ourselves and
which makes us insensibly ruin ourselves. Without this we should be in
a state of weariness, and this weariness would spur us to seek a more
solid means of escaping from it. But diversion amuses us, and leads us
unconsciously to death.
172. We do not rest satisfied with the present. We anticipate the
future as too slow in coming, as if in order to hasten its course; or
we recall the past, to stop its too rapid flight. So imprudent are we
that we wander in the times which are not ours and do not think of the
only one which belongs to us; and so idle are we that we dream of
those times which are no more and thoughtlessly overlook that which
alone exists. For the present is generally painful to us. We conceal
it from our sight, because it troubles us; and, if it be delightful to
us, we regret to see it pass away. We try to sustain it by the future
and think of arranging matters which are not in our power, for a time
which we have no certainty of reaching.
Let each one examine his thoughts, and he will find them all occupied
with the past and the future. We scarcely ever think of the present;
and if we think of it, it is only to take light from it to arrange the
future. The present is never our end. The past and the present are our
means; the future alone is our end. So we never live, but we hope to
live; and, as we are always preparing to be happy, it is inevitable we
should never be so.
173. They say that eclipses foretoken misfortune, because misfortunes
are common, so that, as evil happens so often, they often foretell it;
whereas if they said that they predict good fortune, they would often
be wrong. They attribute good fortune only to rare conjunctions of the
heavens; so they seldom fail in prediction.
174. Misery.--Solomon and Job have best known and best spoken of the
misery of man; the former the most fortunate, and the latter the most
unfortunate of men; the former knowing the vanity of pleasures from
experience, the latter the reality of evils.
175. We know ourselves so little that many think they are about to die
when they are well, and many think they are well when they are near
death, unconscious of approaching fever, or of the abscess ready to
form itself.
176. Cromwell was about to ravage all Christendom; the royal family
was undone, and his own for ever established, save for a little grain
of sand which formed in his ureter. Rome herself was trembling under
him; but this small piece of gravel having formed there, he is dead,
his family cast down, all is peaceful, and the king is restored.
177. Three hosts. Would he who had possessed the friendship of the
King of England, the King of Poland, and the Queen of Sweden, have
believed he would lack a refuge and shelter in the world?
178. Macrobius: on the innocents slain by Herod.
179. When Augustus learnt that Herod's own son was amongst the infants
under two years of age, whom he had caused to be slain, he said that
it was better to be Herod's pig than his son. Macrobius, Saturnalia,
ii. 4.
180. The great and the humble have the same misfortunes, the same
griefs, the same passions; but the one is at the top of the wheel, and
the other near the centre, and so less disturbed by the same
revolutions.
181. We are so unfortunate that we can only take pleasure in a thing
on condition of being annoyed if it turn out ill, as a thousand things
can do, and do every hour. He who should find the secret of rejoicing
in the good, without troubling himself with its contrary evil, would
have hit the mark. It is perpetual motion.
182. Those who have always good hope in the midst of misfortunes, and
who are delighted with good luck, are suspected of being very pleased
with the ill success of the affair, if they are not equally distressed
by bad luck; and they are overjoyed to find these pretexts of hope, in
order to show that they are concerned and to conceal by the joy which
they feign to feel that which they have at seeing the failure of the
matter.
183. We run carelessly to the precipice, after we have put something
before us to prevent us seeing it.
_________________________________________________________________
[5] Title given by Pico della Mirandola to one of his proposed nine
hundred theses, in 1486.
[6] Tacitus, Annals, iv. "Kindnesses are agreeable so long as one
thinks them possible to render; further, recognition makes way for
hatred."
[7] St. Augustine, City of God, xxi. 10. "The manner in which the
spirit is united to the body can not be understood by man; and yet it
is man."
[8] Virgil, Georgics, ii. "Happy is he who is able to know the causes
of things."
[9] Horace, Epistles, I. vi. 1. " To be astonished at nothing is
nearly the only thing which can give and conserve happiness."
[10] Cicero, Disputationes Tusculanae, i, ii Harum sententiarum quae
vera sit, Deus aliquis viderit. "Which of these opinions in the truth,
a god will see."
[11] Montaigne, Essays, ii.
[12] Montaigne, Essays, ii.
[13] Treatise on the Vacuum.
[14] Terence, Heauton Timorumenos, III. v. 8. "There is one who will
say great foolishness with great effort."
[15] Montaigne, Essays, ii.
[16] Pliny, ii. "As though there were anyone more unhappy than a man
dominated by his imagination."
[17] Cicero, De Divinatione ii. 22. "A common happening does not
astonish, even though the cause is unknown; an event such as one has
never seen before passes for a prodigy."
[18] Allusion to Gen. 7. 14. Ipsi et omne animal secundus genus suum.
"And every beast after his kind."
[19] Homer, Odyssey, xviii.
[20] Livy, xxxiv. 17. "A brutal people, for whom, when they have not
armour, there is not life."
[21] Ecclus. 24:11. "With all these I have sought rest."
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SECTION III: OF THE NECESSITY OF THE WAGER
184. A letter to incite to the search after God.
And then to make people seek Him among the philosophers, sceptics, and
dogmatists, who disquiet him who inquires of them.
185. The conduct of God, who disposes all things kindly, is to put
religion into the mind by reason, and into the heart by grace. But to
will to put it into the mind and heart by force and threats is not to
put religion there, but terror; terorrem potius quam religionem. [22]
186. Nisi terrerentur et non docerentur, improba quasi dominatio
videretur (St. Augustine, Epistle 48 or 49), [23] Contra Mendacium ad
Consentium.
187. Order.--Men despise religion; they hate it and fear it is true.
To remedy this, we must begin by showing that religion is not contrary
to reason; that it is venerable, to inspire respect for it; then we
must make it lovable, to make good men hope it is true; finally, we
must prove it is true.
Venerable, because it has perfect knowledge of man; lovable because it
promises the true good.
188. In every dialogue and discourse, we must be able to say to those
who take offence, "Of what do you complain?"
189. To begin by pitying unbelievers; they are wretched enough by
their condition. We ought only to revile them where it is beneficial;
but this does them harm.
190. To pity atheists who seek, for are they not unhappy enough? To
inveigh against those who make a boast of it.
191. And will this one scoff at the other? Who ought to scoff? And
yet, the latter does not scoff at the other, but pities him.
192. To reproach Milton with not being troubled, since God will
reproach him.
193. Quid fiet hominibus qui minima contemnunt, majora non credunt?
[24]
194. ... Let them at least learn what is the religion they attack,
before attacking it. If this religion boasted of having a clear view
of God, and of possessing it open and unveiled, it would be attacking
it to say that we see nothing in the world which shows it with this
clearness. But since, on the contrary, it says that men are in
darkness and estranged from God, that He has hidden Himself from their
knowledge, that this is in fact the name which He gives Himself in the
Scriptures, Deus absconditus; [25] and finally, if it endeavours
equally to establish these two things: that God has set up in the
Church visible signs to make Himself known to those who should seek
Him sincerely, and that He has nevertheless so disguised them that He
will only be perceived by those who seek Him with all their heart;
what advantage can they obtain, when, in the negligence with which
they make profession of being in search of the truth, they cry out
that nothing reveals it to them; and since that darkness in which they
are, and with which they upbraid the Church, establishes only one of
the things which she affirms, without touching the other, and, very
far from destroying, proves her doctrine?
In order to attack it, they should have protested that they had made
every effort to seek Him everywhere, and even in that which the Church
proposes for their instruction, but without satisfaction. If they
talked in this manner, they would in truth be attacking one of her
pretensions. But I hope here to show that no reasonable person can
speak thus, and I venture even to say that no one has ever done so. We
know well enough how those who are of this mind behave. They believe
they have made great efforts for their instruction when they have
spent a few hours in reading some book of Scripture and have
questioned some priests on the truths of the faith. After that, they
boast of having made vain search in books and among men. But, verily,
I will tell them what I have often said, that this negligence is
insufferable. We are not here concerned with the trifling interests of
some stranger, that we should treat it in this fashion; the matter
concerns ourselves and our all.
The immortality of the soul is a matter which is of so great
consequence to us and which touches us so profoundly that we must have
lost all feeling to be indifferent as to knowing what it is. All our
actions and thoughts must take such different courses, according as
there are or are not eternal joys to hope for, that it is impossible
to take one step with sense and judgment unless we regulate our course
by our view of this point which ought to be our ultimate end.
Thus our first interest and our first duty is to enlighten ourselves
on this subject, whereon depends all our conduct. Therefore among
those who do not believe, I make a vast difference between those who
strive with all their power to inform themselves and those who live
without troubling or thinking about it.
I can have only compassion for those who sincerely bewail their doubt,
who regard it as the greatest of misfortunes, and who, sparing no
effort to escape it, make of this inquiry their principal and most
serious occupation.
But as for those who pass their life without thinking of this ultimate
end of life, and who, for this sole reason that they do not find
within themselves the lights which convince them of it, neglect to
seek them elsewhere, and to examine thoroughly whether this opinion is
one of those which people receive with credulous simplicity, or one of
those which, although obscure in themselves, have nevertheless a solid
and immovable foundation, I look upon them in a manner quite
different.
This carelessness in a matter which concerns themselves, their
eternity, their all, moves me more to anger than pity; it astonishes
and shocks me; it is to me monstrous. I do not say this out of the
pious zeal of a spiritual devotion. I expect, on the contrary, that we
ought to have this feeling from principles of human interest and
self-love; for this we need only see what the least enlightened
persons see.
We do not require great education of the mind to understand that here
is no real and lasting satisfaction; that our pleasures are only
vanity; that our evils are infinite; and, lastly, that death, which
threatens us every moment, must infallibly place us within a few years
under the dreadful necessity of being for ever either annihilated or
unhappy.
There is nothing more real than this, nothing more terrible. Be we as
heroic as we like, that is the end which awaits the world. Let us
reflect on this and then say whether it is not beyond doubt that there
is no good in this life but in the hope of another; that we are happy
only in proportion as we draw near it; and that, as there are no more
woes for those who have complete assurance of eternity, so there is no
more happiness for those who have no insight into it.
Surely then it is a great evil thus to be in doubt, but it is at least
an indispensable duty to seek when we are in such doubt; and thus the
doubter who does not seek is altogether completely unhappy and
completely wrong. And if besides this he is easy and content,
professes to be so, and indeed boasts of it; if it is this state
itself which is the subject of his joy and vanity, I have no words to
describe so silly a creature.
How can people hold these opinions? What joy can we find in the
expectation of nothing but hopeless misery? What reason for boasting
that we are in impenetrable darkness? And how can it happen that the
following argument occurs to a reasonable man?
"I know not who put me into the world, nor what the world is, nor what
I myself am. I am in terrible ignorance of everything. I know not what
my body is, nor my senses, nor my soul, not even that part of me which
thinks what I say, which reflects on all and on itself, and knows
itself no more than the rest. I see those frightful spaces of the
universe which surround me, and I find myself tied to one corner of
this vast expanse, without knowing why I am put in this place rather
than in another, nor why the short time which is given me to live is
assigned to me at this point rather than at another of the whole
eternity which was before me or which shall come after me. I see
nothing but infinites on all sides, which surround me as an atom and
as a shadow which endures only for an instant and returns no more. All
I know is that I must soon die, but what I know least is this very
death which I cannot escape.
"As I know not whence I come, so I know not whither I go. I know only
that, in leaving this world, I fall for ever either into annihilation
or into the hands of an angry God, without knowing to which of these
two states I shall be for ever assigned. Such is my state, full of
weakness and uncertainty. And from all this I conclude that I ought to
spend all the days of my life without caring to inquire into what must
happen to me. Perhaps I might find some solution to my doubts, but I
will not take the trouble, nor take a step to seek it; and after
treating with scorn those who are concerned with this care, I will go
without foresight and without fear to try the great event, and let
myself be led carelessly to death, uncertain of the e
