BOOKS.
BLAISE PASCAL.* BLAISE PASCAL was one of those rare men to whom no one will re- fuse the often-misapplied title of genius ; for an inborn original faculty, a constitutional creative power, distinguished him from his earliest years. He has been called the Boy Euclid. It may almost be said of him, though in a different sense from that pri- marily intended, " he lisped in numbers and the numbers came." Of an inquisitive spirit he seems, even as a child, to have been dissatisfied with mere surface knowledge, always demanding " the reason of every thing." The special and paramount direction of his genius was mathematical. His father, Etienne Pascal, anxious that his son's attention should be exclusively given to the study of the dead languages, removed from him all geometrical works, and even abstained from conversation of a mathematical character when the boy was present. In his twelfth year, unaided by either books or instructors, Blaise began to describe geometri- cal diagrams on the floor of his room. Convinced, we presume, of the reality of his son's genius, Etienne, himself an able mathe- matician, ceased to oppose its cultivation. That genius now rapidly and powerfully developed itself. At sixteen Blaise pro- duced a treatise on Conic Sections, which extorted the admiration of Descartes ; in his nineteenth year he invented an arithmetical machine, of which Mr. Babble's contrivance has been described as " a mere revival and amplification." His arithmetical triangle, which partially accomplishes the purpose of the binomial theo- rem, followed about twelve years later. His successful solution in later life of some problems relating to the cycloid placed him at the head of all the geometers of Europe. In 1654 he con- tributed to the development of the Calculation of Chances ; three years before the celebrated work of Huyghens appeared. His re- searches in physical science are not less remarkable. At the age of twenty-four he instituted that famous experiment on the weight of the atmosphere which annihilated the metaphysical conception of Nature's repugnance to a vacuum, and confirmed the truth of Toricelli's idea that the ascent of water in a pump is really dependent on atmospheric pressure. Galileo's sportive suggestion " that Nature's abhorrence of a vacuum extended to the height of thirty-two feet ; but beyond that her disinclination to an empty space was not carried," ceased to be longer avail- able. A little book published in 1647, entitled "New Experiments respecting a Vacuum," and two essays which appeared after his death "On the Equilibrium of Liquids" and "On the Weight of the Atmosphere," furnish a record of his researches and specula- tions in this department of science.
Pascal was as distinguished for his piety as for his talents ; devoting himself to religious contemplation from his twenty-fifth year. His book of " Thoughts" attests the fervour and depth of his theological convictions. It was a posthumous publication. His sarcastic wit and ratiocinative power have been highly eulo- gized. Pascal adopted the opinions of the Jansenists, and, under the name of Louis de Montalto, he assailed their opponents the Jesuits, with an unsparing and triumphant ridicule. With all his keen intellect and scientific tendencies Pascal is said to have enjoyed no immunity from those "fears of the great and follies of the wise," to which so many notable men have been subject. His constitution was delicate ; he suffered constantly from ill health ; he became ascetic and even fanatical. Prematurely old, Blaise Pascal, celebrated for his scientific discoveries and renowned for his severe and lucid eloquence, died at Paris in 1662, aged thirty-nine.
Any attempt to reveal the inward life of so remarkable a man must be welcome to all who sympathize with what is rare in in- tellect, beautiful in sentiment, or noble in character. Such an attempt has been made by Vinet, the " Swiss Chalmers " ; his studies, however, on Pascal being intended mainly to elucidate his moral and religious nature, and to present and criticize his theological and ethical principles. M. Vinet's work, which is a posthumous publication, is in the strict sense of the word a com- position, consisting of a part of a course of lectures on the French Moralists, given at Basle in 1832-33 ; of an excerpt from a second course of lectures on the Literature of the Seventeenth Century, delivered before the Academy of Lausanne ; of a review of two works on the Life and.Writings of Jacqueline Pascal ; of a frag- ment dictated by Vinet on his death-bed (1847), and published in the Semeur ; and of a reprint of three articles which appeared in the same periodical about four years previously to his death. Something of repetition and literary incompleteness must neces- sarily attach to a work of such a composite character. The transla- tion apparently is forcible and faithful. The author acknowledges
Studies on Pascal. By the late Alexander Vinet. D.D., &c. Translated from he French, with an Appendix of Notes, partly taken from the Writings of Lord Bacon and Dr. Chalmers. By the Rev. Thomas Smith, A.M. Published by T. and T. Clarke.
that the rendering is almost verbal ; but justifies its possibly too literal character by pleading his conviction that Vinet's mind was constitutionally so little French that nothing more seemed re- quired, " in order to make his book an English one, than to sub- stitute English words for French." M. Vinet commences his second lecture by acknowledging the obligations under which Pascal's admirers lie to M. Faugere and M. Cousin. M. Cousin affirmed that the text of these "immortal fragments," the " Thoughts," had been greatly corrupted. The first editors are accused of suppressing, adding, transposing, dividing, and com- bining, with a most licentious exercise of their editorial liberty. It is a rare thing to find six lines in succession exactly according with the original. manuscript. Indirectly due to M. Cousin, the puri- fied edition of the " Thoughts " is the direct work of M. Faugere, who for the sceptical and despairing Pascal of the first editors has restored to us the " real Pascal concealed at the bottom of the original text." To aid in understanding these "secret mono- logues," M. Vinet examines the attributes of Pascal, placing at the head of them that of individuality, the life and attraction of all society, as individualism is its obstacle and negation. "Certain authors," says Pascal himself, speaking of their works, " say, My book, my commentary, my history. They feel like citizens who have a ' a gable on the street,' and who have always the words
my house' in their mouths." Pascal really lies a gable on the street, and nothing hinders his saying "My thoughts." Pascal resisted the abuse of authority in the province of Science. Those whom we call the ancients, he remarks, in the Baconian style of thought and language, were in reality novices in all things, and constituted the infancy of humanity. According to Vinet, this individuality is to be regarded as a "virtue" not distinguishable from love of the truth, and showed itself in Pascal as " a passion, an imperious necessity for the True," as contrasted with the de- sire of knowledge or concrete truth. Hence his simplicity, his aversion to the hyperbolical, the inflated, and conventional. Of real eloquence he finely says that it " laughs at eloquence." Another attribute of Pascal was a sort of scepticism. " He was not a sceptic," but he doubted. He did not believe in the morality of the mind, but in the morality of the judgment, or the heart. He was indignant at the arrogance of the human reason, and what he always denied was, M. Vinet thinks, " the metaphysical proof of metaphysical truths." Sceptic, Montaigne was a sceptic on principle. Metaphysical truths, he thought, escape our reason. Yet Pascal was a Christian on conviction. How, then, did he at- tain to faith ? Ile believed that the way thither was through the heart ; thus recalling his own definition of rivers : " Rivers are travelling roads which carry us where we wish to go." In one part of his book Pascal treats of the disproportion of man with the universe, of the despair which seizes him in face of the two infinities, the affirmative infinite of Nature, the negative infinite or nothingness of man, and produces that mental state which he calls " incapacity of knowing." Behold, he exclaims, our true being. It renders us equally incapable of certain knowledge and of absolute ignorance ! Pascal maintains that man is made to know the truth ; but that when lie tries to seize it, he is so dazzled and con- founded that his possession of it is doubtful. Hence Dogmatism, strong in its internal necessity, and Pyrrhonism, strong only in the logical weakness of its rival. " We have an incapacity of proof which cannot be overcome by any dogmatism ; but we have an idea of truth which cannot be overcome by any Pyrrhonism." Yet " if reason gives reason to the Pyrrhonists, Nature confounds them ; whether we will or no, we affirm, we believe, we dogmatize." Pascal rejects Natural Religion, lie rejects Metaphysical Religion. He does not conceal his contempt for the physical proofs of the existence of the Supreme Being, with their implied consecration of an Optimist System ; while his estimate of ontological reasonings is best expressed in the admirable words of Fontenelle quoted by Vinet, in which metaphysical ideas are compared to the flame of spirit of wine, which is too subtile to set fire to wood. l'aseal is a Pessimist, not in himself, but from the point of view of the uni- verse. His Apology for Christianity is introduced by a profound study of all our miseries. The misery of man is composed of three deep and unsatisfied wants: the want of truth, the want of happiness, the want of righteousness,--yet all the miseries of man prove his greatness. They are those of a great lord, of a king de- throned. Deceived if he believe in greatness without misery ; de- graded if lie be persuaded of misery without greatness, the joint action of the two contradictories may result in "leading him in- sensibly into theology." " Despair alone does not make Christians, but despair may open the paths towards the truth." The " im- perious want of nourishment" compels us to seek it. Regarding human reason as relatively if not absolutely incapable, Pascal sends us "to the testimony of our heart enlightened by the Holy Spirit." Thus if the true religion be Pessimism, it terminates in contentment and joy.
Such is Vinet's exhibition of Pascal's theological method. It
may be called the psychological or subjective method. It accepts Christianity rather than establishes it ; it believes in its truth partly because of the real or alleged futility of all natural re- ligion and metaphysical theology, andartly from the indi- vidual experience of the °Meaty of tie Christian faith to reconcile contradistiens and satisfy the spirituel needs of man. Pascal lays little stress on external evidence. His chief if not only argument, derived from testimony, is powerless against modern unbelief, which neither regards the Apostles as "twelve men of the most exalted and chivalrous honour con- spiring to propagate a most base and blasphemous lie," nor as " twelve of the vilest hypocrites and liars exhibiting incorruptible honour during the whole of their subsequent lives '
' as the " Im- postor Hypothesis" is formulated in the Appendix to this book. The cardinal statement of Pascal is, in our view, a most valuable and significant statement, compelling the philosopher either to a recognition of that spiritual nature in man, that sublime sadness, that divine despair, that desire for perfection, and haunting sense of the Infinite, which he must interpret and satisfy, or to their elimination, or at least their mitigation and redirection, if he re- gard them as the excessive forms of more human and mundane affection.
Leaving this "great argument," we must briefly notice two other subjects in M. Vinet's book. Pascal's " Provincials" "were written in the midst of the most acute sufferings and with one foot on the threshold of the eternal world." The honesty and nobleness of the man appears throughout these renowned letters, which he wrote as " the minister of a great vengeance." Equally noteworthy are the fineness and good taste of his raillery. " There is no gaiety more fresh and more cordial than that of this melancholy man ; and this is perhaps a proof that the gift of tears and that of laughter have a secret relation." We quote one passage from Vinet, as translated by Mr. Smith :-
" He, hn ! says the father, you do not laugh any more. I confess to you, said I, that the suspicion that I wished to amuse myself with sacred things would be very painful to me, as it would be very unjust. I did not say it in earnest, answered the father ; but let us speak more seriously. I am quite disposed to that if you wish it my father; that depends on you."
Vinet has a separate chapter on " Jacqueline Pascal," the sister
of the noble-thoughted Blaine. This admirable woman, " born more than any one for command," yet, he tells us, beautifully illustrated the principle of obedience, "that blank in the modern programme of human life and social progress "; obeying peace- fully, holly, exactly, and strenuously. Her life, he continues, was that of a strong woman ; her death that of a woman. " On the faith of her brother, of the great Arnaud, of all that was illustrious at Port Royal, she took part in a transaction which they all considered honest." Her exquisite moral sense, however, detected a slight equivocation, and she died of grief. Truly a tender and a mighty soul ! M. Vinet's " Studies ' conclude with a literary critique on an essay on Pascal's " Thoughts," by M.
V. Cousin. To complete his estimate of the first editors of Pascal, it is necessary to add that, though Cousin " has restored
to this famous book all its characters of personality, yet com- mentary for commentary he prefers theirs." They were ac- quainted with the author of the book, and though not in a i literary sense, yet as regards thought, their Pascal is a true and complete Pascal.
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