IV. It is a striking fact that no Canonical author has ever made use of the phenomena of nature for proofs of the Deity: they all lay down, as a doctrine, that He is to be believed in. David, Solomon, and others, never said, "There is no vacuum; therefore there is a God." They showed, herein, more skill than the ablest of their successors, who have made use of all these arguments.

+ This is very important.*

V. If it be a mark of inaptitude to prove the existence of God from nature, acquit the Scripture of the error; if it be a mark of strength to have used a contrary method, prize Scripture the more for it.

VI. We shall never understand God aright, if we do not lay it down as a principle, that he has seen fit that some should be blind, and some should see.

VII. The God of Christians is not simply the source of geometrical truths, and of elementary order: such a Deity as this, is that of the Heathens and Epicureans. He is not merely a Being, who exercises his providential sway over the lives and destinies of men, to dispense happiness and prosperity to his worshippers: such was the object of Jewish adoration. But the God of Abraham, of Isaac, of Jacob,-the God of the Christian,-is a God of love, and of comfort. He is a God, who fills with his sacred influences those hearts of which he takes possession; one who inspires them with deep convictions, both of their own misery, and of his infinite compassion;

* This paragraph is only in the copy.

who enters into close and intimate union with the contrite soul; fills it with humility, joy, confidence, love; and renders it incapable of any other end or aim than Himself.*

VIII. Those who seek for God out of Christ, and rest in the evidences which nature furnishes, either find no solution of their enquiries, or settle down in a knowledge and service of God apart from a Mediator : thence they fall into either Atheism or Deism,—two things which the Christian religion almost equally abhors. Without Jesus Christ the world could not subsist; for it would infallibly either be destroyed, or become like a Hell!†

1

If the world subsisted only to instruct man in the knowledge of God, his divinity would be reflected on all sides with incontestable evidence. But seeing it subsists only by, and for the sake of Jesus Christ, and for the purpose of instructing men in their ruined condition and the means of their salvation, all things furnish proofs of these two great truths. They show neither an entire absence, nor a manifest presence of Deity; but the presence of a God who hides himself: this character prevails throughout all creation.

IX. Ask him who knows nature only, whether he knows her not only to his unhappiness?

Alas! that he who alone knows her, should alone be unhappy!

It is not necessary that he should see nothing; it is

not necessary that he should see enough to believe that he possesses her; but that he should see enough to know that he has lost her: for, to know that we have lost, we must see and not see; and this is precisely the very state of nature.*

X. Let me state what it is that I observe, and that disturbs me.

I look around me on all sides, and I see nothing but obscurity. Nature presents to me only matter of doubt and disquiet. If I could see in her nothing that furnished proof of a God, I should resolve to believe nothing. If I saw everywhere the traces of the Creator, I should settle down into a tranquil faith. As, however, I find in her evidence too great for denial, and too little for assurance, I feel myself embarrassed and distressed. I have wished a hundred times that, if nature be sustained by God, the marks of his hand might be more unequivocally exhibited; and that if such traces be deceitful, they might be altogether suppressed;-in short, that everything might be visible, or nothing; and thus I might know, which of these conflicting opinions ought to be embraced. In my present state, however, unknowing what I am, or what I ought to do, I can discern neither my condition nor my duty. My heart impels me earnestly to seek and to pursue the true good. Nothing would be to me too costly for Eternity.†

In the copy only.

This is evidently only intended to represent the perplexities of a mind in a state of nature, and unenlightened by Revelation; and it is one of those passages which have exposed Pascal to the shallow imputation of sceptical tendencies. (Transl.)

CHAPTER I.

+

THAT MAN, WITHOUT FAITH, CAN

KNOW NEITHER TRUE HAPPINESS

NOR RECTITUDE.

EDITORIAL NOTICE.

THE title we have given to this chapter is found in Pascal's own handwriting, at the head of a fragment which was evidently intended to form the opening of the Second Part of his great work.

At the end of this fragment, with which the first chapter commences, we have collected several pages, partly unpublished, which are dispersed promiscuously throughout the MS.; but which have an obvious connexion with this one fundamental idea,-that religion alone can give us a perfect knowledge of real happiness and true justice.

A considerable part of the reflections in this chapter are borrowed from the " 'Apologie de Raymond de Sebonde," of Montaigne. According to our usual habit, we have marked in notes, at the foot of the page, the passages so adopted by Pascal from the Author of the Essays. These appropriations, which have much interest in a literary point of view, show especially that Montaigne's writings served Pascal as a repository of worldly maxims, and a kind of history of the ancient philosophy. (French Editor.)