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FRAGMENTS

OF AN

APOLOGY FOR CHRISTIANITY:

OR,

THOUGHTS

ON RELIGION.

GENERAL PREFACE.

THESE preliminary reflections, which bear the evident character of general preface, were, in the edition of 1670, entitled, “ Upon the indifference of Atheists:" they retained that title in the subsequent editions, up to that of Condorcet, in which they were headed, "On the necessity of investigating the proofs of the existence of a future state." In the edition of Bossut, and those that followed it, they were entitled, "On the necessity of studying religion.”

Pascal himself affixed no title to these reflections, which were evidently left by him in a less complete state than he had intended.*

It should be further stated that the fragment is not to be found in the Autograph MS.; but it has been preserved in the two copies of the same MS. It is from the text of both these MSS. that we now reproduce this fragment, which has undergone very essential alterations in the preceding editions.

There will be found at the close a very important variation, never before fully furnished, and of which, indeed, a few lines only, and those out of their proper place, have appeared in former copies. Lastly, we have affixed various notes, which have been discovered, partly in the Autograph MS., partly in the copy, and which Pascal had evidently written to accompany this general preface.

The mark, as has been before remarked in reference to the "Miscellaneous Writings," indicates the paragraphs, sentences, or parts of sentences, and titles, which are published now for the first time.

This remark applies to the whole of this volume.

As to the corrections of the text, which in this, as well as the preceding volume, are innumerable, we leave them to the curiosity of such readers as may feel an interest in tracing them. (French Editor.)

*See Note at page 14.

GENERAL PREFACE.

If

THOSE who set themselves up as opponents to religion should at least know what it is that they oppose. this religion boasted of having attained to a perfect discovery of God,—of knowing him plainly, and piercing thoroughly the veil of his perfections,-it might be an answer to say, that we see nothing in this world which reveals Him with so much distinctness. But since the religion in question, on the contrary, declares that man is surrounded by darkness, and estranged from God; that the Infinite is shrouded from their search; that the very name he gives himself, in his own word, is Deus absconditus, “a God who hideth himself;" and, lastly, since it aims equally to establish these two things,-that God has, in his Church, laid down certain marks by which he can be known of all who seek him sincerely; and yet that he so conceals himself, as to be undiscoverable to all but those who thus seek him with sincerity of heart;—what does it avail these persons to allege, while thus avowedly neglecting the means of discovering truth, that they can find nothing that reveals their Maker to them; since the very obscurity in which they are involved, and which they charge as a fault upon the Church, has only the effect of establishing the one of these positions which she herself has laid down, without affecting the other; and confirms, instead of invalidating, her evidences ?

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