+ Let us proceed to particularize this general propo

sition

XV. We never confine ourselves to the present time. We deem the hours too slow in their progress, and eagerly anticipate futurity; or we linger in the past, as if we would seek to arrest the flight of time. Such is our improvidence, to expatiate in a future not our own, while we neglect the present, which is all that belongs to us! Such is our vanity, to look back upon that which is past and is nothing, yet allow the present (which alone is real and substantial) to glide away without care or reflection! The cause of this is, that the present is usually productive of pain. We seek to shut our eyes to it when it grieves us; when agreeable, we regret to see it pass away. We endeavour to draw comfort from hopes of futurity; flatter ourselves to regulate things which are not in our control; and speculate upon times that may never arrive.

Let every one examine his thoughts, and he will find them occupied and filled with the time past and to come. The present engages little of our attention; and the chief use we make of it is, to prepare and light up the way for futurity. The present is to the future but as means to an end. We never actually live, but hope to live ;* and thus, ever forming prospects of future happiness, it invariably follows, that the happiness is never attained.

* Orig. "Nous ne vivons jamais, mais nous espérons de vivre.”
+ The identity of Pope's sentiment with the above is striking :-
"Hope springs eternal in the human breast;

Man never is, but always to be blest." (Transl.)

CHAPTER II.

ON DECEPTIVE INFLUENCES.

(DES PUISSANCES TROMPEUSES.)

EDITORIAL NOTICE.

THE title and the heading of this chapter are given by Pascal himself in a note found at page 370 of the MS., as appears by one transcribed at the foot of the following page.

By "Puissances trompeuses," we may understand all those causes of error or deception, internal or external, which bias the reason, and disturb-in a greater or less degree-the judgment.

We consider it most conformable to Pascal's intention to include in this chapter, not only his remarks upon the imagination, and upon personal peculiarities and diseases, but also upon those prejudices which grow out of our habits, or result from the manner in which objects are presented to us, and upon self-love.

The paper upon Self-love is not found either in the autograph MS., or in the two copies. We give it as collected from the little MS. in 8vo., where it appears with the inscription, "Written by Mons. Pascal." It is found also in the Literary History of Port Royal, by Dom Clémencet. M. St. Beuve has been so obliging as to furnish us with a copy of this MS., which has never before been published.

It is probable that Pascal might have made a different arrangement of these various fragments, besides giving them a fuller development; but it is not presumptuous to suppose that he would have comprised them all under this general division. (French Editor.)

*ON DECEPTIVE INFLUENCES.

* MAN is, by the constitution of his nature, a being full of error; and this is ineffaceable, excepting by Grace. Nothing is available to keep him in the paths of truth: all things deceive him. The two main sources by which truth is conveyed to him,-reason, and sense,-besides that they are both deficient in integrity, reciprocally deceive each other. The senses abuse reason by false appearances; and the very same deceptions which they practise upon reason, are, in her turn, practised upon them again by reason. She thus takes her revenge :— the passions of the mind disturb the senses, and make false impressions upon them; they emulate each other in falsehood and deception. †

But besides these errors which result from accident and from want of intelligence, with these heterogeneous powers +

I. This is the deceptive province of man's mind, the fruitful source of error and falsehood; and it is the more treacherous, inasmuch as it is not uniformly and

* In the margin is written, "Here will begin the chapter on Deceptive Influences."

Montaigne says, "Ceste mesme piperie que les sons apportent à nostre entendement, ils la reçoivent à leur tour; nostre âme par fois s'en revanche de mesme : ils mentent et se trompent à l'envy.”—Essays, Book ii., chap. 42. This sentence is imperfect, and almost illegible.