The Online Library of Liberty

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• Preface.
• General Introduction.
• Pascal’s Profession of Faith.  
• General Introduction.  
• Notes For the General Introduction.  
• The Misery of Man Without God Or That Nature Is Naturally Corrupt.
• Preface to the First Part.  
• Man’s Disproportion.  
• Diversion.  
• The Greatness and Littleness of Man.  
• Of the Deceptive Powers of the Imagination.  
• Of Justice Customs and Prejudices.  
• The Weakness Unrest and Defects of Man.  
• The Happiness of Man With God; Or, That the Scripture Shows a Redeemer.  
• Preface to the Second Part.
• Of the Need of Seeking Truth.
• The Philosophers.  
• Thoughts On Mahomet and On China.  
• Of the Jewish People.  
• The Authenticity of the Sacred Books.
• The Prophecies.
• Of Types In General and of Their Lawfulness.
• That the Jewish Law Was Figurative.
• Of the True Religion and Its Characteristics.
• The Excellence of the Christian Religion.
• Of Original Sin.
• The Perpetuity of the Christian Religion.
• Proofs of the Christian Religion.
• Proofs of the Divinity of Jesus Christ.
• The Mission and Greatness of Jesus Christ.
• The Mystery of Jesus.  
• Of the True Righteous Man and of the True Christian.
• The Arrangement.  
• Of Miracles In General. the Miracle of the Holy Thorn.  
• Jesuits and Jansenists.  
• Thoughts On Style.
• Various Thoughts.

THE ARRANGEMENT. 

FIRST part: Misery of man without without God.

Second part: The happiness of man with God.

Or. First part: That Nature is naturally corrupt.

Second part: That the Scripture shows a Redeemer.

The arrangement by dialogues.—What ought I to do? I see only obscurity everywhere. Shall I believe that I am nothing, shall I believe that I am God?

All things change and succeed each other.—You are mistaken; there is . . .

A letter to lead to the search after God.

And then to cause him to be sought for among the philosophers, sceptics and dogmatists, who trouble all who seek them.

To pity those atheists who seek, for are they not unhappy enough?—To rail against those who make a boast of it.

To begin by pitying unbelievers, they are miserable enough by their condition. We ought not to revile them except where it may be serviceable, but it does them harm.

The arrangement.—A letter of advice to a friend to lead him to seek, and he will answer: What is the good of seeking, since nothing comes to light.—Then to answer him: “Do not despair.”—And he will answer that he would be glad to find some light, but that according to this very Religion, thus to believe, will be of no use to him: and that therefore he would as soon not seek. And to answer to that: The machine.

The arrangement.—After the letter that we ought to seek God, to write the letter on the removal of obstacles; which is the discourse on the machine, on preparing the machine, on seeking by reason.

The letter which shows the use of proofs by the machine. Faith is different from proof; the one is human, the other the gift of God. Justus ex fide vivit. It is this faith that God himself puts into the heart, of which the proof is often the instrument, fides ex auditu; but this faith is in the heart, and makes us say not scio, but credo.

In the letter on Injustice may come the absurdity of the rule that the elder takes all. My friend, you were born on this side the mountain, it is therefore just that your elder brother should take all.

The arrangement.—Why should I take on myself to divide my moral qualities into four rather than into six? Why should I rather establish virtue in four, in two, in one? Why into Abstine et sustine rather than into Follow nature, or, Conduct your private affairs without injustice, as Plato, or anything else?

But there, you will say, is everything contained in one word. Yes, but that is useless if not explained, and when we begin to explain it, as soon as the precept is opened which contains all the others, they issue in that first confusion which you wished to avoid. Thus when they are all enclosed in one they are concealed and useless, as in a box, and never appear but in their natural confusion. Nature has established them all without enclosing one in the other.

The arrangement.—Men despise Religion, they hate it, and fear it may be true. To cure this we must begin by showing that Religion is not contrary to reason; then that it is venerable, to give respect for it; then to make it lovable, to make good men hope that it is true; then to show that it is true.

Venerable because it knows man well, lovable because it promises the true good.

The arrangement.—I should be far more afraid of making a mistake myself, and of finding that the Christian religion was true, than of not deceiving myself in believing it true.

The arrangement.—After corruption to say: “It is right that those who are in that state should know it, both those who are contented with it, and those who are discontented; but it is not right that all should see Redemption.”

The arrangement.—To see what is clear and indisputable in the whole state of the Jews.

To the chapter on Fundamentals must be added that on Things figurative touching the reason of types. Why Jesus Christ was foretold at his first coming, why foretold obscurely as to the manner.

A letter, on the folly of human knowledge and philosophy.

This letter before Diversion.

The arrangement.—I might well have taken this discourse in some such order as the following: To show the vanity of every state of life, 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 know it. No human science can keep it. Saint Thomas did not keep it. Mathematics keep it, but these are useless by reason of their depth.

Without examining each particular occupation it will be enough to class them under Diversion.

[P. 254.]The Arrangement. Scattered here and there in Pascal’s MS. were a number of notes concerning the plan, form, and matter of his intended treatise, many of them marked with the word “Ordre.” These are gathered together by recent editors, and some others which seem to cohere with them added, but Molinier’s arrangement, as well as that of Faugère, is necessarily somewhat arbitrary.

[P. 255, l. 9.]Justus ex fide vivit. Habac. ii. 4. Ad Rom. i. 17.

[P. 255, l. 11.]fides ex auditu. Ad Rom. x. 17.

[P. 255, l. 18.]divide my moral qualities into four. The classical division of ancient philosophy was into four: prudence, temperance, justice, magnanimity.

[P. 255, l. 20.]Abstine et sustine. The Stoic formula.