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3 1822 01964 8724

t[iij*[iijt[iijt[iiji[iijiliijt[iijt[i2t[iijti!ijt

Pascal's Pensees

or^Thoughts on
Religion
TRANSLATED & EDITED BY
GERTRUDE BURFURD
RAWLINGS

The Peter Pauper Press

MOUNT VERNON
NEW YORK

Introductory
LAisE Pascal

was born

Note

in 1623 in Clermont, France;

His father was a

of superior rank and talents, and

died in 1662, at tliirty-nine.

and
government

official

acted as his son's teacher.

His pupil was amazingly precocious. It is said that the

study of mathematics might engross
the boy's mind too much, kept all mathematical books
father, fearing the

out of his reach; but that the boy, tantalized by the forbidden subject, and learning something of what it was
all

about,

worked out geometry

32 nd proposition of Euclid's

for himself as far as the

second book -at the age of

twelve!

However

true this story

we do know

may be

for Pascal at twelve,

for a certainty that at sixteen or seventeen

he had written a work on conic sections, and by eighteen

had invented the first calculating machine. By nineteen,
as a result of

overwork

in carrying

this machine, his health broke

abandonment of further

out the making of

forced his

down and

intellectual concentration at

such white heat.

For eleven or twelve years thereafter Pascal lived a

life of pleasure and society, with science neither neglected nor predominant. During this period, just before
his celebrated experiments in 1646 with atmospheric
pressure, his entire family came under the influence of
two members of the Jansenist school of the Church. The
Jansenists believed in absolute predestination, in the
plete sinfulness of man's nature, in

com-

redemption only

through the action of divine grace, and in the necessity

of complete unreasoning fai.th. Pascal's younger sister
wished to be, and finally became, a member of the Jansenist community at Port-Royal in Paris, and Blaise himself, partly through her influence, and partly for more
personal reasons, came further and further under the

magnetism of their rigorous mystical doctrine.

His reading of Montaigne and Epictetus had
unsatisfied in philosophy; his v/eakness of

left him
body concen-

trated his emphasis

made

his

on the

"conversion"

all

spirit; his

the

more

natural intensity-

violent. In 1653 or

urged on by a seemingly-miraculous cure of a

relative, and by a nearly-fatal accident to himself, Pascal
became a regular visitor to the Port-Royal community.
1654,

Although he never formally became a member of the

order, he conducted himself like a member, working
with them and becoming (anonymously) their chief
protagonist and apologist in their wordy battle with the
Jesuits then raging.

Pascal

became

extreme in abnegation and

as

chastisement in his religious

in mathematical study.

life as

self-

he had been extreme

He gave all his money to charity;

he forbade in himself, and objected to in others, the most

harmless enjoyments; and spared himself no kind of mortification,

pain or deprivation.

sharpened points, and struck

ever he felt in himself any

He even wore a

his

thrill

elbow against

belt
it

with

when-

of vanity or pleasure.

along with some final

and experiments, he worked on his
projected Apology for Christianity the notes for which,

During the

last

years of his

life,

scientific writings

never completed, are

now known

as the

Pensees or

These notes were made in the

intervals of painful and prostrating illness, and were
never even arranged by him in a planned sequence.
Some early editors tried their own hand at a reasonThoughts

072

Religion.

able arrangement; but later editors have preferred to

revert to the original uncollated order, and the present

edition follows the later editors.

incomplete because

it is

The

present text

is

unnecessary to reproduce in a

reading edition the entire text of the Thoughts. Minute

and almost meaningless fragments, Scriptural summaries,

and polemical passages bearing on theological controversies long ended, are omitted, together with

some other

pieces of limited value or interest.

Those passages here printed in brackets had been

thrown away, by Pascal himself,
but have seemed worthy of preservation by his editors.

crossed out, but not

PASCAL'S

PENSEES

Pascal's Pensees or,

thoughts on religion
an's inward conflict between reason and the passions. Had he reason only, without passions
but having
had he passions only, without reason
both, he must always be at war, since only by combating
the other can he be at peace with the one: thus he is

M'

always divided against himself.

On beholding the blindness and misery of man, on see-

dumb, and man without light, left to

were astray in this corner of the universe, knowing not who has set him here, what he is here
for, or what will become of him when he dies, incapable

ing

all

the universe

himself,

and

as it

knowledge, I begin to be afraid, as a man who has

been carried while asleep to a fearful desert island, and
who will wake not knowing where he is and without any
means of quitting the island. And thus I marvel that
of

all

people are not seized with despair at such a miserable

condition. I see about me other persons of similar nature:

them if they are better informed than I; they tell

me "No"; and these miserable wanderers, having looked
around them and seen some pleasing objects, have devoted themselves to these and become attached to them.
For myself, I have not been able to become attached to
them, and considering how much show and how little
else there is in what I see, I have tried to find whether
this God should not have left some mark of Himself.
I see a number of religions conflicting, and therefore
all false but one. Each would be believed on its own
authority, and threatens unbelievers. Therefore on that

ask

account
call

itself

distrust

them: each can speak

prophet. But

so,

each can

see the Christian religion,

wherein are prophecies, and it

cannot make.

is

these that every religion

body, where she finds number,

time, dimension. She reasons upon these things, and calls
them "nature," "necessity," and cannot believe in anyC The soul

thing

cast into the

is

else.

The

unit, joined to the infinite,

any more than

increase

a foot

The

it.

added to an

does not increase

infinite

finite is annihilated in

the infinite, and becomes as though

it

it,

measure can

the presence of

were not.

So our mind before God; so our righteousness before

divine righteousness. There is more disproportion between our righteousness and God's, than between the
unit and the infinite. God's justice must needs be as
wide as His mercy, but towards reprobates His justice
is not so wide, and should offend less than His mercy
towards the

We

elect.

know

rant of

its

that there

is

an

infinite,

nature: for example,

and

we know

we

are igno-

it is

not true

numbers may be brought to an end, therefore, it is

true that there is an infinity of number, but we do not
know what that infinity is; it is wrong to say that it is

that

even,

it is

wrong

to say that

it is

uneven, for adding the

it is a number, and
uneven or even (it is true that
this is understood of all finite numbers). Thus we can
indeed know that there is a God, without knowing
what He is.

unit does not change

every number

Is

is

its

nature; yet

either

there not a substantial truth, seeing that so

many

things are true and yet not that same truth?

We
finite,

We

know,

then, the existence and the nature of the

because, like

are

it,

we

are finite and have extension.

aware of the existence of the

ignorant of

its

but, unlike us,

nature, because, like us,

it

has no limits. But

infinite,
it

and are

has extension,

we know

neither the

God, because He has neither

yet by faith we know His exis-

existence nor the nature of

extension nor limits,

we

tence,

and through glory

now

have already shown that

know His nature:

we may truly be aware

shall

of the existence of a thing, without

Let us speak
is

God,

now

knowing

according to natural

its

nature.

lights. If

there

He is infinitely incomprehensible, since, having

He has no correspondence with

we are therefore incapable of knowing what He is,
or if He is. That being so, who will dare to undertake
to determine this question? Not we, who have no corresneither parts nor limits,

us;

pondence with Him.

Who then shall blame Christians, who profess a religion for which they cannot give reasons, for being
unable to give reasons for their belief?
setting

forth to the world, that

it

it

They
is

declare, in

a foohshness,

and then you complain that they cannot

it, they would belie their words;
the lack of proofs which shows that they do not

^^stultitiam,^^

prove
it is

it!

If

they proved

want understanding.

who

"Yes; but although that excuses those

ward

their belief in

blame for offering

those

who

accept

Let us examine
or

He

is

game

without proof,

it

is

it

does not excuse

it."

and

this point, then,

not." But to

cannot determine

put for-

such a manner, and frees them from

it:

which

there

is

being played far

let

side shall

an infinite

down

us say

we

"God is,

Reason
gulf between us.
lean?

that infinite distance,

and it will be either cross or pile: which will you wager?

According to reason, you can do neither the one nor the
other; according to reason, you cannot uphold either.
Therefore do not blame the error of those who have
made a choice, for you do not know anything about it.
"No, but I will blame them for having made, not this
choice, but any choice; for although he who takes cross
and he who takes pile are equally wrong, still they are
both in fault: the proper thing is not to wager."
Yes, but you must wager. It is not optional: you are
committed to it. Which, then, will you take? Let us see.
Since you have to choose, let us see which concerns you
the least. You have two things to lose, the true and the
good, and two things to stake, your reason and your
will, your knowledge and your blessedness; and your
nature has two things to avoid: error and misery. Since
you must of necessity make a choice, your reason is
not more offended by choosing the one than by choosing the other. There is one point settled. But your bless-

edness? Let us

weigh the gain and the

God

cross that

is.

Let us consider these

you win, you win

all;

wager, therefore, that

"That
I

is

stake too

Let us

if

you

you

lose,

by taking
two things:

loss,

as
if

lose nothing:

He is, without hesitating.

wonderful. Yes,

must wager: but perhaps

much?

see.

Since there

equal risk of gain and

is

loss, if

you might yet

would have to
three
to
win
you
there
wager. But were
and
you would be
play (since you are bound to play),
you had only

to

win two

lives for one,

imprudent, being forced to play, not to risk your

for three, in a
loss

game where

and gain. But here

is

there

is

life

an equal chance of

an infinity of

life

and happiness.

And that being so, if there were an infinity of chances of

which only one would be

for you,

you would

still

be

right in staking one in order to have two, and being

you would do foolishly to refuse to

stake one life against three at a game where, of an infinite
number of chances, one is for you, were there an infinit)''
of infinitely happy life to be gained. But here is an infinity of infinitely happy life to be gained, one chance of
gain against a finite number of chances of loss, and that
which you risk is finite. That is quite plain: wherever the
obliged to play,

infinite

is

concerned, and wherever there

is

not an infin-

no room
And so, when one is
forced to play, reason must be set aside in order to keep
life rather than risk it for the infinite gain which is as
ity of risk of loss against that of gain, there

for hesitation,

you must

give

is

all.

likely as the loss of nothing.

For it is useless to say that it is uncertain that we shall

and certain that we run a risk; and that the infinite
distance between the certainty of what is ventured,
and the uncertainty of what will be gained, makes the
finite good, which is ventured for certain, equal to the
infinite good, which is uncertain. That is not so, as every
player risks certainly to gain uncertainly, and neverthe-

gain,

less

he

risks the finite certainly to gain the finite

tainly without offending reason. It

is

uncer-

false that there is

an infinite distance between the certainty of what

ventured and the uncertainty of gain. Truly, there
lO

is
is

between the certainty of gain and the certainty

But the uncertainty of winning is proportionate
to the certainty of what is risked, according to the proportion of chances of gain and loss. And so it happens
that if there is as much chance on one side as on the
other the game is even, and then the certainty of what is
ventured is equal to the uncertainty of gain, so far from
being infinitely distant from it. And thus our proportion
is of unbounded force in a game where the risks of gain
and loss are equal, and where we have the finite to
venture and the infinite to win. That is conclusive, and
if men are capable of any truths at all, that is one.
"I confess it, I grant it. But is there no way of seeing
through the game.^"
Yes, the Scripture, and the remains, etc.
"Yes, but my hands are tied, and my lips are speechless; I am forced to wager, and I am not free; I am not
set at liberty; and I am so constituted that I cannot
believe. What, then, would you have me do?
True. But at least learn your powerlessness to believe,
seeing that although reason prompts you to believe, you
nevertheless cannot do so; endeavour, therefore, not to
convince yourself by heaping up proofs of God, but by
reducing your passions. You would make for faith, and
you do not know the way; you would cure yourself of
infidelity, and you ask its remedy: learn of those who
have been bound like you, and who now wager all they
infinity

of

loss.

have; these are they

follow, and

who

who know

the

way you wish

to

malady of which you

they began: it was by

are cured of the

wish to be cured. Observe how

doing all as if they believed, by taking holy water, by
causing masses to be said, etc.; naturally that will make
you, too, believe, and will abase you.

"But that is what I

am afraid of."

But to show
And why? What have you to lose?
you what that means it will reduce your passions, which
Now what harm will
are your great hindrances.
come to you by taking this course? You will be faithful,
.

honest, humble, grateful, benevolent, a sincere and true

friend. Truly,

you

will not be
II

amid tainted

pleasures,

you not have others? I tell you

that in this life you will gain by it, and that at each step
you take on this road you will perceive such certainty
of gain, and see so well the nothingness of what you are
risking, that at the end you will know that you have
glory, delights, but will

wagered for something certain, something infinite, for

which you have given nothing.
"Oh! this discourse enraptures, charms me," etc.
If this discourse pleases you, and appears to you able,
know that it is that of a man who went on his knees
both before it and after it, to pray this Infinite and
Indivisible Being, to whom he surrenders his whole self,
to subdue yours also, for your own good and His glory,
and that so the strength

C We

may

agree with this baseness.

under great obligation to those who warn us

they mortify. They apprise us that we have
been mistaken; they do not prevent our being so again,
for we have too many other faults for that, but they
prepare the exercise for correction and the exemption
of

are

faults, for

of one fault.

C The only science opposed to common sense and human

nature is the only one which has always existed among
men.

C Think you
infinite

with

it is

"Yes."

indivisible?

and

impossible that

Then

indivisible;

it is

infinite speed, for

it is

God

be

infinite

and

show you something

point moving everywhere

will

one

in all places,

and entire

in each part.

Let

this

performance of nature, which

just

now

ap-

peared to you impossible, teach you that there can be

many others with which you are not yet acquainted. Do

not conclude from your apprenticeship that nothing is
left for

you

to

you to know, but

know.

that there

is

an infinity

left for

C The heart has reasons unknown to reason; we know

in a

thousand things.

it

aver that the heart naturally loves

the universal being, and naturally loves

12

itself,

according

as

devotes

it

itself

You
by

itself

and

to one or the other;

against one or the other according to

it

hardens

its

choice.

have rejected the one and held to the other:

is it

reason that you love yourself?

CIt

the heart which

is

reason. This

is

is

conscious of God, not the

faith, God evident to the heart and not

to the reason.

C That
wish it
partial,

we
is

are

worthy

unjust. If

by

to be loved

we were born

others

is

false; to

reasonable and im-

understanding ourselves and others, we would

are born, however, with

not direct our will thus.

We

this disposition, therefore

we

are

born unjust, for every

one inclines towards himself. This is against all order:

we should incline to the commonweal, and the leaning
towards self is the beginning of every disorder in war,
in politics, in economy, in the individual human body.

The will, then,

is

depraved.

members of natural and civil communities incline to the good of the body, the communities themselves should incline towards another and more general
body, of which they are members. We should incline,
If the

then, to the general. Therefore

we

are

born unjust and

depraved.

No

religion but ours has taught that

man

no sect of philosophers has affirmed

none has spoken the truth.

sin;

No

it,

is

born

in

therefore

sect or religion except the Christian religion has

always existed in the world.

C The most important thing in the whole of life is the

choice of a vocation. Chance disposes it. Custom makes
masons, soldiers, tilers. "That is an excellent tiler," they
say; and in speaking of soldiers, "They are perfect fools";
and others say just the opposite, "There is nothing great
but war;

all

other

men

are knaves."

We

choose these

we have heard
we naturally
these two words stir us; we err

professions because in our childhood

them

praised and others disparaged, for

love truth and hate folly;

only in their application. So great

13

is

the force of custom,

that out of those

fashioned

all

whom nature has made simply men, are

sorts of

masons, others

men; for some

Without doubt nature

custom which does

all soldiers, etc.

not so uniform. Therefore

is

districts are all

it is

for it constrains nature; though sometimes nature

overcomes custom, and keeps man in his instinct in spite

this,

of

all

custom, good or bad.

C Man

plainly made to think; it is his whole dignity

whole merit; and his whole duty is to think
rightly; and his order of thought is to begin with himself, his author, and hi3 end. But of what thinks the
world? Never of these things, but of dancing, of playing

and

is

his

the lute, of singing, of turning verses, of tilting at the

ring, etc., of fighting, of

thought of what
a

it is

making

itself

king, without

to be a king, and

what

it is

any

to be

man.

God, we must love Him alone, and not

The argument of the impious, in
Wisdom, is founded only on the supposition that there
is no God. "That being granted," they say, "let us enjoy
the creatures." That is the last shift. But if there were
a God to love, they would not have drawn that conC

If there is a

transient creatures.

clusion but quite the opposite.

And

this

is

the conclu-

"There is a God, therefore let us not

enjoy the creatures." So all that incites us to attach ourselves to the creature is evil, since it hinders us from
serving God if we know Him, and from seeking Him if
we know Him not. But we are full of concupiscence;
therefore we are full of evil; therefore we ought to hate
ourselves, and everything which prompts us to any

sion of the wise:

attachment save to

God alone.

C The principles of the pyrrhonians, stoics, atheists, etc.,

are all true. But their conclusions are false, because the
contrary principles are true

Man

fil

is

them

say.

But

also.

of wants: he loves only those who can ful"This is a good mathematician," they will
have no need of mathematics: he would take

full
all.

me for a proposition.

"This

is

14

good

soldier."

He would

me for a besieged place. I want, then, a worthyman who can adapt himself to all my needs generally.

take

C A true

friend

is

so advantageous, even to the greatest

lords (provided that he speak

them

good of them and uphold

in their absence as well), that

they should do

all

they can to possess one. But let them make a wise choice,
for if they exert themselves for fools, it will avail them
nothing, whatever good these speak of them; and, moreover, these will not speak good of them if they find
themselves in a minority, having no authority; and thus
they will slander them because their company does

so.

C He who hates not the

instinct which leads him

very

self-love within him,

to

make

himself

God,

and the
is

Who

does not see that nothing is so opposed to

and truth? For that we are worthy to be God is
false, and to attain to it is wrong and out of the question,
since all are asking for the same thing. It is therefore a
manifest injustice inherent in us, and from which we
cannot free ourselves, and nevertheless must be quit of.
Yet no religion has marked that this is a sin, or that
we were born in it, or that we are bound to resist it, or
blind.

justice

taken care to give us the remedies for

it.

C That which disqualifies us for comparing what formerly happened in the Church with what we find there
now, is that St. Athanasius, St. Theresa, and others are
generally thought of as crowned with glory and dealing
with us as if they were gods. Now that time has thrown
a halo round things, that appears to be the case. But in
the days when he was persecuted, this great saint was
a man called Athanasius, and St. Theresa was a girl.
Elias was a man like oiurselves, and subject to the same
passions as

we

are, says St.

Christians of the false idea

example of the
saints,"
St.

we

say;

saints as

James, in order to disabuse

which makes us

being beyond

"They were not

Athanasius was a

man

us.

like us."

reject the

"They were

What

then?

called Athanasius, accused of

many crimes, condemned by such-and-such a council for

,

15

such-and-such a crime,

the bishops, and finally the

all

Pope, consenting thereto. What was said of them who

That they disturbed the peace, that they

resisted these?

caused schism,

etc.

Four sorts of persons:

zeal without

knowledge; knowl-

edge without zeal; neither knowledge nor zeal, and zeal

and knowledge. The three first condemn it, and the last
absolve it and are excommunicated by the Church, and
nevertheless save the Church.

A portrait carries with

it

absence and presence, pleas-

ure and displeasure; the reality shuts out absence and

displeasure.

C There

are three

inspiration.

The

means of

belief: reason,

Christian religion,

custom, and

which alone has

son, does not admit as her true children those

rea-

who

believe without inspiration; not that she excludes reason

and custom, on the contrary, but they must open their

minds to proofs and confirm themselves in them by
custom, and yield themselves through humiliations to
inspiration, which alone can have true and salutary
effect:

"Ne evacuetur crux Christi.''

two ways of convincing people of the truths

of our religion: the one by the force of reason, the
other by the authority of him who speaks.
We use the first, not the last. We do not say, "That
must be believed, for the Scripture which asserts it is
C There

are

divine," but "It

must be believed for such-and-such

reason,"which are weak arguments, reason being adaptable to everything.

C We never rest in the present. We anticipate the future

though it were too slow, and as if to hasten it; or we
recall the past, to delay it, as though it were too fleeting:
so imprudent are we, that we dally in times which are
not our own, thinking not of the only time which belongs to us; and so vain, that we dream of those that are
no more, and let the only one which is, escape without
as

a thought. It

is

because, as a rule, the present displeases

i6

We hide

from

and lament to
it by means
of the future, and think to dispose things which are
not in our hands for a time at which we have no certainty
us.

see

it

pass

it

if it is

sight

vexatious,

if it is

We try to hold

agreeable.

of arriving.

-_

Let each examine his thoughts, and he will find them

constantly occupied with the past and the future.

We

scarcely think of the present at

of

it, it is

The

only to draw from

present

is

it

but are always hoping to

never

shall

if

we do

think

guidance for the future.

is

paring ourselves to be happy,

we

and,

never our aim, and while

are our means, the future alone

live,

all,

it and the past

our end. Thus we never

live,
it is

and, constantly pre-

beyond doubt

that
'^

be happy.

C What vanity
its

is painting, which attracts admiration by

resemblance to things whose originals we do not

admire!

C Such

is

the sweetness of glory that we love whatsoever

object to which

it is

attached, even death.

C Caesar was too old, it seems to me, to go about amusby conquering the world. This amusement
was good for Augustus or Alexander, they were young
men, and young men are difficult to restrain, but Caesar
ought to have been more mature.

ing himself

C Whoso sees not the vanity of the world is himself

very vain. And who does not see it, except young people
who are occupied with bustle and diversion, and the
thought of the future? But deprive them of their diversion, and you will see them pine away with ennui; they
then feel their nothingness without being aware of it;
for to be made intolerably wretched as soon as one
is reduced to unalleviated self-contemplation is to be
unhappy indeed.
C

Men occupy

it is

the

themselves

by pursuing

amusement even of

kings.

17

a ball or a hare;


CToo much and too little wine: give him none, and he
cannot find truth; give him too much, and it is the same.
C

"Why do you kill me?" "What, do you not live on the

other side of the water?

side, I

should be an

you

kill

My friend,

assassin,

thus; but since

and

it

if you live on this

would be wrong to

you live on the other side,

am a

brave man, and it is a lawful act."

C If we read too quickly or too slowly we understand

nothing.

C Of how many kingdoms do we know nothing!

CA

thing consoles us, because a Httle thing dis-

little

tresses us.

C Begin by pitying the unbelievers: their condition

makes them unhappy enough. They should not be
abused, unless that serves a good purpose; but it does

harm to them.
C The impious, who
be exceptionally

"Do we not

they say?

dying

profess to follow reason, ought to

skilful in

like

argument. What, then, do

and

see," say they, "beasts living

men, and Turks

like Christians?

They have

their ceremonies, prophets, doctors, saints, religions, like

us," etc. Is that contrary to Scripture?

us

If
it

Does

not

it

tell

that?

all

you

care

to leave

little

to

know the truth,

here

is

enough of

you in peace. But if you desire to know it with

your

heart, this is not sufficient, look at the circumThis will be enough for a question of philosophy; but here, where everything is concerned
And

all

stances.

thought of this kind they will amuse

Let them inquire into this religion, even

yet, after a passing

themselves, etc.
if it

does not give the reason of this obscurity:

it

may

be that it will teach it us.

C Faith
is

from proof: the one is human, the other

from God. "Justus ex fide vivit.^^ It is of this
which God himself instils into the heart, that the
differs

a gift

faith,

proof
faith

often the instrument;

is

'''fides

ex auditu"; but this

within the heart, and makes us say not

is

'"'Scio^

but "Credo:'

CWe

run heedlessly into the precipice after setting

something in front of us to hinder our seeing it.

Man

is

not worthy of God; but he

being made worthy of Him.

It is

Himself to miserable man, but

take man out of his misery.

Men

To remedy

this, it is

showing that religion

is

worthy of reverence, so
we must make it lovely,
it

not incapable of

it,

God

to attach

Him to

not beneath

it is

scorn reUgion; they hate

be true.

is

beneath

and fear that

it

may

necessary to begin

by

not contrary to reason, but

as to inspire respect for

so that the

it;

good may wish

next
that

might be true; and then show that it is true.

Worthy of reverence, because it has a deep knowledge

of man.

Worthy

of love, because

it

promises the true good.

C If Jesus Christ had come only to sanctify, the whole

of Scripture and everything would point to it, and it
would be easy to convince the unbelievers; if Jesus

come only to make blind, all his conduct

would be confused, and we should have had no means
of convincing unbeHevers. But, as He has come "in
sanctificationem et in scandalum^ as saith Isaiah, we
Christ had

cannot convince the unbeHevers, and they cannot conus, but, even thus, we do convince them, since
we say that His conduct carries no conviction on either
vince

side.

CWhen
false, it is

the

word of God, which

is

true,

true in spirit, as "Sede a dextris

false in the letter,

but true in

spirit.

is

literally

meis^ which

is

In these expressions

God is spoken of humanly,

the purpose which
right hand,

men

and they signify merely that

have in seating any one at their

God has also.

It is

therefore a

purpose, not of His manner of executing

it

says,

"God

mark of God's
it.

Thus,

when

has accepted the odour of your perfumes,

19

and will give you in recompense a fruitful land," it

means that the same purpose that a man who accepts
your perfumes would have in giving you a fruitful land
in recompense, God will have towards you, because you
have the same intention towards Him that a man has
towards one to
est,''

whom he

"Jealous God,"

plicable,

to-day

Thus

God

^^Iratus

being inex-

they cannot be called otherwise, and the Church

still

CTwo

offers perfumes.

for the things of

uses them. ^'Qiiia confortavit seras,'^ etc.

errors first, to take everything

literally; sec-

ondly, to take everything spiritually.

C There are some who see plainly that man's only enemy
is lust, which diverts him from God, and not God, nor
any other good but God, and not a fruitful land. Those
who believe that good is in the flesh, and evil in that
which diverts man from sensual pleasures, let them take
their fill of them, and die thereof.
But those who seek God with all their hearts, those
who are unhappy only when he is out of their sight,
those who have no desire but to possess Him, and who
are enemies of those who would turn them from Him,
those who sorrow to see themselves encompassed and
dominated by such foes, let them comfort themselves; I
bring them good tidings, there is a Deliverer for them.
I

will

show Him

to them.

will

have a God, but to the others

show them that they

show Him. I

will not

show that a Messiah has been promised, who should

them from their enemies, and that He has come
deliver them, not from their enemies, but from their

will

deliver

to

sins.

When David foretold that the Messiah should

deliver

His people from their enemies, it might carnally be believed that he meant from the Egyptians, and then I
should not know how to show that the prophecy is
accomplished. But it may well be that he means from
sins, for in truth the Egyptians are not enemies, but sins
are.

The word

is ambiguous. But if
he does, with Isaiah and others,
deliver His people from their sins, the un-

enemies, therefore,

he says elsewhere,
that

He

shall

as

20

is removed, and the double sense of "enemies"

reduced to the simple sense of "sins"; for if he had
sins in his mind, he might very well express them as
enemies, while if he were thinking of enemies, he could
not call them sins.
And Moses, David, and Isaiah also employ these terms.
Who, therefore, shall say that they have not the same
sense, and that David's meaning when he speaks of
enemies, which is evidently that of sins, was not the

certainty

is

same

as that of

Moses when speaking of enemies? Daniel

prays for the deliverance of the people from captivity

under their enemies, but he was thinking of sins, and, to

prove it, he says that Gabriel came to tell him that his
prayer was heard, and that he had but seventy weeks to

which the people would be delivered from

and an end be made of sin; and the Deliverer,
the Holy of the holy ones, should bring in everlasting

wait, after
iniquity,

righteousness, not of the law, but eternal.

C As soon

as the secret

of figures

is

once disclosed,

it is

Read the Old Testament in this

light, and see whether the sacrifices were real, if kinship
with Abraham were the true cause of God's favour, if
the promised land were the true place of repose. No.
Therefore these were figures.
Let all ordained ceremonies, all commandments, which
impossible not to see

it.

are not towards charity, be looked at in this

it

will be seen that they are

way, and

types.

its

All these sacrifices and ceremonies, therefore, were

either figures or foolishness.

things

which

C Those who

But there are some plain

are too high to be accounted foolishness.

find

it

difficult to believe, in

reason for the disbelief of the Jews, say, "If

why

did they not believe?"

And

it

seeking a

was

clear,

they almost wish that

they might believe, so as not to be influenced by the

example of their refusal. But it is this very refusal which
is

the foundation of our belief.

clined to

it

were our

more ample

We should be less inWe should then have

belief theirs.

pretext. It

is

wonderful to have made the

21

Jews such lovers of the things foretold, and such enemies

of their fulfilment!

C The world in general has the faculty of not considering things which it does not wish to consider. "Think
not on the passages concerning the Messiah," said the
Jew to his son. Ours frequently do so. Thus false religions, and even the true one, are preserved in regard
to many people. But there are some who are not able to
keep themselves from thinking, and the more they are
forbidden, the more they think. Such forsake the false
religions and even the true one, if they do not find
sound discourses.

"I should

had

faith."

have soon quitted pleasures," they say, "if I

And I say to you, "You would soon have

it is for you to
would give you faith, and thus prove
the truth of what you say. But I cannot. But you can
indeed quit the pleasures, and prove if what I tell you

faith

had you quitted pleasures." Thus

begin. If

is

could

true.

C It

is

vain to say, "It must be acknowledged that the

Christian religion

is

marvellous! " "It

is

because you have

been born in it," they will tell you. So far from that, I
harden myself against it for this very reason, for fear
that it will bias me; but, although I be born in it, I do not
cease to find it marvellous.

C Scripture

has provided for the consolation of all conmen, and for the intimidation of all conditions
of men. Nature seems to have done the same by her two
infinities, natural and moral, for we shall always have
high and low, more clever and less clever, more elevated
and more miserable, that our pride may be put down and
our abasement relieved.
ditions of

C Isaiah vi. The Red Sea, typifying the Redemption.

"C7t sciatis quod Films habet potestatem remittendi peccata, tibi dico: Surge.

''^

11

God, wishing to show that He could make a people

holy with an invisible holiness, and fill them with an
everlasting glory, has

nature

is

made some

an image of grace,

He

things plain. Since

has dealt with the bless-

He will deal with the blessings of grace,

might be manifest that He could do the
since He can certainly do the visible. He has

ings of nature as
in order that
invisible,

it

therefore saved this people from the flood, He has raised

them up from Abraham, ransomed them from their
enemies, and set them in tranquillity.
God's purpose was not to save them from the flood
and raise up a people from Abraham, merely to bring
them into a fruitful country. And likewise grace is only
the figure of glory, and not the ultimate aim. Grace was
typified by the law, and herself typifies glory; but she

once its type and its principle or cause.

Man's ordinary Ufe is like that of the saints. Both seek
satisfaction, and they differ only in the object in which
they set it. They call those who hinder them their
enemies. God therefore has shown His power to give
is

at

invisible gifts, in that

He has the power to

dispose of the

visible.

CAs

Jesus Christ remained unknown among men, so

His truth remains among common opinions, without
any external difference; and in like manner the Eucharist

among ordinary bread.

CGod would
Perfect light

dispose the will rather than the mind.

would nourish the

intellect,

and starve the

will.

CThe

atheist's

complaint, "But

we

have no light!"

What

have they to say against the resurrection, and

against the conception of the Virgin? Which is the
more difficult, to produce a man or an animal, or to re-

produce

it?

And

if

they had never seen a certain kind

of animal, could they

out the

tell

whether it was produced with-

company of the one with another?

23

i^
his highest intelligence has

C That which

taught to man,

this religion has imparted to her children.

^^
C He who says

that

man

too small to be worthy of

is

communion with God must

pass

himself be very great to

judgment on the matter.

C Pursuit of the true good: The generality of men set

happiness in fortune and external possessions, or at any
rate in diversion. Philosophers have
this,

shown the vanity of

and have set happiness where they could.

Human

nature

nothing which

nature: ''omne ajiimal.''

is all

is

not made natural; there

is

There

is

nothing

natural which cannot be got rid of.

C In

spite of the sight of all the troubles

us and hold us

which

fast,

we

which

agitate

have an irrepressible instinct

elevates us.

man as to be in a state of
without
passions,
without business, withperfect repose,
out diversion, without employment. He then feels his
nothingness, his desolation, his limitation, his dependC Nothing

is

so intolerable to

ence, his impotence, his emptiness.

the depths of his soul will

ness, chagrin, vexation,

C So obvious

who

is

And

forthwith from

weariness, gloom, sad-

despair.

the duplicity of man, that there are

have thought that

ject appearing to

tions

and

come

we have two

some

souls, a simple

sub-

them incapable of such sudden fluctua-

between an excessive presumption and

a fearful

despondency.

C Of the
is

desire to be esteemed

by those about

so naturally inherent in us, amidst

errors, etc.:

we gladly lose

people talk about

even

all

us: Pride

our troubles and

life itself,

provided that

it!

Vanity: play, chase,

visiting, false

comedies, perpetu-

name.
C Vanity is so fixed in the human heart, that a soldier, a
navvy, a cook, a street-porter, plumes himself and wishes

ity of

24

to have his admirers, and even philosophers desire them;

and those

who

write against glory wish for the glory of

having written well; and those who read what is written

wish for the glory of having read it; and I who write
this

perhaps have

read

this desire,

and maybe those

who

shall

it

C Why

is

my knowledge limited or my stature or my

hundred years instead of a thousand?

What reason had nature for giving me so many, and
choosing this rather than some other number out of an
infinity from which there is no more reason to choose
one than to choose another, since one does not put itself
"^
more forward than another?
existence to a

C [Since we cannot be
be

known about

know all that is to

we must know a little of
better to know something of

universal and

everything,

everything. For

it is

everything than

all

vastly

of one thing; this universality

is

the

one could have both, so much

it must fall on the former,
and the world is conscious of it and acts accordingly
for the world is frequently a very good judge.]
the better; but

finer. If

since a choice has to be made,

[My

caprice makes

me

hate a croaker, and a person

who blows while eating. Caprice has great weight. What

we gather from this? That we should follow this
inclination because it is natural? No, but that we should

shall

resist it.]

C Source of

contradictions:

A God

humiliated even to

by His
two comings; two

the Cross; a Messiah triumphant over death

death;

two

states of

natures in Jesus Christ;

man's nature.

Who taught the Evangelists the qualities of a perfectly

heroic soul, that they were able to delineate

Why

do they make

it

so exactly

Him weak

in His
agony? Could they not describe an unfaltering death?
Yes, for the same St. Luke depicts the death of St.
Stephen as stronger than that of Jesus Christ, They

in Jesus Christ?

therefore

make Him capable

25

of fear before the necessity

to die be come, and then they make Him wholly strong.

But when they show Him so troubled, it is while He

troubles Himself;

when men

trouble

Him, He

is

per-

fectly strong.

C The

style of the

spects, and,

among

Gospels

is

marvellous in so

others, in never directing

many

re-

any invec-

tormentors and enemies of Jesus Clirist.

employed against Judas, or Pilate, or any
of the Jews, by any of the narrators.

tive against the

For none

is

Had this reserve of the evangelical historians, as well

as many other features of so lofty a nature, been assumed,
merely that

it

might be remarked upon,

ventured to remark upon

it

if

they had not

themselves, they

would not

have failed to find friends to make these remarks for

them. But as they acted thus unaffectedly, and from a
perfectly unselfish motive, they had

none.

And I

believe that

many

it

remarked by

of these things have been

it is this which
which the thing

unobserved up to the present, and that

witnesses to the disinterestedness with

was done.

C Evil
as

is

never wrought so completely and so cheerfully

when it is wrought for conscience's sake.

C As the mind becomes corrupted, so also does the judgment. The mind and the judgment are formed by conversation; the mind and the judgment are spoiled by
conversation, so that good or bad conversations either
form or spoil it. It is all-important, therefore, to know
how to discriminate, in order to form one's judgment
and not to spoil it, and the distinction cannot be made
unless the judgment is already formed and unspoiled.
Thus we have a circle, and fortunate are they who can
get out of it.

CThe
fies

infinite distance

the infinitely

mind and
All the

more

love, for love

pomp

is

above nature.

of greatness has no attraction for

of intellectual pursuits.
is

between body and mind typiinfinite distance between the

The

men

greatness of the intellectual

invisible to kings, to the rich, to captains, to all the

26

1
carnally great.

ing

if

The

not of God,

intellectual.

greatness of wisdom,

which

invisible to the carnal

is

These are three

is

noth-

and to the

different species of the

genius.

Great geniuses have their sphere of dominion, their

and have no need
of external greatness, with which they have no relation.
They are seen, not by the eye, but by the mind, and that
suffices. The saints have their sphere of dominion, their
glory, their victory, their lustre, and have no need of
carnal or intellectual greatness, with which they have no
relation, for such grandeurs as these neither add to nor
diminish their own. They are beheld by God and the
angels, and not by the eye or by the inquiring intellect.
greatness, their victory, their lustre,

God is sufficient for them.

Archimedes would be held in the same veneration,
even with no glory. He has not fought battles for the
eye, but he has supplied every intellect with his discoveries. Oh, how he has shone before the mind! Jesus
Christ, without possessions and without any outward
show of knowledge, is in His own order of sanctity. He
has given no invention. He has borne no sway; but He
was patient, meek, holy, holy before God, terrible to
evil spirits, sinless. Oh, in what great splendour and

wondrous magnificence is He come before the eyes of

the heart, which behold wisdom!
It would have been useless for Archimedes to play
the prince in his geometrical books, although he was so
indeed. It would have been useless for our Lord Jesus
Christ to introduce

pomp

appear as a king; but

He indeed came with the splendour

of His

own

order. It

is

into His reign of holiness, to

very foolish to be offended

at

were of

the lowliness of Jesus Christ, as

if this

the same order as the glory that

He came to make mani-

Let us consider

glory in His

lowliness

life. His passion.

His obscurity. His death, in the choice of His elect, in
their desertion, in His secret resurrection, and in everything we shall find it so great that we shall have no reason
to be offended by a lowliness which is not there. But
there are some who can admire only carnal glories, as

fest.

this

27

if

there were no intellectual glories, and others

mire only the intellectual,

as if

wisdom

who

did not

ad-

oflFer

others infinitely higher.

AU

and

bodies, the firmament, the stars, the earth

its

kingdoms, are not worth the smallest mind, for a mind

itself, and bodies know nothing. All
bodies together, and all minds together, and all the pro-

knows them, and

ductions of both, are not worth the least act of love, for
love

is

of an order infinitely higher.

From all
one single

bodies together

we cannot succeed in getting

httle thought:

it is

From

longs to another order.

together,
it is

we

impossible, thought be-

bodies and

all

all

minds

cannot draw one movement of true love:

impossible, for love

is

of another order, and above

nature.

C Proofs of Jesus
is

Christ:

very absurd. Let

twelve

men

it

The hypothesis of false apostles

be worked out imagine these

assembled after the death of Jesus Christ,

conspiring to say that

thereby they attack

all

He was

risen

the powers.

from the dead:

The human

heart

is

strangely inclined to triviality, change, promises, and

Had one

of these men been drawn aside

by all these attractions, and, what is more,
by persons, by tortures, and by death, they would have
been lost. Let it be worked out.

possessions.

ever so

I.

The

little

greatness and the misery of

that the true religion

man

are so evident

must of necessity teach them, and

there must be

some ruling principle both of the greatness

and of the misery. Religion, then, must account to us
for these surprising contradictions.

make man happy, religion must show him

God; that he is required to love Him; that
our real happiness is to be in Him, and our only ill to be
cut off from Him; it must recognise that we are surrounded by a darkness which hinders us from knowing
God and loving Him; and that as our duty requires us
to love God, and our lust diverts us from Him, we are
thus full of unrighteousness. It must show us the reason
for our aversion from God and our own welfare. It must
In order to

that there

is

28

teach us the remedies for our helplessness, and the means

of obtaining these remedies. Let every one examine
the religions of the world, and see

if

all

there be any other

than Christianity which can satisfy him. Can the philosophers satisfy him, who offer as the total good the things
we possess in ourselves? Is this the true good? Have they

found a remedy for our ills? Have they cured man's

presumption by making him equal with God? Those
who have compared us to beasts, and the Mahometans

who

have offered us worldly pleasures as the total good,

even in eternity, have they produced a remedy for our
concupiscence?

What

religion, then, will teach us

how

to cure pride

and lust? In short, what religion will teach us our good,

our duty, the weaknesses which turn us from them, the
cause of these weaknesses, their remedies, and the means
of procuring these remedies?
ligions

can do

it.

None

of these other re-

Let us see what the

Wisdom

of

God

can compass.
"Expect not," saith she, "either truth or consolation
from man. It is I who have made you, and who alone
can teach you what you are. But you are now no longer
in the state in

which

innocent, perfect;
standing;

made you. I created man holy,

him with light and under-

filled

showed him

my glory and my wonders, and

He was not then

which now obscures his sight, nor subject
to the mortality and wretchedness which now afflict
him. But he was not able to support such glory without
the eye of

man

beheld God's majesty.

in the darkness

falling into presumption.

to be independent of

He

desired to stand alone, and

my help. He broke away from my

control, and as he measured himself against

ing to find his happiness in his

own

being,

me by desirI

have aban-

doned him to himself, and, causing the creatures who

were once in subjection to man to revolt against him, I
have made them his enemies, so that he has now become
like to them, and so estranged from me that there remains
to him scarcely one faint glimmer of light concerning
his creator, so greatly has his understanding been extinguished or bedimmed. The senses, independent of
29

reason and often

its

masters, have carried

him away

in

search of pleasures. Every creatm^e vexes or tries him,

and dominates him either by compeUing force, or by

which is the more terrible and
more complete domination. That is the state in which

seductive gentleness

men now
some

While preserving from

are.

their first nature

feeble instinct of happiness, they are absorbed in

the miseries of their blindness, and of the lust wliich has

become their second nature.

By this principle which I put before you, you can
discover the cause of the many contradictions which
have surprised all men, and which have given rise to so

many different opinions. Mark all man's impulses towards

greatness and glory,

many

which even the experience of

miseries cannot

stifle,

and see

if

so

their mainspring

be not in another nature.

"In vain,

II.

O men,

do ye seek within yourselves the

cure for your troubles! All your knowledge can only

teach

you

that

it is

not within you that ye find the true

or the good. Philosophers have promised them to you,

and have promised what they have not been able to perform, knowing neither your true state nor your true
good. How, then, should they give remedies for diseases
which they have not known? Your chief ills are pride,
which estranges you from God, and lust, which binds
you to earth; and they have done nothing but encourage
one at least of these maladies. If they have set God
before you for an object, it has only been to exercise
your vainglory: they have made you think that you are
like Him and by nature conformable to Him. And those
who have seen the vanity of this pretension have cast

you

into the other abyss,

that

your nature

led

you

to seek

is

by

giving

you

to understand

akin to that of the beasts, and have

your good

portion of animals. This

is

in the lusts

which

are the

way

to cure

you of

not the

your unrighteousness, which these sages have never

understood.

[By me alone can these things be taught you, and to

who listen to me I impart them. The books which
have put into men's hands show them very plainly. But

those
I

30

would not have this knowledge so open. I teach men

which can make them happy: why refuse to hear
me? Seek not satisfaction in the world, hope for nothing
from men. In God alone is your good, and your sovereign happiness consists in knowing Him and living in
eternal union with Him. Your duty is to love Him with
all your heart. He has created you
"]

that

III.

Adam Jesus Christ.

you are made one with God, it is by grace, and

not by nature; if you are abased, it is by penitence, and
not by nature; hence, this double capacity
You are not in the state in which you were created.
These two states being patent, it is impossible for you
If

not to recognize them. Follow your motives, observe

yourselves, and see if you do not find there the most
salient features of both these natures. Can so many contradictions exist in one single individual?

Incomprehensible?

All

which

is

incomprehensible

does not cease to be; the infinite number, an infinite

space equal to the

finite.

God may unite Himself with us?

of contemplating our vileness.
comes
This conviction
But if you hold it sincerely, follow it out as far as I do,
and see that we are indeed so vile that of ourselves we
cannot know whether His mercy can make us capable of
Him. For I would know whence this animal, which
knows itself to be so feeble, has the right to measure the
mercy of God and to set such limits to it as its fancy
may suggest. So far from knowing what God is, man
knows not what he is himself, and, troubled by the sight
Incredible that

of his

put

own

this

condition, he dares to say that

communion within

his

power. But

God
I

cannot

would

ask

if God desires any other thing of him except that,

through knowing God, he love Him, and why he believes that God cannot make man to know and love
Him, since man is naturally capable of love and knowledge. It is beyond question that he knows that he is,

him

and that he loves something. Therefore, if he perceive

anything through the surrounding darkness, and if he
find among the things of the earth anything he can love,
31

why,
shall

the

if God gives him some ray from His own Being,

he not be capable of knowing and loving Him in

manner

that

Therefore, there

it
is

shall please

Him

to reveal to us?

assm:edly an intolerable presumption

in this kind of argument, although

it

seems founded on

an apparent humility which is neither sincere nor reason-

make us confess that, knowing neither

what we are, we can learn it only of God.
IV. "I do not require you to submit your belief to me
without reason, and I do not mean to enthral you by
tyranny. Nor do I mean to give you reasons for everyable

if it

does not

ourselves nor

and to reconcile these contradictions. I intend to

see clearly, by convincing evidence, the
divine tokens in me, to satisfy you of what I am, and
draw authority to myself by wonders and proofs which
you cannot reject, so that consequently you may be
assured of the things I teach you when you find no other
reason to refuse them but that you cannot of yourselves
tell whether they are or no."
"God desired to ransom men, and open salvation to
those who should seek it. But men make themselves so
thing;

make you

unworthy of
to others

by

that it is but just that God, because of

withhold from some that which he grants

it,

their hardness,

mercy

to

which they have no

right.

Had

He wished to overcome the obstinacy of the most hardened. He would have been able to do so by revealing
Himself to them so manifestly that they could not doubt
He shall appear at the last
day with such noise of thunder and such subversion of

the truth of His being, just as

nature that the dead shall

and the blindest

rise

shall see

Him."
"But

it is

not thus that

He has chosen to appear in His

advent of peace; because, so

many making

themselves

unworthy of His mercy, He desired to have them deprived of the good which they would not have. Therefore it was not just that He should appear in a manner
manifestly divine and absolutely sure to convince

men; but neither was

manner

it

just that

He

should

so obscure as not to be recognised

should sincerely seek Him.

He

32

desired to

come

all

in a

by those who
make Himself

perfectly knowable to these, and thus, wishing to appear

who

Him, and hidden to

from Him, He so veiled His
identity that He exhibited marks of Himself which are
visible to those who seek Him, and invisible to those who
seek Him not. There is enough light for those who only
desire to seek Him, and enough obscurity for those
openly to those

those

who

gladly seek

wilfully turn

contrarily disposed."

C Jesus Christ came to confuse those who saw clearly,

and to give sight to the blind; to heal the sick, and to
leave the whole to die; to call to repentance and justify
sinners,

and to leave the righteous

in their sins; to satisfy

the poor, and to leave the rich empty.

C Jesus Christ said great things so simply that it seems

as though He had not thought about them, and, nevertheless, so exactly that it

is

plain that

about them. This clearness, joined to

wonderful.

He

did think

this artlessness, is

C Against the objection that the Scripture has no method:

heart and the mind both have their method. That
of the mind is according to principle and demonstration;

The

that of the heart

is

otherwise.

One

does not

show

that

one ought to be loved by setting forth in order the

causes of love: that would be ridiculous.
Jesus Christ and St. Paul have the method of charity,
not of the intellect; for they wished to enkindle, not to
instruct. So also with St. Augustine. This method consists chiefly in enlarging on every point which bears on
the end, so as to keep this end constantly in view.

CThe Church

has had as much labour to show that

was Man, against those who denied it, as
to show that He was God; and the appearances were
Jesus Christ

equal in both cases.

An

artisan

who

of war, of royalty,

talks of riches,
etc.;

an attorney

who

talks

but the rich speak truly concern-

ing riches, the king speaks coldly of the great gift he

has just made, and

God

speaks truly concerning

33

God.

C The Jews, by testing if

He was Man.

He were God, have shown that

Fre disposition conducive

to error: It

a deplorable

is

thing to see men deliberating only on the means and not

on the end. Each considers how he shall acquit himself
in his profession, but the choice of condition or country
is

determined by

fate. It is a pitiful

Turks, heretics, and

infidels

thing to see so

many

following their fathers' lead

for the sole reason that each respectively has been pre-

disposed to the belief that that

And

whether that of locksmith,

do not wish for Provence.

C A man

is

the best thing to follow.

which determines each

it is this

in a cell,

one's profession,

soldier, etc.

Thus the savages

knowing not whether

his sentence

is

hour to learn it, this hour sufficing

to have been given) to have it revoked,

given, having but an

(if
it

he

is

know

it

against nature that he

inquiring

if his

piquet; thus

ness of the

Thus,

it is

sentence

is

employ

this

hour, not in

passed, but in playing at

supernatural that man,

etc.; it is

a heavi-

hand of God.

it is

not only the zeal of those

who

seek

Him

which proves God, but the blindness of those who seek

Him not.
C Atheism a mark of strength of

intellect,

but only up

to a certain point.

C There are only three kinds of people: those who serve

God, having found Him; those who are occupied in
seeking Him, not having found Him; and those who

Him

and without having found

and happy; the last are
foolish and unhappy; and those between them are
unhappy and reasonable.

live

without seeking

Him;

the

C It

well to be wearied and fatigued

is

first

are reasonable

the true good, so that

we may

by

the quest of

stretch out our arms to

the Deliverer.

C According

to one or the other of these

suppositions, so

must we live in the world:

34

two

different

we could live there always.

certain that we shall not be there
uncertain that we shall be there a single hour.
Ours is this latter supposition. _
1

If

long, and

2. If it is

The

last act is tragic,

the rest: at the

so are

however

fine the

comedy

clear:

but

not perfectly clear that the soul is material.

C Man
is

all

we for ever.

C Atheists should have everything perfectly

it is

in

they cast earth on our heads, and

last

is

only a reed, the feeblest reed in nature, but he

There is no need for the entire uni-

a thinking reed.

verse to

arm

itself in

order to annihilate him: a vapour,

kill

him. But were the uni-

man would

yet be more noble than

a drop of water, suffices to

verse to crush him,

which slays him, because he knows that he dies,

and the advantage that the universe has over him; of this
the universe knows nothing. Thus all our dignity lies in
thought. By thought we must raise ourselves, not by
space and time, which we cannot fill. Let us strive, then,

that

to think well, therein

C Between

us,

is

the principle of morality.

and heaven or

things in the world the most

hell,

there

is

only

life,

of

all

frail.

C It is curious that we rest content in the company of

our fellows. Wretched like ourselves, powerless as we
are, they will not aid us; each one must die alone; therefore we should act as if we were alone, and in that case,
should

we

build magnificent houses, etc.?

We

should

seek the truth without hesitation, and did any refuse, he

would show

that he valued the esteem of

men more

than the search for truth.

C If it is a strange blindness to live without finding out

what we are, it is a terrible blindness to believe in God,
and to live evilly.
C Man's

sensibility to small things

and

his insensibihty

to great things indicate a strange derangement.

35

If a

man know

not that he

is

full

of pride, ambition,

is very blind;
and if, while knowing it, he do not desire to be delivered
from these things, what can be said of such a man?
What, then, but esteem can we have for a religion so
well acquainted with human failings, or how can we

lust,

weakness, misery, and injustice, he

but long for the truth of a religion which promises for

those failings remedies so desirable?

C We think we play on ordinary organs when we play

on men. They are organs indeed, but fantastic, inconstant, variable. Those who can play only the ordinary
organs will not find themselves in touch with these. You
must know where the [keys] are.

C It

is

not well to be too free;

it is

not well to have every

necessary.

C When I consider the brief span of my life, swallowed

up in the eternity before and behind it, the small space
that

I fill,

or even

of spaces which

see,

engulfed in the infinite immensit\''

know not, and which know

not me, I
and wonder to see myself here rather than
there; for there is no reason why I should be here rather

am

afraid,

than there,

now rather than then. Who

By whose

order and arrangement have this place and

this

has set

me

here?

time been allotted me? '^Memoria hospitis unius diei

praetereiintis.'^

C We are so unhappy that we cannot take pleasure in a

if it go ill, which a
thousand things can cause, and do cause, every hour.
Whoever had discovered the secret of rejoicing in the
good without troubling about the contrary evil, would
have found the point. It is perpetual motion.
thing without vexing ourselves

C When it is a question of judging whether war ought

made and so many men killed, so many Spaniards
condemned to death, it is one single man who deterto be

mines

it,

and he an interested one.

third party.

36

It

should be a neutral

bico?istancy : Things have diverse quahties, and the

is simple which
and the soul never presents
itself as simple to any object. Thence it comes that we
laugh and cry at the same thing.

soul has diverse tendencies; for nothing

presents

itself

C Tyranny
its

is

to the soul,

the desire of universal domination,

beyond

proper sphere.

There are

divers classes of the strong, the beautiful,

which ought to rule in

and not elsewhere. Sometimes they come
into collision, and the strong and the beautiful foolishly
strive as to which shall be master; for their superiority
is of different kinds. They do not act in concert, and
their fault is that they wish to bear rule everywhere.
Nothing can do this, not even force; it can do nothing
in the domain of the learned; it is mistress of outward
the learned, the pious, each of

its

own

place,

actions alone.

Thus speeches
"I

am

wrong and tyrannical:

ought to be feared; I am

like these are

handsome, therefore

ought to be loved; I am ..." Tyranny

is the desire to have by one v/ay that which can be had
only by another. Different respect is paid to different
strong, therefore

merits; the respect of love to

what

is

lovely; the respect

of fear to strength; the respect of belief to knowledge.

We' ought

to offer this respect; it is unjust to withhold

and unjust to require it of others. And in the same
way it is wrong and tyrannical to say, "He is not strong,
therefore I shall not esteem him; he is not clever, thereit,

fore

I shall

not fear him."

C Upon what will he establish the economy of the world

that he wishes to govern?

On

the caprice of each in-

What confusion! On justice? He knows it not.

Certainly, had he known it, he would not have ad-

dividual?

this maxim, the commonest of all obtaining

among men, that each should follow the customs of his
country; the glory of true equity would have subdued
all peoples, and legislators would not have taken as their
model, in place of this unvarying justice, the whims and

duced

37

We should have seen

caprices of Persians and Germans.

it

by every State in the M^orld and in every age,

of which we find nothing just or unjust which

planted

instead

does not change

its

character with

climate.

its

degrees of elevation of the pole upset

all

Three

jurisprudence.

meridian determines the truth; after a few years of

possession the fundamental laws change; right has

epochs.

The

its

entry of Saturn on the Lion indicates to us

the origin of such and such a crime.

queer justice-

bounded by a river! Truth on this side of the Pyrenees,

error on that.
They acknowledge that justice lies not in these customs, but in the natural laws

They would
if

known

in

all

countries.

certainly have obstinately maintained

the temerity of the chance

it,

which has sown human

laws had permitted one of them, at

least, to be universal;
but the absurdity is such, that human caprice is so varied
that there is no law of the kind at all.

Larceny,
their place

thing

more

incest, infanticide, parricide,

among

virtuous actions.

ridiculous than that a

Can

have

all

had

there be any-

man have

the right to

me because he lives on the other side of the water,

and because his prince has a quarrel with mine, although
I have none with him?
No doubt there are natural laws; but this fine reason,

kill

corrupted, has corrupted

est;

all:

quod nostrum dicimus,

sultis et plebiscitis crijjjina

sic

'''Nihil

artis

amplius nostrwjt

est" "Ex senatus-con-

exercentur."

"Ut

oli?n vitiis

nunc legibus laboremus."

From

this

confusion

essence of justice

is

it

arises that

one says that the

the authority of the legislator; an-

other, the convenience of the sovereign; another, present

custom, and

this

reason alone,

is

Custom makes
is

is

the surest: nothing, according to

just in itself time disturbs everything.

all

accepted: herein

equity, for the simple reason that

is

the mystic foundation of

Whoever

its

it

author-

traces custom back to its principle anniNothing is so faulty as those laws which redress
faults; whoever obeys them, because they are just, obeys
a justice which he imagines to exist, but not the essence

ity.

hilates

it.

38

of the law:

it is all

He who

more.

it is law, and nothing

examine its motive will find it
that, if he is unused to contemplate

self-contained;

desires to

weak and so slight,

human

so

the wonders of the

imagination, he will marvel

that a century has acquired for

so

it

much pomp and

reverence. Uart de fronder, the art of subverting states,

is

to shake established customs

by sounding them at their

source, that their lack of authority and justice

noticed. "It

is

necessary,"

it is

said,

fundamental and primitive laws of the

unjust custom has abolished." This

may be

"to go back to the

is

which an

state,

a sure

way

of los-

ing everything: nothing will be right according to this

However, the people listen wUlingly to these

speeches. They shake off the yoke as soon as they are
aware of it, and the great profit by their ruin and that
standard.

of the inquisitive examiners of accepted customs. But,

by

a contrary error,

right to

That

is

men sometimes

do anything which

why

is

think they have a

not without precedent.

men must
own good; and another, a good

the wisest of legislators said that

often be duped for their

poUtician, "Czmz veritatem, qua liberetur, ignoret, expedit

quod

fallatur.^' It is

not needful for him to be

convinced of the usurption: it was formerly introduced

without reason, and has now become reasonable; it is
necessary to make it to be considered as authentic and
eternal, and to hide its origin, if we do not desire it soon
to

come to an end.
[But perhaps the subject is beyond the range of reaThen let us examine reason's inventions in things

son?

If there

is

anything to which

interest should have made

it

apply

within

it is

its

power.

the search for

its

itself

most

sovereign good. Let us

its

own

seriously,

see, there-

where strong and penetrating minds have set this

sovereign good, and if they are in agreement on the
fore,

matter.

One

says that the sovereign

good is

in virtue; another

sets it in pleasure;

another in the knowledge of nature;

another in truth:

''Felix

causas''';

qui potuit rerum cognoscere

another in total ignorance; another in idle-

ness; others in resisting appearances; another in

39

admir-

"N/7 mirari, prope res Ufia quae possit

ing nothing:

jacere et servare beatum'''; and true Pyrrhonians in their

ataraxy, doubt, and perpetual suspension;

more

wise, think to find

one a

little

better.

and
That

others,
is

very

satisfying!

we

If

are obliged to see that,

tended labour,
that

is

itself?

What

it

more happily? What have they discovered of

origin? of
Is

ex-

certain, at least it may be that the soul will know

Let us hear the rulers of the world on the subject.
have they thought of its substance? Have they

located
its

by such long and

philosophy has gained nothing

this fine

its

duration? of its departure?

then, that the soul

it,

yet too sublime a subject

is

Then let us reduce it

knows of what the body

for the feeble lights of reason?

to matter. Let us see

which
moves

it

if

it

animates, and the others that

it

beholds and

What have they known about

it, these great dogmatists who were ignorant of nothing?
at will, are

made?

^^Hanim sententianim ..."

That would have sufficed, no doubt, were reason
reasonable. It is quite reasonable enough to own that it
has not yet been able to find anything fixed; but

does not despair of arriving at

keen

as

within

ever in this search,

itself

still it

on the contrary, it is as
and is assured of having
it;

the powers necessary for this conquest.

Therefore it must be achieved, and after having examined the powers through their effects, let us recognise
them in themselves; let us see whether it has any forces

and any power of grasping the truth.]

C The sense of the hollowness of present

and

pleasures,

ignorance of the vanity of absent pleasures, cause inconstancy.

C Admiration prejudices everything from infancy: "Oh,

how well that was spoken! Oh, how excellently done!

how

wise he

is!" etc.

The

children of Port Royal,

are not given this incentive to emulation

into listlessness.

40

who

and glory,

fall

dangerous to

It is

tell

the people that the laws are not

obey them only because they believe them

to be just. This is why it is necessary to tell them at the
same time that they ought to obey them because they
are laws, exactly as they ought to obey their superiors,
just,

for they

not because they are

In that

but because they are superiors.

just,

way sedition is prevented, if they can be made to

understand

this,

and that

it is

properly only the defini-

tion of justice.

C Theology

many

is

sciences!

a science,

A man

is

but how at the same time is it

one agent; but if he is dissected,

will he be the head, the heart, the stomach, the veins,

each vein, each portion of vein, the blood, each humour

of the blood? A town, a country, from afar, is a town
and a country; but, as one approaches, they are houses,
trees, tiles, leaves, herbs, ants, legs

tude;

all this is

of ants ... to infini-

comprised in the name of country.

It is beyond doubt that whether the soul be mortal or

immortal should make all the difference to morals, and

yet philosophers have drawn up their morals independently of

they deliberate in order to pass away an

it:

hour.

C Pride, counterbalancing
them,

or, if it discover

all

them,

it

miseries. Either

boasts of

its

it

hides

acquaintance

with them.

C Mine,

thine: "This

dren," this

is

dog

is

mine," said these poor chil-

my place in the sun." There is the beginning

and the symbol of the usurpation of the whole world.

C As

fashion makes consent, so also she makes justice.

CThe

Preacher shows that

nothing and
not power

is

man without God knows

inevitably unhappy.

to be unhappy.

For to have

And though

will

and

he wishes to
be happy, and assured of some truth, he can neither
know nor desire not to know. He cannot even doubt.
is

41

m
C The "I"
it

is

You, Miton, cloak

hateful.

does not eliminate

it,

you

therefore

it,

but cloaking

are always hateful.

"By no means, for in acting obligingly towards every

one, as we do, no one has reason to hate us." True, if the
"I" is hated only because of the annoyance which it
causes ourselves, but

makes

itself

if I

hate

always. In short, the "I" has

in

itself,

it is

it

because

the centre of everything,

in that

it

makes

two

itself

it;

for each "I"

unjust and

shall hate it

characters:

it is

unjust

the centre of everything;

irritating to others, in that

subservient to

it is

it

is

make them
enemy and would

desires to

the

be the tyrant of all the rest. You remove the irribut

not the injustice, and thus you make it agreetation,
ablenot to those who hate its injustice, but only to the
like to

unjust,

you

who no

are

still

it as their enemy, and thus

and can please only the unjust.

longer regard

unjust,

C In proportion to our enlightenment do we discover in

man more of what is great and more of what is low.
Common men
those who are somewhat above them;
the philosophers (they astonish common men); Christians (they astonish the philosophers). Who, then, will
wonder that religion only makes us know thoroughly
that which we recognise the more fully as we have more
.

light?

C It is necessary that each of us know himself; if it is of

no help in finding truth, it at least serves to order our
lives, than which there is nothing more desirable.

CThe Jews

Him, but not all; He was received

by the carnal. And so far from
detracting from His glory, that was the finishing touch
thereto. For their reason for rejecting Him, and the only
one to be found in their writings, in the Talmud or the

by

rejected

the holy, but not

rabbis,

is

that Jesus Christ did not subdue nations with

the sword,

''''

glad'mm tiium; potentissime.''''

Is

that

all

they

have to say? Jesus Christ was slain, they tell us; He was
overcome; He did not subdue the Gentiles by His might
and give us the spoils; He bestows no riches. Is that all
42

To me, it is that in which He is lovely.

would not have Him as they portray Him. It is plain
that it is only His life which has hindered their accepting
Him, and by their refusal they are witnesses beyond
reproach, and, what is more, they thereby fulfil the
they have to say?
I

prophecies.

merely vanity. Most frequently we wish

we may talk about it. Otherto know
wise, one would not make a voyage never to speak of it,
and for the mere pleasure of seeing, without the hope

C Curiosity

is

a thing only that

of ever talking about

CSo
that

some one.

to

it

lofty a conception have

we

we

of the

cannot bear to be despised by

esteem, and

all

human

happiness

is

human

it,

spirit,

or to lack

its

contained in this

esteem.

C Misery: Solomon and Job have known and spoken of

human misery

better than any, the one the happiest,

and the other the unhappiest of men; the one knowing

by experience

the vanity of pleasures, the other the

reality of misfortune.

Misery: The only thing which consoles us

troubles

of

all.

is

For

diversion,

it is

and yet

chiefly that

it is

in

our

the greatest trouble

which prevents us from think-

ing of ourselves, and which makes us lose [time] imper-

Without it, we should be afflicted with ennui,

and this ennui would drive us to seek a more effectual
means of escape. But diversion beguiles us, and brings us
ceptibly.

at last insensibly to death.

C Vanity:

It is

marvellous that a matter so plain as the

vanity of the world

is

so

little

known

and astonishing thing to say that

worldly greatness.

C The power of kings

is

it is

that

it is

a strange

foolishness to seek

founded on reason and the folly

of the people, and especially on the folly.

The

greatest

and most important thing in the world has weakness for

its foundation, and this foundation is wonderfully firm;
43

for there

nothing surer than that the people will be

is

weak. That which

is

founded on sound reason

wisdom.

is

very-

unstable, such as the esteem of

CThe mind

of this sovereign judge of the world

so independent that he

is

not

commotion about him.

least

liable to

is

not

be troubled by the

does not need the report

It

of a cannon to impede his thoughts; the sound of a

weather-cock or pulley
if

is

sufficient.

he cannot talk well just now; a

and

ears,

this is quite

giving good counsel.

away

truth, drive

the

Do not be surprised
fly

is

buzzing in

his

make him incapable of

If you desire him to discern the
creature which is holding his rea-

enough

to

son in check and disturbing that powerful intelligence

which governs

cities

and kingdoms.

fine divinity!

"O ridicolosissimo eroeT

C

Vafiity of

Knowledge: The knowledge of outward

things does not console

me in times of afliiction for igno-

rance of moral things; but the knowledge of moral

me

things will always console

for the

want of outward

knowledge.

C Nevertheless, true
Ues,

Christians submit themselves to fol-

because they respect not

God, who,

follies,

but the order of

made them
"Omnis creatura subjecta est
Thus St. Thomas explains the

for the punishment of men, has

subject to those follies:

Liberabitur'''

va7iitati.

saying of
if

St.

they do

it

James, on the preference for the rich, that,

not in the sight of God, they depart from

the order of their religion.

C What

surprises

me most

at their weakness.
his profession,

We

is

that

men

are not astounded

act seriously, and- each follows

not because

it is

really

good

to follow

it

customary to do so, but as if each one knew

for certain where reason and right are to be found.
We are deceived every moment, and by a ridiculous
humility we believe it is our own fault, and not the
fault of the art which we are always boasting of possessing. But it is well that there are so many of these people
since

it is

44

in the

world who are not Pyrrhonians, for the glory of

Pyrrhonism: in order to show that

of

more extravagant

believing that he

is

man

is

opinions, since he

quite capable
is

capable of

not naturally and inevitably feeble,

and that on the contrary he is naturally wise.

Nothing strengthens Pyrrhonism more than that there
are some who are not Pyrrhonians: were all Pyrrhonians,
they would be wrong.

CThe

habit of seeing kings accompanied by guards,

drummers, officers, and everything which makes for
respect and awe, causes their countenances when seen
alone and without these accompaniments to impress their
subjects with respect and awe because they cannot
separate in their minds the idea of the person from that

of the suite usually attached thereto.

knowing

that this effect

is

lieves that it

comes from

these words,

"The mark of

And the world, not

caused by that custom, be-

a natural strength,

the Divinity

is

and hence

imprinted on

his visage," etc.

C Two

similar faces, neither having anything laughable

in itself, are laughable,

when

C One does not choose, to

voyagers who

is

together,

by

steer a vessel,

their Ukeness.

him among the

of the best family.

Human

nature cannot be always pressing forward; it

ebb and its flow. Fever has its chills and its heat,
and the cold shows the intensity of the fever just as much
as the heat. Man's inventions from century to century
move in the same way. It is the same with the kindness
and the malice of the world in general. "Plerumque
has

its

gratae pmicipibiis

C If we

young,

are too

the same;

if

vices.''''

we

we do

think too

not judge well;

little

or too

much

if

too old,

of a thing,

we lose our heads and become infatuated; if we consider

our work immediately it is finished, we are still prejudiced with regard to it; if too long after, we are out of
touch with
too near.

it;

Thus

so with pictures, seen

there

is

from too far and

only one indivisible point which
45

mmm
the true point of view: the others are too near, too far,
too high, or too low. In the art of painting, this point
is

is

determined by perspective. But in truth and in morals

who shall determine it?

C We do not concern ourselves about being esteemed in
towns we pass through, but when we stay in them for
a time, we do concern ourselves about it. How long is
necessary? A time proportionate to our petty and trifling
span of

life.

C The power

of

flies:

they win

battles,

hinder the work-

ing of the mind, and eat our bodies.

C ^Terox

gens, nullam esse vitam sine armts

rati.^''

They

like death rather than peace; the others like death rather
than war. Any opinion may be preferable to the life of

which the love seems so strong and so natural.

C This

[the Christian] sect strengthens itself

mies rather than

much more

its

apparent in those

than in those who

C The

friends; for the

rivers of

must

sit

its

ene-

man

is

are not aware of

it

are.

Babylon

rise

holy Sion, where nothing

We

who

by

weakness of

and
falls,

fall,

and

and sweep away.

all is

firm!

on the waters, not beneath, or

in

them,

but upon them, and not upright, but seated, in order

that,

being seated,

we may

be humble, and

above. But in the porches of Jerusalem

we

safe,

being

shall stand

erect.

See whether
pass,

it is

this pleasure

a river of

is

stable or transitory; if

it

Babylon.

C The law has not destroyed nature, but instructed

her;

grace has not destroyed the law, but fulfilled

The

faith received in baptism

Christians

is

the source of

all

it.

the

life

of

and of the converted.

C There are three orders of things the flesh, the mind,

the will. Kings and the rich are the carnal, they make
the body their aim. The inquiring and the learned make
46

the

mind

their aim.

The

wise make righteousness their

aim.

God

should reign over everything, and everything

should be in correspondence with Him. In things of the

has

flesh, lust

its

own

dominion; in matters of the mind,

Not that we may not glory

knowledge, but these are not occasion
for pride, for, while conceding to a man that he is
learned, we will not cease to impress upon him that he is
inquiry; in wisdom, pride.

in possessions or

wrong in being arrogant. The proper occasion for pride

is wisdom, for we cannot allow that a man has become
wise and that he is wrong in being proud, for there pride
Moreover, God alone gives wisdom,
why '''qui gloriatur, in Domino glorietur."

is

right.

and that

is

C The Mystery of Jesus: i. Jesus in His Passions suffers

the pain which men make for Him, but in the Agony He
suffers the pain which he makes for Himself. ''Tiirbare
semitipsum." It is anguish coming from a hand not
human, but all-powerful, for He must be all-powerful
to sustain

it.

Jesus seeks

some

consolation, at least, in His three

dearest friends, and they sleep.

by Him
ing so

He

prays them to stand

and they desert Him completely, havcompassion that it cannot keep them one

little,

little

moment from

slumber.

And

thus Jesus was left alone

before the wrath of God.

share His pain, but

which not only cannot feel and

which may not know it. Heaven and

Himself alone have

this

Jesus

Jesus

is

is

alone on earth,

knowledge.

in a garden; not, as

was the

first

Adam, when

and the whole human race, in a garden of

pleasures, but in a garden of agony, where He has saved
Himself and the whole human race.
He suffers this pain and desertion in the awe of night.
I believe that Jesus never complained but this once,
and then it was as if He were not able to contain His
extreme grief. "My soul is sorrowful unto death."
Jesus seeks companionship and comfort from men.
That, it seems to me, happened but this once in His
he

lost himself

47

whole

He

But

life.

received neither, for His disciples

slept.

Jesus will suffer until the end of the world, and

while

mean-

we may not sleep.

Jesus

is

by the

utterly abandoned, even

He

friends

chose to watch with Him; yet, jSnding these sleeping.

He

grieved because of the peril to which they expose,

is

not Him, but themselves, and

for

w ith

a cordial tenderness

ingratitude, admonishes

them throughout their

them

for their safety and welfare, and warns

spirit

is

willing,

Jesus finding

them

that the

and the flesh weak.

them again

sideration either for

Him

from which no con-

in sleep,

or for themselves can keep

them, has the kindness not to wake them, but leave them
to rest.

Jesus prays, uncertain of His Father's will, and shrinks

from

death, but having

known that will. He goes before

to offer Himself thereto. ''Eavms. Processit.'" (John.)

Jesus has entreated men, and they have not hearkened.

His disciples

Jesus, while
tion.

For

all

both in the void before their

after

worked

slept,

the just, as they sleep.

He

birth,

their salva-

does the same,

and in their

sins

it.

Once only He prays

that the

cup may

prays with submission; and twice

tliat it

pass,

but

He

may come,

if

need be.
Jesus in weariness.
Jesus, seeing

all

His friends sleeping and

all

His foes

watching, commits Himself wholly to His Father.

Jesus regards not the enmity of Judas, but the ordi-

nance of God,
calls

him

whom He loves, and He owns it, since He

friend.

Jesus tears Himself

from the

disciples .to enter

upon

His agony, and we must tear ourselves from our nearest

and dearest that we may imitate Him
Jesus being in agony and the greatest suffering, let us
pray the longer.
II.

we

Not

that

He may

leave us to repose in our sins

implore God's mercy, but that

from them.
48

He may

do

deliver us

If

God

gave us masters with His

wilHngly should

we obey

them!

own

The

hand,

O how

necessity and the

events are infallibly such masters.

"Be comforted: thou wouldest not seek Me, hadst

thou not found Me."
"In my agony I thought of thee: such drops of blood
have I shed for thee."
"It is to tempt Me rather than to test thyself, to think
how well thou wouldest do were such and such a thing
absent.

work it in thee if it come to pass."

will

"Conform

thyself to

My

guided the Virgin and the

rules; see
saints

who

how
let

well

have

Me work

in

them."

"The Father approves all that I

do."

Me the blood of
"Wouldest thou that it
My humanity, without any tears from thee?
"Thy conversion is My matter: fear not, and pray
with confidence as for Me."
always cost

"I

am with

thee

by

My word in the Scripture; by My

Church, and by inspiration; by My power

in the priests; by My prayer in the faithful."
"Physicians will not heal thee, for in the end thou
shalt die, but it is I who heal thee and make thy body

Spirit in the

immortal."

"Bear with chains and bodily servitude;

I as

yet deliver

from the spiritual."

"I am more thy friend than this one or that, for I have
done for thee more than they, and they would not suffer

thee but

this that I have suffered of thee, nor die for thee in the
time of thy faithlessness and cruelty, as I have done,

and

as I

am

ready to do, and do, in

My elect and in the

Holy Sacrament."
"Didst thou know thy
"I will lose

it

sins

thou wouldst lose heart."

then, Lord, for I believe their malice,

Thy assurance."
"No; for I, who

teach

it

on

thee, will cure thee of these

and that I tell it thee is a sign that I will cure thee.

In measure as thou dost expiate them, thou wilt know
them, and to thee it shall be said. See the sins which are
remitted to thee. Therefore do penance for thy secret
sins,

49

i
sins and for the hidden malice of the sins thou knowest."

"Lord,

give thee

"I love thee

all."

more dearly than thou

hast loved thy

"

pro Into.''
"Let the glory be Mine, and not thine,

impurities. ^Ut im7?iu7idus

worm

and

clay."

"Inquire of thy director,

when

My words are to thee

an occasion of evil, or vanity, or curiosity."

III. I look into the gulf of my pride, curiosity, and

no relation to God, or to Jesus Christ

the righteous. But He has been made trespass for me.
All thy scourges are fallen on Him, He is more abominable than I, and so far from abhorring me. He counts
Himself honoured that I go to Him, and succour Him.
But He has healed Himself, and with greater reason He
will heal me. I must add my wounds to His, and join me
to Him, and in saving Himself He will save me. But they
must not be added to in the future."
''Eritus sicut dii scientes bonum et umliim." Every
one plays God, in judging, "This is good or bad," and in
lust. I

find there

lamenting or rejoicing too

Do

much over events.

if

they were great, because of the

majesty of Jesus Christ,

who works them in us, and who

small things as

our life; and great things as small and easy, because

of His omnipotence.
Pilate's false justice only makes Jesus Christ to suffer,

lives

for he causes

Him

to be scourged for his false justice,

Him. It would have been better to have

slain Him at first. Thus the falsely just: they do good
works or evil to please the world, and show that they
and then

are not

kills

wholly for Jesus

Christ, for they are

ashamed of

Him. And finally, in great temptations or when occasion

offers, they slay Him.
C

behold Jesus Christ in every person and in ourselves:

Jesus Christ as Father, in His Father; as Brother, in His

brethren; as poor, in the poor; as rich, in the rich; as

doctor and

priest, in the priests; as sovereign, in princes;

For by His glory He is all that is great, being God,

and by His mortal life all that is small and pitiful, since

etc.

50

He has taken this unhappy condition upon Him, that

He may be in every person and a pattern for every
condition.

CThe

just man acts by faith in the smallest things:

when he rebukes his servants, he desires their conversion

the spirit of God, and prays God to correct them,

and expects as much from God as from his reproofs,
and prays God to bless his corrections.

by

me that Jesus Christ, after His resurrection,

only
allows
His wounds to be touched "No// Tne tajiC

It

seems to

We must be united only to His sufferings.

gere"

He

presents Himself as mortal in the

communion of
Emmaus, as

the Last Supper, as risen to the disciples at

ascended into heaven to the whole Church.

CThe

inward must be joined to the outward, in order

God; that is to say, we fall on our knees
and pray with our lips, that the stiff-necked man, who

to obtain of

would not submit himself

the creature.

To

superstition; to

to

to

God, be now submitted

expect help from what

be unwilling to join what

outward,
is

to
is

outward

what is inward, is pride.

C There

are perfections in nature, to

the image of God, and imperfections,

is

only the image.

Man

to

is

show that she is

to show that she

being accustomed, not to create merit, but only

reward

it

where he

finds

it

already created, judges of

God by himself.
C

On

confessions and absolutions without marks of re-

gret:

God

judges only

He
sees

regards only what

by what

is

is

without.

within; the

God

sees penitence in the heart; the

it

in

works.

God

will

make

which by

Church

absolves directly

Church, when she

Church pure within,

its inward and entirely spiritual holiness confounds the inward impiety of the proud, the wise, and
the Pharisees; and the Church will make an assembly
of men whose outward morals are so pure that they

51

confound those of the heathen.

Church have

If the

hypocrites within her, but so well cloaked that she does

not recognise the poison, she bears with them; for while
they are unaccepted of God, whom they cannot deceive,

they are accepted of men, whom they do deceive. Thus

is not dishonoured by their conduct, which in appearance is holy. But you would have the Church judge

she

neither the inward, because that belongs only to

the outward, because

God

taking from her

and

so,

the

Church those who

all

are

God, nor

dwells only on the inward,

choice of men,

most

you

licentious,

retain in

and

who

so

utterly dishonour her, that the Jewish synagogue and

would have banished them

unworthy and abhorred them as impious.

the sects of the philosophers

as

It is

true that there

this pain

is

pain in entering

comes not from the nascent

impiety which

upon

piety.

piety, but

But

from the

our senses did not set

themselves against penitence, and our corruption against
is

yet within

us. If

God's purity, it would have no pain for us. We suffer

only in proportion as our natural vice resists the supernatural grace. Our heart feels torn between two contrary efforts. But it would be very wrong to impute this
violence to God, who is attacking us, instead of to the
world, which

is

holding us back.

It is as if a child,

whom

mother snatches from the arms of robbers, should

he suffers, the affectionate and lawful
violence of her who procures his freedom, and resent
only the rough violence and tyranny of those who
unjustly hold him back. The hardest war that God can
allow men in this life is to leave them without the war

his

love, in the pain

that
saith

He

is

come

He; and, to

am come

to bring: "I

am come

to bring war,"

instruct us as to this war,

to bring

sword and

fire."

He

says, "I

Before His coming,

the \^'orld was living in this mistaken peace.

We alienate ourselves

[from God] only when we aliBefore God our prayers

and our righteousness are abominations, if they are not
the prayers and righteousness of Jesus Christ. And our

enate ourselves

from

charit}'^.

52

i
sins will

never receive God's mercy, but His

they are not the

sins

sins

of Jesus Qirist.

upon Himself; and

with Him; for to

He

justice, if

has taken our

has admitted us to fellowship

Him virtue is proper,

and

sin foreign,

while to us virtues are foreign, and sin proper.

Let us change the standard by which we have hitherto

judged of what is good.
have made this standard
our own will, let us now make it God's will: all that He

We

He wills [not, is evil]

God is forbidden. Sins are
forbidden by a general declaration that God has made
that He willed them not. Other things which He has left
wills for us

just, all that

is

All which

is

not willed by

without a general prohibition and which on that account are called permitted, nevertheless are not always
permitted. When God removes any of them from us,
and in the event, which is a manifestation of His will,
it appears that God is not willing that we should have
a thing,

God's

it

is

then forbidden to us like

we do

will that

the other. There

things; that

while

it is

it

is

is

this difference alone

as

God

certain that

not certain that

But so long

He

sin,

since

it is

not have the one any more than

wills

it

between the two

will never will sin,

He will never will the

we must regard it

not,

for the absence of God's will, M'hich alone

is all

other.
as sin;

kindness

and righteousness, makes it unrighteous and evO.

C Jesus Christ did not

of justice, for
justice

it is

^^dsh to

be

slain

without the forms

much more ignominious

to die

by

than by an unjust sedition.

C The Christians' hope of possessing infinite happiness

is mingled with present joy as well as fear; for they are
not like those who would hope for a kingdom of which
thev are to have nothing, being subjects; but they hope
for holiness and freedom from wrong, and of these they
already have something.

C When

we

are led to

do something by our

we like

passion,

we

and read it
when we ought to be doing something else. But to put
us in mind of our duty, we must propose to do someforget duty;

as,

for instance,

53

a book,

and then we excuse ourselves

because we have something else to do, and thus remind
ourselves of our duty.

we

thing which

C The

dislike;

figures used in the

Gospel to express the

state of

the diseased soul are diseased bodies; but because one

body cannot be

enough to express

diseased

must needs be many. Thus there

is

fully, there

it

dumb,

the deaf, the

the blind, the paralysed, the dead Lazarus, the possessed.

All these are combined in the diseased soul.

aver that

if

everybody knew what everybody

else

about him, there would not be four friends in the

said

world. That

which

evident from the quarrels

is

are

caused by the indiscreet communications we occasionally

make.

way

On that account I
I

God

find an

reject

answer to

all

all

other religions: in that

objections. It

is

right that a

so pure should reveal Himself only to the pure-

Hence

hearted.

me, and

this religion delights

fully authorised

by

something more.

so divine a morality; but

find in

it

find

it

find in

it

a telling point that

during

human remembrance it has been continuously made

known to men that they are universally corrupt, but
that a Restorer should come; that it is not one man who
all

says

this,

but countless men, and an entire nation, proph-

esying and created purposely, for four thousand years.

Thus

stretch out

my

arms to

my

Deliverer,

who,

come on earth
time and manner foretold;

predicted during four thousand years,

is

and die for me in the

and, by His grace, I await death in peace, in the hope of
being eternally united with Him; and meanwhile I live
in joy, whether among the blessings it may please Him
to bestow on me, or the troubles which He sends for my
good, and which, by His example, He has taught me to
to suffer

bear.

C I love poverty, because

He loved it.

love possessions,

because they afford the means of helping the unfortunate. I

those

keep

faith

with every one.

return not evil to

who do evil to me, but I wish them a condition like

54

which neither good nor evil is received from

men. I try to be just, true, sincere, and faithful to every
man, and I have a tenderness of heart towards those to
whom God has joined me more closely; and, whether
to mine, in

be alone or in the sight of man, in all my actions I have

before me God, who shall judge them, and to whom
I

have consecrated them all.

These are my feelings, and every day of

bless

my

who

Redeemer,

them

has put

into

my life I
my heart,

and who, of a man full of weaknesses, misery, lust, pride,

and ambition, has made one exempt from all these evils
by the power of His grace, to which is due all the glory,
as of myself I have only misery and error.
C

We

do not weary of eating and sleeping every day,

for every day hunger and slumber are renewed. Thus,

without hunger for

spiritual things,

Hunger for righteousness:

C Everything can be
are

made

kill us,

The

entire sea

of them.

fatal to us,

even the things which

for our use; for instance in nature, walls can

and steps can

least

we weary

the eighth beatitude.

kill us, if

movement
is

we do

affects the

changed by one

not walk exactly.

whole of nature: the

stone.

Thus,

in grace,

con-

sequences of the least action affects everything, therefore everything

is

important. In each action

we must

and
future states, and other things which it concerns, and
see the connection between all these things, and then we
consider, besides the action

shall

itself,

our present,

past,

be well restrained.

C Outivord ivorks: There is nothing so dangerous as that

which pleases both God and man; for in the attitudes
which please God and man there is one thing which
pleases God and another thing which pleases man; as
the greatness of St. Theresa: what pleases God is her
deep humility in her revelations, what pleases man is
her knowledge.

copy her

And

thus people take great pains to

discourse, thinking to

copy her

God loves and

the attitude which He approves.

than to love what

55

attitude, rather

to put themselves into

It is better not to fast and to be humble, than to fast

and be complacent. (Pharisee, publican.)
What would it serve me to remind myself of it, if it is
equally able to injure and serve me, and since all depends
on God's blessing, which He gives only to the things
made for Him, and according to His rules and in His

way, the manner thereof thus being as important as the

thing itself, and perhaps more so, since God can draw
good from evil, and since, without God, we draw evil
out of good?

C "Compare not

Me.

thyself with others, but with

whom

thou iindest Me
thou comparest thyself to what
not in those to

thyself,

If

thou comparest
is

abominable;

thou findest Me in them, compare thyseh' thereto. But

what wilt thou compare thereto? thyself, or Me in thee?
If thyself, it is an evil being; if Me, thou comparest Me
if

to Myself for

am God in all."

"I often speak to thee

and counsel

guide cannot speak to thee, for

lack a leader.

he leads thee
seek

thee, because

thy

would not have thee

And maybe I do so at his prayers, and thus

without thy seeing it. Thou wouldest not

Me if thou

didst not possess

Me;

therefore trouble

not thyself."

C When

any discourse there are words repeated, and

them we find them so suitable that
by correcting them we should spoil the discourse, we
must let them stand; their repetition is a mark of their
fitness, and to alter them is the part of blind deske which
does not know that the repetition is in this case no fault,
for there is no general rule.
in

in trying to correct

C Extreme

intellect

is

accused of folly,

like the

extreme

good but mediocrity. It is the

majority which has established this, and which attacks
whomsoever by any means escapes from it. I am not

lack of

it;

exacting,

and

nothing

is

willingly consent to be counted as mediocre;

refuse to be at the lower end, not because

lower, but because

it is

the end; for

fuse to be set at the upper end.

56

To

it is

should equally re-

leave the

mean

is

to

human mind conknowing how to keep there, and so far from lying
in emerging from it, it lies in the fact of not emerging
from it at all.

leave humanity: the greatness of the

sists

in

C [Nature has
alter

one

fesojiSy

set us so exactly in the centre, that if

side of the balance,

Td zoa

we also

That leads me to believe

mind which are so arranged

trekei.^'

there are parts in the

whatever touches the one, touches

[I

have passed

existed a justice,

much

and

my

of

in that

life

we

alter the other. "/^

that
that

also the contrary.]

believing that there

was not mistaken, for there

one according to what God has chosen to reveal to

But I used not to think it so, and it is here that I deceived myself, for I believed that our justice was essentially just, and that I had some means of knowing it and
judging of it. But so many times I found myself wanting

is

us.

in right

judgment, that

at last I

myself, and then of others.

became distrustful of
saw all countries and

many changes of
justice, I knew that ours

people changing, and thus, after so

opinion on the subject of true

was but

a continual changing, and since then I have

changed no more, and if I changed I should confirm my
opinion. (The Pyrrhonian Arcesilas who became again
a dogmatist.)]

[It

may

be that there are true demonstrations, but

not certain. So that shows nothing,

nothing certain, but that

all is

if

it is

not that there

is

uncertain to the glory of

Pyrrhonism!]
(T

[Whence comes

it

by the
and worried by the

that this man, so afflicted

death of his wife and of his only son,

great dispute which he has on hand,

present moment, and that

we

see

him

these painful and disquieting thoughts?

is

not sad at the

There

to be astonished; he has just been served a

has to send

back to

his

companion; he

is

when he

it

as

it falls

is

occupied in

from the roof, to gain

chase how would you have him think of

catching

it

from all
no need
ball, and he

so free

his affairs

has this other matter to attend to? See there a

57

business

worthy

away from

it

to

employ

this great soul,

every other thought: behold

know

and to take
this

man

the universe, to judge everything, to

born to
govern a whole state occupied and wholly engrossed
with the business of taking a hare! And if he does not
unbend for that purpose, and wishes to be always rigid,
he will be only the more foolish, because he desires to
rise above humanity, and, after all is said and done, he
is only a man, that is to say, capable of little and of
much, of all, and of nothing: he is neither an angel nor
a brute, but man.]

C "A miracle," say some, "would strengthen my faith."

They say this when no miracle is to be seen. Reasons
viewed from afar seem to form the limits of our vision,
but as soon as we have come up to them, we again begin
to look beyond. Nothing restrains the current of the
mind. There is no rule, it is said, without exceptions, nor
any truth so general but that there is some aspect from
whence it is deficient. It is enough that it be not absolutely universal, to give us grounds for applying the
exception to the present subject and saving, "That is not
true always, therefore there are cases where it is not
true." It only remains to show that this is one of them,
and this is why one is either very clumsy or very unfortunate if one does not find some light.

C Languages are

ciphers, in which letters are not

into letters, but

words

language

is

C Diversity

into words; so that an

changed

unknown

decipherable.
is

as

manifold

as the tones of the voice,

every

blowing of the nose, sneeze. We

distinguish grapes among fruits, and again we call these
and then Condrieu, and then Desargues, and then
this graft. Is this all? has it ever produced two clusters
alike? and has one cluster two similar berries? I do not
know how to judge of the same thing exactly in the
same way. I cannot judge of work while doing it; I must
do as painters do, and move back, though not too far.
different gait, cough,

How far then? Guess.

58

CThe

true and only virtue, therefore,

selves (for

by our

lust

we

is

are hateful)

to hate our-

and to seek a

truly lovable being, in order to love him. But, as

cannot love what

is

something which

within, and yet

this is true of

who

Being

within
is

is

outside ourselves,

we

love

which is not we, and

Now it is only the Universal

every man.

can be such

we must

a one.

The kingdom

of

God

is

good

is

within

world

is

the lust of the flesh, or the

us: universal

us,

is

ourselves,

and

not ourselves.

C All

that

is

in the

lust of the eyes, or the pride of life: ^Hibido sentiendi,

dominandiy Unhappy is the accursed land, inflamed, rather than watered, by these three
rivers of fire! Happy they, who being on these rivers
not immersed or carried away, but fixed and stable,
seated, not standing, on a low and secure seat whence
libido sciejjdi, libido

they

rise

in peace

not before the

light,

but after reposing there

extend their hand to

Him who

is

to raise

them and make them stand erect and firm in the porches
of the holy Jerusalem, where pride shall no more be able
to attack them and cast them down; and who in the
meantime weep, not to see all the perishable things
drifting away and carried off^ by the torrent, but at the
remembrance of their dear country, of the heavenly
Jerusalem, of which, in the weariness of their exile, they

think constantly.

C The

elect will not

know their virtues, or the reprobate

when saw we Thee

the greatness of their crimes. "Lord,

an hungered, or thirsty?"

C Jesus

Christ has never

etc.

condemned without

to Judas, ''''Amice, ad quid

that

venisti?''^

a hearing:

and the same to him

had not the wedding garment.

C Sepzdchre of Jesus Christ: Jesus Christ was dead, but

upon the cross. In the sepulchre He is dead and

seen,

hidden.
Jesus Christ was buried only by saints.
Jesus Christ wrought no miracles in the tomb.

59

Only saints entered therein.

new

there that Jesus Christ takes a

It is

life,

not on

the cross.
the last mystery of the Passion and the

It is

Redemp-

tion.

Jesus Christ had not on earth

where to lay His head,

except the tomb.

Only when He was

in the

tomb

did His enemies cease

to persecute him.

Why God has established Prayer:

To communicate
2. To teach us

i.

to His creatures the dignity of causaHt)^

whom we

hold virtue. 3. To make us worthy of

by endeavour. But, to keep its pre-eminence
for Himself, He gives prayer to whomsoever it pleases
Him.

from

other virtues

Objection: "But people will think that they of themselves

have power to pray." This

having

have faith?

is

absurd, for since,

they cannot have virtues,

faith,
Is

more

there not

distance

how should they

between

infidelity

and faith, than between faith and virtue?

C Diversion: As men have been unable

to cure death,

misery, ignorance, they have bethought themselves to

ignore them, so as to be happy.

C In

spite of these miseries,

man wishes to be happy, and

only wishes to be happy, and

be

so;

but

how

will he

go

to

is

unable not to wish to

work?

To

he must make himself immortal; but,

it

has occurred to

him

as

do

it

properly,

he cannot do

to prevent himself

so,

from thinking

of them.

C It

is

not possible to reasonably disbelieve miracles.

CThe pope
What other

is

premier.

What

other

is

known by

all?

acknowledged by all, having power to

introduce into the whole body since he holds the main
branch that which works its way everywhere? How
easy it is to degrade this to tyranny! That is why Jesus
Clirist has laid down for them this precept: "F<35 autem
non sic.''''
is

60

C Jesus Christ typified by Joseph: beloved of His Father,

sent by the Father to seek His brethren, etc., innocent,
sold by His brethren for twenty pieces of silver, and by
that become their Lord, their Saviour, and the Saviour
of strangers, and of the world: which would not have
been except for their plot to get rid of Him, and the
sale and the reproof they made of Him.
In prison, Joseph innocent between two criminals;
Jesus Christ, on the cross, between two malefactors. He
foretold salvation to the one and death to the other from
the same signs; Jesus Christ saves the elect, and condemns the reprobate for the same crimes. Joseph only
foretold; Jesus Christ fulfils. Joseph asks him who is to
be saved to remember him when he is exalted; and he

whom

Jesus Christ saves asks of

member him when He

shall

Him

come

that

to His

He

will re-

kingdom.

what we see at a glance, founded on the

no reason to do otherwise, and
founded also on the human figure; whence it is that we
wish for symmetry only in breadth, not in height or
C Symmetry

is

fact of there being

depth.

C I am aware
consists in

that

might not have

existed; for the "I"

my thought; therefore I who think would not

my mother been killed before I received

have been had

life;

am

therefore

am

not a necessary being. Moreover,

neither eternal nor infinite, but

there

is

in nature

one being who

is

see plainly that

necessary, eternal, and

infinite.

CPray,

ye enter into temptation." Temptation is

who are tempted, are tempted because they do not pray.
"f til co7iversiis co?jfir?na fratres tiiosT But [afterwards] ^^co?wersiis Jesus respexit Fetrimiy
St. Peter asks permission to smite Malchus, and strikes
before hearing the answer, and Jesus Christ replies
lest

dangerous, and those

afterwards.

The word
as if

Galilee, which the Jewish crowd uttered

by chance when accusing Jesus Christ before Pilate,

6i

B
made

Pilate send Jesus Christ to

accomplished the mystery that

the

Herod; by wtiich was

He should be judged by

Jews and by the Gentiles. The seeming chance was

the cause of the accomplishment of the mystery.

CBy

a fanciful estimate, imagination magnifies small

objects untn she

fills

the

mind with them, and by

ing insolence she reduces great ones to our

as

a dar-

own measure,

when speaking of God.

^^Lustravit la?7ipade terras^

mour have

little

The weather and my hu-

to do with each other.

have

my

fog

and my sunshine within me, and even the well or ill

going of my affairs makes little difference. I sometimes
exert myself against [mis] fortune, and the glory of
mastering it makes me master it cheerfully; while, on the
other hand, with good fortune I play the fastidious.

CThey

say that eclipses betoken misfortune, because

misfortunes are
it

common, and

evil

happens so often, that

if they said that

can frequently be foretold; while

they betokened good luck, they would very often

They

ascribe

good luck only

lie.

to rare occurrences in the

heavens; thus they seldom fail to guess aright.

C They who make antitheses by forcing words are like

those who make false windows for the sake of symmetry;
their rule is not to speak accurately, but to make accurate
figures.

C There

is

whether

and beauty which

harmony between our nature
or strong and the thing which

a certain style of pleasure

consists in a certain
it

be feeble

which is formed according to this style

whether house, or song, or. discourse, or

pleases us. All

delights us,

verse, or prose, or

woman, or birds, or rivers, or trees,

etc.; all which is not after this style

or rooms, or clothes,
offends those

who

have good

And

harmony between a song and

good model, because both follow

perfect
this

taste.

as there

is

house made on
a unique pattern,
a

though each in its own way, there is a similar harmony

between things made on a bad model. Not that the bad
6i

model

is

unique, for there are

many such,

upon whatever

sonnet, for example,

but every bad

false

model

woman dressed in
how ridiculous a bad

made, exactly resembles a

Nothing shows

better

than to consider

woman

imagine a

its

nature and

its

be

sonnet

is,

model, and then to

or a house formed on these

C As people speak of

it

this style.

lines.

"poetical beauty," so ought they

to speak of "geometrical beauty," or "medicinal beauty."

But they do not, for the reason that they know exactly
what is the object of geometry, and that it consists of
proofs, and the object of medicine, which is healing, but
they do not know wherein lies the charm which is the
aim of poetry. They do not know what this natural
model is which they should copy, and for want of this
knowledge they have invented certain strange terms
"golden age," "marvel of our days,"
call this

"fatal," etc.,

jargon "poetic beauty." But he

to himself a
in saying

woman

little

after this style

things in big

words

and

who will picture

which

consists

will see a pretty

which he will
laugh, because it is better known wherein lies the charm
of a woman than what comprises the charm of verses.
But those who do not know that will admire her in this
guise, and there are many villages where she would be
girl

covered with mirrors and chains,

taken for the queen; and this

is

at

why we

call

sonnets

made on this pattern "village queens."

C Nobody passes as a judge of poetry if he has not set
himself up as a poet, or a mathematician, etc. But universal people do not wish to set themselves up as anything, and make very little difference between the profession of a poet

and that of an embroiderer.

Universal people are called neither poets nor geometers, etc.,

They

but they are

all

these

and judge of

are not to be recognised intuitively.

all

these.

They

will

what is being talked of when they enter. No one

quality is more remarkable in them than another, except
that called forth by the occasion, but then they are
remembered, for it is equally characteristic of them that
talk of

63

people do not remark that they speak well,

ing

is

well,

when

that he

is

in question.

it is

Therefore

we

when speak-

not in question, and remark that they do speak

it is false

very

praise to say of a

skilful in poetry;

have not recourse to a

and

man, as he enters,
a bad sign when

it is

man when

a question of

it is

judging some verses.

If

we must do

nothing except for what

should do nothing for religion, for religion

But

how many

is

more

at

all,

aver that

since nothing

is

possible that

for this

we may

for religion. It

is

not certain.

is

dare to say that

is

not see

it.

certainly

is

needs

and that there

we may

not certain, but

it

see to-

certainly

is

We cannot say as much

not certain that

it

we must

certain;

certainty in religion than that

morrow dawn,

certain,

things are done for the uncertain, sea-

voyages, battles! Therefore

do nothing

we

is

it exists,

but

possible that

who

it

will

does not

So when we labour for the morrow, and for the

we do reasonably, for, by the demonstrated
law of probabilities, we ought to labour for the uncertain.
St. Augustine saw that we work for the uncertain, on
the sea, in battle, etc.; he did not see the law of chances,
which demonstrates that we ought to do so. Montaigne
saw that we are offended by a halting mind, and that
custom can compass anything, but he did not see why.
All these people saw the effects, but not the causes; and
with regard to those who have discovered the causes,
they are as those who have only eyes with regard to
those who have intelligence, for effects are as though
exist?

uncertain,

perceptible to the senses, while causes are visible only to

the mind.

And

although these effects are perceived by

the mind, this mind,

causes,

is

as the

compared

to

one which

sees the

bodily senses compared to the mind.

C All our reasoning

has to yield to sentiment. But fancy

and unlike sentiment, so that we cannot distinguish between these contradictions. One says my
sentiment is fancy, the other that his fancy is sentiment.
A guide is wanted. Reason offers itself, but reason is
pliable to every sense, and thus there is none.
is

both

like

64

C Diversion: Sometimes when

have

set

myself to con-

which men are moved,

which
they expose themselves,
and the perils and pains to
at court, in war, from whence arise so many quarrels,

sider the various directions in

passions,

and bold and often

discovered that
thing,

which

is

all

evil enterprises, etc., I

have

human misfortune comes from one

how

not knowing

to remain quietly in

one room.

A man who has sufficient means to live, if he

knew how

to stay at

to

go on the

home

happily,

sea or to a siege.

mission in the

army

so dearly

would not go forth

No one would buy a comwere

it

not intolerable not

would seek conversato stir

tion and the amusement of games but that no one can
out of the town, and no one

with pleasure remain in his own house.

But when, in looking closer, and after having found
the cause of all our misfortunes, I have desired to discover
its reason, I have found that there is one very potent
reason for it, that is, the unhappiness natural to our weak

and mortal condition,

a condition so miserable that

we think deeply about it, nothing can console us.

Whatever condition we picture to ourselves,
think of
is

all

the

when
if

we

good things which might be ours, royalty

the finest in the world; and yet, let any one imagine

himself royal and surrounded

by every

possible gratifi-

and if he is without amusement and left to consider and reflect upon what he is, this languid felicity
cation,

will not sustain him, he will of necessity fall a-thinking

of the things which threaten him, revolts which might

arise,

and

at length of

inevitable; so that

if

death and sickness, which are

he have not what is called diversion,

he will be unhappy, and more than the least of his subjects who plays and diverts himself.
It is on this account that the play, and the conversation of women, war, and great occupations, are in such
request. It is not that there is really any happiness in
them, or that any one imagines that any true gratification is afforded by having the money which may be
gained at play, or by the hare which he chases: he would
not have them if they were offered. It is not this mild
and peaceful possession, which allows us to think of our
65

i^

wretched condition, which

is

in view, or the dangers of

the war, or the anxiety of occupation, but the bustle

which

distracts

our thoughts and keeps us amused. (The

reason

why we

Hke the chase better than the capture.)

Thence it comes that men love so much tumult and

movement; thence it is that prison is so horrible a torture; thence

it is

prehensible.

And,

that the pleasure of solitude

in short,

it is

is

incom-

the strongest reason for

the happiness of kings, that unceasing endeavours are

made

them and procure for them all sorts of

(The king is surrounded by people whose
only care is to amuse him and prevent him from thinking
to divert

pleasures.

of himself: for

if

he do

so,

he will be unhappy, although

a king.)

how much man has been able to devise to make

himself happy. And those who build philosophies thereon, and who believe that people are well-nigh unreasonSee

able to pass the whole day in chasing a hare which they

would not buy, hardly know our nature. This hare
would not secure us against the sight of death and
misery (who can save us from these?), but the chase

does secure us against

The

it.

counsel they gave to Pyrrhus to take the repose

he was about to seek by means of

of plenty of

And

so

many

fatigues, admits

difficulties.

when men

are reproached that that

they seek so eagerly cannot satisfy them,

(as

they should,

if

if

they have well pondered

which

they answer
it)

that they

seek only a violent and energetic occupation, which

diverts
is

them from thoughts of themselves, and

that that

why they set up an object of attraction which delights

them and draws them powerfully, they would

leave

opponents without a reply. But they do not answer

thus, because they do not know themselves. They are
unaware that it is the chase alone, and not the capture,
their

which they desire.

(The dance: one must consider well where to set one's
feet.

The gentleman

sincerely believes that the chase

a great and royal pleasure, but the huntsman

the same mind.)

66

is

is

not of

They

imagine that having gained their object they

would then take

aware of the

their ease

and enjoy

it,

and are not

insatiable nature of their desire.

sincerely believe they are seeldng repose

when,

They

in truth,

they seek only agitation.

They have one

secret instinct leading

them

to seek

and occupation without, which comes from

the consciousness of their continual miseries; and another, which is a remnant of the greatness of our first
nature, telling them that happiness, after all, is found
only in repose, and not in tumult; and with these two
distraction

conflicting instincts, they

form within themselves a con-

fused plan, which, hidden from sight in the depth of

them to approach repose by agitation

and to imagine always that the satisfaction they have
not will come, if, by surmounting certain difficulties
which confront them, they can by this means open for
themselves the door to repose.
So life glides on. We seek rest by combating certain
difficulties, and when these are conquered, rest becomes
their soul, leads

we think either of the troubles we have,

we might have. And even were we protected
sides, ennui, on its own initiative, would never

intolerable, for

or of those

on all
weary of sallying forth from the depths of the heart,
where it is naturally rooted, and filling the mind with
its

poison.

Thus man

is so unfortunate, that he would be wearied

even without cause for weariness, by the very nature of
his composition; and so vain, that having within him a
thousand essential causes of ennui, the least trifle, such as

a billiard table

"But,"

you

and

a ball to drive, suffices to distract him.

will say,

"what

is

his object in all this?"

among his friends that he

else. In the same way
somebody
has played better than
others toil in their studies, that they may show the

That of boasting to-morrow

learned that they have solved a question of algebra which

has never been solved hitherto; and many others expose
themselves to the greatest perils in order to boast of
some place they have taken, quite as fooHshly, in my

opinion; and finally, others again take enormous pains

67

to observe these things, not to

so doing, but merely to

show

become more wise by

that they

know

them,

and they are the most foohsh of all, since they are
foolish knowingly, whereas we can call to mind others
who would be foolish no longer, did they possess this
knowledge.
So-and-so passes his life without tedium by playing
for a little every day. Give him every morning the
amount of his daily winnings, on condition that he do
not play, you make him unhappy. Perhaps it will be
said that it is the amusement of the game that he seeks,
and not the gain. Then make him play for nothing, and
he will not warm to the game, but grow tired of it.
Therefore it is not amusement only that he seeks; a
languid and passionless amusement will weary him. He
must warm to it, and delude himself by imagining he
would be happy if he gained that which he would not
have were it given to him on condition that he played
no more; in order that he may make for himself an object
of passion, and thereby excite his desire, his anger, his
fear, for this object, just as children are afraid of the

face that they have bedaubed.

Whence comes

it,

who a few months

who, burdened with lawmorning so harassed, thinks

that this man,

since lost his only son, and

suits

and disputes, was

this

of these things no longer?

entirely taken

Do

not marvel thereat; he

up with seeing which way

this

is

wild boar,

which the dogs have been hotly pursuing for six hours,
No more is wanted: if man, however full of
sadness he be, can be prevailed upon to enter on some
diversion, he will be happy for the time being; and if
man, however happy he be, is not diverted and occupied
by some passion or amusement, which prevents ennui
from asserting itself, he will soon be discontented and
will pass.

unhappy.

Without
is no

diversion, there

And

is

no joy; with

diversion,

made up the
happiness of great personages, who have a number of
people who amuse them, and who can keep them amused.
Mark this. What is it to be superintendent, chancellor, or

there

sadness.

in this w^ay

68

is

from the
number of people who
leave them one hour in

first

president, but to be in a position to have

first

thing in the morning a large

come from

all

parts so as not to

the day in which to think of themselves?

And when

they are disgraced, and sent to their country houses,

where they lack neither means nor servants to help

them in their need, they do not cease to be wretched and

forlorn, because no one prevents them from thinking
of themselves.

C Montaigne

is

only because

it is

wrong: custom ought to be followed

custom, and not because it is reason-

able or just; but the people follow

that they believe

follow

it,

would

it

it

only for the reason

would not
were custom, because no one

to be just, otherwise they

although

it

desire to be subjected to anything but reason or

justice.

Without

that,

custom would pass for tyranny,

but the rule of reason and justice

is

not more tyrannical

than that of delectation; these are the principles natural

it would be well if we obeyed laws
and customs because they are laws; it would be well if
we were aware that none of them are true and right to
introduce, and that we know nothing about them, and
that accordingly we must follow only those that are
received; in this way we should never depart from them.
But the people are not able to accept this doctrine, and
as they believe that truth can be found, and that in the
laws and customs, they follow these and take their antiquity as a proof of their truth (and not of their mere
authority without truth). Thus they obey them; but
they are liable to rebel as soon as they are shown that
these laws and customs are worth nothing which can
be shown of everything, by regarding it from a certain

to man. Therefore

standpoint.

C Evil

is

easy, there

is

an infinity of

unique. But a certain sort of evil

as that

which people

particular evil

is

call

often

it;

is

the

good

is

almost

as difficult to find

good, on which account

made

this

to pass as good. It even

needs an extraordinary greatness of soul to arrive at

just as

much as at the good.

69

it,

If

we

we

wish to prove the examples

other things,

we

examples; for as

use to prove

use the other things as proofs of the

we

always think that the difficulty

lies

which we desire to prove, we find the examples

clearer and more useful in showing it. Thus, when we
wish to show a general thing, we must give the rule for
a particular case, but if we wish to show a particular
case, we must begin with the [general] rule. For we
in that

always find the thing

that

which we use

we

wish to prove, obscure, and

to prove

with the idea that

it

other hand, that that

we understand it

and thus

How

when we

clear; for

it,

we

first

easily.

difficult it is to offer a

thing for the considera-

tion of another, without influencing his

the

manner of proposing

beautiful;

kind,

we

excite

it

consider

pro-

occupy our mind

is therefore obscure, and, on the
which ought to prove it is clear,

pose a thing to be proved,

it

it!

If

we

judgment by

say, "I consider

it

obscure," or anything of the

persuade his imagination to this opinion, or

to the contrary. It

then he judges

it

is

better to say nothing, and

according to what

according to what

it

is

it is,

that

is

to say,

then, and according as other

we have nothing to do shall

have disposed it. At any rate we shall not have aff"ected
it in any way, unless our silence also has its eff^ect, accordcircumstances with which

may

ing to the turn and the meaning that he

mood

to give to

it,

or as

he

may

conjecture

looks, or expression, or tone of voice,

siognomist: so easy

is it

to depose a

natural position, or, rather, so

which is firm and

C

Pyrrho?iis7n:

if

it

be in the

from our

he be a phy-

judgment from

little is

its

there in opinion

stable.

shall

down my

here set

thoughts with-

out any order, and yet perhaps not in a wholly aimless

confusion; this
larity

it

will

subject too

is

the true order, and

always show

much honour

my

by

intention,

did

treat

it

its
I

very irregu-

should do

my

in order, since

wish to show that it is incapable of being so treated.

do not think of Plato and Aristotle except as in
the long gowns of pedants. They were worthy men, and

We

70

laughed with their friends

And when

they

"Laws" and
pastime. It was the

their

like the rest.

amused themselves by making

"Politics," they did so as a

their

least

philosophical and least serious part of their hfe: the

most philosophical was to live simply and peacefully. If

they wrote of politics, it was as if to regulate a hospital

madmen. And

they pretended to speak of it as of

an important matter, it was because they knew that the
madmen whom they were addressing thought to be
for

if

kings and emperors.

They

entered into their principles

in order to reduce their folly to the least possible evil.

Those who judge of

to others, as those

who

have not: the one

says, "It

work by

rule are, with regard

who have a watch with regard to those

says, "It

is

two hours";

only three-quarters of an hour";

is

my

the other
I

look at

"You grow weary,"

watch, and I say to the one,

and to the other, "With you the time passes lightly,"
for it is but an hour and a half, and I laugh at those who
tell me that the time weighs upon my hands, and that I
judge of it by imagination; they do not know that I
tell it

by

C There

my watch.
are

some

vices

of others, and which,

if

which hold us only by means

we

take

away

their trunk, are

carried off like branches.

CWhen

malignity has reason on

arrogant, and parades reason in

its

side, it

all

its

becomes

glory:

when

austerity or severe choice has not succeeded in the true

good, and has to return to following nature,

it

becomes

proud by reason of this return.

There

and essential difference between

the actions of the will and all other action. The will is
one of the principal organs of belief; not because it
forms belief, but because things are true or false according to the side from which they are viewed. The will,
which likes one side better than the other, dissuades the

(T

is

a universal

mind from considering the

qualities of those

which

it

does not care to see; and thus the mind, walking abreast
71

of the will, stops to observe the aspect which pleases

the will, and judges of the thing

by what it

sees there.

CAll good maxims are already in existence, the only

thing needed is to apply them. For example:

No one doubts that one ought to risk one's life for the
many do
but for religion by no

public good, and

it,

means.

There must be inequaUty among men; that is true,

but having granted it, the door is at once open not only
to the highest domination, but to the highest tyranny.
It is

necessary to relax the

mind somewhat; but

opens the door to the greatest excesses.

Let their limits be marked! Things have no

that

limits; the

laws would assign them, and the mind cannot tolerate

them.

C Eloquence

who

is

and thus those

a painting of thought;

after having painted

add more to

it,

make

a picture

instead of a portrait.

C Diversion:

It is easier to suffer

death without thinking

^t, than the thought of death without peril.

C Force

the queen of the world, and not opinion, but

is

that which makes use of force. It is force

which makes opinion. Weakness, in our opinion, is be-

opinion

is

coming.

Why?

tight-rope

of people

Because he

wiU be

alone,

who

and

will

will

wish to dance the

make

a stronger cabal

who will say that it is not becoming.

C The things which occupy us most, such

as

hiding our

small means, are frequently almost nothing at

all:

this is

which our imagination magnifies into a

mountain; one more turn of imagination and we should
a mole-hill

reveal

it

without

difficulty.

C There are only tAVO

sorts of

men: those

who are
who

righteous and think themselves sinners, and those

are sinners

C Faith

is

and think themselves righteous.

a gift of

a gift of reason.

God. Believe not

The

that

we

said

it

was

other religions do not say that of

72

their faith; tliey only give the reasoning for arriving at

which, nevertheless, does not lead to it.

it,

C There

are

some who speak well but do not write

well.

It is because the occasion and the company warm them,

and extract from their minds more than they would
"^
find there without this warmth.

And yet this Testament, made to confuse some and

marked in those whom it confused,

which was to be known by the others. For the
visible good things which they received from God were
so great and so divine, that it was manifest that He was
able to give those which were invisible, and the Messiah.
to enlighten others,

the truth

For nature

is

the image of grace, and the visible

miracles are the image of the invisible. "L/^ sciatis

tibi dico: Surge.'''' (Isaiah

will be

Redemption

says that the

known as the passing of the Red Sea.)

God
the

li.

sea,

therefore has shown, in the exodus

from Egypt,

the defeat of the king, the manna, in aU the

genealogy of Abraham, that

He was

to send

down bread from heaven,

people

is

able to save, and

etc.; so that

the hostile

the type and the representation of the very

Messiah that they

taught us that

all

meaning of "truly
cision," "true

know

Then, finally. He has

were but figures, and the

not, etc.

these things

free," "true Israelite," "true

bread from heaven,"

In these promises every

man

circum-

etc.

will find

what he has

at

heart, either temporal blessings or spiritual blessings,

God or the creatures; but with this distinction, that those

who seek there for the creatures will find them, but with
many

contradictions, with the love of

with the
none but

wUl

who

command

Him

(which

find that for

seek

to worship

God

is

God

them forbidden,

alone,

and to love

the same thing), and lastly, they

them no Messiah has come; while those

Him, and without con-

there will find

with the command to love Him alone, and

has come in the time foretold to give
Messiah
that a
them the blessings they asked.
Thus the Jews had miracles, and prophecies which
tradiction,

73

they saw accomplished; and the doctrine of their law

was to worship and love but one God. Thus it was per-

Thus it had all the marks of true religion; thus

was the true religion. But we must distinguish between
the doctrine of the Jews and the doctrine of the law of
the Jews. For the doctrine of the Jews was not true,
although it had miracles, prophecies, and perpetuity, for
the reason that it had not the other principle that of
worshipping and loving God alone.

petual.
it

CIs not the dignity of royalty sufficiently great of

to render its possessor happy through mere self-

itself

contemplation?

Is it

thought of himself,

necessary to divert him from the

as in the case of

plainly that to turn a

man from

domestic troubles and to occupy

care of dancing well,
it

is

to

ordinary folk?

see

the consideration of his

thoughts with the

his

make him happy.

But

will

be the same with a king, and will he be happier in

devoting himself to these empty amusements than in

contemplating

What more satisfying food

Would it not spoil his

his greatness?

for thought could he be given?

pleasure to

ment of

employ

his

mind

his steps to the

in thinking of the adjust-

sound of

melody, or

fully placing a ball, instead of leaving

him

in skil-

to enjoy

peacefully the contemplation of the glory of the majesty

which surrounds him? Let

it

be put to the

test:

let a

king be left alone, without anything to gratify the senses,

without any occupation for the mind, without companions, to think of himself at his leisure, and

seen that a king without diversion

miseries.

Thus

is

it

man

will

be

full

of

his attendants carefully avoid leaving a

king to himself, and there

is

never wanting about the

number of people who take care

succeeds business, and who mark their
moment in order to supply them with

persons of kings a large

that pleasure

every leisure

pleasures and pastimes, so that there

is,

they are surrounded by people

is

never a gap that

who

take marvellous

pains to see that the king be not alone and in a position

to think of himself,

unhappy, although

knowing

a king.

74

that

if

he do so he will be

but

do not speak here of Christian kings

as Christians,

as kings.

C What

between a soldier and a Carthusian

For they are equally obedient
and dependent, and equally painstaking in their work.
But the soldier is always hoping to become master (and
never becomes so, for even captains and princes are
always slaves and dependents, but he hopes on, and cona difference

in the matter of obedience!

stantly

works

to that end), while the Carthusian

vows

to be ever in subjection. Thus, they do not differ as to

the perpetual servitude which is always the lot of both,
but in the hope which the one has continually, and the

other never.

C To be

life, being, and movement

body and for the body.
The separated member, no longer in company with
the body to which it belongs, has no more than a decay-

member

only by the

is

spirit of

to have

the

ing and dying existence. Yet

it

thinks itself a whole, and

no longer seeing anybody on which it depends, it believes it depends only on itself, and desires to make itself
its centre and body. But not having within it the vital
principle, it can but go astray, and wonder in the uncertainty of

its

being, feeling indeed that

it is

not the body,

and yet not seeing that it is a member of the body. And

then when it comes to self-knowledge, it is as if returned
to its home, and no longer loves itself except for the
whole body; it laments its past errors.
From its nature it cannot love any other thing except
and to serve itself, because everything loves
all. But in loving the body, it loves itself,
because it has no existence except in the body, by the
body, and for the body.
The body loves the hand, and the hand, if it had a
will, ought to love itself in the same way that the soul
loves it; all love which is more than this is wrong.

for

itself

itself

above

"Adhaerens Dea imiis Spirims est." Each loves himself

because he is a member of Jesus Christ. Each loves Jesus
Christ because
bers. All

is

He

is

the

Body

one, and the one

is

75

of which

we

are

mem-

in the other, as the Trinity.

C God, having made a heaven and an earth which felt

not the gladness of their existence, wished to create
beings who should know this gladness, and who might

make up

body of thinking members. For our members

marharmony, of nature's care to influence our minds

therewith and to make them grow and endure. How
happy would they be, did they feel it and see it! But for
that they need intelligence, and readiness to consent to
feel the happiness of their union, of their

do not

vellous

Only if, having received

merely to retain nourishment

the will of the universal mind.

intelligence,

they used

it

for themselves, without allowing

it

to pass to the other

members, they would not only be unjust, but miserable

as well, and would hate rather than love themselves, as
their blessedness, as well as their duty, consists in con-

which they
than they love them-

senting to the guidance of the one

belong, which loves them better

mind

to

selves.

God

We

by Jesus Christ:

know God

only by Jesus

communication with
God is cut off; through Jesus Christ we know God. All
those who have claimed to know God and to prove Him
without Jesus Christ have only useless proofs. But we, to
prove Jesus Christ, have the prophecies which are solid
and palpable proofs. And the prophecies, being accomplished, and proved real by the event, mark the certainty of these truths, and thus, the proof of the divinit)'^
of Jesus Christ. In Him and by Him, then, we know
God. Except for that, and without Scripture, without
original sin, without a necessary Mediator foretold and
come, we can neither absolutely prove God, nor teach
good doctrine or good morals. But by Jesus Christ and
in Jesus Christ, God is proved, and morality and doctrine

Christ.

Without

this

Mediator,

are taught. Jesus Christ

men. But
for this

we

can

all

therefore the veritable

is

God of

same time we know our wretchedness,

He who is our restorer in our miser\\ So
God perfectly only by knowing our

at the

God is
know

iniquities.

Thus

those

who

have

known God without knowing

76

their misery have not glorified

themselves in their miseries.

sapientiam

placuit

Him, but have glorified

non cogfiovit per

'"''Quia

Deo per

stultitiam praedicationis

salvos facere [credentes}.'^

C The world judges of things well, for it is in a state of

which is the true human wisdom.
Knowledge has two extremes, which meet. The first is
natural ignorance,

the pure natural ignorance of

other

that reached

is

traversed

all

by

all

men

at their birth.

The

those loftv souls who, having

human knowledge,

find that they

know

nothing, and that they are in the same ignorance from

which they

knows

but it is a learned ignorance, which

Those between the two, who have left

set out,

itself.

natural ignorance and cannot arrive at the other, have

some tinge of this sufficing knowledge, and form the
intelligent. These disturb the world and judge wrongly
of everything. The people and the clever make up the
bulk of the community: these others despise them, and
are despised by them. They judge of everything ill, and
the world judges of everything well.

C Objection: "The Scripture is obviously full of things

not dictated bv the Holy Spirit." Reply: They do not
harm faith on that account.
C Objection: "But the Church has decided that all is
from the Holy Spirit." Reply: I answer two things: first,
that the Church never decided that; and secondly, that if
she had decided it, it could have been maintained.
CIt

is

truth,

false piety to preserve

and

peace at the expense of

false zeal to preserve truth

by wounding

charity.

C It is odd to think that there are people who, having

renounced every law of God and of nature, have made
others for themselves which they observe exactly, as, for
example, the soldiers of Mahomet, thieves, heretics,

etc.;

and also the logicians. It seems that their licence should

have no bounds or barriers at all, seeing that they have
overstepped so many which are so just and so holy.
77

M
C Greatness of Man: The greatness of man is so plain,
it deduces itself even from his misery. For that
which is nature in animals we call misery in man, from

that

whence we

see that as his nature to-day

of the animals, he

is

fallen

from

is

like to that

a better nature

which

one time he possessed.

For who thinks himself unhappy because he is not a
king, except a deposed king? Was Paul Emilius unhappy
at being no longer consul? On the contrary, every one
considered him happy in having been consul, because he
was not of the rank to have been so always. But Perseus
was held so unfortunate in being no longer king, because
according to his rank he should have been king always,
that it was considered strange that he could endure his
life. Who is unhappy at having but one mouth? and who
would not consider himself unfortunate in having but
one eye? No one, perhaps, ever takes it into his head to
lament that he has not three eyes; but anybody would
be inconsolable at having no eyes at all.
at

C Sneezing absorbs

much

as

work

all

the faculties of the

does, but

we do

mind

quite as

not draw therefrom the

same inference against the greatness of man, because

is

And

in spite of himself.

sneeze himself, nevertheless

it

although he procures the

it is

in spite of himself that

and the actual sneeze is not the object in

view: it is for another end, and thus it is only a mark
of man's weakness and his dependence on this action.
It is not shameful for man to yield to sadness, and it is
shameful for him to yield to pleasure. This is not because
sorrow comes from without, while pleasure is sought,
for we can seek sorrow and designedly yield to it without this kind of baseness. How then does it happen that
it is glorious to the reason to yield under the pressure of
sorrow, and shameful to yield under the pressure of
pleasure? It is because it is not sorrow which tempts
and attracts us, but ourselves who voluntarily choose
and desire to give it dominion over us, so that we are
masters of it, and thus it is man yielding to himself; but
in pleasure, it is man yielding to pleasure. It is mastery
he procures

it,

78

and dominion alone which make glory, and servitude

alone which makes shame.

C '"''Summum
best

jus,

summa

way, because

injuria.''^ T\\q

it is visible,

obeyed; nevertheless

itself

majority

the

is

and has the power to make

the opinion of the less

it is

capable.

Had

it

been

possible, force

would have been put

as

we

is

a spiritual quality of

wish, because

justice has

into

we

cannot handle force

a tangible quality, while justice

the hands of justice; but since

it is

which we dispose

as

we

please,

been put into the hands of force, and thus

which we

we

bound to observe, just.

sword confers a
real right; otherwise we should see violence on the one
side and justice on the other. (End of the twelfth
Provincial.) Hence the injustice of the Fronde, which
sets up its so-called justice in opposition to force. It is
call that

Hence

are absolutely

the right of the sword, for the

not so in the Church, for there

is

a true justice

and no

violence.

C Man's misery being inferred from his greatness, and

his greatness from his misery, some have inferred the
misery the more forcibly because they have taken

it

as

proof of greatness; and others inferring the greatness

the

more

forcibly because they have deduced

same misery,

from

it

have been able to say

to show the greatness has served only as an argument for
others to conclude the misery, since to have fallen from a

that

higher state

They

is

all

that the

to be the

first

more wretched, and

pursue each other in an unending

vice versa.

circle,

being

certain that in proportion to men's enlightenment they

find both greatness

knows
is

that he

is

and misery

miserable; yet since he

C Sub?mssion:

He who

man. In

knows it, he

is

We must know how to

make

necessary, and to

submitting

in

short,

man

miserable; therefore being miserable, he

when

it is

sure

when

very great.

doubt when

it is

necessary,

it is

by

necessary.

does not act thus does not understand the

force of reason. There are some

79

who

err against these

three principles, either

by

affirming

all as

demonstrable,

for lack of understanding demonstration; or by doubting

everything, for lack of knowing when to submit; or by

submitting in everything, for lack of knowing where
to use judgment.

C The examples of the noble deaths of the Lacedemonians and others hardly affect us, for what have they
brought us? But the example of the death of the martyrs
does affect us, for they are "our members." We have a
common bond with them; their fortitude can make ours,
not only by example, but, may be, because it deserves it.
is nothing of that kind in the example of the
pagans; we have nothing in common with them; just

There

one

as

is

not the richer for a stranger's wealth, but for a

father's or husband's.

C Greatness of what

The

lishment.

is

established: respect for estab-

pleasure of the rich

people happy; the use of wealth

is

the

power

the use of everything ought to be sought for.

of

to

make

to be given liberally:

is

The

use

power is to protect.

CMartiaPs Epigram:

Man

loves malignity, not against

the obscure or unfortunate, but against the prosperous

and haughty: otherwise he deceives himself. For the

all our motives is concupiscence, and humanity,
etc. ... It is necessary to please those of humane and

source of

tender feelings.

That of the two blind people is worth nothing, because

it

does not console them, but merely adds a

glory of the author. All which

valueless: ^^Ambitiosa recidet

It is

not an

uncommon

for over-much docility.

incredulity,

CWhat

and quite

as

is

trifle

to the

only for the author

is

ornamental

thing to have to rebuke people

There

a vice as natural as

is

pernicious superstition.

are our natural principles,

principles, and, in children, those

if

not our habitual

which they have

re-

ceived from their father's custom, as the chase in animals?

A different custom will give us other natural principles.

80

This

is

seen

by

experience; and

ciples ineffaceable

by

there are natural prin-

if

habit, there are also principles

and another

habit; that

of

by nature

habit contrary to nature, not to be effaced

depends on the disposition.

C Thmking reed: It is not from space that I must seek my

dignity, but in the regulation of

sion of worlds

my thought. The posses-

would not give me more than

space the universe encloses

me and

engulfs

this;

me

with

like

an

atom, but with thought I enclose the universe.

C Man

is

great,

inasmuch
not

able; a tree does

fore, to

to

be miserable

as

he knows that he

know that
is to know

it is

is

miser-

miserable. There-

one's self to be so, but

know one's self to be miserable is to be great.

C The only

universal rules are the laws of the land in

ordinary things, and the majority in others.

comes

this?

From

And thus it is

the strength

who

that kings,

which

is

Whence

in a majority.

have other power besides,

do not follow the majority of their ministers.

Doubtless the equality of property
it is

impossible to

been made

make

just to

fortified, force has

it

obey strength;
been

is just,

but since

strong to obey justice,

as justice

justified, in

it

has

cannot be

order that justice

and force might go together, and that there might be

peace,

which is the sovereign good.

C Wisdom sends

us to childhood,

"wm

efficiamini sicut

parvuliJ^

As dukedoms and royalty and magistracies are actual

and necessary, because strength rules everything, they
exist everywhere and always. But because it is only
caprice which makes such-and-such a thing be so, that
thing is not constant, but is liable to vary, etc.

C It

whatever is just be followed: it is necessary that whatever is strongest be followed. Justice

without strength is powerless; strength without justice
is tyrannical. Justice without strength is defied, because
there are always wrongdoers; strength without justice is
is

just that

indicted. Justice

and strength, then, must be put tothis, that which is just must

gether, and, in order to do

be made strong, and that which is strong, just.

Justice is hable to be called into question: force is
unmistakable and indisputable. Thus we have not been
able to give force to justice, because force has defied
justice,

and called it unjust, and said that it was itself

just; and so, being unable to make that which
strong, we have made that which is strong, just.

which was
is just,

C Geometry

fiJiesse:

True eloquence laughs

at

elo-

quence; true morahty laughs at moralit)^; that is to say,

the morality of the judgment laughs at the morality of
the mind, which has no rules. For to judgment belongs

knowledge belongs to the mind. Subtlety

judgment, geometry of the mind.

intuition, as
is

a matter of the

To laugh

CMen

at

philosophy

is

to be a true philosopher.

are taught everything but honesty,

and they

never pride themselves on knowing anything so well as

how to be honest. They pride themselves only on knowing the one thing they have never learned.

C Children who are

are children; but
child,

afraid of the face they have daubed,

how

be very strong

can man,

when

who

older?

is

so

weak when

We change

only in

which is perfected by progress perishes

Nothing which has been weak will ever
be absolutely strong. It is vainly said, "He is grown; he

imagination. All

by
is

progress.

changed," for he is still the same.

C Two extremes: to exclude reason, and to admit nothing

but reason.

C It is thought which makes man's greatness.

C We know truth not only by reason, but also through
it is through the heart that we know first principles, and it is in vain that reasoning, which has no hold
there, essays to combat them. This is the sole aim of the
the heart;

Pyrrhonians,
that

we do

who labour for it unsuccessfully. We know

we be to

not dream: however powerless

prove it by reason, this powerlessness implies nothing

but the feebleness of our reason, and not the uncertainty
of all our knowledge, as they maintain. For the knowledge of first principles as that there are space, time,
motion, numbers is

given us by reasoning.

as

firm as that of any principles

And it is upon this knowledge

of

the heart and instinct that reason has to lean, and found
all

her discourse. (The heart feels that there are three

dimensions in space, and that numbers are

infinite,

and

reason then demonstrates that there are not two square

numbers of which one may be double the other. Prinand both with

ciples are felt, propositions are deduced,

certitude, although in different ways.)

Thus it is as useless and as ridiculous for reason to

demand of the heart proofs of its first principles, before
agreeing to consent thereto, as it would be for the heart
to demand from reason a sentiment of all the propositions which reason demonstrates, before agreeing to
receive them.

This impotence therefore ought to serve only to

humiliate reason, which wishes to pass judgment on
everything, but not to oppose our certitude, as if there
were nothing but reason capable of instructing us.

would to God that we never had need of it,

and that we knew everything by instinct and intuition!
But nature has refused us this boon, for, on the contrary,
she has given us very few cognitions of this sort; all
others can be acquired only through reasoning.
Rather,

And this is why those to whom God has given religion

through the intuition of the heart are indeed happy, and
legitimately persuaded. But to those who have it not, we
only by reasoning, while waiting for God
them through the intuition of the heart, without which faith is but human and useless for salvation.

can give
to give

it

it

C Philosophers: They

believe that

God

alone

is

worthy

of love and admiration, and they have desired to be

loved and admired
tion. If

they

feel

by men, and know not

themselves

love and adoration for

filled

Him, and
83

their corrup-

with sentiments of
they find in Him

if

their chief joy, let

much the
But

if

them esteem themselves good, so

better.

they are antagonistic to Him,

if

they have no

inclination but to establish themselves in man's esteem,

and

if,

for

all

perfection, they only

out forcing men, they make them

loving them,

have they
that

work

say that this perfection

known God and

men might

love

so that, with-

find their happiness in

is

horrible.

What!

not desired only and solely

Him, but

that

men

should go no

further than themselves, and have they wished to be the

object of the voluntary happiness of men?

C Miracles were wrought by Jesus Christ, and then by

the apostles and the first saints, in great number, because
the prophecies being yet unaccomplished, and accomplishing themselves in them, the miracles alone bore

was foretold that the Messiah should convert

How was this prophecy accomplished without the conversion of the nations? And how were the
witness. It

the nations.

nations converted to the Messiah, since they did not see

this last effect of the

Accordingly, before
the nations

all

prophecies which proved

He

had

died, risen,

Him?

and converted

was not accomplished, and thus there was

a necessity for miracles during that time.

Now there

no more need for miracles against the Jews, for the

filled

is

ful-

prophecies are an enduring miracle.

For we must not mistake ourselves; we consist as

of automaton as of mind, and thence it is that the
instrument which works persuasion is not demonstration only. How few demonstrated things there are!
Proofs convince the mind alone. Our strongest and most

much

accepted proofs are made

by custom. Custom inclines

which draws the mind without the mind's
being aware of it. Who has demonstrated that to-morrow
will dawn, and that we shall die? And what is there
which is more believed? It is custom, then, which persuades us of these things, and which makes so many
the automaton

many Turks, pagans, trades, soldiers,

we must have recourse to it when once

Christians, so

etc.

In short,

our

84

mind has seen where truth is, in order to prepare us for

and tinge us with this belief, which escapes us every
hour, for to have its proofs always present is too great
an undertaking. We have to acquire an easier credence,
that of habit, which without violence, art, or argument,
makes us believe things and inclines all our powers to
this belief, so that our mind falls into it naturally. When
one believes only by force of conviction, and the automaton

is inclined to believe the contrary, this is not

enough. Therefore both parts must be made to believe:
the mind, by the reasons which it is sufficient for it to

its life, and the automaton, by custom,

and by not allowing it to incline to the contrary, ^'hiclina

have seen once in

cor

meum, Deusr

Reason

acts slowly,

many

with so

surveys of so

many

which must be always present, that at any

grows dull and goes astray, for want of having

principles

hour
all

it

principles present. Intuition does not act so:

its

it

works at once, and is always ready. Therefore our faith

must be intuition; otherwise it will be always vacillating.
C Fathers fear that the natural love of
be effaced. What, then,
effacement? Habit
the

first.

ural?

But what

am

very

first habit, as

nature?

much

habit

is

nature which

Why

is

is

liable to

which destroys

not the habit nat-

afraid that this nature itself

is

but

a second nature.

C Against Pyrrhonism:
hend things

this

a second nature,

is
is

is

their children will

We suppose that all men appre-

same manner, but our supposition is

quite gratuitous, for we have no proof of it. I see clearly
that these words are used on the same occasions, and
that every time two men see a body change its place,
they each express the sight of this one thing by the same
word, each saying that it has moved, and from this agree-

ment of
ment of

in the

application
ideas;

but

we

it is

strongly conjecture an agree-

not absolutely and finally con-

may be much in favour of the

we know that the same deductions are

vincing, although there

affirmative, since

often

drawn from

different suppositions.

85

That

is

suf-

ficient at least to

obscure the matter; not that

it

totally

which assures us of these

things, the academicians would have wagered, but it
extinguishes the natural light

dulls it, and disturbs the dogmatists to the glory of the

Pyrrhonian cabal, which consists of this ambiguous ambiguity and a certain doubtful obscurity which our
doubts cannot deprive of all clearness, and whose dark-

ness our natural lights cannot quite dispel.

We must love only God,

If the

and that there was

to the body,

pended;

if it

aware that

what

and hate only ourselves.

foot had always ignored the fact that it belonged

a

body on which

it

de-

knew and loved itself alone; and if it became

it

belongs to a body on which

to have been useless to

it

depends,

would it feel,
the body which promoted its

what shame

regret,

for

its

past life

and which would have annihilated it had it rejected

it and separated it from itself, as it separated itself from
the body! How it would pray to be kept! And with
what submission would it resign itself to be governed
by the will which rules the body, even to consenting
to be cut off, if need be, or to lose its membership; for
every member must be glad and willing to perish for
the body, for which alone all exists.
life,

CThat

the

but one

will,

CWhen

members may be happy, they must have

and make it conform to the body.

one

accustomed to using bad reasons with

one no longer
wishes to receive the good when they are discovered.
The example given of them was the circulation of the

which

blood, to

C As

we

is

to prove the effects of nature,

show why

a rule,

we

the vein swells below the ligature.

persuade ourselves more

by

the reasons

have found for ourselves than by those which have

occurred to other people.

C The arithmetical machine produces effects which approach nearer to thought than all that animals do; but it
does nothing which can cause it to be said that, like
animals,

it

has will.

86

the persons have no interest at

C Although
they say,

do not

in

what

must not therefore be concluded that they

it

lie;

all

for there are people

who

lie

for the sake of

lying.

C There

we

is

pleasure in being in a storm-tossed boat

are certain that

The

will not perish.

it

when

persecutions

which agitate the Church are of this nature.

C Human nature
according to

its

is

considered in

and

end,

then

two ways,

the one,

great and incom-

it is

parable, the other, according to the multitude (as the

nature of the horse or the dog
of watching

then

man

is

its

is

judged by the [habit]

course, and '"'ammiivi arcendr),

abject and vile.

which make him

And those

diversely

2ind

two ways
judged, and which cause
are the

philosophers to dispute so much. For the one negatives

the supposition of the other; the one says,

"He

is

born for this end, for aU his actions are repugnant to

the other says,

"He

departs

from

his

not
it";

end when he

performs base actions."

C With

how

united with

little

pride does a Christian believe himself

God! With how

little

dejection does he

liken himself to the worms of the earth!

What

a seemly

way

of receiving

life

and death, good

things and evil!

C [We should have pity for both, but for the first we
should have the pity which springs from tenderness, and
for the others the pity which springs from contempt.]

C [Is it courage in a dying man to go

agony to confront an all-powerful and

in

weakness and

eternal

God? ]

C Our imagination so greatly magnifies the present time,

by force of continually reflecting on it, and so dwarfs
eternity for lack of reflecting on it, that we make the
cipher eternity and eternity a cipher; and this
strongly rooted in us that
us against

it,

and that

all

87

is

so

our reason cannot protect

fill

C That foolish project of Montaigne's to describe himself!

And not in passing and against his principles

falls to

every one's lot to

maxims and by

fail),

(for

but according to his

it

own

primary and chief design. For to say

random and through weakness is a combut to say them designedly is intolerable.

foolish things at

mon

defect,

CI marvel

when

undertake to speak of God,

to the impious. Their

by

ity

first

for

certain that those

within the heart see at once that

work

but the

is

to prove the divin-

should not wonder at their

they addressed their discourse to the faith-

if

it is

those in

addressing themselves

chapter

the works of nature.

enterprise
ful,

with which these persons

at the boldness

of the

whom

God whom

this light is

they design to rekindle

it,

who
all

have faith quick

is, is nothing

which

they worship. But for

extinguished and in

whom

persons destitute of faith and

who, seeking with all their power everything they

see in nature which can lead them to this knowledge,
find only obscurity and gloom, to tell those that they
have only to look at the least of the objects about them
in order to see God revealed therein, and to offer them,
as the whole proof of this great and important subject,
the course of the moon and the planets, and to pretend
grace,

to have completed the proof

give

them cause to

are very

by such

a discourse,

is

to

believe that the proofs of our religion

weak; and reason and experience show

me that

nothing is more fitted to make them distrust it.

Not

in this

way

does Scripture, which best

knows

God, speak of Him. On the conis a hidden God, and that since
the corruption of nature. He has left them in a blindness from which they can be freed only through Jesus
Christ, except for whom all communication with God is
cut off: ^^Nemo Jiovit Fatrem, Jiisi Films, et cm voluerit

the things that are of

trary,

it

says that

God

Films revelore."
It is this

many

that Scripture

places that those

this light

which

is

not said that those

shows us when

it

says in so

who seek God find Him. It is not

spoken of "as daylight at noon"; it is

who seek daylight at noon, or water

in the sea, shall find

it;

and so the evidence of

nature must not be of this kind.

where: " Vere tu

CTo

mask

Thus

it tells

God

in

us else-

Deus absconditiis.^''

es

no more king,
no Paris, but
"capital of the kingdom." There are some occasions
when Paris must be called Paris, and others when it must
be called "capital of the kingdom."
nature, and to disguise

pope, bishop, but "august monarch,"

it:

etc.;

C In proportion as we have understanding we find that

more original persons. Common-place folk find
no difference in people.
there are

C If everything is submitted to reason, our religion wUl

have nothing mysterious or supernatural. If the principles of reason are violated,

our rehgion will be absurd

and ridiculous.

C On
from

the Christian religion not being unique: So far

this

being a reason for believing that

true religion,
that

it is

it is

not the

on the contrary, that which shows

it is,

the true religion.

If the primitive

overthrown.

Church was in
the Church is

When

not the same thing, for

it

error, the

Church

in error to-day,

is

it is

always has the superior maxim

of tradition from the hand of the primitive Church;

and so

this

submission and conformity to the primitive

Church prevails and corrects everything. But the primitive Church did not suppose and consider the future one
as

we suppose and consider the primitive one.

CMen

are charged

from

their childhood

with the care

of their honour, their property, their friends, and with

and honour besides. They are

burdened with business, with learning languages, with
drill, and they are given to understand that they will not
their friends' property

know

happiness unless their health, their honour,

fortune, and that of their friends, be in

theii*

case,

and

wUl make them unhappy. Thus

given charges and employments which keep

that one thing wanting

they are

good

89

them busy from daybreak. "There is a strange way of

making them happy!" you will say, "What more could
be done to make them unhappy?" How! what could
be done? It is needful only to deprive them of these
cares, for then they will see themselves, and think of
what they are, whence they come and whither they go;
and so they cannot be too much occupied and distracted.
This is why, if, after so many occupations have been
prepared for them, they have some time of relaxation,
they are advised to employ it in diversion and amusement, and in keeping themselves always fully employed.
C The people have very sane opinions; for instance:
1. In choosing amusement and the chase rather than
poetry. The semi-learned laugh at them, and triumph in
showing the folly of the world in this matter, but, by a
reason which they cannot discern, the world is right.
2.

men by

In distinguishing

externals,

such

as nobility

or property. People triumph again in showing

reasonable this

is,

but

how

un-

very reasonable. (Cannibals

it is

deride an infant king.)

3.

In taking offence at a box on the ear, or in so greatly

desiring glory.

But glory

is

very desirable, because of

it; and a man

other essential benefits which accompany

who has received a box on the ear without resenting it is

overwhelmed with injuries and importunities.
4.

In

work for the uncertain;

travelling

by sea;

passing

across a plank.

C The Jews, in killing Him so that they might not accept

Him as the Messiah, have given Him the last mark of
the Alessiah; and in continuing to disown Him, they
made themselves irreproachable witnesses;. and in slaying Him and continuing to deny Him, they have accomplished the prophecies.
a man without hands, feet, or head,
experience alone which teaches us that the head

I can well imagine

for
is

it is

more necessary than the

man without

feet. But I cannot conceive

thought; he would be either a stone or

a brute.

90

How

not

telescopes have revealed to us stars

violated

Holy

Scripture

by

saying,

which did

They

exist for the philosophers of the past!

boldly-

"There are only

we know it."
on the earth; we see them (from

thousand and twenty-two;

"There are herbs

moon they are not seen); and on these herbs hairs,

and in these hairs minute animals; but after that, nothing
more." O presumptuous ones!
"Compounds are made up of elements; and the elementsno." O presumptuous ones! Here is a nice point;
we may not say that there is what we cannot see; we
must speak as others do, but not think like them.

the

C Words variously arranged make a different meaning,

and meanings variously arranged have different effects.

CA

meaning changes according to the words which

it. iMeanings receive dignity from words, instead
of giving words dignity.
express

trusting in God's mercy , remain

without doing good works:

C Against those who,

in apathy,

Since our sins spring from

sloth,

in

God

two

sources, pride

has revealed to us for their cure

two

and

qualities

Himself His mercy and His justice.

It is for justice to humble pride, however holy the

works may be, ''et non intres in judicium,^'' etc., and it
is for mercy to attack sloth by exhorting to good works,
according to the passage, "The goodness of God leadeth
to repentance," and this, of the Ninevites "Repent, and
see if peradventure He will have compassion on us." And
thus, so far from authorising indolence, mercy, on the
contrary, is the quality which expressly opposes it; so
that instead of saying, "If God had no mercy, we should
have to make all sorts of efforts towards virtue," we
must say that it is because God has mercy that all sorts
of efforts must be made.

C The example of Alexander's chastity has not made

many

people chaste as that of his drunkenness has

intemperate. It

is

not shameful to be
91

less

as

made

virtuous than

he,

and

it

seems excusable to be no more vicious than he.

One does not believe oneself to have quite the vices of

the common ruck, when in the vices of these great men;
and yet no one minds having those of the common
ruck.

We hold to them by the end by which they hold

however high they be, some tie unites

them to the least of men. They are not suspended in the
ah-, isolated from our society. No, no; if they are greater
the people, for

than we,

it is

because their heads are higher, but their

low as ours. They are all at the same level and

supported by the same ground; and at this extremity

feet are as

they are

as

abased as we, as the smallest, as children, as

animals.

CWhat

set himself

own good and

and

life

judgment

a perversion of

every one

it

before every one

is

the continuance of his

better than that of

all

which makes

else,

and love

own

his

happiness

the rest of the world!

C Those who are accustomed to judge by

intuition

understand nothing of matters of reason, for they desire

and are not used to

And
on the contrary, who
are accustomed to reason from principles, and under-

to penetrate a thing at

first sight,

seeking out principles.

others,

stand nothing of matters of intuition, seek principles

therein,

and are unable to discern

C Contradiction

is

bad mark of

things are contradicted;

many

tradicted. Contradiction

is

the lack of contradiction a

not a

C Thought: All human dignity

is

many

certain

unconmark of falsehood, nor

lies

parable thing. Strange must be

in thought.

From

its

wonderful and incomits

defects* to render

it

is

nothing more ridiculous than

shortcomings.

How great it is by its nature!

contemptible, yet there

its

truth:

false things pass

mark of truth.

nature, therefore, thought

some of

at a glance.

How mean by its faults!

But what is this thought?

How foolish it

is!

C Gradation: the people honour persons of high

birth;

the self-educated despise them, saying that birth

is

92

not

a personal advantage, but a matter of chance; the edu-

cated honour them, not as do the people, but from a

deeper idea; the zealots

who have more zeal than knowl-

edge, despise them, in spite of the reason for

which the

educated honour them, because they judge them by a

new

from their piety; but perfect Chrishonour them for a higher reason. Thus opinions
swing from for to against, according to a man's degree
light derived

tians

of enlightenment.

It is true, therefore,

to say that every one

is

under a

delusion; for although the opinions of the people are

sound, they are not sound in the

way

the people think

them to be, for they think that truth is where it is not.

Truth is indeed in their opinions, but not at the point
they imagine. [Thus] it is true that noblemen should
be honoured, but not because birth

is

an advantage in

itself.

C Continual
that

shifting

from for to against. We have shown

man is vain, by reason of his regard for things which

are not essential; and

all

these opinions are destroyed.

We then showed that these opinions are

and that these

vanities being

all

very sound,

all

well founded, the people

are not so vain as they are said to be;

and thus

we

have

destroyed the opinion which destroyed that of the

people. But

now we must

and show that

destroy this

proposition,

last

always true that the people are vain,

although their opinions be sound; because they do not
it is

where the truth of their opinions lies; and as

they set it where it is not, their opinions often have
much that is false, and little that is sound.
discern

C Concupiscence and
actions.

strength are the sources of all our

Concupiscence works the voluntary, strength

the involuntary.

C It

is

not unprofitable to be smart, for

number of people work

it

shows that

one's locks that one has a valet,

show by
a perfumer, etc.; by one's

bands, threads, embroidery

large

for one;

etc.

veneer, or outside show, to have

93

it is

to

And it is not merely

many arms

[at one's

service]

more

for the

man

has, the stronger

he

is.

To

be fine is to show power.

C How is it that a crippled person does not irritate us,

and that a crippled mind does? Because a crippled person
recognises that we walk straight, and a crippled mind
says that

it is

we who

limp; except for that

we

should

have pity rather than anger. Epictetus inquires more

forcibly, "Why are we not vexed if any one says that

we

have a headache, and vexed

if

we

reason badly, or lack discrimination?"

are quite certain that

we do not limp)

but

we
we

are told that

It is

because

we have not a headache (and that

we are not equally assured that we

no assurance of it,
when the contrary appears perfectly plain to some one
else, except that it appears perfectly plain to us, it makes
us doubtful and surprised, and still more so when our
discern the truth. So that having*

is derided by very many others; for we needs

must prefer our own lights to those of other people, and
to do this is bold and difficult. There is never this contradiction in the senses with regard to a cripple.

choice

Man
fool,
is

is

so constituted, that because he

he beheves

it;

and by dint of

a fool, he makes himself believe

is

told he

is

telling himself that

it.

he

For man inwardly

holds with himself a conversation which

it is

important

mores bojios colloquia

prava" Silence should be kept as long as may be, and

to direct aright: "Corrumpujit

God

whom we know

alone conversed of,

to be the

Truth, and thus we draw truth to ourselves.

It is

dangerous to show

man

too often that he

is

equal

showing him his greatness. It is also

dangerous to show him too frequently his greatness

to beasts, without

without

his baseness. It is

yet more dange'rous to leave

him ignorant of both. But

him the two together.

it is

very desirable to show

C Men's sole occupation is the acquisition of property,

and they cannot show that they possess it justly (for
they hold

it

only by men's caprice), nor have they

it surely. It is the same with knowledge

strength to hold

94

 for

sickness takes

it

from

us.

We are incapable of the

good and the true.

C It is wrong that any should attach himself to me, although he do it gladly and voluntarily. I should deceive
those in whom I aroused this desire, for I am not an end
for any person, and

Am

not ready

have not wherewith to satisfy any.

to die?

And

thus the object of their

Therefore, just as I should be guilty

in making a falsehood to be believed, although I inculcate
it gently and it be believed gladly, and people please me

attachment will

by

it, so I am guilty in making myself loved,

draw people to attach themselves to me. I ought
warn those who are ready to consent to the lie that

believing

and
to

die.

if I

whatever advantage accrue

way, that they ought
same
to me
they must devote
for
not to attach themselves to me,
their lives and their attention to pleasing God or in

they ought not to believe

it,

thereby; and, in the

seeking

Him.

C There are few true Christians,

say even for the faith:

some who believe, but by superstition;

there are indeed some who believe not, but by libertinism: few are between the two. (I do not include herein
those who have true piety of morals, and all those who

there are indeed

by intuition of the heart.

believe

C Will an heir

who

finds the title-deeds of his house say,

"Perhaps they are false?" and neglect to examine them?

C Submission and use of reason,

in

which

true Christian-

ity consists.

C The

last

attainment of reason

is

to recognize that there

an infinity of things which are beyond it. It is but

if it reach not that knowledge. If natural things
are beyond it, what shall be said of the supernatural?

is

weak,

We

are pleased only with the combat, not with the

we like to watch animals fighting, not the victor

upon the vanquished; what did we wish to see, if

victory:
falling

not the end of the victory? and

95

as

soon

as it

comes,

we

are satiated.

So

we hke

truth:

it is

at a

game; so

it is

in the search for

to see the strife of warring opinions, but

to contemplate the revealed truth, by

no means. In

order to be observed with pleasure it must be seen springing from dispute.

is

It is

pleasure in seeing

when one
brutality.

the same with the passions; there

two opposing

has prevailed

We

it is

passions clash, but

no longer anything but

never seek things, but the pursuit of

things; thus, in plays, scenes of contentment, without

not worth anything, neither are extreme miseries

without hope, nor brutal amours, nor bitter severities.

fear, are

C Abraham asked nothing for himself, but only for his

servants; thus the just man takes nothing of the world,
or the world's applause, for himself, but only for his
passions, over which he is master, saying to one. Go, and
to the other. Come. "Sz/Z? te erit appetitiis tuus^ His passions thus dominated are virtues. Avarice, jealousy,
anger, even God attributes them to Himself, and they
are as much virtues as clemency, pity, constancy, which
also are passions. They must be treated as slaves, and
while leaving them their food, the soul must be prevented from partaking of it; for when passions get the
mastery they are vices, and then they give to the soul
of their food, and she eats thereof and is poisoned.

C We are full of things which throw us outside ourselves.

We feel by instinct that we must not seek our happiness within us.

even

when

Our

there

is

passions set us beside ourselves,

nothing to excite them. Exterior

objects tempt us of themselves and call to us even

we do
said,

not think

it.

And

"Retire into yourselves,

you

will there find

good"; people do not believe them; and those

believe

when

thus philosophers have vainly

your

who do

them are the emptiest and most foolish.

C Continuous eloquence wearies.

Princes and kings play occasionally. They are not
always on their thrones; they tire of them: grandeur
must be quitted in order to be felt. Continuity in any96

thing

is

displeasing; cold

is

agreeable in order that

we

may warm ourselves.

Nature

acts

by progress

^Htus et reditusy

She goes and

comes, then goes farther, then twice a lesser distance,

then farther than ever,

etc.

C That Josephus and Tacitus

ajid the other historians

So far from that

working against [the Christian religion], on the contrary, it works for [it], for it is certain that Jesus Christ
existed, and that His religion made a great stir, and that
these people were not ignorant of it; and thus it is plain
have

?iot

spoken

at all of Jesus Christ:

that they concealed this designedly, or that they spoke

of Him, and have either suppressed or altered what they

wrote.

A good likeness cannot be made except by reconciling

contradictions, and it is not enough to follow a sequence of harmonious qualities without reconciling con-

all

tradictions.

To

understand the meaning of an author

all

contradictory passages must be reconciled.

Thus, for the understanding of the Scripture, it must

have one meaning in which all contradictory passages
agree. It

is

not enough that it have a meaning with which

many harmonious

passages accord; it must also have one

which makes even opposite passages agree.
Every author has one meaning in which all contradictory passages agree, or he has no meaning at all. This

cannot be said of the Scripture and of the prophets;

assuredly they had a very certain meaning. It is necessary, then, to seek a

tradictions.

The

meaning which reconciles

true meaning, therefore,

the Jews; but in Jesus Christ

all

is

all

con-

not that of

contradictions are

reconciled.

The Jews do

not

know how

to reconcile the cessa-

kingdom and principality

foretold by Hosea,
with the prophecy of Jacob. If we understand the law,
the sacrifices, and the kingdom as realities, the passages
cannot all be made to agree. Necessarily, therefore, they
are only figures.
cannot even harmonise the passages
of the same author or of the same book, sometimes not

tion of the

We

97

even of the same chapter, and this shows the author's

meaning very plainly, as when Ezekiel (ch. xx.) says that
the people shall live in the commandments of God, and
that they shall not live in them.

The principal standpoints of the Pyrrhonians (I omit

the lesser), are: That we have no certainty of the truth

I.

of these principles outside faith and revelation, except

that

we

naturally feel

intuition

is

them within

us;

but

this natural

not a convincing proof of their truth, since,

as to whether man is
wicked demon, or by
doubtful whether these principles which

having no certainty beyond faith

created

by

chance,

it is

good God, or by

nature has given

us, are true,

or

since, also,

seeing that while asleep he thinks he

we

as

or uncertain, ac-

false,

no one has any

to whether he wakes or sleeps,

cording to our origin; and

assurance, outside faith, as

is

awake,

as

firmly

do, he believes he sees space, figures, motions, he

he measures it, and, in short, acts

though awake. So that, part of life confessedly being
passed in sleep, where, however it may appear to us, \ve
have no idea of the true, all our feelings then being
illusions, who knows whether this other part of life,
feels the lapse of time,

as

wherein
a

little

we

think ourselves a\\'ake,

different

from the

first,

is

not another sleep

from which we awake

when we think we slumber?

There

are the principal points

on one

side

and the

other.
I

leave the lesser, such as the arguments of the Pyrr-

honions against the impressions of custom, education,

manners, countries, and similar things, which, however

they may influence the majority of common men, who

dogmatise only on these vain foundations-, are upset by
have only to
the least breath of the Pyrrhonians.

We

if we are not sufficiently persuaded of

we shall become so very quickly, and perhaps too
much so.

see their books,

it;

pause at the one stronghold of the dogmatists,

namely, that

when

speaking sincerely and in good

natural principles cannot be doubted. Against

98

faith,

which the

Pyrrhonians

set in a

word

the uncertainty of our origin,

that of our nature; and this the dog-

which includes

to answer as long as the world lasts.

between men, where each has to
war
See the open

matists have

still

and of necessity declare himself either

for dogmatism or Pyrrhonism, for he who thinks to remain neutral will be a Pyrrhonian par excellefjce. This
neutrality is the essence of the cabal: he who is not
against them is indeed for them. They are not for themchoose

his side

selves:

they are neutral, indifferent, suspended over

all,

themselves not excepted.

II.

What,

then, will

man do

in this state?

Will he

doubt whether he is awake?

doubt
whether he is pinched? whether he is burnt? will he
doubt whether he doubts? will he doubt whether he
everything? will he

exists?

We

cannot come to

that,

and

aver that there

has never been any perfectly effectual Pyrrhonian. Nature sustains the impotent reason and keeps it from

reaching this pitch of extravagance.

On the other hand, then, will he say that he certainly

who, however little he be urged, can

show no title to it and is forced to leave hold?
What chimera, then, is man? What an oddity, what
a monster, what a chaos, what a subject of contradiction, what a prodigy! Judge of everything, senseless
earthworm; depositary of truth, cloaca of uncertainty
and error; the glory and the refuse of the universe.
possesses truth, he

Who shall unravel this tangle?

Nature confounds the Pyrrhonians, and reason confounds the dogmatists. What, then, will become of you,

men,

who

natural reason?

seek

what

your condition, by your

is

You cannot

escape either of these sects,

or exist in either of them.

Know

proud creature, what a paradox you are

Humble yourself, impotent reason. Be silent,
nature. Know that man infinitely surpasses

then,

to yourself.

imbecile

man, and learn from your master your true state, of

which you are ignorant: hear God.
For, in short, if man had never been corrupted, he
would enjoy in his innocence truth and felicity with
99

certainty.

And

man were

if

he would have no idea

we

But, unfortunate as

were no greatness

there

corrupt, and nothing

else,

either of truth or of blessedness.

and the more so than if

our condition, we have an

are,

in

idea of happiness, and cannot reach

we

it;

perceive an

image of truth, and possess only deceit; and are incapable of absolute ignorance and of certain knowledge
so manifest is it that we were once at a degree of perfection from which, unhappily, we have fallen.

what an astounding thing, that the mystery the most remote from our knowledge the mystery
of the transmission of sin should be that without which
we can have no knowledge of ourselves! For it is beyond
doubt that there is nothing which is more shocking to
reason than to say that the sin of the first man has made
guilty those who, being so far removed from this source,
Nevertheless,

appear incapable of participating in

it.

This transmission
it seems even

does not merely appear to us impossible,

very unjust, for what

poor

than to

justice

is

more opposed

damn

to the rules of our

eternally a child incapable of

which he appears to have so little part,

it was committed six thousand years before he came
being? Certainly, nothing offends us more than this

will, for a sin in

that
into

doctrine; and yet, without this most incomprehensible

of

all

The

mysteries,

we

difficulty of

are incomprehensible to ourselves.

our position takes

in this abstruse matter; so that

without

this

and turns

twists

its

man is more inconceivable

mystery, than this mystery

is

inconceivable

to man.

[Whence

it

make

appears that God, wishing to

the

our existence unintelligible to us, has hidden the knot of it so far above us, or rather, so far beneath
us, that we have been quite incapable of reaching it; so
that it is not by the proud activity of our reason, but by
difficulty of

its

simple submission, that

These foundations,

we can truly know

solidly established

lable authority of religion,

are

two

man,

make

us to

ourselves.

on the invio-

know

that there

verities of faith equally constant: the one, that

as created, or in a state of grace,

nature, and

made

as like

is

raised

above

all

unto God, and participating in

IDG

His divinity: the other, that in a state of corruption and

he is fallen from this estate and made like the beasts.
These two propositions are equally stable and certain.

sin,

Scripture declares

it

dam spiritwn meuin

etc.;

and

super omnein carnem";

''Dixi in

Whence
made

like

it

To

"

appears clearly that man,

by

grace,

is

unto God, participating in His divinity, and

is

like to the brute beasts.]

put hope in formalities

is

desire to submit to formalities

is

CTo

"^Homo

insipiejitibus et similis factus est

corde meo de filiis hominum

that without grace, he

^^Dii estis^

''Ojnnis faro faenujn'^;

in others:

assi?mlatus est jumentis

illis''^;

when it says in certain pascum fHiis hojiiinum^'' ; ^''Ejfun-

plainly,

sages, "Deliciae jjieae esse

regulate the love one

imagine a body

superstition, but not to

arrogance.

owes

to oneself, one

must

we are
how much each mem-

of thinking members (for

full

members of the whole), and

ber should love itself,

see

etc.

C Philosophers have consecrated the vices by attributing

them even to God: Christians have consecrated the
virtues.

If the feet

and the hands had

a private will,

never be in order except in submitting

to the premier will

Without

that,

they would

this private will

which governs the whole body.

they are in disorder and unhappiness, but

in desiring only the

good of the body, they work

their

own good.
C The metaphysical proofs of God

human

are so

removed from

reasoning, and so involved, that they hardly

strike us,

and when they help some, they help them only

so long as they see the demonstration, but an hour after-

wards, they fear that they have been deceived.

"Quod

curiositate cognoverint, superbia amiserunt^

It is this

which

is

produced by the knowledge of

God

gained without Jesus Christ the communication with-

out a mediator with the

God we
lOI

have

known without

a mediator; while those

who

known God through

have

know their misery.

a mediator

C Reason commands us more imperiously than

for in disobeying the one

obeying the other we are

we

a master:

are unfortunate; in dis-

fools.

C Those who love not the truth take

variance of the multitude of those

as their pretext the

who deny

it;

and thus

comes only because they love not truth or

and so they have no excuse for it.

their error

charity,

C There are many people who listen to the sermon

the same way that they listen to vespers.
.

in

Authority: So far from fact that you have heard a

you ought to believe noth-

thing said ruling your belief,

ing except as

if

consent of you

you had never heard

the

which ought

true!

belief!

is

Were

hundred contradictions

antiquity the rule of belief, then

the ancient were without rule. If general consent,

men had

if

perished?

False humility, pride. Raise the curtain.

worked

to

believe.

So important

would be

said. It is

to yourself, and the steady voice of your

reason, and not the reason of others,

make you

it

in vain; so

it is

necessary either to

You have
believ^e,

We

or

we then have no
what they do, they do well; will
there not be a rule for judging men? To deny, believe,
and doubt properly, are to men what running is to a
deny, or doubt. Shall

animals

by

seeing

rule?

judge

if

horse.

Punishment of those who sin:

error.

Two things instruct man concerning his whole nature:

instinct

and experience.

C The three

lusts

have made three

sects,

and the philos-

ophers have but followed one or the other of these

lusts.

C Part of the confusion of the damned will be to see

themselves

condemned by

their

own

reason,

by which

they claimed to condemn the Christian religion.

I02

C Pyrrhofiism: Everything here

Not

is

partly true and partly

it is entirely pure and

and destroys it. Nothing is
purely true, and thus, judged by the pure truth, nothing is true. You will say that it is true that homicide is
wrong, yes, for we indeed know the wrong and the
false. But what will they tell us is good? Continence?
I say no, for the world would end. Marriage? No, con-

false.

so with eternal truth:

true; the mixture dishonours

tinence

Not

better.

is

would be

terrible,

to kill?

No, for the

and the wicked would

disorders

slay

all

the

No, that subverts nature. We have the

and the good only in part, and mixed with the evil

To

good.
true

and the

kill?

false.

C They have some true principles, but they misuse them,

and the abuse of truths ought to be punished just as

much

as the

introduction of

lies.

How if there were two hells the one for sins against
charity, the other for sins against justice?

C The "opening" power of

a key; the

"drawing" power

of a crook.

C Superstition, concupiscence;

scruples,

and

evil desires;

shameful fear; fear not that which comes from believ-

God, but that which comes from doubting whether

or no. Right fear comes from faith, wrong
fear from doubt; the right fear, joined to hope, because
it is born of faith and we hope in the God in whom we

ing in

He

exists

believe; the

the

God

in

wrong, joined to despair, because we fear

have no faith; some fear to lose

whom we

Him, others fear to

That

find

Him.

where natural cognitions lead us. If these

is no truth in man,
and if they are true, man, forced to abase himself in one
way or another, finds in them a great cause of humiliation; and since he cannot exist without believing them,
I would that before entering upon the deeper investiga-

[.

is

natural cognitions are not true, there

tion of nature, he consider

it

once seriously and

that he thus regard himself also, and

portion there

is

.]

103

leisurely,

knowing what pro-

Let man, then, contemplate the whole of nature in

let him avert his gaze

her lofty and abundant majesty;

him conlamp to
give light to the universe; let the earth appear to him
as a single speck compared with the vast orbit which
this star describes, and let him marvel that this vast orbit
is itself only a very delicate point compared to that encompassed by the bodies which revolve in the firmament. But if vision stops there, let imagination pass beyond; it will sooner weary of imagining, than nature of
supplying. All this visible world is but an imperceptible
feature in the ample bosom of nature. No idea can apfrom the low objects which surround him;

let

sider this shining luminary, set like an eternal

proach

it.

We have vainly tried to

extend our concep-

beyond imaginable space, we produce only atoms,

compared with the reality of things. It is an infinite
sphere whose centre is everywhere, whose circumference is nowhere. In short, it is the most sensible sign of
tions

the omnipotence of

God, let our imagination lose itself

in this thought.

Let man, returning to himself, consider what he is

to all else that exists; let him regard himself

compared

remote corner of nature; and from the

dungeon wherein he is lodged I mean the universe
let him learn to appraise the world, kingdoms, cities,
as astray in this

little

and himself,

at their

proper value.

What

is

man

in the

infinite?

But that he may see another prodigy equally amazing,

him examine the most delicate things he knows. Let a
ciron show him, in the smallness of its body, parts incomparably smaller, legs with joints, veins in these legs,
blood in these veins, humours in this blood, drops in
these humours, vapours in these drops, that, again dividing these last, he may exhaust his power in these conceptions, and if the final object at which he can now arrive
be that of our discourse, he will think perhaps, that there
he has the extreme smallness of nature. I wish to make
him see therein another unfathomable thing. I would
let

describe to him, not only the visible universe, but the

immensity that can be conceived of nature, enclosed in

104

this

contracted atom. Let him see there an infinitude of

which has its firmament, its planets, its

same proportion as the visible world; in
this earth, animals, down to cirons, in which he will find
what he found in the first; and finding again the same
in the rest, without end or break, let him lose himself
universes, each of
earth, in the

by their smallness as the

by their magnitude, for who will not wonder that
our body, which just now was not perceptible in a
universe which is itself imperceptible in the bosom of
in these marvels, as astonishing

others

the

all, is

now

a colossus, a world, or rather a whole, in

comparison with the unattainable nothing?

He who
self,

thus considers

and regard himself

body between

these

two

man

will be aff^righted at

as if

suspended in

him-

his natural

abysses of infinitude and noth-

ing; he will tremble to behold these marvels;

and

believe that, his curiosity changing to wonder, he will

be disposed rather to contemplate them in silence than

to presumptuously investigate them.
For after all, what is man in nature? A cipher, compared to infinity; a whole, compared to a cipher; a
medium between nothing and all. Infinitely distant from
comprehending extremes, equally incapable of seeing
the nothing from which he is drawn or the infinite in
which he is engulfed, the end of things and their principles are for him invincibly hidden in impenetrable
secrecy. What will he do then, except discern some
semblance of the centre of things, in an eternal despair

knowing either their principle or their end? All

come out of nothing, and extend even to the
infinite. Who shall follow these wondrous progressions?
The author of these marvels understands them, no
of

things are

other can do

Through

so.

failing to

contemplate these

infinities,

men

have rashly addressed themselves to the investigation of

nature, as if they were in some way proportioned to her.
It is strange that through a presumption as infinite as
their object, they have desired to understand the prin-

and thence to arrive at a knowledge

of everything. For undoubtedly this design cannot be
ciples of things,

105

formed without presumption, or without

a capacity as

infinite as nature.

When we

are taught

we

ing graven in everything

its

author, these images

It is

thus that

we

understand that nature hav-

its

all

see that

own image and the image of

partake of her double infinity.

all

the sciences are infinite in

the extent of their researches: for

geometry, for example, has

They

tions to unfold?

who

doubts that

infinite infinities of proposi-

are also infinite in the multitude

and delicacy of their principles; for who does not see

that those put forward as tht last do not stand by themselves, but rest on others, which, dependent on others
again, never allow of any finality? But \vc make ultimate
principles which are apparent to reason, as we do in
material things, where we call an indivisible point that
beyond which our senses perceive nothing, although by
nature infinitely divisible.

Of
tude
to

these
is

two

infinities

much more

of knowledge, that of magni-

appreciable, and this

is

why

But the infinitude of smallness

is

far less patent.

philosophers, indeed, have claimed to arrive at

is

comes

it

few people to pretend to know everything.

there that

all

rise to these

have stumbled.

very ordinary

it,

The

and

it

which has given

of the principles of

It is this

titles:

THINGS, OF THE PRINCIPLES OF PHILOSOPHY, and Others, as

pretentious in fact, though

other dazzing one: de

We

less

so in appearance, as this

omni scibili.

naturally believe ourselves

much more

able to

reach the centre of things than to embrace their circumference.

The

visible extent of the

passes us, but as

we

world obviously sur-

surpass the

little

things,

think ourselves better able to possess them, and yet

needs no
all.

it is

we who

less

Infinite capacity

me

it

capacity to reach to the nothing than to the

is

a necessity for both,

and

it

seems

whoever had comprehended the final principles of things would have been able also to attain to a
knowledge of the infinite; the one depends from the
other, and leads to the other; these extremes meet and
unite from the fact of their distance apart, and find themselves again in God, and in God alone.
to

that

06

i^

Let us then know our limits; we are something, and

we are not all. Such existence as we have deprives us of
the knowledge of the first principles which come out
of nothing, and

its

from

smallness hides

us the sight of

the infinite. Our intelligence has among intellectual

things the same rank that our bodies hold in the expanse

of nature.

Limited in every way,

between two

this state

which holds the mean

extremities obtains in

all

our powerless-

ness: our senses perceive nothing extreme; too much

noise deafens us; too much light blinds us; too far a distance and too near a proximity hinder our sight; too

great length and too

too

much

much brevity obscure an argument;

(I know some who cannot

truth bewilders us

understand that whoever from zero takes four, leaves

zero); first principles are too evident for us; too much
pleasure disagrees with us; too many concords in music

and too many favours irritate us: we desire

the wherewithal to wipe out the debt: ''Beneficia eo
usque laeta sunt dum videntur exsolvi posse; iibi midtum
anteveiiere, pro gratia odhmt redditiir:'' we feel neither
extreme heat nor extreme cold; excessive qualities are
hurtful and not perceptible: we no longer feel them, we
suffer them; too much youth and too much age, too
displease us;

much and

too

little

short, extremes are for us as

and we do not
or

hamper the intellect: in

though they did not exist,

instruction,

exist, in

regard to them: they escape

us,

we them.
There

is

our true position.

incapable of

We

knowing

It is

certainly,

that

which makes us

and of ignoring abso-

about on a vast middle way, always

uncertain and wavering, driven from one end towards
another. To whatever term we think to attach and fix
ourselves, it shifts and quits us, and if we follow it, it

lutely.

drift

escapes our grasp, slips away, and

flies

in an endless

This is our natural

flight. By no means can we
condition, and yet the most contrary to our inclination:
we burn with the desire to find a firm foothold and an
arrest

it.

ultimate base, to raise thereon a tower to reach to the

infinite, but all our foundation cracks, and the earth
107

opens to

and

its

very depths. Let us not seek, then, assurance

Our reason is always deceived by the

stability.

inconstancy of appearances; nothing can

fix

the finite

between the two infinities which enclose it and recede

from it.
That being well understood, I think that people will
hold themselves in repose, each in the state in which
nature has placed him. This middle way which has
fallen to our lot being always distant from the extremes,
what matters it if a man have a little more understanding of things? If he has it, he takes them from a little
higher. Is he not always infinitely remote from the end?
remote
from eternity for enduring ten years more? In view of
these infinities, all the finites are equal, and I do not see
why the imagination should be set upon one rather than
on the other. The mere comparison between ourselves
and the infinite vexes us.
If man first studied himself, he would see how incapable he is of passing beyond: how could a part know the
whole? But perhaps he will aspire to know at least the
parts with which he has some relation? But the parts
of the world have such correspondence and inter-connection one with another that I believe it impossible to
know one without the other, and without the whole.
Man, for example, has a relation with all that he
knows. He needs a place to contain him, time to endure,
motion to live, elements to compose him, heat and food

and

is

not the span of our

life just as infinitely

to nourish him, air to breathe: he perceives light; he feels

bodies; in short,

To

all falls

into correspondence with him.

have a knowledge of man, then,

know how

it is

have a knowledge of

air,

tion to the life of man,

without

air:

know the

it is

necessary to

that he needs air for existence;

to

know how

it

and to

has this rela-

and so on. Flame does not

therefore, to

know the

one,

it is

exist

needful to

other.

All things, therefore, being caused and causative, aided

and aiding, mediate and immediate, and knit together by

and imperceptible bond which connects the
most distant and the most contrary, I consider it impos-

a natural

io8

sible to

know the parts without knowing the whole, as

know the whole without knowing each indi-

well as to

vidual part.

And what completes our inability to have a knowledge of things, is that in themselves they are simple,
while we are composed of two opposite and different
and body. For

natures, soul

it is

impossible that the part

within us which reasons be other than

spiritual, and
were it asserted that we are simply corporeal, that would
exclude us yet more from a knowledge of things, there

matter may know

know how it should
know itself. And thus, if we are simply material, we can
know nothing of the whole, and if we are composed of
mind and matter, we can know things perfectly, whether
being nothing so inconceivable

itself:

it is

as that

not possible to us to

simple, spiritual, or corporeal.

Thence

it

comes

that almost

all

philosophers confuse

the idea of things, and speak of the material spiritually

and of the

spiritual materially.

For they boldly say that

bodies "tend downwards," that they "draw to their

centre," that they "shun their destruction," that they

"fear the void," that they have "inclinations,"

pathies," "antipathies,"

belong only to

spirits;

"sym-

of which are things which

all

and in speaking of

consider them as in a place, and attribute to

spirits,

they

them motion

from one place to another, which things belong only

to bodies. Instead of accepting the ideas of these things

we colour them with our

and impress with our composite nature
in themselves

things

we

own
all

qualities,

the simple

contemplate.

Who would not think, to see us made up of all things

compound would be very

of mind and body, that this

comprehensible to us? Yet

the

least.

To

himself,

man

it is

is

what we comprehend

the most prodigious thing

he cannot conceive what is his body, and

what is his mind, and least of all, how a body can
be united with a mind. That is the crowning point of
his difficulties, and yet it is his own being: "Modus quo
in nature, for

stiU less

corporibus adhaerent spiritus comprehend! ab homini-

bus non potest,

et

hoc tamen homo estP

109

f^

Finally, to perfect the

proof of our weakness,

will

conclude with these two considerations

C I?naginatio?i: This deceptive part of man, this mistress

of error and falsehood, is the more deceitful because it
is not deceitful always, for if it were the infallible
example of untruth, it would be the infallible example
of truth. But, though

more frequently

false, it exhibits

no sign of its quality, and lacks the character of both

the true and the false.
I do not speak of fools, I speak of the wisest, and it is
among them that imagination has the great gift of persuading men. Reason has cried out in vain it cannot put
a price on things.
This arrogant power, enemy of reason, who delights
to control and dominate reason in order to show its
strength in all things, has set up a second nature in man.
It has its happy, its unhappy; its healthy, its sick; its rich,
its poor; it makes a man believe, doubt, and deny reason;
it suspends the senses, it makes them active; it has its
fools and its wise, and nothing annoys us more than to
it fills its hosts with another satisfaction,
and more complete, than does reason, people of

see that

fuller

lively

imaginations pleasing themselves quite otherwise than

They

the prudent can reasonably do.

look imperiously

on those around them; they dispute boldly and confidently,

but the others with fear and diffidence; and this

gaiety of countenance often gives

them the advantage

much

in the opinion of listeners so

in

favour are these

wise folk with judges whose natures are akin to their

own! Opinion cannot make fools wise, but it makes

them happv, in emulation of reason, which can only
render its friends miserable the one covering them with
glory, the other with shame.

Who

dispenses reputation?

Who

gives respect and

veneration to persons, to works, to laws, to the great,

not

How

this imaginative faculty?

wealth of the world without

its

inadequate

is all

if

the

patronage!

Would you not say that this magistrate, whose venerable age imposes respect

on

all,

no

rules himself

by

pure

and sublime reason, and that he judges of things by

their nature, without dweUing on those vain ckcumstances which influence only the imagination of the
weak? Watch him enter to hear a sermon, to which he
brings a pious zeal, supporting the solidity of his reason

by the ardour of his charity. See him ready to listen with

exemplary respect. Let the preacher have just appeared,
nature have given him a hoarse voice and an odd cast
of countenance, let him have been shaved badly, and if
by chance his barber have bedaubed him in addition,
whatever great truths he may declare, I wager the loss of
our senator's gravity. The greatest philosopher in the
let

world, on a plank larger than

foothold],

reason

by
of

may

if

there

it

necessary [to give him

a precipice

convince him of

his imagination.

is

is

below, however his

his safety, will

be mastered

Many could not support the thought

without paling and sweating.

will not recount

Who

does not

all its effects.

know

that the sight of cats, or of rats,

may unhinge the reason?

The tone of voice misleads even the wisest, and forcibly
or the cracking of a cinder,

changes an argument and

poem. Affection or hate puts

a different face on justice; and how much more righteous
will an advocate find the cause he pleads when he is well
paid in advance!
his

How much

better an appearance will

bold gestures give him in the eyes of the judges

gulled

by

this outside

show!

pretty reason that a

breath can blow about, and in any direction!

I would refer to almost all the actions of men, who
seldom give way except under its blows. For reason has
been forced to yield, and the wisest adopts as his principles those which have been boldly introduced every-

where by human imagination.

Our

magistrates have

known this mystery well:

their

red robes, their ermine, in which they swathe themselves

like furry cats, the palaces where they give judgment,
the fleurs-de-lis all this
necessary; and

if

pompous circumstance is very

gowns and slippers,

physicians had not

and if doctors had not square caps and flowing robes,

they would never have duped the world, which cannot
III

iSMllffllMlffilliilfflllralfMfJmm
resist

such an authentic mark.

If

they were truly

physicians had the true art of healing, they

just, if

would not

have needed square caps; the majesty of the sciences

would have been sufficiently venerable in itself; but
having only imaginary knowledge they have to take
these vain instruments

with which

it is

which

strike the imagination,

that they are concerned,

and thus they

attract respect.

Soldiers alone are not thus disguised, because in fact

their part

is

more essential; they

by humbug.

establish themselves

by

force, the others

Thus

that our kings have not sought after these

and do not masquerade in extraordinary garments in order to appear kings; but they are accompanied by guards and halberdiers. These armed phizes,
whose hands and strength are for them only, the trumit is

disguises,

drummers who march before them, and these

which surround them, make the stoutest tremble.

peters and
legions

They have not

would need

the garments alone, they have force.

It

very refined reason to regard the great

prince in his magnificent seraglio, surrounded

by forty

same way as any other man.

We cannot even merely see a lawyer in cap and robe
without having a favourable opinion of his ability.
Opinion disposes everything; it makes beauty, justice,
and good fortune, which make up the world. I should
thousand

janizaries, in the

much like to see that Italian book, whose title only is

known to me, but which is itself well worth many
books: DELLA OPINIONE REGINA DEL MONDO.
to

it

without knowing it except to the bad,

SubsCtibe

if it

contain

any.

Such, very nearly, are the effects of this deceptive

faculty,

which seems given

into necessary error.

to us expressly to lead us

We have many other causes of

it.

Old impressions are not alone in being able to deceive

us: the charms of novelty have the same power. From
thence arise

all

the disputes of men,

another either with following the

who

false

reproach one

impressions of

childhood, or of rashly running after new.

the proper mean? Let

Who

holds

him stand forth and prove it. There

112

is

no

principle,

however natural

it

may

be, which,

even

made to pass as a false

impression, either by instruction, or by the senses. "Because," it is said, "you have believed from your infancy
that a box is empty when you see nothing in it, you have
believed the vacuum possible; this is an illusion of the
senses, strengthened by habit, which must be corrected
by science." And others say, "Because you have been
told in the schools that there is no vacuum, your common sense, which understood it so exactly before, is
now corrupted by this false impression, which must be
corrected by reverting to your first nature." Which,
if

held from childhood, cannot be

therefore, has deceived?

We have

The senses,

or instruction?

another cause of errorsickness.

the sense and the judgment.

ceptibly affect them,

And

if

do not doubt that the

It

impairs

great maladies perlesser also

make a proportionate impression.

Yet our

own

interest

ably blinding our eyes.

is

a marvellous thing for agree-

The most

equitable

man

in the

not permitted to be judge in his own cause: I

some who, in order not to be entrapped by this

world

is

know

self-interest,

have been

as unjust as possible as a

counter-

way to lose a perfectly just cause was to

get it commended to them by their near kinsfolk. Justice
bias;

the sure

and truth are two such

fine points that

are too blunt to touch

them

our instruments
do come

exactly. If they

upon them, they hide them, and supported by what

around rest more surely on the false than on the true.

Man

is

but a creature full of natural errors ineffaceable without grace. Nothing shows him the truth, everyis

two means to truth, reason

and the senses, besides that they each lack sincerity,
mutually mislead one another.
thing deceives him. These

The

senses deceive reason

by

false representations;

and the same tricks they play her, she in turn plays them,
and revenges herself. The passions of the soul disturb
the senses, and give them wrong impressions. They vie
with each other in mutual deception and lying.

Without

this divine

knowledge, which has been

113

able to lead

men

either to elevate themselves

by

the

inward sentiment which remains to them of their former

greatness, or to abase themselves at the sight of their
present weakness.

For seeing truth but

partially,

to attain to a perfect virtue.

they have not been able

As some regard nature

incorruptible, and others regard

it

as irremediable,

as

they

have been unable to avoid either pride or sloth, which

are the two sources of all vice, since through cowardice
they cannot abandon themselves thereto, and through
pride they cannot depart from them; for if they knew
man's excellence, they ignored his corruption, so that
while avoiding sloth, they lost themselves in arrogance;

and

if

they recognised the infirmity of nature, they

its dignity, so that they truly avoid vanity, but

ignored

only by

falling into despair.

Hence arise the various sects,

and epicureans, dogmatists and academicians, etc.

The one Christian religion has been able to cure these
two vices, not by driving out the one by means of the
other, according to worldly wisdom, but by driving out
both by the simplicity of the Gospel. For she teaches the
just whom she raises to participation even in divinity
stoics

that in this sublime state they yet

carrj'-

the source of

all

through life makes them liable to

error, misery, death, sin; and to the impious she proclaims that they are able to attain to the grace of their
corruption,

which

all

Redeemer. Thus, making those whom she justifies to

tremble, and consoling those she condemns, she so justly
tempers fear with hope (through this double capacity
for grace and for sin which is common to all) that she
abases us infinitely more than reason can do, but without
despair, and raises us infinitely higher than does natural
pride, but without puffing up: showing truly thereby
that she alone being exempt from error and sin, she alone
can instruct and correct men.
Who then can refuse to believe and adore these celestial lights? For is it not clearer than the dav that we feel

And
we experience the
What then do this

within ourselves ineffaceable signs of excellence?

is it

not also true that every hour

effects of

our deplorable condition?

114

chaos and monstrous confusion make

a voice so

powerful that

the truth of these

Second

part:

two

it is

known to

impossible to resist

with
if not

us,
it,

conditions?

That ma?j without

either the true good, or justice:

faith

cannot

know

Every man seeks to be

happy: to this there is no exception: whatever different

methods they employ, all make for this end. It is this
same desire in all, though accompanied by different
views, which make some go to war and others not to go.
The will never makes the least advance except towards
it is the motive of every action of every
man, even of those who go and hang themselves.
And yet, for so large a number of years, no one, with-

this object:

out

faith, has

ever arrived at this point for which

all

are

continually making. All complain: princes, subjects;

nobles, plebeians; old,

young; strong, weak; learned,

ignorant; healthy, sick; of

all

all

countries, of

ages, and of all conditions.

So long, so continuous, and

so

all

uniform a

times, of

trial

ought

to convince us of our powerlessness to attain to the good

by our own efforts, but the example teaches us little. It

never so perfectly like that there is not some slight

difference, and so we expect that our expectation will

is

not be deceived on

And thus the

was on the

this occasion, as it

present never

satisfies us:

other.

experience tricks

and leads us from misfortune to misfortune, even to

which is their eternal consummation.
What, then, do this avidity and impotence make
known to us, if not that there was once in man a true
happiness, of which there now remains to him only the

us,

death,

mark and the empty mould, which he tries in vain to

fill from all that which surrounds him, seeking in absent
things the succour which he does not find in present
things, which are all incapable of it, because the infinite
gulf can be filled only by a being infinite and immutable,
that is to say, by God Himself?

God alone

is

man's true good; and

that since he has left

Him

there

is

it is

a strange thing

nothing in nature

which has not been capable of taking His

115

place: stars,

heaven, earth, elements, plants, cabbages, leeks, animals,

insects, calves, serpents, fever, pestilence,

And

vices, adultery, incest.

good,

all

things equally can appear to

own

even to his
to

war, famine,

since he has lost the true

him

to be such,

destruction, although so contrary alike

God, to reason, and to nature.

Some seek it in authority; others in research and

knowledge; others in voluptuousness. Others who have
indeed come nearer to it have considered that the universal good which all men desire is not in any of the
individual things which can be possessed only by a single
person, and which, being divided,

more by lack of

afflict their

which he has

the part

possessor

not, than they

content him by the enjoyment of that which he has.

They have understood that the true good ought to be

such that all may possess it at the same time without
diminution and without envy, and that no person can lose
it

against his will.

And their reason is that this desire being

natural to man, since

none

is

it is

of necessity in

all,

and which

able to be without, they conclude therefrom

C Time heals griefs and quarrels, because we change; we

no longer the same persons. Neither offender nor
offended are any more themselves. It is like a nation
are

whom we
two

have angered, and

generations: they are

whom we

still

see again after

the French, but not the

same.

If

we dreamed the same things every

much as the objects we see

night,

it

would

affect us as

every day; and

if an artisan were sure of dreaming every night for
twelve hours that he was a king, I believe that he would
be almost as happy as a king who dreamed every night

was an artisan.
dream every night that we were pursued by enemies and troubled by tormenting phantoms,
and if we passed every day in various occupations, as
for twelve hours that he
If

we were

when

to

travelling,

we should suffer almost

as

much

as if

it

were true, and should dread sleep, just as we dread

waking when we fear to enter really upon such misfortunes.

And

indeed

it

would work nearly

ii6

as

much

ff

harm

But because dreams are all different, and

even one varies, what is seen in them affects us less than
what is seen when waking, because of the continuity,
which, though not so constant and uniform that it does
not change too, changes less abruptly, if frequently, as
when we travel; and then we say, "It seems like a dream";
for life is but a dream a little less variable.
as reality.

C By knowing the dominant passion of each one, we are

sure of pleasing him, and yet each has fancies, opposed
to his proper good, in the very conception

of the true good; and this

a singularity

is

which he has
which upsets

calculations.

CWe

are not contented with the life

within us and in our

imaginary

life in

being:

we

desire to live an

the opinion of others, and

exert ourselves to
toil

own

which we have

make an appearance

we therefore

for that end.

We

incessantly to adorn and sustain this imaginary being,

and neglect the

And if we have calmness, or

we are eager to make it known, in

real one.

generosity, or fidelity,

order to attach these virtues to this creature of the

we would

imagination;

selves in order to join

them from ourhim, and willingly would

rather detach

them

to

we be poltroons, to acquire a reputation for valour.

What a great mark of the nothingness of our own being,
not to be

satisfied

with the one without the other, and

too often renounce the one for the sake of the other!

For he who

^^'ould

not die to defend his honour, would

be infamous.

C Misery provokes

despair; pride provokes presumption;

the Incarnation shows

man

the greatness of his misery

by the greatness of the remedy it needs.

C

What

a great advantage

nobility! It puts

is

one man,

at the age of eighteen years, in the

way

honour which another might be able

to deserve at fifty.

This

is

of fame and

thirty years gained without trouble.

C When we wish to rebuke to some purpose, and to show

another that he is deceived, we must notice from what
117

side he looks at the matter, for as a rule

that side,

and while acknowledging

show him

the side

him, for he sees

it is

true

this truth to

from
him,

from which it is false. That contents

that he was not deceived and that he

merely omitted to look at every side. And people are not

at not seeing all, but they do not wish to be deceived; and perhaps that is because man is naturally
unable to see all round, and naturally unable to deceive
vexed

himself with regard to the side

which he

faces, as, that

the apprehensions of the senses are always true.

(T Each is a whole to himself, for, when he is dead, the
whole is dead for him. And so each beheves himself to
be all in all. We must judge of nature according to

nature, not according to ourselves.

C There is no doctrine more appropriate to man than

that which instructs him of his double capacity to receive
and to lose grace, because of the double peril to which
he is always exposed, despair or pride.

C Respect
foolish,

is

"Incommode

but very true, for

yourself."
it is

as

That

much

is

incommode myself willingly if you have need

I

do so willingly even when

Besides which, respect

is

it is

seemingly

as to sav, "I will

of

it,

since

of no service to you."

for distinguishing the great;

if

one would respect

everybody, and distinguish no one; but, being incommoded, we distinguish very well.
it

were respect

C Faith indeed

to be in an arm-chair,

says that

which the

senses

not the contrary of that which they

do not

see: faith

but
above

sav,
is

the senses, not counter to them.

CThe method
kindness,

is

into the heart

mind and

of God,

who

disposes

to put religion into the

by

all

things with

mind by reasons and

grace. But to desire to put

into the heart

by force and by

it

into the

threats,

is

to

introduce there not religion, but terror, 'Herrorem potius

quam religionem."
C The law obliges to that which
gives that to which it obliges.
ii8

it

does not give; grace

^
C

Atheists:

rise

What

right have they to say that one cannot

from the dead? Which

is

the

more

difficult,

to be

born, or to rise again; that that which has never been, be,

or that that which has been, be again?

come

to

Is it

more

difficult

Custom

into being than to return to being?

makes the one seem easy, the absence of custom makes

the other seem impossible: a popular method of judging!

C We

are so presumptuous that we would wish to be~^

known to all the world, and even to people who shall
come when we are no more; and so vain, that the esteem

of five or six persons about us amuses and contents us.

CWhen

a natural discourse describes a passion or an

we

impression,

what we

hear,

discover within ourselves the truth of

which was

it,

feel

so that

it;

without our being aware

are disposed to like

for he has not

When we

from

we

in us

him who makes us

good qualities, but our own, and so this benefit makes us amiable
towards him, and this mutual understanding which we
have with him necessarily disposes us in his favour.
of

it

see the

made known

same

eff'ect

to us his

always recur,

a natural necessity, as that there will

to-morrow,

etc.;

argue

be a day

but often nature contradicts

does not subject herself to her

CThe mind

we

us,

and

own rules.

naturally believes, and the will naturally

loves; so that for lack of true things,

they attach them-

selves to false.

CDo you

wish good to be believed of

you? Do

not

speak it of yourself.

do not at all admire the excess of a virtue (as valour),

do not see at the same time the excess of the opposite
virtue (as in Epaminondas, who had extreme valour and
extreme benignity); for otherwise this is not to rise, but
I

if I

fall. Greatness is not shown by reaching one extreme,

but in being able to touch both extremes at once, and

to

between them. "But it may be that this is only

sudden
a
movement of the mind from one of these
filling all

119

illiffllilliSllfflllffllM

extremes to the other, and that

it is

in reality

only one

[when one twirls] a firebrand?" Be it so; but

any rate marks the agiUty of the mind, if not its

point, as

that at
extent.

CA

founded on opinion and imagination prevails

for a time, and is mild and voluntary; but the rule of
strength prevails always. Thus opinion is as the queen of
rule

the world, but force

C He no longer
years ago.

same, nor

as she

CWe

whom

loves this person

he loved ten

he; he

He would perhaps love her still, were she

quite different.

such

tyrant.

can well believe it; she is no longer the

was young, and she also; she is now

I
is

is its

was

do not

sustain ourselves in virtue

by

strength, but

then.

the counterpoise of

by our own

two opposite

vices,

we remain upright between two contrary winds:

away one of these vices, and we fall into the other.
as

C When we see a natural style, we

take

are quite surprised

and

we expected an author, and we find a man.

Whereas those who have good taste, and who in seeing
charmed, for
a

book think

to find a man, are quite surprised to find an

author: "P/z/y poetice quani himiane lociitus esy

indeed honour nature,

of

all

things,

who

Those

teach her that she can speak

even theology.

C Nature has arranged all her truths each in itself; our

method encloses them one within the other, but that is
not natural: each has

its

place.

C I have spent much time in the study of abstract sciences,

but the little intercourse to be had concerning them has
disgusted

me

with them.

When

began the study of

saw that these abstract sciences are not proper to

him, and that I should be going further out of my sphere
in penetrating them than others in ignoring them, and
I pardoned others their little knowledge of them. But I
at least thought to find some companions in the study of
man, because this is the study which is truly proper to
him. I was deceived: those who study man are even

man,

20

'J

^;

fewer than those

who

knowing how

lack of

other things; but

is it

study geometry.

It is

only for

to study him, that people seek

not also because

this

is

not the

knowledge that man ought to have, and because it is

better for him to be ignorant of himself, in order to be
happy?
_:-

CWhy

do people follow the majority? Because it has

Why do they
follow ancient laws and opinions? Because they are the
wisest? No, because they stand by themselves, and take
from us the cause of diversity.

more right? No, but because it is stronger.

C Those

who

that

they

it is

live irregularly tell those

who

who

are regular

depart from nature, while believing

who

that they themselves follow nature: as those

a boat believe that

it is

those on shore

who

are

are in

moving

away. The language is the same in both cases. It is necessary to have a fixed point from which to judge. The port
guides those in a boat, but where shall we find a port
in morality?

C Let

not be asserted that

it

have said nothing new:

the arrangement of the materials

is

new; when two

people play at tennis they both play with the same

but one will place

of

me

that

make

it

better.

would

as

soon have

it

ball,

said

use of old words; and do not the same

thoughts form another body of discourse

ferently disposed, just as the same

when

dif-

words form other

thoughts by a different arrangement?

C We know ourselves

so little that many think that they

when they are quite well; and many
quite well when they are near to die. They

are about to die

that they are

do not

feel the

approaching fever, or the abscess about

to form.

C When they say

globules,

and

that heat

feel, it astonishes us.

senses?

We

is

only the motion of some

light the ^^conatus recedendP^

What!

which we

Pleasure only a dance of the

conceived such a different idea of

these sensations appear to us so

121

it,

removed from

and

these

which we compare to them! The sensation of the fire, the heat which
affects us quite differently from contact, the reception
others,

which we

call the

of sound and light,

and yet

same

this

all

appears mysterious to us,

as palpable as a

it is

as those

blow from a stone. It is

which enter the

true that the smallness of the feelings

pores touch other nerves, but these are always touched

nerves.

C Nature copies herself: a seed thrown on to good

ground brings forth fruit; a principle thrown into a
receptive mind produces fruit; numbers imitate space,
yet are of so different a nature. All is wrought and
guided by one master: root, branches, fruits; principles,
deductions.

C When

moves

all

in a boat.

When

equally, nothing appears to

appears to tend thither.

from which
C The

to

mark

as

He who stands still makes a point

the position of others.

discourses of humility are a matter of pride to the

vainglorious, and of humility to the humble.

Pyrrhonism are
tists.

move,

tends towards disorder, nothing

all

Few

Those of
dogma-

a matter of affirmation to the

people speak of humility humbly, of chastity

chastely, of

doubt doubtfully. We are only deceit, duand we hide and disguise ourselves

plicity, inconsistency,

from

ourselves.

C To pity the unfortunate

On

the contrary,

mony

we

is

not against concupiscence.

are very glad to render this testi-

of good-will, and to attract a reputation for ten-

derness, without giving anything.

C The strength of

man's virtues should not be measured

by his efforts, but by

C Our nature

his

ordinary actions.

consists of motion: perfect repose

is

death.

C Fine actions concealed are the most estimable. When I

find any in history, they greatly please me. But yet they
have not been quite concealed, since they have been
known, and although concealed as much as possible,
122

even

this

much that they have appeared has spoilt all; for

their greatest beauty lay in the

C When we

are well,

we were

and when

ill,

wish to conceal them.

we wonder what we should do if

we are HI, we gladly take medi-

and the misfortune resolves itself into that. We no

longer have the passions and desires for amusements
and outings which are given by health, and which are
incompatible with the necessities of sickness: nature then
gives passions and desires suited to our present state.
There are only fears (caused by ourselves, and not by
nature) to trouble us, because they add to the state in
cine;

which we

which we

are, the passions of the state in

are

not.

C As nature makes
tion,

us

unhappy whatsoever our condi-

our desires show us

they attach to the

state in

the state in which

we

a state of happiness, because

which we

are not; and

are, the pleasures

we had

if

of

arrived at

we should be none the happier for them,

we should have other desires belonging to

these pleasures,

because then

our

new condition.

C Memory and joy are intuitions; and even geometrical

propositions become intuitions, for reason makes intuitions natural, and natural intuitions are effaced by reason.
C God has not desired

to absolve without the Church.

He

wishes her to

associates her

with Himself

Since she has had part in the offence.

have part in the pardon.

He

power, as kings do parliaments; but if she absolves

or binds without God, she is no longer the Church; as
with a parliament: for, although the king may have
in this

given a

man pardon,

parliament must ratify

parliament ratify without the king, or

ratify

by

the king's order,

it

is

it;

if it

but

if

the

refuse to

no longer the

king's

parliament, but a revolted body.

C Great and small have the same accidents, the same vexations,

and the same passions, but the

"3

first

are at the top

iSlIimlfflllifflliilifflliMflM
of the wheel and the others near the centre, and thus
less

agitated

by the same movements.

C When the truth of

a thing

common

there be a

is

not known,

it is

well that

error to fix men's minds

example, the moon, to which

is

(as,

for

attributed the change of

the seasons, the course of diseases, etc.), for man's chief

malady

restless inquisitiveness

is

cannot know, and

it is

concerning things he

not so bad for him to be in error

as in this vain curiosity.

C There

is

nothing on earth which does not show either

man's misery or God's mercy, or the impotence of

without God, or the power of man with God.

Title:

man

How it is that people believe so many liars nrho

say that they have seen miracles, and do not believe any

ivho say that they have the secrets of rendering man

immortal and of restoring youth?
Having considered how it is that people put such
faith in so

many

who

impostors

say that they have

remedies, frequently to giving even their lives into their

hands,

it

has seemed to

me

that the real cause

is

that

would not be possible that

there should be so many of them false, and that they
should be given so much credence, if none of them were
true. If there had never been a remedy for an ill, and if
some of them

are true: for

it

had been incurable, it is impossible that men

that they could offer one; and yet
so many should give credence to
those who boasted of having remedies: so that if a man
boasted of being able to prevent death, no one would
believe him, because there is no example of that. But as a
number of remedies have been proved true by the
knowledge even of the greatest men, people's belief
has been influenced thereby, and a thing being kno\vn
to be possible, it has been concluded therefrom that it
exists. For the people generally reason thus: "A thing
all

iUs

would have imagined

more impossible that

is

possible, therefore

it is,"

because, unable to

deny the

thing in general, since there are particular effects which

are true, or to discern

which of
124

these effects are true,

they believe in them all. Likewise, that which causes

people to believe erroneously in so many effects of the
moon is that there are some true ones, such as the tide.
It is

the same with prophecies, miracles, divination

dreams, witchcraft, etc. For

by

none of these had ever

been true, none would ever have been believed; and thus,
instead of concluding that there are no true miracles
because there are so many false, we should say, on the
if

contrary, that there certainly are true miracles, since

there are false ones, and that there are none false except

some true.

for the reason that there are

We must reason in the same way concerning religion,

for

would be impossible for men to have imagined so

false religions were there not a true one. The

it

many

objection thereto
that* it

may

is

that savages have a religion; but to

be replied that

religion spoken of, as

cision, St.

C Other

is

it is

because they have heard

shown by

the deluge, circum-

Andrew's cross, etc.

religions,

such

as those

of pagans, are

more

popular, for they are external, but they are not for intelligent people.

more

purely intellectual religion would be

suited to the intelligent, but useless to the people.

The one

Christian religion

inward and outward.

suited to

is

It raises

all,

being both

the people, inwardly, and

down the proud, outwardly; and is not perfect

without the two: for it is necessary that the people
understand the spirit of the letter, and that the intelhgent
submit their own spirit to the letter.
puts

C To make a man a saint, grace is very necessary, and

whoso doubts it knows neither what is a saint nor what
is

man.

CThe

true religion teaches us our duties, our failings

(pride and lust), and the remedies (humility and mortification).

CMan knows
visibly astray

power

not in what rank to put himself.

and

to recover

and vainly

fallen
it.

He

from

his true position,

seeks

it

is

everywhere anxiously

in impenetrable darkness.

125

He

without

C There is a great deal of difference between tempting

and leading into error. God tempts, but He does not lead
into error. To tempt is to afford occasions upon which,
as they impose no necessity, a man will do a certain thing
if he love not God. To lead into error is to put man
under the necessity of believing and following what is
false.

C All men naturally hate one another. They have done

what they could to make lust subordinate to the public
good. But it is only pretence, and a false image of charity,
for at bottom it is only hate.

CThe
you

stoics say,

"Enter into yourself;

will find repose":

"Go

and that

is

it is

there that

not true. Others say,

further; and seek happiness in amusement":

and

not true: sickness comes. Happiness is neither

within us nor without us; it is in God, both within and

that

is

without

us.

C So inevitably mad are men,

he another turn of madness.

CWe

desire truth,

we

tainty;

death.
ness,

feel

mad would

in ourselves

only uncer-

seek happiness, and find only misery and

We are unable

not to wish for truth and happi-

and incapable of either certainty or

desire
.

and find

that not to be

left to

is

us as

much

felicity.

us

from whence we have fallen away.

C He who would know

an

"I

know

man has
The cause

perfectly the vanity of

but to consider the causes and effects of love.

is

This

make

to punish us as to

not what" (Corneille): and

its

effects are

fearful.

This "I
cannot tell

know not what," so slight a thing that we

how to recognise it, disturbs the whole world

princes, armies,

._

all

mankind.

If Cleopatra's

nose had

been shorter, the entire face of the earth would have

been changed.

C This inward war of reason and the passions has divided

those who wish for peace into two sects. The one party
has desired to renounce passions and become gods; the
126

other has desired to renounce reason and become brute

beasts. (Des Barreaux.) But they have been unable to do

and this
impeaches the baseness and injustice of the passions, and
disturbs the peace of those who abandon themselves to
either of these things; reason abides continually,

their passions, while the passions are always quick in

those

who would renounce

them.

We

have a powerlessness to prove,

have an idea of
dogmatism.
truth, unconquerable by all Pyrrhonism.

Instinct, reason:
unconquerable by

We

all

C In order that passion work no

had only eight days to live.

C What

is it

in us

which

ill,

let

us act as

feels pleasure? Is

it

if

we

the hand,

the arm, the flesh, the blood? It will be seen that

it

must

be something immaterial.

Instinct

and reason; marks of two natures.

shown the baseness and

man.) Let man now appraise himself.
Let him love himself, for there is within him a nature
capable of good; but for all that let him not love the base
things which are also within him. Let him distrust himself, for this capacity is empty; but let him not on that
account distrust his natural capacity. Let him hate himself, let him love himself: he has within him the capacity
of knowing truth and of being happy; but he possesses
no truth or anything constant or satisfying.
I would wish, therefore, to induce man to desire truth,
i.

Contradictions: (After having

the greatness of

to be ready to pursue

it

dispassionately, whither

it

may

be found, knowing how his enlightenment is bedimmed

by his passion; and I would that he hate in himself the
concupiscence which leads him, so that it may not blind
him in order to dispose his choice, nor hinder him when
he

shall

have made it.

C At least

let

them

learn

what

oppose, before attacking

clear sight of

this religion
If it

it.

God, and of possessing

cloaked, they might oppose

it

127

is

which they

boasted of having a
it

openly and un-

by saying that nothing

in

the world

contrary,

is

it

men

says that

from God,

He

show

seen to

is

it

But

so clearly.

on the
removed

since,

are in darkness and

He is hid from their knowledge, that

He calls Himself in the Scriptures,

that

even what

^'Deiis absconditiis,^'' and, in fine, if it labours equally to

establish these

two

things: that

marks in the Church

those

who

Him

seek

to

God

has set perceptible

make Himself recognised by

sincerely,

them, nevertheless, in such

and that

way

that

He has covered
He will be per-

by them who seek Him with their whole

heart, what advantage can they reap, when, in their

ceived only

professed neglect of the search for truth, they cry that

nothing shows

to them, since this obscurity that they

it

which they object in the Church, can establish only one of the things which it maintains, without
touching the other, and establishes its doctrine, so far
from destro)Mng it?
are in, to

In order to attack

they have done

all

it,

they ought to complain that

they could to seek

it

ever>^A\'here,

which the Church offers for their instruction, but without any success. If they spoke in that way
they would truly dispute one of its claims. But I hope to
show here that there is no reasonable person who can
speak in that wav; and I dare even say that no one ever
has done so. It is well known how people act who are of
even

this

in that

mind.

They

think they have

instruct themselves,

made

great efforts to

when they have employed

few

hours in the reading of some book of Scripture, and

when they have

questioned some ecclesiastic on the

truths of the faith. After that, they boast of having sought

unsuccessfully in books and

among men. But

would say

to

have often said, that

negligence

is

them what

not to be tolerated.

It is

in truth,

this

not a question of

some strange person, to be treated in

this way; it concerns ourselves and our whole being.
The immortality of the soul is a thing which concerns
a slight interest of

us so potently and touches us so deeply, that a

man who

knowledge of religion must be dead

to all feeling. All our thoughts and actions should follow
such different lines, according as there will be a hope
is

indifferent to the

128

iU
of eternal blessings or no, that

it is

impossible to take

any step with sense or judgment except with regard to

the consideration of this point, which should be our
ultimate object.

Thus our first interest and our first duty is to enlighten

on the subject on which all our condition depends. And this is why, regarding the people who are
not persuaded of it, I make a great difference between
ourselves

who

might to instruct themselves concerning it, and those who live without troubling or thinking about the matter.
I can have nought but compassion for those who
those

labour with

all

their

honestly bewail this doubt,

it,

make

who regard it as the last mis-

who, sparing nothing

fortune, and

in order to

this research their principal

be rid of
and most serious

occupation.

But
of

as for those

life's last

who

end, and

pass their life without thinking

who,

find in themselves the lights

neglect to seek

solely because they

do not

which persuade them of

them elsewhere, and

to

it,

examine thor-

oughly if this opinion is of those that the people receive

through a credulous simplicity, or of those which, al-

though obscure in themselves, have nevertheless a very

and unshakable foundation, I consider them in a
wholly different manner.
This apathy in a matter which concerns themselves,

solid

their eternity, their

all,

irritates

me more

than

it

softens

me; it surprises and affrights me; it is to me a monstrosity.

I do not say this from the pious zeal of a spirited devotion. On the contrary, I mean that one should have this
feeling from a principle of human interest, and bv the
interest of self-love: for that

that
It

which

is

seen

by

it is

only necessary to see

the least enlightened.

does not need a very elevated soul to understand

that here we have no true and solid satisfaction, that all

our pleasures are but vanity, that our ills are infinite,
and that at last death, which menaces us at every instant,
shall in a few years infallibly put us in the horrible necessity of

being either eternally annihilated or eternally

miserable.

129

There
rible.

is

nothing surer than

and then say

nothing more ter-

that,

will, there is

which
upon
there is no

the end

the world. Let us reflect

life in

awaits the finest

it,

we

Play the brave as

not undeniable that

if it is

good in this life but the hope of a life to come, that we

are happy only in measure as we approach this other
life, and that, as there will be no more ills for those who
have an entire assurance of eternity, there is also no
happiness for those who have no gleam of it.
Surely, therefore,

when in

this state of

seeks not

Yet

if

is

a great evil to be in this state

it is

of doubt; but at least

it is

an indispensable duty to seek

doubt; and thus he

who

doubts and

altogether very unfortunate and very wrong.

he be tranquil and

profession of

and

it,

if,

satisfied withal, if

he make

he vaunts himself of

in short,

it,

and if he makes it the subject of his joy and his vanity,

have no words to describe so extravagant a creature.

Whence can these sentiments be derived? What source

of joy can be found in awaiting nothing but irreparable

what cause of vanity

miseries,

penetrable obscurity?

in seeing oneself in im-

And how can it be that this reason-

ing passes through the mind of a reasonable man:

"I

know

the world

not
is,

who

or

has put

what

me

into the world, or

myself am.

am

what

in a terrible

do not know what my body is,

or even this part of me which
thinks that which I am saying, which reflects on everything and on itself, and knows itself no more than the
rest. I see these awful spaces of the universe enclosing
me, and I find myself attached to one corner of this vast
expanse, without being able to know why I am put in
ignorance of

or

all

things.

my senses, or my soul,

this place rather

which

is

this point rather

has preceded
"I see

than in another, or

allotted to

only

me

for

my

why

life is

than another of

all

this brief

the eternity

time

me

assigned to

at

which

me and all which follows me.

infinities

on every

side,

enclosing

me

as

an

atom, and as a shadow which endures but an instant and

comes not

which

I know is that I must soon die,

am most ignorant is this very death

again. All that

but that of which

am not able to

avoid.

130

"As I know not whence I come, so I know not whither

I only know that in quitting this world I fall

go; and

for ever, either into nothing, or into the hands of an

offended God, without knowing which of these two

conditions must be mine eternally. That

is

my state, full

And therefrom I conclude

ought to pass every day of my life without caring
to find out what is to happen to me. Possibly I might be
able to find some solution of my doubts, but I will not
take the trouble, or move a single step to seek it, and
afterwards, while treating with contempt those who
work to this end" (whatever certainty they might have
of weakness and uncertainty.
that

of

it, it is

a subject of despair, rather

"I desire to go,

than of vanity)

without forethought, and without

fear,

to try so great an event, and allow myself to be gently

conducted to death,

in uncertainty of the eternity of

my

future condition."

Who would wish to have as a friend a man who talked

Who would choose him from among others to
communicate his affairs to him? Who would have re-

thus?

course to him in trouble?

And for what use in life could

he be designed?
In truth,

men

it is

glorious to religion to have as enemies

and their opposition is so little

on the contrary, it serves for the
truths. For the Christian faith goes

so unreasonable,

dangerous to

it

establishment of

that,
its

two things: the corruption of

by Jesus Christ. Now I maintain that if they do not serve to show the truth of the
redemption by the sanctity of their morality, at least
they serve admirably to show the corruption of nature
by sentiments so unnatural.

to establish only these

nature, and the redemption

Nothing
ing

is

men

is

so important to

so fearful to

him

man as his condition; nothAnd thus, if there are

as eternity.

indifferent to the loss of their existence

peril of

They

an eternity of miseries,

it is

not at

and to the
all

natural.

are quite otherwise as regards other things: they

fear even the slightest, they foresee them, they feel them:

and the very man who passes so many days and nights
in rage and despair at the loss of a post or at some imag131

1
ined offence to his honour,

is

who

the same

without

knows that he will lose all bymonstrous thing to see in the same heart,
and at the same time, this sensibility to small things and
this strange insensibility to the greatest things. It is an
incomprehensible enchantment, and a supernatural leth-

inquietude or emotion
death. It

'

is

argy which proves an all-powerful force as the cause.

There must be a strange subversion in man's nature if
he glory in being in this condition, in which it seems
incredible that a single person could be. Yet experience

shows me

many such persons that it would be astonwe not know that the majority of them are

so

ishing, did

disguised and are not such in reality. These are people

who

have heard

it

said that the

good manners of society

consist in thus getting the better of their condition. This

is what they call having shaken off the yoke, which
they try to imitate. But it would not be difficult to make
them understand how they deceive themselves in seeking
is not the way to acquire esteem,
men of the world, who judge of things
and who know that the only way to succeed in

esteem thereby. This

even among
sanely,

that

is

to

show

oneself honest, judicious, and capable of

usefully serving his friend, because

men

naturally love

only that which can be useful to them.

advantage

is

there for us in hearing

from

Now

man

what

"that he

has therefore shaken off the yoke, that he does not believe
that there

is

God who watches over his actions, that he

considers himself sole master of his conduct, and that he

thinks to render no account thereof except to himself?"

Does he think thereby to persuade us henceforth to great

confidence in him, and to expect from him consolation,
counsel, and succour in all the needs of Hfe? Do they
claim to have greatly rejoiced us by telling us that they
hold that our soul is but a little wind and smoke, and,
moreover, by telling us it in a proud and satisfied tone?
Is it then a thing to be declaimed gaily? Ought it not, on
the contrary, to be spoken sadly, as the saddest thing in
the world?
If
is

they thought of

it

seriously,

so ill-conceived, so contrary to

132

they would see that it

good sense, so opposed

to honesty, and so far

removed from the

fine

demeanour

they seek, that they would be incHned to correct rather

than corrupt those who would have any tendency to
follow them. And, indeed, make them give account of
their sentiments, and of the reasons they have for doubting religion, and they will

you things so weak and

you to the contrary. This
them one day, very perti-

tell

so base that they will persuade

was what

a person said to

you continue to talk in this way," said he,

you will convert me." And he was right, for
who would not be horrified to find himself in agreement

nently: "If
"in truth

with people so contemptible?

Thus those who only counterfeit these sentiments
would be very unfortunate if they constrained their
nature in order to make themselves the most foolish of

men. If they regret from the depths of their heart that

they are not more enlightened, let them not dissemble it:
this declaration will not be shameful. There is no shame
except in having none. Nothing attests an extreme weakness of

of a

mind more than not

man without God;

to

know

the unhappiness

nothing shows a bad disposition

of heart more than not to desire the truth of the eternal

is more cowardly than to play the

promises; nothing

braggart before God. Let them leave these impieties,

then, to those of natures sufficiently bad to be really
capable of them;

let

them

at least

be honest men,

if

they

cannot be Christian; in brief, let them recognise that

there are but two sorts of people who can be called
reasonable: those who serve God with all their hearts
because they know Him, and those who seek Him with
all

their hearts because they

know Him not.

But as for those who live without knowing Him and

without seeking Him, they judge themselves so little

worthy of

their

own

care that they are not

the care of others, and

it

is

worthy of

necessary to have

all

the

charity of the religion they despise, in order not to despise them to the extent of abandoning them to their
folly. But because this religion requires us always to

consider them, as long as they are in this life, as capable

of the grace which can enlighten them, and to believe
133

may be fuller of grace than we

other hand, may fall into the
on
the
we,
and
that
are,
are,
we must do for them that
blindness in which they
which we would have them do for us were we in their
place, and call them to pity themselves and to take at
least some steps to try if they cannot find light. Let them
give to this reading some of the hours which they spend
that in a short time they

may have
may be that they will light upon something, and
any rate they will not lose much. But for those who

so uselessly elsewhere; whatever aversion they

for
at

it, it

bring to

it

a perfect sincerit)^

and

a real desire to find the

and that
hope
they will be convinced by the proofs of a religion so
divine, which I have collected here and in which I have

truth,

that they will have satisfaction,

nearly followed this order

C "This is what I see and what troubles me. I look about

me on all sides and see everywhere only obscurity.
Nature offers me nothing which is not matter for doubt
and disquietude. If I saw nothing which denoted a
Divinity, I should decide in the negative. If I saw ever\''where marks of a Creator, I should rest in peace in the
faith. But seeing too much to deny and too little to convince me, I am in a pitiable condition, in which I have
wished a hundred times that, if a God sustain Nature,
she might show it unequivocally, and that, if the signs
she gives of it are deceptive, she might suppress them
entirely; that she say

see

which part

all

or nothing, in order that

may

should take. But instead, in the condi-

am in, ignorant of what I am and of what I should

know neither my condition nor my dut)\ My heart
desires entirely to know where the true good is, in
order to follow it. Nothing would be too .costly for me

tion I
do,

to give in exchange for eternity.

"I

envy those

whom I

gently and making such

to

me I

see in the faith, living so negliill

use of a gift

which

it

seems

should use so differently."

C No other

[religion] has recognised that

man

is

the

most excellent creature. Some, who have well known

the truth of his excellence, have taken the low sentiments
134

which men naturally have of themselves, for cowardice

and ingratitude; and the

how

effectual

is

who have well known

have treated with disdain-

others,

this baseness,

ful ridicule these feelings of greatness

which

also are

natural to man.

up your eyes towards God," say some; "look at

resemble, and who has created you to
worship Him; you can make yourselves like unto Him;
wisdom will raise you up to Him if you will follow her."
("Lift up your heads, ye free men," says Epictetus.) And
the others say to him, "Cast your eyes upon the ground,
wretched worm that you are, and behold the beasts, your
"Lift

Him whom you

companions."

What,

God

then, shall

man become?

or to the beasts?

then, shall

we be? Who

has wandered, that he

seeks

Shall he be equal to

a terrible distance!

do

What,

by all that that man

from his place, that he

does not see

is

fallen

unrestingly, that he cannot regain

it

shall direct

able to

What

it?

And who

him thither? The greatest men have not been

it.

C Imagine a number of men in chains, and all condemned

whom every day some are butchered in sight

to death, of

of the others, those remaining seeing their

own

fate in

that of their fellows, regarding each other with grief

and despair while awaiting their turn;

of the condition of man.

CWhat

a difference there

another!

this

is

a pictmre

is between one book and

do not wonder that the Greeks have made the
lUadj or the Egyptians and Chinese their histories. It is
only requisite to see how that has come about. These
fabulous historians are not contemporary with the things
of which they write. Homer made a romance which he
gives as such and which is received as such, for no one
doubts that Troy and Agamemnon no more existed than
the golden apple. Thus he did not mean to make a
history, but only a diversion. He is the only one who
wrote of his time: the beauty of the work makes it endure; every one learns it and speaks of it; it is necessary
to know it; each knows it by heart. Four hundred years

135

after

an event the witnesses are no longer

any longer

knows

merely learned

fable or a history: they have

ancestors:

it

may pass for

All history which

of their

it

true.

not contemporary

is

no one

living:

own knowledge whether it is

of his

is

suspicious;

thus the books of the Sibyls and of Trismegistus, and so

many others which the world has credited, are false, and
are false through

all

time. It

not so with contemporary

is

authors.

between a book made by

which he sends forth among the
people, and a book which itself makes a people. It cannot be doubted that in this case the book would be as

There

is

a great difference

a private person,

ancient as the people.

C Without feeling there

is

not miserable,

videns

. .

is

no misery:

man who

only

it is

a ruined
is

so.

house

"iEgo

vi?-

.."

C They blaspheme that of which they are ignorant. The

Christian religion consists of
tant for

man to know them

ignore them, and

it is

two

as

it is

things. It

is

as

impor-

dangerous for him to

equally part of God's

mercy

to

have given tokens of both.

And

yet they take occasion to conclude that one of

which ought
other that the sajjes who have
said that there is only one God, have been persecuted,
the Jews have been hated, and the Christians hated and
these points does not exist because of this

to

make them

infer the

persecuted yet more.

Their natural knowledge has shown them that

is

a true religion in the

ought to tend thereto

if

there

world the order of everything

as to its centre; the

ordering of

all

things ought to have in view the establishment and the

men should have within them sentiments conformable to those it imparts to us, and, in short,
that it should so be the object and centre to which all
things tend, that whosoever shall know its principles
may give account of all human nature in particular, and
of all the government of the world in general.
greatness of religion;

136

And on

this

ground they take occasion to blaspheme

the Christian rehgion because they are ill-acquainted

with

They imagine

it.

God

tion of a

it

to consist simply of the adora-

looked upon

and powerful and

as great

which, properly speaking,

eternal,

is

deism, almost as

removed from the Christian religion as atheism,

which is wholly contrary thereto. And thence they confar

clude that this religion

see that

God

all

not true, because they do not

is

things concur in establishing this point, that

men with all the

might do.
But let them from this conclude what they will against
deism, they will conclude from it nothing against the
Christian religion, which properly consists of the mystery of the Redeemer, who, uniting in Himself the two
natures, the human and the divine, has drawn men awav
does not manifest Himself to

evidence that

He

from the corruption of

His
It

own

men both

therefore teaches to

there
is

sin to reconcile

is

them

to

God in

divine Person.

God,

to

these truths, that

whom men may attain, and that there

a corruption of nature

which renders them unworthy

men to know both these points

man to know God
without knowing his misery, as to know his misery
without the Redeemer who can cure him of it. The
of Him.

It is

equally,

and

important to
it is

as

dangerous for

knowledge of one of these alone makes

either the pride

who have known God and not their

despair of the atheists, who have known

of the philosophers,
misery, or the
their misery

And
these

and not their Redeemer.

thus, just as

two

things, so

it is
it

acquainted us therewith.
it is

a necessity for

pertains to

The

man

to

know

God's mercy to have

Christian religion does so;

in this that she consists.

Let the order of the world be examined in this light,

and let it be seen whether all things do not make for the
establishment of the
Christ

is

two heads of

the object of

all,

this religion. Jesus

and the centre to which

all

Whoso knows Him knows the reason of all things.

Those who err, err only for lack of seeing one of these
two truths. Therefore a man can indeed know God

tend.

137

without
cannot

his misery,

and

God and his misery.

And this is why I
by

his

misery without God: but he

know Jesus Christ without knowing at once both

not undertake here to prove

shall

natural reasons either the existence of

God, or the

Trinity, or the immortality of the soul or any things of

not only because

this nature,

do not consider myself

strong enough to find in nature the wherewithal to con-

vince hardened atheists, but also because this knowledge,

without Jesus Christ, is useless and barren. If a man
should be persuaded that the proportions of numbers are
immaterial and eternal truths, and dependent on an original truth in
I

which they

subsist,

should not consider him

and which

is

called god,

much advanced towards

his

salvation.

The God

of Christians

is

not simply a

God who is the

author of geometrical truths and the order of the elements: this

is

the concern of pagans and epicureans. He

God who exercises His providence over the

is

not only a

and goods of men, to give a happy succession of years

who worship Him: this was the concern of the
But
the God of Abraham, of Isaac, of Jacob, of
Jews.
Christians, is a God of love and consolation; He is a God
who fills the soul and the heart of those who are His; a
God who makes them feel within them their own misery
and His infinite mercy; who unites Himself to the innermost parts of their soul, who fills it with humility, with
joy, with confidence, with love; who makes them incapable of any other object than Himself.
All those who seek God except through Jesus Christ,
and who get no farther than nature, either find no knowledge which satisfies them, or they arrive at a means of
knowing God and serving Him without aYnediator; and
thereby they fall, either into atheism or into deism, which

life

to those

are the

two

things

which the Christian

religion abhors

almost equally.

Without Jesus Christ the world would not exist; it

would have either to cease to exist, or to become like a
hell.

If

the world existed to instruct

138

man

of

God, His

1
would

divinity

from

shine forth

it

on

all

sides in

an in-

contestable manner; but, as it exists only by Jesus Christ

and for Jesus Christ, and to acquaint men with their
corruption and their redemption, everything in it glows
with proofs of these two truths. What appears there
betokens neither the total exclusion of divinity nor its

God who hides

manifest presence, but the presence of a

Himself:

all

bears this character.

wonderful thing that no canonical author has

use of nature in order to prove God. They all
aim at belief in Him: David, Solomon, etc., have never
said, "There is no vacuum, therefore there is a God."
They must have been cleverer than the cleverest men
who have come since, who have all employed it. That is
very important.
It is a

ever

made

C The

pursuit of glory

is

man's greatest baseness, but

mark of

it

whatever
worldly possessions he may have, whatever health and
essential commodities he may enjoy, he is not satisfied
unless he is esteemed by his fellows. He has so high an
opinion of human judgment, that, whatever his worldly
is

also the greatest

advantages,

if

with regard to

he

not placed equally advantageously

is

this

judgment, he

human

which

is

And

heart.

is

not content.

It is

the

world: nothing can turn him from

finest position in the

this desire,

his excellence, for

the most ineffaceable quality in the

those

compare them to beasts,

believed by them, and

who most

be admuxd and

belie themselves

sentiment; for their nature, which

is

and

despise men,

will yet desire to

by

their

own

stronger than every-

forcibly than their reason persuades

man more
them of his baseness.

C Religion

it is

thing

else,

convinces them of the greatness of

is

so great a thing that

right that those

who would not take the trouble to seek it, if it is obscure,

be deprived of
is

it.

Of

what, then, do they complain,

if it

such that it may be found by searching for it?

C Pride counterbalances and removes all miseries. There

a strange anomaly and palpable error! Behold man

is

139

fallen

men
t^

from

Proof:

by

his place:

are doing:

let

The

I.

he seeks

us see

it

who

anxiously! It

is

have found

shall

by

Christian religion

its

what

all

it.

estabhshment:

established so firmly, so mildly, being so con-

itself

trary to nature.

2.

The

sanctity, the loftiness, the humil-

The marvels of Holy Scripture.

5. The apostles in particular.
prophets in particular. 7. The Jewish

ity of a Christian soul.

3.

4. Jesus Christ in particular.

Moses and the

6.

people.

The

8.

prophecies.

9.

which

perpetuity. 10. Doctrine,

II.

The

Perpetuity: no religion has

sanctity of this law. 12.

gives account of

By

all.

the ordering of the

world.

After

this, it is

undeniable that, in considering what

we ought

is life

and what

obey

the inclination to follow

heart;

and

those

who do

C Justice

it is

is

this religion,

certain that there

follow

that

is

not to refuse to

come into our

no occasion to deride

it,

if it

it.

which

established;

is

and thus

all

our

established laws will necessarily be held just without

examination, since they are established.

C What

is

the "I?" If a

man

put himself at the

pass along, can

has put himself there to see

me? No, for he

is

ing of

window

say that he

to see the passers-by, and

not think-

me in particular. But he who loves any one for his

beauty, does he love him? No, for the small-pox, which

beauty without killing the person, will make him

love him no more. And if any one loves me for my judgment or my memory, does he love me, myself? No, for

kills

can lose these qualities without losing myself. Where,

is this "I," if it is neither in the body nor in the

then,

mind?
if

And how

shall

we

love the body' or the mind,

not for these qualities which, nevertheless, are not that

which makes me,

we

since thev are perishable?

love the substance of the

mind of

For should

a person, in the

whatever qualities might be there? That is

impossible, and would be unjust. Therefore we never
love a person, but only qualities. Then let not those who
make themselves honoured in order to obtain charges
abstract,

140

we

and offices, be derided, for

borrowed qualities.

love no one except for

C Original sin is foolishness in the sight of men, but it is

given for such. Therefore you should not reproach me
for the

want of reason

in this doctrine, since

being without reason. But

this folly

is

offer

wiser than

it

all

as

the

wisdom of men, ^^Sapientms est hominibiis.^'' For, without it, what could we say that man is? His whole condition depends on this imperceptible point. And how
should it be perceived by his reason, since it is a thing
contrary to reason, and since his reason, so far from
reaching it by paths of its own, withdraws when confronted with

it?

C All the great diversions are dangerous to the Christian

but among all that the world has invented there is
none so much to be feared as the play. It is so natural
and so fine a representation of the passions, that it arouses
them and generates them with us, especially that of
life,

when

love, principally

it is

represented as very chaste

and upright. For the more innocent

it

appears to the

by it.
which immediately
forms a desire to produce the same effects which we see
so well represented; and at the same time we make ourselves a conscience founded on the integrity of the sentiments we behold there, which remove the apprehension
innocent, then

Its

more

violence pleases our self-love,

of the pure,

who

imagine that

to love with a love

we

likely are they to be affected

it

which appears

does not injure purity

to

them

so wise.

leave the play with the heart so filled with

Thus

all

the

beauties and the sweetness of love, and the soul and

mind

so persuaded of

prepared to receive
occasion to

As

we

innocence, that

its first

we

are quite

impressions, or rather to seek

make them take

in order to receive the

fices as

its

rise in

the heart of another,

same pleasure and the same

sacri-

have seen so well depicted in the play.

the only object of peace in the State

is

the safe

preservation of the people's goods, so the only object of

peace in the Church

is

to keep in security the truth

141

her property, and the u-easure upon which

her heart is set. And as it would be against the welfare of the peace to allow the enemy to enter and pillage

which

is

the State, without opposition, for fear of causing disturbance (because peace being just and useful only for

becomes unjust and perlost, and the war

becomes both just and necessary);

the security of property,

when

nicious

it

it

allows security to be

which can defend

it

Church, when truth is assaulted by the enemies of the faith, when they would snatch it from
the hearts of the faithful and replace it by error, to
so, in the

remain in peace then, would it be to serve the Church

or to betray her, to defend her or to ruin her? And is it
not plain that as it is a crime to disturb peace when truth
reigns, it is also a crime to keep peace when virtue is
being destroyed? There is a time, therefore, when peace
is

right,

and another when

that "there
it is

it is

wrong.

And

it is

written

time for peace and a time for war," and

the interest of the truth \\hich discerns these times.

But there
it

is

is

is

not a time for truth and a time for error, and

on the contrary, that "the truth of the

written,

ever"; and this is Mhy Jesus Christ,

who says that He is come to bring peace, says also that
He is come to send war; but He docs not say that He is

Lord endureth for

come

and falsehood. Truth, therefore,

the first rule and the ultimate end of things.

CM.

to bring truth

de Roannez

said,

"The

reasons

come

to

me

is

after-

wards, but, to begin with, the thing pleases or displeases

me without my knowing the reason, and yet it displeases

me for this reason that I do not discern till afterwards."
But I believe that it does not displease by the reasons
which are discovered afterwards, but that, we find these
reasons because

CThe

it

displeases.

most unreasonable things

in the w^orld

become

the most reasonable because of the unruliness of men.

What is there

less

reasonable than to choose to govern a

State the eldest son of a queen?

steer a boat
birth:

this

We

do not choose to

him of the voyagers who is of the highest

law would be ridiculous and unjust. But
142

because they are so and will always be

reasonable and

just,

most virtuous and able?

whom

so,

they become

we choose? The
Then at once we come to blows:

for

shall

each one claims to be the most virtuous and

then attach

this quality to

contested. This

no disputing

is

the greatest of

C Self-love:

the king's eldest son:

is

is

it.

It is

able. Let us
something which cannot be

Reason cannot do

it is

a fact, there

better, for civil

war

human

"I,"

evils.

the nature of self-love, this

But what can it do? It

cannot save the beloved object from faults and miseries:
it would be great, and it is small; it would be happy, and
it is wretched; it would be perfect, and it is full of imperfections; it would be the object of human love and
esteem, and it sees that its faults merit only aversion and
distrust. This difficulty in which it finds itself produces
in it the most unjust and criminal passion that can be
to love and consider itself alone.

imagined, for

it

conceives a mortal hatred against that

which rebukes it and convinces it of its faults. It

would annihilate it, and unable to destroy truth itself,
it destroys it as far as possible, in its own knowledge and
in that of others, that is to say, by using great care to
hide its faults, both from others and from itself; and it
cannot bear to be made to see these faults itself, or that
they should be seen by others.
truth

Doubtless

it is

an

affliction to

a yet greater affliction to

to be cognisant of

it,

be

full

by

others;

desire us to esteem
fore,

it is

we

full

of faults, but

it is

of them and not to wish

add to them again the

do not wish to be dedo not consider it right if they

for that

fault of a voluntary illusion.

ceived

be

is

to

We

them more than they

not right that

we

deserve: there-

should deceive them, and

wish that they should esteem us more than we deserve.

Thus, when they merely disclose our real imperfections and vices, it is obvious that they do us no wrong,
since they are not the cause thereof, but a service, since
they help us to deliver ourselves from an evil, that is,
should not
the ignorance of these imperfections.
regret that they know them, and that they despise us;

We

143

it is

right that they should

despise us,

if

know us for what we are, and

we be despicable.

Those are the sentiments which should rise in a heart

which wishes to be full of equity and justice. What,
then, ought we to say of our own, seeing there quite a
contrary disposition? For is it not true that we hate the
truth and those who tell us the truth, and that we Uke
them to deceive ourselves in our favour, and that we
wish to be considered something different from what we
really are?

Here
lic

is

proof of

this

which

me.

horrifies

The Catho-

religion does not oblige us to reveal our sins to every

one indiscriminately: it permits us to remain hidden

from all other men, excepting one to whom it commands
us to reveal the depths of our hearts, and to show ourselves as we are. There is only this one in the world
whom it orders us to undeceive, and it binds him to
inviolable secrecy, making his knowledge concerning us
as if

it

did not exist.

able be imagined?
is

such that

it

Can anvthing milder and

And

nevertheless,

law hard, and

finds even this

made

the principal reasons which have

Europe

How

so charit-

human corruption
it is

one of

a great part of

revolt against the Church.

unjust and unreasonable

amiss that

take

it

man

that

it is

is

the

human

heart, to

obliged to do with regard to one

which would be just, in some wav, to do with

regard to every man! For is it right to deceive?
There are different degrees of this aversion from truth,
but it may be said that it exists in some degree in all
men, because it is inseparable from self-love. It is this
false delicacy which obliges those who have to rebuke
others to choose so many ways aod means to avoid
shocking them.

may make

thev

Thev have

to belittle our faults, that

an appearance of excusing them, and to

introduce praises and testimonies of affection and esteem.

Notwithstanding,

this

medicine

self-love. It takes as little of

with

disgust,

those
It

it

still

remains bitter to

as possible,

and often even with

and always

a secret spite against

who present it.

thus happens, that

if

any one has an

144

interest in being

beloved by

he

us,

which he knows

we

is

from rendering

averse

a service

to be disagreeable to us, but treats us as

wish to be treated; we hate the truth, he hides it

us; we wish to be flattered, he flatters us; we like

from

to be deceived, he deceives us.

makes every step of good fortune which

world to remove us farther from the
truth, because people are afraid to wound those whose
favour is useful and whose enmity is dangerous. A prince
may be the laughing-stock of all Europe, and he alone
It is this that

raises us in the

know

nothing of

the truth

is

it. I

am

not surprised

useful to those to

advantageous to those

And

who
who

at this: to

speak

whom it is spoken, but disspeak

it,

because

it

makes

with princes love their

those
of
the prince they serve,
better
than
own interests
and thus they do not care to procure for him an advan-

them

hated.

those

live

tage so hurtful to themselves.

This misfortune is without doubt greater and more

frequent in the higher ranks, but the lower are not

exempt from
to

make

it,

because

it is

always to our

own

interest

by men. Thus human life is

we work nothing but mutual

ourselves beloved

but a perpetual

illusion;

deception and flattery.

No one speaks of us in our pres-

he does in our absence. Unity among men is

founded only on this mutual deception, and few friendships would survive if each knew what his friend said
of him in his absence, even though he then speaks of him

ence

as

sincerely and dispassionately.

Man, then, is nothing but dissimulation, lying and

hypocrisy, both within himself and with regard to those
about him. He does not wish to be told the truth; he
avoids telling
far

it

to others;

removed from

and

all

these tendencies, so

right and reason, are naturally rooted

in his heart.

145

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