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<title>The Project Gutenberg eBook of Pascal's Pensées, by Blaise Pascal.</title>
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<body><p><i>Nec me pudet, ut istos, fateri nescire quid nesciam.</i><a id="FNanchor_147_151"/><a href="18269-h-11.html#Footnote_147_151" class="fnanchor pginternal">[147]</a></p>
<p><i>Melius non incipient.</i><a id="FNanchor_148_152"/><a href="18269-h-11.html#Footnote_148_152" class="fnanchor pginternal">[148]</a></p>
<h4 id="pgepubid00380"><a id="p_365"/>365</h4>
<p><i>Thought.</i>—All the dignity of man consists in thought. Thought is therefore by its nature a wonderful and incomparable thing. It must have strange defects to be contemptible. But it has such, so that nothing is more ridiculous. How great it is in its nature! How vile it is in its defects!</p>
<p>But what is this thought? How foolish it is!</p>
<h4 id="pgepubid00381"><a id="p_366"/>366</h4>
<p>The mind of this sovereign judge of the world is not so independent that it is not liable to be disturbed by the first din about it. The noise of a cannon is not necessary to hinder its thoughts; it needs only the creaking of a weathercock or a pulley. Do not wonder if at present it does not reason well; a fly is buzzing in its ears; that is enough to render it incapable of good judgment. If you wish it to be able to reach the truth, chase away that animal which holds its reason in check and disturbs that powerful intellect which rules towns and kingdoms. Here is a comical god! <i>O ridicolosissimo eroe!</i></p>
<h4 id="pgepubid00382"><a id="p_367"/>367</h4>
<p>The power of flies; they win battles,<a id="FNanchor_149_153"/><a href="18269-h-11.html#Footnote_149_153" class="fnanchor pginternal">[149]</a> hinder our soul from acting, eat our body.</p>
<h4 id="pgepubid00383"><a id="p_368"/>368</h4>
<p>When it is said that heat is only the motions of certain molecules, and light the <i>conatus recedendi</i> which we feel,<a id="FNanchor_150_154"/><a href="18269-h-11.html#Footnote_150_154" class="fnanchor pginternal">[150]</a> it astonishes us. What! Is pleasure only the ballet of our spirits? We have conceived so different an idea of it! And these sensations seem so removed from those others which we say are the same as those with which we compare them! The sensation<a id="Page_101" class="pageno" title="[Pg 101]"/> from the fire, that warmth which affects us in a manner wholly different from touch, the reception of sound and light, all this appears to us mysterious, and yet it is material like the blow of a stone. It is true that the smallness of the spirits which enter into the pores touches other nerves, but there are always some nerves touched.</p>
<h4 id="pgepubid00384"><a id="p_369"/>369</h4>
<p>Memory is necessary for all the operations of reason.</p>
<h4 id="pgepubid00385"><a id="p_370"/>370</h4>
<p>[Chance gives rise to thoughts, and chance removes them; no art can keep or acquire them.</p>
<p>A thought has escaped me. I wanted to write it down. I write instead, that it has escaped me.]</p>
<h4 id="pgepubid00386"><a id="p_371"/>371</h4>
<p>[When I was small, I hugged my book; and because it sometimes happened to me to ... in believing I hugged it, I doubted....]</p>
<h4 id="pgepubid00387"><a id="p_372"/>372</h4>
<p>In writing down my thought, it sometimes escapes me; but this makes me remember my weakness, that I constantly forget. This is as instructive to me as my forgotten thought; for I strive only to know my nothingness.</p>
<h4 id="pgepubid00388"><a id="p_373"/>373</h4>
<p><i>Scepticism.</i>—I shall here write my thoughts without order, and not perhaps in unintentional confusion; that is true order, which will always indicate my object by its very disorder. I should do too much honour to my subject, if I treated it with order, since I want to show that it is incapable of it.</p>
<h4 id="pgepubid00389"><a id="p_374"/>374</h4>
<p>What astonishes me most is to see that all the world is not astonished at its own weakness. Men act seriously, and each follows his own mode of life, not because it is in fact good to follow since it is the custom, but as if each man knew certainly where reason and justice are. They find themselves continually deceived, and by a comical humility think it is their own fault, and not that of the art which they claim always to possess. But<a id="Page_102" class="pageno" title="[Pg 102]"/> it is well there are so many such people in the world, who are not sceptics for the glory of scepticism, in order to show that man is quite capable of the most extravagant opinions, since he is capable of believing that he is not in a state of natural and inevitable weakness, but, on the contrary, of natural wisdom. Nothing fortifies scepticism more than that there are some who are not sceptics; if all were so, they would be wrong.</p>
<h4 id="pgepubid00390"><a id="p_375"/>375</h4>
<p>[I have passed a great part of my life believing that there was justice, and in this I was not mistaken; for there is justice according as God has willed to reveal it to us. But I did not take it so, and this is where I made a mistake; for I believed that our justice was essentially just, and that I had that whereby to know and judge of it. But I have so often found my right judgment at fault, that at last I have come to distrust myself, and then others. I have seen changes in all nations and men, and thus after many changes of judgment regarding true justice, I have recognised that our nature was but in continual change, and I have not changed since; and if I changed, I would confirm my opinion.</p>
<p>The sceptic Arcesilaus,<a id="FNanchor_151_155"/><a href="18269-h-11.html#Footnote_151_155" class="fnanchor pginternal">[151]</a> who became a dogmatist.]</p>
<h4 id="pgepubid00391"><a id="p_376"/>376</h4>
<p>This sect derives more strength from its enemies than from its friends; for the weakness of man is far more evident in those who know it not than in those who know it.</p>
<h4 id="pgepubid00392"><a id="p_377"/>377</h4>
<p>Discourses on humility are a source of pride in the vain, and of humility in the humble. So those on scepticism cause believers to affirm. Few men speak humbly of humility, chastely of chastity, few doubtingly of scepticism. We are only falsehood, duplicity, contradiction; we both conceal and disguise ourselves from ourselves.</p>
<h4 id="pgepubid00393"><a id="p_378"/>378</h4>
<p><i>Scepticism.</i>—Excess, like defect of intellect, is accused of madness. Nothing is good but mediocrity. The majority has settled that, and finds fault with him who escapes it at whichever end. I will not oppose it. I quite consent to put myself<a id="Page_103" class="pageno" title="[Pg 103]"/> there, and refuse to be at the lower end, not because it is low, but because it is an end; for I would likewise refuse to be placed at the top. To leave the mean is to abandon humanity. The greatness of the human soul consists in knowing how to preserve the mean. So far from greatness consisting in leaving it, it consists in not leaving it.</p>
<h4 id="pgepubid00394"><a id="p_379"/>379</h4>
<p>It is not good to have too much liberty. It is not good to have all one wants.</p>
<h4 id="pgepubid00395"><a id="p_380"/>380</h4>
<p>All good maxims are in the world. We only need to apply them. For instance, we do not doubt that we ought to risk our lives in defence of the public good; but for religion, no.</p>
<p>It is true there must be inequality among men; but if this be conceded, the door is opened not only to the highest power, but to the highest tyranny.</p>
<p>We must relax our minds a little; but this opens the door to the greatest debauchery. Let us mark the limits. There are no limits in things. Laws would put them there, and the mind cannot suffer it.</p>
<h4 id="pgepubid00396"><a id="p_381"/>381</h4>
<p>When we are too young, we do not judge well; so, also, when we are too old. If we do not think enough, or if we think too much on any matter, we get obstinate and infatuated about it. If one considers one's work immediately after having done it, one is entirely prepossessed in its favour; by delaying too long, one can no longer enter into the spirit of it. So with pictures seen from too far or too near; there is but one exact point which is the true place wherefrom to look at them: the rest are too near, too far, too high, or too low. Perspective determines that point in the art of painting. But who shall determine it in truth and morality?</p>
<h4 id="pgepubid00397"><a id="p_382"/>382</h4>
<p>When all is equally agitated, nothing appears to be agitated, as in a ship. When all tend to debauchery, none appears to do so. He who stops draws attention to the excess of others, like a fixed point.<a id="Page_104" class="pageno" title="[Pg 104]"/></p>
<h4 id="pgepubid00398"><a id="p_383"/>383</h4>
<p>The licentious tell men of orderly lives that they stray from nature's path, while they themselves follow it; as people in a ship think those move who are on the shore. On all sides the language is similar. We must have a fixed point in order to judge. The harbour decides for those who are in a ship; but where shall we find a harbour in morality?</p>
<h4 id="pgepubid00399"><a id="p_384"/>384</h4>
<p>Contradiction is a bad sign of truth; several things which are certain are contradicted; several things which are false pass without contradiction. Contradiction is not a sign of falsity, nor the want of contradiction a sign of truth.</p>
<h4 id="pgepubid00400"><a id="p_385"/>385</h4>
<p><i>Scepticism.</i>—Each thing here is partly true and partly false. Essential truth is not so; it is altogether pure and altogether true. This mixture dishonours and annihilates it. Nothing is purely true, and thus nothing is true, meaning by that pure truth. You will say it is true that homicide is wrong. Yes; for we know well the wrong and the false. But what will you say is good? Chastity? I say no; for the world would come to an end. Marriage? No; continence is better. Not to kill? No; for lawlessness would be horrible, and the wicked would kill all the good. To kill? No; for that destroys nature. We possess truth and goodness only in part, and mingled with falsehood and evil.</p>
<h4 id="pgepubid00401"><a id="p_386"/>386</h4>
<p>If we dreamt the same thing every night, it would affect us as much as the objects we see every day. And if an artisan were sure to dream every night for twelve hours' duration that he was a king, I believe he would be almost as happy as a king, who should dream every night for twelve hours on end that he was an artisan.</p>
<p>If we were to dream every night that we were pursued by enemies, and harassed by these painful phantoms, or that we passed every day in different occupations, as in making a voyage, we should suffer almost as much as if it were real, and should fear to sleep, as we fear to wake when we dread in fact to enter<a id="Page_105" class="pageno" title="[Pg 105]"/> on such mishaps. And, indeed, it would cause pretty nearly the same discomforts as the reality.</p>
<p>But since dreams are all different, and each single one is diversified, what is seen in them affects us much less than what we see when awake, because of its continuity, which is not, however, so continuous and level as not to change too; but it changes less abruptly, except rarely, as when we travel, and then we say, "It seems to me I am dreaming." For life is a dream a little less inconstant.</p>
<h4 id="pgepubid00402"><a id="p_387"/>387</h4>
<p>[It may be that there are true demonstrations; but this is not certain. Thus, this proves nothing else but that it is not certain that all is uncertain, to the glory of scepticism.]</p>
<h4 id="pgepubid00403"><a id="p_388"/>388</h4>
<p><i>Good sense.</i>—They are compelled to say, "You are not acting in good faith; we are not asleep," etc. How I love to see this proud reason humiliated and suppliant! For this is not the language of a man whose right is disputed, and who defends it with the power of armed hands. He is not foolish enough to declare that men are not acting in good faith, but he punishes this bad faith with force.</p>
<h4 id="pgepubid00404"><a id="p_389"/>389</h4>
<p>Ecclesiastes<a id="FNanchor_152_156"/><a href="18269-h-11.html#Footnote_152_156" class="fnanchor pginternal">[152]</a> shows that man without God is in total ignorance and inevitable misery. For it is wretched to have the wish, but not the power. Now he would be happy and assured of some truth, and yet he can neither know, nor desire not to know. He cannot even doubt.</p>
<h4 id="pgepubid00405"><a id="p_390"/>390</h4>
<p>My God! How foolish this talk is! "Would God have made the world to damn it? Would He ask so much from persons so weak?" etc. Scepticism is the cure for this evil, and will take down this vanity.</p>
<h4 id="pgepubid00406"><a id="p_391"/>391</h4>
<p><i>Conversation.</i>—Great words: Religion, I deny it.</p>
<p><i>Conversation.</i>—Scepticism helps religion.<a id="Page_106" class="pageno" title="[Pg 106]"/></p>
<h4 id="pgepubid00407"><a id="p_392"/>392</h4>
<p><i>Against Scepticism.</i>—[ ... It is, then, a strange fact that we cannot define these things without obscuring them, while we speak of them with all assurance.] We assume that all conceive of them in the same way; but we assume it quite gratuitously, for we have no proof of it. I see, in truth, that the same words are applied on the same occasions, and that every time two men see a body change its place, they both express their view of this same fact by the same word, both saying that it has moved; and from this conformity of application we derive a strong conviction of a conformity of ideas. But this is not absolutely or finally convincing, though there is enough to support a bet on the affirmative, since we know that we often draw the same conclusions from different premisses.</p>
<p>This is enough, at least, to obscure the matter; not that it completely extinguishes the natural light which assures us of these things. The academicians<a id="FNanchor_153_157"/><a href="18269-h-11.html#Footnote_153_157" class="fnanchor pginternal">[153]</a> would have won. But this dulls it, and troubles the dogmatists to the glory of the sceptical crowd, which consists in this doubtful ambiguity, and in a certain doubtful dimness from which our doubts cannot take away all the clearness, nor our own natural lights chase away all the darkness.</p>
<h4 id="pgepubid00408"><a id="p_393"/>393</h4>
<p>It is a singular thing to consider that there are people in the world who, having renounced all the laws of God and nature, have made laws for themselves which they strictly obey, as, for instance, the soldiers of Mahomet, robbers, heretics, etc. It is the same with logicians. It seems that their licence must be without any limits or barriers, since they have broken through so many that are so just and sacred.</p>
<h4 id="pgepubid00409"><a id="p_394"/>394</h4>
<p>All the principles of sceptics, stoics, atheists, etc., are true. But their conclusions are false, because the opposite principles are also true.</p>
<h4 id="pgepubid00410"><a id="p_395"/>395</h4>
<p><i>Instinct, reason.</i>—We have an incapacity of proof, insurmountable by all dogmatism. We have an idea of truth, invincible to all scepticism.<a id="Page_107" class="pageno" title="[Pg 107]"/></p>
<h4 id="pgepubid00411"><a id="p_396"/>396</h4>
<p>Two things instruct man about his whole nature; instinct and experience.</p>
<h4 id="pgepubid00412"><a id="p_397"/>397</h4>
<p>The greatness of man is great in that he knows himself to be miserable. A tree does not know itself to be miserable. It is then being miserable to know oneself to be miserable; but it is also being great to know that one is miserable.</p>
<h4 id="pgepubid00413"><a id="p_398"/>398</h4>
<p>All these same miseries prove man's greatness. They are the miseries of a great lord, of a deposed king.</p>
<h4 id="pgepubid00414"><a id="p_399"/>399</h4>
<p>We are not miserable without feeling it. A ruined house is not miserable. Man only is miserable. <i>Ego vir videns.</i><a id="FNanchor_154_158"/><a href="18269-h-11.html#Footnote_154_158" class="fnanchor pginternal">[154]</a></p>
<h4 id="pgepubid00415"><a id="p_400"/>400</h4>
<p><i>The greatness of man.</i>—We have so great an idea of the soul of man that we cannot endure being despised, or not being esteemed by any soul; and all the happiness of men consists in this esteem.</p>
<h4 id="pgepubid00416"><a id="p_401"/>401</h4>
<p><i>Glory.</i>—The brutes do not admire each other. A horse does not admire his companion. Not that there is no rivalry between them in a race, but that is of no consequence; for, when in the stable, the heaviest and most ill-formed does not give up his oats to another, as men would have others do to them. Their virtue is satisfied with itself.</p>
<h4 id="pgepubid00417"><a id="p_402"/>402</h4>
<p>The greatness of man even in his lust, to have known how to extract from it a wonderful code, and to have drawn from it a picture of benevolence.</p>
<h4 id="pgepubid00418"><a id="p_403"/>403</h4>
<p><i>Greatness.</i>—The reasons of effects indicate the greatness of man, in having extracted so fair an order from lust.<a id="Page_108" class="pageno" title="[Pg 108]"/></p>
<h4 id="pgepubid00419"><a id="p_404"/>404</h4>
<p>The greatest baseness of man is the pursuit of glory. But it is also the greatest mark of his excellence; for whatever possessions he may have on earth, whatever health and essential comfort, he is not satisfied if he has not the esteem of men. He values human reason so highly that, whatever advantages he may have on earth, he is not content if he is not also ranked highly in the judgment of man. This is the finest position in the world. Nothing can turn him from that desire, which is the most indelible quality of man's heart.</p>
<p>And those who most despise men, and put them on a level with the brutes, yet wish to be admired and believed by men, and contradict themselves by their own feelings; their nature, which is stronger than all, convincing them of the greatness of man more forcibly than reason convinces them of their baseness.</p>
<h4 id="pgepubid00420"><a id="p_405"/>405</h4>
<p><i>Contradiction.</i>—Pride counterbalancing all miseries. Man either hides his miseries, or, if he disclose them, glories in knowing them.</p>
<h4 id="pgepubid00421"><a id="p_406"/>406</h4>
<p>Pride counterbalances and takes away all miseries. Here is a strange monster, and a very plain aberration. He is fallen from his place, and is anxiously seeking it. This is what all men do. Let us see who will have found it.</p>
<h4 id="pgepubid00422"><a id="p_407"/>407</h4>
<p>When malice has reason on its side, it becomes proud, and parades reason in all its splendour. When austerity or stern choice has not arrived at the true good, and must needs return to follow nature, it becomes proud by reason of this return.</p>
<h4 id="pgepubid00423"><a id="p_408"/>408</h4>
<p>Evil is easy, and has infinite forms; good is almost unique.<a id="FNanchor_155_159"/><a href="18269-h-11.html#Footnote_155_159" class="fnanchor pginternal">[155]</a> But a certain kind of evil is as difficult to find as what we call good; and often on this account such particular evil gets passed off as good. An extraordinary greatness of soul is needed in order to attain to it as well as to good.<a id="Page_109" class="pageno" title="[Pg 109]"/></p>
<h4 id="pgepubid00424"><a id="p_409"/>409</h4>
<p><i>The greatness of man.</i>—The greatness of man is so evident, that it is even proved by his wretchedness. For what in animals is nature we call in man wretchedness; by which we recognise that, his nature being now like that of animals, he has fallen from a better nature which once was his.</p>
<p>For who is unhappy at not being a king, except a deposed king? Was Paulus Æmilius<a id="FNanchor_156_160"/><a href="18269-h-11.html#Footnote_156_160" class="fnanchor pginternal">[156]</a> unhappy at being no longer consul? On the contrary, everybody thought him happy in having been consul, because the office could only be held for a time. But men thought Perseus so unhappy in being no longer king, because the condition of kingship implied his being always king, that they thought it strange that he endured life. Who is unhappy at having only one mouth? And who is not unhappy at having only one eye? Probably no man ever ventured to mourn at not having three eyes. But any one is inconsolable at having none.</p>
<h4 id="pgepubid00425"><a id="p_410"/>410</h4>
<p><i>Perseus, King of Macedon.</i>—Paulus Æmilius reproached Perseus for not killing himself.</p>
<h4 id="pgepubid00426"><a id="p_411"/>411</h4>
<p>Notwithstanding the sight of all our miseries, which press upon us and take us by the throat, we have an instinct which we cannot repress, and which lifts us up.</p>
<h4 id="pgepubid00427"><a id="p_412"/>412</h4>
<p>There is internal war in man between reason and the passions.</p>
<p>If he had only reason without passions ...</p>
<p>If he had only passions without reason ...</p>
<p>But having both, he cannot be without strife, being unable to be at peace with the one without being at war with the other. Thus he is always divided against, and opposed to himself.</p>
<h4 id="pgepubid00428"><a id="p_413"/>413</h4>
<p>This internal war of reason against the passions has made a division of those who would have peace into two sects. The first would renounce their passions, and become gods; the others would renounce reason, and become brute beasts. (Des Barreaux.)<a id="FNanchor_157_161"/><a href="18269-h-11.html#Footnote_157_161" class="fnanchor pginternal">[157]</a> But neither can do so, and reason still remains, to condemn the vileness and injustice of the passions, and to trouble<a id="Page_110" class="pageno" title="[Pg 110]"/> the repose of those who abandon themselves to them; and the passions keep always alive in those who would renounce them.</p>
<h4 id="pgepubid00429"><a id="p_414"/>414</h4>
<p>Men are so necessarily mad, that not to be mad would amount to another form of madness.</p>
<h4 id="pgepubid00430"><a id="p_415"/>415</h4>
<p>The nature of man may be viewed in two ways: the one according to its end, and then he is great and incomparable; the other according to the multitude, just as we judge of the nature of the horse and the dog, popularly, by seeing its fleetness, <i>et animum arcendi</i>; and then man is abject and vile. These are the two ways which make us judge of him differently, and which occasion such disputes among philosophers.</p>
<p>For one denies the assumption of the other. One says, "He is not born for this end, for all his actions are repugnant to it." The other says, "He forsakes his end, when he does these base actions."</p>
<h4 id="pgepubid00431"><a id="p_416"/>416</h4>
<p><i>For Port-Royal.<a id="FNanchor_158_162"/><a href="18269-h-11.html#Footnote_158_162" class="fnanchor pginternal">[158]</a> Greatness and wretchedness.</i>—Wretchedness being deduced from greatness, and greatness from wretchedness, some have inferred man's wretchedness all the more because they have taken his greatness as a proof of it, and others have inferred his greatness with all the more force, because they have inferred it from his very wretchedness. All that the one party has been able to say in proof of his greatness has only served as an argument of his wretchedness to the others, because the greater our fall, the more wretched we are, and <i>vice versa.</i> The one party is brought back to the other in an endless circle, it being certain that in proportion as men possess light they discover both the greatness and the wretchedness of man. In a word, man knows that he is wretched. He is therefore wretched, because he is so; but he is really great because he knows it.</p>
<h4 id="pgepubid00432"><a id="p_417"/>417</h4>
<p>This twofold nature of man is so evident that some have thought that we had two souls. A single subject seemed to them incapable of such sudden variations from unmeasured presumption to a dreadful dejection of heart.<a id="Page_111" class="pageno" title="[Pg 111]"/></p>
<h4 id="pgepubid00433"><a id="p_418"/>418</h4>
<p>It is dangerous to make man see too clearly his equality with the brutes without showing him his greatness. It is also dangerous to make him see his greatness too clearly, apart from his vileness. It is still more dangerous to leave him in ignorance of both. But it is very advantageous to show him both. Man must not think that he is on a level either with the brutes or with the angels, nor must he be ignorant of both sides of his nature; but he must know both.</p>
<h4 id="pgepubid00434"><a id="p_419"/>419</h4>
<p>I will not allow man to depend upon himself, or upon another, to the end that being without a resting-place and without repose ...</p>
<h4 id="pgepubid00435"><a id="p_420"/>420</h4>
<p>If he exalt himself, I humble him; if he humble himself, I exalt him; and I always contradict him, till he understands that he is an incomprehensible monster.</p>
<h4 id="pgepubid00436"><a id="p_421"/>421</h4>
<p>I blame equally those who choose to praise man, those who choose to blame him, and those who choose to amuse themselves; and I can only approve of those who seek with lamentation.</p>
<h4 id="pgepubid00437"><a id="p_422"/>422</h4>
<p>It is good to be tired and wearied by the vain search after the true good, that we may stretch out our arms to the Redeemer.</p>
<h4 id="pgepubid00438"><a id="p_423"/>423</h4>
<p><i>Contraries. After having shown the vileness and the greatness of man.</i>—Let man now know his value. Let him love himself, for there is in him a nature capable of good; but let him not for this reason love the vileness which is in him. Let him despise himself, for this capacity is barren; but let him not therefore despise this natural capacity. Let him hate himself, let him love himself; he has within him the capacity of knowing the truth and of being happy, but he possesses no truth, either constant or satisfactory.</p>
<p>I would then lead man to the desire of finding truth; to be free from passions, and ready to follow it where he may find it,<a id="Page_112" class="pageno" title="[Pg 112]"/> knowing how much his knowledge is obscured by the passions. I would indeed that he should hate in himself the lust which determined his will by itself, so that it may not blind him in making his choice, and may not hinder him when he has chosen.</p>
<h4 id="pgepubid00439"><a id="p_424"/>424</h4>
<p>All these contradictions, which seem most to keep me from the knowledge of religion, have led me most quickly to the true one.</p>
<hr class="c2"/>
<p><a id="Page_113" class="pageno" title="[Pg 113]"/></p>
<h2 id="pgepubid00440"><a id="SECTION_VII"/>SECTION VII</h2>
<h3 id="pgepubid00441">MORALITY AND DOCTRINE</h3>
<h4 id="pgepubid00442"><a id="p_425"/>425</h4>
<p class="c1">Second part.—That man without faith cannot know the true good, nor justice.</p>
<p>All men seek happiness. This is without exception. Whatever different means they employ, they all tend to this end.<a id="FNanchor_159_163"/><a href="18269-h-11.html#Footnote_159_163" class="fnanchor pginternal">[159]</a> The cause of some going to war, and of others avoiding it, is the same desire in both, attended with different views. The will never takes the least step but to this object. This is the motive of every action of every man, even of those who hang themselves.</p>
<p>And yet after such a great number of years, no one without faith has reached the point to which all continually look. All complain, princes and subjects, noblemen and commoners, old and young, strong and weak, learned and ignorant, healthy and sick, of all countries, all times, all ages, and all conditions.</p>
<p>A trial so long, so continuous, and so uniform, should certainly convince us of our inability to reach the good by our own efforts. But example teaches us little. No resemblance is ever so perfect that there is not some slight difference; and hence we expect that our hope will not be deceived on this occasion as before. And thus, while the present never satisfies us, experience dupes us, and from misfortune to misfortune leads us to death, their eternal crown.</p>
<p>What is it then that this desire and this inability proclaim to us, but that there was once in man a true happiness of which there now remain to him only the mark and empty trace, which he in vain tries to fill from all his surroundings, seeking from things absent the help he does not obtain in things present? But these are all inadequate, because the infinite abyss can only be filled by an infinite and immutable object, that is to say, only by God Himself.</p>
<p>He only is our true good, and since we have forsaken Him, it<a id="Page_114" class="pageno" title="[Pg 114]"/> is a strange thing that there is nothing in nature which has not been serviceable in taking His place; the stars, the heavens, earth, the elements, plants, cabbages, leeks, animals, insects, calves, serpents, fever, pestilence, war, famine, vices, adultery, incest. And since man has lost the true good, everything can appear equally good to him, even his own destruction, though so opposed to God, to reason, and to the whole course of nature.</p>
<p>Some seek good in authority, others in scientific research, others in pleasure. Others, who are in fact nearer the truth, have considered it necessary that the universal good, which all men desire, should not consist in any of the particular things which can only be possessed by one man, and which, when shared, afflict their possessor more by the want of the part he has not, than they please him by the possession of what he has. They have learned that the true good should be such as all can possess at once, without diminution and without envy, and which no one can lose against his will. And their reason is that this desire being natural to man, since it is necessarily in all, and that it is impossible not to have it, they infer from it ...</p>
<h4 id="pgepubid00443"><a id="p_426"/>426</h4>
<p>True nature being lost, everything becomes its own nature; as the true good being lost, everything becomes its own true good.</p>
<h4 id="pgepubid00444"><a id="p_427"/>427</h4>
<p>Man does not know in what rank to place himself. He has plainly gone astray, and fallen from his true place without being able to find it again. He seeks it anxiously and unsuccessfully everywhere in impenetrable darkness.</p>
<h4 id="pgepubid00445"><a id="p_428"/>428</h4>
<p>If it is a sign of weakness to prove God by nature, do not despise Scripture; if it is a sign of strength to have known these contradictions, esteem Scripture.</p>
<h4 id="pgepubid00446"><a id="p_429"/>429</h4>
<p>The vileness of man in submitting himself to the brutes, and in even worshipping them.</p>
<h4 id="pgepubid00447"><a id="p_430"/>430</h4>
<p><i>For Port Royal. The beginning, after having explained the incomprehensibility.</i>—The greatness and the wretchedness of<a id="Page_115" class="pageno" title="[Pg 115]"/> man are so evident that the true religion must necessarily teach us both that there is in man some great source of greatness, and a great source of wretchedness. It must then give us a reason for these astonishing contradictions.</p>
<p>In order to make man happy, it must prove to him that there is a God; that we ought to love Him; that our true happiness is to be in Him, and our sole evil to be separated from Him; it must recognise that we are full of darkness which hinders us from knowing and loving Him; and that thus, as our duties compel us to love God, and our lusts turn us away from Him, we are full of unrighteousness. It must give us an explanation of our opposition to God and to our own good. It must teach us the remedies for these infirmities, and the means of obtaining these remedies. Let us therefore examine all the religions of the world, and see if there be any other than the Christian which is sufficient for this purpose.</p>
<p>Shall it be that of the philosophers, who put forward as the chief good, the good which is in ourselves? Is this the true good? Have they found the remedy for our ills? Is man's pride cured by placing him on an equality with God? Have those who have made us equal to the brutes, or the Mahommedans who have offered us earthly pleasures as the chief good even in eternity, produced the remedy for our lusts? What religion, then, will teach us to cure pride and lust? What religion will in fact teach us our good, our duties, the weakness which turns us from them, the cause of this weakness, the remedies which can cure it, and the means of obtaining these remedies?</p>
<p>All other religions have not been able to do so. Let us see what the wisdom of God will do.</p>
<p>"Expect neither truth," she says, "nor consolation from men. I am she who formed you, and who alone can teach you what you are. But you are now no longer in the state in which I formed you. I created man holy, innocent, perfect. I filled him with light and intelligence. I communicated to him my glory and my wonders. The eye of man saw then the majesty of God. He was not then in the darkness which blinds him, nor subject to mortality and the woes which afflict him. But he has not been able to sustain so great glory without falling into pride. He wanted to make himself his own centre, and independent of my help. He withdrew himself from my rule; and, on his making himself equal to me by the desire of finding his happiness in himself, I abandoned him to himself. And setting<a id="Page_116" class="pageno" title="[Pg 116]"/> in revolt the creatures that were subject to him, I made them his enemies; so that man is now become like the brutes, and so estranged from me that there scarce remains to him a dim vision of his Author. So far has all his knowledge been extinguished or disturbed! The senses, independent of reason, and often the masters of reason, have led him into pursuit of pleasure. All creatures either torment or tempt him, and domineer over him, either subduing him by their strength, or fascinating him by their charms, a tyranny more awful and more imperious.</p>
<p>"Such is the state in which men now are. There remains to them some feeble instinct of the happiness of their former state; and they are plunged in the evils of their blindness and their lust, which have become their second nature.</p>
<p>"From this principle which I disclose to you, you can recognise the cause of those contradictions which have astonished all men, and have divided them into parties holding so different views. Observe, now, all the feelings of greatness and glory which the experience of so many woes cannot stifle, and see if the cause of them must not be in another nature."</p>
<p><i>For Port-Royal to-morrow (Prosopopœa).</i>—"It is in vain, O men, that you seek within yourselves the remedy for your ills. All your light can only reach the knowledge that not in yourselves will you find truth or good. The philosophers have promised you that, and have been unable to do it. They neither know what is your true good, nor what is your true state. How could they have given remedies for your ills, when they did not even know them? Your chief maladies are pride, which takes you away from God, and lust, which binds you to earth; and they have done nothing else but cherish one or other of these diseases. If they gave you God as an end, it was only to administer to your pride; they made you think that you are by nature like Him, and conformed to Him. And those who saw the absurdity of this claim put you on another precipice, by making you understand that your nature was like that of the brutes, and led you to seek your good in the lusts which are shared by the animals. This is not the way to cure you of your unrighteousness, which these wise men never knew. I alone can make you understand who you are...."</p>
<p>Adam, Jesus Christ.</p>
<p>If you are united to God, it is by grace, not by nature. If you are humbled, it is by penitence, not by nature.</p>
<p>Thus this double capacity ...<a id="Page_117" class="pageno" title="[Pg 117]"/></p>
<p>You are not in the state of your creation.</p>
<p>As these two states are open, it is impossible for you not to recognise them. Follow your own feelings, observe yourselves, and see if you do not find the lively characteristics of these two natures. Could so many contradictions be found in a simple subject?</p>
<p>—Incomprehensible.—Not all that is incomprehensible ceases to exist. Infinite number. An infinite space equal to a finite.</p>
<p>—Incredible that God should unite Himself to us.—This consideration is drawn only from the sight of our vileness. But if you are quite sincere over it, follow it as far as I have done, and recognise that we are indeed so vile that we are incapable in ourselves of knowing if His mercy cannot make us capable of Him. For I would know how this animal, who knows himself to be so weak, has the right to measure the mercy of God, and set limits to it, suggested by his own fancy. He has so little knowledge of what God is, that he does not know what he himself is, and, completely disturbed at the sight of his own state, dares to say that God cannot make him capable of communion with Him.</p>
<p>But I would ask him if God demands anything else from him than the knowledge and love of Him, and why, since his nature is capable of love and knowledge, he believes that God cannot make Himself known and loved by him. Doubtless he knows at least that he exists, and that he loves something. Therefore, if he sees anything in the darkness wherein he is, and if he finds some object of his love among the things on earth, why, if God impart to him some ray of His essence, will he not be capable of knowing and of loving Him in the manner in which it shall please Him to communicate Himself to us? There must then be certainly an intolerable presumption in arguments of this sort, although they seem founded on an apparent humility, which is neither sincere nor reasonable, if it does not make us admit that, not knowing of ourselves what we are, we can only learn it from God.</p>
<p>"I do not mean that you should submit your belief to me without reason, and I do not aspire to overcome you by tyranny. In fact, I do not claim to give you a reason for everything. And to reconcile these contradictions, I intend to make you see clearly, by convincing proofs, those divine signs in me, which may convince you of what I am, and may gain authority for me by wonders and proofs which you cannot reject; so that you may<a id="Page_118" class="pageno" title="[Pg 118]"/> then believe without ... the things which I teach you, since you will find no other ground for rejecting them, except that you cannot know of yourselves if they are true or not.</p>
<p>"God has willed to redeem men, and to open salvation to those who seek it. But men render themselves so unworthy of it, that it is right that God should refuse to some, because of their obduracy, what He grants to others from a compassion which is not due to them. If He had willed to overcome the obstinacy of the most hardened, He could have done so by revealing Himself so manifestly to them that they could not have doubted of the truth of His essence; as it will appear at the last day, with such thunders and such a convulsion of nature, that the dead will rise again, and the blindest will see Him.</p>
<p>"It is not in this manner that He has willed to appear in His advent of mercy, because, as so many make themselves unworthy of His mercy, He has willed to leave them in the loss of the good which they do not want. It was not then right that He should appear in a manner manifestly divine, and completely capable of convincing all men; but it was also not right that He should come in so hidden a manner that He could not be known by those who should sincerely seek Him. He has willed to make Himself quite recognisable by those; and thus, willing to appear openly to those who seek Him with all their heart, and to be hidden from those who flee from Him with all their heart, He so regulates the knowledge of Himself that He has given signs of Himself, visible to those who seek Him, and not to those who seek Him not. There is enough light for those who only desire to see, and enough obscurity for those who have a contrary disposition."</p>
<h4 id="pgepubid00448"><a id="p_431"/>431</h4>
<p>No other religion has recognised that man is the most excellent creature. Some, which have quite recognised the reality of his excellence, have considered as mean and ungrateful the low opinions which men naturally have of themselves; and others, which have thoroughly recognised how real is this vileness, have treated with proud ridicule those feelings of greatness, which are equally natural to man.</p>
<p>"Lift your eyes to God," say the first; "see Him whom you resemble, and who has created you to worship Him. You can make yourselves like unto Him; wisdom will make you equal to Him, if you will follow it." "Raise your heads, free men,"<a id="Page_119" class="pageno" title="[Pg 119]"/> says Epictetus. And others say, "Bend your eyes to the earth, wretched worm that you are, and consider the brutes whose companion you are."</p>
<p>What, then, will man become? Will he be equal to God or the brutes? What a frightful difference! What, then, shall we be? Who does not see from all this that man has gone astray, that he has fallen from his place, that he anxiously seeks it, that he cannot find it again? And who shall then direct him to it? The greatest men have failed.</p>
<h4 id="pgepubid00449"><a id="p_432"/>432</h4>
<p>Scepticism is true; for, after all, men before Jesus Christ did not know where they were, nor whether they were great or small. And those who have said the one or the other, knew nothing about it, and guessed without reason and by chance. They also erred always in excluding the one or the other.</p>
<p><i>Quod ergo ignorantes, quæritis, religio annuntiat vobis.</i><a id="FNanchor_160_164"/><a href="18269-h-11.html#Footnote_160_164" class="fnanchor pginternal">[160]</a></p>
<h4 id="pgepubid00450"><a id="p_433"/>433</h4>
<p><i>After having understood the whole nature of man.</i>—That a religion may be true, it must have knowledge of our nature. It ought to know its greatness and littleness, and the reason of both. What religion but the Christian has known this?</p>
<h4 id="pgepubid00451"><a id="p_434"/>434</h4>
<p>The chief arguments of the sceptics—I pass over the lesser ones—are that we have no certainty of the truth of these principles apart from faith and revelation, except in so far as we naturally perceive them in ourselves. Now this natural intuition is not a convincing proof of their truth; since, having no certainty, apart from faith, whether man was created by a good God, or by a wicked demon,<a id="FNanchor_161_165"/><a href="18269-h-11.html#Footnote_161_165" class="fnanchor pginternal">[161]</a> or by chance, it is doubtful whether these principles given to us are true, or false, or uncertain, according to our origin. Again, no person is certain, apart from faith, whether he is awake or sleeps, seeing that during sleep we believe that we are awake as firmly as we do when we <i>are</i> awake; we believe that we see space, figure, and motion; we are aware of the passage of time, we measure it; and in fact we act as if we were awake. So that half of our life being passed in sleep, we have on our own admission no idea of truth, whatever we may imagine. As all our intuitions are then illusions, who knows<a id="Page_120" class="pageno" title="[Pg 120]"/> whether the other half of our life, in which we think we are awake, is not another sleep a little different from the former, from which we awake when we suppose ourselves asleep?</p>
<p>[And who doubts that, if we dreamt in company, and the dreams chanced to agree, which is common enough, and if we were always alone when awake, we should believe that matters were reversed? In short, as we often dream that we dream, heaping dream upon dream, may it not be that this half of our life, wherein we think ourselves awake, is itself only a dream on which the others are grafted, from which we wake at death, during which we have as few principles of truth and good as during natural sleep, these different thoughts which disturb us being perhaps only illusions like the flight of time and the vain fancies of our dreams?]</p>
<p>These are the chief arguments on one side and the other.</p>
<p>I omit minor ones, such as the sceptical talk against the impressions of custom, education, manners, country, and the like. Though these influence the majority of common folk, who dogmatise only on shallow foundations, they are upset by the least breath of the sceptics. We have only to see their books if we are not sufficiently convinced of this, and we shall very quickly become so, perhaps too much.</p>
<p>I notice the only strong point of the dogmatists, namely, that, speaking in good faith and sincerely, we cannot doubt natural principles. Against this the sceptics set up in one word the uncertainty of our origin, which includes that of our nature. The dogmatists have been trying to answer this objection ever since the world began.</p>
<p>So there is open war among men, in which each must take a part, and side either with dogmatism or scepticism. For he who thinks to remain neutral is above all a sceptic. This neutrality is the essence of the sect; he who is not against them is essentially for them. [In this appears their advantage.] They are not for themselves; they are neutral, indifferent, in suspense as to all things, even themselves being no exception.</p>
<p>What then shall man do in this state? Shall he doubt everything? Shall he doubt whether he is awake, whether he is being pinched, or whether he is being burned? Shall he doubt whether he doubts? Shall he doubt whether he exists? We cannot go so far as that; and I lay it down as a fact that there never has been a real complete sceptic. Nature sustains our feeble reason, and prevents it raving to this extent.<a id="Page_121" class="pageno" title="[Pg 121]"/></p>
<p>Shall he then say, on the contrary, that he certainly possesses truth—he who, when pressed ever so little, can show no title to it, and is forced to let go his hold?</p>
<p>What a chimera then is man! What a novelty! What a monster, what a chaos, what a contradiction, what a prodigy! Judge of all things, imbecile worm of the earth; depositary of truth, a sink of uncertainty and error; the pride and refuse of the universe!</p>
<p>Who will unravel this tangle? Nature confutes the sceptics, and reason confutes the dogmatists. What then will you become, O men! who try to find out by your natural reason what is your true condition? You cannot avoid one of these sects, nor adhere to one of them.</p>
<p>Know then, proud man, what a paradox you are to yourself. Humble yourself, weak reason; be silent, foolish nature; learn that man infinitely transcends man, and learn from your Master your true condition, of which you are ignorant. Hear God.</p>
<p>For in fact, if man had never been corrupt, he would enjoy in his innocence both truth and happiness with assurance; and if man had always been corrupt, he would have no idea of truth or bliss. But, wretched as we are, and more so than if there were no greatness in our condition, we have an idea of happiness, and cannot reach it. We perceive an image of truth, and possess only a lie. Incapable of absolute ignorance and of certain knowledge, we have thus been manifestly in a degree of perfection from which we have unhappily fallen.</p>
<p>It is, however, an astonishing thing that the mystery furthest removed from our knowledge, namely, that of the transmission of sin, should be a fact without which we can have no knowledge of ourselves. For it is beyond doubt that there is nothing which more shocks our reason than to say that the sin of the first man has rendered guilty those, who, being so removed from this source, seem incapable of participation in it. This transmission does not only seem to us impossible, it seems also very unjust. For what is more contrary to the rules of our miserable justice than to damn eternally an infant incapable of will, for a sin wherein he seems to have so little a share, that it was committed six thousand years before he was in existence? Certainly nothing offends us more rudely than this doctrine; and yet, without this mystery, the most incomprehensible of all, we are incomprehensible to ourselves. The knot of our condition takes its twists and turns in this abyss, so that man is more<a id="Page_122" class="pageno" title="[Pg 122]"/> inconceivable without this mystery than this mystery is inconceivable to man.</p>
<p>[Whence it seems that God, willing to render the difficulty of our existence unintelligible to ourselves, has concealed the knot so high, or, better speaking, so low, that we are quite incapable of reaching it; so that it is not by the proud exertions of our reason, but by the simple submissions of reason, that we can truly know ourselves.</p>
<p>These foundations, solidly established on the inviolable authority of religion, make us know that there are two truths of faith equally certain: the one, that man, in the state of creation, or in that of grace, is raised above all nature, made like unto God and sharing in His divinity; the other, that in the state of corruption and sin, he is fallen from this state and made like unto the beasts.</p>
<p>These two propositions are equally sound and certain. Scripture manifestly declares this to us, when it says in some places: <i>Deliciæ meæ esse cum filiis hominum.<a id="FNanchor_162_166"/><a href="18269-h-11.html#Footnote_162_166" class="fnanchor pginternal">[162]</a> Effundam spiritum meum super omnem carnem.<a id="FNanchor_163_167"/><a href="18269-h-11.html#Footnote_163_167" class="fnanchor pginternal">[163]</a> Dii estis<a id="FNanchor_164_168"/><a href="18269-h-11.html#Footnote_164_168" class="fnanchor pginternal">[164]</a></i>, etc.; and in other places, <i>Omnis caro fænum.<a id="FNanchor_165_169"/><a href="18269-h-11.html#Footnote_165_169" class="fnanchor pginternal">[165]</a> Homo assimilatus est jumentis insipientibus, et similis factus est illis.<a id="FNanchor_166_170"/><a href="18269-h-11.html#Footnote_166_170" class="fnanchor pginternal">[166]</a> Dixi in corde meo de filiis hominum.</i> Eccles. iii.</p>
<p>Whence it clearly seems that man by grace is made like unto God, and a partaker in His divinity, and that without grace he is like unto the brute beasts.]</p>
<h4 id="pgepubid00452"><a id="p_435"/>435</h4>
<p>Without this divine knowledge what could men do but either become elated by the inner feeling of their past greatness which still remains to them, or become despondent at the sight of their present weakness? For, not seeing the whole truth, they could not attain to perfect virtue. Some considering nature as incorrupt, others as incurable, they could not escape either pride or sloth, the two sources of all vice; since they cannot but either abandon themselves to it through cowardice, or escape it by pride. For if they knew the excellence of man, they were ignorant of his corruption; so that they easily avoided sloth, but fell into pride. And if they recognised the infirmity of nature, they were ignorant of its dignity; so that they could easily avoid vanity, but it was to fall into despair. Thence arise the different schools of the Stoics and Epicureans, the Dogmatists, Academicians, etc.<a id="Page_123" class="pageno" title="[Pg 123]"/></p>
<p>The Christian religion alone has been able to cure these two vices, not by expelling the one through means of the other according to the wisdom of the world, but by expelling both according to the simplicity of the Gospel. For it teaches the righteous that it raises them even to a participation in divinity itself; that in this lofty state they still carry the source of all corruption, which renders them during all their life subject to error, misery, death, and sin; and it proclaims to the most ungodly that they are capable of the grace of their Redeemer. So making those tremble whom it justifies, and consoling those whom it condemns, religion so justly tempers fear with hope through that double capacity of grace and of sin, common to all, that it humbles infinitely more than reason alone can do, but without despair; and it exalts infinitely more than natural pride, but without inflating; thus making it evident that alone being exempt from error and vice, it alone fulfils the duty of instructing and correcting men.</p>
<p>Who then can refuse to believe and adore this heavenly light? For is it not clearer than day that we perceive within ourselves ineffaceable marks of excellence? And is it not equally true that we experience every hour the results of our deplorable condition? What does this chaos and monstrous confusion proclaim to us but the truth of these two states, with a voice so powerful that it is impossible to resist it?</p>
<h4 id="pgepubid00453"><a id="p_436"/>436</h4>
<p><i>Weakness.</i>—Every pursuit of men is to get wealth; and they cannot have a title to show that they possess it justly, for they have only that of human caprice; nor have they strength to hold it securely. It is the same with knowledge, for disease takes it away. We are incapable both of truth and goodness.</p>
<h4 id="pgepubid00454"><a id="p_437"/>437</h4>
<p>We desire truth, and find within ourselves only uncertainty.</p>
<p>We seek happiness, and find only misery and death.</p>
<p>We cannot but desire truth and happiness, and are incapable of certainty or happiness. This desire is left to us, partly to punish us, partly to make us perceive wherefrom we are fallen.</p>
<h4 id="pgepubid00455"><a id="p_438"/>438</h4>
<p>If man is not made for God, why is he only happy in God? If man is made for God, why is he so opposed to God?<a id="Page_124" class="pageno" title="[Pg 124]"/></p>
<h4 id="pgepubid00456"><a id="p_439"/>439</h4>
<p><i>Nature corrupted.</i>—Man does not act by reason, which constitutes his being.</p>
<h4 id="pgepubid00457"><a id="p_440"/>440</h4>
<p>The corruption of reason is shown by the existence of so many different and extravagant customs. It was necessary that truth should come, in order that man should no longer dwell within himself.</p>
<h4 id="pgepubid00458"><a id="p_441"/>441</h4>
<p>For myself, I confess that so soon as the Christian religion reveals the principle that human nature is corrupt and fallen from God, that opens my eyes to see everywhere the mark of this truth: for nature is such that she testifies everywhere, both within man and without him, to a lost God and a corrupt nature.</p>
<h4 id="pgepubid00459"><a id="p_442"/>442</h4>
<p>Man's true nature, his true good, true virtue, and true religion, are things of which the knowledge is inseparable.</p>
<h4 id="pgepubid00460"><a id="p_443"/>443</h4>
<p><i>Greatness, wretchedness.</i>—The more light we have, the more greatness and the more baseness we discover in man. Ordinary men—those who are more educated: philosophers, they astonish ordinary men—Christians, they astonish philosophers.</p>
<p>Who will then be surprised to see that religion only makes us know profoundly what we already know in proportion to our light?</p>
<h4 id="pgepubid00461"><a id="p_444"/>444</h4>
<p>This religion taught to her children what men have only been able to discover by their greatest knowledge.</p>
<h4 id="pgepubid00462"><a id="p_445"/>445</h4>
<p>Original sin is foolishness to men, but it is admitted to be such. You must not then reproach me for the want of reason in this doctrine, since I admit it to be without reason. But this foolishness is wiser than all the wisdom of men, <i>sapientius est hominibus</i>.<a id="FNanchor_167_171"/><a href="18269-h-11.html#Footnote_167_171" class="fnanchor pginternal">[167]</a> For without this, what can we say that man is? His whole state depends on this imperceptible point. And how should it be perceived by his reason, since it is a thing against reason, and since reason, far from finding it out by her own ways, is averse to it when it is presented to her?<a id="Page_125" class="pageno" title="[Pg 125]"/></p>
<h4 id="pgepubid00463"><a id="p_446"/>446</h4>
<p class="c1">Of original sin.<a id="FNanchor_168_172"/><a href="18269-h-11.html#Footnote_168_172" class="fnanchor pginternal">[168]</a> Ample tradition of original sin according to the Jews.</p>
<p>On the saying in Genesis viii, 21: "The imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth."</p>
<p><i>R. Moses Haddarschan</i>: This evil leaven is placed in man from the time that he is formed.</p>
<p><i>Massechet Succa</i>: This evil leaven has seven names in Scripture. It is called <i>evil, the foreskin, uncleanness, an enemy, a scandal, a heart of stone, the north wind</i>; all this signifies the malignity which is concealed and impressed in the heart of man.</p>
<p><i>Midrasch Tillim</i> says the same thing, and that God will deliver the good nature of man from the evil.</p>
<p>This malignity is renewed every day against man, as it is written, Psalm xxxvii, 32: "The wicked watcheth the righteous, and seeketh to slay him"; but God will not abandon him. This malignity tries the heart of man in this life, and will accuse him in the other. All this is found in the Talmud.</p>
<p><i>Midrasch Tillim</i> on Psalm iv, 4: "Stand in awe and sin not." Stand in awe and be afraid of your lust, and it will not lead you into sin. And on Psalm xxxvi, 1: "The wicked has said within his own heart, Let not the fear of God be before me." That is to say that the malignity natural to man has said that to the wicked.</p>
<p><i>Midrasch el Kohelet</i>: "Better is a poor and wise child than an old and foolish king who cannot foresee the future."<a id="FNanchor_169_173"/><a href="18269-h-11.html#Footnote_169_173" class="fnanchor pginternal">[169]</a> The child is virtue, and the king is the malignity of man. It is called king because all the members obey it, and old because it is in the human heart from infancy to old age, and foolish because it leads man in the way of [<i>perdition</i>], which he does not foresee. The same thing is in <i>Midrasch Tillim</i>.</p>
<p><i>Bereschist Rabba</i> on Psalm xxxv, 10: "Lord, all my bones shall bless Thee, which deliverest the poor from the tyrant." And is there a greater tyrant than the evil leaven? And on Proverbs xxv, 21: "If thine enemy be hungry, give him bread to eat." That is to say, if the evil leaven hunger, give him the bread of wisdom of which it is spoken in Proverbs ix., and if he be thirsty, give him the water of which it is spoken in Isaiah lv.</p>
<p><i>Midrasch Tillim</i> says the same thing, and that Scripture in that passage, speaking of the enemy, means the evil leaven; and that, in [<i>giving</i>] him that bread and that water, we heap coals of fire on his head.<a id="Page_126" class="pageno" title="[Pg 126]"/></p>
<p><i>Midrasch el Kohelet</i> on Ecclesiastes ix, 14: "A great king besieged a little city." This great king is the evil leaven; the great bulwarks built against it are temptations; and there has been found a poor wise man who has delivered it—that is to say, virtue.</p>
<p>And on Psalm xli, 1: "Blessed is he that considereth the poor."</p>
<p>And on Psalm lxxviii, 39: "The spirit passeth away, and cometh not again"; whence some have erroneously argued against the immortality of the soul. But the sense is that this spirit is the evil leaven, which accompanies man till death, and will not return at the resurrection.</p>
<p>And on Psalm ciii the same thing.</p>
<p>And on Psalm xvi.</p>
<p>Principles of Rabbinism: two Messiahs.</p>
<h4 id="pgepubid00464"><a id="p_447"/>447</h4>
<p>Will it be said that, as men have declared that righteousness has departed the earth, they therefore knew of original sin?—<i>Nemo ante obitum beatus est</i><a id="FNanchor_170_174"/><a href="18269-h-11.html#Footnote_170_174" class="fnanchor pginternal">[170]</a>—that is to say, they knew death to be the beginning of eternal and essential happiness?</p>
<h4 id="pgepubid00465"><a id="p_448"/>448</h4>
<p>[<i>Miton</i>] sees well that nature is corrupt, and that men are averse to virtue; but he does not know why they cannot fly higher.</p>
<h4 id="pgepubid00466"><a id="p_449"/>449</h4>
<p><i>Order.</i>—After <i>Corruption</i> to say: "It is right that all those who are in that state should know it, both those who are content with it, and those who are not content with it; but it is not right that all should see Redemption."</p>
<h4 id="pgepubid00467"><a id="p_450"/>450</h4>
<p>If we do not know ourselves to be full of pride, ambition, lust, weakness, misery, and injustice, we are indeed blind. And if, knowing this, we do not desire deliverance, what can we say of a man...?</p>
<p>What, then, can we have but esteem for a religion which knows so well the defects of man, and desire for the truth of a religion which promises remedies so desirable?<a id="Page_127" class="pageno" title="[Pg 127]"/></p>
<h4 id="pgepubid00468"><a id="p_451"/>451</h4>
<p>All men naturally hate one another. They employ lust as far as possible in the service of the public weal. But this is only a [<i>pretence</i>] and a false image of love; for at bottom it is only hate.</p>
<h4 id="pgepubid00469"><a id="p_452"/>452</h4>
<p>To pity the unfortunate is not contrary to lust. On the contrary, we can quite well give such evidence of friendship, and acquire the reputation of kindly feeling, without giving anything.</p>
<h4 id="pgepubid00470"><a id="p_453"/>453</h4>
<p>From lust men have found and extracted excellent rules of policy, morality, and justice; but in reality this vile root of man, this <i>figmentum malum</i>,<a id="FNanchor_171_175"/><a href="18269-h-11.html#Footnote_171_175" class="fnanchor pginternal">[171]</a> is only covered, it is not taken away.</p>
<h4 id="pgepubid00471"><a id="p_454"/>454</h4>
<p><i>Injustice.</i>—They have not found any other means of satisfying lust without doing injury to others.</p>
<h4 id="pgepubid00472"><a id="p_455"/>455</h4>
<p>Self is hateful. You, Miton, conceal it; you do not for that reason destroy it; you are, then, always hateful.</p>
<p>—No; for in acting as we do to oblige everybody, we give no more occasion for hatred of us.—That is true, if we only hated in Self the vexation which comes to us from it. But if I hate it because it is unjust, and because it makes itself the centre of everything, I shall always hate it.</p>
<p>In a word, the Self has two qualities: it is unjust in itself since it makes itself the centre of everything; it is inconvenient to others since it would enslave them; for each Self is the enemy, and would like to be the tyrant of all others. You take away its inconvenience, but not its injustice, and so you do not render it lovable to those who hate injustice; you render it lovable only to the unjust, who do not any longer find in it an enemy. And thus you remain unjust, and can please only the unjust.</p>
<h4 id="pgepubid00473"><a id="p_456"/>456</h4>
<p>It is a perverted judgment that makes every one place himself above the rest of the world, and prefer his own good, and the continuance of his own good fortune and life, to that of the rest of the world!<a id="Page_128" class="pageno" title="[Pg 128]"/></p>
<h4 id="pgepubid00474"><a id="p_457"/>457</h4>
<p>Each one is all in all to himself; for he being dead, all is dead to him. Hence it comes that each believes himself to be all in all to everybody. We must not judge of nature by ourselves, but by it.</p>
<h4 id="pgepubid00475"><a id="p_458"/>458</h4>
<p>"All that is in the world is the lust of the flesh, or the lust of the eyes, or the pride of life; <i>libido sentiendi, libido sciendi, libido dominandi.</i>"<a id="FNanchor_172_176"/><a href="18269-h-11.html#Footnote_172_176" class="fnanchor pginternal">[172]</a> Wretched is the cursed land which these three rivers of fire enflame rather than water!<a id="FNanchor_173_177"/><a href="18269-h-11.html#Footnote_173_177" class="fnanchor pginternal">[173]</a> Happy they who, on these rivers, are not overwhelmed nor carried away, but are immovably fixed, not standing but seated on a low and secure base, whence they do not rise before the light, but, having rested in peace, stretch out their hands to Him, who must lift them up, and make them stand upright and firm in the porches of the holy Jerusalem! There pride can no longer assail them nor cast them down; and yet they weep, not to see all those perishable things swept away by the torrents, but at the remembrance of their loved country, the heavenly Jerusalem, which they remember without ceasing during their prolonged exile.</p>
<h4 id="pgepubid00476"><a id="p_459"/>459</h4>
<p>The rivers of Babylon rush and fall and sweep away.</p>
<p>O holy Sion, where all is firm and nothing falls!</p>
<p>We must sit upon the waters, not under them or in them, but on them; and not standing but seated; being seated to be humble, and being above them to be secure. But we shall stand in the porches of Jerusalem.</p>
<p>Let us see if this pleasure is stable or transitory; if it pass away, it is a river of Babylon.</p>
<h4 id="pgepubid00477"><a id="p_460"/>460</h4>
<p><i>The lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, pride, etc.</i>—There are three orders of things: the flesh, the spirit, and the will. The carnal are the rich and kings; they have the body as their object. Inquirers and scientists; they have the mind as their object. The wise; they have righteousness as their object.</p>
<p>God must reign over all, and all men must be brought back to Him. In things of the flesh lust reigns specially; in intellectual matters, inquiry specially; in wisdom, pride specially. Not that a man cannot boast of wealth or knowledge, but it is not the<a id="Page_129" class="pageno" title="[Pg 129]"/> place for pride; for in granting to a man that he is learned, it is easy to convince him that he is wrong to be proud. The proper place for pride is in wisdom, for it cannot be granted to a man that he has made himself wise, and that he is wrong to be proud; for that is right. Now God alone gives wisdom, and that is why <i>Qui gloriatur, in Domino glorietur</i>.<a id="FNanchor_174_178"/><a href="18269-h-11.html#Footnote_174_178" class="fnanchor pginternal">[174]</a></p>
<h4 id="pgepubid00478"><a id="p_461"/>461</h4>
<p>The three lusts have made three sects; and the philosophers have done no other thing than follow one of the three lusts.</p>
<h4 id="pgepubid00479"><a id="p_462"/>462</h4>
<p><i>Search for the true good.</i>—Ordinary men place the good in fortune and external goods, or at least in amusement. Philosophers have shown the vanity of all this, and have placed it where they could.</p>
<h4 id="pgepubid00480"><a id="p_463"/>463</h4>
<p class="c1">[Against the philosophers who believe in God without Jesus Christ]</p>
<p><i>Philosophers.</i>—They believe that God alone is worthy to be loved and admired; and they have desired to be loved and admired of men, and do not know their own corruption. If they feel full of feelings of love and admiration, and find therein their chief delight, very well, let them think themselves good. But if they find themselves averse to Him, if they have no inclination but the desire to establish themselves in the esteem of men, and if their whole perfection consists only in making men—but without constraint—find their happiness in loving them, I declare that this perfection is horrible. What! they have known God, and have not desired solely that men should love Him, but that men should stop short at them! They have wanted to be the object of the voluntary delight of men.</p>
<h4 id="pgepubid00481"><a id="p_464"/>464</h4>
<p><i>Philosophers.</i>—We are full of things which take us out of ourselves.</p>
<p>Our instinct makes us feel that we must seek our happiness outside ourselves. Our passions impel us outside, even when no objects present themselves to excite them. External objects tempt us of themselves, and call to us, even when we are not thinking of them. And thus philosophers have said in vain,<a id="Page_130" class="pageno" title="[Pg 130]"/> "Retire within yourselves, you will find your good there." We do not believe them, and those who believe them are the most empty and the most foolish.</p>
<h4 id="pgepubid00482"><a id="p_465"/>465</h4>
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