Selections from Pascal's Pensées

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Human "wretchedness" and "greatness
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347. Man is but a reed, the most feeble thing in nature; but he is
a thinking reed. The entire universe need not arm itself to crush him.
A vapour, a drop of water suffices to kill him. But, if the universe
were to crush him, man would still be more noble than that which
killed him, because he knows that he dies and the advantage which
the universe has over him; the universe knows nothing of this.
All our dignity consists, then, in thought. By it we must
elevate ourselves, and not by space and time which we cannot fill. Let
us endeavour, then, to think well; this is the principle of morality.


348. A thinking reed.- It is not from space that I must seek my
dignity, but from the government of my thought. I shall have no more
if I possess worlds. By space the universe encompasses and swallows me
up like an atom; by thought I comprehend the world.

397. 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.

693. When I see the blindness and the wretchedness of man, when
I regard the whole silent universe and man without light, left to
himself and, as it were, lost in this corner of the universe,
without knowing who has put him there, what he has come to do, what
will become of him at death, and incapable of all knowledge, I
become terrified, like a man who should be carried in his sleep to a
dreadful desert island and should awake without knowing where he is
and without means of escape. And thereupon I wonder how people in a
condition so wretched do not fall into despair. I see other persons
around me of a like nature. I ask them if they are better informed
than I am. They tell me that they are not. And thereupon these
wretched and lost beings, having looked around them and seen some
pleasing objects, have given and attached themselves to them. For my
own part, I have not been able to attach myself to them, and,
considering how strongly it appears that there is something else
than what I see, I have examined whether this God has not left some
sign of Himself.


206. The eternal silence of these infinite spaces frightens me.


205. When I consider the short duration of my life, swallowed up
in the eternity before and after, the little space which I fill and
even can see, engulfed in the infinite immensity of spaces of which
I am ignorant and which know me not, I am frightened and am astonished
at being here rather than there; for there is no reason why here
rather than there, why now rather than then. Who has put me here? By
whose order and direction have this place and time been allotted to
me? 




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Knowledge and skepticism
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434. 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, 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 are 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 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?
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?

These are the chief arguments on one side and the other.
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.

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.

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.

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.

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?

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!

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.

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.

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 can not 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.

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
inconceivable without this mystery than this mystery is
inconceivable to man.

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.

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.


282. We know truth, not only by the reason, but also by the heart,
and it is in this last way that we know first principles; and
reason, which has no part in it, tries in vain to impugn them. The
sceptics, who have only this for their object, labour to no purpose.
We know that we do not dream, and, however impossible it is for us
to prove it by reason, this inability demonstrates only the weakness
of our reason, but not, as they affirm, the uncertainty of all our
knowledge. For the knowledge of first principles, as space, time,
motion, number, is as sure as any of those which we get from
reasoning. And reason must trust these intuitions of the heart, and
must base them on every argument. (We have intuitive knowledge of
the tri-dimensional nature of space and of the infinity of number, and
reason then shows that there are no two square numbers one of which is
double of the other. Principles are intuited, propositions are
inferred, all with certainty, though in different ways.) And it is
as useless and absurd for reason to demand from the heart proofs of
her first principles, before admitting them, as it would be for the
heart to demand from reason an intuition of all demonstrated
propositions before accepting them.

This inability ought, then, to serve only to humble reason,
which would judge all, but not to impugn our certainty, as if only
reason were capable of instructing us. Would to God, on the
contrary, that we had never need of it, and that we knew everything by
instinct and intuition! But nature has refused us this boon. On the
contrary, she has given us but very little knowledge of this kind; and
all the rest can be acquired only by reasoning.

Therefore, those to whom God has imparted religion by intuition
are very fortunate and justly convinced. But to those who do not
have it, we can give it only by reasoning, waiting for God to give
them spiritual insight, without which faith is only human and
useless for salvation.



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Deus absconditus: "The hidden god"
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585. That God has willed to hide Himself.- If there were only
one religion, God would indeed be manifest. The same would be the case
if there were no martyrs but in our religion.


God being thus hidden, every religion which does not affirm that
God is hidden is not true; and every religion which does not give
the reason of it is not instructive. Our religion does all this:
Vere tu es Deus absconditus. ( Is. 45. 15.)


564. The prophecies, the very miracles and proofs of our religion,
are not of such a nature that they can be said to be absolutely
convincing. But they are also of such a kind that it cannot be said
that it is unreasonable to believe them. Thus there is both evidence
and obscurity to enlighten some and confuse others. But the evidence
is such that it surpasses, or at least equals, the evidence to the
contrary; so that it is not reason which can determine men not to
follow it, and thus it can only be lust or malice of heart. And by
this means there is sufficient evidence to condemn, and insufficient
to convince; so that it appears in those who follow it that it is
grace, and not reason, which makes them follow it; and in those who
shun it, that it is lust, not reason, which makes them shun it.


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No proof of the existence of God
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543. Preface.- The metaphysical proofs of God are so remote from
the reasoning of men, and so complicated, that they make little
impression; and if they should be of service to some, it would be only
during the moment that they see such demonstration; but an hour
afterwards they fear they have been mistaken....

This is the result of the knowledge of God obtained without
Jesus Christ; it is communion without a mediator with the God whom
they have known without a mediator. Whereas those who have known God
by a mediator know their own wretchedness.

229. This is what I see and what troubles me. I look on all sides,
and I see only darkness everywhere. Nature presents to me nothing
which is not matter of doubt and concern. If I saw nothing there which
revealed a Divinity, I would come to a negative conclusion; if I saw
everywhere the signs of a Creator, I would remain peacefully in faith.

But, seeing too much to deny and too little to be sure, I am in a
state to be pitied; wherefore I have a hundred times wished that if
a God maintains Nature, she should testify to Him unequivocally, and
that, if the signs she gives are deceptive, she should suppress them
altogether; that she should say everything or nothing, that I might
see which cause I ought to follow. Whereas in my present state,
ignorant of what I am or of what I ought to do, I know neither my
condition nor my duty. My heart inclines wholly to know where is the
true good, in order to follow it; nothing would be too dear to me
for eternity.

I envy those whom I see living in the faith with such carelessness
and who make such a bad use of a gift of which it seems to me I
would make such a different use.


242. Preface to the second part.- To speak of those who have
treated of this matter.

I admire the boldness with which these persons undertake to
speak of God. In addressing their argument to infidels, their first
chapter is to prove Divinity from the works of nature. I should not be
astonished at their enterprise, if they were addressing their argument
to the faithful; for it is certain that those who have the living
faith in their hearts see at once that all existence is none other
than the work of the God whom they adore. But for those in whom this
light is extinguished, and in whom we purpose to rekindle it,
persons destitute of faith and grace, who, seeking with all their
light whatever they see in nature that can bring them to this
knowledge, find only obscurity and darkness; to tell them that they
have only to look at the smallest things which surround them, and they
will see God openly, to give them, as a complete proof of this great
and important matter, the course of the moon and planets, and to claim
to have concluded the proof with such an argument, is to give them
ground for believing that the proofs of our religion are very weak.
And I see by reason and experience that nothing is more calculated
to arouse their contempt.

It is not after this manner that Scripture speaks, which has a
better knowledge of the things that are of God. It says, on the
contrary, that God is a hidden God, and that, since the corruption
of nature, He has left men in a darkness from which they can escape
only through Jesus Christ, without whom all communion with God is
cut off. Nemo novit Patrem, nisi Filius, et cui voluerit Filius
revelare.*

* Matt 11. 27 "Neither knoweth any man the Father, save the Son,
and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal him."

This is what Scripture points out to us, when it says in so many
places that those who seek God find Him. It is not of that light,
"like the noonday sun," that this is said. We do not say that those
who seek the noonday sun, or water in the sea, shall find them; and
hence the evidence of God must not be of this nature. So it tells us
elsewhere: Vere tu es Deus absconditus.*

* Is. 45. 15. "Verily, thou art a God that hidest thyself."

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Reasons of the heart
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277. The heart has its reasons, which reason does not know. We
feel it in a thousand things. I say that the heart naturally loves the

Universal Being, and also itself naturally, according as it gives
itself to them; and it hardens itself against one or the other at
its will. You have rejected the one and kept the other. Is it by
reason that you love yourself?


278. It is the heart which experiences God, and not the reason.
This, then, is faith: God felt by the heart, not by the reason.
Faith is a gift of God; do not believe that we said it was a
gift of reasoning. Other religions do not say this of their faith.
They only give reasoning in order to arrive at it, and yet it does not
bring them to it.


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The "wager argument"
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233. Infinite- nothing.- Our soul is cast into a body, where it
finds number, dimension. Thereupon it reasons, and calls this nature
necessity, and can believe nothing else.

Unity joined to infinity adds nothing to it, no more than one foot
to an infinite measure. The finite is annihilated in the presence of
the infinite, and becomes a pure nothing. So our spirit before God, so
our justice before divine justice. There is not so great a
disproportion between our justice and that of God as between unity and
infinity.

The justice of God must be vast like His compassion. Now justice
to the outcast is less vast and ought less to offend our feelings than
mercy towards the elect.

We know that there is an infinite, and are ignorant of its nature.
As we know it to be false that numbers are finite, it is therefore
true that there is an infinity in number. But we do not know what it
is. It is false that it is even, it is false that it is odd; for the
addition of a unit can make no change in its nature. Yet it is a
number, and every number is odd or even (this is certainly true of
every finite number). So we may well know that there is a God
without knowing what He is. Is there not one substantial truth, seeing
there are so many things which are not the truth itself?

We know then the existence and nature of the finite, because we
also are finite and have extension. We know the existence of the
infinite and are ignorant of its nature, because it has extension like
us, but not limits like us. But we know neither the existence nor
the nature of God, because He has neither extension nor limits.
But by faith we know His existence; in glory we shall know His
nature. Now, I have already shown that we may well know the
existence of a thing, without knowing its nature.

Let us now speak according to natural lights.

If there is a God, He is infinitely incomprehensible, since,
having neither parts nor limits, He has no affinity to us. We are then
incapable of knowing either what He is or if He is. This being so, who
will dare to undertake the decision of the question? Not we, who
have no affinity to Him.

Who then will blame Christians for not being able to give a reason
for their belief, since they profess a religion for which they
cannot give a reason? They declare, in expounding it to the world,
that it is a foolishness, stultitiam;* and then you complain that they
do not prove it! If they proved it, they would not keep their word; it
is in lacking proofs that they are not lacking in sense. "Yes, but
although this excuses those who offer it as such and takes away from
them the blame of putting it forward without reason, it does not
excuse those who receive it." Let us then examine this point, and say,

"God is, or He is not." But to which side shall we incline? Reason can
decide nothing here. There is an infinite chaos which separated us.
A game is being played at the extremity of this infinite distance
where heads or tails will turn up. What will you wager? According to
reason, you can do neither the one thing nor the other; according to
reason, you can defend neither of the propositions.

* I Cor. 1. 21.

Do not, then, reprove for error those who have made a choice;
for you know nothing about it. "No, but I blame them for having
made, not this choice, but a choice; for again both he who chooses
heads and he who chooses tails are equally at fault, they are both
in the wrong. The true course is not to wager at all."

Yes; but you must wager. It is not optional. You are embarked.
Which will you choose then? Let us see. Since you must choose, let
us see which interests you 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 happiness; and your nature has two things to
shun, error and misery. Your reason is no more shocked in choosing one
rather than the other, since you must of necessity choose. This is one
point settled. But your happiness? Let us weigh the gain and the
loss in wagering that God is. Let us estimate these two chances. If
you gain, you gain all; if you lose, you lose nothing. Wager, then,
without hesitation that He is. "That is very fine. Yes, I must
wager; but I may perhaps wager too much." Let us see. Since there is
an equal risk of gain and of loss, if you had only to gain two
lives, instead of one, you might still wager. But if there were
three lives to gain, you would have to play (since you are under the
necessity of playing), and you would be imprudent, when you are forced
to play, not to chance your life to gain three at a game where there
is an equal risk of loss and gain. But there is an eternity of life
and happiness. And this being so, if there were an infinity of
chances, of which one only would be for you, you would still be
right in wagering one to win two, and you would act stupidly, being
obliged to play, by refusing to stake one life against three at a game
in which out of an infinity of chances there is one for you, if
there were an infinity of an infinitely happy life to gain. But
there is here an infinity of an infinitely happy life to gain, a
chance of gain against a finite number of chances of loss, and what
you stake is finite. It is all divided; where-ever the infinite is and
there is not an infinity of chances of loss against that of gain,
there is no time to hesitate, you must give all. And thus, when one is
forced to play, he must renounce reason to preserve his life, rather
than risk it for infinite gain, as likely to happen as the loss of
nothingness.

For it is no use to say it is uncertain if we will gain, and it is
certain that we risk, and that the infinite distance between the
certainly of what is staked and the uncertainty of what will be
gained, equals the finite good which is certainly staked against the
uncertain infinite. It is not so, as every player stakes a certainty
to gain an uncertainty, and yet he stakes a finite certainty to gain a
finite uncertainty, without transgressing against reason. There is not
an infinite distance between the certainty staked and the
uncertainty of the gain; that is untrue. In truth, there is an
infinity between the certainty of gain and the certainty of loss.
But the uncertainty of the gain is proportioned to the certainty of
the stake according to the proportion of the chances of gain and loss.

Hence it comes that, if there are as many risks on one side as on
the other, the course is to play even; and then the certainty of the
stake is equal to the uncertainty of the gain, so far is it from
fact that there is an infinite distance between them. And so our
proposition is of infinite force, when there is the finite to stake in
a game where there are equal risks of gain and of loss, and the
infinite to gain. This is demonstrable; and if men are capable of
any truths, this is one.

"I confess it, I admit it. But, still, is there no means of seeing
the faces of the cards?" Yes, Scripture and the rest, etc. "Yes, but I
have my hands tied and my mouth closed; I am forced to wager, and am
not free. I am not released, and am so made that I cannot believe.
What, then, would you have me do?"

True. But at least learn your inability to believe, since reason
brings you to this, and yet you cannot believe. Endeavour, then, to
convince yourself, not by increase of proofs of God, but by the
abatement of your passions. You would like to attain faith and do
not know the way; you would like to cure yourself of unbelief and
ask the remedy for it. Learn of those who have been bound like you,
and who now stake all their possessions. These are people who know the
way which you would follow, and who are cured of an ill of which you
would be cured. Follow the way by which they began; by acting as if
they believed, taking the holy water, having masses said, etc. Even
this will naturally make you believe, and deaden your acuteness.
"But this is what I am afraid of." And why? What have you to lose?
But to show you that this leads you there, it is this which will
lessen the passions, which are your stumbling-blocks.

The end of this discourse.- Now, what harm will befall you in
taking this side? You will be faithful, humble, grateful, generous,
a sincere friend, truthful. Certainly you will not have those
poisonous pleasures, glory and luxury; but will you not have others? I
will tell you that you will thereby gain in this life, and that, at
each step you take on this road, you will see so great certainty of
gain, so much nothingness in what you risk, that you will at last
recognise that you have wagered for something certain and infinite,
for which you have given nothing.

"Ah! This discourse transports me, charms me," etc.

If this discourse pleases you and seems impressive, know that it
is made by a man who has knelt, both before and after it, in prayer to
that Being, infinite and without parts, before whom he lays all he
has, for you also to lay before Him all you have for your own good and
for His glory, that so strength may be given to lowliness.