Human Happiness

by Blaise Pascal

  The fixed and constant immobility of nature, compared to the continual changes going on in us, must produce the same effect.

  And what makes our inability to know things absolute is that they are simple in themselves, while we are composed of two opposing natures of different kinds, soul and body. For it is impossible for the part of us which reasons to be anything but spiritual, and even if it were claimed that we are simply corporeal, that would still more preclude us from knowing things, since there is nothing so inconceivable as the idea that matter knows itself. We cannot possibly know how it could know itself.

  Thus, if we are simply material, we can know nothing at all, and, if we are composed of mind and matter, we cannot have perfect knowledge of things which are simply spiritual or corporeal.

  That is why nearly all philosophers confuse their ideas of things, and speak spiritually of corporeal things and corporeally of spiritual ones, for they boldly assert that bodies tend to fall, that they aspire towards their centre, that they flee from destruction, that they fear a void, that they have inclinations, sympathies, antipathies, all things pertaining only to things spiritual. And when they speak of minds, they consider them as being in a place, and attribute to them movement from one place to another, which are things pertaining only to bodies.

  Instead of receiving ideas of these things in their purity, we colour them with our qualities and stamp our own composite being on all the simple things we contemplate.

  Who would not think, to see us compounding everything of mind and matter, that such a mixture is perfectly intelligible to us? Yet this is the thing we understand least; man is to himself the greatest prodigy in nature, for he cannot conceive what body is, and still less what mind is, and least of all how a body can be joined to a mind. This is his supreme difficulty, and yet it is his very being. The way in which minds are attached to bodies is beyond man’s understanding, and yet this is what man is.

  Finally to complete the proof of our weakness, I shall end with these two considerations …

  200 Man is only a reed, the weakest in nature, but he is a thinking reed. There is no need for the whole universe to take up arms to crush him: a vapour, a drop of water is enough to kill him. But even if the universe were to crush him, man would still be nobler than his slayer, because he knows that he is dying and the advantage the universe has over him. The universe knows none of this.

  Thus all our dignity consists in thought. It is on thought that we must depend for our recovery, not on space and time, which we could never fill. Let us then strive to think well; that is the basic principle of morality.

  201 The eternal silence of these infinite spaces fills me with dread.

  202 Be comforted; it is not from yourself that you must expect it, but on the contrary you must expect it by expecting nothing from yourself.

  271 All Jesus did was to teach men that they loved themselves, that they were slaves, blind, sick, unhappy and sinful, that he had to deliver, enlighten, sanctify and heal them, that this would be achieved by men hating themselves and following him through his misery and death on the Cross.

  273 Those who find it hard to believe seek an excuse in the fact that the Jews do not believe. ‘If it is so clear,’ they say, ‘why do they not believe?’ They would almost like them to believe so that they should not be deterred by the example of the Jews’ refusal. But it is the very fact of their refusal that is the basis of our belief. We should be much less inclined to believe if they were on our side; we should then have a much better excuse.

  It is a wonderful thing to have made the Jews so fond of prophecies and so hostile to their fulfilment.

  281 Perpetuity. This religion consists in believing that man has fallen from a state of glory and communion with God into a state of gloom, penitence and estrangement from God, but that after this life we shall be restored by a promised Messiah, and it has always existed on earth.

  All things have passed away, but this, through which all things are, has endured.

  In the first age of the world men were led into all kinds of misdeeds, and yet there were holy men like Enoch, Lamech and others who patiently awaited the Christ promised since the world began. Noah saw men’s wickedness at its height, and he had the merit to save the world in his person, through hoping in the Messiah, whom he prefigured. Abraham was surrounded by idolaters when God showed him the mystery of the Messiah whom he hailed from afar. In the time of Isaac and Jacob abomination spread over the whole earth but these holy men lived in their faith, and Jacob on his deathbed, as he was blessing his children, cried out in a rapture which made him interrupt his speech: ‘I await the saviour whom thou hast promised, O Lord.’

  The Egyptians were riddled with idolatry and magic, and even the people of God were carried away by their example. Yet Moses and others saw him they did not see, and worshipped as they looked to the eternal gifts he was preparing for them.

  Next the Greeks and Latins set up false gods. The poets invented a hundred different theologies, the philosophers split up into a thousand different sects. And yet in the heart of Judaea there were always chosen men foretelling the coming of the Messiah who was known only to them. He came at last in the fullness of time, and since then we have seen so many schisms and heresies arise, so many states overthrown, so many changes of every kind, while the Church which worships him who has always been has continued without a break. What is wonderful, incomparable and wholly divine is that this religion which has always survived has always been under attack. Times without number it has been on the verge of total destruction, and every time it has been in such a state God has rescued it by extraordinary manifestations of his power. For what is amazing is that it has continued without bending and bowing to the will of tyrants, for there is nothing strange in a state still surviving when its laws are sometimes made to give way to necessity, but that … (See the circle in Montaigne.)

  284 The only religion which is against nature, against common sense and against our pleasures is the only one which has always existed.

  308 The infinite distance between body and mind symbolizes the infinitely more infinite distance between mind and charity, for charity is supernatural.

  All the splendour of greatness lacks lustre for those engaged in pursuits of the mind.

  The greatness of intellectual people is not visible to kings, rich men, captains, who are all great in a carnal sense.

  The greatness of wisdom, which is nothing if it does not come from God, is not visible to carnal or intellectual people. They are three orders differing in kind.

  Great geniuses have their power, their splendour, their greatness, their victory and their lustre, and do not need carnal greatness, which has no relevance for them. They are recognized not with the eyes but with the mind, and that is enough.

  Saints have their power, their splendour, their victory, their lustre, and do not need either carnal or intellectual greatness, which has no relevance for them, for it neither adds nor takes away anything. They are recognized by God and the angels, and not by bodies or by curious minds. God is enough for them.

  Archimedes in obscurity would still be revered. He fought no battles visible to the eyes, but enriched every mind with his discoveries. How splendidly he shone in the minds of men!

  Jesus without wealth or any outward show of knowledge has his own order of holiness. He made no discoveries; he did not reign, but he was humble, patient, thrice holy to God, terrible to devils, and without sin. With what great pomp and marvellously magnificent array he came in the eyes of the heart, which perceive wisdom!

  It would have been pointless for Archimedes to play the prince in his mathematical books, prince though he was.

  It would have been pointless for Our Lord Jesus Christ to come as a king with splendour in his reign of holiness, but he truly came in splendour in his own order.

  It is quite absurd to be shocked at the lowliness of Jesus, as if his lowliness was of the same order as the greatness he came to reveal.

&nbs
p; If we consider his greatness in his life, his passion, his obscurity, his death, in the way he chose his disciples, in their desertion, in his secret resurrection and all the rest, we shall see that it is so great that we have no reason to be shocked at a lowliness which has nothing to do with it.

  But there are some who are only capable of admiring carnal greatness, as if there were no such thing as greatness of the mind. And others who only admire greatness of the mind, as if there were not infinitely higher greatness in wisdom.

  All bodies, the firmament, the stars, the earth and its kingdoms are not worth the least of minds, for it knows them all and itself too, while bodies know nothing.

  All bodies together and all minds together and all their products are not worth the least impulse of charity. This is of an infinitely superior order.

  Out of all bodies together we could not succeed in creating one little thought. It is impossible, and of a different order. Out of all bodies and minds we could not extract one impulse of true charity. It is impossible, and of a different, supernatural, order.

  310 Proofs of Jesus Christ. The hypothesis that the Apostles were knaves is quite absurd. Follow it out to the end and imagine these twelve men meeting after Jesus’s death and conspiring to say that he had risen from the dead. This means attacking all the powers that be. The human heart is singularly susceptible to fickleness, to change, to promises, to bribery. One of them had only to deny his story under these inducements, or still more because of possible imprisonment, tortures and death, and they would all have been lost. Follow that out.

  332 Prophecies. If a single man had written a book foretelling the time and manner of Jesus’s coming and Jesus had come in conformity with these prophecies, this would carry infinite weight.

  But there is much more here. There is a succession of men over a period of 4,000 years, coming consistently and invariably one after the other, to foretell the same coming; there is an entire people proclaiming it, existing for 4,000 years to testify in a body to the certainty they feel about it, from which they cannot be deflected by whatever threats and persecutions they may suffer. This is of a quite different order of importance.

  335 The most weighty proofs of Jesus are the prophecies. It is for them that God made most provision, for the event which fulfilled them is a miracle, continuing from the birth of the Church to the end. Thus God raised up prophets for 1,600 years and for 400 years afterwards dispersed all the prophecies with all the Jews, who carried them into every corner of the world. Such was the preparation for the birth of Christ, and, since his Gospel had to be believed by the whole world, there not only had to be prophecies to make men believe it, but these prophecies had to be spread throughout the world so that the whole world should embrace it.

  351 Christianity is strange; it bids man to recognize that he is vile, and even abominable, and bids him want to be like God. Without such a counterweight his exaltation would make him horribly vain or his abasement horribly abject.

  352 Wretchedness induces despair.

  Pride induces presumption.

  The Incarnation shows man the greatness of his wretchedness through the greatness of the remedy required.

  356 What difference is there between a soldier and a Carthusian as regards obedience? For they are equally obedient and dependent and engaged in equally arduous exercises. But the soldier always hopes to become his own master, and never does, for even captains and princes are always slaves and dependent, but he always hopes, and always strives to achieve his object, whereas the Carthusian vows never to be anything but dependent. Thus they do not differ in their perpetual servitude, which is always their common lot, but in the hope that one always and the other never entertains.

  373 We must love God alone and hate ourselves alone.

  If the foot had never known it belonged to the body, and that there was a body on which it depended, if it had only known and loved itself, and if it then came to know that it belonged to a body on which it depended, what regret, what shame it would feel for its past life, for having been useless to the body which poured life into it, and would have annihilated it if it had rejected and cut it off as the foot cut itself off from the body! How it would pray to be kept on! How submissively it would let itself be governed by the will in charge of the body, to the point of being amputated if necessary! Otherwise it would cease to be a member, for every member must be willing to perish for the sake of the body, for whose sake alone everything exists.

  378 ‘If I had seen a miracle,’ they say, ‘I should be converted.’ How can they be positive that they would do what they know nothing about? They imagine that such a conversion consists in a worship of God conducted, as they picture it, like some exchange or conversation. True conversion consists in self-annihilation before the universal being whom we have so often vexed and who is perfectly entitled to destroy us at any moment, in recognizing that we can do nothing without him and that we have deserved nothing but his disfavour. It consists in knowing that there is an irreconcilable opposition between God and us, and that without a mediator there can be no exchange.

  392 Figures. God wishing to create for himself a holy people, whom he would keep apart from all other nations, whom he would deliver from their enemies, whom he would bring to a place of rest, promised to do so and foretold by his prophets the time and manner of his coming. And yet to strengthen the hope of his chosen people in every age he showed them an image of all this, never leaving them without assurances of his power and will for their salvation, for in the creation of man Adam was witness to this and received the promise of a saviour who should be born of woman.

  When men were still so close to Creation that they had not been able to forget their creation and their fall; when those who had seen Adam were no longer in this world, God sent Noah, saving him and drowning the whole earth by a miracle which clearly showed his power to save the world, and his will to do so, and to cause to be born from the seed of woman the one he had promised.

  This miracle was sufficient to strengthen the hope of the elect.

  The memory of the Flood being still so fresh among men, while Noah was still alive, God made his promises to Abraham, and while Shem was still alive, God sent Moses …

  403 Wretchedness. Solomon and Job have known and spoken best about man’s wretchedness, one the happiest, the other the unhappiest of men; one knowing by experience the vanity of pleasure, and the other the reality of afflictions.

  412 Men are so inevitably mad that not to be mad would be to give a mad twist to madness.

  414 Wretchedness. The only thing that consoles us for our miseries is diversion. And yet it is the greatest of our miseries. For it is that above all which prevents us thinking about ourselves and leads us imperceptibly to destruction. But for that we should be bored, and boredom would drive us to seek some more solid means of escape, but diversion passes our time and brings us imperceptibly to our death.

  418 Infinity – nothing. [THE WAGER] Our soul is cast into the body where it finds number, time, dimensions; it reasons about these things and calls them natural, or necessary, and can believe nothing else.

  Unity added to infinity does not increase it at all, any more than a foot added to an infinite measurement: the finite is annihilated in the presence of the infinite and becomes pure nothingness. So it is with our mind before God, with our justice before divine justice. There is not so great a disproportion between our justice and God’s as between unity and infinity.

  God’s justice must be as vast as his mercy. Now his justice towards the damned is less vast and ought to be less startling to us than his mercy towards the elect.

  We know that the infinite exists without knowing its nature, just as we know that it is untrue that numbers are finite. Thus it is true that there is an infinite number, but we do not know what it is. It is untrue that it is even, untrue that it is odd, for by adding a unit it does not change its nature. Yet it is a number, and every number is even or odd. (It is true that this applies to every
finite number.)

  Therefore we may well know that God exists without knowing what he is.

  Is there no substantial truth, seeing that there are so many true things which are not truth itself?

  Thus we know the existence and nature of the finite because we too are finite and extended in space.

  We know the existence of the infinite without knowing its nature, because it too has extension but unlike us no limits.

  But we do not know either the existence or the nature of God, because he has neither extension nor limits.

  But by faith we know his existence, through glory we shall know his nature.

  Now I have already proved that it is quite possible to know that something exists without knowing its nature.

  Let us now speak according to our natural lights.

  If there is a God, he is infinitely beyond our comprehension, since, being indivisible and without limits, he bears no relation to us. We are therefore incapable of knowing either what he is or whether he is. That being so, who would dare to attempt an answer to the question? Certainly not we, who bear no relation to him.

  Who then will condemn Christians for being unable to give rational grounds for their belief, professing as they do a religion for which they cannot give rational grounds? They declare that it is a folly, stultitiam, in expounding it to the world, and then you complain that they do not prove it. If they did prove it they would not be keeping their word. It is by being without proof that they show they are not without sense. ‘Yes, but although that excuses those who offer their religion as such, and absolves them from the criticism of producing it without rational grounds, it does not absolve those who accept it.’ Let us then examine this point, and let us say: ‘Either God is or he is not.’ But to which view shall we be inclined? Reason cannot decide this question. Infinite chaos separates us. At the far end of this infinite distance a coin is being spun which will come down heads or tails. How will you wager? Reason cannot make you choose either, reason cannot prove either wrong.