The Thoughts of Blaise Pascal
- Language:
- English
- Status:
- Complete work
- Authorship:
- Written by the author
- Condition of the text:
- No scanning noise detected (automatic measure over the whole text, not checked by hand)
- Extent:
- ~120,000 words · 556 passages
Cite this work
- APAPascal. (n.d.). The Thoughts of Blaise Pascal. Digital reproduction: SigPhi. https://sigphiai.com/en/works/blaise-pascal/the-thoughts-of-blaise-pascal
- MLAPascal. The Thoughts of Blaise Pascal. Digital reproduction, SigPhi, https://sigphiai.com/en/works/blaise-pascal/the-thoughts-of-blaise-pascal.
- ChicagoPascal. The Thoughts of Blaise Pascal. Digital reproduction, SigPhi. https://sigphiai.com/en/works/blaise-pascal/the-thoughts-of-blaise-pascal.
Reference to the edition that SigPhi reproduces: SigPhi is its digital reproduction, not its publisher. The edition's year is not in the metadata (hence "n.d."), and the translator appears only when recorded.
What it is about
The fragments Pascal left for an apology for Christianity that his death left unwritten.
Context and history
Pascal died in 1662 at thirty-nine, leaving hundreds of fragments written towards an apology for Christianity he never composed. Some are finished paragraphs, others three words; he left them tied in bundles which give hints of the intended order. Everything we read, then, is an arrangement made by editors, and every edition arranges differently — which is why fragment numbers do not agree between them and one must always say which is being used. Here are the wager, the heart having its reasons which reason does not know, man as a thinking reed, and the eternal silence of the infinite spaces. WARNING: the catalogue contains TWO English translations of this same work, 'Pascal's Pensées' and 'The Thoughts of Blaise Pascal'. This is not an error — they are different editions — but it is worth knowing: the same fragment appears twice, in different words and with different numbering.
Editorial context, not a citable source: unlike the passages of the work itself, these statements cannot be checked against the corpus.
those who seek him in sincerity to recognise him, and that he has nevertheless so concealed them that he can only be perceived by those who seek him with their whole hearts; what advantages it them, when, in their professed neglect of the search after truth, they declare that nothing reveals it to them? For the very obscurity in which they are, and for which they blame the Church, does but establish one of the points which she maintains, without affecting the other, and far from destroying, establishes her doctrine. In order to assail it they ought to urge that they have sought everywhere with all their strength, and even in that which the Church proposes for their instruction, but without avail. Did they thus speak, they would indeed assail one of her claims. But I hope here to show that no rational person can thus speak, and I am even bold to say that no one has ever done so. We know well enough how men of this temper behave. They believe they have made great efforts for their instruction, when they have spent a few hours in reading some book of Scripture, and have talked with some Ecclesiastic on the truths of the faith. Whereupon they boast that they have in vain consulted books and men. But indeed I will tell them what I have often said, that such carelessness is intolerable. We are not here dealing with the light interest of a stranger, that we should thus treat it; but with that which concerns ourselves and our all. The immortality of the soul is a matter of so great moment to us, it touches us so deeply, that we must have lost all feeling if we are careless of the truth about it. Our every action and our every thought must take such different courses, according as there are or are not eternal blessings for which to hope, that it is impossible to take a single step with sense or judgment, save in view of that point which ought to be our end and aim.…