Multitudes in every generation have felt at least the aesthetic charm
of the rites of the Catholic Church. For Pascal, on the other hand,
a certain weariness, a certain puerility, a certain unprofitableness
in them is but an extra trial of faith. He seems to have little
sense of the beauty of holiness. And for his sombre, trenchant,
precipitous philosophy there could be no middle terms; irresistible
election, irresistible reprobation; only sometimes extremes meet, and
again it may be the trial of faith that the justified seem as
loveless and unlovely as the reprobate. Abêtissez-vous! A nature,
you may think, that would magnify things to the utmost, nurse, expand
them beyond their natural bounds by his [88] reflex action upon them.
Thus revelation is to be received on evidence, indeed, but an
evidence conclusive only on a presupposition or series of
presuppositions, evidence that is supplemented by an act of
imagination, or by the grace of faith, shall we say? At any rate,
the fact is, that the genius of the great reasoner, of this great
master of the abstract and deductive sciences, turned theologian,
carrying the methods of thought there formed into the things of
faith, was after all of the imaginative order. Now hear what he says
of imagination: Cette faculté trompeuse, qui semble nous être donnée
exprès pour nous induire à une erreur nécessaire. That has a sort of
necessity in it. What he says has again the air of Montaigne, and he
says much of the same kind: Cette superbe puissance ennemie de la
raison, combien toutes les richesses de la terre sont insuffisantes
sans son consentement. The imagination has the disposition of all
things: Elle fait la beauté, la justice, et le bonheur, qui est le
tout du monde. L'imagination dispose de tout. And what we have here
to note is its extraordinary power in himself. Strong in him as the
reasoning faculty, so to speak, it administered the reasoning faculty
in him à son grbut he was unaware of it, that power d'autant plus
fourbe qu'elle ne l'est pas toujours. Hidden under the apparent
rigidity of his favourite studies, imagination, even in them, played
a large part. Physics, mathematics were with him largely matters of
intuition, anticipation, [89] precocious discovery, short cuts,
superb guessing. It was the inventive element in his work and his
way of putting things that surprised those best able to judge. He
might have discovered the mathematical sciences for himself, it is
alleged, had his father, as he once had a mind to do, withheld him
from instruction in them.
About the time when he was bidding adieu to the world, Pascal had an
accident. As he drove round a corner on the Seine side to cross the
bridge at Neuilly, the horses were precipitated down the bank into the
water. Pascal escaped, but with a nervous shock, a certain
hallucination, from which he never recovered. As he walked or sat he
was apt to perceive a yawning depth beside him; would set stick or
chair there to reassure himself. We are now told, indeed, that that
circumstance has been greatly exaggerated. But how true to Pascal's
temper, as revealed in his work, that alarmed precipitous character in it!
Intellectually the abyss was evermore at his side. Nous avons, he
observes, un autre principe d'erreur, les maladies. Now in him the
imagination itself was like a physical malady, troubling, disturbing, or in active collusion with it. . . .
of the rites of the Catholic Church. For Pascal, on the other hand,
a certain weariness, a certain puerility, a certain unprofitableness
in them is but an extra trial of faith. He seems to have little
sense of the beauty of holiness. And for his sombre, trenchant,
precipitous philosophy there could be no middle terms; irresistible
election, irresistible reprobation; only sometimes extremes meet, and
again it may be the trial of faith that the justified seem as
loveless and unlovely as the reprobate. Abêtissez-vous! A nature,
you may think, that would magnify things to the utmost, nurse, expand
them beyond their natural bounds by his [88] reflex action upon them.
Thus revelation is to be received on evidence, indeed, but an
evidence conclusive only on a presupposition or series of
presuppositions, evidence that is supplemented by an act of
imagination, or by the grace of faith, shall we say? At any rate,
the fact is, that the genius of the great reasoner, of this great
master of the abstract and deductive sciences, turned theologian,
carrying the methods of thought there formed into the things of
faith, was after all of the imaginative order. Now hear what he says
of imagination: Cette faculté trompeuse, qui semble nous être donnée
exprès pour nous induire à une erreur nécessaire. That has a sort of
necessity in it. What he says has again the air of Montaigne, and he
says much of the same kind: Cette superbe puissance ennemie de la
raison, combien toutes les richesses de la terre sont insuffisantes
sans son consentement. The imagination has the disposition of all
things: Elle fait la beauté, la justice, et le bonheur, qui est le
tout du monde. L'imagination dispose de tout. And what we have here
to note is its extraordinary power in himself. Strong in him as the
reasoning faculty, so to speak, it administered the reasoning faculty
in him à son grbut he was unaware of it, that power d'autant plus
fourbe qu'elle ne l'est pas toujours. Hidden under the apparent
rigidity of his favourite studies, imagination, even in them, played
a large part. Physics, mathematics were with him largely matters of
intuition, anticipation, [89] precocious discovery, short cuts,
superb guessing. It was the inventive element in his work and his
way of putting things that surprised those best able to judge. He
might have discovered the mathematical sciences for himself, it is
alleged, had his father, as he once had a mind to do, withheld him
from instruction in them.
About the time when he was bidding adieu to the world, Pascal had an
accident. As he drove round a corner on the Seine side to cross the
bridge at Neuilly, the horses were precipitated down the bank into the
water. Pascal escaped, but with a nervous shock, a certain
hallucination, from which he never recovered. As he walked or sat he
was apt to perceive a yawning depth beside him; would set stick or
chair there to reassure himself. We are now told, indeed, that that
circumstance has been greatly exaggerated. But how true to Pascal's
temper, as revealed in his work, that alarmed precipitous character in it!
Intellectually the abyss was evermore at his side. Nous avons, he
observes, un autre principe d'erreur, les maladies. Now in him the
imagination itself was like a physical malady, troubling, disturbing, or in active collusion with it. . . .