CHAPTER VI. THE ‘PENSÉES.’

Thoughts. In doing so, it is not necessary, in such a volume as this, that we indicate throughout the edition from which we take our quotations. We shall quote from the editions of page 165Faugère or Havet, as may be most convenient, and take them in such order as suits our own purpose of exhibiting Pascal’s mind as clearly as we can. For the same reason, we shall give such passages as appear to us not always the most just or accurate in thought, but the most characteristic or representative of the veritable Pascal, whose true words were so long concealed from the world. We cannot do better, in the first instance, than note what so great a mathematician has to say of geometry and the “mathematical mind,” compared with the naturally acute mind (“l’esprit de finesse”), betwixt which he draws an interesting parallel. The fragment on the “Mathematical” or “Geometric Mind” was, with the exception of a brief passage given by Des Molets² in 1728, originally published, although with numerous suppressions, in Condorcet’s edition of the ‘Pensées.’ It appeared for the first time in its complete form, and under its proper title, in Faugère’s edition, along with its natural pendant, the closely-allied fragment, entitled “L’Art de Persuader.” We give a few passages from the first fragment:—