“Philosophers have propounded sentiments not at all adapted to the twofold condition of man. They have sought to inspire emotions of pure greatness; but this is not man’s condition. They have sought on the other hand to inspire sentiments of mere baseness; but neither is this man’s condition. Man needs abasement, not of nature, however, but of penitence; not that he remain degraded, but that he may rise to greatness. He needs to feel within him the emotion of greatness,—not of merit, however, but of grace. . . . Two sects have sprung out of this conflict between reason and sense in man. The one, in renouncing passion, has aspired to page 187divinity; the other, in renouncing reason, has sunk to mere brutality. . . . The principles of the respective philosophies are so far true—Pyrrhonism, Stoicism, Atheism even. But the conclusions are false, because the opposite principles are equally true. . . . We labour under an incapacity of demonstrating all things invincible to Dogmatism. We have an innate idea of truth invincible to all Pyrrhonism. . . . Nature confounds the Pyrrhonist, and reason the Dogmatist;”—
or, as the passage was originally written,—
“We cannot be Pyrrhonists without violating nature; we cannot be Dogmatists without renouncing nature.” 11
These and other passages sufficiently show Pascal’s relation to philosophy, and to Pyrrhonism in particular. He is no enemy of philosophy, but he certainly does not believe it capable of explaining the riddle of human nature. He is so far from being a Pyrrhonist in