The Pascal family, some years after settling in Paris, had to go through a period of adversity. Étienne Pascal, on leaving Clermont, had bought certain of the Hôtel de Ville rentes, almost the only regular investment open to Frenchmen at the time. Richelieu reduced the interest and the investors protested, Pascal amongst them. But the great cardinal did not understand such protests, and to escape the Bastille Pascal had to go into hiding. He was, according to the story, restored to favour owing to the good acting and graceful appearance of his daughter Jacqueline in a representation of Scudéry’s Amour Tyrannique before Richelieu. Indeed Jacqueline, who was only fourteen, herself gives the account in a pleasant letter which is extant, and which contains an allusion to her brother’s mathematical prowess. Madame d’Aiguillon’s intervention in the matter was perhaps as powerful as Jacqueline’s acting, and Richelieu not only relieved Étienne Pascal from the necessity of keeping out of the way, but gave him (in 1641) the important and lucrative though somewhat troublesome intendancy of Rouen. The family accordingly removed to the Norman capital, though Gilberte Pascal shortly after, on her marriage, returned to Clermont. At Rouen they became acquainted with Corneille, and Blaise Pascal pursued his studies with such vehemence that he already showed signs of an injured constitution. Nothing, however, of importance happened till the year 1646. Then Pascal the elder was confined to the house by the consequences of an accident on the ice, and was visited by certain gentlemen of the neighbourhood who had come under the influence of St Cyran and the Jansenists. It does not appear that up to this time the Pascal family had been contemners of religion, but they now eagerly embraced the creed, or at least the attitude of Jansenism. One of the more immediate results of this conversion has rather shocked some modern admirers of Pascal, who forget that toleration, except of the Gallio kind, is an idea which had no place in men’s minds in Pascal’s day. He came into contact with a Capuchin known as Père St Ange, but whose real name was Forton, and who seems to have entertained some speculative ideas on theological points which were not strictly orthodox. Thereupon Pascal with some of his friends lodged an information against the heretic with the representative of the archbishop of Rouen. There seems to have been no lack of zeal about the accusers, but the accused made no difficulty whatever in making profession of orthodoxy, and the judge appears to have been by no means anxious to push the matter home. No doubt Pascal was perfectly sincere, and like most of his contemporaries held the opinion attributed to a great English nonconformist contemporary of his, that, while it was very shocking that men who were in the right should not be tolerated, it was almost equally shocking that men who were in the wrong should be.

His bodily health was at this time very far from satisfactory, and he appears to have suffered, not merely from acute dyspepsia, but from a kind of paralysis. He was, however, except when physicians positively forbade study, and probably sometimes when they did so forbid, indefatigable in his mathematical work. In 1647 he published his Nouvelles Expériences sur le Vide, and in the next year the famous experiment with the barometer on the Puy de Dome was carried out for him by his brother-in-law Perier, and repeated on a smaller scale by himself at Paris, to which place by the end of 1647 he and his sister Jacqueline had removed, to be followed shortly by their father. In a letter of Jacqueline’s dated the 27th of September, an account of a visit paid by Descartes to Pascal is given, which, like the other information on the relations of the two, gives strong suspicion of mutual jealousy. Descartes, however, gave Pascal the very sensible advice to stay in bed as long as he could (it may be remembered that the philosopher himself never got up till eleven) and to take plenty of beef tea. But the relations of Pascal with Descartes belong chiefly to the scientific achievements of the former. He had, however, other relations, both domestic and miscellaneous, which had nothing to do with science. As early as May 1648 Jacqueline Pascal was strongly drawn to Port Royal, and her brother frequently accompanied her to its church. She desired indeed to join the convent, but her father, who at the date above mentioned returned to Paris with the dignity of counsellor of state (his functions at Rouen having ceased), disapproved of the plan, and took both brother and sister to Clermont. Pascal stayed in Auvergne for the greater part of two years, but next to nothing is known of what he did there. Fléchier, in his account of the Grands Jours at Clermont many years after, speaks of a “belle savante” in whose company Pascal had frequently been—a trivial mention on which, as on many other trivial points of scantily known lives, the most childish structures of comment and conjecture have been based. It is sufficient to say that at this time, despite the Rouen “conversion,” there is no evidence to show that Pascal was in any way a recluse, an ascetic, or in short anything but a young man of great intellectual promise and performance who was not indifferent to society, but whose aptitude both for society and study was affected by weak health and the horse-doctoring of the time. He, his sister, and their father returned to Paris in the late autumn of 1650, and in September of the next year Étienne Pascal died. Almost immediately afterwards Jacqueline fulfilled her purpose of joining Port Royal— a proceeding which led to some soreness, finally healed, between herself and her brother and sister as to the disposal of her property. Perhaps this difference, but more probably the mere habitual use of the well-known dialect of Port Royal, led Jacqueline to employ in reference to her brother expressions which have led biographers into most unnecessary excursions of fancy. For these they have seemed to find further warrant in similar phrases used by the Periers, mother and daughter. It has been supposed that Pascal, from 1651 or earlier to the famous accident of 1654, lived a dissipated, extravagant, worldly, luxurious (though admittedly not vicious) life with his friend the Duc de Roannez and others. His Discours sur les Passions de ΓAmour, a striking and characteristic piece, only recently discovered and printed, has also been assigned to this period, and has been supposed to indicate a hope less passion for Charlotte de Roannez, the duke’s sister. It cannot be too decidedly said that all this is sheer romancing. The extant letters of Pascal to the lady show no trace of any affection (stronger than friendship) between them. As to Pascal’s worldly life, it might be thought that only the completest ignorance of the usual dialect of the stricter religious sects and societies (and it may be added of Port Royal in particular) could induce any one to lay much stress on that. A phrase of Jacqueline’s about the “horribles attaches” which bound her brother to the world may pair off with hundreds of similar expressions from Bunyan downwards. It is, however, certain that in the autumn of 1654 Pascal’s second “conversion” took place, and that it was lasting. He betook himself at first to Port Royal, and began to live a recluse and austere life there. Madame Perier simply says that Jacqueline persuaded him to abandon the world. Jacqueline represents the retirement as the final result of a long course of dissatisfaction with mundane life. But there are certain anecdotic embellishments of the act which are too famous to be passed over, though they are in part apocryphal. It seems that Pascal in driving to Neuilly was run away with by the horses, and would have been plunged in the river but that the traces fortunately broke. To this, which seems authentic, is usually added the late and more than doubtful tradition (due to the Abbé Boileau) that afterwards he used at times to see an imaginary precipice by his bedside or at the foot of the chair on which he was sitting. Further, from November 23, 1654, dates the singular document usually known as “Pascal’s amulet,” a parchment slip which he wore constantly about him, and which bears the date followed by some lines of incoherent and strongly mystical devotion.

But, whatever may have been the immediate cause of Pascal’s conversion and (for a time) domestication at Port Royal, it certainly had no evil effect on his intellectual or literary powers. Indeed, if he had been drowned at Neuilly he would hardly be thought of now as anything but an extraordinarily gifted man of science. It must also be noted that, though he lived much at Port Royal, and partly at least observed its rule, he never actually became one of its famous solitaries. But for what it did for him (and for a time his health as well as his peace of mind seems to have been improved) he very soon paid the most ample and remarkable return that any man of letters ever paid to any institution. At the end of 1655 Arnauld, the chief light of Port Royal, was condemned by the Sorbonne for a letter which he had published expressing doubt whether the famous five propositions were to be found in Jansen, and, as much was made of this condemnation, it was thought important by the Jansenist and Port Royal party that steps should be taken to disabuse the popular mind on the whole controversy. Arnauld would have undertaken the task himself, but his wiser friends knew that his style was anything but popular, and overruled him. It is said that he personally suggested to Pascal to try his hand, and that the first of the famous Provincial Letters (this familiar name, or rather misnomer, is an abbreviation from the proper title of Lettres Écrites par Louis de Montalte à un Provincial de ses Amis') was written in a few days, or, less probably, in a day. It was printed on the 23d January 1656, and, being immensely popular and successful, was followed by others to the number of eighteen, in which not merely the special points at issue but the whole ethical and doctrinal system of the Jesuits was pulled to pieces.

In the Provinciales Pascal, who it must be remembered published under a strict incognito, denies that he belongs to Port Royal, and in fact, though during the last years of his life he was wholly devoted to its interests, he was never a regular resident there, and usually abode in his own house at Paris. Shortly after the appearance of the Provinciales, on May 24, 1656, occurred the miracle of the Holy Thorn, a fragment of the crown of Christ preserved at Port Royal, which cured the little Marguerite Perier of a fistula lacrymalis. The Jesuits were much mortified by this Jansenist miracle, which, as it was officially recognized, they could not openly deny. Pascal and his friends rejoiced in proportion. But the details of his later years after this incident are somewhat scanty, and as recorded by his sister and niece they tell of increasing ill health, and of ascetic practices and beliefs increasing still more. One curious incident, contrasting equally with this state of things and with Pascal’s studious character and renown, is what Madame Perier calls “l’affaire des carrosses,” a scheme of the Duc de Roannez and others for running omnibuses in Paris, which was actually carried out, of which Pascal was in some sort manager, and from which he derived some profit. This, however, is an exception. Otherwise, for years before his death, we hear only of acts of charity and of, as it seems to modern ideas, extravagant asceticism. Thus Madame Perier tells us that he disliked to see her caress her children, and would not allow the beauty of any woman to be talked of in his presence. What may be called his last illness began as early as 1658, after which year he never seems to have enjoyed even tolerable health, and as the disease progressed it was attended with more and more pain, chiefly in the head. In June 1662, having given up his own house to a poor family who were suffering from small-pox, and being unwilling that his sister should expose herself to infection, he went to her house to be nursed, and never afterwards left it. His state was, it seems, mistaken by his physicians, who to the last maintained that there was little danger— so much so that the offices of the church were long put off. He was able, however, to receive the eucharist, and soon afterwards died in convulsions on August 19th. A post mortem examination was held, which showed not only grave derangement in the stomach and other organs, but a serious lesion of the brain.

Eight years after Pascal’s death appeared, in a small volume, the book which has given most trouble to all students of Pascal, and most pleasure to some of them. It purported to be Pascal’s Pensées, and a preface by his nephew Perier gave the world to understand that these were fragments of a great projected apology for Christianity which the author had in conversation with his friends planned out years before. The editing of the book was peculiar. It was submitted to a committee of influential Jansenists, with the Duc de Roannez at their head, and, in addition, it bore the imprimatur of numerous unofficial approvers who testified to its orthodoxy. It does not appear that there was much suspicion of the garbling which had been practised,—garbling not unusual at the time, and excused in this case by the fact of a lull in the troubles of Port Royal and a great desire on the part of its friends to do nothing to disturb that lull. But as a matter of fact no more entirely fictitious book ever issued from the press. The fragments which it professed to give were in themselves confused and incoherent enough, nor is it easy to believe that they all formed part of any such single and coherent design as that referred to above. But the editors omitted, altered, added, separated, combined, and so forth entirely at their pleasure, actually making some changes which seem to have been thought improvements of style. As an instance of their anxiety to avoid offence, it may be noticed that they rejected, apparently as too outspoken, Madame Perier’s invaluable life of her brother, which was written to accompany the second edition of the Pensées, but did not actually appear with them till 1684.

This rifacimento remained the standard text with a few unimportant additions for nearly two centuries, except that by a truly comic revolution of public taste Condorcet in 1776 published, after study of the original, which remained accessible in manuscript, another garbling, conducted this time in the interests of unorthodoxy. It was not till 1842 that Victor Cousin drew attention to the absolutely untrustworthy condition of the text, nor till 1844 that Μ. Faugère edited that text from the MS. in something like a condition of purity, though, as subsequent editions have shown, not with absolute fidelity. But even in its spurious condition the book had been recognized as remarkable and almost unique. Its contents, as was to be expected, are of a very chaotic character—of a character so chaotic indeed that the reader is almost at the mercy of the arrangement, perforce an arbitrary arrangement, of the editors. But the subjects dealt with concern more or less all the great problems of thought on what may be called the theological side of metaphysics :— the sufficiency of reason, the trustworthiness of experience, the admissibility of revelation, free will, foreknowledge, and the rest. The peculiarly disjointed and fragmentary condition of the sentiments expressed by Pascal aggravates the appearance of universal doubt which is present in the Pensées, just as the completely unfinished condition, from the literary point of view, of the work constantly causes slighter or graver doubts as to the actual meaning whibh the author wished to express. Accordingly the Pensées have always been a favourite exploring ground, not to say a favourite field of battle, to persons who take an interest in the problems. Speaking generally, their tendency is towards the combating of scepticism by a deeper scepticism, or, as Pascal himself calls it, Pyrrhonism, which occasionally goes the length of denying the possibility of any natural theology. Pascal explains all the contradictions and difficulties of human life and thought by the doctrine of the fall, and relies on faith and revelation alone to justify each other. Comparison of the Pensées with the Provinciales is, considering the radical differences of state (the one being a finished work deliberately issued from the master’s hands, the other not even a rough draught, scarcely even “heads” or “outlines,” but a collection of loose and uncorrected notes settled neither as to the exact form of each nor as to the relation of each to any whole), impossible. But it may be said that no one can properly perceive how great a man of letters Pascal was from the Pensées alone, and that no one can perceive how deep if not wide a thinker he was from the Provinciales alone. An absolute preference of either argues a certain onesidedness in the relative estimate of matter and form. The wiser mind distinctly prefers both, and recognizes that if either were lacking the greatness of Pascal would fail to be perceived, or at least to be perceived fully.

Excluding his scientific attainments, which, as has been noted above, will be the subject of separate notice, Pascal presents himself for comment in two different lights, the second of which is, if the expression be permitted, a composite one. The first exhibits him as a man of letters, the second as a philosopher, a theologian, and a man. If this last combination seems to be audacious or clumsy, it can only be said that in hardly any thinker are theological thoughts, and thoughts more strictly to be called philosophical or metaphysical, so intimately, so inextricably blended as in Pascal, and that in none is the colour of the theology and the philosophy more distinctly personal. This latter fact adds to the difficulty of the problem; for, though Pascal has written not a little, and though a vast amount has been written about him, it...