were not removed, the school was not closed, and Port Royal was respited.
The miracle was to Pascal at once a solemn matter of religion and a family occurrence; he took henceforward as his cognizance an eye encircled with a crown of thorns and the motto Scio cui credidi, he jotted down various thoughts on the miracle, and the manner in which as it seemed to him God had by it given as by "a voice of thunder" his judgment in favour of Port Royal, and he sketched a plan of a work against atheists and unbelievers. In the year between the spring of 1657, and that of 1658, the last year of his good health, if that can be called good which was at best but feeble, he indicated the plan, and wrote the most finished paragraphs of his intended work. The detached thoughts which make up the bulk of it were scribbled, as they occurred to him during the last four years of his life, on scraps of paper, or on the margin of what he had already written, often when he was quite incapable of sustained employment. Many were dictated, some to friends, and some to a servant who constantly attended him in his illness.
Towards the end of his life he was obliged to move into Paris again, where he was carefully nursed by his sister Madame Perrier, to whose house he was moved at the last, where he died on August 9th, 1662, at the age of thirty-nine, having spent his last years in an ecstasy of self-denial, of charity, and of aspiration after God.
Not for six years after his death were his family and friends able to consider in what form his unfinished work should be given to the world. Then Port Royal had a breathing space, what was known as the Peace of the Church was established by Clement IX., and it was considered that the time had come to set in order these precious fragments. The duty of giving an author's works to the world as he left them was little understood in those days, and the Duc de Roannez even suggested that Pascal's whole work should be re-written on the lines he had laid down. Some editing was, on all hands, allowed to be needful; thus the arrangement of chapters, and the fragments to be included in chapters, were matter for fair discussion. But the committee of editors went further, and even when the text had been settled by them, it had to undergo a further censorship by various theologians. Finally, in January, 1670, the "Pensées" appeared as a small duodecimo, with a preface by the Perrier family, and no mention of Port Royal in the volume.
For a full account of this and other editions, the reader must be referred to the preface to M. Molinier's edition, Paris, 1877–1879, and to that of M. Faugère, Paris, 1844.
M. Victor Cousin was the first to draw attention to the need of a new edition of Pascal in 1842. He showed that great liberties had been taken with and suppressions made in the text, and the labour to which he invited was first undertaken by M. Prosper Faugère. M. Havet adopting his text departed from his arrangement, reverted in great measure to that of the old editors, and accompanied the whole by an excellent commentary and notes, 2nd edition, Paris, 1866. M. Molinier has again consulted the MSS. word for word, and while in a degree following M. Faugère's arrangement has yet been guided by his own skill and judgment. It must always be remembered that each editor must necessarily follow his own judgment in regard to the position he should give to fragments not placed by the writer. But provided that an editor makes no changes merely for the sake of change and that he loyally enters into the spirit of his predecessors, each new comer, till the arrangement is finally fixed, has a great advantage. Such an editor is M. Molinier, and in his arrangement the text of Pascal would seem to be mainly if not wholly fixed; so that for the first time we have not only Pascal's "Thoughts," but we have them approximately arranged as he designed to present them to his readers.
The course of an English translator is clear; his responsibility is confined to deciding which text to follow, he has no right to make one for himself. In the present edition, therefore, M. Molinier's text and arrangement are scrupulously followed except in two places. In regard to one, M. Molinier has himself adopted a different reading in his notes made after the text was printed, the second is an obvious misprint. Pascal's "Profession of Faith," or "Amulet," is transferred from the place it occupies in M. Molinier's edition to serve as an introduction to the work, striking as it does the key-note to the "Thoughts."
Pascal's quotations from the Bible were made of course from the Vulgate, but very often indeed from memory, and incorrectly, while he often gave the substance alone of the passage he used. No one version of the Bible therefore has been used exclusively, but the Authorised Version and the Douai or Rheims versions have been used as each in turn most nearly afforded the equivalent of the quotations made by Pascal.
The notes are mainly based on those of MM. Faugère, Havet, and Molinier.
GENERAL INTRODUCTION.
PASCAL'S PROFESSION OF FAITH.
This year of Grace 1654,
Monday, November 23rd, day of Saint Clement, pope and martyr, and others in the martyrology, Eve of Saint Chrysogonus, martyr, and others; From about half past ten at night, to about half after midnight, Fire. God of Abraham, God of Isaac, God of Jacob, Not of the philosophers and the wise. Security, security. Feeling, joy, peace. God of Jesus Christ Deum meum et Deum vestrum. Thy God shall be my God. Forgetfulness of the world and of all save God. He can be found only in the ways taught in the Gospel. Greatness of the human soul. O righteous Father, the world hath not known thee, but I have known thee. Joy, joy, joy, tears of joy. I have separated myself from him. Dereliquerunt me fontem aqua vivæ. My God, why hast thou forsaken me? … That I be not separated from thee eternally. This is life eternal: That they might know thee the only true God, and him whom thou hast sent, Jesus Christ, Jesus Christ, Jesus Christ. I have separated myself from him; I have fled, renounced, crucified him. May I never be separated from him. He maintains himself in me only in the ways taught in the Gospel. Renunciation total and sweet. etc.
GENERAL INTRODUCTION.
Let them at least learn what is the Religion they assail, before they assail it. If this religion claimed to have a clear view of God, and to possess it openly and unveiled, then to say that we see nothing in the world which manifests him with this clearness would be to assail it. But since on the contrary it affirms that men are in darkness and estranged from God, that he has hidden himself from their knowledge, that the very name he has given himself in the Scriptures is Deus absconditus; and if indeed it aims equally at establishing these two points, that God has set in the Church evident notes to enable 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
