Pascal, "Faiblesse de l’homme"

An essay ("Man's weakness") by this French man of letters.  You can read the original here.

It is surprising to see how each of us remains unsurprised by his own weakness.  We act in all seriousness, each in pursuit of his own lot in life, not because it is actually worth pursuing as fashion suggests, but as if we knew for certain where reason and justice lay.  Along this path we will be disappointed; and by dint of some pleasant humility we will believe it is our fault, and not owing to the methods of which we have always boasted.  How good that there exist in our world so many people of this kind, if but to show us that man is quite capable of more extravagant opinions.  Why?  Because man is capable of believing himself free from this natural and inevitable weakness, and of believing that, on the contrary, he basks in the warmth of natural wisdom. 

The weakness of man's reason seems more prevalent in those who do not know such weakness than in those who do.  

One cannot exercise good judgment if one is too young; the same can be said if one is too old.  If one does not think enough, or if one thinks all too much, one becomes stubborn and unable to find the truth.  If one judges one's work immediately after having completed it, one will be far too biased.  If too long a time has passed, that same work will never be revisited.  There is but one indivisible point that remains the true location whence to gaze upon a painting, all other points being too near, too far, too high, or too low.  Such a perspective is determined during the very act of painting, yet within the truth and morality of this same determination.       

Error's willing partner, which we may term imagination and opinion, is even more deceitful than is her habit.  For if she is deemed incapable of a lie, so then will she become the infallible barometer of truth.  Yet being more often false, she will reveal no mark of her quality, marking in the same manner both the false and the true.  

This splendid power, enemy of reason, one who enjoys controlling and dominating her foe if only to demonstrate such an ability in all matters, has established a second nature within man.  She has her happy and her unhappy souls; her healthy and her unhealthy; her rich and her poor; her madmen and her sane.  And yet nothing causes us greater vexation than to see her fill her hosts with a satisfaction far more substantial and whole than reason might provide.  The talented, as it were, take a certain enjoyment in themselves which the prudent could not possibly experience.  They regard others with a majestic sway.  They argue with confidence and audacity, while others resort to fear and defiance.  And this joyousness of countenance often grants them an advantage in the opinion of onlookers.  So many imaginary sages gain the favor of judges of a kindred nature.  This splendid power cannot make madmen sane, but she can indeed make them happy, in contrast to reason, who can only make its friends miserable.  One showers them in glory; the other covers them in shame.

Who dispenses reputation?  Who bestows respect and veneration upon people, works, and historical figures, if not opinion?  How insufficient would all the riches of the earth be without opinion's satisfaction?  

Opinion has a hold on everything.  She creates beauty, she creates justice; and she creates happiness, the pinnacle of this world.  I wholeheartedly would like to see that Italian book, of which I know but the title, a title which suits it alone: Della opinione Regina del mundo.  I would subscribe to the book's teachings, apart from anything evil, should there be any, without even knowing them.  

In changing climates, one will notice almost nothing just or unjust which does not change in quality.  Moving three degrees of elevation north changes the jurisprudence entirely.  A meridian decides the truth, as a few years may decide possession.  Basic laws change.  Rights have their eras.  Satisfactory or pleasing justice determined merely by a river or a mountain border!  Truth on this side of the Pyrenees, falsehood beyond them.     

The art of wreaking havoc in a state involves shaking up established customs and penetrating to their very source to expose the flaw in authority and justice.  One must, it is said, recur to those basic and primitive laws of the state which some unjust custom has abolished.  This is a high-stakes game.  Nothing in this equation will be fair.  Nevertheless, the people will lend an ear to such discussions because the yoke is shaken as soon as the people are acknowledged, with major figures profiting from such discussions to the people's detriment, as well as to the detriment of those curious examiners of accepted customs.  Yet, by a contrary shortcoming, men sometimes believe themselves capable of acting justly in all matters which are not unprecedented.   

You can place the greatest philosopher in the world on a plank so large that he may walk as he would ordinarily; yet if below him lies a precipice, no matter how much his reason may convince him of his safety, his imagination will prevail.  Many could not even tolerate the thought without turning pale and sweaty – I do not wish to enumerate the effects.  Who knows what possesses those who become unhinged upon the sight of cats, rats, or the crushing of a piece of charcoal?     

Would you not say that the magistrate whose venerable old age demands respect from everyone is governed by pure and sublime reason, and that he judges things by their nature without wallowing in those vain circumstances that only afflict the imagination of the weak?  Watch him now as he enters the room where he is to dispense justice.  There he sits, ready to listen, in exemplary solemnity.  Now if an attorney appeared, and nature were to bless this attorney with a hoarse voice and an odd patch of face which a barber might have badly shaven, and on which, furthermore, chance had put splotches against his beard, I would bet on the loss of the magistrate's solemnity. 

The mind of the greatest man in the world is not sufficiently independent for him not to be troubled by the slightest racket in his immediate surroundings.  The boom of a cannon is not needed to interfere with his thoughts; the noise from a weathervane or pulley will suffice.  Do not be surprised if at such a time reason fails him.  A fly buzzing in his ear is enough to make him incapable of providing good advice.  If you want him to be able to find the truth, chase away the animal who holds his reason in check and troubles this powerful intelligence which governs cities and kingdoms.

We have another principle of error, the knowledge of illnesses.  These spoil our judgment and our sense.  And if great illnesses alter our judgement perceptibly, I do not doubt the smaller ones make a proportionate impression.

Our own interest is still a marvelous means for us gladly to gouge our eyes out.  Affection and hate change justice.  In fact, to what degree does an attorney, well-paid in advance, find the cause he pleads any more just?  Yet by another oddity of the human mind, I know of some who, so as not to fall into such traps of vanity, were in contrary bias the most unjust people in the world.  The sure way to lose a very just case was to have it referred to them by their closest relatives.  

Justice and truth are two points so subtle that our instruments are too blunt to touch upon them exactly.  If they manage to do so they, in so doing, blunt the tip and press down more on the false than on the true.  

Old impressions are not the only ones capable of hurting us.  The charms of novelty possess the same power.  Hence come all the disputes of men who reproach one another, or follow the false impressions of their childhood, or run recklessly in pursuit of new things.

To whom then belongs the happy medium?  To that person who appears to have it, and who can prove it.  There is no natural principle as to what it may be (even from childhood) which we could not dismiss as a false impression, be it inculcated or sensed.  One side will say: just because you believed since childhood that a trunk was empty when you saw nothing there, you believed that this emptiness was possible.  This is an illusion of your senses reinforced by custom which science will then have to correct.  Others will say: on the contrary, because you were taught in school that there is nothing empty, your common sense has been corrupted.  And your common sense understood things so clearly before this bad impression that we now need to correct it by recurring to your first nature.  Which has now triumphed, sense or indoctrination?  

All of man's occupations are to have some good in them; and the title by which they possess this good is merely in the imagination of those who created laws.  There is no force to possess the good for certain: a thousand accidents deprive them of it.  It is the same with science: illness removes it from us.

Without grace, man is therefore a subject full of indelible errors.  Nothing will show him the truth: everything will abuse him.  The two principles of truth, reason and sense, apart from the fact that they often want for sincerity, will mutually abuse one another.  Senses will abuse reason through false appearances and will, in turn, be subjected to this same deception as reason will have its revenge.  The passions of the soul will trouble the senses and create upsetting impressions.  They will lie, and again and again they will deceive.  

What are our natural principles if not our accustomed principles?  In children, those they received after the custom of their parents, like hunting in animals.

A different custom will yield different natural principles.  This we can see in our own experience.  And if there are some indelible elements to custom, there are also indelible customs within nature.  This will depend on disposition.

Fathers fear that children's natural love will dissipate.  What then is this nature subject to dissipation?  Custom is second nature, one that destroys the first nature.  Why is custom not natural?  I fear somehow that this nature might itself be a first custom, like custom is a second nature.    

Pascal, "Marques de la véritable Religion"

An essay ("The mark of true religion") by this French man of letters.  You can read the original here.

True religion should have as a mark the obligation of loving God.  This is quite right.  And nevertheless no other religion makes this an order apart from our own.  True religion should also recognize the concupiscence of man and the powerlessness with which he strives on his own to acquire virtue; it should provide man with remedies, of which prayer is the most important.  Our religion has done all that; and no other has ever asked God to love and follow it

A religion makes itself true by having come to know our true nature because one cannot separate the knowledge of the true nature of man from the knowledge of his true good, his true virtue, or of true religion.  True religion should have come to know the greatness and baseness of man and the reasons for both one and the other.  What other religion apart from the Christian faith has known these things?  Other religions, like those of the pagans, are more popular because they consist exclusively of an outward appearance; but they are not made for able and talented people.  A purely intellectual religion would be in line with such able and talented people, yet it would not serve the populace.  Only the Christian faith is made for everyone, a mix of the external and internal.  It elevates the populace internally and lowers the able and the magnificent externally; it is not perfect without both of these elements.  Because the populace needs to understand the spirit of the law, and the able and talented need to submit their minds to the law by practicing that which may be deemed the external element.   

We are hateful; reason convinces us so, for no other religion apart from Christianity proposes that we hate ourselves.  No other religion can then be received by those who know that they are worthy of nothing but hate.  No other religion apart from the Christian faith knows that man is the most excellent of creatures and at the same time the most miserable.  Those who know full well the reality of their excellence consider those base sentiments that man naturally has of himself to be cowardice and ingratitude.  And those others who know full well how effective this baseness is have dismissed with laughable arrogance the sentiments of greatness which are equally natural to man.  No religion apart from ours teaches that man is born into sin.  No sect of philosophers says it.  None, therefore, has said the truth.

Since God is hidden every religion which does not aver that God is hidden is not true.  And every religion which does not engage reason is not instructive.  Our religion does all that.  This religion that consists of the belief that man has fallen from a state of glory and communication with God into a state of sadness, of penitence, and a distancing from God, yet in the end will be redeemed by a Messiah who was bound to come, has always been on earth.  All things have happened and this has subsisted because this is all things.  For God wished for a sacred people to arise whom He would separate from all other nations, from whose enemies He would deliver to safety and put in a place of rest, and to whom He would make this promise and come into the world for this purpose.  And through His prophets He predicted the time and manner of His coming.    

And nevertheless, so as to confirm the hope of His chosen people through all of time, He has always allowed them to see images and figures and never left them without assurances of His power and His wish for their salvation.  For in the creation of man, Adam was both witness to this and the depositary of the promise of the Savior who was to be born from woman.  And although mankind was still so recently removed from this creation so as not to be able to forget it or mankind's fall, or the promise that God had made to man of a Redeemer, nevertheless even in this first epoch of the world mankind allowed themselves to be carried away by all sorts of disorders and abuses.  They were some saints, however, such as Enoch, Lamech and others who waited with patience for the Christ promised since the beginning of the world.  Then God sent Noah who bore witness to the utmost degree to the malice of man.  And He saved him by drowning the entire world in a miracle which He deemed sufficient and by the power which He possessed to save the world, and the desire which He possessed to do so, and to have born from woman Him whom He had promised.   

This miracle was sufficient to confirm the hope of mankind.  And this memory being fresh enough among them, God made His promises to Abraham who was surrounded by idolaters, and taught him the mystery of the Messiah which He was to send.  At the time of Isaac and Jacob the abomination was spread across the world.  But the Saints lived in faith.  And Jacob, as he lay dying, blessing his children, cried out in a spasm of joy that made him interrupt his discourse: I have awaited, O Lord, Thy promised Savior (Genesis 49:18). 

The Egyptians were infected by idolatry and magic; the very people of God were being carried away by their examples.  But nevertheless Moses and others saw what they did not see, and adored Him, gazing at the eternal goods which He was preparing for them.  The Greeks and Romans subsequently let false gods reign; poets concocted various theologies; and philosophers were split into a million different sects.  Nonetheless, at the heart of Judea there always remained some chosen men who predicted the coming of the Messiah known only to them.  The end of this period came at last; and since that time, although we have seen the rise of countless schisms and heresies, the overthrow of countless governments, and countless changes in all things, this Church who adores Him who has always been adored has subsisted without interruption.  And what is admirable and incomparable and completely divine is that this religion which has always endured has also always been in combat.  A thousand times was it on the brink of universal destruction; and every time it reached that state, God raised it again through extraordinary displays of His power.  This is what is surprising, and may it remain without bending or yielding beneath the willfulness of tyrants.   

Governments would perish if we did not often bend our laws when needed.  But religion has never suffered this nor of it has ever made any use.  Here too do we need accommodations, or what we call miracles.  It is not strange that in bending these laws we preserve them, yet this is not the same as maintaining them.  For sooner or later they will perish entirely; no law has lasted fifteen hundred years.  But religion has always been maintained and is inflexible.  This is divine.

In this way the Messiah has always been believed.  The tradition of Adam was still new in Noah and in Moses.  The prophets have since predicted Him, always while also predicting other things whose occurrence from time to time before man's eyes has marked the truthfulness of their mission, and, consequently, the truthfulness of their promises regarding the Messiah.  They told us that the law they obeyed was simply to wait for the law of the Messiah; that until then it would be perpetual but that the other law would last for all of eternity; that therefore their law or that of the Messiah from whom the law was promised would always be on earth.  And indeed it has always endured.  And Jesus Christ came in accordance with all the predicted circumstances.  He completed miracles and His apostles converted the pagans, and with these prophecies accomplished, the Messiah has been proven for ever and always.

The only religion contrary to nature in the state in which it is, which combats all our pleasures and which seems initially contrary to common sense is the only one which has always been there.  The entire conduct of things should have as an aim the establishment and the greatness of religion: men should have within themselves sentiments in conformity with that which religion teaches us.  And, in the end, religion should be so much the aim and the center towards which all things tend that he who shall learn his principles from it, can also derive reason and all of the nature of man in particular, as well as all of the conduct of the world in general.

It is on this basis that the impious intercede to blaspheme the Christian faith, because they do not know it well at all.  They believe that it simply consists of the adoration of a God considered great, powerful and eternal; what is properly termed deism is as distant from Christianity as atheism, which is its exact opposite.  And from there they conclude that this religion is not true because if it were, then God would have to manifest Himself to man through proofs so tangible that it would be impossible for anyone to mistake Him.  But those who come to whatever conclusions they wish against deism will not have come to any conclusions against the Christian faith, which recognizes that, owing to sin, God does not show Himself to man with all the evidence at His disposal, and which consists more specifically in the mystery of the Redeemer who, unifying in Himself the two natures, divine and human, has removed man from the corruption of sin so as to reconcile him with God in His divine person.

Thus the Christian faith teaches men both truths, and that there is one God for whom they are capable and there is one corruption in nature that renders them unworthy.  It is as important to men to know both of these points; and it is equally dangerous to men to know God without knowing their own misery, and to know their own misery without knowing the Redeemer who can heal them from it.  Knowledge of only one of these truths results either in the pride of philosophers who know God but not their own misery, or the despair of atheists who know their own misery but nothing of the Redeemer.

And so, as it is equally necessary for man to know both of these points, it is also from the grace of God that we have come to know them.  The Christian faith does so; this is precisely of what it consists.  May we look at the order of the world on this matter and may we see whether all things do not tend towards the establishment of the two main points of this religion.

If a man is not filled with pride, with ambition, with concupiscence, with weakness, with misery and with injustice, this man is then quite blind.  And if, in recognizing that he is so batten, he does not desire to be delivered into salvation from these things, what can we say of a man so lacking in reason?  How could he possibly not hold in esteem a religion that knows the flaws of man so well, and how could he not long for truth from a religion that promises him such desirable remedies?

Pascal, "Vanité de l'homme"

A work ("The Vanity of Man") by this French thinker.  You can read the original here.

We are not satisfied with the life we have within ourselves and within our own being.  We long to live within others' notions of an imaginary life, and we try very hard to keep up such an appearance.  We work incessantly to embellish and conserve this imaginary being, and in so doing we neglect our real existence.  And if we have either tranquility, or generosity, or faithfulness, we hasten to make them known in order to append these virtues to this existence contained within our imagination.  In other words, we detach ourselves from them in order to join them in that other realm; and we would quite willingly be cowards so as to acquire the reputation of being brave.  This is an extensive sign of the nothingness of our own existence, of our being content with neither one nor the other, and of our renouncing one for the other!  For infamous is he who would not die to save his honor.

The sweetness of glory is so great that we love it regardless of its association, even if it is associated with death.

Pride counterweighs all our miseries.  For whether it hides them or reveals them, it glorifies itself in the knowledge of them.

Pride seems like such a natural possession amidst our miseries and our errors that we would even forsake a life with joy, provided we may still speak of it. 

Vanity is so entrenched in the heart of man that even a boor, even a kitchen boy, even a picklock boasts and seeks out admirers.  Yet Philosophers too wish themselves some part.  Those who write against glory wish for glory for having written so well; and those who read wish for themselves the glory of having read.  And I who write this, perhaps I have such a wish; and perhaps those who read this text will also have it. 

Despite the sight of all the miseries that surround and touch us, that hold us by the throat, we have an instinct in these matters that lifts us and that we cannot repress.

We are so presumptuous that we would like to be known by the whole wide world and even by those people who will come when we will no longer be there.  And we are so vain that the estimation of five or six people in our vicinity amuses and satisfies us.

The most important thing in life is the choice of profession, and here chance plays its part.  Custom and habit make masons, soldiers, and roofers.  He's an excellent roofer, he says; and when speaking of soldiers he says that they are all mad.  Others are just the opposite: there is nothing greater than war, and everyone else is just a bunch of scoundrels.  We make our choice from having heard in our childhood how people praised certain professions and contemned others, because naturally we love virtue and hate imprudence.  These words move us; it is only in their application that we sin.  And the force of habit is so strong that there arise entire nations who are all masons, and others who are all soldiers.  Surely nature is not quite so uniform.  Thus it is custom and habit that do this, that train nature.  But sometimes even nature overcomes custom and keeps man to his instinct despite his habits, be they good or bad.    

Curiosity is merely vanity.  Most often one only wants to learn of something so as to have the opportunity to talk about it.  We would not travel by sea solely for the pleasure of gazing upon it, or without the hope of ever broaching the subject in conversation with someone else. 

We do not worry about being held in high esteem in those places we pass through quickly.  But when we have to tarry there a bit, we begin to worry.  How long does it take for us to feel this way?  A period in proportion to our futile and meager stay.

Few things console us because few things afflict us.

We never keep to the present.  We anticipate the future as too slow and seek to hasten it; or we recall the past so as to stop it from moving too swiftly.  So imprudent are we that we wander in the times which are not our own, and do not think at all of the only time that belongs to us.  And so vain are we that dream endlessly of those times which do not exist and let pass by, without reflection, the only time that remains.   This is because, normally, the present wounds us.  We hide it from our sight because it afflicts us.  And if we find it somehow agreeable, we regret watching it slip away.  We try to support our present by our future, and we think of possessing things that are not in our power for a period of time at which we have no assurance of ever arriving.

May each of us examine his thoughts.  There he will always find himself occupied with the past or with the future.  We almost never think of the present; and if we do it is only so as to derive wisdom from it and to possess the future.  The present is never our goal.  The past and the present are our means, and the future alone is our aim.  In this way, therefore, we never actually live.  But we may hope to live; and since we are always inclined to be happy, it is dubious that we will ever be if we continue to aspire to a bliss other than what we can enjoy in this life.    

Our imagination enhances the present time so powerfully owing to its continual reflections and so diminishes eternity owing to our lack of reflection upon it, that we make from eternity a nothingness and from nothingness an eternity.  And all this has roots so alive in us that all our reason could not protect us from such indulgence. 

Cromwell was about to ravage all of Christianity, the Royal Family was lost, and his own family more powerful than ever -- without, of course, that small grain of sand in his urethra.   Rome itself would have trembled before him.  But that piece of gravel, which was nothing after all, lodged in that particular place, and there he was dead, his family brought down, and the King reestablished.

Pascal, "Contre l'Indifférence des Athées"

An essay ("Against the atheist's indifference") by this French thinker.  You can read the original here.

May those who combat religion learn at least what it is before they do battle.  If religion boasted of having a clear view of God and of possessing that view uncovered and unveiled, it could be combated by saying that there is nothing visible in our world that could demonstrate its existence.  But religion states quite on the contrary that man lives in darkness and far from God, and even bestows such a name upon Him in the Scriptures: Deus absconditus.  Religion may then try to establish these two things: that God has left palpable marks in the Church to be recognized by those who sincerely seek Him out and that, nevertheless, He has cloaked these marks in such a way that they will be not perceived except by those who search with their wholeness of their hearts.  What advantage could they possibly derive from professing to seek the truth amidst their negligence if they believe that nothing will be revealed?  This darkness which they inhabit and which the Church contests only establishes one of the tenets that the Church endorses without touching upon any other, and, far from ruining its doctrine, actually confirms it.

To combat the Church, they would have to believe that they have exerted all efforts to look everywhere, even in those things that the Church offers to teach them, but without any satisfaction.  Were they really to talk thus they would indeed combat one of the Church's pretensions.  But what I hope to show here is that this manner of speech could be produced by no reasonable person.  I would even say that no one has ever spoken in this way.  We know all too well how persons of this mindset act.  They think they have spared no effort to instruct themselves; in actuality, they spent a few hours perusing the Scriptures, then questioned some clergyman on the truths of faith.  We know all too well that afterwards they boast of having searched unsuccessfully in books and among men.  But in reality I cannot prevent myself from informing them that this negligence is not acceptable.  This is not about the superficial interest of an unknown person; this is about us and about our whole existence.   

The immortality of the soul is something that matters so dearly to us and that touches us so profoundly that one would have to have lost all feeling for being if one were indifferent to what this immortality might be.  All our actions and all our thoughts may take very different routes depending on whether or not one may in this process hope for eternal goods, and whether or not, in pursuing these goods from the point of view that should be our ultimate aim, it is impossible to approach the matter with sense and judgment.

Therefore our primary interest and primary task is to clarify the subject on which our entire conduct depends.  And this is why, among those who are not persuaded, I detect a large difference between those who work with all their might to instruct themselves and those who live without bothering or thinking about the subject.

I can only have compassion for those who wail in sincere doubt, who look upon the matter as the greatest of evils, and who, sparing nothing to escape this predicament, research their principal and most serious occupation.  But I have a very different opinion of those who live their life without thinking about the very end of life, who only do so because they cannot find within themselves the light to persuade them, and who, neglecting to look elsewhere, then do not examine in depth whether this attitude is one that people accept out of simple credulity or one of which a few obscure persons among them have, as it were, a solid base.  This negligence in an affair that deals with themselves, with their eternity, with their entirety, irritates me more than one would expect – it surprises and repulses me; to me it is a monster.  I do not say this out of the pious zeal of spiritual devotion.  On the contrary, I surmise that self-esteem, human interest, and the simplest rays of our reason would usher in such sentiments.  One should not see for that reason what is seen by the least enlightened among us.  

One need not have a sublimated soul to understand that no true or solid satisfaction is to be found, that all our pleasures are mere vanities, that our evils are infinite, and that eventually death, who threatens us at every instant, will need in a matter of years or perhaps even a matter of days to place us in an eternal state of happiness, unhappiness, or annihilation.  Between us and Heaven, Hell or Nothingness there is only life – which is the most fragile thing in the world.  And with Heaven being uncertain for those who doubt that their souls are immortal, they can await then only Hell or Nothingness.   

There is nothing more real or more terrible than this.  We may be as brave as you'd like – this is the end that awaits the most beautiful life in the world.

It is in vain that they steer their thoughts from the eternity that awaits them as if they could annihilate it and no longer think about it.  Yet it subsists despite them, it advances; and the death that must reveal this eternity will infallibly place them in little time in the horrible necessity of being eternally annihilated or unhappy.

And here is the doubt of a terrible consequence; and it is assuredly a woeful condition to be entrapped within that doubt; but nevertheless it is an indispensable task to search when one is there.  Thus he who doubts and does not search is at once both very unjust and very unhappy.  Whether it is with this condition, calm and satisfied, that one makes one's profession and finally one's vanity, and however this same condition may be the subject of one's joy and one's vanity, I have no term with which to name such an extravagant creature.

Where can one find such sentiments?  What subject of joy awaiting misery without recourse?  What subject of vanity that sees into the impenetrable darkness?  What consolation in never waiting to be consoled?

The relaxation through this ignorance is monstrous and one should make these persons feel the extravagance and stupidity of living their life in this fashion, and of representing what happens within themselves, to confuse them with a view of their own madness.  Because here is how men reason when they choose to live in ignorance of what they are and not to seek enlightenment.

I know not who placed me in this world, nor what the world is, nor what I am.  I am in terrible ignorance of all things.  I do not know what my body is, what my senses are, what my soul is; and this part of myself which thinks what I say and which reflects upon everything and itself, knows itself no more than the rest.  I see these horrific spaces in the Universe which confine me, and I find myself attached to one corner of this vast expanse, without knowing why I am located in this place rather than in another, nor why this little time I have been given to live has been assigned at this point rather than at another point during the course of eternity that preceded me and that which shall come in my wake.  I see only infirmities everywhere that devour me like an atom, like a shadow that lasts only a second without returning.  All I know is that I will soon have to die; but what I know least about is this death that I do not know how to avoid.

In the same way that I do not know where I come from, I also do not know where I am going.  I only know that, departing this world, I will fall forever into Nothingness or into the hands of an irritated God, not knowing in which of these two conditions I will have to spend eternity.

Here is my condition full of misery, of weakness, of obscurity.  And from all this I therefore conclude that I must spend all the days of my life without dreaming of what will come to pass, and that I have nothing to do but to follow my inclinations without reflection or inquietude in doing everything needed so as to tumble into eternal unhappiness in the event that what is said is true.  Perhaps I could find some enlightenment amidst my doubts; but not wanting to make the effort, not taking a step in this search, and treating with contempt those who will labor with this care in mind, I would like without foresight or fear to tempt such a great event, and let myself gently be led to death uncertain of the eternity of my future condition.

In reality it is to the glory of Religion to have as enemies such unreasonable men.  Their opposition is so minutely dangerous in their contradiction of the establishment of basic truths which Religion teaches us.  Because the Christian faith seeks in principle to establish these two things: the corruption of nature and the redemption of Jesus Christ.  For if they do not demonstrate the truth of redemption in the saintliness of their mores, they at least admirably show the corruption of nature by sentiments so denatured.

Nothing is as important to man as his condition; nothing is as redoubtable to him as eternity. And in this way, if he finds men indifferent to the loss of their being and in peril of an eternity of misery, this is not natural.  They are completely other with regard to all other things: they fear even the smallest things, they see them in advance, they feel them.  And this same man who passes his days and nights in rage and despair owing to the loss of a fee or for some imaginary offense to his honor, is the same man who knows he will lose everything in death and who remains nevertheless without inquietude, without trouble, and without emotion.  This strange insensibility to the most terrible things in a heart so sensitive to the most frivolous – this is an incomprehensible enchantment and a supernatural slumber.

A man in a prison cell not knowing whether his judgment has been pronounced and not having more than an hour to learn of it, and this hour being sufficient, if he knows that he has been judged, to have it revoked, it is then against nature for him to use this hour not to inform himself as to whether his judgment has been pronounced, but to play and amuse himself.  This is the condition in which these people find themselves, with the difference being that the evils which threaten them are others than the simple loss of life and brief torture of which the prisoner will learn.  Nevertheless they run without care towards the precipice after having placed something before their eyes to impede their view of it, and they mock those who might warn them. 

Thus true Religion is proven not only by the zeal of those who seek God, but also by the blindness of those who do not seek Him and who live in this horrible negligence.  There needs to be a strange reversal in the nature of man to live in such a condition, and still more to make a vanity of it.  Because once they have entire certainty that they have nothing to fear after death apart from falling into Nothingness, would this not be more a subject of despair rather than of vanity?  Is this not, therefore, inconceivable madness, not having been assured of anything, to glorify being in such doubt?

And nevertheless it is certain that man is so denatured that his heart retains in this endeavor some seeds of joy.  This brutal respite between the fear of Hell and of Nothingness seems so grand that not only those who truly wallow in these doubts glorify the matter, but also even those who do not wallow therein believe that it is glorious for them to pretend to be – since experience makes us see that the majority of those involved belong to this second category and that these people are disguised and are not what they want to appear to be.  They are people who have heard said that the fine manners of the world consist of getting carried away in this vein.  This is what they call "having shed the yoke," and most of them only do it to imitate others.

But however small the amount of common sense they may possess, it is not difficult to get them to understand to what degree they abuse themselves in searching for esteem in this way.  This is not how to obtain it; and I would say the same thing to those persons of the world who employ a healthy judgment of things and who know that the only path to success is to be honest, faithful, judicious and capable of making use of one's friends, because men naturally do not like what can be useful to them.  For what advantage is there for us to hear said by a man that has "shed the yoke," a man who does not believe that there is a God who watches over his actions, that he considers himself the only master of his conduct, that he does not think of being aware in this regard of anyone but himself?  Does he think in so doing he has henceforth instilled our confidence in him, and from this can expect consolations, advice and help in all of life's needs?  Does he believe he has elated us by saying that he doubts that our soul is anything more than a bit of wind and smoke, even telling us this in a proud and happy voice?  Is this something to be said gaily?  Isn't this, on the contrary, a sad statement, perhaps the saddest statement in all the world?

If they thought seriously about the matter they would see that this is so badly formulated, so contrary to good sense, so opposed to honesty, and so distant in every way from the good manner that they seek, that nothing is more capable of bestowing upon them the contempt and aversion of mankind and have them seem to be persons without spirit or judgment.  And, indeed, if one were to make them aware of their sentiments and the reasons they have to doubt Religion, they would say things so feeble and base that they would persuade us rather of the contrary.   This was what one person said one day on the subject: if you continue such debates, he told them, you will convert me for real.  And he was right; for who would not hate to be viewed with such sentiments as would make them companions to people so contemptible?    

Thus those who only feign these sentiments are quite unhappy to constrain their natural being to render themselves the most impertinent of men.  If they are angry in their heart of hearts for not having more light, they cannot hide it.  Such a declaration would not be honest; there is no shame apart from not doing so.  Nothing reveals more of a strange weakness of mind than not to know what is man's unhappiness without God.  Nothing indicates a greater baseness of heart than not to want the truth regarding eternal promises. Nothing is more cowardly than to brave God.  May they then leave these impieties to those who were already badly born to be capable of them: may they be the least honest of persons if they cannot yet be Christians; and may they recognize finally that there are only two types of people: those who serve God with all their hearts because they know Him and those who seek Him with all their hearts because they do not know Him yet.   

It is therefore for those who seek God sincerely and who recognize their misery in desiring truly to escape this conundrum that it is just to work, with the aim of helping them to find the light that they do not possess. 

But for those who live without knowing Him and without seeking Him, they deem themselves so unworthy of their own care, may they not be worthy of care by others.  One would have to show all the charity of the Religion they despise not to despise them until one abandons them to their folly.  Yet because this Religion obliges us to regard them always as being capable of Grace in this life, Grace that might enlighten them, and to believe that, in short order, they might be more filled with faith than we are, and that, conversely, we too might fall into the blindness which they inhabit, we have to do for them what we would want done for us if we were in their place and beseech them to take pity on themselves, and at least to take a few steps to see whether they might not find this light.  May they devote to the reading of this work a few hours of which they would otherwise make little use.  Perhaps they will find something here, or at least they would not lose too much.  But for those imbued with perfect sincerity and veritable desire to know the truth, I hope that they will be satisfied and convinced of the proofs amassed here of a Religion so divine.