editors. After a year's labour, Pascal had sunk into such feebleness that for the last four years of his life he could only jot down disconnected thoughts. And yet the book, pieced together by well-intentioned friends, made an impression which has hardly grown weaker with time. That a man, dying before forty, immersed in ascetic practices, and having to struggle against constant infirmity, should have produced so great an effect in philosophy, in science, and in literature, is astonishing; and I think that, even among the great men of a great time, there is no one who excites more the sense of pure wonder at sheer intellectual power.
What was the result of his thought? Eminent critics have puzzled themselves as to whether Pascal was a sceptic or a genuine believer; having, I suppose, convinced themselves, by some process not obvious to me, that there is an incompatibility between the two characters. We shall perhaps see the relation more clearly hereafter. I can subscribe, at any rate, with one remark made by Sainte-Beuve.[1] 'You may not cease to be a sceptic,' he says, 'after reading Pascal; but you must cease to treat believers with contempt' ––possibly because you will find how near they
- ↑ Causeries du Lundi, vol. v.
