Part 85

Descartes useless and uncertain.

No one calls another a courtier but he who is not one himself, a pedant save a pedant, a provincial but a provincial, and I would wager it was the printer who put it on the title of Letters to a Provincial.

The chief talent, that which rules all others.

If the lightning were to strike low-lying places, etc., poets, and those whose only reasonings are on things of that nature would lack proofs.

Poetical beauty.--As we talk of poetical beauty, so ought we to talk of mathematical beauty and medical beauty; yet we do not use those terms, because we know perfectly the object of mathematics, that it consists in proofs, and the object of medicine, that it consists in healing, but we do not understand wherein consists charm which is the object of poetry. We do not know what is the natural model to be imitated, and for want of that knowledge we invent a set of extravagant terms, "the golden age, the wonder of our times, fatal," etc., and fall this jargon poetic beauty.

But if we imagine a woman on that pattern, which consists in saying little things in great words, we shall see a pretty girl bedecked with mirrors and chains absurd to our taste, because we know better wherein consists the charm of woman than the charm of verse. But those who do not know, would admire her in such trimmings, and in many villages she would be taken for the queen, wherefore sonnets made on such a pattern have been called The Village Queens.

Those who judge of a work without rule are in regard to others as those who possess a watch are in regard to others. One says, "it was two hours ago," another, "it is only three-quarters of an hour." I look at my watch and say to the one, "you are weary of us," and to the other, "time flies fast with you, for it is only an hour and a half." And I laugh at those who say that time goes slowly with me, and that I judge by fancy. They do not know that I judge by my watch.

VARIOUS THOUGHTS.

Mathematics, Tact.--True eloquence makes light of eloquence, true morality makes light of morality, that is to say, the morality of the judgment makes light of the morality of the intellect, which has no rules.

For perception belongs to judgment, as science belongs to the intellect. Tact is the part of judgment, mathematics of the intellect.

To make light of philosophy is to be a true philosopher.

The nourishment of the body is little by little, too much nourishment gives little substance.

There is an universal and essential difference between the actions of the will and all others.

The will is one of the principal organs of belief, not that it forms belief, but because things are true or false according to the side from which we regard them. The will, pleased with one rather than the other, turns the mind from the consideration of that which has the qualities it cares not to see, and thus the intellect, moving with the will, stays to regard the side it loves, and thus judges by what it sees.

The heart has its reasons, which reason knows not, as we feel in a thousand instances. I say that the heart loves the universal Being naturally, and itself naturally, according as it gives itself to each, and it hardens itself against one or the other at its own will. You have rejected one and kept the other, does reason cause your love?

It is the heart which is conscious of God, not the reason. This then is faith; God sensible to the heart, not to the reason.

Reason acts slowly and with so many views, on so many principles, which it ought always to keep before it, that it constantly slumbers and goes astray, from not having its principles at hand. The heart does not act thus, it acts in a moment, and is always ready to act. We must then place our faith in the heart, or it will be always vacillating.

Men often mistake their imagination for their heart, and they believe they are converted as soon as they think of being converted.

Those who are accustomed to judge by the heart do not understand the process of reasoning, for they wish to understand at a glance, and are not accustomed to seek for principles. And others on the contrary, who are accustomed to reason by principles, do not at all understand the things of the heart, seeking principles and not being able to see at a glance.

If we wished to prove those examples by which we prove other things, we should have to take those other things to be examples. For as we always believe the difficulty is in the matter we wish to prove, we find the examples clearer and aids to demonstration.

Thus when we wish to demonstrate a general proposition, we must give the rule special to a case, but if we wish to demonstrate a particular case, we must begin with the particular rule. For we always find the thing obscure which we wish to prove, and that clear which we employ as proof; for when a matter is proposed for proof we first fill ourselves with the imagination that it is therefore obscure, and on the contrary that what is to prove it is clear, and so we understand with ease.

Far from believing a thing because you have heard it, you ought to believe nothing without having put yourself in the same position as if you had never heard it.

What should make you believe is your own assent to yourself, and the constant voice of your reason, not that of others.

Belief is so important!

A hundred contradictions might be true.

If antiquity were the rule of faith then the men of old time had no rule. If general consent, if men had perished....

False humility is pride.

Lift the curtain.