Part 88

P. 3. General Introduction. In this are apparently two drafts of the same preface, the second beginning with the paragraph "Before entering," p. 9, l. 6. M. Faugère was the first to recognize the true character of this sketch, which has borne various titles. The Port Royal edition called it: "Against the Indifference of Atheists;" Condorcet headed it: "On the Need of Concern for the Proofs of a Future Life;" Bossut: "On the Need of a Study of Religion." See note on p. 61.

P. 3, l. 8. Deus absconditus. Is. xlv. 15. Vere tu es Deus absconditus, Deus Israel salvator.

P. 11. Notes for the General Introduction. The fragments following are thus arranged by Molinier as having been in his judgment intended for and many of them expanded in the preceding Preface.

P. 12, l. 23. Miton was a man of fashion at Paris, a friend of Pascal's friend, the Chevalier de Méré.

P. 17. Preface to the First Part. This is Pascal's own title to the section.

P. 17, l. 2. Charron, Pierre, was born at Paris in 1541. He was a friend of Montaigne, whose philosophy he adopted. His Traité de la Sagesse, Bordeaux, 1601, is the work of whose elaborate divisions Pascal complains.

P. 17, l. 12. Montaigne's defects. Mademoiselle de Gournay, Montaigne's adopted daughter, defends the Essayist in regard to this matter, in the preface to her edition of the Essays, Paris, 1595.

P. 17, l. 14. people without eyes. Montaigne, Essais, l. ii. ch. xii.

P. 17, l. 15. squaring the circle. Ib., l. ii. ch. xiv.

P. 17, l. 15. a greater world. Montaigne, Essais, l. ii. ch. xii.

P. 17, l. 16. on suicide and on death. Ib., l. i. ch. iii.

P. 17, l. 17. without fear and without repentance. Ib., l. iii. ch. ii.

P. 19. Man's Disproportion. Pascal's own title.

P. 19, l. 34. the centre of which is every where, the circumference no where. Voltaire attributed this famous saying to the pseudo-Timæus of Locris, an abridgement of Plato's Timæus, but in neither work is the whole sentence to be found. The saying, however, is not originally Pascal's. It is probably borrowed from Mlle. de Gournay's preface to her edition of Montaigne, Paris, 1635, and was taken by her from Rabelais, bk. iii. ch. 13, where it is attributed to Hermes Trismegistus. M. Havet, who gives these, and many more details, finally traces it, on the authority of Vincent de Beauvais, 1200-1264, to Empedocles.

P. 21, l. 36. I will discourse of the all. This saying of Democritus is taken by Pascal from Montaigne, Essais, l. ii. ch. xii.

P. 22, l. 4. De omni scibili. The title given to nine hundred propositions, put forth at Rome by Pico della Mirandola, then aged twenty-three, in 1486.

P. 22, l. 8. The Principles of Philosophy. Descartes wrote a work with this title, Principia Philosophiæ.

P. 22, l. 38. Beneficia eo usque lata sunt. Tacitus, Ann. lib. iv. c. xviii. Taken by Pascal from Montaigne, Essais, l. iii. ch. viii.

P. 24, l. 27. And what completes our inability. Compare for the whole of the passage on matter and spirit, Descartes, Discours de la Méthode.

P. 25, l. 34. Modus quo corporibus adhæret spiritus. S. Aug. De Civitate Dei, xxi. 10. Taken by Pascal from Montaigne, Essais, l. ii. ch. xii.

P. 26, l. 31. Lustravit lampade terras. The full couplet is

Tales sunt hominum mentes, quali pater ipse Jupiter auctiferas lustravit lampade terras.

S. Aug. De Civitate Dei, v. 8, a translation by Cicero of two lines in the Odyssey, xviii. 136. The quotation is borrowed from Montaigne, Essais, l. ii. ch. xii.

P. 27, l. 20. a fly is buzzing. Borrowed from Montaigne, Essais, l. iii. ch. xiii.

P. 27, l. 26. flies which win battles. Montaigne relates that the Portuguese besieging the town of Tamly were obliged to raise the siege on account of the clouds of flies. Essais, l. ii. ch. xii.

P. 28, l. 12. Memoria hospitis unius diei prætereuntis. Lib. Sap. v. 14.

P. 30, l. 4. Plerumque gratæ, altered from Hor. Carm. iii. 29, v. 13. plerumque gratæ divitibus vices.

P. 30, l. 13. Epaminondas. The example is taken from Montaigne, Essais, l. ii. ch. xxxvi.