Part 92

P. 110, l. 28. Ex senatus consultis. Seneca, Ep. xcv., sec. 30.

P. 110, l. 29. Nihil tam absurde. Cic. De Divia. ii. 58.

P. 110, l. 32. Ut omnium rerum. Seneca, Ep. cvi. But the real reading is Quemadmodum--omnium rerum.

P. 110, l. 34. Id maxime. Cic. De Off. i. 31.

P. 110, l. 35. Hos natura modos. Virg. Georg. ii. 20.

P. 111, l. 4. Mihi sic usus est. Ter. Hea. i. 1, 28.

P. 111, l. 6. falsity of their dilemma in Montaigne. Essais, l. ii. ch. xii. "Si l'âme est mortelle, il est absurde de craindre la mort, si elle est immortelle elle ne peut aller qu'en s'ameliorant."

P. 112, l. 11. Felix qui potuit. Virg. Georg. ii. l. 489.

P. 112, l. 13. nihil mirari. Hor. Epist. 1, vi. l. 1. The whole passage is,

Nil admirari prope res est una, Numici, Solaque, quæ possit facere et servare beatum.

P. 113, l. 15. two sects. Epicureans and Stoics.

P. 113, l. 17. Des Barreaux. Jacques Desbarreaux was an Epicurean poet born at Paris in 1602, died in 1673, who in his poems paraded his unbelief. Curiously enough, his only extant verses were written when he lay ill, and are addressed to God.

P. 113, l. 28. Epictetus concludes. Encheiridion, iv. 7.

P. 113, l. 30. three sects. Pascal no doubt refers the libido sentiendi to the Epicureans, the libido dominandi to the Stoics, and the libido sciendi to the dogmatic schools of Plato and Aristotle, of which Cicero always speaks as though they taught one and the same philosophy.

P. 114, l. 3. two inches under water, are equally drowned with those who are at the bottom.

P. 115. The fragments collected in this chapter are here placed by Molinier according to the plan which Pascal had traced out for his work, in which after he had laid the various philosophical systems before his supposed unbeliever, he brought forward for examination the other religions.

P. 115, l. 20. forbade men to read it. It is not known whence Pascal obtained this statement, which is a complete mistake.

P. 116, l. 15. Jesus Christ wills that his testimony to himself should be of no avail. John v. 31. "If I bear witness of myself, my witness is not true."

P. 116, l. 30. The Koran says that Saint Matthew. The Koran does not name Saint Matthew, but says in general terms that Mahomet regarded the apostles of Jesus as holy.

P. 117, l. 27. whose witnesses let themselves be slaughtered. After this Pascal had written, but erased the words "which of the two is most to be blamed, Moses or China?" and these aid us in the explanation of this enigmatic passage. The Jesuits had established themselves in China at the end of the sixteenth century, and when Pascal wrote their missions were in a flourishing state. They had studied the language, history, and literature of China. But the difficulty presented itself of reconciling the cosmogony and chronology of the Bible with those of the Chinese sages. It is probable that this passage was inspired by a private conversation with some one who had read letters from a missionary, for no book on the subject appears to have existed in Pascal's day.

P. 118, l. 4. The five suns, etc. Montaigne, from whom this is taken, Essais, l. iii. ch. iv., probably borrowed it from some Spanish book now forgotten.

P. 119. Of the Jewish People. This position in his intended treatise, before the sections on the Sacred Books and on Prophecy, is that which Pascal himself designed for his remarks on the Jews.

P. 123, l. 5. The Masorah. The unwritten tradition of the Jews.

P. 126, l. 9. Quis mihi det. Num. xi. 29. The true reading is, Quis tribuat ut omnis populus prophetet.

P. 126, l. 17. If the story in Esdras is credible. In the 14th Chapter of the Second Book of Esdras God appears to Esdras in a bush, and orders him to assemble the people and deliver the message. Esdras replies, "I will go as thou hast commanded me, and reprove the people which are present, but they that shall be born afterward who shall admonish them?... For thy law is burnt, therefore no man knoweth the things that are done of thee, or the works that shall begin. But if I have found grace before thee, send the Holy Ghost into me, and I shall write all that hath been done in the world since the beginning." ... Then God ordered him to take five scribes, to whom for forty days he dictated the ancient law.

The authenticity of this story, coming into conflict as it does with many passages of the prophets, and specially with Jeremiah, appeared open to such grave doubts, that at the Council of Trent the last book of Esdras, called in the Catholic Church, Esdras IV., by Protestants Esdras II., was then rejected from the Canon.

P. 126, l. 27. Jeremiah gave them the law. See 2 Maccabees, ch. xi.

P. 128, l. 31. Qui justus est justificetur adhuc. Apocal. xvii. 4.