Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1846, BY ALLEN, MORRILL AND WARDWELL, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of Massachusetts. ADVERTISEMENT. IN the present edition of Pascal's Thoughts, the translation of the Rev. Edward Craig, published in England in 1825, has been carefully compared with the original, and such amendments have been made, as a strict adherence to the sense, and, as far as possible, to the expression of the author, seemed to require. A translation of the first three chapters, which are omitted by Mr. Craig, is here given, and also of some other passages by him excluded. This edition, therefore, contains the Thoughts of Pascal entire, and it is, so far as has been ascertained, the only one which comprises a translation of the whole of Pascal's published Thoughts. The difficulties attending the translation, must be sufficiently obvious to any one, who shall examine the account of the manner in which the Thoughts were written, as given in the preface. In many instances, they are imperfectly expressed and somewhat obscure, and in such passages, if the translation is not intelligible, the fault, it is believed, may be charged to the original. Throughout the whole, the aim has been, not to elucidate or complete the thought, but to give it just as it fell from the pen of the author. The Biographical Sketch and the Preface to the Thoughts, are compiled from Bossut's "Notice of the Life and Works of Pascal;" "The Life of Pascal" by his sister, Madame Perier; Craig's "Memoir of Blaise Pascal;" and a recent article upon Pascal in the North American Review. The object is, to give, in a condensed form, the most important particulars relating to the life and works of this remarkable man. Andover, Nov. 25, 1845. |