ALTHOUGH the facts of PASCAL's life cannot but | light which guided him onward in mathematical

be very extensively known, it seems scarcely correet to send forth a fresh translation of his Thoughts to the world, without a brief memoir of that extraordinary genius.

BLAISE PASCAL was born at Clermont in Auvergne, 19th June, 1623. His father, Stephen Pascal, was first president of the Court of Aids, and had, by his wife, Antoinette Begon, three other children, a son who died in infancy, and two daughters: Gilberte, married to M. Perier, and Jacqueline, who took the veil, in the convent of Port Royal in the Fields, and died there of grief, arising from the persecutions under which that community suffered.

Stephen Pascal was a superior and well educated man, and possessed an extensive knowledge of the law, of mathematics, and natural philosophy; to which he added the advantages of noble birth, and of manners peculiarly simple. Till the year 1626, he shared with an amiable wife, during the intervals of public occupation, the duties of educating his family; but in that year she died, and he then devoted himself exclusively to this object. For this purpose he retired from office; and having continued a few years in the country, in the year 1631, brought his family to Paris, to complete their education.

The attention of Stephen Pascal was, of course, chiefly occupied with his son, who gave promise, at a very early age, of superior genius, and readily received the elementary principles of language, and of the sciences in general; but one of the ear liest features of those talents which were subsequently developed, was the eagerness, and the nice and accurate discernment with which, on all subjects, he sought for truth, and which would not allow him to feel satisfied till he had found it.

The circle of his father's acquaintance was of a superior order. He numbered among his friends, Mersenne, Roberval, Carcavi, Le Pailleur, &c. At their occasional meetings, for the discussion of scientific subjects, Blaise Pascal was sometimes allowed to be present, at which times he listened with great attention to what passed, and thus gradually formed the habit of scientific research. To trace effects up to their causes, was one of his chief pleasures; and it is stated, that at eleven years of age, having heard a plate give forth, on its being struck, a musical vibration, which ceased on its being touched again, he applied his mind to the subject which it presented to him, and at length produced a short treatise upon the nature of sounds.

His father, however, fearful that this evidently strong predilection for scientific pursuits would delay his progress in the attainment of classical learning, agreed with his friends that they should refrain from speaking on such topics in his presence; and this opposition to his evidently ruling tendency was, on principle, carried so far, that on his making an application to his father to be permitted to learn mathematics, the permission was positively withheld, till he should have mastered the Greek and Latin languages. in the mean time, he obtained no other information on the subject, but that geometry was a science which related to the extension of bodies-that it taught the mode of forming accurate figures, and pointed out the relations which existed between them. But beyond this general information, he was forbidden to inquire; and all books on the subject were positively forbidden to him.

This vague definition, however, was the ray of

study. It became the subject of continued thought. In his play hours, he would shut himself up in an empty room, and draw with chalk on the floor, triangles, parallelograms, and circles, without knowing their scientific names. He would compare these several figures, and would examine the relations that their several lines bore to each other; and in this way, he gradually arrived at the proof of the fact, that the sum of all the angles of a triangle is equal to two right angles, which is the thirty-second proposition of the first book of Euclid. The young geometer had just attained this point, when his father surprised him, deeply occupied in the prohibited study. But he was himself no less astonished than his son, when, on examining into the nature of his occupation, he ascertained the conclusion to which he had come; and on inquiring how he arrived at it, the child pointed out several other principles which he had previously ascertained, and at length stated the first principles which he had gathered for himself in the way of axioms and definitions.

To control, after this, such evident manifestations of superior mathematical genius, was quite out of the question. Every advantage was afforded to him, of which he eagerly availed himself. At twelve years of age, he read through the Elements of Euclid, without feeling the need of any explanation from teachers; and at sixteen, he composed a treatise on Conic Sections, which was considered to possess very extraordinary merit. He attained rapidly to a very high degree of knowledge and of celebrity as a mathematician; and before the age of nineteen, he invented the famous arithmetical machine which bears his name, and by which, through the instrumentality of a mechanical movement, somewhat similar to a watch, any numerical calculation might be performed. The main difficulty in arithmetic lies in finding the mode of arriving at the desired result. This must ever be a purely mental operation; but the object of this instrument was, that in all those numerical operations where the course to be pursued was fixed and certain, a mechanical process might relieve the mind from the monotonous and wearisome labor of the mere detail of calculation. Pascal's invention succeeded'; but it was found too cumbrous for general use.

About this time, Stephen Pascal was appointed the Intendant of Rouen, to which place he removed his family. He remained there seven years; and during that period, his son diligently pursued his studies, although it was quite evident that his severe application had already affected his health, and marked him with the symptoms of decline.

Here his ardent mind, which had been turned during his retirement to the study of Physics, occupied itself with one of the most striking phenomena of the natural world, and did not rest till he had elicited a satisfactory explanation of it. This phenomenon was that in a pump, in which the piston played at a distance of more than thirty-two fect above the reservoir that supplied it, the water rose to the height of thirty-two feet, and no farther. On this question, Galileo had been consulted; and the explanation of this fact which was offered by him was, that the water rose to a certain height in the pipe because nature abhorred a vacuum; but that the force by which she resisted a vacuum was limited, and that beyond a height of thirty-two feet, it ceased to act. This answer, however, was not even

then satisfactory; and within a short period of that its high requirements. He saw that it enjoined up time, Torricelli, the disciple of Galileo, ascertained, on men the necessity of living for God, and of mak by a series of experiments, that the cause of this ing Him the supreme object of their attention and ascent of the water in fountains and pumps, was love; and so strong was his conviction of this, that the pressure of the weight of the atmosphere upon he determined about that time to renounce the stuthe surface of the reservoir. At this juncture, how- dies to which, up to that period, he had so eagerly ever, Torricelli died; but Pascal, to whom the re-applied himself, and thenceforth, to devote the powsult of his experiments had been communicated by ers of his mind, to that subject of supreme interest, Mr. Mersenne, through Mr. Petit, the Intendant of which Jesus Christ has declared to be the one thing Fortifications at Rouen, having repeated the expe- needful. riments of Torricelli, verified their results, and It is evident that the resolution then formed, did completely refuted the popular notion of the abhor-materially influence M. Pascal's whole character rence of a vacuum. And in the year 1647, in a small tract dedicated to his father, he published the account of these experiments.

and habits, and that gradually he gave an increased attention to the subject of religion. Still there is reason to suppose, that the state of his inind underwent some material variations in this respect, and that, for several years, he was not altogether so entirely devoted to religious topics, nor so cordially separated from irreligious society, as he afterwards considered to be necessary. His residence at Paris, and his entrance into its society, with a view to recreation, tended, for a time, to dissipate in a degree his religious impressions, and to awaken a desire to return to the ways of that world, which he had professed to renounce, and to those pursuits and pleasures, the vanity and fruitlessness of which he had already confessed.

It does not however appear, that, at this time, he had arrived at a satisfactory solution of the phenomenon in question-he had done little more than ascertained, that it could not arise from the cause to which it had been attributed, according to the popular doctrine of the day, and that the notion of nature's abhorrence of a vacuum, had no foundation in fact. Pascal therefore followed out his inquiries most perseveringly; and in the year 1653, he wrote two pamplets, one on the equilibrium of fluids, and another on the weight of the atmosphere; in which, by a series of satisfactory experiments, he completely established that doctrine on the subject, It does not follow necessarily, that a man conwhich is now universally received. The most im- vinced of the truth, and feeling, in some degree, portant and original of these experiments were the power of religion, does at once, from the time those which showed that the rise of the water, or of that conviction, give himself unreservedly and the mercury in the tube, varied in proportion to the entirely to the duties and the pleasures of a religious height above the level of the sea, of the place where life. Experience shows that there is a wide differthe experiment was tried. Many attempts have ence between the most satisfactory conviction of the been made to rob Pascal of the merit of these dis-understanding in favor of such a course, and the coveries, but they have altogether failed. It was, effectual and habitual control of the strong passions however, to be regretted, that the two latter tracts of the heart, so as to accomplish it; and too frewere not printed till 1663, the year following his quently it is found, that even after an individual death. has really seen and loved the religion of the Bible, At the time, however, when M. Pascal issued his and made the path which it points out the object of first tract on this subject, his health had manifestly his decided preference-the temptation to recur to given way before the severity of his studies; and the thoughtless and irreligious, but fascinating and at the close of the year 1647, he had an attack of seductive habits of the majority, again acquires fresh paralysis, which deprived him, in a great measure, force; and though he may not be led aside suffiof the use of his limbs. He returned to Paris, and ciently to allow his religious inconsistency to be resided there with his father and sister, and, for seen, and reproved by less devoted men, yet he desome time, relaxed from study, and took several clines so far, as to exhibit to himself in a stronger journeys by way of recreation. But in the year light his own weakness, and to induce him to seek, 1651, he lost his father; and in 1653, his sister Jac-when convinced of the need of recovery, for greatqueline, in the fulfilment of a wish which she had long cherished, joined the sisterhood of Port Royal; and being thus left alone at Paris, for his other sister and M. Perier then resided at Clermont, he returned without restraint to those habits of severe and excessive study which must, in a short time, had they not been interrupted, have brought him to the grave. But his friends interfered, and their advice, seconded by the severity of his bodily afflictions, constrained him for a time to lay aside his studies, and to mingle more than he had done with general society. Here he gradually regained his spirits, acquired a fresh relish for the fascinations of life, and began even to think of marriage. But an event which occurred about this time, and which we shall have occasion afterwards to mention, dissipated all these thoughts, and gave an entirely new color to his whole life, and tended especially to induce him to consecrate his splendid talents to the noblest of all employments-the service of God.

er assurance, and more palpable assistance in the grace of the gospel of Christ.

This appears to have been the case with Pascal, during his residence in Paris. His sister, Jacqueline, witnessed with regret, on his occasional visits to her, at Port Royal, the deteriorating effect of the promiscuous society with which he associated; and she remonstrated faithfully and earnestly with him on the necessity of greater decision, and the need of a more real and marked separation from those who lived only for this present world.

The mind of Pascal, however, notwithstanding these minor aberrations, had taken a decidedly religious turn; and the power of Scriptural truth gradually gained a permanent influence over his heart, and gave a color to all his pursuits. His attention was drawn off from matters of merely sublunary importance, and fixed on the phenomena of the moral world, and the principles of that book which unveils to us the glories, and imparts the hope of an eternal existence; and this change gradually exhibited itself with greater distinctness. The first public incident of his life which indi

There is reason to suppose, that the paralytic attack that Pascal experienced in the year 1647, first led him to the serious consideration of the subjectcated this change, was of a controversial and schoof religion. He read, at that time, some few devotional books, and the effect which they produced upon his mind, was a clear conviction of the truth of the Christian religion, and of the propriety of

lastic nature. During his residence at Rouen, he attended a series of lectures on philosophy, in which the lecturer took occasion to advance some positions which tended to call in question the decisions

of the church, and which led him to infer that the body of Jesus Christ was not formed of the blood of the Virgin Mary. M. Pascal addressed himself boldly to the suppression of this heresy. He first remonstrated with the lecturer. but finding this useless, he denounced him to the Bishop of Rouen; and being foiled there by an equívocal confession, he carried the matter before the Archbishop, by whom the philosopher was compelled publicly to renounce the dangerous notions which he had advanced; and the whole of this process was conducted with so much temper, that the defeated philosopher never retained the least acrimonious feeling against his youthful antagonist. That Pascal should apply his extraordinary powers to combat and to give importance to such subtleties, is to be attributed to the genius of the times. In those days the grand and simple truths of revelation were much lost sight of, and theological knowledge and religious zeal, were shown in those metaphysical speculations, and those ready powers of logical discussion, which may gratify the pride of the understanding, but do not mend the heart.

general visiting, and retiring altogether from merely scientific society, retained only the connection which he had formed with a few religious friends, of superior intellectual attainments and devotional habits. In order to accomplish this the more effectually, he changed his residence, and lived for some time in the country.

He was now about thirty years of age; and it was at this time that he established that mode of life in which he persevered to the last. He gave up all search for earthly pleasure, and the use of all indulgences and superfluities. He dispensed as far as possible with the service of domestics. He made his own bed, and carried his own dinner to his apartment. Some persons may be disposed to consider this as a needless and ascetic peculiarity. Nor is it attempted here to justify the stress which he laid upon these minor and comparatively unimportant matters; but be that as it may, every one must admire the elevated piety with which these peculiar notions were associated, and the principle on which these acts of self-denial were performed. Prayer, and the study of the Scriptures became the business of his life, in which he found inexpressible delight. He used to say, that the Holy Scriptures were no a science of the understanding, so much as of the heart; and that they were a science, intelligible only to bim whose heart was in a right moral state, whilst to all others they were veiled in obscurity. To this sacred study, therefore, Pascal gave himself, with the ardor of entire devotion; and his suc

Pascal was not, however, to be kept down by the trammels of the schools, and the semi-barbarous theology of the day. He read and thought for himself. It was impossible for a mind like his to do otherwise; and such was the practical influence of his religious studies on his character, that it was felt and acknowledged by all around him. Even his father, previously to his death, did not hesitate to learn at the feet of his son, and gradually reform-cess in this line of study, was as eminent as it had ed his own manner of life, and became more devoted to the subject of religion; and abounding in his later days in Christian virtues, at length died a truly Christian death.

been in matters of general science. His knowledge of the Scriptures, and his facility in quoting them, became very great. It was quite remarkable in that day. His increasing love for the truth of religion, led him also to exercise readily all the powers of his mind, both by his pen, and by his very great conversational powers, in recommending religion to others, and in demolishing whatever appeared likely to oppose its progress, or to veil and to deform its truth. An opportunity of the very first importance shortly afterwards occurred, which called forth the exercise of his splendid talents and extensive knowledge in that way which he most especially desired.

The circumstance, however, which seemed in the providence of God most effectually to influence M. Pascal's mind in favor of religion-to dissipate all remaining attachment to this world, and to give the especial character to his remaining years, was an accident which happened to him in October, 1654. He was taking his usual drive in a coach and four, when, as they passed the bridge of Neuilly, the leaders became unmanageable at a point of the bridge where there was no parapet, and they were precipitated into the Seine. Happily the traces The sincere religion of M. Pascal, together with broke suddenly by the weight of the horses, and the the connection of his family with the religious recarriage remained safely at the very verge of the cluses of the Monastery of Port Royal, had gatherbridge. Pascal's valuable life was preserved; but ed round him as his friends, many of the illustrious the shock which his frail and languishing frame scholars and Christians who were associated tosustained was very great. He fainted, and remain-gether in that retirement. About the time when ed for a long time in a state of insensibility; and Pascal's mind had been led to the formation of his the permanent nervous impression which this alarm religious principles, and to the more serious adopproduced was so strong, that frequently afterwards, tion of his religious habits, the Monastery of Port in moments of peculiar weakness, or during a Royal had risen into importance and notoriety, sleepless night, he fancied that there was a preci- which were increased by the difficulties with which pice close to the side of his bed, into which he fear-it had to contend. Under the superintendence of ed that he should fall.

It was after this event that Pascal's religious impressions regained that strength, which they had in a degree lost. His natural amiability of temperhis ready flow of wit-the fascinations of the best circles of Parisian society, and the insidious influence of well applied flattery, had, previously to this accident, succeeded in cooling, in some measure, the ardor of his piety, and had given him somewhat more of the air of a man, whose hopes and whose treasures were to be found within the limits of this transitory and imperfect existence. But this providential deliverance from sudden death, led to a very decided and permanent change of character. He regarded it as a message from heaven, which called on him to renounce all secular occupations, and to devote the remainder of his life exclusively to God. From that time, he bade adieu to the world. He entirely gave up his habits of

Angelique Arnauld, sister of M. Arnauld, the celebrated doctor of the Sorbonne, the society of female recluses there, had undergone a very extensive and thorough reform; and many young persons of superior rank and exalted piety had gathered round this renowned leader, and risen under her instructions, and the pastoral guidance of a few excellent men of similar sentiments, the male recluses of the same society, to still loftier attainments in the love of God, and in conformity to his revealed will.

At the same time also, many men of the first ta lents and acquirements, disgusted with the world, with the fruitlessness of its service, and the falsehood of its promises, and sick of the heartless and dissipated state of society around them, came to dwell together in a retired mansion in the same neighborhood, and to seek in the solitude of the wilderness, that peace which the world cannot give. Among these were two brothers of the Mere An

gelique, her nephews Le Maitre and De Sacy, Ni- | at that time, was almost uncontrolled, should becole, Lancelot, Hermant, and others. Here they hold, with bitter malice, the growing influence and devoted themselves to the instruction of youth, both success of a few retired pietists, who now threatenin literature and science, and in religion, and their | ed to invade their chartered rights, and by the simseminaries soon rose into importance. From this ple principles of Scriptural truth, to divide, if not little society of recluses, issued forth many element- to annihilate their power. ary works of learning and science, which became the standard works of the day; and such was their progress and the celebrity of the Port Royal schools, and the Port Royal grammars, and other treatises, that they seriously threatened the Jesuits with ejection from that high station which they had long almost exclusively held as the instructors and spiritual guides and governors of all the young people of condition throughout France.

that church were fully prepared by the corrupt | that the kingdom of Christ is not of this world, ano bias of the irreligious mind, to act in direct opposi- that the reward of the true servants of God is retion to dogmas which the church itself had recog- served for another. nized. To those who have not looked closely into ecclesiastical history, this may seem extraordinary. | But the fact is not uncommon. And the present state of religion, both in the English and Scottish Establishments, exhibits a case of a similar kind; the larger portion of the clergy in both churches holding doctrines decidedly opposed to the dogmatical statements of their standard documents, and in the strength of their majority, denouncing, as heretical, those members of the church whose opinions precisely and literally accord with their Articles and Confessions.

The Jesuits, therefore, relying on the preferences and strong prejudices of the great body of the priesthood, boldly assailed the writings of Jansenius, and the opinions of the Port Royalists; and a long and tedious controversy arose, in which M. Arnauld and several other members of the society of Port Royal abundantly distinguished themselves; but which did not appear at all likely to draw to a close, except as it threatened the Port Royalists with ruin, when Pascal was induced to take up his pen in defence of his persecuted friends, and of those scriptural truths to which he was sincerely attached. In the year 1656, M. Pascal published the first of his twenty celebrated letters, on the subject of the morality of the Jesuits, and which have been improperly called "The Provincial Letters." They were published first under the title, "Letters written by Louis de Montalte to a Provincial, and to the Reverend the Fathers of the Jesuits, on their moral and political principles;" and from this they acquired the erroneous title by which they are universally known. Of the merit of these letters, nothing need be said here. They are known to every one. Even Voltaire has said of them, that "Moliere's best comedies are not so pungent in their wit as the earlier letters; and that Bossuet has nothing more sublime than the latter." They are now regarded as the first book which purified and fixed the French language. The effect of them was wonderful. The whole edifice of the reputation of the society fell before the power of Pascal's genius. The boldest casuists fled from the two edged sword of his manly and honest sarcasm. An universal clamor rose against them. They were on every side regarded as the corrupters of morals; and after having, in one or two pamphlets, most unwisely and vainly endeavored to justify the system of casuistry which Pascal had exposed, they were compelled for a time to shrink before the scourge with which he had chastised them, and to bear in silence the general indignation of the more virtuous portion of society, which he had effectually roused against their er

rors..

The contest of M. Pascal with the Jesuits continued for about three years, during which time, he was very much occupied. To expose their errors required a very diligent study of their voluminous and useless writings; and though, in this respect, Pascal was much indebted to the labors of Arnauld and Nicole, yet much application on his own part was absolutely necessary. He says, "I have been asked if I had read all the books which I have quoted? I answer, No. To do this, I must have spent a large portion of my life in reading very bad books. But I have twice read the works of Escobar through; the others, my friends read for me. But I have never made use of a single passage, without having read it in the book from which I quoted, and without having studied the ground on which it was brought forward, and examined the context both before and after, that I might not run the risk of citing that as an averment, which was brought forward as an objection."

Application so close, could not but materially affect a constitution already seriously enfeebled by disease; and the evils which were gathering, were doubtless aggravated by the severe mode of life to which he rigidly adhered. His food was of the plainest kind. His apartment cleared of every thing like luxury, or even comfort; and in order to check the risings of vanity, or any other evil suggestion, he wore beneath his clothes a girdle of iron, with sharp points affixed to it, the inconvenience of which must have been at all times great; but whenever he found his mind wandering from the one great subject, or taking delight in the things around him, he struck this girdle with his elbow, and forced the sharp points of the iron more deeply into his side. This fact cannot be recorded with approbation. It is one of the strong evidences of the evil occasioned by the false doctrines of the Church of Rome, that even a genius so elevated and liberal as that of Pascal, could not altogether free itself from the errors of education. What a far more effectual principle of reform is the love of Christ! All the bodily suffering which we can inflict upon ourselves, will not be sufficient alone to inspire one holy, or restrain one unholy thought; but a faithful, affectionate lifting up of the soul to the God of all grace, is blessed by Divine appointment as the means of victory over temptation; and they who have sincerely tried this "more excellent way," have realized its success. They know what is the liberty wherewith Christ has made them free.

But though Christians, in a day of clearer ligh and richer privilege can discern the error into which Pascal had been led, and can mourn over the bondage in which he was still retained, yet they who know the difficulty of a sincere and uncompromising service of God, will look with reverence at these evidences of a serious devotion to the cause of holiness, and admire the resolute self-denial which dictated and endured such extraordinary sufferings. It is surely not becoming in the careless, sensual professor of the Christian faith, who in any degree makes his liberty a cloak for licentiousness, to look with contempt on these striking proofs, that Pascal hated vain thoughts, more than he loved his own flesh. It has been well said, that " a poor mistaken Papist, wounded by a girdle, or bleeding under a scourge, with a broken and a contrite heart, is nearer to the kingdom of God, than a proud, insolent, intolerant professor of religion, who, with a less exceptionable creed, is lamentably deficient in the graces of humility, self-denial, and charity." Hap No serious attempt was made to answer the Pro-py will that man be, who, if he is working upon vincial Letters for forty years.

Enmity, however, such as theirs did not languish, because for a time, it was repressed. Though the multitude had now seen and abhorred the immoral principles of the Jesuits, they had not the means to overthrow their power. These were men who could resolutely and pertinaciously maintain their position after their character was gone. Their channels to influence over men of power, were too effectually occupied for any one to shake their dominion over the court and the government; and in the mysterious providence of God, a few years gave to this intriguing society a complete and bitter revenge. The history of the persecution, dispersion, and ruin of the saints of Port Royal, is perhaps one of the most interesting points in the annals of the Christian church. It does most powerfully establish the truth,

sound principles, and has renounced the notion of