A Study On Pascal

There Are Few Names Which Have Become More Classical In Modern Literature Than That Of Blaise Pascal. There Is Hardly Any Name More Famous At Once In Literature Science And Religion. Cut Off At The Early Age Of Thirty-Nine—The Fatal Age Of Genius—He Had Long Before Attained Pre-Eminent Distinction As A Geometer And Discoverer In Physical Science; While The Rumor Of His Genius As The Author Of The Provincial Letters And As One Of The Chiefs Of A Notable School Of Religious Thought Had Spread Far And Wide. His Writings Continue To Be Studied For The Perfection Of Their Style And The Vitality Of Their Substance. As A Writer He Belongs To No School And Is Admired Simply For His Greatness By Encyclopedist And Romanticist By Catholic And Protestant Alike—By Men Like Voltaire And Condorcet And Sainte-Beuve No Less Than By Men Like Bossuet Vinet And Neander. His Pensées Have Been Carefully Restored And Re-Edited With Minute And Loving Faithfulness In Our Time By Editors Of Such Opposite Tastes And Tendencies As M. Prosper Faugère M. Havet And M. Victor Rochet. Cousin Considered It One Of The Glories Of His Long Intellectual Career That He Had First Led The Way To The Remarkable Restoration Of Pascal’S Remains. Of All The Illustrious Names Which Group Themselves Around Port Royal It Is Pascal Alone And Racine—Who Was More Its Pupil But Less Its Representative—Whose Genius Can Be Said To Survive And To Invest It With An Undying Lustre.Pascal’S Early Death The Reserve Of His Friends Under The Assaults Which The Provincial Letters Provoked And His Very Fame As A Writer Have Served In Some Degree To Obscure His Personality. To Many A Modern Reader He Is Little Else Than A Great Name. The Man Is Hidden Away Behind The Author Of The Pensées Or The Defender Of Port Royal. Some Might Even Say That His Writings Are Now More Admired Than Studied. They Have Been So Long The Subject Of Eulogy That Their Classical Character Is Taken For Granted And The Reader Of The Present Day Is Content To Look At Them From A Respectful Distance Rather Than Spontaneously Study Them For Himself. There May Be Some Truth In This View. Pascal Is Certainly Like Many Other Great Writers Far More Widely Known Than He Is Understood Or Appreciated. The Old Which Are Still The Common Editions Of The Pensées Have Also Given A Certain Commonplace To His Reputation. It Were Certainly A Worthy Task To Set Him More Clearly Before Our Age Both As A Man And As A Writer.From Pascal By John Tulloch (1878)