Pascal: Pensées

PASCAL: PENSÉES Blaise Pascal

Translated by W. F. Trotter. Date: 1670; translation 1910. Public domain. Source: https://www.ccel.org/ccel/pascal/pensees

Title: Pensées Creator(s): Pascal, Blaise (1623-1662) Trotter, W.F. (Translator) Rights: Public Domain CCEL Subjects: All; Theology; Classic LC Call no: B1901 .P4 1944 LC Subjects:

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Pensées

by Blaise Pascal

1660

translated by W. F. Trotter

Pensées

Section I: Thoughts on Mind and on Style

1. The difference between the mathematical and the intuitive mind.--In the one, the principles are palpable, but removed from ordinary use; so that for want of habit it is difficult to turn one's mind in that direction: but if one turns it thither ever so little, one sees the principles fully, and one must have a quite inaccurate mind who reasons wrongly from principles so plain that it is almost impossible they should escape notice.

But in the intuitive mind the principles are found in common use and are before the eyes of everybody. One has only to look, and no effort is necessary; it is only a question of good eyesight, but it must be good, for the principles are so subtle and so numerous that it is almost impossible but that some escape notice. Now the omission of one principle leads to error; thus one must have very clear sight to see all the principles and, in the next place, an accurate mind not to draw false deductions from known principles.

All mathematicians would then be intuitive if they had clear sight, for they do not reason incorrectly from principles known to them; and intuitive minds would be mathematical if they could turn their eyes to the principles of mathematics to which they are unused.

The reason, therefore, that some intuitive minds are not mathematical is that they cannot at all turn their attention to the principles of mathematics. But the reason that mathematicians are not intuitive is that they do not see what is before them, and that, accustomed to the exact and plain principles of mathematics, and not reasoning till they have well inspected and arranged their principles, they are lost in matters of intuition where the principles do not allow of such arrangement. They are scarcely seen; they are felt rather than seen; there is the greatest difficulty in making them felt by those who do not of themselves perceive them. These principles are so…