Blaise Pascal
(1623-1662)
Mathematician, physicist, and theologian, inventor of the first digital calculator, who is often thought of as the ideal of classic French prose. Pascal lived in the time when Copernicus' discovery - that the earth moves round the sun - had made human beings insignificant factors in the new disenchanted world. Facing the immensity of the universe, Pascal felt horror - "The eternal silence of these infinite spaces terrifies me." For him the world seemed empty of ultimate meaning or significance without Christianity, which he defended against the assaults of freethinkers. While Montaigne lived at ease with skepticism, Pascal was tormented by religious doubt, and took the question Why are we here? with the utmost seriousness, revealing his thoughts in his most famous book, the posthumous PENSÉES.
"Pascal's disillusioned analysis of human bondage is sometimes interpreted to mean that Pascal was really and finally an unbeliever, who, in his despair, was incapable of enduring reality and enjoying the heroic satisfaction of the free man's worship of nothing. His despair, his disillusion, are, however, no illustration of personal weakness; they are perfectly objective, because they are essential moments in the progress of the intellectual soul; and for the type of Pascal they are the analogue of the drought, the dark night, which is an essential stage in the progress of the Christian mystic." (T.S. Eliot in Selected Essays, 1960)
Blaise Pascal was born in Clermont-Ferrand, Auvergne (now Clermont-Ferrand). A sickly, precocious child, he grew up without the company of other children. He studied privately, tutored mostly by his father, Etienne, who was a scientist and a government official. In 1631 the family moved to Paris and in 1640 then to Rouen. When his father died, he was able to leave a sufficient patrimony to his son and his two daughters.
From an early age Pascal showed an inclination toward mathematics. He wrote at the age of 16 a highly appreciated treatise ESSAY POUR LES CONIGUES. Together with Pierre de Fermat, Pascal invented the calculus of probabilities and laid the foundations for Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz's infinitesimal calculus. In 1647 Pascal invented a calculating machine - becoming one of the fathers of the Computer Age - and later the barometer, the hydraulic press, and the syringe.
In 1646 Pascal converted to Jansenism, the Catholic sect rivaling the Jesuits who had the support of the King, Louis XIV. Pascal's sister, Jaqueline, entered the Jansenist convent of Port-Royal in south-west Paris and became one of the most passionate advocates of the sect. The Jansenists, who were never officially accepted by the Catholic Church, were named after Cornelius Jansenius (1587-1638), a Flemish theologian. The Jansenists argued that since the Fall in the Garden of Eden, all humankind has been corrupted by sin. Their objection to the Jesuits stemmed from what they saw as the over-reliance of the Jesuits on human free will, to the detriment of divine grace. Jansenius, in his book Augustinus, stated that the salvation of the individual man must be achieved by a combination of his own effort and the free-will to exercise his natural ability together with supernatural grace.
Pascal returned to Paris in 1647 on his father's second retirement. Until 1654 Pascal devoted himself to mathematics and scientific studies. After a mystical experience on November 23-24, 1654, he had a second conversion, and defended Jansenism against the Jesuits in LETTRES PROVINCIALES (Provincial Letters). From 1655 he made occasional retreats to the Jansenist community at Port-Royal des Champs. From 1660 to 1662 Pascal worked on a public transportation system for Paris. He died in Paris on August 19, 1662, as a result of what is believed to have been a painful stomach ulcer. Memorial, his document of faith, was found sewn in his clothing on his death.
Pascal examined the problems of human existence from both psychological and theological points of view. "The heart has its reasons which reason knows nothing of," he once wrote. Against the immensity of the universe he measured the fate of human beings - "Man is but a reed, the weakest thing in nature; but he is a thinking reed." For Jansenists his work came at the right time: they needed an outsider to defend their cause. The Letters, written with freshness and spontaneity, was ideal for that purpose. According to the famous "Pascal´s wager", sane and prudent persons must bet their lives on Roman Catholicism. If they do, and it turns out to be true, then they have won an eternity of bliss. And if it turns out to be false, and death is after all annihilation, what has been lost? But of course there is a weakness in this beautiful reasoning - Roman Catholicism is not the only religion; there is an actual infinity of other possible universal truths.
Experimenting with the vacuum, Pascal published in 1663 his study TRAITÉ DE LA PESANTEUR DE LA MASSE DE L'AIR, where he argued that "experiments are the true teachers which one must follow in physics." This principle of empiricism put Pascal into conflict with René Descartes, his contemporary, whose starting point was human reason. "Those who are accustomed to judge by feeling," Pascal said, "do not understand the process of reasoning, for they would understand at first sight and are not used to seek for principles. And others, on the contrary, who are accustomed to reason from principles, do not at all understand matters of feeling, seeking principles and being unable to see at a glance." But Pascal's belief in God was based on personal religious experience - he saw that reason cannot decide the question of God's existence, but he could appeal to it. In Pensées Pascal wrote: "Men despise religion. They hate it and are afraid it may be true. The cure for this is first to show that religion is not contrary to reason, but worthy of reverence and respect. Next make it attractive, make good men wish it were true, and then show that it is."
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