Pascal's Pensees Part 24
341
The account of the pike and frog of Liancourt.[128] They do it always, and never otherwise, nor any other thing showing mind.
342
If an animal did by mind what it does by instinct, and if it spoke by mind what it speaks by instinct, in hunting, and in warning its mates that the prey is found or lost; it would indeed also speak in regard to those things which affect it closer, as example, "Gnaw me this cord which is wounding me, and which I cannot reach."
343
The beak of the parrot, which it wipes, although it is clean.
344
Instinct and reason, marks of two natures.
345
Reason commands us far more imperiously than a master; for in disobeying the one we are unfortunate, and in disobeying the other we are fools.
346
Thought const.i.tutes the greatness of man.
347
Man is but a reed, the most feeble thing in nature; but he is a thinking reed. The entire universe need not arm itself to crush him. A vapour, a drop of water suffices to kill him. But, if the universe were to crush him, man would still be more n.o.ble than that which killed him, because he knows that he dies and the advantage which the universe has over him; the universe knows nothing of this.
All our dignity consists, then, in thought. By it we must elevate ourselves, and not by s.p.a.ce and time which we cannot fill. Let us endeavour, then, to think well; this is the principle of morality.
348
_A thinking reed._--It is not from s.p.a.ce that I must seek my dignity, but from the government of my thought. I shall have no more if I possess worlds. By s.p.a.ce the universe encompa.s.ses and swallows me up like an atom; by thought I comprehend the world.
349
_Immateriality of the soul._--Philosophers[129] who have mastered their pa.s.sions. What matter could do that?
350
_The Stoics._--They conclude that what has been done once can be done always, and that since the desire of glory imparts some power to those whom it possesses, others can do likewise. There are feverish movements which health cannot imitate.
Epictetus[130] concludes that since there are consistent Christians, every man can easily be so.
351
Those great spiritual efforts, which the soul sometimes a.s.says, are things on which it does not lay hold.[131] It only leaps to them, not as upon a throne, for ever, but merely for an instant.
352
The strength of a man's virtue must not be measured by his efforts, but by his ordinary life.
353
I do not admire the excess of a virtue as of valour, except I see at the same time the excess of the opposite virtue, as in Epaminondas,[132] who had the greatest valour and the greatest kindness. For otherwise it is not to rise, it is to fall. We do not display greatness by going to one extreme, but in touching both at once, and filling all the intervening s.p.a.ce. But perhaps this is only a sudden movement of the soul from one to the other extreme, and in fact it is ever at one point only, as in the case of a firebrand. Be it so, but at least this indicates agility if not expanse of soul.
354
Man's nature is not always to advance; it has its advances and retreats.
Fever has its cold and hot fits; and the cold proves as well as the hot the greatness of the fire of fever.
The discoveries of men from age to age turn out the same. The kindness and the malice of the world in general are the same. _Plerumque gratae principibus vices._[133]
355
Continuous eloquence wearies.
Princes and kings sometimes play. They are not always on their thrones.
They weary there. Grandeur must be abandoned to be appreciated.
Continuity in everything is unpleasant. Cold is agreeable, that we may get warm.
Nature acts by progress, _itus et reditus_. It goes and returns, then advances further, then twice as much backwards, then more forward than ever, etc.
The tide of the sea behaves in the same manner; and so apparently does the sun in its course.
356
The nourishment of the body is little by little. Fullness of nourishment and smallness of substance.
357
When we would pursue virtues to their extremes on either side, vices present themselves, which insinuate themselves insensibly there, in their insensible journey towards the infinitely little: and vices present themselves in a crowd towards the infinitely great, so that we lose ourselves in them, and no longer see virtues. We find fault with perfection itself.