Pascal's Anti- Augustinianism

Vincent Carraud Université de Caen

I analyze the complex relations between Pascal and the three ªgures of Montaigne, Descartes, and St. Augustine, and the relations the ªrst two ªg- ures bear to St. Augustine. For Pascal’s philosophy, one is in effect a resource (Montaigne), another a way of thinking that he makes his own (Descartes), and yet another serves as a model (St. Augustine). I further investigate Pas- cal’s anti-Augustinism, that is, some of the points of resistance in Pascal against the thought of St. Augustine. Central to this investigation is the famous rapprochement between the cogitos of Augustine and Descartes, which requires a consideration of what, for Pascal, it means “to say the same thing.” This analysis leads us to two conclusions: ªrst, Augustine’s The City of God should be placed among the number of works that Pascal did not read; second, there are fundamental philosophical reasons for Pascal to reject certain theses central to that work. Above all, there should no longer be any need to assume a merely abstract conception of an unproblematic Augustin- ianism in Pascal. Montaigne, Descartes and St. Augustine do not have the same status in the composition of Pascal’s thought. Montaigne’s presence is nearly con- stant: he is cited, paraphrased, glossed, discussed, and criticized. The Es- says, especially the Apology of Raymond Sebond, abound throughout Pascal’s texts. The Essays are a frequent resource for Pascal—a resource in the sense that they are the fund, the soil of the Pensées. Next to this fund continu- ously extracted from Montaigne, Descartes is fundamental. Cartesian philosophy1 constitutes the foundation of Pascal’s thought, by which I In memory of Geneviève Rodis-Lewis, author of Augustinisme et cartésianisme, an inovative study that appeared in Paris just over 50 years ago at the end of September 1945. Translated by Nathan D. Smith. 1. In a sense, what follows could also provide a connection between natural philosophy

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mean: Pascal is a Cartesian—even the ªrst Cartesian. He thinks as a Carte- sian, and it is on the basis of this Cartesian foundation, always reinter- preted, that is, rethought, that a precise and decisive anti-Cartesianism of certain of his theses could arise and develop. Thus, the Pascalian interpre- tation of Descartes is able to create a space for what I have recently called a “conceptual subversion.”2 On the other hand, the presence of St. Augus- tine in the Pensées is neither fund nor foundation. Pascal had not been nourished by the thought of Augustine as essentially as by that of Montaigne or Descartes, neither in the years in which he was principally establishing his scientiªc works, nor even at the time when he wanted to demonstrate the failure of philosophy and clear the way to true religion, nor a fortiori when he discovered an original anthropology and became the thinker of human existence. De Vera Religione undeniably constituted, at least for a time, the model of his apologetical project3 and the renewal of a thoroughly Augustinian opposition between miseria and dignitas4 to which Pascal had wanted to give back its relevance. This would entail that it take an Augustinian focus and frame, but nothing more. Pascal did not seek the same degree of textual resources in Augustine, and he never thought as an Augustinian. The Conversations with Monsieur de Saci should be sufªcient to convince us of that: the voice of St. Augustine is heard in Saci, while Epictetus, Montaigne and—under the pseudonym of Montaigne—the Descartes of the ªrst Meditation, speak through the mouth of Pascal.5 Saci plays the Augustinian while Pascal is the philosopher: and what Saci admired—recall the introduction to the Conversations—in Pascal is that “in all things he agreed with St. Augustine,” he who had “not read the Church fathers.”6 I will come back to the idea of “agreement” later: not with respect to the agreement between Pascal and St. Augustine according to Saci, but that between Descartes and St. Augustine according to Pascal.

and the method that it requires, particularly in the experiments on the void: see Carraud 2001 and the comments of Chevalley 2005. 2. The opening section of this study will make frequent use of Carraud 1992. Please ex- cuse these allusions to my former work, which convenience requires, but which also indicate that the present study is a continuation of previous work. 3. This text was translated by Arnauld in 1647, with a second edition in 1652. 4. See Courcelle 1974–1975, 3 vols. The second part, vols. 2 and 3, is dedicated to the “vues platoniciennes et chrétiennes sur la misère et la grandeur de l’homme.” For Pascal and the “paradox of man,” see the conclusion, 732–35. 5. See Courcelle 1981, §6c, after the exposition in the column of “sources.” 6. Courcelle 1981, 1:10–11, cf. 51–52 and 43. Cf. Pascal 1994, 91 and 92. The editors of that volume remark: “Afªrmation inexacte, du moins en ce qui concerne saint Augustin: cf. Philippe Sellier, Pascal et saint Augustin, Paris, 1970”! According to Pascal, Saci knows St. Augustine so much better than he, Pascal, “possesses” Montaigne (Courcelle 1981, l: 366–71; Pascal 1994, 117).

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Many elements play a role in the complex relations between Pascal and the three ªgures of Montaigne, Descartes, and St. Augustine, and in the relations each of the ªrst two ªgures themselves bears to St. Augustine. I will be content for the moment to point out their respective roles in the always-continuous formation and elaboration of Pascal’s thought. One is in effect a resource (Montaigne), another a way of thinking that one makes one’s own (Descartes), and yet another serves as a model (St. Augustine). One ought to be able to return to relevance a proposed model without at the same time agreeing wholeheartedly with the thought of its author, a fortiori without following it on certain topics which, not to strip them of their importance, do not belong to those contemporary debates tend to privilege, especially the question of grace. This is why we ªnd in Pascal several points of resistance against the thought of St. Augustine. These points of resistance are all the more remarkable insofar as they constitute, at the same time, points of divergence with those contemporaries whom one could also call Augustinian, particularly Arnauld. There is therefore what we might call an anti-Augustinianism internal to the surrounding Augustinianism of the time—limited and brief, yet in that very way so much more acute—an anti-Augustinianism consisting of fault lines so much more clear, of crests so much more distinct in as much as they are separated from the whole of Augustinianism, or, to employ a more pru- dent formulation, from the ensemble of what could qualify as Augustin- ian: in short, a culture, a feeling of belongingness, and even a militant Augustinianism, which we today would call an ideology. In this sense, it is without doubt that Pascal is Augustinian. This Augustinianism in Pascal ought to be explored, and in fact this is exactly what Sellier (1995) does in a thematic rather than conceptual way in his ªne book. (I want to take a moment here to express my debt to this book which has given me the means, albeit a contrario, to better measure the elements of anti- Augustinianism in Pascal’s thought.) And I will add at the same time that these elements are what I would call points of resistance were they in themselves essential, in contrast with elements of doctrine. The relation between Pascal and St. Augustine will not be expressed in terms of sys- tems: this will have nothing in common with the much debated question of Malebranche’s systematic Cartesianism—or of his Augustinianism— in the sense in which Alquié (1974) could be opposed to the “anti- Cartesianism of Malebranche” in someone like Blondel (1916).7 No, none of that for Pascal. There is little sense—in any case little philosophical interest, it seems to me—in judging Pascal’s Augustinianism or anti-

7. Without, of course, being reduced to this opposition, as the opening remarks of Alquié (1974, 9) are sufªcient to point out.

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Augustinianism en bloc.8 In fact, such an endeavor would be ill suited to the nature of his own thought. I will not address therefore the long list of elements of Augustinian doctrine over which Pascal passes in silence, which would no doubt be of little use. Given the lack of space, I will not try to delineate all of the anti- Augustinian theses in Pascal whether epistemological,9 philosophical, or theological.10 This important task remains to be done, because what I call those anti-Augustinian points of resistance in Pascal are numerous. In- stead, I will be content to demonstrate the following: (1) I will show brieºy that The City of God should be placed among the number of works that Pascal did not read. Not only does nothing indicate to us that he had read it, but there are a certain number of convincing textual indications that establish quite clearly that he had neither read the text nor even leafed through many of the books of The City of God he nonetheless cites.11 There is nothing blameworthy in that. But above all, it is not surprising that he conforms to what seems to have been a common practice in the 17th century and even later: During that time, the Augustinian corpus was constantly cited, in a scholarly context where it always constituted the essential authority on questions of grace, and in a non-scholarly context in diverse ways, without any worry for coherence or exhaustiveness. Pascal is far from the only one not to have opened what was a “best seller” only a century before. From this point of view, Pascal appears to me to be only one particularly signiªcant case in the broader story of the reception or non-reception of The City of God: in the middle of the century, one could have been close to Port-Royal and even have as one’s project an apology of the Christian religion, without for all of that feeling obliged to read The City of God. (2) Then I will concentrate on what it means “to agree with,” or more precisely for Pascal “to say the same thing”: I will accomplish this by starting with the famous rapprochement between the cogito of Augus- tine and of Descartes, which bears witness to a stunningly violent anti-

8. Laporte 1951 held that Pascal was authentically and purduringly Jansenist. This is not the place to discuss that thesis; but whatever may be the case, it would be of no value to pose the question in similar terms for Pascal’s Augustinianism. 9. I will not comment here on the famous (and severe) §577, Pascal 1992, 131: “Saint Augustin a vu qu’on travaille pour l’incertain sur mer, en bataille, etc., mais il n’a pas vu la règle des partis qui démontre qu’on le doit. Montaigne a vu...toutes ces personnes ont vu les effets, mais ils n’ont pas vu les causes. Il sont à l’égard de ceux qui ont découvert les causes comme ceux qui n’ont que les yeux à l’égard de ceux qui ont l’esprit.” 10. For example, Jean-Louis Chrétien (2002, 146) has rightly noted in which places the concept of the martyr is profoundly different for St. Augustine and Pascal. 11. I will conªrm this hypothesis by clarifying a remark by Martineau (1994, 4: 726): “Pascal ne fait nulle part d’allusion favorable au De civitate Dei, qu’il ne mentionne qu’en passant.”

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Augustinianism. These two points will not be without relation, since one of the most precise formulations of the cogito in Augustine is found in Book XI of The City of God.

Pascal’s City of God: Concerning Some Citations of The Apology of Raymond Sebond The citations of The City of God we ªnd in the Pensées12 are not numerous: three, to be exact—plus a fourth about which Pascal had thought, but which he was happy only to gloss. In reality, if our point of view were strictly Pascalian, we would have no right to speak of any citations of The City of God. Instead, we would say, “citations of St. Augustine,” because nothing indicates that Pascal even knew that three of the four citations one ªnds in the Pensées actually came from The City of God. Moreover, in the ªrst of those, nothing even indicates that Pascal knew that it came from St. Augustine! In all truth, this is still saying too much, since two of the four citations are not properly Augustinian, but are authored by Varron, whom St. Augustine himself is merely citing. I have shown recently that Pascal had not read Book 19 of The City of God (Carraud 1992, 103–04),13 based on a typographical error in the 1652 edition of the Essays,14 which Pascal reproduces twice in the Pensées. In what is apparently a “letter on the folly of philosophy and the human sciences” (§408; “papers not classiªed by Pascal,” series I),15 Pascal writes: there are “280 kinds of sovereign good in Montaigne.” One also ªnds in §479, “For philosophers, there are 280 kinds of sovereign good” (“papers not classiªed,” series XI).16 He writes 280, in conformity with what Pascal had read in the 1652 edition of the Essays, where Montaigne incorrectly cites17 the “calculus of Varron” from Book 19 of The City of God, instead of 288 as the text of St. Augustine states (1955, 19: 1; Bibliothèque August- inienne (BA) 37, 40–47). For 288 is truly the product of a calculus, which multiplies the different possible ways to respond to the question of what is the sovereign good: 288 ϭ 25 ϫ 32.18 If Pascal had read Book 19 of The

12. The citations of the Pensées will be given with the Lafuma paragraph number and English translations will follow Pascal 1995. Citations of the Discourse refer to Pascal 1992 and all other texts to Pascal 1964. 13. Tetsuya Shiokawa has pointed out to me that the great Japanese pascalien Yiôchi Maeda (1989, 284–85 n2) had previously come to the same conclusion. 14. Montaigne 1652, 424; 1965, 577. 15. Cf. Pascal 1992, 152. 16. Cf. Pascal 1992, 157, the original has been lost. 17. The error is retained in all of the editions, from 1595 to 1652. 18. The four things sought by nature are: pleasure, calm, the combination of the two (which Epicurus called simply pleasure) and the goods or demands of nature (prima natura). These four are multiplied by relation to the things that maintain virtue: the search for virtue, the virtue of each thing sought, or the former or the latter in itself. This pro-

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City of God, he would have known that the number of the possible responses to the question of ªnal ends would be a multiple of 3. He would therefore never have written 280 (which is obviously not a multiple of 3). Instead, Pascal read Montaigne (without concerning himself with the nature of Varron’s “calculus”), but he did not read Augustine—he probably did not even know that the calculus is merely transmitted to us by St. Au- gustine, since the 1652 edition does not point this out. The end of the Disproportion of Man (§199) cites The City of God a second time: here, Pascal’s citation advances, contrary to Descartes, a thesis concerning the inconceivability of the union of the soul and the body after having posited, in accordance with Descartes, their real distinction: “The way in which the body adheres to the spirit (and becomes an animal), being the most miraculous thing of all, can not be comprehended by human beings; and yet it is itself what it is to be a human being.”19 In reality, this citation does not come directly from The City of God, but from The Apology of Raymond Sebond, as an omission internal to the citation, which Pascal reproduces,20 bears witness. Again, nothing indicates to us that Pascal knew this citation was taken from The City of God. Pascal cites The City of God a third time, knowing this time that the citation comes from that work, but apparently completely ignorant of what it would have meant in the mind of St. Augustine. I am speaking of Bk. 4, chap. 27, which Pascal cites at the end of §60—the lengthy fragment on justice—where he shows that the people must not “perceive the truth about usurpation; it came about originally without reason and has become reasonable. We must see that it is regarded as authentic....”Once again,

duces the twelve schools of thought, which themselves can be considered either according to whether one should act on behalf of oneself or for others. The following twenty-four schools are then considered according to an epistemic criterion borrowed from the academ- ics, such that they are either certain or incertain. Again, this number of forty-eight is dou- bled by following the two possible habitus, that of the Cynics or of other philosophers. Finally, each of the resulting ninety-six schools can be considered according to the way of life chosen: contemplative leisure, human enterprise, or a combination of the two. The product of these three ways of life and the ninety-six schools of thought is 288. 19. “Modus quo corporibus adhaerent spiritus (et animalia ªunt), omnio mirus est, nec comprehendi ab homine potest: et hoc ipse homo est,” Augustine 1955, 21: 10, BA 37, 426. In this chapter, St. Augustine investigates the possibility of the pain of ªre, which is corporeal, for demons, who are incorporeal. In the end, St. Augustine says, the supposed modus adhaerendi of this interaction is no more marvelous and ineffable than that other mode of adherence by which the human spirit, as incorporeal, is united to a body and renders it alive (“et animalia ªunt” is omitted by Montaigne). One could imagine how the occasion- alists might proªt from this claim. 20. Montaigne 1652, 393, does not give the reference; 1965, 539. For the anti- Cartesian use of this citation, see Carraud 1992, §18, esp. 283–85; let us add, however, that by understanding comprehendi in its rigorously Cartesian sense, or more exactly, in its Augustinian-Cartesian sense, St. Augustine’s citation remains rigorously Cartesian.

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this citation of St. Augustine comes from The Apology of Raymond Sebond: “Since he does not know that it is truth that sets him free, he remains un- fettered only by being deceived,”21 where Montaigne had cited a sentence which, in fact, belonged to Mucius Scevola and was cited (and approved) by Varron, who is cited by Augustine.22 But in the context of the whole passage, where the main issue is the religious practice of pagans and polytheists (a context which the The Apology would have clearly indicated), Augustine cites Scevola/Varron in order to refute them, because, for example, they recommend not to make known to the people that Esculape, Hercu- les, Castor or Pollux are not gods but men, or that the gods of the cities are not gods. Scevola and Varron in effect share the idea that it would be good for people to be unaware of some truths and to believe some false- hoods in matters of religion. Varron likewise thinks that the nature of God is to be like a soul, governing the world through motion and reason. Thus he recognizes that it is necessary to love only one God (Augustine 1955, 21: 10; BA 33, 630), but he still proposes that the people remain polytheistic and follow contemtible cults. Obviously, no one is more opposed to such a “politics” than St. Augustine: “Lovely religion, to welcome the weak in search of salvation! And when, to save himself he asks for truth, they believe that it would be better to tell a lie!”23 This is the politics, he says later, of the pseudo-sages (consilium velut sapientium), and the decep- tion in which demons take delight.24 Thus, via Montaigne, whom he had read, Pascal cites Augustine, whom he had not read, who cited Varron, who for his part probably cited one of the books of Scevola on civil law, in order to lend authority to a position that Augustine would oppose with all his power. The very politics that Pascal would assume anew was, for Au- gustine, the political religion of the demons who hold in their power both

21. “Cum veritatem qua liberatur ignoret, expedit quod fallatur.” Montaigne had written: “Cum veritatem, qua liberetur, inquirat, credatur ei expedire, quod fallitur,” Montaigne 1652, 389 (translated in the margin, with reference to De civitate Dei, 4: “Puisqu’il cherche une vérité, qui étant connue lui donnerait la clef des champs: il faut croire que ce qui l’abuse lui est propre”). Thus, Pascal knew that the citation came from St. Augustine. The change—seemingly cited from memory—of inquirat to ignoret comes spontaneously from Pascal’s purpose. 22. The full citation from St. Augustine: “. . . cum veritatem qua liberetur inquirat, credatur ei expedire, quod fallitur,” Augustine 1955, 21: 10; BA 33, 614. Pierre Villey had identiªed another source, which was not literal: “. . . multa esse vera, quae non modo vulgo scire non sit utile, sed etiam, tametsi falsa sint, aliter existimare populum expediat,” Au- gustine 1955, 21: 10, BA 33, 628. See also the municipal edition of the Essais, Bk. IV, and Villey 1920, 253. 23. “Praeclara religio, quo confugiat liberandus inªrmus, et cum veritatem qua liberetur inquirat, credatur ei expedire, quod fallitur” Augustine 1955, 21: 10; BA 33, 614. 24. “Hac tamen fallacia miris modis maligni daemones delectantur” 21: 31, ibid. 628.

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deceivers and deceived!25 As Sacy will say, citing the Confessions, “we pay hommage in many ways” (Mengotti and Mesnard 1994, 125; Courcelle, 1974–1975, l: 489–90 and 155–56). The same conclusion forces itself upon us—if Pascal had read The City of God, he would have understood that his politics paid homage to demons! At last, we come to an instance where Pascal himself notes that it is Montaigne in whom he had read the citation of St. Augustine, which he does not give, but only glosses, as in §236: “There is enough lightness to enlighten the elect and enough obscurity to humiliate them.” Pascal notes in the left margin “St. Aug. Montag. Sebonde,” i.e., “Augustine [cit.] Montaigne, [Apologie de Raimond] Sebond.”26 Emmanuel Martineau27 has found the citation of which Pascal was thinking, and which is pre- sented in Montaigne: “Ipsa veritatis occultatio aut humilitatis exercitatio est, aut elationis attritio” (Montaigne 1652, 404; 1965, 553–54).28 But since the 1652 edition of the Essays does not indicate the source of this citation29 (which, besides, it renders incorrectly), nothing permits us to suppose that Pacal had known that it concerned Bk. 11 of The City of God. This lack of knowledge, it seems to me, is less meaningful in itself than because the citation precedes by only a few pages the cogito of Bk. 1130,of which, as we will see below, Pascal again is unaware of the source. To these four litteral repetitions from The City of God, we must add the two explicit references (5: 10 and 20: 29), which we ªnd in §971 and which Jean Mesnard has shown come from Pascal’s reading of the Tetrateuchus (Pascal 1964, 3: 208). I conclude with these three points. The writer of the Pensées knew of The City of God only that which was written in the Apology of Raymond Sebond. Montaigne on the other hand knew The City of God well, along with the commentary by Vivés. Villey claimed that: “Montaigne has studied much

25. “. . . maligni daemones . . . qui et deceptores et deceptos pariter possident,” ibid. Recall that the polytheistic gods are called demons by St. Augustine: “Sed non te audiunt [sc. dei], daemones sunt,” 1955, 4: 27; BA 33, 616. 26. See the paleographic edition of Z. Tourneur (Pascal 1942). 27. See Pascal 1992, 105 and 243 for the justiªcation behind this connection. 28. The 1965 edition restores at each point Montaigne’s text (Edition municipale, III, 298) incorrectly cited in 1652. And by way of that text, the text of St. Augustine who had written: “Ipsa utilitatis occultatio aut humilitatis exercitatio est aut elationis adtritio,” Au- gustine 1955, 11: 22; BA 35, 98. §234 summarizes: “Abaisser la superbe,” which trans- lates the last element of the sentence and reinforces the Emmanuel Matineau’s patchwork of citations. 29. The 1652 edition merely provides the following along with the translation: “D. Aug. vel Ambros.” 30. Augustine 1952, 11: 26. See infra and Descartes’ letters to Mersenne: 15 November 1638 and December 1640 (Descartes 1964–1975, 2: 435 and 3: 261, respectively).

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of The City of God, but of all the works of St. Augustine, he seems to have put into practice only this one” (1908, 1: 72)31 It goes without saying that we must add to the doxographical interest of Montaigne in The City of God his interest in the skepticism of St. Augustine, or at least what remains of the skeptical arguments and their refutation.32 If The City of God is, as seems evident, a well known book in the 16th century (even if only for doxographical reasons), its reading in the 17th century seems much more banal: as testiªes, for example, the ignorance of Descartes who, despite what he might have read in the library, did not ªnd the reference to the cogito in Bk. 11, which was given to him by Mersenne—we will come back to this. Again, witness the ignorance of Pascal, or, at the very least, his dis- interest in long and numerous pages—if Pascal read The City of God, the Pensées do not provide us with a single proof.33 Quite the contrary, even as he cites them, one can be sure that he did not read either Bk. 4 or Bk. 11, or 19, or 21. But at bottom, this negative result itself matters little: less in any case than understanding the basis for Pascal’s opposition to The City of God, starting from even the title. For, if Pascal’s lack of knowledge is one thing—and who are we to judge?—it is another thing to assess what he rejects with complete conviction. We come now to the heart of the matter: The concept of the city is as essential to the thought of St. Augustine as the doctrine of the two loves that constitutes it.

31. According to Villey 1908, 1: 73, this group of citations of St. Augustine (among many other citations in Latin, made on the basis of the 1570 edition edited by Erasmus with commentary by Vivés, and their French paraphrase) which appear to be taken from the posthumous edtion of 1595 are sufªcient to indicate that Montaigne’s study of The City of God took place between 1588 and 1592 and that it was accompanied by a reading of the commentary of Vivès. Andrée Comparot’s thesis (1984), which contains a useful index of citations and similarities between Montaigne and St. Augustine (670–78), permits one to add nuance to Villey’s conclusion. See also Dreano 1962, Limbrick 1972, and Caron 1990. It is apparent that Montaigne cites The City of God according to the French translation by Gentian Hervet: see Montaigne, Essais, I, 56, “Des prières” in Montaigne 2003, 241. 32. Villey makes the observation that “vingt des emprunts de 1595 se rencontrent dans l’Apologie de Sebond,” 1908, 73. On the use of skepticism to combat heresy, a strategy common to both Montaigne and St. Augustine, see Entretien avec M. de Sacy (Megnotti and Mesnard 1994, 115; Courcelle 1981, 1: 348–52). 33. One could, of course, be satisªed with the many allusions as complete proof. Among the twenty supposed references made to The City of God in the Pensées given by Philippe Sellier none, with the exception of those that I have just mentioned (and which come from Montaigne), is convincing (1995, 634–45, “Index des citations, allusions et réminiscences augustiniennes dans l’œuvre de Pascal”). The others are, in the best of cases, thematic similarities that could just as easily be linked to other passages in Augustine’s corpus, when it is not a matter of directly citing the Pentateuch, the Gospels, or the commentary of Cornelius Jansen.

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Pascal, as Emmanuel Martineau (1994) has noted, is “ªercely allergic” to the word “city” (726). In the Pensées just as in the 14th Provincial Letter (Pascal 1965, 271–72),34 he does everything possible to avoid this unwor- thy political paradigm of the true Christian unity. The body of Christ— “Which we imagine to be a body full of thinking parts”—could not in any way be taken for a city: such confusion is truly “horrible,” as Pascal indicates.35 “What does the [Augustinian] sacrosanct opposition to the two cities really matter, if it only applies, on one side or the other, to ‘societies’?” (Martineau 1994, 727.) How could in fact the body of Christ, which is absolutely uniªed, be thought of as a society, societas hominum (Augustine 1955, 15: 1; BA 36, 34),36 an association, that is, an association of profane interests, in the manner of those cities that Plato and Aris- totle, “who enjoyed a laugh with their friends, . . . amused themselves” by laying down “rules” as if “for a madhouse”? (§533)37 St. Augustine has committed here the most serious confusion that he could have made: he has confounded “the natural communities and societies themselves” (§421)38 with the body of Christ, for which unity is the very unity of the Trinity.39 The real unity that St. Augustine misunderstands when he thinks according to a political model40 is intra-trinitarian love: “We love ourselves because we are members of the body of Christ; we love Christ be-

34. I will point out that the “two types of man,” and the “two peoples,” the “two worlds,” and the “two kingdoms,” are self-constituted, according to the logic of possession (i.e., of belonging: “Whoever is not with Jesus Christ is against him”), which itself determines “two languages,” but is in no way thought according to the duality of loves. 35. This word is Emmanuel Martineau’s (1994, 727), and I appropriate it for my own purposes. 36. Henri de Lubac observes that “dans la langue chrétienne d’alors, spécialement dans celle d’Augustin, ‘societas’ et ‘communio’ s’équivalaient” (1984, 270). Perhaps this is the case, but Pascal, as far as I can see, is no more sensitive to this than I am. One could peruse P. de Lubac’s argument for several diverse themes, beginning with the ªne reading of St. Augustine’s Commentary on Psalms 64 and 61; in order to clarify its importance for the present project, one should ªrst of all be attentive to the remarks on the juridical concept of societas perfecta as it is applied to the Church. For more general concerns, see the work of Yves Congar (1970). But it is regrettable that there is no synthetic work on the concept of the Church in the 17th century, from Bellarmin to Bossuet. In this matter, the classic study by Jean Orcibal (1955)—contemporaneous with the article by Geneviève Rodis- Lewis to which I refer in the epigraph—remains truly unique. 37. Cf. Pascal 1992, 127. 38. Cf. Pascal 1992, 39: “Si les membres des communautés naturelles et civiles tendent au bien du corps, les communautés elles-mêmes doivent tendre à un autre corps plus général dont elles sont membres.” 39. Cf. Carraud forthcoming. 40. Generally, the 17th century does not seem to me to be a time when politics were conceived of in reference to two cities—no more than it is, aside from very few exceptions, an ecclesiastical age.

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cause he is the body of which we are the members. All is one, and one is in the other, as three persons” (§372). By refusing the political paradigm of the two cities, does Pascal (only) reject this paradigm, or does he not go on to disqualify the Augustinian doctrine of the two loves as such?41 In fact, it does not seem to me that La lettre sur la mort de son père, written in 1651 and certainly founded on a concept of two loves,42 provides a counter-example. In this letter, which is borrowed wholesale from the spirituality of the French school, as the Abbey Bremond has said, Pascal characterizes the opposition between the two loves in terms of an abyssal divide between the inªnite and the ªnite, radically overturning its scope: “but according to this law, the love of God would be inªnite...andthelove of oneself would be ªnite” (Pascal 1994, 2: 857).43 Such a division between the inªnite and the ªnite, to put it broadly, is modern—by which I mean, provisionally, post 14th century. Thus to interpret it in Augustinian terms is already to have considerably misconstrued its meaning. Whatever that may be it would no longer work the same way for the Pensées, and especially for the “thinking members.”

41. The question must be posed, and the hypothesis taken seriously, even if it requires an entirely different study that would consider the concept of love in the Pensées. The commentators are circumspect on this fundamental question (as if it were an opposition like that of charity and cupidity: for example, in §503 and Pascal 1992, 97). In the absence of such a study, ªrst of all see the collection of references put together by Jean Laporte (1923, 65 et passim). But we cannot follow Laporte’s conclusions when he attempts to show, not without a measure of prudence, that “Pascal traduit des pensées semblables” (1923, 67) and when he judges that Pascal’s reºections (among them the “thinking members”) are “inspirées (directement ou non) de saint Augustin” (1923, 68: with reference to Augustine 1955, 14: 4 and 1869, tract. 123). One would also want to see the more authoritative remarks by Emmanuel Martineau in the preface to discourse 17 of his edition of the Discours (Pascal 1992, 256) and Martineau (1994). Finally, see Carraud forthcoming—which pres- ents some themes that bring more nuance to the ªnal statement of Carraud 1992. 42. “La vérité qui ouvre ce mystère est que Dieu a créé l’homme avec deux amours, l’un pour Dieu, l’autre pour soi-même,” Pascal 1994, 857. Emmanuel Martineau (1994) observes that the absence of the word “city” is only by virture of this statement more surprising. 43. Pascal succinctly articulates the two senses of “inªnity”: “. . . inªni, c’est-à-dire sans aucune autre ªn que Dieu même”—it is the object which determines the capacity; as for “ªnite” love, which has for its object nothing other than oneself, it is no less “connected to God”—in whom, through the state of creation (he has no sin: “L’homme en cet état non seulement s’aimait sans péché, mais ne pouvait pas ne point s’aimer sans péché”). See also §148: “ce gouffre inªni ne peut être rempli que par un objet inªni.” Here we leave aside the question whether there is, between the two loves, only a difference of object and not of nature—to put it another way, does Pascal remain a Jansenist in thinking of “la charité comme une cupidité retournée.” On this ªnal point, see Henri de Lubac 1991, 75–76. For P. Sellier (1995), the references to the void come from Jansen: “vastissima capacitas”—but there is a great deal of difference between “vastissime” and the inªnite (142).

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Far from there being two antagonistic loves, at least according to their ob- jects, the whole question would consist in asking oneself how rightly to love oneself (because for both Pascal and Augustine, one cannot fail to love oneself), that is, how to control the love that one owes to oneself. In order to do this, says Pascal, I must internalize an entirely different kind of love: to love myself as another—God—loves me. Far from the love of oneself having to be converted (Augustine), it has to be controlled (Pascal). Thus, “we love ourselves because we are members of Christ; we love Christ because he is the body of which we are the members” (§372), “in loving the body, it [the member] loves itself.” I am not sure that one could ªnd such a statement in St. Augustine, who thinks rather in terms of its object. In- stead, this is a metonymy of love by which love of self becomes the love of self by another (God) and thus becomes controllable.44 It would not be disin- genuous to hypothesize that it is this concept of love in Pascal which turns out to be so different from that of Augustine: Pascal’s radical reproach of St. Augustine is that he did not think enough about love as a unity.45 We may conclude this ªrst point, at least provisionally. Pascal distances himself from Augustine in no more pronounced way than in relation to the City of God. He does this in two ways, through an indifference to his lack of knowledge of its contents and through a refusal of the principle, both voluntary and assumed, underlying its fundamental thesis.

To Say the Same Thing We are not through with The City of God, nor are we through with Des- cartes (but is that ever possible when one reads Pascal?) as we undertake an anti-Augustinian point of rather less importance than the one concerning love in the Pensées but which, like the preceeding point, will lead us back to the question of the “ego.” It concerns the surprising comparison between the “I am thinking, therefore I exist” of Descartes and that of St. Au- gustine, to which Pascal refers. Recall by way of introduction—and in order to better give us the means to assess what is different in Pascal’s thought—that there is no doubt that the philosophical power of Carte- sianism provoked a new reading of St. Augustine. I have recently tried to show that Cartesianism forcefully reactivated interest in St. Augustine the philosopher, and not only as the doctor of grace (Carraud 1995). As Rodis- Lewis has written, “If it is impossible to misunderstand the vigor of Au- gustinian theology46 in the time of Descartes, the essential purpose of the 44. See Carraud 1992, 338–41; 1994; and forthcoming. 45. See Martineau 1994, 723. It goes without saying that the present study does not intend to evaluate the appropriateness of Pascal’s reproach, only to take it into account. 46. See, in particular, following the work of Henri de Lubac, Bruno Neveu 1990 and 1994. In the ªrst study, Neveu remarks straightaway: “C’est qu’au XVIIe siècle la situation

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Saint’s works was still capable of concealing even to those who knew them best the originality of his philosophical arguments” (1990, 115).47 This concealing function took on the proportions of a veritable blanket extending over nearly the entire body of Augustine’s work. Or, to mix meta- phors: “One is surprised to see, before the publication of Descartes’ philosophical works, that the properly Augustinian current of thought had been reduced to a nearly imperceptible line on the philosophical map” (Rodis-Lewis 1950, 17). One can measure the resurgent interest in Augus- tine’s thought, in particular the displacement operative in references to the Augustinian corpus itself, by the appearance of new connections and new citations. In order to do that, I will return to the hypothesis proposed in (Rodis-Lewis 1990), a study that has by now become a classic: “Des- cartes, far from having merely resounded the echo of the surrounding philosophical Augustinianism, would have enabled his contemporaries to retrieve the originality of the metaphysics of the thinker from Hippo, in its afªnity with the progress of Descartes’ own thought” (101). Thus, Rodis-Lewis speaks of a “new reader of St. Augustine, from now on illu- minated by the light of Cartesianism” (ibid. 105) and is able to conclude that, by reading Descartes, “an Augustinian metaphysics was awoken” for Descartes’ contemporaries (ibid. 123).48 Or, as I have remarked, “If the 17th century is the century of St. Augustine, then it would not have been the century of St. Augustine the philosopher before Descartes” (Carraud 1995, 262). Having recalled this philosophical context, that of an August- inianized Cartesianism and a Cartesianized Augustinianism as Henri Gouhier (1978) would have said (a context without which we would not be able to measure the originality of Pascal’s position with respect to his contemporaries, foremost, the Great Arnauld), we arrive at the pamphlet, On the Art of Persuasion. In that text, Pascal works out what it is “to say the same thing.” We

n’est plus la même qu’aux temps de l’humanisme: Augustin est devenu l’astre de la théologie positive, fondée sur la référence documentaire. A vrai dire c’est le héros des campagnes contre les pélagiens et les semi-pélagiens qui se voit presque canonisé, alors que toutes les autres facettes de son œuvre sont quasi négligées,” (1990, 474–75). Neveu’s studies are completed by and compiled in his greatest effort, 1993, particularly the ªnal two chapters, “Pervigil argus” and “Sensus et sententia.” 47. She continues: “Il serait invraisemblable qu’Arnauld n’ait pas lu le De Trinitate avant 1648, mais au moment où il découvre les Méditations le rapprochement ne s’est pas encore imposé à son esprit.” 48. This is obvious in the case of Malebranche who acknowledges that he rediscovered the philosophy of St. Augustine under the inºuence of his reading of Descartes: “Je me souvins heureusement de ce que j’avais lu autrefois dans saint Augustin, comme plusieurs autres, sans y avoir fait beaucoup d’attention,” Malebranche 1958, 6: 199; see also Gouhier 1926, 74 and Rodis-Lewis 1963, 9.

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know that such work on language is of prime importance in theology. In the Pascal’s eyes, it is the only way to take account of the concept of heresy. For example, let us consider the “declaration” of the Council of Trent that “the Commandments are not impossible for the just,” on which Pascal comments. The Letter on the Possibility of the Commandments, which has been recently called the “Third Writing on Grace,” develops the theory of “two senses completely different and distanced from one another” (Pascal 1964, 3: 648–62)49: the ªrst is that the just person always has the imminent power to act according to the law (§4), the second sense, “which does not present itself as promptly,” is that the just person “can fulªll the commandments by an action which is made through charity” (§5)—which amounts to saying that charity makes it possible for the just to fuªll the commandments. “You see,” says Pascal, “what a difference there is between the two senses . . . nonetheless, they both can be expressed in the following words: The commandments are possible for the just” (§6). “But insofar as this declaration is equivocal, it is not strange to ªnd that one could afªrm one sense and deny the other, just as there were also contrary here- tics each following the different senses” (§7). The two senses of this equivocal declaration call for deªnition; the Pelagians afªrm the proposition in the ªrst sense by saying that the commandments are always possible for the just and the Lutherans deny the proposition in the second sense (§§8– 9). The church rejects both of these heresies, as a misunderstanding of the true sense of the declaration in the case of the Pelagians, and a denial of the second sense in the case of the Lutherans (§10 ff.). Let us set aside the clariªcations offered by Pascal. The important point to emphasize is Pascal’s theological interest in what it means to say the same thing. Thus, St. Augustine and the Pelagians were able, “up to a certain point, to say the same thing.” Pascal lays out the list of expressions “common to both St. Augustine and his adversaries” (§42), and goes on to distinguish the Saint from his enemies by assembling a list of “contrary statements . . . particular to St. Augustine” (§44); this is why “the semi-pelagian statements are also Augustinian, and not the contrary” (§45). “Thus, one can say the same things as them without sharing their beliefs” (§41). One can thus say the same thing while intending the contrary. Pascal will bring to light the reasons for this ambiguity, constitutive of the discourse of the Fathers and Councils when it is understood in relation to its two sources, the will of man and the will of God. In relation to this ambiguity, heresy could be understood as partial and univocal discourses.50 Therefore, the question

49. The English translations follow Pascal’s “Letter on the Possibility of the Command- ments” and his “The Mind of the Geometer” in Pascal 1948. 50. Cf. Carraud 1992, 149–64.

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‘What is it to say the same thing?’ appears fundamental to understanding the origin of heresy, at the same time as it remains essential to us for the question concerning sources in the history of ideas. One ªnds this to be true in The Art of Persuasion, exactly at the moment when paternity is attributed to the cogito. In what sense do St. Augustine and Descartes say the same thing? We know that Descartes’ contemporaries, and among them Arnauld, rushed to point out to him that he had said the same thing as St. Augustine or posited the same principle.51 But Pascal alone—the ªrst of the Cartesians—submitted this question of fact to a preliminary examina- tion: what is it to say the same thing? The Art of Persuasion is a text perfectly inspired by Cartesian themes and thoroughly dedicated to the concept of method. Descartes’ Discourse on the Method abounds throughout the text, even up to the point of its complete title: “the true method for the conduct of reason.” In this work, Pascal develops the Cartesian opposition between logic and geometry—and when he leaves the domain of Descartes’ thought in order to praise Montaigne and again incorporate into his account an analysis of the Essays, he praises Montaigne as “the incomparable author of The Art of Conferring,” referring to Montaigne’s Discourse on the Method (Essays 3 and 8). Let us return to Pascal’s treatise at its point of interest. After having given up on treating the rules for the method of consent- ing,52 saying that he feels incapable of such a project, Pascal gives us rules for the method of convincing, that is, rules governing an art that makes “us see the relationship between truths and their principles” (Pascal 1964, 3: 417), that is, the art of persuasion, “which is really nothing other than how to carry out perfect, methodical proofs” (ibid. 3: 418). After having formulated these rules, Pascal aims “to prevent three principal objections.” Only the ªrst interests us: as it happens, the rest of The Art of Per- suasion only carries out a response to the ªrst objection. It simply an- nounces: “this method contains nothing new.” Pascal is going to work out exactly what is or is not novel, or more precisely what it is to say the same thing. Thus, logicians and geometers both say the same thing. In effect, one could object, says Pascal, that logicians are the ªrst to have prescribed that everything be deªned53 and that everything be proven, in short, that

51. See Descartes, “. . . idem pro totius suae philosophiae principio statuisse, quod statuit D. Augustinus,” 1964–74, 7: 197.24–6. 52.“...lamanière d’agréer est bien sans comparaison plus difªcile, plus subtile, plus utile et plus admirable. Aussi, si je n’en traite pas, c’est parce que je n’en suis pas capable; et je m’y sens tellement disproportionné que je crois pour moi la chose impossible,” Pascal 1964, 3: 416–17. 53. That is, “déªnir tous les noms qu’on impose,” Pascal 1964, 3: 421. In contrast, for Descartes’ position on the logicians who try to deªne everything and with those deªnitions

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the rules given by Pascal have ªrst of all been their rules: “the logicians themselves have placed them among the precepts of their art.”54 Thus Pascal takes up a Cartesian polemic that opposes geometers and logicians.55 If these two were able to say the same thing, those who “have ac- cepted the spirit of these rules...will perceive what a difference there is between what is said here and what some logicians have written, arriving at it by accident in certain places in their work.”56 The geometers understand these precepts, that is, they understand “all the principles, the force of their logical consequences, the responses to the objections that one could make”; however, the logicians do not understand them, because according to them, the same precepts are simply “the dead letter.” Thus, “those who have a discerning mind know what a difference there is be-

encompass all of the most simple and evident things, but thus obscure them, see Principia philosophiae 1: 10: “Et saepe adverti philosophos in hoc errare, quod ea, quae simplicissima erant ac per se nota, logicis deªnitionibus explicare conarentur; ita enim ipsa obscuriora reddebant,” Descartes 1964–74, 8a: 8.5–8. 54. On the “entre les préceptes de leur art,” see the Discours de la méthode, Descartes 1964–74, 6: 17.21–6. 55. See, for example, Rule II. Moreover, The Art of Persuasion rigorously follows the text of the Discourse on the Method. For Pascal: “Et sur cela je fais le même jugement de ceux [les logiciens] qui disent que les géomètres ne leur donnent rien de nouveau par ces règles, parce qu’ils [les logiciens] les avaient en effet, mais confondues parmi une multitude d’autres inutiles ou fausses dont ils ne pouvaient pas les discerner, que de ceux qui, cher- chant un diamant de grand prix parmi un grand nombre de faux, mais qu’ils n’en sauraient pas distinguer, se vanteraient, en les tenant tous ensemble, de posséder le véritable aussi bien que celui qui, sans s’arrêter à ce vil amas, porte la main sur la pierre choisie que l’on re- cherche, et pour laquelle on ne jetait pas tout le reste,” 1964–74, 3: 426. For Descartes: “Et bien qu’elle [la logique] contienne, en effet, beaucoup de préceptes très vrais et très bons, il y en a toutefois tant d’autres, mêlés parmi, qui sont ou nuisibles ou superºus, qu’il est presque aussi malaisé de les en séparer, que de tirer une Diane ou une Minerve hors d’un bloc de marbre qui n’est point encore ébauché,” Descartes 1964–74, 6: 17.21–6; the term ‘nuisibles’ will be taken up again by Pascal a bit later: “Toutes les autres règles sont inutiles ou nuisibles.” Pascal therefore follows the text of Descartes literally. One should take note, however, of the change in comparison, in the case of Pascal (pehaps more evangelical), he practically ties this to the old adage aurum ex stercore before proposing the example of the good medicinal herbs mixed with a large number of bad ones. It is all only a matter of dis- cernment: could one be more Cartesian? The consequence of these remarks by Pascal ex- plains the Cartesian claim that “le bons sens est la chose du monde la mieux partagée.” Pascal adds, for his part, “Rien n’est plus commun que les bonnes choses: il n’est question que de les discerner; et il est certain qu’elles sont toutes naturelles et à notre portée, et même connues de tout le monde. Mais on ne sait pas les distinguer,” Descartes 1964–74, 3: 427. Montaigne’s remarks have in mind “morals” and “vices,” such that the connections made by Jean Mesnard at the end of De l’expérience are not pertinent. 56. See also, further on: “C’est de cette sorte que la logique a peut-être emprunté les règles de la géométrie sans en comprendre la force. Et ainsi, en les mettant à l’aventure parmi celles qui lui sont propres. . .” Pascal 1964, 3: 425; my emphasis.

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tween two similar words, depending on their placement and the accompa- nying circumstances” (Pascal 1964, 3: 421–22). In order to emphasize this Cartesian issue, and to make the difference between the logicians and the geometers more apparent, Pascal goes on to focus his analysis on Montaigne’s The Art of Conferring, which shows that “all those who say the same things, do not possess them in the same way” (1964, 3: 423). In order to make such a differentiation, it is always necessary to be certain about the state of mind in which something is said; we must “penetrate into the mind” from out of which the right word comes, that is, to verify whether he who delivers such a word thinks it according to its truth, according to its principles, and seeing its logical consequences: “that we ªnd out whether he holds it in his memory57 [and by that reºects on it] or possesses it by some happy accident.” Montaigne, says Pascal, gives so much attention “to making it known that we must not judge the greatness of a man by the excellence of a ‘bon mot’ we hear him say; rather, instead of extending our admiration of a good speech to the speaker, we ought to penetrate, he says, into the mind from out of which it comes” (1964, 3: 422). To extend our admiration of a good speech to the speaker is to illegitimately admire someone by simply transferring what is said to the saying,58 that is, to attribute the intelligence of what is said to

57. The word ‘mémoire’ comes from Montaigne: “Le sujet, selon qu’il est, peut faire trouver un homme savant et mémorieux; mais pour juger en lui les parties plus siennes et plus dignes, la force et beauté de son âme, il faut savoir ce qui est sien et ce qui ne l’est point...”Montaigne 1652, 699; 1965, 940; Jean Mesnard’s concordance does not go far enough, only refering to 936–37, and omitting the passage that I have just mentioned infra: “ils l’auront produite à l’aventure et à tâtons.” Next Montaigne, ªrst acknowledging that he is no erudite, describes and justiªes the nature of prudence in matters of judging novelty, which implies a knowledge of the possible sources: “Nous autres, qui avons peu de pratique avec les livres, sommes en cette peine que, quand nous voyons quelque belle invention en un poète nouveau, quelque fort argument en un prêcheur, nous n’osons pourtant les en louer que nous n’ayons pris instruction de quelque savant si cette pièce leur est propre ou si elle est étrangère jusque lors je me tiens sur mes gardes”—what we might call a self-censure of learning in order to prepare for further erudition. I read this passage a bit differently than the way Pascal recalls it. It seems that Montaigne opposes erudition and memory (“faire trouver un homme savant et mémorieux”) to “la force et la beauté de l’âme” which resides in what is to him his own: ‘chance’ for Montaigne is not a question of the “bonne chose” that is said (there is no “chance” in the production “à l’aventure et à tâtons,” Montaigne 1965, 937), that is, of his time, of his place in the public realm; but of the “beau mot” having been registered in the memory, “ils ne [le] possèdent [“jusqu’où il la possède” comes from Montaigne as well] pas; ils ne l’ont qu’en garde”). Pascal, on the other hand, opposes memory, and by it the “capacity of a human being,” to chance. 58. For another example of undue admiration, see Pascal 1992, §40, 120; and the note that justiªes this concordance of citations, 248. The painter is admired by an undue trans- fer of admiration, as if one were to admire the person who utters a good word by illegitimately carrying over to him the goodness belonging to speech.

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he who says it. This is actually the extension characteristic of the wrong kind of admiration, precipitous and temerary in nature. If a word is good, it can be approved and judged excellent; yet despite this fact, one can admire its author only if one has already judged his capacity to declare it in full knowledge of its cause, or more precisely, its principle and logical consequence. “It is necessary therefore to ascertain how this thought was lodged in its author; how, from where, and to what extent he possesses it” (Pascal 1964, 3: 422). If he does not possess it, if chance caused him to ut- ter it, the author is situated heteronomically to himself, usurped by himself as Pascal would say: the seeming author is not the true author; the one who enunciates the words is in a position of externality in relation to his own speech. And this is why it is so easy for him to change his mind, something which Pascal, still following Montaigne, immediately notes: “In most cases, we shall see that we will make him disavow [his statement] at once, and we will draw him very far from this thought which is better than he believed, merely to toss him to another thought which is very base and ridiculous.” In contrast, if the “bon mot” were to come from his memory and judgment, then one could legitimately admire its author. Let us then pass from one incomparable author to another. Pascal immediately engages Montaigne’s analysis of the cogito, common to both Descartes and St. Augustine, “who said the same thing twelve hundred years ago.” But his application of the analysis gives the upper hand to the apparent imitator, whom Pascal will show really thinks above and beyond his ancient source. Descartes is not to St. Augustine what Phillipe Comin- ius was to Tacitus, and of whom Montaigne says, “I needed to praise the invention, but not the inventor” (Montaigne 1965, 940). The opposite will be the case for the apparent imitator, Descartes, who is revealed to be the true innovator. Thus, a strict analogy could be made: Pascal the geometer is to the logicians what Descartes is to St. Augustine. The latter say (“perhaps”) the right words without being able to think the right thoughts, while Descartes and Pascal are the true discoverers. Even while we conform to Montaigne’s criteria, we instead reverse his examples in both cases: it is the last to come who discovers, and the imitator who is the real innovator.59

59. It would remain to compare this position to that of Descartes himself who, at the same time, claims that “rien n’est plus ancien que la vérité” and says nemo ante me. On this (anti-Cartesian) model of transplantation in De l’art de persuader, see Carraud 1992, 141. But it is Descartes about whom he is immediately forced to think afresh: “Mais il arrive bien plus souvent qu’un bon esprit fait produire lui-même à ses propres pensées tout le fruit dont elles sont capables, et qu’ensuite quelques autres, les ayant ouï estimer, les empruntent et s’en parent, mais sans en connaître l’excellence; et c’est alors que la

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Here is the extremely well known passage: I should like to ask fair-minded people whether the two principles: Matter is by nature irrefutably incapable of thought, and: I am thinking, therefore I exist, are in effect the same in the mind of Descartes and in the mind of St. Augustine, who said the same thing twelve hundred years ago. / Indeed, I am quite far from saying that Descartes was not their true author, even if he learned them only by reading this great Saint. For I know what a difference there is between writing a word by chance, without longer and more extended reºection on it, and noting in this word an admirable chain of logical consequences that prove the distinction between material and spiritual nature, and make of it a ªrm principle, supporting an entire physics, as Descartes claimed he was doing. For without examining whether he succeeded in his pretension, I am assuming that he did, and on this assumption I say that this word is just as different in his writings from the same word used by others, who merely hap- pen to use it, as a man full of life and vigor is different from a dead man.60

The True Author of the Cogito Three brief remarks must be addressed before we will ªnally be able to get to the heart of the matter.

1. Pascal as Reader of the Discourse on the Method and the Principles of Philosophy Reading the passage that I have just cited immediately raises two questions that concern the present investigation. The ªrst has been posed for a

différence d’un même mot en diverses bouches paraît le plus,” Pascal 1964, 3: 425. This refers exactly to the Discours de la méthode (Descartes 1964–74, 6: 69.17–31). 60. “Je voudrais demander à des personnes équitables si ce principe: La matière est dans une incapacité naturelle invincible de penser, et celui-ci: Je pense donc je suis, soient en effet une même chose dans l’esprit de Descartes et dans l’esprit de saint Augustin, qui a dit la même chose douze cents ans auparavant. / En vérité, je suis bien éloigné de dire que Descartes n’en soit pas le véritable auteur, quand bien même il ne l’aurait appris que dans la lecture de ce grand saint. Car je sais combien ilyadedifférence entre écrire un mot à l’aventure, sans y faire une réºexion plus longue et plus étendue, et apercevoir dans ce mot une suite admirable de conséquences, qui prouve la distinction des natures matérielles et spirituelles, et en faire un principe ferme et soutenu d’une physique entière, comme Descartes a préten- du faire. Car, sans examiner s’il a réussi efªcacement dans sa prétention, je suppose qu’il l’ait fait, et c’est dans cette supposition que je dis que ce mot est aussi différent dans ses écrits d’avec le même mot dans les autres qui l’ont dit en passant qu’un homme mort d’avec un homme plein de vie et de force,” Pascal 1964, 3: 424.

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long time among historians of philosophy61: from where does Pascal get the proposed connection between the cogito of Descartes and that of St. Au- gustine? This is a question, we note, that assumes Pascal had not himself read of the cogito in the Augustinian corpus.62 There is no need to search very far for the source: the connection between the two cogitos constitutes the very ªrst of Arnauld’s observations in the Fourth Objections to the Medi- tations. Arnauld opens his objections by observing that Descartes estab- lishes the same thing for the principle of his philosophy as St. Augustine does for his.63 In order to make his point, he cites De Libero Arbitrio 2: 3. It is a novelty of the 17th century that St. Augustine would appear as a master of philosophy. As we have noted above, it is precisely Cartesianism that allows us to give the full philosophical import back to Augustine’s corpus; and Arnauld’s Objections are one of the ªrst places for renewing such a philosophical interest in the bishop of Hippo. If St. Augustine—recall the end of the Fourth Provincial Letter—is the “prince of the theologians,”64 under the pen of Arnauld he might take the place of Aristotle to become the “prince of the philosophers.” Further, in 1648, Arnauld points out to Des- cartes the reference to De Trinitate 10: 10; and there are many others who come back to the possible connections between the various Augustinian formulations of the cogito and those of Descartes. Thus, Pascal could have easily known, from Arnauld himself, that there was a cogito (or several) in St. Augustine’s work and he could have known of (at least) two Augustin- ian citations pointed out to Descartes by Arnauld. Besides, there is a well- known record on this matter, commented on by Geneviève Rodis-Lewis and Henri Gouhier,65 which provides conªrmation of the lack of familiar-

61. In particular, see Rodis-Lewis 1990; Gouhier 1978; and Mourant 1979, following Léon Blanchet 1920. 62. I will also note that historians have remained much more circumspect on the relation between the Cartesian and Augustinian deªnitions of matter! See infra. 63. “Hic primum mirari subit, Virum clarissimum idem pro totius suae philosophiae principio statuisse, quod statuit D. Augustinus, acerrimi vir ingenii, nec in Theologicis modo, sed etiam in philosophicis rebus plane mirandus,” Descartes 1964–74, 7: 197.24–7; my emphasis. 64. “N’espérez donc plus rien, mon Père, de ce prince des philosophes, et ne résistez plus au prince des théologiens,” Pascal 1965, 70. 65. I will be content to reprise here only those elements of proprosed concordance according to the chronology of published works. Clerselier’s edition in 3 vols. Lettres de Mr. Descartes, published in Paris in 1666–1667, in the ‘exemplaire de l’Institut’, is now avail- able in a facsimile edition, Descartes 2005. Recall that we take for granted that Pascal had read Bk. 1 of the Clerselier edition, which appeared at the beginning of 1657. The notes on the cogito come almost entirely from Bk. 2, published in 1659. 1/ 1641: Arnauld, Quartae Objectiones: refers to De libero arbitrio, 2: 3, 7. 2/ 1657: Descartes 2005, 521, letter 115 à un R.P. jésuite ϭ à Mesland, 2 May 1644, Descartes 1964–74, 4: 113.12–21: “Je vous suis bien obligé de ce que vous m’apprenez les

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endroits de saint Augustin, qui peuvent servir pour autoriser mes opinions; quelques autres de mes amis avaient déjà fait le semblable; et j’ai très grande satisfaction de ce que mes pensées s’accordent avec celles d’un si saint et si excellent personnage. Car je ne suis nullement de l’humeur de ceux qui désirent que leurs opinions paraissent nouvelles; au contraire, j’accommode les miennes à celles des autres, autant que la vérité me le permet” (my emphasis). We do not know what passages in St. Augustine had been indicated to Des- cartes by his correspondent. 3/ 1659: a) Descartes 2005, 15, letter 3 ϭ à Arnauld, 3 June 1648, Descartes 1964–74, 5: 186.9–13 (Descartes 1964–74 gives the text in Latin, as published in Bk. 2 of the Latin edition of the correspondence, 1668): “Ce que vous avez écrit de la distinction qui est entre l’âme et le corps, me semble très clair et très évident, et tout divin; et comme il n’y a rien de plus ancien que la vérité, j’ai eu une singulière satisfaction, de voir que presque les mêmes choses avaient été autrefois agitées fort clairement et fort agréablement par saint Augustin, dans tout le livre dixième de la Trinité, mais principalement au chapitre dixième.” One might consider, along with Geneviève Rodis-Lewis, that this is the book that “saint Augustin prépare le plus Descartes” (1990, 104). b) The lettres à Mersenne, which we provide in the order of their initial publication in Bk. 2 of the Clerselier edition: —Descartes 2005, 276, letter 49 ϭ December 1640, 1964–74, 3: 261.9–13: “Vous m’aviez ci-devant averti d’un passage de saint Augustin, touchant mon Je pense, donc je suis, que vous m’avez, ce me semble, redemandé depuis; il est au livre onzième de Civitate Dei, chap. 26.” Descartes probably gives Mersenne the reference to the same passage about which he comments to Colvius in Descartes 2005, letter 118; see infra. —Descartes 2005, 360, letter 80 ϭ 25 May 1637, 1964–74, 1: 376.17–21: “je ne vous ai rien mandé ...dupassage de saint Augustin, pource qu’il ne me semble pas s’en servir à même usage que je fais.” We do not know the passage suggested by Mersenne. Descartes 1964–74 conjectures De civitate Dei 11: 26, without a doubt because of the letter of décembre 1640, two weeks earlier in response to the passage indicated by Colvius; see Rodis-Lewis 1950, 15–16; and 1990, 103. —Descartes 2005, 415, letter 92 ϭ 15 November 1638, 1964–74, 2: 435.19–23: “J’ai cherché la lettre où vous m’aviez cité le passage de saint Augustin, mais je ne l’ai encore su trouver. Je n’ai pu aussi encore avoir les Œuvres de ce saint, pour y voir ce que vous me mandez, de quoi je vous remercie.” Again, we do not know the passage cited by Mersenne, which Descartes says he had not yet been able to go to see at the library in Leyden. c) Descartes 2005, 563, letter 118 (last letter of Bk. 2), 3rd part ϭ à Colvius, 14 No- vember 1640, 1964–743: 247.1–248.16: “Vous m’avez obligé de m’avertir du passage de saint Augustin, auquel mon Je pense, donc je suis, a quelque rapport; je l’ai été lire aujourd’hui en la bibliothèque de cette ville, et je trouve véritablement qu’il s’en sert pour prouver la certitude de notre être, et en suite pour faire voir qu’ilyaennous quelque image de la Trinité, en ce que nous sommes, nous savons que nous sommes, et nous aimons cet être et cette science qui est en nous; au lieu que je m’en sers pour faire connaître que ce moi, qui pense, est une substance immatérielle, et qui n’a rien de corporel; qui sont deux choses fort différentes. Et c’est une chose qui de soi est si simple et si naturelle à inférer, qu’on est, de ce qu’on doute, qu’elle aurait pu tomber sous la plume de qui que ce soit; mais je ne laisse pas d’être bien aise d’avoir rencontré avec saint Augustin, quand ce ne serait que pour fermer la bouche aux petits esprits qui ont tâcher de regabeler sur ce principe.” It is most probable that this refers to the passage in De civitate Dei 11: 26 because of the lettre à Mersenne of December 1640 (see supra), and thus, obviously Descartes relates back to the same remarks by St. Augustine. I come back to this letter infra.

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ity that contemporaries of Descartes had of the properly philosophical theses of St. Augustine66—foremost Arnauld, who needs a decade in order to think over Book X of De Trinitatae.67 Much later, in the same year as the publication of the Pensées, Father N. Poisson will summarize this situation, with a remarkable twist: St. Augustine “sometimes speaks in a manner in which it seems as if he had borrowed from the words of M. Descartes or M. Descartes from himself” (1670, 164–65). We will not come back to this point, except to bring to light what is, in and of itself, unnecessary: a piece of evidence, however often hidden. Pacal’s reºections on the mind of the geometer and on the art of persuasion almost certainly precede the publication of the many connections, suggested by Descartes’ correspondents, with St. Augustine; thus, it was not necessary for Pacal to have read them in order to compare, as he did, the two cogitos. As we have said, the Fourth Objections, that is, the conversa- tion with Arnauld, would be sufªcient for him to have learned that there is a cogito in St. Augustine’s work—a cogito about which he says nothing— and to suggest to him the comparison with Descartes.68 I want to reiterate this point: all of Pascal’s reºection on this subject is anterior to the attempts which credit the Cartesian enterprise with the authority of St. Augustine or recover a philosophical Augustinianism on the basis of cer-

66. Geneviève Rodis-Lewis notes quite rightly: “L’apparition successive de ces rapprochements montre déjà combien la familiarité des contemporains de Descartes avec les écrits du saint était limitée,” 1990, 102–03. 67. “Il serait invraisemblable qu’Arnauld n’ait pas lu le De Trinitate avant 1648, mais au moment où il découvre les Méditations le rapprochement ne s’est pas encore imposé à son esprit,” ibid. 115. 68. This is why I follow Jean Mesnard in his rejection of the late dating of L’art de persuader suggested by Henri Gouhier (Pascal 1964, 3: 368–72); Mesnard proposes the date of 1655—however, the discussion of dating this text lies beyond the scope of the present investigation. For Henri Gouhier, in essence, the redaction of L’art de persuader, apart from that of L’esprit géométrique, is later than the second semester 1659. The reason for this is that one ªnds the lettre à Colvius of 14 November 1640 in Bk. 2 of the Lettres de Mr Descartes, which appeared in May of 1659, with which Pascal’s judgement most corresponds to Des- cartes’. “Deux hypothèses sont alors possibles. Voici la première: Pascal a sous les yeux simplement les rapprochements proposés dans les Quatrièmes Objections; devant le texte du De libero arbitrio sur le cogito et l’immatérialité de l’âme cité par Arnauld, il a la même réaction que Descartes devant celui du De Civitate Dei cité par Mersenne et par Colvius: la ressemblance est superªcielle, les principes ne doivent pas être séparés des conséquences et le géomètre Pascal, spontanément, va droit à celles qui touchent la physique. Seconde hypothèse: ayant directement ou indirectement connaissance de la réaction de Descartes dans les lettres à Mersenne et à Colvius, Pascal la juge parfaitement sensée et va encore plus loin dans la direction qu’elle indique, jusqu’à la nouvelle physique” (Gouhier 1978, 143). As we have seen, there is no need to place the redaction of this small work of Pascal after the publication of Bk. II of the Lettres.

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tain Cartesian positions. Pascal’s reºection is anterior,69 but above all, foreign to all such problematics. Moreover, the cogito about which Pacal speaks—which he calls a principle and to which he extols admirable consequences—is that of Descartes. From this observation arises the second question: given what Pascal says about the Cartesian I am thinking, therefore I exist, does that enable us to refer it to a particular work of Descartes? The response to this question will corroborate what we have demonstrated elsewhere: not only that these Pascalian statements demonstrate an impeccable ªdelity to the thought of Descartes, but that they conform to the text of two works which Pascal, as geometer and scientist, had read and reread: the Discourse on the Method 70 and the Principles of Philosophy.71 It will be sufªcient to reread a few passages from both the Discourse and the Principles in order to support this claim.

—Matter is by nature irrefutably incapable 72 of thought. We will notice ªrst of all that Pascal begins with the principle that applies to matter, even before the cogito, because this is what primarily interests him. This ªrst citation or pseudo-citation, is clearly faithful to Cartesianism: Pascal begins by enunciating the ªrst consequence of the real distinction betweeen the soul and body insofar as it applies to the essence of matter. The clear and distinct idea of matter that I have is such that it appears as nothing other than an extended, thus non-thinking, thing, tantum res extensa, non cogitans.73 Principles 1: 53, to which we will return, summarizes: “extension in length, breadth, and depth constitutes the nature of corporeal substance; and thought constitutes the nature of thinking substance” (Des- cartes 1964–74, 8a: 25.15–18).74 The incapacity of matter to think

69. On this point, I agree with the prudence of Henri Gouhier: when one reads De l’art de persuader, “oublions à peu près [?] tout ce que nous savons sur l’histoire du cartésianisme augustinisé et de l’augustinisme cartésianisé” (1978, 142). 70. On Pascal as a reader of the Discours de la méthode (particularly in the lettre au P. Noël of 29 October 1647), see Carraud 2001, 329–330; Gilles Olivo 2002, 370 et passim. 71. Again, see Carraud 1992, 263–85; and 2005. 72. The manuscript of the Recueil Montempuys, as well as that of Desmolets, gives “naturelle et invincible”: see Pascal 1964, 3: 424, addition b. On the Recueil Montempuys and the Continuation of Desmolets, see infra my second remark. 73. “extensio in longum, latum et profundum, sustantiae corporeae naturam constituit; et cogitatio constituit naturam substantiae cogitantis,” Descartes 1964–74 7: 78.18–9. This ªrst consequence is itself a principle, the ªrst principle of the material things. 74. See also §4 of the second part of the Principia: “. . . naturam materiae . . . consistere ...ineoquod sit res extensa in longum, latum et profundum,” ibid. 42.4–8.

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is “natural,” by which I mean according to its nature, i.e., essentially. Among the numerous treatments of the real distinction between thought and matter, the passage in Descartes closest to The Art of Persuasion is probably taken from the end of the ªfth part of the Discourse on the Method: “I described the rational soul, and showed that, unlike the other things of which I had spoken, it [in other words, the potentiality of thought] cannot be derived in any way [read, irrefutably] from the potentiality [read, capacity] of matter...”(Descartes 1964–74, 6: 59.8–10). Only two words truly distinguish Pascal’s citation of this passage, “incapable” and “irrefutably”: the use of “irrefutably” is typical of Pascal as a way of accentuating the statement that “matter does not think,” in the sense of an incapacity to think. In a ªrst draft at the end of §199 (which was initially titled “incapacity”), Pascal had written: “We cannot know to what extent matter is incapable of knowing itself.”75 The same idea forms the essence of the argument in §308 on the “three orders of things,” though it is put towards another purpose: “Out of all bodies together we could not succeed in creating one little thought. That is impossible, and of a different order.”

On the other hand, we will have to wait a long time—at least ten or ªfteen years—to see the Cartesians connect Descartes’ deªnition of matter with that of St. Augustine, as was done by La Forge in the preface to the Traité de l’esprit de l’homme (1666),76 Ambrosius Victor in his Philosophia

75. See Pascal 1942, 243 or Pascal 1951, 1: 140, called “Lafuma major.” 76. “Monsieur Descartes, dit que l’esprit est immatériel, dans le même sens et de la même manière que ce saint Docteur l’avait dit devant lui dans le 4ème Livre de l’Origine de l’âme et dans celui De la quantité de l’âme, dans lesquels il ne nie pas seulement que l’âme soit un corps, quand on prend ce terme pour signiªer les membres visibles de l’homme, mais encore quand il signiªe toute sorte de substance étendue, en longueur, largeur et profondeur, qui est capable par ses parties de remplir un espace. Je n’apporte point de passages pour le prouver; personne ne pouvant douter que ce ne soit là sa pensée, pour peu que l’on soit versé dans la lecture de ce Père de l’Eglise” (La Forge 1984, Préface, unpaginated **2 v). La Forge cites chap. 5 of the De Cognitionae Verae Vitae of pseudo-Augustine (Hon- orius d’Autun) in support of the following statement: “tout ce qui est contenu dans un lieu répond à l’étendue en longueur, largeur, et profondeur de l’air, qui l’environne, et est corps par conséquent [Est etiam illocalis; omne enim quod loco includitur altitudine, latitudine, longitudine aeris circumscribitur, igitur corpus est]” (PL XL, col. 1009; see F. Girbal edition, n. 26, p. 254). In the same preface, La Forge concludes his comparison of the two cogitos: “Vous voyez donc qu’il n’y a aucune différence entre le Je pense, donc je suis, de Monsieur Descartes et la pensée de saint Augustin, que celle qui se trouve dans les mots” (ibid).

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christiana (1667),77 Rohault in his Entretiens sur la philosophie (1671, 17– 18), Cally in his Institutio philosophiae (1674, 1: préface générale)78 or Dom Desgabets in his Supplément à philosophie de M. Descartes in 1674–1675 (1985, 5: 164–66),79 for example. —I am thinking, therefore I exist: we know that this formulation does not appear in the Meditations. In French, it is proper to the Dis- course, in Latin, to the Principles of Philosophy. —The distinction between material and spiritual natures: There are many places where Descartes deduces the real distinction between two substances from the cogito or where he comes back to that proposition in order to explain it. But it seems to me that the formulations of the Discourse80 and of Principles 1: 8 are closest to Pascal’s own statement. In these works, in contrast to the Meditations, the distinction between spiritual and material natures is the ªrst real consequence of the “I am thinking, therefore I exist.” In this, Pascal is in full agreement with Descartes. If one is surprised by the fact that the adjectives are in the plural (matérielles et spirituelles), which is edited out of many editions but retained in the two manuscripts and 77. In the section entitled “De anima bestiarum”: “Caput V. Nullam prorsus animam esse corpoream seu rem quantam, id est, in longum latum & profundum extensam. . . . Anima certe non est corpus [according to Martin’s note: “lib. de quantit. animae cap. 3.”]; si tamen hoc dixeris corpus, quod & nos, id est, naturam quamlibet longitudine, latitudine, altitudine, spatium loci occupantem” (6: 13–14). André Martin indicates for this last citation: lib. 7 de genesi ad lit. cap. 21; BA 48, 546. That text is published in 1671, but it is possible that one could ªnd it in Philosophia moralis christiana, Angers 1653, from which the edition of 1667–1671 derives. According to Louis Batterel (1902–1905, 3: 518–29), André Martin had taught Cartesian physics (that is, without sensible qualities) at Marseille from 1651–1652; cf. (Girbal 1988, 8). See also the remarks of André Martin to the Hôtel Liancourt reported by Jean Orcibal, particularly on the principles of Cartesian physics, “qui vont à exclure toutes les qualités, toutes les formes substantielles, hors l’âme de l’homme . . .” which “se trouvent dans saint Augustin” (1950, 93–94). 78. See also Cally 1700, Part I, chap. 2. 79. However, Desgabets contains no explicit reference to Augustine. One must take account of these references before examining what could be considered a second series of con- cordances in the many resopnses to Louis de la Ville (Le Valois 1680). On this point, see for example Malebranche 1958, 8–1: 489, Réponse à une lettre de ses amis. ..:“...Saint Augustin . . . parle toujours conformément à l’idée du corps qu’ont les cartésiens. . . .” 80. “Je connus de là [‘les consequences qui preuve] que j’étais une substance dont toute l’essence ou la nature n’est que de penser, et qui, pour être, n’a besoin d’aucun lieu, ni ne dépend d’aucune chose matérielle. En sorte que ce moi, c’est-à-dire l’âme par laquelle je suis ce que je suis, est entièrement distincte du corps, et même qu’elle est plus aisée à connaître que lui, et qu’encore qu’il ne fût point, elle ne laisserait pas d’être tout ce qu’elle est. . . .” Descartes 1964–74, 6: 33.3–9.

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the edition of Desmolets,81 we note that it also occurred to Des- cartes to use the plural, for example, in Principles 1: 48.82

—A ªrm principle,83 supporting an entire physics: It is evident that the cogito would be a principle. But once again, the same text of the Discourse comes to the mind of Pascal: “And observing that this truth I am thinking, therefore I exist was so ªrm and sure that all the most extravagant suppositions of the skeptics were incapable of shaking it, I decided that I could accept it without scruple as the ªrst principle of the philosophy which I was seeking” (Descartes 1964– 74, 6: 32, 18–23; the latter is my emphasis). If reading the beginning of the Fourth Objections is sufªcient to support the comparison with St. Augustine, the older and more fundamental reading of the Discourse on the Method and the Principles would easily allow us to account for the way that Pascal restates the two Cartesian principles: Mat- ter is by nature irrefutably incapable of thought and I think, therefore I am. There is no need for us to suppose that Pascal owes his reading to anyone else.

2. A Firm Principle, Supporting an Entire Physics What does Pascal praise in Descartes? What has Descartes discovered, even if his discovery could pass for a literal repetition, and even if one can question whether he accomplished his undertaking? What he had per- ceived in the I am thinking, therefore I exist is “an admirable chain of logical consequences, which prove the distinction between material and spiritual natures” and what he made of it was “a ªrm principle, supporting his entire physics.” The latter text, which is what all the editions since Havet in the middle of the 19th century have given, could be surprising. For the cogito is not itself, as such, a principle of physics, by which we mean a physical principle.84 It is the ªrm principle, supporting a metaphysics, from which the ªrst and most important inference is precisely the real distinction between spiritual and material substances, as Arnauld insisted following Descartes himself. It would be one thing to say that metaphys- 81. On the issue of these sources, see Pascal 1964, 3:424, in the critical notes and again, infra our second remark. 82. “. . . duo summa genera rerum agnosco: unum est rerum intellectualium, sive cogitativarum ...;aliud rerum materialium,” 1964–74, 8a: 23.3–6. 83. The lettre à Clerselier “touchant le premier principe” constitutes the penultimate letter (118) of Bk. 1 of Descartes 2005, 534–35; June or July 1646, 1964–74, 4: 444–45. 84. Notwithstanding the fact that for Descartes no metaphysical principle can immediately count as a physical principle. On this point see, particularly, de Buzon and Carraud 1994, 29–32, following Marion 1986, 18–19.

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ics is the principle of physics, or that it contains all the physical principles and foundations.85 It would be another thing to make the “I am thinking, therefore I exist” as such a principle of Cartesian physics. Thus, all of the modern editions of the pamphlet The Mind of the Geometer attribute to Pascal, in the anti-Augustinian hommage86 that he pays Descartes, if not a confusion of physics and metaphysics, at least the proposition of a contraction which would subsume metaphysics and physics simultaneously under the name of physics, that is, to make “physics” an exact synonym for “philosophy.” Without a doubt, it is because of this unfortunate confusion that the ªrst editions of The Art of Persuasion from 1728 to 1844 follow the reading “a ªrm principle, supporting an entire metaphysics.” We have at our dis- posal two manuscripts as sources for the Art of Persuasion, both of which probably come from the lost manuscript of Périer (P), according to Jean Mesnard (Pascal 1964, 1: 60–111): the manuscript called Sainte-Beuve, followed by all modern editions since Faugère (who had been given the edition of 1844), and the manuscript of Recueil Montempuys (M),87 which “in the lineage of manuscripts...istobefound on the same level as P” (Pascal 1964, 1: 95).88 This manuscript, which as it happens is trustwor- thy,89 gives us “metaphysics.”90 Thus, excepting the manuscript of Périer,

85. See the lettres à Mersenne of 11 November 1640 (Descartes 1964–74, 3: 233.24–6) and of 28 January 1641 (3: 298.1–2). 86. This hommage is in no way ambiguous: “suite admirable de conséquences,” “suite merveilleuse de conséquences,” “excellence,” “arbre admirable,” etc., ibid. 87. Jean-Gabriel Petit de Montempuys, bachelor of theology and professor of philosophy at the Collège du Plessis was rector of the Université de Paris from 1715 to 1717 (Jourdain 1966, 286–87 and 310 et passim). 88. On the Recueil Montempuys, see Pascal 1964, 1: 94–95. Jean Mesnard clariªes: “Le principal intérêt de M est sans doute de nous aider à reconstituer le texte authentique de P pour les écrits de Pascal qui nous ont été transmis par cette seule voie....Ilestunautre écrit dont le texte peut être désormais établi d’une manière plus rigoureuse: c’est l’opuscule De l’art de persuader, maintenant connu par deux sources indépendantes,” ibid. 98. 89. Pascal 1964, 3: 366: “Dans certains cas, relativement rares, on peut...sede- mander s’il [sc. D] ne fournirait pas la leçon véritable de P [the lost manuscript of the abbey Périer], reproduite alors inexactement dans P’ [Sainte-Beuve manuscript].” 90. I have consulted the manuscript at the Bibliothèque de la Sorbonne (MS 1196): I would state without hesitation that the critical apparatus of Jean Mesnard is impeccable (Pascal 1964, 3: 424 ff.). Here is what one reads above page 16 (pagination of the copy of L’art de persuader ϭ fo 31 v. of the collection): “. . . des natures materielles et spirituelles et en faire un principe ferme et soutenu d’une methaphisique entiere comme Descartes a pretendu faire.” The words “une methaphisique” are added: the copyist made no mistake in reading what was alread a copy, i.e., without a doubt P. Montempuys corrected by hand the copy while rereading it. It is particularly interesting that a correction comes a few lines after the word under consideration, thus reinforcing the certainty that the copyist was reading correctly the word ‘metaphisique’ in the copied text (the correction remedies an

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one of the two manuscripts gives us “metaphysics.” On the other hand, the ªrst publication of The Art of Persuasion in 1728 by P. Desmolets (D), in the Continuation des mémoires de littérature et d’histoire (1728, 5: Part 2, 271–96),91 also gives us “metaphysics.” Shouldn’t it be evident that we should follow the text as it was initially published and hold on to the lectio evidentior? This is what all of the ªrst editions, which seem however “to derive” from the manuscript of Saint-Beuve (in whatever way incomplete before Faugère92), had done. Condorcet (Pascal 1776, 91–135, “De la manière de prouver la vérité et de l’exposer aux hommes”), Bossut (Pascal 1779, Section 3: 39–57),93 and againVillemain (Pascal 1823, 42), adopt the text of Desmolets for the passage on which we are commenting. And even though Faugère, in 1844, published for the ªrst time the complete On the Mind of the Geometer (Pascal 1964, 3: 366), and he did so—I insist— by following the manuscript of Saint-Beuve with integrity, nonetheless, he corrected the reading of P, with a footnote appended to the word “metaphysics.”94 But things changed with Havet (Pascal 1852), which thus justiªes the lectio difªcilior of the manuscript of Saint-Beuve: Physics is taken here in the sense in which it is often used by the ancients, for the science of the entirety of nature (physis), which thus makes up the soul of man and that of the world. It is truly ex-

omission, or rather a contraction: mot / mort): “d’avec le même / mot” becomes, after the deletion of ‘mot’, in the margin: “mot dans les autres qui l’ont dit en passant qu’un homme mort.” Additionally, I will simply note a reading in M that is omitted in (Pascal 1964, 3): while P gives us “et apercevoir dans ce mot une suite admirable de conséquences, qui prouve la distinction des natures matérielles et spirituelles,” M provides, “et apercevoir dans ce mot une suite admirable de conséquences [no comma] qui prouvent la distinction des natures matérielles et spirituelles.” 91. In that work, Desmolets published “De l’art de persuader” in Œuvres posthumes ou Suite des Pensées de M. Pascal, extraites du Manuscrit de M. l’abbé Perrier son neveu. The passage that I mention here is found at Desmolets 1728, 5: Part 2, 290: “. . . la distinction des natures matérielles et spirituelles, et en faire un principe ferme et soutenu d’une métaphysique entière, comme Descartes a prétendu faire.” Jean Mesnard has given evidence to the effect that the Recueil Montempuys allows one “accéder à une étape intermédiaire dans la préparation de l’édition Desmolets,” Pascal 1964, 3: 366. 92. See Pascal 1964, 3: 366. 93. The passage in question is found at Pascal 1779, 53–54: “...ladistinction des natures matérielle et spirituelle [sic], et en faire un principe ferme et soutenu d’une métaphysique entière. . . .” 94. There is a note that reads only: “Notre MS [i.e., the Sainte-Beuve manuscript] dit: ‘physique,’ ce qui est évidemment une faute!” Pascal 1844, 1: 168. Faugère’s edition also contains the phrase: “natures matérielle et spirituelle.” Faugère calls the Sainte-Beuve manuscript “le petit MS. in-8,” which he clariªes, “dont nous reproduisons le texte qui nous a semblé le plus complet et le plus correct,” ibid.,154.

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tension that envelops the Principia Philosophiae, which begins with the ‘I am doubting, therefore I exist’ in order to be brought from that to God, and then to descend again to knowledge of the external world and the general laws of matter. (470)

What Havet has rightly seen is that Pascal praises in Descartes the “admirable chain of logical consequences” which constitutes the whole of the Principles of Philosophy. In effect, if the cogito allows one to think the real distinction of substances, if therefore extended substance has no spiritual aspect (no intentionality, no will, etc.), then there is room for a physics of ªgure and movement in which matter would be “by nature irrefutably incapable of thought,” which is none other than the ªrst negative condition for a mechanistic physics. For if the cogito is not as such a principle of physics, it can no less set free in metaphysics a physics of pure extension, via a long train of thought through uninterrupted “chains of reason”—what Descartes was not afraid to call “deduction.”95 Recall as well that Descartes always insists on the organic unity of his physics and metaphysics, often thought in terms of a founding relation: “this bit of metaphysics that I am sending to you contains all the principles of my physics” (11 November 1640: AT 3: 233.24–26), “these six Meditations contain all the foundations of my physics” (28 January 1640: AT 3: 298.1–2).96 Are there any other motivations than this fundamental unity of Carte- sian physics and metaphysics that could justify the lectio difªcilior followed from Ernest Havet to Jean Mesnard, contrary to the ªrst editors? By this I no longer mean motivations from Cartesian philosophy, but properly Pascalian reasons. There are at least three: a) There is the issue of context. Pascal’s purpose in The Mind of the Geometer and The Art of Persuasion applies to the method for convincing, or providing “true demonstrations,” that is, the order followed by the sciences. And above all, in its original context, the ªrst principle that Pascal states, before even the cogito—we have already emphasized this point—applies to matter, the object of physics. 95. In a general sense, for Descartes, it is never a matter of deducing in the modern sense a physical conclusion from a metaphysical principal. Refer to de Buzon and Carraud 1994, 32–33. One could verify this claim by examining the principle of inertia. 96. Both letters are published in Bk. 2 (Descartes 2005). Obviously Descartes means to refer to the entire Meditationes, and not only the cogito. By ‘in its entirety,’ I mean not only Meditationes V and VI, but also, and even ªrst of all the existence of God, in the same way that the letter to Mersenne of 15 April 1630 posits this principle: “Or j’estime que tous ceux à qui Dieu a donné l’usage de cette raison, sont obligés de l’employer principalement pour tâcher à le connaître, et à se connaître eux-mêmes. C’est par là que j’ai tâché de commencer mes études; et je vous dirai que je n’eusse su trouver les fondements de la physique, si je ne les eusse cherchés par cette voie,” Descartes 1964–74, 1: 144.5–11; initially published in 1659.

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Here, as in general, Pascal is interested in physics, not metaphysics; he is especially interested in a physics in which matter would be by nature irrefutably incapable of thought. Thanks to Descartes, there is no longer any use for the spiritual qualities attributed to nature and thus to matter, the “specious names which ªll the ear, but not the mind,” and especially the imagined horror of the void, “as if inanimate bodies were capable of sym- pathy and antipathy.” Pascal thinks ªrst of his own experiments on the subject of the void and his ªght against “the crowd of philosophers,” those Aristotelian physicists, who “have expressly invented this imaginary horror of the void” (Pascal 1964, 2: 688, “Récit de la grande expérience de l’équilibre des liqueurs”).97 b) The section of the Pensées titled the Dispro- portion of Man provides us evidence. In the same eulogy addressed to Des- cartes, Pascal describes Descartes as the author of a physics ªnally relieved of all ªnality proper only to the mind and to anthropology, a physics founded on the pure materiality of matter. This is the Descartes who had said: “imagination, sensation and will [are intelligible] only in a thinking thing.”98 I have already said enough about these texts elsewhere (Carraud 1992, 271–83; 2005), so it is not necessary to repeat it here. It will be sufªcient to cite them, by connecting the Cartesian beginning (in §84) to Pascal’s reºections at the end of §199:

Descartes. In general terms one must say: ‘That is the result of ªgure and motion’99 . . . Nearly all philosophers [that is, all but Des- 97. See also the Traité de la pesanteur de la masse de l’air (Pascal 1964, 2: 1062–101 et passim). Pascal had concluded: the experiment “faite sur les montagnes a renversé cette créance universelle du monde, que la nature abhorre le vide, et ouvert cette connaissance qui saurait plus jamais périr, que la nature n’a aucune horreur pour le vide, qu’elle ne fait aucune chose pour l’éviter, et que la pesanteur de la masse de l’air est la véritable cause de tous les effets qu’on avait jusqu’ici attribués à cette cause imaginaire,” Pascal 1964, 2: 1101. On Descartes’ criticism of the fuga vacui, see, after chap. IV of Le Monde (1964–74, 11: 20), which Pascal was not aware of, and Principia 2: 16–18 (see also the criticism of compassion in the Principia, 4: 187) and the letter to Arnauld of 29 juillet 1648 (1964–74, 5: 222–23), which he could have known (on these texts and the differences among them, see again de Buzon and Carraud 1994, 64–69). 98. “nec imaginatio (potest intelligi), vel sensus, vel voluntas, nisi in re cogitante,” Principles 1: 53, 1964–74, 8a: 25.23–5. 99. One recognizes also in §84 a “hypothesis” analogous to that of L’art de persuader: “. . . sans examiner s’il a réussi efªcacement dans sa prétention, je suppose qu’il l’ait fait. . .” / “Et quand cela serait vrai. . . .” The claim that has not been examined is whether or not Descartes is correct in his conception of physics as a whole, that is, insofar as it concerns the details. Likewise, “Et quand cela serait vrai” indicates the composition of the ma- chine. But “in general terms” means that everything happens by virtue of “ªgure and movement,” and “cela est vrai.” There are thus no “reservations” in Pascal concerning the principles of mechanism. Additionally, we take not of the sense of the (resolutely non- metaphysical) principle that Pascal holds, himself, for “the only principles of physics,”

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cartes] confuse their ideas of things, and speak spiritually of corporeal things and corporeally of spiritual ones, for they boldly assert that bodies tend to fall, that they aspire towards their centre, that they ºee from destruction, that they fear a void, that they have in- clinations, sympathies, antipathies, all things pertaining only to things spiritual. (§§84 and 199; Pascal 1992, 63, 66.)

c) When writing “an entire physics,” Pascal ªrst recovers the properly Car- tesian sense of generality: the whole is a matter of principle, for on the basis of the cogito, and especially on the natural incapacity of matter to think, all is submitted to order, according to “an admirable chain of logical consequences.”100 All, that is, everything that constitutes the object of the Principles of Philosophy: philosophy,101 its roots and trunk (Descartes 1964– 74, 9b: 14.7 et passim),102 metaphysics and physics, not only the princi-

namely, empirical ones: the sense of this word remains indifferent to the present thesis (see the Préface sur le traité du vide, Pascal 1964 2: 781, or the conclusion of the treatises De l’équilibre des liqueurs and De la pesanteur de la masse de l’air, Pascal 1964, 2: 1101). 100. Apart from the arguments of the fourth and ªfth parts of the Discours de la méthode, see again the preferatory letter to the Principes (Descartes 1964–74, 9b: 10.4–17): “. . . j’ai pris l’être ou l’existence de cette pensée pour le premier principe, duquel j’ai déduit très clairement les suivants: à savoir qu’il y a un Dieu, qui est auteur de tout ce qui est au monde, et qui, étant la source de toute vérité, n’a point créé notre entendement de telle nature qu’il se puisse tromper au jugement qu’il fait des choses dont il a une perception fort claire et fort distincte. Ce sont là tous les principes dont je me sers touchant les choses immatérielles ou métaphysiques, desquels je déduis très clairement ceux des choses corporelles ou physiques, à savoir qu’il y a des corps étendus en longueur, largeur et profondeur, qui ont diverses ªgures et se meuvent en diverses façons” (deduction here indicates a metaphysical foundation which is the principle of physics, and not the contemporary sense of deduction); and (Descartes 1964–74, 9b: 10.26–11.5): “. . . les vérités que je mets entre mes principes . . . reconnues pour les principes de la philosophie, c’est-à-dire pour telles qu’on en peut déduire la connaissance de toutes les autres choses qui sont au monde,” etc. 101. It is in this sense that the Discours de la méthode says of the “je pense donc je suis” that “je jugeais que je pouvais la recevoir, sans scrupule, pour le premier principe de la philosophie, que je cherchais” (Descartes 1964–74, 6: 32.21–23). Etienne Gilson comments: “Le Cogito est le premier principe de la philosophie tout entière, physique com- prise,” and justiªes this assertion with reference to...Pascal, in the same passage with which we are dealing (Descartes 1976, 299). In Gilson 1984, he comments on the passage in question: “On ne saurait mieux dire, et pour cause, mais la question este intacte de savoir si l’on ne pourrait dire plus vrai....Entre l’excès de confondre les deux doctrines et celui de les trouver sans rapports, il y a peut-être une vérité moyenne que l’histoire permet de dégager” (194). 102. With this “arbre admirable” Pascal will imagine a kind of trasplantation and by means of that to think of the disappropriation of the “word” (Pascal 1964, 3: 424– 25).

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ples of material things, but the visible world and the earth, down to the last detail. It follows that this is where the sense of an entire physics, as the physics that deepens and descends into every detail of the composition of the universe, comes from.103 These two ideas, uniªed by the totality of his physics, is what §84 will call, and at the same time disqualify as, “all of philosophy.” Yet again, we seize on the point that Pascal’s primary interest lies in deªning matter exhausted of all spiritual determination. In other words, he deªnes it mechanically, such that the statement, “Matter is by nature irrefutably incapable of thought,” is taken as a ªrst principle. The lectio difªcilior, the reading given in the manuscript of Saint-Beuve, is therefore the right one: this principle is “the ªrm principle, supporting an entire physics.”104

3. An Illegitimate and Violent Anti-Augustinianism I will not insist too much on the violence or the illegitimacy of Pascal’s anti-Augustinianism as it is manifest. The violence is exceptional, even stunning: that St. Augustine had written the cogito “by chance,” “without longer and more extended reºection on it,”105 or “by happenstance”; in short, whether or not St. Augustine had written the “I am thinking, therefore I exist,” it was by accident!106 Worse, the Augustinian cogito is to the

103. One last time, see Carraud 2005. 104. To these three themes, we will add one ªnal reason, namely, a negative one. Pascal never, or almost never, speaks of metaphysics as such. Recall that “metaphysics,” as an ad- jective in the plural, is a (Cartesian) hapax in the Pensées (§190; Pascal 1992, 149), which qualiªes the proofs for the existence of God; see Carraud 1992, chap. 5. I do not think that Pascal could have written “métaphysique entière,” even without meaning it as an architechnotic totality (neither Pascal nor Descartes are precursors of the metaphysica generalis!). Pascal never talks about metaphysics; the expression seems to me to be too grandiloquent. Would it be possible to see Pascal, “un des plus célèbres [physiciens] de notre temps,” au P. Noêl, Pascal 1964, 2: 526, commenting on pure metaphysics, and borrow- ing Descartes’s notion as his own? 105. On the notion of “reºection” on the cogito (the Cartesians only invoke this word “in order to deªne the nature of thought, as it relates to the conscience”), which is distintinguished from its consequences, as the presence of the soul to itself and the exploration of the depths of the soul—in other words, what one could call introspection—St. Augustine obviously dedicates many more pages and much more profundity than Descartes to this subject (see Rodis-Lewis 1950, 24–26 and 178). 106. I add to this another text indicating that St. Augustine could have written something by chance in the Pensées. But this conjecture is that of an objector, not Pascal, and that supposed chance is not mere chance, but is something of a necessity, a proposition that is in itself essential, i.e., he could not have said otherwise, if the occasion were to present itself: “Saint Augustin a dit formellement que les forces seront ôtées au juste.—Mais c’est par hasard qu’il l’a dit, car il pouvait arriver que l’occasion de le dire ne s’offrît pas.—Mais

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Cartesian cogito what a dead man107 is to a living one!108 Pascal could have described the difference between the two cogitos109 without devaluing to such a point what he had thought attributable to St. Augustine.110 Even in the letter to Colvius, Descartes was far from being so disdainful: “In itself it is such a simple and natural thing to infer that one exists from the fact that he is doubting that it could have occurred to any writer.111 But I am very glad to ªnd myself in agreement with St. Augustine, if only to hush the little minds who have tried to ªnd fault with this principle” (Des-

ses principes font voir que l’occasion s’en présentant, il était impossible qu’il ne le dît pas ou qu’il dît rien de contraire. C’est donc plus d’être forcé à le dire, l’occasion s’en offrant, que de l’avoir dit, l’occasion s’en étant offerte. L’un étant de nécessité, l’autre de hasard. Mais les deux sont tout ce qu’on peut demander” (§930). The citation of St. Augustine coms from De symbolo ad catechumenos, §2; the citation follows the text of Arnauld in the Third Provincial Letter (Pascal 1965, 41–42). 107. The “dead man” invokes and reinforces the trope of the “dead letter,” that is, the case where one learns a book by heart without really understanding it, without possessing it (again, I prefer the reading of M “possèdent” for “sachent”)—according to which the mind of St. Augustine is seen to be “sterile” (Pascal 1964, 3: 422–23). On the other hand, whoever possesses a book understands it “en sorte qu’il en sache tous les principes, la force des conséquences, les réponses aux objections [Descartes!] qu’on y peut faire, et toute l’économie de l’ouvrage” (ibid.). 108. The analogy could be carried further: St Augustine is to Descartes what logic is to geometry: “C’est de cette sorte que la logique a peut-être emprunté les règles de la géométrie sans en comprendre la force. Et ainsi, en les mettant à l’aventure parmi celles qui lui sont propres, il ne s’ensuit pas de là qu’ils aient entré dans l’esprit de géométrie” (Pascal 1964, 3:425). 109. On the properly Augustinian sense of the cogito, see the classic study by Charles Boyer (1937, 1: 89–92; and 1920, chap. 1). See also more recently Bermon 2001, who is content to reply to the comments of Gilson in Descartes 1984 (17–18), and notes Pascal’s “impertinence”: for him, Pascal, “reprend le grief que Descartes formulait avant lui [dans la lettre à Colvius!] . . . tout en le radicalisant.” But he also reºects on the remarks of Husserl in his Cartesian Meditations in order to denounce “l’inºuence néfaste” of the ideal of a purely mathematical physics which would permit one to bring the dead back to life! 110. Pascal’s undue violence has caused a certain number of commentators to pass over in silence the criticism of St. Augustine in De l’art de persuader. Thus Sellier (1995), who dedicates no less than 600 pages to the subject of Pascal and St. Augustine, is content with one short sentence—in a footnote!—for the entire commentary on this passage: “On connaît la dureté de Pascal à l’égard de la pensée cartésienne. ...Unaugustinien [sic!], sensible à la souplesse et aux virtualités de l’intelligence, à la ‘ªnesse’, ne pouvait que rejeter comme étroit le rationalisme cartésien. Toutefois, Pascal a bien saisi l’originalité du Cogito . . .” (45 n29). If there is a place where it would be necessary to defend St. Augus- tine, surely this is it! 111. It does not seem obvious to me that this passage would be particularly insolent— since it would no less devalue the Cartesian cogito. This is contrary to the position of Jean- Luc Marion (1996, 2: 41). Moreover, the author himself compares it to the judgment of Descartes: “. . . hoc tritum: Cogito, sum” (Descartes 1964–74, 7: 551.10, a reprisal of 531.15).

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cartes 1964–74, 3: 248.1–7).112 As far as the illegitimacy of Pascal’s judgment, it has struck all commentators, from Ernest Havet113 to Geneviève Rodis-Lewis114 and Henri Gouhier,115 not to mention Etienne Gilson (1984, 53, 161–62 and 194–95): one wouldn’t have to open a book by St. Augustine to come to the conclusion that cogito had been written “by accident.” Furthermore, no reader of De libero arbitrio, De Civitate Dei116 or De Trinitate, which contain the three most famous occurrences of the cogito, would have ever said such a thing! But this is the place where Gouhier’s argument in favor of a late date for The Art of Persuasion turns against him.117 If Pascal had read Descartes’ letter to Colvius, he would never have written “by chance,” and “without . . . noting in this word an admirable chain of logical consequences,” since Descartes himself summarizes the Augustinian train of thought:

I am obliged to you for drawing my attention to the passage of St. Augustine relevant to my I am thinking, therefore I exist. I went today to the town library to read it, and I do indeed ªnd that he does use it to prove the certainty of our existence. He goes on to show that

112. Pascal makes much more of, and something completely different than, “to embel- lish [surenchérir]” on Descartes, as Jean Mesnard has said not without some strange nuance: “presque en renchérissant sur lui” (Pascal 1964, 3: 371). 113. “Et il est vrai que saint Augustin n’a pas construit ainsi toute une philosophie sur ces principes: cependant il ne serait pas juste non plus de prétendre qu’il ne les produit qu’à l’aventure et en passant. Il prétend s’en servir pour prouver Dieu, et même la Trinité. . . .” (Pascal 1982, 470). 114. Rodis-Lewis adds the following argument: “la multiplicité même de ces références [to the Augustinian corpus] exclut que saint Augustin ait posé la certitude de l’âme comme ‘un mot à l’aventure’ et permet d’y voir déjà ‘la distinction des natures matérielle et spirituelle’...”1990, 194, which refers back to the texts given in Rodis-Lewis 1982, 53– 55. 115. See for example 1978, 143: “Il est clair que Pascal n’a pas pris la peine de lire ou de relire saint Augustin; dans ses ouvrages comme le De libero arbitrio ou le livre X du De Trinitate, ce que nous appelons son cogito n’est pas ‘écrit à l’aventure’ ou ‘en passant’.” Also see Gouhier 1986, 183: “Il est clair que Pascal ne s’est pas reporté au texte du De libero arbitrio dont Arnauld donnait la référence.” See also Cahné 1982 (particularly, 125). Cahné thinks, along with Rodis-Lewis, that the cogito of Bk. X of De Trinitatae is closest to that of the Meditations. Moreover, he holds the position that Descartes derives the ‘performative’ sense of the cogito, expressed in Meditation II, from that book. Thus, he takes it as “évident” that Descartes read De Trinitatae some time between the composition of the Dis- course on the Method and the Meditations—I am somewhat less enthusiastic about this “évidence” than Cahné. 116. As a side note, following my comments on the natural fuga vacui, it is interesting to note that in the page following the remarks on the cogito in the De civitate Dei, St. Au- gustine calls it a principle “refugiat natura non esse” (BA 35, 116). 117. See Poisson 1670, 164–65.

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there is a certain likeness of the Trinity in us. In that we exist, we know that we exist, and we love the existence and the knowledge [science] we have. I, on the other hand, use this argument to show that this I which is thinking is an immaterial substance with no bodily element. These are two very different things.118 Descartes and Augustine certainly do not make the same use of the cogito, yet according to the admission of Descartes, St. Augustine takes from it an undeniably “admirable chain of logical consequences”—a metaphysics.119 Thus, Pascal could not have been more opposed to Arnauld at the beginning of his Fourth Objections:120 “Those who have discerning minds

118. “Vous m’avez obligé de m’avertir du passage de saint Augustin, auquel mon je pense, donc je suis a quelque rapport; je l’ai été lire aujourd’hui en la bibliothèque de cette ville, et je trouve véritablement qu’il s’en sert pour faire voir qu’ilyaennous quelque image de la Trinité, en ce que nous sommes, nous savons que nous sommes, et nous aimons cet être et cette science qui est en nous; au lieu que je m’en sers pour faire connaître que ce moi, qui pense, est une substance immatérielle, et qui n’a rien de corporel; qui sont deux choses fort différentes,” Descartes 1964–74, 3: 247.1–248.1. 119. And not, foremost for Descartes, a physics: which again supports the conclusion of the lectio difªcilior, this time from a Cartesian point of view. This gives us the occasion, in conclusion, to comment on a text which comes back to the issue of metaphysics and re- sponds, certainly not consciously, to Pascal, claiming the superiority of St. Augustine rela- tive to what he had attained in the most sublime truths of metaphysics comme par hasard. By this I really mean that if we give a Cartesian order to St. Augustine’s thought, then his excellence will surely break through. Fénelon 1997 provides a surprising text in support of this claim, in the 4e lettre sur divers sujets, that is, the lettre [to the abbey of Houtteville] sur l’inªni et la liberté de Dieu, de créer ou ne pas créer: “Si j’avais à croire quelque philosophe sur la réputation [but this is not the case!], je croirais bien plutôt Platon et Aristote, qui ont été pendant tant de siècles en possession de décider: je croirais même [recall that this supposes a case in which one believes a philosopher based on his reputation] saint Augustin bien plus que Descartes, sur les matières de pure philosophie; car outre qu’il a beaucoup mieux su les concilier avec la religion, on trouve d’ailleurs dans ce Père un bien plus grand effort de génie sur toutes les vérités de métaphysique, quoiqu’il ne les ait jamais touchées que par occasion et sans ordre. Si un homme éclairé rassemblait dans les livres de saint Augustin toutes les vérités sublimes que ce Père y a répandues comme par hasard, cet extrait, fait avec choix, serait très supérieur aux Méditations de Descartes, quoique ces Méditations soient le plus grand effort de l’esprit de ce philosophe” (II, 785). Gouhier 1977 has seen Fénelon’s own philosophical project revealed in these lines (25). On the writings of St. Augustine, “sans ordre, à la hâte” and the “morceaux épars” where one ªnds “plus de métaphysique” than what is in Plato or Descartes, see the end of the 5e lettre, Fénelon 1997, II 804– 805.”Ut qui doctior evaserit in Augustini doctrina, eo libentius philosophiam cartesiam amplexurus sit,” Letter from Mersenne to Voetius,13 December 1642, Descartes 1964–74, 3: 603. 120. Here it is useful to recall the premonitory judgment that Arnauld inspired in Mersenne, even as he writes to Voetius afªrming his full conªdence in Descartes’ “façon de philosopher” (“philsophandi methodo”): “Ut qui doctior evaserit in Augustini doctrina, eo libentius philosophiam cartesiam amplexurus sit. En sorte que plus un homme sera savant

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know what a difference there is between two similar words, depending on their placement and the circumstances that accompany them,” (1964, 3: 122) he writes in The Art of Persuasion. The least one could say is that poor Arnauld, in Pascal’s judgment, would be followed by two generations of Cartesian-Augustinians who did not have “discerning minds.” But had Pascal himself really ascertained how this thought came to be lodged in the mind of St. Augustine? Given the evidence, no. Pascal obviously is Cartesian, but Pascal must also be either unaware or dishonest, deceived or deceiver121; in the case of the latter, his appeal to “fair-minded people” must be the ªnal cynicism.

An External Christ vs. an Internal God I would like to suggest by way of conclusion that perhaps there are fundamental reasons for Pascal’s refusal of the various Augustinian cogitos, beyond his factual lack of acquaintance with Augustine’s texts. It seems to me that if Pascal did not want to see—contrary to the evidence—that St. Augustine had been able to write the cogito other than by chance, it is because he had radically rejected what Augustine’s cogito reveals: that man is made in the image of God, more precisely, in the image of the Trinity. In a word, the various Augustinian cogitos never terminate with the I, in a sense, he never ªnds the I, but always passes on to God himself. Descartes saw it perfectly: the Augustinian cogito goes on to ªnd the image of God in man,122 St. Augustine “goes on to show that there is a certain likeness of the Trinity in us” (Descartes 1964–74, 3:247). The different Augustinian cogitos carry us to God, never simply stopping with the discovery of the I.123 In this sense, we could say that it is impossible to ªnd the I in the Augus- tinian look into the self: what the I ªnds within itself is precisely not the self, but God. In order to measure Pascal’s opposition to the Augustinian doctrine on this point, a ªnal summary exposition ought to be enough. I will brieºy make three points. 1. Augustine’s introspection gives us access to the rich internality of the self. By developing what opens the magna quaestio (“I had become to

dans la doctrine de saint Augustin, et plus sera-t-il disposé à embrasser la philosophie de Monsieur Descartes,” Letter from Mersenne to Voetius,13 December 1642, Mersenne 1945 11: 375; Descartes 1964–74, 3: 603. On Arnauld’s surprising afªrmation, according to which “il avait enseigné et publiquement soutenu la même philosophie” as Descartes, see Carraud 1995. 121. Based on the alternative to §322, one ought to be aware of an analogy with his denial of ªnding in Augustinus “les cinq propositions.” 122. Gilson 1984, 193 ff. repeats this, following Descartes. 123. This will be the title of another study in preparation.

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myself a vast problem”124), St. Augustine discovers an inªnite richness in the self: this is the discovery of the excess of what he is out of what he thinks, believes, or knows to be. This discovery originates from a reading of the libri platonicorum, to paraphrase: I was obliged to enter into myself [redere ad memt ipsem] through the libri platonicorum, and by actually enter- ing in intima mea, I see there with the eye of my soul [oculum animae meae], above this eye of my soul and my mens, the immutable light. What I ªnd when I enter into myself is not me, ego, but the divine light, which “was superior because it made me [superior, quia ipsa fecit me]” (Augustine 1962, 8: 10, 16; BA 13, 614–616). The Augustinian cogito gives way to the rich interior of man. And for most of the spiritual writers of the 17th century, internality is rich. For Pascal, everything is reversed, internality is empty: “How hollow and foul is the heart of man!” (§139), and our most intimate being is null and void.125 2. For Augustine, intimacy carries us directly to superiority: “But you were more inward than my most inward part and higher than the highest element within me.”126 This is completely contrary to the God of Pascal, who is never inside: “There is no link between me and God or Jesus Christ, the righteous” (§919). This thesis of the Mystery of Jesus is absolutely fundamental: there is no link, God is never found within me—no analogy is possible. There is no passage; rather there is a fundamental opposition between man and God. As Paul Benichou (1997) has said in an admirable formulation: Pascal wanted “to cut down the bridge between man and God” (90). Nothing is more anti-Augustinian. For Pascal, Christ is always external. The Mediator is external, never inside me; the Master is not internal. Pascal’s thought on union is not a reºection on internality (See Pascal 1992, “Des membres pensants,” 138–41, esp. §§360–74). 3. Nothing is more traditional in theology than to say that man is made in the image of God (Genesis 1: 26). St. Augustine develops this theory through his model of the Trinity. The analysis of the knowledge of the soul by itself, which, in De Trinitate, concludes with the tripartite memoria, intelligentia, voluntas, which ultimately take us to God: the Trinitarian God of whom these three concepts are the reºection (1955, 1: 10 and 11). Moreover, Descartes was a good reader of Augustine when he wrote to Colvius: “I do indeed ªnd that he does use it to prove the certainty of our

124. “factus eram ipse mihi magna question.” English citations of Augustine’s Confes- sions follow (Augustine 1991). 125. See, respectively, §806 (Pascal 1992, 119; and Larnet and Romano 2006, chap. “Pascal”) and §139, (Pascal 1992, 137). 126. “tu autem eras interior intimo meo et superior summo meo,” Augustine 1962, 3: 6, 11; BA 13, 382.

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existence. He goes on to show that there is a certain likeness of the Trinity in us” (Descartes 1964–74, 3: 247). Pascal completely refuses this thesis concerning the image of God in man,127 a fortiori in the I in which we would ªnd the image of the Trinity. Pascal constitutes the most absolute refusal in Christianity of homoiôsis.128 Our study of the supposed Augustinianism of Pascal intended to be precise and circumscribed: it initially proceeded by following the meager nominal citations of the The City of God in the Pensées, which naturally led us to the theme of the two cities and an obvious conclusion, namely, that one of the most central motifs in the thought of St. Augustine is passed over in complete silence by Pascal. It remained for us to analyze this silence and to evaluate its signiªcance, which appears to be a means of tak- ing distance, or more prescisely, of rejecting the principle underlying the Augustinian concept of the two cities. There is thus no need to suppose, as one may do without any textual grounds, that Pascal had read The City of God in order to challenge its entire framework. It is also in The City of God that one ªnds one of the most explicit and developed discussions of the cogito. Thus, we can put our hypothesis to the test a second time, in a context at once more conªned than the ªrst and involving a much less consid- erable risk for Pascal the apologist, and at the same time more acute and current from the perspective of Pascal who was still immersed in the method recorded in The Art of Persuasion. In this way, it becomes apparent that the comparison between the Augustinian and Cartesian cogitos has no other function in this short work than to radically undermine the principal aim of the Augustinian cogito. Once again, setting aside any consideration of the proper use of this comparison in The Art of Persuasion, we may propose a hypothesis according to which there are, for Pascal, above and beyond his ignorance of the different formulations of the Augustinian cogitos, deep theoretical reasons for his rejection of the principle, voluntary

127. For Pascal, this is the position of the Stoics (Epictetus) who “vous ont fait penser que vous lui étiez semblables et conformes par votre nature” (§149; 1992, 69). It is the Stoics, for Pascal, who take up the theological claim of Genesis 1: 26. For Pascal, grace, not nature, renders the human being “comme semblable à Dieu et participant de sa divinité” (§131, texte raturé, barré, Pascal 1992, 75). 128. We take note of the fact that the sole mention of the image of God in man in the Pensées is attributed to the idea ...oftheStoics: the philosophers (and those among them who praise the virtue of the eye) “vous ont fait penser que vous lui étiez semblables et conformes par votre nature,” §149; Pascal 1992, 69. Opposing corruption and redemption, nature and grace, Pascal had written, in his great discourse on the double condition of the human being, that by grace alone man “est rendu comme semblable à Dieu” (§131; Pascal 1992, 75), before he suppressed the two passages. We should also note, with Emmanuel Martineau (1994, 717), that “le seul texte de Pascal sur le Christ-image, et même sur l’homme à l’image” is §iv of the Prière pour le bon usage des maladies, Pascal 1964, 4: 1002.

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and assumed, of what the Augustinian cogitos concealed and revealed. The assessment at which we have arrived is, like the investigation it concludes, necessarily limited and thus provisory. It would still require an account of the following question that cannot be discussed here: has Pascal refused many of the major theoretical elements of St. Augustine’s in advance? My assesment thus demands, for its conªrmation, further study of Pascal’s readings of St. Augustine—beginning with that of the Confessions—and his interpretations of them. In any case, even this provisional assesment allows us to rid ourselves of the merely abstract conception of an unproblematic Augustinianism in Pascal.

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