Is it not equally true that for twenty-five or thirty years now, every seeker of a remedy for the diseases that torment us has offered nothing else under the barbarous name of altruism than to sacrifice our individualism; to learn to forget oneself in others; strive to ensure that the goals of our activity and the purpose of our life are placed outside of us. Not Schopenhauer with his Buddhism, not even Comte, Stuart Mill or George Elliot with their utilitarianism; nor Tolstoy with his mysticism; and, finally, the mass of other thinkers with their socialism do not advise, preach, or recommend anything else.

However, it is precisely here that the main point of Jansenism lies, it is here, if we purge this teaching of its theological veils, that its essence and content are rooted. And it is about this, in the voice of Pascal, that his Thoughts, his Provincials, are eternally calling to us. There is no religion whose demands can free us from the constant work of becoming better and more indifferent to the world, because there are no requirements, no skills, no absolution of sins, no communion that can replace our own efforts. It is an effort that we must make against ourselves. As for this final life, although in it we strive to make our name outlive us by a number of years, or to sacrifice our happiness for the sake of future generations, or to "finally achieve the salvation of the soul," it is still worthy of being lived only if it sets before itself a goal other than itself. On the day when these ideas will triumph over the sophisms that have long obscured them, and, contrary to the formal rule of conduct, will once again become, at least for men, the reflection of truth, on that day, I say, Pascal will be victorious. Battle will change its character, fortune will change its camp, to which it favors. I dare not hope that such a day is near, but it will come, we are all sure of it. And if we are sure of this, there will never be written in French more eloquent denunciations than the Provincials, and a more beautiful book than the mutilated fragments of the Thoughts. Nor will there be a greater writer who should be read more assiduously, loved more ardently, and revered more deeply than Pascal.

F. Brunetière (1891)

Provincialia

Letter One

Of the debate at the Sorbonne, and of the proximate faculty which the Moyainists had recourse to in order to obtain censorship on the Arnaud

Paris, January 23, 1656

Gracious Sovereign!

We were misled. I was convinced of my mistake only yesterday, and until then I thought that the subject of the debate at the Sorbonne was very important and could have far-reaching consequences for religion. The numerous meetings of so famous a society as the Faculty of Theology in Paris, during which so many extraordinary and unparalleled events took place, inspire such a high idea of the questions discussed therein that the very idea that there was no extraordinary reason for discussion seems inadmissible. And yet you will be amazed when you learn from my story what all this fuss amounts to; I will present this question to you in a brief form on the basis of a thorough study of the case.

Two questions are investigated: one about fact, the other about law[59].

The question of the fact is whether M. Arnaud was impertinent in declaring in his second letter that he had read Jansenius's book attentively, and had not found in it the propositions condemned by the late Pope; that he nevertheless condemns these propositions wherever he encounters them, and condemns them in Jansenius, if they are there.

The question, therefore, is precisely whether he could not have the audacity to question Jansenius's ownership of these provisions, after the bishops had recognized this affiliation.

This case is proposed for consideration by the Sorbonne. Seventy-one Doctors of Divinity undertake to defend M. Arnault, and assert that he could not have answered anything else to the writers who have asked him in so many writings whether he admits that these propositions are in the Book of Jansenius, since he did not find them there, and that he still condemns them if they are there.