For us, 300 years after these events, "Provincial Letters" is not only a monument of subtle wit and amazing, sometimes full of humor and dialectical play, sometimes stormy eloquence breathing pathos, but also a monument to the struggle for truth. Alone or almost alone (only a group of friends stood for him), without powerful allies, without sufficient material resources, he began to fight and won: in the name of the moral law.

5

But Pascal is still much closer to us in his "Thoughts". Here he is especially close to us. This is the fruit of his entire short 39-year life, and here the seal of his genius shines especially brightly. It is not writing, it is a testimony, it is almost a shout, it is a careful and conscientious (and terrible) examination and study of what is most important to us. This is a subtle and merciless analysis of the very fabric of life, the fabric of human existence.

Man is lost. He is a small dot in the sea of infinity that envelops him, among the two infinities that surround him, infinity up and infinity down. "Tout ce monde visible n'est qu'un trait imperceptible dans l'ample sein de la nature. Nulle idee n’en approche. Nous avons beau enfler nos conceptions au dela des espaces imaginables, nous n’enfantons que des atomes, au prix de la realite des choses. C’est une sphere infinie dont le centre est partout, la circonference nulle part … Que l’homme … se regarde comme egare dans ce canton detourne de la nature; et que, de ce petit cachot ou il se trouve loge, j’entends l’univers, il apprenne a estimer la terre, les royaumes, les villes et soimeme a son juste prix. Qu’estce qu’un homme dans Finfini?  [394]

And if we look along the "descending" line, new infinite worlds are revealed in the infinitely small—"une infinite d'univers, dont chacun a son firmament, ses planetes, sa terre," "the infinity of universes, each of which has its own firmament, its own planets, its own earth"—and in every point, in every "ciron" of this new "earth," the infinite spaces of the universes and solar systems are revealed again. And the planets, the Earth, and on it again "pincers" and so on endlessly. Man's thought is lost, confused between these two abysses, "entre ces deux abimes de Tinfini et du neant, il tremblera dans la vue de ces merveilles" (between these two abysses, infinity and non-existence, he will be shocked at the sight of these miracles).

But what is more terrible, even more acute and painful to us is the universal elusiveness. Everything passes, rushes in some kind of stream, and we are with him. The very fabric of life is made up of transience. We even "lose" our thoughts, they sometimes elude us before we can formulate them. But this is even more instructive, more instructive than the thought I have "lost" itself: for it reminds me of my weakness and my insignificance. — "En ecrivant ta pensee, elle m'echappe quelquefois; mais cela me fait souvenir de ta faiblesse, que j'oublie a toute heure; ce qui m'instruit autant que ta pensee oubliee, car je ne tends qu'a connaitre mon neant". [395]

"For I seek only to know my own insignificance."

But this is not done in a coldly indifferent study. Tones of tragedy and pain break through into the fabric of thought and illuminate the abyss with a brighter light. We run carelessly towards the abyss, holding the shutter in front of us so as not to see the abyss. ("Nous courons sans souci dans le precipice, apres que nous avons mis quelque chose devant nous pour nous empecher de le voir." («Le dernier acte est sanglant, quelque belle que soit la comedie en tout le reste: on jette enfin de la terre sur la tete, et en voila pour jamais»).

But regardless of the end, dying itself during life, in life itself, in the very process of life, is terrible. To lose, to lose; everything slips away, gradually and irrevocably. «C’est une chose horrible de sentir s’ecouler tout ce qu’on possede». "It's horrible to feel like everything we own is leaking away." Or another image: everything is shaking under us, everything is unstable, everything is unstable. On this foundation we want to build a tower that rises to the heavens, but the earth opens up below us to the foundations. Or we are sailing on the boundless sea, driven by the wind, and have nowhere to land, we would like to stop and — we cannot! «Nous voguons sur un milieu vaste, toujours incertains et flottants, pousses d’un bout vers l’autre. Quelque terme ou nous pensions nous attacher et nous affermir, il branle et nous quitte; et si nous le suivons, il echappe a nos prises, nous glisse et fuit d’une fuite eternelle. Rien ne s’arrete pour nous … Nous brulons de desir de trouver une assiette ferme, et une derniere base constante pour u edifier une tour qui s'eleve a Tinfini; mais tout notre fondement craque, et la terre s’ouvre jusqu’aux abimes». [396]

"Our whole foundation is shaken, and the earth is opened up to the abyss."

Humanity is miserable and pitiful, especially because it tries to close its eyes to the true meaning of its situation. It covers its miserable existence and hides it from its own eyes with the magnificent garments of conventionality. Force is covered by law; but this right itself is only a legitimized force. «Ne pouvant faire qu’il soit force d’obeir a la justice, on a fait qu’il soit juste d’obeir a la force; ne pouvant fortifier la justice, on a justifie la force, afin que la justice et la force fussent ensemble, et que la paix fut, qui est le souverain bien» [397]. This law itself is subject to conventions. "I can kill you, because you live on the other side of the river; if you lived on this side, it would be murder, a crime, but otherwise it is a feat!" For this reason the judges put on magnificent garments during the execution of the courts, in order to give the appearance of power to their impotence, in order to appeal to the imagination. This, of course, is sharpened to the point of paradox, but Pascal devotes a number of witty remarks to the influence of imagination in public affairs. The pomp of the royal court is also a drapery of power (and at the same time of universal frailty) under the appearance that acts on the imagination. But the right and the truth, perhaps, belong to the quantitative majority? «Pourquoi suiton la pluralite? estce a cause qu’ils ont plus de raison? non, mais plus de force». "Why do they follow the majority? Is it because it is more right? No, because he has more power."

But Pascal dwells more on the most basic, innermost fabric of our life. To the fabric of human life belongs the desire to dissipate, to amuse, to distract — le divertissement. It is only by having fun that we can forget the basic unhappiness and absolute fluidity of our position. It gives us the strength to live. Without amusement we would be utterly miserable, and amusement blinds us, does not give us the opportunity to think of our misfortune. Without entertainment, melancholy begins, not only boredom, but precisely melancholy, this is how Paekal's term "ennui" can be interpreted. The very structure, the very fabric of life is devalued. Taking a closer look at it, we are unhappy. Entertainment saves us from this invading melancholy, from this consciousness of the emptiness of life that rises from the depths of life. «Rien n’est si insupportable a l’homme que d'etre dans un plein repos, sans passions, sans affaires, sans divertissement, sans application. II sent alors son neant, son abandon, son insuffisance, sa dependance, son impuissance, son vide. Incontinent il sortira du fond de son ame Énnui, la noirceur, la tristesse, le chagrin, le dépit, le desespoir" [398].

The advantage of kings is that they always have people with them who constantly entertain them. «Le roi est environne de gens qui ne pensent qu’a divertir le roi, et a empecher de penser a lui. Car il est malheureux, tout roi qu'il est, s'il u pense" [399]. —

Whatever kind of king he may be, he is unhappy when the amusement ceases, for he is left alone with himself. The main reason for this, as we see, is "the natural misfortune of our condition, weak, mortal, and so miserable that nothing can console us when we begin to think about it closely" — "le malheur naturel de notre condition faible et mortelle, et si miserable, que rien ne peut nous consoler, lorsque nous y pensons de pres."