Pascal's Pensées

[139] P. 99, l. 27. Senec.—Seneca, Epist., 106.

[140] P. 99, l. 28. Id maxime, etc.—Cicero, De Off., i, 31.

[141] P. 99, l. 29. Hos natura, etc.—Virgil, Georgics, ii, 20.

[142] P. 99, l. 30. Paucis opus, etc.—Seneca, Epist., 106.

[143] P. 100, l. 3. Mihi sic usus, etc.—Terence, Heaut., I, i, 28.

[144] P. 100, l. 4. Rarum est, etc.—Quintilian, x, 7.

[145] P. 100, l. 5. Tot circa, etc.—M. Seneca, Suasoriæ, i, 4.

[146] P. 100, l. 6. Cic.—Cicero, Acad., i, 45.

[147] P. 100, l. 7. Nec me pudet, etc.—Cicero, Tusc., i, 25.

[148] P. 100, l. 8. Melius non incipiet.—The rest of the quotation is quam desinet. Seneca, Epist., 72.

[149] P. 100, l. 25. They win battles.—Montaigne, in his Essais, ii, 12, relates that the Portuguese were compelled to raise the siege of Tamly on account of the number of flies.

[150] P. 100, l. 27. When it is said, etc.—By Descartes.

[151] P. 102, l. 20. Arcesilaus.—A follower of Pyrrho, the sceptic. He lived in the third century before Christ.

[152] P. 105, l. 20. Ecclesiastes.—Eccles. viii, 17.

[153] P. 106, l. 16. The academicians.—Dogmatic sceptics, as opposed to sceptics who doubt their own doubt.

[154] P. 107, l. 10. Ego vir videns.—Lamentations iii, I.

[155] P. 108, l. 26. Evil is easy, etc.—The Pythagoreans considered the good as certain and finite, and evil as uncertain and infinite. Montaigne, Essais, i, 9.

[156] P. 109, l. 7. Paulus Æmilius.—Montaigne, Essais, i, 19. Cicero, Tusc., v, 40.

[157] P. 109, l. 30. Des Barreaux.—Author of a licentious love song. He was born in 1602, and died in 1673. Balzac call him "the new Bacchus."

[158] P. 110, l. 16. For Port-Royal.—The letters, A. P. R., occur in several places, and are generally thought to indicate what will be afterwards treated in lectures or conferences at Port-Royal, the famous Cistercian abbey, situated about eighteen miles from Paris. Founded early in the thirteenth century, it acquired its greatest fame in its closing years. Louis XIV was induced to believe it heretical; and the monastery was finally demolished in 1711. Its downfall was no doubt brought about by the Jesuits.

[159] P. 113, l. 4. They all tend to this end.—Montaigne, Essais, i, 19.

[160] P. 119, l. 15. Quod ergo, etc.—Acts xvii, 23.

[161] P. 119, l. 26. Wicked demon.—Descartes had suggested the possibility of the existence of an evil genius to justify his method of universal doubt. See his First Meditation. The argument is quite Cartesian.

[162] P. 122, l. 18. Deliciæ meæ, etc.—Proverbs viii, 31.

[163] P. 122, l. 18. Effundam spiritum, etc.—Is. xliv, 3; Joel ii, 28.

[164] P. 122, l. 19. Dii estis.—Ps. lxxxii, 6.

[165] P. 122, l. 20. Omnis caro fænum.—Is. xl, 6.

[166] P. 122, l. 20. Homo assimilatus, etc.—Ps. xlix, 20.

[167] P. 124, l. 24. Sapientius est hominibus.—1 Cor. i, 25.

[168] P. 125, l. 1. Of original sin.—The citations from the Rabbis in this fragment are borrowed from a work of the Middle Ages, entitled Pugio christianorum ad impiorum perfidiam jugulandam et maxime judæorum. It was written in the thirteenth century by Raymond Martin, a Catalonian monk. An edition of it appeared in 1651, edited by Bosquet, Bishop of Lodève.

[169] P. 125, l. 24. Better is a poor and wise child, etc.—Eccles. iv, 13.

[170] P. 126, l. 17. Nemo ante, etc.—See Ovid, Met., iii, 137, and Montaigne, Essais, i, 18.

[171] P. 127, l. 10. Figmentum.—Borrowed from the Vulgate, Ps. ciii, 14.

[172] P. 128. l. 5. All that is in the world, etc.—First Epistle of St. John, ii, 16.

[173] P. 128, l. 7. Wretched is, etc.—M. Faugère thinks this thought is taken from St. Augustine's Commentary on Ps. cxxxvii, Super flumina Babylonis.

[174] P. 129, l. 6. Qui gloriatur, etc.—1 Cor. i, 31.

[175] P. 130, l. 13. Via, veritas.—John xiv, 6.

[176] P. 130, l. 14. Zeno.—The original founder of Stoicism.

[177] P. 130, l. 15. Epictetus.—Diss., iv, 6, 7.

[178] P. 131, l. 32. A body full of thinking members.—See I Cor. xii.