Pascal's Idea of Nature

Author(s): A.W.S. Baird

Source: Isis , Autumn, 1970, Vol. 61, No. 3 (Autumn, 1970), pp. 296-320
Published by: The University of Chicago Press on behalf of The History of Science
Society

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/229684

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 Pascal's Idea of Nature
By A. W. S. Baird*

N HIS STUDY of Blaise Pascal's contemporary Marin Mersenne, the Abbe

I Lenoble distinguishes between the idea of nature as an active princi
Aristotelian physics has as its object, and nature viewed as an ensemble de phe'nomenes,
with which mechanistic physics is "correlative."' Pascal, unlike Mersenne, is not con-
tent simply to relegate the former conception to the realm of metaphysics and reduce
the scope of physical science to investigating and describing the empirical connections
between the phenomena which go to make up nature in the second sense.2 On the
contrary, in Pascal's case, which does not seem as clear-cut, the term nature, construed
as an active principle, is found in a wide variety of contexts throughout his writings.
This is not to say that Pascal believes it is nature as an active principle that physical
science is concerned with. But it does suggest that his curiously ambivalent attitude to
the mechanistic worldview may result in part from a conviction that it fails to take
account of this aspect of nature.

I. NATURE AS AN ENSEMBLE DE PHENOMENES

Pascal's fullest treatment of nature as an ensemble de phe'nomenes occurs in the

"Disproportion de l'homme" fragment in the Pense'es. There he insists on both the
vastness of the natural scheme, which swallows up man's power even of imagination,
so that he is reduced to merely contemplating its wonder, and the whole worlds, the
"merveilles aussi etonnantes dans leur petitesse que les autres par leur etendue,"
which escape his perception at the other end of the scale.3 This emphasis on the im-
mensity and complexity of nature is designed, as the title of the fragment suggests, to
serve Pascal's apologetic purpose-to induce a mood of humility and self-depreciation
in his reader by showing how far the dimensions and wonders of nature exceed the
bounds of human comprehension. Yet despite this fact, and however great may be the
"disproportion" between nature and man's power of perception, the very examples
which Pascal chooses to bring this out make it plain that he does conceive of nature as
constituting an ordered scheme of things.
When he claims, for instance, that the end of things and their principles are for man

* Department of Romance Languages, Univer- I Blaise Pascal, Oeuvres completes, ed. Jacques
sity of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand. Chevalier (Paris: Biblioth6que de la Pl1iade,
1 Robert Lenoble, Mersenne ou la naissance du Gallimard, 1957), pp. 1105-1106. Brunschvicg's
micanisme (Paris:J. Vrin, 1943), pp. 380-381. numeration 72. References throughout are to
The change in the conception of nature in the Chevalier's edition. Alternative references given
17th century, and the "psychological revolution" are to the fragment number in Brunschvicg's
which helped to produce it, are also treated by classification for the Penseies (B) and to the
Lenoble in his article "L'evolution de l'idee de Grands Ecrivains de la France edition of the
'nature' du XVIe au XVIIIe siecle," Revue de Oeuvres completes, eds. L. Brunschvicg, P.
m!taphysique et de morale, 1953, 58:108-129. Boutroux, F. Gazier, 14 vols. (Paris: Hachette,
2 Lenoble, Mersenne, pp. 312, 323. 1908-1925), for all other writings (G.E.).

297

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 4 ft

Diagram for an experiment on atmospheric

pressure. (Pascal, Traite' de la pesanteur de la
masse de 1l'ai, 1663.)

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 298 A. W. S. BAIRD

hopelessly hidden in an impenetrable secret, Pascal assumes that there are principles
and ends in terms of which the things that go to make up the world of nature find ex-
planation. These principles and ends may be such as to elude the human intellect, but
that has no bearing upon their objective existence. Similarly when he goes on to
describe the presumption of those inquirers who have attempted to grasp the principles
of things and from there have attempted to understand the whole, Pascal again takes
for granted that there is an all-embracing scheme.4 And two further passages from the
fragment clearly illustrate that this skepticism about man's capacity nevertheless
implies the conception of the world as an ordered whole:

... les parties du monde ont toutes un tel rapport et un tel enchainement l'une avec
l'autre, queje crois impossible de connaitre l'une sans l'autre et sans le tout.

.toutes choses etant causees ct causantes, aidees et aidantes, mediates et immediates,

et toutes s'entretenant par un lien naturel et insensible qui lie les plus eloignees et les plus
diff6rentes, je tiens impossible de connaitre les parties sans connaitre le tout, non plus
que de connaitre le tout sans connaitre particulierement les parties.5

The same nature, therefore, whose wonders and immensity should arouse in the be-
holder an attitude of reverent awe, has a further title to respect because of the con-
tinuity it exhibits in the causal connection binding all things together. The apologetic
character of the fragment obviously precludes Pascal from taking the final step, which
seems to follow logically from this conception of the universe as a whole made up of
interconnected parts. However, the existence of a network of uniformities throughout
phenomena, which will enable laws and general modes of occurrence to be discovered
and formulated, is at least clearly implied here.

II. THE PRINCIPLE OF UNIFORMITY

The important role played by this assumption-that nature acts according to

regular laws-in Pascal's two treatises on statics is apparent from the extensive use
which he makes there of "thought-experiments." For it appears that only one of the
numerous experiments referred to was actually performed: Pierre Gassendi's testi-
mony to the experiment with the flaccid balloon is held by commentators to be
sufficient evidence for its having been carried out.6
As early as 1666 Robert Boyle, in his Hydrostatical Paradoxes, affirms that although
he is in agreement in the main with the conclusions arrived at by Pascal in his treatise
he has no mind to make use of his experimental proofs. Three principal reasons are
given for rejecting these:

First, Because though the Experiments he mentions be delivered in such a manner, as is

usual in mentioning matters of fact; yet I remember not that he expressly says that he
actually try'd them, and therefore he might possibly have set them down as things that
must happen, upon a just confidence that he was not mistaken in his Ratiocinations.7

4 Chevalier, p. 1107; B. 72.

6 Chevalier, p. 1110; B. 72. The skeptical
twist which Pascal gives here to the idea that all
things in nature are connected-so that to know
any one thing we should have to know everything
-may well have been suggested, as Brunschvicg
notes, by Montaigne's Apologie de Raimond
Sebond. Essais, Vol. II, ed. Maurice Rat (Paris:
Editions Gamier Fr&res, 1958). See esp. pp.
264 ff., 308 ff.
6 The letter in which Gassendi gives an account
of this experiment is reproduced in G.E. III,
p. 200, n. 1.
I Robert Boyle, Hydrostatical Paradoxes,
made olt by new experiments, for the most part
physical and easie (Oxford: William Hall, for
Richard Davis, 1666), pp. 4-5.

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 PASCAL'S IDEA OF NATURE 299

Boyle's two remaining objections stem from what he considers are insuperable tech-
nical difficulties which would be encountered in attempting to perform the experiments
as Pascal has described them. And it is significant that about one of these he notes.
"they require Brass Cylinders, or Pluggs, made with an exactness, that, though easily
supposed by a Mathematician, will scarce be found obtainable from a Tradesman."8
He concludes that these difficulties are such as to make Pascal's alleged experiments
''more ingenious than practicable."
Now if, as Boyle maintains, the experiments set out in the two treatises are no more
than thought-experiments, then Pascal is basing his conclusions here on principles of a
very different kind from those which he describes elsewhere as "les seuls principes de la
physique."9 Boyle's contention-that the experiments could not have been carried
out-has been vindicated by subsequent writers; 10 and in any case, as he points out,
Pascal nowhere expressly declares that he did perform them. It appears likely therefore
that Boyle is correct when he suggests that Pascal merely set down the purported ex-
perimental results "as things that must happen, upon a just confidence that he was not
mistaken in his Ratiocinations."
The most notable example of this is the principle of the hydraulic press-Pascal's
most significant contribution to the science of statics-formulated in the opening
chapters of the first treatise. He envisages a number of experiments (the ones requiring
the "Brass Cylinders, or Pluggs," alleged by Boyle to be unprocurable) to demonstrate
that fluids have weight in proportion to their depth. The results of these, he claims,
make it plain that the force required to prevent the water from flowing out of an in-
verted tube is proportional to the height of the water in the tube and not to the area of
its base, and furthermore that a mere thread of water will suffice to counterbalance a
great weight. Then in the course of determining what causes this multiplication of
force, Pascal considers a vessel of water, closed on all sides, with two openings, one a
hundred times larger than the other. If a piston is carefully fitted to each of these, a
man pressing the small piston will match the strength of a hundred men pressing the
piston in the hundredfold-greater opening. It is evident from this, Pascal maintains,
that given the continuity and the fluidity of the water: ". . . un vaisseau plein d'eau est
un nouveau principe de mecanique, et une machine nouvelle pour multiplier les
forces.... 11
Further proof is then derived for the new principle by pointing out how it links up
with other previously established principles of statics, the principle of virtual dis-
placements, and Torricelli's principle of the center of gravity. It is also explained in
hydrostatical terms by showing how, in virtue of the "continuite" and "fluidite" of the
liquid contained in the vessel, pressure exerted on any portion of its surface will be
transmitted undiminished throughout.12 Having reached this point, Pascal considers

8 Ibid.; cf. pp. 63-64.
9 Chevalier, p. 532; G.E. II, p. 136. Cf.
Chevalier, p. 462; G.E. III, p. 266.
10 Charles Thurot notes that "Pascal. . . (ce
qui est curieux de la part d'un homme qui pro-
fesse que les experiences sont les seuls principes
de la physique) invoque des exp6riences qu'il
n'avait pas faites, et meme qui ne peuvent pas
etre faites, . ." ("Recherches sur le principe
d'Archimede," Revue Archeologique, 1869, 20:
19). Cf. Alexandre Koyre, Pascal savant, in Blaise
Pascal, I'homme et l'oeuvre, Cahiers de Royau-
mont, Philosophie No. 1 (Paris: Editions de
Minuit, 1956), p. 276.
11 Chevalier, p. 414; G.E. III, p. 163.
12 Chevalier, pp. 414-416; G.E. III, pp. 163 ff.
For a detailed analysis of these treatises see
Isabel Leavenworth, A Methodological Analysis
of the Physics of Pascal (New York: Columbia
Univ. Press, 1930).

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 300 A. W. S. BAIRD

himself justified in assuming the truth of his basic principle: "Prenons donc pour tres
veritable, qu'un vaisseau plein d'eau, ayant des ouvertures, et des forces 'a ces ouver-
tures qui leur soient proportionnees, elles sont en equilibre; et c'est le fondement et la
raison de l'equilibre des liqueurs, dont nous allons donner plusieurs exemples."'13
The way in which Pascal describes the experiments designed to prove and illustrate
this principle makes it clear that what he assumes as the basis of his argument, on
which "the just confidence that he was not mistaken in his Ratiocinations" is grounded,
is the uniform behavior of the natural forces whose effects he is engaged in tracing and
correlating. The method which he adopts is simply to state that if certain experiments
are performed, the phenomena under investigation will be found to behave in a certain
way. Such predictions, which anticipate conclusions not directly observed, are no
doubt based on and suggested by previously observed cases-for example, the experi-
ments concerning the vacuum'4 and everyday observation of the behavior of fluids.
They nevertheless take for granted, as an underlying principle, that natural processes
are governed by a uniformity of law. And the confidence with which Pascal propounds
the basic principle of statics arrived at in this way, together with the fact that the two
ensuing treatises comprise little more than an elaboration of it, amply attests the trust
he places in this notion of nature's uniformity.
Presumably Pascal sees fit here to overlook the idea (which he develops elsewhere)
that there is an element of indeterminacyin nature whose subtlety is suchas to render
quite vain any attempt to reduce her processes to a formula.15 Moreover, this pro-
cedure of drawing inferences from the data of experiments never actually performed,
and claiming a wide range of application for their conclusions, runs directly counter to
his professed attitude toward induction. Indeed, in the conclusion to these very
treatises Pascal appears to dispute the legitimacy of any inference beyond immediate
experience based on the assumption that the regularities observed in one segment of
nature will hold good over all the rest. 16
However, the method of reasoning by analogy used in the second treatise provides
further evidence that Pascal does base his own inquiries on the assumption that there
is a network of uniformities underlying phenomena. In order to demonstrate that the
effects previously attributed to nature's horror vacui follow from laws already shown to
apply in the equilibrium of fluids, Pascal emphasizes the obvious analogies between
these two classes of phenomena. The explanation of the phenomena that relate to the
supposed horror vacui rests almost entirely therefore on the way in which they are
integrated into a system of established laws.
In the letter to Florin Perier included in the Recit de la grande experience Pascal is
already inclined to explain the horror vacui phenomena in terms of atmospheric
pressure, because he regards them as simply "particular cases of a universal proposition
on the equilibrium of fluids."'7 In the second of the two treatises, having established
as a result of the experiment with the flaccid balloon that air has certain characteristics
in common with water and all other fluids, Pascal enumerates the effects usually as-

13 Chevalier, pp. 416-417; G.E. III, p. 168.
14 Koyr6 argues that many of these experi-
ments could not have been performed in the
manner or with the results that Pascal alleges
(Pascal savant, pp. 275-278).
15 Chevalier, p. 1121; B. 91.
"O Chevalier, p. 460; G.E. III, p. 262. Cf.
Chevalier, p. 535; G.E. II, p. 144, and my
article "Inconsistencies in Pascal's Conception
of Scientific Knowledge," Aumla, 1965, 24:220-
238.
17 Chevalier, p. 393; G.E. II, p. 154.

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 PASCAL'S IDEA OF NATURE 301

cribed to the horror vacui.'8 The argument which is to be elaborated in the ensuing
section is then set down in brief outline:

Si l'on a bien compris, dans le Traite' de l'equilibre des liqueurs, de quelle maniere elles
font impression par leurs poids contre les corps qui y sont, on n'aura point de peine 'a
comprendre comment le poids de la masse de l'air, agissant sur tous les corps, y produit
tous les effets qu'on avait attribues 'a 1'horreur du vide; car ils sont tout 'a fait semblables
comme nous l'allons montrer sur chacun.19

Not only does this statement set the board as it were, but it illustrates clearly that the
method of argument to be followed-bringing out the analogies between the two
different classes of phenomena-takes for granted the central fact of nature's unifor-
mity.
The first example to be treated is the difficulty experienced in opening a bellows
with all its apertures stopped. In order to demonstrate how the weight of the mass of
air causes this difficulty, Pascal points to the parallel case of resistance caused by the
weight of water. Clearly when a bellows is immersed in water, with the tube emerging
into the air, it would be ridiculous to attribute the resistance to the horror vacui. And
since what is said of water is to be understood of any fluid, a "general law" can be
propounded: the resistance encountered in opening a bellows with its apertures
stopped in any fluid is caused by and is proportionate to the weight of fluid which
must be raised. If this general law is applied to the particular case of air, it will be
found to be true that the weight of the mass of air causes the resistance felt in opening
the bellows. Having applied this method of reasoning by analogy to the remaining
eight examples of effects previously attributed to the horror vacui, formulating in each
instance the general law of which this is the particular case, Pascal concludes the
chapter as follows:

Voila de quelle sorte le poids de l'air produit tous les effets qu'on avait jusqu'ici attribues
'a 1'horreur du vide.20 J'en viens d'expliquer les principaux; s'il en reste quelqu'un, il est
si aise de 1'entendre ensuite de ceux-ci, ... et on peut meme dire qu'on les avait dej'a tous
vus, comme en leur source, dans le Traite precedent, puisque tous ces effets ne sont que
des cas particuliers de la regle generale de 1'equilibre des liqueurs.21

The method which Pascal adopts in this part of the treatise consists essentially there-
fore in relating the particular effect in question ascribed to the horror vacui to the
analogous case in the treatment of the equilibrium of fluids. In this way the horror
vacui is made to appear superfluous as an explanation, since the relevant phenomena
are shown to constitute a particular case of a general law already established. The
mode of cause and effect which has been found to hold good in one set of phenomena
is thus extended by analogy to another quite separate set. And the assumption under-
lying this procedure-that the conditions under which phenomena will occur are pre-
dictable-rests in turn upon the belief that nature's processes are governed by a far-
reaching uniformity of law.

18 Chevalier, pp. 429-434; G.E. III, pp. 194-conclusion, again making the basic assumption
206. that nature is regular, acting according to uniform
laws throughout different classes of phenomena.
19 Chevalier, p. 434; G.E. III, p. 206.
Chevalier, pp. 463 ff.; G.E. II, pp. 515 ff.
20In a further fragment Pascal extends this 21 Chevalier, p. 443; G.E. III, p. 225.

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 302 A. W. S. BAIRD

The principle of uniformity, which Pascal assumes throughout the two treatises on
statics, is further illustrated by the constancy which in his view characterizes the ac-
tivity of nature-a conception which he shares with such contemporaries as Francis
Bacon and Gilles de Roberval.22 The context of Pascal's assertion in the Preface pour le
traite' du vide-that experiments are the only legitimate principles in physics-shows
that he believes that the necessity for such an empirical approach is dictated by the
face which nature itself presents to the investigator:

Les secrets de la nature sont caches; quoiqu'elle agisse toujours, on ne decouvre pas
toujours ses effets: le temps les revvle d'age en age, et quoique toujours egale en elle-
meme, elle n'est pas toujours egalement connue. Les experiences qui nous en donnent
l'intelligence multiplient continuellement; .. .23

The constancy of nature is described here in terms of a continuous process, hidden

from our directinspection and hence often eluding us since its effects are too subtle for
our senses to detect.
In the "Disproportion de l'homme" fragment of the Pensees, Pascal contrasts
nature and human nature in the following way: "L'immobilite fixe et constante de la
nature, comparaison au changement continuel qui se passe en nous, ... *"24 An earlier
variant, as well as the comparison drawn, shows that the expression "immobilite
fixe," which gives the impression that nature constitutes a homogeneous mass which
admits of no motion, is intended here merely to emphasize nature's constancy.
"Voila une partie des causes qui rendent l'homme si imbecile 'a connaltre la nature....
Elle dure et se maintient perpetuellement en son etre: il passe et est mortel1."25
The constancy of nature is again illustrated in the description of an experiment
designed to prove the effects of air pressure. The air is prevented from exerting pressure
on the mercury lying in the elbow of a curved tube, because the experimenter has
placed his finger over the opening at the point where the curve joins the straight
portion of the tube. 26

Mais com.me rien ne se perd dans la nature, si le vif-argent qui est dans la recourbure
sent pas le poids de 1'air, parce que le doigt qui bouche son ouverture 1'en garde, il arri
en recompense, que le doigt souffre beaucoup de douleur car il porte tout le poids de 1'
qui le presse par-dessus, et rien ne le soutient par-dessous.27

22According to Roberval, "[la nature] n'est

by "a process perfectly continuous, which for the
jamais contraire a elle-mesme quoy qu'elle most part escapes the sense," is set out in the
produise des effets contraires, ou qui nous Novum organurn, II, 5-6. The Philosophical Works
semblent tels.... la nature demeure tousjours of Francis Bacon, ed. John M. Robertson (Lon-
telle qu'elle est constante en son estre veri- don: Routledge & Sons, 1905), pp. 304-305.
table:...," Fragment in6dit, in G.E. II, pp. 23 Chevalier, p. 532; G.E. II, p. 136.
49-50. Cf. Des principes du debvoir et des 24 Chevalier, p. 1110; B. 72.
connoissances humaines, in Fragments de philoso-
25 Chevalier, p. 1112; B. 72.
phie carte'sienne, ed. Victor Cousin (Paris:
Charpentier, 1845), p. 247. On Roberval see 26 Cf. diagram, Chevalier, p. 450 (reproduced
Leon Auger, Un savant m6connu: Gilles Personne as the frontispiece); G.E. III, p. 237. For
de Roberval (1602-1675) (Paris: Librairie Scien- Mersenne's analogous views on nature's con-
tifique A. Blanchard, 1962). Pierre Guiffart stancy which led him to formulate in a similar
describes nature in similar terms in his Discours context "ce principe de l'universelle, 'compen-
de Vuide sur les experiences de Monsieur Paschal sation' des forces dans la nature," see Lenoble,
et le traicte de Mr Pierius (Rouen, 1648), pp. Mersenne, pp. 428-429.
4849. Bacon's conception of nature operating 27 Chevalier, p. 450; G.E. III, p. 240.

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 PASCAL'S IDEA OF NATURE 303

Since the sensation of pain is alleged to result as "recompense," it is clear that the
notion of constancy is simply taken for granted here as a real, objective principle of
nature, adequate to account for the occurrence of phenomena.
However, the constancy of nature's process does not consist primarily for Pascal, as
it appears to for Bacon,28 in the given quantity of basic material remaining the same
despite the changes undergone by the individual phenomena sharing in the process.
Such a conception would scarcely be adequate to account for the principle of the un-
ceasing activity of nature postulated in the passage from the Preface. Nature there
represents essentially this continuous activity, expressing itself in individual embodi-
ments (effets), and not simply a given amount of matter which remains uniform
throughout all time.
It is this sort of view that predominates in the scattered fragments of the Pensees
bearing upon the subject:

La nature s'imite: une graine jetee en bonne terre, produit; un principe jete dans un bon
esprit, produit; les nombres imitent 1'espace, qui sont de nature si diff6rente. Tout est fai
et conduit par un meme maltre: la racine, les branches, les fruits; les principes, les con-
sequences.29

La nature recomnmence toujours les memes choses, les ans, les jours, les heures; le
espaces de meme, et les nombres sont bout a bout 'a la suite l'un de I'autre. Ainsi se fait
une espece d'infini et d'eternel. ...30

Thus Pascal describes the continuity, the uniformity, discernible throughout the world
of nature, not in terms of any underlying material substance, but in terms of the pro-
cesses of growth and change which take place according to the same sequence in such
diverse fields as plant life and the mental life of man. This unity of pattern is extended
to include numbers and space, which conform to identical laws of increase, despite the
fact that one is a mere mode imposed by the mind on objective reality while the other
is an entity encompassing the whole of that reality. The use of the reflexive verb
s'imiter in the first extract indicates that for Pascal, in contrast to the Aristotelian
tradition,31 nature's model is immanent and not transcendent. It is the ordered re-
production of its own inherent processes that s'imiter suggests.
The continuity and uniformity which Pascal sees in nature lead him to the point of
view from which everything in the physical world appears in reciprocal action: "Le
moindre mouvement importe "a toute la nature; la mer entiere change pour une
pierre."32 This sensitivity of nature to change in any of its parts means that every poin
of the physical universe will react, in however slight degree, to everything that happen
anywhere throughout the whole universe. And Pascal's sense of the proximity of
different "worlds" comes into play even in his essays on pure mathematics. In con-
clusion to the treatise on the sum of the numerical powers, after enunciating the
general law that a continuous magnitude of a given order is not increased by the
addition to it ofany number of magnitudes of a lower order-so that points add nothing

28 "For there is nothing more true in nature Philosophical Works, p. 354.

than the twin propositions that 'nothing is pro-
duced from nothing', and 'nothing is reduced to
nothing', but that the absolute quantum or sum
total of matter remains unchanged, without
increase or diminution." Novum organum, II, 40,
29 Chevalier, p. 1096; B. 119.
30 Chevalier, p. 1123; B. 121.
31 See R. G. Collingwood, The Idea of Nature
(Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1945), p. 95.
32 Chevalier, p. 1296; B. 505.

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 304 A. W. S. BAIRD

to lines, lines nothing to surfaces, and so forth-he makes the following observation:

J'ai tenu 'a ajouter ces quelques remarques, familieres 'a ceux qui pratiquent les indivisi-
bles, afin de faire ressortir la liaison, toujours admirable, que la nature, eprise d'unite,
etablit entre les choses les plus eloignees en apparence. Elle apparalt dans cet exemple, oii
nous voyons le calcul des dimensions des grandeurs continues se rattacher 'a la sommation
des puissances numeriques.33

Now it may well be that the notion of heterogeneous orders, as Pascal sets it out in
this context, is as banal as Koyre would have us believe.3' However, what is significant
for the present purpose is Pascal's conviction that in geometry and arithmetic com-
ponents are governed in certain relations by the selfsame principle, and this unifor-
mity is the result of nature being "eprise d'unite."35

III. THE UNDERLYING GEOMETRICAL STRUCTURE OF NATURE

Pascal outlines the philosophy of nature36 in which this principle of uniformity is

expressed in the treatise De l'esprit geometrique. After showing that the concepts
motion, number, and space comprise the proper object of geometry, he goes on to
describe the geometrical structure underlying observed phenomena:

Ces trois choses, qui comprennent tout l'univers, selon ces paroles: "Deus fecit omnia in
pondere, in numero, et mensura", ont une liaison reciproque et necessaire. Car on ne
peut imaginer de mouvement sans quelque chose qui se meuve; et cette chose etant une,
cette unite est l'origine de tous les nombres ;37 enfin le mouvement ne pouvant etre sans
espace, on voit ces trois choses enfermees dans la premiere. Le temps meme y est aussi
compris: car le mouvement et le temps sont relatifs l'un 'a l'autre; la promptitude et la
lenteur, qui sont les differences des mouvements, ayant un rapport necessaire avec le
temps.

Ainsi il y a des proprietes communes "a toutes choses, dont la connaissance ouvre 1'esprit
aux plus grandes merveilles de la nature.38

Although elsewhere in this treatise Pascal prescribes admiration and contemplation as

man's appropriate response in the face of nature and its wonders,39 in this passage at
least he implies that nature is intelligible. Indeed he appears to endorse Galileo's
conviction that the universe really represents a book which can be read, but only by

33 Chevalier, pp. 171, 1432; G.E. III, p. 366. physical significance, as earlier metaphysicians
34 Pascal savant, pp. 265-266. like Bruno had done. See the passages quoted
35 For an historical account of the principle from
of Bruno's De Minimo, for example, by J. R.
continuity see Arthur 0. Lovejoy, The Great Charbonnel, La pensee italienne au XVIe siecle et
Chain of Being (New York: Harper Torchbooks, le courant libertin (Paris:Champion, 1919), pp.
1960),passim. 543-554. However, later remarks made by Pascal
36 By this I mean what A. C. Crombie in the same section of this treatise discount such a
also
possibility: ". . . puisque l'unite peut, etant
calls "the investigator's . . . 'regulative beliefs',
... that will determine his conception of the multipliee plusieurs fois, surpasser quelque
real subject of his inquiiry, of the direction in nombre que ce soit, elle est de meme genre que
which the truth hidden in the appearances will be les nombres precisement par son essence et par
found." Augustine to Galileo (2nd ed., London: sa nature immuable,..." (Chevalier, p. 589;
Mercury Books, Heinemann, 1961), Vol. II, G.E. IX, pp. 265-266).
pp. 287-288. 38 Chevalier, p. 583; G.E. IX, pp. 255-256.
37 The assertion that one is the origin of all
numbers might be taken to imply that Pascal 39 Chevalier, pp. 590-591; G.E. IX, pp. 268-
invests it with some peculiar mystical or meta- 270.

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 PASCAL'S IDEA OF NATURE 305

those who are acquainted with nature's handwriting and hence able to interpret her
text. For those unversed in mathematics this book must remain forever closed. Pascal
has already pointed out that the different branches into which "geometry" is divided-
mechanics, arithmetic, geometry-stem directly from the particular concept-motion,
number, space-which forms the specific subject matter of each. And the underlying
connectedness of these basic elements, which in another context explains man's in-
ability to understand nature,40 here enables him to discover the real structure of nature.
Pascal's mechanistic affinities are underlined in this extract, not only by the claim
that everything in the physical world falls within the grasp of geometry, but more
especially by the way in which he reduces the fundamental nature of things to motion
taking place in empty Euclidean space. The kinematic measure of velocity is clearly
intended when he asserts that rates of motion are proportional to time, thus disre-
garding the basic law of Aristotelian dynamics. According to this law from Aristotle's
Physics, "velocity is proportional to the power of the mover divided by the resistance
of the medium."'41
But although it follows from the approach adopted here that nature is mathe-
matical-that it is intelligible insofar as it can be considered under the aspects of
motion, number, and space-Pascal disappoints any hopes which may have been
formed of seeing this synopsis of the whole of nature filled out. The remainder of the
first part of the treatise is taken up with demonstrating that the basic concepts are
potentially infinite in respect to addition and division, while the second part is con-
cerned solely with questions of methodology. It might of course be argued that when
Pascal goes to such lengths to demonstrate that motion, number, and space are
potentially infinite in respect to addition and division, he does so in the belief that he is
furthering his reader's knowledge of the ftnndamental characteristics of the material
universe. However, he nowhere undertakes ever to show how he arrived at the con-
clusion that these simple concepts, the subject matter of geometry, represent the basic
constituents of nature.42 In this instance, then, Pascal is apparently content to take for
granted in his reader a thoroughly mechanistic attitude toward questions relating to
the nature of the physical world.
In the only other context outside the present work where he treats of the relation
between motion, number, and space, Pascal is primarily concerned with a rather more
specific problem-that of the vacuum. The Jesuit Noel, replying to Pascal's carefully
worded refutation of his attack on the preliminary Experiences nouvelles touchant le
vide, had in desperation resorted to a feeble reductio ad absurdum. This took the form
of a list of mutually exclusive properties attributed at various times to void space, one
of which was that it is "immuable et se transporte avec le tube." The parts of Pascal's
resolution of this particular antithesis which bear upon the present inquiry run as
follows:

. . l'immobilite est aussi naturelle 'a l'espace que le mouvement 1'est au corps. Pour
rendre cette verite evidente, il faut remarquer que 1'espace, en general, comprend tous les
corps de la nature, dont chacun en particulier en occupe une certaine partie; mais qu'en-
core qu'ils soient tous mobiles, l'espace qu'ils remplissent ne 1'est pas;. . . soit ou vide ou

40 Cf. discussion above, Sec. I. 42In the passage quoted he does no more than
41 A. C. Crombie, Robert Grosseteste and the bring out the thread of implication that connects
Origins of Experimental Science (2nd impression, these concepts.
Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1962), p. 179.

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 306 A. W. S. BAIRD

plein, toujours dans un pareil repos, ce vaste espace, dont l'amplitude embrasse tout, est
aussi stable et immobile en chacune de ses parties, comme il 1'est en son total.43

Space, therefore, is perfectly immobile both as a whole and in all its parts. It can be
considered universal, however, in the sense claimed for it in the extract analyzed
earlier, since it encompasses the sum total of physical things. Moreover, it shows the
necessary relation to motion ascribed to it in that context. Motion is here a state of
bodies, equivalent in them to the immobile state of the space which they occupy, so
that motion will always take place in space. The numerical concept, insisted upon as
the other basic constituent of the physical world in the passage treated first, is accoun-
ted for by the fact that each particular thing in space is a single unit.
In this letter the conception of the basic structure of the universe as a complex of
mutually implicated elements is at least clearly implied in Pascal's arguments, although
no mention is made of geometry's role in enabling the mind to appreciate everything
under this aspect. However, the motion described here obviously belongs to the
seventeenth-century dynamics of inertia, and the passage is significant also since it
confirms that Pascal accepts the "mathematization of physical space."44 Pascal follows
Gassendi here in identifying physical space with the abstract and infinite space of
geometry.45 When he claims that space is the immovable supporter of all material
things Pascal refers to absolute space, a reality that must be inferred; but he makes
no distinction between this and the space of the real world, which is occupied by par-
ticular physical objects. And the mathematical character of this space is clear from the
description of space in another fragment intended for an introduction to geometry.
Pascal there lists among his "first principles":

Principe 1. L'objet de la pure geometrie est l'espace, dont elle considere la triple etendue
en trois sens divers qu'on appelle dimensions, . . .

Principe 2. L'espace est infini selon toutes les dimensions.

Principe 3.... et immobile en tout et en chacune de ses parties.46

43 Chevalier, p. 383; G.E. II, p. 190. This view 44Koyre quoted by E. J. Dijksterhuis, The
of space as an entity in its own right, having a Mechanization of the World Picture, trans. C.
claim equal to that of substance to the quality of Dikshoorn (Oxford:Clarendon Press, 1961), p.
being per se, is of considerable ontological 377. According to Dijksterhuis the expression
significance. It cuts across the traditional philo- "essentially . . . means that natural phenomena
sophical division of all being into substance and must be assumed to take place in the empty space
accident. Furthermore, when he maintains that of geometry."
motionless space and the mobile bodies which
45' Gassendi defines space in the section in his
occupy it form two quite different things, Pascal
Syntagma devoted to physics as infinite in three
openly disavows the orthodox Cartesian view
dimensions, motionless in itself, and the place of
that extension is peculiar to the corporeal. His
all things which move about freely in it. Petrus
definition, in an earlier letter, of a vacuum shows
Gassendi Opera Omnia (Stuttgart: Friedrich
that he regards impenetrability, not extension, as
Frommann, 1964; facsim. reprint of 1658 Lyon
the distinguishing mark of material substance.
ed.), Vol. I, p. 183 A+ B. On this aspect of
Chevalier, p. 376; G.E. II, pp. 103-104. For the
Gassendi's thought see P. F. Thomas, La philo-
Cartesian view see Descartes' Principes de la
sophie de Gassendi (Paris:Alcan, 1889), p. 50,
philosophie, II, 10, in Descartes, Oeuvres et lettres,
and Gaston Sortais, La philosophie moderne
ed. Andre Bridoux (Paris: Biblioth6que de la
depuis Bacon jusqu'a Leibniz (Paris: Lethielleux,
Ple'ade, Gallimard, 1958), p. 616, and Alexandre
1922), Vol. 11, pp. 97-99.
Koyre, From the Closed World to the Infinite
Universe (New York: Harper Torchbooks, 1958), 46 Chevalier, pp. 602-603; G.E. IX, pp. 291-
pp. 101-104. 292.

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 PASCAL'S IDEA OF NATURE 307

There is an almost word-for-word parallel between the third principle and the last two
lines of the previous quotation: "aussi immobile en chacune de ses parties, comme il
1'est en son total." And the identity of the space in question is plain also because it is
infinite in both contexts.

IV. PASCAL'S ATTITUDE TO MECHANISTIC COSMOLOGIES

In view of these mechanistic leanings it is striking how unconvinced Pascal remains

by the seventeenth-century attempts to elaborate an overall mechanistic worldview.
What scattered references to the cosmological speculations of his contemporaries and
immediate predecessors his writings contain reveal an extremely tentative attitude, at
times verging on skepticism, to any conclusions posited - a hesitancy which the con-
texts show cannot be ascribed simply to motives of prudence.
Thus in the eighteenth Provinciale, after enumerating the three "principles" of
human knowledge each of which has its own special subject matter, Pascal concludes
that since "les choses de fait ne se prouvent que par les sens," mere authority, regard-
less of the sanctions with which it may arm itself, can have no influence in this domain.
He then adds by way of illustration:

Ce fut aussi en vain que vous obtintes contre Galilee ce decret de Rome, qui condamnait
son opinion touchant le mouvement de la terre. Ce ne sera pas cela qui prouvera qu'elle
demeure en repos; et si l'on avait des observations constantes qui prouvassent que c'est
elle qui tourne, tous les hommes ensemble ne l'empecheraient pas de tourner, et ne
s'empecheraient pas de tourner avec elle.47

Since this statement constitutes an attack upon the validity of the whole procedure
according to which Galileo was condemned, and actually calls in question the papal
right to pronounce on matters of fact, it represents a far more significant act of
defiance in the face of ecclesiastical authority than would any mere declaration of
agreement with the condemned views. Clearly the requirements of the inductive
method, as Pascal sees it, and not the dictates of prudence, determine his attitude to-
ward Galileo's "opinion." In his view insufficient "observations constantes" have as
yet been adduced in support of the theory to justify accepting its conclusions.48

47Chevalier, p. 900; G.E. VII, pp. 53-54. The nous disons que le Soleil se leve, qu'il monte
"Disproportion de l'homme" fragment in the dans le ciel, puis qu'il se couche et s'abaisse
Pensees contains a description of the sun moving au-dessous de l'horizon, est-ce que nous
on a "vaste tour" round an apparently stationary abjurons l'opinion de Copernic ?
earth, with an implied contrast between the
M. G. Allix, "Pascal et le systeme de Copernic,"
"objets bas" of the sublunary sphere and the
Bulletin de l'Acade'mie Delphinale, 1904,18:279.
nobler elements of the higher spheres. How far
this can be taken to show that Pascal is still
48 Concerning this "extremely reserved attitude
clinging here, in part at least, to the old geocentric
towards the Copernican system" Dijksterhuis
cosmology has been much debated. It seems
writes that "though the so-called proofs which
regrettable to me that too little notice has been
Galileo had advanced for the Copernican system
taken of Allix's early and eminently plausible
had been perfectly convincing to their author,
suggestion:
they by no means satisfied the very rigorous
Peut-on dire qu'en parlant ainsi aux gens du demands that Pascal made on a scientific
monde, Pascal a opte pour le systeme de proof; .. ." (Mechanization of the World Pic-
Ptol6mee? Mais tous les jours les expressions ture, p. 450). For Pascal's views on induction
relatives au mouvement apparent sont couram- and hypotheses which determine his attitude here
ment employees par les astronomes eux- and in the subsequent passages to be quoted, see
memes aussi bien que par les profanes. Lorsquemy article in Aumla, 1965, pp. 227 ff.

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 308 A. W. S. BAIRD

In a letter to Noel in October 1647, in answer to his supposition of a "matiere

subtile" to account for the results of his own experiments pointing to the apparent
existence of a vacuum, Pascal sets out a method for evaluating such hypotheses ad-
vanced as explanations of observed phenomena. One of the reasons he gives for the
need of such a test is that just as a single cause may produce a number of different
effects, so a single effect may derive from a variety of causes.

C'est ainsi que, quand on discourt humainement du mouvement, de la stabilite de la

terre, tous les phenomenes des mouvements et retrogradations des planetes s'ensuivent
parfaitement des hypotheses de Ptolemee, de Tycho, de Copernic et de beaucoup d'autres
qu'on peut faire, de toutes lesquelles une seule peut etre veritable. Mais qui osera faire
un si grand discernement, et qui pourra, sans danger d'erreur, soutenir l'une au prejudice
des autres....49

None of the various cosmological schemes so far proposed can claim universal ac-
ceptance, then, since all remain mere hypotheses, explaining equally well the observed
facts. The point of view adopted here is similar to that of Descartes in the Principes de
la philosophie.50 Although he omits Ptolemy's name from the list of "possibles,"
Descartes maintains that provided they are regarded simply as hypotheses, the ex-
planations put forward by Copernicus and Tycho both account equally well for the
actual phenomena. However, it is clear from the proviso included here, as well as from
Descartes' other writings, that his position is a purely politic one, assumed in order
to avoid compromising himself.51 Both the context of Pascal's statement and other
evidence already considered make it gratuitous to suppose his motives to be other than
genuine lack of intellectual conviction. The test which he proposes for deciding be-
tween equally possible rival hypotheses has not been satisfied in this instance.
Again in the same letter-this time in connection with Noel's tactics of taking for
granted in his "demonstrations" the existence and the properties of the very element

49Chevalier, pp. 374-375; G.E. II, pp. 100-101. Descartes then defines his attitude to the other
two explanations: ". .. sans estre en rien different
60Principes, III, 15-19, Oeuvres de Descartes,
de ces deux, excepte en cela seul, que j'auray
ed. C. Adam and P. Tannery (2nd ed., Paris:
plus de soin que Copernic de ne point attribuer
J. Vrin, 1964), Vol. IX-2, pp. 108-110. In the
de mouvement a la Terre, et que je tascheray de
forward to his Aristarchus, which appeared in
the third volume of Mersenne's Novae observa-
faire que mes raisons, sur ce sujet, soient plus
vrayes que celles de Tycho: je proposeray icy
tiones (Paris, 1647), Roberval argues that none of
l'hypothese qui me semble estre la plus simple
the cosmological hypotheses can claim universal
de toutes et la plus commode, . . . mais seulemnent
acceptance until either a clear demonstration on
comme une hypothese, ou supposition qui peut
the one side or a convincing refutation on the
estre fausse." Principes, III, 19, Oeuvres, ed.
other is forthcoming. However, he goes on to say
Adam and Tannery, Vol. IX, pp. 109-1 10
that the simplest explanation, and the one which
(Descartes' own italics). Gilson, in his com-
accords best with established natural laws, is
mentary on Descartes' reference in the Discours
that formulated by Aristarchus. Although not
de la mdthode to the unpublished treatise Le
constrained to assent to this hypothesis by
Monde, describes this approach in the Principes
absolutely convincing proof, he inclines toward
as: ". . . l'artifice d'exposition qui permit. . . a
it with much greater weight than toward the
Descartes de soutenir la translation de la Terre
others (ibid., no pagination). Thus Roberval
tout en niant son mouvement, . . . I1 n'y a pas
advocates the same tentative approach as Pascal
toward cosmological explanations but is ready
l'ombre d'un doute que Descartes n'ait , d&s
le debut, un partisan convaincu du mouvement de
to advance from there to a sort of probabilism
la Terre,..." Etienne Gilson, Rene' Descartes,
on this question which has no parallel in Pascal's
Discours de la m6thode, Texte et commentaire
writings.
(4th ed., Paris: J. Vrin, 1967), pp. 440-441.
61 After rejecting the Ptolemaic system as con-
Gilson cites further passages from Descartes'
trary to some recently recorded observations, writings to support this statement.

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 PASCAL'S IDEA OF NATURE 309

to be proved-Pascal remarks that if this method of demonstration, by mere question

begging, were to become accepted scientific practice, there would be no difficulty in
solving even the most elusive problems: "Et le flux de la mer et l'attraction de l'aimant
deviendront aises 'a comprendre, s'il est permis de faire des matieres et des qualites
expres."52 This comment, made in passing, implies that in Pascal's opinion no satis-
factory theory has yet been formulated to account for magnetic attraction and the
related phenomena of gravity. Pascal therefore rejects, as not adequately answering
the facts, Descartes' attempt to explain in mathematical and mechanistic terms the
results of earlier investigations like those of Gilbert and Kepler.53
It is noteworthy that the theories which evoke this cautious response from Pascal
are examples of the reduction of physical phenomena to the categories of geometry.
Yet it is just such an approach which seems to have Pascal's sanction in the passage
from the De 1'esprit ge'ome'trique. This rather curious inconsistency, coupled with the
fact that despite his several opportunities to do so, he nowhere bothers to explore the
ramifications of inertial motion54-a fact all the more striking since it is the unifying
principle upon which his system of mutually implicated concepts hinges-highlights
the ambivalent position into which Pascal's excessive empiricism leads him.
The attitude which he adopts toward Descartes' conception of a mathematically
interlocking universe, with an infallible "vera mathesis" to match, provides further
evidence of this. Marguerite Perier, in her account of her uncle's life, records that in
regard to Descartes' philosophy Pascal ". . . ne pouvait souffrir sa maniere d'expliquer
la formation de toutes choses.... 55 The accuracy of this testimony is borne out in
several fragments from the Pense'es, where Pascal makes his criticism quite explicit:

.ces titres si ordinaires, "Des principes des choses", "Des principes de la philoso-
phie",56 . . . aussi fastueux en effet, quoique moins en apparence, que cet autre qui creve
les yeux, "De omni scibili."
Ecrire contre ceux qui approfondissent trop les sciences. Descartes.
Descartes inutile et incertain.
Descartes-I1 faut dire en gros: "Cela se fait par figure et mouvement"; car cela est
vrai. Mais de dire quels et composer la machine, cela est ridicule; car cela est inutile et
incertain et penible. Et quand cela serait vrai, nous n'estimons pas que toute la philoso-
phie vaille une heure de peine.57

Descartes then was right: broadly speaking, things are composed in terms of shape
and motion. But his plan to proceed further to a detailed analysis of the whole struc-
ture of the world of nature on the basis of these geometric concepts, and to try to

62 Chevalier, p. 373; G.E. II, p. 96.
53 Commentators have pointed out that the
real target for Pascal's criticism here is not Noel
but Descartes, and Dijksterhuis claims that: "The
allusion to Descartes is unmistakable, for it is
precisely the two phenomena mentioned here
which had been explained in the Principia Philo-
sophiae by an accumulation of hypotheses, and
no one else had exhibited so much virtuosity in
devising hidden mechanisms in order to explain
natural phenomena." Mechanization of the World
Picture, p. 449.
54 Lenoble emphasizes the importance of this
principle for the mechanistic worldview: ". . . le
principe d'inertie, c'est le gage d'une science
claire delivree enfin des qualites occultes, le moyen
de se representer la nature comme une immense
machine dont la magie est chassee" (Mersenne,
p. 360).
65 Chevalier, p. 41. This clearly refers to some-
thing more than Pascal's objection to Descartes'
"chiquenaude," to which Marguerite Wrier then
alludes.
5 Descartes' Principia philosophiae, at which
this remark is chiefly directed, was published in
1643 and first appeared in French translation in
1647.
5 Chevalier, pp. 1108, 1137; B. 72, 76, 78, 79.

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 310 A. W. S. BAIRD

explain its manifold processes by means of a cosmic "machine" functioning according

to laws which admit of precise mathematical formulation-all this is in Pascal's eyes a
complete waste of time. Fleeting though these references are, it is significant that Pascal
concedes that Descartes is justified in postulating his initial principle, while at the same
time he denies any value to the subsequent project of formulating a universal science58
which should both embrace the whole of the physical world and be applicable to the
relations of particular phenomena with each other. Although it is necessary in the case
of the fragments from the Pense'es to take into account the apologetic factor-and in
the final sentence quoted the apologetic factor noticeably obtrudes-when looked at in
the light of the extracts treated earlier they are seen to express a consistent point of
view. For Pascal, systems of nature in which all phenomena find detailed explanation
are on a par with the hypotheses formulated by Noel: they can never advance beyond
the realm of the "douteux" and the "vraisemblable."'59
And Pascal's writings betray no tendency simply to reduce physics to geometry, as
was Descartes' declared aim.60 In fact he draws a sharp distinction between the fields
in which the two operate. Thus near the end of the letter to Noel, having defined what
he means by a vacuum-a motionless space having length, breadth, and depth,
capable of receiving and containing within itself a body of like length and shape-he
adds: . . et c'est ce qu'on appelle solide en geometrie, oZu l'on ne considere que les
choses abstraites et immaterielles."'61 Geometry moves therefore in a nonexisting
world of abstractions; it has no access to the real, physical world. Pascal follows
Roberval here in maintaining the traditional Aristotelian distinction between the
subject matters of the two disciplines.62
This conception of the restricted scope of geometry is the complete opposite of that
of Descartes. Convinced of the universality of his "vera mathesis," Descartes is led
to the position of excluding, at least in theory, from the interpretation of nature what-
ever is not amenable to mathematical treatment. The heading to the last section of the
second part of the Principes de la philosophie is a notable illustration of this tendency.

58 Pascal, it might be said, is prepared to go
halfway with Descartes: the analytical part of the
program outlined in the Regles pour la direction
de l'esprit apparently meets with his approval.
What he rejects is the synthesis by means of
which Descartes attempts "a progressive recon-
struction beginning from the simple and going
through the increasing degrees of complexity
until it ends in the original complex from which
the analysis started." Harold H. Joachim,
Descartes's Rules for the Direction of the Mind,
ed. Errol E. Harris (London:Allen & Unwin,
1957), p. 66. Cf. Ch. II, passim, and Norman
Kemp Smnith, New Studies in the Philosophy of
Descartes (London:Macmillan, 1953), Ch. III,
passim.
59 Cf. Chevalier, pp. 374-375, G.E. II, pp. 98-
101. Isabel Leavenworth also points out that the
conclusions which Pascal draws from the ex-
periments performed in the vacuum controversy
do not presuppose any cosmological theory. The
only cosmological assumption that Pascal
appears to make is when he attempts to prove a
vacuum on the basis of the phenomena of rare-
faction and condensation. This argument, Miss
Leavenworth notes, holds good only for a world
composed of atoms (A Methodological Analysis,
p. 78).
6 In a letter to Mersenne (July 17, 1638), refer-
ring to Desargues, Descartes writes: ". . . s'il lui
plait de considerer ce que j'ai ecrit du sel, de
la neige, de l'arc-en-ciel, etc., il connaitra bien
que toute ma Physique n'est autre chose que
Geometrie." Quoted by Leon Brunschvicg,
L'experience humaine et la causalite' physique
(Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1949),
p. 186.
61 Chevalier, p. 376; G.E. II, p. 103.
62 Roberval draws a hard and fast division
between the domains of mathematics and physics
in a letter to Des Noyers (May 15, 1648). G.E. II,
pp. 337-338. For Gassendi's similar views see
Bernard Rochot, Les travaux de Gassendi sur
Epicure et sur l'atomisme, 1619-1658 (Paris:
J. Vrin, 1944), pp. 152-153.

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 PASCAL'S IDEA OF NATURE 311

Que je ne regois point de principes en physiq

afin de pouvoir prouver par demonstration tout ce que j'en deduirai; et que ces principes
suffisent, d'autant que tous les phenomernes de la nature peuvent etre expliques par leur
moyen.63

But perhaps the passage which serves best to bring out the difference in point of view
between Pascal and Descartes is the following one from the Entretien avec Burman,
where Descartes is recorded as saying:

A . .toutes les demonstrations des mathematiciens portent sur des etres et sur des objets
vrais et ... l'objet tout entier des math6matiques, avec tout ce qu'elles y considerent, est
un etre vrai et reel et a une vraie et reelle nature, non moins que l'objet de la physique
ele-mame.

The difference between the two disciplines resides solely in the fact that:

... la physique considere son objet non seulement comme un etre vrai et reel, mais comme
un eftre en acte, et, en tant que tel, existant; les mathematiques au contraire seulement en
tant que possible, n'existant point en acte dans l'espace, pouvant toutefois exister.64

When considered in the light of the previous ones this last extract shows how com-
pletely indifferent Descartes is to what exists in the physical world, so obsessed is he
with his fetish of "conformity to mathematical type."65
Contrasting sharply with this a priorism, and far from taking geometry as the yard-
stick of reality, Pascal expressly denies reality to geometrical concepts; to him they
represent mere abstractions from the real. Indeed in the Pense'es he shows himself in-
clined to attribute their simplicity, and the immediacy with which they confront the
mind, to the circumstances of the mind's embodiment:

Notre ame estjetee dans le corps, oiu elle trouve nombre, temps, dimensions. Elle raisonne
la-dessus, et appelle cela nature, necessite, et ne peut croire autre chose.

La coutume est notre nature. Qui s'accoutume 'a la foi la croit.

. . . Qui doute donc que, notre ame etant accoutumee 'a voir nombre, espace, mouvement,
croie cela et rien que cela ?66

The mind, therefore, in Pascal's view is necessarily conditioned since it is united in

some way with, and functions in, the body; and it is this that accounts for the constant
presence, to the mind, of the concepts space, time, number, motion, and explains why
it comes to regard them as the basic constituents of nature. This impression is further
reinforced by the requirements of physical existence: "L'homme a besoin de lieu pour

63 Oeuvres et letters, ed. Bridoux, p. 652.
64 Ibid., p. 1374. Cf. the passage quoted from
Le monde by Etienne Gilson, Etudes sur le r6le de
la pense'e medievale dans la formation du systeme
carte'sien (Paris:J. Vrin, 1951), p. 181, n. 1. For
Mersenne's contrasting attitude see Lenoble,
Mersenne, pp. 353-356.
65 Leon Roth, Descartes' Discourse on Method
(2nd ed., Oxford:Clarendon Press, 1948), p. 87.
Gilson refers to: ". . . 'indifference souveraine
professee par Descartes a l'egard du fait brut....
A un ph6nom6ne r6el qu'il ne pourrait pas ex-
pliquer s'il le connaissait, Descartes prefere de
beaucoup un phenomene qui n'existe peut-etre
pas, mais qu'il peut expliquer dans le cas oii ce
phenomene existerait" (Etudes, pp. 136-137; cf.
p. 180).
66 Chevalier, p. 1212; B. 233, 89.

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 312 A. W. S. BAIRD

le contenir, de temps pour durer, de mouvement pour vivre, .. 67

Thus the wheel of Pascal's thought has revolved in its full circle from the conception
outlined in the De l'esprit ge'ome'trique, where these mathematical concepts are con-
sidered to be the fundamental principles of the structure of reality. In these passages he
is clearly sounding a warning not to impose a priori on reality the limitations of the
modes of human perception. We have no guarantee that the universe has been shaped
according to the capacity of our perception. And since the modes to which the mind
becomes conditioned act as blinkers on our awareness, our mode of perception cannot
be the measure of things.68 To assert therefore, as Galileo and Descartes do and as
Pascal himself seems to in De l'esprit geomnetrique, that nature is mathematical, is to
overlook precisely that fact-it is to shape the external world of nature in conformity
with the mind's subjective modes. And this predominantly subjective element in
Descartes' approach, as Pascal sees it, prompts him to describe the former's philosophy
as:"... le roman de la nature, semblable 'a peu pres 'a l'histoire de Don Quichot."69

V. PASCAL'S ANTI-MECHANISM

It is noteworthy that Pascal describes the creative process which runs through and
connects the various aspects of the natural world in the following terms: "La nature
agit par progres, 'itus et reditus'. Elle passe et revient, puis va plus loin, puis deux fois
moins, puis plus que jamais, etc., le flux de la mer se fait ainsi, le soleil semble
marcher ainsi."70 The human temperament behaves in this way, as do also the passage
of a fever, the inventive spirit of man, human motives of altruism and their reverse, the
rules of eloquence, and the principle of "divertissement." However, what is important
for the present purpose is that the process of nature should be delineated as one of
advance through rhythmical change-an overall movement of progress which includes
and allows for a measure of periodic regression. Nature so conceived cannot be thought
of as in any sense a closed system; and if it is progressive, as Pascal claims, then it
cannot be pictured as a machine. As R. G. Collingwood has pointed out, "it is impos-
sible to describe one and the same thing in the same breath as a machine and as develop-
ing......"71 The one characteristic which a mechanistic system necessarily excludes is
development; purposeless and unprogressive change is all that it has room for.
Any doubts as to Pascal's final attitude toward a thoroughgoing mechanistic view
of nature are dispelled by his recognition of an element of the unpredictable in nature's
operations:

67 Chevalier, p. 1110; B. 72. dam, 1697), p. 115. Quoted by Chevalier, p. 1504,

68 Elsewhere in the Pensedes Pascal insists:
n.;
"II ne faut pas juger de la nature selon nous,
mais selon elle" (Chevalier, p. 1127; B. 457).
Bacon adopts a similar point of view when he
attributes the origin of the "Idols of the Tribe" to
human nature itself: ". . . it is a false assertion
that the sense of man is the measure of things. On
the contrary, all perceptions as well of the
sense as of the mind are according to the measure
of the individual and not according to the measure
of the universe" (Novum organum, I, 41, Philo-
sophical Works, p. 264).
69 Related by Antoine Menjot in a letter to his
colleague Puerari. Opuscules posthumes (Amster-
G.E. X, p. 45. A similar comparison is made
by Christiaan Huygens in a letter to Boyle in
1693. Quoted by Dijksterhuis, Mechanization of
the WorldPicture, p. 408. Gaston Milhaud echoes
this judgment: "Ses Principes de 1644, au point
de vue scientifique, sont, bien plut6t que le cadre
ofi se mouvra desormais la science modeme, le
dernier des magnifiques romans qui se sont
appeles ... tantot le Timee, tantot de natura
rerum....." Descartes savant (Paris: Alcan,
1921), p. 246.
70 Chevalier, pp. 11 68-1169; B. 355.
71 The Idea of Nature, p. 14.

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 PASCAL'S IDEA OF NATURE 313

"Spongia solis".-Quand nous voyons un effet arriver toujours de mdme, nous en con-
cluons une necessit6 naturelle, comnme qu'il sera demain jour, etc. Mais souvent la nature
nous dement, et ne s'assujettit pas 'a ses propres r6gles.72

It is particularly significant here that whereas the idea of necessity is ascribed to the
agency of the human mind, the indeterminacy does not depend on any human in-
ability but is inherent in the nature of things. Such a view is completely incompatible
with the conception of the physical world as a mechanistic system functioning accord-
ing to invariable laws. The secret of nature's uniform behavior, upon which any mech-
anistic worldview ultimately rests, consists in the invariable sequences of cause and
effect which Pascal here declares are frequently disregarded.
The idea of nature as process, growth, and development, which seems to survive in
Pascal's thinking as a relic of the conceptions of the previous century, is strangely out
of tune with the Cartesian tendency dominant in the thought of his period. Yet in one
important respect Pascal does appear deeply influenced by this Cartesian mechanism.
Several fragments from the Pensees show him in substantial agreement with Descartes'
doctrine of animal automata.

Je puis bien concevoir un homme sans mains, pieds, tete, . . . Mais je ne puis concevoir
l'homme sans pens6e: ce serait une pierre ou une brute.

L'histoire du brochet et de la grenouille de Liancourt:73 ils le font toujours, et jamais

autrement, ni autre chose d'esprit.

Le bec du perroquet qu'il essuie, quoiqu'il soit net.

Si un animal faisait par esprit ce qu'il fait par instinct, et s'il parlait par esprit ce qu'il
parle par instinct, pour la chasse, et pour avertir ses camarades que la proie est trouvee
ou perdue, il parlerait aussi pour des choses oiu il a plus d'affection, comme pour dire:
"Rongez cette corde qui me blesse, oiuje ne puis atteindre."74

In this last fragment in particular Pascal seems to be echoing Descartes' contention

that it is the ability to communicate genuine thought, whether by the use of articulate
speech or some other means, that differentiates man from beast, rational intellect from
animal instinct.75 The testimonies of Adrien Baillet that it was this aspect of Descartes'
philosophy which Pascal esteemed most, and of Marguerite Perier, who relates that
"II etait de son sentiment sur l'automate. . . ,"76 apparently bear this out.
The foregoing evidence, together with the fact that this view was generally accepted

72 Chevalier, p. 1121; B. 91. la seule pensee et non 'a l'impulsion naturelle.

73 Ernest Jovy has traced a probable source of Le langage est en effet le seul signe certain
the anecdote to which Pascal alludes here. d'une pensee latente dans le corps,. . . c'est
Etudes pascaliennes (Paris: J. Vrin, 1928), Vol. pourquoi il est permis de prendre le langage
IV, pp. 58-66. pour la vraie difference entre les hommes et
74 Chevalier, p. 1156; B. 339, 341, 343, 342. les betes.
75In a letter to Henry More (Feb. 5, 1649)
Oeuvres et lettres, ed. Bridoux, p. 1320. Cf. the
Descartes writes:
letter to the Marquis of Newcastle (Nov. 23,
. . jamais jusqu'a ce jour on n'a pu observer 1646), pp. 1255-1256.
qu'aucun animal en soit venu a ce point de
perfection d'user d'un veritable langage, c'est- 76 Adrien Baillet, La Vie de Monsieur Des-
A-dire d'exprimer soit par la voix, soit par les Cartes (Paris:Daniel Horthemels, 1961), Vol. I,
gestes quelque chose qui puisse se rapporter a p. 52. Chevalier, p. 41.

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 314 A. W. S. BAIRD

at Port-Royal,77 has led L. C. Rosenfield, in her study of the subject, to lump Pascal
in with the "solitaires," to swell the ranks of the advocates of the Cartesian beast-
machine theory in the first half of the seventeenth century.78 However, she overlooks
the crucial fragment: "La machine d'arithmetique fait des effets qui approchent plus
de la pensee que tout ce que font les animaux; mais elle ne fait rien qui puisse faire
dire qu'elle a de la volonte, comme les animaux."79 Mrs. Rosenfield also seems un-
aware of the conclusion reached by G. Desgrippes, after a very careful examination of
all the relevant fragments in the light of the Cartesian doctrine, that there is insufficient
conclusive evidence to justify making a decision either way.80 And it is difficult to see
how a further passage, adduced in support of her thesis, can have given rise to her
claim that it "testifies to the same attitude'81:

. . qu'y a-t-il de plus absurde que de dire que des corps inanim6s ont des passions, des
craintes, des horreurs? que des corps insensibles, sans vie, et meme incapables de vie,
aient des passions, qui pr6supposent une ame au moins sensitive pour les recevoir? 82

Pascal expressly states that it is to inorganic substance, not to a "living organism," that
he is concerned to deny "passions, fears and horrors." If Rosenfield interprets the
passage to mean that he accords a mere "sensitive" soul to animals, as opposed to the
conscious intelligence which characterizes the human species, even this cannot be
taken as evidence of Pascal's espousal of the Cartesian view. Descartes maintains, in
the final sentence of his Traite de l'homme, that it is unnecessary in order to account
for the presence of passions in any animal, not excepting man, to envisage any

.ame vegetative, ni sensitive, ni aucun autre principe de mouvement et de vie, que son
sang et ses esprits, agites par la chaleur du feu qui brfile continuellement dans son coeur,
et qui n'est point d'autre nature que tous les feux qui sont dans les corps inanimes.83

And Pascal's colleagues at Port-Royal justified their indifference to the pain inflicted
on animals in anatomical experiments on the grounds that animals are entirely without
feeling of any kind.84
Brunschvicg's attempt to explain away the fragment contrasting the arithmetical
machine with animals is both implausible and self-contradictory. He maintains that
it would be rash to conclude from this fragment that Pascal attributes the power of
volition to animals, in opposition to the Cartesian view established at Port-Royal
which he himself seems to accept elsewhere. He continues: "Peut-etre ne convient-il
de voir la qu'un exemple destine 'a mettre en lumiere la difference des operations de
1'entendement pur et des tendances de la volonte."85 But such "tendances de la
volonte" surely presuppose the existence of a "volonte" in whatever is alleged to ex-
hibit them-in this case, animals. In whatever light this extract is considered, the fact

Cf. Sainte-Beuve, Port Royal, Vol. II, ed.
Maxime Leroy (Paris: Biblioth6que de la Pleiade,
Gallimard, 1954), pp. 757-758.
78 L. C. Rosenfield, From Beast-Machine to
Man-Machine. Animal Soul in French Letters from
Descartes to La Mettrie (New York: Oxford
Univ. Press, 1941), pp. 281-284.
79 Chevalier, p. 1156; B. 340.
80 G. Desgrippes, Etudes sur Pascal: De
l'automatisme a' la foi (Paris: Tequi, 1935), pp.
103-121. Desgrippes himself inclines toward the
negative view.
81 From Beast-Machine, p. 216, n. 37.
82 Chevalier, pp. 1136-1137; B. 75.
83 Oeuvres et letters, ed. Bridoux, p. 873.
84 Cf Sainte-Beuve, Port-Royal, Vol. II, pp.
757-758, and the passage quoted from Fontaine's
Memoires by Jovy, Etudes pascaliennes, p. 58.
85 Blaise Pascal, Pensees et Opuscules (7th ed.,
Paris: Hachette, 1914), p. 486, n. 2.

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 PASCAL'S IDEA OF NATURE 315

remains, as Desgrippes points out,86 that it is hard to imagine a more apt contemporary
example of an automaton, to which to assimilate animal behavior, than the arith-
metical machine. Yet in the one context where Pascal does compare the two, it is to
bring out the differences between them.
Furthermore, this recognition of a will in animals tallies with the singularly un-
mechanistic language used by Pascal in describing animal instinct in the Preface pour
le traite du vide. He contrasts there its essentially static character with the ever-
increasing body of knowledge which the human mind is capable of embracing. In
illustration he quotes the stock example of the beehive, which has not varied in shape
or size over a period of a thousand years, and adds: "Il en est de meme de tout ce que
les animaux produisent par ce mouvement occulte."87 But according to Descartes
there is no need to have recourse to any such "occult movement" to explain the
behavior of animals, since the motive force in them is in no way different from tha
inanimate bodies.
VI. NATURE AS AN ACTIVE PRINCIPLE

In contrast with Cartesian mechanism, then, Pascal sees nature as not merely active
and developing, but as generative and regulative as well. In the Preface, after showing
how animals always act according to instinct, he continues:

La nature les instruit 'a mesure que la necessite les presse; ... la nature n'ayant pour
objet que de maintenir les animaux dans un ordre de perfection bornee, elle leur insp
cette science necessaire, toujours egale, de peur qu'ils ne tombent dans le deperissement,
et ne permet pas qu'ils y ajoutent, de peur qu'ils ne passent les limites qu'elle leur a
prescrites.88

However, it is not only in the life of animals that nature plays this role of ordaining
principle, but, as many fragments from the Pensees attest, in the life of men as well. In
the "Disproportion de l'homme" passage Pascal claims that once their position be-
tween the two infinites, with all that it entails, is brought home to men, they will be
content to make the most of what it presents "chacun dans l'etat ou la nature l'a
place."89 In another fragment an inquirer is imagined asking, "Pourquoi ma connais-
sance est-elle bornee? ma taille? ma duree 'a cent ans plutot qu'a mille? Quelle raison
a eue la nature de me la donner telle . . . ?
Again, in the course of illustrating the effects produced on anyone's attitude by the
imagination, Pascal shows how even a venerable magistrate, who seems to judge things
on their intrinsic merits without allowing himself to be influenced by other factors, is
distracted by the grotesque appearance of the preacher at a sermon: "Que le predica-
teur vienne 'a paraltre, que la nature lui ait donne une voix enrouee et un tour de
visage bizarre, . . ."91 It is nature too that ensures the concurrence of the appropriate
emotions with the various states of health through which men pass: "La nature donne
alors des passions et des desirs conformes a l'etat present."92 Even in the case of the
two distinct types of cognition, after expressing the wish that all knowledge derived
from the "coeur" as opposed to the "raison," Pascal adds in regretful tones: "Mais la

86 Etudes sur Pascal, pp. 117-119. 90 Chevalier, p. 1113; B. 208.

87 Chevalier, p. 533; G.E. II, p. 138.
91 Chevalier, p. 1117; B. 82.
88 Ibid.
89 Chevalier, p. 1109; B. 72. 92 Chevalier, p. 1131; B. 109.

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 316 A. W. S. BAIRD

nature nous a refuse ce bien; elle ne nous a au contraire donne que tres peu de con-
naissances de cette sorte...."93
Nature's regulative capacity is thus clearly acknowledged. Yet this conception of
nature as both active and regulative cannot be taken to imply a revival of the sixteenth-
century notion of an anima mundi, since Pascal emphatically rejects any form of ani-
mism. In the letter to Perier, included in the Recit de la grande experience, he states that
one of his reasons for doubting the truth of the belief that nature abhors a vacuum is
that ". . .j'ai peine 'a croire que la nature, qui n'est point animee, ni sensible, soit
susceptible d'horreur, puisque les passions presupposent une ame capable de les
ressentir....4 In the final section of the Recit he points out that the horror vacui is a
pure fiction invented simply to conceal man's ignorance. Pascal then goes on to say
that this is by no means the first time that men, when unable to discover the true
causes of phenomena, have substituted imaginary ones, couched in specious terms
which satisfy the ear rather than the mind:

... c'est ainsi que l'on dit que la sympathie et l'antipathie des corps naturels sont les
causes efficientes et univoques de plusieurs effets, comme si des corps inanimes etaient
capables de sympathie et antipathie....95

Opposition to any form of animism appears also in two fragments from the Pensees.
The untenable position of those who defend the horror vacui thesis is demonstrated by
a reductio ad absurdum:

... pour l'examiner en elle-mime, qu'y a-t-il de plus absurde que de dire que des corps
inanimes ont des passions, des craintes, des horreurs?. . . de plus, que l'objet de cette
horreur ffut le vide?.. .Ce n'est pas tout: qu'ils aient en eux-memes un principe de
mouvement pour eviter le vide.96

Elsewhere Pascal alleges that men's readiness to account for phenomena by such
spurious reasons results from their own composite nature of body and mind, which
precludes them from perfect knowledge of any "simple" object, whether corporeal or
spiritual.

De la vient que presque tous les philosophes confondent les idees des choses, et parlent
des choses corporelles spirituellement.... Car ils disent hardiment que les corps tendent
en bas, qu'ils aspirent a leur centre, qu'ils fuient leur destruction, qu'ils craignent le vide,
... qui sont toutes choses qui n'appartiennent qu'aux esprits.97

Assertions like these-that the world of nature is entirely devoid of psychical

properties and innate energies-are final enough. It is no longer possible, in Pascal's
view, to resort to the scholastic device of explaining the effects of phenomena like air
pressure in terms of various "passions." But since such statements also imply that the
movements of physical things are imposed upon them from without, how do they tally
with the conception of nature as not merely active but self-ordering and progressive,
having the capacity for change and development? A passage from the conclusion to

93 Chevalier, p. 1222; B. 282. pp. 352, 371-372.

94 Chevalier, p. 393; G.E. II, p. 154.
96 Chevalier, pp. 1136-1137; B. 75.
95 Chevalier, p. 400; G.E. II, pp. 370-371. For
Mersenne's parallel views see Lenoble, Mersenne, 97 Chevalier, p. 1111; B. 72.

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 PASCAL'S IDEA OF NATURE 317

the two treatises on statics is to the point here. Pascal contends that since he has shown
that atmospheric pressure alone is the true cause of effects normally ascribed to the
horror vacui, it is now clear that nature produces nothing with a view to avoiding a
vacuum. He claims that it would be easy to pass on from here to show that it has no
horror of one either: "car cette fagon de parler n'est pas propre, puisque la nature
creee, qui est celle dont il s'agit, n'etant pas animee, n'est pas capable de passion...."98
The proviso included here, which makes an implicit contrast between an active and a
passive side of nature, suggests that Pascal maintains the scholastic distinction be-
tween a natura naturans and a natura naturata. And the apparent inconsistency in his
position is resolved if nature as active process is to be distinguished from nature as the
effects that result from the process.
The notion which Pascal develops of a relation between nature and God also bears
upon this question. God is of course conceived of as creator of the material universe.99
But when he becomes explicit as to the relation of the deity to the physical world,
nature is seen to play a kind of intermediate role linking the two. Thus in the Entretien
avec M. de Saci Pascal is recorded as comparing how Epictetus and Montaigne have
succeeded in achieving some degree of resemblance in their writings to "la sagesse
veritable qu'ils ont essaye de connaitre," with the way in which nature strives to re-
produce God in all her works: ". . . il est agreable d'observer dans la nature le desir
qu'elle a de peindre Dieu dans tous ses ouvrages, oiu l'on en voit quelque caractere
parce qu'ils en sont les images...."100 The idea of a dual causality, which this curious
double tautology seems intended to convey, is more clearly illustrated in an extract
from the Pensees: "Quand on est instruit, on comprend que, la nature ayant grave son
image et celle de son auteur dans toutes choses...."101
All phenomena in the physical world therefore exhibit the image of nature and more
remotely that of nature's own author. And this relation holds good not only in the
physical world but even in the human sphere. In the letter to his sister Mme. Perier
and her husband, after the death of their father, Pascal writes: "Ne quittons donc pas
cet amour que la nature nous a donne pour la vie, puisque nous l'avons requ de
Dieu.... 1"102 The notion of God standing as it were at one remove from the world and
working through nature appears again in a letter to Mlle. de Roannez: "Les impies,
voyant les effets naturels, les attribuent a la nature, sans penser qu'il y en ait un autre
auteur."103
It is clear from this conception of dual authorship that it is through the agency of
nature, construed as an active and generative power in its own right, that God orders
the world and accomplishes his purpose. Nature in the sense of the physical world is to
be distinguished therefore from nature the active principle, whose activity is the
immediate cause of all the productions of that world. And this active nature strongly
resembles the Aristotelian concept of phiisis as it was taken over and developed by the
Schoolmen. Pascal falls with them between Renaissance hylozoism, which regards

98 Chevalier, p. 457; G.E. III, p. 254.
99 Cf. Chevalier, p. 1090; B. 185; Chevalier,
p. 583; G.E. IX, p. 255; Chevalier, p. 798; G.E.
V, p. 373.
100 Chevalier, p. 571; G.E. IV, pp. 51-52.
101 Chevalier, p. 1107; B. 72.
102 Chevalier, p. 497; G.E. II, p. 553. Repro
duced with slight verbal alterations by Mme
Perier in her Vie de Monsieur Pascal, Chevalier,
p. 21. Cf. Chevalier, pp. 1200, 1265, 1334; B.
580, 675, 876.
103 Chevalier, p. 510; G.E. VI, p. 89.

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 318 A. W. S. BAIRD

nature as something divine and self-creative,104 and the Cartesian idea of the world as
a sort of giant clockwork, which needs an initial push but can then be left to its own
devices. Marguerite Perier has recorded Pascal's comment on the Cartesian tendency
to dispense with God after his original act of setting the universe in motion, since it
can then be accounted for in terms of its own mechanical laws:

Je ne puis pardonner 'a Descartes; il voudrait bien, dans toute sa philosophie, se pouvoir
passer de Dieu, mais il n'a pu s'empecher de lui faire donner une chiquenaude pour
mettre le monde en mouvement; apres cela il n'a plus que faire de Dieu.105

Whether or not this criticism does justice to Descartes' doctrine is unimportant for the
present discussion, since it suffices to indicate Pascal's attitude toward the mechanistic
solution of the problem of divine interaction with the world of nature. 106
Nature interpreted in this way as a kind of active go-between linking the physical
world with God eliminates the need for God to intervene directly in all events. But
Pascal is convinced nevertheless that God continues through the medium of nature to
direct the world, which everywhere exhibits his image. Here again there is a marked
divergence from the Cartesian view. As Koyre points out, "Descartes' God, in con-
tradistinction to most previous Gods, is not symbolized by the things He created; He
does not express Himself in them. There is no analogy between God and the world, no
'imagines' and 'vestigia Dei in mundo'; . . . Pascal, on the contrary, in an early
letter to Mme. Perier, refers to the "ressemblance que la nature creee ait avec son
Createur, .. . " and claims that: ". . . les moindres choses et les plus petites et les plus
viles parties du monde representent au moins par leur unite la parfaite unite qui ne se
trouve qu'en Dieu, . . ."108 No mention is made here of nature as the tertium quid
bridging the gap between God and the things that comprise the physical world. Yet
the expression "nature creee," used to designate what amount to "nature's works,"
elsewhere sharply differentiated from nature as a creative force, clearly points in this
direction.

104 Cf Collingwood, The Idea of Nature'
pp. 94-95.
105 Chevalier, p. 41; B. 77.
106 Pascal's idea of nature as a formative
principle strongly resembles Cudworth's con-
ception of ". . . the Plastic Nature under [God],
which as an Inferior and Subordinate Instrument
doth drudgingly execute that Part of his Provi-
dence which consists in the Regular and Orderly
Motion of Matter: ... it is a living Stamp or
Signature of the Divine Wisdom,..." Quoted
from The True Intellectual System of the Universe
by Ernst Cassirer, The Platonic Renaissance in
England, trans. James P. Pettegrove (London:
Nelson, 1953), p. 141, n. 1. Cf. J. A. Passmore,
Ralph Cudworth, An Interpretation (Cambridge:
Cambridge Univ. Press, 1951), pp. 27-28, and
Lydia Gysi, Platonism and Cartesianism in the
Philosophy of Ralph Cudworth (Bern: Herbert
Lang, 1962), pp. 17-24. In contrast with both
Descartes and Pascal, Newton "believed that the
continuous operation of God was an essential
part of the mechanical system of the world."
Crombie, Grosseteste, p. 316, n. 4.
107 From the Closed World, p. 100.
108 Chevalier, p. 485; G.E. II, pp. 250-251. The
ability to appreciate this sacramental aspect of
the world of nature presupposes, in Pascal's
view, an eye enlightened by supernatural faith.
Cf. Chevalier, p. 484; G.E. IT, p. 250, and
Chevalier, p. 510; G.E. VI, p. 89. And although
Pascal believes that the world of sensible
phenomena, at least for the Christian, should
be symbolic, he does not on that account revert
to the Renaissance conception of physical
science which, as Lenoble puts it, ". . . ne cherc
pas des phenomenes, mais des signes." "L'evolu-
tion de l'idee de 'nature' du XVIe au XVIIIe
siecle," p. 116. Cf. Ernst Cassirer, The Individual
and the Cosmos in Renaissance Philosophy, trans.
Mario Domandi (New York: Harper Torchbooks,
1964), pp. 53 if.

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 PASCAL'S IDEA OF NATURE 319

VII. TIE DIVERSITY OF NATURE

The conception of nature as an active process revealing itself in the continuity run-
ning all through the physical world which comprises its effects does not mean that the
world is therefore devoid of multiformity and characterized only by change and
development. Indeed, in a fragment from the Pensees, where he extends the idea of
nature's diversity to the individual members of the human species, Pascal expressly
states that uniformity is alien to nature as creative principle. He comments on the in-
fluence exerted on a person's choice of profession if he is continually subjected in
childhood to hearing certain me'tiers recommended and the rest derided:

Tant est grande la force de la coutume, que, de ceux que la nature n'a faits qu'hommes,
on fait toutes les conditions des hommes, car des pays sont tout de magons, d'autres tou
de soldats, etc. Sans doute que la nature n'est pas si uniforme. C'est la coutume qui fait
donc cela, car elle contraint la nature; ... 109

On the contrary, several further fragments from the Pense'es attest the inexhaustible
diversity of nature's effects as Pascal sees them:

La diversite est si ample, que tous les tons de voix, tous les marchers, toussers, mouchers,
eternuements.... On distingue des fruits les raisins, et entre ceux-la les muscats, et puis
Condrieu, et puis Desargues, et puis cette ente. Est-ce tout? en a-t-elle jamais produit
deux grappes pareilles ? et une grappe a-t-elle deux grains pareils ? etc.

Diversite.-Un hommne est un supp6t; mais si on l'anatomise, sera-ce la tete, le coeur,

1'estomac, les veines, chaque veine, chaque portion de veine, le sang, chaque humeur
de sang? Une ville, une campagne, de loin est une ville et une campagne; mais, 'a mesure
qu'on s'approche, ce sont des maisons, des arbres, des tuiles, des feuilles, des herbes, des
fourmis, des jambes de fourmis, a l'infini. Tout cela s'enveloppe sous le nom de campagne.

Combien les lunettes nous ont-elles decouvert d'astres qui n'etaient point pour nos
philosophes d'auparavant! ... I1 y a des herbes sur la terre; nous les voyons.-De la
lune on ne les verrait pas.-Et sur ces herbes des poils; et dans ces poils de petits animaux:
mais apres cela, plus rien. -O presomptueux!-les mixtes sont composes d'elements;
et les 6lements, non.- 0 presomptueux! Voici un trait delicat. 10

The last fragment here clearly impinges on the subject matter of the "Disproportion
de l'homme" passage, where the theme of the two infinites discernible on all sides is
more fully developed. There too Pascal emphasizes not only the boundless extent of
the firmament hidden in the "ample sein de la nature," but also the fact that however
far we press in analyzing the parts of even the most minute organism, we shall still find
that they are syntheses made up of complex component parts, and this as far as the
powers of seeing will carry us.1 1
Despite his belief, therefore, that nature is "eprise d'unite," Pascal has a deep sense
of the irreducible character of individual species and of the immense complexity of the
phenomena which go to make up the physical world. The way in which nature achieves
unity in and through such manifold diversity is contrasted, in a cryptic statement, with
the opposite mode of design followed by human art, which models all its productions

109 Chevalier, pp. 1122-1123; B. 97. 1095-1096; B. 115; Chevalier, p. 1218; B. 266.
110 Chevalier, p. 1095; B. 114; Chevalier, pp. II' Chevalier, p. 1106; B. 72.

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 320 A. W. S. BAIRD

on a single archetype: "Nature diversifie et imite, artifice imite et diversifie.""1l2 The

significance of this distinction becomes apparent in another short fragment: "La
nature a mis toutes ses verites chacune en soi-meme; notre art les renferme les unes
dans les autres, mais cela n'est pas naturel: chacune tient sa place.""ll3
Nature in Pascal's view does not respond to this sort of manhandling. Instead of
trying to classify things by explaining one property in terms of another, we must just
accept the world as we find it, with the various phenomena all enjoying separate ex-
istence. To seek to interpret it otherwise is to falsify nature, and Pascal's censure
would obviously fall with equal severity on an a priori scheme into which everything
is fitted willy nilly and on one which simply ignores recalcitrant elements. The con-
tinuity which runs all through its productions does not therefore prevent Pascal from
seeing nature as always saying something new, as growing ever more complex before
man's gaze.

112 Chevalier, p. 1095; B. 120. 113 Chevalier, p. 1102; B. 21.

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