Part 23

If Saint Augustine came at this day, and was as little authorised as his defenders, he would do nothing. God governs his Church well, in that he sent him before with authority.

Grace is needed to make a man into a saint, and if any man doubt this he knows not what is a saint, nor what is a man.

The motions of grace, hardness of heart, external circumstances.

Grace will ever be in the world, and nature also, so that grace is in some sort natural. Thus there will be always Pelagians, always Catholics, always strife.

Because the first birth constitutes the one, and the grace of regeneration the other.

It will be one of the confusions of the damned to see themselves condemned by their own reason, by which they have thought to condemn the Christian religion.

When it is said that Jesus Christ died not for all, you take advantage of a defect inherent in men who immediately apply this exception to themselves, which is to favour despair instead of turning men from it to favour hope. For so we accustom ourselves to interior virtues by exterior customs.

There is heresy in always explaining omnes by 'all,' and heresy in not explaining it sometimes by 'all.' _Bibite ex hoc omnes_, the Huguenots are heretics in explaining it by 'all.' _In quo omnes peccaverunt_, the Huguenots are heretics in excepting the children of the faithful. We must then follow the Fathers and tradition to know when to do so, since there is heresy to be feared on one side or the other.

_A point of form._--When Saint Peter and the apostles consulted about the abolition of circumcision, when it was a question of acting in contradiction to the law of God, they did not consult the prophets, but considered simply the reception of the Holy Spirit in the persons uncircumcised. They judged it more certain that God approved those whom he filled with his spirit, than it was that the law must be observed.

They knew that the end of the Law was none other than the Holy Spirit, and thus as men certainly had this without circumcision, circumcision was not needful.

But to preserve pre-eminence to himself he gives prayer to whom he pleases.

Why God has established prayer.

1. To communicate to his creatures the dignity of causality.

2. To teach us from whom our virtue comes.

3. To make us deserve other virtues by work.

_Objection._ But we believe that prayer comes from ourselves.

This is absurd, for since before we have faith, we cannot have virtues, how should we have faith? Is there a greater distance between infidelity and faith than between faith and virtue?

_Merit._ This word is ambiguous.

_Meruit habere Redemptorem._

_Meruit tam sacra membra tangere._

_Digna tam sacra membra tangere._

_Non sum dignus, qui manducat indignus._

_Dignus est accipere._

_Dignare me._

God is only bound according to his promises.

He has promised to do justice to prayer, he has never promised prayer only to the children of promise.

_Si_ does not mark indifference. Malachi, Isaiah.

Isaiah. _Si volumus_, etc.

_In quacumque die._

_Ne timeas, pusillus grex. Timore et tretmore.--Quid ergo? Ne timeas, modo timeas._

Fear not, provided you fear, but if you fear not, then fear.

_Qui me recipit, non me recipit, sed eum qui me misit._

_Nemo scit neque Filius._

_Nubes lucida obumbravit._

Saint John was to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and Jesus Christ was to sow division. In this there is no contradiction.

The effects _in communi_ and _in particulari_. The semi-Pelagians err in saying of _in communi_ what is true only _in particulari_, and the Calvinists in saying _in particulari_ what is true _in communi_. So it seems to me.

Saint Augustine has said expressly that power would be taken away from the righteous. But it is by chance that he said it, for it might have been that the chance of saying it did not occur. But his principles make us see that when the occasion for it presented itself, it was impossible he should not say so, or that he should say anything to the contrary. It is then rather that he was forced to say it, when the occasion offered itself, than that he said it, the occasion having offered itself, the one being of necessity, the other of chance. But the two are all that we could ask.

_The end_. Are we certain? Is this principle certain? Let us examine.

The testimony of a man's self is naught Saint Thomas.

The image alone of all these mysteries has been openly showed to the Jews and by Saint John the forerunner, and then the other mysteries, to mark that in each man as in the world at large this order must be observed.

It is, in technical language, _wholly_ the body of Jesus Christ, but it cannot be said to be the _whole_ body of Jesus Christ.

The union of two things without change cannot enable us to say that one becomes the other.

Thus the soul is united to the body, the fire to the fuel, without change.

But change is necessary to make the form of the one become the form of the other.

Thus the union of the Word to man.

Because my body without my soul would not make the body of a man, then my soul united to any matter whatsoever would make my body.

It distinguishes for me the necessary condition with a sufficient condition, the union is necessary, but not sufficient.

The left arm is not the right.

Impenetrability is a property of matter.

Identity of number in regard to the same time requires the identity of matter.

Thus if God united my soul to a body in China, the same body, _idem numero_ would be in China.

The same river which runs there is _idem numero_ as that which runs at the same time in China.

_THOUGHTS ON STYLE._

Eloquence is an art of saying things in such a manner, 1, that those to whom we speak can hear them without pain, and with pleasure; 2, that they feel themselves interested, so that self-love leads them more willingly to reflect upon what is said. It consists therefore in a correspondence which we endeavour to establish between the mind and the heart of those to whom we speak on the one hand, and, on the other, the thoughts and the expressions employed; this supposes that we have thoroughly studied the heart of man so as to know all its springs, and to find at last the true proportions of the discourse we wish to suit to it. We should put ourselves in the place of those who are to listen to us, and make experiment on our own heart of the turn we give to our discourse, to see whether one is made for the other, and whether we can be sure that our auditor will be as it were forced to yield. So far as possible we must confine ourselves to what is natural and simple, not aggrandise that which is little, or belittle that which is great. It is not enough that a phrase be beautiful, it must be fitted to the subject, and not have in it excess or defect.

Eloquence is painted thought, and thus those who, after having painted it, add somewhat more, make a picture, not a portrait.

_Eloquence._--We need both what is pleasing and what is real, but that which pleases must itself be drawn from the true.

Eloquence, which persuades by gentleness, not by empire, as a tyrant, not as a king.

There is a certain pattern of charm and beauty which consists in a certain relation between our nature, such as it is, whether weak or strong, and the thing which pleases us.

Whatever is formed on this pattern delights us, whether house, song, discourse, verse, prose, woman, birds, rivers, trees, rooms, dresses, etc.

Whatever is not made on this pattern displeases those who have good taste.

And as there is a perfect relation between a song and a house which are made on a good pattern, because they are like this unique pattern, though each after its kind, there is also a perfect relation between things made on a bad pattern. Not that the bad is unique, for there are many; but every bad sonnet, for instance, on whatever false pattern it is constructed, is exactly like a woman dressed on that pattern.

Nothing makes us understand better the absurdity of a false sonnet than to consider nature and the pattern, and then to imagine a woman or a house constructed on that pattern.

When a natural discourse paints a passion or an effect, we feel in our mind the truth of what we read, which was there before, though we did not know it, and we are inclined to love him who makes us feel it. For he has not made a display of his own riches, but of ours, and thus this benefit renders him pleasant to us, besides that such a community of intellect necessarily inclines the heart to love.

All the false beauties which we blame in Cicero have their admirers and in great number.

The last thing we decide on in writing a book is what shall be the first we put in it.

_Language._--We ought not to turn the mind from one thing to another save for relaxation, at suitable times, and no other, for he that diverts out of season wearies, and he who wearies us out of season repels us, and we simply turn away. So much it pleases our wayward lust to do the exact contrary of what those seek to obtain from us who give us no pleasure, the coin for which we will do whatever we are asked.

When we meet with a natural style, we are charmed and astonished, for we looked for an author, and we found a man. But those who have good taste, and who seeing a book expect to find a man, are altogether surprised to find an author: _plus poetice quam humane locatus es_. Those pay great honour to nature, who show her that she is able to discourse on all things, even on theology.

Languages are ciphers, where letters are not changed into letters, but words into words, so that an unknown language can be deciphered.

When in a discourse we find words repeated, and in trying to correct them find we cannot change them for others without manifest disadvantage, we must let them stand, for this is the true test; our criticism came of envy which is blind, and does not see that repetition is not in this place a fault, for there is no general rule.

_Miscellaneous. Language._--Those who force words for the sake of antitheses are like those who make false windows for symmetry.

Their rule is not to speak accurately, but in accurate form.

To put a mask on nature and disguise her. No more King, pope, bishop, but _sacred majesty_, no more Paris, but _the capital of the Kingdom_.

There are places in which we should call Paris, Paris, and others in which we ought to call it the capital of the Kingdom.

There are those who speak well and write ill. Because the place and the audience warm them, and draw from their minds more than would have been produced without that warmth.

_Miscellaneous._--A figure of speech, "I should have wished to apply myself to that."

The _aperitive_ virtue of a key, the _attractive_ virtue of a crook.

To guess. _The part that I take in your sorrow._ The Cardinal did not choose to be guessed.

_My mind is disquieted within me._ I am disquieted is better.

_To extinguish the torch of sedition_, too luxuriant.

_The restlessness of his genius._ Two striking words too much.

A coach _upset_ or _overturned_, according to the meaning.

_Spread abroad_, or _upset_, according to the meaning.

The argument by force of M. le M. over the friar.

Symmetry.

Is what we see at one glance.

Founded on the fact that there is no reason for any difference.

And founded also on the face of man.

Whence it comes that symmetry is only wanted in breadth, not in height or depth.

Sceptic, for obstinate.

Descartes useless and uncertain.

No one calls another a courtier but he who is not one himself, a pedant save a pedant, a provincial but a provincial, and I would wager it was the printer who put it on the title of _Letters to a Provincial_.

The chief talent, that which rules all others.

If the lightning were to strike low-lying places, etc., poets, and those whose only reasonings are on things of that nature would lack proofs.

_Poetical beauty._--As we talk of poetical beauty, so ought we to talk of mathematical beauty and medical beauty; yet we do not use those terms, because we know perfectly the object of mathematics, that it consists in proofs, and the object of medicine, that it consists in healing, but we do not understand wherein consists charm which is the object of poetry. We do not know what is the natural model to be imitated, and for want of that knowledge we invent a set of extravagant terms, "_the golden age_, _the wonder of our times_, _fatal_," etc., and fall this jargon poetic beauty.

But if we imagine a woman on that pattern, which consists in saying little things in great words, we shall see a pretty girl bedecked with mirrors and chains absurd to our taste, because we know better wherein consists the charm of woman than the charm of verse. But those who do not know, would admire her in such trimmings, and in many villages she would be taken for the queen, wherefore sonnets made on such a pattern have been called _The Village Queens_.

Those who judge of a work without rule are in regard to others as those who possess a watch are in regard to others. One says, "it was two hours ago," another, "it is only three-quarters of an hour." I look at my watch and say to the one, "you are weary of us," and to the other, "time flies fast with you, for it is only an hour and a half." And I laugh at those who say that time goes slowly with me, and that I judge by fancy. They do not know that I judge by my watch.

_VARIOUS THOUGHTS._

_Mathematics, Tact._--True eloquence makes light of eloquence, true morality makes light of morality, that is to say, the morality of the judgment makes light of the morality of the intellect, which has no rules.

For perception belongs to judgment, as science belongs to the intellect. Tact is the part of judgment, mathematics of the intellect.

To make light of philosophy is to be a true philosopher.

The nourishment of the body is little by little, too much nourishment gives little substance.

There is an universal and essential difference between the actions of the will and all others.

The will is one of the principal organs of belief, not that it forms belief, but because things are true or false according to the side from which we regard them. The will, pleased with one rather than the other, turns the mind from the consideration of that which has the qualities it cares not to see, and thus the intellect, moving with the will, stays to regard the side it loves, and thus judges by what it sees.

The heart has its reasons, which reason knows not, as we feel in a thousand instances. I say that the heart loves the universal Being naturally, and itself naturally, according as it gives itself to each, and it hardens itself against one or the other at its own will. You have rejected one and kept the other, does reason cause your love?

It is the heart which is conscious of God, not the reason. This then is faith; God sensible to the heart, not to the reason.

Reason acts slowly and with so many views, on so many principles, which it ought always to keep before it, that it constantly slumbers and goes astray, from not having its principles at hand. The heart does not act thus, it acts in a moment, and is always ready to act. We must then place our faith in the heart, or it will be always vacillating.

Men often mistake their imagination for their heart, and they believe they are converted as soon as they think of being converted.

Those who are accustomed to judge by the heart do not understand the process of reasoning, for they wish to understand at a glance, and are not accustomed to seek for principles. And others on the contrary, who are accustomed to reason by principles, do not at all understand the things of the heart, seeking principles and not being able to see at a glance.

If we wished to prove those examples by which we prove other things, we should have to take those other things to be examples. For as we always believe the difficulty is in the matter we wish to prove, we find the examples clearer and aids to demonstration.

Thus when we wish to demonstrate a general proposition, we must give the rule special to a case, but if we wish to demonstrate a particular case, we must begin with the particular rule. For we always find the thing obscure which we wish to prove, and that clear which we employ as proof; for when a matter is proposed for proof we first fill ourselves with the imagination that it is therefore obscure, and on the contrary that what is to prove it is clear, and so we understand with ease.

Far from believing a thing because you have heard it, you ought to believe nothing without having put yourself in the same position as if you had never heard it.

What should make you believe is your own assent to yourself, and the constant voice of your reason, not that of others.

Belief is so important!

A hundred contradictions might be true.

If antiquity were the rule of faith then the men of old time had no rule. If general consent, if men had perished....

False humility is pride.

Lift the curtain.

You may try as you please. You must either believe, or deny, or doubt.

Have we then no rule?

We judge that animals do well what they do. Is there no rule whereby to judge men?

To deny, to believe, and to doubt well are to a man what paces are to a horse.

Memory is necessary for every operation of the reason.

Memory and joy are feelings, and even mathematical propositions become so, for reason makes what is felt natural, and natural feelings are effaced by reason.

All our reasoning is reduced to yielding to feeling.

But fancy is like yet contrary to feeling, so that we cannot distinguish between these contraries. One man says that my feeling is fancy, another that his fancy is feeling. We must have a rule. Reason offers herself, but she is pliable in all directions, and so there is no rule.

Reason commands us much more imperiously than a master, for in disobeying the one we are unhappy, and in disobeying the other we are fools.

When we are accustomed to use bad reasons for proving natural effects, we do not wish to receive good reasons even when they are discovered. An example may be taken from the circulation of the blood, to give a reason why the vein swells below the ligature.

We are usually better persuaded by reasons which we have ourselves discovered, than by those which have come into the mind of others.

M. de Roannez said: "Reasons come afterwards, but at first a thing pleases or shocks me, without my knowing the reason, and yet it displeased me for the reason which I only discover later." But I believe, not that he was displeased for those reasons which he afterwards discovered, but that those reasons were only discovered because the thing was displeasing.

_The difference between the mathematical mind and the practical mind._--In the one the premisses are palpable, but removed from ordinary use, so that from want of habit it is difficult to look in that direction, but if we take the trouble to look, the premisses are fully visible, and we must have a totally incorrect mind if we draw wrong inferences from premisses so plain that it is scarce possible they should escape our notice.

But in the practical mind the premisses are taken from use and wont, and are before the eyes of every body. We have only to look that way, there is no difficulty in seeing them; it is only a question of good eyesight, but it must be good, for the premisses are so numerous and so subtle, that it is scarce possible but that some escape us. Now the omission of one premiss leads to error, thus we must have very clear sight to see all the premisses, and then an accurate mind not to draw false conclusions from known premisses.

All mathematicians would then be practical if they were clear-sighted, for they do not reason incorrectly on premisses known to them. And practical men would be mathematicians if they could turn their eyes to the premisses of mathematics to which they are unaccustomed.

The reason therefore that some practical men are not mathematical is that they cannot at all turn their attention to mathematical premisses. But the reason that mathematicians are not practical is that they do not see what is before them, and that, accustomed to the precise and distinct statements of mathematics and not reasoning till they have well examined and arranged their premisses, they are lost in practical life wherein the premisses do not admit of such arrangement, being scarcely seen, indeed they are felt rather than seen, and there is great difficulty in causing them to be felt by those who do not of themselves perceive them. They are so nice and so numerous, that a very delicate and very clear sense is needed to apprehend them, and to judge rightly and justly when they are apprehended, without as a rule being able to demonstrate them in an orderly way as in mathematics; because the premisses are not before us in the same way, and because it would be an infinite matter to undertake. We must see them at once, at one glance, and not by process of reasoning, at least up to a certain degree. And thus it is rare that mathematicians are practical, or that practical men are mathematicians, because mathematicians wish to treat practical life mathematically; and they make themselves ridiculous, wishing to begin by definitions and premisses, a proceeding which this way of reasoning will not bear. The mind does indeed the same thing, but tacitly, naturally and without art, in a way which none can express, and only a few can feel.

Practical minds on the contrary, being thus accustomed to judge at a glance, are amazed when propositions are presented to them of which they understand nothing and the way to which is through sterile definitions and premisses, which they are not accustomed to see thus in detail, and therefore are repelled and disheartened.

But inaccurate minds are never either practical or mathematical. Mathematicians who are only mathematicians have exact minds, provided all things are clearly set before them in definitions and premisses, otherwise they are inaccurate and intolerable, for they are only accurate when the premisses are perfectly clear.

And practical men, who are only practical, cannot have the patience to condescend to first principles of things speculative and abstract, which they have never seen in the world, and to which they are wholly unaccustomed.

There are various kinds of good sense, there are some who judge correctly in a certain order of things, and are lost in others.

Some are able to draw conclusions well from a few premisses, and this shows a penetrative intellect.

Others draw conclusions well where there are many premisses.

For instance, the first easily understand the laws of hydrostatics, where the premisses are few, but the conclusions so nice, that only the greatest penetration can reach them. And these persons would perhaps not necessarily be great mathematicians, because mathematics embrace a great number of premisses, and perhaps a mind may be so formed that it searches with ease a few premisses to the bottom, yet cannot at all comprehend those matters in which there are many premisses.

There are then two kinds of mind, the one able to penetrate vigorously and deeply into the conclusions of certain premisses, and these are minds true and just. The other able to comprehend a great number of premisses without confusion, and these are the minds for mathematics. The one kind has force and exactness, the other capacity. Now the one quality can exist without the other, a mind may be vigorous and narrow, or it may have great range and no strength.