e l'univers entier s'arme pour l'ecraser.
Une vapeur, une goutte d'eau, suffit pour le tuer. Mais quand
l'univers l'ecraseroit, l'homme seroit encore plus noble que se qui le
tue, parce qu'il sait qu'il meurt, et l'avantage que l'univers a sur
lui, l'univers n'en sait rien. It is not thought by which that excels,
but the convincing force of imagination which sublimates its very
triteness. Toute notre dignite consiste donc en la pensee.

There, then, you have at random the sort of stuff of which the
"Pensees" are made. Let me now briefly indicate, also by quotation
again, some of the main leading tendencies in them. La chose la plus
importante a toute la vie c'est la [84] choix du metier: le hasard en
dispose. There we recognise the manner of thought of Montaigne. Now
one of the leading interests in the study of Pascal is to trace the
influence upon him of the typical sceptic of the preceding century.
Pascal's "Thoughts" we shall never understand unless we realise the
under-texture in them of Montaigne's very phrases, the fascination the
"Essays" had for Pascal in his capacity of one of the children of
light, as giving a veritable compte rendu of the Satanic course of this
world since the Fall, set forth with all the persuasiveness, the power
and charm, all the gifts of Satan, the veritable light on things he has
at his disposal.

Pascal re-echoes Montaigne then in asserting the paradoxical character
of man and his experience. The old headings under which the
Port-Royalist editors grouped the "Thoughts" recall the titles of
Montaigne's "Essays"--"Of the Disproportion of Man," and the like. As
strongly as Montaigne he delights in asserting the relative, local,
ephemeral and merely provisional character of our ideas of law, vice,
virtue, happiness, and so forth. Comme la mode fait l'agrement aussi
fait-elle la justice. La justice et la verite sont deux pointes si
subtiles, que nos instruments sont trop mousses pour y toucher
exactement. Bien suivant la seule raison n'est juste de soi: tout
branle avec le temps. Sometimes he strikes the express accent of
Montaigne: Ceux qui sont dans un vaisseau croient que ceux qui sont
[85] au bord fuient. Le langage est pareil de tous cotes. Il faut
avoir un point fixe pour en juger. Le port juge ceux qui sont dans un
vaisseau, mais ou prendrons-nous un port dans la morale? At times he
seems to forget that he himself and Montaigne are after all not of the
same flock, as