hedness. This contrast of dignity and
disgrace should constantly be in the mind of the reader of the
"Thoughts" of Pascal. It will often be found to throw a very necessary
light upon the meaning of the separate fragments that make up the
series.

We now present a brief fragment asserting, with vivid metaphor, at the
same time the fragility of man's frame and the majesty of man's nature.
This is a very famous Thought:--

Man is but a reed, the weakest in nature, but he is a thinking
reed. It is not necessary that the entire universe arm itself to
crush him. An exhalation, a drop of water, suffices to kill him.
But were the universe to crush him, man would still be more noble
than that which kills him, because he knows that he is dying, and
knows the advantage that the universe has over him. The universe
knows nothing of it.

Our whole dignity consists, then, in thought.

One is reminded of the memorable saying of a celebrated philosopher: "In
the universe there is nothing great but man; in man there is nothing
great but mind."

What a sudden, almost ludicrous, reduction in scale, the greatness of
Caesar, as conqueror, is made to suffer when looked at in the way in
which Pascal asks you to look at it in the following Thought! (Remember
that Caesar, when he began fighting for universal empire, was fifty-one
years of age:)--

Caesar was too old, it seems to me, to amuse himself with conquering
the world. This amusement was well enough for Augustus or
Alexander; they were young people, whom it is difficult to stop;
but Caesar ought to have been more mature.

That is as if you should reverse the tube of your telescope, with the
result of seeing the object observed made smaller instead of larger.

The following sentence might be a Maxim of La Rochefoucauld. Pascal was,
no doubt, a debtor to him as well as to Montaigne:--

I lay it down as a fact, that, if all men knew what others say of
them, there would not be four friends in the world.

Here is one of the most current of Pascal's sayings:--

Rivers are highways that move on and bear us whither we wish to go.

The following "Thought" condenses the substance of the book proposed,
into three short sentences:--

The knowledge of God without that of our misery produces pride. The
knowledge of our misery without that of God gives despair. The
knowledge of Jesus Christ is inter