a companionable scepticism; canvassing all
things in earth and heaven, reverencing God and Caesar on _this
side_ of idolatry, relishing the foolish, fooling the wise, and letting
the world drift on as it will?

"What do I know?" There may be more in life than the moralists
guess, and more in death than the atheists imagine.

PASCAL

There are certain figures in the history of human thought who in the
deepest sense of the word must be regarded as _tragic_; and this not
because of any accidental sufferings they have endured, or because
of any persecution, but because of something inherently _desperate_
in their own wrestling with truth.

Thus Swift, while an eminently tragic figure in regard to his
personal character and the events of his life, is not tragic in regard to
his thought.

It is not a question of pessimism. Schopenhauer is generally, and
with reason, regarded as a pessimist; but no one who has read his
"World as Will and Idea" can visualise Schopenhauer, even in the
sphere of pure thought, as a tragic personality.

The pre-eminent example in our modern world of the sort of
desperate thinking which I have in mind as worthy of this title is, of
course, Nietzsche; and it is a significant thing that over and over
again in Nietzsche's writings one comes upon passionate and
indignant references to Pascal.

The great iconoclast seemed indeed, as he groped about like a blind
Samson in the temple of human faith, to come inevitably upon the
figure of Pascal, as if this latter were one of the main pillars of the
formidable edifice. It is interesting to watch this passionate
attraction of steel for steel.

Nietzsche was constantly searching among apologists for
Christianity for one who in intellect and imagination was worthy of
his weapons; and it must be confessed that his search was generally
vain. But in Pascal he did find what he sought.

His own high mystical spirit with its savage psychological insight
was answered here by something of the same metal. His own
"desperate thinking" met in this instance a temper equally
"desperate," and the beauty and cruelty of his merciless imagination
met here a "will to power" not less abnormal.

It is seldom that a critic of a great writer has, by the lucky throwing
of life's wanton dice, an opportunity of watching the very temper he
is describing, close at hand. But it does sometimes happen, even
when the subject of one's criticism has been dead two hundred yea