passing after the third letter into an ironical and overwhelming exposure of the casuistry of the Jesuits; his last years of illness, during which were composed the Pensées, notes for a great defence of Christianity,—these are the principal moments, and they need not be more than recalled here. Besides some scientific letters, only the Lettres Provinciales were published in his lifetime. The Pensées were arranged and issued by Port Royal in 1670.
Pascal reflected as carefully as Bacon on the art of persuasion, and neither the method which he pursued in the Lettres Provinciales nor that which he adumbrated in the Pensées was attained by haphazard. He was at one with Montaigne in his scorn of eloquence cultivated for its own sake,—eloquence such as Balzac's, "qui nous destourne à soy,"—and in his love of a style which is "la peinture de la pensée." "Quand on voit le style naturel," says Pascal, "on est tout étonné et ravi car on s'attendait de voir un auteur et on trouve un homme." Where he parts company with Montaigne is in the importance he attaches to order, as necessary to the definite purpose which inspired all he wrote, as the former's style—"desreglée, descousu, et hardy"—was in harmony with his detached and sceptical survey of life. To Pascal a new disposition of the matter made the matter new; and as to the best disposition Pascal was at one with Descartes. The ideal order is the order of demonstration which geometry follows. But few men are guided by the understanding; and the
