Tag Archives: Blaise Pascal

Blaise Pascal’s “Roseau pensant”

19 Saturday Apr 2014

Posted by in French Literature, The Human Condition

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Blaise_pascal

Léon Brunschvicg, Fragments 348 and 397
Louis Lafuma, Fragments 113 and 114
English translation:
Project Gutenberg [EBook #18269]
Introduction by T. S. Eliott
 

Blaise Pascal: Le Roseau pensant

 

Blaise Pascal (19 June 1623 – 19 August 1662), a writer, philosopher, inventor, mathematician, etc. used the term “roseau pensant” to define the human condition. Literally “roseau pensant” means “thinking reed.” It describes humankind’s duality. We are fragile: mere reeds. However, we think, which gives us nobility. We are therefore misérables in that we are frail and die, which is how the reed is perceived by La Fontaine (“Le Chêne et le Roseau”), but thought, our ability to think, makes us “grands” (great). In La Fontaine, the reed bends, but it does not break.

Pascal died at the age of 39. The Pensées were left in fragments: bundles of papers called liasses. They were classified by Louis Lafuma, Léon Brunschvicg and Philippe Sellier, as well as other scholars. Project Gutenberg uses the Brunschvicg classification.

I am providing you with the translation used by Project Gutenberg.

Section VI, The Philosophers, p. 96

In Project Gutenberg’s edition [EBook #18269], thoughts numbers 347 and 348 are translated as follows:

347-348: L’homme n’est qu’un roseau, le plus faible de la nature ; mais c’est un roseau pensant. Il ne faut pas que l’univers entier s’arme pour l’écraser : une vapeur, une goutte d’eau, suffit pour le tuer. Mais, quand l’univers l’écraserait, l’homme serait encore plus noble que ce qui le tue, puisqu’il sait qu’il meurt, et l’avantage que l’univers a sur lui, l’univers n’en sait rien.

Toute notre dignité consiste donc en la pensée. C’est de là qu’il faut nous relever et non de l’espace et de la durée, que nous ne saurions remplir. Travaillons donc à bien penser : voilà le principe de la morale.

Roseau pensant. — Ce n’est point de l’espace que je dois chercher ma dignité, mais c’est du règlement de ma pensée. Je n’aurai pas davantage en possédant des terres : par l’espace, l’univers me comprend et m’engloutit comme un point ; par la pensée, je le comprends.

 

347: Man is but a reed, the most feeble thing in nature; but he is a thinking reed. The entire universe need not arm itself to crush him. A vapour, a drop of water suffices to kill him. But, if the universe were to crush him, man would still be more noble than that which killed him, because he knows that he dies and the advantage which the universe has over him; the universe knows nothing of this.

All our dignity consists, then, in thought. By it we must elevate ourselves, and not by space and time which we cannot fill. Let us endeavour, then, to think well; this is the principle of morality.

348: A thinking reed.—It is not from space that I must seek my dignity, but from the government of my thought. I shall have no more if I possess worlds. By space the universe encompasses and swallows me up like an atom; by thought I comprehend the world.

Section VI, The Philosophers, p. 107

397: La grandeur de l’homme est grande en ce qu’il se connaît misérable. Un arbre ne se connaît pas misérable. C’est donc être misérable que de se connaître misérable ; mais c’est être grand que de connaître qu’on est misérable.

 

397: The greatness of man is great in that he knows himself to be miserable. A tree does not know itself to be miserable. It is then being miserable to know oneself to be miserable; but it is also being great to know that one is miserable.

 —ooo—

Source:

Les Pensées, Gutenberg Project [EBook 18269]EN
Introduction by T. S. Eliott (New York: E. P. Dutton, 1958)
Project Gutenberg uses L. Brunschvicg’s classification of the fragments left by Pascal. 
 
Pergolesi‘s Stabat Mater, “Quando Corpus Morietur”
Philippe JAROUSSKY & Julia LEZHNEVA”
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Pergolesi‘s Stabat Mater, “Quando Corpus Morietur”
London Symphony Orchestra, 1985
Claudio Abbado, conductor
 
PAGE1-~1© Micheline Walker
19 April 2014
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The Two Rats, Fox and Egg: The Soul of Animals

15 Wednesday May 2013

Posted by in Fables, Jean de La Fontaine

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Image publicitaire, Ets Bourcheix & fils, nouveautés, draperie, à Clermont-Ferrand (Photo credit: lafontaine.château-thierry.net)

Image publicitaire, Ets Bourcheix & fils, nouveautés, draperie, à
Clermont-Ferrand (Photo credit: lafontaine.château-thierry.net)

The illustration I used at the top of my post on ‟The Cat and the Fox” (10 May 2013) is by Granville,[i] sometimes spelled Grandville.  I have inserted the image of ‟Le Chat et le Renard” at the bottom of this post.  I love it.  However, I am particularly fond of the illustration below ‟Les Deux Rats, le Renard, et l’Œuf,” (The Two Rats, Fox and Egg), a fable associated with La Querelle de l’âme des bêtes FR (The Quarrel about the Soul of Animals).  In 17th-century France, there were literary and philosophical quarrels, called querelles, the most famous of which is the Querelle des Anciens et des Modernes  (The Quarrel of the Ancients and the Moderns).[ii]  It took place beginning in the last decade of ‟The Splendid Century,” the title of a superb account, by W. H. Lewis, of the age of Louis XIV.

Les Deux Rats, le Renard, et l'Œuf, by Granville (Photo credit: lafontaine.net

Les Deux Rats, le Renard, et l’Œuf, by Granville (Photo credit: lafontaine.net)

The Quarrel about the Soul of Animals: Descartes

The Quarrel about the Soul of Animals, may not have been of great interest to writers, but it was important to philosophers and it has endured.  The deeper quarrel concerned ‟reason” versus ‟instinct.”  According to René Descartes, (31 March 1596 – 11 February 1650), the author of the Discours sur la méthode (The Discourse on Method), published in 1637, reason was the way to knowledge (epistemology).

Darwinism, the transmutation of species or evolution, can also be associated with the ‟quarrel about the soul of animals,” but from a different point of view. Darwinism gives the human race animal ancestry, as does totemism.

According to Descartes, animals do not think.  They are machines, or ‟un ressort,” a clock one winds up.  La Fontaine writes that Descartes ‟goes further and claims that beasts do not think at all: ‛nullement’ ‟ (‟Descartes va plus loin, et soutient nettement// Qu’elle [la bête] ne pense nullement. (IX.20)”  An English translation of the entire fable can be accessed by clicking on the following link: Discours à Madame de la Sablière.  La Fontaine was Madame de la Sablière’s house guest from 1673 until 1693.  He called her Iris.

La Fontaine would not and did not state that animals had a soul.  However, his position was that necessity (the mother of invention) had given animals all the wit they needed to survive.  According to Jean de La Fontaine, animals haven’t the soul humans have, but they are not mere machines.  He therefore closes his Discours à [Address to] Madame de la Sablière, by telling the story of two smart rats, a fox and an egg.

Les Deux Rats, le Renard, et l’Œuf

In Les Deux Rats, le Renard, et l’Œuf (FR) or The Two Rats, Fox and Egg (EN), La Fontaine uses a cast of three and an egg.  The fox is not very near the rats, but they know of his presence and cannot sit and eat the egg they have found without moving the egg away from the snooper (l’écornifleur).  They think and think.  Should they package the egg and carry it with their front paws?  Should they roll it or drag it?  It was impossible and very dangerous: chose hasardeuse. 

The rats having pondered the problem, one of the two turns upside down and puts the egg between his four paws, while the other rat pulls him by the tail.  Necessity, or the instinct of self-preservation, has rescued our likeable little fellows.  Instinct is something we share with animals.  Yet, there does not seem to be a quarrel about this bond between humans and animals.

Souls: Middle-Souls

Therefore, La Fontaine thinks in terms of middle-souls:  L’un [trésor] cette âme pareille en tous tant que nous sommes, //Sages, fous, enfants, idiots, //Hôtes (guests) de l’univers sous le nom d’animaux; //L’autre encore une autre âme, entre nous et les anges.

One we share with all things alive: /the wise, madmen, children, idiots //The universe’s guests under the name of animals; //And still another shared between us and angels.

Conclusion

The key-word is indeed nécessité: ‟Nécessité l’ingénieuse /Leur fournit une invention.” (Ingenuous necessity /Provided them with an invention.)  Moreover, La Fontaine’s idea could be compared to a vertical line.  He is thinking of gradation.  It could be that Darwinism would give us a horizontal line, but a line that would no doubt have branches.  As for classification according to motifs, it would appear this fable has escaped that particular exercise.  It seems part of the ‟querelle” about the soul of beasts.

However, it did elicit comments in the classroom.  My students always had dozens of stories demonstrating how intelligent their dog was.  I would tell them that it could be dogs dit not know they would die, but that I had met Einsteins among dogs, not to mention very clever cats galore.  As Blaise Pascal (19 June 1623 – 19 August 1662) wrote, “The more I see of Mankind, the more I prefer my dog.”  In Beast literature, animals are considered superior to humans.

Sources:

French text: ‟Les Deux Rats, le Renard et l’Œuf.” (Official Site)
French text: ‟Discours à Madame de la Sablière” (Official Site)
English text: The Two Rats, Fox and Egg (Robert Thomson) http://www.la-fontaine-ch-thierry.net/nine_ad_tworats.htm
English text: Address to Madame de la Sablière (Robert Thomson) http://www.la-fontaine-ch-thierry.net/nine_ad_tworats.htm
Gallery: (Official Site)
Official Site: Musée Jean de La Fontaine (FR & EN) http://www.musee-jean-de-la-fontaine.fr/
 

Photo credit: (Please click on the smaller images to enlarge them.)

Grandville: http://www.lafontaine.net/illustrations/illustrateurs.php?id=77 
Poster: http://www.la-fontaine-ch-thierry.net/nine_ad_tworats.htm
 
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[i] See LaFontaine.net.  Granville, pseudonym for Jean-Ignace-Isidore Gérard (1603 – 1647)

[ii] Officially, the quarrel opposed authors and literati (persons interested in literature) who believed literature in French had come of age and those who felt the Græco-Latin models had not been surpassed.  Charles Perrault led one camp, supporters of the Moderns.  Boileau championed the Ancients, as did his friend La Fontaine.     

Lubka Kolessa plays Hummel‘s Rondo in E flat major, Op. 11

Le Chat et le Renard

Le Chat et le Renard

© Micheline Walker
14 May 2013
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Phèdre’s “Hidden God”

08 Monday Oct 2012

Posted by in French Literature, Literature, The Human Condition

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Phèdre and Thésée, by Léon Bakst, 1923

I believe I should write more on Jean Racine‘s Phèdre (1677). 

In 1955, Jewish Romanian scholar Lucien Goldmann (1913, Romania – 1970, Paris) published a study of Pascal and Racine he entitled Le Dieu caché ; étude sur la vision tragique dans les Pensées de Pascal et dans le théâtre de Racine, Paris : Gallimard, 1955. The Hidden God; a study of the Tragic Vision in Pascal’s Pensées and in Racine’s Theater. The  notion of  a “hidden god” is an insightful description of Pascal’s Pensées and also constitutes a bold depiction of Racine’s Phèdre inability to help herself.

Phaedra is at the mercy of an unkind destiny and her depravity stems largely from her mother’s, Pasiphaë. Pasiphaë sinned by engaging in sexual intercourse with a bull.  Consequently, Phaedra and Ariadne are half sisters to the Minotaur, a zoomorphic monster, a monster combining human and animal characteristics. It is as though they were stained.

Yet Phèdre is the granddaughter of Helios, the Sun, the daughter of Minos, king of Crete and son of Zeus. So, despite her mother’s bestiality, one hopes that Phaedra will be redeemed by other and nobler ancestors, but her sense of guilt turns them into judges.

Jansenism & Port-royal-des-champs

Phèdre’s inability to fight destiny is linked with Jansenism. The theological doctrine of Jansenism is often associated with philosopher, theologian and scientist Blaise Pascal (19 June 1623 – 19 August 1662), the author of the masterful Lettres provinciales, eighteen letters written under the pseudonym Louis de Montalte. Pascal was motivated to write Les Provinciales (1656-1657) when fellow Jansenist and friend Antoine Arnauld, from Port-Royal-des-Champs, was condemned by the Sorbonne‘s Faculty of Theology for views that were considered heretical.

But, although Pascal, a Jansenist, wrote Les Provinciales, as explained below, we are looking at a seventeenth-century revival, by Cornelius Jansen, of a doctrine rooted in the theology of Augustine of Hippo and which had a location, the convent of Port-Royal-des-Champs, near Paris.

Jean Racine, by François de Troy

Racine at Port-Royal-des-Champs

Racine, the author of Phèdre, was educated at Port-Royal-des-Champs and had therefore been exposed to Jansenism. Jansenists believed in predestination and emphasized original sin, human depravity, the necessity of divine grace. (Jansenism, Wikipedia). So Phèdre is helpless. She says that “Le crime d’une mère est un pesant fardeau” (A mother’s crime is a heavy burden), a burden she fears her children will also bear (III, 3, 364) as one bears the original sin and as she bears her own mother’s depravity. Moreover, she is not rescued by divine grace (or efficacious grace). Phèdre’s god is a “hidden god.”

Augustine of Hippo and Cornelius Jansen

Jansenistic theology is rooted in the theology of St Augustine (354 – 386) or Augustine of Hippo. However, as indicated above, its “modern” father is Cornelius Jansen or Jansenius, (28 October 1585–6 May 1638), the Dutch Bishop of Ypres (Belgium). It did not spread beyond France and, to a very large extent, it was a reaction against Jesuit casuistry which, quite literally, allowed one to sin without sinning. (See Related Articles, at the foot of this post.

Pelagianism: a Heresy

The debate centered on the matter of grace and, by extension, on the topic of free will. An extreme and heretical view was that of Pelagius (c. 350 – c. 420). Pelagius believed that all Christians could be saved using their free will. This doctrine, called pelagianism, was condemned because it negated the need for divine grace and also negated the original sin.  It therefore had affinities with the laxity of seventeenth-century Jesuits.

Pelagius was opposed to Augustine of Hippo’s conviction that salvation was not possible without divine grace (called grâce efficace). Inextricably linked with Augustine’s teaching is the concept of predestination which limits a Christian’s ability to save himself. Jansenism took this view to an extreme replicating Augustine’s insistance that Christian salvation depends on divine grace.[i] 

I will go no further on the above, as the entire debate gets too complicated. Simply expressed and put in a nutshell, Jansenism conveys a very pessimistic view of a Christian’s ability to determine his or her fate, which is at the heart of Phèdre’s despair. She views herself as the worst of sinners in a universe filled with gods who are her ancestors and will not help her. Again, her god is a hidden god.

Jansenism was crushed by the bull Unigenitus, issued by Pope Clement XI in 1713.

RELATED ARTICLES

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[i] The best information I have gathered on the quarrel between Jansenists and the Jesuits is La Querelle entre les jansénistes et les jésuites, featured on the website of the Jesuits of France and written in French.
 
Henry Purcell (1659-95)
The Fairy Queen, Z.629 (1692)
“O let me weep” (The Plaint)
Philippe Jaroussky    

415PX-~1

© Micheline Walker
8 March 2012
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Pietà
El Greco

A Little More on Current Events

14 Monday May 2012

Posted by in Sharing

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Baptiste Lake, by A. J. Casson (Group of Seven)
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

****************************************************************************

 A. J. Casson (May 17, 1898 – February 20, 1992)
http://www.artcountrycanada.com/group-of-seven-casson2.htm 
 
As my readers probably noticed, the three vignettes presented in an earlier May 14, 2012 post, were related. 
  • People seek comfort in times of turmoil.  The fine arts and music are refuges.  So is literature, but in a less immediate manner. 
  • As for Pascal, he knew that all was not well in seventeenth-century France, but he advocated remedial measures that would not cause a bloodshed.  So he calls peace a « souverain bien », or sovereign good.  Pascal’s Pensées, were published posthumeously from liasses: little bundles of paper neatly tied up.  So there are different classifications: Léon Brunschvicg, Louis Lafuma, Philippe Sellier (probably the most accurate).  They have been translated into English and they can be read online: a Project Gutenberg achievement.  Click on Blaise Pascal.  To read the Pensées in French, click on Blaise Pascal Pensées
  • Finally, the news report tells part of the story that generated my first two vignettes and it trivializes the demands of Quebec students who are mere pawns in these events.  Obviously, the indépendantistes have little to criticize, not to mention that they are the ones who have created the current difficulties in order to rule and secede from the rest of Canada.  

The Cost of Duplicating Services

In Quebec, citizens pay higher taxes: 15% of their taxable income.  Outside Quebec, citizens pay 10% of their taxable income.  The reason for this discrepancy is the duplication of services offered by the Government of Canada.  This, I cannot understand.

Students have been on strike because of a small increase in tuition fees, which shows that someone is behind all this, Pauline Marois.  This I know and so do others.  She is the leader of the indépendantiste movement.  Further negotiations will take place, but a small raise in tuition fees is not central to what is happening and it does not justify releasing harmful fumes into the Montreal subway system.  Some students have been slightly injured. 

I went to Pauline Marois‘s Facebook site.  One woman reported that she had seen policemen entering a subway station with dogs.  She used this as an example of police brutality.  To my knowledge, it is customary to use dogs to tell the origin of a fire, but in this case, they were sniffing to determine where the fumes were released.  This is normal police procedure.  Dogs are the experts in such cases.  I just hope the police is not pushed into brutal acts. 

The indépendantistes are saying that they want to be masters in their own home, « maîtres chez nous, » where they would be a French-speaking majority and, at the moment, they are using the students.  But many students, including anglophone students, think that they are opposing a raise in tuition fees.  They cannot see that they are being used by a political party, the indépendantistes.

* * *      

So, we will continue to examine the history of this country, but I also need to write posts about artists and thinkers who have left a permanent legacy.  The internet is a good tool for diffusing knowledge. 

Updates on the three-month old strike are available if you click on the links.  The government is still negotiating with the students so figures keep changing.

CTV News
CBC News (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation) 

10 Track 10 Mendelssohn: Lieder ohne Worte, Barenboim (piano)

Battle of Saint-Eustache (1837-38)

   Micheline Walker©
   May 14, 2012
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   (Photo credit: Wikipedia) 
 

Three Vignettes & an Approaching Storm

14 Monday May 2012

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In ‘t Gein bij Abcoude (1870)

Willem Roelofs (March 10, 1822, Amsterdam – May 12, 1897, Berchem)

Today, all I can do is post a beautiful picture, quote Pascal and report that the students are indeed being used by the indépendantistes.

Art: Willem Roelofs 

The artist, Dutch artist Willem Roelofs, was Mesdag’s teacher, but he joined members of the Hague School.  Very fine paintings were produced by members of the Hague School. 

Civil War: “the greatest of evils”

In his Pensées, French mathematician, physicist, inventor, writer and Catholic philosopher Blaise Pascal (1623 – 1662), noted that we were mere reeds but thinking reeds (le roseau pensant), which gave us nobility.  Pascal also discussed society pointing out, especially, that humans were easily fooled by appearances and he stated that « Le plus grand des maux est les guerres civiles » or “Civil wars are the greatest of evils.”

Pascal, had witnessed the Fronde (1648 – 1653) which was a twofold revolt.  On the one hand, we had the people who wanted a parliament, la Fronde  parlementaire.  But, on the other hand, the highest of aristocrats: dukes and princes, hungered for power they were denied.  This was called la Fronde des princes (1651 – 1653).

This rebellion, the Fronde, occurred when Louis XIV (1638 – 1715) was a child.  Louis XIV was five when Louis XIII died (1643).  Louis XIV ascended the throne in 1661, when Mazarin died.  Mazarin (1602 – 1661), was Richelieu‘s (1585 – 1642) successor.  Both were chief ministers who, in fact, ruled France. 

At any rate, Pascal had seen social unrest and it had been a painful experience. 

So yesterday, when I wrote disapprovingly about fumes being released into Montreal’s subway system,  I thought of Pascal and reflected that it would be lovely if people pursued a common purpose: creating a peaceful world where everyone would be treated with dignity.

iRREsPONSIBLE POLITICIANS using students 

According to a CTV news report, tuition fees would be increased by $325.00 a year over the next five years.  At the moment, in Quebec, full-time students pay $2,415.00 a year.  Five years from now, in 2017, they will pay $3,793.00 if the premier, Monsieur Jean Charest, succeeds in increasing university tuition fees which, even if he succeeds, would still be the lowest in Canada.  In Antigonish, Nova Scotia, at the university where I taught, StFX, tuition fees are currently $6,205.12 a year.  It would seem that indépendantiste leader Pauline Marois needs martyrs and that they are difficult to find. 

So these are my three little vignettes for the day.  

Landscape with approaching storm (1850)

13 Track 13
Lieder ohne Worte, Mendelssohn, Barenboim (piano)
(please click on Track 13 to hear the music and on the picture to enlarge it)
 
©Micheline Walker 
May 13, 2012
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