Pascal (Blaife), one of the greatest geniuses and best writers France has produced, was born at Clermont in Auvergne, in the year 1623. His father, Stephen Pascal, born in 1588, and of an ancient family, was president of the court of aids in his province: he was a very learned man, an able mathematician, and a friend of Descartes. Having an extraordinary tenderness for this child, his only son, he quitted his office in his province, and went and settled at Paris in 1631, that he might be quite at leisure for the instruction of him; and Blaise never had any master but his father. From his infancy he gave proofs of a very extraordinary capacity: for he desired to know the reason of every thing; and when good reasons were not given him, he would seek for better; nor would he ever yield his assent but upon such as appeared to him well grounded. There was room to fear, that with such a cast of mind he would fall into free thinking, or at least into heterodoxy; yet he was always very far from any thing of this nature.

What is told of his manner of learning the mathematics, as well as the progress he quickly made in that science, seems almost miraculous. His father, perceiving in him an extraordinary inclination to reasoning, was afraid lest the knowledge of the mathematics would hinder his learning the languages. He kept him therefore as much as he could from all notions of geometry, locked up all his books of that kind, and refrained even from speaking of it in his presence. He could not, however, make his son refrain from musing upon proportions; and one day surprized him at work with charcoal upon his chamber-floor, and in the midst of figures. He asked him what he was doing? I am searching, says Pascal, for such a thing; which was just the 3rd proposition of the first book of Euclid. He asked him then how he came to think of this? It was, says Pascal, because I have found out such another thing: and so going backward, and using the names of bar and round, he came at length to the definitions and axioms he had formed to himself. Does it not seem miraculous that a boy should work his way into the heart of a mathematical book, without ever having seen that or any other book upon the subject, or knowing anything of the terms? Yet we are assured of the truth of this by Madam Perier, and several other writers, the credit of whose testimony cannot reasonably be questioned. He had, from henceforward, full liberty to indulge his genius in mathematical pursuits. He understood Euclid's Elements as soon as he cast his eyes upon them: and this was not strange; for, as we have seen, he understood them before. At 16 years of age he wrote a treatise of conic sections, which was accounted by the most learned a mighty effort of genius; and therefore it is no wonder that Descartes, who had been in Holland a long time, should, upon reading it, choose to believe that Mr Pascal the father was the real author of it. At 19, he contrived an admirable arithmetical machine, which was esteemed a very wonderful thing, and would have done credit as an invention to any man versed in science, and much more to such a youth. About this time his health became impaired, and he was in consequence obliged to suspend his labours; nor was he in a condition to resume them till four years after. About that period, having seen Torricelli's experiment respecting a vacuum and the weight of the air, he turned his thoughts towards these objects; and in a conference with Mr Petit, intendant of fortifications, proposed to make further researches. In consequence of this idea, he undertook several new experiments, one of which was as follows: Having provided a glass tube, 46 feet in length, open at one end, and sealed hermetically at the other, he filled it with red wine, that he might distinguish the liquor from the tube. He then elevated it in this condition; and having placed it perpendicularly to the horizon, stopped up the bottom, and plunged it into a vessel full of water, to the depth of a foot; after which he opened the extremity of the tube, and the wine descended to the distance of about 32 feet from the surface of the vessel, leaving a considerable vacuum at the upper extremity. He next inclined the tube, and remarked that the wine rose higher; and having inclined it till the top was within 32 feet of the ground, making the wine thus run out, he found that the water rose in it, so that it was partly filled with that fluid, and partly with wine. He made also a great many experiments with siphons, syringes, bellows, and all kinds of tubes, making use of different liquors, such as quicksilver, water, wine, oil, &c.; and having published them in 1647, dispersed his work throughout all France, and transmitted it also to foreign countries. All these experiments, however, afforded no effects, without demonstrating the causes. Pascal knew that Torricelli conjectured that those phenomena which he had observed were occasioned by the weight of the air (a); and, in order to discover the truth of this theory, he made an experiment at the top and bottom of a mountain in Auvergne, called Le Puy de Dome, the result of which gave him reason to conclude that air was weighty. Of this experiment he published an account, and sent copies of it to most of the learned men in Europe. He likewise renewed it at the top of several high towers, such as those of Notre Dame at Paris, St Jacques de la Boucherie, &c.; and always remarked the same difference in the weight of the air, at different elevations. This fully convinced him of the weight of the atmosphere; and from this discovery he drew many useful and important inferences. He composed also a large treatise, in which he thoroughly explained this subject, and replied to all the objections that had been started against it. As he thought this work rather too prolix, and as he was fond of brevity and precision, he divided it into two small treatises, one of which he entitled, A Dissertation on the Equilibrium of Liquors; and the other, An Essay on the Weight of the Atmosphere. These labours procured Pascal so much reputation, that the greatest mathematicians and philosophers of the age proposed various questions to him, and consulted him respecting such difficulties as they could not solve.

Some years after, while tormented with a violent fit of the tooth-ache he discovered the solution of a problem proposed by Father Mersenner, which had baffled the penetration of all those who had attempted it. This problem was to determine the curve described in the air by the nail of a coach-wheel, while the machine is in motion. Pascal offered a reward of 40 pistoles to any one who should give a satisfactory answer to it. No one, however, having succeeded, he published his own at Paris; but as he began now to be disgusted with the sciences, he would not put his real name to it, but sent it abroad under that of A. d'Ettenville. This was the last work which he published in the mathematics; his infirmities now increasing so much, that he was under the necessity of renouncing severe study, and of living to recluse, that he scarcely admitted any person to see him.

After he had thus laboured abundantly in mathematical and philosophical disquisitions, he forsook those studies and all human learning at once; and determined to know nothing, as it were, for the future, but Jesus Christ and him crucified. He was not 24 years of age, when the reading some pious books had put him upon taking this holy resolution; and he became as great a devotee as any age has produced. Mr Pascal now gave himself up entirely to a state of prayer and mortification. He had always in his thoughts these great maxims, of renouncing all pleasure and all superfluity; and this he practised with rigour even in his illnesses, to which he was frequently subject, being of a very invalid habit of body: for instance, when his sickness obliged him to feed somewhat delicately, he took great care not to relish or taste what he ate. He had no violent affection for those he loved; he thought it sinful, since a man possesses a heart which belongs only to God. He found fault with some discourses of his sister, which she thought very innocent; as if she had said upon occasion, that she had seen a beautiful woman, he would be angry, and tell her, that she might raise bad thoughts in footmen and young people. He frequently wore an iron girdle full of points next to his skin; and when any vain thought came into his head, or when he took particular pleasure in any thing, he gave himself some blows with his elbow, to redouble the prickings, and to recall himself to his duty.

Though Mr Pascal had thus abstracted himself from the world, yet he could not forbear paying some attention to what was doing in it; and he even interested himself in the contest between the Jesuits and the Jansenists. The Jesuits, though they had the popes and kings on their side, were yet decried by the people, who brought up afresh against them the affaiblissement of Henry the Great, and all the old stories that were likely to make them odious. Pascal went farther; and by his Lettres Provinciales (b), published in

(a) Before this period, all those effects which are now known to be produced by the weight of the atmosphere, were attributed to Nature's abhorrence of a vacuum.

(b) The origin of these letters was this: for the sake of unbending his mind, Pascal used often to go to Port Royal des Champs, where one of his sisters had taken the veil, and where he had an opportunity of seeing the celebrated Mr Arnaud, and several of his friends. This gentleman's dispute with the Doctors of the Sorbonne, Pascal, under the name of Louis de Montalte, made them the subject of ridicule. "These letters (says Voltaire) may be considered as a model of eloquence and humour. The best comedies of Molière have not more wit than the first part of these letters; and the sublimity of the latter part of them is equal to anything in Boileau. It is true, indeed, that the whole book was built upon a false foundation; for the extravagant notions of a few Spanish and Flemish Jesuits were artfully ascribed to the whole society. Many absurdities might likewise have been discovered among the Dominican and Franciscan casuists; but this would not have answered the purpose; for the whole railing was to be levelled only at the Jesuits. These letters were intended to prove, that the Jesuits had formed a design to corrupt mankind; a design which no sect or society ever had, or can have." Voltaire calls Pascal the first of their satirists; for Defreux says he must be considered as only the second. In another place, speaking of this work of Pascal, he says, that "examples of all the various species of eloquence are to be found in it. Though it has been now written almost 100 years, yet not a single word occurs in it, favouring of that vicefictio to which living languages are so subject. Here then we are to fix the epocha when our language may be said to have assumed a settled form. The bishop of Lucon, son of the celebrated Buffon, told me, that asking one day the bishop of Meaux what work he would covet most to be the author of, supposing his own performances set aside, Boileau replied, 'The Provincial Letters.'" These letters have been translated into all languages, and printed over and over again. Some have said, that there were decrees of formal condemnation against them; and also that Pascal himself, in his last illness, detected them, and repented of having been a Jansenist; but both these particulars are false and without foundation. Father Daniel was supposed to be the anonymous author of a piece against them, intitled, The Dialogues of Cleander and Eudoxus.

Pascal was only about the age of 30 when these letters were published, yet he was extremely infirm, and his disorders increasing soon after, so much that he conceived his end fast approaching, he gave up all farther thoughts of literary composition. He resolved to spend the remainder of his days in retirement and pious meditation; and with this view he broke off all his former connections, changed his habitation, and spoke to no one, not even to his own domestics. He made his own bed, fetched his dinner from the kitchen, carried it to his apartment, and brought back the plates and dishes in the evening; so that he employed his servants only to cook for him, to go to town, and to do such other things as he could not absolutely do himself. In his chamber nothing was to be seen but two or three chairs, a table, a bed, and a few books. It had no kind of ornament whatever; he had neither a carpet on the floor nor curtains to his bed; but this did not prevent him from sometimes receiving visits; and when his friends appeared surprised to see him thus without furniture, he replied, that he had what was necessary, and that any thing else would be a superfluity, unworthy of a wise man. He employed his time in prayer, and in reading the Holy Scriptures; and he wrote down such thoughts as this exercise inspired. Though his continual infirmities obliged him to use very delicate food, and though his servants employed the utmost care to provide only what

Sorbonne, who were endeavouring to condemn his opinions, was of course frequently brought upon the carpet. Mr Arnaud, solicited to write a defence, had composed a treatise, which, however, did not meet with approbation, and which he himself considered as a very indifferent work. Pascal being one day in company, some of these present, who were sensible of his abilities, having said to him, "You who are a young man ought to do something;" he took the hint, and composed a letter, which he showed to his friends, and which was so much admired, that they insisted on its being printed. The object of this letter is an explanation of the terms, next power, sufficient grace, and actual grace; and the author here shows, as well as in two others which followed it, that a regard for the faith was not the motive which induced the Doctors of the Sorbonne to enter into dispute with Mr Arnaud, but a desire of oppressing him by ridiculous questions. Pascal, therefore, in other letters which he published afterwards, attacks the Jesuits, whom he believed to be the authors of this quarrel, and in the most elegant style, seasoned with wit and satire, endeavours to render them not only odious but ridiculous. For this purpose he employs the form of dialogue, and introduces an ignorant person, as men of the world generally are, who requests information respecting the questions in dispute from these Doctors, whom he contests by professing his doubts; and his answers to their replies are so perspicuous, pertinent, and just, that the subject is illustrated in the clearest manner possible. He afterwards exposes the morality of the Jesuits, in some conversations between him and one of their casuists, in which he still represents a man of the world, who seeks for instruction, and who, hearing maxims altogether new to him, seems astonished, but still listens with moderation. The casuist believes that he is sincere, and relishes these maxims; and under this persuasion he discovers every thing to him with the greatest readiness. The other is still surprised; and as his instructor attributes this surprise only to the novelty of his maxims, he still continues to explain himself with the same confidence and freedom. This instructor is a simple kind of man, who is not overburdened with acuteness, and who indefatigably engages himself in details which always become more particular. The person who listens, wishing neither to contradict him nor to subscribe to his doctrine, receives it with an ambiguous kind of raillery; which, however, sufficiently shows what opinion he entertains of it. The Jesuits reproached the author with having employed only raillery against them, and with having misrepresented several passages of their authors; which induced Pascal to write eight more in vindication of himself. All these letters, in number 18, written in a style altogether new in France, appeared in 4to, one after another, from the month of January 1656, to the month of March of the year following. what was excellent, he never relished what he ate, and seemed quite indifferent whether what they brought him was good or bad. When any thing new and in season was presented to him, and when he was asked, after he had finished his repast, how he liked it, he replied, "You ought to have informed me before hand, I should have then taken notice of it." His indifference in this respect was so great, that though his taste was not vitiated, he forbade any sauce or ragout to be made for him which might excite his appetite. He took without the least repugnance all the medicines that were prescribed him for the re-establishment of his health; and when Madame Perrier, his sister, seemed astonished at it, he replied ironically, that he could not comprehend how people could ever show a dislike to a medicine, after being apprised that it was a disagreeable one, when they took it voluntarily; for violence or surprise ought only to produce that effect.

Though Pascal had now given up intense study, and though he lived in the most temperate manner, his health continued to decline rapidly; and his disorders had so enfeebled his organs, that his reason became in some measure affected. He always imagined that he saw a deep abyss on his left side, and he never would sit down till a chair was placed there, to secure him from the danger which he apprehended. His friends did every thing in their power to banish this melancholy idea from his thoughts, and to cure him of his error, but without the desired effect; for though he would become calm and composed for a little, the phantom would in a few moments again make its appearance and torment him. The cause of his seeing this singular vision for the first time, is said to have been as follows: His physicians, alarmed on account of the exhausted state to which he was reduced, had advised him to substitute easy and agreeable exercise for the fatiguing labours of the closet. One day, in the month of October 1654, having gone according to custom to take an airing on the Pont de Neuilly, in a coach and four, the two first horses suddenly took fright, opposite to a place where there was no parapet, and threw themselves violently into the Seine; but the traces luckily giving way, the carriage remained on the brink of the precipice. The shock which Pascal, in his languishing situation, must have received from this dreadful accident, may easily be imagined. It threw him into a fit, which continued for some time, and it was with great difficulty that he could be restored to his senses. After this period his brain became so deranged, that he was continually haunted by the remembrance of his danger, especially when his disorders prevented him from enjoying sleep. To the same cause was attributed a kind of vision or ecstasy that he had some time after; a memorandum of which he preserved during the remainder of his life in a bit of paper, put between the cloth and the lining of his coat, and which he always carried about him. Some of the Jesuits had the baseness and inhumanity to reproach this great genius with the derangement of his organs. In the Dictionary of Jansean Books, he is called a hypochondriac, and a man of a wrong head, and a bad heart. But, as a celebrated writer has observed, Pascal's disorder had in it nothing more surprising or disgraceful than a fever, or the vertigo. During the last years of his life, in which he exhibited a melancholy example of the humiliating reverses which take place in this transitory scene, and which, if properly considered, might teach mankind not to be too proud of those abilities which a moment may take from them, he attended all the solemnities (c), visited every church in which relics were exposed, and had always a spiritual almanac, which gave an account of all those places where particular acts of devotion were performed. On this occasion it has been said, that "Religion renders great minds capable of little things, and little minds capable of great."

In company, Pascal was distinguished by the amiableness of his behaviour; by his easy, agreeable, and instructive conversation, and by great modesty. He possessed a natural kind of eloquence, which was in a manner irresistible. The arguments he employed for the most part produced the effect which he proposed; and though his abilities entitled him to assume an air of superiority, he never displayed that haughty and imperious tone which may often be observed in men of shining talents. The philosophy of this great man consisted in renouncing all pleasure, and every superfluity. He not only denied himself the most common gratifications; but he took also without reluctance, and even with pleasure, either as nourishment or as remedies, whatever was disagreeable to the senses; and he every day retrenched some part of his dress, food, or other things, which he considered as not absolutely necessary. Towards the close of his life, he employed himself wholly in pious and moral reflections, writing down those which he judged worthy of being preserved. The first piece of paper he could find was employed for this purpose; and he commonly put down only a few words of each sentence, as he wrote them merely for his own use. The bits of paper upon which he had written these thoughts, were found after his death filed upon different pieces of string, without any order or connection; and being copied exactly as they were written, they were afterwards arranged and published.

The celebrated Bayle, speaking of this great man, says, An hundred volumes of sermons are not of so much avail as a simple account of the life of Pascal. His humility and his devotion mortified the libertines more than if they had been attacked by a dozen of missionaries. In a word, Bayle had so high an idea of this philosopher, that he calls him a paradox in the human species. "When we consider his character (says he), we are almost inclined to doubt that he was born of a woman, like the man mentioned by Lucretius:

"Ut vix humana videatur flirpe creatus."

Mr Pascal died at Paris the 19th of August 1662, aged

(c) Certain solemn prayers, which are repeated at certain hours, and on certain days, in the Popish churches. Pascal aged 39 years. He had been some time about a work against atheists and infidels, but did not live long enough to digest the materials he had collected. What was found among his papers was published under the title of Pensées, &c. or Thoughts upon religion and other subjects, and has been much admired. After his death appeared also two other little tracts; one of which is intitled, The equilibrium of fluids; and the other, The weight of the mass of air.

The works of Pascal were collected in five volumes 8vo, and published at the Hague by De Tune, and at Paris by Nyon senior, in 1779. This edition of Pascal's works may be considered as the first published; at least the greater part of them were not before collected into one body; and some of them had remained only in manuscript. For this collection, the public were indebted to the Abbé Bossu, and Pascal deserved to have such an editor. "This extraordinary man (says he) inherited from nature all the powers of genius. He was a geometrician of the first rank, a profound reasoner, and a sublime and elegant writer. If we reflect, that in a very short life, oppressed by continual infirmities, he invented a curious arithmetical machine, the elements of the calculation of chances, and a method of resolving various problems respecting the cycloid; that he fixed in an irrevocable manner the wavering opinions of the learned respecting the weight of the air; that he wrote one of the completest works which exist in the French language; and that in his thoughts there are passages, the depth and beauty of which are incomparable—we shall be induced to believe, that a greater genius never existed in any age or nation. All those who had occasion to frequent his company in the ordinary commerce of the world, acknowledged his superiority; but it excited no envy against him, as he was never fond of showing it. His conversation instructed, without making those who heard him sensible of their own inferiority; and he was remarkably indulgent towards the faults of others. It may be easily seen by his Provincial Letters, and by some of his other works, that he was born with a great fund of humour, which his infirmities could never entirely destroy. In company, he readily indulged in that harmless and delicate raillery which never gives offence, and which greatly tends to enliven conversation; but its principal object generally was of a moral nature. For example, ridiculing those authors who say, My book, my Commentary, my History, they would do better (added he) to say, Our Book, our Commentary, our History; since there are in them much more of other people's than their own." An elegant Latin epitaph was inscribed on his tomb.