PASAGINIANS
■](
PASCAL
first-born of creation, would point also more directly to the connccliou of their doctrine with some older Jewish theology than to a later purely AVestern origin." There are also some who believe the Pasagii to have been Jews, who, to escape persecution, assumed enough of Christian practices and doctrines to be passed unmo- lested, like the Cathan (q. v.). (J. H. W.)
Pasaginiaus. See Pasagii.
Pascal, Blaise, one of the most remarkable of men; sublime in his virtuous life; eloquent in his de- fence of the truth ; wonderful in his vast acquisitions ; remarkable for his genius ; one, in short, associated with all that is splendid in the highest order of talent, and all that is bright and pure in the practice of holiness. Boyle characterizes him as " one of the sublimest spirits in the world." Locke calls him the "prodigy of poets;" and why should he not be called a prodigy? It is cer- tainly not a very common thing to meet in the same mind in perfect harmony, as we see in Pascal's, the reasoning powers of a great mathematician and the imagination of a great poet — the genial warm-hearted- ness of a philanthropist and the playful satire of a co- median— the condensed energy of an orator and the profound and conscientious deliberations of a philos- opher; or to find the canvas on which were wrought out these prodigies of genius ever aglow Avith the well- ordered contrasts, the graceful variety, and the rich col- oring of a painter of human life and manners. Blaise Pascal was born June 19, 1023, at Clermont, in Au- vergne. Kis family was one of considerable influence in the province, several of his ancestors having held high offices in the government of France ; and his fa- ther was at the time president of the Court of Aids in Auvergne. Blaise evinced in his early childhood an inquisitiveness of mind and a penetrating acuteness far above the average standard of boys. As he was de- prived of his mother when only three years of age, his father, who was an eminent mathematician, and associ- ated much with men of learning and science, under- took the sole charge of his son's education, and to that end settled in Paris. For the purpose of concentrat- ing all the boy's efforts upon languages, his father kept out of his reach all books treating the subject of mathematics, for which he had early evinced a decided taste ; and it is recorded that by his own unaided spec- ulations, drawing the diagrams with charcoal upon the floor, he made some progress in geometrj'. One ac- count represents him as having thus mastered the first thirty-two propositions of the first book of Euclid's Elements, when his father suddenly surprised him in his studies, and was so moved by the boy's attainments that he no further thwarted him in the pursuit of mathematical investigations; and Blaise made such rapid progress that at the age of sixteen he composed a treatise on Conic Sections which displayed an extraor- dinary effort of mind, and evinced a strength of rea- soning and knowledge of science fully equal to anything that had appeared. It extorted the almost incredulous admiration of his contemporary, Des Cartes. But this was not the only extraordinary performance of Blaise Pascal. In his nineteenth year he invented an in- genious machine for making arithmetical calculations, which excited the admiration of his times; and after- wards, at the age of twenty-four years, the conjecture of Torricelli that the atmosphere had weight, and that this quality might account for effects before ascribed to the horror of a vacuum, led him to institute many able and successful experiments on this subject, which confirmed the truth of Torricelli's idea, and established his own scientific re])utalion. The results of these labors were collected into two essays, which appeared after his death. On the Equilibrium of Litpvid.t, and On the Weif/ht of the A tmonphere. Unfortunately Pascal's health gave way before his unwearied activity; from the age of eighteen he never passed a day without suflFeriug. Being forbidden all work by his doctors, he threw him-
self into the vortex of the world's pleasures. But to- wards the end of the year 1(J47 he changed his course of living, lie had for some time been seriously think- ing of the nature and obligations of Christianity, and of the necessity of devoting himself supremely to the service of C;od. His associations now tended to deep- en his seriousness. His father having accepted an of- fice at Kouen, Blaise was there brought much into in- tercourse with a distinguished Jansenist preacher, abbe Guillebert, but a man of great eloquence, a great mas- ter of ascetic theology, by whom, and other members of the same rigid sect, as well as by the writings of Arnauld, St. Cyran, and Nicole, Blaise Pascal's mind received a decidedly religious turn ; and he finally determined to abandon all scientific study, and di- verted his great mind entirely to objects of religious contemplation. He studied the Holy Scriptures, dili- gently examined the subject of their inspiration, and after a patient investigation became fully convinced of their truth, and of the necessity of believing all that they reveal. He used often to say, " in the Scriptures, whatever is an object of faith need not be an object of reason." Indeed, he know exactly how to distinguish between the claims of faith and of reason. The convic- tion of Pascal may therefore with propriety be cited among the most striking and satisfactory examples of the deep submission of the most powerful intellects to the truths of revelation ; while it may also be numbered with other illustrious exceptions to the reproach that the high cultivation of mathematical science is little favorable to piety. It is no fair objection to the value of his example that Pascal, under the nervous excita- tion of bodily disease, fell into manj^ absurd excesses of fanaticism ; that he practiced the most rigid abstinence from all worldly enjoyments, and wore next his skin a cincture of iron studded with points, which he struck with his elbow into his flesh as a punishment to him- self whenever any sinful thought obtruded itself into his mind. Such things may be ascribed to the inherent weakness of our corporeal nature, to some of the ordi- nary caprices of human disposition, or to the imagina- tive delusions attendant upon a particular state of bod- ily health ; but they detract nothing from the sound- ness of the anterior investigation which had led a pure and unclouded reason like that of Pascal to embrace the doctrines of revelation, by a process analogous to that which had conducted him to the discovery of abstract truth. The death of his father, and his sister Jacque- line's withdrawal to Port-Royal, confirmed his deep re- ligious tendencies, and it is to this period that we owe his magnificent though unfinished Pensees. which have extorted the admiration even of his unbelieving and therefore unsympathizing critics. Having fully identi- fied himself with the Jansenist party, he was induced in 165-1: to take up his residence at Port-Royal, although not as a member of the body, and there he resided till his death, entirely given up to prayer and practices of mortification.