Blaise Pascal (19 June 1623 — 19 August 1662) was a French mathematician, physicist, inventor, and theologian. He was known for laying the foundation for probability theory and proposing what is called "Pascal's law" (which stated that, in a fluid at rest in a closed container, a pressure change in one part is transmitted without loss to every portion of the fluid and to the walls of the container). He is perhaps best known for two works: the Provincial Letters, a series of satirical letters in which he writes in defense of Jansenism; and his Pensées, a collection of fragments meant to provide a defense of the Christian faith, showing that it is the only religion that successfully addresses the human condition. The Pensées is also the work from which his wager stems.
Pascal was born at Clermont on 19 June to Etienne Pascal, a judge and member of the "Noblesse de Robe" with an interest in science and mathematics, and Antoinette Begon. He was the middle child, his older sister Gilberte born in January 1620 and his younger sister Jacqueline in October 1625. When Blaise was three, his mother died, and his father never remarried.
In November of 1631, the family moved to Paris, and Etienne sought to educate his children, seeing that they had extraordinary intellectual ability, particularly Blaise. Jacqueline was a prodigy in literary circles, while Blaise was one in mathematics. He began to accompany his father to the meetings at a Minim convent supervised by Fr. Marin Mersenne, OM, a Minim priest and polymath. In 1640, the family moved to Rouen, where Cardinal Richelieu named Etienne tax commissioner. That same year, Pascal published his Essay on Conics (1640), showing that a hexagon inscribed in a circle (or conic) will have three intersection points of opposite sides lying on a line. This is now known as Pascal's theorem. The essay was so precocious that when published, René Descartes, a mathematician, philosopher, and contemporary of Pascal, thought that Etienne actually wrote the essay. In fact, when Fr Mersenne stepped in and affirmed that Blaise wrote it, Descartes was not convinced.
Between 1642 and 1644, Pascal invented a calculating device that could add and subtract, the "Pascaline", to help his father in his tax computations, and the machine made Pascal famous.
In January of 1646, Etienne broke his hip when he slipped and fell on an icy street in Rouen, which would have spelled dangerous, even fatal, consequences. Thankfully for him, Rouen was home of two of the finest doctors in France: Deslandes and de la Bouteillerie, they managed to treat his injury over the span of three months, during which the doctors were regular visitors. At the time, the Pascals were Catholic, but the doctors were adherents of Jansenism, an austere form of Augustinianism that taught that mankind is incapable of moral goodness at all, to the point that their wills, being corrupted by original sin, could neither accept nor reject God's grace. Those given the grace will be saved, while everyone else is among the damned. Pascal himself developed an interest in Jansenism, spoke with the doctors about it, and eventually won his family over.
From up to 1652, Pascal returned to scientific affairs, like conducting a series of experiments on atmospheric pressure and the possibility of a void. He arranged for an experiment designed to show that the height of a mercury column is determined by atmospheric pressure, having Florin Périer, his assistant, carry a barometer up the Puy-de-Dome Mountain. The experiment worked as predicted, with the mercury column dropping as the device moved up the mountainside. He then published his essay The Equilibrum of Liquids (1648).
On 24 September 1651, Etienne Pascal died, leaving an inheritance to Pascal and Jacqueline, for whom Pascal acted as conservator. Later, Jacqueline revealed that she intends to become a postulant in the Jansenist convent of Port-Royal, and she left for the convent in January of 1652. Pascal, who has been chronically in poor health and needed her support, felt miserable and lonely, signing the whole of his sister's inheritance to Port-Royal.
On 23 November 1654, Pascal had an intense religious experience, revitalising his religious devotion and commitment. At this moment, he cut himself off from the affairs of the world and turned to theological matters discussed at Port-Royal for the rest of his life. Beginning in 1656, he published a series of eighteen letters, which became later known as the Provincial Letters, attacking casuistry (a form of reasoning that attempts to apply general moral principles to particulars) and denouncing its misuse for justifying moral laxity and all sorts of sins. These letters proved an immediate success, with Voltaire and Jean-Jacques Rousseau being influenced by its use of vicious satire. Ironically, despite being written as a defense of the Jansenists (the Provincial Letters were written in the midst of the formulary controversy, in which the Jansenists refused to acknowledge that the five propositions from Cornelius Jansenius's Augustinus, as presented in Cum occasione, were heretical, claiming that Jansenius was misrepresented) it also snapped the Church out of laxity.
In the meantime, around 1658, Pascal began working on a work that came to be known as the Apology for the Christian Religion, in which he compiled a series of notes that were meant to be used to write this work. This work became known as the Pensées, wherein he attempts to show that the Christian faith is the only religion that successfully addresses the woes of the human condition. It is also the work that is the source of what is known as "Pascal's Wager", wherein he shows that, all things considered, the person is eventually left with the choice of either believing that God exists or not.
In 1661, Louis XIV suppressed Jansenism in Port-Royal, and when Jacqueline died, Pascal ceased writing on the Jansenists' behalf and distanced himself from the formulary controversy. The next year, Pascal, returning to scientific affairs once more, developed the "carrosses à cinq sols", considered to be the first form of public transportation, which moved passengers in a carriage with many seats, within a fixed route.
By 29 June 1662, Pascal was deathly sick, and his emotional condition took a turn for the worse since Jacqueline's death, so he was taken to his elder sister Gilberte's house. On 18 August, he received last rites from a non-Jansenist priest and died the next morning, his last words being "May God never abandon me!" Pascal was soon buried in the cemetery of Saint-Étienne-du-Mont.
Tropes relating to Pascal's works:
- Escapism: Mercilessly attacked, showing that man's attempt to divert himself from thinking about things like death, misery, sin, and ignorance is actually the greatest of his miseries."The only thing which consoles us for our miseries is diversion, and yet this it the greatest of our miseries. For it is this which principally hinders us from reflecting upon ourselves, and which makes us insensibly ruin ourselves. Without this we should be in a state of weariness, and this weariness would spur us to seek a more solid means of escaping from it. But diversion amuses us, and leads us unconsciously to death."
- Evil Is Easy: The Trope Namer. One of Pascal's points about the human condition is how, as a consequence of original sin, man is easily inclined towards evil and committing sins.
- Pascal's Wager: The Trope Namer once again. Pascal shows that if a person considers the evidence for the truth of the Christian faith but still finds himself in doubt, he is eventually left with two choices: either God exists or no."Who then will blame Christians for not being able to give a reason for their belief, since they profess a religion for which they cannot give a reason? They declare, in expounding it to the world, that it is a foolishness, stultitiam; and then you complain that they do not prove it! If they proved it, they would not keep their word; it is in lacking proofs, that they are not lacking in sense. 'Yes, but although this excuses those who offer it as such, and takes away from them the blame of putting it forward without reason, it does not excuse those who receive it.' Let us then examine this point, and say, 'God is, or He is not.' But to which side shall we incline? Reason can decide nothing here. There is an infinite chaos which separated us. A game is being played at the extremity of this infinite distance where heads or tails will turn up. What will you wager? According to reason, you can do neither the one thing nor the other; according to reason, you can defend neither of the propositions."
- Satire: Pascal used this extensively when writing the Provincial Letters, ridiculing the Jesuits' casuistry and denouncing them for justifying moral laxity and sin.
