The Provincial Letters of Blaise Pascal: A New Translation, with Historical Introduction and Notes, by the Rev. Thomas M'crie
1887
The Provincial Letters of Blaise Pascal: A New Translation, with Historical Introduction and Notes, by the Rev. Thomas M'crie
1887
Translated by Thomas M'Crie
Pascal wrote these eighteen letters in 1656-57, anonymously and at great personal risk, to defend his Jansenist friends against attacks from the Jesuits and the French king. What began as a private letter to a provincial friend explaining the controversy swirling around the Sorbonne became a devastating public assault on Jesuit moral theology. Pascal exposes the logical contortions and ethical compromises of a powerful religious order with a precision that feels almost cruel in its elegance. The letters drip with irony, yet they grapple seriously with profound questions about grace, free will, and what it means to maintain intellectual integrity under pressure. The work made Pascal a literary celebrity and contributed to the eventual decline of Jesuit moral authority in France. But the book endures because it is, at its core, a timeless anatomy of institutional bad faith: the verbal gymnastics, the accommodating morality, the politics of disqualification. These are vices as old as organized religion, and Pascal dissects them with a wit that still cuts.
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“I have only made this letter longer because I have not had the time to make it shorter."(, 1657)””
— Blaise Pascal
“I made this [letter] very long, because I did not have the leisure to make it shorter.””
— Blaise Pascal
“I have made this longer than usual because I have not had time to make it shorter.””
— Blaise Pascal
“If I had more time, I would have written you a shorter letter.””
— Blaise Pascal
“It is only by examining a book that we can ascertain what words it contains.””
— Blaise Pascal
“Reverend Fathers, my letters do not customarily follow one another so closely, nor are they usually so extensive. The little time I have had has caused both. I have made this one longer only because I have not had the leisure of making it shorter.””
— Blaise Pascal
“It was to equally little purpose that you obtained against Galileo a decree from Rome condemning his opinion respecting the motion of the earth. It will never be proved by such an argument as this that the earth remains stationary; and if it can be demonstrated by sure observation that it is the earth and not the sun that revolves, the efforts and arguments of all mankind put together will not hinder our planet from revolving, nor hinder themselves from revolving along with her.””
— Blaise Pascal
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Pascal, Blaise. The Provincial Letters of Blaise Pascal: A New Translation, with Historical Introduction and Notes, by the Rev. Thomas M'crie. Lex, lex-books.com/book/the-provincial-letters-of-blaise-pascal-a-new-translation-with-historical-introd-4f79f0e9-a934-44f9-ab81-90447251ea42.Pascal, B. (1887). The Provincial Letters of Blaise Pascal: A New Translation, with Historical Introduction and Notes, by the Rev. Thomas M'crie. Lex. https://lex-books.com/book/the-provincial-letters-of-blaise-pascal-a-new-translation-with-historical-introd-4f79f0e9-a934-44f9-ab81-90447251ea42Pascal, Blaise. The Provincial Letters of Blaise Pascal: A New Translation, with Historical Introduction and Notes, by the Rev. Thomas M'crie. Lex. https://lex-books.com/book/the-provincial-letters-of-blaise-pascal-a-new-translation-with-historical-introd-4f79f0e9-a934-44f9-ab81-90447251ea42.
