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The literature of the seventeenth century is so constant a theme with the best critics of France that it did not seem advisable to repeat their views here. Accordingly the Introduction is limited to summaries of the lives and writings of the five authors in question and a statement of the ideas which actuated them. Additional details may be found in the Notes, in the remarks under the heads of chapters and sections. These remarks are not always indicated by note numbers in the text.

CLEVELAND, August 16, 1899.

F. M. WARREN.

FRENCH prose of the seventeenth century, like French poetry and drama of the same epoch, is the offspring of the Renaissance. In the prose of society, such as fiction and letters, which take much of their matter from abroad, the parentage is evident. It is not so clear in the more philosophical lines, which we are to consider, where the material is quite original and indigenous. Yet the latter as well as the former are plainly actuated by the same purpose and prompted by the same spirit. The spirit is the one which inspired the revival of learning, the spirit of interest in humanity. In France, Rabelais, who was of the transition, old in form, new in thought, is the first, perhaps, to reveal its workings, while Calvin, his contemporary and counterpart, combats its results without escaping its influence. Montaigne, of the next generation, is its confessed exponent. The traditions which embarrassed the monk are gone. The dogmatism which was formulated by the theologian has passed by. A sceptic on all other subjects, Montaigne's only creed is man, expressed either in himself, his neighbors of France or Europe or Asia, or in the records bequeathed to posterity by the authors of ancient Greece and Rome. Montaigne's Essais are the embodiment of this principle of the Renaissance, and as such were ever present before the minds of the prose writers who succeeded him for three generations. He set the theme for literature from Descartes to La Bruyère. And this theme was mankind.

I.

Descartes,' to be sure, is apparently oblivious of Montaigne. But he also does not seem to be aware of those other undisputed

I René Descartes, born March 31, 1596, at La Haye (Indre-et-Loire), south of Tours. Sent to the Jesuit school of La Flêche (Sarthe) at age of

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predecessors of his, Francis Bacon and Saint Augustine. Yet Descartes' great postulate, his methodical principle of doubt, suggests at once that studied uncertainty with which many of the Essais end. Of more consequence than this possible external connection between the two writers is the fact that they chose the same field for their observations. As Montaigne studied his own feelings, attributes, desires, and generalized them by his erudition, so Descartes fixed his attention on the processes of his own thought, as typical of the thought of humanity. The essayist scouts the authorities of the preceding centuries, the schoolmen with their logomachies and their educational system. The philosopher rejects the abstractions of mediæval learning and its formal classifications, and seeks in man himself the exact expression of the conditions of life and knowledge. And when he reaches a conclusion satisfactory to his own mind he formulates it in his celebrated thesis regarding his own nature: "Je pense, donc je suis." This idea is a genuine product of the Renaissance, an attempt to explain the facts of humanity by the attributes of each individual composing it.

Beside these characteristics, created by the times in which it was conceived, the Discours de la méthode throws much light on Descartes' personality. It tells of his liking for mathematics on account of the exactness of its demonstrations. His philosophy is imbued with mathematics, rests on it, in fact, to such an extent that we might say he applies mathematics to the opera

eight. Showed great aptitude for mathematics. Remained there eight years, going thence to Poitiers, where he took a degree in law, November 10, 1614. Lived in Paris. In 1617 volunteered under Maurice of Nassau. Sees the world. Is stationed in Holland and Germany. Resigns commission in 1621, and travels in Central Europe and Italy. Returns to Paris in 1625. At La Rochelle in 1628. Settles at Amsterdam in 1629. In 1649 goes to Stockholm, on invitation of Queen Christina, where he dies February 11, 1650. Always studying and writing, he does not publish till 1637 (Discours de la méthode). In 1641 his Méditations appeared, at first in Latin; in 1644, his Principia; in 1649, the Traité des passions de l'âme.

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tions of the mind, and becomes a mathematical psychologist. His temperament could not endure obscurity. His nature inclined wholly towards logical deductions from a determined principle, Granting his premises, there was no escaping his conclusions. But his premises were assumptions. Steady, clear, persistent thinking does not necessarily prove the existence of the thing thought of, and Cartesianism suffered the fate of all systems of philosophy.

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Apart from the benefit the world at large derived from Descartes' labors, they were of considerable direct profit to French literature. They introduced philosophy to a larger public by substituting the vernacular of the educated for the Latin of the learned much such a service as Calvin had rendered to theology. Furthermore, the so-called "precepts enjoined in the Discours de la méthode (see pages 16, 17 of this edition), aided clear thought and correct expression, while the attempt to put all ideas and notions under the control of the reason would do away with many whims and vagaries. Yet Descartes' own style does not fully exemplify the rules of his method. It leaves much to be desired in the way of conciseness and directness. Nor did his eulogy of reason have the immediate effect on literature that has sometimes been claimed. The school of common sense in France had been founded by Malherbe some decades before the Discours de la méthode was generally known. Still the popularization of Cartesianism seems to have contributed its share to the destruction of the heroic-gallant novel of La Calprenède and Mlle de Scudéry, in the later fifties, and furnished Molière with some of his arguments for temperance and moderation in life and expression. One of the lasting attributes of French writers is their fondness for orderly arrangement and clear deduction. The Discours de la méthode did not create this trait, but it undoubtedly aided greatly in establishing it.

II.

Pascal was a mathematician also, and, like Descartes and Montaigne, his study was the study of man. But his interest did not lie in the demonstration of man's existence, nor in noting man's ways and manners. His gaze was bent on the soul rather than the mind, and it was to the problem of the soul's salvation that he applied his energies. For mathematics could not satisfy his inner life, if it could Descartes' (see page 95, pensée 23). The study that could engage Pascal, “la science que l'homme doit avoir," was the study of the Cross. And it was to this that he gave the years of retreat which followed his conversion.

Pascal's first appearance in literature was as a polemist. His Lettres provinciales were written for the purpose of defending Arnauld against the attacks of his enemies among the Jesuits and at the Sorbonne. This immediate purpose, however, actuated a few of the letters only, for with the fourth of the series he dropped his simulated defense of Arnauld, and began a violent assault on the ethical teachings of the Jesuits. Herein lies the interest of the Provinciales. The argument which Pascal employs in them—and it shows us the real cause of his enmity towards the doctrine he combats - is that the individual is directly responsible to his Maker for his conduct, and that this responsibility cannot be avoided nor remitted. He believes in original sin. The soul by nature is prone to evil. Divine grace alone can save it. The church may train and confessors may

I Blaise Pascal, born at Clermont (Puy-de-Dôme), June 19, 1623. Moved to Paris in 1630. Educated by father, a magistrate fond of the natural sciences. Early aptitude for mathematics and physics. Treatise on conic sections at sixteen, arithmetical machine at eighteen. Constitution undermined by study. Sister, Jacqueline, took the veil at Port-Royal in 1652. Pascal, converted in 1654, became Jansenist also. Ascetic life attended with feeble health and suffering. Died August 19, 1662. — In defense of his PortRoyal teachers, wrote the Lettres provinciales in 1656-1657. Left posthumous notes on the way of salvation, published by friends of Port-Royal in 1670, under the title of Pensées. Minor scientific and moral writings.

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