Pensées

Compiled after Pascal's death and first published in 1670, these are fragments toward an uncompleted apology for the Christian religion. Pascal sets the wretchedness and greatness of the human condition against philosophical self-sufficiency, using the wager, the hidden God, and the contrast between the geometric and the intuitive mind. He attacks Jesuit casuistry and the distractions by which people avoid thinking about death. The pieces include notes on miracles, prophecy, the Jews, and the limits of reason. The book is a set of working papers and aphorisms, not a finished systematic treatise.

Bound in black cloth, cover and spine gilt blocked with a design. Black slipcase.