REASONS OF THE HEART

"Le coeur a ses raisons que la raison ne connaît point." (Pensées: #277.)

This is perhaps the most adorable, elegant, and sophisticated of all of Pascal’s numerous aphoristic phrases, which at first sight looks like a pun on the word raison, but on a deeper level can be boldly interpreted as a thoughtful clarification of this complicated word. It can be said that, just as the heart has its ‘little reasons,’ so does the ‘big Reason,’ which also has its own little reasons, that the heart’s reasons are not accessible to our big Reason, and also that there must be a certain connection between reasons and reason, which allows us to use the same word in these two seemingly different (but, perhaps, not) senses. As we can see, this line of thinking introduces us into an entirely novel philosophical virgin land, where we can explore things not explored yet in the three thousand years of philosophical thinking, including in our time.

Now, it does not matter whether Pascal himself realized the full potential of his little beautiful gem, or not. In this phrase’s larger context, he does not pursue the track which I find the most worthy of being pursued:

277. The heart has its reasons, which reason does not know. We feel it in a thousand things. I say that the heart naturally loves the Universal Being, and also itself, naturally, according as it gives itself to them; and it hardens itself against one or the other at its will. You have rejected the one and kept the other… Is it by reason that you love yourself?

278. It is the heart that experiences God, not the reason. This, then, is faith: God felt by the heart and not by reason.

279. Faith is a gift of God; do not believe that we said it was a gift of reasoning. Other religions do not say this of their faith. They only give reasoning in order to arrive at it, and yet it does not bring them to it.

But such is the magic of a philosophical genius that he will open myriads of doors for us, without entering them himself. (Not that this is in any way some kind of failure on his part, for, there are too many opened doors: the more, the greater the philosopher is.) And by this measure alone genius can be measured.

Needless to say, I will be returning to this subject at length at a later time. In the meantime, my Pascal series is now about to come to an end, with this next very important entry...

(To be immediately followed by the entry Pascal’s Pensées.)