"THE HEART HAS ITS REASONS, WHICH REASON DOTH NOT COMPREHEND": RARE FIRST EDITION IN ENGLISH OF PASCAL'S PENSÉES, 1688—"PASCAL'S WORK HAS, IN FACT, THE MARKS OF GENIUS" (PMM)

PASCAL, Blaise. Thoughts, Meditations, and Prayers… Together with a Discourse upon Monsieur Pascall's Thoughts… As also another Discourse on the Proofs of the Truth of the Books of Moses, And a Treatise… Done into English by Jos. Walker. London: Printed for Jacob Tonson, 1688. Small octavo (4-3/4 by 7-1/4 inches), contemporary speckled brown calf rebacked and recornered with original gilt-decorated spine laid down, raised bands, original burgundy morocco spine label; pp. (42) 1-263, (9), 269-326, (327-328), 329-363, (364-367), 368-375 (1).

First edition in English of Pascal's posthumous and often controversial Pensées (Thoughts, Meditations, and Prayers), the brilliant philosopher’s complex examination of "the age old controversy between faith and reason… a book for which the enquiring mind has had solid reason to be grateful" (PMM), and a work that exerted great influence on America's founding fathers, a handsome copy in contemporary calf.

When Pascal died in 1662, he left behind a wealth of unpublished material, largely consisting of notes pinned together in the mathemetician and philosopher's attempt to explain "all the contradictions and vicissitudes of human experience entirely in terms of faith and revelation, the one justifying the other." These notes were first collected and issued posthumously as Pascal's Pensées (Thoughts) in 1670 and first published in English in this London edition. In this brilliant and often controversial work, "the reader will find questions asked and unanswered which will take him far beyond the age-old controversy between faith and reason… Pascal's work has, in fact, the marks of genius, exploring and stating all that can be said on both sides of the question it investigates… [It is] a book for which the enquiring mind has had solid reason to be grateful" (PMM 152). Pascal expresses "a more radical view of reason than Descartes'. A mathematician himself who, before his religious conversion in 1654, made important contributions to science, Pascal believed that rooting Christian theology in reason and transparency of language amounted to relinquishing revelation… But instead of defending religion through rational arguments… [he] aims at subordinating the order of truth to a more complete view of the human condition. We are at once great, by virtue of our intellect, and miserable, by virtue of its fragility" (Hollier, 287-88). Pascal proved a pivotal influence on such American Founding Fathers as Jefferson, who had a later translation in his library (see Sowerby 1516).. Translator Joseph Walker dedicated his translation of Pascal's Pensées to Robert Boyle. With separate title page for Discourse Upon Monsieur Pascall's [sic] Thoughts; without front and rear blank leaves as often. Including Madam Perier's Life of Monsieur Pascall [sic]. Continuously paginated. ESTC R23135. Wing P645. Lowndes, 1795. With armorial bookplate and owner signatures of E.J. Hodgson (one above title page), likely belonging to Edward Jarvis Hodgson. A prominent Canadian attorney on Prince Edward Island, Hodgson was appointed Queen's Council in 1879. After working on projects such as the Prince Edward Island railway, he served as Master of the Rolls and an Assistance Judge of the Supreme Court of Judicature of Prince Edward Island. From 1896 until his death in 1911, he was Chancellor of King's College University.

Interior pristine, mild rubbing to calf boards. A handsome near-fine copy of a seminal work in Western philosophy.