The fortunes of Blaise Pascal, that brilliant genius and highly-gifted soul, would now seem to be in the ascendant. Ever since his death he has suffered at the hands of editors and critics, beginning with the Pensées of Port Royal, going on to the calumnies of Voltaire, ending with his adoption by the nineteenth century sceptics. It is only in recent years that Pascal has received his due, and M. Chevalier’s book is the final stage in this rehabilitation. Nor is it merely that the charges against him have been proved to be false, for there is a positive growth in his fame; he is coming to be recognised as a Christian apologist of an original and persuasive quality. It is to France that we naturally look for an interpretation of this great Frenchman, and much has been written there about him in recent years; but there is no book, we believe, which is equal to M. Chevalier’s in its masterly account of Pascal’s life and in its just and sympathetic exposition of his religious philosophy.

For a long time, unquestionably, Pascal’s reputation has suffered among Catholics from his association with Jansenism and from his unfortunate quarrel with the Society of Jesus. In the partisan dust raised by those controversies his chief work and true significance were almost completely obscured. We shall say very little about them, except this that in the matter of the Provinciates M. Chevalier seems to us rather lenient to Pascal.