He felt himself dying--his pains a little decreased, when a weakness and giddiness of the head succeeded, precursors of death: his physicians did not perceive his imminent danger, and his last days were troubled by their opposition to his wish to take the sacrament. His sister, however, perceived that his illness was greater than was supposed, and prepared for the last hour, which came more suddenly even than she expected. [Sidenote: 1662. Ætat. 39.] He was one night seized with convulsions, which intermitted only while he roused himself to communicate, and, then recurring, they ended only with his life. He died on the 19th August, 1662, at the age of thirty-nine. We contemplate the career of this extraordinary man with sentiments of mingled pity and admiration. He certainly wanted a lively imagination, or he would not have seen the necessity of so much mortification and suffering in following the dictates of the gospel. His charity, his fortitude, his resignation, demand our reverence; but the view he took of human duties was distorted and exaggerated: friendship he regarded as unlawful--love as the wages of damnation--marriage as a sin disguised; he saw impurity in maternal caresses, and impiety in every sensation of pleasure which God has scattered as flowers over our thorny path. A modern writer[59] has said, that he pities any one who pronounces on the structure and complexion of a great mind, from the comparatively narrow and scanty materials which can, by possibility, have been placed before him; and observes, that modest understandings will rest convinced there remains a world of deeper mysteries, to which the dignity of genius refuses to give utterance. And thus, in all humility, we despair of penetrating the recesses of Pascal's mind, while solving mathematical problems that baffled all Europe; writing works replete with wit and wisdom, close reasoning and sublime eloquence; and the while believing that he pleased the Creator by renouncing all the blessings of life; by spending his time in the adoration of relics, and shortening his life by self-inflicted privation and torture. His works, replete with energy and eloquence as they are, present many of the same difficulties. We have already spoken at large of his "Lettres Provinciales." His "Pensées," or Thoughts, which he wrote on loose scraps of paper, meaning hereafter to collect them in the form of a work, for the conversion of atheists, contain much that is admirable and true, though we may be allowed to object to some of his reflections. He has been praised for the mode in which he enounces the idea, that an atheist plays a losing game[60]; he had far better believe, since thus he gains the chance of eternal happiness, while by disbelief he insures eternal damnation. This thought, however, is founded on misapprehension, and a want of knowledge of the human mind. Belief is not a voluntary act--it is the result of conviction; and we have it not in our choice to be convinced.