"I will not certainly make use, to convince you, of the faith by which we ascertain the existence of God, nor of all the other proofs which we possess, since you will not receive them. I will act by your own principles, and I undertake to show you, by the manner in which you daily reason on matters of less consequence, the way in which you ought to reason on this, and the part you ought to take in deciding the important question of the existence of God. You say we are incapable of knowing whether there be a God. Yet either God is, or God is not--there is no medium: towards which side, then, shall we lean? Reason, you say, cannot decide. An infinite gulph separates us. Stake, toss up at this distance; heads or tails--on which will you bet? Your reason does not affirm, nor can your reason deny one or the other. "Do not blame the falsehood of those who have chosen--you cannot tell whether they are mistaken: No, you say I do not blame the choice they have made, but that they choose at all; he who chooses heads and he who chooses tails are both in the wrong--the right thing is not to make the wager. "Yes; but the wager must be made. You have no choice--you are embarked; and not to bet that God does exist, is the same as betting that he does not. Which side will you be on? Weigh the gain and loss of taking that, that there is a God. If you win, you win all: if you lose, you lose nothing. Bet then that he doe's, without hesitation. Yes, you must wager. But perhaps I wager too much. Let us see. Since there is equal risk of gain or loss, even if it were only that you gain two lives for one, it were worth betting; and if you had ten to win, you would be imprudent not to risk your life to gain ten, at a game in which there is so much to be lost or won. But here there is an infinite number of lives to gain, with equal risk of losing or winning, and what you stake is so little and of so short duration that it is folly to fear hazarding it on this occasion." Pascal reasons better in the following article:--