In such sentences, as well as in some previously quoted, the cynicism of both Hobbes and Montaigne seems to speak. Man is really a fool, and society rests upon force. The further down we go, we come, not to any natural rights, or essential principles of justice, which reason is capable of judging, but only to a mass of customs built up out of selfish instincts, and controlled by external influence. Pascal repeats Montaigne over and over again, and seems to make many of his cynicisms his own. This is not to be denied. “Montaigne is right. Custom should be followed because it is custom, and because it is found to be established, without inquiry whether it be reasonable or not.” Yet he puts in a caveat, as we shall see more fully afterwards, just when he seems most to have identified himself with the representative of scepticism. In blindly following custom, he reserves “those matters which are not contrary to natural or divine right;” and the root of custom, even in the popular mind, he believes to be a dim sense of justice. Again, in a similar vein, he asks, “Why follow ancient laws and ancient opinions? _Are they wiser_? _No_. But they stand apart from present interests; and _thus take away the root of difference_.” Here, as so often, the moralist supplants the sceptic, and suggests a higher thought, while seeming to approve of a superficial Pyrrhonism. It is easy, in one sense, to make out a case of scepticism against Pascal. He always writes strongly. There is passion in all his thought. He had a strong and deep sense of human weakness, and incapacity to attain the highest truth. He spoke of the philosophy of Descartes without respect. With most of the Port Royalists, indeed, he seems to have concurred in the Cartesian doctrine of automata, {176} strangely revived in our day by Professor Huxley. But he repudiated the notion of “subtle matter,” and even spoke of it with contempt (_dont il se moquait fort_). “He could not bear,” his niece tells us, in a passage often quoted and emphasised, “the Cartesian manner of explaining the formation of all things.” “I cannot forgive Descartes,” he said. “He would willingly in all his philosophy have done without God, if he could; but he could not get on without letting him give the world a fillip to set it agoing: after that, he has nothing more to do with God.” Whether he had studied Descartes or not, he evidently did not share the enthusiasm of Arnauld and others for his philosophy. He even spoke of it as “useless, uncertain, and troublesome—nay, as ridiculous.” {177} He has added, in that brusque, rapid, forceful style characteristic of many of his Thoughts, that “he did not think the whole of philosophy worth an hour’s trouble.” Again: “To set light by philosophy is the true philosophy.” When we look at such expressions, and many others, it is not to be wondered at that Pascal has been accused of scepticism. As he could not