that this defence was to be specially directed against the ideas of
Descartes.

Pascal was perfectly right about the Cartesian conception of the
Universe, though Descartes might pretend to mitigate its tendencies, and
his fervent disciple, Malebranche, might attempt to prove that it was
more or less reconcilable with orthodox doctrine. We need not trouble
about the special metaphysical tenets of Descartes. The two axioms
which he launched upon the world--the supremacy of reason, and the
invariability of natural laws--struck directly at the foundations of
orthodoxy. Pascal was attacking Cartesianism when he made his memorable
attempt to discredit the authority of reason, by showing that it is
feeble and deceptive. It was a natural consequence of his changed
attitude that he should speak (in the Pensees) in a much less confident
tone about the march of science than he had spoken in the passage which
I quoted above. And it was natural that he should be pessimistic about
social improvement, and that, keeping his eyes fixed on his central fact
that Christianity is the goal of history, he should take only a slight
and subsidiary interest in amelioration.

The preponderant influence of Jansenism only began to wane during the
last twenty years of the seventeenth century, and till then it seems
to have been successful in counteracting the diffusion of the Cartesian
ideas. Cartesianism begins to become active and powerful when Jansenism
is beginning to decline. And it is just then that the idea of Progress
begins definitely to emerge. The atmosphere in France was favourable for
its reception.

4.

The Cartesian mechanical theory of the world and the doctrine of
invariable law, carried to a logical conclusion, excluded the doctrine
of Providence. This doctrine was already in serious danger. Perhaps
no article of faith was more insistently attacked by sceptics in the
seventeenth century, and none was more vital. The undermining of the
theory of Providence is very intimately connected with our subject;
for it was just the theory of an active Providence that the theory of
Progress was to replace; and it was not till men felt independent of
Providence that they could organise a theory of Progress.

Bossuet was convinced that the question of Providence was the most
serious and pressing among all the questions of the day that were at
issue between orthodox and heretical thinkers. Brunetiere, his fervent
admirer, has named him the