In 423, Pascal further states that "the heart has its reasons, which reason knows nothing," in other words that emotional feeling within the human animal senses the Universal Being, the Being that is God as one of its natural components. Thus the human heart loves this all-pervasive unity as naturally, indeed, as the owner and pos

sessing authority of the heart loves him or herself. "I say that the heart naturally loves the Universal Being, and also itself naturally, according as it gives itself to them," both God and the self.

Oddly enough, however, if God is the source of our being, even if reason is inferior to the emotions, why is reason, although it can be a source of misapprehension of our own place in the world or truths about God, something to be criticized. Even if reason is secondary, should it not be celebrated as well as human emotion, if the two are used together? Pascal's focus on the 'first' quality of emotions before reasons deny this, in fact, he later says, "Would to God, on the contrary, that we had never need of it [reason], and that we knew everything by instinct and intuition! But nature has refused us this boon. On the contrary, she has given us but very little knowledge of this kind; and all the rest can be acquired only by reasoning."

Of one who only is filled with self-love and focused on the purely rational, Pascal states, "you have rejected the one [God and the love of God] and kept the other [a sense of self]. Is it by reason that you love yourself?" (423) Although this could be contended, Pascal believes that no human being rationally decide to preserve, focus on, and love the self-it happens naturally and through emotion. Pascal does not admit to the possibility of natural and intuitive self-hatred in human beings. Also, Pascal goes farther, in 424 when he states because "it is the heart which perceives God and not reason," that is, faith is God perceived by the heart, not reason." In other words, as faith springs from love and emotion, a true believer must seek to hold onto that initial emotion of the heart, and use that faith and love as springboards for their source of faith and belief, not seek to find belief in reason after the fact. Emotion is the first cause, rationality proceeds after the fact.

For example, a rationalist skeptic may rationalize human existence as a mental dream in the mind, and that there is no reality, but from the emotion the human heart has a sensation beyond the definably rational that "we know that we do not dream, and, however impossible it is for us to prove it by reason, this inability demonstrates only the weakness of our reason, but not, as they affirm, the uncertainty of all our knowledge. For the knowledge of first principles, as space, time, mo

Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 1628
Approximate Pages = 7 (250 words per page double spaced)