From the notes for Pascal's contemplated "Apology for the Christian Religion" the Port-Royalists compiled and edited the book known as his "Pensées" or "Thoughts." The early texts were much tampered with, and the material has been frequently rearranged; but now at last it is possible to read these fragmentary jottings as they came from the hand of their author. In spite of their incompleteness and frequent incoherence, the "Thoughts" have long held a high place among the great religious classics. Much of the theological argument implied in these utterances has little appeal to the modern mind, but the acuteness of the observation of human life, the subtlety of the reasoning, the combination of precision and fervid imagination in the expression, make this a book to which the discerning mind can return again and again for insight and inspiration.
