Paradoxes for Better Living, 5

Portrait of Pascal (Photo: Wikipedia)

“The two faculties which should help people be wise and perceptive, the senses and reason, are engaged in a constant battle, in which one tries to deceive the other. The senses trick reason by only showing the outward appearance of things, rather than their inner reality. And this deception is worsened when the emotions disturb the senses.” — Blaise Pascal, Penseés (No. 45)

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‘What the arts are concerned with’

“This, then, is what the arts are concerned with, this is what they intend, namely, to restore within us the divine likeness.” — Hugh of St. Victor

Hugh of St. Victor is not exactly a household name. Then again, name-recognition is a gauge of only a single, narrow value. As New Advent’s article says, ‘A careful examination of his works has led to a truer appreciation of one whom Harnack (History of Dogma, tr. London, 1899, VI, 44) terms “the most influential theologian of the twelfth century”.’