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The publication of this work on Pascal coincides with the tercentenary of his death. It is based upon a series of lectures given in 1960 by the author at the University of Geneva.
Baudouin tries to describe in ten short chapters the stages in the psychological development of Pascal. With the methods of analytical psychology, he shows the fundamental ties existing between the various facets of Pascal's personality: polemist, scientist, Christian, etc. In this way the Pascal we know as a genius or as a mystic is seen as a human being and so becomes more accessible to us, yet never loses his greatness but rather increases his stature.
The shock of his mother's death when he was only three years old affected him throughout his entire life. It provoked in him loathing and frustration and their counterparts avidity and harshness, and contributed to his rejection of the world and to a passionate search for his self and for God. From a study of his life, his religious conversion, his scientific and polemic works, and his Pensées, Baudouin describes how Pascal the intellectual gradually rediscovered, via his intuition, his feeling function which had been repressed at the death of his mother. His passion and his aggression are manifest in the application of his scientific discoveries, in his religious conversion associated with that of his sister, and in the harshness of his polemic with the Jesuits. This same passion is to be found in his asceticism and his mortifications.
Furthermore, a detailed analysis reveals some of the archetypal themes running through the Pensées. Baudouin groups these themes under such headings as: the hunt and the kill, the centre and the mediator, the ego, the self, and the thou.
This small book is fascinating and enjoyable; it throws a new light upon Pascal. It is not necessary for the reader to be familiar with Pascal's work, for at all stages Baudouin exemplifies his analysing of Pascal with quotations. In particular, the analytical psychologist who