Note 41 — HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION TO THE PROVINCIAL LETTERS. BY THE TRANSLATOR.

Petitot, p. 124. The eighteenth letter embraces the delicate topic of papal authority, as well as the distinction between faith and fact, in stating which we can easily conceive how severely the ingenuous mind of Pascal must have labored to find some plausible ground for vindicating his consistency as a Roman Catholic. To the Protestant reader, it must appear the most unsatisfactory of all the Letters.