Note 1111 — AN ESSAY ON MAN, IN FOUR EPISTLES (continued 3)
Reading edition
Ed. 1.:
The only science of mankind is man.
Ed. 2.:
The proper study, etc.—Pope.
"The true science and true study of man is man," says Charron in his treatise on Wisdom; and Pascal, in his thoughts translated by Dr. Kennet, 1727, p. 248, says, "The study of man is the proper employment and exercise of mankind." But Pascal is maintaining that man should study himself in preference to mathematics, and not to the exclusion of God, which is a doctrine that would have filled him with horror.