SCIENCE AND CULTURE 31 



and banal data creates a living and personal 

 work of art. When we find in the authors 

 Pascal has read, in Montaigne for example, 

 more and more of the ideas and even the ex- 

 pressions which form the material of the im- 

 mortal "Pensees," we only demonstrate with 

 still greater clearness the incommensurability 

 between materials and form ; because, after all, 

 the work of Pascal differs radically from the 

 work of Montaigne. Pascal himself said: 

 "The thoughts of an author transplanted in 

 the mind of another writer make, sometimes, a 

 quite new and different growth." Les memes 

 pensees poussent quelquefois tout autrement 

 dans un autre que dans leur auteur. 



In spite of the marvellous progress which 

 erudition and the objective study of literary 

 phenomena are making from day to day, let- 

 ters remain essentially different from the sci- 

 ences, and that is just the reason why letters 

 have a part in education which is peculiarly 

 their own. 



In a sense diametrically opposed to the su- 

 perstition of erudition, it is not uncommon 

 nowadays, to hear a defence of the proposition 



