Blaise Pascal on

Nature vs. Nurture

Fathers fear in case the natural love of their children is wiped out. So what is this nature capable of being wiped out?

Custom is a second nature which destroys the first.

But what is nature? Why is custom not natural?

I am very much afraid that nature is itself only a first custom, just as custom is a second nature.

& Human Nature.

Human nature can be considered in two ways. One according to our end, and then we are great and incomparable. The other according to the masses, and then we are low and vile. These are the two ways by which we are judged differently, and which make the philosophers argue so furiously.

For one way denies the supposition of the other. One claims: 'We were not born to this end, because all our actions deny it.' The other claims; 'We are distancing ourselves from the end when we commit these base acts.’