ABSTRACT
I IF, unlike the tragic vision, dialectical thought does recognise that human achievements can have a relative value, it still refuses the logical and geometrical method recommended by Cartesian rationalism. Any increase in knowledge about a particular set off acts depends, for dialectical thought, on the perpetual movement to and fro from the whole to the parts and from the whole back to the parts again; this is why, in this and the following chapters, I shall not be dealing with Pascal's ideas under rigidly defined sections, but shall frequently be going back to what I have already said in order to see it again in a new light.
