Francis Bacon's Essays on Life; Michel de Montaigne's Complete Essays and Blaise Pascal's Pensees : Three Major Western Philosophical Essay Collections

Blaise Pascal's Pensees was elegantly written and features clarity, acclaimed as one of the Three Major Western Philosophical Essay Collections along with Michel de Montaigne's Complete Essays and Francis Bacon's Essays on Life. Francis Bacon's Essays on Life is a classic philosophical essay collection and an European modern equivalent to The Analects, has been passionately received for four centuries after its publication, reflects Bacon's profound understanding of human society and life. Well-wrought, graceful and pithy, and full of philosophical enquiries, it is a jewel in the world's history of essay and thoughts. Michel de Montaigne was the most important representative of French Humanism. Few people could be as respected and adored like him. Michel de Montaigne's Complete Essays was published between 1580 and 1588 in three volumes in France, which marked the birth of the genre of modern French essay, known for plain language, wit and the author's detached observation on human emotions. Blaise Pascal's Pensees came from unfinished manuscripts of Pascal which embody his thoughts: Departing from the rationalism of Rene Descartes he inherited and promoted the tradition of rationalism and critiques everything with rationalism; meanwhile he pointed out the internal contradiction of rationalism itself and expounded on the paradox of human between the infinitely large and the infinitely small to prove the paradox that men are great and sublime and vulnerable and powerless at the same time.