 After a mystical experience in 1654, Blaise Pascal’s interest in nothingness passed from its significance to science to the significance of nothingness to the human condition. Pascal thinks human beings have a unique perspective on their finitude. His Pensées is a roller coaster ride surveying the human lot. Pascal elevates us to the level of angels by exalting in our grasp of the infinite, and then runs us down below the beasts for wittingly choosing evil over goodness. From this valley of depravity Pascal takes us up again by marveling at how human beings tower over the microscopic kingdom, only to plunge us down toward insignificance by having us dwell on the vastness of space, and the immensity of eternity.