e undermines the positive aspects of the mechanical models while simultaneously, complaining about its lack of logical rigor and its de-structured quality – a critique already at work in some of his scientific works. What is the Extent of Pascal's Influence? If we compare Duhem's critical review of the English School with Chapter IV of the first part of La théorie physique, what is most evident is that the association of the subtle mind with the English mentality does not add substance to what Duhem argues in the preceding essay since the changes described above are also not associated with the English mentality, but instead, to the Continental one, which favors an axiomatic outlook. Is Pascal's influence on Duhem, then, more apparent that real? Given that Martin (1991), Stoffel (2007), and Cortese (2016) hold – with their respective differences –30 that there is a marked Pascalian influence on Duhem's thought, it seems convenient to outline some of the arguments that lead me to believe that this influence is, at least, not as significant as the three authors argue. The first, and most apparent, evidence for the rhetorical, rather than actual, use of the distinction between the subtle mind and the geometric mind lies in the fact that in La théorie physique, the subtle mind is associated with the English way of doing physics, while in the writings collected in La science allemande, the subtle mind is primarily associated with the French mentality, while the geometric mind is associated with the German mindset. In other words, when compared to the English, the French display a deductive mindset; whereas, compared to the Germans, the French display a broad, but weak mode of thought. How is this possible? If we immediately rule out the hasty reading that ties nationality, strictly speaking, with one of the two mentalities, it becomes clear that the modes of thought are defined not in function of the specific nationality, but rather by the physicists' approach to the physical theory, since, if Duhem has gone t