DIRECT REFERENCES TO THE THEORIES AND JARGON OF OPTIMISM
Although it is not necessary for the reader of “Candide” to have a clear understanding of Philosophical Optimism, which arguably Voltaire did not have either, it is necessary to recognise its main themes which Voltaire serves up as targets for his satire.
1. The Principle of Sufficient Reason. One of the most important principles of Leibniz was the Principle of Sufficient Reason. This maintained that everything around us has a logical cause or reason for existence. If the reason for something is not immediately apparent, we needn't doubt that there is a reason, because if God has wanted it to be, then there must be a good reason for it. God's will is therefore a "sufficient reason" for the existence of all phenomena and events.
1. The great chain of being. The principle of sufficient reason applies because everything around us fits in as part of God’s wonderful plan. the Divine Power manifests itself in a great chain of being. If we are aware of inadequacies, this is because we do not see the full picture. If links appear to be broken, these missing links might exist in other countries or on other planets. Whatever failings we may observe in our immediate existence there was nevertheless under it all “Une harmonie préétablie
2. The best of possible worlds. The phrase "the best of all possible worlds", which Voltaire repeatedly ridicules through the bigoted teaching of Pangloss, stems from Leibniz who, while recognising that evil might exist in some aspects of the human experience, claims that the world we live in was God’s best choice. At the moment of creation, God, on the principle of sufficient reason, chose between an infinite number of possible universes the one which gave the greatest number of possible forms of being and that this was "le meilleur des mondes possibles."
References to the principles of Philosophical Optimism and quotation of the jargon of this philosophy abound throughout the book.
The Principle of Sufficient Reason
Voltaire enjoys liberally scattering Leibnitz’s phrase “Sufficient Reason” in the most incongruous situations. Inspired by the sight of Pangloss making love to her mother's chambermaid, Cunegonde returned home:
Chapter 1 - toute remplie du désir d'être savante, songeant qu'elle pourrait bien être la raison suffisante du jeune Candide, qui pouvait aussi être la sienne.
In the battle between the :Abares and the Bulgares:
Chapter 3 - La baïonnette fut aussi la raison suffisante de la mort de quelques milliers d’hommes.
The great chain of being.
Candide still retains his faith in Optimism even after his experiences in a brutal war. To a Calvinist minister in Holland, he expresses the idea of Optimism that a hidden logic requires these sufferings:
Il n'y a point d'effet sans cause, répondit modestement Candide (tout est enchaîné nécessairement, et arrangé pour le mieux. Il a fallu que je fusse chassé, d'auprès de mademoiselle Cunégonde, que j'aie passé par les baguettes, et il faut que je demande mon pain, jusqu'à ce que je puisse en gagner; tout cela ne pouvait être autrement.
Pangloss gives the Optimist explanation that particular misfortunes form part of the general good, and with comic exaggeration says the more particular misfortunes there are the more everything is good. He states the second theory above and then in his ideological extremism draws it to the point of absurdity:
Page 65 Tout cela était indispensable, répliquait le docteur borgne, et les malheurs particuliers font le bien général; de sorte que plus il y a de malheurs particuliers, et plus tout est bien.»
Even after the shipwreck and the Lisbon earthquake, Pangloss, with convoluted logic, states that things could not be otherwise, .Chapter 5 page67
mais Pangloss les consola, en les assurant que les choses ne pouvaient être autrement: «Car, dit-il, tout ceci est ce qu'il y a de mieux; car s'il y a un volcan à Lisbonne, il ne pouvait être ailleurs; car il est impossible que les choses ne soient pas où elles sont; car tout est bien.
Later in Lisbon, Pangloss explained to a stranger how in the view of the Optimist the Great Earthquake had to happen in keeping with the principle that whatever is must be right and cannot be otherwise. At this the other raised two issues on which the Catholic Church would tolerate no dissent: Free Will and Original Sin. Innocently, Pangloss persisted:
Chapter 5 - Votre Excellence, m'excusera, dit Pangloss; la liberté peut subsister avec la nécessité absolue: car il était nécessaire que nous fussions libres; car enfin la volonté détermine…. Pangloss did not finish. Unfortunately he was speaking to an Official of the Inquisition and was arrested.
Candide goes to the New World to look for a world where everything is well, confident in his belief in the chain of creation.
Page 77- Nous allons dans un autre univers, disait Candide; c'est dans celui-là, sans doute, que tout est bien. Car il faut avouer qu'on pourrait gémir un peu de ce qui se passe dans le notre en physique et en morale.
Cacambo has no doubt that their experience with the cannibals is adequate disproof of the Optimistic idea of an ideal world elsewhere. Chapter l7 Page 96
Quand ils furent aux frontières des Oreillons: «Vous voyez, dit Cacambo à Candide, que cet hémisphère-ci ne vaut pas mieux que l'autre; croyez-moi, retournons en Europe par le plus court.
Chapter 17- Candide believes he has at last found the country where everything is right, when they arrive in Eldorado. However he soon tires of this land and Voltaire would have no wish to argue the Optimist case. The details Voltaire gives are too sketchy to give a picture of Utopia. Most critics believe that Voltaire intention in this chapter was to satirise travellers’ tales of Utopia and the Utopian novel.
When Candide has his second and final reunion with Pangloss, his tutor explains all the intermediate events a proof of the continuous chain of creation. He again reduces an Optimist idea to the absurd, claiming that the linking of events of the universe eventually brought him and the Baron imprisoned as galley slaves back together with Candide:
Chapter 28 page 144…….. nous recevions vingt coups de nerf de bœuf par jour, lorsque l'enchaînement des événements de cet univers vous a conduit dans notre galère….
Sometimes when they had all retired to Turkey, Pangloss would try to persuade Candide to adopt again the Optimistic viewpoint, with which he had inculcated him, when Candide was a youth. . However, Candide has now formed opinions of his own.
Chapter 30 – page 150 Pangloss says:‑
« Tous les événements sont enchaînés dans le meilleur des mondes possibles ; car enfin, si vous n'aviez pas été chassé d'un beau château à grands coups de pied dans le derrière pour l'amour de Mlle Cunégonde, si vous n'aviez pas été mis à l' Inquisition, si vous n'aviez pas couru l'Amérique à pied, si vous n'aviez pas donné un bon coup d'épée au baron, si vous n'aviez pas perdu tous vos moutons du bon pays d'Eldorado, vous ne mangeriez pas ici des cédrats confits et des pistaches.
Candide is polite but refuses to engage in the futility of this discussion:
Cela est bien dit, répondit Candide ; mais il faut cultiver notre jardin.
In Chapter 28 Pangloss makes a direct reference to Leibnitz as the source of his ideas. Candide asks Pangloss whether after his experiences he still thought things happened for the best. Pangloss replies that as a philosopher it was not proper for him to change his point of view - Leibnitz could not be wrong as the idea of the pre-established harmony was the most beautiful thing on earth- as well as the subtle matter that made gave all heavenly bodies their motion:-
Chapter 28 Page 144- Eh bien: mon cher Pangloss, lui dit Candide, quand vous avez été pendu, disséqué, roué de coups, et que vous avez ramé aux galères, avez-vous toujours pensé que tout allait le mieux du monde ?
Je suis toujours de mon premier sentiment, répondit Pangloss; car enfin je suis philosophe: il ne me convient pas de me dédire. Leibnitz ne pouvant pas avoir tort, et 1' harmonie préétablie étant d'ailleurs la plus belle chose du monde, aussi bien que le plein et la matière subtile.
The best of possible worlds
Voltaire is not always fair to Leibnitz but “Candide” is a literary satire not a philosophical treatise. In speaking of the best of possible worlds, Leibniz himself certainly did not wish to imply that the world as we know it could not be improved. Some of his disciples, however, were guilty of oversimplifying and saying just that. .
Pangloss and his disciples subscribe to Pope's view, claiming that this is the best world that could possibly be.
Chapter 1 – Page 56 - Il prouvait admirablement qu'il n'y a point d'effet sans cause, et que, dans ce meilleur des mondes possibles, le château de monseigneur le baron était le plus beau des châteaux, et madame la meilleure des baronnes possibles.
Il est démontré, disait-il, que les choses ne peuvent être autrement: car tout étant fait pour une fin, tout est nécessairement pour la meilleure fin.
Pangloss takes the ideas of philosophical Optimism to an extreme that surpasses the enthusiasm of Alexander Pope when he says in Chapter One:
….ceux qui ont avancé que tout est bien ont dit une sottise: il fallait dire que tout est au mieux.»
When Candide and Cacambo are about to be eaten by cannibals, the hero of the book still does not doubt that everything is for the best, but he is unhappy about the cruelty of the process::
Page 95 Nous allons certainement être rôtis ou bouillis. Ah! que dirait maître Pangloss, s'il voyait comme la pure nature est faite? Tout est bien; soit, mais j'avoue qu'il est bien cruel d'avoir perdu mademoiselle Cunégonde et d'être mis à la broche par des Oreillons.»
To the end Pangloss wished to go on arguing about the source of evil and suffering in the world, while expounding the theories of Philosophical Optimism. He attempts to talk metaphysics with the Dervish who shuts the door in his face.
Chapter 30 Page 148
« Je me flattais, dit Pangloss, de raisonner un peu avec vous des effets et des causes, du meilleur des mondes possibles, de l'origine du mal, de la nature de l'âme, et de l'harmonie préétablie.»
Le derviche, à ces mots, leur ferma la porte au nez.
Philosophical Optimism continued. Go to Voltaire's hostility to Philosophical Optimism