Vairagya Eiger
Prof Isabelle Perry
English 5
Monday and Wednesday 5pm
19 October 2016
We've got to get Ourselves Back to the Garden
We are stardust, Billion year old carbon, We are golden, Caught in the devil's bargain, And we've got to get ourselves back to the garden. -Joni Mitchell
Voltaire was prominent among the thinkers and writers known for Enlightenment philosophy. He was born in 1694 to a middle class family in Paris. Also known as Francois-Marie Arouet. The author adopted the name "Voltaire" in 1718, following his incarceration at the Bastille. It is an anagram of AROVET LI, the Latinized spelling of his surname, Arouet. Voltaire received a classical 18th century education which included history, literature, languages, philosophy, ancient Greek, and Roman. It is notable that science was not included in his education.
To understand Voltaire’s Candide, we must first understand the complex tapestry of his environment, taking into consideration each thread; the political, economic, religious, scientific events which surrounded him and became woven into the rich and beautiful fabric of the Enlightenment period. They would not only shape his views and what he would write about, but the thoughts and beliefs of the people of the day.
In 18th century France, Louis XIV was the King of France and he ruled harshly, making sure to suppress any thoughts and ideas that would challenge his rule and the ruling aristocracy. Interestingly, it was also a time of exceptional wealth and prosperity and prolific in satiric writers. A growing middle class of readers began to find books and knowledge on ideas like equality, the basic rights of man, and the importance of reason and scientific objectivity. New publications by Enlightenment thinkers were being published for the masses regularly and would spark fresh ideas and understanding as people began to philosophize about the meaning of life.
Not surprisingly, during Voltaire’s adult life 40% of all the people imprisoned in the Bastille were authors and writers. Voltaire’s satirical genius got him into trouble and thrown into the Bastille on more than one occasion for poking fun at the French aristocracy. Upon his release he was exiled for two years in England where he found great philosophic and religious tolerance and freedom. When Voltaire returned in 1733 he took up residency at Cirey-sur-Blaise in Haute-Marne, northeastern France with his Mistress, Gabrielle Émilie Le Tonnelier de Breteuil, Marquise Du Châtelet, who was the only published female science writer of the day, and translated Newton’s Principia into French for the masses. During Voltaire’s years with the Marquise Du Châtelet, he spent many hours vigorously discussing, collaborating, and connecting his ideas and philosophy to the knowledge of sciences of the day. Jean Jacques Rousseau, a contemporary of Voltaire, was known for his publication; Discourses which discusses two types of inequality: the natural, or physical inequality, and the ethical, or moral inequality. The dialogue between Voltaire and Rousseau make up much of the subject matter in Candide. Voltaire and Rousseau are today’s iconic forefathers of the civil rights movement, and were the 18th century founding fathers of the Enlightenment and consequently, The French Revolution.
Voltaire was one of many satiric writers of this time, they included; Jonathan Swift; Gulliver’s Travels, Richard Fielding; Tom Jones and Alexander Pope; An Essay on Criticism. All of these writers are known for their biting satire and acerbic wit. Notably, Alexander Pope and Leibniz are the luminaries of the Optimist and Totalist philosophies. In Alexander Pope’s An Essay on Man he reveals the Optimist view through several short couplets, published in 1732, we see an attempt to “vindicate the ways of God to Man,” a variation on Milton's attempt in Paradise Lost to “justify the ways of God to Man” (Milton). Pope goes on to say,“All Nature is but art, unknown to thee, All chance, direction, which thou canst not see; All discord, harmony not understood; All partial evil, universal good.(Pope)” Alexander Pope presents an idea of the Universe; he says that no matter how imperfect, complex, inscrutable and disturbing the Universe appears to be, it functions in a rational fashion according to the natural laws. God exists and is what Pope centers the Universe around so that we have an ordered structure. The limited intelligence of man can only take in tiny portions of this order and can experience only partial truths, hence man must rely on hope which then leads into faith.
Candide was published in 1759, shortly after his longtime Mistress died and he moved to Switzerland. It is considered Voltaire’s signature work on the Enlightenment, it is in this work that he levels sharp criticism against nobility, philosophy, the church, and cruelty. He savagely satirizes several solutions of the Enlightenment age thinking and demonstrates their inherent flaws with biting wit. The purpose of this fast-paced, almost galloping, deluge and catastrophe filled story of human sufferings, is to show us that life is about living. Our duty as humans is not to try and second guess the supernatural governing intelligence (some call God), but to simply get on with the tasks that we have been given. Voltaire has written a treatise on the uselessness of sterile theorizing and implores us to get on with the practical business of living. As such this is a tale of the timeless condition of man. The story of Candide is considered one of the three hundred great critiques of the movement of religious oppression and a pre-cursor to the French Revolution.
The philosophy of Candide is rooted in the prevailing thought of the time, Leibniz’s Theodicy and the solution of Optimism in which he tries to justify the apparent imperfections of the world by claiming that it is optimal among all possible worlds. It must be the best possible and most balanced world, because it was created by an all powerful and all knowing God, who would not choose to create an imperfect world if a better world could be known to him or possible to exist.
Voltaire was in part a supporter of this philosophy of Optimism until 1755, when he had a life altering experience during the giant earthquake of Lisbon, Portugal. The city which was still under Moorish influence had a population of 275,000 people and was one of the largest in the world of that time. The earthquake had three 10 minute periods of 9 on the richter scale, the devastation was appalling. The mass destruction of three tsunamis which engulfed the city killed more than 60,000 people. A massive fire broke out and raged through the city for five days. To put this in perspective, Europe had not seen anything like this since the Great Plague of 1348 aka “The black death”. It was this experience that caused Voltaire to ask himself, “How could a benevolent, loving and all powerful God allow such a terrible thing?” Drawn from this devastation Voltaire wrote, Poème sur le désastre de Lisbonne 1755, published in 1756, considered an introduction to Candide, it is 180 line poem that savagely attacks Optimism, “And can you then impute a sinful deed, To babes who on their mothers' bosoms bleed? Was then more vice in fallen Lisbon found, Than Paris, where voluptuous joys abound?…And yet, sad truth! in this our world 'tis found, What contradictions here my soul confound!”(Voltaire, Riches) The conclusions drawn in the poem are simple, he raises the question of good vs. evil and states that the Optimism and Totalism of Leibniz and Pope is nothing but a discouraging fatalism and physical and moral reality reveal the lie. To go about telling the miserable victims of Lisbon that, “Everything is well”and conforms to the Universal Reason is to make a mockery of them. It reveals a state of being incapable of pity, compassion and human feeling. Voltaire strikes up a friendly discourse with Jean Jacques Rousseau when he responds to this poem and they begin to have a dialogue about the Optimist and Totalist view. Rousseau writes:
I expected from it evidence more worthy of the humanity which apparently inspired you to write it. You reproach Pope and Leibnitz with belittling our misfortunes by affirming that all is well, but you so burden the list of our miseries that you further disparage our condition. Instead of the consolations that I expected; you only vex me. It might be said that you fear that I don't feel my unhappiness enough, and that you are trying to soothe me by proving that all is bad. Do not be mistaken, Monsieur, it happens that everything is contrary to what you propose. This optimism which you find so cruel consoles me still in the same woes that you force on me as unbearable.(Rousseau)
Voltaire’s reply to this letter comes in the form of our story Candide. In it he tackles the questions that have vexed both Christian and non-Christians alike. Candide is a rhythmic, fast-paced and pithy satire on the philosophies of the time. We look at the centuries old problem of evil and the deep unsettling problem of suffering examined and answered by three possible solutions. Before I explore these solutions, it is important to look at the driving question, the Greek philosopher Epicurus (341-270 BC) asks, “Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil? Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?(Woolf)”
It is this thinking that Voltaire seems to be wrestling with in Candide. As we open with Candide, we are introduced to our main philosopher of the day, kind Pangloss, who gives lip service to the prevailing ideas of Optimism, “-It is clear said he, that things cannot be otherwise than they are, for everything is made to serve an end…Observe: noses were made to support spectacles, hence we have spectacles.(4)” This sort of silly logic rambles throughout our story as Candide returns to Pangloss’s philosophy to try and make sense of his experiences and the world he meets in his travels. Later on in our story, we are introduced to several poverty stricken characters and companions to Candide; the Anabaptist, the old Lady, Cacambe and Martin who appear outside of the French and European class structure, and seem to be chosen carefully to give voice to the schools of thought that Voltaire wishes to explore. As Candide embarks on a flurried journey to many foreign lands and is exposed to many cultures, ideas, and ideologies; his travels become a way of “undoing” and deconstructing the conflict of these three philosophical solutions.
The first of these solutions is called Optimism or Totalism and is explained by Leibniz, “What we perceive as evil is an illusion, we as mortals judge certain events as good and evil, but if we only knew enough to grasp evil and all its relations, connections, consequences and the totality of all the events, then we could see that our judgement was incorrect. That the event that we thought was evil was in fact a necessary contribution to goodness, harmony and the beauty of the whole of totality.” The great Christian Theologian St. Augustine of Hippo who had very powerful influence on the thinking of this time period, said in his 5th century publication, The City of God that:
There are Manichaeans, certain heretics that deny the goodness of creation on the grounds that many things are unsuitable and harmful to the poor and fragile mortality of the human flesh. Such natural disasters as fire, wild beasts, disease, earthquakes, and floods. Yet they are not thinking about how wonderful these are in and of themselves and in their proper place. They do not think about how beautifully they fit in the total universe. (Hippo)
This is illustrated in Candide when Candide himself responds to difficulty repeating Pangloss’s teaching, “troubles are just the shadows in a beautiful picture.(56)” It is important to understand the context in relationship to the whole. The person who is offended by the whole or offended in part by the ugliness in the universe is not seeing the context in its entirety as in a beautiful painting. Later in our story, Pangloss is revived from death’s door and accompanying Candide on a journey that is filled with loss, hunger and the catastrophe of earthquake, “ -For, said he, all is for the best, since if there is a volcano at Lisbon, it cannot be somewhere else, since it is unthinkable that things should not be where they are, since everything is well.(13)” The sheer absurdity of attempting to apply the Optimist and Totalist theory to human suffering is itself inhuman and yet there is something noble about how Pangloss adheres to this philosophy while seeming to be blind to the inequities of life:
Well, my dear Pangloss, Candide said to him, now that you have been hanged, dissected, beaten to a pulp, and sentenced to the galleys, do you still think everything is for the best in this world? – I am still of my first opinion, replied Pangloss; for after all I am a philosopher, and it would not be right for me to recant since Leibniz could not possibly be wrong, and besides pre-established harmony is the finest notion in the world, like plenum and subtle matter.(76)
The second of these philosophical solutions is Dualism. This is also the 8th century religious sect known as the Manichaean (referred to in the previous passage by St. Augustine, as the heretic), which attributes the world of good and evil to two rival gods, one is maligned and destructive and the other benign and creative. The world is mostly but not entirely under the control of the evil deity who has disfigured it with such horrible phenomena as disease, famine, drought, flood and every other imaginable kind of human and natural disaster. The good deity is responsible for all the positive aspects of our world, but unfortunately not sufficiently powerful to defeat his wicked adversary. As a result, the world of human life is a mixture of bewildering good and evil, pain and pleasure, health and sickness. In Candide the role of the Manichaean is played by Martin, who is a wise and honest figure, the portrayal of Martin brings to the tale a realist approach to the existence of cruelty, danger, evil and sadness in the world:
Do you believe, asked Candide, that men have always massacred one another as they do today?…Do you believe, said Martin, that hawks have always eaten pigeons when they could get them? Of course, said Candide. Well, said Martin, if hawks have always had the same character, why do you suppose that men have changed?(50)
To us, the readers, Martin’s purpose is clear, he is grounding the story in opposing forms of thought which causes us to wonder what it is that we think. According to the prevailing thought of the time, the evil God of the Manichaeas was no more than a fallen angel. Satan or Lucifer who had deceived himself that he was the equal of God and who after he failed to supplant God during a war in heaven, devoted himself for all eternity to despoiling God’s creation. Early on in Candide’s voyage to Bordeaux with Martin he asks Martin if he agrees with Pangloss’s philosophy after they have had a lovely meal and are settled in for the evening:
What is your idea of moral evil and physical evil? …I am a Manichaea, I don’t know what to do about it, but I can’t think otherwise. You must be possessed of the devil, said Candide. He’s mixed up with so many things in the world…that he may as well be in me as well…-I assure you as I survey the globe,… I think God has abandoned it to some evil spirit…A million regimented assassins roam Europe from one end to the other, plying the trades of murder and robbery in an organized way for a living, because there is no more form of honest work for them. In a word, I have seen so much and suffered so much that I am a Manichaea(48)
It is clear when we listen to the voice of Martin that we are listening in some part to Voltaire’s voice and that he in some way shares the beliefs of Martin. Yet, it is also apparent that he is not fully convinced that Manichaeism is the answer. Martin has replaced Pangloss as Candide’s guide and becomes a sounding-board for reason as Candide comes up against one misery and sadness after another. They are on a ship and entering Portsmouth, England, and Candide asks Martin if the people in England are better than the ones in France that they have encountered:
What is this world of ours? sighed Candide…Something crazy, something abominable…-It’s a different sort of crazy…you know, that these two nations have been at war over a few acres of snow in Canada, and that they are spending on this fine struggle more than Canada itself is worth. As for telling you if there are more people in one country or another who need a straight jacket, that is a judgement too fine for my understanding.(60)
The passage goes on to describe a summary execution of Admiral John Byng on a neighbouring ship that had been defeated by the French fleet under Galissonière, this is a partly fictional tale, as in real life on March 14, 1757, Voltaire intervened on the Admiral’s behalf and saved his life. It is notable that Voltaire is demonstrating his belief in the evil that besets the human race by omitting this important detail. We know that in real life Voltaire rejected the Manichaean position, “The principles of Manes, are a still poorer joke. They are two doctors, one of whom says to the other: “Grant me the emetic, and I will grant you the bleeding.” Manichaeism is absurd.(Woolf)”
The third solution is the monotheistic Christian solution based on the three books of Genesis in the Bible. When we arrive at the fall of man, it would be fair to conclude that men must have altered the course of nature through their actions. Early on in the story of Candide we are introduced to an Anabaptist. Anabaptists were Protestants who were very unpopular during the 16th century for their views, “A man who had never been baptized, a good Anabaptist named Jacques, saw this cruel and heartless treatment being inflicted on one of his fellow creatures, a featherless biped possessing a soul.(8)” Voltaire is poking fun at Plato’s definition of a man, emphasizing the humanist view. Summarizing what takes place in the three books of Genesis; we are told the story of the first man and woman; The Story of Adam and Eve. In book two; we learn about the so called fall of man and Satan’s rebellion against God in the heavens. And in book three; Adam and Eve’s acts of disobedience in The Garden of Eden which permanently disfigure the original perfection of the human race and the world they inhabit. As Milton put it in Paradise Lost, “It was the fruit of the forbidden tree that brought death into the world and all our woe.(Milton)” According to this vision, God intended his creation to be in every way ideal, but the devil disguised as the serpent deceived his first creatures Adam and Eve, and they abused the free will he had given them. They perverted and distorted the world by eating the forbidden fruit. Candide’s plot structure reads like a brief light-hearted parody sequel to “the fall of man” in the third chapter of Genesis. What happens to Adam and Eve after they are expelled from the garden of Eden? As we can see; Candide is Adam who is seduced by the female, Cunegonde is Eve who acquires forbidden knowledge, Pangloss is the serpent who passes on the forbidden knowledge of good and evil, and Baron is the archangel who expels them from Paradise. Candide’s story is the account of life in the fallen world, “Candide, ejected from the earthly paradise, wandered for a long time without knowing where he was going, weeping, raising his eyes to heaven, and gazing back frequently on the most beautiful castles which contained the most beautiful of Baron’s daughters.(5)” The very doctrine of original sin itself has passed down from generation to generation through the act of conception and has its physical counterpart in Voltaire’s description of Pangloss’s genealogy of syphilis in chapter four. This story is about life when paradise has been lost and the consequences of the fall have fully penetrated every aspect of the human existence and experience. It is a world wracked by every natural and conceivable evil. In the final chapter of Candide, Candide tells everyone that “We must cultivate our garden” Pangloss misunderstands and quotes Genesis, “You are perfectly right, said Pangloss; for when man was put into the garden of Eden, he was put there ut operaretur eum, so that he should work it; this proves that man was not born to take his ease.(81)” Voltaire is telling us to stop wasting discussing the futile design of the Universe. Through Candide he attacks the useless metaphysical speculations about subjects which we cannot know. We cannot know the unknowable. Not unlike the Dervish at the end of our story who tells Pangloss, “Hold your tongue.(79)” Voltaire implores us to become silent rather than add to the calamities of life with falsehoods of faith in Providence or Optimism. The moral is that we should just get on with our gardening, and not worry ourselves with useless musings on the metaphysical. Martin happily joins in with this idea, “-Let’s work without speculating…it’s the only way of rendering life bearable.(81)” It is not mindless labor, we are cultivating a garden, there is a plan, and there is a divine landscape architect whose intentions we are fulfilling when we garden.
Footnote on the Narrator:
The narrator embodies the uncaring human incarnation of a detached and indifferent God. It interesting to note that Voltaire’s narrating “I” appears in the first chapter, “His features admirably expressed his soul, he combined an honest mind with great simplicity of heart; and I think for this reason they called him Candide.(1)” He is taking on the role of the grand creator of this person and in so doing is now the omniscient and omnipotent God. Yet, Voltaire’s narrator in Candide has little in common with a deity such as Alexander Pope would describe, “See with equal all a hero perish or a sparrow fall….(Pope)” In fact Voltaire’s narrator has more in common with the voice of the dervish. Candide’s narrator is unmoved by the suffering he observes and seems more in line with the thoughts of one of Voltaire’s earlier works, “The system “all is well” represents the author of all nature as a potent and malicious king who never worries if his designs will end in the death of four or five hundred of his subjects and poverty and tears for the rest as long as they gratify him.(Barnes)” In truth the story of Candide seems to have been written by some sort of creature very different from ourselves and indifferent to the sufferings of humanity. It is as though he is a demon laughing at us (humanity) and he has nothing in common with us. From this point of view it’s as though he is viewing the experiences in Candide from a superhuman perspective. He is ignoring the Optimist perspective entirely. Candide and Voltaire take the impersonal objective theory and apply it subjectively to the personal situations that arise. This results are that in Candide, Candide is constantly oscillating between the Optimistic and anti-Optimistic positions. When something is “good” Candide believes Liebniz is right, when something “bad” happens he believes Liebniz is wrong, “Oh Pangloss! Cried Candide, you had no notion of these abominations! I’m through, I must give up our optimism after all.(44)” This proclamation happens after Candide had encountered the horrible cruel treatment of the negro, who was missing his left leg and right hand from working a sugar mill. I believe that Voltaire’s point is that one might argue that Optimism is “false” and that it is irrelevant to individual human sufferings. The truth lies in the fact that until we can experience the superhuman perspective, it is not possible to know or experience any consolation for our misery.
Works Cited
Barnes, A.S. Shorter Writings of Voltaire. 10th ed., New York, Rodale, 1960.
Hippo, Augustine Of. City of God. 426. Translated by Henry Bettenson, Penguin Classics, 2003.
Milton, John. "Paradise Lost." The Broadview Anthology of British Literature, pp. 998-1061. Originally published as "The Broadview Anthology of British Literature" in A Concise ed., compiled by J. Black, 2nd ed., Peterborough, Broadview Press, 2007.
Pope, Alexander. The First Book of Ethic Epistles. 1733. 20th ed., London, Lawton Gilliver, 2005. FIRST BOOK of ETHIC EPISTLES. TO HENRY St. JOHN, L. BOLINGBROKE 20.
Rousseau, Jean Jacques. Power and Omnipotence. Compiled by Jonathan Perry, 5th rev. ed., New York, Knopf, 1995. Hanover College Department of History.
Voltaire. Candide. Edited by Nicholas Cronk, 3rd ed., London, Norton, 2016.
—. The Riches of Rhyme: Studies in French Verse. 1958. Compiled by Scott Clive, 2 expanded ed., London, Oxford Unviversity Press, 1988. Geneva: Institute et Musee Voltaire 30.
Woolf, H. I., translator. The Philosophical Dictionary. 1924. New York, Knopf, 1924. Paste your essay in here…