"
That's very well said and may all be true," said Candide "but let's cultivate our garden." (ch. 30, 829-840).
Emphasizing man's ability to distinguish between good and evil is perhaps the most significant way in which the optimists tried to justify the existence of the evil and suffering. After being cast out of heaven, Satan made the choice to continue his revenge rather than to quietly accept his punishment, which may have ultimately let him back into the kingdom of heaven. On the opposite end of the spectrum, God's son chose to help his father and humanity by agreeing to be mankind's portal to salvation. So the primary optimist message that Voltaire is satirizing is that if there were no evil to select over good, then man would not be able to distinguish between making the right and wrong choices in life. Voltaire finds this concept to be ridiculous and hypocritical, particularly since the optimists also believed in fate and destiny. Voltaire, saw this aspect of optimist perspectives to be a blatant contradiction, and he specifically attacked these premises in the following dialogue from Candide:
A little man clad in black, who belonged to the inquisition, and sat at his side, took him up very politely, and said: "It seems, sir, you do not believe in original sin; for if all is for the best, then there has been neither fall not punishment."
"I most humbly ask your excellency's pardon," answered Pangloss, still more politely; "for the fall of man and the curse necessarily entered into the best of worlds possible." "Then, sir, you do not believe there is liberty," said the inquisitor....
I believe that this is basically what the optimists of the Enlightenment were attempting to convey; not the ridiculous and overly simplistic views of life maintained by Voltaire's characters. However Candide still provides an incredibly amusing and insightful lampoon of overly optimistic (and hence unrealistic) attitudes.
Hogarth etchings reproduced in the text suggest a similar mindset in the sense that the people depicted seem oblivious to reality. In one etching a baby is falling off the side of a stairwell while the mother sits there smiling and completely oblivious to what is happening. The etching also depicts the 'society ills' of
poverty and as being blamed on
alcohol. In the other etching, "The Marriage Transaction" the institution of
marriage is being lampooned as a business transaction rather than the idealistic union based on
love that the optimists revered. Clearly both Voltaire and Hogarth had a great contempt for the idealistic, overly optimistic 'do gooders' who saw life complete in simple terms of black and white.
References
Fiero, G.K. (2007) The humanistic tradition. New York: McGraw-Hill
