Voltaire at first seems to have been captivated by the doctrine9 of Pope’s Essay on Man. He, however, afterwards wrote: “Those who exclaim that all is well are charlatans10. Shaftesbury, who first made the fable11 fashionable, was a very unhappy man. I have seen Bolingbroke a prey12 to vexation and rage, and Pope, whom he induced to put this sorry jest into verse, was as much to be pitied as any man I have ever known, misshapen in body, dissatisfied in mind, always ill, always a burden to himself, and harassed13 by a hundred enemies to his very last moment. Give me, at least, the names of some happy men who will tell me 'All is well.’” His optimism got injured during his journey through life, and was completely shattered by the earthquake at Lisbon in 1755. On this subject he produced a grave poem, notable for its confession14 of the difficult reconciling the evil of the world with the Beneficence of God? The same subject was dealt with in grotesque15 fashion in Candide, one of the wisest as well as one of the wittiest16 of works. A philosophy was never more triumphantly17 reasoned and ridiculed18 out of court than is optimism in Candide. Incident crowds on incident, argument jostles satire19, illustration succeeds raillery, all to show the miseries20 of existence disprove this being the best of all possible worlds. At one moment we are forced to tears at contemplating21 the atrocities22 of inhumanity; the next we are forced to laugh at its absurdities23. Prudes may be shocked at some incidents. Voltaire said he was not born to sing the praises of saints. He was himself no saint, but rather one of those sinners who had done the world more good than all its saints. But the influence of the work is profoundly good. It is purely24 humanitarian25, War, persecution26 for religion, slavery, torture, and all forms of cruelty are made hateful by a recital27 of their facts; and all this is done in so charming, even flippant a manner, that we are laughing all the while we are most profoundly moved. Schopenhauer and Hartmann both enjoyed life, while Voltaire was an invalid28 most of his days; but they never threw into their pessimism29 the gaiety of Candide. And his peculiarity30 is, that he makes all man’s lower instincts ridiculous as well as detestable.
This character appears in all his work, but, as a fantastic tale, Candide stands alone. It brings out Voltaire’s most characteristic qualities: his keen eye for whimsicalities and weaknesses; his abhorrence31 of cruelty and iniquity32 in high places; his contempt for shams33 and absence of all veneration34 for the majesty35 of nonsensical custom. For mordant36 satire it is surpassed by Gulliver's Travels. But it is briefer; the touch is lighter37, and instinct not with morose38 misanthropy, but hearty39 philanthropy. The characters are gross caricatures. Was there ever so preposterous40 an absurdity41 as Dr. Pangloss? And the incidents are improbable. Was ever so luckless a hero as Candide? What a succession of misfortunes! Candide travels the world in search of his lost beloved Cunégonde, meeting war, the Inquisition, torture, shipwreck42, piracy43, and slavery, with all their attendant horrors. Even the earthquake of Lisbon is brought in; yet with whimsical pertinacity44, Pangloss clings to his flimsy philosophy.
When he re-meets Candide, who had left his tutor as dead, he thus relates his adventures: “But,” my dear Pangloss, “how happens it that I see you again?” said Candide. “It is true,” answered Pangloss, “you saw me hanged; I ought properly to have been burnt; but, you remember, it rained in torrents45 when they were going to roast me. The storm was so violent they despaired of kindling46 the fire; so I was hanged, because they could do no better. A surgeon bought my body, carried it home, and dissected48 me. He made first a crucial incision49 from the navel to the neck. One could not have been more badly hanged than I. The executioner of the Holy Inquisition was a sub-deacon, and truly burnt people capitally, but, as for hanging, he was a novice50; the cord was wet, and not slipping properly, the noose52 did not join—in short, I still continued to breathe. The crucial incision made me shriek53 so that my surgeon fell back, and, imagining it was the devil he was dissecting54, ran away in mortal fear, tumbling downstairs in his fright. His wife, hearing the noise, flew from the next room, and saw me stretched upon the table with my crucial incision. Still more terrified than her husband, she ran down also, and fell upon him. When they had a little recovered themselves, I heard her say to the surgeon, ‘My dear, how could you think of dissecting a heretic? Don’t you know that the devil is always in them? I’ll run directly to a priest, to come and exorcise the evil spirit.’ I trembled from head to foot at hearing her talk in this manner, and exerted what little strength I had left to cry out, ‘Have pity on me!’ At length, the Portuguese55 barber took courage, sewed up my wound, and his wife even nursed me. I was upon my legs in about a fortnight. The barber got me a place as lacquey to a Knight56 of Malta, who was going to Venice; but finding my master had no money to pay me my wages, I entered into the service of a Venetian merchant, and went with him to Constantinople. One day I took the fancy to enter a mosque57, where I saw no one but an old Iman and a very pretty young female devotee, who was saying her prayers. Her neck was quite bare, and in her bosom58 she had a fine nosegay of tulips, roses, anemones59, ranunculuses, hyacinths, and auriculas. She let fall her bouquet60. I ran to take it up, and presented it to her with a bow. I was so long in replacing it, that the Iman began to be angry, and, perceiving I was a Christian61, he cried out for help. They took me before the Cadi, who ordered me to receive one hundred bastinadoes, and sent me to the galleys63. We were continually whipt, and received twenty lashes64 a day, when the concatenation of sublunary events brought you on board our galley62 to ransom66 us from slavery.”
“Well, my dear Pangloss,” said Candide to him, “now you have been hanged, dissected, whipped, and tugging67 at the oar65, do you continue to think that everything in this world happens for the best?” “I have always abided by my first opinion,” replied Pangloss; “for, after all, I am a philosopher; it would not become me to retract68. Leibnitz could not be wrong, and ‘pre-established harmony’ is, besides, the finest thing in the world, as well as a ‘plenum’ and the ‘materia subtilis’.”
When Cunégonde is at last found, she is no longer beautiful—but sunburnt, blear-eyed, haggard, withered69, and scrofulous. Though ready to fulfil his promise, her brother, a baron70 whom Candide has rescued from slavery, declares that sister of his shall never marry a person of less rank than a baron. The book is a mass of seeming extravagance, with a deep vein71 of gold beneath. All flows so smoothly72, the reader fancies such fantastic nonsense could not only be easily written, but easily improved. Yet when he notices how every sally and absurdity adds to the effect, how every lightest touch tells, he sees that only the most consummate73 wit and genius could thus deftly74 dissect47 a philosophy of the universe for the amusement of the multitude.
Voltaire tried to save England from the judicial75 murder of Admiral Byng, who was sacrificed to national pride and political faction76 in 1757, yet how lightly he touches the history in a sentence: “Dans ce pays ci il est bon de tuer de temps en temps un amiral pour encourager les autres.” The pride, pomp, and circumstance of glorious war had no charms for Voltaire. He shows it in its true colors as multitudinous murder and rapine. Religious intolerance and hypocrisy77, court domination and intrigue78, the evils attendant on idlers, soldiers and priests, are all sketched79 in lightest outline, and the reader of this fantastic story finds he has traversed the history of last century, seen it at its worst, and seen, too, the forces that tended to make it better, and is ready to exclaim: Would we had another Voltaire now!
The philosophy of Candide is that of Secularism80. The world as we find it abounds81 in misery82 and suffering. If any being is responsible for it, his benevolence83 can only be vindicated84 by limiting his power, or his power credited by limiting his goodness. Our part is simply to make the best of things and improve this world here and now. “Work, then, without disputing; it is the only way to render life supportable.”
Carlyle did much to impair85 the influence of Voltaire in England. Yet what is Carlyle’s essential doctrine but “Do the work nearest hand,” and what is this but a translation of the conclusion of Candide: “Il faut cultiver n?tre jardin”?
Those who forget how far more true it is that man is an irrational86 animal than that he is a rational one, may wonder how Voltaire, having in Candide sapped the foundations of belief in an all-good God by a portrayal87 of the evils afflicting88 mankind, could yet remain a Theist. The truth seems to be that Voltaire had neither taste nor talents for metaphysics. In the Ignorant Philosopher Voltaire seeks to answer Spinoza, without fully89 understanding his monistic position. He appears to have remained a dualist or modern Manichean—an opinion which James Mill considered was the only Theistic view consistent with the facts. Writing to D’Alembert on the 15th of August, 1767, Voltaire says: “Give my compliments to the Devil, for it is he who governs the world.” It is curious that on the day he was writing these lines, one Napoleon Bonaparte had just entered upon the world.
Voltaire appears to have been satisfied with the design argument as proving a deity90, though he considered speculation91 as to the nature of deity useless. He showed the Positivist spirit in his rejection92 of metaphysical subtleties93. “When,” he writes, “we have well disputed over spirit and matter, we end ever by no advance. No philosopher has been able to raise by his own efforts the veil which nature has spread over the first principles of things.” Again: “I do not know the quo modo, true. I prefer to stop short rather than to lose myself.” Also: “Philosophy consists in stopping where physics fail us. I observe the effects of nature, but I confess I know no more than you do about first principles.” But a deist he ever remained.
Baron de Gleichen, who visited him in 1757, relates that a young author, at his wits’ end for the means of living, knocked one day at the poet’s door, and to recommend himself said: “I am an apprentice94 atheist95 at your service.” Voltaire replied: “I have the honor to be a master deist; but though our trades are opposed, I will give you some supper to-night and some work to-morrow. I wish to avail myself of your arms and not of your head.”
He thought both atheism96 and fanaticism97 inimical to society; but, said he, “the atheist, in his error, preserves reason, which cuts his claws, while those of the fanatic98 are sharpened in the incessant99 madness which afflicts100 him.”
Voltaire seems to have been at bottom agnostic holding on to the narrow ledge101 of theism and afraid to drop.
He says: “For myself, I am sure of nothing. I believe that there is an intelligence, a creative power, a God. I express an opinion to-day; I doubt of it to-morrow; the day after I repudiate102 it. All honest philosophers have confessed to me, when they were warmed with wine, that the great Being has not given to them one particle more evidence than to me.” He believed in the immortality103 of the soul, yet expresses himself dubiously104, saying to Madame du Deffand that he knew a man who believed that when a bee died it ceased to hum. That man was himself.
On the appearance, however, in 1770 of the Baron d’Holbach’s System of Nature—in which he was very considerably105 helped by Diderot—Voltaire took alarm at its openly pronounced atheism. “The book,” he wrote,
“has made all the philosophers execrable in the eyes of the King and his court. Through this fatal work philosophy is lost for ever in the eyes of all magistrates106 and fathers of families.” He accordingly took in hand to combat its atheism, which he does in the article Dieu in the Philosophical107 Dictionary, and in his History of Jenni (Johnny), a lad supposed to be led on a course of vice51 by atheism and reclaimed108 to virtue109 by the design argument. Voltaire’s real attitude seems fairly expressed in his celebrated110 mot: “S’il n’y avait pas un dieu, il fraudrait l’inventer”—“If there was not a God it would be necessary to invent one,” which, Morin remarks, was exactly what had been done. Morley says: “It was not the truth of the theistic belief in itself that Voltaire prized, but its supposed utility as an assistant to the police.”
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1
disastrous
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| adj.灾难性的，造成灾害的；极坏的，很糟的 | |
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determined
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| adj.坚定的；有决心的 | |
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amicable
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| adj.和平的，友好的；友善的 | |
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incompatibility
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| n.不兼容 | |
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banter
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| n.嘲弄，戏谑；v.取笑，逗弄，开玩笑 | |
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rebuke
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| v.指责，非难，斥责 [反]praise | |
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pessimist
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| n.悲观者；悲观主义者；厌世 | |
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immortal
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| adj.不朽的；永生的，不死的；神的 | |
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doctrine
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| n.教义；主义；学说 | |
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charlatans
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| n.冒充内行者，骗子( charlatan的名词复数 ) | |
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fable
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| n.寓言；童话；神话 | |
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prey
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| n.被掠食者，牺牲者，掠食；v.捕食，掠夺，折磨 | |
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harassed
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| adj. 疲倦的，厌烦的 动词harass的过去式和过去分词 | |
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confession
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| n.自白，供认，承认 | |
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grotesque
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| adj.怪诞的，丑陋的；n.怪诞的图案，怪人（物） | |
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wittiest
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| 机智的，言辞巧妙的，情趣横生的( witty的最高级 ) | |
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triumphantly
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| ad.得意洋洋地；得胜地；成功地 | |
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ridiculed
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| v.嘲笑，嘲弄，奚落( ridicule的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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satire
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| n.讽刺，讽刺文学，讽刺作品 | |
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miseries
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| n.痛苦( misery的名词复数 )；痛苦的事；穷困；常发牢骚的人 | |
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contemplating
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| 深思，细想，仔细考虑( contemplate的现在分词 )； 注视，凝视； 考虑接受（发生某事的可能性）； 深思熟虑，沉思，苦思冥想 | |
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atrocities
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| n.邪恶，暴行( atrocity的名词复数 )；滔天大罪 | |
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absurdities
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| n.极端无理性( absurdity的名词复数 )；荒谬；谬论；荒谬的行为 | |
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purely
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| adv.纯粹地，完全地 | |
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humanitarian
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| n.人道主义者，博爱者，基督凡人论者 | |
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persecution
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| n. 迫害,烦扰 | |
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recital
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| n.朗诵，独奏会，独唱会 | |
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invalid
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| n.病人，伤残人；adj.有病的，伤残的；无效的 | |
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pessimism
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| n.悲观者，悲观主义者，厌世者 | |
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peculiarity
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| n.独特性，特色；特殊的东西；怪癖 | |
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abhorrence
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| n.憎恶；可憎恶的事 | |
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iniquity
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| n.邪恶；不公正 | |
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shams
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| 假象( sham的名词复数 )； 假货； 虚假的行为（或感情、言语等）； 假装…的人 | |
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veneration
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| n.尊敬，崇拜 | |
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majesty
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| n.雄伟，壮丽，庄严，威严；最高权威，王权 | |
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mordant
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| adj.讽刺的；尖酸的 | |
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lighter
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| n.打火机，点火器；驳船；v.用驳船运送；light的比较级 | |
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morose
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| adj.脾气坏的，不高兴的 | |
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hearty
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| adj.热情友好的；衷心的；尽情的，纵情的 | |
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preposterous
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| adj.荒谬的，可笑的 | |
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absurdity
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| n.荒谬，愚蠢；谬论 | |
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42
shipwreck
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| n.船舶失事，海难 | |
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43
piracy
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| n.海盗行为，剽窃，著作权侵害 | |
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44
pertinacity
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| n.执拗，顽固 | |
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45
torrents
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| n.倾注；奔流( torrent的名词复数 )；急流；爆发；连续不断 | |
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46
kindling
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| n. 点火, 可燃物 动词kindle的现在分词形式 | |
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47
dissect
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| v.分割；解剖 | |
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48
dissected
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| adj.切开的，分割的，（叶子）多裂的v.解剖（动物等）( dissect的过去式和过去分词 )；仔细分析或研究 | |
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49
incision
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| n．切口，切开 | |
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50
novice
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| adj.新手的，生手的 | |
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51
vice
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| n.坏事；恶习；[pl.]台钳，老虎钳；adj.副的 | |
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52
noose
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| n.绳套，绞索（刑）；v.用套索捉；使落入圈套；处以绞刑 | |
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53
shriek
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| v./n.尖叫，叫喊 | |
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54
dissecting
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| v.解剖（动物等）( dissect的现在分词 )；仔细分析或研究 | |
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55
Portuguese
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| n.葡萄牙人；葡萄牙语 | |
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56
knight
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| n.骑士，武士；爵士 | |
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57
mosque
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| n.清真寺 | |
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58
bosom
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| n.胸，胸部；胸怀；内心；adj.亲密的 | |
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anemones
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| n.银莲花( anemone的名词复数 )；海葵 | |
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60
bouquet
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| n.花束，酒香 | |
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61
Christian
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| adj.基督教徒的；n.基督教徒 | |
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62
galley
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| n.（飞机或船上的）厨房单层甲板大帆船；军舰舰长用的大划艇； | |
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63
galleys
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| n.平底大船，战舰( galley的名词复数 )；（船上或航空器上的）厨房 | |
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64
lashes
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| n.鞭挞( lash的名词复数 )；鞭子；突然猛烈的一击；急速挥动v.鞭打( lash的第三人称单数 )；煽动；紧系；怒斥 | |
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65
oar
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| n.桨，橹，划手；v.划行 | |
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66
ransom
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| n.赎金，赎身；v.赎回，解救 | |
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67
tugging
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| n.牵引感v.用力拉，使劲拉，猛扯( tug的现在分词 ) | |
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68
retract
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| vt.缩回，撤回收回，取消 | |
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69
withered
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| adj. 枯萎的，干瘪的，（人身体的部分器官）因病萎缩的或未发育良好的 动词wither的过去式和过去分词形式 | |
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70
baron
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| n.男爵；(商业界等)巨头，大王 | |
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71
vein
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| n.血管，静脉；叶脉，纹理；情绪；vt.使成脉络 | |
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smoothly
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| adv.平滑地，顺利地，流利地，流畅地 | |
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consummate
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| adj.完美的；v.成婚；使完美 [反]baffle | |
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deftly
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| adv.灵巧地，熟练地，敏捷地 | |
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75
judicial
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| adj.司法的，法庭的，审判的，明断的，公正的 | |
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faction
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| n.宗派，小集团；派别；派系斗争 | |
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hypocrisy
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| n.伪善，虚伪 | |
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intrigue
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| vt.激起兴趣，迷住；vi.耍阴谋；n.阴谋，密谋 | |
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sketched
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| v.草拟（sketch的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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secularism
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| n.现世主义；世俗主义；宗教与教育分离论；政教分离论 | |
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abounds
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| v.大量存在，充满，富于( abound的第三人称单数 ) | |
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misery
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| n.痛苦，苦恼，苦难；悲惨的境遇，贫苦 | |
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benevolence
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| n.慈悲，捐助 | |
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vindicated
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| v.澄清（某人/某事物）受到的责难或嫌疑( vindicate的过去式和过去分词 )；表明或证明（所争辩的事物）属实、正当、有效等；维护 | |
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impair
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| v.损害，损伤；削弱，减少 | |
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irrational
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| adj.无理性的，失去理性的 | |
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portrayal
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| n.饰演；描画 | |
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afflicting
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| 痛苦的 | |
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fully
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| adv.完全地，全部地，彻底地；充分地 | |
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deity
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| n.神，神性；被奉若神明的人(或物) | |
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speculation
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| n.思索，沉思；猜测；投机 | |
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rejection
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| n.拒绝，被拒，抛弃，被弃 | |
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subtleties
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| 细微( subtlety的名词复数 )； 精细； 巧妙； 细微的差别等 | |
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apprentice
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| n.学徒，徒弟 | |
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atheist
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| n.无神论者 | |
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atheism
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| n.无神论，不信神 | |
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fanaticism
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| n.狂热，盲信 | |
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fanatic
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| n.狂热者，入迷者；adj.狂热入迷的 | |
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incessant
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| adj.不停的，连续的 | |
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afflicts
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| 使受痛苦，折磨( afflict的名词复数 ) | |
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ledge
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| n.壁架，架状突出物；岩架，岩礁 | |
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repudiate
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| v.拒绝，拒付，拒绝履行 | |
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immortality
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| n.不死，不朽 | |
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dubiously
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| adv.可疑地，怀疑地 | |
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considerably
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| adv.极大地；相当大地；在很大程度上 | |
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magistrates
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| 地方法官，治安官( magistrate的名词复数 ) | |
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philosophical
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| adj.哲学家的，哲学上的，达观的 | |
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reclaimed
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| adj.再生的；翻造的；收复的；回收的v.开拓( reclaim的过去式和过去分词 )；要求收回；从废料中回收（有用的材料）；挽救 | |
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virtue
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| n.德行，美德；贞操；优点；功效，效力 | |
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celebrated
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| adj.有名的，声誉卓著的 | |
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