# Voltaire/Chapter 23

CHAPTER XXIII.
POEM ON THE EARTHQUAKE, AND CANDIDE.
In the year 1755 occurred the great earthquake of Lisbon, which destroyed that capital and a vast number of its inhabitants. Such a visitation could not but produce a profound impression throughout Europe; but no one so strongly evinced his feelings on the occasion as Voltaire. He had always been revolted by the form of philosophy called Optimism, which regards everything that takes place in the universe as inevitably right, because forming part of a general divine plan. Many years before, it had been expounded, after a not too intelligible fashion, by the philosopher Leibnitz. Shaftesbury, followed by Bolingbroke, had maintained it in England; and Pope, following both, had versified it in his "Essay on Man," condensing it in the well-known couplet—
"And, spite of pride, in erring reason's spite, One truth is clear, whatever is is right."
This doctrine appeared to Voltaire not only illogical as making evil an element of good, not only irreverent as making crime and suffering part of the intention of Providence, but of injurious effect on humanity as tending to ​inculcate an inert resignation to those is which it is man's duty to endeavour to remedy. In the article in his 'Philosophical Dictionary' entitled "Bien, tout est bien," he thus sets forth a part of his argument:—
"I pray you, gentlemen, to explain to me your 'all is good,' for I do not understand it.
"Does this signify all is arranged, all is ordained, just as in the theory of moving forces? I understand and concur in that.
"Or, do you mean that every one is well-off, has wherewithal to live, and that nobody suffers? You know very well that is false.
"Or, is it your notion that the lamentable calamities which afflict the earth are good in relation to God, and rejoice Him? I do not believe this horror, nor do you.
"There are no evils, says Pope in his Fourth Epistle on the 'All is for the best;' 'if there are particular evils they make up the general good.' A strange general good!—composed of all diseases, all crimes, all sufferings, death and perdition…
"This system of 'all for the best' represents the Author of nature as a ruler powerful and evil, who does not trouble Himself that a multitude of men should perish, and that others should drag out their days in want and in tears, so long as His designs are accomplished. The opinion that this is the best of all possible worlds, far from being consolatory, is well calculated to reduce the philosophers who embrace it to despair. The question of good and evil remains a hopeless chaos for those who examine it in good faith; and for disputants it is merely an intellectual game—they are galley slaves, who sport with their chains."
His thoughts on the subject underwent a sudden and strong concentration at the news of the unparalleled horrors of the earthquake. Moved, as he always was, to re​produce his strongest feelings in some literary form, he cast his protest against Optimism into the two very different shapes of the "Poem on the Disaster of Lisbon" and the novel of 'Candide,' which both testify to what his other writings so frequently evince—namely, that beneath the mental activity, the vivacity, and the satirical gaiety of Voltaire, lay the profoundest sense of the hapless condition of humanity, and the liveliest sympathy with its sorrows.
The poem begins with a picture of the ruined city; and the poet asks what the mangled inhabitants had done, more than the populations of London and Paris, to merit such a visitation. He invites the Optimist to contemplate the scene, and asks him if the universe would have been in a worse condition without this infernal gulf which had swallowed Lisbon? and if he would so limit the Supreme Power as to forbid it to exercise clemency? Will it, he asks, console the wretched inhabitants of the desolated city to be told that they suffer for the good of the world, that other hands will rebuild their shattered homes, that the towns of the north will be enriched by their ruin, and that all their sufferings are a benefit in the general scheme of law? These unchangeable laws of necessity the poet does not believe in: God, he says, holds in His hand the chain which binds the system of the universe, and is not Himself bound by it; He is free, just, and not implacable. Why, then, do we suffer under His rule?—ah! there is the fatal knot which we want untied.
The elements, the animal world, the human race, all are at war, and Evil has sway on the earth. Does it come from the Author of all good? Or is He opposed ​by a Principle of Evil, like the Persian Ariman? The poet refuses to believe in such odious monsters, of whom the trembling world once made gods, and pursues his argument thus:—
These views being set forth in solemn guise in the poem, 'Candide' was written to show the grotesque side of the same argument, and to indulge another and equally characteristic mood of the writer. To take a professor of optimism and his disciple, and to cause them to pass through such a series of misfortunes as the conditions of the world in Voltaire's time might bring upon them, constituted the whole plan of the piece; and it is obvious that, to render the satire effective, the evils of the world, and the sufferings of the characters, should be treated with the indifference which an optimist would naturally feel for them. But Madame de Staël, actuated by the desire which so many of Voltaire's critics seem to feel, to say something forcible and original about him and his writings, without much regard for clearness or justice of application, thus delivers herself on the subject of 'Candide.' "Voltaire took a singular dislike to final causes, optimism, free-will" (which is not the fact), "in fine, to all philosophical opinions which raise the dignity of man; and he wrote 'Candide,' that work, the gaiety of which may be styled infernal, for it seems written by a being of a nature other than ours, indifferent to our lot, satisfied with our sufferings, and laughing like a demon or an ape at the miseries of the human race, with which he has nothing in common." As if this mode of treatment had not been specially adopted to exhibit optimism in a ridi​culous light; and as if the author of the Poem on the Disaster of Lisbon could be characterised as indifferent to the sufferings of humanity! But Voltaire has suffered many things of many critics.
'Candide' seems to have been but little understood on its first appearance, being regarded as a mere narrative of adventure; but it has come to be considered by many as the writer's cleverest work. A few extracts will serve to show how the plan was executed:—
"He was named Candide because he had, with a sound judgment, a simple mind. He was supposed to be the nephew of the Baron with whom he lived, and who was one of the most powerful lords in Westphalia, for his chateau had a door and windows. The preceptor Pangloss, the oracle of the house, taught the metaphysico-theologo-cosmolonigologie. 'It is demonstrable,' said he, 'that things could not be otherwise; for all being done for an end, all is necessarily for the best end. Observe well that noses are made to carry spectacles—and we have spectacles. Legs are visibly instituted for breeches—and we have breeches. Stones have been formed to be hewed and to make chateaus—and my lord the Baron has a very fine chateau; pigs were made to be eaten—and we eat pork all the year round; consequently those who have affirmed that all is well have uttered a folly; what ought to be said is, that all is the best.'"
From this best of all possible chateaus Candide is expelled for making love to Miss Cunegonde, the baron's daughter, and is presently inveigled into enlisting in the service of the King of Bulgaria; and after undergoing some dreadful military punishments,
"he had already a little skin, and could march again, when the King of the Bulgarians gave battle to the King of the Abares.
"Nothing could be so fine, so smart, so brilliant, so well ​ordered as the two armies. The trumpets, the fifes, the hautboys, the drums, the cannon, formed a harmony such as is not to be met with out of hell. The artillery first tumbled over nearly six thousand on each side; then the musketry rid the best of worlds of about nine or ten thousand other rascals who infested its surface. The bayonet was the sufficient reason of the death of several thousand more. The total might amount to about thirty thousand souls. Candide, who trembled like a philosopher, hid himself as well as he could during this heroic butchery."
"At last, while the two kings caused the 'Te deum' to be sung, each in his camp," Candide found the opportunity of running away. He meets a beggar all covered with sores, the end of his nose corroded, his mouth on one side, his teeth black, tormented with a violent cough, and spitting out a tooth at each paroxysm. The phantom looks fixedly at him, and then leaps on his neck: "'Alas!' said this wretch to the other, 'don't you recognise your dear Pangloss?'" The philosopher recounts the misfortunes which have brought him into this condition, but is none the less persuaded that they were all for the best, and that this is the best of all possible worlds. He gets cured, and "only lost one eye and one ear." They are shipwrecked near Lisbon—all perish except the two adventurers and the greatest rascal in the ship; and they come to land just in time to see the city destroyed by an earthquake:—
"Some falling stones had hurt Candide: he was stretched in the street covered with rubbish. He called to Pangloss—'Oh, get me a little wine and oil—I am a dead man. 'This earthquake is nothing new,' said Pangloss: 'the city of Lima experienced similar shocks last year—like causes, like effects: there is certainly a train of sulphur underground from Lima to Lisbon.' 'Nothing more likely,' said Candide; 'but, for ​heaven's sake, a little oil and wine!' 'How—likely?' returned the philosopher, 'I maintain the thing is demonstrated.' Candide lost consciousness, and Pangloss brought him a little water."
Pangloss's philosophy gets him into trouble with the familiars of the Holy Inquisition:—
"After the earthquake, which had destroyed three-fourths of Lisbon, the sages of the land had found no more effectual means of preventing total ruin than to give the people a fine auto-da-fé: it was decided by the University of Coimbra that the spectacle of many persons burnt at a slow fire, with grand ceremonies, was an infallible mode of preventing earthquakes.
"Consequently, a Biscayan had been seized who was convicted of having married his godmother, and two Portuguese who, in eating a pullet, had put aside the bacon. Dr Pangloss and his disciple were bound together, the one for having spoken, the other for having listened with an air of approbation. They were conducted separately to apartments of an extreme freshness, into which the sun never intruded. A week afterwards they were dressed each in a sanbenito and their heads ornamented with paper mitres. Candide's mitre and sanbenito were painted with inverted flames and with devils destitute of tails or claws; but the devils of Pangloss had both claws and tails, and the flames were upright. Thus apparelled they marched in procession, and listened to a very pathetic sermon, followed by fine music in counterpoint. During the singing, Candide was whipt in time to the music; the Biscayan, and the two men who did not like bacon with their fowl, were burnt, and Pangloss was hanged. The same day there was a fresh earthquake with a dreadful noise.
"Candide, terrified, speechless, bleeding, palpitating, said to himself: 'If this is the best of all possible worlds, what can the rest be?'"
He meets again with Cunegonde; and such adventures ​befall both, that they agree in thinking it a pity that Pangloss should have been hanged,—"he would have said the most admirable things to us about the physical and moral evil that cover the earth," said Cunegonde, "and I should have found strength sufficient to dare to raise some respectful objections."
Among his other adventures Candide approaches the English coast and enters the harbour of Portsmouth. He there sees the execution, on board a neighbouring ship, of Admiral Byng:—
"'Why put this admiral to death?' ''Tis because he has not killed people enough—he fought a French admiral, and it is considered that he did not get near enough to him.' 'But,' said Candide, 'the French admiral kept as far from him as he from the French admiral' 'That is not to be disputed, was the reply; but in this country it is good to put an admiral to death from time to time, to encourage the others.'"
He meets at Venice a number of dethroned monarchs—among others, King Stanislaus; but it is not necessary to pursue his adventures further, as the extracts given appear sufficiently to indicate the plan and style.