SOURCE: Wade, Ira O. “On the Relationship between Structure and Meaning in Candide,” and “Thought, Too, Is A Power.” In Voltaire and Candide: A Study in the Fusion of History, Art, and Philosophy, pp. 243-80. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1959.

[In these essays, Wade focuses on the artistic organization of Candide, providing context for the creation of the work.]

ON THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN STRUCTURE AND MEANING IN CANDIDE,

Il est certain qu'il y a dans toutes les langues du monde une logique secrète qui conduit les idées des hommes sans qu'ils s'en aperçoivent, comme il y a une géométrie cachée dans tous les arts de la main, sans que le plus grand nombre des artistes s'en doute.

—Voltaire to Beauzée¹

In reading Candide we become immediately conscious of its basic short sentences, which run on, someone has said, like Walt Disney's mice, each performing some trick as it passes before the reader's eyes:

8.69 Je me frottai les yeux, je regardai attentivement, je le vis pendre, je tombai en faiblesse. …

8.9 … cela me fit revenir, je repris mes sens, je criai, je me débattis, je mordis, j'égratignai, je voulais arracher les yeux à ce grand Bulgare. …

Candide is literally swarming with these little sentences: subject-verb-object, subject-verb-adverb, that have a tendency to group in clusters:

12.99 … je profitai de cette avanture; je m'enfuis, je traversai toute la Russie; je fus longtems servante de cabaret à Riga … j'ai vieilli dans la misère et dans l'opprobre. …

Each of the elements—subject, verb, object, adverb—often takes on a modifier—adjective, adverb, adverbial phrase. When this occurs, the little basic sentence has a tendency to expand, though not beyond modest proportions. The pattern then becomes subject-verb-adverb-object, or subject-adjective-verb-adverb-object, or subject-adjective-verb-adverb-adverb-object-adjective, or one of the many combinations which these patterns will offer. These various additions have the task of adding modifications, qualifications, value-judgments which the story will accumulate and coordinate into some unified meaning. At times, one of the elements will extend itself, giving the impression of a broadened horizon in time and space. In the sentence just quoted, for instance, the à Riga has been extended to “puis à Rostock, à Vismar, à Leipsick, à Cassel, à Utrecht, à Leyde, à La Haye, à Rotterdam.” This pattern has possibilities of many variations as is evident in the following sentences:

14.7 Il avait été enfant de chœur, sacristain, matelot, moine, facteur, soldat, laquais (where a whole life is recounted by a person's occupations).

17.35 Ils voguèrent quelques lieües entre des bords tantôt fleuris, tantôt arides, tantôt unis, tantôt escarpés (where a whole geographical expanse is given).

18.41 La conversation fut longue: elle roula sur la forme du gouvernement, sur les mœurs, sur les femmes, sur les spectacles publics, sur les arts (where all the elements of a civilization are presented).

Finally, the basic sentence, lengthened or unlengthened, may break into a relative clause, or a series of relative clauses, or a causal, temporal, concessive, or participial clause, or a series of subordinate clauses. The extension of these really long and sometimes complicated sentences is carried out in the terms of the sentence itself, for the purpose of contrast, balance, or buildup. Whatever the terms, a constant effort is made to keep the pattern symmetrical and the rhythm formal:

18.67 Quoi! vous n'avez point de moines qui enseignent, qui disputent, qui gouvernent, qui cabalent, et qui font bruler les gens qui ne sont pas de leur avis.

22.49 … l'un de ces gens empressés, toujours alertes, toujours serviables, effrontés, caressants, accommodans, qui guettent les étrangers à leur passage, leur content l'histoire scandaleuse de la ville, et leur offrent des plaisirs à tout prix.

The merit of the basic sentence is apparent. As long as it is kept short, it presents an opportunity for the densest sort of action, since its verbs are multiplied and varied. The effect should be one of continuous, sharp, exasperating, inevitable, variable little actions which can build up into a flood of paradoxical, ironical, contradictory, but overwhelming action.

There is danger, however, that these short sentences will become monotonous; there is further danger that the story will become more important than its meaning. The moderately expanded short sentence presents an opportunity for avoiding both of these difficulties. The modifying adjective-adverb factors take some of the continuous, exasperating sharpness out of the closely packed action, and at the same time give depth to the meaning. In addition, when one of the elements begins to expand, an explosive effect is added to the movement effect of the primary form. These explosive sentences serve as a halfway stage between that form and the enlarged, complicated sentences which go trailing off into space like oscillations of explosive sound. Thus, the rhythm is from dense, varied action, to deep, varied meaning, to all the ambiguities of density, variety, and depth which go trailing off into universal time and space and in an all-embracing judgment destroy and create simultaneously. One of these sentences of gigantic sweep will suffice:

22.186 Quiconque, ajouta-t-il, n'observe pas toutes ces règles, peut faire une ou deux tragédies aplaudies au théâtre; mais il ne sera jamais compté au rang des bons écrivains; il y a très peu de bonnes tragédies; les unes sont des idilles en dialogues bien écrits et bien rimés, les autres des raisonnements politiques qui endorment, ou des amplifications qui rebutent; les autres des rêves d'énergumène, en stile barbare; des propos interrompus, de longues apostrophes aux Dieux, parce qu'on ne sait point parler aux hommes, des maximes fausses, des lieux communs ampoulés.

If the explosive quality is wrapped up in the sentence and threatens to burst from any of its elements, the energy behind the explosive quality is certainly released from verbs. We have already seen how the nature of the basic sentence itself offers the opportunity of increasing the number of verbs and therefore the quantity of energy released. The following example will demonstrate this release of energy:

2.67 Candide n'en pouvant plus demanda en grace qu'on voulût bien avoir la bonté de lui casser la tête; il obtint cette faveur; on lui bande les yeux, on le fait mettre à genoux; le Roi des Bulgares passe dans ce moment, il s'informe du crime du patient, et comme ce Roi avait un grand génie, il comprit par tout ce qu'il aprit de Candide que c'était un jeune Métaphisicien, fort ignorant des choses de ce monde, et il lui accorda sa grace avec une clémence qui sera louée dans tous les journaux et dans tous les siècles.

The terrible contradiction in the two controlling energies of the sentence is apparent: what Candide asks as a favor and what the King grants as a favor are two very contradictory things. The way Candide makes his request and the nature of the request represent two discordant energies paradoxically situated. Moreover, the energies released in the first part of the sentence all concern Candide; then suddenly a whole series of energies concern the King; the latter series unites with the first only at the end, creating thereby a third energy (mercy) which goes dancing off into eternal time and space and concerns only indirectly Candide and the King. A number of such cases might be cited. Their accumulation would build up an effect of limitless energy ill-directed and badly controlled. If this energy is the source of life, life must be a chaotic thing, contradicting itself, destroying itself, but creating itself, too, in an ironical, paradoxical, symbolic way.

This limitless energy is not so ill-directed or so badly controlled as it first seems. Thanks to the saving power of form some order is kept. A factor in this order-keeping form is the amazing ease and grace with which Voltaire shifts from present to imperfect to perfect and back again. In the case we have just cited, he even shoots the energy into the limitless future. This constant regard for timing the released energy is really a method of controlling and ordering it. But he is just as skillful in giving it direction by cleverly manipulating the infinitive, past participle, and present participle.

The classic example of the infinitive is, of course, “il faut cultiver,” which has given rise to so much discussion. Hundreds of other cases might be cited. An interesting one occurs in the last chapter where la Vieille uses the infinitive to summarize the action of the whole book:

30.45 Je voudrais savoir lequel est le pire, ou d'être violée cent fois par des pirates nègres, d'avoir une fesse coupée, de passer par les baguettes chez les Bulgares, d'être fouetté et pendu dans un Auto-da-fè, d'être disséqué, de ramer aux galères, d'éprouver enfin toutes les misères par lesquelles nous avons tous passé, ou bien de rester ici à ne rien faire?

The role played by infinitives in the release of energy is apparent in this example. They complement the action of modal verbs, and they also designate pure action, that is action in the process of developing with scant reference to time and space. In their own peculiar way, they generalize or depersonalize action. Furthermore, they give it tremendous variety. At times they occur in veritable phalanxes, for instance:

2.41 On le fait tourner à droite, à gauche, hausser la baguette, remettre la baguette, coucher en jouë, tirer, doubler le pas, et on lui donne trente coups de bâton.

Past participles are more useful still. Contrary to the infinitive which marks pure action, they note not only the action itself, but the source of the action, the recipient of the action, the actual condition and value quality that the action possesses. These four possibilities can be seen schematically: the “avoir”-plus-past participle form denotes the origin and also the time of the energy; the “être”-plus-past participle form denotes the recipient of the energy but often leaves its origin obscure; the pure past participle form, that is the ablative absolute, denotes not only the recipient but the condition imposed upon the recipient, while the perfect past participle may denote either the origin of the energy or the direction or the time, or the condition of the energy. Lastly, the past participle used as an adjective, either after “être” or in adjectival suites, may denote not only a condition but a value judgment.

These forms occur in great abundance in Candide. The active form with “avoir” is, to be sure, but one of the active forms used. The story is related with the marvelous variety of tense forms so characteristic of Voltaire. Nevertheless, the release of this active energy discloses the vital urge of his characters to live by acting. In a certain sense, it is a guarantee of the characters, since it takes its origin in them. Candide's energy, like its protagonist, is naïve. That is, in the overflow of active action, the impression produced is that of action not only in its initial stage, characterized by disorder and inexperience, but also in its more mature stage, characterized by all the youth, vigor, freshness of Candide himself. One short example of this usage will suffice:

6.11 On avait en conséquence saisi un Biscayen convaincu d'avoir épousé sa commère, et deux Portugais qui en mangeant un poulet en avaient arraché le lard; on vint lier après le diner le Docteur Pangloss, et son disciple Candide, l'un pour avoir parlé, et l'autre pour l'avoir écouté avec un air d'aprobation.

This naïve, vigorous, struggling action is counterbalanced by a tremendous flow of passive, an action of condition, an inactive action in the sense that its origin springs from outside the person concerned and very often impedes the naïve action in which he is engaged. Just a few examples will suffice: Candide “fut tant friponné” by the Jews (30.24), Cacambo “était excédé de travail” (30.30), Martin “était fermement persuadé” (30.33), la Vieille wonders which is worse, “d'être violée, d'être fouetté et pendu, d'être disséqué” (30.46-49). This action takes its origin in other people, “Cunégonde fut souflettée” (1.88); “la Baronne a été coupée en morceaux” (4.29), but it may be derived from nature, “les toits sont renversés” (5.41); “les gens sont écrasés” (5.44), or it may have some mysterious origin, “Jaques est précipité” (5.19). Finally, a good example of the active responding to the passive is in 28.86:

Eh bien, mon cher Pangloss, lui dit Candide, quand vous avez été pendu, dissequé, roué de coups, et que vous avez ramé aux galères, avez-vous toujours pensé que tout allait le mieux du monde?

The past participle used alone contrasts with the present participle in the same way that passive and active tenses contrast with each other. When used as an ablative absolute or even as an adjective, it serves as a passive with no great stress on the origin of the action but with great importance attributed to the receiver of the action, to the annihilation of the action, and to the past time of the action. The conte is literally filled with these past participles used in an ablative absolute sense: “Candide chassé” (2.3), “Candide tout transi” (2.8), “Candide tout stupéfait” (2.48), “Candide effrayé recule” (4.9).

But there are fully as many cases where past participles have become adjectives, adding a quality to the modified word, whether people or things. They often occur in sequences with adjectives: “… l'un de ces gens empressés, toujours alertes, toujours serviables, effrontés, caressants, accommodans …” (22.49). Often also they form sequences themselves: “… toutes nos Italiennes et ma mère déchirées, coupées, massacrées …” (11.104). Finally, there are examples where they occur in phalanxes, as in the following case:

3.22 Ici des vieillards criblés de coups regardaient mourir leurs femmes égorgées, qui tenaient leurs enfans à leurs mammelles sanglantes; là des filles éventrées, après avoir assouvi les besoins naturels de quelques héros, rendaient les derniers soupirs; d'autres à demi-brulées criaient qu'on achevât de leur donner la mort. Des cervelles étaient répanduës sur la terre, à côté de bras et de jambes coupés.

It would be difficult to give a more perfect picture of total destruction, a condition, incidentally, under which the most violent actions are driving to the annihilation of action. In one of its aspects the world of Candide is submitting to action, is really absorbing action. This action comes from so many varied, unexpected sources that it seems ill-defined, ill-directed, badly ordered. As it permeates living creatures, it does not add to their life, it tends rather to press the life out of them. It is cosmic energy which, in its uncontrolled, undirected aspects, kills life. This is anti-naïve action. Left to itself, it could easily wipe out the universe, or at least it could reduce life to unendurable torture.

It is not, of course, left to itself. All this depressing, annihilating action of the passive, past participle is counterbalanced by the struggling, naïve present participles. There is a whole array of them in Candide. The active, creative quality of these participles is obvious in 25.143: “L'être Eternel produisant le monde.” Corresponding to the ablative effect of the past participle, the present participle used as a gerund occurs very frequently either with or without “en”: “en se promenant” (1.61), “en revenant” (1.74), “en faisant la révérence” (2.23). When so used it adds a condition, a qualification, as well as a continuation of action. This usage is extended and it, too, becomes an adjective: “et étincelante dans leurs yeux” (14.119), “cadavres sanglants entassés” (11.113). But the vast majority of these present participles push the action outward, often introducing additional action. They represent the effort of the submerged universe to meet the energetic chaos of destruction with personal, willful, creative energy. Sometimes they, too, occur in sequences of adjectives: “L'un de ces gens empressés, toujours alertes, toujours serviables, effrontés, caressants, accommodans, qui. …” Often, they appear in massive sequence:

3.32 Candide toujours marchant sur des membres palpitans, ou à travers des ruïnes, arriva enfin hors du théatre de la guerre, portant quelques petites provisions dans son bissac, et n'oubliant jamais Mlle Cunégonde.

At other times, they counterbalance in the same sentence the cumulative effect of dead past participles: “Candide épouvanté, interdit, éperdu, tout sanglant, tout palpitant” (6.32). Or they add vitality to a still scene: “Il entre et voit le fessé Candide l'épée à la main, un mort étendu par terre, Cunégonde effarée, et la vieille donnant des conseils” (9.23). And there is a final case where the present participle serves to prevent life from totally disappearing:

Le lendemain en se promenant, il rencontra un gueux tout couvert de pustules, les yeux morts, le bout du nez rongé, la bouche de travers, les dents noires, et parlant de la gorge, tourmenté d'une toux violente, et crachant une dent à chaque effort.

(3.80)

Thus Candide's world is a world of action, varied, tense, contradictory, and paradoxical. It springs from many unknown sources and submerges those upon whom it falls; with constant pounding it beats out life. Whether it comes from forces in nature or in man-made institutions, it crushes and exasperates. Somehow one gets the impression that action produces energy and energy begets force and force is an evil thing. It must be met by another force which springs from another energy derived from counteraction. For the outside action pressing upon the individual brings forth a response which is another action. This naïve action takes its source in the will to be. It leaves behind the dead, past, traditional action, the absorbed evil action. It pushes forward, young, vigorous, eager, inexperienced, but confident that it can master by struggle, effort, and work the deadly past and the uncertain future. Creation in Candide is certainly the answer to universal destruction.

In this creative action, struggling to overcome destructive action, adverbs and adjectives also play their role. They characterize the actors, the objects involved, and the action. At the same time, they bestow value judgment on the phenomena. In their own powerful way, they bestow character, that is to say, form to Candide's struggling universe; and they give exasperated testimony that as long as the human mind can attribute value judgments to the phenomena of existence life will go on. There is in Candide an extraordinary tendency to attach adjectives to nouns as if the adjectival quality were a guarantee for the existence of the object. Many of them are colorless: “un jeune garçon” (1.5), “le petit Candide” (1.31), “le petit bois” (1.62), “ville voisine” (2.9), “un grand génie” (2.72). Others contribute a trait of character: “le charitable Jaques, le bon Jaques” (5.18), “le prudent Cacambo,” “le naïf Candide” (8.15). Still others add by their incongruity a touch of irony: “cet honnête eunuque” (12.31), “du beau château” (4.25), “cette belle cause” (4.45).

This use of adjectives to characterize is in fact carried to an extreme. Paquette is a “petite brune très jolie et très docile” (1.65); Cunégonde is “haute en couleur, fraîche, grasse, appétissante” (1.28); Cunégonde's brother is “un très beau jeune homme, le visage plein, assez blanc, haut en couleur, le sourcil relevé, l'œil vif, l'oreille rouge, les lèvres vermeilles, l'air fier” (14.78). There are many instances where these adjectives are massed in phalanx, as in 21.47:

Croyez-vous, dit Candide, que les hommes se soient toujours mutuellement massacrés, comme ils font aujourd'hui, qu'ils ayent toujours été menteurs, fourbes, perfides, ingrats, brigands, faibles, volages, lâches, envieux, gourmands, yvrognes, avares, ambitieux, sanguinaires, calomniateurs, débauchés, fanatiques, hypocrites et sots?

This massing very often occurs in Voltaire. One is reminded of the passage in l'Ecossaise in which Fréron is submerged under a deluge of nineteen scathing adjectives.

This massing, however, is no more impressive than the adjective's variety when singly used, and no more impressive than its contrast with opposing adjectives or its paradox with the nouns or the situation it qualifies. Surely the world of Candide is a world of chaos, a world of mutually consuming qualities, ironically and paradoxically qualified. It is not predominantly good nor bad—good in its potentialities, perhaps, bad in its actualities, certainly, and very full of strife, energy, effort.

There is a type of adjective which conveys interpretation much better than the mass of qualifying adjectives we have just mentioned. In a sense it carries a value judgment of superior proportions, it has a superlative force in itself. It attaches to its noun a quality, to be sure, but it carries a very definite intellectual judgment on the part of the speaker. And yet the judgment is partly irrational: “de terribles obstacles” (17.20), “de rochers épouvantables” (17.38), “montagnes inaccessibles” (17.45), and “l'inhumanité affreuse” (16.89). Separately, these adjectives give a tone as well as a quality to an object. Collectively they combine to give a tone to the work. It should be stressed that the judgments they convey are not one-sided, as we are prone to presume in speaking of Candide. They suggest in addition to some irritation a tension that is stretched two ways: a tension between the so-called acceptable qualities and those which are to be condemned (“effroyable,” “épouvantable,” “affreux” versus “vaste et magnifique,” “sublime,” “louable”) and a mounting tension of degree between themselves and the more banal adjectives of everyday life.

This tendency to enhance the tension value of nouns and consequently of the whole work is paralleled by a similar tendency in the use of adverbs. We find in the conte a fair number of transition adverbs used not so much to qualify the action as to keep it running smoothly: “par-devant,” “d'ordinaire,” “longtemps,” “jamais,” “seulement.” In a way they correspond to the long list of banal adjectives. In addition, there is a large number of manner adverbs which state how an action is performed: “il prouvait admirablement” (1.34), “tout est nécessairement” (1.41), “sont visiblement” (1.43), “Candide écoutait attentivement et croyait innocemment” (1.52). Corresponding to the group of superlative adjectives, they give a tone to verbs or adjectives; they add a gesture to the action also, sometimes a very startling one. They carry a judgment not at all of one order, perform their role in producing tension, and present with much variety the paradox and irony of action. At times they appear massively as in 24.144: “vous les rendrez peut-être beaucoup plus malheureux encore.”

Both adjectives and adverbs break into superlatives of the most amazing variety, as Miss McGhee has already shown in her Voltairian Narrative Devices. Candide, with “les mœurs les plus douces” (1.6) has “l'esprit le plus simple” (1.8). This world to be sure is “le meilleur des mondes possibles” (1.35). Nothing is “si beau, si leste, si brillant, si bien ordonné” (3.4) as the two armies. Candide “se cacha du mieux qu'il put” (3.14), he fled “au plus vîte (3.30); he is “infiniment plus touché” by Jaques's “extrême générosité” (3.77) than by the preacher's “dureté.”

The superlative in fact dominates the whole story. The variety with which it is achieved—“si, fort, très, encore plus, le plus, bien plus, bien”—is augmented immensely by the innumerable stylistic or semantic tricks whereby a similar effect is created: “quatre altesses Sérénissimes” (26.110), “il n'est que trop vrai” (7.54), “roide mort” (9.13). These effects in themselves build up a most violent tension, but even this tension is sometimes augmented by a massive buildup: “m'a donc bien cruellement trompée” (8.84), Don Figueroa “parlait avec le dédain le plus noble” (13.22), “portait le nez si haut” (13.23), “élévant si impitoyablement la voix, prenant un ton si imposant, affectant une démarche si altière.” An excellent case where superlative is built on superlative is the judgment of the play seen by Candide in Paris: the actress is “fort mauvaise,” the actor is “plus mauvais encor,” and the play is “encore plus mauvaise” (22.59). At times, the adverbs augment other words which are by their nature diminished: Pococurantè, who incidentally is inclined to speak in superlatives “se soucie fort peu” (25.87), he has “bien assez” (25.107); Candide confesses that he was “un peu trop vif” (28.7), he declares the incident at Venice “bien peu vraisemblable” (27.15).

Of all the words creating intensity tout is perhaps the most important. It takes its origin in the “tout est bien” (1.50) and the “tout est au mieux” (1.51) which occur at the very start and continue at intervals throughout the story (2.28, 3.76, 4.110, etc.). But it is used also in every conceivable way to embrace the whole universe as well as to intensify every phenomenon: “toute la bonne foi” (1.31), “tout étant fait …” (1.40), “toute agitée, toute pensive, toute remplie” (1.70), “tout stupéfait” (2.48).

If one insists upon a logical explanation of these numerous adjectives and adverbs, he could find it, I daresay, in the two expressions “le meilleur des mondes possibles,” and “tout est au mieux,” just as he could find a plausible origin of all the action in Candide in some such cataclysmic event as an earthquake. He would be closer to the truth if he saw in this phenomenon the shattering effect which uncontrolled energy has upon the rational mind, particularly when mind has accepted responsibility for the nature of things. He would be still closer to the truth if he saw in the superlative buildup the explosive possibilities of naïve critical judgment which will assert itself. However, logical consequence is not of importance here. When struck by an earthquake we can hardly be concerned with the question whether we respond with our minds (our entelechie) or our being (our ens). It can be affirmed that a constant effort is made in Candide to keep judgments rational or at any rate rationally oriented. Since many of the acts are irrational, however, many of the responses are irrational, too; consequently, many of the judgments are ironical, sarcastic, paradoxical, and absurd—just as life is. The superlative is an excellent plane for effecting these tones. The important thing to grasp, however, is not the value of a particular act, but the value of the critical act itself. Seen as a by-product of the struggle between the blind cosmic act and the naïve, willful, creative act, it is the energizing force which nurtures the creative act and keeps it merging into the new cosmic act.

Thus there is in the implications of the work itself an inner structure—a vital soul—which is its meaning. Candide states simply and naïvely that life is quality, manner, degree. It is phenomena, criticism, judgment. In all areas in which life becomes—philosophical, aesthetic, moral, social, religious—it becomes through the saving grace of creative criticism. That is the structural meaning of Candide, it is the meaning of Voltaire. I suspect it is the meaning of the eighteenth century, too, particularly in its “unfinished business.”

THOUGHT, TOO, IS A POWER.

We have examined Candide as the result of a philosophical system, a series of historical events, and a temperament, taking care to show that these are active agents, creative forces which contribute to the molding of the work. We have analyzed its structure from the point of view of composition, style, and themes to see if there is harmony between that structure and the forces controlling it. It is now our purpose to penetrate the “idea” of Candide in an attempt to discover what informs it. It is quite as difficult to find an effective method of penetrating ideas as to discover a method of analyzing style and at this point in research, we usually succumb to the temptation of describing what the author thought instead of striving to penetrate his thought and grasp the spirit which informs the work. Even in describing his ideas we are inclined to take short-cuts, since a man can do a lot of thinking in sixty-five years and, if he is a Voltaire, he can put an inordinate number of his thoughts on paper. Our problem then becomes how to select, in Voltaire's complex of ideas, the ones that controlled Candide.

There are, to our knowledge, only three ways of approaching this problem. The first is to seek in explicit statements of the author the “idea” or “ideas” entering into his work. For a Flaubert with his marvelous correspondence this procedure produces results; for a Voltaire, despite his tremendous volume of correspondence, the result is practically nil. Besides, Candide is first and foremost a clandestine work; it conceals its thoughts as it conceals itself. Or we set out to discover the conte's ideas in Candide's thoughts, and since every work of the imagination implies its thoughts, we seek the implications in its “situations,” or “conditions.” This procedure gives results in certain instances: in Kafka's Trial, an accurate analysis of the “situation,” or in Dostoyevski's Idiot, the grasping of the “condition” will do much to bring out the “implications,” particularly since in each novel the author himself has devoted a chapter (“In the Cathedral” for Kafka; “The Creative Moment” for Dostoyevski) to clarifying either “situation” or “conditions.” Voltaire cannot do this, because, as we have shown, neither “situation” nor “conditions” are clear to him. Strange to say, Candide is as clandestine for Voltaire as for us.

The third way of approaching the problem is to seek in Voltaire's production up to 1759 the dominating ideas of Candide. This is the approach which for the time being we consider the most proper when used with the controls of other methods, because in a peculiar way, the conte is an implicit summary of all his previous work and draws from its own conclusion the reason for its “act.” Indeed, it is Candide which puts form into that unformed mass of thoughts and opens up the way first for coherent, organic thinking and later (i.e. after Candide) for coherent, organic action.

Fortunately, it is not our task at this point to deal with the complex problem of how thought led to the artistic organization of Candide, and how Candide led to a program of action. It is sufficiently difficult to concern ourselves here with the first part of the problem only. What we wish to examine is how thought content organized itself at the moment of Candide, how Candide became at that moment the total organic and aesthetic expression of that thought. The simplest way of attacking the problem is to select from Voltaire's writings down to 1759 those items having significant bearing upon the making of Candide, to choose works containing ideas which could not fail to enter into its making.

The writings in this category are well known, for they have been analyzed time and time again since Voltaire's day. They are: L'Epître à Uranie, Le Traité de métaphysique, Les Lettres philosophiques, Le Mondain, Les Discours en vers sur l'homme, Les Eléments de la philosophie de Newton, Le Poème sur la loi naturelle, Le Poème sur le désastre de Lisbonne (the ideological content), and L'Essai sur les mœurs. One might, of course, add his entire production until 1758, theatre, contes, poésies mêlées, and we shall do so at the proper moment, but for the time being it is well to keep to this more restricted list. In these works we shall endeavor to distinguish between the “idea” (that is to say, the core around which all Voltaire's ideas, opinions, and experiences gravitate) and the ideas themselves (the intellectual flashes of insight contributing to or derived from the “idea”); the opinions (personal conclusions drawn by the author either from these flashes or from his experiences), and the facts (these experiences seen rationally or shared rationally with others). These distinctions we shall make silently, trying in each case to disengage the core, not the facts, nor the opinions, nor even the ideas except as they serve to bring the “idea” to the fore.

The central idea of the Epître à Uranie is the existence of a God more universal in scope and power than any anthropomorphic, denominational, or private Deity. From this assertion is derived a series of private opinions both destructive and constructive: the falsity of every organized cult, the superstition of every dogma, the treachery and intolerance of every priesthood, but also the universality of God, the immediacy in the relationship of Creator and created, and the autonomy of moral law. In its inner reality the Epître destroys something; it creates something in its place, and tries to give the impression that its creation is greater, or in any case more real, than the Creation.

The Traité de métaphysique attempts to answer five basic questions concerning (1) the existence of God, (2) the immortality of the Soul, (3) the origin of thought, (4) free will, and (5) the nature of good and evil. Voltaire's answer to each is a succession of constructive and destructive opinions (private ones, of course), confined not solely to the religious field, but operating also in the metaphysical, physical, and moral fields. He had hardly begun his intellectual career before he became overwhelmed with difficulties that he attempts to minimize by insisting upon a deistic providentialism, which, in a way, offers total security. As long as he believes in this providentialism, he does not have to insist too much upon solving subsequent difficulties: there are more arguments against the immortality of the soul than in its favor, but he refuses to worry about it. Arguments against the freedom of man are many—thanks particularly to Frederick, who assumes the role of diabolus advocatus in the dispute—but this is no matter for concern. True, indeed, there are more arguments in favor of God's existence than against it. The foundations of morality become very shaky in his Chapters viii and ix, but again Voltaire refuses to be disturbed, for God has given man fundamental moral laws.

He feels so secure that he decides that all man needs to do is to find ways of enjoying himself. The Lettres philosophiques has as its central idea the concept that freedom of being is possible in this world, provided one lives in the right place, at the right time, with the right manners and customs, with the right culture. Ideas proliferate in every direction from this central theme. Foremost among them is the notion of man's making his freedom by judicious adjustments in all categories of living: religious, political, economic, philosophical, aesthetic. But just as important is the thought that by studying man in his various vital categories one can understand what his reality is. Most important is the idea that man can make the “conditions” which guarantee his freedom. The human creature can do little to influence Providence in his favor, but if he assumes that Providence is on his side or at least neutral he can do much in shaping his own destiny. Thus happiness is humanly possible; this becomes the central idea of the Mondain. It is a matter of squaring man with his moral imperatives: this is the task of the Discours. It would be more fitting to call these imperatives contradictions, for passions are good, passions are bad; pride is good, pride is bad; moderation is good, moderation is bad; good qualities come from evil qualities. “Il n'y a pas de mal dont il ne naisse un bien.” Obviously there is nothing very solid in morality, except natural law. What is natural law? It consists of a certain number of rules applicable to moral man in the same way that a certain number of rules are applicable to physical nature. This is the central idea of both the Eléments de la philosophie de Newton and the Essai sur les mœurs. Once again we note the instability, incoherence, ambiguity, and contradiction of the opinions derived from these “key” ideas. Voltaire would seem to have no ideas, only opinions, no body of thought, only chaotic notions, and he attaches no particular importance to his deficiencies, contradictions, and incoherences. Indeed, he has a deep feeling of security, complete confidence that although everything may be wrong, there is no reason to be concerned. Of course there are moments when personal experiences shake that confidence: Desfontaines, Jore, J. B. Rousseau, the censor, Mme du Châtelet momentarily perturb his inner serenity, but do not succeed in shattering it. Only at the moment of Candide does the crushing blow fall, precisely when Voltaire is unprepared for it.

It is quite possible that we do him an injustice, and in stating that he has opinions but no body of thought, that he has key ideas leading to contradictory, incoherent conclusions, we may be betraying not his deficiencies, but our own ignorance. This professedly objective analysis might be nothing but defective subjectivity after all. Consequently, the only reasonable approach would be to seek some work containing a full presentation of his thought before Candide.

Fortunately, such a book exists. There was published in 1759, the same year as Candide, a volume entitled L'Esprit de Voltaire, which went through at least three editions—1759, 1760, and 1765, the first two with the same preface, the third with a different one, the integral text remaining unchanged. Since the editor has selected from all of Voltaire's work up to 1758 quotations illustrating the author's ideas, the book should present a fairly representative picture of his thought up to that year. In certain instances, the information may be readily supplemented by additional quotations on other subjects. Let us first examine the list of subjects chosen. It is as follows:

Etre suprême, Dieux, Théisme, Athéisme, Christianisme, Persécutions, Confession, Pénitence, Enfer, Rome, Pontifes, Politique, Excommunications, Dispenses, Schisme, Eglises Latine et Grecque, Ecclésiastiques, Sorbonne, Sociétés religieuses, Jansénisme, Convulsions, Disputes théologiques, Sectes, Fanatisme, Inquisition, Hérésies, Guerres de religion, Ligue, Massacre de la Saint Barthélemi, Religion mahométane, Païenne, Oracles du paganisme, Prodiges.

L'homme, Nature, Humanité, Vertus, Amitié, Courage, Fermeté, Grandeur d'âme, Héroïsme, Générosité, Modération, Sagesse, Gloire, Liberté, Fidélité, Sincérité, Reconnaissance, Amour de la Patrie, Honneur, Amour du Travail, Raison, Sagesse, Amour de l'ordre, Usage des Conseils, Passions, Amour, Le Temple de l'amour, Conscience, Remords, Amour-propre, Vanité, Fatuité, Pédanterie, Envie, Jalousie, Rivalité, Médisance, Discorde, Tracasserie, Ingratitude, Inconstance, Intérêt, Ignorance, Faiblesse, Ambition, Hypocrisie, Crime, Honte, Désespoir, Suicide, Esprit du monde, Conduite, Conversation, Liberté, Gaieté, Jeu, Retraite, La Cour, Le Peuple, Naissance, Noblesse, Réputation, La Mode, Le temps, Vérité, Mensonge, Mœurs et usages, Opinions, Préjugés, Femmes, Mariages, Destinée, Biens et maux.

Gouvernement, Monarchie, Rois et sujets, Républiques, Hommes publics, Ministres, Ambassadeurs, Grands hommes, Etats généraux et conciles, Parlement, Commerce, Luxe, Circulation, Loix somptuaires, Finances, Monnoie, Usure, Marques de la pauvreté publique, Etablissements utiles, Ecole militaire, Travaux publics, Justice, Lois, Jurisprudence, Legislateurs, Droit public, Loi naturelle, Usages, Loi salique, Fondateurs d'empire, Conquérants, Guerres civiles, Conspirations, Ambition criminelle, Favoris, Tyrans, Despotisme, Nations, Leurs Caractères, Chinois, Américains, Juifs, Russes, Suisses, Anglais, Français.

Philosophie, Médecine, Inoculation.

Génie, Invention, Génie des nations, Poésie, Spectacles, Tragédies, Comédies, Opéra, Arts, Talents, Artillerie, Mines, Librairie, Imprimerie, Langues, Littérature, Imitation, Traduction, Littératures Etrangères, Anciens et Modernes, Progrès et bornes des connaissances humaines, Goût, Littérature, Satire, Critique, Histoire, Académie, Eloquence de la chaire, Oraisons funèbres.

In reading this, one is impressed by the vast scope of Voltaire's observations and notes also that the selections have been made from his writings in general, as well as from the major works cited above. Items from the Traité de métaphysique are necessarily absent in the list since it had not yet been published, and the Eléments might have been used more fully. These two works might have strengthened Voltaire's views on some of the subjects, but they would not have modified them to any great extent. The ideas listed concern metaphysics, religion, ethics, politics, and aesthetics. Conspicuously absent is natural science, conspicuously present is the subject of history and civilization or what Voltaire calls “mœurs et esprit des nations.” About half of the items are from poetry and the drama, the other half from that indefinite thing labeled Mélanges. Taken altogether, the table could easily pass for the table of contents of a Dictionnaire philosophique.

Our first impression in examining this heterogeneous collection of extracts is one of great confusion, since the author has thoughts on many subjects, along with many thoughts on any subject. For instance, under the heading “Etre suprême,” we find this to be his range: the proof of God's existence is the order which obtains in the universe. Physicists have thus become the heralds of Providence. Reason, however, is unable to comprehend God and His ways because it grasps but a part of the vast scheme. It cannot be affirmed that evil disproves God's existence. In the first place, “il est prouvé qu'il y a plus de bien que de mal dans ce monde, puisqu'en effet peu d'hommes souhaitent la mort, vous avez donc tort de porter des plaintes au nom du genre humain, et plus grand tort de renier votre souverain, sous prétexte que quelques-uns de ses sujets sont malheureux.” All races, even the polytheistic, have the notion of a supreme God, and furthermore, the idea of a Sovereign Being, of His Providence, is present in all philosophers, and poets.

Examination of these statements leads inevitably to the conclusion that though Voltaire's belief in God's existence is strong, his arguments in favor of that belief are not impressive. Thus the arguments in the above paragraph do not prove anything except that he has a deistic concept of God, and believes in it with the fervor of a Christian for his God. Nevertheless, he has upset a lot of fixed ideas with his contentions to the effect that the opinions of philosophers, poets, and physicists are as valid as those of prophets and priests, that evil and good can be weighed and one shown to outbalance the other, and that Nature must have superiority over the Deity since it proves God. His belief thus has a destructive as well as a constructive side.

His ideas can be extremely destructive when set up against a corps of beliefs concerning Christianity. He asserts that Christianity, founded in truth, has no need for doubtful proofs, and that it is not the task of metaphysics to prove Christianity. Attempts of reason to do so end in failure, since it is as far below faith as the finite is below the infinite. Then, too, the objects of our faith and reason are of a different sort. And, finally, physics has nothing to do with miracles and prophecies. There is really no need for religion to explain away contradictions. Here we have a double implication: Christianity needs no verification, and human attempts to prove it are unavailing. There are, however, proofs of a deist God, and although one may entertain doubts about their validity, what is one to do with a religion that has no proofs?

Obviously, Voltaire's ideas are circuitous: they are neither penetrating nor profound; they are numerous but not very significant. They represent impressions rather than truths, beliefs rather than knowledge. It would be a difficult task indeed to bring order out of this chaos, and the difficulty becomes more and more formidable as we proceed to his discussion of the Church. He denounces Rome as the “Fille de l'intérêt et de l'ambition.” He deplores the political power exercised by bishops, affirming that public misery has been the result of struggles between ecclesiastical authority and rulers. Temporal domination, in fact, has always been a subject of discord in the West and of never-ending disputes in the East. The greatest disaster, however, has been occasioned by religious, civil wars, and he will have no part in them: “J'ai vu des deux côtés la fourbe et la fureur.” Theologians are the most dangerous of men and fanaticism the source of crime: “L'esprit d'ambition est presque toujours joint à celui d'enthousiasme et se mêle sans qu'on s'en aperçoive, à la piété la plus austère.” Superstition is the source of untold woes: when it sways the prince, it prevents him from doing good to his people; when it dominates the people, it arouses them against the prince. It causes daily ills, family disintegration, persecution of intellectuals: it was responsible for Descartes's exile and Bayle's poverty. Its direst weapon is the Inquisition, source of ignorance and treachery:

Il faut attribuer au tribunal de l'Inquisition cette profonde ignorance de la saine philosophie où l'Espagne demeure plongée, tandis que l'Allemagne, l'Angleterre, la France, l'Italie même, ont découvert tant de vérités et ont élargi la sphère de nos connaissances.

(p. 45)

If Newton had been born in Portugal and if a Dominican had smelled heresy in the inverse proportion of the square of the distances, Sir Isaac would have been clad in a sanbenito and sent to an auto-da-fé. The cure for this strife is a more philosophical spirit since it alone can cope effectively with intolerance, which would have made Europe one vast cemetery had it not been replaced by moderation.

Thus Voltaire reaches a point where the negative far outweighs the positive. He has an optimist's belief in reasonableness, in moderation, in philosophy, in a chance for peace, but an unyielding opposition to any institution, be it the most divine, which breeds intolerance, persecution, and strife.

If he condemns the institution of the Church, he naïvely defends the goodness of man. He declares him the most perfect and most happy of creatures, a combination of virtues and crimes, of grandeur and baseness, neither great nor small—in short, as he should be. All men are equal in nature and in misfortune, and but few are original. All are subject to custom and education and Voltaire conceives of a human nature common to all upon which customs widely varying are based:

Tout ce qui tient intimement à la nature humaine se ressemble d'un bout de l'univers à l'autre. Tout ce qui peut dépendre de la coutume est différent, et c'est un hasard s'il se ressemble. L'empire de la coutume est bien plus vaste que celui de la nature, il s'étend sur les mœurs, sur tous les usages, il répand la variété sur la scène de l'univers; la nature y répand l'unité; elle établit partout un petit nombre de principes invariables: ainsi le fonds est toujours le même, et la culture produit des fruits différents.

(p. 63)

Thus man has really two natures: one common to all men (human nature) and governed in its actions by a small number of principles (natural laws); and a second, common only to individuals of a certain group (spirit of a people) and governed in its actions by customs, manners, and precepts—infinite in number and endless in variety—that are peculiar to the group. The human and uniform nature is invariable, and its precepts are few—the Golden Rule, love of God, patriotism: “Adore Dieu, sois juste, et chéris ta patrie.” The other nature is modifiable in every respect by education. Thus if a people is satisfied with the practice of polygamy or slavery, it will teach those practices as virtues; whenever it becomes dissatisfied with these customs, it will teach the opposite. Virtue and vice are therefore relative to the customs of the group: reform (or revolution even) is merely changing one's habits. Although a change in habits may be disagreeable, painful, and even dangerous, Voltaire naïvely feels that as long as this second nature is controlled by fundamental natural laws, all is well.

He is not too sure, however, that all is well. Persecutions, intolerance, and superstitions exist, and it is difficult to dismiss these things as custom. Moreover, there is that result of living that we know only too well and call “the human lot.” We have our fleeting days of pains and miseries, we walk beneath our burdens, a thousand cruel enemies besiege our lives which we cherish, yet curse:

Notre cœur égaré, sans guide et sans appui,
Est brûlé de désirs, ou glacé par l'ennui.

Voltaire counsels brotherly love (“nous sommes tous frères”), and stresses humanity, the virtue including all others. His admonitions are numerous: Let us live in peace, adore our common Father, help each other to happiness, for this love of one's fellow man and desire to help him is “la vraie vertu.” It is not enough to be just and fair, one must render service also. There would be little inclination today to criticize this attitude adversely, since the doctrine of fraternity which was the old Patriarch's contribution to the democratic credo has been deeply infused in our natures.

The supreme difficulty lies in the fact that man—Western man at any rate—has built up a code of action which he calls his morality and according to which certain qualities of action are considered virtues—they are desirable. Certain others are considered vices—they are undesirable. Friendship, courage, firmness, high-spiritedness, generosity, heroism, moderation, wisdom, glory, freedom, fidelity, sincerity, gratitude, patriotism, honor, industry are all virtues. Voltaire discusses them endlessly, especially in his dramas, but in his histories as well. While he makes every effort to show that he approves them, and wraps this approval in well-measured, neoclassic expression, he is not very forceful in his advocacy. Friendship is something which few understand and practice; real courage is knowing how to suffer; moderation is a treasure of the wise; man is free when he wants to be; honor is in the heart. He continues to pen these banalities, leaving the impression that he really does not believe in them, despite his avowed commitment, and that they are no longer living realities. They might possibly be poetic fictions but only provided an accord could be found between poetic expression and inner meaning. Otherwise, they are dead abstractions, the accumulated moral dust of the past.

The same thing may be said of the so-called social vices: egotism, vanity, pompousness, pedantry, envy, jealousy, discord, minor irritations, ingratitude, inconstancy, personal interest, ignorance, weakness, ambition, hypocrisy. Montaigne discoursed upon them meaningfully in his Essais. Voltaire expresses his disapproval or approval in platitudes: society cannot exist without pride; God gave man love of self; envy is a necessary evil, since it encourages emulation; jealousy causes more crimes than personal interest and ambition; great crimes have been perpetrated by ignorant people. Once more, he gives the impression that these things are not living realities, they are conventional attitudes, poetic fictions, dead abstractions.

It is not surprising therefore that his moral world is full of contradictions and inconsistencies. Contradiction is a key word in his works and Notebooks. He often jotted down frivolous examples gathered indiscriminately from daily living. “Ce monde subsiste,” he wrote, “comme si tout était bien ordonné; l'irrégularité tient à notre nature, notre monde politique est comme notre globe, quelque chose d'informe qui se conserve toujours.” Here he is close to the concept of the “absurd,” but for him absurdity is not an instrument for penetrating reality, it is only another quality or defect; it matters not which way we go, since absurdity, too, is a conventional attitude, a poetic fiction, a dead abstraction. For the moment, Voltaire is as disengaged, and indifferent, as the world about him. He gives the picture of a petty picayune world, of men who “cabalent,” “on joue, on soupe, on médit, on fait de mauvaises chansons, et on s'endort dans la stupidité, pour recommencer le lendemain son cercle de légèreté, et d'indifférence.”

It would be foolish to conclude that he should have abandoned his moral world as he had his spiritual, since the former was so confused, so contradictory and inconsistent. He had no difficulty in abandoning the spiritual world for the moral—that was in the order of the day. It was simply a change of custom, a shift in the climate of opinion, a rearranging in the categories of living. He and his contemporaries felt very complacent in this contradictory moral world: “Le paradis terrestre est où je suis.” He reveled in the mundane politeness and culture of Parisian society, attributing its “douceurs” for the most part to feminine influence, and declaring Paris a center of culture far superior to Rome and Athens:

L'extrême facilité introduite dans le commerce du monde, l'affabilité, la culture de l'esprit, ont fait de Paris, une ville, qui, pour la douceur de la vie, l'emporte probablement de beaucoup sur Rome et sur Athènes, dans le tems de leur splendeur.

(p. 130)

Again, in the Histoire universelle, that history of the human mind which was to become one day the history of human folly, Paris is the center of the cultured universe:

Cette foule de secours toujours prompts, toujours ouverts pour toutes les sciences, pour tous les arts, les goûts et les besoins, tant d'utilités solides, réunies avec tant de choses agréables jointes à cette franchise particulière aux Parisiens, tout cela engage un grand nombre d'étrangers à voyager, ou à faire leur séjour dans cette patrie de la société. Si quelques natifs en sortent ce sont ceux qui, appellés ailleurs par leurs talents, sont un témoignage honorable à leur pays.

(p. 130)

The moral world was beginning to crumble in its foundations, but the social was as brilliant as ever. Louis XV's age of iron was by no means an unworthy age, and Voltaire protests against those who decry it, time and again raising his voice in its behalf and proclaiming the establishment of reason one of its great achievements, indeed, one of the great achievements of all time. It is the only torch in the darkness of the universe, the organizing power; thought, too, is a force. Mankind has always been animated by a spirit of order and reason's rise is the answer to disorder, the “card” of the passions, the source of the sciences and arts; it is a natural law. Although customs and opinions rule both the life and death of mortals, reason transcends custom, it reforms opinion, it is older than any prejudice, it proscribes superstition. It is true that man accepts opinions without reflection, that our ideas are formed by the climate of opinion in which we live, that prejudices are “les raisons des sots,” that things change in such a way that the false becomes true in due time. No matter, reason remains to establish order and to drive out error which must be abandoned even if nothing exists to replace it:

Il faut abandonner ce que l'on voit faux et insoutenable, aussi bien quand on n'a rien à lui substituer, que quand on aurait les démonstrations d'Euclide à mettre à la place. Une erreur n'est ni plus ni moins erreur; soit qu'on la remplace ou non par des vérités.

(p. 134)

Powerful as it is, this reasonable spirit which fosters education in cities, says Voltaire, has been ineffectual before fanatical fury in the Cevennes, the folly in St. Médard Cemetery, and disputes between Jansenists and Jesuits.

His ideas on the state are diffuse and inconsequential: he believes all government to have been founded late, uniformity in government to be a virtue. The spirit of the state resides always in a small number who set the masses to work, nourish them, and govern them. The powerful state requires either freedom founded upon law or sovereign authority without contradictions. Form of government does not seem to him important: monarchy is satisfactory particularly if the ruler is a philosopher, but a republic has the advantage of giving every citizen of merit a chance for advancement. The republican form is founded not on virtue, but on the ambition of the individual citizen which restrains the ambition of the others, on the pride of each which represses the pride of the others, on the desire to dominate which will not permit another to dominate.

In order to preserve equality, laws are made and they are destined to assist citizens as much as to govern them by fear. They should be universal in scope, and repress those who rise up against government, but should not punish those who sin against God. All classes should be subject to laws; only great men can transcend them. Voltaire believes in the economic state and is an enthusiastic partisan of luxury because it encourages commerce and enriches the large state. He is also in favor of public works because of their widespread utility. In his opinion, the best government is the one that protects all classes. Intermediary groups defending the law insure a less arbitrary government. These are more or less the ideas of any eighteenth-century liberal and not especially significant, but in three respects, Voltaire exceeds his own modest liberalism. He believes that the whole of jurisprudence needs to be reformed: “Les états chrétiens ont longtemps manqué et manquent encore de bonnes lois positives.” He is violently opposed to all forms of oppression:

Il semble que ces Traités du droit des gens, de la guerre, et de la paix qui n'ont jamais servi à aucun traité de paix, ni à aucune déclaration de guerre, ni à assurer le droit d'aucun homme, soient une consolation pour le peuple, des maux qu'ont fait la politique et la force.

(p. 183)

Finally, he is rabidly opposed to war, a “fléau épouvantable” whose only justification is to establish an equitable peace. He affirms that no nation since Roman times has ever been enriched by war, and denounces scathingly those in authority who do not protest against this scourge:

Cependant quelle voix chargée d'annoncer la vertu, s'est jamais élevée contre ce crime si grand et si universel; contre cette rage déstructive qui change en bêtes féroces des hommes nés pour vivre en frères, contre ces déprédations atroces, contre ces cruautés qui font de la terre un séjour de brigandage, un horrible et vaste tombeau.

(p. 190)

Voltaire's philosophical interests are negative for the most part. He is opposed to metaphysics, deeming it futile. He is further opposed to all philosophical systems, condemns ancient philosophers as useless to contemporary youth, and states that they should be read with distrust. However, like Plato, he believes them necessary to kings. He terms them superior to conquerors, but has little else to add in their favor, for they know few things and dispute about thousands. They are fortunately not dangerous, because they are not self-seeking, and have no appeal for the general public. They are totally without enthusiasm and will never form a sect. From these views one would not expect profound philosophical conclusions, and indeed there are none. A lengthy discussion on the nature of God, several attempts to clarify the problem of free will, and a continual defense of thinking matter constitute the sum total of Voltaire's philosophy. On the problem of the immortality of the soul, he adds nothing; he discusses at length the problem of evil, but as we have shown elsewhere, he is sadly and irretrievably confused. Otherwise, he is either content to affirm his ignorance, or to talk glibly in platitudes: life is a mixture of pleasure and torture, permanent happiness is not of this world, happiness can be found anywhere, pleasures are a gift from God, they should be enjoyed in moderation, work is often the source of pleasure.

Negative banalities, contradictory truths, insignificant platitudes, renunciation of the theological and metaphysical, betrayal of the moral, ineptitude in dealing with the political—such seems to be the quality of Voltaire's thought in 1758. There is a constant effort to channel all these ideas, to give them a certain order, a certain rhythm. They clearly move from the theological to the metaphysical, to the moral, to the social, to the political. They follow a plan; they pass from category to category, but they come to naught. Within the category, they pass constantly from affirmation to denial, or from denial to affirmation. In this respect also the movement is clear, but it again comes to nothing; the eternally contradictory produces a static (and sterile) condition which negates reality.

It should be possible to create a rhythm—a life rhythm, that inner meaning which each of us seeks to be. If ideas are a source of power, and power is action, then action is a form of being. The relationship between the “fond” and the “forme” is clear, but somehow Voltaire seems unable to grasp the relationship. He is too negative, too positive, too categorical, not categorical enough, too skeptical, too mystical. And now the challenge has been laid down, the moment of being has arrived, this is indeed the moment of crisis.

It is not easy to mark out Voltaire's intellectual response to the challenge of 1758, nor to attribute rightly the blame for his intellectual defeat. The first difficulty stems from our inability (and Voltaire's, too) to see where he is going intellectually between 1719 and 1758. Is he passing from a deep intellectual concern for theology to an ever increasing interest in philosophy? In philosophy, is he shifting intellectually from metaphysics to physical science? Or is he shifting from metaphysics to morality? Is it Leibnitz with his principles, or Newton with his physical laws, or Locke with his natural morality who will give him a foundation for these new ideas? Is it possible to find a form to contain them, a structure in which to express them, a method for conciliating them? After all, aesthetic expression is as important a category for living as science, history, philosophy, or religion. Will the epic, the tragedy, the épître, the ode, the philosophical poem, the philosophical conte be adequate for this task? Is it possible to combine in some gigantic plan these categories, these fields, these ideas, these impressions, these beliefs? Are there any principles to which we may adhere? Only one: the existence of God, all wise, all good, all powerful. Are there any beliefs to which we may cling? Yes, there is the belief in man's freedom, in his goodness, in his ability to know, not first principles, but within respectable limits, belief in the unity of knowledge, belief that happiness is possible and that knowledge is the way to happiness, belief that man can be modified in divers ways and that intelligent modification is desirable; belief, finally, that every man progresses materially, spiritually, and aesthetically. Thus, to belief in man's freedom is added belief in his reason, to which is united a belief in progress, in nature's laws, both physical and moral. In short, we can still have confidence in life, if only the principle by which we abide holds firm.

Voltaire clings desperately to this one principle, as Mr. Pomeau has shown, but even so his beliefs waver: man has taken a long time, and profited from fortunate circumstances, to rise above his primitive state; occidentals owe everything to time, commerce, and slow industry. The advance of civilization is the progress of the human mind, but this progress leads to no principles of living; we have no real way of knowing: “J'ignore comment je vis, comment je donne la vie, et vous voulez que je sache comment j'ai des idées.” Besides, this God-given spirit of curiosity, the urge to know, constantly sweeps us beyond the goal, like all our other springs of action which, if they did not push us too far, perhaps would never impel us onward. And yet there is a point beyond which the search for truth is nothing more than idle curiosity. These ingenious and useless truths are like stars, which, when placed beyond us give us no light. Voltaire tottered on the verge of an impotent Pyrrhonism; the very thing Leibnitz fought to prevent, the very thing Bayle thought was the only human answer to life, Voltaire came close to embracing: “Il faut tout lire avec défiance, l'analyse est la seule manière de raisonner sur les choses. … Tout ce que nous pouvons faire est de sentir notre impuissance, de reconnaître un être tout-puissant, et de nous garder de ces systèmes.”

Under the impact of events between 1753 and 1758, doubt entered Voltaire's mind. His sole abiding principle was suddenly put to question. The one guarantee against banalities, contradictions, absurdities, against his own powerlessness was removed, leaving a world in chaos—and Voltaire himself a helpless old man. It was well that the challenge presented itself, for otherwise he would have fallen into Bayle's never-ending Pyrrhonism, into the fatalism of Leibnitz and Spinoza. As it was he went through a rapid succession of startling emotional responses: terror, anger, irreverence, revolt, and finally, submission. We might say that he lived French classical tragedy during those five years, but a French tragedy could never contain what he had to present. His experience demanded for expression more flexible form, in which the negative could be eliminated, the positive created, in which the real could become the utopic, and knowledge, no matter how painful, could lead to wisdom, and wisdom, in turn, to action. One of the most extraordinary things about Candide is that Voltaire's thought down to 1758, almost explicitly stated, is incorporated in the work. It abounds in platitudes, contradictions, absurdities, there is a savage destruction of that thought, a grim delight in the holocaust. He becomes a wicked self-tormentor, and in this full confession of man's (and his own) defeat, he lays bare with sadistic pleasure his intellectual shame. With fiendish glee he asserts over and over that thought is not power, that ideas lead nowhere, that mind has no control over matter until he nearly believes it himself. But in the end chaos has been given a form, the irreconcilable has been harmonized, destruction which was well-nigh complete has become creation, and passive Pyrrhonism has yielded to dynamic action. In the full meaning of art, Candide is the structured reality of L'Esprit de Voltaire.

This last statement forms the crux of the matter: what Voltaire was seeking, what we must seek, is the structured reality of his “esprit,” not what he thought but the spirit of what he thought. This, of course, is extremely difficult because the ultimate goal is clear after a crisis but never clear in a crisis, and what we are trying to define is thought in crisis. What does thought become when it passes into art? Undoubtedly that depends upon the intent of the artist. But if the artist is undecided, if he is wavering always between two intentions, thought has to find a way for itself. This is exactly Voltaire's state as evidenced in the two following quotations:

Les vers qui n'apprennent pas aux hommes des vérités neuves et touchantes, ne méritent guères d'être lus. Il n'y aurait rien de plus méprisable que de passer sa vie à renfermer dans des rimes, des lieux-communs usés, qui ne méritent pas le nom de pensées.

(p. 228)

Ce sont les beautés de détail qui soutiennent les ouvrages en vers et qui les font passer à la postérité. C'est souvent la manière singulière de dire des choses communes, c'est cet art d'embellir par la diction ce que pensent et ce que sentent tous les hommes qui fait les grands poètes.

(p. 231)

These quotations illustrate perfectly Voltaire's ambiguity. He has reached by 1758 a point where truth has become a commonplace, where the manner of expression is at variance with the thing said, and he does not know whether style is superior to thought or thought superior to style. But he has a conviction:

Quand on est bien pénétré d'une idée, quand un esprit juste et plein de chaleur possède bien sa pensée, elle sort de son cerveau toute ornée des expressions convenables, comme Minerve sortit toute armée du cerveau de Jupiter.

(p. 257)

This divine fury, this commitment seems to be lacking. This dispersal which the author has voluntarily practiced and still practices releases not power but constraint which in effect hinders creation. Voltaire with his religious, metaphysical, moral, scientific, humanistic, and aesthetic interests has reached an impasse where too much thinking, too contradictory thought has produced a stalemate that has dried up the wells of creation. Again the ambiguity of the situation is apparent to him: thought is a power, but too much thinking is a constraint:

Dans tous les arts, il y a un terme par-delà lequel on ne peut plus avancer. On est resserré dans les bornes de son talent; on voit la perfection au-delà de soi, et on fait des efforts impuissants pour y atteindre.

Le plus grand génie et sûrement le plus désirable, est celui qui ne donne l'exclusion à aucun des Beaux-arts. Ils sont tous la nourriture et le plaisir de l'âme; y en a-t-il dont on doive se priver? Heureux l'esprit que la philosophie ne peut dessécher et que les charmes des belles-lettres ne peuvent amollir, qui sait se fortifier avec Loke, s'éclaircir avec Clarke et Newton, s'élever dans la lecture de Cicéron et de Bossuet, s'embellir par les charmes de Virgile et du Tasse.

(p. 246)

It is hard to say how the problem presented itself to the creative artist Voltaire. For the philosophic Voltaire, thought had no focus; for the moralist Voltaire, it had become mere banalities, for the historian Voltaire, it led only to a series of facts that proved beyond doubt the negative quality of human reality. But what was thought to the artist Voltaire: could it be reduced to a series of abstractions such as tolerance, freedom, equality, reason, beneficence, and the like? Could these abstractions be structured into artistic reality? What was the instrument for achieving this artistic reality? Here Voltaire made a discovery of great value: thought which is an end in itself is sterile, at best it becomes an abstraction or a commonplace. Neither its quantity, nor its weight, nor its depth has relevance to the living process. Its sole value is its active ingredient, it is valid only in producing action. It is thus a release to life; it releases all the possibilities within one; it is the liberating spirit. It transforms the negative into the positive, sterility into creativity, despair into effort. It is, in short, the release of the human spirit.

But the human spirit is also the release of thought; Voltaire saw plainly that thought could no more do without wit than wit without thought. It is the combination of the two that leads to action, and to active creation. Let us examine the author's own definition of wit in 1758 from the Esprit de Voltaire:

Ce qu'on appelle esprit, est tantôt une comparaison nouvelle, tantôt une allusion fine: ici l'abus d'un mot, qu'on présente dans un sens, et qu'on laisse entendre dans un autre: là un rapport délicat entre deux idées peu communes: c'est une métaphore singulière; c'est une recherche de ce qu'un objet ne présente pas d'abord, mais de ce qui est en effet dans lui.

(p. 270)

Thus “esprit” is his instrument for harmonizing and vitalizing thought.

He defines “esprit” so rationally and clearly in this passage that he defeats his own purpose: all the dangers of rationalism are evident in the definition. Anyone living in 1759 might remark that Voltaire is trying to define, or to place limits upon, the very thing that for him can have no limits. In any event, he succeeds in bringing out the point that the function of “esprit” is to achieve something new, to sharpen and clarify the obscure, to destroy something threatening, to show the close relationship between two ideas seemingly disparate, to bring out the meaning of something present but not easily apprehended. The Esprit de Voltaire did not, however, give the full statement. In the article of 1741, he had continued:

C'est l'art ou de réunir deux choses éloignées, ou de diviser deux choses qui paraissent se joindre, ou de les opposer l'une à l'autre, c'est celui de ne dire qu'à moitié sa pensée pour la laisser deviner.

Thus “esprit” is Voltaire's instrument for separating the true from the false, for uniting the true with the true in order to obtain “new” truths, for penetrating to the core of old truths and seeking new sources of enlightenment. It is a nimble playing upon phenomena and bringing out meaning. It is the dynamic force of thought. It can be devastatingly destructive, and also amazingly creative.

It is true that Voltaire does not always see it in this light. In the article in which he defines “esprit” as a liberating force, he begins to put restrictions upon it. He is inclined to see it, for instance, as a mode of expression; a metaphor, a comparison, a figure of speech, a “brilliant,” and since he is living in an age of sophisticated culture, he is apt to confuse “esprit” and “bel esprit.” By temperament he attributes to “bel esprit” a somewhat negative value; thus he feels that the simple and the sublime create beauty rather than “bel esprit.” For the most part, he confuses “esprit” and “brilliants” (since both are striking figures of rhetoric) and judges them synonymous. He has a disdain for these “brillants” in serious art: in tragedy or the epic they have no place:

Je reviens à mon paradoxe, que tous ces brillants, auxquels on donne le nom d'esprit, ne doivent point trouver place dans les grands ouvrages faits pour instruire et pour toucher.

In the lesser genres, he finds them, on the contrary, permissible:

Ayez autant d'esprit que vous voudrez, ou que vous pourrez, dans un madrigal, dans des vers légers, dans une scène de comédie qui ne sera ni passionnée ni naïve, dans un compliment, dans un petit roman, dans une lettre où vous vous égayerez pour égayer vos amis.

All this neoclassic conservatism in letters is really beside the point and should not be allowed to obscure the issue. The important thing is not whether “esprit” as a form of expression should be admitted in the tragedy or conte, it is what happens when “esprit,” the faculty of penetrating reality, enters a vital form. Voltaire maintains his neoclassic contentions that “bel esprit” is more undesirable than desirable in classic art, but he is closer to reality when he redefines this “bel esprit” as “jeux de l'imagination, finesses, tours, traits saillants, ces gaiétés, ces petites sentences coupées, ces familiarités ingénieuses” and when he finds even this “esprit” suitable for “les petits ouvrages de pur agrément.” These observations were made before Candide, which was supremely a “petit ouvrage de pur agrément,” but which as tragedy—and cosmic tragedy at that—wanted to instruct and arouse deep emotions. Voltaire not only has a neoclassic tendency to proscribe “bel esprit,” he has a dislike for those who, unable to achieve distinction by thought, try to attract attention by a word. This point of view is not without importance in connection with Candide, also. He recognizes that in the sciences, new discoveries entail new words, but he questions in 1744, “fait-on de nouvelles découvertes dans le cœur humain?” He is very close at this moment to admitting sterility in the field of moral man, but with characteristic energy revolts against the idea even here: “Ceux qui accusent notre langue de n'être pas assez féconde doivent en effet trouver de la stérilité, mais c'est dans eux-mêmes,” and he concludes significantly: “Rem verba sequuntur.”

“Esprit” is then an instrument for uniting thought and penetrating ideas, and it is also a form of expression. It is “une qualité d'âme,” it is not judgment, genius, taste, talent, pénétration, expansion, gracefulness and finesse, “mais il doit tenir de tous ces mérites.” Voltaire calls it “raison ingénieuse.” Metaphor is not the sole method of expressing one's self wittily; it can be done by a new perspective, or by expressing only a part of one's thought: this wit is “fin, délicat” and the more agreeable since it calls forth wit in the listener. Voltaire was possessed with the idea that “esprit” is “raison ingénieuse.” In his opinion it has a very definite connection with genius.

He defines many other relationships of “esprit”: for instance, “esprit de corps” by way of expressing the customs and manner of speaking in a group; “esprit de parti,” to denote what binds a group together; “esprit d'une loi” as a way of distinguishing intention; “esprit d'un ouvrage” as a means of bringing out its character, its aim; finally, it means sometimes “la plus subtile partie de la matière.” We are far from the concept of “esprit” as penetration, organization, expression; it has now become for him a resultant, a tendency, and, as we say in English, a spirit. It is connected with breath, wind, soul. Of still greater moment, it has to do with ingenium, wit, witty, in the original sense of “born free” and “sage,” because “esprit” in this sense of resultant, tendency, is the instrument seeking to release the genius of man. At this point Voltaire's thought joins Diderot's. “Esprit” has now become an instrument, an energizing force of life. It releases from inner man those things which he is capable of creating, vitalizing, forming. Voltaire goes so far as to admit that “esprit” then expresses the concept “umbrae, simulacre, geist,” even ghosts. Its ultimate synonyms are “fantôme, imagination, rêverie, sottise, friponnerie.” It should be noted that with this final series of definitions, we are not far from the romantic conception of creation: indeed we are surprisingly close to Diderot's and Rousseau's concept of creation as liberation. It was perhaps inevitable that Voltaire, being of the eighteenth century, should ultimately express the “esprit” of his time. Curiously, “esprit” in the eighteenth century, by playing the role in aesthetic creation which spirit plays in religion and metaphysics in other centuries, has liberated itself. It is thus not only the thing liberating, it is also the thing liberated.

It would be interesting to note exactly what has been released in Candide and what Candide has released. If the ideas discussed above are turned into beliefs, that is, if they retain their meaning but no longer remain explicit statement, it will be apparent that Candide is the expression of the ambiguity, the absurdity, the uselessness, the abstractness of these ideas. In a way, it is the picture of a confused, embittered, puzzled, uncertain, uneasy mind, and if the ideas are derived from a world in chaos, they disclose when set down the picture of a mind in chaos. The first impression Candide makes is always one of willful destruction and pessimistic despair. Then, by degrees, life conquers destruction; ideas are a force for destroying, and they are at the same time a source of energy and action; it is rather futile to argue one's way through life, but one can think one's way through with profit. Each experience in itself is of little consequence, but the corps of experiences may lead to conclusions of real consequence. It is in this passage from the static to the dynamic, from passivity to revolt, or in its lowest terms from suffering to work that Candide affirms the power of thought. After all, there is hardly any difference between living by wit and living by one's wits.

The strange thing about this is that once we see what thought is doing, it becomes a very simple matter to see where Voltaire's thoughts are going. If we take this corps of ideas in the Esprit de Voltaire and examine each one, we are surprised to see how many of them have entered specifically into Candide. If we begin to divide them according to their negative or positive value, their philosophic or aesthetic meaning, we are quite as surprised to see that they are no more significant taken one by one in Candide than in the Esprit de Voltaire. And yet, although the world, ideas, and experience have not changed, a great change has taken place: What is it? An artist has been touched by life.

Since it is impossible to penetrate the power of this thought directly, the only way of realizing its effect is to take it at three moments in Voltaire's drama: before Candide, at the moment of Candide, and after Candide. This third stage can best be observed in a short volume, even smaller than Candide in actual size. It is the Mélanges de littérature, d'histoire et de philosophie of 1761, the very thing we have been studying and the subtitle of our book. The volume contains the Entretien d'un bachelier et d'un sauvage, Entretien d'Ariste et d'Acrotal, the Histoire d'un bon Bramin, two articles (Des allégories and Du polithéisme) of the Dictionaire philosophique variety and the Ode sur la mort de Son Altesse Royale Mme la Princesse de Bareith with notes of Mr. de Morza.

These little “rogatons” (with the exception of the two Dictionaire articles) are made from remnants of Candide. The Entretien d'un sauvage has its scene laid in Cayenne, the savage is an inhabitant of Guyane, the setting recalls Chapters xvi and xvii of the conte. It is in brief a contrast between man in nature and in society. But the questions addressed by the “bachelier” to the “sauvage” are all ideas occurring throughout the Esprit de Voltaire and Candide: What is one to think of man? What is the soul? Whence comes it? What does it do? How does it act? Are animals machines? In what way is man superior to animals? How does one think? Is the will free? Is it possible to distinguish between good and evil, justice and injustice? What is the best government, the best religion? Is this the best of worlds? Thus the questions are obviously the same, and the “bachelier's” picture of universal destruction in this best of possible worlds is also the same: carnage in war, thousands of mortal diseases, a crime-ridden world.

These questions are reiterated in the “rogatons” regarded from every possible angle and always wittily: we find them in the Entretien d'Ariste et d'Acrotal obviously written to prove that philosophers can never be dangerous to society, but with a conclusion much more far-reaching:

Croyez-moi, gardez le silence vous-même, ne vous mêlez plus de raisonner, soyez honnêtes gens, soyez compatissans, ne cherchez point à trouver le mal où il n'est pas et il cessera d'être où il est.

They occur again in the Histoire d'un bon Bramin where the dilemma of the protagonist is identified with Voltaire's. He laments his complete ignorance after forty years of study, he does not know what time is, he has absolutely no idea of eternity, and no knowledge whatsoever of the principle of thought. He complains that he does not know why he exists, or whether Brahma really exists, why evil submerges the world, or whether this is the best of possible worlds:

Je suis prêt quelque fois de tomber dans le désespoir, quand je songe qu'après mes recherches je ne sais d'où je viens, ni ce que je suis, ni où j'irai, ni ce que je deviendrai.

These very same questions had bedeviled Voltaire from the Traité de métaphysique to Candide.

The Ode sur la mort de la Princesse de Bareith is a poetic summary of the horrors of Candide and opens with a description of a battle where survivors march pitilessly on the mangled bodies of their fellow men. As it continues with macabre details we have a picture patently correlative with the battle scene in Candide. Voltaire interrupts to lament human suffering, fear, and misery; destruction of the arts and virtues, assassination of kings. The Ode is thus a long “réquisitoire” of the situation already discussed in the conte and its conclusion is a vow to denounce the “criminels de l'esprit”:

Vils tyrans des esprits, vous serez mes victimes,
Je vous verrai pleurer à mes pieds abbatus;
A la postérité je peindrai tous vos crimes,
De ces mâles crayons dont j'ai peint les vertus.
                              Craignez ma main rafermie
                              A l'opprobre, à l'infâmie. …

It is evident that Voltaire has experienced a Hamletian episode and come through it determined not to commit suicide, but to fight—and to fight all these “criminels de l'esprit.”

The conclusion of Mr. de Morza's notes to the Ode is very important for the interpretation of the conte. Voltaire is trying to state, and somewhat awkwardly, it must be confessed, that there is a relationship between thinking and knowing, between thinking and doing, between thinking and living, and the creative spirit, between the spirit of man and the spirit of a people, between the spirit and the genius. A total organic vital effect is created by the right adjustment of these relationships. He is close to saying that there is an inevitable mechanical process between knowing and doing, between the spirit of the individual and the spirit of the race, between any form or category of intellectual living and any other form or category. “Il est trop certain,” he says, “que si vous rétrécissez le génie, vous abâtardissez bientôt une nation entière.” His statement is a bit summary and made in the negative, but its meaning is clear. If you release the genius of the individual, you release thereby the spirit of the race, and, in turn, the spirit of man. He cites as example the English race and the magnificent release of the English humanistic spirit in Elizabeth's time:

… mais dès qu'on laissa un libre essor au génie, les Anglais eurent des Spencer, des Shakespeare, des Bacons, et enfin des Lockes et des Newtons.

All freedmen are brothers, all the arts are united, one enlightens the other, and from the process results a “lumière universelle.” Thus philosophy has enlightened politics. He again cites England as an example: “le même génie entreprenant et persévérant qui leur (les Anglais) fait fabriquer des draps plus forts que les nôtres, leur fait écrire des livres de philosophie plus profonds.” Voltaire concludes with an apostrophe to the French to release the human spirit. Candide and the whole Enlightenment have finally been defined.

Note

1. N. Ac. fr. 2778, f. 29.

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