Candide

Early and as late as 1756, Voltaire had praise for Leibnitz. Thus in the letter to Koenig, the German mathematician, dated November 1752, he expressed admiration for the philosopher's manner of thinking and his tendency to scatter the "seeds of ideas." And in the Siècle de Louis XIV (1756), he wrote approvingly of the man. But fundamentally Voltaire was suspicious of all attempts at systematic philosophy. In 1737, he wrote to Frederick the Great: "All metaphysics contain two things: all that intelligent men know; second, that which they will never know." Certain views he did share with Leibnitz. He too believed in a Supreme Being who created the universe and whose glory is manifest in the Heavens and on the earth; and he rejected the idea that the world was entirely mechanical or determined or material. The record shows that he did not reject optimism without a struggle. Among his works that indicate a tendency to hold on to an optimistic view of life are Mondain (1736), Discourse en vers sur l'homme (1736-41), Micromégas (1739), Le monde comme il va (1746), and Zadig (1747). But it was indeed a struggle for him. For example, the idea that human events can be explained by providentialism he could not accept. Deist as he was, his God was an absentee one, to use Carlyle's phrase. In a letter written in the late 1730s, he used the analogy of the mice in the ship's hold and the complete indifference of the ship's master — the very same analogy he repeated near the end of Candide. By 1741, Voltaire had spoken out clearly against the major tenets of Leibnitzianism. He wrote: "Frankly, Leibnitz has only confused the sciences. His sufficient reason, his continuity, his plenum (all-embracing whole of the universe), his monads, are the germs of confusion of which M. Wolff has methodically hatched fifteen volumes in quarto which will put the German heads more than ever in the habit of reading much and understanding little." Although he had some praise for Leibnitz in the Siècle de Louis XIV (1756), he also called him "un peu charlatan."