This morning Voltaire came to mind and I wasn't sure why. The reason he came to mind was because I started dwelling on the meaning of illegitimacy in literature (out of wedlock or bastard children as protagonists) and that reminded me of what an old teacher in literature class had once said - that often in literature, a character who happened to be an illegitimate child was a symbol that the character would have to go through a long and difficult journey of self-discovery leading to greater fulfilment. I never forgot that side comment because it instantly made me identify to such characters.
The teacher had said that while we were analysing a text from Voltaire - and that’s from that vague memory that I felt the need to look it up… However I had no recollection of the book‘s title, but googling “Voltaire and illegitimacy” did the trick.

The novella’s title was Candide.

I was struck by the fact that I barely remembered ever having read it, yet as soon as I refreshed my memory on the main themes, it all came flooding back to me. The reason I had seemingly forgotten all about it might be down to the fact that I was 16 when we studied that novella in class, but perhaps it was also due to the very flawed way in which schools link learning so much with testing, so that in effect, we cram everything into our head not so much with a desire to understand for ourselves what it is we’re learning by heart, but to get the ‘best’ result on a piece of paper.

Anyway… Candide happens to be a strong critique of Leibniz’s Optimism theory, which basically concludes that we live in the best of possible worlds. More precisely, Leibniz's line of thought rests on the idea that our universe is the best possible one that could have been created by God (assumed as an infallible entity or being). In Candide, Voltaire makes a scathing attack of such theory or argument, literally tearing it to pieces with all the might of his renowned sarcastic streak. The protagonist (named Candide) starts off educated by an old man (Pangloss)who symbolises Leibniz's optimism, and the premice of the satire gives plenty of room to denounce the reasoning flaws in the theory through the words of the old man. The latter's mantra? "All is for the best" (because... this is the best of possible words we live in based on the assumption that God, who is all powerful and perfect, created it, therefore it must be the best of worlds created etc)... Voltaire attacks the reasoning and in effect ridicules it through Pangloss whose logic is shown as flawed in the way he would explain things to his pupil Candide. Like... mixing up cause and effect, among other things:


"It is demonstrable that things cannot be otherwise than as they are; for as all things have been created for some end, they must necessarily be created for the best end. Observe, for instance, the nose is formed for spectacles, therefore we wear spectacles", would say Pangloss.


What is also denounced is the far too easy way in which that optimism theory handles the realities of the world, such as suffering, pain, diseases, natural disasters. Instead of going in depth as to the possible meaning of such occurrences in the world, the theory conveniantly bundles them all up under the same 'roof' that allows for no further questioning - God. And that's the end of it, no need apparently to seek to understand beyond that.

As the story unfolds, Candide leaves the old man to discover the world and it is through his travels that he is faced with the realities of the world, which put the old man's optimism to the test every time.

As I refreshed my memory on the story itself, I had to check for myself what that optimism theory was all about, of course. So I looked up what Leibniz's works were all about. I discovered that beside that theory, Leibniz also happened to be part of the rationalist school of thought but what I really found interesting was his 'obsession' or belief that thoughts could somehow be translated or reduced to a form of calculation of some sort...

Another thing that happens to fascinate me, really, is how we come across things in life (reading, learning something at some point or even going through a certain experience) that may seem irrelevant or easy to dismiss at the time and yet years later these very things we came across briefly will come back to mind for no obvious reason known to the conscious side of the mind... but as it comes back to mind, suddenly you realise that it is only now that you can truly make sense of such things you read or learned all that while back. In a way, it feels like we spend our life collecting what appears to be random pieces of a jigsaw that we can't complete or make sense of because we have no idea how the pieces are supposed to fit together - but the mind (the awakened mind, that is -- that can think in depth for itself) is powerful enough to make them fit together seamlessly when the time is right in terms of a person's own growth in understanding and reasoning.