How Voltaire's "Candide" relates to philosophe values

Essay by MejDamHigh School, 10th gradeA+, March 2002

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It's understandably difficult to pin one set of values to the Philosophes because their range of

ideas, opinions, and beliefs were so wide. Not all Philosophes emerged from a kind of social-activist

mold. Voltaire, for instance, was a harsh critic of Enlightenment optimism, but he didn't share Rousseau's

claim that the arts and sciences were nothing more than "garlands of flowers [thrown] on iron fetters."

(Kramnick 363) Similarly, although the idea of a perfect God creating a perfect world whose flaws were

nothing but goodness in disguise angered Voltaire, he was a deist at the very least, and didn't support



opposed to, and how did they voice that opposition?

The "Age of Enlightenment" was so-called because it seemed, at the time, as if every universal

mystery had been illumined by science.

The giants-Newton, Galileo, and Descartes-had revolutionized

how men and women viewed the world, and the concept of Nature was rapidly becoming a system of laws

rather than a web of superstition. Newton and Galileo especially supported the idea of deism, which was

something of a medium between science and theology. God existed, certainly, but he'd satisfied himself with

the monumental act of creation. Seeing that everything was perfect, as he'd intended, the One stepped back

and allowed humankind to make its own decisions. God, then, had created natural laws to guide his universe.

These laws, at least in theory, were subservient to a higher, omniscient power. But the implication was that,

since God had vanished from the picture, these laws, which were intelligible only through science, had

usurped his position. With God removed from the universe, natural...