Candide

The two philosophers presented in the novella, Professor Pangloss and Martin, serve as foils for each other, distinguished by both their contrasting personalities and their opposing philosophies. While Professor Pangloss is a philosophical optimist who believes firmly that Earth is “the best of all possible worlds” (in accordance with German philosopher Gottfried Leibniz), Martin, whose depiction is based upon the French philosopher Pierre Bayle, offers a far more skeptical view when Candide confronts him:

[W]hen I cast an eye on this globe, or rather on this little ball, I cannot help thinking that God has abandoned it to some malignant being [...] I scarcely ever knew a city that did not desire the destruction of a neighbouring city, nor a family that did not wish to exterminate some other family. Everywhere the weak execrate the powerful, before whom they cringe; and the powerful beat them like sheep whose wool and flesh they sell. A million regimented assassins, from one extremity of Europe to the other, get their bread by disciplined depredation and murder [...]”

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