of "metaphysico-theologo-cosmolonigology" (119), has not prepared Candide for the realities of the universe. Instead, Pangloss:
proved most admirably, that there could not be an effect without a cause; that, in this best of possible worlds, my Lord the Baron's castle was the most magnificent of castles, and my Lady the Best of Baronesses that possibly could be.
"It is demonstrable," said he, "that things cannot be otherwise than they are: for all things having been made for some end, they must necessarily be for the best end" (Voltaire 119).
This statement, which is on the first page of the novel, is extremely important. It sets the tone for Voltaire's entire satire. What the narrative of Candide shows is that the world as the hero finds it is nothing like the best one possible and that it is absurd to think so. As a whole, Candide is an answer to the philosophy of Leibniz, which is the basis for Pangloss's teaching and which is the philosophical filter through which Candide consistently sees the world. Leibniz, Pangloss says, "could not be in the wrong; and his pre-established harmony is certainly the finest system in the world, as well as his gross and subtle matter" (Voltaire 178).
The extent of Pangloss's loyalty to Leibniz can be connected to Leibniz's loyalty to a highly specific vision of God. To see how this in turn can be connected to Voltaire's religious intolerance, using the satire of Candide as its mode of expression, it is helpful to look at Leibniz's philosophy. Leibniz's idea that this is the best of all possible worlds comes about as a result of a complicated but highly systematic philosophy of logic. Leibniz's philosophical system is most famously associated with the term monad. The number of monads is infinite, and the "compound" of substances can be seen in the harmony of the universe (Leibniz 177). But Leibniz gets to the idea of monads first by way of a more general, metaphysical concept. This more gene...