After 1755

Writers, like painters, sometimes need drama to quicken their work. Strong, angular (c.s.) lighting works because of the contrasts and depth it creates. Commentary such as Voltaire cast aside his optimism is pretty strong. Lots of contrast there. Maybe the writer is striking for effect, without much basis for his theory. Such were my thoughts after yesterday's post. This morning, reading Mss'r Barzun, I noticed his quiet assertion:

In Candide (published 1759), moreover, though the fact has been strangely overlooked, Voltaire no longer believes in progress through light and reason.

Perhaps noting the sharp contrast in the great man's life is important.

Even so, life goes on, with or without the optimism. In France, Enlightenment philosophy had provided a system useful for exploding all manner of inconvenient traditions and claims - especially Christianity. Such a tool wants to be retained. And if religious authority could be dismantled, why not political and economic authority? Already in France the philosophe was undermining the foundations of Divine Right and privilege, with only modest opposition by those threatened powers. But across the Atlantic the methodological criticism supplied in French thought would prove useful to American colonists seeking separation from the British crown.