a
reference to the philosophical
statement of optimism constantly put forth by
Dr.
Pangloss, a
philosopher and
tutor in the
novel Candide (1759), written by
French author and
philosopher Voltaire (1694-1778). The book was an
attack on the optimistic theories of
German philosopher Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz (1646-1716), who advocated that the
universe was the "best of all possible worlds," and the optimistic idea that "whatever is, is
right." Leibniz believed that of all the possible worlds that
God could have created, he chose to
create the present one because it was the "best"-despite the
existence of evident evils. Any other "possible
world" would have been
better in some
ways but worse in others, and contain evils of its own of even greater
magnitude. His
philosophy greatly influenced
German philosophers of the eighteenth century.