Sufficient Reason

Many of the Enlightenment philosophers focused a lot on cause and effect. In Candide, Voltaire plays off of these thoughts and he often mentions reasons or causes for happenings. Pangloss states that "noses were made to support spectacles, hence we have spectacles. Legs as anyone can plainly see were made to be breeched, and so we have breeches." God obviously did not create noses to fit spectacles. The obviousness of this statement reflects how Voltaire felt about the Enlightenment philosophers. He felt the flaws he saw in their thinking were obvious as well. Voltaire is constantly bringing up reason, or cause in obvious cases. Cunegonde is walkin around one day and sees Pangloss "giving a lesson in experimental natural philosophy to her mother's chamber-maid" It is said that "she clearly perceived the force of the Doctor's reasons, the effects, and the causes." She feels she is a "sufficient reason" for her and Candide to hook up. Obviously because she is a girl and he is a boy. Voltaire uses the term "sufficient reason" again when speaking of the war Candide was fighting in. He says the bayonett was "sufficient reason" for the death of so many people. Voltaire's constant use of reason in very obvious cases reflects his thoughts on many of the Enlightenment thinkers.