This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
176
VOLTAIRE.

heaven's sake, a little oil and wine!' 'How—likely?' returned the philosopher, 'I maintain the thing is demonstrated.' Candide lost consciousness, and Pangloss brought him a little water."


Pangloss's philosophy gets him into trouble with the familiars of the Holy Inquisition:—


"After the earthquake, which had destroyed three-fourths of Lisbon, the sages of the land had found no more effectual means of preventing total ruin than to give the people a fine auto-da-fé: it was decided by the University of Coimbra that the spectacle of many persons burnt at a slow fire, with grand ceremonies, was an infallible mode of preventing earthquakes.

"Consequently, a Biscayan had been seized who was convicted of having married his godmother, and two Portuguese who, in eating a pullet, had put aside the bacon. Dr Pangloss and his disciple were bound together, the one for having spoken, the other for having listened with an air of approbation. They were conducted separately to apartments of an extreme freshness, into which the sun never intruded. A week afterwards they were dressed each in a sanbenito and their heads ornamented with paper mitres. Candide's mitre and sanbenito were painted with inverted flames and with devils destitute of tails or claws; but the devils of Pangloss had both claws and tails, and the flames were upright. Thus apparelled they marched in procession, and listened to a very pathetic sermon, followed by fine music in counterpoint. During the singing, Candide was whipt in time to the music; the Biscayan, and the two men who did not like bacon with their fowl, were burnt, and Pangloss was hanged. The same day there was a fresh earthquake with a dreadful noise.

"Candide, terrified, speechless, bleeding, palpitating, said to himself: 'If this is the best of all possible worlds, what can the rest be?'"


He meets again with Cunegonde; and such adventures