Candide Assessment

In Candide, Pangloss’s philosophy states, "all is for the best in the best of all possible worlds,” meaning, everything that happens is for the best. Our protagonist, Candide, is lead by blind optimism through this philosophy. Throughout the novel, Voltaire bashes on how ridiculous Pangloss’s philosophy is by setting up incidents to counter the original philosophy by Leibniz.
The situation where Candide reunites with Pangloss, we see that Pangloss has became very ragged. Candide asks what the “sufficient cause” of his sickness was and Pangloss responds by explaining:
"it was a thing unavoidable, a necessary ingredient in the best of worlds; for if Columbus had not in an island of America caught this disease, which contaminates the source of life, frequently even hinders generation, and which is evidently opposed to the great end of nature, we should have neither chocolate nor cochineal.”
Pangloss says that his sickness was caught for the greater good because if Columbus hadn't contracted the disease, without it we wouldn’t have chocolate or cochineal. It’s clear that chocolate would have been discovered, regardless of whether syphilis was a factor and a disease that renders a man useless is never a better alternative. Even when Candide is in El Dorado, a world that is perfect, wealthy and equal, he still makes naive decisions that were driven by greed and ambition: "I own, my friend, once more that the castle where I was born is nothing in comparison with this; but, after all, Miss Cunegonde is not here, and you have, without doubt, some mistress in Europe. If we abide here we shall only be upon a footing with the rest, whereas, if we return to our old world, only with twelve sheep laden with the pebbles of El Dorado, we shall be richer than all the kings in Europe. We shall have no more Inquisitors to fear, and we may easily recover Miss Cunegonde." Both Candide and Cacambo fail to realize that they are already happy in El Dorado. So, instead of staying