We live in the best of all possible worlds. So said Gottfried Leibniz in 1709. For him, this was the only explanation for why a loving, all-powerful and all-knowing god tolerated evil. Any attempt to improve our lot would backfire, making it still worse. The world was not perfect, but optimal; and Leibniz was its first optimist. His argument did not go unchallenged. Voltaire parodied it through the character of Doctor Pangloss in Candide, who clings to his Leibnizian optimism despite endless torments. But the idea endured and evolved: "The optimist proclaims that we live in the best of all possible worlds; and the pessimist fears this is true," wrote James Branch Cabell in 1926.
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