Define and then compare the philosophical positions represented by Pangloss and Martin in Candide.

In Chapter 19 of Voltaire's satirical work,
Candide, Candide and his servant Cacambo encounter
misfortunes until they reach Eldorado. However, although they are in a paradise, Candide
cannot live without his love, Cunnegonde, and Cacambo has a "restless spirit."  So, they
leave, and after a hundred days, they have lost many sheep and riches.  When
Candide--who supports the philosophy of Pangloss, that it is the best of all
worlds--sees a black slave who has been cruelly tortured, Candide renounces optimism,
declaring it "a mania for saying things are well when one is in hell."  After he is
robbed by a captain, Candide only dwells on the wickedness of men.  He books passage on
a French ship and interviews men for the most unhappy man in the province for whom he
will pay passage.  This man is Martin, a poor,old scholar, who has been robbed by his
wife, beaten by his son, and abandoned by his
daughter.

Unlike Candid, whoe has the hope of seeing
Cunegonde, Martin has utterly no hope.  He tells Candide that he is a Manichean,
believing in two nearly equal forces of good and evil, although he has seen much more
evil.  When Candide says, "Yet there is some good," Martin replies, "That may be...but I
do not know it."   Then, after Candide asks him why the world was created, Martin
replies, "To drive us mad." And, when Candide asks him if men have always performed evil
deeds against one another such as having massacred each other, having lied and cheated,
having been ingrates, brigands, and so on, Martin responds with a question himself, "Do
you think that sparrow hawks have always eaten
pigeons?" 

In Chapter 20 when a ship is sunk by another
ship and the wicked Captain Vanderdendur dies, Candide, in his acceptance of the
philosophy of Pangloss, declares that the captain's death proves God's
goodness:

 
"You see,,,that crime is sometimes punished: that rascal of a Dutch captain met the fate
he deserved."

But, Martin
counters,

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"Yes,...but was it necessry hat the passengers on
his ship should perish also?  God punished that knave, the devil drowned the
others."

In Chapter 23,
Candide and Martin continue their debate which points to Martin's being a foil to
Pangloss, who theories Candide debates with Martin.  When Candide addresses
him,

Sir, no
doubt you think that all is for the best in the physical world and in the moral, and
nothing could have been
otherwise?

Martin
replies,

"I,
sir,...I think nothing of the sort; I think that everything goes awry with us, that no
one knows his rank or his job or what he is doing or what he should
do.

However, Martin commits
the same error as Pangloss: He is too adamant in his own thinking that he, at times,
dismisses real evidence that refutes his philosophy.  For, like the optimism of
Pangloss, Martin relies heavily upon his dogmatic belief and mere speculation.  From his
satirizing of the characters of Candide and Martin, the reader realizes that absolute
pessism is as myopic as absolute optimism.