Human Corruption in Candide According to Voltaire, man's purpose is his own happiness. This goal is too often a mirage. (Gay 26) Man is a prey to his own passion, a victim of his own stupidity. Man is the game of fate. (Gay 26) The human condition is full of evils that no amount of rationality can cure. (Gay 27) This human condition results in human corruption. Voltaire hints at this corruption through Candide. Candide had an impact on society as Voltaire knew it. English admirals fighting loose battles are no longer shot as object lessons in military perseverance. (Weitz 11) However, in our time, the human scourges of war, famine, rape, greed, persecution, bigotry, superstition, intolerance and hypocrisy which constitute this element of human corruption that is addressed in Candide. Candide still serves as an effective whip with which to once again lash the perpetuators of this suffering. (Weitz 12) The theme of human misery is Voltaire's main achievement in integrating philosophy and literature in Candide. (Weitz 12) “Do you perhaps think,” Candide asks Martin as they approach the coast of France, “that men have always massacred each other, as they do today, that they have always been false, unfaithful, ungrateful, thieving, weak, fickle, petty, envious, greedy, drunken, miserly, ambitious, bloodthirsty, slanderous, dissolute, fanatical, hypocritical and stupid?". Martin responds with a further question: "do you think hawks have always eaten pigeons when they could find them ?" "Of course so" replies Candido. Martin replies: "well, if hawks have always had the same character, why should you suppose that men have changed theirs?". Although the examination of the novel's characters certainly supports much part of this evaluation of Martin, just think of the snobbish character The Baron, the cunning Dutch captain, Vanderbendur, the Brazilian governor, the bestial bat sailor, the hypocritical Jesuits, the avaricious Jews and the thieving abbot of Perigord.