It can be granted to him, but he must not sell us such fancy for
the eternal and immutable laws of nature. Grandmother did have
nervousness, her nearest friends were in the habit of searching for
remedies against ills not in a drug-store, therefore her male and
female descendants are such as they must be--namely, criminals,
thieves, fast women, honest people, saints, politicians, good mothers,
bankers, farmers, murderers, priests, soldiers, ministers--in a word,
everything which in the sphere of the mind, in the sphere of health,
in the sphere of wealth and position, in the sphere of profession, can
be and are men as well as women in the whole world. One is stupefied
voluntarily. What then? And all that on account of grandmother's
nervousness? "Yes!" answers the author. But if Adelaïde Fouqué had not
had it, her descendants would be good or bad just the same and have
the same occupations men and women usually have in this world.
"Certainly!" Zola answers; "but Adelaïde Fouqué had nervousness." And
further discussion is impossible, because one has to do with a man who
his own voluntary fancy takes for a law of nature and his brain cannot
be opened with a key furnished by logic. He built a genealogical tree;
this tree could have been different--but if it was different, he would
sustain that it can be only such as it is--and he would prefer to be
killed rather than be convinced that his theory was worthless.

At any rate, it is such a theory that it is not worth while to
quarrel about it. A long time ago it was said that Zola had one good
thing--his talent; and one bad--his doctrine. If as a consequence of
an inherited nervousness one can become a rascal as well as a good
man, a Sister of Charity as well as Nana, a farmer boy as well as
Achilles--in that case there is an heredity which does not exist. A
man can be that which he wishes to be. The field for good will and
responsibility is open, and all those moral foundations on which human