book of all the cycle of Rougon-Macquart. It is a series
of empty leaves on which tediousness is hand in hand with lack of
moral sense, it is a pale picture full of falsehood--such is "Le
Docteur Pascal." Zola wishes to have him an honest man. He is the
outcast of the family Rougon-Macquart. In heredity there happens such
lucky degenerations; the doctor knows about it, he considers himself
as a happy exception, and it is for him a source of continuous inward
pleasure. In the mean while, he loves people, serves them and sells
them his medicine, which cures all possible disease. He is a sweet
sage, who studies life, therefore he gathers "human documents," builds
laboriously the genealogical tree of the family of Rougon-Macquart,
whose descendant he is himself, and on the strength of his
observations he comes to the same conclusion as Zola. To which? It is
difficult to answer the question; but here it is more or less: if any
one is not well, usually he is sick and that heredity exists, but
mothers and fathers who come from other families can bring into the
blood of children new elements; in that way heredity can be modified
to such a degree that strictly speaking it does not exist.

To all that Doctor Pascal is a positivist. He does not wish to affirm
anything, but he does affirm that actual state of science does not
permit of any further deductions than those which on the strength of
the observation of known facts can be deducted, therefore one must
hold them, and neglect the others. In that respect his prejudices do
not tell us anything more than newspaper articles, written by young
positivists. For the people, who are rushing forward, for those
spiritual needs, as strong as thirst and hunger, by which the man felt
such ideas as God, faith, immortality, the doctor has only a smile of
commiseration. And one might wonder at him a little bit. One could
understand him better if he did not acknowledge the possibility of the
disentangling of different abstract questions, but he affirms that the
necessity does not exist--by which he sins against evidence, because
such a necessity exists, not further than under his own roof, in the
person of his niece. This young person, brought up in his principles,
at once loses the ground under her feet. In her soul arose more
questions than the doctor was able to answer. And from this moment
began a drama for both of them.

"I cannot be satisfied with that," cries the niece, "I am choking;