This is the way the
author wishes to have it, and one must agree with him. In what way,
however, can a history of one family exceptionally attainted with a
mental disorder be at the same time a picture of French society, the
author does not explain to us. Had he said that during the Empire
all society was sick, it would be a trick. A society can walk in the
perilous road of politics or customs and be sick as a community, and
at the same time have healthy individuals and families. These are two
different things. Therefore one of the two: either the Rougon are
sick, and in that case the cycle of novels about them is not a picture
of French society during the Empire--it is only a psychological
study--or the whole physiological foundations, all this heredity
on which the cycle is based, in a word Zola's whole doctrine, is
nonsense.
I do not know whether any one has paid attention to Zola at this _aut
aut_! It is sure that he never thought of it himself. Probably it
would not have had any influence, as the criticisms had no influence
on his theory of heredity. Critics and physiologists attacked him
ofttimes with an arsenal of irrefutable arguments. It did not do any
good. They affirmed in vain that the theory of heredity is not proved
by any science, and above all it is difficult to grasp it and show it
by facts; they pointed in vain that physiology cannot be fantastical
and its laws cannot depend on the free conception of an author.
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