The novel begins in 1872, after the fall of the Second Empire and the end of the reign of Emperor Napoleon III. Pascal, a physician in Plassans for 30 years, has spent his life cataloging and chronicling the lives of his family based on his theories of heredity. Pascal believes that everyone's physical and mental health and development can be classified based on the interplay between innateness (reproduction of characteristics based in difference) and heredity (reproduction based in similarity). Using his own family as a case study, Pascal classifies the 30 descendants of his grandmother Adelaide Fouque based on this model. His niece Clotilde sees Pascal's work as denying the omnipotence of God and as a prideful attempt to comprehend the unknowable. She encourages him to destroy his work, but he refuses. Pascal explains his goal as a scientist as laying the groundwork for happiness and peace which he believes lies in the science of heredity.
- ISBN13 9798634789835
- Publish Date 13 April 2020 (first published December 1957)
- Publish Status Active
- Publish Country US
- Imprint Independently Published
- Format Paperback (US Trade)
- Pages 274
- Language English