268 THE SCIENCE OF POWER 



powerful effect in some situations, as where in the 

 play Ghosts he makes the tendencies of evil inborn 

 heredity coming down through the father overbear 

 in the son in the presence of the mother all the effects 

 of training and religion imposed through life on the 

 son. 



In the writings of another author of international 

 fame, like Anatole France, the conception of the 

 determining influence of inborn heredity and its 

 power to override in the individual all the effects 

 of prolonged training became an instrument in the 

 hands of genius through which the faith of a whole 

 people was made to feel humiliated and abashed. 

 There is no more poignant and cynical drama of 

 human defeat than that exhibited by Anatole France 

 in the story of the material and spiritual ruin of 

 the Bishop of Trinqueballe who, after recalling from 

 death three children of tender age but of evil parent- 

 age, caused them to be trained and educated in his 

 own saintly principles. The inevitableness with 

 which the gifted French writer made the elements 

 of inborn heredity in the children to develop and in 

 the end to completely triumph over the influences 

 imposed on them by the Bishop through training and 

 education is one of the most striking examples of 

 the working of a principle in art which is capable of 

 producing intense dramatic effects but which gradu- 



