y of the French writer is that Ibsen's constant aim is to
reconcile and to conciliate the two biological hypotheses which
have divided opinion in the nineteenth century, and which are known
respectively by the names of Cuvier and Lamarck; namely, that of the
invariability of species and that of the mutability of organic forms.
In the reconciliation of these hypotheses Ibsen finds the only process
which is truly encouraging to life. According to this theory, all the
trouble, all the weariness, all the waste of moral existences around
us comes from the neglect of one or other of these principles, and
true health, social or individual, is impossible without the harmonious
application of them both. According to this view, the apotheosis of
Ibsen's genius, or at least the most successful elucidation of his
scheme of ideological drama, is reached in the scene in _The Lady from
the Sea_ where Wangel succeeds in winning the heart of Ellida back from
the fascination of the Stranger. It is certainly in this mysterious and
strangely attractive play that Ibsen has insisted, more than anywhere
else, on the necessity of taking physiology into consideration in every
discussion of morals. He refers, like a zooelogist, to the laws which
regulate the formation and the evolution of species, and the decision
of Ellida, on which so much depends, is an amazing example of
the limitation of the power of change produced by heredity. The
extraordinary ingenuity of M. de Gaultier's analysis of this play
deserves recognition; whether it can quite be accepted, as embraced by
Ibsen's intention, may be doubtful. At the same time, let us recollect
that, however subtle our refinements become, the instinct of Ibsen was
probably subtler still.

In 1850, when Ibsen first crept forward, with the glimmering taper of
his Catilina, there was but one person in the world who fancied that
the light might pass from lamp to lamp and in half a century form an
important part of the intellectual illumination of Europe. The one
person who did suspect it was, of course, Ibsen himself. Against
all probability and common-sense, this apothecary's assistant, this
ill-educated youth who had just been plucked in his preliminary
examination, who positively was, and remained, unable to pass the first
tests and become a student at the University, maintained in his
inmost soul the belief that he was born to be "a king of thought." The
impression is perhaps not uncommon among ill