72 PASTEUR : THE HISTORY OF A MIND 



can arrest the development of these organisms without 

 having any notable influence on the lactic ferment." 

 Thus one could use antiseptics, with a suitable culture 

 medium, for separating the ferments one from another. 

 This memoir then is full of suggestion, and, strangely 

 enough, all these propositions which were so new and so 

 bold for the epoch were announced de piano, almost 

 carelessly, with the tranquil confidence of a man sure 

 of his facts, and to whom, if one did not known him, one 

 might even have attributed malicious intentions, he 

 showed so much apathy. It is only at the end of his 

 memoir that he admits that nothing of all this has been 

 demonstrated. "If any one should say to me that in 

 my conclusions I go beyond the facts, I would reply 

 that that is true in this sense that I have taken my 

 stand unreservedly in an order of ideas which, strictly 

 speaking, cannot be irrefutably demonstrated." But 

 his system is so logical that he takes pleasure in believing 

 in it. Everything is so consistent in his conception 

 and in his mode of exposition. The idea of a specific 

 ferment associated with each fermentation, of dispro- 

 portion between the weight of the ferment produced 

 and the weight of the matter transformed, of vital com- 

 petition between two organisms which simultaneously 

 invade the same medium and ultimately leave it to the 

 one which is best adapted to the conditions it finds there, 

 all these ideas, which the future was to develop so far, 

 are found not in embryo, but clearly set forth in this 

 paper, the work of exuberant youth, in which we still 

 see the thought bubbling and fermenting. Pasteur 

 ended it with a general profession of faith: "It is now 

 my opinion," he said, "as the result of the knowledge 

 I have gained on this subject, that whoever will judge 

 impartially the results of this work and those which I 

 shall publish in the near future, will recognize with me 



