186 PASTEUR : THE HISTORY OF A MIND 



had placed on an experimental basis the great questions 

 of contagion and of heredity which dominate all path- 

 ology. He was ripe to attack them, and to solve them 

 wherever he should meet them, for his mind was molded 

 upon them. But he was much less advanced in the 

 matter of his technique. He was, in 1870, in a posi- 

 tion to grasp the most delicate features of the patholog- 

 ical history of the anthrax of animals but not in a posi- 

 tion to approach the question experimentally. It was 

 necessary for him first to perfect his equipment, and his 

 methods of research. The guardian spirit which seemed 

 to have undertaken the direction of his destiny fur- 

 nished him the opportunity by forcing him into a prob- 

 lem apparently entirely different, the study of beers. 



