CHEMICAL AND PHYSICAL METHODS 39 



purely utilitarian conception of science is as great an absurdity 

 as a utilitarian conception of art, we nevertheless think that 

 in certain cases science has nothing to lose by advancing in a 

 direction which, besides being fascinating by the mystery 

 which surrounds it and by the marvellous complexity and 

 harmony of its objects, may lead to the suppression of suffering 

 and the amelioration of human conditions. 



No painter, however independent, would refuse to decorate 

 a beautiful monument. His^ work can only gain by the 

 grandeur of the frame, and he has no reason to feel limited in 

 his liberty if no one imposes the subject or any other restric- 

 tions and if he has the impression of participating in the 

 edification of a masterpiece. 



The new orientation of bacteriology is chemical. This 

 impulse seems to have come from Vienna, about thirty-five 

 years ago, with Obermayer, Pick, and particularly Karl 

 Landsteiner, who, by his remarkable and epoch-making 

 experiments, showed the value of this method of analysis for 

 the study of immunity. Should one, under pretence that the 

 intimate mechanism of immunity, the real nature of cellular 

 phenomena, will always escape us — which is not proved — 

 abstain from working in this path which has already enabled 

 us to throw so much light on the secondary mechanisms of 

 fundamental interest to us? 



If the physicists and engineers, beginning with Ampere and 

 Faraday, had reasoned in this way on the subject of the nature 

 of electricity we would have none of the comforts which 

 characterize our modern material civilization; neither electric 

 hght, telegraph, telephone, nor radio. Waterfalls could not 

 have been utilized. The greater part of modern metallurgical 

 and chemical methods would not have been brought to light. 

 And who knows to what degree a quantity of other industries 

 would not have been hampered in their development. Evi- 

 dently we can ask ourselves, like Tolstoy and a few others, 

 if this would not have been preferable. But it must be 

 conceded that this is quite another problem, and that man can 

 no more escape the current which sweeps him towards 



