DAWN OF A NEW ERA IN MEDICINE 189 



the Academy, to welcome the new member, spoke 

 with his usual charm of style. After modestly dis- 

 claiming any competence of the Academicians to 

 pass judgment on Pasteur's scientific labors, he con- 

 tinued in the following words: "But apart from 

 the basis of the doctrine, which is not within our 

 province, there is a mastery, Sir, in which our 

 experience of the human spirit gives us a right to 

 express an opinion. There is something which we 

 can recognize in the most diverse applications, 

 something which belongs in the same degree to 

 Galileo, to Pascal, to Michael Angelo, to Moliere, 

 something which gives sublimity to the poet, pro- 

 fundity to the philosopher, fascination to the orator, 

 divination to the scientist. This common basis of 

 all beautiful and true work, this divine flame, this 

 indefinable spirit, which inspires science, literature, 

 and art, we have found it in you, Sir, — it is genius. 

 No one has traversed with so sure a step the regions 

 of elemental nature; your scientific life is like a 

 luminous track across the great night of the infi- 

 nitely small, in the last abysses of being in which 

 life is born." 



Shortly after his reception at the Academy, the 

 town of Aubenas, in the midst of the silk produc- 

 ing region, honored Pasteur by the formal presen- 



