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Xouie pastcun 



Bv H. W. Conn. From Science (U.S.A.). 



NEVER has the world been called upon to lament the death 

 of one whose life was so full of gifts to humanity as that 

 of Louis Pasteur. Others have lived with equal genius, 

 others there have been whose influence upon thought has been 

 equal or greater. Others have attained an equal reputation from 

 achievements of various kinds ; but no other man in the history 

 of the world has given to mankind so many valuable gifts as those 

 which have come from the labours of Pasteur. That Pasteur 

 possessed great genius is manifest, but yet it was not wholly genius 

 that explains his marked preeminence, for a certain modicum must 

 be attributed to the timeliness of his work. His greatness was 

 due in a measure to the fact, that early in life he had the fortune 

 to have presented to his attention, and the wisdom to seize upon 

 great problems for solution. He early seized for his own an 

 almost new field of research, and brought to this new field an 

 equipment entirely different from that which any other scientist 

 had possessed. Pasteur is regarded as the father of modern bac- 

 teriology, but we must remember that he was not a pioneer in 

 these lines of work. There was hardly a problem that he studied 

 which had not been already recognised, and even studied to a 

 greater or less extent by his predecessors ; but at the same time 

 there was not a single problem which Pasteur undertook to solve 

 which was not when he undertook it in a most crude, unsatisfac- 

 tory condition, and when he left it, in its almost perfect form. It 

 was in reaping fruits where others failed, and in perfecting the 

 work which had been begun by less competent scientists, that 

 Pasteur's merit lies. Others discovered facts, Pasteur determined 

 laws. 



In looking over the life of Pasteur as a whole, we are struck 

 forcibly with two characteristics. The first was its almost uniform 

 success. Doubtless Pasteur occasionally failed in his experi- 

 mental work. But of this the world has known nothing, for his 

 conclusions seem to have been always correct. So far as Pasteur 

 has appeared before the public from the beginning to the end of 



International Journal of Microscopy and Natural Science. 

 Third Series. Vol. VI. c 



