THE ENVOY 



In concluding this survey of Beijerinck's main contributions to 

 the science of microbiology the author is f ully aware of the incomplete- 

 ness of the picture drawn up. 



Yet he ventures to hope that the Hght thrown upon the versatiUty, 

 the originahty, and the vastness of Beijerinck's studies in the micro- 

 biological field will have been sufficiently strong to estabHsh the 

 conviction that such a work could only be performed by a man whose 

 Hfe has been completely devoted to the pursuit of knowledge, and to 

 the search for scientific truth. 



If the author has succeeded in this, he will have achieved a task 

 which has been badly neglected by Beijerinck himself. de Kruif 

 writes in his "Microbe Hunters": "There have been searchers who 

 have failed — they have kept on hunting with the naturalness of 

 ducks swimming; there have been searchers who have suceeded 

 gloriously — but they were hunters born, and they kept on hunting 

 in spite of the seductions of glory." It will be difficult to find any one 

 for whom the last part of this dictum holds better than for Beije- 

 rinck. 



Unaffected by the numerous honours bestowed upon him, Beije- 

 rinck offers the picture of a man whose life was entirely ruled by a 

 craving for knowledge. Neither fatigue nor compromise existed for 

 him: his never-saturated mind drove him from one problem to 

 another, and a life resulted so fully devoted to science that no space 

 for celebrit y was left therein. 



Beijerinck always abandoned to others the task of disseminating 

 his knowledge ; he sought only — to speak once more with the words 

 of DE Kruif — "that priceless loneliness that is the one condition for 

 all true searching." 



Perhaps Beijerinck's attitude of mind cannot be better character- 

 ized than by stating that, when he addressed the students at the oc- 

 casion of the opening of his laboratory on September 28th, 1897, he 

 chose to conclude with the foUowing quotation from Pasteur: 



"Vivez dans la paix séreine des laboratoires et des bibliothèques. 

 Dites vous d'abord: "Qu'ai-je fait pour mon instruction ? " "Puis a 



