The Professor: Avignon 



the first time he has seen a cocoon, and has 

 learned that there is something in the cocoon, 

 a rough model of the future moth," . . . 

 and he is about to revolutionise the hygiene 

 of the silk-worm nurseries and is preparing 

 to revolutionise medicine and general hy- 

 giene in the same way, 1 by showing that the 

 maladies of silk-worms and most of our hu- 

 man maladies arise from the development in 

 the tissues of a microscopic living entity, a 

 microbe, the cause of the malady. And while 

 his other discoveries won for him only fame 

 and the admiration of his contemporaries, 

 this will give him immortality and place him 

 in the front rank of the benefactors of hu- 

 manity. Decidedly ignorance may have its 

 advantages. 



Encouraged by the magnificent example of Pas- 

 teur (continues the entomologist), I have made it 

 a rule to adopt the method of ignorance in my in- 

 vestigations of the instincts. I read very little. 

 Instead of turning over the leaves of books, an 

 expensive method which is not within my means, in- 

 stead of consulting others, I set myself obstinately 

 face to face with my subject until I contrive to 

 make it speak. I know nothing. So much the 

 better; my interrogation will be all the freer, to- 

 day tending in one direction, to-morrow in an- 

 other, according to the information acquired. And 



1 Souvenirs, IX., p. 330. 



163 



