34 THE CONTROL OF LIFE 



knowledge if contemplation and action be more nearly 

 and straitly conjoined and united together than they 

 have been ; for men have entered into a desire of learn- 

 ing and knowledge, sometimes upon a natural curiosity 

 and inquisitive appetite ; sometimes to entertain their 

 minds with variety and delight ; sometimes for ornament 

 and reputation ; and sometimes to enable them to 

 victory of wit and contradiction ; and most times for 

 lucre and profession ; and seldom to give a true account 

 of their gift of reason to the benefit of man ; as if there 

 were sought in knowledge a couch whereupon to repose 

 a searching and a restless spirit^*- or a tarasse for a 

 wandering and variable mind to walk up and down with a 

 fair prospect ; or a tower of state for a proud mind to 

 raise itself upon ; or a fort or commanding ground for 

 strife and contention ; or a shop for profit or sale ; and 

 not a rich storehouse for the glory of the creator and the 

 relief of man's estate." The idea of using knowledge 

 for " the relief of man's estate " is the idea of the scientific 

 control of life ; but in Bacon's day the available bio- 

 logical knowledge was scanty, and the evolution clue 

 was not in Man's hand. 



Now just as the theoretical advance implied in the 

 theory of evolution is fitly and conveniently associated 

 with the name of Darwin (though there were other 

 pioneer evolutionists), so the idea of the biological con- 

 trol of life may be fitly associated with the name of 

 Pasteur. He was neither a breeder nor a cultivator, 

 neither an evolutionist nor a eugenist, in the ordinary 

 sense, but he was the sublime peasant who tamed and 



