326 LIFE AND EXPERIENCES CHAP. 



over to Paris to be treated by his anti-rabic system, 

 and since July of the past year as many as eighty 

 persons had been so treated. 



Pasteur began life as a chemist ; as a chemist he 

 ended it. For although his most important researches 

 have entered upon fields hitherto tilled with but scanty 

 success by the biologist, yet in his hands, by the applica- 

 tion of chemical methods, they have yielded a plentiful 

 harvest of new facts of essential service to the well- 

 being and progress of the human race. And, after all, 

 the first and obvious endeavour of every cultivator of 

 science ought to be to render service of this kind. 

 For, although it is foolish and short-sighted to decry the 

 pursuit of any form of scientific study, for the reason that 

 it may be as yet far removed from practical application 

 to the wants of man, and although such studies may 

 be of great value as an incentive to intellectual activity, 

 yet the statement is so evident as to amount almost to 

 a truism, that discoveries which give us the power of 

 rescuing a population from starvation, or which tend 

 to diminish the ills that flesh, whether of man or beast, 

 is heir to, must deservedly attract more attention and 

 create more general interest than others having no 

 immediate bearing on the welfare of the race. " There 

 is no greater charm," says Pasteur himself, " for the 

 investigator than to make new discoveries, but his 

 pleasure is more than doubled when he sees that they 

 find direct application in practical life." To make 

 discoveries capable of such an application has been 

 the good fortune by which I mean the just reward 

 of Pasteur. These discoveries have not been, in the 

 words of Priestley, " lucky haphazardings," but the 

 outcome of patient and long-continued investigation. 



The whole secret of Pasteur's success may be 

 summed up in a few words. It consisted in the 



