1889 PASTEUR'S WORK 131 



all the honours which those who are the best judges of 

 their purely scientific merits are able to bestow. But it 

 so happens that these subtle and patient searchings out 

 of the ways of the infinitely little — of the swarming life 

 where the creature that measures one-thousandth part of 

 an inch is a giant — have also yielded results of supreme 

 practical importance. The path of M. Pasteur's investiga- 

 tions is strewed with gifts of vast monetary value to the 

 silk trades, the brewer, and the wine merchant. And 

 this being so, it might well be a proper and graceful act 

 on the part of the representatives of trade and commerce 

 in its greatest centre to make some public recognition of 

 M. Pasteur's services, even if tliere were nothing further 

 to be said about them. But there is much more to be 

 said. M. Pasteur's direct and indirect contributions to 

 our knowledge of the causes of diseased states, and of the 

 means of preventing their recurrence, are not measurable 

 by money values, but by those of healthy life and 

 diminished suffering to men. Medicine, surgery, and 

 hygiene have all been powerfully affected by M. Pasteur's 

 work, which has culminated in his method of treating 

 hydrophobia. I cannot conceive that any competently 

 instructed person can consider M. Pasteur's labours in 

 this direction without arriving at the conclusion that, if 

 any man has earned the praise and honour of his fellows, 

 he has. I find it no less difficult to imagine that our 

 wealthy country should be other than ashamed to continue 

 to allow its citizens to profit by the treatment freely 

 given at the Institute without contributing to its support. 

 Opposition to the proposals which your Lordship sanctions 

 would be equally inconceivable if it arose out of nothing 

 but the facts of the case thus presented. But the 

 opposition which, as I see from the English papers, is 

 threatened has really for the most part nothing to do 

 either with M. Pasteur's merits or with the efficacy of his 

 method of treating hydrophobia. It proceeds partly 

 from the fanatics of laissez faire, who think it better to 



