SYNTHETIC CHEMISTRY 



the learned world, the world of letters, the wit and 

 the beauty, too, of the gay capital, came to do him 

 honor. Perhaps it is something of this unobtrusive 

 simplicity, this singular devotion to a ,task that will 

 be laid down maybe with life itself, that you feel 

 in those world-old eyes. 



He answers to the fine conception he himself 

 drew when, a few days later, he stood in the great 

 hall of the Sorbonne. " It is not," he said, " for the 

 egotistical satisfaction of our private vanities that 

 the world to-day renders homage to the savant. 

 No ! It is because the savant worthy of the name 

 consecrates a disinterested life to the grand work 

 of our epoch: I mean the amelioration too slow, 

 alas, to our view of the lot of all, from the rich 

 and the happy to the humble, the poor, and the 

 suffering. That was what was implied by the 

 public powers nine years ago in this same hall, in 

 honoring Pasteur. It is what my friend Chaplain 

 has endeavored to express on the beautiful plaque 

 which the President of the Republic is about to 

 offer me. I do not know if I have completely 

 filled the noble ideal which the artist has here de- 

 lineated, but I have tried, at least, to make this 

 the object and end, the directing purpose of my 

 tence." 



