Messieurs, my first thought in the midst of this 

 brilliant scene carries me back with melancholy 

 to the memory of the many men of science who 

 have known nothing but trials. In the past 

 they had to contend against prejudices which 

 stifled their ideas. These prejudices vanquished, 

 they had still to encounter obstacles and diffi- 

 culties of all kinds. 



Only a few years since, before the public 

 authorities and the Municipal Council had given 

 magnificent dwellings to science, a man whom I 

 greatly loved and admired, Claude Bernard, had, 

 but a short distance from here, nothing but a 

 damp and low cellar for a laboratory. Perhaps 

 it was there that he was attacked with the 

 malady which removed him from us ! 



On learning what you had here arranged for 

 me, the thought of him at once arose before me. 

 I salute this great memory ! 



Speech of the aged Pasteur at his Jubilee. 



Literature has its limits, the sciences of obser- 

 vation and calculation have none. Below a cer- 

 tain degree of talent, the taste for literary oc- 

 cupations produces either ridiculous pride or a 

 mean jealousy towards such talents as one can- 

 not attain. In the sciences, on the contrary, it 

 is not with the opinion of men but with nature 

 that we have to engage in a contest, the triumph 

 of which is nearly always certain, and where 

 every victory predicts a new one. 



CONDORCET, quoted by Merz, History of Eu- 

 ropean Thought. 



