GENERAL CONCLUSIONS 



49 



And the life of the whole results from the sum total of 

 these cellular lives. 



Ah! If spontaneous generation were possible! If 

 one could create a living whole, could cause to evolve 

 from inactive mineral matter a living cell, how much 

 easier it would be to give it a direction, to make these 

 foreseen dissymmetries of which we have spoken 

 enter into its substance and thence into its vital mani- 

 festations! I am adding something to what Pasteur 

 has written on these captivating questions, but I do not 

 believe that I have gone beyond what was in his thought 

 in my effort to show how the methodical and regular 

 study of the questions which ranged themselves before 

 him, as he advanced, was able to put him in the presence 

 of two of the problems which it was fated that he should 

 solve: the question of fermentations and that of spon- 

 taneous generations. 



