112 PASTEUR: THE HISTORY OF A MIND 



on this galley. Perhaps he wished only to parade there, 

 for she manceuvered in full sight of the shore. With 

 all his qualities as a man and a savant, Fre"my was, in 

 reality, from many points of view still a child. Perhaps 

 he had, notwithstanding, the intention of bringing the 

 ship to harbour, but what an illusion regarding his quali- 

 fications for that task ! He saw indistinctly and reasoned 

 awry. In order to explain, for example, why Pasteur's 

 flasks with the swan's neck did not become clouded, he 

 conceived the idea that it was due to the vitiation of the 

 air, resulting from the absorption of the oxygen by the 

 liquid in the flasks. This was forgetting the experiments 

 of Schultze, of Schwann, of Schroeder, even those of 

 Pasteur. But this also was nothing. In order to prove 

 this vitiation of the air, which, according to him, would 

 prevent, and consequently would precede, the invasion 

 of the microbes, he cited some air analyses made on flasks 

 already invaded, and where the aerobic organisms had 

 naturally absorbed all or a part of the oxygen. This is 

 unbelievable, and the excellent man truly did not merit, 

 he was so unsophisticated, the bit of harsh treatment 

 which he reaped from his polemic. Pasteur did not 

 treat him as a serious opponent. He was amused at 

 seeing him rush on the sword of his adversary, and the 

 tone which he assumed towards him is well illustrated 

 by the following phrase, written apropos of an Academic 

 discussion in which Fremy, made angry and "driven to 

 the wall" by an experiment of his adversary, had, in 

 order to explain it, and relieve his own embarrassment, 

 conceived the idea forthwith, of saying that "small 

 quantities of grape-must do not ferment," and that there 

 must be a large amount of it for fermentation to take 

 place. Thereupon, Pasteur parried: "In the stance 

 which followed that in which M. Fre"my made this decla- 

 ration in regard to small quantities which do not ferment, I 



