28 PASTEUR AND AFTER PASTEUR 



took hold on public thought : for all are interested 

 in Life, and some are apt to think that Science is 

 in a position to say what Life is. Pasteur would 

 not philosophise : he went straight to work. His 

 innumerable experiments with filtered air, heated 

 air, and organic fluids milk, broth, urine, blood 

 and his use of air-filtering flasks, and his compara- 

 tive observations on air at the level of the streets 

 and air above the snow-level, were repeated by his 

 opponents : and, now and then, one or more of 

 their flasks would show the presence of life, and 

 the controversy would start all over again. The 

 whole conception, half a century ago, of putrefactive 

 bacteria, was unfamiliar to Science : he had to feel 

 every inch of his way : he had not the tests, the 

 instruments, the culture-media, which to-day are in 

 every laboratory: the wonder is, not that the 

 controversy endured so long, but that it came to an 

 end so soon. By 1865, it was over : there is still one 

 lingering note of it to be heard : but Pasteur and 

 Tyndall, for all that, had won all along the line. 

 Two years ago, at the meeting of the British 

 Association in Dundee, Sir Edward Schafer, in his 

 Presidential Address, lifted the thought of the 

 Origin of Life to its very highest place in scientific 

 theory. He rather affirmed than denied that Life 

 may have come of itself, and may still be coming 

 of itself: but he was none the less sure of the 

 everlasting veracity of Pasteur's work : 



