The Frontiers of the Sciences 



science which has rendered so many benefits to 

 humanity. It furnishes the best example of the 

 radical incapacity of the human mind to define a 

 science a priori. From the earliest times numer- 

 ous examples of fermentation were known, but 

 it never occurred to anybody that it might be 

 worth while to study them systematically, until 

 a man of genius observed them through his micro- 

 scope and revealed a new world. Bacteriology 

 established its utility from the first and had not to 

 wait for money, laboratories or the specialists 

 necessary to develop a science, nor had it to experi- 

 ence the hardships that the other young sciences 

 have had to endure, treated everywhere as out- 

 siders and left without house-room or funds. 



Other branches, which are the result of the 

 evolution of physiology directed definitely to- 

 wards the study of the physical and chemical 

 laws of life, have been less fortunate; however, 

 this evolution raises many interesting problems. 

 A living being may be considered as a trans- 

 former of energy and the balance-sheet of this 

 transformation investigated. Again, the fruitful 

 notion of osmotic pressure may be applied to 

 biological phenomena. It owed its discovery 



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