FIRST DISCOVERIES. 29 



What can be the causes of so great a difference ? 

 M. Pasteur has often expressed to me the conviction 

 that it must be attributed to the circumstance that 

 the molecular forces which operate in the mineral 

 kingdom, and which are brought into play every day in 

 our laboratories, are forces of the symmetrical order ; 

 while the forces which are present and active at the 

 moment when the grain sprouts, when the egg develops, 

 and when, under the influence of the sun, the green 

 matter of the leaves decomposes the carbonic acid 

 of the air and utilises in divers ways the carbon of 

 this acid, the hydrogen of the water, and the oxygen 

 of these two products are of the dissymmetric order, 

 probably depending on some of the grand, dissym- 

 metric, cosmic phenomena of our universe. While 

 expounding this opinion before the Academy of 

 Sciences, Pasteur, on one occasion, expressed himself 

 thus : 



' The universe is a dissymmetric whole. I am 

 inclined to think that life, as manifested to us, must 

 be a function of the dissymmetry of the universe or 

 of the consequences that follow in its train. The 

 universe is dissymmetrical ; for, placing before a 

 mirror the group of bodies which compose the solar 

 system, with their proper movements, we obtain in 

 the mirror an image not superposable on the reality. 

 Even the motion of solar light is dissymmetrical. A 

 luminous ray never strikes in a straight line, and 



