THE ORIGIN OF LIFE 161 



into gold, led through alchemy to the founda- 

 tions of modern chemistry, and to a richer 

 reward than the long-sought stone, and as 

 the vain pursuit of the elusive elixir vitce, 

 that was to renew youth and vigour and give 

 unending life at the prime, merged into the 

 beginnings of scientific medicine; so the 

 enquiry into spontaneous generation, or the 

 origin of life, opened up the whole of our 

 modern knowledge of the causation of disease 

 through the discoveries of Pasteur, and 

 onward beyond that laid the broad founda- 

 tions for the wonderful developments of 

 modern surgery which arose from the noble 

 lifework of Lister. Millions of lives have 

 been saved, and untold misery and suffering 

 averted, by practical discoveries which arose 

 from apparently purely philosophical enquiries 

 dealing with theories which might have been 

 dismissed as chimerical. 



If the ubiquitous practical man were asked 

 to mention the most magnificent of the 

 discoveries of Pasteur, he would probably 

 name the proof on which modern sanitation 

 is based, that infectious diseases were due 

 to micro-organisms. Brilliant and far-reach- 

 ing as this discovery is, it will, however, be 

 surpassed in the judgment of later generations 

 by something which the great French savant 



