1873—1877 29 



women, more than one hundred persons were occupied in various 

 ways, washing the mortars with which the moths are pounded 

 before being put under the microscopes, cleansing the slides, 

 etc. ; in fact, doing those various delicate but simple operations 

 which had formerly been pronounced to be impracticable — 

 Pasteur's thoughts went back to his experiments in the Pont- 

 Gisquet greenhouse, to the modest beginnings of his process, 

 now so magnificently applied in Italy. A month before this, 

 J. B. Dumas, presiding at a scientific meeting at Clermont 

 Ferrand, had said — 



' The future belongs to Science ; woe to the nations who 

 close their eyes to this fact. . . . Let us call to our aid on this 

 neutral and pacific ground of Natural Philosophy, where defeats 

 cost neither blood nor tears, those hearts which are moved by 

 their country's grandeur ; it is by the exaltation of science that 

 France will recover her prestige." 



Those same ideas were expressed in a toast given by Pasteur 

 in the name of France at a farewell banquet, when the 300 

 members of the Sericiculture Congress were present. 



'Gentlemen, I propose a toast — To the peaceful strife of 

 Science. It is the first time that I have the honour of being 

 present on foreign soil at an international congress ; I ask my- 

 self what are the impressions produced in me, besides these 

 courteous discussions, by the brilliant hospitality of the noble 

 Milanese city, and I find myself deeply impressed by two 

 propositions. First, that Science is of no rationality; ani 

 secondly, in apparent, but only in apparent, contradiction, that 

 Science is the highest personification of nationality. Science 

 has no nationality because knowledge is the patrimony of 

 humanity, the torch which gives light to the world. Science 

 should be the highest personification of nationality because, of 

 all the nations, that one will always be foremost which shall 

 be first to progress by the labours of thought and of intelligence. 



' Let us therefore strive in the pacific field of Science for the 

 pre-eminence of our several countries. Let us strive, for strife 

 is effort, strife is life when progress is the goal. 



'You Italians, try to multiply on the soil of your beautiful 

 and glorious country the Tecchi, the Brioschi, the Tacchini, 

 the Sella, the Cornalia. . . . You, proud children of Austria- 

 Hungary, follow even more firmly than in the past the fruitful 

 impulse which an eminent statesman, now your representative 

 at the Court of England, has given to Science and Agriculture. 



