1885—1888 221 



" And when the day came that, foreseeing the future which 

 would be opened by the discovery of the attenuation of virus, I 

 appealed to my country, so that we should be allowed, through 

 the strength and impulse of private initiative, to build labora- 

 tories to be devoted, not only to the prophylactic treatment of 

 hydrophobia, but also to the study of virulent and contagious 

 diseases — on that day again, France gave in handfuls. . . . It is 

 now finished, this great building, of which it might be said that 

 there is not a stone but what is the material sign of a generous 

 thought. All the virtues have subscribed to build this dwelling 

 place for work. 



"Alas! mine is the bitter grief that I enter it, a man 

 'vanquished by Time,' deprived of my masters, even of my 

 companions in the struggle, Dumas, Bouley, Paul Bert, and 

 lastly Vulpian, who, after having been with you, my dear 

 Grancher. my counsellor at the very first, became the most 

 energetic, the most convinced champion of this method. 



" However, if I have the sorrow of thinking that they are no 

 more, after having valiantly taken their part in discussions 

 which I have never provoked but have had to endure ; if they 

 cannot hear me proclaim all that I owe to their counsels and 

 support ; if I feel their absence as deeply as on the morrow of 

 their death , I have at least the consolation of believing that all 

 that we struggled for together will not perish. The collaborators 

 and pupils who are now here share our scientific faith. ..." 

 He continued, as in a sort of testament : ' Keep your early 

 enthusiasm, dear collaborators, but let it ever be regulated by 

 rigorous examinations and tests. Never advance anything 

 which cannot be proved in a simple and decisive fashion. 



" Worship the spirit of criticism. If reduced to itself, it is 

 not an awakener of ideas or a stimulant to great things, but, 

 without it, everything is fallible ; it always has the last word. 

 What I am now asking you, and you will ask of your pupils 

 later on, is what is most difficult to an inventor. 



" It is indeed a hard task, when you believe you have found 

 an important scientific fact and are feverishly anxious to publish 

 it, to constrain yourself for days, weeks, years sometimes, to 

 fight with yourself, to try and ruin your own experiments and 

 only to proclaim your discovery after having exhausted all 

 contrary hypotheses. 



" But when, after so many efforts, you have at last arrived 

 at a certainty, your joy is one of the greatest which can be felt 



